Fic: Pains of the Past (Harry/Lance)
Title: Pain of the Past, Be Healed
Author: loonie_lupin (ff. net)/nilitara (livejournal)
Fandom: HP, Bones
Rating: PG
Summary: Lance wasn’t as ready as he thought when time came to hear Harry’s story.
For: crossovers100
Prompt: 074. Dark
Disclaimer: The characters are the property of their respective creator. I own nothing.
074. Dark.
With Harry’s biggest secret out there, there really wasn’t anything else for him to bother hiding from Lance. Up to now, he had had to be careful about what he said, the confessions he made, so not to reveal the existence of magic. That had been the one and only reason for all the half-truths and hidden things standing between them. It had never been that Harry didn’t want to tell Lance about his past; it was that it had been better for everyone involved that he didn’t know the existence of another world until there was no choice but to tell him.
Now, Lance knew all about it and, while it was a relief for Harry not to be forced to hide things from him, it really hadn’t been the way he had wanted for him to find out. It would probably have gone better if he had sat his boyfriend down and told him everything but, unfortunately, fate had other plans and there was nothing he could do about it now. It was done and he was free, at least, to recount his whole story to Lance.
How to say it, though? Harry was going to have to improvise. Thankfully, he had always been better at improvisation than planning.
“I have a story to tell you,” Harry began once Lance was home with him that night.
It had been a very long couple of days, with all the debriefing concerning the hostage situations and its resolution, but it was done and they had been given a two-day leave to deal with the repercussion of their discovery the way they needed to.
Lance sat down gingerly on the sofa, close to Harry, looking at him. His opinion of his boyfriend hadn’t been changed because of what he had leant. Harry was still the same person he had gotten to know all along and the existence of magic didn’t make him different, it just explained so many things he had noticed: Harry’s way of keeping some things quiet when he was so open about others, so much was explained and he would apparently learn more now.
He knew that it was Harry’s way of asking forgiveness about what he perceived to be a wrong doing but he really didn’t need to atone for anything.
“Harry,” Lance begun. “I know I’ve been curious before, but you don’t owe me anything. You can tell me when you’re ready. I don’t want you to feel obligated because of what happened.”
Oh, how it must have cost Lance to say that. Harry knew that his boyfriend had wanted to know ever since the beginning and he also knew the psychologist in him must have been screaming at him that when somebody offered to talk, you listened, that talking was always the right solution no matter how much people seemed to hate it. Still, it warmed Harry’s heart that Lance wanted to give him the choice.
“Don’t worry,” Harry countered, smiling. “I’ve wanted to tell you for a while. I just couldn’t since you weren’t aware of the magical world.”
Lance returned the smile. That changed things. If Harry really wished to tell him, then he wanted to know immediately. He was going to listen to the whole story and offer comfort when needed. He would even try not to be too much of a psychologist while he was going it. He knew that he sometimes had trouble separating his jobs from his private life and he didn’t want to make the same mistake with Harry.
He opened his ears and his heart, ready to listen to what Harry had to tell him. Except that he was far from ready, would probably never have been ready to hear anything like that. The more Harry told him, the less Lance could understand how the young man had turned out as well balanced as he had. It was simple incredible, the things Harry had gone through and survived, with most of his sanity intact.
Most people who had such a dark past tended to become monsters themselves. Not all of them, of course, he wasn’t going to make such a generalization. God knew that his own past wasn’t all sunshine and daisies, but Harry - Harry had so much hurt, so much pain. First with his family, if you could call them family, then in the war - and seventeen was way too young to have to face such things. Lance couldn’t understand, couldn’t imagine.
He was so lost in his thoughts that it was only when he felt Harry touch his cheek that he realized his boyfriend had stopped talking. And only when he felt his stroke his skin with an infinite amount of tenderness, did Lance realize that he was crying silently, crying for what a child had to endure all these years ago.
Harry’s eyes were brilliant but no tears fell from them and, for Lance, it added a more tragic dimension because anyone who could relate such a saddening tale about themselves without shedding a tear had likely cried way too much in the past. He shook silently. How had Harry been capable of staying normal?
“Am I really? Because there are a lot of people who would disagree with that assessment.”
The question startled Lance and he realized he had said that last sentence out loud. In another situation, he would have blushed about voicing his thoughts with meaning to but the situation was simply too serious and, finding his voice amidst the knot in his throat, he looked at Harry.
“How can you act so carefree, so happy, when all of this has happened?”
This was what Lance wanted to know. How could Harry be such a good liar that he, a trained psychologist, had never noticed the magnitude of what Harry was hiding behind his façade? He had known there was something Harry was keeping secret but not anything with such a psychological impact.
“But I am happy, Lance,” Harry said, such love shining in his eyes that Lance found himself paralyzed. “I can’t change my past and I’ve accepted that. I try to push it away when I can, at least the hardest parts, but I’ve to think about the present, about the future. And I’m happy now. You make me happy.”
And Lance forgot all composure and threw himself in Harry’s arm, needing to be close to him. His boyfriend put his arms around him, wanting to comfort him and, as he kissed the top of his head, he murmured: “You make me happier than I’ve ever been.”
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