The Human Season
- Vain

Disclaimer: I own nothing except the plot. Harry Potter and all the elements therein are the intellectual property / registered trademarks of JK Rowling, Scholastic Books, and Warner Brothers.

Summary: Harry sleep. Severus wonders. SS/HP slash.

Rating: PG-13

Notes: This was originally just a little drabble in my LJ, but I liked it so much I figured I'd post it. V For timeline purposes, some time after graduation, and during the war. Special thanks to DarthStitch for the preliminary beta.

This story was originally launched under my secondary pen name, "Hanakai." For convenience's sake, I have decided to streamline my fics under my original pen name, Vain. SAME AUTHOR. SAME STORY. DIFFERENT NAME. As a fic is re-uploaded under my Vain pen name, I will delete it from my Hanakai profile. Eventually, Hanakai will be deleted entirely, so please update your faves and bookmarks to reflect this.

Thank you for all your previous reviews—I saved them all—and I hope you all review again. I'm greedy.

For progress notes on the pen name transition or if you have any questions, please see my Livejournal (linked both my profiles). I hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone & thank you for your patience.

Please review.

"Perhaps we can only reach approximations of sainthood.
In which case, we must make shift with a mild, benevolent diabolism."
Albert Camus
The Plague

I run a hand over you body. Over your shoulder, down your forearm, over the side of your body, the slope of your hip . . . I run my hand over your body and hate myself. You sleep on, temporarily unaware of my shortcomings.

I love watching you sleep. Your chest, thin, but battle scarred, rises and falls smoothly, reminding me that you're alive. Reminding me that I'm alive. You inhale, sigh, and lean into my touch. You're starved for touch. Even asleep, you can't get enough of the feel of my hands on your skin and I can't help but wonder: is it my stained, work-weary hands that you crave? Or would just anyone do? Am I simply here beside you because no one else is? Or am I here becausebecauseyou want me here?

I hear you breath. I feel you underneath my hands. These old potion-stained, poison making hands. These hands that held a wand that let forth a stream of terrible green light more times than I care to recall. (63 times.) More times than I can ever forget. (63 times.) You love these hands on you. You submit to them without questionwith fervor, even. You moan when they brush a nipple. You scream when they cup the heat pooled between you tightly clenched thighs. You're beautiful.

I run a hand down your body. Over the slope of your hip, over the plain of your thigh. The sheet feels cool and soft under my touch, a barrier that I both hate and welcome. I run a hand over your thigh and wonder if I will be able to do this tomorrow night. Or the night after. Is tomorrow the day you look up, see me—truly see me—and recoil in horror? Is tomorrow the day you see these hands whose finger tips you kissed and suckled so gently tonight, and understand what they have done?

Is tomorrow the day that you realize just how greasy and old and unpleasant I really am and stare, pained and appalled?

I run a hand over your body and love the way it feels underneath my calloused palm. I can hear you breathe. I run a hand over your body and memorize every flex and stretch of the muscles, comparing passion to composure, sleeping to waking, reality to the twilight of your midnight breathing. I absorb it all and lock it away for those nights when my bed is cold and I've nothing but memories to warm me.

I am not a fool. You smile and whisper the word "love" as though it should mean something to me, but I do not understand whatever language it is you speak. I don't understand "love." I understand want. I understand need. I understand possession. I understand that all I want is to bury myself in you so deep that I'll never be able to leave. I understand infection, I suppose. You've infected me.

But you call it "love" and smile very sweetly. You do not smile like a soldier. You do not smile like a man who has killed today and will either kill or be killed tomorrow. You do not smile like a hero. You smile like you're mine. You've infected me.

I run a hand down your bare flesh and think of you, a sickness in my bed and body that I do not care to expel. My scrutiny disturbs you and you roll over and squint at me through hopelessly myopic eyes and frown at me in the dreary, sleepy confusion you wear so well. You take my stained hand in one of your smooth clean ones, and drag it up to your heart and I feel the steady, timeless thunder that exists at the core of you through your fragile, pink skin. Your utterly human skin. Heroes should not have skin like this.

And then you smile at me and pull me closer, our legs entangling under the sheets as I allow myself to be drawn in. I can feel your palm hot against my own and the sensation seems more real than it should as you tuck your head beneath my chin.

No. Tomorrow will not be the day. Nor will it be the day after.

Somehow, so close to your heartbeat, sleep comes so much more easily.

Fin