(Start this one after the page break for intended influence)
(Transgender - Crystal Castles)
Gentle wisps of candle flame warmth dripped in heavy rhythm around the Room.
One flicker,
two pops,
one silent sizzling breath.
Our heated bodies had found comfort among each other, resting atop the few cushions we had managed to pull from the surrounding furniture and pile on the floor. Sebastian lay on his right side, hand propped up and pressing into his reddened cheek. I had nestled myself as close as I could facing him, my breathing slowed but my heart still leaping. My left arm was curled under a pillow and my head propped against it.
My lips tingled - kiss swollen and warm while Sebastian's rough fingers traced lazy lines across them and over my cheeks. His deep brown eyes followed the movement and if I looked close enough, there lay a miniature version of me - red cheeked and entirely unkept. Yet somehow, within his eyes, my features were softer, my smile brighter, my heart stronger.
Oh to be loved by a heart so pure.
How could I ever be deserving?
The scars of my touch on Sebastian's skin reminded me that I never would.
But perhaps I can try?
The longing in my chest had burned to a dull ache, waiting and pulsing through my body in anticipation for what I was to try the moment following his absence.
It was a terrible want to wish him to go, but a deeper need to want him to stay.
So I said nothing.
Sebastian, the empath extraordinaire, watched me closely. "What are you thinking about my cabbage?" His voice low, his stare deep.
I feared the impossibility of his understanding. "Nothing."
He tapped my temple and grinned gently. "That can't be true, there's smoke coming out your ears."
I rolled my eyes and swat his hand away but revealed nothing more.
Sebastian only grinned brighter, returning his thumb to my bottom lip and moving it up and down as if I were talking while speaking from the side of his mouth in a pitch entirely too high. "Oh I'm just thinking about this incredibly dazzling and unquestionably exquisite Slytherin whose dueling skills are positively wicked..."
I pulled at his wrist but he continued to move my lip as best he could, laughing through the rest of his utterly ridiculous impression of me. "...he's so handsome and always gives me a proper-"
I dipped my head forward sharply, finally pulling away from his grasp and hiding my face in the crook of his neck, smothering my giggles. His own laughter vibrated across my nose.
"You're ridiculous." I mumbled to his skin.
"I'm hilarious."
I pressed a quiet kiss to a cluster of freckles on his neck.
Sebastian took a deep breath in, a small shiver twisting over his skin.
"Barlowe..."
"Sallow."
One candle crackled in the distance.
"I hope by now you know you can tell me anything."
"I know." I nodded, letting the tip of my nose brush over little freckled constellations. "I just- have work I need to do, but-"
"-but you don't want to ask the most dazzling Slytherin you've ever laid eyes on to leave?"
I smiled and nodded again.
"I'm flattered." He tipped his chin down as best he could and pressed a small kiss to my forehead. "You know... I'll be as quiet as a Demiguise while you work-"
"-I just... won't be able to concentrate if you're here." I swallowed, quickly trying to grasp the sliver of opportunity. I kissed his neck again. "You distract me. And I'm sure I distract you too."
Not entirely a lie.
What a cruel manipulation lust is.
Sebastian hummed. "You have no idea what you do to me sweetheart." He tilted my chin up and pressed his lips to mine.
The sting in my heart my only tug to finally pull away again.
----
Our clothes returned over our bones and the heat of our skin finally cooled, Sebastian pressed one final kiss to my head, the stones already shifting into the doorway once more.
"Don't stay up too late sweetheart. Can't have you getting smarter than me." He hugged me tighter, his words brushing the shell of my ear, a whisper. "I love you."
And then he was gone.
Bricks piled in place. The final click of stone seeming to whip louder and deeper than I'd heard it before - sealed impossibly tight.
I was alone.
I could feel my hands shaking, my bones bracing and the cold weighted metal of the necklace kissing my collarbone in absence of Sebastian's lips.
With hasty, hurried, fumbling fingers I pulled the necklace from its noose, worried that if I waited a moment longer my courage would crumble and I'd be left to the danger and exposure of my chaos around those I loved.
Thumbing through my bag and shoving aside stacks of books I pulled my wand and cleared a space at the center of the room, a hardened place to dig my heels inwards.
Something thrummed in my chest an unidentifiable tangle of emotions clinging to my every breath.
Anxious?
Excited?
Sad?
Terrified?
Angry?
The tip of my wand shook harder as I placed it to the delicate skin between my collarbones, the hard familiarity of my wand digging painfully into my palm as I held it firm. My left hand out at my hip, necklace clutched between whitened knuckles.
In an attempt to calm my pounding heart and ease the unstable trembling, I counted as I had so often done to ease my terrors at the beginning of the year.
One table
three pillows
ten candles to my right
two near my feet
Over and over I counted, focusing in on my breathing
ignoring the ache
ignoring the emotions.
I let instinct take over, let the warmth of my magic trickle up my veins and rip apart my lungs as it wound its way to my fingers, under my nails and between the splinters of wood in my hand.
I allowed myself one shaky breath in
and then I began.
Flickers of two nights danced at the tip of my wand.
The first, the deaths
The second, the life
Everything was dull
and then suddenly
pain exploded in fevered waves.
Sparking,
endless heat warmed my collarbones.
A pooling,
freezing cold painted my ribs.
Bright, burning white light sparked against my skin and I hissed, slamming my eyes shut tight.
I continued to pull, to grit my teeth, to dare to hope.
It was an odd sort of sensation - feeling the electricity of the magic braced against my fingertips while also feeling the tug at my ribs and the deep rooted darkness just below.
Aching,
pounding,
stabbing.
My heart screamed at the effort.
The little necklace in my palm seemed to jump excitedly and I held it up, watching through squinted eyes as the little marble-like center pulled apart - eager and wanting.
The wisp at my neck tightened, another wisp of red braiding itself to the first, my shaking wrist struggled to pull them any further.
Cold beaded sweat dribbled over my cheek and dipped below my neck.
The pain of the curse crashed in reckless waves through my body, pulling and ripping each bone of my ribs in opposite directions.
I pulled harder
the pain pulled harder still
until finally the smallest of twisting twirling red and white wispy braids slipped from my chest and knotted themselves around the edge of my wand- a pulsing light and silent relief before slipping into the little necklace in a dim flicker as strong as a candle flame behind twenty panes of glass.
Air was hard to swallow
breaths were hard to manage.
Dizziness threaded itself through my eyelashes.
I knew I was far from finished, the ache of the curse still rumbled within, but for the briefest of moments, my body was mine again.
Nothing hurt or threatened to hurt.
And then all at once, as if challenged, the darkness inside dug its claws through my ribs and ripped.
It ripped
and ripped
and ripped until the pain seared itself in blinding red across my eyes and a scream unidentifiable tumbled through the room.
Something sharp twisted in my gut.
Pain crashed against my skin, tore at my limbs and pounded through my skull - a body sealed bellow the unrelenting ocean.
Again
and again
and again.
Drowning me over and over.
And yet, through it all, the darkness beckoned.
The darkness soothed.
The darkness promised.
A familiarity and comfort tingling just behind the pain.
The waves crushed me over and over again and though I knew I should fight, knew I should hold my breath,
the darkness remained
an overwhelming, calling peace - a release that swore to soothe my aching lungs.
I could feel my consciousness slipping, dipping down and growing with the dark but there was little I could do to fight the weight anymore.
Little I could do to fight the anger.
And then I felt it.
A calm beneath the chaos
brushing through my hair,
braiding it strand by strand.
Mother?
I could feel her.
Could feel them, my parents, smiling and warm and home.
I'm home.
Tattered fear knew nothing of the weight that lifted from my soul, reunited with the overwhelming relief of being hugged by them once more.
I'm home.
I was vaguely aware of the heat in my palm, the glowing warmth of a pulsing, sparking pendant shining faintly through a cloud of black. My skin just below invisible, air to wind, smoke to flame.
Nothing else mattered.
Darkness roamed,
stars touched.
I'm home.
My body was no longer mine. My heart no longer pumped with blood but years of longing strung out and devouring,
consuming,
destroying.
And I was happy.
I was home.
I was free.
"ATLEY!"