"Mm, yes," Severus agrees, with a strange little smile, "but then, I don't much like to lose." Quietly, holding every scrap of his presence in reserve to let Rus feel as uncrowded as he can, he says, "In '81, I was as you see me. You know all that happened. In '94, I was thirty-five, and looked fifty, and they hung about the school all year, and I behaved like a madman and couldn't..." He shuts his eyes. "Four years later I looked fifteen years older, and was so tired all the time it hurt to move without adrenaline's goad. I think their breath gets into our bodies, Rodolphus. I don't think it should be... left untreated."
"Oh, yes," Severus agrees, with what passes on him for a grin. "Everyone knows just how fragile you are."
"Taxes pay the salaries of teachers and firemen," Severus comments, "and keep the roads in order." Not that he cares one way or another about Muggle taxes, but T1's assumption that the prospect of tweaking the government's beard would matter enough to tempt him annoys.
Besides, taxes pay the salaries of teachers.
At his phrasing, Severus chokes hard, and spends the few minutes trying to be discrete about coughing scotch out of his lungs.
But there is SO MUCH cuteness. ((*.*)) eek! Hee, thanks. I think I squished RIckman's face too much, but it is a very IC expression, innit? n,n