Barbarism to Decadence.

Light filtered through sheer white curtains and fell across his legs, the warmth drawing him up from a languid drowse. He lifted his head and looked around at a room that seemed composed of clouds, fluffy white blankets cradled him and everything beyond the bed was bright, soft and hazy. He tumbled back and stretched slowly, a quiet groan escaping his lips as the muscles along his body pulled taut and then seemed to melt. He wasn't sure where he was, but he couldn't muster the energy to be frightened of that particular fact.

"You're awake." A sweet, musical voice whispered against his ear, sending warmth pouring through him to condense in a burning ember in his groin. He turned to the voice and moaned at the sight of the periwinkle eyes of his angelic consort, lifting a hand to touch the heart-shaped lips. "Severus..." He purred and smiled as the blue eyes turned black and the golden mop darkened to ebony. "Mmm..."

A tiny, delicate form crawled over his supine body and nestled close, sending little electric charges jolting up his spine from the feel of a hard, velvety length pressing to his own. He arched and groaned, arms curling around his Slytherin, fascinated by the manner in which the face vacillated between golden youth and dark sensuality. Small, elegant hands crept up over his chest to his throat, caressing him as lips feathered against his sternum. He was rapidly becoming lost in the heat of the body moving sinuously against his own, his groans low and ragged with need. "Severus...Phineas..."

Vance snapped from his dream, teeth clicking shut to cage a cry of pleasure, his body arching off the bed. Hands fisting tightly in his blanket, he tossed his head to the side and shuddered sharply, cock jerking as it spilled forth its molten treasure across his abdomen. He hissed when it finally fell still and he collapsed back against the bed, panting and trembling from the power of the unexpected climax.

He tried to cling to the swiftly dissipating threads of his dream, knowing there was something important in it, but it was fading as rapidly as his arousal. He sighed and reached for his wand, casting a cleaning charm to get rid of his spend before curling over on his side to try and regain the sweet release of sleep.

------

An hour later, and no closer to sleep, Vance rose from his bed and wandered into his kitchen, feeling as if his head were stuffed full of cotton. He yawned as he started his coffee pot and retrieved an orange from the bowl of fruit in the middle of his table. He plopped down in a kitchen chair and began peeling his breakfast with a paring knife, smirking to himself sleepily at his refusal to use magic for things that could be done just as easily without. As he peeled his fruit, his mind drifted back to the first time he met Severus Snape, the night his entire life changed.

He and his parents had just finished dinner when the front and back doors crashed in and forms in dead black swarmed their dining room. Before any of them could so much as catch their bearings, they had been disarmed and herded into the cozy living room. They knelt, huddled together, staring up in fear at the masked faces of their captors, silently praying that they would be spared where others had not. Suddenly, one of the black-cloaked figures stepped forward and whipped off its mask, grinning cruelly down on the family with a mad cackle.

"Not so uppity now, are you, Guinevere?" Bellatrix LeStrange seemed to swell with triumph, and his mother broke into sobs, leaning forward to look up at the madwoman in supplication. "I'm sorry, Bellatrix! Please, I will take whatever punishment you deem necessary, but please...let my husband and son go!" Vance knew why they had been targeted, remembering the story his mother had told them a few nights previously. At the time it had been amusing, but now he saw the consequences of a sharp tongue.

Bellatrix and his mother had been at the same party, his father had slipped away to fetch drinks and the LeStrange woman had taken her opportunity to try and humiliate Guinevere. "Where is your pet Mudblood, Guinevere?" Her voice had sneered loud enough to catch the attention of several others nearby, which was precisely the point. Unfortunately for her, and now them, his mother was not easily embarrassed. "My husband has gone to get us drinks, Bellatrix. Would you like me to call him back so he can bring you something as well? I see you are without escort this evening."

And that simple, cutting observation was what had earned them a visit from the Death-Eaters. No doubt Bellatrix had done something special to earn her revenge, or else she'd merely pointed out that his mother was a pureblood and his father Muggleborn. Undoubtedly that would have been enough to grant her this bit of cruel sport. "Not likely, Guinevere. First you'll watch as we finish off your filthy Mudblood husband, then you get to watch us torture and kill your half-breed bastard son."

This had sent his mother into a fit of hysterical sobbing, and he'd clutched her close, desperately trying to cast wordless Unforgivables at the masked men and women. His father had been jerked forward and murdered without pretense, likely the Death-Eaters didn't want to dirty their hands with the blood of a Muggleborn. That was a cold consolation, but at the very least his father had gone quick. He'd had no such luck.

They'd ripped him away from his mother, and then forced her to watch as they tortured him. His mind flinched from the recollection of those long hours spent as the plaything of men and women mad and vicious. He shuddered with the remembered agony of a Crucio cast from within, almost able to feel the wand being shoved rudely into him and the molten, devastating anguish of being set on fire from the inside out. He cringed and his skin crawled as he recalled Bellatrix casting some forgotten spell to make him hard, then raping him and forcing his body to respond to her, though he shrank with horror at the act.

He twitched away from those hours where no part of him was safe, no act too depraved and no violation unexplored. The knife twitched in his hand and he looked down at his forgotten orange, taking a deep breath and finishing his careful dissection. His mind inevitably returned to the night seventeen years in the past, the memory refusing to be left only half recalled.

When they'd finally grown tired of their sport, he'd collapsed to the floor, curled up in a ball and sought his mother with his gaze, only to find her glassy-eyed and vacant. Sometime during his torture, she'd retreated into herself and left him all alone. In that moment he'd hated her, despised her so intensely that when Bellatrix cast the Killing Curse and blasted his mother from the world, he'd felt a soaring, sickening sort of pleasure. It served her right for abandoning him, for being too damned cowardly to accept responsibility for her ill-advised slight of a mad woman.

The anger could not last and he soon fell into a well of blackest guilt, trembling and hugging himself, welcoming his own death with open arms and a terrifying hunger. The Death-Eaters were talking, but he couldn't understand them, only huddled and waited patiently for his life to be over and the pain to end. He was so lost in his own mind that he didn't realize that the others had left for many long minutes, then he'd glanced around and understood with a mounting horror that they were forcing him to live. That realization had sent him plummeting and great, shattering sobs had wracked his fetal-folded body until he'd drifted into a soothing swoon.

The light, tender touch of cool hands on his hot face brought him back from his shelter of sleep, and he blinked up at the black-roped figure leaning over him in confusion. Once his eyes lost their fuzziness, he let out a startled shriek and scrambled back from the Death-Eater, sure that he'd returned to continue 'playing'. With a soft curse the strange man removed his black cloak and the frightening mask, revealing himself as only a few years older than Vance. He'd knelt on the floor and spoken softly, soothingly in a voice that was both gentle and sensual, explaining that he'd come to help.

Torn between his intense distrust of the Death-Eater and the broken, child-like need to be held and comforted, Vance had shivered and stared at the young man in fear. His hair was darkest ebony and hung just past his shoulders, framing his acerbically handsome face with its warm inky eyes, looking at him with such compassion and guilt. He had enjoyed the contrast between the ivory of the boy's skin and his black hair, taking comfort from tiny things and focusing upon that so he wouldn't have to think of the pain in his body, or the greater one in his heart.

He'd finally given in to his need for comfort and had crawled over to huddle in the Death-Eater's arms, sobbing brokenly as the elegant white hands had moved over his bruised and bleeding flesh so gently. He heard the timber and tone of the wizard's voice, but his words were lost in translation, Vance's mind too weary and hurt to discern meaning. He'd swallowed the potions the man had offered, accepted the spells he cast and put his entire trust in him, too tired to try and fight. If the Death-eater was going to kill him, then he wouldn't mind too much dying, to be honest.

But, he hadn't been killed and about an hour before sunrise his body was entirely healed. He'd drifted off for a while after he' drunk the potions, and when the dark wizard shifted against him he was startled from his light slumber. He jumped to his feet, then blinked at the lack of pain, staring as the dark-haired boy rose gracefully to his feet, fixing Vance with his guilty black eyes. "You need to get out of England. Better yet, get out of Europe. Go across the pond or somewhere. The Death Eaters will probably come back for you if you don't."

The silky quality of the boy's voice almost negated the warning in his words, but when comprehension finally came it made Vance's heart pound. "You...You are one of them, aren't you?" He'd stared at the Death-Eater, unable to understand why the boy would torture him and then return to heal his wounds and comfort his sorrow. "Yes, I am. And I'm telling you that once they've found a toy, they don't let it go easily." The harsh words from his savior made Vance wince, but he'd moved closer, unmindful of his nudity or the blood that still coated his skin. He'd even forgotten the nearby bodies of his parents.

"Why did you help me?" He'd stared up at the face of the compassionate young wizard, needing to feel connected to another person, even if it was someone who'd helped destroy his life. "Because...because, Bellatrix is insane and your mother didn't deserve this...you didn't deserve this. Now, will you leave Europe?" The boy's voice had gone low and desperate on that question, his hands rising to grip Vance's shoulders and shaking him gently. "Yes...Yes." Vance had cried, and then he'd flung himself at the Death-Eater, wrapping his arms around his neck and dragging him into a kiss.

Vance had no idea what had prompted him to do what he'd done, but he'd tangled his fingers in that thick, dark hair and pressed his lips to the tempting mouth of his savior. At first he'd gotten no response from the caring man, and then suddenly he was being clung to and kissed wildly, the taste of the dark wizard's mouth sending tingling jolts through his body. The whole world had fallen away, the night before became distant as he lost himself to the pleasure of the older wizard's gentle, passionate mouth. When the kiss finally broke, he was panting and trembling, his cock harder than it had ever been in his life. The older boy had settled him on the couch and retrieved his cloak and mask, shaking himself from the incredible power of the embrace.

Vance had watched him, feeling his loneliness and pain returning slowly, but he'd captured the feeling of his first kiss and locked it away safely in a chamber of his heart along with the man who'd given it to him. Those thrilling black eyes had turned on him again, seeming to see into him as the wizard had spoken firmly. "Get out of Europe." Vance knew he was leaving and he reached toward him, sobbing painfully and whispering. "Wait...I don't even know your name!" His wizard, his savior had turned and smiled grimly, murmuring just two words before he'd turned on the spot and popped from the room. "Severus Snape."

------

Vance drifted back from his memories, swiftly polishing off his orange and standing to wash his hands, rinsing away the sticky juice as he felt his heart ache and warm from the recollection of the kiss. He knew that Snape didn't remember him, but ever since that night he'd been in love with his compassionate Death-Eater. On lonely nights he'd brought forth the memory of that kiss and it had kept the shadows at bay. He'd remained unfailingly faithful to his first and only love, though at times it had been hard. No one could stir him the way that Severus could, or at least, that was until Phineas had dropped into his life.

He frowned at that and poured himself a cup of coffee, carrying it into his living room and settling on his couch, lighting his fire with a flick of his fingers. Why, after seventeen years of absolute loyalty to Severus, was he suddenly lusting for a boy he barely knew, who was nearly half his age, no less? The answer seemed to be sparkling way back in his mind, tempting him and taunting him, but when he tried to grasp it, it merely darted away. He groaned and sipped his coffee, closing his eyes and trying to relax, hoping it would coax the truth out of hiding and into the light, but it was no use. For now, he'd just have to try and avoid being alone with Phineas, and hope that he would figure out his strange attraction before it was too late.