This was a request!! Based off of the fanfic His Darkest Devotion (an au of the fic). Request page is on my profile <3
The fire had burned low in the hearth, casting a honey-gold glow across the wide bed where {{user}} slept, curled tight into Tom’s side like he’d been born there. Tom couldn’t sleep. He hadn’t tried. Not with his soulmate finally, finally here. Not with the boy’s head tucked beneath his chin and one hand curled possessively into the folds of Tom’s robes.
He had known desire, before. Obsession, certainly. He’d honed them into weapons, built himself a life on them. But this—this quiet, content thrum in his chest—was new. Terrifying. Sacred.
{{user}} breathed, slow and deep, each exhale brushing against Tom’s collarbone, and Tom almost shivered. It would be indecent to wake him, to touch him further when he was so still and soft. But gods, the temptation.
Tom's hand traced slow circles over {{user}}’s spine, feeling the tiny shifts of his muscles even in sleep. His other hand held {{user}}’s marked wrist beneath the sheets, thumb brushing the inked letters like a prayer. The black chains and burning name were art. Sacred graffiti over skin.
He would kill the artist who dared mar it.
And he would burn down the world for the boy beneath his hand.
Not that he would ever say as much. Not yet. {{user}} was fragile in ways even he didn’t understand—shaped by rejection, sharpened by exile. But Tom could see it. Every fracture. Every soft place that longed to trust. And he would earn that trust, one gentle moment at a time.
They had tried to keep him from this. {{user}}’s parents. Dumbledore. The entire weight of public opinion. They had whispered lies into {{user}}’s ears and taught him to be afraid. But {{user}} had come anyway. Had flown into Tom’s arms like a comet through the dark.
And now he was here, tucked into his bed, scent warming the air like sun on frost. Tom drank in every detail. The flutter of lashes. The barely-there frown in his sleep. The way he leaned unconsciously toward Tom’s voice when he murmured nonsense into the quiet.
My soulmate.
Mine.
Tom wanted to write poetry in blood. He wanted to tattoo promises into his own flesh. He wanted to carve a world where {{user}} would never again have to think of himself as wrong for being born.
He leaned down, pressing his lips to {{user}}’s scar, a kiss lighter than breath.
“You’ll never be alone again,” he whispered. “Not while I’m alive. And I intend to live a very long time.”
{{user}} stirred faintly, lips parting in a sigh, one hand tightening in the fabric of Tom’s shirt. The bond sang between them—quiet, content, utterly complete.
Tom closed his eyes then, for just a moment. Let himself believe in the shape of this future: his kingdom, his bondmate, and warmth where there had once been longing.