The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most

~~~

Theodore sits up on the mattress, his eyes dark and rimmed with the sleep he\'s been denied. His wrists are thin and when he wrings his hands, he notes dully that his fingers are blue with cold and his veins sweep over his flesh like dark, jagged tattoos.

Pale light filters in from the barred window on the wall above him, but Theodore cannot tell whether it\'s dawn, or twilight. Four, five, maybe even six, days have passed, and Theodore feels his stomach caving in from hunger, his mouth dry from thirst, and his every bone aching and weak and weary. His mind is still alert though - it always has been. He presses his lips together and parts them again, musing idly that the air probably wouldn\'t taste quite so dry and stale if he had just an ounce of water.

He wonders if they\'re going to leave him in here to die. He wonders who they are, even. Two of them, in hoods and cloaks that cover their faces and obscure their figures so Theodore cannot even recall if they were male or female. He tells himself, heart like a slowing thud in his chest, that if they wanted him dead, they would have killed him already. Six syllables is all it would take.

He leans back against the cold stone wall behind him, too restless to sleep and too tired to move.

So this is what war is like.

~~~

There is a knock on the door of his cell, and Theodore rolls over on the dirty, rumpled mattress, eyes dilating in the darkness. It is night now, and the shadows trace over the walls like creeping snakes and vines. They swoop and shift almost imperceptibly. Everything is calm and quiet and still.

Theodore watches as the large iron door creaks open, hinges rusty. He sees two sets of robes sweep across the dusty floor, but he can\'t bring himself to sit up now - he\'s too weak. From where he is, he cannot see their faces. He cannot see the hint of malice in grey eyes as they shimmer like fish scales against an outline of pale skin. He cannot see the burning, copper-toned sneer playing across Italian lips. Theodore sees shadows and darkness and blurry figures lurking somewhere in between.

He hears his name, murmured lowly like a curse, hurt and betrayal snaking just under the syllables, and he recognizes the voice.

Blaise. He wonders why he isn\'t surprised.

There is a clink of metal as a tray is set, unceremoniously, on the floor in front of the mattress.

Theodore watches the water slosh out of the pitcher, and recognizes the heel of Draco Malfoy\'s Italian boots as it turns, and the two figures exit the cell.

~~~

Theodore eats the bread slowly. It is hard and stale but it\'s still food, and the water is clean, and Theodore hasn\'t eaten in days, so he\'s satisfied with whatever he can get. He doesn\'t dwell on the identity of his captors. He\'d thought they were fighting the same battle, the way they\'d agreed to. He is delirious enough on insomnia and hunger to imagine that it\'s not actually them.

When they come back, they pull Theodore to his feet, and whatever passing fantasy of denial he might have been bent on convincing himself of is lost.

He looks back and forth between two pairs of eyes; hardened grey and cold brown, foreign eyes that don\'t hold his gaze like they used to. They eyes stare right through him and he wonders if this is because he\'s become thin and gaunt beyond recognition, but knows darkly that he is not the one who has changed.

He should have expected it. He should have known.

When Draco and Blaise drop him back down onto the uncomfortable grey mattress, Theodore thinks that maybe he did know, that he knew and just pushed it to the back of his mind.

He recalls times when their muscles flinched, when their lips curled, when their eyes flitted to the ceiling. He should have known they were lying. He should have known that they would follow him in the end. He should have known he\'d end up here. Alone.

~~~

One night, as he is tracing lazy patterns in the stained mattress cover, he hears them. He knows they\'re close and thinks that they probably know it too.

He eases himself off the mattress, hearing his bones creak from the movement, and crawls over to the door of his cell, leaning back against the cold iron frame.

He listens.

For a moment there is silence, and he wonders if perhaps it was all in his imagination. But then it comes, a gasped name.

\'Draco\'.

Theodore flinches, hearing Blaise\'s voice deep and low, the way he recognizes it. And the cords in his throat tighten and strain as he hears the ta-dum-thump of bodies against the nearby wall. He hears Draco whimper - knows it\'s Draco because Malfoy used to make that sound when Theodore fucked him too - and Theodore shuts his eyes, thinking illogically that it will stop the noise.

Draco hisses darkly, a crude imitation of parseltongue that slides over Blaise\'s name and makes the \'z\' more desperate and sibilant than it ought to be.

Blaise is moving faster now. Theodore can hear his breaths thickening and shortening and Draco whines, keening out Blaise\'s name like a cry for salvation. Theodore gulps. He is too hungry and thirsty and betrayed to get hard from this.

They know he\'s listening. They have to.

Theodore hears the slap of sweat-slick palms as they clutch at back, shoulders, and arms. He listens and his mind pieces together an inaccurate picture. He imagines Draco with blond hair plastered against his pale skin with sweat. He imagines those lips parting slowly, meeting Blaise\'s in delicate suction and probing tongues and nipping teeth. He sees Blaise, in his mind, looking at Draco with a mixture of lust and frustration - but not love, never love, and he feels, for an instant, the warmth of arms around him, but then realizes coldly that it\'s just his own erection, straining angrily at his trousers. (He has a passing thought then, wondering how long they will let him keep his clothes.)

He hears Blaise\'s breath hitch. He\'s coming. He\'s coming inside fucking Malfoy, and he must be only three, maybe four meters away.

Draco follows, breath ragged and vocal cords straining wildly. Draco never was a quiet one.

Theodore thinks this must be some kind of hell. Maybe it\'s a nightmare and he needs only pinch himself to wake up. He tries, but it doesn\'t work. He\'s hard and he thinks that maybe…

He undoes his trousers in the din of his cell, and curls his fingers around his cock, stroking himself in coarse, imperfect movements. He feels his pulse quicken and his breathing become erratic.

He stops only once, sucking in air in a silent inhalation as his hand stills.

The noise in the corridor has stopped. There is nothing but silence.

~~~

Theodore sleeps long into the morning and is awakened by the sound of Blaise murmuring in Italian. The words sound sweet and thick. They must be lies or curses. Blaise\'s words never sound quite so appealing when they\'re honest.

Theodore props himself up on an elbow, eyeing Blaise suspiciously. (He wonders why it is that Blaise is still Blaise). He crosses his thin arms over his chest when Blaise doesn\'t look at him right away, and he waits.

Blaise has something in his hands, and he\'s running it over his palms, knotting it, tying it into delicate threads. Tying. It\'s rope, Theodore realizes, something flipping over in his stomach at the thought.

He sits up and studies Blaise carefully. He doesn\'t look overwhelmingly different from when Theodore last saw him, and yet, his expression is foreign. Theodore looks at Blaise now, seeing him not as Blaise, his friend, but as just Blaise. He hasn\'t reached the point of realization yet to think to call Blaise enemy.

Blaise mutters something lowly in Latin - a charm, and Theodore feels himself fall forward, against his will, his palms burning as they hit the cold floor. Blaise steps over him, shouting at him to get up. Theodore complies, and soon he\'s been ordered to face the wall, no, not like that, yes, with his hands gripping the rock that juts out in jagged patterns. Blaise moves in close, reaching around Theodore\'s waist to undo the buttons of his trousers. Theodore feels the fingers squeezing, sharp, and calloused around his cock and then they\'re gone again. Blaise whispers words in Theodore\'s ear, things like \"good boy\", and \"you want this\" - more statement than question, and Theodore shivers because now Blaise is saying truths and confessions and they sound dark and crisp and frightening.

Theodore feels Blaise move behind him, feels hot, hard heat nudge the cleft of his arse and he feels Blaise\'s body so firm and sturdy and wonders if he will break him. Theodore is all bone and cold, frail, skin that is blue and stretched thin over what insides he has left. And Blaise is tanned and solid and when Theodore feels the knotted silk (he wonders why it\'s silk, and not something rougher) loop around his neck and pull him back, taut against Blaise\'s chest, he wonders if he misjudged this, if Blaise is going to kill him now, if this was all just for show and ceremony.

Blaise laps his tongue seductively over Theodore\'s bare shoulder. Theodore bites his lip hard enough to draw blood to keep from moaning. There\'s a name caught on his tongue, one he will not allow himself to voice because he\'s already been shamed enough, had too much taken from him.

Theodore hears Blaise shrug off his robes and they slump easily to the floor, with a click of wood on stone. A wand. Theodore thinks that if he just—

Blaise grinds hard against Theodore\'s back and Theodore feels his vision swim in and out of dizzy not-focus, his head light and his muscles trembling with want and denial.

His neck is aching and his lungs are choking on what little air they have, but Theodore can see, out of the corner of his eye, the flicker of wood, of magic, and if he can just—

Blaise shoves him down so that his palms scrape along the sharp rock and he is on his knees. Theodore gasps, breathes, longs, and realizes that if he\'s going to do something, he will have to act fast, before he runs out of air.

Blaise\'s cock is rutting hard against him, the slick scent of sex oozing in the dark air of the cell and ensnaring Theodore\'s mind, distracting him from his goal.

He waits until he can feel Blaise\'s eyes close, and then he reaches, hand grappling for wood, until he feels his fingers close around the wand.

Theodore Nott has always been hesitant, logical, reasonable, but in this moment, there is no time to think, and Zabini - his enemy, is going to strangle him to death if he doesn\'t do something.

Six syllables is all it takes, he recalls, the spell hissing from his lips like a familiar nursery rhyme.

The bond slackens, and Blaise Zabini falls to the floor.

Theodore gathers himself to his feet and, reflexively, touches his fingers to the pulse point in his neck. His whole body aches, nothing more, though, than the burning mark on his left forearm.

~~~