Remus had to get away from Severus.  He had to remember why they were there, why he shouldn't be angry, why it was well past time to feel hurt, and, most importantly, why it wasn't the best option for all involved to simply kill the man.  Or, worse yet, kiss him, because that impulse had been there too.  This broken Severus, he was stripped of the arrogance and hatred that had kept Remus from attempting to resuscitate an old love, an old habit, over the years.  But, that last conversation, the lies, the honesty, the preoccupation with hands and waves and stains that was only now beginning to terrify him, had reminded Remus that this Severus, his sharp edges, and mind, finally worn down by the most weathering of lives, was not the 15 year old boy Remus had loved.  Nothing like.

Or so, Severus imagined Remus thinking.  He knew Lupin wasn't asleep in that room, just as he knew that the threat of confinement charms was just that, a threat.  True, there were perimeter alarms and anti-apparation spells, but they extended as far as the water to the west.  So Severus quietly left the lighthouse, hoping the werewolf was too preoccupied with suppressing baser instincts to notice, or care.  But not hoping too much, because it simply didn't matter.

Remus came to him an hour later, just as the sun sinking in the sky had painted the world a brilliant red.  Severus was standing in the ocean, his trousers soaked to the knees.  Remus had seen his lips moving when he spotted the man from the porch, but Severus was silent when he reached him, and he was still.

"Didn't you want to cook us something?" Remus asked loudly, hoping to startle Severus out of whatever this was.

"Yes."

"Then come inside."

"Don't tell me what to do," Severus protested wearily.  No conviction.  It was something Remus would have to drive into him.

"You didn't even take your shoes off, did you?" Remus sighed.

"Oh, and what shall we do?  A drying charm is so tedious," Snape snarled.

"It is when you don't have a wand."

That got Severus's attention.

"I do.  It's just hidden."

"So how will you manage this elusive drying charm?"

"I'll buy it off you," Severus answered with a casual shrug of his shoulders.  It was almost as alarming as the fact that he was standing fully clothed in the ocean, this casualness.

"What will you give me?" Remus asked slowly, knowing this could go nowhere good.

"This is the question, isn't it?  And the answer is always 'everything'.  So, everything, Lupin.  Everything."

"Don't treat yourself so cheaply," Remus replied impatiently.  If Severus was allowed to be out of character, he would be too.  "Get out of the water and cook us something to eat."

"Your loss.  I'm an excellent lay," Severus sighed, slowly walking out of the sea.

"I know."

"Yes.  I let myself forget, sometimes, that I left that part of me with you."

"I've kept it safe, Severus."

"You are an idiot.  Dry my shoes."

Remus complied just before they entered the lighthouse, wanting, Severus suspected, to spare the woman of the house the hassle of cleaning hardwood floors.  He was even so kind as to dry the rest of him, something Severus was grateful for.  Despite what his students, and even some of his colleagues, might have said, he was not impervious to coldness.  In fact, he rather believed that was one feeling one never grew accustomed to, no matter how long one lived in it.  He was perpetually cold it seemed, and it never ceased burning him.

"Hmm," he heard Remus saying from the kitchen, "it seems as if we're unprepared for even the most modest of feasts."

"It wouldn't take much," Severus answered, joining his chaperone in hunting through the pantry.

"It's all tins.  Tinned pastas, tinned puddings, tinned vegetables…doesn't exactly whet the appetite, does it?" Remus asked.  "Fancy a walk to the store?"

"Not particularly, no."

"You'll be fine on your own for a few minutes," Remus said.  Severus was glad it was a statement of fact.  Not a question. Not a command.  Because, really, he had no answers, and even less will to disobey.

"I doubt they'll have fresh rosemary here, but try, will you?"

Once Remus had gone, Severus sat down at the table and gave in to the pressing weight he'd felt for hours.  And not even the Light Keeper's hand-stitched table cloth could absorb the oceans that he wrung from himself.

@@@

When Remus walked through the door, Severus was sitting at the table still, so still, face white and glistening under a thin layer of sweat as he dug the paring knife into his own flesh.  The metal smell of blood, the sight of it all blooming on the white cloth, of the flesh Severus was carving away, was nearly enough to make Remus retch.  But not before he raced across the room and smacked the blade out of the man's hand, earning himself a nice slice in the palm for his trouble.  A brief irrational worry about cross-contamination floated through his mind but could not stay in a place filled with the sight of…this.

"Severus…"

"He said weeks, Remus.  Weeks," Severus sobbed.

"No."

"I have to…I have to go.  I can't not…I have to go."  Severus stopped what he was doing, and realized what that was.  Looking down at his arm, at the gaping hole he'd carved trying to excavate his Dark Mark, and for what?  It was still there, in the muscles and connective tissue of his forearm.  He couldn't help but laugh.  He was laughing, laughing, and what would his Master say?  Oh Severus, don't you know that some scars never fade?

"Don't, please.  Severus, please!"  Remus was becoming hysterical with fright, but it wasn't clear to either of them exactly which of them he was most frightened for.  Severus put his hand over the wound.

"Wait for me.  Here.  Will you?"

"Yes, anything."  Calmer now that he had a manageable task.

"I'll come back here, only wait for me, Remus.  Oh god, he's going to…"

"Here, let me heal that."

"No!  No, just…just leave it.  I have to be stingy with my lies.  In fact," Severus broke off, bending down quickly, and before Remus could stop him, he had recovered the knife and stabbed it into his wrist.  It was a kind of madness, or weakness, that Voldemort would find more treacherous than the defacing of his Mark.  It would draw attention away from his betrayal.  And it felt good, but Severus wouldn't let himself dwell on that. 

"Severus!  Fuck, Sever – ,"

"It's fine," Severus sighed.  "It's not real.  It's fine.  Remus, you'll be here?"

"Yes."

"Fine.  Good.  I'm going."

"I'll be here."

"Good."

A/N:  I know, I know.  Feel free to stone me…terrible cliff hanger there.  But really, it was the best place to break up the chapter.  And I do have the next one written…so maybe if I get lots of lovely reviews, I'll break my rule and post the next one soon, as a Xmas prezzie perhaps.  But don't worry, I'm not ransoming my fic for reviews. 

Speaking of reviews, thanks to the following for the inspirational praise –

DumbOldDork – it's nice to have a "regular"

Lillinfields

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Barbara Kennedy

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Happy holidays everyone!