So Close
December 19:
If she had to spend another day in bed she was going to polish off the entire flask of Snape's nasty concoction and damn the consequences. It was small wonder that the rebellious auror was slowly driving herself to the brink of madness counting the cracks in the stone walls. The glimpse of a crisp winter afternoon taunting her beyond the parapet's stainglass window. Professor McGonagall had visited earlier informing Tonks that she had been unconscious with a high fever for over a week before waking. Fantastic just call me Sleeping Clumsy.
Flexing her toes cautiously she forced her legs towards the precipice of the bed. Tonks rolled over slightly and nearly cried out in excrutiating agony. I must have been a sadist in a past life. Easing herself to the floor, her knees wobbled from disuse. Her first steps were shakier than a newborn foal but she gritted her teeth and continued. After making it most of the way across the infirmary she collapsed knocking over a tray of tinctures and foul smelling ointments with a tinkling crash.
"What are you doing out of bed?" Snape bellowed as he burst into the room.
"Flying! What the Morgana do you think I'm doing?" Her body hurt in places she never knew existed.
"Idiot woman, you'll tear those stitches if you're not careful! Why are you trying to leave?" He boomed as he lifted her to her feet.
"I was bored!" She staggered into him and was disturbed by how comforting and familiar it felt to be in his sinuous arms. Don't get used to it. The accompanying silence was punctuated by rapid gasps.
"Can you walk?" His gentle touch contrasted with the gruffness of his tone. He supported her delicate frame against his effortlessly.
"Just lead me to the tango." He arched a bemused eyebrow at her obvious untruth as she stubbornly refused his hand.
She almost tripped over his robes the third pair she had ruined and would have tumbled head first if not for his iron grip. Finally she shook her head in defeat and allowed him to carry her back to the bed…
The glacial satin of her cheek brushed against his neck. He shivered. Severus swallowed nervously as he secured his hands under those taut thighs exposed by that flimsy excuse for a nightgown. The simple cotton shift rode high enticingly so as he strode slowly to her bed. The potion master schooled his features into an expression of neutrality as she wrapped around him inadvertantly… snugly… He compelled himself to look away and failed to snidely comment upon her moment of helplessness. More like his moment of weakness.
As she rested upon the sheets, her midnight tresses clouding the pillow, he could scarcely believe that this was the bubble gum haired hellion he taught a decade ago. A girl who had destroyed several cauldrons in his dungeon and yet had always managed to achieve top marks in his class. He would never admit it to a living soul that her potions skills were sorely wasted on an auror.
"I still think you make a terrible nursemaid." Tonks's whisper was teasing to the ear.
"Only to patients deserving of such treatment." He countered dryly as she drank down her healing draught with a mocking toast.
His concentration eluded him. Staring at the same page of Most Potente Potions for the past hour, he twirled his brandy glass lazily. This was useless. Snape grumbled as he tossed the tome aside. It was hard to focus when his thoughts treacherously revolved around her. It was hard indeed… Disgruntled with his body's reaction, he stormed out of his office towards the teachers' bath chamber for a long hot soak.
Reaching the entrance he mouthed the password and was surprised to find the room illuminated by vanilla scented candles. Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight" played from a wizarding wireless transfigured into a pair of floating lips. Suspiciously he wondered if this setup was someone's idea of a prank. The alternative was horrifying. Shuddering he refused to think that two of his colleagues arranged this as a romantic rendezvous.
"Show yourself." He demanded. Having heard silence as his only response he disrobed quickly and slipped into the pool sized sunken tub overflowing with bubbles. His muscles relaxed instantaneously in the simmering heat, he closed his eyes and draped his head against the curved marble.
He felt something brush up against his leg and almost jumped out of the pool in shock. Within seconds a figure emerged from the water sputtering in indignation.
"What the bollocks are you doing in my bath Snape?!" Tonks choked thunderously. "Get out now!"
"Your bath, this is my bath! You on the other hand should be asleep in the infirmary." He snapped back as he gathered more suds around himself in an unusual display of maidenly modesty.
"All I wanted was a bloody swim and an escape from that prison you call a hospital ward!" In her anger she nearly forgot that they were both alone and naked in a tub full of bubbles until she jabbed a finger into his rigid… unclothed chest. Embarrassment suffused her waxen complexion.
"You nearly died! And you risk your health for sake of a bubblebath? Perhaps I should be checking you for head trauma. No wait you were always a reckless and stubborn witch nothing has changed!" He roared, her temper enflaming his own. Ungrateful chit. Tempting as it would be to shake her until she came to her senses, he did not trust himself not to drown her. And yet she looks magnificent in her fury. Eyes gray like a winter gale, whirling and fiercely cold.
"I am not stubborn! You…" The following words were profane but passionately enunciated and spewing from an innocent heart shaped mouth. How such a petite creature could have such a powerful voice was a mystery. Snape cleared his throat and averted his eyes to conceal the effect that she had on him.
"I'm…" The deafening volume of the wireless drowned out his apology.
"I feel wonderful because I see
The love light in your eyes.
And the wonder of it all
Is that you just don't realize how much I love you."
"Turn it off!" Simultaneously they yelled at each other.
Severus caught the floating lips deftly and shoved the device underwater. It continued to gurgle the song to its audience's immense aggravation.
"Perhaps one of us should leave." Severus remarked in his most professional tone as if they were discussing the weather at a job interview.
"Since I was here first, you should leave." Tonks reasoned stiffly.
"Ladies first." He smirked cavalierly. "You do know that those bubbles won't last forever."
"I insist noble sir." Scowling Tonks folded her arms around her chest in deference to the vanishing bubbles. If this had happened to anyone else she would have been hysterical with laughter. Anyone else but him. Drowning would be too good for the man.
"Very well, turn around." He conceded to her stubbornness and was relieved that she complied. It was unnerving to have her look at the horrendous scars fading across his chest and back. And when she wet her lips… she sorely tested his infamous control. Ten… nine… eight….
He went behind the curtain to search for his robes but they were oddly missing. "Bloody hell!"
"What's the matter? Can you hand me my clothes please?" Tonks crawled out of the tub and stuck her hand through a part in the curtain.
"Our clothing is gone." He growled. The alluring outline of her body behind the translucent material was riveting. Only a veil separated them.
"Tell me that you are joking." Her disbelief came out in a frantic hiss.
"If only I were." Severus suspected that Peeves had something to do with this disaster of a bath time.
"Do we have towels or our wands?" Shivering with cold and hopefulness, she looked longingly at the hot bath she had abandoned as it drained away.
"Negative." Abruptly pulling down the curtain he proceeded to rip the material down the middle.
"What are you doing?" Tonks squeaked as she tried to hide herself.
"Improvising." Snape handed her half and wrapped himself in the other half toga style.
"Absolutely brilliant." She beamed at him. He almost returned her smile but caught himself at the last minute. This is becoming a bad habit.
"Now to go to sleep and forget that this ever happened." Muttering, he tried opening the door but it was locked. "Bollocks!" Wonderful he was starting to swear like her. He rubbed the pulsating vein in his head as it threatened to burst.
"Please tell me that the door isn't locked. Alohomora!" Feebly Tonks tried to open the door with various wandless magic spells.
"Don't bother. The door is supposed to be spell proof to keep out students." Especially pranksters like the Weasley twins. He explained in a bored manner often directed towards first year dunderheads. How ironic when both the privacy spell and exit wards have been tampered with. "Don't they teach you how to pick locks at the Auror Academy?"
"Does it look like I'm carrying any tools right now?" Tonks snorted as she gestured at her lack of apparel. Touche my little auror. To her dismay there were no windows to escape from. Not that shimmying down a four story window nude would be a feasible option. "Should we try calling for help?"
"Are you insane? How would it look if people found us together like this?" The professor looked scandalized. "No one can hear us anyways, these walls are more than a foot thick of solid rock and it's nearly 1am, even Filch is sleeping."
"You know where you can stuff your propriety, I want out of here and into our bed. I mean our own beds." She flushed as he leered at her Freudian slip. "We can summon one of the house elves. Winky helped levitate me here. Maybe she'll come back wondering why I've been gone so long. Winky can you hear me? Winky? Dobby?"
No one appeared. Tonks threw a rubber duckie at the door in exasperation.
"It's no use, we'll have to wait until morning when the house elves come to clean the chamber." He sighed. The gossip that would follow from those cackling old crones on the faculty would make him want to hide in his dungeons for the rest of the year.
"Why do you keep looking at me?" Self consciously she wrapped the sheet around herself more tightly sensing the intensity of his scrutiny. That gaze of his was magnetic and unreadable. As was the man.
"You're bleeding." Motioning toward the scarlet stain blossoming on the back of her toga, concern etched in his expression. "Lie on your stomach I need to attend to your wounds."
Limping towards a plush divan by the vanity table, Tonks sprawled herself over the plump cushions.
"Is it bad?" Trembling slightly she felt his languid fingers expose her back to the deliciously cool air.
"It just needs some salve to stop the bleeding." He fumbled through the drawer and opened up a jar of a minty smelling mixture. The salve tingled as he applied it in small dabs, tracing softly along the cut. Is it the salve or the hand that makes me tingle?
"Thank you." Turning around, she almost bumped noses with him.
"You're welcome." He backed away from her as if he were scorched and set the jar back on the table hastily.
The tall man paced, his toga billowing behind him as he blew out the candles one by one.
As she felt a radiating presence lay down on the other side, she squashed the imp of mischief that dared her to push him off.
"Get your own sofa." She yawned grumpily.
"There is only one sofa here and we both need our sleep. You can hardly expect me to sleep in the tub or on the marble tile." His silky voice drifted through the ribbons of darkness.
"I suppose not." She turned to her side careful not to touch him or gravitate towards the inviting heat of his body.
"How generous of you. I promise not to ravish your luscious person while you sleep. Can you promise me the same?" He deadpanned, locking his fingers behind his head as if telling himself that she was off limits.
"It would be quite a chore, but I suppose I can manage for a night." She halfheartedly joked. Her fingers itched to stroke his ebony hair. Err I mean to move it away from my shoulder because it tickles.
They stared up at the shooting stars in the enchanted ceiling focusing on each other's even breathing. Six hours and twenty nine minutes before morning comes… The divan which seemed spacious initially was now strangely crowded and ever so intimate...
A/N: Points at the blade with which to cut the sexual tension with. Ever want someone who is only inches away? So close that you can feel their breath, hear their heart beating, taste the warmth of their skin. Yes you know exactly what I mean…
Stay by U2 – Tonight, Tonight by Smashing Pumpkins
Only in Dreams by Weezer – Careless Whisper by Wham
By My Side by INXS – Come Undone by Duran Duran
I Alone by Live – Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper
Kiss by Prince – Everlong by Foo Fighters