Beautiful Disaster

Beautiful Disaster

"He drowns in his dreams
An exquisite extreme I know
He's as damned as he seems
And more heaven than a heart could hold
And if I try to save him
My whole world would cave in
Lord, it just ain't right
Lord, it just ain't right."
~ "Beautiful Disaster" by Kelly Clarkson

It is almost every night that Neville wakes up screaming, soaked to the bone by his own sweat, lungs burning for oxygen and his eyes rolling into the back of his head as he tries to escape whatever the nightmare has unleashed upon him this time. Often he lashes out at his lover when the other man tries to soothe him, still fighting against the demons that prey on his sleeping mind and cling to his thoughts long after the actual dream, nibbling on his insecurities and nipping at his losses when Neville least expects it.

Even when beaten back and even made to bleed occasionally, Seamus stays there, lingering just out of reach of Neville's hands that claw and choke these invisible demons, murmuring soothing words in his soft Irish brogue until Neville finally comes back to reality. And then it is time to carry Neville to the bathroom, and wash his sweat-drenched form before he changes the sheets and curls up with him and lets him talk about his latest dream. It is a ritual they have done countless times over now.

There are always three ravens and a tiny sparrow in Neville's dreams. Sometimes the ravens mob him and peck out his eyes. Other times they laugh at him as the sparrow tilts its head and slowly hops into his house, and then Seamus', and then Harry's and Ron's and Hermione's and...everyone's. And then, as always, he sees death. Often they are already dead and Neville can only see a hint of a feature that makes them Hermione or Justin, their corpses bloated nearly beyond recognition. Often they are dying, and plead for Neville to save them.

Seamus has tried every known potion to give Neville a sleepless night. He has even begged Professor Snape, but not even the Potions Master can figure out how to cease these relentless dreams that seem to suck away Neville's very soul. The one they all used to tease for his chubbiness is now gaunt, his eyes swallowing up the rest of his face like bruises. There is just a hint of his former robustness in his now almost skeletal form, and that is the softness of his skin. Even when he is so dehydrated that he cannot even swallow, his pale skin is soft to caress. Seamus has never figured out how his lover manages it. Perhaps there was some irreversible charm Neville accidentally cast on himself, a long time ago, and no one ever knew.

How many months has the war been over? Seamus often loses track of the time, since for Neville the war is still raging. After a while, Seamus found himself speaking of Harry in present tense, as if the Boy-Who-Lived was really still living, and wondering about the outcome of a battle that was lost a year ago, and so he gave up on time. Days became the same as weeks, weeks as months, and Seamus will not be surprised at all to wake up one morning and realize he is old.

Truth to be told, he already feels old. Weariness makes his bones ache and his missing thumb twinge, even though he knows he lost it three years ago when Lucius Malfoy laughed and cut it off before Neville's horrified gaze. When Neville isn't looking, he rubs at the stub absently. He refuses to have a fake thumb put in place - the stub of a digit helps him remember the good times, oddly enough. After all, it was after they had been rescued and he had lost his thumb that they both finally admitted their feelings for each other. Still, the phantom pain aches often, especially after one of Neville's dreams, and he has been rubbing at it more and more often.

Tonight the dream is less severe, and Seamus only took a wild punch to the gut. It is easy enough to catch his breath, and once Neville has washed and the sheets have been changed, he curls up with the other man, and listens to him speak.

The stutter was always there when he was nervous, but now the stuttering is constant, as though Neville is always nervous. "It...it was the ravens again. Only t-they weren't pecking at me, they-they were pecking at...at Colin's eyes, and he was, he was screaming in agony, b-begging me to make it stop, and...and he just w-wouldn't let go of his camera." Neville gave a soft, broken laugh. "That d-damn c-camera. But he was pleading, and pleading, and I...I used the K-Killing...the Killing...." His voice dies and he just quivers for a moment.

"To stop the pain, Neville," Seamus whispers, the same reassurance he has uttered many times before. Sometimes, after the Dark Lord had been through with someone, it had been a mercy to kill them rather than let them twitch and spasm for hours before death. "You had to, to stop his pain." He cradles Neville closer, trying not to think about how Colin really died, cut into little pieces while he was alive and then fed to Dennis as a "joke."

"To s-stop the p-pain," Neville agrees in a hollow voice, and buries his face in Seamus' neck.

This is always the end of the ritual, and Seamus begins to stroke his lover's back, trying to coax the other man back to sleep. He never has more than one nightmare a night, thank Merlin.

After a moment, though, Neville whispers something, and what he says makes the Irish man's breath catch in his throat. "I w-wish the pain would stop." There is a plaintive wistfulness to Neville's murmur, one that makes Seamus' heart and phantom thumb ache.

"I wish it would too," is what Seamus finally gets out, throat suddenly too tight to breathe, because he doesn't want to think about what that whisper means, what Neville wants him to do.

But Neville lifts his head and smiles expectantly, hazel eyes alight for the first time in ages. "Really?" he breathes out, and Seamus wants to close his eyes and hide from the terrible hope dawning on his lover's face.

"I...that's not what I meant, Nev. I don't...I can't...." And the light has already faded from Neville's eyes, and the young man is smiling weakly, trying to pretend he didn't just ask his lover to kill him. "Nev, I can't!" The words come out almost as a howl, and Seamus is very much aware that only the tightness in his throat is choking back the sobs.

"Why not?" he asks with that plaintive wobble to his voice, and now Seamus does close his eyes to squeeze back the tears. "Why not?"

"Because I'm selfish," Seamus whispers at last, and then suddenly the words are bursting forth like a torrent. "Because I don't want to lose you like I lost everyone else, because...because there'd be nothing left for me, because I love you."

Silence, and then a soft hand touches his cheek, and Neville says softly, "Those are very good reasons, love." He pauses, and adds, even softer, "I won't ask again." Then Neville presses his face into the hollow of Seamus' neck and is quiet once more.

For a moment, Seamus just holds him, cradling his beautiful, broken disaster of a lover. Then, at last, he strokes the other man's hair. Once, he remembers, Neville's hair had been soft and silky; now, from loss of sleep and weakness of his frame, his hair is almost brittle. Still, he strokes the strands, knowing Neville likes the sensation of fingers combing his hair.

There is silence, a soft, fragile sort of silence that tastes like overripe memories bursting on his tongue and makes him stagger between gagging and relishing the hint of sweeter times. He is mute, tasting the near-rancidity on his tongue, but at last the words come, no longer like a torrent, but in weak, whispery trickles of thought.

"I...I wish I could stop the pain, Nev. The war's been over for, hell, almost a year now. I-I know you saw things. Horrible things. Wasn't I the one to find you, beside Harry's body? It was so...odd to see him sprawled like that, no life in him at all, just lying there, motionless -- and you, just sitting, staring. But he's dead, and you're not, and I'm not, and I...we need to live, Nev. What's the point of winning a war if we can't celebrate afterwards? We ought to have treats, like pumpkin juice and Butterbeer and, and, hell, even Chocolate Frogs. Though you don't like Chocolate Frogs because of Trevor, but...treats, Nev. Honest-to-goodness stuff we can enjoy!"

Neville says nothing for a long moment, and Seamus just holds his breath and tries not to taste the rancidity on his lips. "Butterbeer...remember w-when we all got drunk because w-we hadn't had dinner and...Harry ended up in Ginny's lap? Ron's face was so red."

Seamus chuckles. "His face turned even redder when Hermione ended up in his lap."

Neville lifts his head and smiles a little, though his eyes still look tired. "And then we k-kissed, but you--" To Seamus' astonishment, Neville sits up and pokes him hard in the chest "--you s-said it didn't mean anything at all...."

The Irishman knows he is blushing. "Hey, I wasn't sure I liked any boy like that, 'specially not you," he says, and is glad that the words come out playful rather than defensive. "After all, an Irish lad and an English lad?" He shakes his head and smiles. "An impossible pair, that."

"You r-ran like someone'd lit a fire under your robes," Neville says with a laugh, and then frowns. For a moment, Seamus' heart plummets, and then he realizes almost giddily that Neville is frowning thoughtfully, not angrily. "Was it me who-who kissed you?"

"That was another thing. Who'd have thought quiet, unassuming Nev could kiss like that?"

Neville smiles, and it is almost mischievous. Seamus watches in fascination as light pink colors the other man's cheeks. "You're just saying that 'cause you'd never kissed anyone before."

Seamus pretends to hang his head, and tries to ignore his pounding heart. This is the most animated Neville's been since...since.... "What can I say? Folks just couldn't see the Finnigan charm." He looks up and mock-scowls. "And by the way, how did you learn to kiss without bumping noses?"

Neville tilts his head and almost grins. "That's a secret." The words are almost a sing-song.

Seamus drinks in the other man's flushed face and amused gaze and impulsively kisses him. Neville tastes like sweat, and the salt takes away the overripe taste still lingering in Seamus' mouth. He kisses Neville gently, unpretentiously, because they have not kissed since before the war was won and Neville might be revolted at the touch of lips on lips.

But Neville gives a soft little sigh that Seamus remembers well. It is a quiet, pleased sort of sigh that means Neville has been waiting for Seamus to get the picture and just snog him. He gave that little sigh quite often in the beginning of their relationship, but it is almost a painful delight for Seamus to hear it again, and so he kisses Neville once more, savoring the moment. Neville's lips are chapped, but that doesn't matter; Seamus can remember times when the other man's lips were smooth and silky.

He wraps his arms around the other man, and Neville pools like quicksilver into his lap, entwining his arms around Seamus' neck and whispering something incomprehensible but pleased against Seamus' mouth. He savors the moment, his hands roaming Neville's frame out of passion rather than concern, stroking the man's backbone not to soothe him but to excite him, tickling the man's ribcage until Neville laughs into his mouth.

When they finally break apart to catch their breaths, Neville laughs, and reaches out to stroke Seamus' cheek. "You haven't kissed me like that in...."

"Ages," Seamus supplies, and earns another laugh.

"Yes, ages."

The Irish man just looks at his lover for a moment, cherishing this instant, even if he is sure it won't last, and that soon enough Neville's rosy cheeks will fall victim to the pallor-inducing demons of his dreams. Then he kisses Neville again, tenderly.

After a moment of sweetness, Neville ends the kiss, and looks almost amused. "You're treating me like a ghost who's going to slip away."

Seamus smiles, and knows he looks sheepish. "Feels like you are," he confesses, and is kissed once more, and now the overripe taste in his mouth has been replaced completely by the flavor of his lover's lips. "Feels like this is just a...nightmare of mine; that I'll wake up and...."

He is silenced by a kiss, and smiles as his lover says softly, "I know." There is so much understanding behind those two words, but then again Neville, for all his forgetfulness and tendency to fade into the background at Hogwarts, had always been observant. He'd been the only one to notice Seamus' misery when Dean had fought with him fifth year, the only one to approach him and let him explain what he'd really meant.

He finds himself grinning broadly, and cups Neville's face in his hands. "If this is a dream, then, let's dream forever," he murmurs, knowing the words are cliché but saying them anyway.

"Dreams...are the touchstone of our character," says Neville almost absentmindedly, and then he kisses his lover again and again until they are both breathless. "The touchstone, and the backbone, I think. Without dreams to bolster us, we'd...give up."

"And then they're the...." Seamus frowns as his mind draws a blank, and then smiles as his lover laughs at him. "What rhymes with stone and bone?"

"Groan, crone, lone, own, throne--"

Seamus cannot help but interrupt as a word leaps to the tip of his tongue, and his voice is triumphant. "Scone!"

Neville giggles. "So dreams are scones?"

He puts on a mock-serious face. "Really, Nev, didn't you know that? Dreams are the scones, the tasty treat, the...the Butterbeer of our imaginations!" Again his voice is triumphant at somehow tying this into their original conversation.

"The Butterbeer of our imaginations," Neville repeats, his lips twitching. "I'd forgotten how random our conversations are."

"Random?" Seamus folds his arms against his chest and looks indignant. "That was not bloody random! I tied in Butterbeer from earlier! You know, celebrating life."

Neville smiles then, and hugs him tightly. "Celebrating life, right." He presses a soft kiss to Seamus' cheek and adds, not quite out of nowhere, but with the old spark of embarrassed shyness at his audacity to ask Seamus for something, "I know it's late, but could you get me some...Butterbeer?"

"Of course! At your service, Nev." Seamus bounds off the bed, shoots his lover a cocky salute, and trots out of the room, oblivious to the fact he's clad only in boxers and a sleeveless shirt. He remembers to grab some money, at least, and so the folks at Diagon Alley aren't too annoyed.

When he returns, he almost rolls his eyes, for Neville is curled up against a pillow, sound asleep.

Setting the Butterbeer on the desk, Seamus just looks at his lover for a long, lingering moment, watching how the shadows dance across Neville's face and pool in the hollows of his cheeks and cling to the curve of his neck. He drinks the sight in, wanting a photograph of that soft smile on Neville's lips and this moment of untroubled beauty.

Tomorrow, he knows, there will probably be another nightmare, and Neville will probably wake up screaming and thrashing against those damn ravens and that bloody sparrow. Tomorrow, things will revert back to the washing of damp sheets and the pouring of water over Neville's sweat-drenched form.

Or perhaps not. Seamus thinks of the way Neville's entire face lit up today, and the fact that he had lost his stammer, even for a few minutes. Perhaps tomorrow Neville will sleep soundly. And perhaps the next day, he will too. And perhaps...just perhaps, Seamus can defeat these nightmares like he would a Boggart: with laughter and smiles and tears of joy.

He will certainly try.

"He's soft to the touch
But frayed at the end he breaks
He's never enough
And still he's more than I can take
Oh and I don't know
I don't know what he's after
But he's so beautiful
He's such a beautiful disaster
And if I could hold on
Through the tears and the laughter
Would it be beautiful?
Or just a beautiful disaster."
~ "Beautiful Disaster" by Kelly Clarkson

"Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. We are scarcely less afflicted when we remember some unworthiness in our conduct in a dream, than if it had been actual...."
~Henry David Thoreau