Author's Notes:

Rating: T for now, but will be M for some cover-your-eyes-don't-look! scenes here and there (duh, one of my characters is working in a whorehouse after all)

Pairing: SS/HP - (very confused) Alternate Universe

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. If I did, I would do anything and everything in my power to NOT LET THE FANDOM DIE AFTER DH PART 2 SHOWS. -cries hysterically-

Summary: Severus is devastated and broken, and seeks bodily solace in the local red light district. Once there, he is captivated by shining green eyes and midnight-black hair. But as always, what he wants, he cannot ever have. Or can he?

Ahahaha, I suck at summaries, I know! Feel free to rewrite that in your own head. Twist it into something artistic please, thank you.
So, yes, I haven't updated my other story, 'Resurface' (go check it out!) but I assure you, I will. Classes are over, and freedom is mine for the taking (and chaining to my bed, if I could). So please feel free to anticipate more updates from me! This new fic was very much inspired by Moulin Rouge, so please don't hurl flaming deathballs of fan-rage plagiarism accusations at me. Thank you, and read on.

- - - - Rouge My Heart - - - -

Chapter 1: Cover it Up For None to See

Bitter.

Bitter.

Everything was so bitter.

He relied on it heavily before now, the drink in his hand, but it seemed that tonight, nothing would offer him solace. No one – not one – no, no one.

Even her.

Suddenly a different kind of bitterness flooded his mouth – and not only there, it overflowed in his chest, his eyes, his breath, everywhere. It chased him even here, to the edge of oblivion. Would it recede, he thought, if he threatened to take a step?

He took a swig of his drink almost violently, and it returned empty, almost exactly onto its white ring of lukewarm water.

''Ey mister, I fo' one fink you've ha' a li'l too much ta' drink ter-night!' came a voice from in front of him, and he looked up to see the bartender polishing a beer mug. Severus, though thoroughly sloshed, knew when he had overstayed his welcome. So he dug a few pounds out of his coat pocket and placed it on the table. He stood up, albeit a bit unsteadily, and walked out of the deserted bar.

The old houses and alley ways made for quite a sight, covered in several feet of snow. It was nearly midnight, and not many people were out and about. Severus, with his slightly damp hair hanging over his face and his hands stuffed in his thick black coat pockets, trudged down the street, going nowhere in particular.

He briefly thanked the snow beneath his feet, in the air, in his lungs. It was so bitterly cold and harshly stinging that he could forget, even for just a while, the pain he so desperately wanted to escape. He could sense it, the pain, snaking up on him; preparing to ambush him from behind, wanting nothing more than to sink its poison-soaked fangs into his torso, his shoulder, his vitals.

At least the snow would numb the bite.

Actually, it already was. The bite. Numb.

No, was that the snow or…?

Severus supposed that the pain was numbing itself. Like when you hear so much that you hear nothing. Feel so much that you feel nothing. Hurt so much that nothing hurts anymore.

See so much that you see nothing anymore. White. All he could see was the white of fresh snow. A few million steps later and it was gray, a million more and it was red.

This startled Severus out of his dull reverie, and he looked up.

"Ah, the red light district," he mumbled to himself. Severus was so lost in his own world that he didn't notice where his legs were taking him.

Signs flashed by him, painted his skin and his trench coat with harsh neon colors. Most of them – the signs – were red, and they splashed blood-light haphazardly on the slush. The buzz from the alcohol had somewhat died down by now, and Severus saw that he could vaguely read the various establishment names. One particularly tasteful building caught his eye.

"Red Morphine…" it read, and it reminded Severus of the cause of his problems, the result, and his solution: Lily, pain, numbness. Consecutively.

Severus walked past the gilded black marble pillars and opened the equally black double doors. He was greeted by a hospital reception area; except completely done in elegant black, red and gold. In the room were faux leather sofas, a few medical posters of "How to Find Her G-Spot" and "The Prostate: All You Need to Know!" and a clean reception counter.

"Good evening! Have you a reservation?" greeted a blonde ponytailed woman in a red latex nurse's outfit, not to mention, in matching black knee-high leather boots.

"No, I'm a walk in," Severus replied. 'Ah, so this is a role play whorehouse, eh?' he thought as he was beginning to regret his impulsive decision to step into the building.

"No matter, it's a slow night, what with the snowstorm due anytime soon. Almost all of our highest earners are free. Care to take a look?" she said, cheerily, as she handed him a clipboard with a sheaf of thumbed-through pages on top. "The tops are on the bottom, just approach reception when you're ready," she sang merrily as she went off to attend to a new customer.

Severus hummed to himself and looked through the first pages. Nearly all of them were dog-eared and slightly stained. Severus didn't really want to know with what, so he skipped through all of them and came to the separated section at the bottom. He noticed that, unlike the upper half, the bottom options had a little more dignity in their costumes. 'Their earnings must justify the lack of skin then. How depraved,' Severus thought. 'But then again, as a patron, who am I to speak?'

Just then, as Severus was randomly thumbing through the "upper" echelon staff catalogue, his eyes locked upon midnight black and striking green. And suddenly, he didn't much care about being depraved or empty – only the primal desire burning within him, a fire as green as the eyes he was staring down at.