Fade Into You

"Draco! I am not going to let you waste away in here. Get up and get dressed. Now," Narcissa said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Draco rolled over, pulling his silk and cashmere covers up over his head. It had been seven days since his father had been Kissed. Seven days, or at least that's what he thought. The days had all blurred together when he'd locked himself in his room, only taking bites of his meals when his mum came up to badger him about it.

It had been idealistic for him to think that there was any possibility that his father wouldn't be held accountable for his crimes. He was dead to rights being caught in the Ministry.

Potter had testified on Draco's behalf as to the coercion that took place to get Draco to join the Death Eaters. Were it not for his mum sitting tearfully in the courtroom, begging him not to leave her completely alone in this world, Draco would've objected simply to spite the speccy git. But he hadn't, and the court found that he had committed all of his war crimes under duress.

Draco was set free-- set free to watch his father's soul sucked out of him. The shock and burden of the sight left Draco recoiling into himself, leaving the responsibilities of the manor, and adulthood, to his mum.

"Draco! Did you hear me? Get up. I've invited your friend over. He'll be here in an hour. Now get up, and get dressed," said Narcissa.

She yanked back the covers, leaving Draco pale and squirming away from the light.

"I don't have any friends."

Crabbe and Goyle had been literally too stupid to live, and most everyone else disavowed any knowledge of Draco for their own purposes. They'd be back once the storm blew over, and Draco would make them grovel to repent their crimes.

Narcissa sat on the bed, smelling of lavender and sweets. Her pale hair dropped over her shoulders and cascaded down to tickle the side of Draco's face when she leaned in to frown at him. Her fingers slid over his cheeks as she inspected the dark circles under his eyes, her expression telling him that he wasn't passing muster.

"Oh, Draco, of course you have friends. You are a charming young man who has always had plenty of friends. Mr Theodore Nott enquired after your welfare, and rather than say, I invited him over for tea."

He suddenly felt very small and his breath left him. The name "Theodore Nott" hit him like a kick to the stomach. While most people would be unnerved that Nott was one of Voldemort's favorite young prodigies, that was not what set Draco on edge about him coming over. What his mum didn't understand, what Draco could never, ever tell her, was what it was like to be around Nott. He'd never been the most attractive of fellows, and he was quiet and kept to himself. What Nott did have, when he did speak, was an unerring ability to make the perfectly unreasonable seem possible.

Closing his eyes, Draco pushed away all of the unclean thoughts, all of the dirty, horrid things he'd done -- that he'd let be done to him -- while stuck in Nott's web. None of those thoughts belonged anywhere near his mum, nowhere near her white dress, the bright, airy room and this perfectly sane, perfectly beautiful spring day.

"Tell him I'm ill," said Draco, breathlessly.

"I will not!" said Narcissa. "You will get up, you will get washed, and you will have tea with your friend."

She stood up and pointed at the bathroom door. Draco looked up at her, his pulse racing, body already tense and anxious.

"Unless you have a specific reason for not wanting to see him," she said gently, but her tone was edgy, her face worried as it had been when she thought he might go to Azkaban.

Narcissa must've believed Draco was on the verge of cracking up. She had no idea how close he thought he had been the last time he'd seen Nott.

"I think you should talk to somebody, Draco. For me."

He stood, like a man condemned, and wrapped his arms around her as if saying goodbye.

"For you."

--

Draco stood, staring out of the window, waiting with bated breath and pounding heart to see that familiar, lanky form walking up the pathway to his door -- the devil with floppy brown hair, large, staring eyes, and the most impeccable manners. He stood idly by while Theo charmed his mum, removed his hat, and even spoke respectfully to the house-elves.

It wasn't hard to fathom how he'd avoided Azkaban: a quiet, coy smile, a few million Galleons, a plea that surely he must've been under the Imperius curse to have done anything so horrid. They never did recover Hermione Granger's body. They never would.

That was a dinner invitation that Draco did not regret declining, but he'd heard from others that her heart was quite flavorful and well-prepared.

A wink and a smile, and Draco's breath left him. Nott's hand was on his arm, steering ever-so-politely to the parlor.

"I asked your mum if we couldn't have tea alone. Some things go so much better when it's just two gents, don't you think?" asked Nott.

One minute Draco was outside of the parlor, thinking of a polite way to object and implore his mother to join them, and the next, Theo was at the door, charming it shut after the house-elves had delivered the tea, scones, and petit fours on a glinting silver platter.

The parlor always seemed dark to Draco, and when the door shut, it felt as if it were suddenly midnight, and he was a very young man up way past his bedtime. Nott was far too chipper sitting on the settee, patting the spot next to him.

Draco tensed, wanting to object that his seat was just fine, but Nott's indulgent, knowing smile made Draco feel as if he were being paranoid.

"It's just tea, Draco. I'm here to see you. Just come and have a seat," he said, patting the green velvet against the weft. It left fingerprints, marks that could easily be rubbed out of fabric, but Draco would always know were there. Indelible. Undefined. Impossible to ignore.

It was just tea. Draco felt foolish resisting a change of seats and carried his tea with him to sit with him.

That was when the touching started.

"There are so few like us, Draco, so few that I can talk to about what all really did happen without having to worry," Nott said, twirling his fingers at the base of Draco's neck, making him shiver as the sensation caused his skin to gooseflesh. "It's so difficult knowing who to trust. This war has made orphans and villains of us all, hasn't it?"

"I don't want to talk about it," said Draco.

He closed his eyes as Theo's soft hand stroked his cheek. His touches were so soothing, so reassuring. He knew just how much pressure to apply and where to soothe to make everything so beautiful, so good.

But Theo's touch had another side-- a darker, painful side-- a side that Draco had observed during the war. A touch that taught lessons that Draco was afraid that he couldn't unlearn.

--

"It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure, Draco. The Marquis de Sade said that. Do you know who he is?" Theo had asked Draco once over dinner in the castle that Voldemort had obtained for his Death Eaters to live in since so many of them had been exposed.

That was the night that Theo showed Draco what it was he did for Voldemort. He'd followed him with a torch to the bowels of the castle, where Remus Lupin was strung up, wrists infected from contact to silver, body scarred from the shiny instruments that hung on the walls in sinister curves.

"Oh, I have many weapons, but the mind is the greatest of them. The mind and the wand. I have brought him great pain, but I have brought him great pleasure, haven't I?" asked Theo as he crossed to Lupin, who looked up at Theo, his golden eyes filled with conflicting emotions of lust and rage.

Lupin's cock was hard, the only part of him that still looked alive.

"He's telling you what the Order is doing?" asked Draco, looking away with a blush.

In an instant, Theo was next to him, his finger curling under Draco's chin.

"One is never so dangerous when one has no shame, than when one has grown too old to blush," Theo quoted to Draco with a wry smile. "You are not dangerous, I do not think, but I show you my dark places not to scare you, but because there are not, and never will there be, such as we are in this life. I show you, because I want to share this with you."

He pulled a blade from the wall, dragging the silver tip along Lupin's shoulder and only stopping when the man sounded on the verge of a scream. Theo followed it with a soft spell that soothed and smoothed it over, and Lupin appeared relieved, sagging in his bonds, body loose, all pain gone, after the focused rush of adrenaline.

Theo repeated it while Draco watched the way that Lupin's cock twitched and waned, how Theo moved faster, teasing and tormenting him, the way Lupin groaned, the way Theo denied him any sort of gratification. Sometimes Lupin begged for death, sometimes he wished that he would be killed.

When Theo severed his tendons, Lupin's pleas were so visceral and miserable that Draco almost obliged him, wanting to put the poor man out of his misery, but then Theo soothed him, healed him, and Lupin was coming. He was babbling about Hermione Granger, about the Burrow, about things that he shouldn't have.

Draco stood and watched the whole ordeal. It had taken hours. In the end, Theo ended Lupin in a green flash of light, his eyes bright and watery with tears. Theo wrapped his arms tightly around Draco with a few quiet sobs that sounded like regret.

Instead, Theo said, "I will miss him. He was so beautiful."

"Then why did you kill him?" asked Draco, too shocked and overwhelmed to even scream.

"Because he broke. Because he did the one thing that he would not let anyone do: he betrayed his friends. There is nothing left of him now," said Theo, drying his eyes. "But there it is. Now you know what I do. Now you know part of me, and I wish to know part of you."

Though the way that Theo leered at him frightened him, he could think of no reason why he couldn't, or shouldn't, let Theo know part of him.

--

It had started out simply enough, trading secrets, having dinner. Theo managed to convince Voldemort that Draco wasn't simply cannon fodder, and Draco helped Theo in the dungeons. The things he saw gave him nightmares, and Theo slept with him, soothing him, cooing over him, telling him that he would be fine, that he was protected, always protected from those dark things in the basement, from those dark things in himself.

"Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all; ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust."

Theo was quoting de Sade again, and Draco knew that meant that he was going to learn another lesson.

He was in the basement, spread out over one of the jointed metal tables, made for flexibility when handling the human body. It was cold at first, warming to his skin. He wasn't in trouble, but for the fact that he was lying naked on a table with a madman trying to teach him something.

"You must sate your lust to have the passion to do what it is that I do here, and you must have more passion if you are to help me with what needs doing. Lust, passion, pleasure and pain. These are your tools," said Theo as he stood between Draco's spread legs, the table swinging out to force his thighs further apart so Theo could stand between them.

His prick hung loosely through the table, the skin on his abdomen pinched at one of the many mechanical folds in the furniture – one could fold the table in any way one wanted, depending on what one wanted to do. Where furniture failed, magic picked up the slack.

Draco wondered how he'd gotten talked into coming down here. Incisions had been made in strategic places to break down his resolve. Theo had smoothed them over, soothed them with his hands, his lips, his tongue till they became all that he could feel, all he remembered. Now he was here, in way over his head and he had no idea how it had happened.

Theo had found the cracks in his soul, his insecurities; his vanity. He found all of the doors in Draco that were closed and methodically opened them, leading him to this place -- to Draco sprawled out with his legs open in the hopes of pleasing Theo, of doing what he wanted so that Draco could escape himself. Draco wanted to hide from all of this behind Theo. Only Theo could protect him. Only Theo could bring him back.

He felt Theo's fingers probing inside of him before he felt the kisses down his back. Draco knew that as uncomfortable as the fingers inside of him were -- and given that he had not done this before, they were terribly uncomfortable -- it was about to get much, much worse.

Each tender stroke seemed to have a price. At each sweet word, Theo was mentally noting what piece of flesh he'd take for it. Draco couldn't keep account, didn't want to keep account. He just needed this, needed to give whatever Theo would take from him, and needed Theo to make the equation balance.

His fingers twisted, curling, and Draco's hips rose up with him, trying to find that spot again, demanding it be touched. Theo kissed his neck, kissed his back.

"Do you hate me, Draco?" he asked, sliding a third finger, dripping with lubricant, into him.

It wasn't a question that should've been difficult to answer. He'd dragged Draco down here, made him work here, made him see these things, and was now filling him with his fingers. He found he didn't know what he felt for Theo, beyond a strange affection and immense need. He needed Theo's fingers inside of him, his prick inside of him, for whatever he'd planned to happen with that knife to happen, because in Theo was the only place he'd found solace to do what needed to be done.

"I need you."

Draco looked over his shoulder to see if that was the right answer, and Theo smiled.

"I love you," Theo said quietly.

His withdrawing fingers made Draco's body tense in anticipation for what was coming next. His pulse raced and the edges of his vision went dark. He focused only on Theo, his dark lashes fluttering over his still boyish face, and then the push, the splitting open of his arse parting steadily for Theo, lodging him deep and uncomfortably inside of him.

Draco brought both arms up, interlacing his fingers behind his neck as he pressed his forehead against the metal, bracing himself. The table squealed with every movement. He sobbed from how much bigger Theo was than three fingers. He was stretched, demanded more and more of, remembering what Theo had said about pain giving pleasure, and he surrendered to it, because he knew that this would make Theo happy.

Out of the corner of his eye, Draco saw the glimmer of a blade and felt the first cut. It felt deep, as if Theo were sawing into his body, stabbing him, dragging over his spine. Draco shrieked and screamed as one hand sliced, and the other pinned Draco's head down by his neck. Theo was fully inside of him, restricting his leg movements. He was stuck, pinned to have his back carved up.

"You're going to be so beautiful, Draco. So beautiful. You'll see."

--

"Very well, we don't have to talk about that," said Theo. He finished his tea and set it aside. "I was quite sad to read about your father. I do hope enough time has passed, but..."

Draco hated himself for it, but Theo was there, and his voice, his fingers, his body were so soothing when he wanted them to be. When Draco couldn't face the hurt or anger alone, they would and could be, for a price.

"Oh, my darling boy, I missed you. I thought you might need me," Theo cooed, kissing over his shiny blond head.

Theo's hands slipped under his robes, managing to bypass the buttons as if they were under the same spell as Draco was anytime Theo was near.

"I feel it. You still have it, don't you? My mark. You still belong to me."

Draco froze and shivered, like ice down his spine, and yet also a strange thrill, like a dog who's found his master. He didn't speak.

"Let me see," said Theo, his tone almost playful, but Draco knew that nothing Theo said was ever in the least bit whimsical.

"In my room."

"Very well, darling boy," said Theo.

His hands slipped away, and Draco whimpered at the loss of contact. How had he thought he would make it through grief without Theo, without this? It was all that had kept him sane as a Death Eater, and now, here he was again, predator angel leading him up the stairs to lock the door to his bedroom.

Draco had his clothes off before Theo had even removed his coat. He stood very still as Theo ran his hands possessively over his body, the way that the owner of a fine stallion might, checking for flaws, for changes, for flinching shyness.

"Oh, you vain little thing, did you put a charm on your back so no one would see?"

Draco felt the brush of magic and knew that the scars on his back had been revealed. He looked over his shoulder to the mirror, appreciating the artistry that it took to carve a Thestral into his back, the lines deeper in some areas than others, making it like a relief painting, all in shades of pink and white skin.

"But there it is, and you are still mine," Theo said, sliding his fingers over his creation.

Theo sank to his knees in front of Draco then, nuzzling his cock slowly.

"You were very good to keep it. Very good. Very strong and brave to have made it through the war and the loss of your father. But you are mine above all of that, aren't you? You belong to me, and I say that you are strong enough."

Theo's mouth was so rich and so warm, and he bid Draco to fuck it mercilessly. Draco grabbed the back of Theo's head and took him, bucking his anger, his frustration, all of the hurt over what he'd seen, what had gone on, jamming his cock down the back of Theo's throat, and Theo took it. He didn't complain. His eyes watered, but he gazed adoringly up at Draco, letting him do as pleased him until Draco could hold on no more.

Draco tightened his fist in Theo's hair as he came, keeping his cock jammed deep inside of him, spurting down the back of his throat. Theo kissed it when he was finished, kissed his thighs and turned Draco around to bend him over the bed.

He sank into Draco easily after lubing himself up, and Draco relaxed into the sting of entry, spreading his arms out under him, letting Theo take his hands. He groaned at the hard bites, but found his pleasure in the pain. Life was pain. One painful situation after another, one disappointment after the other. But he found the beauty in it, in the pleasure of suffering.

"You are so beautiful like this. Bruised and broken," said Theo before he viciously bit into his neck, jaws squeezing so tightly Draco worried that he was going to eat him. His teeth released only to bite him again, all down his neck, leaving the dull ache from love bites on his shoulders.

Theo fucked him deeply, ramming uncomfortably into him, taking what he wanted after giving Draco that same merciless pleasure inside of him. He came with a shout and an endearment, ever so polite, even in the throes of painful passion. He rolled off of Draco and crawled onto the bed. After making himself comfortable against the pillows, Theo pulled Draco to him, combing his hair back with his fingers as he kissed over Draco's face.

"You will keep the bite marks," said Theo.

Draco reached up to finger them.

"You will keep all of the marks I gave you, and you will wear them out in public. We are getting you fitted for new suits tomorrow," said Theo. "Your clothes are several seasons old, and we are the scions of the old families. It does not do to be out of step."

New clothes sounded good, as did order and something to do. He again needed direction, badly, and Theo was giving it to him. He smirked.

"And what shall I tell the tailors about my marks?" asked Draco.

"Tell them that you met up with a pack of wild boars," said Theo, perking a brow as he grinned his dare.

"A pack of wild boars? In London? No one would believe that!"

"You are Draco Malfoy. They won't question you directly, but they'll know you're lying and wonder why. There is nothing wrong with a little mystery. Keep them guessing. It's none of their business anyway." After a wolfish grin, he added, "Tell them you met with a hungry cannibal."

Theo waggled his brows, and for the first time in months, Draco laughed.