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It is 1979, and Barty and Benjy discuss their shared pessimism for their futures, for the futures of other men and women like them. At night, they drink to intoxication and sleep in a tangle on their mattress, trying anything just to forget, to feel some kind of hope. It's their mattress, inside of their little flat in Hogsmeade, the one they pretend to share only because they're poorly paid, young bachelor Aurors and this is more cost-efficient for them, so even nodding off together, there's some remaining sting of the lies they tell about how they aren't in love.After a while of going on like this, with two years of seeing each other in their back pockets, Benjy gives Barty the silver ring, charmed to go perpetually unnoticed, and Barty gets Benjy a matching one in gold.Trading rings really isn't very much at all, but it's the only thing that Barty and Benjy have. It's the only sign that they can give each other. They can't exploit the loophole in a few recent marriage laws. Gender neutral wording won't make their union any less undesirable to the larger Magical community, much less their respective Pureblood parents.Benjy's mother and both of their fathers would never stand for this love — Barty isn't even certain that Mother could accept it, were she still alive to do so — for reasons that run deeper and inspire more visceral revulsion than any issues of their magical bloodlines. The Fenwicks barely even keep track of that, and Father's interest is ceremonial at best, a remnant of and lip-service payment to Grandmother Charis coming from the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black.All up: Todd Fenwick, Eliza Smith, and Bartemius Hallam Crouch the First could handle their only sons bringing home a girl whose blood was less than Pure — as long as she was, indeed, a girl.So, that's reality. That's the only hand of cards that Barty and his man can play. Even if they can put adolescent squabbling behind them, even if they can get over Professor Slughorn pairing them together even after their exploded purple potion, it isn't as though they can change the world. It's all too big, and they're only two men, clinging together and trembling like they're still just lank-limbed boys. Holding fast, taking deep breaths of each other, groping for one moment of peace among the tumult.Regardless, there's no way that they can last like this. Two years together now and they're more than likely pushing it. Best enjoy whatever it is they are together while they still have the chance.
~*~
In 1982, aged twenty-six years each, they go to their first protest together. They dress as Muggles and go among them. Barty has never worn jeans before in his life. He tells Benjy that they make his feel uncomfortable — They're confining, he hisses. Did you have to get them so tight? I rather like having circulation in my legs, thank you — but Benjy grabs his ass. Barty pinches him right back, and before they know what they're doing, Barty yanks his man down hard into a kiss.They don't notice anyone else until too late, and some opportunistic Muggle newsman takes a photograph. It ends up splashed in newsprint black and white on the front page of the Muggles' Guardian, centered above the headline, "HOMOSEXUALS RIOT IN SOHO."Despite Barty's protests, Benjy hangs a clipping on the wall in their bedroom. Despite Barty's anxieties, none of their friends or coworkers come into sudden knowledge of their relationship. Despite Barty's attempts at reassuring himself that he'll be able to fit back into where he's meant to be someday, every day makes it look harder and harder to ever walk away from Benjamin Todd Fenwick.
~*~
In 1985, in suspicious proximity to their eighth anniversary (and that of Barty's mother's death), the secrecy becomes too much for Barty to handle — at least, it does in Father's case.Benjy's parents have never been an issue; he barely talks to them anyway. Not that Barty and his father talk more often than the Fenwicks do — but sometimes, Father enjoys honoring Mother's memory and pretending that he and his namesaked son can stand each other, that he cares why he still goes wanting for grandchildren.Every time he drags Barty into acting out this farce, the lie writhes around his stomach like a nest of vipers. The lies upon lies, upon lies, upon lies. All of them so easily resolved, and yet, there are too many strings attached to truly call the situation simple.Over one of their dinners and without a warning — without one even for himself — he finally drops his hand hard onto the table and says the words: "Father, I'm a homosexual."
~*~
It is 1988; they are thirty-two and sitting in a clinic somewhere in London.A Muggle clinic, because they can't go anywhere in their own world — the Healers don't have their own tests for this figured out yet, much less ways to treat it.Anyway, Barty doesn't want word about this getting around. If something comes up, they'll have to tell the Auror office, just like they had to tell their bosses about Barty's other diagnoses… This could all too easily become an Issue on the job; they're obligated to let their bosses know.But the grapevine is too goddamn dangerous. Healers talk. Other patients could see them at St. Mungo's, or at one of the private practices that certain Healers run. If word of this got around to anyone — if anybody figured out what the issue is and let it slip — if Rita Skeeter caught wind of it and felt like causing a scandal over the only son of an old Pureblood family being—At least Muggle London's gotten more familiar, thanks to Benjy. His parents never kept him entirely separated from the Muggles, and he knows the city outside of King's Cross Station, the immediate vicinity of the Leaky Cauldron, and Earl's Court, Vauxhall, and Soho. Still, Benjy had to pick the clinic from a list that Barty put together, and then he had to Apparate them there, with Barty riding Side-Along. Even if he didn't mind, Barty still hates having forced Benjy to make that choice, but he couldn't focus on the list without feeling lightheaded.It only took one glance over at Barty's trembling hands, and one little gasp like the ones that always precede Barty's panic attacks. Without even asking, Benjy shoved the phial of blue-green Calming Draught into Barty's hands and took over looking at the list. Now, he's gently running a firm hand up and down Barty's back, palm ghosting over Barty's spine while Benjy leans in close and whispers, come on, Love. It'll be okay, and if it's not, I'll make it okay. We're going to be okay.For all he doesn't doubt his man when Benjy says that, he still can't quite believe it, either. Or focus on it enough to give it real thought. Barty doesn't want to remember anything about today, if he can help it (he can't — he knows that he can't). He would prefer not to do this in the first place, he really would. Benjy even said that they didn't need to, that he trusted Barty enough, even after what they said and even after what he knew that his boy did.In return, Barty trusted Benjy when he said that. He trusted Benjy and he still does; Benjy has no reason that would make him lie. After all, he's seen Barty at his worst, his absolute worst, even worse than the attacks when Barty's mind races, and his heart goes even faster, and his chest won't let him breathe.Benjy's come home from a late night at the office to find a cold supper on the table and Barty kneeling on the solarium floor, with his hands bright raw and red, trembling all over and redder than his dried out eyes, in the middle of his third go at scrubbing their entire flat from top to bottom because it's not right, nothing is right, it might never be right and Barty needs to fix it.He's been there so many times when Barty's had another of his outbursts, another of those unfortunate, unseemly moments when his anger surges up too powerfully for him to keep contained another second. When he needs to scream but then the screaming's not enough, not for how much he kept pent up, even when he doesn't remember repressing anything this time (not that he can really tell; it's harder to know the difference when you spend the better portion of your waking life lying to someone or other).Benjy's been there for the times when Barty's every nerve and every vein and every muscle itch and twist and burn to just hurt something so he can just get some kind of respite from the images all flashing through his mind — mutilated corpses; nameless victims, red and writhing under the Cruciatus Curse's sway, screaming and wrenching until they don't look human anymore; blood, blood everywhere, blood on Barty''s snow white hands, blood and the heavy, reeking coppery stench of it making Barty's head swim and his senses blur together; Barty's own inner arms with their wrists not surgically slit, but gored open and gushing worse than a teenager about their first crush…He's been there, time and time again, picking Barty's hands clean of the glass shards from broken jars and punched out mirrors. After the second incident, he knows to heal all the gashes with his wand instead of salve and bandages. If he leaves anything for Barty to pick at, it's all too likely that he will, and, You'll excuse me if I like my husband better when he isn't bleeding out all over everything, he's whispered, lips brushing up on Barty's fingers.He's been there, blinking awake at all hours of the night while Barty isn't right, exactly. He's been there because Benjy sleeps like the dead but always notices when his boy isn't right there, curled up with him, the way he should be, and at this point, he knows all the right questions to ask because he's been there for every appointment with the Mental Healers about the nuances of Barty's treatment — nightmare or an Episode?
…it's okay, Barty. I promise; it's okay. we'll get through this, right? we always do. …what are you thinking?
…okay, so how do you feel? …no, Sweetheart, no. you're thinking at me. don't think at me, we got your thoughts already: how do you feel?
…are you seeing anything? hearing anything? smelling anything?
…okay, so what are you seeing, hearing, smelling? …any tactile sensations you shouldn't be feeling?
…do you feel like hurting yourself or anyone else? how powerful is it, if you do?
…head to Mungo's now, or do you want to try one of the emergency potions, first? —and every single fucking time, he's been spot-on fucking perfect in how he's handled things.Even when it hasn't been one of Barty's Episodes, Benjy's woken up for almost all of Barty's nightmares. They're bad enough that the Episodes should be unnecessary, for all Barty's broken brain disagrees on this. But Benjy's held Barty to his chest every time; he's pet Barty's hair and kissed his forehead; he's let Barty burrow into the curve of his neck and slowly lulled him back to sleep with those same promises that he was safe and everything would be okay again, come morning.Barty never wanted his man to see him when he's like this. He never wanted to burden Benjy with any of this rubbish. Mother's nerves and senses were diseased like this as well. All too clearly, Barty remembers her explosions and her moods, how easily she could get exhausted, the times when he came to check in on her and she recognized him and yet didn't. He didn't want to make Benjy deal with this terrible weakness, but it was only a matter of time before he had to; eleven years together is too long to go without a flare-up.So, when Benjy says it's fine and they can seriously just put this mess behind them, Barty trusts him but still, he can't accept that.They had a fight three weeks before this. The worst one they've had since they were stupid kids in Potions class, having it out over whether or not Benjy should go stand off from the cauldron and look pretty while Barty earned them both a perfect score. Furious, shaking with it, feeling red and black and sick down to the marrow-depths of every single bone, Barty had an anonymous indiscretion, in some nightclub out in Muggle London, unprotected and intoxicated — it all flashed by in another of his rages. He can't remember anything but the feeling of slamming back into his proper mind as he toppled back from his unknown liaison.And true, he doesn't feel ill at all, Benjy even pointed that out when Barty told him that they had to do this, but with all the talk about this disease — this Autoimmune Deficiency Syndrome, so talked about by Muggles that even Wizards have heard about it — Barty just can't let himself take any risks, especially not with his man. Not with Benjy or his health, no matter how much Benjy tells him that Barty doesn't need to prove himself again or anything like that.Benjy offers up his trust and his forgiveness willingly, as willingly and gently as he's always kissed Barty's cleaning-scoured hands and told him, That's enough, Blondie; you're okay, I'm okay, we're both okay. I'll go get the healing salves. — but Barty can't accept it. Not this time. No matter how very badly he wishes that he could. Because this isn't about proving himself, not anymore. It's bigger than that; it's more important. What they have and what they are — it's more important.Benjy Fenwick is more important than anything and everything, especially any remaining shreds of Barty's pride.He clings to Benjy as they Apparate down to London, burying his face in Benjy's neck and whispering, over and over, ad nauseam, like a holy litany: I'm sorry, Benjy; I'm so, so sorry; I'm sorry, I love you, stay with me, I'm sorry.And now, without a little phial's worth of blood, with some Muggle bandage over the spot where it was drawn, Barty cleaves to Benjy's hand until his knuckles go white. Someone in nurse's scrubs calls his name.
~*~
In 1990, owls from the Ministry stop coming addressed to them separately, outside of things that really are just meant for one of them. Single invitations come to both of them with no unnecessary, "plus one" clause. The first time they go down to payroll together on a Friday afternoon, twenty-something Amethyst Farley rolls her eyes, sighs the most long-suffering sigh that Barty's ever heard, and tells them, Finally, boys — and perfect timing, too. Another week of waiting and I wouldn't have won the betting pool.Miraculously, Barty thinks, neither of them finds himself without a job.
~*~
In 1999, entering the new millennium, Barty spends his end-of-year bonus on a Christmas holiday to America for himself and for his man. They traipse New York from Queens to Brooklyn, lingering as they please and mostly in Manhattan. On New Year's Eve, they join a throng of people, both magical and Muggle, in Times Square. In order to appease Benjy's lingering, ever-persistent sense of romance, they kiss at midnight, exactly as they have for twenty-two years, with Benjy sweeping Barty — almost literally — off his feet and Barty caressing Benjy's cheek, still so in love and laughing until his eyes water.And he hates himself for the cliche, but when Benjy whispers, Hey, what's wrong, all Barty can think to say is, It's nothing, Benj. Nothing, honestly, I'm just… I'm so. fucking. happy. He drags Benjy down into a deep, hard kiss before he can have the chance to point out that Barty can do better than that answer.They are not, as they were during an ill-advised experiment some twenty years before, arrested for this display and its public indecency. Barty is not subjected to crass Muggle policemen accusing him of being an underaged prostitute with all of the slimiest euphemisms they can spew. Instead, an opportunistic Muggle newsman takes a photograph and it ends up on the cover of something called The Advocate, two copies of which somehow find themselves to England, to Benjy's and Barty's hands.
~*~
In 2006, a move goes through in both the magical and Muggle governments. One that Barty, personally, never thought would happen in his lifetime.He and Benjy have a century of life between them; over half of their lives, they've spent together. Finally, that means something to someone other than the two of them and their closest friends and Healers Smethwyck and Zeller, who've seen Benjy bringing Barty in for his Episodes often enough that they've put two and two together.Whenever a disapproving hospital superior asks who Benjy is and why he's sitting in Barty Crouch Jr.'s patient room, the good Healers lie and say that he's a cousin, the only family Barty has left except, of course, his father.They spend their Christmas signing paperwork — first the Muggle, then the magical, and then finally, with Maëlle Edgecombe and Vee Savage overseeing it, a potent spell binds them in union. They trade gold and silver bands with each other's names carved into the insides — new ones to shine with the ones they gave each other nearly thirty years ago already, so that they both have one of each precious metal.The spell-work's nowhere near as showy as it could have been. Every wedding that they've attended has had some kind of panache to it, especially to the magical sealing of two souls in union, all done up in golden flares that come down and snake around the couple's wrists in a flash of spinning lights.Then again, every wedding that they've attended, ever, has been between a woman and a man. It's been somewhere lovely, sprawling, well-designed, and decidedly not inside a Ministry of Magic office. There have been more people to perform the spell, more wands and hearts putting in the effort. It doesn't make a stronger spell, but it makes a better show.Barty and Benjy's spell of bonding is performed by Maëlle, and Vee, by Gideon Prewett and his bum leg, one of the many Masters of Ceremony at the office for today, Elphias Doge (still alive and kicking at a hundred-twenty five, still just as genial and gentle as the time when Barty was nineteen and nervous and they found each other in a bar where Barty's public image wasn't meant to be), and Jael, Healer Zeller's Unspeakable sister, who's also there as witness for a young Ms. Unspeakable Patil and an excitable, giggling girl who throws her arms around her new wife's as soon as they're pronounced as bonded, squealing, "Oh, Parvati!"There's barely any flash about their spell, or about the one that Benjy and Barty have performed: the six wands all come together; they all emit the glowing, golden threads while the Master of Ceremonies recites the vows and leads Benjy and Barty through the ones they need to say; as every other spell has done today, the threads wrap around Barty's wrists and Benjy's, tying tightly and flooding Barty's chest with warmth before, finally, they all flare out.Even though the spell is perfect, even though this has been far too long in coming to them, and even though he barely takes his eyes off Benjy, Barty still can't help wishing that they could have had a proper show today. It's his flair for the dramatic. Every year, he gets older and every year, it won't die off.No doubt knowing what's on Barty's mind, Benjy hugs him closer than should be permissible by basic physics, and asks what sort of flair his boy's going to want from their reception. As they embrace, husband and husband and finally recognized as such, Barty feels warm, at home. He doesn't see his father watching in the doorway — much less the absence of his disapproval — until they separate.But this is all a lie, a dream that flashes through Barty's mind upon finding two strange men inside his home, just before one hits him with a Stunning Spell.
~*~
It is 1980 and, even at night, even inside the flat that he and Benjy used to share, a thin film of sweat makes Barty's t-shirt (previously Benjy's) cleave to his body and August sticks to his skin like a congealing potion. There are only two places where it doesn't: the cool, clenching metal of the handcuffs; and the long, smooth line across his throat, pressing against his Adam's apple but not breaking the skin — yet. Both the knife and the silver band on Barty's left ring finger glitter in the candlelight.A coarse hand runs through his hair and jerks his head back, holds it in place so he can't look away. Impassively and unimpressed, Barty stares up into the cold, unmoving blue eyes."You've got a skill for staying underneath our Order's radar, pretty boy," Dearborn growls, his voice still ragged from Rabastan's handiwork. "I've got to give you credit for that.""Being named Bartemius Crouch helps," Barty says without adornment. "And so does looking like a twelve-year-old." In public, to keep up their lie, Benjy used to accuse Barty of doing so. "No one ever remembers that the serpent was the shrewdest, subtlest creature in the Garden, or that the Devil does his best work when people forget he can be beautiful—""Oh, for fuck's sakes — can we get this over with already?" snaps Sirius Black, his urgency tense, forcing the volume of his voice to rise as he. "Cut the bullshit and just do him! Before he fucking pretentious swots us to death!"Black waits for a response, and when Dearborn stays silent — when his mentor doesn't even look away from Barty — the boy explodes, "Come on, Doc! Are you forgetting what the fuck he is? He killed Benjy! He tried to frame us for it! Kill the piece of shit already — that's what we're fucking here for, right?""No," Dearborn whispers. "This one likes to play with his food — and I believe that he apprenticed under your dearest cousin Bella in that regard — though at least she's got the balls to be honest about what she is, and not go sneaking around like our little friend here. Just how long did you string Benjy along before you did him in, pretty boy? A year? Two?""Twenty-fourth August," Barty recites, "nineteen-seventy-six. It would have been four years this week. And not that I imagine you'll believe me, but the stringing along did not actually—" Dearborn nicks him, deep, one clean slice into the skin just underneath his Adam's apple. Barty gets the message, shuts his mouth. The blood bubbles up in the wound and trickles down his neck, all thick, warm, and viscous."No, Sirius, no…" The knife leaves Barty's neck, and Dearborn purrs all too contentedly. "The only way to get justice for Benjy is to give this little monster a taste of his own medicine before we do him in. Though I will certainly acquiesce…"With the flat edge of his blade, Dearborn caresses Barty's cheek. Involuntarily, Barty shivers — and not just from the chill or from the fear he won't admit to having in his belly. The intimacy of the moment makes Barty's veins twist up with a want that he doesn't want to feel—"I'll acquiesce one thing to you, Sirius. It's a downright shame to destroy something that's just so goddamn pretty. You're a right little work of art, aren't you, Barty. Or should I say, 'you're a right little piece of work'?"Barty chuckles drily. "If I didn't know better," he deadpans, "I'd think you were propositioning me. Trying to take advantage of my fondness for hothead Gryffindors with pronounced violent tendencies."This earns Barty the first slice down his cheek.Another follows it, making a perfect X.When, once again, he accuses Dearborn of getting into violent foreplay, Black slams a fist into his nose, and Dearborn curves his knife down from Barty's eyebrow to his chin. With every pulse, more blood comes up, runs down his face — some pools into twin Red Seas on his shoulders; a smaller stream drips into his mouth. Dearborn supposes that Barty must like the taste of it, just like the monster he is, like a vampire — because that's what Barty is, a beast who can walk upright and use pretty words, a vampire that sucks the life out of the people who deserve to have it.Dearborn asks if this feels good for Barty, this welcome return to his real nature. Slipping the knife's tip inside his mouth, Dearborn asks if Barty wants another hit.Barty doesn't. Coppery, even the tiniest amount of blood inside his mouth makes him want to vomit. After a while, he stops trying to swallow. Through it all, though, Barty does not struggle. His legs are free, but he does not kick; he makes no attempts at fighting back. All he does is shake his head and glare up at Dumbledore's mad dog.Calmly, gingerly, Dearborn steps to the side of the chair and kneels; he lifts Barty's ring finger with the knife and lets it fall. Coming back around, he asks, "How long did you wait, Barty? How long was it after you'd buried him that you went and got all engaged and ready to force some poor girl to lie back, think of England, and incubate your fucked up little Purist brats? Maybe let her entertain some delusions about her husband, the beautiful blond hero—"Barty spits the pooled up blood into Dearborn's face, for which Black jerks him by the hair again."There is no girl," Barty snarls, finding it easier and easier to ignore the pain. "There is no girl. Never has been. No engagement, either. Never wanted one, and I still don't, and fortunately for me, I have a Lord who prefers me unmarried.""Funny, that… because you're wearing a pretty shiny ring right there. Can't imagine you got it without promising some uptight, tightly-laced, perfect Pureblood patriarch that you'd take his little princess and make an honest woman out of her. I'd bet good Galleons that your so-called Lord let you have your choice of nice, clean, readily objectified young ladies, didn't he?""I did no such thing for this, Doctor Dearborn." Barty's in no position to roll his eyes — not when it could make Black or Dearborn decide to finally do him in — but the level of idiocy going on in this conversation is unbearable. "You know, the man is so thoroughly disappointing compared to the myth you've been built up as. Here you are, the Saint Dumbledore-appointed leader of his militant evangelists, and you can't even carry on a simple conversation. You need to listen to the other participants, you realize. What part of, 'I have a Lord who prefers me unmarried' fails to make sense to you?""I dunno," Black chimes in and yanks Barty's hair as though he means to rip it out. "How about the part where you're a liar. How about the part where all you ever do is lie. How about the part where you lying is the reason Benjy got left in fucking bits."He pauses just long enough to huff, leaning in to Barty's ear with poisonous intimacy and sighing, hot and heavy, on the skin. "We can't trust any fucking thing you say, Blondie, and even if we could, that cover story's totally pathetic. Why would Dark Lord Shit-for-Brains let one of his precious Pureblood breeders go without marrying and making more of your fucking mutant spawn?"Barty ignores him in favor of telling Dearborn, "Enthusiastic — I can see why you like him as a protege. Bellatrix saw a similar potential when she recruited me. Enthusiastic, loyal, a bit on the melodramatic side, perhaps, but just oh so very devoted… He probably even sees you as a replacement father. Someone who he'd die for, no doubt. Makes him very useful as a blunt instrument, and I can see where your ilk would need a boy like that. But don't you think this might go easier if we keep this conversation limited to us adults?"Dearborn wrinkles his nose and spins the knife while he considers this. Finally, he says, "Drama queen antics aside, Sirius has a point. Why would the Dark Lord like you better unmarried. Your family was one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight back in the day — you still are, aren't you… How could he stand to let your illustrious line die off?""Because He knows that every extra masquerade is one more diversion of my energies away from Him and from His service. He cares for preserving magical-kind, but He cares more for the quality of our service to Him."The only response this gets is Dearborn's incredulous sneer and Black digging his nails into Barty's scalp.Forcing a funereal snicker and a twisted grin, Barty shakes his head. Rolls his eyes again, even as the flat edge of the knife ghosts down the curve of his neck. Tells Dearborn, "You people… I'm mad. Traumatized, most likely. Probably quite diseased, Antonin didn't have the chance to diagnose me before Moody shipped him off to Azkaban — but even I can see reality better than the lot of you. Your Lord sits up in his office, letting you all think you're free while he pushes you around his three-layer chessboard and makes you think that it was really your idea to always serve his purposes — but mine? Oh, Mine…"The grin comes more easily, now, for all the twists dig deeper into Barty's cheeks, strain harder at his lips. "My Lord walks among His people, Dearborn. My Lord can be as merciful as He is wrathful. My Lord knows us, His children, as who we are and not as what we signify to some greater so-called plan. Lord Voldemort knows exactly who and what I am — and when I swore to Him my eternal loyalty, My Lord promised me salvation. He swore to mend whatever broke my mind, to make me whole again and restore me to all of what I should be, and then…"Barty pauses. Sighs. "The Dark Lord swore to me that I would never need to wed a woman, once I took the Mark. As long as I served Him faithfully, my… deficiencies no longer mattered. All that mattered was my aptitude, my cleverness, my dedication, and my undying loyalty."In case he's still being too subtle, Barty adds on, "Meaning, of course, the deficiencies involving my limp wrist and exhibiting certain preferences — ones that do not include the company of women. At least not for my romantic prospects. Ask Bellatrix; she knows. Ask Gideon Prewett; he was Benjy's best friend and he knew about us, too. His tiny little girlfriend and I went and saved our boyfriends from their drunken nonsense one night — she'd know, too. MacKenzie. Leigh MacKenzie."Narrowing his eyes, Dearborn bares his fangs and snarls, "Good story, that. Loved the dramatics you put into it. But you're a liar, aren't you.""I'm also bent like a broken wand," he snaps. "Since both of you apparently need it all put bluntly for you: I, Bartemius Hallam Crouch Junior, am bent. like a. broken. wand."Dearborn runs a thumb down the knife's hilt. "Well, pretty boy, that's an adorable way of saying psychotically evil. Quite original—""Fine!" Barty snaps. "Queer. Flaming. Sipping on ginger beer. A confirmed bachelor. One of those Myrmidon boys, just like our Achilles. Gay. Very gay. Deviant. Gayer than your maiden aunt's favorite Christmas dress. My tastes do not include oysters. Do you want me to keep going? I. have. more.""Good for you; you're a fucking thesaurus. There's only one thing I want to know from you, Barty," Dearborn says, his voice a chill and deadly calm, his fingers turning his knife over. "…You're smart. Genius-level, maybe. And you're an Auror, for fuck's sakes. You know our modus operandi, yeah. You, Travers, and Rosier copied it pretty damn well in that staged attack at Avery's gallery, and with the work you did on your old man when you offed him. That one was probably a long time coming, I expect…"In the heartbeat's pause, his cold, blue eyes glint, just like his knife. "So after all of that, why'd you go and carve out Benjy's heart? Doesn't really fit with the pattern, does it, pretty boy?"As the Barty lets the silence linger, but he doesn't break his lock with Dearborn's gaze. "Because," he sighs. "Benjy broke mine."Yanking on Barty's hair again, pulling his head so far back it hurts his neck, Black drags his knife singing across Barty's forehead. "Yeah," he snarls, carving into the broken bridge of Barty's nose. "Like you have a heart to break."For the first time, Barty makes an effort, tries to worm his way out of Black's grasp; only with pain, and ragged screaming, does he succeed. "Fuck you!" he tells them both, a cry of something invading his voice, very much unwanted. "Fuck both of you. …I loved him. I trusted him…"Eyes burning, he stares up into Dearborn's, into the clinical, detached confusion. He knows this feeling all too well, as he watches Dearborn try to size him up — non-consensual vulnerability has a distinct way that it twists around his bones — and Barty doubts that this will help, but even so he hisses at the man:"I loved Benjy more than anyone else, even myself. Believe me, don't believe me, at least I know the truth: I loved him for four years, Dearborn, even last spring, after I found out what he did with your lot. I still love him. I would have died for him. He's seen my nervous weakness. He's seen the parts of me that only Bella and the Dark Lord know about. I loved Benjy even more than I loved my Mother, and I never lied to him about that part…"He hates himself for it, but he needs a pause for breath. Once it's back, his voice quivers on, "I loved him more than anyone, Dearborn. I was his, and he was mine, and I loved him with my entire soul. …But I had to kill him. It was for the greater…"Barty doesn't trail off so much as gurgle. Too late, he realizes that Dearborn's slit his throat. The blood comes up quicker here. Even if he could react, there wouldn't be any time for it.The last thing Barty sees is Caradoc Dearborn scowling at him. The last he hears is the low, rumbling snarl, "Monsters are not capable of love."It's not until they strip him that they see Benjy's name tattooed above Barty's heart. It's not until they take his personal effects that they see it carved on the inside of the silver band.