Singer of Unheard Songs (bluestocking79) wrote in portus_envy, @ 2008-07-13 10:06:00 |
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Current mood: | tired |
Détente (Snarry, PG-13)
For angela_snape, who wanted Snarry, Chocolate and suggestiveness. This didn't actually turn out as suggestive I'd originally planned; the story surprised me by having something more serious at its core than I expected. Also, I think it's more preslash than slash, and whether a person reads it as gen or slash is probably a matter of perspective. But I hope you enjoy it anyway!
Title: Détente
Author: bluestocking79
Characters: Severus/Harry
Rating: PG-13
Every time Severus visited the Ministry canteen for lunch, Potter arrived soon after, sitting down and eating—hungrily, messily. It was driving Severus slowly mad.
Each time, Potter attacked his food with the zeal and delicacy of a rabid Knarl. His table manners—if indeed they could be called manners—were the worst Severus had ever seen (except, of course, for Weasley manners): elbows on the table, fingers regularly employed as though they were essential utensils.
Then, of course, there was the licking.
Potter's wet, pink tongue would flick out, licking his lips, his fingers, his food. Juicy plums and sticky fingers were laved with painstaking attention and unseemly abandon.
It was inappropriate. It was entirely unbecoming of an Auror. The very sight of it made Severus twitch.
Well, it made certain parts of his body twitch, anyway, although he tried very hard not to think about that.
He had a sinking suspicion that Potter knew this, too, for Potter always just happened to select a table in Severus' direct line of sight, settling down with a wave and a cheeky grin, as though Severus would be fool enough to imagine that Potter might be pleased to see him.
Severus wasn't taken in for a moment. He knew very well when he was the butt of some joke that hadn't been fully revealed yet; he'd had a lifetime of experience in that regard. He took to reading the newspaper at lunchtime, shielding his face behind the safety of Quidditch scores and classified ads.
And if it so happened that he could never quite remember what it was he'd read, and if perhaps his gaze wandered beyond the edge of the paper now and again—strictly to reassure himself that Potter was up to his old tricks, of course—well, it was accidental and understandable. He'd been under great stress lately. He was deeply distracted. Unsettled. He was probably in need of a holiday.
They continued on in this way for some time. Potter persisted in his ridiculous displays, and Severus persisted in (mostly) ignoring him. Eventually, Severus was certain, the attraction of the joke would fade for Potter, and he would fasten his attentions on some other target.
It was something of a shock, then, when Potter had the bloody cheek to march up to Severus' table in the canteen, plopping his tray on the table and himself down in the seat directly across from Severus.
"Afternoon, Severus," he said, slurping up a spoonful of tomato soup with gusto. "How's things in the Department of Mysteries? Crack any good ones lately?"
"I'll crack your impudent skull open if you don't bugger off," Severus snapped. This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen. Potter wasn't supposed to breach Severus' personal territory. It was incredibly rude. It was… disturbing in ways that Severus couldn't fully explain. "Piss off, Potter; your idiotic antics aren't welcome here."
"There isn't anywhere else," Potter pointed out, sounding entirely too reasonable for Severus' liking. "The canteen's full up today."
This was, unfortunately, correct. Severus looked around the canteen with a sinking heart, realising that all the other seats and tables were occupied by chattering imbeciles. Faced with the prospect of enduring an entire meal in the face of Potter's mockery, Severus briefly considered returning to his desk, abandoning his uneaten lunch and relinquishing the table to Potter.
However, he was also hungry, and it was steak and kidney pie today, and he happened to quite like the steak and kidney pie that the Ministry elves made. He'd been looking forward to it. He liked the idea of abandoning it even less than the idea of facing Potter.
Besides, there was always the newspaper.
"Fine," he grumbled, making a great showing of setting up his impenetrable newspaper shield. He couldn't quite make himself concentrate on the stories within—he read a feature about the Flobberworm Habitat Protection Act four times without actually absorbing a word—but it made for a useful barrier between his own sacred space and Potter's encroaching influence, or at least it would have done, had it not been for the sounds.
Potter was eating, and he was making noises. Wet, inarticulate noises of pure pleasure.
Severus slammed the newspaper down, glaring. "Do you mind?"
"Hmm?" Potter stared at Severus, his spoon in his mouth. He'd been caught in the act of practically molesting a bowl of chocolate mousse. After having removed every molecular trace of chocolate from the spoon with his tongue, he smiled. "No, I don't mind if you read at all. S'all aright with me." He took another spoonful, his face taking on such a nakedly blissful expression that Severus was forced to look away in embarrassment. "Mmmmm…"
Severus was being mocked. He knew it. Potter was just trying to make him uncomfortable, to get under his skin, and the worst part was that it was working.
"Prospero's pustulant prick! Do you mind," he ground out, "not making those obscene sounds?"
"What d'you mean? I'm just enjoying the chocolate mousse. It's really good." Potter finished off another bite, his lips closing around his spoon as Severus felt that something was dangerously close to bursting in his brain. "Mmmm, so good. Want to share?"
"Of course I don't!" Severus spat. He felt his hands suddenly trembling with a rage he hadn't felt in years, and he couldn't even fathom its source. "I won't be a figure of fun for you again, and I'm not playing your silly little games! I won't let you mock me!"
Even he wanted to wince at the shrillness of his voice. Fellow employees turned to stare, before turning away in either disinterest or disgust.
The grin vanished from Potter's face, replaced by a stricken, nearly pitying expression that was hardly easier for Severus to bear. "I'm not mocking you. I wouldn't, not after everything that you've…" He trailed off. "I just wouldn't. That's not it at all. Why would you think that?"
"Isn't that precisely what you've been doing?" Severus asked, fighting to gain back some vestige of control. "Making such a ridiculous spectacle of yourself with your food and forcing me to watch and squirm—for fuck's sake, nobody enjoys food that much! If you're not doing it to humiliate me, then why do it at all?"
"Why ever not?" Potter asked seriously. He toyed with his spoon, scooping and sculpting the mousse into new and ever stranger formations. "I don't care about what anybody else thinks;they can bugger off if they don't like it. The war's over. Voldemort's dead. I'm alive and so are you. Why shouldn't we enjoy things? Life's too bloody short to waste it being miserable. Why not just be happy?"
Severus had the strangest sensation of having been punched in the gut, hard and without warning. For one horrible moment, he thought he might cry.
"Because… because…" he sputtered, grasping for answers that refused to come. He didn't know why not. He just knew that he didn't, not ever. He tried to swallow, but it felt as though a boulder had lodged itself in his throat.
He didn't realise that he'd closed his eyes until he felt the warmth of Potter's hand on his. Severus opened his eyes to look at Potter's blurry face; he blinked, and the image cleared a bit, though his cheek felt suspiciously wet.
"It's okay," Potter said. "Sometimes it hits me that way as well."
Severus wanted to hex him. He wanted to snatch his hand away. But it was strangely pleasant to feel another hand connecting to his—even if only for a moment, even if it only belonged to Potter—and he was too craven to deny himself that comfort.
"Why—" Severus stopped to clear his throat. "Why force me to watch, then? Why seek me out and wave at me, if not to single me out for ridicule?"
"I just… I wanted to say hello, that's all. You're always by yourself, and I thought that maybe you'd want somebody to notice that you were here, that you existed." Potter ran a hand through his eternally messy hair. "I hoped that maybe you'd want to talk sometime. Y'know, after you'd got used to me being around."
"Talk?" Severus asked blankly. He stared at Potter's face, searching for evidence of untruths. He found only a small smudge of chocolate in the corner of Potter's lips and had to fight the urge to reach across the table to wipe it away.
"Yeah, talk. About stuff. If you want to, that is," Potter said. His eyes were as green as his mother's—green like new shoots poking out of the ground, green as fresh grass and new beginnings. There was hope in his eyes, and it soothed and scared Severus in equal measure.
"Talk," he repeated. "About stuff." Oddly, the idea didn't actually sound appalling. "I suppose… well, all right. All right."
Potter's grin returned, like sunshine breaking from the gloom.
"Brilliant!" he said enthusiastically. "We could really get along, you know! Who knows, maybe we'll even meet up for a pint after work sometimes…"
"Don't push your luck," Severus said, grateful to feel some of his old snap return.
Potter's enthusiasm was undented. "It'll be all right," he promised. "You'll see."
Severus was astounded to realize that he might actually believe him.