Y'all, idek. I think I was 16 or 17 when I wrote this, which really should have been a big ol' red flag about the relationship dysfunction that lay in my future (because obviously at 20 I am so much more wise and learned, bahahaha). So if this seems completely out of left field compared to oh, say, everything else I've ever posted on this account, just take a moment to laugh at my angsty, angsty teenage self.
It was simple and then it wasn't. It was quiet and uncomplicated and insincere—and then it was none of those things. The fire roars and the air drifts through the still chamber, but Severus does not move, does not look, does not think. There is too much to think about. About the way his life has spun more out of his control than ever before or the way Potter's sweat tasted. Each thought more damning than the last.
But this is his own fault, or perhaps Potter's. It doesn't matter. Every misstep and wrong turn in his life can be traced back to someone else, but that doesn't make any of it any less his responsibility. No less his fault when he lies awake at night, no less his fault when they come for him, come to haul him away—and they will, any day now, he's quite sure of it.
Depending on the boy's mood or level of desperation, Severus would find himself in a variety of situations, all unseemly and completely inappropriate. All completely perfect, not that it will matter in the end.
Ever practical, always structured, Severus has taken to categorizing their encounters, for the sake of organization, for the sake of posterity, though whose he is never sure. He hopes that if he can file them all away- every touch, every encounter- that they will be stripped of their meaning, their mystery, leaving nothing but the sprawl of limbs and the slick slide of skin against skin. He hopes if he creates a comprehensive catalogue, he will be able to tuck it away on some dusty shelf and be left in peace with his tattered sanity.
That is how it began, this meticulous retracing of footprints better left undisturbed. He finds there are six in all. Yes, some incidents are harder to categorize than others, but in the end, each encounter boils down to some shade of six.
1. Distraction
The boy is there because something has happened. Because someone has died or disappeared. Because he is slowly learning what the world expects of him. Because he is far too young to be the Boy Who Lived, and not nearly old enough to be the Boy Who Died. He is far too young to be there too, but that is not the point, so Severus brushes it aside.
Potter's face is pressed against the wall or the desk or some surface near at hand, and he is beautiful. He is always beautiful, but when he is crushed against wood or stone, spread around Severus's fingers, his cock, he is breathtaking. He is stuttering or shaking or crying or some other idiotic thing, but Severus is focused on making him scream. Making him fly apart, making him forget.
Severus relives these instances when his conscience becomes bothersome. When he wonders what role he played in the brat's undoing. It gives him some sick comfort to recount all the ways he kept the world at bay, even for a moment, so that the boy could breathe. These instances prove that he was helpful, useful—and not at all responsible.
Never that.
2. Power
Severus is drunk. He is very drunk and the brat knows it. He is sitting down because he cannot stand or lying down because he cannot sit and Potter is all too pleased with Severus's predicament, his incapacitation. He is cockier, more confident than usual—smirking and grinning and teasing Severus with a hand or a thigh or a kiss pressed against his cock. He is merciless. And Severus obliges, because he is used to being powerless. While he does not enjoy the sensation, he does enjoy the sensation of Potter doing whatever he is doing with his fingers.
And he understands why Potter does it. He is a child, and everything in his life is predetermined. This lets him feel in charge, powerful and in control. He is none of those things, but Severus is too intoxicated to tell him so. So he doesn't. So Potter does. Sucks his cock or strokes it or fucks him with small, insistent fingers. It doesn't matter. Severus reminds himself that none of it matters.
3. Freedom
Potter is baiting him. Severus knows this, but the brat has learned what nerves to touch, what memories to evoke to make Severus lose control. And then Severus is raging. He is throwing Potter around the room like a rag doll, ignoring the tears coursing down his cheeks. He is violent and harsh and the boy is not quite ready when Severus enters him, but he really does not care. And the brat does not fight back. He lets go and takes the abuse. A strange serenity settles on his features and he does not respond. He looks almost peaceful when Severus bites down on his shoulder just a little too hard, twists his wrist just a little too far—bruising, breaking—nothing that cannot be mended later on.
Nothing permanent.
These memories haunt Severus when he feels powerless. When he is asked to do things he can barely stand for wizards he no longer respects. It is in moments of obligation that he finds himself remembering the way the boy just let him.
4. Hate
He does not knock. The door flies open and whatever happens to be nearby shatters. Sometimes he yells and screams and throws things—valuable things. Other times he is terrifically silent. He flings himself at Severus and tears away at his clothes. He jerks his own ill-fitting pants down to the knees and mutters an ineffective lubrication spell. Then he is on Severus, in him, surrounding him. Severus knows better than to argue. Powerful and proud as he is, he knows the kind of hatred the boy keeps could kill them both. He knows it is necessary. But he will not admit to liking it. He will never acknowledge the coil of arousal that winds through his groin when he sees the look of anger in Potter's eyes. He will never admit to savoring the way the brat rips his skin apart with his fingernails or makes his breath catch when he enters him in one sharp thrust.
It is always fast and messy and furious and Severus does not always finish, but then Potter is gone. Like a storm, he leaves broken things in his wake—bottles, furniture, books, bones, men. The room always feels too quiet, too still when Severus bites his lip and rests his head against the wall. As his hand flies over his cock, rough and fast—but not at all mimicking—he does not think about the boy's face, his hair, his mouth. He comes in an empty room and slides down to the floor in a pile of robes.
Severus remembers these instances whenever he is forced to endure tales of the Great Savior and his shining purity in the face of evil. He smirks to himself and nods along, wondering what the storyteller would think if he knew the truth. But invariably, whoever is talking bears the laughable impression that the war was one of good versus evil, and since Severus longs for such simplicity, he does not correct their mistake.
5. Guilt
Since no one else seems adept to the task, Severus has always considered it his duty to divest Potter of his ego. Teenagers are silly, selfish creatures at the best of times, but with Potter it's almost a sickness. He thinks himself a demigod, capable of steering the events of history with his growing hands. He is not, and Severus is forever reminding him.
He does not cry, these times, these early mornings when the sun is still beneath the horizon and Potter comes to him, head heavy with sickly-sweet words of comfort and Dumbledore's unending reassurance. He probably thinks himself stoic or tragic, but Severus knows it is just another façade constructed in the name of self-importance. Severus does his best to convince him he is not important, is barely even a pawn let alone a master, in words, in deeds, as always. Whoever died, whoever lost their life or mind or innocence, it certainly had nothing to do with the brooding, sullen boy before him, beneath him. He must be made to understand this; he must be stripped of his delusions of grandeur.
Severus holds him still, with hands and knees and spells, if necessary, and tells him, again and again, in steady tones, that it was not his responsibility, not his duty, not his fault. And the boy listens, because they both know that when it is Potter's fault (and it will be. One day, it will be), Severus will tell him that, too.
6. Madness
Every categorical compendium has its stray branches, half-formed and unclear, catchalls. Perhaps this is his. But it's not untrue—madness does account for these encounters, it must. Because if he chooses to believe he was not mad then, he must also believe that he is mad now.
Potter is still asleep, and the flickering candlelight casts strange shadows across his naked back. Severus touches them, carefully, traces them with his fingers, maps the notches of his spine, the sharp angle of his shoulder blade, the smooth curve of his neck. And he feels—strange. Like his heart is stuttering, dying for this, for something meaningless and inconsequential.
"You loved her, didn't you?"
They are stretched out, sweating, exhausted on top of the tangled blankets on Severus's bed. Naked, he never feels quite right, quite whole, but Potter seems fascinated by the scars on his right shoulder, the small, white lines that write Severus's sins into his flesh. He touches them, with his fingers, his teeth, and Severus cannot stop him, can barely move. He lets his head fall back, because he can't look, either, for fear of—for fear.
"I did, too. But I don't remember it. Not really."
The boy returns, but he is not the same. He's not a boy, for one thing, they've taken that from him just as they took it from Severus a lifetime ago. He is damaged, but not broken. Fragile, cracked but not shattered. And Severus wants to ask him what he expected, to chastise him for his naivety. If innocence is the worst of Potter's losses, he should consider himself fortunate.
But he doesn't. Instead, Severus is selfish. Instead, he clutches Potter close, greedy, angry, and keeps him there, safe. Severus holds him hard by the nape of the neck and by the small of his back, by the broken threads of his childhood and the stretching, uncertain threads of the destiny that awaits them both. He is powerless to let go; no sooner could he let go his own lungs or limbs or heart. He doesn't tell Potter the truths he needs to hear because he doesn't want to. All he wants is—is—
"What did it feel like?"
"This."
The End