Deerly Beloved

[chambermusicandtenpins]

deerlyBeloved: DumbleDaddy Feeling hot for teacher? Need some magic in your life? Just have a thing for men in three-piece suits? Send an owl to this handsome local wizard and let him cast a spell on you.

( Albus Dumbledore | 46 | M | wouldn't you like to know )

Comments

[followorperish]

You would rather I stay with you? Live in your house? See you every morning and every evening?

[His chest aches at the scenario and he bites his cheek as a distraction.]

I am sorry it hurt you. I am sorry I lost my temper.

[But he will never like Aberforth.]

[chambermusicandtenpins]

I would rather a lot of things had not happened. Maybe then the things you offer would have been possible.

[After all, that is exactly what he had wanted so badly once. He'd had it mapped out so clearly in his head, the way he and Gellert would live so contentedly together, always at each other's side, always one with each other.

And then Gellert had cursed Aberforth in their living room.]

You aren't sorry for harming anyone, are you.

[followorperish]

Maybe if you would be able to forgive me instead of lambast me, things between us would be better. I have not harmed Aberforth and if you want Aurelius to know you, speak with him. He will return to our world informed and my plan will be reduced to cinders.

[He won't mourn its loss either.]

I will protect myself.

[chambermusicandtenpins]

Strange how the real problem is not your actions, just my ability to forgive them.

[His voice grows more deadened, his resolve more steely. How many times will he hear Gellert dismiss what he'd done, and act as if what he'd done to Aberforth, done to all of the people he'd harmed? How many times will he stubbornly try to make him see reason and come up empty?]

If you feel no guilt for what you've done and I feel no shame for my lack of forgiveness, then I imagine there is not much more to say. Just as there is not much more left to lay claim between us.

[followorperish]

Now you're just being stubborn.

[He has never apologized for anything before. This is entirely new territory and he feels too emotional to phrase anything right.]

...Albus...

[chambermusicandtenpins]

Stubborn, or truthful? You will not change. Neither will I. We both will not budge from our aims or our boundaries.

[He looks sad and tired and resigned, because they have spent so much time arguing since they've arrived, and it has brought them nowhere. All he's gained from it are headaches and heartaches, and yet there is still some piece of him that is so very desperate to change something, even as the door shuts in his face every time.]

I want things to be different but I think I am starting to realize how foolish I am.

[followorperish]

One mistake pitted you against me; one mistake made me your foe. If I were to open myself to you again, what would stop you from taking offense to me again?

[He is a strange man - too violent and brutal by far - and unsure how to be otherwise. He has never had peace or a place to call home; Durmstrang only taught him to defend himself. His life in the great wide world has emphasized the mistakes of his childhood. Albus stands in stark contrast to all of it and he doesn't know how to meet him.]

I miss you.

[chambermusicandtenpins]

You act as if you do not do things now that I would fight against, that we are long past the days of a single mistake. If you have no desire or aim to change, then I am wasting my words on a discussion that will take us no further.

[He sounds defeated and tired, and yet, in spite of that, something in his heart breaks when Gellert tells him he misses him.

Albus closes his eyes and is silent a moment, his chest aching at the words, at the memories of so many times when he's wanted the other man at his side and been left with nothing more than air.]

I do, too.

[followorperish]

It all had a beginning. We have only distanced ourselves further from one another since then. I don't know how to fix any of it without going back to where it first went wrong.

[Why must Albus look so sorrowful? The expressions nag at him and his pride feels less important. Actually, his pride feels nonexistent.]

Spend time with me, then.

[chambermusicandtenpins]

[Wearing a sad, bittersweet smile, he says:]

We only wind up screaming at each other when we do. Unless one of us is injured.

[Shaking his head slightly, he says in a mournful voice:] I think there is so much more standing between us than just one day thirty years ago.

[followorperish]

We haven't had enough time to come to any understanding. Besides, if this is to be our new home, the problems of the past are nonexistent. We should work together.

[He tries to stand against the sadness, pitching his voice alluringly. He is a siren calling Albus to sea.]

[chambermusicandtenpins]

[Albus shakes his head at that all the more, closing his eyes. He can hear the way Gellert layers charm into his voice, his tone shifting to try and obtain what he wants. It used to work so well on him once, but now he sees it as a tactic, a tool in Gellert's arsenal.]

The past is not nonexistent when a war waits for us the second we go home.

[followorperish]

What if we never see it? What if this is our new existence?

[It could be. The possibilities are endless and he wants to direct Albus's attention away from that war. Their war.]

Imagine this is our new beginning. What do you need from me?

[chambermusicandtenpins]

We can't exactly assume that, can we. People leave all the time.

[He shuts his eyes a moment, picturing it as Gellert wishes him to, and yet there are so many unknowns that would worm through him. Such as:]

I'd need to know what exactly you've been telling Credence Barebone.