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The Other Side of the Tracks	By : Ataraxia Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Snape/Draco Views: 3044 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter franchise and do not profit from this story.

Chapter List
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PART I

He draws back the plunger slightly, watching in anticipation as a few drops of his blood back into the syringe and mingle with the liquid there. With a shuddering breath, he presses his thumb against the textured plastic and pushes the warm fluid into his veins.

Then there is peace.

The voices in his head cease their screaming; the terrified, gut-wrenching howls of the bloody and wounded subsist to a quiet murmur in the back of his mind. He doesn't feel euphoria anymore, just comfort. It is the feeling of laying in the sun on a warm summer day, or crawling under a thick duvet with a cup of tea. His whole body relaxes and slumps to the side. The concrete should feel cold against his face, but it doesn't. Instead, its rough texture strokes his skin like a lover.

He cannot open his eyes, which is fine, because for the first time in what seems like eons he can stare at the back of his eyelids and not see the war-ravaged bodies of his comrades strewn about the blood-soaked sand. He doesn't see the remains of raped and mutilated women, or the starving children hopelessly roaming the streets.

Once again, the sweet liquid in his veins has made it all go away.

With a deep sigh, he smiles.

All too soon, a voice penetrates his stupor. It is calling his name. "Snape! Snape! Major, can you hear me?"

He can hear the voice, but right now he doesn't particularly care. This voice threatens to pull him from his stupor, out of the perfect moment that his ten quid has purchased him. It was ten quid well-spent, too, especially since the haze of the heroin allows him to forget exactly how he acquired the money in the first place.

"Snape!"

There is the voice again, the voice and those hands, shaking him gently.

Firm hands are gripping his shoulders, bringing awareness back into his numb limbs. He manages enough muscle control to swat at the intruder, moaning slightly.

"Blaise, call 9-9-9, we need an ambulance," the voice says. "He's sicked up all over himself, and look, the needle is jammed so far in his arm, the hub is stuck in him."

He cringes, knowing that he's ruined that vein and is going to have to find another one next time. He carefully opens his eyes, thinking it might be a good time to survey the damage he's done to his flesh.

When his sticky eyelids reluctantly peel back, he looks at the face before him. It is blurry, but familiar, and he cocks his head ever so slightly in an attempt to place it. Light is reflecting off the man's hair, shining ethereally white in the moonlight. He smiles and reaches up to touch the glow with reverence.

"Are you an angel?" he whispers, his voice dull and thumping in his skull. He feels a bit like he is underwater, but right now he doesn't mind. So long as the angel doesn't mind.

"No, Sir, not an angel," the voice says, thick with worry. "It's me, Sir. Malfoy. Lieutenant Malfoy."

His eyes try to focus on the smooth skin of the speaker, and his lips barely move enough to enunciate 'leftenant' before he is sick once more.

He falls into sweet oblivion.

SSDMBZ

The ambulance ride is the longest fifteen minutes of Draco Malfoy's life. This news might be surprising to those who know the young lieutenant has lived through some of the bloodiest battles of his time and walked away from them relatively unscathed.

Until now.

There's something about seeing Major Snape in this state that is infinitely more disturbing than seeing the carnage left behind by an IED or roadside bomb. The man's already pale face is now drawn, gaunt and covered with open, weeping sores. Dried vomit crusts the front of his threadbare shirt and the corners of his thin-lipped mouth.

He looks like death warmed over.

The paramedic ensures his airway is clear, and hooks up an intravenous drip to help replenish the lost fluids Snape had splattered onto Draco's worn, leather boots.

The paramedic has removed the needle that was jammed deeply into Snape's arm, and Draco wonders how many times the man in front of him has collapsed in such a way as to shove the dirty, plastic tube so thoroughly into his flesh.

Draco watches as she applies pressure to the wound and carefully tapes it up. His eyes flicker up to hers, and she tells him not to worry, that they have gotten to Snape on time. That everything will be alright.

There is sadness in her soft, blue eyes.

Draco smiles, and thanks her as he reaches for his comrade's clammy hand, stroking his palm until they pull up to the ambulance bay.

Blaise arrives moments after they take Snape into the emergency room. Draco is glad his friend is here for him as well as for Snape. He wishes he could collapse onto the other man's broad shoulder and cry, but too much military training prevents him from displaying his emotions in such an open manner. Instead, they sit stiffly beside each other on worn, blue vinyl chairs, drinking coffee that sputtered unappealingly from the nozzle in an old vending machine.

It tastes slightly better than mud, but neither of them seem inclined to note this aloud. Draco knows they've both had worse, much worse, and to seem ungrateful for these paper cups of murky liquid is beneath them both. They simply wait for news of their friend and mentor.

"Lieutenants Malfoy and Zabini?"

The doctor appears seemingly out of nowhere. Both men had fallen asleep sitting up, the disorienting sounds of the Accident and Emergency waiting room preventing their military-honed hearing from alerting them to this new presence in their space.

"Yes, Ma'am?" Malfoy says alertly, hearing Blaise utter it in unison.

The doctor is probably middle-aged, but years of working a stressful job is etched across her face in deep lines. The steel grey hair at her temples has most likely appeared a decade too early. Still, she is a handsome woman and her eyes are gentle and comforting.

"He's stable," she tells them quietly, taking a seat on a cracked, blue vinyl seat beside them.

Draco releases a slow breath, hearing Blaise do much the same. He hadn't realized he'd been holding it.

"What now?" asks Malfoy, not entirely sure what to say. "The heroin...?"

The doctor purses her lips before speaking. "He overdosed, but he's alright. He's lucky you stumbled across him when you did, or he most likely would have aspirated on his own vomit."

For some reason, Malfoy can't picture such a pitiful death for Snape – not when the man had endured so much already, when he had survived so many things. To be suffocated by one's own sick-up would be a tragically mundane ending for a war hero.

The doctor breaks his thoughts as she continues. "We're going to keep him for a few days and put him on Methodone. His body couldn't possibly handle going through withdrawal right now, it would surely kill him. Do you know if he has any next of kin?"

"Yes," says Zabini quietly. "No. I mean, yes, we know that he has no family–"

"He's alone, Ma'am," Malfoy clarifies.

The doctor smiles kindly and squeezes his pale hand reassuringly. "Not if he has the two of you."

DMSSBZ

The next three days are a blur. Draco and Blaise take turns at the hospital, only leaving the Major's bedside to procure themselves food or zip home for a quick shower. Somehow, Draco knows that Snape would hate to wake to the smell of two unwashed men in his room. He smelled enough of that overseas and should not have to deal with it again.

The angry, weeping sores on the man's face finally dry and crust over. Eventually, he wakes and stares blearily around his hospital room.

"Malfoy?" he coughs.

"Yes Sir, I'm here Sir."

"Where–?" The man does not finish his thought, but takes in the pastel-striped curtains that run on a track around his bed, and the hospital linens he is currently swaddled in.

"You're in hospital, Sir, you've overdosed on heroin." Malfoy says the words as matter-of-factly as he can muster, but he's not entirely sure he's managed to keep the crack out of his voice.

Snape closes his eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath.

"How did you know I was here?" he asks, his normally silky voice rough with disuse.

"We found you, Sir, Zabini and I." He chooses not to tell Snape that they found him in a puddle of his own sick-up, that the needle he was poisoning himself with was jammed so deeply in his arm it was nearly impossible to retrieve. He refuses to mention that they found him covered in bruises from a recent beating, and that the emergency room doctors had to delicately stitch his torn rectum when he arrived in Accident and Emergency.

Malfoy knows that Snape would die before letting his former platoon members know what he has endured under the influence of the drug, or what lengths he has sold his body to procure it.

Snape rubs his eyes, cautious not to dislodge the intravenous needle that is taped to the back of his hand. "What now?" he asks, though Malfoy is not entirely sure if he is speaking to him, or to some unseen presence in the room.

"That's up to you, Sir," he informs him, his voice soft. "You're on Methodone now to prevent you from going into withdrawal." He looks at his hands for a moment, hoping to find the words he needs there. "There are treatment programs, Sir. You could join one of them if you'd like, get some help–"

Snape's soulless black eyes stare at him briefly, and Malfoy isn't sure what to expect. The soldier in him braces for a verbal stripping-down, but the man in him braces against tears.

But the Major's tongue merely slips from his mouth and runs itself over his dry, cracked lips before his head dips into a curt nod.
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The Other Side of the Tracks