Abyssal

Abyssal

Lucius Malfoy reminds Sirius Black of the ocean; not the warm rush of the Mediterranean, blue and sunshine-sweet, but rather the frigid wash of the North Sea he recalls in vivid detail from some childhood holiday visit.

He remembers standing at the shore, bare feet being licked by the cold water, watching the implacable roll of wave after wave pounding against the slick sand as the frothy surf sprayed his face and burned his eyes.

He could not look away from it, though the salt stung and he shivered from the caress of the arctic water.

Lucius is pale and beautiful and capable of pulling him under with the sheer force of his being, and Sirius is unable to tear his gaze away from Lucius when he enters a room with a toss of that wicked hair, flowing over his back like the waves did that day when he was a child at the seashore. Like the fog that clings to the horizon, Lucius' emotions are forever obscured by the fine haze of arrogant superiority that covers his emotions.

Sirius is captivated by Lucius' aloofness, unable to understand why it calls to him and entrances him so, drags him under even though he is unwilling. His cold amused laugh is the sea spray he remembers, and it burns just as fiercely.

*******

Lucius does not understand why he wants him, the tall and lanky outcast from the perfectly pureblooded family. He is dark and sulky, and his ideas on things are anathema to Lucius' own, and one day they will stand on opposite sides of the war that is brewing.

But for now...

Lucius watches Sirius; the way he moves, the way he throws his head back when he laughs and rakes his hands through his unruly black hair. In public they sneer at each other and make caustic comments full of acrid bitterness and sharp pungent hate.

In private...

Each meeting between them is a struggle for dominance, and it is never a certainty who will win.

They are violent and desperate and neither of them knows quite how it has happened that they are in this room, wretched and aroused and full of fury and fire and obsession. Lucius wants Sirius on his knees, wants his hands tangled in that skein of dark hair. He wants Sirius staring up at him with fire brimming in his crystalline eyes and haughty, delicious audacity spilling from every pore.

****
Sirius wants it to be Lucius, wants him to be crawling towards him with his fair hair spilling over his fairer skin, like milk on snow, mercurial eyes glowing like silver coins.

He wants Lucius to whimper, beg in that clipped cut glass accent that always feels like scissors shredding skin when he speaks. Sirius wants to see that proud head bent, wants to see lights shining in Lucius' platinum hair as he does so.

When it is over between them, one is usually bloody and marked from their battle and one is only slightly less so. When it is Sirius, he gives Lucius his irrepressible smile and tangles his hand in Lucius' fair hair, thrilling at the narrow-eyed gaze he receives in return. He feels like he's plunged head-first into the North Sea and let it wash over him, his heart slamming painfully against his ribcage and his breath ripped from him so that he thinks he might faint...

He kisses him, knowing how Lucius hates it, and it is the only time Sirius ever indulges in the impulse to press their lips together.

Lucius is quietly furious in his submission and arrogant in his victory, as Sirius expects. Sometimes he throws money at Sirius in a mocking gesture. He does not want to understand why he leaves full of warmth that no amount of firewhiskey could ever provide.

Sirius catches the sickles Lucius throws and puts them in his pocket, and he makes a grand sweeping bow of thanks. His face always burns with humiliation, despite his sardonic gesture, and it always makes Lucius smile.

For as many times as they've been together in some nondescript room where neither uses the other's name, it always seems like it's the first time between them when they arrive. And when they meet in the company of others, their body language projects only the intensity of their mutual dislike.

Their eyes, however, tell a different story.