Novocaine

Novocaine

This is what he pays me for,

I'll show you how it's done.

You learn to love the pain you feel,

Like father like son.

~*~

There's a little knot of pain in everyone.

However small, however well hidden, we all have bruises that we tuck away, that we keep inside us.

I have them, and you can't deny that you have them too.

There were times, of course, when it wasn't so bad. When I was young, for example, the pain was smaller. There were times when I could pull back, snicker and delude myself. When I see pain around me, as cliché as it all sounds, my pain doesn't seem quite so bad. Perverse reverse empathy, perhaps. Greg and Vince are good for that, too. Their laughter, their constant presence and yes, even their messy sex and sloppy kisses can make me forget for a while.

Not forget, I should say. More like numb. Or, they make things easier to deal with. Sex, drugs, servitude, whatever I could get my shaky hands on that promised to make it all right again.

Desperation. That's all it was, all it's ever been. Ever since His Mark appeared on my arm, I've been desperate. Desperate to dull the pain that swelled up under the Mark, desperate to block out the world with drug-blurred visions and the broad backs of other boys. And yes, desperate to do His bidding. I am His lapdog, just like my father and the others. He says 'kill', and I say 'how many' He says 'fuck me' and I say 'how hard'.

Serving Him is what I was born to do. I've known it since I could toddle, since I was old enough to stand upright during His visits. I am His creation as much as my father's.

I always imagined more to it, that's all. In my mind, I saw a glorious seat at the Lord's right hand, I saw inevitable victory, I saw enemy clearly defined and I saw the pain leaving me.

Naïve, perhaps, to think that there'd ever be more to this than blood and dirt, murder after murder in His Name, to think that my father would ever allow me to surpass him in rank.

Naïve to think that there'd be no blurred lines. It was always Us versus Them in my mind.

I killed Pansy Parkinson last night. It's been suspected for somtime that her family wasn't quite as loyal as they professed to be, and it was my responsibility to deal with the situation. At this juncture we can afford no hesitation, and no mistakes. You know that as well as I.

I had to make her confess, one way or the other, and you know Pansy, she's always been stubborn. But, the Cruciatus curse is simple once you've learned it. Once you've practiced it enough. Turns out she was loyal. Funny, isn't it. Loyal, but the pain of the curse drove her insane. Like Longbottom's parents, you remember them.

It's said that the planet is twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism. I never really believed it until now.

Do you remember when things got so complicated? Do you remember what the breaking point looked like when we raced past it?

I do. I remember the exact moment that the world pitched sideways.

The locker rooms. Our team had just beaten yours. Again. You'd been slipping lately, and it used to amused me to watch you fumble your way around the pitch. I was feeling heady after our win and wanted to indulge myself.

I remember everything with such absurd clarity. I remember the dying sunlight slanting through the steam lingering from everyone's showers. I remember Blaise's heavy breathing and the way his hair--still wet from the shower--felt in my fist.

I remember the rusted, abused lockers about us, witness to so many victorious cheers or victims of the frustrated fists of losers. I remember being vaguely disgusted by the slimy texture of the bench beneath me. I remember a splinter digging into my thigh and the sound of running water--the showers he and I had abandoned in favor of other pursuits. I remember being pleased with how well it muffled his cries. Blaise always was a screamer.

Just like you.

Afterwards, after Blaise had left and the sun had died and the mingled sweat and water had long since cooled on my skin, I remember thinking that I was alone. I remember humming placidly to myself as I toweled off, and I remember turning to put the towel in a basket.

But above all else, I remember you.

You stood there, as skinny and gangly and dark as you had ever been, battered, grass-stained and sweaty. And you looked at me. And I looked at you.

And the world pitched sideways.

I'll never know how much you saw. I'll never know how the towel in my hand ended up in heap on the floor. I'll never know how you crossed the tiled floor so quickly, or how I ended up crushed against the bitingly cold slats of the locker doors and the heat of you.

But it all seemed irrelevant at the time.

I didn't care what you were thinking, and I didn't care to think too closely about what was happening. All I cared about was your callused hands on my arms, my back, my thighs, everywhere. Your lips, your eyes, and the smell of the wind still in your Quidditch uniform.

You pulled back suddenly, I recall, like a dog reaching the end of it's leash. Your hair was wild and you had the strangest look in your eyes. I watched you for a moment, acutely aware that I was fully undressed and you were quite the opposite.

And then you said the most curious thing.

"Is the door locked?"

Perhaps not that curious of a thing to say, if coming from anyone other than you and if said to anyone other than myself. It was a shifting point, crystallized by those four words that clarified everything that was about to happen. Those four words soon became our creed, the words we lived by, repeated often and in private. I said something in response, I think. No doubt a thing like 'Who the fuck cares?' or 'It is now'. I would've said anything to have you touching me again. What a thrill it was for me to find that the Wizarding World's Golden Boy was driven by lust, just like the rest of us.

Following this, I remember the sensation of the cold, slick tiles of the floor flattening themselves against my shoulder blades. I also remember hoping that no one would hear us, now that the showers had stopped running.

I'm sure you remember that night as well as I do. Maybe you're even dreaming about it right now.

Over the next few weeks it happened more and more. It was so strange; we hardly spoke. We just knew. We discovered perfect places, dark corners, closets, it didn't matter. We were both driven by something I don't think either of us really understood.

In the library, in midair, in the dark, we were nothing if not original.

( "MmmDracohhh..."

"Shut up. What do I have to do, gag you?")

Saliva-soaked silk does a good job of muffling cries that you just couldn't stop. You'll never know what hearing you moan my name did to me.

The change was gradual at first, and I didn't register it. As weeks wore on and I began to map your body--the depth of your throat, how many vertebrae I could count when you arched your back, the time it took to run the distance between your ribcage and your navel with my tongue, the perfect angle of knees and ankles, wrists and elbows akimbo--I was aware that something was missing. Something that had always been a part of me was gone.

I am, and forever have been, a creature of pain. When you took that away from me, when you numbed like nothing ever had before, it felt as if you had taken part of me.

It was unnerving. Suddenly I was sleeping in until noon, and suddenly the little things didn't hurt. The things that used to concern me--the other Houses, the respect of the other Slytherin, of my father--abruptly didn't matter. All at once, here I was wearing out your name and you were wearing out my shirts.

Any rational being would have felt relief. It only makes sense, doesn't it, to be relieved when such a part of yourself is hushed. You took away my will to serve Him and left me with little more than a desire to remain completely covered in blankets on a Sunday afternoon.

In short, you took me away from myself. I blame you for stealing those things from me, for stealing my pain from me. I am a creature of pain, and without it, I wasn't sure if I was even really there.

I began putting myself in dangerous positions and painful situations just to prove to myself that I could still feel pain.

Do you remember when I picked that fight with those Gryffindor in the hall? Of course you do, you came to be that very night on the verge of tears over the pain I had put your friends in, and the anger I had made you feel towards me. Little did you know that throughout your tirade, your pacing and your pleading, I was exultant as I lay in that bed. Underneath the bandages I was grinning as you battled bravely with your tears in the dark hospital wing.

Not only could I still feel pain, but I could also still be the cause of it.

It didn't last long enough. All too soon I was healed and back with you. When you touched me, when you kissed me, when you held me, I didn't feel anything. The pain slowly faded and was once again replaced with you. My resolve wavered, and soon I began to forget about Him, and my father too. Soon, all that was left was you, and I was lost again. Without the pain the guide me, to tell me who I was, I became yours.

There were times when I'd sit alone and try to find if there was anything left of me inside my body. I'd pull my hair, I'd pinch my face. I refused to accept that I was more myself with you, without the pain, than at any other time.

You're just so benevolent, aren't you. You saw pain and you just had to kiss it better, didn't you Boy.

But you destroyed me. And ultimately, yourself.

It took longer than I thought it would for Him to notice the change and my conspicuous absences.

He took it upon Himself to call His little black sheep back to the fold.

You took away my pain and my need to serve Him.

He gave it back.

It was a hard lesson to learn. For so long, I had forgotten Him and where my true roots lie. But He trained me again. He made me worthy of His Mark again. And now I am made anew in His image and my direction is back, direction that you could have never offered me. I return to the life of a lapdog.

And I know now that I must be free of you to continue my life as it was laid out to be, as I've always known it would unfold. It's funny, in retrospect, that I thought stature would bring an end to pain. It hasn't.

It was only you that did it. It's only ever been you.

And as I stand over you now, I reflect that there are many things I should have said to you when I had the time. When I was lost, it also meant that I could go where I pleased. Now that I am found, and set back upon my path, I mustn't stray from it. I can't say all those things now. I can't thank you, nor can I say--

"I love you."

Responding to my rebelliously tender voice on some deep level, you stir in your sleep. With a small sigh you roll over, instinctively facing towards the light issuing from my wand. Or perhaps instinctively facing towards me. You always had that uncanny, endearing way of knowing whenever I was nearby, whenever I entered a room.

I am frozen.

You blink bleary eyes and scrunch up your face in fatigued confusion. Rattled, I try to find somewhere to rest my gaze. I cannot look at your eyes. I cannot, or I will lose my nerve. But I cannot rest my eyes on your cheeks, or your lips, or even your scrunched up nose. You face is too familiar, too comforting, too much like home to me.

You blink several more times, and the sleepy fog clears. Your bright eyes take in my form standing over you. They travel from my face, and down along my arm to the anticipatory tendrils of green light that coil along my wand and tickle my fist.

You lean forward slightly and your gaze lingers for years on those minute snakes of green light writhing in my hand. In the untrustworthy light they cast, I can't see your eyes.

"Is the door locked?" you ask softly. I still can't see your face.

I nod, unable to trust my voice. I've always been weak, He's always told me so.

You sigh and lean back in your pillows. "Okay, then," you say and smile slightly. Green eyes embrace my own, gentle with understanding that unexpectedly makes my throat close off. You have the strength to give up on this war. I have yet to find it.

And then I raise my wand, and I say the words. Green light that could never compare to the green of your eyes fills the room.

I am, after all, a creature of pain.