(TW: sexual scene.)
Every You, Every Me, Placebo
Sucker love is known to swing
Prone to cling and waste these things
Pucker up for heaven's sake
There's never been so much at stake
I serve my head up on a plate
It's only comfort, calling late
Cuz there's nothing else to do,
Every me and every you
Every me and every you,
Every me
Like the naked leads the blind
I know I'm selfish, I'm unkind
Sucker love I always find,
Someone to bruise and leave behind
All alone in space and time
There's nothing here but what here's here's mine
Something borrowed, something blue
Every me and every you
It was incredibly confusing to wake up at the brink of nightfall on a beach.
Salty. Sunburned. So dehydrated. Hungover was a loose term, but he didn't know what else to call it. Stiff and covered in sand. Damp.
Tide out.
Probably better than tide in.
The Dark Lord snoring, mouth open, on Harry's stomach. Sunburned as well. Red like a beetroot. Even his eyelids. An outline of his arm and head burned on Harry's chest.
Memory in bits and pieces. That his mind had dunked him in the deep end and his Horcrux had plucked him out.
He remembered Lydia was supposed to be there somewhere.
Instead of the healer, Har-im-hotep and Aaliyah sat cross-legged to his left. Harry might have startled upright if he wasn't held in place by a myriad of issues. Bliss, hangover, wild dehydration. Mouth like a sandpit. Skin blistering hot.
Waking Crux was as simple and as complex as pushing him off. Stuck and refusing until Harry really put his back into it.
"-What? Oh fuck…" He gripped his temples, bared his teeth, and rolled away from Harry.
Without the bliss, he was significantly less comfortable.
"I'm covered in burning? The sun does this? How did I- even get here? Where's Lydia-" Crux registered Har like a bomb went off.
Harry's Horcrux scrambled backwards in wet sand, shaking his head, vehemently refusing and failing to stand. "Don't bring your fucking speaker box thing near me I'll fucking kill you."
He noticed the small wooden box in Aaliyah's hands. "What's going on?"
"We thought it appropriate to ascertain whether he is even in there-"
"Don't ascertain shit, Genie Guy. Stay over there." Panicked when he looked at Harry, flinching and stumbling like a fawn.
The Djinn tilted his head and bared ultra-white teeth when Crux interrupted him. Not a smile, though not a threat either.
"Hold on… What is happening right now?" Harry insisted.
"We want to talk to Voldemort," Aaliyah said.
Crux cackled, though it sounded more like an alarm call. "Stay the fuck away from me?"
Understanding came slow, Harry's muscles and brain lagging.
"What do you want to talk to him for? He's got nothing to say?" Crux struggled for his feet once more when Aaliyah stood up.
Harry wanted to talk to the Dark Lord more than nearly anything else. He'd also crossed so many of Crux's boundaries that he wasn't sure if he could genuinely build trust. Though he'd done what he'd had to, he had a lot of ground to recover. They'd started in the negative and everything between them had gone downhill from there.
"Don't. Don't come near me." Holding one hand up, sweating and disorientated like he might vomit, "What if I just told you?" Whispered in Harry's direction, "What if I told you? In private? I won't lie. I don't wanna do the box thing."
"Wait," Harry told Aaliyah, and Tom performed the mental equivalent of an eye roll.
'We can't trust anything he says.'
"Tell me what?" He asked Crux.
"…I dunno. I think I'm panicking? It's really fucking hot. I'm thirsty. Fuck off, both of you." He pointed at Har and Aaliyah, accusing.
Harry thought it was progress not to be lumped in and told to fuck off. "…We're going to heal this sunburn, get some water, and we're going to talk about… Whatever? This is."
"Don't let that creepy freak touch me, Legs."
Harry shepherded an unsteady Horcrux into the beach house, scooped his shirt up on the way, and found Lydia reclined on an uncovered white and blue pinstriped couch. Three house-elves in the kitchen—he could see them puttering about through the archway.
"…Lydia, we were passed out on the beach in the sun?"
"That was the plan, wasn't it?" She dropped the book she'd been reading on her chest, "Oh. you're red, red." Her eyes lingered on the outline of Crux's arm and head on Harry's abdomen, and he was hit with the urge to hide it. A rarer impulse.
"Yep," Harry said, nodding, lips pursed.
"Fix it?" Crux added, "Isn't it your job to prevent this sort of thing?"
"To prevent sunburn? No, not really." She stood, raised her eyebrows at Har and Aaliyah, and offered Harry burn salve from the bag on the floor.
"And if he'd wandered off into the surf while you were reading a book?" Harry asked, smothering himself with salve. Face first.
"Settle down, Harry; I had an alarm on my wand," she showed it, glowing green at the tip.
"Looks like it's gone off," Harry said.
"…Har-im-hotep was out there with you." Lydia sidestepped his irritation into the kitchen, so he turned to his Horcrux.
"Are you actually going to tell me something in private, or are you buying time?"
"I'm still thinking about it…?" Crux grimaced at the look Harry could feel on his face. Then he snatched the burn salve and stepped behind him—between the couch and Harry's back—to hide from the Djinn and his sidekick. "My mouth tastes like son of a bitch."
"…Upstairs," Harry jerked his head in that direction and shrugged his shirt on. Wand drawn.
Har and Aaliyah let them go, though 'That creepy freak' didn't seem pleased.
Crux on stairs was still a dubious thing. Harry walked behind him so they wouldn't have to deal with broken bones.
"We can't just Disapparate out can we?" Crux asked, one hand loose on the banister, the other pouring burn salve straight from the jar onto his face, "It's always felt like that for you, hasn't it? I mean, since you fused…"
"You know it has," Harry selected a random bedroom and found Bed Sheet simultaneously, the Lethifold eldritch chittering down the dark hallway straight for Harry's shoulders.
"Knowing and feeling… Are pretty different? Huh?"
"Yeah. I guess so." Harry could only imagine what it had been like for Crux to feel the bliss.
He had his own experience, but he assumed the sensation was tenfold more intense with a brand new perspective. Uninitiated nerves. He took it as a good sign that Crux hadn't immediately rejected the possibility of doing it again.
"Why are you being… Because I thought for sure you'd be… When you put the snake- when you put it on me, I thought, well, here we go, more of- of the same. And- you're full of shit, by the way, Sweetheart, these are great." He put a cigarette in his mouth and pointed for Harry to light it.
He did, then silenced the room.
"And so, what? Why are you being- I don't know. Nice?" He sat on the floor, back against an undressed bed. "I'm not stupid, you know; I know a trap when I see one."
Harry sighed and sat across from him, held his hand out for the burn salve, keen to put some on his ears and shower. "It's not a trap. Har and Aaliyah are downstairs."
"Who fucking cares-" He looked like he was going to panic, "Who cares? I don't care. What do you want me to do?"
"They want to speak to him," Harry didn't say that he did, too, desperately, a weight in his chest.
"He's got nothing to say he's…" He took a draw from his cigarette and whispered, "…You'd hate me again."
"What?"
"I said you'd- And I mean you should? And I don't care if you do." He took another lungful, then another, back-to-back until he coughed, "You should. So."
"Hate you?"
"Yeah. Hate me." He had seemed on the verge of tears, but that was gone. Instead, his face hardened. "I don't care what you do to me. You don't scare me, and this is all a lie, anyway, a production. 'Oh, we'll be nice to him, and we'll have him right where we want him-' well fuck you. Fuck him, fuck you."
"…Crux-"
"I'm holding him down. He's pathetic. You're pathetic. This is my body now. My head." His hands shook, cigarette bouncing precariously between two fingers. Inhale shaky.
Harry had considered the possibility that Crux had managed to overpower Voldemort, though it didn't feel like something that was possible; it hadn't happened to Harry and Tom when they'd fused. Equal in their head and their limbs. Neither one of them could best the other for long.
"…What?" Crux snapped. "Am I too much yet?"
Harry weighed his words and said, "…I'm not surprised."
"What the fuck do you mean-" He laughed humorlessly and flicked his cigarette across the room. "-You're not surprised? Why aren't you?"
"I figured if it were possible, you'd do it." Not surprised, but thoroughly disheartened.
Tom already searching for the how. When the how wasn't immediately obvious, he said, "…How?"
"None of your business, Sweetheart."
"Would the speaker box even work? If you're not letting him…"
"I don't know? Go on then. Call them in here; let's gather round the Horcrux and make it dance." A dare and an insult, calling himself 'it'.
"I'm hungry. My head is pounding. I need a shower. I'll take your word, for now."
"For now?"
"I can't let you hold him down forever."
Crux's face was blank for an instant, then he was smirking, red eyes squinted nearly closed, lips twitching, "Sure."
He got the impression he was insulting Harry's intelligence, but he'd been serious about the hunger and discomfort. However Crux was managing to suppress the Dark Lord; he'd work it out. Tom would, if he didn't.
The amusement didn't last long on Crux's face. Replaced with confusion. Frowning, almost scowling as he took another cigarette from the gold pocket-book-style case Narcissa had given. Gesturing for him to light it. "You're not going to bring them up here?"
"You told me what they want to know. I believe you."
"So you don't want to talk to Morty?" Savage in the question, bright-eyed.
"Of course I do. I really want that, Crux."
Frowning again, "You're not gonna punish me?"
"Punish you," Harry almost laughed, "That's not what I want to do, no."
"…Why not?"
"Do you want me to?"
Tom watched Harry's Horcrux like he was a volatile experiment. Harry didn't much like the mindset, but he'd at least partially moved on from the 'Knock Crux out indefinitely' plan.
"No? What do you even mean by that? Is that an innuendo?"
"Come on." He stood and gestured for Crux to follow. "I'm starved, and I've got sand everywhere."
Harry was able to hold the Djinn and the speaker box off by telling them what Crux had said. That the Dark Lord hadn't actually abandoned them. Abandoned him. They'd looked at him like he'd lost his entire mind when he'd told them to leave his Horcrux be.
Crux's admission raised the question of whether the Dark Lord was allowing Harry's Horcrux to hold him down.
Tom considered invading the Dark Lord's head through the thread that bound them—though it was less a thread and more a cloud, a slow explosion exerting gravity, locked into the pull of it. Irresistible.
Harry didn't let him. Not yet. Crux had told him willingly, albeit cornered, that he was in control. Invading his head would break the fragile trust he was shocked to be building with his Horcrux.
For all Crux's talk of 'Knowing a trap when he saw one,' he was relenting.
'…What about a dream?' Tom thought, 'I need proof of life, Harry. I need to hear from the Dark Lord.' He didn't trust a word Harry's Horcrux said. He was a liar.
Harry knew he shouldn't trust him, either, but he was. He was Harry. A skewed version of him, but him nonetheless. Recognisable bones.
And Harry had gotten to know himself unreasonably well under the twisted guidance of Tom Riddle and the Dark Lord Voldemort. He was confident he had the tools and knowledge he needed to teach Crux the same lessons.
'I think he's earned a dream sprung on him,' Harry eventually thought.
'A dream is fine, thought invasion is not?'
'It's different. He'd do the same.'
'He would do far worse.'
He watched his Horcrux—destroying beef and gravy pie with mash while side-eyeing Lydia—before he turned to Harry and asked in Parseltongue, "If you're gay, that means I'm gay, right?"
Harry coughed a laugh; grateful his mouth hadn't been full. "Yeah, you could probably safely assume you're gay."
Har and Aaliyah had left only after Harry had assured them three times that he would do what he could to make sure the Dark Lord and his empire weren't squashed. Both were a given, he thought. And no pressure.
He'd then run Crux through the speediest shower, sat him down at the round dining table—hadn't bothered to remove the protective white sheet—and set about stuffing his face with pie and potato.
"How do you know for sure without fucking a woman?"
He didn't spit his juice, but it'd been close, "Uh, try imagining having sex with a woman?" Harry suggested, hiding the flush on his cheeks from Lydia with his goblet.
Plain on Crux's face as he imagined it that it was doing nothing for him. "Imagine it, and then what?"
"Nothing. That's the whole experiment."
"It's just not very interesting to think about? That doesn't mean anything-"
"Is your cock hard?"
Crux dropped his fork and slumped forcefully in his seat, "No? Not at all, sick fucking weirdo you are."
"You asked if you're gay," Harry shrugged—vindictive smirk obscured by the back of his hand—and said, "Now think about the last dream we had." Then thought, 'Do you remember that poem he recited?'
Tom was quick on the draw, "Bring me all of your dreams, Princess. Bring me all your heart melodies, sick tragedies, that I may devour them under black cloud-cloth—born from too-rough fingers, from beneath the edge of the world."
Face pink, then red. Eyes glazed and unfocused like taxidermy beads.
Harry asked, "So. Are you gay?"
"Stop asking about my dick, pervert, what the fuck." Startled by Lydia, "You can go? Thanks for letting us roast in the sun?"
She'd almost finished eating, brows raised at their Parseltongue discussion. She had a textbook open on the table—closed it when Crux snapped at her—rolled her eyes and shot Harry a quick grin, "I genuinely did not think about the sun. I'll see you back at Gwrych. Cass will want you to meet with the vampires tonight." When she stood up he was struck by how much shorter than Cassiopeia she was.
"Mm," Tom held up a hand to stop her leaving, "On your return have a stock of Polyjuice brought to the Dark Lord's quarters."
He planned to swap their faces. If they could get Crux to cooperate. The only discrepancy would be Harry's voice, but Tom was reasonably confident he could imitate Voldemort's cadence well enough. The alternative was…
Tom let Lydia go, and Crux was still bright red.
"I didn't ask about your dick the second time, to be clear," Harry said.
Crux ignored him, "Polyjuice?"
"We each take a dose when necessary," Tom didn't want to elaborate.
"No."
"What do you mean no?"
Observing Tom without any mental obstruction would never stop being fascinating, if you asked Harry. Simultaneously irritated, endeared, and aroused by Crux's refusal to cooperate—mostly annoyed. Exasperated and exhausted beyond belief, but undeniably amused. Still trying to hide that part away from himself. Inappropriate, he thought, to find the demon's perseverance charming at a minimum.
Harry thought—assisted by the chunks of clarity Epiphany had left him—that it made perfect sense Tom had developed a taste for Crux's brand of deviancy. There was also an undertone of confused guilt in Tom's thoughts, and a plain and honestly offensive amazement that Harry's plan showed promise.
Neither one of them had explicitly brought up the shift in dynamic, but Harry made it plain that he was finally starting to understand, assuaging the guilt he'd unwillingly induced in Tom.
"I mean, for sure I'd rather watch everything fall apart." Crux scoffed and rolled his eyes, and it just looked like theatrics to avoid meeting his gaze.
Once Harry started picking up on Crux's unsaid words, things became clearer. For starters, when Crux said 'Never,' he meant 'Unless.' So he said:
"I know it's a lot to ask; what do you want in return?"
Sneering like a cornered stray, "I want to jump across the table and bite your stupid face. Don't patronise me."
"I'm not patronising you. You can bite my face if you want to, but that feels like an uneven trade."
Crux sat up straighter, looked Harry up and down with a squint, "…I want to pick what we eat. Every time. And um…" scowling again, "Are you seriously not going to flip out? You're not even mad? That I'm…"
Opportunities for honesty had been rare. Both for Harry and for Crux. "I kind of… Hoped that was the case. Because if you weren't holding him down somehow, that would mean he was just hiding."
"Is it too late to say he's just hiding?"
"I want us to stop lying to each other."
Crux gnawed his lips, and when he met Harry's eyes, it was always a flash, "He was hiding. For a bit. At the beginning, when I- Pettigrew."
Immediately Tom wanted to take over the inquisition, but Harry held him off and took his questions. Crux was a Tom Riddle detector. And Tom Riddle pissed him off. "…Then the Squib snake?"
"…Yeah. They're different from the chains, you know. They swallow your magic entirely like-" He mimed a snake biting the air with his hand, "-Morty's Occlumency came down. He's not-" Crux flinched repeatedly, and Harry let him talk, "-He's not good with no magic. Without it, it comes down to will."
"His Occlumency came down?" Repeated in a whisper.
"The basilisks aren't due to hatch for two more days. We freaked out early. I don't know why I'm telling you this?"
Harry sighed, leaned back, and realised he'd mirrored Crux's posture. He didn't change his position. "We take the Squib snake out, and you…"
"Nothing's changed." Crux stood abruptly, "You can't change anything; you can't undo anything." Arms crossed, accusing, fresh cigarette in his mouth, "I want to choose what we eat and… I want you to take me someplace every day. Or... Every other day. Whenever I wanna go. Wherever I wanna go. Do that, and I'll drink the Polyjuice. And stop with the act, okay? I'm not buying it for a second. You don't like me; I don't like you. Light my cigarette, please."
It was still daylight at Gwrych. A few hours left of winter-tinted light.
While they'd been gone, the first batch of dead animals had been delivered, and Eris had reanimated them. Waiting to be sent somewhere.
Harry had chosen the library to better see the snowfall while Tom made plans with Pollux.
Throughout, Crux had been pretending not to look at him. His cheeks had been red for over an hour. If the cause wasn't obvious (it was), Harry's Horcrux made it plainer when he said:
"I don't think I'm gay."
Harry didn't question, merely raised an eyebrow.
"I don't know? I must be some… Third thing."
"Are you lying?"
Crux frowned and crossed his arms, kicked the desk so his chair stood on two legs, "Do I do something with my face when I lie?"
"Yeah. And your voice." He'd also been blushing for an hour at the mere suggestion of 'Gay.'
He lied prolifically. And terribly.
"Huh," Crux said, running a hand through his hair. "What do I do?"
"We are busy," Tom said, gesturing at Pollux—busy rereading his own letters. "…But you look guilty. Shifting eyes, tense cheeks, lips pursed, voice pitched, is that satisfactory?"
"…Pitched like higher?" Crux let his chair slam on the tiles.
'Should we be teaching him how to lie?' Tom thought, nodding at the letters because Pollux had been momentarily distracted by Harry's Horcrux, wide-eyed blinking at him under a mop of curly hair.
"I don't really think it matters at this point," Harry answered in Parseltongue.
"Can I have your blood?" Pollux asked Crux, which effectively shut them up.
Crux leaned across the desk and grinned wide, "…The Great and Terrible Dark Lord Morty can hear you?" He tapped the top of his head, "Bonkers to even ask? Brave or too curious for your own good?"
Pollux seemed to genuinely think about it, "Both."
"Well, I hate to break it to you blood-guy but Sweetheart is about to ruin your-"
"Pollux, we will pick this back up later." Close enough to nightfall to start considering vampires, and derailed besides.
"-About to ruin your fun."
Harry had accepted Crux's terms. He'd planned on allowing Crux to pick the menu and to find ways to extend his Horcrux's leash. He suspected Crux knew that and wanted it on his terms. A guaranteed way to make the gestures mean less and to take control of something he wanted. A means to ensure nothing could be taken away. Peculiar self-sabotage.
They needed him to take Polyjuice.
Once Pollux had closed them in the library, Crux said, "I like him. He stares real hard, but…" He glanced around and trailed off.
Pure emotion on the Dark Lord's face had a powerful effect on Harry. Adorable when he was timid. Crux's nervousness stirred something primal in his gut, like a fox waiting by a rabbit warren.
Red eyes flicked to Harry's hands, palm down on the desk, then away, then back.
Harry didn't say out loud that Crux was allowed to touch him; instead, he permitted with his expression. His Horcrux grimaced and sat back. Crossed arms. Fresh cigarette.
"Light?" A strangled whisper that made him squirm and reset.
Harry lit his smoke with hooded eyes and warming cheeks. The wand stayed in his hand.
"…That curse you spew everywhere is kinda fucked up? Like what the fuck?"
"Oh, you like that?" Harry muttered, watching the cigarette—between his lips then between slender fingers.
"…That isn't even close to what I said," his face flaming red again.
Harry flipped his left hand palm up, slow, and let a tendril of the darkness that writhed under his skin curl out. His stomach flipped with anticipation when Crux leaned closer, squashing the desire to pull him in.
Chin on the wood to watch the black smoke rise from the centre of Harry's hand. "Hurts to cast it." Not a question, whispered—flicking cigarette ash on the floor.
"Mhm," careful not to move. Something about Crux's wide, curious eyes pushed the heat from his neck to his cock.
The click of the doors should have snapped him out of his Horcrux's eyes, but it didn't. Instead, Harry realised that Crux's gaze had wandered to the entry and widened, followed it to find Demetria stunned in the frame.
The energy building namelessly in his solar plexus translated to a rapid response time. Wand pointed, and Parseltongue slung before the woman stepped back, locking her in.
"My Lord? Forgive me, I did not know you were making use of the library-"
"Are you gonna kill her?" Crux whispered. Before Harry could answer, he sat upright, "You see, Demetria, while I… Appreciate your marriage offer…" The Dark Lord's cadence, pitch-perfect, jarring, his posture and mannerisms flawless. "He's fucking me in the ass. I fuck him in the ass. It's a whole thing. You understand. He's pissed, though. Go on, Princess, show her how pissed you are." Fluctuating through the second half between the Dark Lord's inflection and his own. He waggled his fingers in Demetria's direction and made ghost noises.
Almost all predatory heat washed clean by bafflement, "You've made it weird now."
"Oh, no. Did I take the satisfaction out of it for you?" Crux hissed under his breath, "Are you gonna kill her 'cause she's greedy? Or 'cause her tits are always hanging out? Or because she wants to fuck Voldemort?"
Clear what Crux wanted. Or rather what he didn't want. For whatever reason he was trying to stop Harry from killing Demetria.
"Don't you want all of his followers dead?" In Parseltongue.
Crux's face was cartoonishly blank in return. His eyes forcefully wide, stirring the animal sensation in Harry's stomach that he was not at all familiar with.
"…Demetria there will be no more advances; you can consider the Dark Lord… Unavailable." Words out of his mouth—assisted by Tom—as though drawn by expansive scarlet-red magnets.
Harry's Horcrux scoffed in disbelief and dropped the cigarette from his lips. Demetria wasted no time; as Harry unlocked the room, she fled with appropriate enthusiasm.
"Literally one more sideways glance at you, and she's dead; I don't care, you can manipulate all you like, I'll kill her."
Face pink, a new cigarette and a motion for Harry to light it, "At Morty, you mean."
"…What?" Distracted by the flush creeping down his neck, the bobbing of his Adam's apple, the way his eyes wandered to Harry's hands and stayed there.
"…One more sideways glance at Morty."
"You're blushing."
"No? So what? I'm not? Why didn't you kill her?"
"You didn't want me to. I will kill her-"
"Yeah, right, big-time murderer, executioner for the Dark Lord, blah. Harry… I have a question."
"Mm?"
"Don't laugh, don't be a freak, it's a serious… Theory." Sheepish.
His fumbling, blushing curiosity was undeniably a turn-on.
Harry wanted to pin him to the floor and bite his throat like a rabid dog. Instead, he held his hands achingly still while Crux reached out to trace his left palm. He gasped and pulled away when the bliss sparked, only to repeat the process in the next instant, like a child with a naked flame.
His face mottled like he was still sunburned, "I don't like embarrassment," mumbled.
"I won't laugh," Harry said, huffing at the warmth—there and gone, flashes—fingers twitching with the desire to catch Crux's teasing hand.
"Doesn't matter, I feel it anyway. I…" Lips pursed white, "We don't need to… Like each other. This is weird. Let me restart."
"…Sure," Harry watched his hand, evermore daring, sending looping rivulets of familiar, powerful blessedness to coil tight in his abdomen.
"What if you milked me like a cow?"
Once Harry replayed it and confirmed he'd heard correctly, he decided that his promise not to laugh was borderline impossible to keep, "What…?"
"I thought… Here's the reasoning—this was neater when I rehearsed it in my head-"
"Like a cow?"
"Shh- shut up, you're smiling like you're going to laugh," and so was he, awkward, blushed scarlet, "I don't want to touch it. His… The dick."
"-Crux. A cow?"
"How is it any different from milking a cow? Dreams don't count; they're not real," cigarette smoked to the nub in record time, hand irritatingly retracted, "You do it for me, just one time, so I can stop thinking about it."
"You've been fused for two days?"
"Yeah? And it's maddening?"
"How often are you-"
"Who cares? Perv? I knew you'd be a pervert. I don't want to touch it, and I'll feel better once I know." He hid his face in the crook of his elbow.
When Crux reached for his hand—blindly—Harry caught his fingers, slow and careful like a flytrap. His Horcrux whined into his arm but didn't escape, and the tiny victory picked up and catapulted him into the larger one.
There was no way he'd be giving Crux one hand-job. He would let curiosity kill the cat, though, and allow his Horcrux to believe whatever he wanted, "Where do you want to go?"
"I didn't mean now?" Popped up like a Jack-in-a-box.
"Why not? We have over an hour until nightfall?"
"Um." Squirming deliciously, eyeing the doors—both behind and in front of him.
"Where do you want to go?" Harry repeated.
When he traced the length of Crux's middle finger, he pulled away.
"…I thought… Somewhere dark?" Whispered so he was nearly inaudible, "I want you to wear gloves."
"Here?" Voice rasped as Tom raised the Snakewood wand to threaten the lights. Not thrilled about gloves, but he'd forgo bliss in the name of progress.
"Anyone could walk right… In… Huh. Okay…?" Voice trembling, his hands braced on the arms of his chair. Inhaling hard. "This is making my heart- the adrenaline? I don't like it; what's the point-"
Harry stood and let the Lethifold off his shoulders while Tom extinguished the room, the clouded near-evening sun not quite enough to penetrate from the glass roof to the floor. Tom extinguished that light as well, summoning a plume of darkness, anticipation feral.
"…Would you like me to lock the doors?" Tom asked in Parseltongue, and Harry was worried a single word from Tom might derail the whole thing.
It didn't. Crux chewed his lower lip, muttered, "No…?" And caused a cyclone in Harry's guts.
"This will be easier if you lie down," not the whole truth; he wanted him vulnerable, "Get on the desk."
And Tom was blushing, momentarily confused, because he knew the flush wasn't his. Harry examined their thoughts and Tom was lit like a Christmas tree, ravenously invested, captivated by the prospect of watching Harry demolish his Horcrux's misconceptions.
'God, you're so…' Tom struggled to find a word—exhaled a quiet moan when Crux stood and braced himself on the desktop.
"Don't- don't do anything unless I…" Just enough light left to see Crux's scowl, "Just be- Just hurry up with it," undercut by his whispering, he shuffled onto the desk and tentatively laid back, filling Harry's mouth with saliva.
Magnetised. So fucking hard. "Take your clothes off." Harry watched Crux fumble his buttons for a beat, satisfying something in him to watch his lack of success, his shaking grip. Eyes hooded, breath short, Harry asked, "Do you want help?"
"Uh, yeah… Thanks," high-pitched, voice breaking.
Though the urge was there, tangible thing—the desire to bite his ill-begotten neck and pull—Harry said, "I won't hurt you." Transfixed by the rapid rise and fall of Crux's chest while Tom summoned thin leather gloves on his hands.
"Why bother taking off my shirt, that's not-"
"Just trust me," Harry snaked his fingers through button-holes to graze the scar above his heart. Then his nipples.
Like a live wire Crux thrust upwards, gasping, "That fucking tickles?" Tense as a guitar string.
"Try and relax," Harry's voice felt like heat.
"You say that like… It's easy," almost hyperventilating.
He wanted to climb on top of him, pin him to the wood, slide in, watch his eyes while he felt it, "…Maybe the curse will help."
"I really think it won't can you stop talking please."
So Harry pinched a nipple.
"Uh, what the fuck? Do that- do it agai- holy fuck?"
Harry's entire heart had relocated to his cock. Drunk on the sight of the Dark Lord's exposed chest, hands fighting with the buttons of his pants, hips raised and bucking uselessly, whining while Harry tweaked his nipples.
Tom didn't help Crux with his buttons; he pressed the palm of his right hand against the Dark Lord's cock through his pants and let Crux find friction. Harry's free hand found Crux's throat, thumbing the soft underside of his jaw, moans vibrating under his grip.
Crux gripped the desk like he might fly off.
"You don't want to close your eyes?" Harry asked, buttons steadily undone under Tom's guidance, his other hand unravelling his Horcrux like a poorly knitted sweater, thrashing, biting his shirt and grinding at the modicum of friction Tom supplied.
His cock was slick with pre-cum and throbbing haphazardly when Tom freed him. Held by the thigh like a freshly pinned insect. Struggling like one.
"No… Would you…? Fuck. What the fuck."
Harry barely traced the underside of his cock—so close already—and Crux said:
"Just- just take the gloves off? Maybe- maybe take the- oh my god."
Harry leaned close to whisper, "I could use my mouth."
Rewarded with a pining moan, tingling up his wrist.
"What…?"
Harry happily repeated it even nearer to his ear.
"…That's-" The more he struggled, the harder Tom held him, "That's gross…"
Harry removed his left glove with his teeth and replaced his hand on Crux's neck. "Aren't you curious?" He took liberties with the permission to touch, dragged his lips across his hair-roughened jaw and hummed when he moaned—a delicious, keening, trapped sound.
Bliss crawled up his fingers, in through his mouth.
"If you- want to," he'd let go of the desk to grip Harry's shirt.
"Do you want me to."
"Um." Pulling at the fabric and helplessly thrusting, held fast to the desk with far more ease, bliss-assisted. "…Yeah."
He didn't need any further prompting. Tom kept Crux motionless until Harry took his cock in his mouth. Crux yelped and fucked upwards the instant he was allowed—made Harry's eyes roll closed, flooded with bliss-laced lust, digging his fingers into Crux's thighs, salivating, humming on the high of it.
His Horcrux reduced to noise, scrambled, frenzied yowling, hands twisted in Harry's hair—pulled down when he thrust up—and Tom had enough time to graze Harry's cock before Crux came screaming. Rigid, panting, twitching at the back of Harry's throat.
He swallowed repeatedly to hear his Horcrux cry about it, whimpering and struggling so uselessly that Harry decided he didn't want to go anywhere. Moaning softly on his cock for fun.
When he did release him, Crux muttered, breathless, "…I think I… Might be gay."