FIC: 'Clockwork and Cold Steel' for seahorses Recipient:seahorses Author:stonegrad Title: Clockwork and Cold Steel Rating: R Pairings: Rabastan/Harry, heavily implied Lestrangecest Word Count: 1,650 Warnings: implied incest Summary: He is a man of addictions, but this. this is more like a disease. Author's Notes: A combination of all sorts of weirdness (and Rod wasn't supposed to be part of this, but he refused to go away). Thanks to A for the beta, and K for managing to convince me that Rabastan doesn't need a dagger to be pretty, and that I really do love him anyway. Quote at the start is from Dante's Inferno.
Clockwork and Cold Steel
'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.'
One:
It's not an addiction - it's a disease; something he doesn't notice before it's advanced too much to prevent. There are no signs, no tangible symptoms to provide foreshadowing of the fate that is now befalling him - indeed, the only physical manifestation is the horribly tight, aching heat at the base of his spine that can make him hard in an instant.
Rabastan doesn't see it coming until it's a part of him, laced with every breath - doesn't know what's happening until even his heartbeat seems to thrum to the dogged mantra of a single name.
Harry. Harry. Harry. Harry.
Hell is not a word he would have used to describe Azkaban before this point - before the inexplicably sudden awareness of the madness in his blue-blooded veins - but now, he can think of no other phrase that will ever manage to do justice to the pain the ragged walls inflict upon him, simply because they are there.
And worse yet, the aesthetic in him demands perfection and beauty in even these sloping blocks of stone; though his idea of art is certainly a far cry different than that of mainstream Britain (wash the blood off your hands and come to dinner, son). Stir-crazy from the solitude, he begins to imagine such works thrown together within his own cell, broken bodies to bring a little bit of colour to the drab grey of his world - and always, always, there in the middle of them is the crouching figure of the Boy Who Lived.
It takes him a while to decide that what he wants with the boy is not, in fact, that slender neck crushed between his fingers. He doesn't want to kill Harry, no matter how many times he manages to hallucinate a scenario in which he does exactly that, with only the means of death varying from vision to vision.
No, that's not what he wants at all.
Rabastan finds it somewhat harder, however, to figure out what he does want with him.
There is lust, certainly, but not of the kind that demands the boy's thighs spread open, face to mattress, sheets in his mouth (just think, little brother; when that white back is arching, he could be anyone, anyone.) - he doesn't have any true desire to bend him over, to enter, to desecrate; his hand on his cock in the dark corners of the cell, goddamn fucking Harry on his lips, and that's enough.
Not blood, either - and that, that is what he finds strangest of all, because the glint of light off a blade is more a part of him that his own bloody name. Because life is pain is steel is who he is, always will be.
All he's ever wanted to be.
White light shatters on the walls; he presses his fingers to his lips, his head to the bars, and if he stares into the dark hallway for long enough then he can pick out the dirty-pretty angles of his brother's wrist, the slim curl of his fingers; glint of something in the eyes that watch him from the shadows of the cell opposite his own.
"Fuck," he whispers, and Rodolphus mouths the words 'fuck me' right back at him - a second later, and those lips are forming 'brother', curling upwards, one pretty finger slipping into his mouth and a pink tongue curling around it.
Rabastan laughs.
Two:
Salt on his lips, the fucking ocean in his blood, and the boom of the waves is like some great big bloody heartbeat he can't stop moving in time with; skin gone raw from the rub of wet rags that might have been clothes once, fingers to his stomach where the scars are deepest, and he can barely feel it when Rodolphus presses a palm to the jutting bones of his ribcage.
"We always have to break the beautiful things," his brother says, and Rabastan looks up at him from under the dark coils of his filthy hair; smiles and leans into the touch.
"Am I beautiful?" he asks, and wonders if the others are watching them, wonders how long it will take before they drag him out of the water and place a mask in his hands and tell him to 'bow to our Lord, you fucking tool'. Wonders if they think he's more dangerous now.
And knows, without a fragment of doubt, that he really is.
"You were," Rodolphus replies (hand on your back, fingers in your hair - 'say please, pretty'); slides his palm up over the scars - licks his lips.
Rabastan tilts his head to one side.
"I will be."
It's the only promise he's ever felt the need to keep.
Three:
He feels naked without a blade in one hand, but he likes that; likes the forbidden thrill of it, like he's suddenly become an exhibitionist - thinks that maybe, maybe, he should peel off his clothes and thrown down his wand and just pull the little bastard close so he can feel the scars, curl his fingers around that neck and squeeze.
Which is what he's going to do, when he sees him - when his gaze flickers sideways, and his lungs close over, and he can't breathe for the split second it takes Harry fucking Potter to dive under a sharp flare of spellfire; distantly, he is aware of catching his opponent under the jaw with his fist, the way the shelves rock with the weight of the boy's body as he falls back against them.
But Rabastan has something else to worry about at the moment.
His disease has a face, now, to go along with the name - it has skin that bruises so wonderfully when Rabastan catches him with one hand in back of his robes and shoves, forehead smacking the wall, cheek to the granite, and doesn't Harry look like a savior now? All dazed and unsteady and slippery in his fingers; though maybe the last is because of the blood on Rabastan's hand, and the sweat that makes the robes try to cling to the curve of the boy's back.
There are voices, growing louder, and the air is sharp with magic when Rabastan presses himself up against the Boy Who Lived, pins him between his body and the unyielding stone; brushes black hair from the curve of that neck, pale and damp in the wavering light - presses his lips to skin that tastes like so much fear and hate.
"Harry Potter," he whispers, and is suddenly intimately aware of all the places that the boy is shaking; of the press of his knuckles into the small of that back, wand jammed between them because he's fucking forgotten again about keeping it free; wishes vehemently in that instant to have a knife with him instead.
"Harry fucking goddamn pretty-boy Potter," Rabastan hisses, and feels flesh beneath his teeth as he bites; hears the startled, frightened yell ripped from the body under him, and the answering cry from somewhere behind.
Knows the spell is coming, that the battle is lost; doesn't move away.
Has nowhere to go, even if he wanted to try.
Four:
He runs fingers down the wall, mouth to the filthy stone - smiles.
"Did you miss me?" Rabastan croons, and grime clings to his lips, so close that they brush the surface as he talks; his thumb leaves a dark, bloody imprint on the pitted surface, the cut still bleeding sluggishly. He doesn't know how he got it, and doesn't care.
"Miss me, love? Did you fucking miss ol' Rabastan?"
Hair in his eyes, and he throws his head back and laughs, fondly, darkly - the rich, throaty chuckle he's used so often to lure throats to the sharpened blade of his knife (time to meet your maker, pet). "My pretty asylum at the end of the world," he whispers, and pretends that he can still hear the sea slapping on the rocks outside, even though the sound eroded long ago into a chill, throbbing silence - Rabastan closes his eyes, and leans back on his heels.
Still smiling, he runs a bloodstained palm down the hollow of his stomach, and slips it under the waistband of his trousers.
"My spiteful bitch."
Five:
Rabastan isn't there when Harry is caught, though he has a fair idea who managed it from the wry expressions of his fellows; the bitter but amused sort of 'of course it was him, who else?' twist to their lips.
Not that it matters too much, in the end.
"Blood will out," Rodolphus tells him gravely with his hair turned to wet, dirty ringlets, and a drop of salt water still clinging to his chin - Rabastan's dark eyes narrow as he descends the steps into the dungeon, throwing a look back over one shoulder; the points of his teeth show when he smiles.
Harry is not far from the entrance, half-slumped on the floor with his hands neatly tied behind his back, shirt molded tightly to his skin with sweat - Rabastan hooks his thumb in the collar, and pulls until the boy's head flops back, the pulse in his throat hammering, green eyes dazed.
There isn't much time left now.
A careless arch, the artistic curve of a spine; bones sliding against each other with a series of dull, muted clicks as Rabastan leans down - catches that full, red lower lip between his teeth, runs his tongue along it.
Bites until he can taste blood.
Harry's eyes flare wide open as the pain brings him crashing back down to reality, and his scream pitches up sharply at the end, muffled but still oh so beautifully panicked.
Rabastan pulls away, shoving the boy forwards onto the floor; his breath comes hard, ragged, like there's nowhere near enough air for him to drag into his lungs.
He wonders if Harry knows that he tastes like desperation, and laughs.
"Come, pretty, we can't keep the Dark Lord waiting."