LUST

Title: A need.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Implied sexual stuff
Word Count: 492

Late at night, at the bottom of Spinners End, where the damp from the river steals up your nose and numbs your senses until you almost can't smell the stagnant puddles and the rotting carpets that make up most of the other houses, at the end where the shadows are the darkest and feel as if they're trying to wrap around you and steal your soul, one house shows a light.

A flickering, blueish light.

A light that makes you want to step just a little closer to see what's making it.

And inside, in a small front room with torn curtains and a shabby carpet, a young dark-haired man is watching the television as if he could be part of it.

It's his little secret. His dark desire. Not the gameshows, or those children's programs with the teddy bears. No, it's the old American 60s series about the part of his life that's missing.

A family.

He tried a few of them. Flicked around the options and rejected most. Too trite. Too silly. Too different from anything he could imagine. Until he came upon one that was so normal it made his heart ache.

A father who cared about his children and encouraged them, even when they wanted to try something totally strange. The son was average, made mistakes, ate too much and broke things by accident - and still he was loved and cared for. The girl was bright and had ideas and experimented - and her parents were so proud of her.

And a loving mother, who was beautiful, and who would glide instead of walking, and who always spoke softly, but who wasn't afraid of showing her opinion, or her disapproval, or her mastery of languages. She tended the flowers and watched over the household, and her love for her children was enormous. And she and her husband truly cared for each other, and desired each other with a passion that made Snape shift uneasily in his chair to find a more comfortable position.

Snape's soul would ache with longing to be one of that family, with their grandmother and their uncle and the housekeeper... He'd deliberately ignore his surroundings and focus intently on the screen, tuning out the canned laughter and the dated dialogue, and wish he was there, in their midst.

He'd imagine he was standing beside Lily, her in one of her beautiful dresses that flowed and clung, and he'd be gently sliding her sleeve up and kissing up her arm, and calling her "Querida" and "Cara Mia". Of dancing with her, moving together as one, looking into each other's eyes as if there was no-one else in the world. And later, alone in bed, he'd imagine Lily looking up at him the way the wife looked at the husband, and him kissing her as she cried out in passion "Bubeleh! Severus! YES!".

And then he'd go to sleep and dream of his perfect family.