Work Text:
You wait until all the lights are off, before starting to unbutton your shirt. You wish it could be different, so you could see him in all his naked glory too, but it would mean revealing the map of pain etched across your skin.
It’s not like he doesn’t have scars of his own, ones you’ve put there yourself. But you’ve made amends since then, and honoured those scars with soft, sweet kisses. It doesn’t fix the damage you’ve done, but he makes you feel like you don’t have to carry the weight of guilt with you everywhere.
“I won’t until you’re ready but…It’s not going to scare me off…Whatever you’re hiding.” He says to you, when you’re finally naked, and his fingers stroke broad across your chest.
A pained prickle in your eyes threatens tears you aren’t ready to shed, because you can hear the truth in the voice of this patient man who’s carved a place in your soul.
The truth is: you’re scared.
You’re scared because you know how much he already means to you, and that means you have so much more to lose when it all goes south.
The pads of his fingers feel like silk against the seven broken lines etched into your skin—marking each Horcrux you destroyed—centering you, and bringing you back to the present.
You take a breath.
“
Lumos
.”