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Holiday Madness	By : KohakuShadow Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Snape/Sirius Views: 3302 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I make no money off of warping its characters to my twisted little whims.

Chapter List
- 1-Holiday Madness
- 1
Inspired by: Maintain the Madness by the Jane Austen Argument and written as a Christmas Gift. It's a seasonal fic! :)
Pairing: Sirius x Severus
Warnings: bottomSnape, anal
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Holiday Madness
It was cold. Manhattan was a wind tunnel, which only made it worse. Sirius burrowed deeper into his tattered Burberry scarf – a knockoff, of course, purchased from a street vendor his first winter in the city – and dug his hands deeper into his pockets. It was Christmas in New York, and the main thoroughfares were too crowded to breathe, let alone move. The first year, he'd loved it, just being amongst people and seeing all the chatter and windows, and the tree- in all it's grandiose and pompous glitter – but after a few years, he was merely looking for somewhere with a little elbow room to escape to. He supposed most New Yorkers were the same. The city had gotten under his skin, deep down to the marrow. It called to the bitterness in him, drank of the loneliness more eagerly than a vampire laps up blood. That you could be surrounded by so much wealth and wonder, to be simultaneously so utterly aware of it, and so completely indifferent, chilled him even more than the blustery weather.
He'd been here since he'd fallen through the veil. It was actually a rather comical story, or would be if he had anyone to tell it to. He'd tumbled right out of a mirror cluttering up the basement of the Met. He knew now to call it 'the Met', like a native. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was apparently a mouthful reserved strictly for foreigners, so the locals could discern who was new in town, and thus would be an easy target for financial fraud. Well, as it was the dead of night, and the muggles were diligent about museum security, Sirius had rather unfortunately found himself doing two years in the local penitentiary. It was a fair bit nicer than Azkaban, though. He'd thought about escaping; it wouldn't have been difficult, but he found his magic had been horribly wonky after falling through the veil, and didn't want to chance it. Even transforming into his other form pulled at every nerve with a painful sort of tedium, like that part of him that was magical had been misaligned somehow, and needed time to snap back into place. He didn't know what the veil had done to him, but he knew he wasn't dead, which, considering the killing curse he hadn't quite managed to dodge, was a small miracle in and of itself.
Two years later, Sirius found basic magic, and transforming into his animagus form, easier, but he still had to do many things the muggle way. Dishes, for example. He often ate out, even though he could scarcely afford to eat at all, going through jobs like water through a strainer, to avoid the cumbersome task. Having just lost the most recent two days earlier – he didn't want sweep the bloody floor and clean up after slobs all damn night anyway – and being alone on Christmas again this year, he decided that drinking his paycheck was a good way to spend the holiday, while debating with himself about going home and disrupting Harry's life again. He debated that point with himself at least thirty times a day. During the war, it was easy to determine it a bad idea; with his magic on the fritz, he would only be a hindrance to his friends. Now that it was over...
Well, now that it was over he'd passed several years without ever bothering to tell his friends and family that he wasn't dead, so there was no bloody way they wouldn't be pissed off about it. His mind was going over the same arguments with the same lack of progress when the chill air became too much. His legs overcame his indecision and pulled him down an old set of stairs to get out of the wind, at least, while he decided where to go, rather than wandering aimlessly on a December evening. It startled him to find he was right in front of a bar at the bottom of the stairwell. He'd never noticed it before, secluded as it was, but secluded sounded just about right tonight. He pushed open the door and shivered as the warm air inside hit him. The other scattered patrons shivered at the cold air from the door. Sirius moved to the bar, looked up at the back wall as he pulled his scarf down from his nose, and felt a sense of homecoming. Five types of firewhiskey stared back at him. FIVE. He'd stumbled into a wizard's bar that he hadn't realized was there, as if the wind had intentionally blown him down the dusty stairwell to find it. He was torn between ordering an old favorite, or something American, to have grounds for comparison. Since it had been so long, he opted for the prior, to have a taste of something on his tongue to compare all other contenders to. He was sure the only way to survive another one of these cold and lonely Christmases was to get so drunk the muggers would find nothing to steal as he wobbled home.
Once the firewhiskey settled some warmth into his bones, he noticed the piano. He wondered at that a moment, having not seen a piano bar since he was a child, but this was New York City, after all, and if a thing existed and could be found, it could be found here. He turned his gaze toward the player, and had to grab the bar to keep from falling over in shock. Wizards, as a general rule, were firm believers in the hand of fate – that acquaintances, and for that matter, re-aquaintances, were, by and large, meant to be – that things happened for a reason. As Sirius stared, dumbfounded, at the pianist, with his throaty, seductive voice, he could not imagine why fate would bring him together again with Severus Snape, nor could he understand what possible reason the old git could have for singing show tunes in a basement level bar in New York, let alone on Christmas Day.
He didn't know how long he sat there and stared, but it must have been quite a while, because in what seemed scarcely a moment to Sirius, Snape's long fingers were closing the lid on the grand piano, his gangling limbs unfolding themselves from the bench and carrying him to the bar. A glass of water was placed there, and the slender fingers lifted it to thin lips, under the prominent roman nose Sirius had always given the man hell about.
Without turning to look at him, Severus said, “Kindly lift your jaw from the floor, Black. I believe I am the one who holds that right, having a dead man gawk at me all evening.”
A chill ran down Sirius's spine. It was the whiskey, he was sure, and the fact that Severus's was the first familiar face he'd seen in years, but he had this startling impulse to snog the greasy git. It took all of his very limited willpower to beat down. “Rumors of my demise...”
“Greatly exaggerated, yes, I'd gathered,” Severus said, ruining all the charm Sirius had mustered up for his reply to this completely surreal situation.
“And, you?” Sirius asked.
“Still loathe you, in case your fall through the veil made you forget,” Severus snipped tightly.
“Even if it did, you're cold countenance would remind me pretty quick,” Sirius answered flatly. “I meant, what are you doing in New York.”
“I could ask you the same,” Severus replied.
“But, you didn't,” Sirius grinned, about to say that this was the reason Severus had to answer him first.
“That is because I can not muster the energy to care. Potter, however, will be much obliged to know your whereabouts. I have found, of late, it is regrettably in my best interest to stay in his good graces. Shall I send him your regards when he accosts me with his weekly floo call?” It was a habit Severus only humored because if he didn't, he knew Harry well enough to know the idiot boy would think something horrible had happened to him, and would rush here to drag him back home. Until the post-war hero frenzy died down, it was the last place Severus wanted to be.
Sirius paled. Severus replied by tilting his head toward Sirius with an elegantly lifted eyebrow that made Sirius feel like a fourteen year old again. “...bit late for that, I'd imagine.”
“And so, here you are.”
“And, so are you,” Sirius pointed out the unanswered question. “A piano bar can't pay more than a Hogwarts salary.”
“The discrepancy is minimal,” Severus answered tersely. He sighed, resigning himself to answering the question. “I sustained a rather significant injury to my throat. As I am not gifted with an overabundance of social graces, nor have I the strength or inclination to return to my previous duties at Hogwarts at this point in time, I found it necessary to seek employment that would force the use of my voice as a means of physical therapy. To avoid humiliating myself in front of my peers, I chose a city in which I have none. These Americans are remarkably unaware of global affairs, which very much works to my advantage for the time being.”
Sirius had a suspicion Severus just didn't want to give a bunch of kids any additional ammunition with which to mock him behind his back, but didn't say so. “So, it's really over, then.”
“It is,” Severus answered tersely, sipping his water with what Sirius thought looked like excessive care.
“And, the others?” Sirius asked. His pulse raced at the question. He was half afraid to ask.
“Lupin, you mean,” Severus observed.
Sirius didn't have to answer, his fingers clenched on the bar top, and went limp when Severus shook his head negatively.
Severus, by some strange inclination, ordered Sirius another drink. Perhaps it was the best he could do to say he was sorry for the loss. “Many people have left us,” Severus said, which was also the best he could do to allay Sirius's shock.
“More or less to be expected,” Sirius answered, tilting the drink back in two large gulps, and hiccuping out a few bubbles for his troubles.
Severus, in spite of his innate dislike of Sirius, covered his mouth to a silent little laugh. “It would appear you've forgotten.”
“Shut up, Snivellus,” Sirius whined around another hiccup of pink, frothy bubbles that had even the bartender laughing at him. “Oh bloody hell, you did that on purpose?”
“Ordered you a drink I recall you whining about craving on multiple occasions? Yes, I do suppose it must have been intentional.”
Sirius hiccuped again. “I'll be frothing at the bloody mouth for hours! -hic- “ He groaned.
Severus finished his water, and passed it across the bar, getting up in that tight-arsed, yet strangely elegant manner he had. In between bubbly hiccups, Sirius wondered why the view so entranced him – a familiar face, no doubt: a little touch of home on the day of year when he missed it most.
“Come, then,” Severus said.
Sirius noticed a bit of roughness in his voice now. “What now?” he blurted foolishly.
“Black,” Severus warned, and lost the end of the word for the effort. He cleared his throat. “My day is finished, and I have no cause to linger here.” Again, he paused. He moistened his thin lips, which Sirius didn't know why he found so endearing. “I have a potion in my residence, which is nearby, that will rectify your foolishness, so come, and have done with it. I couldn't care about your dilemma less if I tried, so do as you please, but I will not repeat myself.”
Sirius didn't have to be told again. Severus, already at the door bundling himself up in a green knit scarf and a long wool overcoat, still walked with that stride that waited for no one. Sirius grabbed his own scarf and jacket, and was only halfway into both as he chased the old Slytherin out the door like, well, like a stray dog begging for scraps. He didn't know the sense in it, but reasoned he was hiccuping pink bubbles and Severus could fix that. He told himself that was all there was to it, and that seeing his old enemy after so many years had sparked a feeling in him that, as a boy, he'd misunderstood, and as a man, fervidly denied. When Severus stopped at the top of the stairwell and waited for him – hiccuping still – to pull himself together, Sirius was right back to being a boy again, unsure what to make of the tangling in his gut that made Severus's sigh and impatient mannerisms irritate him, but the fact he was waiting at all, warm him. Sirius pulled himself together as well and quickly as he could, whilst hiccuping pink froth, and followed.
Severus surprised him again as they walked; whenever Sirius fell too far behind due to a fit of hiccups, Severus sighed impatiently, but gave pause. It was cold, and gone quite dark. The streets, earlier bustling with activity, had long since cleared and left only a few bells jingling amongst the City's homeless and depraved. Sirius was surprised at just how much time had passed. The night, as it happened, was even colder than the day, and he saw in the tension of Severus's shoulders that he was not the only one affected by the bitter chill. Even so, Severus Snape paused when he fell behind. Sirius found he understood the man even less now than he ever had, and no amount of chasing after his purposeful strides could change that.
Eighty two pink bubbles later – Sirius had counted – they dipped down another secreted little stairwell, smashed between a pair of handsome terracotta pots just on the shadowy side of a light post, and descended.
They went down and down and down for what seemed to Sirius like a small eternity, and when down was no longer plausible, up, like M.C. Escher's stairs. And what, one might ask, does Sirius Black know about M.C. Escher? Well, exactly as much as one might expect: just enough to have a frame of reference.
They passed several doors with tiny ceramic bells hanging from them: some blue, some gold, little bits of sparkle flitting about the halls, garland around the doors. Severus glowered. “The neighbors are...festive,” he drawled on the last word to show his utter disapproval.
Sirius tried for a smart remark, but a hiccup swallowed it. He groaned. His stomach was starting to burn from all this bubbling pink froth trying to escape. “Tis the season,” he choked out.
“Today, yes, but I see no reason why this glittery nonsense has to start earlier every bloody year,” Severus groused. He was tired from working, and his throat hurt. Sirius didn't have to understand him to see that much plain as day as they stopped before a door, bare but for the silver bell – cracked but well polished. Severus fumbled over the key, his hands betraying him as they shook from the cold, which the weariness his condition invoked did not help in the least. “Do you know these Americans have another holiday entirely at the end of November, which gets completely swallowed up by Christmas music every year?” he said, as if the very idea of one holiday butting into another morally offended him.
Sirius laughed, and several more bubbles burned their way out of his throat around a seizing hiccup. He lost his breath and wheezed, as Severus dragged him inside and slammed the door. The little silver bell jingled festively. “I've been here a few years. I noticed it, too.” Sirius rasped breathlessly, trying to get more air in his lungs. The lack was causing less hiccups, but the bubbles that did escape were becoming a bitter, frothy mess.
Severus upturned a candy dish and shoved the bowl at Sirius. “Try to keep from soiling my carpet while I retrieve your potion.”
Sirius laughed, hiccuped, then groaned. If he wasn't in such a state from his own stupid guzzling of a drink meant to be sipped, Severus swatting irritably at the trail of glitter that had chased him in from the hall and now attached itself to his person, zipping playfully about his head as he tried to swat it away, would be so funny he would have lost his breath anyway. Sirius and his candy bowl flopped into an armchair by the fire as Severus deposited his coat carelessly, with no small sign of annoyance, on its partner and disappeared into the kitchen.
A bit of rattling and muttering later, the man finally emerged, glitter free with a glass of steaming blue froth in his hand. It looked like it could melt the wax off a broom.
Sirius wondered if this was the best idea. Severus might give him something horrid just to spite him. Sirius hiccuped again, wondering as he looked at the glass if he was trading one misery for another.
Severus answered by quirking a brow and pushing it at him more firmly.
Sirius decided his misery was such that he was just going to have to trust the cranky, old Slytherin. Severus was not so interested in vendettas that he would bring Sirius back to his home for one. Sirius hoped that was really the case as he tilted the bubbling blue froth back. It was rancid! Sirius declared the point rather loudly.
“Yes, well, it is medicine,” Severus replied drolly.
Sirius felt his stomach lurch. Looking up, he saw Severus pointing up a narrow hallway, and made a mad dash for the lavatory. Ten minutes later, when he emerged, Snape was sitting in the armchair, flipping through the evening news with a scotch in hand. “Evil bastard,” Sirius growled, taking the other seat, from which Snape's scarf and coat had vacated.
Severus lightly sipped his drink, but didn't offer one to Sirius, who had had quite enough of liquor for one evening. “Your hiccups are remedied, I take it?” Severus said disinterestedly.
“Well, yes, but...”
“And, you made use of the oral cleansing potion I left by the sink when you were done?”
“Yes, but...”
“Then I believe I have fulfilled my promise,” Severus replied.
Sirius huffed. “You've not changed a lick,” he complained, leaning his chin on his hand.
“Nor have you,” Severus said, not looking up from the paper Sirius began to suspect he wasn't actually reading. “As evidenced by the fact you are still here.”
Sirius leaned forward, elbows on his knees and stared hard at the man. Snape's face remained impassive, but that was hardly a surprise. He flopped back, exasperated that Snape was always so hard to read. “Well, it's Christmas.”
“A poignant observation,” Severus replied blandly.
“And you're being stalked by pixie sparkles.”
Severus startled a bit at that, and sure enough, the damned glitter from the hall was back, perched upon his shoulder like a miniature Eiffel Tower. When he reached to grab at it, it leaped atop his head, a snowflake first, then a dancing elf.
Sirius laughed as Severus cursed, but his voice became so raw, the curses lost their vulgarity for the absence of sound. “Here, let me.” Sirius got up, and grabbed the sparkling mass abruptly, dropping it into Severus's scotch where it fizzled out and died.
“You've ruined a perfectly good drink,” Severus said, barely above a whisper.
“It doesn't seem to be helping your throat anyway,” Sirius replied.
“The cold air...” Severus hedged awkwardly at being caught in a state that a stern glare couldn't get him out of. His voice was failing him terribly tonight and no amount of posturing could alter that.
“And the singing,” Sirius smirked. He was hovering over Severus, and didn't know why he didn't retreat back to a safer distance.
Severus opened his mouth to speak, but Sirius stopped him with two fingers pressed to his thin lips. The gesture startled them both. “Therapy, I know. Or rather, I can tell, as you've all but lost the ability to make sound for the night.” He didn't know why his pulse was pounding over an ugly old git like Severus Snape, and told himself it was just that he didn't want to be alone anymore. He'd expected to finish that thought with 'on Christmas', but 'anymore' was the reality. He wasn't skilled at being alone, he realized – first locked in Azkaban, then Grimaud Place, then a muggle penitentiary in New York. Even among the throng of people in this city, he felt like he was still locked up from the world. Severus was also alone tonight, and if they could be alone together, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to put the past behind them. “You need something warm to drink, I'd wager. A nice hot cup of tea? Or, it is Christmas, cocoa wouldn't be uncalled for, if you have it.”
“Tea,” Severus whispered, no longer able to produce anything louder. “It is in...” and there sound failed him though his lips moved. He moistened them and cleared his throat.
Sirius found this struggle endearing. It was a weakness, and Severus was so opposed to showing any, it melted something inside of him. He pulled the man, who made a startled little cry in protest, to his feet. “Stop talking. Just show me.” Severus was unexpectedly warm. Sirius had always thought of Slytherins as being cold, but they were men, not serpents, after all. He pulled Severus into the tiny kitchen, obsessing over this point – the warmth of his hands, the length of his fingers.
'Clearly, it's been entirely too long since I've had a shag,' Sirius thought to himself. It was the only reason he could focus so intently and in such a way on Snape, of all people! 'Then again, he always did have a cute side. It made him rather fun to tease, until he got all whiny about it. Git.'
Sirius blinked when Severs scooted him aside to pull a tea tin down from the cupboard, and two cups. It seemed the man was resigned to Sirius's company for the evening, as he also pulled down a carton of biscuits. 'Cookies,' Sirius mentally corrected. 'They're called cookies here.' He thought one had to be a little cooky to come up with such a peculiar word, when one already exists in the mother tongue, but maybe Americans were like that, as if renaming things could make them their own. It was hard to say, but he thought they had some peculiar habits. He thought about it, but only because it distracted him from thinking about things that really mattered.
He blinked when he realized Severus was staring at him. “What's that now?” he blurted. What had he missed? He'd gotten so used to wandering in his own thoughts, that it seemed his social graces, like his youth and his looks, had completely abandoned him.
Severus gestured impatiently to the kettle.
“Oh, I...” Sirius realized Severus was telling him that if he wanted to make tea so badly, everything was there for him to do so. He also realized it was a proper wizard's stove, with no pilot to light by muggle means. “Hrm...” he shifted. Surely, he could manage such a small thing. The small things were much easier than they used to be, but his own home had muggle fixings, so he hadn't had cause to attempt this particular bit of magic. 'And, if I bugger it up and set his kitchen on fire, he'll have me out on my arse for sure.' “It's fine. You know your kitchen better than I do, so why don't you light it for me?”
Severus arched a brow, an expression that made Sirius's stomach flop like a pubescent troll. “Er. I...no, really, it's probably for the best,” he sputtered foolishly.
Severus brushed him aside and cast the unspoken invocation. The flame sputtered to life in the deafening silence before the Slytherin forsook his imposed silence. “You once used any excuse you could to cast a spell, even such a minute one,” he observed quietly.
“I, yeah, well, I was a dumb kid,” Sirius laughed awkwardly.
Severus fixed him with a stare that said he knew a tall tale when he heard one, but that he also agreed about Sirius's stupidity.
Sirius sighed, “Alright, alright. My magic's been wonky. It's getting better!” he insisted, for sake of his pride.
“The veil?” Severus asked. So much for Sirius making the tea, Severus was already fussing over the kettle.
“Yeah,” Sirius said, perpetually scooting this way and that to get out of Snape's way in the tiny kitchenette that was barley large enough for one full grown man, let alone two. “It's sort of...it's as though...all the bits have been rearranged, and the magical ones are taking longer to snap back into their proper place than the rest.”
Severus nodded sagely, as if he'd known all along, which Sirius knew was shit. He didn't want to argue, though. Snape was no fun to argue with when he could barely speak, and it was no fun to start an argument when he could tell the other party was already in pain. “I'll finish. Go sit down. You worked all night.”
Severus was surprisingly obedient, which spoke volumes to his weariness. He retreated back to his armchair and let Sirius bring out the tea and biscuits. 'Cookies,' Sirius amended again. Biscuits were an entirely different product here, which had caused no end of confusion when he'd worked as a stocker at the grocery store.
Neither man had much to say as they sipped their tea. Well, Severus might have, if he had the voice with which to utter the words, but Sirius suspected the man hadn't become any more chatty than he ever was, voice or no. As for Sirius, he was diligently not putting his foot in his mouth, because he didn't want to be alone on Christmas for another year, and because Snape's rough, nasally, Manchester accent – not so well concealed when he was struggling to speak at all, let alone in the proper tone – was a bit sexy. Again, Sirius told himself it was just that Severus was a familiar face, a familiar – if broken – voice, and most importantly, that he couldn't quite remember the last time he'd had a shag, and it was Christmas, and he was lonely. This argument helped him convince himself that it was likely much the same for Severus Snape, or else why would he have invited Sirius home?
There was all this logic and reason that explained it in more sensible terms, but, to hell with the lot of it: Sirius Black had never been a devotee of logic and reason. He watched Severus's thin lips closing around the lip of his teacup, and imagined other things they might look fetching closed around. Even his big, hook nose had an uncommon appeal, when taken in this light, on this night, in proportions with the rest of his face. And, his hair...well, actually, his hair was much the same as it had ever been – shiny, with the distinct smell of thistle, elderberry, and newt eggs. It wasn't such a bad combination, until one added the eggs. But, his mind was wandering. It was wandering, he knew, trying to find a way to breach the subject that wouldn't be clumsy and awkward. The subject was, of course, that he'd rather like to pass the rest of the evening in his old rival's bed, which was only a matter of several feet away from the armchairs. Severus's rooms had everything a wizard needed to live with relative comfort, and not a thimble more. His own, to the contrary, was large, but lacked several of the necessities, including the one he missed the most: a private bath. Sirius thought he wouldn't mind sharing a bath with Severus. He might learn what in Merlin's name the man put in his hair to make it so bloody reflective.
Severus put his tea down, his throat much improved after a long while of sipping at the cup. “You have been staring,” he observed, and Sirius knew it was a question, and one he didn't know quite how to answer. Severus's solemn stare made him shift uncomfortably in his seat. He pursed his lips, shook his shaggy dog mane out of his eyes. “I was just thinking,” he defended.
Severus quirked his brow. 'About?' was implied.
“I'm not telling, you'll laugh at me,” Sirius groused. 'And kick me out, and it's bloody cold tonight,' he thought.
Severus rose to take the empty teacups back to the kitchen. “I will not laugh,” he said.
'Not out loud, no,' Sirius thought, but we'll both know. Severus leaned past him to take the empty teacup from the table beside Sirius's chair. 'Oh, to hell with it,' Sirius thought. When Severus leaned so close, he impulsively – a very Gryffindor sort of impulse, one might say – grabbed the man and pulled him down to snog him senseless. He'd been wanting to do it since he saw him singing in that pub, and the desire had only grown stronger through their distinctive lack of arguing. He'd tried to reason himself out of it, then into it, and thinking it all through was only going to cost him his chance, so he decided the 'fuck it' method was the one that made the most sense.
He though Severus might hiss or holler at him. He heard the clatter of teacups hitting the carpet, and felt the sharp intake of breath against his mouth. He didn't hear were any curses or wild declarations. There was onlt one frozen moment of surprise before Severus relented. That surprised Sirius most of all. Severus relented. He allowed it; he kissed back. It was a brilliant kiss, brilliant enough that when Severus started to pull back, Sirius grabbed either side of his face and pulled him in for another, which was far greedier and desperate than the first. He curled his fingers around the base of Snape's neck to clumsily pulled the man closer.
“Black,” Severus grumbled against his mouth. “We are both too old to attempt to engage in this behavior in an armchair.”
Sirius sucked Severus's lip into his mouth, and they spent several more moments drowning one another in lonely kisses before Sirius replied, “That's where you're wrong. You're never too old to attempt anything.” He didn't know why Severus was humoring this. He didn't know why he wanted it so badly. He did know he was enjoying it. The flavor of spiced tea was still on Severus's tongue.
“If you are planning to succeed, it is best we relocate,” Severus replied, not able to argue Sirius's poignant, if immature, logic.
Sirius, not moving his hand from the small of the other man's back, glanced at the bed. “It's so far,” he complained, even though it was scarcely five feet from his current position.
The sound Severus made could easily have been misconstrued as a laugh. He removed himself from Sirius and pulled the man to his feet. “Laziness is not a virtue,” he told the Gryffindor.
“How about eagerness, then,” Sirius retorted, pulling Severus tight against him again, now that they were both standing, to get back to devouring his mouth. He gloried in the way Snape's stern posture puddled in his embrace, as if a simple kiss was all it took to unravel him. It mad Sirius want him even more. 'Who knew he had such a cute side! Oh, who am I kidding, if I didn't know it all along it wouldn't have been so fun to pick on him.'
“A trait that defines your personality,” Severus answered when their lips broke. “Neither vice nor virtue, but inasmuch as the situation dictates.”
“Stodgy batard,” Sirius grinned. Funny, how a change of scenery could so completely alter his view of this man. Where he'd once seen arrogance, Severus now bled uncertainty, carefully masked. Age and time had turned Severus Snape from sour grapes to wine, a vintage he was sure he'd enjoy much more thoroughly out of the bottle. “This situation dictates which, then?” he asked, deciding they'd stalled enough, and beginning work on the buttons of Snape's heavy wool robes. There was no longer any doubt that Severus intended to allow this, so there was no reason to pussyfoot around the subject.
Snape actually smirked at him; it made a knot of lust tighten in Sirius's stomach. “That remains to be seen,” Severus said. “I have yet to determine if you are eager, or overeager, the latter may yet result in disaster.”
“I am precisely eager enough. There's no need to worry about that. If anyone is overeager, it's you – inviting strange men back to your flat. What would your mother say?” he chided playfully, unfastening the buttons as quickly as his fingers would allow without clumsiness stalling them. There were far too many buttons, he decided.
“Well, for starters, I believe she would remind me that, in this country, the proper term is 'apartment', though I rather think flat is a bit less cumbersome to say, admittedly.” He helped Sirius by shrugging out of the long robe, only to reveal that several more layers had yet to be removed – a faded gray sweater, a high-necked buttoned tunic, and of course, trousers.
Sirius groaned at how many shirts Severus was wearing. “Did you put on your entire closet this morning?” he complained.
“Some of us dress appropriately for the weather,” Severus replied tersely, even as he allowed Sirius to lift the sweater up over his head, and unfastened the ties that kept his tunic secured about his wrists and throat. Sirius unbuttoned only which buttons were strictly required to pull this over Severus's head as well.
Underneath, Severs also wore a thermal. It was like opening a series of nesting dolls. Sirius was wondering if it would ever end! Each layer revealed more and more of Snape's narrow figure, proving him still the slender, gangling creature he was when they were boys. Sirius couldn't claim to have retained his boyish figure. He found much of his muscle had abandoned him, and in its place, these little bits of podge, easily concealed, but only when fully clothed. In short, he was becoming increasingly conscious of the passage of time, which, it seemed, had not yet crept its way about Severus's abdomen as it had his own. “Bloody hell, Severus! How many layers do you need?” he declared.
“...I become cold easily,” Severus replied defensively, clearly embarrassed by the admission.
“Well, yes, I suppose you would. There's not a lick of padding on you.”
“So naturally, you insist on removing what artificial padding I've acquired for myself,” Severus returned, sounding amused as Sirius impatiently pulled the thermal up and over his head. It left a static charge behind; the Slytherin instinctively reached up to fluff his hair so that it wouldn't cling to his face.
Sirius's eyes fell on the angry snake bite scar on his throat, healed over, but in that way that wizards tend to scar – like cellophane – a gloss of skin over a wound that is not now and will never be whole. He reached up to it compulsively, but Severus caught the hand before it quite reached and fixed Sirius with such an ominous stare he knew it was forbidden.
“Does it still hurt?” Sirius asked. “I mean, the wound itself, that is. I know you're throat...”
“Be silent, Black,” Severus chided. “There has been far too much tragedy and loss in the war against darkness for there to remain any room for pity between us, especially when we both know why you are here.”
“Because you want me,” Sirius quipped with a mischievous grin.
“Because you couldn't stop undressing me with your eyes at the bar,” Severus returned. “It was...peculiar.”
“Flattering?” Sirius prodded, pulling Severus close again, now that his chest was bared, to plant kisses on his jaw, and the uninjured side of his throat.
“Awkward,” Severus answered. “As this is.”
“And yet, here I am,” Sirius chirped.
“Like a dog in heat.” Severus sighed, “but, I suppose the situation is not entirely disagreeable.”
“Which means you want me,” Sirius answered.
“To stop talking and get on with it,” Severus replied, as if finishing the man's sentence. “Unless you are dawdling because you have changed your mind.”
Sirius pulled him abruptly into another kiss, startling him enough to lose his balance.
“Fool!” Severus declared, as they landed, with a bounce, upon the bed, which protested with a faint creak. “It is not something to get so worked up about!”
“Maybe not,” Sirius answered, kissing a bony shoulder. “Still, it's been a long time, and it's been several years since I've had a Christmas present to unwrap, let alone one that promises to be hours of fun, once I've fought my way through all of the packaging.”
Severus's trousers were the next to go, revealing practical, but not graying, undergarments that did little to conceal Snape's interest in the current course of action, even if his face retained it's calm demeanor and his voice betrayed nothing more than the war scar marring his porcelain throat.
“Hours?” Severus replied, not hiding a bit of amusement. “I see your Gryffindor overconfidence hasn't abandoned you.” He watched as Sirius struggled – a pendant he wore getting stuck on his shirt and causing him to get stuck with his arms up above his head.
“Gah!” Sirius declared, killing any witty replies he might have had at the ready.
“Fool,” Severus said again, sitting upright to help disentangle the tattoed man.
Once free, Sirius cupped Severus's cheeks and pulled him into another greedy kiss. He rather fancied kissing Severus, enough that it seemed to continually distract him and made him, as Severus accused, dawdle.
Even Sirius could only dawdle for so long; his jeans grew oppressive. He thought he'd have to deal with that soon, and after this kiss, he told himself, he would concede to his impatient groin. Severus had other plans; Sirius felt cold hands on his stomach and jumped. The kiss broke.
“...Sorry,” Severus mumbled awkwardly, his hands pausing on the button of Sirius's trousers.
“No, it's fine. Your hands are bloody cold, though.”
“I get cold easily,” Severus repeated petulantly.
“I'll have to warm you up,” Sirius quipped.
“You are welcome to try,” Severus said in a tone that implied 'you idiot'.
“I will,” Sirius said confidently. “for hours.”
“Conversation doesn't count,” Severus replied as he pushed Sirius's trousers, and his pants, in the name of expedience, down past his hips.
Sirius got off the edge of the bed just long enough to free himself of the offending garment, and rid Severus of the last of his clothing, before descending on the Slytherin's mouth again. Now that they were bare, exploration was imminent. Sirius slid his hands over the other man's bony body, memorizing each dip and dent by touch.
Severus arched beneath his meandering fingers when they reached his organ. “You're plenty warm here,” Sirius murmured against his throat as he stroked the firm rod.
“Obviously,” Severus droned, as if the dull tone could hide the way his body shuddered. 'Seems like he hasn't been touched in a good, long while either,' Sirius thought.
“Do you, uhm,” Oh, this was coming out smooth already. “Have anything to...you know, lubricate?”
Severus blinked at him. “Your magic is so off that you can't even manage that spell?” he asked.
He sounded so aghast at the very thought that Sirius blushed, embarrassed about his magical impotence. He forgot Snape's organ for the moment, and if they weren't already bare-arsed he was certain the mood would have been utterly destroyed. “Taking a chance with the dishes is one thing. Taking a chance with a living person is another,” he admitted. “It's probably fine but...” he hesitated, not feeling that old Gryffindor pluck rising up to come to his rescue.
Severus tilted Sirius's chin to face him. “Black, you are many disagreeable things that I can list at a more opportune time, but a poor wizard is not one of them. You will perform the spell, or we will simply not engage in that level of intimacy. There are innumerable other ways we can pass the evening.”
The tone was so stern that Sirius knew there was no room for argument. He very much wanted to 'engage in that level of intimacy', and Snape damn well knew it. “I warned you,” Sirius said.
“Yes,” Severus conceded calmly. “You did, and I called you foolish, meaning if things go terribly wrong it is entirely my fault. Now, I do believe we have covered the subject rather thoroughly and can move on.” He enunciated the words impatiently, and they shuddered around a delicate tremor in his voice. The words revealed his eagerness in a way his stoic features never would.
Sirius barked out a laugh that surprised them both. “Sorry, sorry,” he said. “It's just a bit weird, you know. Us. Like this.”
Severus tensed, and Sirius realized he was about to be kicked out in the cold on his bare arse if he didn't smooth things over quickly. “It's not bad!” he insisted. “Just a bit odd, that of all the blokes to run into today, it was you. Singing. I rather think the singing is a bit weirder than the fact you've let me get you out of your pants, though I'm a bit thrown by that, too.”
Severus rolled his dark eyes and shrugged a little. “It is Christmas,” he said, as if that explained everything.
It did, in a way. Christmas changed things, and people; maybe it didn't change them forever, or maybe it did. It certainly changed them right now, and right now, Sirius was bungling about and rambling about how odd it all was, when he had a naked, and surprisingly rather desirable, man in bed with him. That was rather the weirdest bit of all, that he had everything he wanted right now, but he was putting it off. Why? He wanted Snape. He wanted Snape. That, he realized, wasn't weird at all. It should be, but it wasn't. The way things were between them, it could really only end in sex or murder, and if he mucked up this spell, it could well be both, because Severus would kill him. It wasn't being killed that bothered him, and it wasn't coming back from the dead. It was the inevitable end of things that bothered him, and somehow buggering Snape senseless personified the utter destruction of the world as he knew it. That world had to come to an end, didn't it? His friends were gone and Harry, well, Harry was Harry, and not James, and Sirius was afraid to lay eyes upon him again lest he start confusing the two. There were nothing but ghosts for him in London – ghosts and shadows and memories. Severus Snape, as fate would have it, had gone to great lengths to escape the ghosts and shadows and memories as well, and his escape had led them to this destined reunion. Sirius realized for the first time, laying here naked beside his old rival, that he didn't want to go home, that it would take the hounds of hell to drag him back, and that the one thing left that he might still be able to hold onto was warm, and naked, and prodding him to get on with it, like it was a chore to be dealt with and done with.
Sirius sighed, realizing how pathetic he'd become, clinging to this one bit of the familiar, while running from the rest like a man on fire. “Would it kill you to pretend you want me as much as you want the shag, at least until it's over?” he complained.
Severus rolled his eyes. “Honestly,” he said. “Why must Gryffindors always be so unbearably daft.” He grabbed Sirius's face roughly and pulled him into a heady kiss that startled the, purportedly daft, Gryfffindor. Sirius tumbled clumsily on top of him, and would have apologized for being an oaf if his mouth wasn't otherwise occupied. The kiss made his head swim and coaxed his hands to resume their wandering over Snape's alluring body. Allure, he'd found with age, didn't mean the same thing it did in youth – a remarkable lack of podge about the middle, a straight back, and an average sort of strength that had not yet begun to fade held more weight with Sirius's libido than a hooked nose and lank hair could curb. In fact, those things weren't so bad as he'd made them out to be. They had a certain charm, actually – an ugliness of the sort that was really rather cute.
These thoughts flew through Sirius's mind like sound waves as Severus kissed him. Their bodies crashed together with such a clumsy eagerness that Sirius wasn't quite sure they weren't boys instead of men, after all. He forgot himself. He forgot to ask why Severus thought he was daft for wanting to be wanted. He even forgot, for a moment, he'd felt unwanted. It was that simple a matter for Severus to silence him, which made one wonder why the man hadn't done it sooner.
Impatience grew, and in his eagerness, Sirius entirely forgot his magical reticence. The kiss broke at last, and Severus – darling Severus, as Sirius now thought of him in his lust-addled brain – began to roll over.
Sirius put a hand to his shoulder and stopped him, pressing him down to his back. “I haven't seen a familiar face in so long. Don't deprive me of it now.”
Something sparked in Snape's bottomless eyes that Sirius couldn't immediately identify, but thought must be uncertainty. Now was not the time to ruminate on it. Severus was right. Gryffindors were daft, and these little subtleties and all of this self-analysis he'd wasted half the day on weren't at all like him. He just wanted a shag, and he wanted it to be with this arrogant, enticing, irritating, yet intrinsically loveable serpent allowing him to spread his legs, and lift his hips, without the least bit of resistance. Sirius began to wonder if perhaps he loved Severus as much as he hated him, but it was a vague sort of idea he wasn't properly conscious of; not yet.
Now, he could only be overwhelmed by the sight of it, pale thighs lifted open, inky tendrils of hair fallen clumsily over the pillow, a man's body – with all it's excesses of hair – waiting and willing beneath him, and a tight little buttonhole, waiting for the magic between them to reach a crescendo.
Sirius took a deep breath to regain some focus and composure, biting his lip as he placed the wand against that taut pucker and whispered the incantation.
Severus jerked and gasped beneath him, the restraint falling from his features like water as his mouth opened. Seeing Snape's face turn startlingly expressive had the remarkable side effect of causing Sirius to forget everything: his name, the complex set of rules they'd established between them that were being broken, and that he was somewhat less than magical these days. Severus arching beneath his preparation spell made him feel like a wizard again; it made him forget that he hadn't been one in quite some time, and without being a wizard, well, he could scarcely be considered Sirius Black, now could he? For the first time since he'd fallen he felt properly alive, and it was such a small thing – an arch and a gasp and a spare bit of bare flesh – that brought him to his senses.
He pulled Severus up to him and kissed him desperately. It was, to be fair, more lust than self-awareness and gratitude, but the latter was there, mixed into the stew of complicated emotions about shagging Severus Snape that he told himself he'd sort through later. 'Much later.'
Severus fell limp in his embrace, opening his mouth to the hungry kisses almost demurely, as if it was all too overwhelming to properly process. Sirius wasted several minutes snogging the man even more senseless. He wondered if Severus was even accustomed to being touched. He didn't seem to be. 'But surely, at his age!' It didn't matter enough to ruin the moment by asking. He rested Snape against the pillows and carelessly cast the lubricant spell at his hand, making the quickest possible work of greasing his sensitive organ. He shouldn't have procrastinated so. Now, he didn't know how he was going to last for any duration that couldn't be categorized as embarrassing. Even the barest touch made his spine tingle and his knees lose their grip on reality.
He took a deep breath to calm himself, which gave Severus time enough to do the same. He found the man half-smirking up at him. “What?”
“I was merely thinking that your magic appears to work perfectly well enough when you want it to,” Severus quipped.
Sirius blushed. “Prat,” he muttered, even as he positioned himself between the other man's thighs. “You always were. It makes you not cute.”
Something glimmered in Severus's eyes that looked almost like the first hints of a laugh that never came. “Yes, because I'm sure I'd be utterly charming without it,” he said sardonically.
Sirius leaned over him and kissed his throat. “You might be surprised,” he whispered against the shell of the Slytherin's ear. He knew better than to give Snape the opportunity to reply; he was quick to push past the tight ring and slide inside of him.
Startled, whether by the penetration, the words, or both, Severus released a half-strangled cry. His hands, as if desperate for purchase and careless of what the rest of him wanted, flew up to dig into Sirius's shoulders. Sirius grit his teeth to try to regain some semblance of composure – at least enough to avoid embarrassing himself. A tiny rumble escaped the back of his throat in spite of his efforts.
Oh, how he'd forgotten! How good it was to slip into the depths of another wizard! The warmth of Severus's magic was a stark contrast to his chilly exterior; it coiled around him and coursed through his veins. He kissed Severus's throat again, then his collar, then his mouth. The kisses were hungry, greedy, desperate. Severus returned kisses in kind, and coiled his legs, like his arms, around the mangy mutt of a man that he had never been able to ignore, or forgive, or forget. It was as though everything that had been between them since they were children suddenly exploded, leaving no further room for assumptions, or so Sirius believed, but a man is rarely most rational when blinded by lust.
He began to thrust. Severus bit down on his lower lip, as if quashing sound could conceal the dizzying sensation rushing through him. It had been so long – too long – the way Severus clung to Sirius told the Gryffindor they were both thinking the same thing. It was also rather cute, he thought, how utterly even the great Severus Snape revealed his feelings so clearly in the heat of the moment that his throat stretched, his nipples stood at attention, his cock – well, it behaved perfectly like any other man's cock, really – revealed itself to be rather cute as well, Sirius decided, and wrapped his fingers around it. To be fair, with the thrusting, and the rolling, and the little whimpers that escaped past clenched teeth, Sirius found himself foolish to deny so long just how cute Severus was. Why, he was still half the nervy boy he was in Hogwarts! So rule-abiding, so easily riled, adorable in a way that had nothing to do with those features which made him so terribly easy to tease, and those personality traits which made him so completely infuriating.
A hiss passed through Snape's teeth, which subsequently unclenched, pink lips parted; the fingers digging into Sirius's shoulders quivered. Sirius smirked down at him, “found it, did I?” he quipped, using what little air he could pull from his lungs to speak.
“Bite me,” Severus grit out, glaring with those abysmal eyes, even as his body spoke a language all its own with its quivers and its spasms and the flutter of his eyelashes.
“Where?” Sirius returned with a grin.
Severus glared more, but still shuddered and gasped as Sirius hit the same spot inside of him again.
“Here?” Sirius asked, dragging his teeth lightly across Snape's collarbone.
Severus groaned in spite of his infernal pride.
“Here, then?” Sirius asked, moving his teeth across the column of Snape's long throat, which Severus unconsciously exposed to give Sirius free reign.
“Maybe here?” Sirius asked, nipping at the man's earlobe and jerking his organ quite firmly at the same time.
His reward was a sharp cry. “Enough!” Severus gasped.
Sirius ignored the protest; he could tell it wasn't really a protest at all.
“I see. So you're sensitive here. As you like it.” He attacked the delicate lobe again, pairing it with a particularly hard thrust that made the bed squeak.
Severus moaned. He didn't just moan, he moaned his name. Well, his surname, at least, which was about as personable as he'd ever been, in any case. It made Sirius shudder, and reply in kind, but when his lips parted 'Severus' came out instead of 'Snape', or even 'Snivellus'. It felt rather comfortable, rolling off of his tongue in the heat of the moment. So good, in fact, that he felt obligated to repeat it. “Severuusss,” he purred, as he thrust again with abandon. It had rather come to that point – utter and mindless abandon – fevered thrusts, hands and lips that desperately tried to keep up with them, a sloppy interspersing of kisses that were a bit too hard, and in which, rather incidentally, teeth clanked together and mutual apologies were whispered amongst all the clawing and clutching. The nails which he was certain were leaving claw marks on his shoulders only encouraged him. A kiss to Snape's throat became too eager and left a mark, which Severus appeared to respond to much like Sirius responded to the other man's nails: with unprecedented gusto. He squeezed his bottomless eyes tightly shut; Sirius understood well the sense of vertigo that sent the room spinning wildly around them. The magic between them was a kind of madness – half desperation, half desire – that made everything skew out of perspective the more heated their engagement became. The more heated things became, the rougher Sirius's kisses became, as he tried to contain himself and hold on just a while longer, but when Severus's slim figure began to shake beneath him, he lost all hope of holding back.
Severus released one more quiet cry, dug his fingers in fiercely, clutched his thighs tightly about Sirius's hips, and arched beneath him. Sirius bit down on Severus's shoulder, muffling his strangled cry as he came.
Breathless and sticky with Severus's release, it took every ounce of energy Sirius had to roll off of the man and collapse, boneless, beside him. He listened to Severus's labored breathing for a while, before Severus's fingers came up to his bitten collar. “Animal,” he muttered.
Sirius laughed. “I don't want to hear that from you. I've got your claw marks all over my back.” He grinned at the ceiling and, with great effort, rolled onto his side to face the other man.
“I did not hear you complaining,” Severus rebuffed.
“I'm not complaining,” Sirius said, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to the bruised flesh. “And, I don't think you are, either.”
“No,” Severus admitted with a sigh. “I am not complaining.”
“And, would you complain if I stayed the night?” Sirius asked with his most charming smile, which he hoped was at least slightly charming. “I don't think I'm going to be able to pull my arse out of bed for at least the next several hours.”
Severus stared at him, his mask falling disappointingly back into place, and making Sirius wonder what he could possibly be thinking. “I would not complain,” Severus said at last. “Though perhaps I ought to.”
Sirius smiled, leaned over him and kissed his lips again. Severus still didn't complain, and let his old enemy's tongue pry open his lips rather easily, lightly gripping the arm planted beside his head as he responded quite congenially to the tongue invading the cavern of his mouth.
“I'll make you breakfast,” Sirius told him as they parted again, then stole another small kiss before settling, pressed nakedness to nakedness against the old Slytherin, who did not complain about this either.
“Will you? I'd like to see you try to light the stove top without a wand,” Severus quipped.
“You'll just have to heat things up for me,” Sirius answered, rather happy with himself.
“You seem quite adept at 'heating things up' without assistance,” Severus answered drolly.
Sirius grinned at the sexual innuendo. It told him that Severus might be open to a repeat performance. “When do you work next?” Sirius blurted carelessly.
Severus quirked a brow, and mild amusement twitched at the corner of his mouth. He grabbed his wand from the bedside table, quickly cleaned the mess they'd made at least passably well, and turned out the lights. “Go to sleep, Black.”
Sirius laughed warmly into the darkness and pulled the blanket over their bare bodies. “Merry Christmas, Severus.”
Severus grunted by way of reply, which Sirius decided, was quite an acceptable answer from such a reticent bastard. Besides, he was warm, and the bed was warm, and, as he drifted off to sleep with the memory of Snape's strained voice singing showtunes in his head as his only lullaby, the city, also, seemed warmer on the inside than the outside, much like the man he'd found inside its borders.
~The End~
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Holiday Madness