Lucius Leonidas Malfoy (malus_fides) wrote in cr_noughts, @ 2012-02-18 14:09:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | 2002, lucius, severus |
Who: Lucius and Severus
What: Lucius wants to know if Severus and Louisa are sitting in a tree as he suspects.
When: After this and this.
Where: Severus' room.
Why: Because Lucius thinks he wants to know.
Rating: Lucius is mean.
Status: Completed.
The truth was Lucius was bored. He had plenty of teenage rump skin to discipline, but that had long ago lost is luster. Most of what he had to think about was his tragic, mentally compromised son, and how that was turning his wife into a substance abuser. This thing with Severus was too interesting and Lucius was too in need of a distraction to pass it up. In the past few months, he thought, (though he would be surprised to know it had been more than a year) Lucius had stopped seeking out sex from the few extra-marital partners he had. Not that he wasn’t having sex with them, but it was almost always a situation of he himself being sought out, or it developing out of circumstance. But now that he was thinking about it, he had not had one of those encounters with Severus in- well, it had been so long, Lucius wasn’t even sure exactly how long it had been. Months. In fact, it had been more than seven months, but Lucius couldn’t pinpoint it.
Having watched the conversation between Walden’s daughter and Severus unfold, Lucius had been waiting for Severus to return to himself. He was being pleasant, jovial, informal, and just all around un-Severus-like. It was weird, until it occurred to Lucius that it probably meant something more. Then it was interesting. Questioning Severus only made Lucius more positive that he had hit on something here, and he was determined to keep from having to think about his own life, so that night, when it got close to a time when most in the castle were retiring, Lucius went to Severus’ room on a little fact finding mission. There was one litmus test that would tell him without doubt whether or not Severus was involved with that girl.
The knock that came on his door startled Severus, but it didn’t surprise him. Nor was there any question about who was on the other side. It could only be Lucius. Yes, Severus had been expecting his button-pushing, badgering friend to show up tonight to further run this topic of his conversation with Louisa into the ground, and yet, he was still unprepared to deal with it. But that mattered little, Lucius was here and Severus was going to have to, ready or not. Without getting up from the chair in which he was reading, Severus pointed his wand at the door releasing the spell that locked it, and called for entry..
Lucius gave it one long beat before entering to find Severus seated in that hideous blue chair looking at him with a mixture of expectation and dread, which made Lucius smile. “Drink?” the blond man offered as if he were in his own room and Severus was the one who had come by. Going to the sideboard where Severus kept his liquor, Lucius poured himself a drink, and took the not quiet as ugly cream coloured chair facing him. “Are you busy?”
Severus was very much expecting and dreading whatever it was Lucius was bringing, and felt completely helpless to stop it. He watched his friend, so full of entitlement, pour a drink from his sideboard before taking a seat. To be completely fair, Lucius was the reason he had the liquor in the first place, not being much of a drinker himself, but it had been some months since Lucius had even been in his room, and Severus had something to hide, so the other man’s actions seemed particularly invasive today. “Just a bit of reading before bed,” he said, indicating with the book in his hand. He could have said more, but small talk might get in the way of Lucius getting to his point and Severus making up lies and denying his relationship, which pained him to have to do. He liked Louisa too much.
There was an obvious wall that Severus had put up. Lucius didn’t know if it was new, or if it had been there and he had just been too preoccupied with his own mess to notice, but he was definitely feeling resistance. He was going to have to change the course of his plan, as it was clear that Severus was in no mood to just jump into sex. “Narcissa’s in bad shape, I think,” Lucius said, looking down into his drink, and reminding himself of what his purposes were in bringing that up. Now was not a time to get too deeply into any fears and emotions. This was manipulation, not confession.
“Oh,” Severus said, taken aback, some of his defenses instantly dropping away. “How bad is it?” he put his book on the side table and leaned forward in concern.
“Bad.” Lucius drank deeply from his glass, then glanced briefly over at Severus before dropping his eyes again. “When I got home on Friday afternoon, about two, she was already well on her way to being very drunk. Then Saturday we,” here he scoffed, “celebrated Valentine’s day, since I could not go home tonight. And she... she just consumed so much. I saw her take the potion for her back, and she drank several bottles of wine by herself before moving onto harder stuff. She was smoking, but that does not really concern me. Then she passed out. She must have taken something else at some point, because... she just passed out. Completely. In the middle of a sentence.” Lucius finished his drink, and pushed himself to his feet, unable to sit still. Hoping Severus would follow him.
Severus listened sympathetically, thinking through all the possible solutions with which he could help his friends, but nothing innovative or simple was coming to mind. Watching Lucius get up and walk to the window, Severus was compelled to follow, and would have been horrified for doing so had he known it was a psychological suggestion, that he had acted in the exact way Lucius wanted. Joining Lucius at the window, Severus stood next to him, his shoulder brushing the other man’s familiarly. “Whatever I can do, Lucius,” he sighed, because he knew there wasn’t actually much he could do. “I don’t actually know what that is, other than.. perhaps I can began to make them less potent. Do it gradually, until she is off. I know that doesn’t help the drinking, but it might be a start.”
This was actually not a bad idea, and for a moment he forgot Lucius original intention. “Yes, thank you,” he said. “It will at least be a start. It got so serious, so fast, and I watched it happen. I let it happen.” Lucius leaned his head against the cold leaded glass of the dark, snow cornered window, feeling that heavy tiredness that always overcame him when he thought about Draco, and now Narcissa. Then Severus put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and Lucius remembered what he was doing. “I just-” Feigning inability to to finish his sentence he just shook his head desperately. “I feel very alone.” Lucius looked at Severus’ reflection in window, but couldn’t make out a specific facial expression.
Severus was feeling very badly for Lucius, indeed. The Lucius Malfoy he once knew seemed so far from this man who was here now. He had never recovered from Azkaban, or more correctly, his life after Azkaban just continued to deteriorate and now Lucius was just beaten. “You are not alone,” Severus offered, though he wasn’t even sure he believed it, so didn’t really expect Lucius to.
“Come with me,” Lucius said, turning to Severus. “My room.”
“What?” The question was a stalling tactic, as this wasn’t exactly what Severus was expecting. He had expected to have to come up with excuses for why he was so casual with Louisa, he had not expected to be asked to go to bed. But why he hadn’t expected this was beyond any sort of explanation, this was Lucius after all.
“Come,” Lucius said softly, though it was an unmistakable command.
“No.” Severus responded, more adamantly then he intended.
The two men looked at each other. This was unprecedented. Severus had never, in their 30 years of friendship, refused Lucius. They were both stunned and the silence between them was palpable. And eventually too much for Severus.
Severus felt like a caught child, a place only Lucius could bring him to. “I mean, I can’t tonight,” he hedged, trying to fix something that was unfixable. “I can’t any ni- I haven’t been- “
Lucius cut Severus off, laughing. He took several strides away, then turned to look at Severus again. “You are fucking that girl,” he shook his head.
“No!” Severus lied defensively, “I’m not. I mean I- Damnit Lucius,” he was flustered, and so very uncool about this whole thing. He had clearly learned nothing from the master of extramarital affairs who was now making him so nervous he couldn’t think straight. Severus was realising just how deeply he had buried what his relationship with Louisa was going to do to his relationship with Lucius. He became comfortable and complacent in Lucius’ personal distractions and failed to, or refused to, foresee this moment.
A deep and shocked gasp came from Lucius then and he dramatically covered his mouth with one hand, the other rising to point at Severus. Eyes wide, he dropped the hand over his mouth to his heart, so he could speak. “You are not just fucking that girl, you are in a relationship with that girl.”
So, there it was. There was going to be no way for Severus to deny it now. He was, at least to Lucius, totally transparent. Now he was just going to have to hope and pray that Lucius would keep this to himself. Which was going to mean keeping Lucius happy. And there was no telling what that was going to mean. Closing his eyes, Severus dropped his head and took a deep breath before looking back up at Lucius. “And now?”
With that question came a wider understanding for Lucius.; He had been entertaining himself with Severus’ situation, but he appreciated now that this was going to affect him directly. “And now you are not going to sleep with me any longer.” It was a statement that wanted to be angry, but it also wanted to be wrong.
Severus shook his head slowly, sadly even, trying hard to ignore the feeling that this was going to end badly.
Confused, hurt anger flood Lucius. He had always been in a relationship and that did not stop him from being the only person in the world who ever loved Severus, and now the solitary man was in some sort of pseudo-relationship with a teenager that was going to keep him from having sex with Lucius? An icy steel veneer dropped over the blond man, he straightened to his full height, and gave a curt nod. He opened his mouth to add parting words, but did not trust what might come out, so he clamped it shut, turned on his heel, and exited the room.
For a full five minutes Severus uncomprehendingly stood frozen where he was. He wanted to feel relieved but three decades of being friends with Lucius Malfoy kept that from happening. There was no possible way that this was over that easily, and now Severus would just have to wait in suspended fear of Lucius’ next move.