Break

Break--Chapter 4

by cyanide blue

Thankfully, when the door opens again, it is neither of the Lestranges nor Zabini--it is Flint, and he is very unhappy indeed. Percy has been faking sleep or unconsciousness, though they seem to be one and the same in this environment. Flint walks over to him and swiftly kicks him in the side. He doesn't want to, but he cries out at the pain of a boot in the ribs.

"Up, Weasley," Flint snarls.

Percy considers the logic of a man who would kick another in the ribs to make him stand, and chooses instead to give logic a miss. Still clutching his side, he looks up to Flint, keeping his face utterly blank.

"Where'd you go?" Percy says.

This approach seems to take Flint aback. "It's none of your damned business. You expect me to tell you things? You're the prisoner."

"Zabini's Mark was burning. He called you, didn't he? What did he say?"

Flint's anger flares, and he backhands Percy across the same cheek he did last time. There's going to be one hell of a bruise there, Percy thinks numbly above the pain. "Again, none of your business. What do you care? Your only concern should be me and when I'm going to kill you."

"I'm not yours anymore," Percy says offhand, allowing his eyes to wander, inspect the uneven walls. "I've never been yours. Don't fool yourself... I die when your Lord commands it. Why kill the entertainment?"

Percy feels a hop of triumph in his stomach. Flint is getting angrier with every passing second. "Don't you dare presume what the Dark Lord will choose to do. You are nothing compared to Him--you can't comprehend his reasons."

"Zabini said the Dark Lord would like me," he continues in the same wheedling, spacey tone, never looking directly at Flint. "I have ambition. You know, motivation. I don't care about Muggleborns or purebloods or anything, I just want my piece."

Flint seizes Percy's chin and forces Percy to look him in the face. "Zabini knows nothing of the Dark Lord. Zabini shouldn't even be here."

Percy lets his gaze rest right past Flint's shoulder. "He seems to be doing quite well, as far as I can tell. Spies are useful... he told me so."

"He came in here yesterday?" Something is new in Flint's voice--a kind of frantic anger. "I am going to kill that idiot with my bare hands, I told him to stay the hell away."

Percy says nothing, still looking past Flint towards the bars as though expecting another visitor at any moment. Flint looks back with inklings of paranoia, but shakes his head, glaring back to Percy. "Look at me, you fucking waste. Look at me or I'll kill you."

"You're killing me anyway... perhaps I'd prefer sooner rather than later?" Percy shrugs, attempting to get past Flint. He simply stares in confusion and shoves Percy back into the wall.

"No," Flint says. "No." He presses Percy into the wall and slowly strokes a finger along the line of Percy's chin, eyes tracing the motion. "Have no delusions of grandeur... Lord Voldemort doesn't care about you, Weasley. He doesn't care if you live or die. He only cares that Harry Potter dies... you're essentially loot that we're allowed to keep. Prisoners of war."

Percy worries his lower lip between his teeth. "May I ask a question?" he says.

Flint pauses, then scowls, clearly puzzled by the obvious change of pace. "Yes, you may."

"My brothers. Any of them. All of them. My sister, are any of them here?"

Flint smirks. "What do you care? You followed that old duffer Fudge. Or should I say, the late duffer Fudge. Lucius finished having fun with him yesterday."

Percy doesn't know what to think of that declaration--as shock, horror and sorrow don't quite fit it--so says nothing at all to it. "Are they here?"

Flint hesitates. "One of your idiot twins is here. I haven't seen the other. The older one's been giving us trouble, too."

"Bill?" Bill wouldn't be captured... Bill's the smart one, the clever one, he's never lost at anything. There's no way he'd be in this hell. Percy shakes his head, forcing his imagination not to wander to what might be happening to his brothers. "...Thank you, Flint," he says eventually.

"You now, however, owe me something." Flint smiles at that, and it is more frightening than his smirk. "And that, Weasley, is a dangerous thing."

"What do I owe you?" Percy has nothing. That's clear enough from his physical state. "Anything. Even more so with the more you tell me. I don't care. They're all that matters." The words spill from his mouth unbidden and he stops, appalled at his sentimentality. He watches amusement play along Flint's features.

Flint brushes a thumb gently against Percy's cheek, and the motion contrasts wildly with the greedy look in his eyes. It is needless to state his surprise, then, when Flint leans in and kisses him with the same mix of desire and tenderness. He finds it more prudent to let Flint do what he will at this moment, and does nothing, remaining frozen. However, with a single touch Flint arches Percy's neck and as the kiss grows deeper, he feels his breath tighten in his chest.

No. This is Flint. A Death Eater. No, what are you doing? You are not going to participate in this madness.

He considers that, but for some reason his body won't react, his hands won't move to push the Death Eater away, and oh gods, his lips are actually moving... against...

Percy of course creates a practical reason--Flint would kill him, after all. He has to, and perhaps Flint will tell him more if Percy satisfies him enough. When Flint pulls away, there is a sort of mix of cruelty and amusement.

"You like that?" Flint whispers in a drawling tone. "Won that bet... we had bets on, you know. Thought that Wood was shagging the Mudblood and you were really a pouf in disguise. Ends up we're right."

"You are," Percy says, and they're so close that his lips brush Flint's again. Now with their eyes locked, he feels a lurch of disgust that he actually might have enjoyed... "You are, why would you mock me for it?"

"Because," a now familiar voice comes, "he is a hypocrite."

Percy looks around Flint, and sees Zabini there--he now keeps his eyes on the younger boy. "Yes," he echoes, watching Zabini carefully. Zabini gazes back, curious at Percy's actions.

Flint glares at Zabini, and turns back, seizes Percy's chin, kissing him and almost taking his mouth by force. Percy can't help but automatically struggle, but nothing comes of it. Zabini makes a sound of vague disgust somewhere in the back of Percy's hearing. "Fine, I can see you're busy, but Rodolphus wants you. Jordan's being a handful again."

Flint releases Percy, who tries desperately to catch his breath. Flint seems unruffled excepting his cheeks are a shade pink. "Rodolphus can handle Jordan. He's always pulling rank, he should be able to manage one Auror without me."

"You deal with him then," Zabini says. "Bellatrix is out for blood as well. I wouldn't want to cross him, you know how protective she can get. He's no weakling either."

"Fine, just stop nagging," Flint says, aggravated by the logic, yet he doesn't move.

"Careful, Flint, someone might notice a... weakness," Zabini says. "Best to keep to business."

"Tell that to Malfoy. I heard he's been fucking both the Patils."

"At once?" Zabini says, deadpan.

"Not at once." Flint rolls his eyes.

"Either way, this--" he gestures to the uncomfortably warm position in which Flint and Percy are entangled-- "is not prudent."

"Fine." Flint moves away, and Percy sinks back onto the ground, silent and vulnerable. Flint watches him as he reaches for his glasses and absently cleans them, despite that one of the lenses is cracked. He shakes his head after a moment, grabs Zabini by the shoulder and yanks him out of the room, locking the door behind them.

Percy stares at the door.

"Are you all right, then?"

An echo from... eternity. From before he'd gotten in here. Before he'd become nothing but loot to these people. The Muggle woman who'd found him on the streets of Muggle London when he'd haphazardly Apparated away from the Ministry, missing his target of Charlie's flat entirely. Frenzied and paranoid, he had scrabbled away from her touch.

Food. He closes his eyes with the memory. The woman had made cooked carrots, he recalls, some sort of roast beef as well. He can't remember the last time he's eaten. She'd given him new clothes, puzzling at his robes and eventually tossing them into the laundry.

"You can call me Claudia," she'd said, but only for the sake of niceities, he'd thought. He hadn't called her anything at all, since he hadn't spoken a word since his arrival. Five days he slept on her couch and ate her food, until they'd finally found him.

He remembers the mess they made of the woman's house, broken crockery; he wonders if Claudia the Muggle is still alive, dead, or worse.

There is no guilt, just hunger and a selfish, rodent-like scrabbling need to survive. And he will, oh, he will. He is not a hero, who dies for a cause; he is a man, who lives for himself.

"Your family, your family, remember your family, dear Percival, don't you remember your family?"

"Go away, Penny," he mumbles into his knees. "You shouldn't be here. Go away."

"They love you."

"I can't do anything for them, here."

"Then go."

"I can't just go."

"You can't let him do that to you."

"I'm mad," he says. "I'm mad."

"Kill him."

"No."

But the thought is so tempting, his hands around Flint's neck--no, but torture first--"I'll make you wish you were dead, Flint," his same mocking words shot back at him, and oh, Cruciatus... his mental anguish only a whisper of the pain Flint would feel.

"No," he repeats, rebelliously, as though the word could expel the idea from his head.

Nonononononono.

He breathes slowly. He opens his eyes. He stares at the door.

"Kill him," he mouths, then closes his eyes and sleeps.