FICLET: This Line's End (Rodolphus/Bellatrix)
Title: This Line's End
Pairing: Rodolphus/Bellatrix
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 624
Summary: He chooses to leave everything in disarray and walks down the stairs naked, because he is the man in this house and he will not be ignored.
Author's Notes: I've had this idea floating around in my head for a while now. This is rather sexual in nature, but nothing actually happens on that front. ;)


It's been a year.

Rodolphus slowly rises from bed, noting the sheets wrinkled and on the floor. One year, he thinks bitterly. He chooses to leave everything in disarray and walks down the stairs naked, because he is the man in this house and he will not be ignored.

He finds his wife in the kitchen, eating a green apple over the sink, looking solemnly out the window. Softly, he treads toward her, and his hand is only a centimeter from her shoulder when she turns her head, meeting his gaze for the briefest of moments before edging away from him.

"Get dressed," Bellatrix scoffs. She takes a slow, sensuous bite from the apple – and Rodolphus can't help but stare at how her perfect, pouting lips kiss the skin, at how her teeth dig in so very deep, at how her long, slender fingers are wrapped firmly about the fruit. It reminds him of last night – not so many hours ago, after all – in bed, and the way she dominates him and tests his endurance for pain. Which, of course, he finds extremely pleasurable. If there is anything he and Bellatrix share, it is their fanaticism for the Dark Arts and rough sex that quite possibly borders on torture.

"Bella," he all but moans, garnering the filthiest, deadliest glare the world has ever seen. He's forgotten that he's not allowed to call her that; the honor is reserved for the Dark Lord.

"Pathetic."

The word whips him back to attention and reminds him of what he came down here for. "It's pathetic to lust after my wife?" he asks angrily.

"When you beg like a filthy mongrel, yes," she responds, once again recoiling from his touch when he tries to grab her by the shoulders.

"We've been married one bloody year, Bellatrix, and still nothing. Pardon me for wanting an heir."

The two of them stand in silence, a test to see who will yield first. Rodolphus can hardly resist the urge to pounce on Bellatrix and pin her body beneath his – to make her bend to his will, for once. It's the only way, he knows, that he can produce an heir – but it isn't as if he doesn't like her being in control.

A crooked, malicious grin forms on Bellatrix's lips as she watches him visibly struggle. "I pardon you," she says, pressing her cold index finger against his forehead.

Rage erupts from every muscle in his body. "WHY IS IT SO BLOODY DIFFICULT?" He knocks her hand away. "You already pretend that I'm him every night, so why can't you just pretend that you're having his sodding child?"

His body is thrown backwards with tremendous force, hitting the wall, then crumpling to the floor. Two seconds later he is convulsing and jerking about like a spider-puppet, with Bellatrix, the puppet master, pulling the strings forcefully yet serenely, as though she were playing a harp.

"How can it be," she whispers silkily once she lets him rest, "that you've forgotten our arrangement?"

Rodolphus gapes at her oafishly. She's doing that thing again where she simultaneously acts distant and seductive, making her impossible to love, impossible to resist. He wonders how much credit is owed to the Cruciatus Curse – for that also weakens his mind.

Only now, though, does he begin to feel the slightest bit vulnerable. There must be some serious bruising all over his naked body, courtesy of her wrath.

Looking down at his erection, Bellatrix smirks. "Allow me to remind you, Rodolphus, that this is not a marriage."

She never tells him what she means, but he can guess: they are not married to each other, but to the Dark Lord, and their only legacy will be their noble work.