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Forgetting to Hate

He is not always vicious and insulting, contrary to what he lets people believe. His teeth are largely show, but it's a show that works: almost everyone he meets gives him a wide berth. He can fight if he has to, but he's got no technique-- another reason Peter had no problem taking him down when they first met, and every time he's thought to physically challenge him since.

Perhaps the wiser thing would be to use his head, but around Peter, he raves, he loses control. Peter can see it in his eyes. He becomes more an animal than man, or whatever he thinks he is. Instinct tells him Peter is his better and his nearly inborn hate of authority makes him lash out, fight, struggle to be best.

But sometimes, on the good days, on the quiet days, he almost forgets to hate.

Peter is thankful for those days, for days like today, when Lucius is sprawled out quietly next to him. He even puts his fingers in Lucius's hair, brushed smooth until it shines, midnight-dark against his skin. Lucius's eyes flicker towards him when he does it, but for once he's not snapped at, snarled at, driven back. He pulls his fingers through the sleek black locks gently, ever-wary of a snare. The hair slips through his fingers like water; the scent of mint rises delicately from the still-damp hairs near to Lucius's neck.

The words are off his tongue as easily as his next breath. "You're beautiful." He's sorry as soon as he says them. Lucius pulls away, but at least he doesn't sit out of reach. He doesn't answer, as if to make sure he doesn't give Peter anything to argue with and encourage such an inane chain of thought.

"I mean, your hair," Peter excuses himself, mostly because he didn't mean to say such a thing at all. It makes him uncomfortable that he said it too, but Lucius has no concern for that.

"Just leave it," Lucius replies, and Peter hears the hint of panic, of disgust.

For once Peter doesn't push until he gets his way. Lucius has stopped him from touching his hair, but he hasn't leapt off the couch, or screamed, or fought.

Once Lucius was so angry with Peter that he wept, tears and snot dripping ungracefully from his contorted face as he screamed and spat, gleaming trails over the hot flush in his cheeks. He had wiped away the evidence furiously, but he had not calmed, and his eyes were red and wet. Peter had never seen a grown man cry before, and it had shocked him, made him feel sick.

Peter had needed to tie Lucius down before he would settle, had to throw him onto the bed with silver handcuffs burning the skin off of his wrists, had to sink his teeth into the back of Lucius's neck.

He would rather that Lucius could always be as he was now, quietly sitting, not flinching away from Peter, not agitated. They are watching television, nothing special, the news and then the Simpsons and King of the Hill. Maybe if Lucius has something else to take his thoughts away, he might find he likes Peter, after all.

Peter has three more words on his tongue, but he bites down on it until they go away, until there is only blood in his mouth and a miserable dull pain.