Not a love story - Matheo Riddle & Y/n Lestrange

26

I wipe his tears away.

"My sweet baby boy, I love you."

He watches me as I kiss all the bruises and cuts on his face.

"I missed you, ma. You could say I was tortured, but the only torture was being away from you," he says.

i crumble

hes so precious

After a hot minute of silence and tension that could be cut with a butter knife, I spoke.

"A couple of days I was hallucinating that you came back, and when I stopped hallucinating, I wanted you back, even if it wasn't real." I breathe out and in slowly.

"I can't describe and undo the depths and layers of regret and guilt I compell for you, but I just want you to know I'm sorry for breaking that promise," he says.

He grabs my face delicately as his soft, bloody lips touch my forehead.

"Let's get you cleaned up," I say, getting off him.

We make it to the bathroom.

And he sits on the bench as I spread his legs, standing in between them. I slowly and carefully take off his shirt, and I also unzip his pants, slowly taking them off as I look at him.

I hold back an audible gasp as I see all of his. cuts and bruises

When you endure pain, nobody else feels it, but as I look at his body, I feel hurt and sick to my stomach.

I grab a wet cloth as I start hand-bathing him.

The water is now a muddy, opaque color, and it smells fresher and cleaner.

The pain of seeing a loved one is worse than anything imagined, so I try to hold myself back from expressing my emotions. For context, he looks as though he's just on the edge of dying; he has wounds everywhere. not to mention the ongoing wounds mentally and emotionally.

I know his face is clean, his eyes look empty, and his body looks frailer. His lips are chapped and split; he has a cut on his nose; and his eye is a little swollen as he probably took a hit there. On his cheek bone, he has another small cut with a circle-shaped bruise.

But when I look at his back , a tear falls from my eye.

He has been whipped.

with a whip, long slices on his back

"Oh god," I cover my mouth with a shaky hand.

I continue to clean his back with the wet cloth; I can sense his discomfort. without trying to break it down, I say

"It's nearly over, baby."

I put butterfly stitches over all the cuts, I watch as his muscles flex as he puts back on his shirt, I can hear his thoughts, and he's cussing himself over and over again; it's hard to ignore his pain.

I move onto his legs. He has sprained an ankle, which I tend to see sore and bruised like every other part of his fragile body.

He has a little dirt on him, so I was that as well. I'm crouching down and washing the dirt away, and I think I'm going to scream, yell, or cry. I take a deep breath in and get up, putting a smile on

"I think we should go lie down," I say, taking off my pants and my bra, leaving me in an oversized jumper that I found lying on the floor.

Matheo does the same as I lie down on my side, but he hugs my waist instead, lifting my hoodie and putting his top half of his body under me, hiding under me and holding my body close.