Contingent | D.M. + H.G.

Chapter 11: Introspective

A/N: Betawork done by AlmondMilkTeaDoubleBoba and LeilahMoon – and a very special thanks to lost_poetx!

Also, Chapter one of my new Dramione fic, 'Vices' is up now if you want to take a look! It's an eighth year post war fic :)

With that out of the way, I won't keep you.

xoxo, carmen

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Draco was fucking drowning.

He was pretty sure that his self-preserving nature was the only thing keeping his mind from collapsing in on itself, but even that was on the brink of extinction. He felt like he was so close to just giving into the insanity that seemed to be a constant threat - not quite enough to cross the point of no return, but enough to make him second guess every last thought that danced across his mind.

That bloody party was supposed to help him clear his head, cleanse his palette, and give him one fucking break, but apparently he wasn't even deserving of that. Honestly, with all of the shit he'd pulled recently, he wasn't surprised. All it did was make him wish the earth would swallow him whole. It wasn't like anyone would miss him.

He was one step away from throwing some kind of fucking offering into an abyss to get whatever was in there to swallow him alive. Draco wondered if they might like flowers of some kind. Hell, he'd resort to any Muggle ritual just to be able to escape into that abyss.

It would be ironic, wouldn't it, if it took on her shape. It would be an act of pure evil that if it did, and he still wanted to plunge into it, past the point of sanity and reason, he would have to leap into her. To toss aside all inhibitions, lower his guard, and just dive into it, her, to give up all breath and grip on reality in order to lose himself.

He wondered how long he could stare into it before it started to stare back. He was tempted to try, maybe he'd get lucky and he could just jump.

Trying to compile a mental list of people who would miss him if he actually were to shuffle off the mortal coil, he was ashamed to admit that it was very pathetic. It consisted of his mother, Blaise, and Theo. He wasn't even sure if he could put his father as a contender, and, if he were being honest, he couldn't nail down one emotion that described his feelings on the matter.

It was upsetting, not to know how you felt. How you were supposed to feel. There were certain labels you could put on things: happiness, sadness, anger - hell, even arousal, for fuck's sake. But what was the word you could use to adequately describe what it felt like to not know if your father, your own flesh and blood, would give more than one fuck about his son kicking the bucket? And, Draco thought, that one fuck would be given to the fact that the Malfoy name would die with his parents.

Disgusting, really.

Draco had kept his head down successfully for a few days now, keeping quiet and to himself. He needed the space to really try to clear his head and figure out what was going on up there. It was like his mind and body were at war, both rebelling against him. He constantly felt sick as a result of his inner mental turmoil, and it was like a fucking windstorm.

He hid away in his room whenever he wasn't in class or eating, and he could tell Theo and Blaise were getting worried. With good reason, too - he was this close to faking his death and fucking off for good.

He stared at himself in the mirror, not sure if he liked what stared back.

Nothing he did was helping to rectify the tangled mess inside his head. Everything he did made him question himself. It was fucking torture.

He didn't know what he was supposed to do about any of it.

Every lick of self-assuredness he'd ever had was completely gone. It had been siphoned out of every cell in his body and dissipated into nothingness. If anything, it had been twisted and warped into self-doubt. He looked in the mirror and had no idea who was looking back at him. It was like he was a shell of himself.