Ten

"I like our scars. We're like a matching set." Remus said to Severus as he lay sprawled out on the man's bed examining the backs of his hands. Severus looked up from his reading. He settled back into his chair, and extended his legs to rest on his bed.

"Why do you feel the need to articulate ever thought that pops into your tiny head?"

"I suppose it's similar to whatever motivates you to be nasty and sarcastic, rather than kind." He pushed the other man's feet back onto the floor.

Severus resettled his feet on the bed, "I am in fact just unkind. You, however, are capable of revealing almost nothing in conversation. You could talk for days and never say anything, but every time I am trying to read you want to have feelings and say things of substance. You are making it difficult for me to maintain the illusion that I am just using you for sex."

"Keep saying such thoughtful things and you'll find your illusion very difficult to maintain."

"You act as if anyone else would even have you."

"I'll have you know I am very sought after. Men, women, the occasional animal, all find me quite alluring. Molly Weasley gives me the eye all the time."

"She wants to feed you, not fuck you. Those are her caring mom eyes."

"I think you're misreading that, but Charlie Weasley..." He knew the moment he said it, he went too far. He saw the change in Severus' eyes.

"Maybe you should go see him then."

"Don't, don't be angry. Severus—"

Severus raised his hand to stay his words, "I'm not. I'm not angry." He exhaled, "You should go now. It's late." He stood and turned away from Remus.

"We can't keep doing this." Remus jumped up from the bed. "Tell me you're mad. Say it! Say something! You never had a problem before." He paused. Remus could read the anger in the tense line of Severus' shoulders. He knew he should stop, he should walk away, live to fight another day. He didn't want to destroy the ease that had developed between them, but he wasn't interested in this pale imitation of the man.

"You have to stop avoiding this, avoiding everything. There are all these things we can't talk about. The scars, the nightmares, Harry, Charlie, you and me, all these things we have to dance around. Yell at me, be mad, but don't push me out." He grabbed Severus' arm and turned the other man around, "You say I talk about nothing, that I give people nothing? You're mean and cutting; you pick and pick at people, so they can't pick at you first. You're doing the same fucking thing. We just go about it different ways but, here with you, it's not like that. It doesn't have to be. That's why I say everything that pops into my tiny head because I want you to know." He paused, "You can only push someone away so many times."

Severus gave no reply. Remus pushed past him to leave. "I am trying. I thought this is what you wanted." He sat back down and jumped right back to his feet. "You can't throw that Weasley brat in my face. I don't…I don't do things like this." He waved his hand between them. "I tried once. I gave everything I was to someone else. I couldn't tell where I stopped and he started. It was obsessive, it was dangerous, and in the end it wasn't even real. It was obligation dressed as love. Every caress laced with malice, just pain masquerading as passion. I don't know how to have this."

Remus opened his mouth to speak, but Severus wasn't even looking at him.

"What else? Potter, why don't we talk about Potter? He's a child, Lilly's child, and we're asking everything of him. He doesn't have anyone left to stop us. We're fighting a war on the backs of children, yet, we only call the other side monsters. Do you want me to say I care about him? That I wish I had made different choices? I can't talk about Potter because that night Lily died I promised her I would take care of him. I made a promise and I fucked that up. He's going to die for a world he hardly knows, for a world he won't even get to live in."

He paused and slowed down, frenzy less evident in his eyes and words, "And you and me? What we are? what this is? It's not something I know, but, I've decided I want it. I want whatever this is. Whatever the hell you want to call it, I'll go with that. You're the thing that might make me better. I tried not to care because it's selfish and I don't deserve it, but fuck it. I want this…And Charlie fucking Weasley? Why don't we talk about him?" He pushed Remus onto the bed. "Because I wanted you, I wanted you for so many years, but I could never put it together."

"You were jealous-" Remus tried to respond, but Severus took that moment to grind his hips against him.

He ran his tongue up Remus' neck along his jaw; he growled into the other man's mouth, "I was jealous."

Severus liked falling asleep with the scent of Remus around him. He liked knowing the other man was there beside him. Yet, sleep eluded him that night. He ran through the fight again and again. Too much. He gave too much. Remus was going to rethink this. He was going to realize the damage went too deep. That he didn't deserve -

"I can hear you thinking." Remus mumbled into his pillow. "Go to sleep."

"I wasn—"

Remus cut him off with sleep heavy in his words, "No, stop it." He sat up. "We're sleeping now, no more thinking or worrying." He turned to lie on his side and pulled Severus along with him. He took Severus' hand in his.

"Go to sleep."

"I don't like you."

"I know. Go to sleep anyway."