InsaneJournal

FIC: "A Murmur" for alwaysasnapefan
Recipient: herbailiwick (lj) / alwaysasnapefan (ij)
Author: istalksnape
Title: A Murmur
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Minerva/Sybil
Word Count: 1400+
Warnings: Um, femslash. And some pretty good sex-ness.
Summary: Sybil finds herself loving Minerva more than Minerva ever thought she could allow.
Author's Notes: I really hope you like this. I tried for a smuttier draft, but they weren't having it (I hesitate to call them prudes, but they are quite private!). I hope you enjoy this. Thanks to T. for the beta read.

***

Sybil is past her prime and she knows this. She is constantly entertaining the occasional student that finds her interesting, always teaching them something. Lately it has been a girl with wide eyes; she will stand in Sybil's room for hours on end, listening to the old woman speak about prophecies and choices and wine (although this is not as often at the others). She's gone soft, both in body and voice. This new girl has to lean in to hear what Sybil says. Sybil likes this, because she'll lean and rest a hand on the girl's leg or shoulder, always hovering for a moment too long. The girl should run, because Sybil smells of drink and is too old to want that sort of contact with another. But she does, and Sybil is glad for it.

"I wouldn't ever do anything," she will tell Minerva ten years from now. "I'm not that professor."

"I know you wouldn't," Minerva will say.

***

Coffee becomes conversation between Sybil and Minerva only when Minerva is no longer teaching. Conversation was hard when Minerva was teaching and stressed and trying to fix Hogwarts, and Sybil could never understand why Minerva didn't have time for antics involving planets and words and numbers that really didn't mean anything if you couldn't understand them. But now that Minerva is retired (although Sybil believes that retired professors should always have cats and Minerva has none), they have become close friends.

Conversations become simply being around each other. Sybil brings over plants and works them into the soil in Minerva's backyard where they will thrive for another few months before winter settles in. Minerva watches, drinking lemonade and reading a good book. They sit for hours on the same bench in Minerva's yard, watching the wind pick up leaves only to set them back down.

Being around each other becomes habit, and soon Sybil is no longer living in her room at Hogwarts. Minerva lets her stay in the guest room, where it is always the perfect temperature. They walk up to Hogwarts on the three days a week that Sybil teachers and Minerva wanders the halls, scaring students and visiting with friends, while she waits for Divination to be done. Filius finds the friendship odd and says so, always the bold one to say what everyone else is thinking. Minerva hugs him close and tells him that she can't even explain it. She doesn't try to explain it to the portrait of Albus, who smiles and nods when she tells about planting herbs and watering them each day with Sybil by her side. Minerva tries to ignore how happy he is about them spending time together, and when she leaves the office she can't shake the knowing expression that is always on his face.

***

Sybil drinks less now, but she still drinks, and one night she is sitting with Minerva on the couch, watching a movie with a Keri Grant (such an odd name for a man, she remarks; Minerva laughs). The wine settles into her body, making its way through her until her head feels light and she is warm all over. She kisses Minerva, light, gentle, and then pulls away. Her thick glasses make her eyes look large anyway, but now they are wide open. She is shocked and for the first time since Minerva has met her, speechless. She moves her lips, trying to find the right words, but they don't arise and she can't find the right away to find them.

Minerva doesn't move, unsure of herself. The quiet of the house rattles her, and she grasps Sybil's hand in hers.

"I like you," Sybil says, finally finding her voice. "I like you more than I should."

"I think-" Minerva starts. She uses her free hand to prop herself up better, so that she is closer to Sybil. "I think I like you, too."

Then she is being pushed back and Sybil is kissing her. Everything is warm now - the room, Minerva's skin, Sybil's breath.

"I like you more than I like my wine, more than I like seeing my future," Sybil says against the corner of her mouth, syllables slurring together in her haste to taste Minerva's lips. "I like you more than planting mint and watering it with your silly watering can-"

Minerva pauses in her shifting against Sybil (trying to get closer than close, trying to become part of her) and moves her head back so that she can look Sybil in the eye.

"My watering can isn't silly," she says, still moving, still reaching for and pushing and pulling against Sybil. "It's functional."

"Of course it is."

And then they are both moving, both trying to get closer to each other, until finally Sybil starts to take layers off, slowly working tops off of her body, one at a time. Minerva tries to help her, but Sybil pushes her hands away, rough and hurried. They kiss, pecks and crushings that alternate as Sybil works to get down to flesh that will stick to Minerva in the heat of the room. Minerva shrugs out of the button-up top that she's been wearing all day (plaid, but in a soft blue and purple pattern that suits her skin), pushing up against Sybil in the motion of it all. The room is hot, too hot, and Minerva shifts towards the edge of the couch (not far, because the couch is not as large as it once was, she swears) and drags her knee along Sybil's leg, tugging at her hand at the same time. Time has created a layer between them that lets Sybil know they need to move. She stands, tearing off the fourth and final layer that covered her body. She blushes when Minerva looks, but feels confident in the way that her stomach has marks across it like Minerva, and in the way that she does not have the form she did when she was twenty, because Minerva and her are the same in more ways than breasts and clits. They mimic each other and fill where the other lacks.

The guest room is cooler, and this time it is Minerva who does the motion of dragging Sybil to the bed. Her foot gets caught in the edge of the covers, but she does not care because she is close, so close, to Sybil and Sybil is reaching for her pants and moving the fabric down over her hips (wider now than five years ago) and the air that comes in through the open window leaves her skin covered in goosebumps that leave her shivering against Sybil's hand and Sybil's stomach, and the inside of Sybil's leg. But there is a touch of fingertips where Minerva hasn't been touched in so long and soon it isn't the cool air that makes her shiver against Sybil. Her back curves and her hips push up from the bed and soon her skin is covered in a sheen that makes the freckles and age spots on her skin stand out. Sybil continues to kiss her until, quiet and in a half-startled gasp, Minerva comes. She goes tense for a moment, shuddering against Sybil, and then goes limp, letting her body edge down the bed so that her toes, newly freed from the covers, can run along the tops of Sybil's feet.

The sound that Minerva makes sounds like a purr and Sybil realizes that they don't need a cat in the house because Minerva is enough.