bella burns at fahrenheit 451 (mslestrange) wrote in find_horcruxes, @ 2009-11-06 18:18:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | bellatrix lestrange, rabastan lestrange |
06 November 1979
who. Rabastan and Bellatrix
what. Bellatrix insists upon following Rabastan to FIGHT CLUB. Hijinx (omg how do I spell this effing word?) ensue.
when. Friday evening
where. An abandoned warehouse in Lambeth.
rating. PG for blood and bare bodies and such.
status. Completed log.
**************************************
It was to a boarded-up and derelict building in Lambeth that Rabastan took Bellatrix, keeping his hand on her shoulder as they apparated out. Even on a Friday night, the street at which they re-materialized was empty -- and silent, save for a low thrum of muffled roars that deepened in pitch as they approached the place. This is where Rabastan took his weekly sojourns into the world of unlicensed boxing, where the rules varied according to the referee... if there were any rules at all. After being raised on the lap of society and being protocol with a silver spoon, Rabastan had long ago found an affinity for this particularly brutish sport.
"She's with me," was said, almost through gritted teeth, as the two men who watched the entrance waved him through. And to Bellatrix, once they were inside the building and heading downstairs guided by Rabastan's knowledge of the place (and little else in the scant lighting), he muttered, "You have nothing better to do with your time? Bother your husband, for instance?"
From the time that Bellatrix laid her hand on the inside of Rabastan's wrist as he Apparated them until they reached their destination (complete with scarred up, growling sentries and the tang of sweat in the air), she had been silent. Watchful, even. She wouldn't have been able to accurately put her finger on the compulsion to accompany Rabastan this evening, but it was there, even as she followed him down the stairs in what passed for lighting.
"I've annoyed him enough for one evening, Rabastan, so I thought I would spread the wealth to his darling little brother as well. I thought you could show me how the beasts live."
With every descending step, the noise of a crowd that shouted both abuse and praise as men pummeled each other grew in intensity, and Rabastan's reply to Bellatrix was half yelled back at her as he came to a stop before one last door: "With great pleasure, if you must know." Spreading his palm on the surface that shook with the vibrations of the clamor contained beyond it, he half-turned to take in her appearance. Bellatrix could not identify what had driven her to insist that she come, but he certainly knew what his reaction was. Annoyance -- and beyond that, that insuperable and very basic need to impress. An irritation in itself.
"Fine," was exhaled as he turned back to the door and shouldered it open.
If the truth were ever to be told, she envied Rabastan the freedom of his nightly haunts and the pure physical glory that his sex brought him. She wanted to see it. She wanted to take part in it and be swept away in the torrent of it. The cacophony of sound, which all but drowned out his response, could have been overwhelming had not Bellatrix expected virtually anything from the likes of Rabastan. Her chin was raised, shoulders squared and curls swept over her back -- "Fine," she repeated, but there was a twist to her lip, even as her hand sought to tangle lightly in his as he opened the door.
But if there was anything that Rabastan was not, it was to be satisfied with light touches. Though the fringes of the crowd was relatively sparse, he closed his fingers firmly around Bellatrix's hand, keeping her close as he began to push their way through the people, towards the nucleus of the rabble, which was empty save for blood-spattered concrete and the two men currently engaged in a brawl. "No gloves tonight," he called back to her, eyes narrowed at the match ahead. "Not too late to go back."
"Never," she replied, leaning forward to hiss in his ear. As the circling pugilists came into view beyond his shoulder, she could not help but spark a smile (even as one of the men took a fist to the throat and fell hard upon the concrete). Her hand squeezed tightly within his -- "Beat them to a pulp, Rabastan."
His reply -- "Always do." -- was lost in the swell of hisses and boos as the fallen remained on the ground, his eyes rolling, body smeared with bloodied sweat. Rabastan could feel his hand tense around hers as he waited those interminable seconds for the referee to judge the boxer well and truly out. Time trickled by, the anticipation almost tangible in this stifled air -- and then he dropped Bellatrix's hand and pushed forward, even as the whistle was ringing out.
He was mute as the referee spelled out his particular set of rules -- nothing below the belt -- pulling off his shirt and letting it drop carelessly to the ground as he approached the other fighter, gesturing him forward with a beat of his fist.
Once in her life (beyond childhood, that is) had Bellatrix seen a bare male chest and while it was not in her to claim favouritism or even feign interest when there was none, she knew that the sinuous, glistening skin and the corded muscles were quite impressive --
Though his opponent - larger, hairier, more brutish - was impressive in his own right, she felt confident that Rabastan would be able to knock him out fairly quickly. But she hoped - at least - that there would be blood (even as the air pricked her nostrils with the alkalinity of it) --
A whistle broke through the jeering crowd, and a crashing whoop with those near her. "In the face! Hit him good!"
Side-stepping the man as he lunged forward, a vicious crack filled the air, a staccato of bone against bone as Rabastan drove his fist into his bloodied face. With little preamble, he struck him again, but as he moved away and to the side, his opponent -- deceptively limber beneath all the bulk -- caught him with a blow to the angle of his ribs, which sent Rabastan, pulling in a shredded gasp of air, lurching to the side...
-- and into the press of the crowd, which shoved him back in. Pushed by momentum, he stepped close in order to deliver another rap to the man's face, feeling the sharp sensation of tearing skin over the dull throb in his knuckles.
"Knock him out -- " and a hiss as Rabastan took the hit, before he was pushed back into the fray. Suddenly she understood the frenetic need to throw oneself into the fray (her own duelling style was similar, if not quite so hands on) and feed on the energy of others. And she saw the punch - perhaps before Rabastan? - come up from beneath, aiming for the chin. "Watch out!"
Wrenching himself back in time, only to lunge forward and plant the weight behind his tightly clenched hand at the base of the man's throat was only too easy. His opponent staggered, gagging as he hit the ground with a wet smack, and as the yells continued, Rabastan was dimly aware of one voice -- Bellatrix's -- among the many. This, this, was why he should've won that duel with the vampire at the masquerade. Though he had not lost the fight either, that he'd been caught at an impasse was still a bitter taste on his tongue; Bellatrix being here, now, after having mocked him, did nothing but further inflame the adrenaline firing through his veins.
"Come on," he growled and swiped blood from his mouth, light on his feet and impatient for the referee to declare the fallen man out.
Bellatrix groaned as the man fell and began his staggering attempt to get up again, pitching toward Rabastan who seemed so unfazed by all of the battering he took. The frenzy in the air as she was pressed toward the fighting men on all sides increased, as if the scent of fresh blood incensed them, and she too was part of greater, surging animal. "Rabastan -- now!"
A fistful of hair kept the man locked in place, and blood spattered his face and the ground below as Rabastan delivered two more blows.
This time, his opponent did not rise. Two men broke from the crowd to drag him out, leaving Rabastan, for that short moment, alone in the ring of people, cradling his fist in his other hand as he waited for someone to step forward as he had done only minutes before.
... obvious to all (though Bellatrix raised her hands in an open gesture toward Rabastan) that she would not be fighting (though she recognised the desire to do so thrumming through her body with every beat of blood through her head), she practically bounded into the midst of the ring where Rabastan stood and gave a kiss of victory to his bloodied cheek. "You have to teach me how to do that."
Even with her open and outstretched hands, Rabastan's immediate impulse was to stiffen in readiness -- but the unexpected kiss, fleeting and hot, managed to drag his attention from the surrounding people. He narrowed his gaze on her, considering her in silence even as the chanting for more grew louder... and then suddenly pulled her close. "Easy," he told her, "simply imagine the face of the person you want to hurt the most," words chased by a short laugh and rough press of his mouth against hers.
When Rabastan tensed, the urge to join in the fray and fight him rose in her though she tamped it down (for however high and lofty she was, she would not tarnish the credibility of a crowd that seemed to love him so). The question - Me? - was drowned in the scorching press of his lips against hers, even as she wrapped her arms around his neck and gave just as fiercely as she received.
In that moment, that he was locked in such a grip with his brother's wife resonated only faintly against his conscious. The heights of energy these fights brought to him were always shadowed by a darker impulse, one that was easy enough for him to lose himself in.
Fortunately -- for himself most of all, though he would not see it as such -- the person who had stepped into the ring, fresh and eager to fight, knew that there was but one rule to this particular match -- and waiting for the opponent to ready himself was not one of them.
As Bellatrix pulled back - a mixture of pleased surprise and bloodlust spattered across her features - she felt the tell-tale whiz of a fist passing her ear to land somewhere in the midst of Rabastan's face. Turning abruptly, knowing neither if Rabastan dodged the first nor if he were knocked out on the ground, she sized up this opponent in half a second and strode forward, throwing the full measure of her weight into a punch aimed at the pugilist's throat.
-- and he, expecting anyone other than Rabastan's lady friend to retaliate with a strike, was easily felled by Bellatrix, toppling heavily to the ground. The thud of the body reverberated dully across the cement, a leaden tremor that Rabastan felt crawl against the length of his spine as he lay staring at the ceiling, unresponsive to the vocal reactions of Bellatrix's attack.
Watching the man fall to the ground, limbs akimbo, was exhilarating. Victory swelled in her throat, even as she turned and seeing Rabastan upon the ground, knelt to wipe away a trickle of blood from a cut upon his brow. She gave him a smile - brief, conspiratorial - and offered her hand. "C'mon, then. Up you get."
It took him a moment -- a long moment -- to clear the blurriness from the edges of his vision. When sound returned in a great swelling cacophony, he dragged his gaze from the ceiling and locked it on Bellatrix... and then her hand, which he stared blankly at before, with a grunt of pain, he grabbed it with a blood and sweat-slicked hand of his own.
And then jerked her in closer to hiss, "This was a mistake," before using her weight to haul himself back to his feet.
"You're welcome," she hissed in return, just as the joy drained from her face and she staggered beneath helping him rise to his feet. She gave a shrug to the referee, who looked at her as if she would be the next pugilist, a vague shove at Rabastan and then turned to stalk through the crowd that simply itched for another blood letting.