5.
Nerves and Performance Reviews Do Not Mix
The day of Severus' performance review – three months into his time at the BS Comp – comes around at lightening speed, and Severus is unusually anxious about it. He knows the students don't particularly like him. Their mock exams have already been woeful. That's hardly his fault, but if Bianca doesn't want to make him a permanent employee, she'll easily find a reason to be rid of him.
Severus tosses his cigarette into the toilet bowl of their regular cubicle, only now noticing he's smoked it down to the filter. He's perfected the art of keeping eye contact with Hecate while he performs this action, of not missing a single beat in whatever argument or debate they're having. Today he lets his gaze break away from her to follow the butt into the bowl. Hecate doesn't notice the shift, but she notices his profile, his ink-black hair swaying against his alabaster skin, the deepening of the frown line between his brows. She shouldn't be so able to perceive his tension this soon into a work friendship, but she's already an expert at reading him, like he's letting her inside his thoughts.
"A casual observer might think you're eager to stay here."
"I am eager to avoid uprooting my life for the second time in three months." He says, his voice defensive. Hecate runs her eyes over him and decides he's too stressed to push the question.
"What time is your performance review?" She asks, still drawing evenly on her own cigarette. Severus turns his wrist to check the serviceable Rolex trench watch that belonged to his grandfather.
"Twelve minutes."
"You should go." Hecate says, stowing her cigarette between her violently red lips and taking him in. It's hard to believe he's been here three months – two and a half months of locking themselves in one of the second-floor loos and setting the world to rights while giving themselves cancer.
Before her brain can catch up with her hands, Hecate has closed what little distance there is between them in the cubicle and reached out to adjust his tie. She slips the perfectly balanced double-Windsor knot upwards, correcting a minor slippage, before trailing her fingers down the length of black silk. Hecate does not acknowledge the intimacy of the action. She does not realise how long she spends running her fingers down his chest. Severus watches her hands against him and can't decide what to make of the action. It's been a long time since he's had a friend at work, so he assumes he's simply forgotten what it's like. Suddenly uncomfortable with how long she's been touching another person, Hecate removes her hands, takes her cigarette from between her lips. Severus' eyes linger on her face, watching the now-familiar way she takes smoke into her lungs then evenly sends it out in a toxic meditation. Her eyes follow the grey stream towards ceiling. Sometimes she watches him while she goes through this routine, and there's something intimate about it, something conspiratorial. He rather enjoys it when she does.
She brings her gaze back to his and murmurs "Try not to get fired. I've come to like having an ally."
Severus' lips flash in a wry smile. "Misery loves company."
Hecate's bend to match his own. "I don't reject your hypothesis."
"Small progress, but progress nonetheless," is Severus' parting shot before he slips out of the cubicle.
"Good luck." Hecate murmurs in his general direction. Her words are too quiet for him to hear, but she hopes the sentiment reaches him.
Hecate is already in the staff room by the time Severus gets to lunch. Their eyes lock but she finds his unreadable. She rises from the tragic olive green velour couch and meets him beside the kettle, flicking the appliance on and plucking two mugs off the cheap wooden tree. The kettle is the newest thing in the staff room, recently replaced after one of their colleagues overfilled the old one while hungover and shorted it out, triggering the safety switch and taking out half the school's lights in the process.
The kettle burbles, masking their conversation. "Well?"
"You seem to be stuck with me." Severus replies, catching Hecate's lip bending into a soft smile before she can restrain it. "Are you pleased, Hecate?" His tone, while teasing, is uncharacteristically affectionate.
She makes a quarter turn of her head and meets his gaze. "Yes, actually."
Severus emits a thoughtful hum from the back of his throat, and their eyes break apart, landing on the now boiling kettle. Hecate drops barely drinkable own brand teabags into the mugs and Severus pours water over them.
"Shall we… do something to mark the occasion?" Hecate suggests, gaze trained on the teabag she is dunking evenly in and out of the steaming water.
"What do you have in mind?" His actions perfectly mirror hers, quite without him meaning to.
"There is an Italian restaurant in Bedminster with an adequate wine list. We could… have a drink?" She chances a furtive glance at him, but learns nothing; he's too focussed on his tea.
He hesitates, and Hecate fears she's pushed their fledgling friendship too far. They are both emphatically non-conformist, regularly scoffing at their colleagues as they decamp to the worn-down pub around the corner each evening. The two of them going for a drink, even somewhere far from the school, might feel a little too much like obeying the natural flow of their workplace.
But he breaks the silence by muttering "Yes, that seems fitting," and Hecate, for no reason she can name, feels relieved.
Severus drops his teabag into the bin, stirs in a liberal teaspoon of sugar and a dash of milk. He would hold the lid of the pedal bin open for her, but he knows she steeps her tea a full ninety seconds longer than him. Sometimes, while he is readying himself for bed, he finds himself running through a mental list of useless facts he's learned about Hecate Hardbroom in the last three months. She takes her tea black, but coffee white with one sugar. She smokes Dunhills but doesn't object to his Camels. She is entirely without vanity, but is particular about her nails. Her lipstick is different. Her lipstick is a kind of armour. He's never seen her without it, nor has any member of the teaching staff as far as he can tell. She is incapable of controlling her lips when she's angry, and the snarl they form at such moments would make a hyena flee in fear. She can perfectly calculate any percentage in her head. She objects to tomato in sandwiches. He has never seen her smile at anyone else in the staff room.
"Good." Hecate says, depositing her own teabag into the bin when he is halfway through drinking his. "Good."
Hecate and Severus meet in the corridor, falling into step easily as they make their way to Hecate's car. Severus has never seen it properly before, but he could have guessed from the vehicles in the staff car park that hers would be the pristine black Mazda MX-5. He doesn't remark on it, slips inside mutely and sets his briefcase at his feet. Hecate manoeuvres the sportscar nimbly during the ten-minute trip, pushing it to the edges of reasonable driving in largely residential areas. Severus notices her riskier actions, but he trusts her not to get them killed. He would trust very few people in with his life, but here they are.
She parks before a warmly lit restaurant with a full glass window and the word 'Sugo' painted in elegant gold script across the glass. She obviously frequents the place more than Severus anticipated, for when she walks in, an Italian man with a bawdy northern accent spreads his arms and says "Miss Hecate! We haven't seen you in weeks!" He turns over his shoulder to one of the bar staff and shouts "And look, Arch, she's brought a bloke rather than a book. Not the usual spot then?"
If Hecate were the type of person to blush, she would be furiously red by now, but she manages to maintain her dignified bearing, replying "No, somewhere different tonight, Bruno."
He nods and purses his lips knowingly, nodding at Hecate as if she's proven herself to be the dark horse he always suspected. "Menu?" He asks her under his breath.
"The wine list will do." Bruno nods, plucking up a green leather-bound menu and leading them to a table towards the back of the narrow restaurant. The walls are half wood-panelled and half exposed brick. When they settle at the little table in the back corner, Hecate uses the candle on the table to light her cigarette, waits for him to do the same, then blows the candle out. Severus allows himself the rarity of a smile. Things are functional to Hecate Hardbroom; atmosphere is unnecessary to her. Severus appreciates it, although he does have a soft spot for certain ambiance enhancing things, like an open fire.
Hecate suggests a sangiovese – her regular – and Severus accepts the suggestion, fighting off his instinct to quibble about things like wine. Such behaviour earned brownie points with his colleagues at the posh private school that fired him. He doubts Hecate will take kindly to it, though, and he is right. When the manager – this Bruno fellow - takes their order (having obviously come to further inspect the man accompanying the inscrutable Hecate Hardbroom) he makes to re-light the candle.
"It's fine, Bruno." Hecate says, halting his motion before she exhales a steady stream of silvery smoke.
"Of course." He says pleasantly, eyes darting between the two of them, trying to determine the dynamic. Bruno has seen thousands of customers pass through his doors, and he's never been more confused by a couple than the one before him.
"You come here often, I take it?"
"Sometimes, yes." She acknowledges. Then, once their wine has been poured, Hecate relaxes her grip on herself slightly and amends her statement. "Quite often. I find it a pleasant place to read."
Before the two of them struck up this little friendship, Hecate spent at least two nights a week here, at a stool in the window with a glass of wine and a mind for escape. Sometimes she brings her marking in, but usually she saves that for when she gets home. Here she buries herself in a novel or lets her gaze follow the people who pass the restaurant, speculating about their stories.
"What do you read?" Severus asks, suddenly aware that this is an area of their interests they've never explored.
Hecate hesitates, her glass hovering before her lips, and murmurs "Crime fiction, mainly. Thrillers." His eyebrows flash and Hecate prepares for a fight. "Is that a problem?"
"No. I am merely surprised."
"What did you think I would read, Severus? Gossip magazines?"
"I had no preconceptions, Hecate. I have never seen you read anything other than a textbook or a scientific journal."
"It hardly benefits one's reputation to sit in the staff room reading Mystic River."
Severus smirks at her conspiratorially, "It does sound like the story of a fortune teller."
"My point." Hecate nods, her eyes warm and amused. There is a pause while they both sip their wine, then Hecate picks up with "What do you read – if you read?"
Severus takes the comment in the spirit she's intended, does not become defensive as he would've when they first met. "Biographies, mostly." It's his comfortable answer, but she knows him well enough to hear his hesitation. "And sometimes… classic literature."
Hecate's lips curl in a delicious show of pleasure at this titbit. "What are you reading now?"
"Hardy. Desperate Remedies."
"Are you enjoying it?"
Severus turns the stem of his wine glass contemplatively between his fingers, not breaking eye contact with her. "It is less polished than his later works, but I enjoy the melodrama."
"You are full of surprises, aren't you, Severus?"
"Few people take the time to notice."
Hecate holds his dark eyes with her own and tries to remember the last time, before now, she felt genuinely fond of someone.