Authors note: Well this is it - the final chapter. Hope you've all
enjoyed my little contribution to the SS/SB cause...it was fun writing.
Happy Easter everybody.
**********************************
It was a nice, gradual awakening, softly slipping between sleep and consciousness. He could feel the heat of sunlight against his skin, and he instinctively knew that it was going to be a beautiful day. A warm contentment spread through him, passing in a tingling wave over his skin. He kept his eyelids tightly closed, knowing that if he opened them, this peace would have to end, and he would be faced with the daunting prospect of another day to struggle through. He smiled softly to himself, wriggling his toes in happiness. It wasn't often that he felt this good...
"Sirius."
The word broke the animagus from his happiness, causing him to open his eyes in confusion. Severus was sitting opposite him - fully dressed in the black robes of the previous evening - his intense black gaze resting heavily on the other man.
Sirius frowned sleepily. "What are you still doing here?" he murmured questioningly, voice slurred with sleep. The vast quantities of alcohol he had consumed the night before suddenly returned to haunt him, a sharp ache pounding within his skull. He gave a small hiss of pain. "Don't you have a potions lab to return to?"
Severus continued to watch him closely. "I have no class first thing this morning," he informed him blandly, "And there are some things that need to be said."
"Oh?" Sirius pulled himself up weakly into a sitting position. "About what?"
"What you said last night."
Black froze.
His recollection of the previous night were cluttered and confused - mostly consisting of infuriatingly vague images of the two of them moving against one another in bed - but he did have vague memory of the short conversation that had followed the sex. He had been drunk, that much was clear, and he had told Severus that...that...
Oh shit, he cursed himself inwardly...he had only gone and told Snape that he still loved him!
Double shit!
"Forget what I said last night."
"I don't think that I can."
He grimaced darkly and massaged his aching forehead with long fingers. "I was pissed...talking out of my arse...I didn't mean it."
Severus's expression of careful neutrality flickered briefly, the cold mask of indifference giving way to a look of...what? Sirius wasn't sure, but it made him more than a little uneasy.
"Oh, I think that you did mean it," the Potions Master told him coolly, head leaning back slightly against the wooden wall. "And it is from there that my problem arises."
Something unpleasant squirmed within Sirius then, though he did not allow this to show on his face. "Problem?"
Snape nodded slowly and looked away. Though his face remained as pale and ungiving as ever, Sirius thought that he saw an uncharacteristic tightness to his jaw at that moment. He seemed to hesitate for a moment.
"I don't want to see you anymore."
There was a long moment of silence. Sirius stared at his lover incredulously, although Severus kept his eyes trained doggedly at the ground. The sunlight oozed in thickly through the slits in the shutters, illuminating the room with a sickly yellow glow.
Sirius swallowed, his throat suddenly inexplicably tight. "What do you mean?" he questioned quietly, surprised by the waver to his normally firm voice.
Severus lowered his head still further, a thick curtain of greasy black hair partially obscuring his features. "I never asked for you to love me, Black," he muttered, "And I have never harbored any desire to further our relationship past the superficial. All that I have ever wanted from you is meaningless pleasure. Do you understand?"
The former convict's thick eyebrows drew even further together. He said nothing.
Snape wavered for a moment, thin lips pressed together in a tense line. Pale fingers drummed listlessly against his draw-up knees. He suddenly shook his head. "You know me, Black, and you know what I am like. I don't want to be loved. I don't want to be cared for. I don't even particularly want to be liked. Whatever it is that you feel for me, my life has enough complications at the moment without having to take your emotions into consideration." His fingers picked up the pace, now a frenzied drumming against black material. "That is why I do not think that it would a good idea for us to continue with these little meetings. I don't want us to see each other again."
Silence.
Sirius wasn't certain how to react. Truth be told, he wasn't even fully certain on how he was feeling. Shocked, certainly, but beyond that...? He couldn't be sure. Sirius Black had never been good at analyzing his emotions, preferring instead to reply on his physical reactions, but his body - like his mind - was in a state of stunned confusion.
He gave a choked hiss, surprised to feel tears stinging against his eyes. "You fucking bastard."
Severus gave a hard laugh. Much like Black's curse, however, it was a shaky and uneven sound. "I never could sustain an intelligent conversation with you."
Sirius ignored the comment. "You're such a coward, Snape. You can't even admit the truth."
"Truth?"
The animagus glared at him, body trembling with barley controlled rage. "You love me. You feel the same way as I do, I know that you do."
Severus smirked, but still refused to look up. "Preposterous," he sneered coldly.
"Is it?" Now it was Sirius's turn to sneer. His exposed chest rose and fell with deepened breathing, dark spots of anger blossoming on his lean cheeks. "You're afraid, Snape. You always have been. That's why you won't let me kiss you, isn't it? Because that would mean that you might actually have to confront how you feel." His lips curved darkly downward, eyes glinting in the pale morning sunshine. "You're pathetic, you know that?"
"I don't have to stay here and listen to this!!"
"THEN WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE?!?!"
Sirius hardly even noticed that he had raised voice until he saw Severus give a sharp flinch. His words hung in the air between them, pain-filled and accusing. Neither man moved, neither man spoke. The enormity of what had just happened weighed around them in the smothering darkness, black sorrow gathering in the gloom.
Sirius looked away, not wanting him to see the hurt expression that he knew would be on his face. From the moment the words had slipped out, he had instantly regretted them. He had wanted to hurt him, wanted to lash out at his weakness, but now that he had done it, all he was left with was cold emptiness. But he couldn't take it back. So he sat still - desperation and anger conflicting within him - and waited for Severus to make his move.
He sensed rather than saw Snape rise to his feet.
"Goodbye, Black."
Sirius drew a long and shuddering breath, fighting against the tightness in his throat that suddenly threatened to overwhelm him. "Sirius," he muttered quietly.
"Excuse me?"
He looked up, gaze darkened with hostility. "Sirius. It's what you called me last night, remember?"
Severus straightened noticeably, only just realizing the slip-up that he had made the previous evening. His pale face looked taunt and pained at that moment, eyes betraying what he would not allow his expression to do so. Black eyes met black as they stared at each other over the distance...a look of uncertainty passing almost tangibly between them...
Suddenly Severus straightened and turned quickly on his heel, sweeping away in a blaze of robes. The door opened and shut with an audible creak and then...
...Nothing.
Severus Snape was gone, and Sirius knew that, this time, he would not be coming back.
Despair swelled inside of him, deep and pitiless. Slender shoulders heaved as he fought to suppress the sob that was growing in his throat. It didn't work. His face contorted in a look of utter despair, hot tears stinging at the back of his eyes.
The lamp impacted the back of the door with an explosion of broken glass.
"BASTARD!!!!"
***********************************
A week later:
Dumbledore's office was in its usual state of ordered disarray. Harry couldn't help but let his gaze drift idly around the room, drinking in its comforting eccentricity and allowing his mind to wander away. He was growing increasingly weary of the conversation that was unfolding around him. Every week it was the same. Professor Dumbledore would call a meeting to discuss developments in fight against the Dark Forces...they would talk for a short time...they would plan...and then, inevitably, Snape and Sirius would start bickering.
The young boy sighed wearily as the voices rose in volume.
"Let me get this straight," Severus's creased his forehead in mock meditation, "You were following the Death Eaters through London and you...lost them?"
Sirius looked decidedly sulky at the other mans obviously contemptuous words. "Yes."
"You...lost...them?"
"What's the problem, Snape, is it too difficult to understand or shall I draw you a picture to illustrate?" Black flashed him an icy sneer. "I lost them, alright? It happens."
The Potions Professor's lips curved upward in the ghost of a smirk. "My, my, my...Sirius Black admitting that he failed. I hope that your little admission did nothing to dent that famous Gryffindor pride of yours."
"Fuck off Snape."
Dumbledore arched an eyebrow slightly. "Language, Sirius."
The animagus glanced quickly to the Hogwarts headmaster. "Sorry Albus," he muttered, arms folded over his chest as he glowered at the lank-haired man sitting opposite him.
Harry watched the scene unfold with only mild interest. It was a special he had witnessed many times over the past few months, and no doubt it would happen many more times before Voldemort would finally be defeated...if indeed that ever happened. There were times when he found himself wondering whether this war was doomed to last forever.
He studied the two older men closely in the silence that followed Dumbledore's rebuke. Predictably they sat glaring at each other, twin expressions of hatred lining their lean faces. The mutual loathing between the two was, for a moment, so tangible that Harry could almost feel the age- old animosity pulsating between them.
...And yet there was something else there that Harry had never noticed before. He blinked thoughtfully behind his glasses, head tilting unconsciously to one side. The two men - completely oblivious to the fact that they were being watched - continued to stare at each other, but there was something different about the way that they were looking at each other at that moment...something that Harry had never seen before.
They looked almost...sad.
He frowned and shook his head, but when he looked again it was gone. Now there was only Snape and Black, the bitter enemies that he had always known - their black eyes locked in a silent battle for dominance.
Harry sighed once more, a little heavier this time.
Some things, he supposed, never changed.
**********************************
It was a nice, gradual awakening, softly slipping between sleep and consciousness. He could feel the heat of sunlight against his skin, and he instinctively knew that it was going to be a beautiful day. A warm contentment spread through him, passing in a tingling wave over his skin. He kept his eyelids tightly closed, knowing that if he opened them, this peace would have to end, and he would be faced with the daunting prospect of another day to struggle through. He smiled softly to himself, wriggling his toes in happiness. It wasn't often that he felt this good...
"Sirius."
The word broke the animagus from his happiness, causing him to open his eyes in confusion. Severus was sitting opposite him - fully dressed in the black robes of the previous evening - his intense black gaze resting heavily on the other man.
Sirius frowned sleepily. "What are you still doing here?" he murmured questioningly, voice slurred with sleep. The vast quantities of alcohol he had consumed the night before suddenly returned to haunt him, a sharp ache pounding within his skull. He gave a small hiss of pain. "Don't you have a potions lab to return to?"
Severus continued to watch him closely. "I have no class first thing this morning," he informed him blandly, "And there are some things that need to be said."
"Oh?" Sirius pulled himself up weakly into a sitting position. "About what?"
"What you said last night."
Black froze.
His recollection of the previous night were cluttered and confused - mostly consisting of infuriatingly vague images of the two of them moving against one another in bed - but he did have vague memory of the short conversation that had followed the sex. He had been drunk, that much was clear, and he had told Severus that...that...
Oh shit, he cursed himself inwardly...he had only gone and told Snape that he still loved him!
Double shit!
"Forget what I said last night."
"I don't think that I can."
He grimaced darkly and massaged his aching forehead with long fingers. "I was pissed...talking out of my arse...I didn't mean it."
Severus's expression of careful neutrality flickered briefly, the cold mask of indifference giving way to a look of...what? Sirius wasn't sure, but it made him more than a little uneasy.
"Oh, I think that you did mean it," the Potions Master told him coolly, head leaning back slightly against the wooden wall. "And it is from there that my problem arises."
Something unpleasant squirmed within Sirius then, though he did not allow this to show on his face. "Problem?"
Snape nodded slowly and looked away. Though his face remained as pale and ungiving as ever, Sirius thought that he saw an uncharacteristic tightness to his jaw at that moment. He seemed to hesitate for a moment.
"I don't want to see you anymore."
There was a long moment of silence. Sirius stared at his lover incredulously, although Severus kept his eyes trained doggedly at the ground. The sunlight oozed in thickly through the slits in the shutters, illuminating the room with a sickly yellow glow.
Sirius swallowed, his throat suddenly inexplicably tight. "What do you mean?" he questioned quietly, surprised by the waver to his normally firm voice.
Severus lowered his head still further, a thick curtain of greasy black hair partially obscuring his features. "I never asked for you to love me, Black," he muttered, "And I have never harbored any desire to further our relationship past the superficial. All that I have ever wanted from you is meaningless pleasure. Do you understand?"
The former convict's thick eyebrows drew even further together. He said nothing.
Snape wavered for a moment, thin lips pressed together in a tense line. Pale fingers drummed listlessly against his draw-up knees. He suddenly shook his head. "You know me, Black, and you know what I am like. I don't want to be loved. I don't want to be cared for. I don't even particularly want to be liked. Whatever it is that you feel for me, my life has enough complications at the moment without having to take your emotions into consideration." His fingers picked up the pace, now a frenzied drumming against black material. "That is why I do not think that it would a good idea for us to continue with these little meetings. I don't want us to see each other again."
Silence.
Sirius wasn't certain how to react. Truth be told, he wasn't even fully certain on how he was feeling. Shocked, certainly, but beyond that...? He couldn't be sure. Sirius Black had never been good at analyzing his emotions, preferring instead to reply on his physical reactions, but his body - like his mind - was in a state of stunned confusion.
He gave a choked hiss, surprised to feel tears stinging against his eyes. "You fucking bastard."
Severus gave a hard laugh. Much like Black's curse, however, it was a shaky and uneven sound. "I never could sustain an intelligent conversation with you."
Sirius ignored the comment. "You're such a coward, Snape. You can't even admit the truth."
"Truth?"
The animagus glared at him, body trembling with barley controlled rage. "You love me. You feel the same way as I do, I know that you do."
Severus smirked, but still refused to look up. "Preposterous," he sneered coldly.
"Is it?" Now it was Sirius's turn to sneer. His exposed chest rose and fell with deepened breathing, dark spots of anger blossoming on his lean cheeks. "You're afraid, Snape. You always have been. That's why you won't let me kiss you, isn't it? Because that would mean that you might actually have to confront how you feel." His lips curved darkly downward, eyes glinting in the pale morning sunshine. "You're pathetic, you know that?"
"I don't have to stay here and listen to this!!"
"THEN WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE?!?!"
Sirius hardly even noticed that he had raised voice until he saw Severus give a sharp flinch. His words hung in the air between them, pain-filled and accusing. Neither man moved, neither man spoke. The enormity of what had just happened weighed around them in the smothering darkness, black sorrow gathering in the gloom.
Sirius looked away, not wanting him to see the hurt expression that he knew would be on his face. From the moment the words had slipped out, he had instantly regretted them. He had wanted to hurt him, wanted to lash out at his weakness, but now that he had done it, all he was left with was cold emptiness. But he couldn't take it back. So he sat still - desperation and anger conflicting within him - and waited for Severus to make his move.
He sensed rather than saw Snape rise to his feet.
"Goodbye, Black."
Sirius drew a long and shuddering breath, fighting against the tightness in his throat that suddenly threatened to overwhelm him. "Sirius," he muttered quietly.
"Excuse me?"
He looked up, gaze darkened with hostility. "Sirius. It's what you called me last night, remember?"
Severus straightened noticeably, only just realizing the slip-up that he had made the previous evening. His pale face looked taunt and pained at that moment, eyes betraying what he would not allow his expression to do so. Black eyes met black as they stared at each other over the distance...a look of uncertainty passing almost tangibly between them...
Suddenly Severus straightened and turned quickly on his heel, sweeping away in a blaze of robes. The door opened and shut with an audible creak and then...
...Nothing.
Severus Snape was gone, and Sirius knew that, this time, he would not be coming back.
Despair swelled inside of him, deep and pitiless. Slender shoulders heaved as he fought to suppress the sob that was growing in his throat. It didn't work. His face contorted in a look of utter despair, hot tears stinging at the back of his eyes.
The lamp impacted the back of the door with an explosion of broken glass.
"BASTARD!!!!"
***********************************
A week later:
Dumbledore's office was in its usual state of ordered disarray. Harry couldn't help but let his gaze drift idly around the room, drinking in its comforting eccentricity and allowing his mind to wander away. He was growing increasingly weary of the conversation that was unfolding around him. Every week it was the same. Professor Dumbledore would call a meeting to discuss developments in fight against the Dark Forces...they would talk for a short time...they would plan...and then, inevitably, Snape and Sirius would start bickering.
The young boy sighed wearily as the voices rose in volume.
"Let me get this straight," Severus's creased his forehead in mock meditation, "You were following the Death Eaters through London and you...lost them?"
Sirius looked decidedly sulky at the other mans obviously contemptuous words. "Yes."
"You...lost...them?"
"What's the problem, Snape, is it too difficult to understand or shall I draw you a picture to illustrate?" Black flashed him an icy sneer. "I lost them, alright? It happens."
The Potions Professor's lips curved upward in the ghost of a smirk. "My, my, my...Sirius Black admitting that he failed. I hope that your little admission did nothing to dent that famous Gryffindor pride of yours."
"Fuck off Snape."
Dumbledore arched an eyebrow slightly. "Language, Sirius."
The animagus glanced quickly to the Hogwarts headmaster. "Sorry Albus," he muttered, arms folded over his chest as he glowered at the lank-haired man sitting opposite him.
Harry watched the scene unfold with only mild interest. It was a special he had witnessed many times over the past few months, and no doubt it would happen many more times before Voldemort would finally be defeated...if indeed that ever happened. There were times when he found himself wondering whether this war was doomed to last forever.
He studied the two older men closely in the silence that followed Dumbledore's rebuke. Predictably they sat glaring at each other, twin expressions of hatred lining their lean faces. The mutual loathing between the two was, for a moment, so tangible that Harry could almost feel the age- old animosity pulsating between them.
...And yet there was something else there that Harry had never noticed before. He blinked thoughtfully behind his glasses, head tilting unconsciously to one side. The two men - completely oblivious to the fact that they were being watched - continued to stare at each other, but there was something different about the way that they were looking at each other at that moment...something that Harry had never seen before.
They looked almost...sad.
He frowned and shook his head, but when he looked again it was gone. Now there was only Snape and Black, the bitter enemies that he had always known - their black eyes locked in a silent battle for dominance.
Harry sighed once more, a little heavier this time.
Some things, he supposed, never changed.