Hiding Under the Ninth Earth
Book 02 : A Bit Of All Right
by I Got Tired of Waiting
Part III : Conflict
Chapter Twenty Eight : Christmas Margins
21 June 2003 (Some Hours Before Dawn)
The problem with being an unacknowledged creature of habit is finding yourself unable to stay somnolent when you are not on the side of the bed on which you are accustomed to sleeping. Harry woke for the final time a few hours later after experiencing vague half-formed dreams that would jerk him awake at the oddest times. And as was customary, he woke curled tightly around Severus, their legs tangled, his hand around the slender waist grasped by both of his lover's. He and Severus had been trying to figure out for years how it was they went to sleep one way and woke up another, every single day, when neither one remembered moving. Tonight was no exception. Harry had faded in and out of sleep but couldn't say when they'd shifted to this position with him cradling Severus from behind.
Not that he minded much. He was aroused, tucked tightly in Severus' cleft, his hand already involuntarily moving forward, creeping lightly over his hip, sliding across the shallow valley where leg meets torso to stroke Severus. In fact, a very normal way for him to awaken his lover, although the soft cotton feel of the thin fabric of the pyjamas instead of silky skin was a bit of a jolt. 'But not now. It's only three in the morning. He needs to sleep and I need to think,' he sternly told himself, reluctantly willing his hungry body to obey as he pulled his hand back to rest comfortably on Severus' hip. Without thought he placed a soft kiss on the skin under his cheek.
He put some air between them and thought about their relationship for a while. 'Could that be part of the problem? Our decision? Could Severus have agreed to it solely because of me and not because of any inclination on his part?' He was having a hard time wrapping himself around the thought. Their resolution had been made eye to eye with deep conviction at the time and with no prevarication. 'No, Severus would not deceive me, not about something that important. Perhaps he has changed his mind? Decided he wants it after all?' He felt the shudder run through him. 'And can I bear to give myself to him that way? I know I can't take him.'
It was a disturbing thought--one he had no easy answer to. During the four years since they'd been lovers, there'd never been any regrets expressed about their mutual intent. Both had professed to a strong physical and mental discomfort being penetrated, neither had ever truly felt comfortable taking anyone that way, and both had such horrible recollections of being taken forcefully they were unable to get past their first memories to make ones of their own. The nightmares they helped each other through were proof enough, he thought, of their sincerity.
After their first two aborted attempts in the beginning, they'd tried once more a few months later; it had been such an unmitigated disaster they'd resolved to never attempt it again. In fact, once decided, Harry had felt a huge measure of relief as if a final pressure had been removed--Severus had said he felt the same way. They were devoted to each other and had plainly enjoyed their loving without penetration. He'd never missed it nor the awkward coupling positions where getting close was either difficult or required a gymnast's flexibility. Instead he found a strong emotional closeness to Severus with the tight physical closeness of their bodies. Face to face, heart to heart. Not that they hadn't played a bit. Fingers were sometimes fun, not often, but there'd been a place for it. Especially with--'Down boy!'--he was getting hard again.
Severus' weakness, if he could call it that, was touching and kissing--both giving and receiving. His sensitive skin would stipple and twitch with the lightest of caresses. Harry had found out early on he could play Severus like a fine instrument and make him respond, sometimes quite volubly, just by touching and kissing the right spots. He didn't even have to touch him intimately. Once, when they'd made one of their rare jaunts to a club Severus knew of, he'd been feeling quite wicked and by touch alone he'd made Severus climax in public while dancing, no one the wiser as the music had covered Severus' strained groans. Of course, Severus had retaliated later that night, after recovering from the mortification, by bringing Harry to the edge so many times with his exquisite mouth and hands without release he'd thought he was going to die. The orgasm, when Severus finally allowed it, had been painfully superb for them both.
And they both truly enjoyed oral sex, Harry especially. He had to catch Severus in the right mood for him to enjoy it as much as he did on a daily basis, but oh, what fun it was to make Severus squirm. He felt fortune smiled on him that Severus was as aroused by giving head as much as Harry was receiving it. And Severus was quite skilled. 'Merlin, what a mouth he has! Truly gifted--lucky me.' He could feel the tightness just thinking about it. He found himself reaching for Severus again and when he realised it, he pulled his hand back like it was on fire. 'Enough! If I'm going to continue thinking about this, I am going to have to leave this bed. Right now! I Will Not Wake Severus--He Needs His Sleep.'
Amused and still aroused by his unruly thoughts, he slowly pulled away regretfully, rolled over, and got out of the bed. He was cold and he steeled himself to get his dressing gown to go out in the sitting room. He really needed to think without the temptations Severus' body was giving him. Severus, usually a light sleeper, never stirred. 'More's the pity.'
As he looked at his lover's face, so beautiful in repose, a small, ignored part of him wistfully thought, 'But maybe he needs something else more? There were many nights he left me alone, seemingly content just to hold me while I slept, although at the time I thought he was just being thoughtful. I remember coming home those nights barely able to stagger to bed. Maybe he got bored with my inability to do more than sleep?' Tying the belt to his dressing gown, he set these morose thoughts aside as unproductive. He took a deep breath forcing himself to believe Dumbledore's words and tried to suppress the unwelcome visions of Severus with someone else.
With slow disheartened steps he made his way into the sitting room. He was about to settle on the couch when his attention was drawn to the book he'd seen when he'd come home--the one Severus had been reading and over which he'd fallen asleep. Curious, he drifted into the study and stood before the desk, running his fingers lightly over the green leather cover of the book. 'Do I really want to know what this is about?' He wasn't sure. "Answers for the Discriminating Male", it said. 'Well, I need answers, too.' He sat in the short-backed wooden chair, finding it as hard and uncompromising as its owner used to be. Uncomfortable because he'd never sat at Severus' desk before, Harry felt he was invading his privacy--something Severus still valued highly and he tried hard to respect.
Nonetheless, he threw aside his reservations and opened the cover. The relief at the title within left goosebumps all over him. 'Not a cruising book then.' He thumbed through the pages, fascinated by the pictures. The bleeding margins were filled with Severus' distinctive, crabbed notes, tiny--not his normal flaring style. More like the notes he put on papers when he was grading or editing them. Bending close, Harry almost wished he still had his spectacles; the vision correcting spells still didn't help him much with handwriting such as this, and he had to blink hard several times to focus.
He started reading those notes. He made out phrases like, "H would like this--" and "H would never do--" and "Maybe for H, but certainly not for me." He smiled when he read, "They must be joking!"--he could hear Severus saying it in his head. After a few minutes it dawned on him that the "H" he kept seeing was him. 'Sev has been reading this for me?'
Suddenly it was all clear to him. 'What a pair of idiots we are,' he thought joyfully, laughing out loud. A strong jolt of pure happiness and hope surged through him, leaving him more optimistic than he'd been for weeks. 'Both of us are afraid the other is leaving! Stubborn sorry bastards, aren't we? More my fault that. I haven't been home enough and the last few months it's been all I could do to drag my sorry arse home and collapse. It's no small wonder Sev thought I wasn't interested. And this--' he thumbed through some pages, '--this actually looks a right giggle. He chuckled. Only Severus would think to use a book as a sexual aid. Well, maybe Hermione might, too.'
He picked up the heavy volume from the desk and carried it over to his study on the other side of the sitting room. While the room was rather small, it had a larger desk than Severus' dainty antique. Made entirely of glass with an aquarium in the top, it took up most of the cosy space. Severus thought the fish distracting but when Harry worked, there was too much clutter strewn over the top for him to see the colourful occupants, and when he wasn't working he found the tiny fish soothing whenever he needed to get into the meditative state required to actually practice his art.
Right now the desk was empty except for Cally, his cat, who could often be found sleeping on the outer corner. A present from Dumbledore three years ago, Cally was all white and pink with cornflower blue eyes, stone deaf, and inordinately fond of watching his fish; she was very attentive to motion of any kind. Severus and Hedwig tolerated her; Horatio, sulking after being sternly admonished not to eat her as a kitten, hunted with her often, letting her play with the mice and things they caught before he consumed them.
To see her very small dainty body (not much larger than a kitten's) stretched out and nestled through his coils while they slept by the fire or in Horatio's room was an odd sight at best, especially when one considered he could easily eat her, even now. And the plants in the greenhouse left her alone, especially the vines. A few rips of her claws and ferocious teeth had taught them a hard lesson to leave her be when she proved immune to their soporific poison.
She slept just about anywhere except their bed. Severus had drawn the line early on when, as a kitten, she'd 'nested' in a particularly fuzzy, intimate place. He'd not had too much of a problem with her snuggling, although he'd expressed a certain amount of embarrassment 'and I'm fairly sure Severus wouldn't have nailed my entrails to the wall had I told anyone about it.' However, Severus strenuously (and quite vocally) protested when she displayed her profound pleasure in his accommodation by kneading the area with her paws, but even then he'd barely tolerated her. That is, until she tried to suckle. With a loud oath, and a flurry of bed clothes, he'd been quite adamant about her secure place in hell 'and really, I don't think he meant his threats to use (with extreme malice) one of her nine lives.' But the true 'injury' to his insult came when Severus was trying to remove her from the offended area in the fastest manner possible. She'd panicked and sunk her teeth and claws, no less ferocious for all their small size, into--well, Harry had acceded gracefully to her banishment with little grumbling. 'Although how was I supposed to know he wouldn't appreciate my offer to 'kiss it and make it better'--I was only being solicitous. Maybe it had something to do with me falling off the bed laughing.'
He smiled. Severus hated her white hairs on his dark robes but was the first to stroke her when she inevitably jumped up in his lap circling and purring, or with her front paws on his face, holding him still, while she stood on her hind legs to bathe his nose. He was her human, too.
Harry sat down at his desk, rummaged in the tambour on the side, and pulled out a bottle of his favorite green ink and a fine quill he used for note-taking, which was very similar to the one Severus had used earlier. 'In fact,' he thought, 'I probably stole it from him a couple of months back.' Cally flicked her ear but otherwise didn't move.
He read through the pages in much the same manner Severus had, skimming over the parts that left him cold. 'A squid?' He studied in detail the ones interesting to him. The section on 'Naughty Desserts' was intriguing, and his stomach started grumbling along with other parts of his anatomy.
'Hmmm. ~Favorite Songs to Hum Along~? Looks a bit daunting and Severus thinks it's boring. However, a good sing-a-long might be fun every now and again,' he thought, skimming this section. After a while, he began to get his point and agreed with him by the end of the section.
His quill flew across the pages, mostly between the lines as Severus had already completely filled in some of the margins, as he added notes of his own and comments to Severus' notes. At times, he had to stop to catch his breath after a particularly good one. 'Oh YES! ~Learn the Flute to Drive Your Lover Wild~. Even if Sev does think the tonguing looks complicated, it's--it's--WOW!'
He noted Severus had some questions as well requiring his response, the most important being that the invisibility cloak was in the bottom drawer of his wardrobe. The chapter entitled ~Pushing or Pulling: A Comparative Study~ confounded him as did Sev's question, "Pushing?" By the end of it, as Harry got the gist of it, he noted: "Pulling!", assuming anyone, like his lover, was seeking his opinion.
When he read the section, ~Spit or Swallow: A Personal Choice~ he realised he really had some strong preferences--something about which he'd never really thought. However, with these ruminations came the surprise that, based on his comments, Severus knew of them as well and that he'd paid attention. Severus had noted "Spitting? How déclassé." to which he replied, "Hard to spit when your cock is down my throat!"
Some were just plain stupid. Like the ~Silk-Boxers-Blow-Job~. His first thought as he read the entry was echoed by Severus' comment: "What would be the point?" Harry couldn't fault it and agreed in his notes by adding a couple of exclamation points, the ink splotching on the dots.
The ~Upside-Down-Blow-Job~ almost qualified as pretty inane when he first looked at the pictures, then he read the comment: "Won't work--H prefers the supine position--definitely better for my back, though." He studied the pictures where the giver lay on the bed, face up, while the receiver stood by the side of the bed and--received. He'd never thought the physical act might cause Severus distress and though he was right, he really did prefer laying on his back, he gamely wrote down: "Hey, I'm willing to try almost anything once." Until he saw the very next one, the ~Push-Me-Pull-You~ not to be confused with the ~Do-Little~, which to him looked more like tug-of-war than head. He duly noted, "Except this".
At some points, Severus' naïve comments were almost cute. He'd made notes in the margins that were more questions than anything else. Like his curious remarks about 'the Harley'; Severus had no clue what one was. Harry obligingly wrote down it was a large American motorcycle, but as more of the references showed up, such as in the ~Suck-My-Balls-Dry-Blow-Job~, he realised Severus had no idea what it meant either, so he reassured him under ~Vacuum Techniques~ that one did not necessarily need to know what a Harley was in order to be able to "suck-start" one. Of course, he couldn't help adding, "Trust me--you can skip this section--you should be teaching it."
Towards the end, he hit pay dirt. There was an entire chapter titled, ~Fore(Skin)Play~. Excitedly turning the pages, he noted this was where Severus seemed to have concentrated most of his comments; there were quite a few exclamation marks and almost no room to reply. Not that he was inclined to do so. Reading through the sections and the numerous notes, he happily realised he was in for a hard time, literally, if his current condition just thinking about it was any indication. Severus already knew and practiced a goodly number of the techniques shown and the new ones looked positively brilliant, especially the section on 'rolling tips'. Even after four years, his head was still so sensitive with the skin retracted, he ached when he came and breathing was something requiring conscious thought. And Severus, working his oral magic on him with wicked tongue and nimble lips, could have him babbling and writhing across the bed begging for mercy. He had to set the book aside for a long moment to collect himself enough to finish it without it 'finishing' him.
Almost at dawn, he'd finally gone through the interesting bits. His distinctive green ink contrasted nicely with Severus's red ink. 'Almost like Christmas.' He closed the book and returned it to Severus' desk where he'd found it, leaving a short note in the front on a separate piece of parchment; he got a picture in his head of the expression on Sev's face as he read some of his notes. He sincerely hoped they would be enough to assuage his fears as much as reading Severus' had allayed his own. Yawning hugely while arching his back on a long stretch, he decided to go back to bed.
As he was climbing in under the warm covers, he reminded himself he had to go to Diagon Alley sometime today to pick up the Nuptial rings. He'd opened an Owl from the goldsmith when he'd got home this evening, which had told him the modifications he wanted made to them were completed. He remembered he'd have to go to Gringotts first to get the Galleons; he was running low. 'Ah well, time enough later to figure that out. Right now I just want to sleep.' Scooting close, he pressing a light kiss to Severus' back. Snuggling, he draped his arm over and around Severus' waist smiling sleepily at how good he felt; soon after he didn't think about much at all.