Next chapter at 300 comments! Dedicated to AriesGoddessOfWar
   — TWs for narcissistic behaviour & gaslighting

  THERE THEY SAT, side by side at the bar, two faceless figures, their true identities cloaked in darkness. Both secretly feuding, both openly despising one another, whilst the world continued undeterred around them.

  Though the small of the two was not entirely anonymous; for her cherry-red hair hung out from the confines of her hood, attracting the attention of a few of the bar's patrons.
  The three men whispered to one another with wolfish grins and coal-stained palms.

  Eventually, one of them stood, approaching the bar and seating himself next to the smaller of the two hoods. He turned to her, pulling a strand of her ruby hair between his fingers; gnarled from years of manual labour, "What pretty hair you have..." He said, "Such a shame to hide it all beneath that hood."

  Seven turned to him so that he could just about make out the outlines of her features through the shadows; dead-eyed and agitated. The man's saccharine smile only grew wider, his intent increasingly feral. "My, my — and what a pretty face to match."

  "What do you want?" She bristled, all too aware that beside her, Draco had stopped to listen, his glass still poised against his lips.

  "Careful girly, no need to be so prickly, I don't mean nothing by it," The man's eyes narrowed, black as the earthy coal he reeked of. "What's your name?"

  " — What's yours?" She snapped.

"Now, now, why don't you take down your hood so we can talk properly, face to face. Should be a crime to cover a face as fine as yours." He lifted a thick hand as if to pull down Seven's hood. She reacted in an instant, in one fluid movement blanching her head back out of his reach and unsheathing her wand, pressing it to the base of the man's throat.
  The man looked taken aback, for he froze then pulled away as if the inky fabric of her hood had scalded him.
He eyed the two figures, glancing between them as if trying to figure out some great equation. "This your partner or something?"

Seven glanced over at her companion who didn't look at her though she knew he was listening, instead pretending to favour the fire that pooled sickly-sweet in the belly of his glass.

  " — Her fiancé." Draco snapped, the ice in his drink clinking as he raised it and drank. Seven was surprised he had stepped in, though she didn't need to see his face in that moment to imagine it.
    His mouth curled into a snarl, thick brows drawn in over his hauntingly pale grey eyes and perhaps a few strands of moonbeam hair hanging over his forehead too.

  " — So fuck off." She added, eyeing her own glass of honey-coloured firewhiskey, now much less full than Draco's who had grabbed the bottle straight out of the bartender's hands and refilled until his glass practically overflowed.

  The man grumbled something about not meaning any harm before begrudgingly returning to his table of gaudy men. They smirked at him now, thumping him on the arms as he sat back down, taking joy in the failure of their friend.

"You shouldn't talk to men like that, nothing good will come from it." Draco said aloud as if to no one in particular, running a long finger over the rim of his glass, "You don't owe them a response."

Perhaps she should've thanked him for intervening, she didn't really know what to do, unsure why he was suddenly trying to give her advice when not half an hour ago he was telling the whole room how useless and naïve he thought her to be. Tucking her wand back into the folds of her cloak, Seven replied, "I don't owe you one either."

Draco scoffed, raising his glass towards her in a way that said, touché. After that they were quiet for a while longer, both drinking in silence, both wondering what the other was thinking.

At last, when the tidal wave of silence finally threatened to consume them both, Seven broke the surface and asked, "Why didn't you tell me about Gluttony?"

"You didn't ask." He said simply, but she wouldn't allow it.

"How the hell was I supposed to know to ask?" Seven tried her best to keep her voice low, they'd already drawn enough attention as it was already, "Are there any other Sins you've fucked that I should know about? — Sloth perhaps? — or Greed?"

"It wouldn't matter either way."

"See, this is how it works Draco, you tell me everything you know about the Sins, and I'll do the same." Every word she spoke practically dripped with scarcely contained malice, "It's a relatively new concept — called honesty, doesn't sound much like you've heard of it."

   Within the darkness of his cloak Seven could've sworn she'd seen a twinge come across him, and a feeling came about the air, like static before a storm. "I tell you what you need to know."

"Don't start again with that fucking bullshit! If it were true you would've at least told me the plan — but you didn't, did you?"

"Don't raise your voice at me, Seven." The warning in his tone came clear as day, the same way a dog growls before the bite and a serpent rears before the strike. "I was going to tell you —,"

"— When, Draco? — When we were standing outside Lust's mansion? Or what you had your wand pointed at his head?" She couldn't help herself. Seven laughed, hysteria bubbling up inside of her like this was all some kind of sick joke. A joke at her expense. "Maybe not even then, after all, you still left me in the dark when you had a Sin on their knees claiming that they loved you — that they'd always loved you!"

  One of the men at the other table was watching them now; listening intently. Draco noticed and spoke quietly, as if trying to diffuse a live bomb, one that threatened to blow up in his face at any given moment.
"Pansy — ," He caught himself quickly, " — Gluttony, she never loved me. At times she have thought she did, but she did not."

"It doesn't matter if she did or she didn't! — You never even told me you'd even met her before — let alone slept with her!" Her face felt hot with frustration, and in that way she was grateful for the hood. "So tell me Draco, did you love her too?" The words came easily, like water through a broken dam, "Is that why you kept her from me?"

"Christ Seven! Do you really think I could've killed her if I had?" He shook his head, grappling for composure, "Why do you care so much who I have and haven't fucked?" His eyes felt like fire; and hot and demanding against her flesh, " — Are you jealous, is that why?"

Like kindling she set ablaze. "What the fuck is wrong with you! This isn't about what happened between me and you! This is so much bigger than that and maybe, if you took a moment to get your fat head out of your ass then you'd realise that, you selfish fucking prick!"

  He paused, drinking in her words like wine, becoming drunk on his own mirth before he said in a teasing tone, "Tell me Seven, what exactly did happen between us?"

" — Go fuck yourself." Seven snarled, standing so fast the squeal of her stool caused more heads to turn in their direction.

  Draco downed the last dregs of his drink in a single flew fluid movement, slamming the glass back down on the bar. Instinctively, Seven flinched at the sound, unable to be anything but suddenly fearful of his heavy hand — of the look in his eyes that screamed all the hatful things he would never say.

  But then his look became curious, perhaps even regretful — though Seven doubted Draco had ever even been capable of regret.

  "Who hurt you?" His voice came shallow, like waves lapping at a shore. And maybe Seven would've found his voice soothing, if she didn't know the intent laced like honeyed poison beneath it.
  His brows drew in, frustration pulling at the edges of his tranquil face. "I said who hurt you, Seven?"

  Perhaps he just wanted to hear her say it. "You did." She said quietly, though he words held more malice than any scream of cry ever could. "Or have you forgotten so easily the way I bled for you." She struggled to keep her voice as unwavering as her rage, he wouldn't look at her anymore, "Did you enjoy making me cry?"

  "I bled for you too, remember." It came like a blow to the chest. Weaponised words. Bittersweet lies. He had never bled for her, only because of her. If she hadn't have been there, he would never have been distracted with her safety, he wouldn't be sitting there now, hunched over and stiff with unhealed wounds and bloodied bandages soaked through beneath his cloak.

  "I never asked you too." She replied quietly.

Through the shadows Draco's eyes found hers, "You didn't have to."

***
QOTD- Any thoughts? Theories?