Chapter 8 – The Agony of Standing Still

"What the devil is wrong with you?"

"Nothing," he answered, shifting his burned arm, trying to find a position that didn't hurt.

"I'm not stupid, Sage. No doubt, you know this already. Therefore, I am forced to conclude that you don't trust me."

"No! I just—it's just a burn." His arm jolted at his vigorous protest and he gasped in pain.

"Let me see," Snape demanded, getting up, rounding the booth, and sliding into the seat next to Cameron.

Cameron sighed and started to roll up his sleeve. Bloody single-minded git.

Snape's eyes widened in alarm. "What have you been doing playing with dragons? Have you an active death wish?" he hissed.

Cameron almost smiled. He probably would have if he'd been able to muster one.

"I got away mostly unscathed."

"Unsca—half your right arm has been breathed on by a dragon! Are you out of your bleeding mind? Please tell me you at least had good reason for it."

"I did. It was guarding an artifact I needed," he prevaricated.

"That is not a good enough reason!" Snape's level of concern was pretty cute, but he needed to stop shouting

"Calm down, would you, mate? It was days ago, and I'm obviously not dying. I got what I needed. I conquered the dragon. I promise not to do it again."

"Not without me, you're not. And I'm sending you an appropriate salve as soon as I get back to Hogwarts."

Cameron couldn't hold back his smile at that. "Fine. Now will you drink your bloody scotch? The ice is melting."

Snape drank his scotch, grumbling, and did not return to his seat for the rest of the evening. Cameron drank his scotch and pretended not to notice.

XXX

He was restless. It was still five years until he had a chance to get his hands on the diary, and that was all that was left. Or all that wouldn't need to be left until the last minute.

What was he supposed to do for five bloody years?

He spent a good bit of his time checking objects for dark magic and removing hexes, but it wasn't enough. Every evening when he went home, he felt utterly useless.

There were a couple of regulars at the pub he talked to, and every now and then he went to the pub near the university and chatted with old classmates. But he still had to come home, with nothing better to do than sit there and wait. It was maddening.

XXX

Snape—

The most exciting thing I have to say about Siberia is that it's bloody fucking cold. I'm almost certain the thing I'm out here digging for doesn't even exist, much less here, but the pay is good and I plan to drag it out as long as possible. The people are few and far between, which I'm sure you can appreciate.

Draco is Lucius Malfoy's kid, right? What are you, his personal apothecary? Just tell him to buy his Dragon Pox remedy at the store like everyone else if it pisses you off so much. Of course, the fact that you haven't done so already tells me you don't actually mind. That, or you're in his debt. I wonder.

Stop your huffing, I'm not going to ask.

There's a white rabbit that keeps coming round the house I'm staying in. Well, shack, whatever. I think he likes the heat. He's fairly entertaining, at any rate.

Missed you at Christmas.

—Sage

XXX

Sage,

There is a second blasted Weasley in my classes. I hear there are more in the wings. Am I never to have peace?

Sprout is now Head of Hufflepuff. She's not quite as incompetent as her predecessor, though she is unceasingly happy. It's enough to give the most patient of wizards a headache. Imagine the size of my migraine.

What in the Founders' names are you doing in New Zealand? I thought you were in Hong Kong. Were there not enough pretty men there to hold your attention?

Severus Snape

Master of Potions, HSWW

XXX

"Bloody fuck!"

He was never going to get all these infuriating spines out of his leg. Bloody cactuses. Cacti. Whatever. He hated them all.

He gritted his teeth as he finally, finally, pulled the last one out. He was never going near a cactus again. He'd steer clear of deserts in general, in fact, just for good measure. In an effort to forget the throbbing pain in his calf and the humiliation of stumbling right into the fucking thing, he pulled out parchment, quill, and ink.

Snape—

I hate cacti. Every last one of them.

Did I mention I'm in Mexico now? They've got great food here. The scenery's nice too, as long as you stay away from the bloody cacti.

There actually haven't been any men, pretty or otherwise, lately. Don't know what's up with me. I've decided not to dwell on it.

I'm pretty sure I could avoid your hex, but in the interests of self-preservation I'll not inquire after your love life. Much as I'm dying to know.

It's bloody well hot here. It's the middle of summer in the desert, after all, but still. I think I'll go somewhere more temperate next. Perhaps the Mediterranean? Do you suppose the Parthenon has curses in need of removal?

—Sage

"Fuzzy? Where'd you get to? Fuzzball! I've got a job for you!" he called. Several minutes later, the lazy good-for-nothing perched on his shoulder and gave him a nip.

XXX

"So you finally came back. Couldn't quite believe it until I stepped out of the floo."

"Oh, shut up, Snape. Happy Christmas to you, too."

Cameron fairly drank in the sight of him after so long. Snape sat and they busied themselves with tea and biscuits for a few minutes.

"I take it you enjoyed your many and various adventures?"

Cameron gave a small smile. "As I'm sure you enjoyed spewing vitriol to a captive audience?"

"Indubitably. It is, as you know, what I live for."

Snape kept his straight face, but Cameron didn't. "Oh, screw the tea. You want a drink?"

"Only if it's a large one."

They'd made it through three glasses of scotch apiece before Cameron remembered about presents.

"Almost forgot. Here you go. I found it in an Aztec temple," he said, levitating the package to his guest.

After it was unwrapped, Snape stared at it for a while.

"Snape?"

"This a catalogue of potions used by the Aztecs."

Cameron nodded. "Yes."

"It's thousands of years old. Sage, this book is…is invaluable."

"Fairly likely, yes."

"And you're just…giving it to me."

Cameron's smile was bemused. "Well, yeah. That's how Christmas presents work. We've done this before, you remember."

"…lost your mind," he heard Snape mumble while digging Cameron's present out of his robes.

"Is this a joke?" he asked once he'd got it open.

"Er, yes. It is."

Cameron read the title one more time—The Idiot's Guide to Dragon-Slaying—and burst out laughing.

When he saw Snape's smile—his smile, who knew he could smile (really smile), and who knew it would do such strange things to Cameron's insides—his breath caught in his throat and the laughter died an undignified coughing, sputtering death. What was that about? Well. He wasn't going to think about it.

Once he'd recovered somewhat, he refilled his glass and raised the bottle. "Another?"

By the time he helped Snape to the fireplace, he'd lost count of how many they'd had. He was at that point where absolutely everything was funny and it was difficult to walk and if he had one more he'd be sick.

Snape made a grab for the floo powder, missed, and got it on the second try. He turned and, with his powder-free hand, thankfully, reached up to tuck the hair behind Cameron's ear. Only he didn't move his hand when he finished, and suddenly everything wasn't so funny anymore. He just brushed his thumb over the sensitive skin on Cameron's neck.

And then Snape was leaning forward and closing his eyes and Cameron could smell him he was so close and didn't he smell wonderful…

And then Snape took a step backward, until he hit the mantel. "Wow," he said, looking somewhere off to the left, "Sorry about that."

Sorry? Sorry? Cameron opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no sound came out.

"I—I've had too much to drink," Snape said to the air next to Cameron, "and so have you. It—I—my ap-apologies."

And then, in a flurry of robes, Cameron still trying to work out why he felt slighted, Snape was gone.

XXX

He spent the next several days thinking, sometimes with the aid of scotch, sometimes without. Mostly with.

Snape was sorry? Was he sorry he'd started or sorry he'd stopped? Maybe he was just sorry he'd drunk so much.

He knew enough to realize which part he himself was sorry about. He could kick himself for not reaching out, pulling Snape closer, keeping him there. Kissing him breathless.

But what if Snape hadn't really meant it? Who knew if Snape even really liked men that way. What if it was just the scotch, like he'd said? And since when was that what Cameron wanted?

Well, he didn't know when things had changed, but it was undoubtedly what he wanted. He found himself daydreaming about comfortably commandeering Snape's dressing gown (did he even use a dressing gown?), showering with Snape (maybe he preferred baths?), waking up in Snape's arms (falling asleep in the same), fighting over sections of the Prophet (did Snape have a subscription?). He fantasized sex, too, but he'd fantasized sex with plenty of men. The cozy domesticity part was new and it was freaking him out a bit.

He ran through dozens of scenarios in which he'd confront Snape and tell him how he felt (how exactly did he feel?) or pin him against the wall with the full length of his body. While some ended spectacularly, the majority ended in disaster.

And then he was back to the 'sorry'. What if that wasn't what Snape wanted? Or what if it was just lust he felt, just sex he wanted? What if he acted rashly and lost the best friend he'd ever had?

Even the possibility made him grimace.

Plus, Cameron had never wanted more than just sex with anyone before, and he didn't really know how that worked. He took a wild guess that Snape didn't, either. How did you go from 'casual fucking' to 'I want to spend my life with you'?

Bloody fuck. His life? Was that really what he wanted?

The answer was a resounding (if surprising) 'yes' and he thought maybe he'd found a word to pin on how he felt, after all.

Stunned, he resolved to lay off the scotch for at least the next twenty-four hours and see if it went away. He had his doubts, but a man could hope.

XXX

His first instinct upon stepping out of the house on the first Friday after term ended was to Apparate…somewhere far away. Australia had been nice. Instead, he forced himself to focus on the pub.

The thing he'd figured out had not gone away upon sobering up as he'd hoped and they'd both carefully avoided mentioning anything about 'the Christmas incident' in their letters, but there was a surprising lack of awkwardness. Had Snape been so drunk that he didn't even remember? He wasn't sure if that would be good or bad.

An hour later, when he licked a drop of scotch off his bottom lip and that bit of not-quite-pink color crept into Snapes cheeks, he gave an inner shout of triumph. He was proud of himself for continuing his rant on the Minister's latest stupid speech without breaking stride.

"Fudge is a charlatan," Snape agreed, "I can only assume the public experienced some sort of shared moment of insanity brought on by the Dark Lord's fall. They never did anything quite that stupid while they were afraid for their lives. And now we've got to live with it for—how long has it been?—nine more years. Terms are too bloody long, fifteen bloody years…"

Cameron smiled as Snape trailed off, grumbling. What he wouldn't give to be able to talk to this man like this every single day. It probably wouldn't be very good for his blood pressure, but he couldn't imagine anything better. He did his best to put it out of his mind.

That lasted until he found himself standing in the exact spot outside the pub where Snape had reached up and touched his cheek that time. How could he have dismissed that? It had been three whole years, and he'd forgotten all about it until that moment.

"All right there, Sage?" Snape asked, and he realized he must have been standing there reminiscing for too long.

"Not really," he answered and looped a hand around Snape's neck, pulling him down to compensate for the two-inch height difference. He brushed his lips across Snape's, and it was so much sweeter than he'd imagined… "Severus," he breathed, surprised that it came out that way.

"Say it again, say my name."

Cameron's lips curled against Snape's. "Severus," he said, a bit more firmly, and crushed his mouth against Snape's, drowning in the rightness of it.

Unfortunately, that seemed to bring Snape back to reality and he slowly pushed Cameron away by the shoulders, ending the all-too-brief moment of bliss.

"I—should I be apologizing for that?" Cameron asked.

"Is that what you want to do?"

"Not really." He tried really hard not to think about what exactly he did want to do.

"We've had too much to drink. Again."

"Probably so. Have you ever…considered doing something like this when you were sober?"

Snape's mouth opened, then closed, and he looked away.

"I have." Cameron bit his lip, then asked, "Does that bother you?"

"I can't decide if I'm too drunk or too sober to have this conversation with you."

Cameron was rapidly beginning to wish he'd never gotten out of bed this morning. "Just tell me one thing, then. Are you—can we—will I see you again?" he asked, trying not to sound too desperate, praying that he hadn't ruined everything.

"I—yes. Yes."

He let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Maybe firecall me when you're sober? Or drunker—whichever." At the careful non-expression on Snape's face, he added, "Or I'll just see you in two weeks."

Snape nodded curtly and Disapparated with a louder than usual crack. Cameron tried not to feel as if the world was coming down around his ears.