a/n: Lusty Fluff Ahoy! =D I hope you enjoy, and share your thoughts!

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Severus stood in the shower, water trailing his skin and forehead rested against the grimy shower wall. Soot tainted water swirled around his feet and he lightly banged his head against the wall several times. He was a fool… an absolute fool to think he could behave like a careless paramour.

His fist hit the tile twice before his knuckles protested weakly and he dropped it back to his side.

He couldn't do as Black did; he did not possess an affectionate, playful personality. He would need to have a word with the animagus before he caused even more of a strikingly pathetic tease.

With his mind set to throttle Sirius Black for making a fool of him yet again, Severus scrubbed viciously at this skin to rinse the residue of a botched potion, disintegrated wooden table and charred earthen stone from himself.

A regrettable sigh left his lips as he stepped from the shower, casting several cleansing charms on his clothes to get as much of the mess from them as possible, and dressed in jerky motions and more grunts of disapproval as his mind replayed the scene over and over and over.

No matter, he'd have to move past it and ignore it for now. No doubt Sirius was going to make a mockery of it for the rest of the night. He'd steel himself for it, tonight more so-called 'healing' needed to be done and he'd need what fortitude he could gather.

Steam followed him out of the bathroom, robes slung over one arm. A warm, spicy smell came from the kitchen. Severus followed his nose and found Remus ladling stew into deep bowls. Sirius was at the stove, spatula in hand with frying eggs spattering butter at him.

"Feeling better?" Remus asked, eyes carefully guarded and turned mostly to his task.

"Quite," Severus sniffed, he curled his nose lightly.

Sirius turned from the stove, sliding an egg a piece into each of their bowls. He eyed Severus with a minor leer and a lick of his lip. "Hungry?" He husked out.

"What is this?" Severus sat, spoon stirring through the tomato sauce concoction, plump bits of meat being pushed around the bowl.

"Leftover Moldavian stew from Molly and Arthur," Remus supplied finally sitting across from Snape and catching his gaze. Severus raised an eyebrow and Remus blew gently across his spoon. "Charlie brought the recipe with him, says it's fast become his favorite."

Sirius blew out, waving a hand at his tongue. "Spicy," he croaked, drinking deeply from his water glass.

Severus snorted and took a very careful taste. It was quite hot, bitingly spicy and actually rather pleasant—for a heavy, greasy, heart-attack in a bowl. "I thought you'd all eaten," he muttered, sipping his water and glancing at Remus.

Remus smiled at his bowl and clarified while Sirius waved a hand at his tongue in an effort to cool it. "We only nibbled a bit, we waited for you to come—" home, he'd almost said, instead clearing his throat, "for you to come 'round."

Severus stilled, spoon arrested halfway from his mouth. There was a warm wormy feeling in his chest and realized he felt touched. He blinked between them, feeling as though he should voice the feeling of belonging that touched him for just a moment.

"Christ I can't feel my tonsils!" Sirius gasped, ruining the moment effectively.

"Stop shoveling it in like a starved hippogriff," Severus grumped, taking another small bite. "You can't just fall face first into something this hot and spicy, you need to savor it; let it roll across your tongue and consume it piece by piece. It makes the pleasure of it long and heady. Eventually, you'll get used to the heat and the burn will seem only secondary to the enjoyment. You're only ruining it by rushing through."

Sirius sat partly agape, before running his tongue across the back of his spoon in what could only be deemed salacious. He winked across at Remus who was smirking at his bowl of stew, a suspicious flush at his collar. "You appreciate a slow thorough burn, eh?"

Severus finally understood the undercurrent of the conversation and huffed through his nose. "Bloody Gryffindors."

They ate in silence, Sirius taking far smaller portions and eyeing Snape with unmasked appreciation. It set Severus' teeth on edge and brought an ugly twist of doubt in his chest. Things had fallen into place far too easily between he and Black. It made his mind whirl with treasonous thoughts and set his hackles rising. He isn't my enemy, Severus reassured himself, staring owlishly at his bowl and then at the animagus and back again before schooling his features. Not my enemy… Merlin's pants, Hell has just frozen over.

Remus cleared his throat, glancing at glimpses of Severus' face through the swaying curtains of inky hair. The potions master didn't look at him, but did continue to eat in small, precise bites.

The meal was quite heavy and hot. Remus spooned two bowls of ice cream and passed Severus a glass. He and Sirius would cool their palates with something cold; Severus, it seemed, would prefer to burn the rest out with fire whiskey.

"The evening is still young," Sirius chirruped, taking a large bite of vanilla cream and grimacing as his head practically froze. "What shall we do with it?"

Severus' head was bowed over his drink in silent supplication to the strength it would give him for what was to come. "Are you expecting Order members this evening?"

"No," Remus shook his head, "but there is always the marginal possibility that they will need to pop in."

Severus nodded, refilling his glass and standing, bringing only the snifter with him. He paused in the entry to look over his shoulder. "Are you coming?"

Remus smiled easily, standing with his bowl in hand, obedient as always. Sirius looked curious, slowly standing and still eating with too-large mouthfuls. "Where to?"

"I'm going to tell you a story," Severus muttered, turning through the door and heading up the stairs in his usual long-legged stride.

The Gryffindors followed, curiosity piqued. Remus felt his insides flutter as they continued to the third floor and saw Severus push open the door to their room. Their room.

By the time they had caught up, Remus was nearly drinking his ice cream from his spoon and Severus had shed his robe.

Two plush chairs were transfigured from bed pillows, Severus motioned to them as he undid his shirt cuffs, hiding the uneasiness of his face with the wavering sway of hair. Remus sat, setting his spoon in his bowl and watching in detached interest.

Sirius sprawled happily in his chair, eating his dessert.

When Snape began to undo the buttons of his shirt, both men lost interest in food and stared in rapt fascination and gnawing curiosity.

"Wipe your chin, Black," Severus muttered, bent to his task and only facing them when his shirt was tugged free of his trousers.

"I thought you said we were going to hear a story," Remus croaked, eating a spoonful of ice cream to ease his drying throat.

"We are," Severus said stiffly, shrugging the linen free and laying it carefully across the low table where a pensieve had sat some days ago. He stood before them, his freshly scrubbed flesh so pale he stood glowing faintly in the firelight. "If you are ready, we will begin."

Remus nodded, eagerly setting his bowl on the floor to pay proper attention.

"Allow me to explain the rules," Severus cleared his throat, suddenly looking entirely uneasy. Remus frowned, ready to call off whatever the man had planned, but the look was gone so thoroughly an instant later he wasn't sure if it had been a trick of light. "There are many things that have wounded me in my lifetime, and most of them have left their mark. For now I will..." Severus paused as though gaining strength as Sirius' attention finally shifted full to him. "You will each get to choose which story you wish to hear."

Slow dawning drew Sirius' eager face to an uneasy scowl. Remus stood, standing in front of Snape and staring him hard in the face. Severus looked back, eyes glassy and lips set in a hard line. A muscle at the side of his jaw jumped.

"You don't have to do this," Remus whispered, trying to catch recognition in Severus' gaze.

"I do," Severus answered, voice a low croak. He blinked, startled as a feather-light touch trailed a thin scar that ran horizontally from the ball of his shoulder, across his right pectoral and ended scant centimeters from his navel.

Remus bit his lip, tracing scars across the man's chest, two across his stomach, one that ran deeply parallel to his ribs; another that started at the top of one pointed hip bone that traveled beneath the cloth of Severus' trousers. He turned each of Snape's palms out, the pad of his forefinger trailing like butterfly wings down the sensitive juncture of Snape's elbow, landing with finality on a fairly thick scar that started just below the soft inside of the elbow and ran in a soft 'C' around the forearm muscle, stopping above the prominent wristbone at the top of Severus' hand.

"This one," Remus whispered, eyes again searching Severus' face. To his surprise, Severus smiled briefly.

"Of all of the scars that litter this body, you have managed to pick one of few that are innocuous." He touched Lupin's hand briefly where it still rested on his wrist and cleared his throat.

He crossed the short distance to Sirius' chair and showed the animagus the scar that Remus had chosen, ignoring the muted heat in the mutt's eyes and motioned Remus back to his seat.

"This is rather a boring story," Severus smirked, thumb running the length of the scar, rubbing at the wrist bone as he gathered his thoughts. "I had started residency at an Apothecary on the continent, an odd, drafty place. The Master I studied under had a wife that grew many ingredients fresh in a greenhouse at the edge of the property. The pay was abysmal but I received free room and board so long as my potions remained pure and strong.

"Late in the fall, his wife had gone on holiday with her sisters leaving me alone to tend the greenhouse. A venomous tentacula thought I would be easy prey, stretching out and coiling around my ankle. I blasted it with my wand and…fell rather harshly into a highbred of venus flytrap and white snakeroot. She had fed it the undesireable bits from a nearby butcher shop and it had an unnatural hunger for flesh."

"It bit you?!" Sirius blurted, half a laugh caught in his throat.

"Quite," Severus affirmed dryly. "I am lucky I did not fall and stick the entirety of my arm down its great gullet. I managed to catch myself on the table and it had enough neck to reach out for a nip.

"Master Acton had been frightfully angry," Severus reminisced with a smirk. "He usually had a level head that I endeavored to upset, but he never once spoke a harsh word to me in his keeping. The plant on the other hand…"

"Did he kill it?"

Severus shook his head, "He did prune it a bit more than necessary and moved it to the back of the greenhouse."

Remus smiled, pleased he had picked a scar that at least held a bit of fondness. Sirius stood a bit too quickly for his turn and wrecked the whole easy atmosphere. Lupin hadn't the heart to mind overmuch when Sirius laid his hand flat against Snape's side and stood behind, looking over the far heavier littering of scars on Snape's back.

Severus stood stiff, irritated at being manhandled. At least Remus had the decency to leave a bit of personal space. Black's hand burned where is rested above his hip, the other tracing idly across the planes of his back over criss-crosses of scars.

"Can you feel this alright," Sirius asked, breath warm and smelling of curry and caramel as it ruffled the hair at Severus' neck.

"What?"

Fingers slid with slow insistence across Severus back, a short mark that was only as long as his thumb set between shoulder blade and spine. "This one, here."

Remus stood to see, cupping an affectionate hand around the back of Sirius' neck and seeing which scar it was.

"Sit down," Severus snapped, a bit more roughly than he'd intended. He grimaced as he stretched his right arm over his shoulder, feeling the edge of the scar with the tips of his fingers.

"Macnair," he breathed. Severus took up his shirt, drawing it back across his shoulders. He leaned a hip against the low table, the long fingers of his right hand drumming on the surface.

"Even now, new recruits are considered fodder for the higher ranks. I may be inner-circle worthy now," Severus sneered, "but then… then I was a bitch for anyone with two weeks greater experiences or a faster wand."

"Bitch, bitch?" Sirius' eyes widened even as his shoulders tensed high and angry.

A grin, sinister enough to strike Baal dead, ripped jaggedly across Severus' face. "No. Not that some didn't try to assert themselves with that particular form of dominance. Unfortunately for them, I have never taken to being bullied…" He cast a stern glance at Sirius and paused to regather his thoughts.

"Macnair has always been a wiry man, quick to anger if you knew which buttons to push. He has always had a very fine wire that divides his muted anger and full out rage. Bits of his brain must have addled when he was a child, I'm sure you know how much he enjoys killing… working as he does.

"As a new recruit, I bowed only to those I deemed more powerful than myself."

Remus smiled down at his lap, "I assume Macnair was not one of those people."

Severus snorted, "There are only a handful of people I have ever bowed to in my life, no more than three with the Death Eaters… and that includes the Dark Lord himself.

"Macnair took to the power of others groveling at his feet much like a fish takes to water. He grew cocky and self-assured. Most of the new flock that had joined nearly when I had were already running his errands, and all but licking the ground he walked upon.

"It had been a rather odd week of running unappetizing errands. Clean-up detail after minor spills of genocide in rural villages; running errands so minute you knew it was a waste of time and only tit work; even one memorable instance of walking a pet Mastiff." Severus rolled his eyes, looking thoroughly disgusted and more than partly irritated with the flashback. "Macnair was displeased at my lack of proper veneration. He would have challenged me to a duel, but he always found actual fists far more pleasing…"

"You didn't get that scar from a punch to the back."

"Very astute," Severus drawled. "He demanded I bow to his mastery, and I informed him that to be a master of anything one needed to have a brain that functioned first."

"Ha!" Sirius laughed. Remus huffed and cast him in incredulous look. "What?! 'S nice to see someone else getting the sharp side of his tongue…" Sirius grimaced and flopped sideways in his chair, running his finger through the dregs of ice cream in his bowl.

Studiously ignoring the Gryffindors as they grunted at each other, Severus buttoned and unbuttoned his sleeve cuffs and continued. "The first strike wasn't exactly unexpected; it was the first of numerous broken noses I have received in my adult life. Pain and the taste of blood on my tongue apparently makes my wand-hand overactive." A dark look ghosted Severus' face. "I tried two of the nastiest curses I'd created and never had the opportunity to try on a living being. We drew an impressive crowd. He nearly broke my ankle, made me spit three teeth and cracked at least two ribs. I dropped him with a knee to the groin."

"That's cheating!" Sirius grimaced, cupping his own jewels in sympathy.

"I don't play by rules with others who won't," Severus growled. "I ruled the fight as over and turned to leave. He recovered much faster than I had expected… with a transfigured blade."

Sirius licked the trail of ice cream from his fingertip. "He stabbed you in the back, then."

Severus watched the lean digit disappear between Sirius' lips, emerging again damp. "Obviously. An inch lower and he would have punctured my lung. I had initially been too surprised to strike back, but it hadn't lasted quite long enough for Macnair to duck.

"His cheekbone shattered—along with my hand—and he hit the floor in a puddle of his own blood."

"How did you—" Remus motioned over his shoulder, grabbing toward an invisible protrusion from his back.

"Lucius," Severus supplied.

Sirius continued dragging his fingertips through the melted puddles of vanilla, sucking each one clean. "At least the man's good for something…"

"The man has plenty of sway with the Wizengamot," Severus muttered, growing steadily unsettled at Sirius' display. "Granted, most of it was bought."

Another digit disappeared between Sirius' lips.

Severus slapped his hand away and stalked to the fireplace, staring at the cold hearth in embarrassment of his reactions. Behind him, Sirius grinned—all teeth—and winked at Remus as he curled his tongue around his finger.

"I think we've had enough stories for one evening," Severus ground out through clenched teeth.

"Sure," Remus readily agreed, slapping at Sirius with the back of his hand in mild chastisement. "I guess I'll… pop off and finish that book then."

Snape grunted, willing the heat out of his face.

Remus shook his head at Sirius as the man winked and transformed to Padfoot. The shaggy dog helped himself to the remains of the ice cream from both bowls and clambered out of the room and down the stairs in a scatter of toenails on wood.

A calm hand settled on Snape's elbow, turning him half a step. Remus smiled languidly up at him, helping straighten his shirt and pulling a bit of limp hair from his collar. "Thank you for that," he spoke to Severus' chest, smoothing a wrinkle and tweaking a button.

Severus stilled Lupin's hand by pressing it flat to his stomach. Remus looked up, a bit caught, and sighed happily into a soft kiss. Snape's free hand touched the light stubble on Remus' cheek, thumb rolling in small circles along his jaw. The kiss eked to a languid halt.

"Not that I'm not appreciative, but, what was that for?" Remus muttered, lips grazing across Snape's.

Snape sighed heavily and traced a long line of thin scar across Lupin's face. Remus shivered and drew back.

"I'll be downstairs," he croaked and spun away.

Severus watched him disappear from the landing and frowned to himself. He'd surprised himself, kissing Lupin—better than jumping Black like half of him had wanted—but the cool reaction to touching Remus' scars was worrisome.

He'd have to put his mortification on hold and seek out Black and see if they couldn't hash this new information out while Remus engrossed himself in his novella. The lycan's reluctance to such an innocent touch was another wrinkle in the plan, but one that could be ironed out with the rest.

First and foremost, however, he needed to regain control of his baser emotions before he sought out the mutt.

A quarter hour of silence was spent readjusting his buttons, rubbing at the hollows of his eyes and trying madly to gather his thoughts in a semblance of rationalization. Sirius in mutt form was rooting madly around in a spare room when Severus found him.

Padfoot was pawing a pile of moth-eaten cloth together, snuffling with vigor and turned happily about it before cocking his leg.

"Black!" Severus barked, appalled as the dog began to relieve himself on the discarded garments.

The dog jerked, tail tucking tight and spinning with a snarl. He recognized Severus and took a moment to drive his nose with unjust familiarity into Snape's crotch before jumping back with a bark that sounded too close to Sirius' actual surprised laughter for Snape's enjoyment.

Drawing his robes tight, Severus scowled at the irritating dog and stuck his head out into the hall. Remus was still in the den—or at least not on the same floor. With a glance he shut the door.

Sirius was sitting perched in a chair, foot on knee and shirt buttons undone looking infinitesimally pleased with himself. "Looking over your shoulder, confined spaces, palpable tension… why Snape if I didn't know better I'd think you were here for something clandestine." The animagus waggled his eyebrows and grinned when Severus hovered over him with a scowl.

"I am not here to violate your chastity, Black," Severus growled.

Sirius sighed heavily and licked the ball of his thumb as he mumbled, "Pity."

A part of Severus' gut clenched and he growled, slapping Sirius' hand away from his mouth. "Stop that, I'm here to discuss Remus, not to play with you."

"Why not? And what about Remus?" Sirius stretched, making a show of smoothing out the parallel planes of his shirt.

"Have you noticed his fixation on his own scars?" Snape thrust his hand toward Sirius' face and smirked slowly when Sirius flinched in the chair. "He has several, just here…" He laid his fingertips on Sirius' cheek, dragging them in haphazard patterns around Sirius' face in remembered marks from Lupin's skin.

Sirius' breath caught and he fought to remain still. The old animosity that had sat between them reared its head and screamed to bite the man, it was quashed quite spectacularly as Snape drew his fingers down the curve of his jaw and across the length of his neck. "…to here. And those are just on his face."

"What about them?" the animagus croaked, nearly turning his cheek to Snape's open palm.

Severus smiled slowly and bent low across Sirius, hair trailing the open collar of Black's shirt and breathed hotly into his ear. "For a start, he doesn't enjoy the area being touched nearly as much as you seem to…"

"Maybe you just don't know what you're doing." Sirius bit back.

"No?" Severus purred into his ear. The hand that tripped around Black's collarbone snapped to the man's throat tight enough to pinch off a little wind. Sirius grabbed hold of Snape's wrist and elbow squeezing and thrashing to dislodge the darker wizard. Snape hissed a laugh and cold fingers grazed along Sirius' stomach, around his hip and a probing thumb pushed just past the band of his jeans. "Now, how do you suppose we should help Lupin past this?"

"H-he's always been that way," Sirius wheezed past the hold on his throat, licking his dry lips and telling himself not to nibble at Snape's exquisitely accessible neck.

"Conditioning then…" Severus murmured, idly stroking his thumb so that it slipped out and in past the barrier of cloth. "The only way to help him is to recondition him."

Severus drew back far enough to smile directly as Sirius' upturned face. Part of Sirius' insides froze and then melted in a rip of heat as Snape shoved the whole of his hand down the front of his pants.

"And you are going to help me," Severus breathed into his face, twisting his wrist and grabbing hold of the trapped wizard's thickening cock.

"Whatever you want," Sirius wheezed, grinning. He tangled his hands in Snape's hair and yanked but the potions master only grunted and didn't draw closer. A soft, hardened laugh rolled out of Severus' mouth and he drew back with such force Sirius nearly fell out of the chair.

"I'll hold you to that, Black." He smirked and jerked the door open, returning upstairs to turn out his robe pockets and get some work done.

If he had been any other man, he would have whistled as he mounted the stairs. But Severus was never very ordinary, but the flash of his gaze and new slant to his sneer told of a very happy potions master indeed. Of course, it helped considerably that he had left Sirius Black a writhing wanton lump a floor below.