(no subject)
Lucius Malfoy awakes to a woman kissing his chest. He glances down and smiles at her, her hair has long since turned from its vibrant auburn to a cool gray streaked and thinning. He knows she’s self-conscious about it, but he doesn’t care. Not in the least. To him, for always, Esme is that bright-eyed girl who kissed him once, twice, three times on the lips and told him that from henceforth she’d be his and he was hers. He was nine, and she was twelve. When his father found out about the puppy love, he cut the vacation to Bordeaux short and brought the family back to England. If Lucius had obeyed his father, that might have been the last he saw of her but as it was, he didn’t and when Lucius was 15 he ran away from home. He spent two years looking for her, and then two years convince her they were meant for each other.
They were never married because they were too poor to afford the license but in the decades since then, Lucius never so much as looked at another woman. Now here they were, both creeping into their seventies living in a warm but humble flat in the entertainment district. Lucius smiles at her, pulling her by her shoulders and kissing her on the nose before sliding out the bed. His bare feet met the cold floor painfully, sending the last bit of dreams into a far corner of his mind. Moving slowly at first, to warm muscles that were too old to be still dancing after all these years. His left leg reacted slower then his right, more stiffly, about ten years ago he was in a car accident that shattered the bones something fierce but he rebounded more or less even though it had put an end to his career.
He teaches now a little, piano or tap, to keep the income coming but like his days in the theater or nightclubs the work is sporadic. Esme works in one of the big hotels as a maid and the money is enough for their humble means. They’re not rich folks, but they’re happy and their days are filled with song.
He dances away from her now because Esme likes watching her man move slowly: one, two, three across the floor of their apartment to the small kitchen.
“You had another dream.” She says softly, watching him with her bright eyes. “About Outside, Over There.”
Lucius pretends not to recognize the look even though he knew from her tone and her words what she’s talking about. He tried to tell her once, where he came from and why he had to leave. He told her his parents were great sorcerers, and that he was a prince. He told her that he went to a school where they taught magic, and how he was in the House that valued purity of blood and ambition. He told her about flying brooms, and carpets, dragons and giants. He told her he had a wand once and showed it to her, Elm with Dragon Heartstring but how he must never use it or else his father would find him and their lives would be…difficult.
She had stared at him with her bright, quizzical eyes and finally nodded. She called him a Changeling then: one of those fairy children that replace human children stolen from their families. She labeled that whole world he laid out for her “Outside, Over There” after a story she read as a kid.
Lucius never knew if she believed him or indulged him.
“What’s happening to the other Luci?” She asks, following him to the kitchen. She knows he’s had dreams of his other world all his life, sometimes pleasant dreams like children or grandchildren (they have none in real life thanks to cancer) and sometimes nightmares like wars and werewolves. When Lucius had his car crash, he dreamed of being caved in at a great building. She remembered once, the day he came home from Chinatown with a small wood dragon in his pocket and dreamed he had a son named Draco.
“I think I’m dying.” He says idly.
Esme frowns, taking her place on the other side of the kitchen counter and drinking the apple juice he poured for himself. He doesn’t like orange. His dreams scare her even though she’d never tell him that, because they seem so real to Lucius. She sees it in his eyes. “From what?”
“From what my father died from.” Esme remembers that night too. Lucius was crying in his sleep, screaming for his father. It was the only time she remembered Lucius ever talking about his family as something real and not just characters in his fairy tales. She reaches over, taking his hand and brushing his knuckles with her thumb. “Is my other husband hurting?” She asks after she got her courage back. “Are you ready to go?”
“…His son.” Lucius drags the word out from his lips. She wondered for a moment if he meant Silas or Draco. She knows all the characters by heart after all: these people of Lucius’ dream. “His son doesn’t want him to go.”
“I wouldn’t either.” Esme says after a long time. “I mean look at you…I couldn’t say goodbye to you.”
Lucius quirks an eyebrow as he smiles. “I’m hardly the man in the dream.” He says simply, half in apology and half in defense. She laughs again because they have had this talk for a long time. Esme got early on he had come from money; Lucius had problems hiding that part of himself. He was forever staring into shop windows, and dragging his hands across cashmeres wistfully. He had a way of talking to people that made you believe you were the only one in the world and he wanted to spend his whole life listening to you. He could have been a politician; he would have made a wonderful aristocrat. “I wouldn’t want that sort of man as a father. I had one.”
She frowns a bit doesn’t pull away. The apple juice swishing in the glass is the only sound for a long time. “Are you going to go anyways?”
“Yes.” He says after a long moment. “I think I am.”
“Why?”
“You make death sound like it’s a choice, Esme.”
“Well, husband.” She calls him husband because he isn’t. “It’s a dream…you can make things not happen in dreams. It doesn’t happen often but you can. That’s the wonders of dreams. You can pretend in them.” There’s another beat. “Lucius?” She’d never call him Luci. “Do you regret me?”
The question stops him cold, the egg hits the skillet and sizzles. “Esme?”
“Choosing me, this,” She makes a sweeping movement towards their small apartment from the cane he picked up in one of those bazaars because he thought it was so outlandish, to the painting one of his students painted him of a small phoenix soaring towards a blue clear sky. “Instead of where you came from.”
“Esme…”
“You can, you know.” She interrupted him; her bright eyes lifted her head to meet him. “I think you do. That’s why you have these dreams.”
“Don’t be silly, I love you.”
“You can love someone and still regret having them. It’s not fair, or nice but you can.”
“Esme, don’t be foolish. I’m proud of my choices and I stand by them.” He looked up then, a soft teasing smile playing on his lips. “I’ll stand by you…”
“You can do that too. I’m not going anywhere, Lucius.” She quiets now, drinking down the last of the apple juice. “It’s just…sometimes I think you created this whole other world in your dreams, as an escape. I don’t mind. They sound wonderful, and beautiful.” She looks up, soft smile teasing. Her eyes were sad. He hated himself because of her tears. “And I don’t love you any less if you sometimes regret losing your family for me. I don’t know why you had to, but you did…and I’m happy you choose me but, I know you hate your father…”
“I don’t hate my father.”
“You can hate someone and still love them Lucius. I know how important family is, and even if I don’t know why…I know you thought you had to walk away from them to be with me. I’m…I’m okay with that. I’m a little overjoyed you choose me. We’ve had a good life together. There’s nothing in it, I would trade for the world.” Her eyes dimmed even more. “But…well, sometimes I think you’ve regretted it. So you created this big other world…where you’re a father and a grandfather, but instead of being happy, you’re eloquent, you’re pretty.”
Lucius begins to scramble his eggs.
“But no.” She says finally, watching her husband who isn’t really her husband, just the man she’s spent forever with. “You won’t tell me you’re sorry you choose me, or that sometimes you’re disappointed in me because you don’t want me to be unhappy because I’m all you have in the world, because you’re a gentleman.” She leans over, kissing his forehead, and ran a hand over his short white hair, playing with the fuzz. “Silly man, don’t you realize if you keep pretending like nothing’s wrong, one day you’re going to wake up hating me.”
“I’d die before I do that.”
Lucius wakes up struggling for air. He runs a hand over his chest, and inhales sharply from the pain. He sits up slowly, and looks around his room in the Manor, not really recognizing it. They’re two shadows by the door outside, over there, where Bella and Silas keep vigil. He looks down at his hands and arms and winces from the angry red rashes that have turned white from time. He tries to breath, but coughs instead and it feels like there are spider webs inside his lungs, wrapping them tight together and refusing to let them expand.
He had another of his dreams; the ones he never tells anyone about. He’s had them off and on since he was sixteen when he-
Lucius Malfoy doesn’t continue that train of thought; instead he reaches for the pitcher and pours himself another drink.