Fic: Ashes to Ashes (Severus/Sirius, R)
This little universe we've created just wouldn't be the same without you, Lee.
P.S. I tried for the hate!sex, but you know how uncooperative Sirius can be when he's been drinking.
Title: Ashes to Ashes By:nishizono Pairing: Severus/Sirius Rating: R Word Count: 2,700 Warning: DH SPOILERS! Summary: The human soul is a phenomenon, wholly unlike anything else in our vast and lonely universe.
“T’night, t’night!”
Severus lifts his head from the potions journal he’d been reading and glares at the fireplace set into the far wall. It's nearly two o’clock in the morning, but from the sound of it, his houseguest’s evening has just begun. His suspicions are confirmed when the green flames spit a whiskey-scented heap of black hair and torn clothing onto the floor of the sitting room.
A wooden garden gnome follows shortly thereafter.
“S’not Friday yet,” Black tells him, grinning like a madman and taking another swig from the bottle clutched in his bleeding left hand.
“Black,” Severus begins, fighting the urge to hex the idiot, “What is that?”
It's not unusual that the first question out of his mouth isn’t what does it matter that it isn’t Friday, or why is your hand bleeding, or even where is your other shoe. After nearly three months of forced co-habitation with the man, these things have somehow become commonplace.
The garden gnome, on the other hand, is a new development.
“S’my friend,” Black replies, reaching out to drag the thing closer. “Followed me home.”
“It followed you home,” Severus repeats dubiously. Though it is, quite frankly, one of the most disturbing looking garden ornaments he’s ever seen, it is obviously of the muggle variety.
“Rescued ‘im from…“ Black frowns, dark eyebrows drawn together in an expression of intense concentration.
“Do be careful,” Severus says dryly, “It would be nothing short of a tragedy if you were to give yourself an aneurysm and die on my sitting room floor.”
“You’re an ani- anu-“ Black spits angrily, jumping to his feet. Unfortunately, what the man no doubt believes is an intimidating pose is ruined somewhat by the bottle of firewhiskey clutched in one hand and the garden gnome cradled against his chest.
“Aneurysm,” Severus supplies with a smirk.
“Yeah, that,” Black retorts contemptuously. There is a deep gouge on his cheek, and a rivulet of blood has stained the collar of his shirt crimson. Honestly, for a man who somehow managed to resurrect himself from the dead, he is surprisingly lacking in anything resembling a sense of self-preservation.
“That makes absolutely no sense, you realize,” Severus points out, steepling his fingers in front of his face in a casual pose he knows will irritate the devil out of his very unwelcome guest.
“Your face doesn’make sense,” the mongrel slurs, swaying a bit on his feet.
Severus rolls his eyes with a huff. Sirius Black has never been a master of the English language, but the very least he could do after showing up pissed out of his mind for the third night in a row is offer insults that make a modicum of sense. It’s been almost two weeks since the last time they had a proper row, and even that one had been halfhearted at best.
“M’cheek hurts,” Black announces suddenly, grazing the scratch with the backs of his knuckles. The gesture tilts the bottle in his hand so that the liquid sloshes up the side.
“I’m sure I needn’t inform you of the consequences of spilling that,” Severus snaps. “And of course your cheek hurts, you incompetent wretch, it’s bleeding.”
“Help m’clean it?” Black whines, blinking at him from beneath his shaggy fringe.
It’s on the tip of Severus’ tongue to say no, but they have a long day of research ahead of them, and the very last thing he wants to do is spend the morning listening to the mongrel complain. Black’s discomfort would only make him all the more uncooperative, and Severus is decidedly lacking in patience with the entire situation.
Black follows him to the kitchen and obediently flops down into one of the chairs at the table. The garden gnome is given the seat of honor at the head of the table, and Severus rolls his eyes.
“Why d’you think I’m back?” Black asks for what must be the thirtieth time in twenty-four hours.
“Because death couldn’t stand you any more than the rest of us can,” Severus tells him dryly.
The other man’s snort of amusement trails off into a hiss of pain when Severus reaches out to rub a thumb over the gouge in his cheek. It’s bleeding quite steadily.
“How on earth did you manage to do this?” Severus asks quietly, pressing the cuff of his own sleeve against the wound as he summons a pot of salve from his laboratory.
“Fence,” Black mutters. “Had’ta break Bob free.”
“Who the devil is Bob?” Severus asks, not at all sure he wants to know. Without removing his sleeve from the other man’s cheek, he bites the cork from the mouth of the jar and hands the salve to his patient.
Black uses it to gesture vaguely at the garden gnome, and Severus sighs.
“Think w’should start th’gnome libreation front,” Black tells him seriously.
“Liberation,” Severus corrects him absently. The deep scratch begins bleeding again when he takes his hand away, but slows to a trickle as soon as the salve touches it.
“Smells funny,” the mongrel complains.
“Well, now your face will finally match the rest of you,” Severus comments dryly. “Honestly, you smell like a street urchin.”
“Your face smells like- feels good,” Black interrupts himself with a groan.
Of course it feels good; Severus is one of the most celebrated potions masters in all of Europe. Unfortunately, he’s far too fixated on his task to say so.
“Snape?” Black mutters. “How’d you survive?”
Severus falters, two fingertips still pressed to the other man’s cheek, and blinks at the far wall. In the three months since Sirius Black’s return from the dead, and the Order’s subsequent request that their pet Death Eater investigate the miracle- who better to unravel the mysteries of life and death, Severus thinks wryly- neither of them has spoken of the incident in the Shrieking Shack.
Privately, Severus had hoped Black wouldn’t find out.
Oh, he’d imagined telling him- imagined the outrage on his childhood enemy’s face when he realized that Snivellus Snape had escaped death for a second time- but somehow, Severus just hadn’t been able to summon the anger necessary to throw it in the other man’s face.
“I am a potions master, Black,” Severus murmurs finally. “You cannot honestly believe that I would spend that much time in the company of a poisonous snake without developing antivenin.”
The other man is staring at him, and Severus swallows. He is accustomed to seeing a great many things in those cold grey eyes: hatred, scorn, dismissal. But never admiration.
“S’smart,” Black mutters. “Y’were always smart.”
There is really nothing Severus can say in response to that, so he says nothing. Instead, he clears his throat and returns to the task of smoothing the salve over Black’s cheek, pointedly ignoring the sudden realization that he has been absently stroking the other man’s face all this time.
“Hated you for it,” Black whispers.
“For what?” Severus asks around the sudden tightness in his throat. The mood between them has shifted, but he cannot say what has changed, and it’s always made him uncomfortable, that sense of not knowing.
“Being smarter than me,” Black replies quietly. “Better’n me.”
“You certainly didn’t seem to believe I was better than you when you were busy hexing the daylights out of me,” Severus points out angrily. The salve has long been absorbed into the other man’s skin, but he keeps his fingertips pressed against the wound in preparation to backhand the irritating creature, should the need arise.
“Yeah, I did,” Black mutters, averting his gaze. “Y’were always smarter’n me, better in school, never backed down from’a fight, n’matter how bad it got.”
Again, there is nothing that Severus can say, so he only arches an eyebrow. There is a pause, a quiet inhalation, and then his schoolyard nemesis does something completely unforgivable.
Black turns his face to the side and nuzzles Severus’ wrist.
“I like the way you talk,” the mongrel whispers in a rush of warm breath over sensitive flesh.
“The way I talk,” Severus repeats numbly. He is too stunned to move, caught between curiosity and the instinct to flee from what is undoubtedly an ingenious plan to humiliate him.
Only, there is no malice in Black’s eyes when he opens them.
Severus quickly pulls his hand away from the other man’s face.
“Like the way you use words,” Black explains, rising from his chair and swaying a bit before moving closer.
“Black,” Severus says in a strangled tone, and backs away until his thighs are pressed against the edge of the table. His heart is fluttering against his ribs like the wings of a caged bird, but he can’t bring himself to run, as he knows he should, and lock himself in the safety of his laboratory.
“Like that you’re not running away,” Black mutters as if reading his mind, and suddenly Severus couldn’t escape even if he wanted to, not with the other man’s hands braced against the table on either side of his hips. “Never did run, did you? Would’ve been easy s’mtimes, but you stayed n’matter what.”
Severus doesn’t need to ask whether he means the war, or the Dark Lord, or the Order, or this- because year after year, day after day, hour after hour, he has been presented with numerous opportunities to escape, to hide- yet he has remained here, in this house, in this life; and somewhere along the way, it stopped being about her, or love, or life debts, or even redemption.
Severus is a survivor, and he has stayed because he simply never learned how to concede defeat.
“M’going to kiss you,” Black announces suddenly, and before Severus can voice his protest, does.
Of all the numerous scenarios Severus has imagined for the two of them- most of which involved bloodshed and mutilation- this has never been one of them. Black’s mouth is feverish and demanding, holding him in place just as unforgivingly as the fingers that are suddenly gripping his hips. A warm tongue sweeps across his lips, and he parts them before he can even consider what he’s doing. Black tastes of firewhiskey and smoke, lazy arrogance and frantic desperation.
“Knew you’d be a good kisser,” Black breathes as he pulls away.
Severus tries to formulate an insult, a protest, perhaps even a plea for mercy, but all that comes out is a quiet whimper when the other man’s lips brush the side of his neck. Somehow, his fingers have tangled themselves in Black’s hair, and he twists it in his grasp, as much to keep himself upright as to direct the movement of the other man’s tongue on his throat.
“Love th’way you move,” Black tells the line of his jaw, and emphasizes the point by rocking their hips together.
Despite the surrealism of the situation, Severus is hard. It has been a long time, too long, since someone last touched him, and his body is responding eagerly, even if his mind is not. The hard line of Black’s cock is pressed against his own through their trousers, and his hips jerk of their own accord.
“Yeah, like that,” Black growls, meeting the thrust with one of his own. “Jus’like that.”
“Mph,” Severus agrees as the other man silences him with another searing kiss that sets every nerve in his body ablaze, from the soles of his feet to the roots of his hair. They are moving together now, quickly and urgently, almost brutally but for the slow slide of tongues and lips.
“Want you t’come,” Black murmurs into the kiss. “Want t’feel you come apart.”
That won’t be a problem, Severus wants to tell him, but can’t, because the breath the statement requires seems to be trapped in his lungs, and his capacity for human speech has long since dissolved into nothing more than quiet groans and strangled sighs. Electric sparks are racing through his veins, down his spine, through the muscles of his trembling thighs and into his heart, and he hazily wonders if he might die finally, here in Sirius Black’s arms, dangling precariously over the chasm of white hot oblivion that is slowly opening beneath him.
Something erupts inside of him, short-circuits, bursts into flames, and he comes with a breathless sob, gripping the back of the other man’s neck until he can feel the flesh giving way beneath his fingernails; and he wants to rip him apart, tear Sirius Black into a thousand tiny pieces and recreate him, take his hand and lead him out of the flames that are consuming them both, blazing through every nerve and reducing them to ash.
The man in his arm tenses, growls low and soft against his ear, grips his hair, his hips, his heart; and in the span of a heartbeat, the universe tilts on its axis, destroys every law by which they have ever been bound, and they are free for the first time in their lives, not by defeat or victory, love or hatred, life or death, but by the one thing, the only thing, the most profound thing they have never said to one another.
They collapse together, seeking lips and wandering hands, and shared heartbeats that chant the same silent litany of I surrender.
“Wow,” Black whispers, and leave it to Sirius fucking Black to ruin a fragile moment with the understatement of the millennium.
“You’re heavy,” Severus murmurs, pushing the other man away, but unable to bring himself to remove his hands from Black’s shoulders.
“And we’re both covered in blood,” the infuriating creature observes.
They stare at one another in silence for a moment, and Severus knows they will never speak of this change in the dynamics between them, that it will continue on its mad course to whatever destination chance and fate have created. That’s how things have always been for them, and should always be, and for the first time in his life, Severus is grateful for it.
“Bath?” Black suggests, and Severus surprises himself by nodding.
The acquiescence is rewarded with a dazzling smile, and Severus realizes that not once, in all the years they have known one another, has Sirius Black ever deigned to smile at him until that very moment. If his own lips twitch upward in return, he resolutely ignores it.
“Hope y’don’t mind company,” Black tells him, sweeping their indifferent voyeur into his arms.
“That,” Severus begins, gesturing to the garden gnome, “Is not going anywhere near my bathtub.”
“Then we’ll use my bathroom,” Black replies with a wink, and staggers out into the hall before Severus has a chance to respond to the contrary.
Shaking his head, Severus eyes the abandoned bottle of firewhiskey, and after a moment’s deliberation, brings it to his lips. Liquid courage burns his throat, and he wonders absently if this is how Fawkes feels every night he is reborn from the ashes of his former life.
“Quit brooding and c’mon!” Black calls from upstairs.
Severus smirks at the ceiling of the kitchen, listening to the other man’s impatient, if somewhat laboured, pacing; and he knows, even then, that he will go to him.
Perhaps it won’t be as he imagines it might- but then, very little in his life has been as he’s imagined it- and perhaps it is foolish- as most things involving Sirius Black inevitably are- but Severus understands something now that he couldn’t before this moment.
The human soul is a phenomenon, wholly unlike anything else in our vast and lonely universe. It is by equal turns restless and meek, breathless and solemn, capable of as much kindness as it is cruelty. In a sea of infinite possibilities, it seems almost unthinkable that any two individuals could ever meet and understand one another, could ever share the same fears and faith.
It is a rare occurrence, then, that two souls so willing to thrust themselves into the fires of uncertainty and reckless hope, love and hatred, life and death, could ever withstand the flames long enough to journey through to the other side, and find one another in the aftermath.
Severus stands at the base of the staircase, listening to the groan of ancient pipes and Black’s quiet voice singing drunken lullabies to his unwitting captive.
Closing his eyes, he exhales, just once, and steps out of the ashes.