Desperate Times

~*Desperate Times*~

~*---*~

...Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me...

Happy birthday to you, Evan. I'd have enchanted the parchment to sing it, but it would have seemed like an insult to both our intelligences, don't you think?...Has anyone ever told you that you're too clever for your own good? And that you need to revise the meaning of the word 'fun'? It wouldn't surprise me if I'd said that to you before. It sounds like the sort of thing I'd say that you'd never listen to. But then I never really cared if you were listening or not, as long as you were close enough to hear me. You're too far away right now. I doubt you could hear me even if I shouted. I wonder how long a shout would take to get to Romania? I suppose that would depend on the speed of sound. Why is it that a cry seems to stop when it reaches the person it was intended for? Why can't I shout all the way to Romania? Or why can't you shout all the way back here? I almost wish you had enchanted the fucking parchment. At least then I could hear your voice...You'd love it here, Evan. All dramatic landscapes and nightmarish moons. Everything lugubriously Gothic...But that isn't why I wish I was there, is it? Because I'm just as willing to wish you were here. You sound like you've taken to it, but then I suppose you would after a fortnight. I can only hope you don't decide to stay. But I know you'll come back. Even if it probably won't be for me, but for him. What are you doing, Sev? If I close my eyes I can see you. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? That you were not sent by accident? It's only speculation. I can see you speculating, but more on your work than anything else. I can see the flash of comprehension in your eyes that you seem to get more than anyone else I know. I can see you chewing on your hair. No fucking wonder it's so greasy. Yet why do you still look so beautiful? Or is it only when I can't see you that you look this perfect?

...Not perfect. If you were perfect, then why do I get hard at the touch of a letter my sometime dalliance has had his Quidditch player's hands on?...

Why didn't you come, Evan? Merlin knows you could've done with the holiday, and I'm sure 'His Lordship' wouldn't have objected...Oh, Serena would just have loved that. You can't see the way she looks at me, but I can. She knows that you feel more deeply for me than you ever will for her, and yet she knows equally well that I'm nothing. I mean nothing. I was just a lapse in concentration. I know you don't believe that, and I know you have to. I'd have gone in her place. Can you imagine? The two of us turn up at her parents' chateau and try and explain that we left their darling daughter behind. Maybe if I'd grown my hair I could have passed for her, at a distance. I could have just claimed to be contagious and never got too close. Then I could have spent the summer with you and just you. In your company, your arms and your legs, like we did the summer you left Hogwarts. I don't even know if you'd let me. I think you love me, in your way, although you've never said so. I doubt you're the sort who ever would. Even Sev told me he loved me. But you. Am I anything more than just a friend now? Maybe you felt more once, but now I wonder if you still do. I wonder what you'd be willing to let me do to you. Do you still remember everything I taught you? When Serena touches you, do you wish it was me? When you fuck her, do you wish it was me? I've kept myself occupied without you, don't think I haven't. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't rather have you. And if I had you, would I rather have Sev? I don't know anymore. I'm confused...It'd be a lot more fun with you here, Evan...My sentiments exactly...

Evan Rosier is only slightly drunk. This is what he tells himself as he stares down into a glass of something he can't remember the name of because it doesn't seem important to him now. Nor can he remember how many glasses like it he's had but he knows that this isn't his first. His first is crumpled and ink-stained between his fingers, displayed for him in words that echo with memories and yet are hollow substitutes for the real thing. His first, and he always thought his only. Then he found the other, and Rosier was his first, and speaking in actualities rather than abstractions most definitely his only. He pictures the two of them in his head, each alone and then together in many different ways until his alcohol-addled brain starts to see the one's hair framing the other's face or the one's smile beneath the other's nose.

Neither is there that night. The one, the one with long black hair and a knack for saying very simple things in a very complicated way is in Romania at the behest of the Dark Lord, collecting rare ingredients for another one of his interchangeably deadly poisons. Rosier believes firmly tonight that it is a deliberate scheme to breed lonely Death Eaters. The Dark Lord doesn't like his disciples to form attachments to anyone but him. By tomorrow he may be less self-pitying. The other, the Quidditch player with the build of an athlete and brown eyes that don't miss much, he's in France meeting the parents of his fiancée Serena. Marcus Lestrange cares more about Rosier than Rosier realises and would have given a lot to have been there that night. But he has a Slytherin sense of self-preservation, and knows exactly what Serena would do to him if he didn't jump on her command.

So why is Rosier thinking about them? He could give you a million and one reasons why each is worthy of his ruminations. Most of them you probably wouldn't want to hear. But mainly it's because each is so conspicuous by their absence. It's because he thinks he may be in love with one, or the other, or possibly both. It's because he misses them when they aren't around. It's because Severus Snape is his best friend of ten years, and he and Marcus together with Lucius fucking Malfoy (Rosier likes to say it as though Lucius really does have an expletive for a middle name. Severus could tell him it's actually Nathaniel) made up Rosier's circle of cronies back when all four were at Hogwarts. It's because today is Evan Rosier's twenty-first birthday, and he has no one around to share it with.

So it is that he finds himself in the company of a table-full of empty glasses in the darkest corner of The Leaky Cauldron, with two letters' worth of birthday greetings clutched in long fingers and bitterly, bitterly lonely. He isn't sure who he misses more. Since Lucius fucking Malfoy arrived on the scene he's been used to missing Severus. It's almost become second nature. Marcus is different. Marcus he has always had when he wanted him, whatever he wanted him for. An engagement tends to cause problems in a relationship like that.

~*---*~

Lucius Malfoy has lived his entire life at his own pace. Not in a rebellious way, merely with the calm conviction that his pace is the best one. But tonight, his own pace is one that he's having difficulty keeping to. It is a cold night in February, unusually dry despite heavy clouds masking a horror-film moon and Lucius is far from dressed for it. He left his house too quickly to have bothered with a cloak, but he's regretting it now. Flimsy shirt and tight black jeans are hardly February attire. Yet he's too preoccupied to be shivering, and a corner of his mind half-heartedly theorises that it's not really a very Malfoy thing to be doing, anyway. Involuntary muscle spasms. Lucius would like to believe he has more control over his own body than that.

But Lucius Malfoy likes to believe a lot of things, and only a very small percentage of them could ever be considered true. This last nestles comfortably into the 'denial' category. For though Lucius may not give control of his body up to many he will give it up to some, and gladly at that. He would willingly hand it over here and now, up against a shop window with a street-full of seedy-looking voyeurs leering at him. How the mighty would fall. Down to his knees or flat on his back at the snap of long, thin fingers. The lengths he would go to to touch his black-eyed paramour the way he did before things got so complicated. Before they were subjected to duty and responsibility, back when all they had was love and sex inextricably intertwined.

He wishes now that things with Severus had been different. He seems to have been wishing this a lot recently. He indulges himself in specifics and wishes he could still kiss him without an underlying sense of guilt. Wishes he could spend the night in his arms without worrying about where he'll have to go back to in the morning. Wishes he had never seen the look in Severus' eyes when he finally married Narcissa. Wishes he could pretend that everything is as it was. Not for the first time he curses circumstance. The circumstance that made him a Malfoy. But not just any Malfoy. The sole male Malfoy of his generation. He wonders why he doesn't have a brother he could have introduced to Narcissa in his place. He remembers why he left the house in such a hurry to start with and abruptly stops thinking.

Which makes this a good time to explain our poor aristocrat's situation, for it gets a little complicated. He fell in love with Severus when the two were in fifth year and fourth year respectively (taking him from Rosier in the process). At the tender age of nineteen he is informed that he has a duty to his ancestors to carry on the Malfoy bloodline with a suitable young lady. Lucius tries to explain to his parents that he's gay, but they fail to see this as a valid excuse. So Lucius marries Narcissa Beaumont at twenty, and the two begin trying for an heir. To this date Narcissa has not conceived, and Lucius is getting a little tired of trying. However, he is fond enough of Narcissa, and at least she doesn't care that every night he isn't attempting to fertilise her and get it over with he's fucking Severus in a corner of the castle far enough from her bedroom to do her the courtesy of not making her listen to their screams.

...I could just go, now, leave her. Fuck everything and Apparate to Romania. I could. Now. If he wouldn't kill me. Which he would. And you too, I don't doubt. Painfully, probably. He'd do it while I was watching. Force my eyes apart and make me watch while he cut you, bruised and abused you. How far would he actually go? Would he rape you? Just to rub salt into the wound. I can't have you, so he will. He would tie you up, I suppose, so tight that your fingertips would turn purple from lack of blood and the binding would cut deep red welts into your skin. Not that it would matter, because he'd soon be doing worse. He'd fuck you so hard you'd scream, but not in the way you do for me. Pain not pleasure, not just crossing the line between them but hurdling it and landing on the other side with spike-soled shoes. I don't know why I'm thinking this. I don't know why I'm

seeing this whenever I close my eyes. Perhaps I'm trying to convince myself to stay when all I want to do is go, and I know I can't. I know I have to go home to her tonight and apologise as if I mean it, and fuck her without even pretending to mean it, and shout out your name when I come and not even bother to hide the fact that I mean it. Can you hear me, Sev? Are you listening to this? Sometimes I believe you know me so well you can read my mind...

...Why does it have to be so complicated, Sev? Do you remember the night I first kissed you? I thought life was complicated then. I didn't understand what I was feeling, and I cursed myself for feeling it. I believed a relationship was too complicated. I couldn't explain why I wanted more from you than just sex. Looking back I realise how simple it really was. I loved you, and you loved me and was there anything more to it than that? I still love you now, and I wonder every day if you know that even though I tell you every time I see you. But now it isn't only you and me that matter. I have to remind myself every second I spend with you, in case I forget and do something that could get us both killed. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. I've never once lied to you, Sev, so why is our web so tangled? Everything I do just seems to tie a few more knots, and those there are already merely tighten. Why is it I can always come up with an aphorism when there isn't anyone around to deliver it to? You'd appreciate it. You always do. You like a nice turn of phrase, it's one of your quirks. You told me once that you loved me because I can talk. I remember replying sarcastically at the time, but now I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd told you how much I love listening to you talk. You say you're no more clever than I am, and yet sometimes the things you say make my head hurt. I must be a masochist, because I always keep listening. Oh, Sev. Why aren't you here? I need

you, Sev, not a memory. I need you back from fucking Romania. I love you, Sev. Just in case you really are listening...

~*---*~

Nobody looked up when Lucius Malfoy entered The Leaky Cauldron. It was late on a Tuesday night, the hours when no one goes to the pub except hardcore drinkers who are far too enthralled by the fascinations lying at the bottom of a glass to notice a tall blonde's uncharacteristically inconspicuous entrance. If Lucius had been a little less preoccupied, he might have been affronted. As it was, he didn't even notice.

Evan Rosier noticed, and couldn't suppress a malicious smile. He watched the blonde's aristocratically elegant features from his shadowed corner, waiting for the all-too familiar expression of petulance to surface. Lucius Malfoy was not used to being ignored. Yet as Rosier watched the slim figure cross the room, it struck him that the man seemed utterly unperturbed by the barflies' calm disregard. Rosier was confused. Eyes flickered to the fireplace where his - friend? Hardly. Classmate? More than that. Acquaintance...will do...was standing. Shoulder-length blonde hair was slipping from its ties to fall across unusually distracted grey eyes that were staring, unseeingly, into the fire at the back of the room.

Lucius Malfoy is painfully beautiful. At least, it hurt Rosier to look at him. To look at him, and see why Severus made the choice he did. To look at him, and feel gut-wrenchingly inferior. And yet he is beautiful. One night Severus confessed to Rosier that he liked to irritate his lover on purpose, merely because he didn't think he'd ever seen anything quite as pretty as Lucius pouting. Tonight he wasn't pouting, Rosier thought, studying the blonde's lips contemplatively. And yet he looked troubled, which, Rosier had to admit, was certainly a very pretty sight.

Lucius started back from the fireplace to a snort of derisive laughter from somewhere to his right. He had been standing absent-mindedly close to the flames, and his shirtsleeve was singed. If nothing else, it brought him back to his senses. He realised that not only had he been unaware that there was anyone else in the room with him, he had been unaware he was in a room at all. His body had taken it upon itself to find warmth, mind being otherwise occupied with long black hair and fanciful visions of Romanian countryside. Mentally he slapped himself, turning his brain instead to the troublesome task of identifying the profile of the laughter's only possible source.

It was a profile he knew, and he knew he knew it. He'd seen it a million times before. Lucius was not one to use hyperbole as a rule, considering it an undue waste of effort and sentiment, but was feeling rather melodramatic that evening and it seemed appropriate. Slight and elfin. Roman nose, floppy hair glinting dark red in the firelight. And yet, without the face...nothing. Nothing more than a nagging memory that he knew he should be able to place, a name on the tip of his tongue. It was a distraction, at least. Something to muse over.

Rosier groaned inwardly. The laugh had been drink-induced and involuntary. The last thing he wanted to do was attract Lucius Malfoy's attention. He may have been lonely, but he wasn't that lonely. Was he? A small part of him had been glad to see a familiar face walk through the door, even if it was Lucius fucking Malfoy's. Surely the company of his regular bitching partner was better than no company at all? If nothing else, Lucius could usually make him laugh. And it was his birthday, wasn't it? And he did deserve company on his birthday, didn't he? And he must be drunk, mustn't he? And all of a sudden he didn't really have much of a choice in the matter.

'Happy birthday, Evan.' Rosier looked up into the crooked smile of the tall blonde now standing at his shoulder.

'I'm touched that you remembered, Lucius.' The blonde's smile twisted a little more as his grey eyes wandered over the table one hand rested on.

'I'm insulted that you didn't invite me to your...' Lucius' eyes glittered as he swept a regal hand over the pedantically arranged lines of empty glasses. '...party,' he finished. Rosier didn't bother smiling. How badly did he want company? He met Lucius' grey eyes with a guarded blue gaze, scrutinising the blonde's usually impassive face. Something was not right. His mask had been too hastily put on and was peeling around the edges. Perhaps Lucius Malfoy was human after all. The redhead sighed, gesturing resignedly to the opposite seat of the booth.

'Consider yourself invited.' Lucius laughed softly, making no move to sit down.

'My word, Evan. You must be lonely.' Rosier smiled despite himself. At least Lucius was familiar territory in a room of strangers. Had he really expected a gracious acceptance?

'That reflects about as well on you as it does on me, Lucius. You're losing your edge.' Lucius smiled, but this time there was a softness about his eyes. Perhaps he needs the company as much as I do. Merlin knows it's comforting to know that whatever happens, some things never change.

'Hardly, Evan. I'm merely feeling charitable.' The blonde slid gracefully into the booth and met his companion's eyes. 'After all, why else would I have accepted your invitation?'

'I thought charity was beneath men like you, Lucius. Merlin forbid that you should be seen doing mankind a service.' Rosier was watching Lucius carefully. There was a half-heartedness to his bitching that didn't quite sit right.

'Oh, trust me, Evan, there are many ways in which I do mankind a service. Aesthetically, for one. And as far as that's concerned, I am selflessly altruistic.' Lucius had delivered this absently, apparently while counting Rosier's empty glasses. Now he looked up with dancing eyes at the derisive face of his companion. 'You're only trying to look disgusted to hide the fact that you agree with me.'

'You should be so lucky.'

'So Severus has informed me. How sweet, you're blushing. It matches your hair.'

'You know, Lucius, for someone who just walked in here looking like the love of their life had just run off to Romania, you're being awfully antagonistic.' Rosier had hit the nerve he was looking for, and sat back triumphantly at the flicker of pain that crossed the blonde's face.

'You know, Evan, for someone who would have been spending their twenty-first birthday alone had I not turned up, you're not really in any position to judge.' The redhead couldn't help but admire the speed of Lucius' recovery.

'Touché.' Lucius smiled in distracted acknowledgement, once again totalling up the glasses on the table. Rosier lifted the one he held to his lips, refusing to take his eyes of Lucius and thus not realising that he was attempting to drink from an empty glass. Lucius had realised, and smiled sadistically as the redhead swore.

'You're drunk, Evan.'

'Well spotted.'

'Any good reason?'

'Do you really care?'

'Not really. I'm just making conversation.'

'In that case I'm not going to tell you.'

'How delightfully petulant.' With this the two fell into companionable silence, Rosier contemplating a wine spill on the table and Lucius circling his finger around the rim of a glass. All of a sudden the redhead yawned and cracked his knuckles. His blonde companion winced at the sound, but looked up as Rosier had intended. Evan leant conspiratorially across the table towards Lucius.

'I have a proposition for you.' Lucius raised an elegant eyebrow.

'Indeed?'

'I'll reiterate: you should be so lucky. No, it's a different sort of proposition. More an offer, really.' Lucius sat back and nodded at him.

'Go on then.'

'I'm drunk. You will be, as soon as I can get hold of a waiter for more drinks. However, I'm not so drunk that I can't see that you look as depressed as I feel.' Rosier sat back, smiling at the look of scepticism on his companion's face. 'Now, I know we aren't exactly the best of friends...' He chose to ignore Lucius' derisive laugh. 'But I also know that I was ridiculously lonely until you came in. And even though you're a bitch, I'm glad you're here. So I'm probably never going to feel quite as warmly towards you as I do right now. And by the look on your face, I'd even be so bold as to suggest you're thinking the same.' Lucius sighed, theatrically.

'Does this admittedly endearing expression of sentiment have some sort of point?'

'Yes. I'm not Severus -'

'Very good. And my name is?'

'Let me finish. I'm not Severus, which means that you're free to talk about whatever problems you may be having with him, and I'm probably too drunk to remember tomorrow what you say tonight.' Rosier smiled crookedly, a little surprised at himself. 'I suppose you aren't the only one feeling charitable tonight.' Lucius returned the smile suspiciously.

'Charitable, or nosy?'

'Both. And you know I love it when you're miserable, Lucius. The more details I have, the more I can appreciate it.' Lucius nodded thoughtfully. He smiled suddenly.

'Go and buy me a drink, then. You surely don't expect me to pour my heart out to you sober?'

~*---*~

'Why Romania? Why bloody Romania?'

'I have no idea.' After half an hour of companionable bitching, Lucius Malfoy had finally slipped into a state of vaguely inebriated moroseness. Rosier's response was more exhaled than spoken, in a sigh halfway between empathetic misery and relief at finally being able to express it.

'And why like this?'

'Why like what, Lucius?' Rosier hated himself for the spark that caught alight at even the slightest hint that Lucius and Severus were having problems. For all he wanted Severus to be happy, that tiny part of him couldn't help feeling...

'Why like what, Lucius?' Still no reply. Then:

'Do you know why I ended up here tonight?'

'No.' Rosier couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice. 'But I'm sure you're going to tell me.' Lucius took a moment to allow the ill-advised words to hang in the air between them. Then, with a dangerous smile, he leaned forward towards the redhead conspiratorially.

'As if it isn't bad enough, Evan, that I've been forced into the dubious pleasure of your company this evening, you could at least do me the courtesy you promised me of shutting the fuck up and at least feigning an interest in what I'm saying while I drunkenly pour my heart out to you. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe they were the terms of your...proposition.' Rosier studied Lucius' face with wide blue eyes. My word. That's actually rather impressive.

'Sorry.' It sounded pathetic even as Rosier said it. But his blonde companion relaxed a little at the sentiment, slouching back from the table with a sigh as he pushed his hair behind his ears.

'So am I. I suppose I'm just a little tense right now.'

'You could have fooled me.' Rosier's acerbity was nothing more than a nervously relieved reflex, which Lucius seemed to recognise with a vague smile. The redhead gesticulated encouragingly. 'Go on, then.' Lucius stared into his drink. Then, as though talking to no one more than himself, he began.

'I left the Manor because I had an argument with Narcissa.'

'About what?'

'I thought you were supposed to be shutting the fuck up.'

'Sorry. Keep going.'

'I don't need you to tell me when to speak.'

'I wouldn't dare presume you did.'

'Then don't. Okay?'

'...Am I allowed to answer that? Or am I still shutting the fuck up?'

'Do you want me to kill you?'

'If I didn't, would it stop you?'

'Probably not. But can we please get back to the matter in hand?'

'I've almost forgotten what it is.'

'Then I'll keep it concise. Heaven forbid I should waste precious moments of a life that is slipping away from you as we speak.' He paused. 'What a delightful thought.

'I always thought I'd married Narcissa to carry on the Malfoy family bloodline. And that, however much I resented it, I was at least willing to accept. Narcissa's pleasant enough. I could have done worse. And at least she understands about Sev.

'But just because she understands doesn't mean she likes it. As I have very recently discovered.' Lucius sighed. 'I suppose I was being naive to think that this would work out the way I wanted it to.'

'Not naive, Lucius. It's just something you're more accustomed to than most.' Rosier smiled, out of a vague sort of sympathy. The blonde acknowledged the fact with a dry twist of his lips.

'Anyway. Things have been getting a little...strained, recently. And I suppose I can understand why. Narcissa can be as sympathetic as she likes, but being married to a man who has no sexual interest in you whatsoever must be a little galling. To know that every minute I'm with her, I'd rather be with Sev...if she was a different person, her self-esteem would be shot to pieces. As it is...'

'She's far too convinced of her own superiority to believe it's anything to do with her. Which means she assumes it's something to do with you.' Lucius nodded, becoming a little more animated.

'Which it is, you know? It isn't her fault I'm gay. But I think she's finally beginning to resent me for it. And as for Sev...' Lucius fell silent again. Rosier kept his mouth firmly shut. 'It's getting to him. I honestly think he believes I love him, and I know he loves me. But it's difficult, Evan. Do you have any idea what it's like to carry on a relationship with a man who every night, every morning after, has to go back to his wife?'

'No. But I know what it's like to be in love with a man who's with his fiancée in France on the night of your twenty-first birthday.' The question had been rhetorical, the reply quietly bitter. Lucius didn't seem to have heard him.

'And do you know what the worst of it is?' Rosier was by now beginning to regret his earlier generosity.

'No. What's the worst of it?' Lucius didn't even rise to the sarcasm.

'I thought tonight was nothing more serious than the usual argument: why does she have to make my life so complicated? And somewhere along the line I think I whined why did Sev have to be in bloody Romania when things were this difficult?

'She laughed. I could have killed her, there and then. She laughed. Hollow, derisive laughter...I could have killed her. Because I didn't understand. Because she knew something I didn't. Do you think this is a coincidence, she asked. All this time you've thought you were providing an heir for your family. Did it never strike you as strange that the Dark Lord himself took such an interest?' Lucius paused, meeting Rosier's eyes for the first time.

'It's his, Evan. The boy, when it comes. He is the one who has torn my relationship to pieces, not my family. He is the one who's ruined everything. And I've given Him my life to do as He wishes with, believing He would give me power when all He wanted from me was a pet. A plaything.' Rosier was silent. Contemplative. He opened his mouth to speak, but Lucius was faster.

'I know. It isn't just my life, is it? It's Marcus'. It's Sev's. And it's yours.' Lucius laughed, humourlessly, a sound that echoed hollowly in deadened silence. 'But I suppose it's too late to do anything about it now, isn't it?'

'I suppose it is.' Rosier was a little too drunk to properly take this in. It was making his head hurt. As was the look on Lucius' face. It was desperation mixed with resignation, the desire to do something he knew full well he couldn't. Rosier would have bet the money he'd spent on drinks that evening that this terrifying impotence was bothering the blonde above anything else. The redhead sighed. 'So now what?'

'I have no idea.' Lucius laughed again, shortly and tiredly. 'Could we possibly be any more pathetic?'

'I doubt it,' Rosier admitted with a smile. 'Your life's just come crashing down around your ears, and I'm tragically loveless on my twenty-first birthday.'

'Somehow I think I win in the tragedy stakes,' Lucius murmured. Suddenly he looked shrewdly at Rosier. 'But speaking of your birthday. Did Marcus send his regards?' Rosier's voice was flat.

'A letter, yes.' Lucius leant forward towards him.

'He'll realise, you know.' The redhead couldn't stop his eyebrows from lifting in surprise. Lucius smiled. 'You assumed I didn't know?' Rosier nodded unthinkingly. The blonde made a small noise of impatience. 'I may be many things, Evan, but I'm not stupid. Marcus never said anything that wasn't almost incomprehensibly abstracted, but he didn't need to. It was painfully obvious. And no, before you ask, Sev didn't tell me anything you wouldn't have wanted him to.' Rosier exhaled slightly. Lucius was conjuring too many memories.

'So what do you mean, he'll realise?' Lucius met the redhead's cloudy blue eyes.

'I mean that he'll learn to admit to himself how he feels. And when he does, you'll ignore him.' Rosier opened his mouth to protest, but Lucius silenced him with a glance. 'You'll ignore him because he has to marry Serena. And if he doesn't, the Dark Lord will kill him. And you. Just as he will kill me if I leave Narcissa, and Sev. That's why you'll ignore him. Because it's better not to get involved at all than to fall in love and have your heart broken by circumstance.' Rosier digested this, slowly.

'So. I give him to Serena. I've already lost Sev to you, and how could I ever again satisfy a man who's been used to Lucius fucking Malfoy? That's not even taking into account the fact that even though you can't have him, you'd kill me before you'd give him to me. So, Lucius. Where does that leave me?'

'Single.' Lucius smiled, sadly. 'I suppose the two of us are just going to have to learn to make do, aren't we?'

'With what, exactly?'

'With whatever we can get our hands on. As long as it doesn't result in our untimely deaths. Which a surprising number of things probably would.'

'So the question is, do you value life more than love? And -'

'Is the former worth living without the latter?'

'Exactly.'

'How vomit-inducingly sentimental...'

'I know.'

'...would you have to be to kill yourself for love?'

'Some would call it romance.'

'Others, idiocy.'

~*---*~

'Out.'

'But it's cold.'

'It'll do you good.'

'You sound like my mother.' Lucius laughed.

'I've been called many things in my time, Evan, but that one's a new one on me.'

'Funny, that, seeing as you're normally so caring and considerate and all.'

'Don't be insolent, Evan. I'm not so drunk that I won't remember this tomorrow.'

'But you're drunk enough not to be able to punish me for it tonight.'

'Exactly. I dread to think what would happen if I tried to wield a wand now.'

The relative joviality dissipates as they leave the pub, blonde and redhead shivering out into a cold that bites. They realise that tonight they have talked themselves out, although it hasn't really been to each other. Lucius is looking pensive but Rosier just looks cold, and though he opens his mouth to say something there is a set to the blonde's features that makes him think better of it. It occurs to him that Lucius probably wouldn't hear him if he did.

...I wonder what he's thinking? You used to hate it when I asked you that, Sev. I remember. Sometimes you'd tell me, sometimes you wouldn't. You never really told me anything interesting. I've always wondered if you never considered me worthy of the good stuff, or if your musings really are just mundane. That's unfair, I suppose. They just never seemed to mean anything to anyone but you. I suppose I felt left out. Lucius would laugh if he knew what I was thinking. He'd laugh at my interest in him, and he'd laugh at just how tragic I sound talking to my ex-boyfriend who I haven't been able to call 'mine' for far too long when he's actually who knows how many miles away in Romania. Lucius would laugh himself silly. It's a shame the Sight doesn't allow me to read minds, really. I'd love to look inside Lucius' head right now. To work out what's going on behind those pretty grey eyes. He and Sev look at each other sometimes, and it seems like they're talking without words. Is

that mind reading? Or is it just knowing someone so well that you almost know what they're going to say before they do? Lucius doesn't have the Sight, I know that much. But if I have the Sight, and cannot read minds, then surely Lucius can read minds and not have the Sight. That's logic, as I know and use it. How many times has he second-guessed me this evening? How many times have I underestimated him? Severus once warned me I should never underestimate Lucius Malfoy, but I don't remember why. Why he warned me, that is, not why I should never underestimate him...

~*---*~

...I wish you could be here to see this, Sev. You try for six years to get the two of us to be civil to each other to no avail, and then we manage it perfectly well on our own while you're doing Merlin only knows what in Romania. It's strange seeing how much he loves you, Sev. Even stranger that just as we are starting to become friends, I can finally look into his eyes and understand why we became enemies. And yet we haven't actually resolved anything, have we, Sev? I wouldn't be surprised if he hates me just as much now as he did before. But perhaps we have just learned to accept that this is the relationship we have. This is how the two of us exist together, in a sort of balance I suppose. So I can balance with Rosier, but either you or I is tipping the scales as far as the two of us are concerned. Is there no justice, Sev? Why can I never seem to find the happy medium any more? Since I met you I've been living in ecstasy and agony and there are no shades of grey except that which I feel myself slipping into. The grey of Narcissa's eyes and that of our unborn child's. The grey of paving slabs and faded ink. If I lose you, Sev, I forget how to feel. I fall into indifference and suburbia, for all I'm a pureblooded aristocrat I gain the deadened eyes of the apathetic middle classes. So the question is, Sev, what would I rather? Everything and nothing or merely something?...

~*---*~

...It's been a long time since I've hated him. Resented him, yes, but hate? I doubt that lasted much past the first month. Have I ever liked him? Probably. I certainly sympathise. You know, we're not all that different, you and I, Lucius. We share the same taste in men at least, don't we? And more's the pity. But under different circumstances...and that's just it, isn't it? You can't help circumstance. There is no 'if' or 'but', because what's done is done and cannot be undone. Hear that, Sev? Applied knowledge. Wouldn't you be proud of me. You've always disagreed with me about fate, Sev. It's why you hate Divination. You and Lucius both, refusing to believe that there's anyone in control of your lives except yourselves. And yet you've let Lucius control your life, haven't you, Sev? The path you follow was wrought by his hand. Your life has been ravished by circumstance and still you don't believe in fate. But you aren't a Seer, are you, and you just don't know that there are some destinies you can't avoid. And besides, if we were truly the masters of our fates, then why the fuck would we have made things turn out like this? And you agree, don't you, Lucius? I can see it in your eyes. You're starting to believe because you no longer have the choice not to. You don't just believe, you know that this is your destiny and there's nothing whatsoever you can do about it, for all your fighting words. This is bigger than the two of us, Lucius. It's out of our hands...

~*---*~

...Everything's ruined, Sev. They say that love conquers all, but I don't believe that. I value life more than love. I'd rather live in misery than die for you. You've always told me I have a romantic streak. Do you still think so? Oh, Merlin, Sev! What am I going to do? What are we going to do? I take it back, Sev, I love you more than life itself and then some, so why do I know I'll give you up to save myself regardless? I hate this. I hate Narcissa, I hate the heir we're yet to conceive, I hate the bastard who holds the strings of my life in his hands. And I love you. And I want you. And I want you here, now. I'm sick of it all, Sev. I'm sick of answering to a higher power. I'll leave Narcissa and Apparate to Romania and fuck what anyone else thinks because you're the only one that matters to me. I'm lying through my teeth and you know I am, don't you? You know I'm lying because you've never asked me about this. You've never come straight out and asked me if I would leave Narcissa for you, because regardless of how much I love you you know what the answer would be and you don't want to hear it any more than I want to say it. Don't ask me for something I can't give, Sev! Oh, Merlin, you can't even hear me and yet I'm still talking to you. You know what, Sev? I give up. I give up trying to make sense of anything. I give up trying to make anything work. I'll settle for the easy life. Make do with whatever I can get my hands on. Why isn't it you?...

~*---*~

...Make do with whatever I can get my hands on. But I'm running out of options, Lucius. Marcus has Serena, and you have Severus, and Narcissa has you, and the Dark Lord has all of us wrapped around his little finger. Why did you do it, Lucius? Why did you give up so much? Surely all the power in the world isn't worth giving up the control of your own life? I can see you now and you don't look like Lucius Malfoy. Beautiful and tortured and ice-cold and empty. You've lost something, Lucius, or given it away. You gave away a part of yourself to Severus and I never expected you to, but only Sev would ever have known that to look at you. You gave him something you could afford to lose. You've given someone else something you can't. We all have. I see it when I look at Sev, I see it when I look at Marcus. Helplessness. And it's killing you more than it would ever touch the rest of us, and you know why. I want to tell you it'll be all right, Lucius. I want to tell you that Sev will return next week and you'll fall into each other's arms and everything will work itself out. I want to believe that Marcus will leave Serena for me, that you will leave Narcissa for Severus and everything will turn out so bloody conveniently. But it's never going to happen, is it, Lucius? We're fucked. And although it's all your fault I can't hate you for it. I can't even keep on hating you for Severus. Because this is all of us, isn't it? It's you, and me, and Sev, and Marcus, and Merlin knows how many other Death Eaters. But right now it's just you and me. And where the fuck do we go from here?...

~*---*~

...Why am I even contemplating this? Because he's the next best thing, Severus. The no-strings-attached sex that you can't give me anymore. The kind of fuck that I'll regret in the morning but will have forgotten by lunchtime. That means nothing to anyone. That doesn't

complicate things. Because even though you'll come back, and I'll tell you, and he'll tell you, and you'll be angry, eventually you'll forgive me because you'll understand. In the long run, this won't matter. It won't get me killed. It won't get you killed. It'll just be doing things for the fun of it, the way I used to do. The way we used to do, if it comes to that. Don't worry, Sev. I still love you, and I always will. But desperate times call for desperate measures, my love. And times don't get much more desperate than this. I need this, Sev. Call it escapism, call it catharsis, call it what you will but just remember that it doesn't matter. When I tell you about this, remember how much I love you and how much he loves you and how neither one of us would ever do anything to hurt you. Is this the beginning of the end, Sev? The first sign that we're fighting a losing battle against circumstance? He reminds me of you, Sevvie. If I close my eyes I'll see your face. Does that make it any better?...

Slammed up hard against a wall, Rosier gasps into the hot mouth pressed to his. He doesn't ask questions and he doesn't think about it, just lets it happen in the way he feels like he always knew it would. Did he See this? He doesn't know. But the feel of Lucius' hands triggers a memory of a dream he thought he'd forgotten, a dream he'd woken up and knew he'd had without ever really remembering what it was about. Now blonde hair tangled in numbed fingers feels like déjà vu, although he has his eyes closed because it's easier for him this way.

Rosier's hair is shorter than Lucius is used to, it surprises him on some subconscious level when it slips through his fingers. He tightens his grip and Rosier whimpers into his kiss and it's a sound that sends shivers down Lucius' spine because it's familiar yet entirely alien. The body trapped between his own and the wall seems fragile, three inches or so shorter which is going to prove problematic and built on a smaller scale. Lucius feels compelled to treat it gently but knows the courtesy wouldn't be appreciated. Instead, mechanically, he presses himself closer, hand on hand, chest on chest, thigh on thigh and hip on hip and a moan, shaky and hollow, escapes the shivering redhead.

'L-Lucius.' Barely louder than a whisper and it does its job, the word of encouragement, of acknowledgement, that lets each know they aren't dreaming. All of a sudden Rosier can't help the hardness at his hip or the trembling of his body that has nothing to do with the cold or the shallowness of his breath as Lucius claws at him with the desperation of a sinner seeking salvation, ripping the buttons on his shirt and leaving red welts down the deathly pallor of his chest with too-long nails that tread the line between pain and pleasure and stay just the right side.

This is too much for him now. His skin is feverishly sensitised, he is so hard it hurts and if he's going to do this, he's going to do this properly. Long fingers twisting at erect nipples, Lucius drives his hips forward and forces the redhead's slender frame backwards into cold stone, cursing the layers of fabric that dull the sensation and revelling in the groan he elicits from Rosier. His hips are rocking and he can't help it, Rosier bucking up to meet him and the two make an ugly rhythm, asynchronic and awkward but it serves its purpose like nothing else ever could.

Rosier can't think straight, he can barely stand up straight and if it weren't for Lucius' body and the wall he'd have fallen to his knees by now, drunk and dazed and utterly helpless under the increasingly frantic ministrations of Lucius Malfoy's ridiculously talented fingers. The fingers that have torn open his shirt, scraped his nipples to bleeding and pulled down his zip, the fingers that are now closed tightly around his aching cock and driving him to incoherence, words streaming from his lips without rhyme or reason or any purpose other than to beg him, plead with him, implore him not to stop.

A yelp, unexpected and echoing in the empty alleyway, falling from the lips of a flushed and gasping blonde. With a slight cry Rosier had dug his nails sharply into Lucius' back and it had hurt in the best possible way. Revenge. Lucius Malfoy never forgets a wrong done to him. He hisses at Rosier to turn himself around until he's facing the wall, bare chest and leaking erection pressed against the stone wall and through the roaring in his ears Lucius can faintly hear Rosier choking with pain and a desperate need for something, anything, as long as it's satisfaction.

And Lucius gives it to him. Pushes himself inside, roughly, no lubrication and it's difficult to make out which screamed the louder. Rosier has never felt anything like this, no pain so intense and so exquisite and he's crying, tears dripping down his cheeks as Lucius slams himself into him with cries that could wake up the whole of London. Every nerve in Rosier's body is singing and it's only now that it's starting to become anything less than agonising, now as Lucius reaches a hand around his violently shaking body and grasps his cock, hands moving as though the blonde barely knows he's doing it.

Lucius knows he's hurting him and he can't stop himself. He can feel that it's getting easier, but only because he's slick with blood now and he knows he won't be able to hold out much longer. The redhead is sobbing and it tears Lucius to pieces but he's too far gone now to care. The hair in front of him is black, not red, as are the eyes he cannot see. The skin is darker, the frame more angular. Lucius doesn't have to believe it, he knows it, and this is catharsis in its purest form. It finally penetrates the blonde's consciousness that for all his tears his companion is begging him for more, howling for a release Lucius can't help but give.

Lucius is bleeding, knuckles skinned raw between Rosier and the wall and as the redhead comes with a hoarse scream his hand is stained a strange pink, creamy white mixed with scarlet and for the first time since he left The Leaky Cauldron Lucius' hand is warm. The contraction of Rosier's body wrenches the blonde's voicelessly screamed orgasm from him and he's thinking of Severus when he comes, although Evan is acutely aware that the man behind him is Lucius Malfoy and he's never felt like this with anyone before.

Lucius pulls out of the redhead and watches as the younger man turns, slowly and painfully, and looks him straight in the eyes. Rosier does not look hurt. He does not look angry. Nor does he look happy. He just looks, and looks at Lucius, who takes in the scratches and scrapes that mar the man's ivory skin, the tears dampening his flushed cheeks, his sweat-soaked hair and lips bleeding from where he has bitten them. The tips of the redhead's fingers are skinless from where he has scratched at the bare stone wall. Lucius cannot quite comprehend what he has just done. It confuses him, pains him, forces him to think about things he would rather not think about.

Lucius Malfoy begins to cry.

~*La Fin*~