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tortue-blanche · 8 months

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The Dark End Of The Street | Imposter 2021 | Dave Gahan & Martin Gore

Не верится, что у меня дошли руки сделать этот пост. Я его так долго планировала, но не знаю почему откладывала. Наверное, мне хотелось бы сделать лучше аналитику и более цельную статью относительно моих наблюдений об альбоме Imposter (2021).

Еще до выхода их нового альбома Memento mori (2023) я стала анализировать этот интереснейший альбом кавер-версий Дейва. Первый раз я прослушала этот альбом и отложила на полку. Затем я вернулась к более внимательному прослушиваю и изучению. Это было связано с тем, что я хотела для себя попытаться разобраться в чем на этот раз между Мартином и Дейвом произошел серьезный конфликт при записи Spirit (2017) и последовавшее охлаждение отношений после изматывающего тура в 2017-2018 гг. Конечно, времена пандемии сыграли свою роль в отдалении перспективы записать новый альбом и наладить между ними отношения. Но я думаю, что в тот момент у них были тяжелые разногласия со всеми вытекающими после. Давно не было такого кризиса, отчасти напоминающий непросто время 2002-2004 гг., когда они вдрызг по многим причинам разругались, занялись сольным творчеством, и тогда угроза прекращения группы была значительна. Определенные ответы на тот период можно найти в их текстах песен (и сольные альбомы, и новые альбомы DM).

Я их альбомы порой рассматриваю как средство общения и диалога. И такой подход находит свои подтверждения. Мной приводились некоторые фрагменты в пользу моего тезиса о диалоге. Например, в конце поста о Wagging Tongue я привожу картинку с цитатами некоторых их песен, части об этом же пост о песне The Sun And The Rainfall. Потом я делала посты о демоверсиях Secret To The End и Broken. Поэтому за поиском своих ответов я обратилась к прослушиванию альбома Imposter и изучению истории подготовки и выпуска этого альбома-истории. Любую пластинку Depeche Mode или альбомы Мартина и Дейва нужно слушать как единое произведение, музыкальную ��нигу или путешествие. Их работы всегда целостны, нельзя "выдергивать" оттуда одну песню или перестраивать изначальную последовательность композиций в альбоме. Собственно, сам Дейв говорил об этом много раз в разных интервью:

"But with music, I’ve always felt that there is something truly informing me of what is going on in my life — where I’m going, where I’ve been, what I’m not doing, what I am doing. It’s sort of living vicariously through song. And there is definitely a feeling quite often for me that I’ve already been there and done that. There’s an — identification. And singing these songs, the ones that ended up on the record — and, like I said, particularly in the order in which we sequenced the record —I feel like it plays out a whole kind of story" - Dave Gahan (31 октября 2021, Illinois Entertainer).

Поочередное прослушивание песен альбома позволит немного лучше их понять, насколько, конечно, возможно. Есть вещи, которые останутся до конца неразгаданными. В этом своя правда и прелесть. Но тем не менее, это не означает, что от зорких глаз скрыты любопытные и замечательные детали или нюансы.

Один из мотивов этого поста - подчеркнуть важность альбома Imposter для того, чтобы немного заглянуть в уникальный мир Дейва, полный противоречий, чувств, гордыни, борьбы, тоски, и...конечно, любви. Безусловно, там будут песни о его семье и жене. Но я полагаю, что этот альбом определенное послание и для Мартина (как это было всегда в альбомах Дейва), помимо собственного самовыражения. Еще с их юности сложилось, что Мартин стал для Дейва своего рода эмоциональным центром. Помнится, как в 2001 г. на одном концерте во время соло Мартина на Enjoy The Silence, стоя спина к спине, Дейв быстро и страстно проговорил (но можно было разобрать): "I breathe you". Это было сказано не ради потехи публики, как у нас сейчас любят ради пиара использовать любые средства.

Так что в Imposter очень много интересных деталей и сюжетов. Я полагаю, что этот альбом Дейва соединяет в себе ретроспективу и его чувства того времени. Так что эта пластинка пронизывает многолетнюю историю Дейва. Он говорил, что этот альбом довольно личный, про себя, про отношения. Кстати, одна из причин, почему я считаю, что Дейв пытался через альбом что-то донести до Мартина, то это определенный ряд песен, и безусловно, это присутствие и Elvis Presley на этой пластинке. И на мой взгляд, кавер-версия «Always on My Mind» (это отсылка к исполнению этой версии Элвисом) непросто так завершает всю эту музыкальную историю Дейва. И звучит собственная интерпретация этой песни в исполнении уже Дейва. И Дейв очень искренен. Но на самом деле я хотела сделать отдельный пост именно об этой кавере Дейва и том, что значит Элвис для Мартина Гора. Это их общий музыкальный фундамент.

Я не уверена, что кто-то дошел до этой части, но мне надо было разъяснить свой тезис, чтобы донести мои мысли. Но, собственно, этот пост я хотела посвятить кавер-версии James Carr "The Dark End Of The Street". Думаю, что Дейв не специально ее исполнил из-за Мартина. Это случайное-неслучайное совпадение. Не случайное оно потому, что отражает их отношения. Сама по себе эта песня очень красивая, романтичная, о тайне. Она созвучна и близка по духу и Мартину, и Дейву, в том числе и их поведению. Если Вы послушаете эту песню и взгляните на их взаимодействие сквозь года, Вы почувствуете, как это правдиво.

Давайте обратим внимание на одну анкету (я не помню точный год этой публикации, наверное времена SOFAD, когда-то скачивала это фото с ответами Мартина с сайта Pinterest). Сейчас нас интересует позиция favourite song и ответ на нее: "The Dark End Of The Street" by James Carr.

Вернемся в 2021 год!

Dave says the following after Lori informs him that Martin Gore and former tour manager Michael Pagnotta would play James Carr's "The Dark End Of The Street" every night in Martin's hotel room after a concert:

"Funny enough, I didn't know it was one of Martin's favorite songs too. It was just, that was totally coincidental. He told me that after I sent him a copy of The Imposter, about a year ago, when we had finished. I made a copy of of our mixed album and I sent it to Martin and he liked it really a lot, and he said to me, "Did you know that Dark End of Street was one of my favourite songs?" And I said, no, I had no clue. I never went back to his particular room with Michael [Pagnotta] that night. I remember the tour and of course, Dark End of the Street, in that particular muscle shows kind feel and version. You know, that's what we were trying to achieve with Songs of Faith and Devotion. We were, you know, we were trying to make a record that felt like performances and had blues and gospel influences to it. And so for me Dark End of the Street would have to be the opener for this particular record. Because it feels to me like it's the it's the opener in a in a show as well. It's like, that's the song I would like. And if we get to do some performances which I think's gonna happen of Impostor for sure, we will be performing the record as it plays out. As you hear it right now that's what will be The Imposter. It'll be in order." - Dave Gahan (Sirius XM, 10.07.2021)

Также можно послушать аудиоверсию:

В ноябре 2021 года Q1043 New York выложил интервью с Дейвом о его новом альбоме Imposter. Очень интересное интервью! Видео хорошо и тем, что можно рассмотреть мимику Дейва. Там есть замечательный фрагмент, где Дейв отвечает на вопрос ведущего о том, что думает о его новой пластинке Мартин и Энди. Здесь уже сам Дейв рассказывает об еще одном странном музыкальном совпадении насчет "The Dark End Of The Street". Наверное, для него это было важно, так как это совпадение было вновь напоминанием об их духовной взаимосвязи и общности, несмотря на их различия, полярность и разногласия. Забавен его комментарий, что в одной комнате они не слушали эту песню. Интересно, а какие песни они слушали вместе? Но это останется за кадром. :)

Host: Did you sent this album to Martin and Andy?

Dave Gahan: I did. In fact, I heard back from Martin a good while ago, actually, it was about a year ago when I first sent it to him. He put out a solo record called the Third Chimpanzee, which I liked, and I sent him Imposter and he came back to me with a lot of compliments. One of his comments was that he didn't know that I was such a big fan of The Dark End of the Street by James Carr. It was, in fact, one of his favourite songs, too, which I did not know. I've been listening to this song probably as long as Martin has, and there was never a situation between the two of us where we where in a room together listening to that song, which, to me, is mind-blowing. It was one of those weird musical coincidences where it happened to be one of Martin's favourites.

Спасибо большое @aufdem-dach за помощь в расшифровке текста! 😘

Как раз об этом совпадении я и хотела рассказать в этом посте! На самом деле это лишь некоторые зарисовки. Но я думаю, что эта предыстория позволит переосмыслить этот альбом или какие-то иные моменты, связанные с Depeche Mode. И обратим внимание и на то, что именно эта песня "The Dark End Of The Street" открывает и альбом, и выступления Дейва в рамках небольшого тура в поддержку Imposter. Именно с нее начинается эта невероятная история длиною в жизнь.

Oh, but our love keeps coming on strong

Steal away to the dark end of the street

youtube

And when the daylight hour rolls around

And by chance we're both downtown

If we should meet, just walk on by

Oh darling, please don't cry

Tonight we'll meet at the dark end of the street

You and me

#depeche mode #dave gahan #martin gore #davemart #imposter #2021 #james carr #the dark end of the street #songs #Youtube #Spotify

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anto-pops · 1 year

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Atonement - Dark!Sebastian Sallow x Female!Reader

Summary: Sebastian had tried to escape. From what you understood in the article you’d read, he had actually succeeded, only to be discovered and apprehended in the water mere miles from the shore. It was mind boggling– nearly impossible to believe– but you had no choice but to accept it as the truth when you read he was being re-sentenced as a result of the transgression.

He had been doomed to face the Dementor’s Kiss.

Word Count: 5.3k

Warnings: 18+, aged up characters, angst, brief thoughts of suicide, violence, minor character deaths

Part 1 of this fic can be found here on Ao3! PART 2 now finished!

The brisk London air chilled your bones, billowing through your unkempt hair as you sat perched on the roof of King’s Cross Station. At this time of year, it wasn’t unusual for temperatures to dip well below freezing in the dark of the night, chasing any meandering residents back inside the safety and comfort of their warm homes.

Good. The less people milling about when the caravan arrived, the better.

You had been sitting there for the better part of two hours, lying in wait for the Ministry assigned escort from Azkaban to arrive with their prisoner in tow. Sebastian Sallow had, for the most part, been serving his life sentence rather quietly based on what you heard through the grapevine. Which really wasn’t much, but no news was good news, and that turn of phrase had held true for two long, painstaking years– until about five months ago.

Sebastian had tried to escape. From what you understood in the article you’d read, he had actually succeeded, only to be discovered and apprehended in the water mere miles from the shore. It was mind boggling– nearly impossible to believe– but you had no choice but to accept it as the truth when you read he was being re-sentenced as a result of the transgression.

He had been doomed to face the Dementor’s Kiss.

A fate that many said was worse than death. It would strip him of everything that made him human– everything that made him Sebastian. They would take it all away and leave him a husk of his former self, and for what? For running? For trying to escape what you knew could only be Hell-incarnate? It was your fault he had ended up there in the first place; a part of you had always known Azkaban was never a solution. The prison wasn’t exactly synonymous with rehabilitation, and yet you had practically held the cell door open for him by telling Professor Black what he’d done.

After that, you knew what you had to do. Ominis had silently listened when you’d gone to him with your idea— begging for his help— because without his connections, who knew if you would be able to reach Sebastian in time. Any remorse you may have felt for essentially manipulating him into agreeing vanished when he came to you weeks later with a stack of parchment.

“He’s being brought to London in three months. It sounds like they’re charting the trip along a road just west of the tracks near the station, but you can double check– I think there’s supposed to be a map in here somewhere. They’ll transfer him from Azkaban and bring him before a hearing. The Dementor’s Kiss will happen there, in the main chamber.”

Your stomach lurched at the thought of Sebastian being reduced to a brainless, drooling pile of flesh in front of hundreds of unknown eyes. “Why wouldn’t they just have the Dementors do it in the prison?”

Ominis deposited the papers on the rickety table in your kitchen, his brows furrowing. “They won’t risk a Dementor going rogue in the prison. There aren’t enough wands available to handle something like that, so they use one housed within the Ministry that’s surrounded at all times.”

You hummed your acknowledgement before thumbing through the thick wad of information you now had to sift through. It had to work– there was no alternative in your mind. With Ominis’ assistance, you stood a real chance of getting to Sebastian now. All you had to do was stay two steps ahead of the Ministry and not do anything impulsive. You would have to act alone– no one else could know of your plot to get to him before the Dementors.

Ominis’ head turned, and you glanced over to see milky blue eyes trained in your direction. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“What other choice is there, Ominis? Let him have his soul sucked out? I know what he did was wrong, but when does all of this stop being punishment and start becoming torture?”

The taller man’s eyes pinched shut, and his head hung heavy between his shoulders. He sighed, raking his long fingers through his neat coif of hair while he waged against his own internal turmoil. “I know. You’re right, I just…”

He trailed off in silence, so you continued, “If I don’t do this, he’s as good as dead. If I can’t get to him before they do, the Sebastian Sallow you and I both know and love will be a thing of the past. He’s learned his lesson, Ominis. I refuse to believe that he hasn’t, and I can’t sit back and let him continue to pay for one mistake forever. He won’t even be making up for anything after this, he’ll just be some mindless husk shut away in a dark cell, left to rot all alone and–”

“Alright!” he clipped, the edge to his voice making you snap your mouth shut with an audible clack of your teeth. “I get it, okay? I’m sorry. It’s just– if you do this, you can’t come back here. You know that, right? You’ll have to take him and run. Get as far away from London as you can before the news breaks and then stay hidden until things die down.”

You frowned, “What about you? They’ll immediately suspect that you had something to do with it– I don’t want you getting into trouble for this. This was my idea, not yours.”

He gave you a sad smile, those hazy eyes narrowing slightly as he pondered the possibilities that raced through his mind. “I’ll figure something out. It might not be pleasant, but there’s always the Obliviate charm.”

“Come with me,” you implored him. Ominis shouldn’t have to erase his own memory just to save himself from the ire of the Ministry. You suddenly felt awful for having come to him for help. “Come with us and you won’t have to. We can all leave– together. Start over somewhere far away from London and the Ministry. There’s nothing here for us anyways.”

Ominis shook his head, the action small but firm. “At least if I’m here I can spin a story. Lead them in the opposite direction. If I go with you I’ll only slow you both down, and you’ll need to be moving fast if you want to keep him out of the Ministry’s reach. Besides, someone has to stay here in case they try roping Anne into all of this. It wouldn’t be fair to let her face their scrutiny by herself– I refuse to do that to her.”

Something in your chest cracked. Ominis, always the logical and reasonable one. It pained you to even begin to agree with him, but at the end of the day, he was right. All of your good work for Anne’s health could be undone in a second at the Ministry’s hands. She would need Ominis’ help, and once you had Sebastian with you, there could be no stopping. You would never be able to settle in any one place, effectively on the run for the rest of your life. But if that was the price you had to pay to atone for sending Sebastian away in the first place, then so be it.

The memory faded from your mind at the sight of carriages peeking over the hill. There had been a few false alarms thus far, so you waited patiently and scanned the line of wheeled transports for a sign that this was what you’d been waiting for. One carriage came over the cobblestone path, flanked by a second that had two Auror’s perched precariously on either side of the driver. Their robes set them apart from the man holding the reins. A long, white flag flapped in the breeze, and the familiar ‘M’ of the Ministry’s logo flashed in the vivid moonlight.

Sebastian was here.

You shifted so you were laying across the slanted roof on your stomach, watching silently as the carriages followed the west road leading towards the train station. All you had at your disposal was a desperate plan and a shit-load of ancient magic, but it would have to be enough. You would ensure that it was enough. Otherwise…

Otherwise you would die trying.

—

The entire carriage ride from Azkaban to King’s Cross Station had been… interesting, to put it mildly. To start everything off, the two Auror’s who had come to retrieve Sebastian from his cell insulted him immediately after confirming he was present. That wasn’t too unusual, though, and he honestly considered it to be relatively standard treatment from the Ministry’s best and brightest. At least, it was normal as far as the inmates were concerned.

Then the blokes had pushed him against the wall and shoved a bag over his head, and it was game on from there. Sebastian knew what lay in wait at the end of the tracks they were taking him to, and he’d sooner cut out his own tongue than make the task easy for the bastards.

So, he fought. He had kicked and flailed and quite possibly shattered his cell guard’s nose with the heel of his foot when Alexander Shacklebolt used Levioso to suspend him in midair, opting to float him into the carriage instead of letting him walk to his untimely demise– the nerve of the condescending asshole.

Now, after four hours of listening to the second Auror, William Singer, sing his own praises and retell the story of how he “took down the biggest poaching ring in Northern Ireland”, Sebastian was looking forward to the Dementor’s Kiss. It should be illegal, he thought, having a prisoner’s last coherent hours on Earth be spent listening to moronic rambling.

There was a long list of things he would have preferred to have cashed in on before being made into a failed lobotomy patient, and none of those things had shit to do with William Singer’s escapades in Ireland.

You appeared an unhealthy amount of times on said list.

Sebastian’s infatuation with you had only grown in his time locked away from the outside world. With nothing else to do but think, he found himself replaying the events that had landed him in Azkaban over in his mind, day after day. Perhaps it was counter-productive to admit it, but he never regretted killing his Uncle. Solomon had been a stain on his life for far too long to start backtracking now and say he missed him– but what he did regret was putting that look of fear in your eyes in the catacombs that night.

You had done everything in your power to help him in his search for a cure for Anne. In his crazed pursuit for power, he started taking everything you and Ominis had given him for granted. Somewhere along the line, Sebastian knew he had become a terrible friend. One unworthy of Ominis’ loyalty, and most of all, undeserving of your love.

Your shared moments with him haunted his dreams every night in Azkaban. From the adrenaline filled adventures the two of you had gone on in the Highlands, to the far more intimate moments shared in the Undercroft late at night. Sebastian longed for you like a man lost in the desert craved water. You were his mirage in the barren wasteland of his prison cell, and it was your name that tumbled from his lips during those particularly dreadful nights when all he could do to cope was stroke himself to the mantra of your name on his tongue.

William Singer started talking again, interrupting Sebastian’s life-before-brain-dead montage, and he rolled his eyes within the confines of the sac on his head. If he could cast wandless magic, Singer would have been transfigured into a rat long before now.

“Is the convoy waiting in London already?” Singer directed the question towards Alexander, and Sebastian had the good sense to believe that the seasoned Auror was the real brains behind this whole operation. The man allegedly came from a family of powerful purebloods and was highly skilled with his wand, rising to the ranks of Auror when he was only twenty-four years old.

Alexander sounded equal parts uninterested and irritated when he replied. “No. As I stated before we got in the carriage, we’ll send an owl from the platform. That way the Ministry won’t be sitting ducks out in the open when we’re still heading their way.”

The two men didn’t even bother to conceal their conversation from him, and Sebastian scowled, almost offended that they considered him to be so little of a threat. Hadn’t he put up a fight on his way out of the prison? Or maybe they figured that since he would be a witless, soulless idiot in less than a few hours, him knowing their itinerary wasn’t the end of the world.

Merlin, he wanted to Confrigo them both into scorch marks.

The carriage finally lurched to a stop, and Sebastian’s stomach sank into his feet. They were here. His unfortunate quietus loomed ominously in the far reaches of his mind, and he couldn’t help but feel a tad defeated at the realization that this was the end of the line. After this, whatever happened to him probably wouldn’t matter to him. He had seen what fate came after the Dementor’s Kiss plenty of times with other inmates. The most obstinate and ferocious of prisoners would return from their own sentences cross eyed and shuffling their feet, taking beatings from the guards with little more than soft grunts.

Maybe he would throw himself in front of the train. He could sort of see through the threadbare bag over his head– albeit not very well. But how hard would it be to just… jump forward when he heard the train approaching? If Ominis could maneuver around the world without sight, Sebastian figured he could easily do it for five measly seconds before becoming a bloody splat on the tracks.

One of the Auror’s gripped his forearm to haul him out of his seat, and he was cursing up a storm as he was unceremoniously thrown from the carriage doors. The temperature change was drastic, the cold fresh air hitting his skin like a bucket of ice water, but he couldn’t help but relish in it. He’d been too preoccupied with thrashing like a fish out of water on his way out of Azkaban to appreciate the undiluted, clean breeze that existed outside the prison walls.

“Don’t try anything stupid, Sallow.” Shacklebolt muttered ominously from somewhere behind him, and Sebastian sighed in annoyance.

He felt the Auror grab his bound wrists to push him forward, and he blindly allowed himself to be guided towards the front gates of King’s Cross Station. As they approached, a different kind of chill ran down his spine, causing the hair on the back of his neck to stand on end. All he could see through the sac concealing his vision were the brief flashes of light from the streetlamps, but he still strained to look around and figure out what surrounded him.

“Quit fidgeting and walk, Sallow.” William spat his name like it was a curse, and Sebastian sneered behind the safety of his makeshift mask, slowing his stride purely out of spite. William groaned, “For crying out loud…”

The closer he got to the station, the more potent the energy around him felt. It was electric and warm, almost soothing against his skin as his footsteps echoed through the barren streets. It didn’t sound like there was anyone milling about, so what was the source?

“Do you feel that?” William whispered to Alexander, and the older Auror stopped walking to look around with narrowed eyes. Evidently, he did.

A few beats of silence followed the question, and Sebastian felt Shacklebolt tighten his grip around his restraints. The rope digging into his bony wrists bordered on painful, but he grit his teeth through the discomfort. He had dealt with worse. “Take him back to the carriage. Now!”

At the same time Alexander was pulling Sebastian backwards, a brilliant flash of red illuminated the sky through his head covering. It arched overhead and slammed into the ground behind them, raining shattered wood and debris on his shoulders. Instinct screamed at him to duck down and keep his head attached to his neck, but with Shacklebolt roughly tossing him towards William, Sebastian found himself being forced to sprint back towards the carriage with Singer’s wand pointed against his back.

“What the hell was that!?” Sebastian found himself yelling over another blast of magic.

“Shut up! Get back in the carriage and stay there–” Another explosion heated the air in front of them, the force of it blowing him and William back against the rough stone pavement and ripping the bag away from his head.

The night sky and crackling spells danced above him, and Sebastian blinked away the fog from his mind as the ringing in his ears subsided. His head ached when he lifted it from the cold ground, but he willed away the impending nausea to hurriedly take in everything happening around him.

The carriage he had arrived in was now a useless pile of charred wood, as was half of the second transport that was still disintegrating into ash. Whoever had been riding inside was likely no longer amongst the living. The whole thing screamed preventative measures, and Sebastian wondered dimly if this was by any chance a prison-break.

Alexander was entirely on the defensive, every other spell from his wand being cast to protect himself from the brutal onslaught of magic coming from above the train station. Whoever was attacking them had the high ground and was thoroughly thrashing the Auror, an impressive feat in and of itself, but then he noticed William stirring from his spot on the ground. The beady eyed man wobbled as he got to his knees, grabbing his wand from beneath him as he moved to take position behind the older Auror.

“Accio!” he called out, and the purple tether of magic whizzed past the unknown assailant as they dove across the roof. Sebastian saw their dark cloak billow behind them as they leapt from the clock tower in an absolutely insane freefall, and right before they would have hit the ground with a bone-breaking splat, a spell shot from their wand and allowed them to float down the remaining distance.

What the fuck kind of magic was that?

The figure stood straight, and they weren’t very tall at all– kind of youthful in stature, actually. When they slowly began stalking closer, Sebastian realized they had a mask on under their hood. Their narrowed eyes glinted with recognition when they flickered over to him still lying prone on the ground, and Sebastian’s heart threatened to beat straight out of his sternum. Did he dare to hope?

“Whoever you are, you’re a right fool for attacking Ministry officials,” Shacklebolt’s voice was booming, drawing Sebastian’s attention from his rescuer back to the two Auror’s that separated him from them. “Rest assured you’ll get to spend plenty of time with Mr. Sallow on the train ride to London. I take it he is why you’re here, am I correct?”

The cloaked figure said nothing, but Sebastian saw the way their gloved hand tightened around their wand. Your wand.

His breath got caught somewhere in his throat at the revelation at the same time you were moving into a dueling stance, and it dawned on him then that you were taking on fucking Aurors to get to him. You were trying to help him escape his fate– and he couldn’t do a damn thing to help. The bindings on his wrists kept his hands uselessly sandwiched between his back and the road.

“Last chance,” Alexander growled, leveling his wand with your head, which in turn prompted William to do the same. “Drop your wand and surrender, and maybe I’ll put in a good word and get you a nicer cell with a view. What say you?”

You stayed silent, but the spell you fired off said everything that you didn’t.

It sounded a lot like fuck you.

Sebastian watched as Shacklebolt and Singer both started countering your attacks with devastating ones of their own, but you held your ground. Despite the uneven odds, it was you advancing closer to them, stealing the space that they tried to maintain in vain. Your wand was constantly glowing, your ancient magic pulsing in the air around him and charging the breeze with flakes of electricity.

That was what he had been feeling this whole time– your magic.

He never remembered it being so palpable. Sure, you’d always had something of a magnetic aura– it was one of the reasons he’d found himself so drawn to you years ago– but this was different. Something had changed. Your power had transformed into a ruthlessly sharp entity, yet it's eerily familiar warmth from your fifth-year was still there. It caressed his skin as if to put him at ease, before shifting back into the cold, jagged flecks of energy that worked to set the two Aurors’ teeth on edge.

William rolled to the right, narrowly avoiding Bombarda as it broke apart the Earth where he had been standing seconds before. Sebastian watched in awe as you used the demolished remnants of the transport as ammunition, lifting and throwing a detached carriage wheel to knock Singer off his feet before he could steady himself. He flew back against the loose gravel with a grunt, and it was like the universe was dangling a bone right before Sebastian’s eyes, because the man’s wand bounced and came to rest not two feet away from him.

Sebastian threw himself to the side and awkwardly clasped the crooked wood like it was his lifeline, and despite it feeling clunky in his fingers, it hummed in acknowledgement as he finally let his magic channel through him after two and half years without it.

“Incendio,” The rope bindings around his wrists went up in flames for a heartbeat, then fell away in a pile of smokey ash underneath him. He could feel the fresh burns on his skin from the direct contact with the fire, but that was hardly important right now.

Sebastian took his own dueling stance behind Shacklebolt, who was too preoccupied with shielding himself from your casting to notice that his partner was incapacitated behind him. Your wand whipped towards the Auror, your own spell breaking the shield he’d encased himself in, and Sebastian leapt at the chance.

“Depulso!” It felt incredibly strange to be casting magic again– much less with an unfamiliar wand– but the way it got his blood pumping brought a dark smile to his face. He hadn’t felt this alive in years. Alexander went flying through the air before hitting the streetlamp across the road, and Sebastian couldn’t help but wince a little at how the man seemed to wrap around the pole. The Auror slid down to the ground in an unmoving heap, and at the sight of his wand rolling out of his lax fingers, Sebastian let his guard drop as he turned to face you fully.

You had no time to say anything to warn him as William Singer reappeared behind Sebastian, wearing a positively murderous expression that promised trouble. The Auror looped his arm around Sebastian’s throat, pulling him against his chest with a strangled choking sound.

“I’ll fucking kill you for that, Sallow,” Singer spat while trying to grab his wand from Sebastian’s outstretched grasp. All the while Sebastian struggled to take a breath to utter a spell– any spell– to save himself. He was fading quickly– the awareness in his eyes slowly seeping away as William tightened his hold against his airway. “The Dementor’s Kiss is too good for you anyways, you’re gonna die here and now, at my hands–”

William was cut off as he was snatched up into the air faster than either man could process, and he stayed hanging in midair as Sebastian collapsed to his knees, bracing himself on his hands to suck in greedy breaths. Looking over to you, he saw your wand pulsing an angry red– a red that seemed to be reflected in your eyes– and you swung your arm down in a broad motion to hurdle the Auror against the pavement. A sickening crack resonated from somewhere within him, and Sebastian’s blood ran cold. You repeated the motion two more times, essentially ragdolling William Singer’s body back and forth with the force of a damned Troll, before you let his broken form hit the ground in a bloody heap.

Holy fuck.

Your shoulders heaved with exertion as your magic receded beneath your skin, and the only thing you could hear was your own heartbeat thrumming in your ears. Hot, puffs of your breath warmed your cheeks beneath your mask, and with one last look at the slumped bodies of both Aurors, you ripped the face covering off and turned to Sebastian.

His pale skin had a sheen of sweat covering it along with a few scrapes, and he was breathing heavily. An ugly bruise was starting to form along his neck from the Auror’s arm, but beyond that, he seemed to be okay. Despite being locked in the dark for two and a half years, his freckles were stark in comparison to his alabaster complexion, and you couldn’t help but smile softly at the sight of them. Sebastian’s dark brown eyes widened at the sight of you, his lips parting as if he wanted to say something, but the words got caught in his throat.

Your steps were slow and tentative as you closed the distance between the two of you, and when you finally came to kneel in front of him, Sebastian’s hand flew to the front straps of your cloak and yanked you into a desperate kiss.

It was all tongue and teeth as you collapsed against him, with your frantic hands cupping his cheeks and then raking through his unkempt hair, while his hands gripped your hips with bruising strength to hold you as close as possible. Part of him was afraid that if he let go, you would disappear entirely– that all of this would just turn out to be some torturous dream inside the carriage with Singer still monologuing in his ear.

Any thoughts of William vanished at the feeling of your burning hands cradling the back of his head tenderly as you kissed him harder, more urgently, and a keening noise sounded from deep in his chest. Sebastian’s hands roved up the small of your back, tugging you harder against him as he started to pull at the fabric of your shirt.

As riveting as everything was, it was equally sobering to feel the cold pavement beneath your knees, and you forced yourself to stop and remember where you were. You placed your hands against his chest in a bid to break away, but he chased your lips as you pulled back to gaze at him.

“Sebastian, wait–” he stole you into a kiss once more, swallowing your startled gasp and delving his tongue into your mouth to taste you. He had forgotten how sweet you were, and he felt that if he didn’t commit everything to memory now, he would never get another chance.

“Say my name again,” he heard himself say against the curve of your jaw, the husky, needy tone to his voice making your toes curl in your boots. Merlin, you had missed the sound of it.

“We need to leave, it isn’t safe–”

“Please,” he breathed the request against your heated skin, and when his head lifted to stare up at you in his lap, the look was desperate and showcased just how haggard he actually was.

Dark, reddish circles framed his deep-set eyes and made the whites stand out drastically, giving him something of a haunted expression. Being this close to him clued you in on how thin he was beneath his clothes. There was still a little muscle definition, but his cheeks were gaunt, and you could see the sharp outline of his collarbones poking over the neckline of his shirt. The tortured glint in his eyes imbued you with a fresh sense of remorse, and your guilt gnawed at the lining of your stomach, effectively smothering any joy you might have felt at reaching him in time.

You might have made it to him before the Dementors, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that you’d still failed him.

Swallowing around the lump in your throat, you let your hands rise to cup his cheeks, ghosting your thumbs across the constellation of freckles that lined his nose. “I’m so sorry, Sebastian.”

Chuckling cynically, he lowered his stare and shook his head softly, the longer strands of his overgrown hair brushing over his shoulders. “You can make it up to me later– tell me you have a plan that gets us out of here quickly– I don’t particularly want to hang around for more Ministry dogs to show up.”

Nodding, you blinked away the sting from your eyes and slid off Sebastian’s lap, extending your hand to help him to his feet. He took it graciously, mindlessly fidgeting with the wand he had taken from William in an attempt to distract himself from his own nerves. You let him collect himself for a moment while you took in the state of the streets outside the train station.

Chunks of cobblestone littered the ground, along with what little remained of the carriages you’d exploded. Your eyes skipped over the bodies of the Auror’s you and Sebastian had killed, noting dimly how little the sight affected you. At this point, you had seen and done worse, but that didn’t shrink the severity of the crime. You forced a breath into your lungs to squash the sinking feeling that you would be apprehended at any moment– carted before the Ministry to face the Dementor’s Kiss alongside Sebastian– all of your planning done in vain.

The plan. Right. The one you had spent months refining and memorizing. Snap out of it, you implored yourself, or all of this will have been for nothing.

“Come on,” you forced yourself to say, extending a hand for him to take. He cocked a brow at you, the action so very Sebastian of him, and almost cautiously interlaced his fingers with your own.

“Are we going to apparate?” He sounded surprised.

You flashed him a half-smile, though you were positive it came across as more of a grimace. Of course he would be shocked at the revelation– he’d been imprisoned for two years.

The tiny devil on your shoulder was having a field day reminding you what a massive piece of shit you were.

“It’s a newer trick. I’ve been practicing here for a few months to get it down, but I won’t splinch you if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He huffed a laugh, but the sound was devoid of any humor. “Hardly. I guess I assumed we’d be using the Floo network, that’s all.”

Your grip on his hand tightened a fraction as you spoke, “I don’t think it’ll be wise to use the Floo network for a long time. I wouldn’t put it past the Ministry to somehow track us making jumps that way. It’ll be this and our own two feet for a while.”

Sebastian gave you a nonplussed blink, but then he surprised you by giving you the first real smile you’d seen from him since saving him. “That doesn’t sound too bad. We certainly have a lot of catching up to do. How far will we get tonight?”

“Far enough to grab a few things and rest,” you whispered, in some futile attempt to conceal your plans from the dead men surrounding you. “Are you ready?”

Sebastian’s free hand came to curl gently around your bicep, tugging you closer, and you felt the ghost of his breath against your temple as he muttered coyly, “Lead the way.”

#sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow x you #sebastian sallow x reader #sebastian sallow x female!reader #hogwarts legacy #hogwwarts legacy fanfic #sebastian sallow oneshot #dark!sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow x mc #implied 'bad ending'#my writing #in case anyone is looking this far down the tags yes part 2 is where all the smut is #I couldn't very well let them go at it in the street outside King's Cross Station

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