Title: The Weight of Twenty-five Years [Part 1]
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Rodolphus Lestrange/Severus Snape
Rating:Â E
Warnings: Angst, awkward
Notes: I've been trying to write this pairing successfully for almost three years. Maybe this time I'll do it.
Sections: [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 ]
He's been trying to get Severus in bed since 1974, and now, nearly twenty-five years after the fact, he's succeeded, but as Roddy looks down at the scarred and aged pale-skinned body beneath him, with something approaching reverence, he finds that he's entirely uncertain where to begin with the man who's been slapping his hands, for two-thirds of their lives. They are nearly forty — Roddy mere months from it — and both of them have seen better days. Roddy's been gutted, raped, married, and sent to Azkaban for eleven years. Sev's been burned, poisoned, betrayed, tortured, and left for dead. In the end, it was Roddy who'd saved Sev's life, breaking the bond that had stood between them, those twenty-five years, and marking this moment as that much more meaningful. There were no more obligations. No debts to be paid. This was as clean as things would ever be, between them, and still, Roddy couldn't make that one move.
His hand grazed the air over Sev's chest, never quite reaching skin, almost as though there were a sheet of glass between them. This was what he'd always wanted, and now that Sev was offering, he couldn't accept — and he didn't know why. Severus looked sceptically up at him, and he faked a smile, in return, as if he were only playing. In truth, he couldn't close the gap.
Finally, after minutes of torment, Severus reached up and pulled Roddy's hand down, the last half-centimetre, pressing the Irishman's warm fingertips against his cold skin. That contact broke the spell. That was all the sign Roddy needed to know that Sev meant it, this time. That image of their hands together, against Sev's sickly-white skin would be burned into his mind, until the day he died.
Roddy laid his forehead against Sev's breastbone. "I have always loved you, Severus."
"Liar." Sev's voice was amused. "You feared me, first."
"Ass." Roddy muttered against his chest, pressing a kiss where his forehead had rested, moments before. "You were afraid of me for far longer, you were."
"You were after my virgin sensibilities and my good name!" Severus reminded him, with a sharp poke to the forehead.
"You and your bloody virgin sensibilities. You didn't have a good name. That was half your problem," Roddy teased, pressing an impassioned kiss into Sev's solar plexus. "But, how many of those sensibilities are left to you, now, hm?"
Severus blushed and rolled his eyes. "Most of them."
Roddy just laughed, gently kissing his way down Sev's belly. "I'll have to fix that for you, sure I will."
"That may be the last fear I have left," Sev muttered, half in jest, but surely no more than half. "Cure me of that, and I'll have nothing left to fear."
Roddy looked up into his eyes, then, and saw the flame of triumph. This was a man who'd been to hell and back, primarily to save his friends from that fate, and here he lay, facing his last challenge — one, honestly, that most of his friends had already tasted and been quite pleased with. This was the regal bearing that Roddy had so rarely seen expressed, and had always been thrilled by. Unable to resist, he drew back up the length of Sev's lean form, in one graceful transition, and leaned in to steal a gentle kiss from his lips.
He twitched at the unexpected feeling of Sev's icy-cold fingertips against his face, but as he turned toward them, they smoothed across his lips, and he kissed each in turn. Roddy looked down at Sev, uncertain, again, but the uncertainty vanished as Sev's hand drew him in for another kiss. He moaned softly as the cold lips parted easily to his tongue. Severus was a lousy kisser, and neither of them tasted like parsley and fresh mint, but this kiss would always be more memorable than Roddy's first — perhaps twice so, since the Dementors seemed to have made off with that first one… Sev's other hand skipped across Roddy's chest, fingertips and palm striking at random as he skimmed for the edges, for something to hold on to.
Roddy pushed the hand down against his hip, where the hollow of Sev's palm moulded perfectly around the sharp bone, spurring a deep, long moan from the former Potions master. Roddy very nearly melted into a witless pool of goo, on the spot. Even in his dreams, he'd never imagined Sev making a sound like that, and certainly not over something so simple. His palm traced heavily down the far side of Sev's body, stopping to caress the hip — thumb-strokes and palm-grinds, the rough catch of Roddy's short nails. He felt Sev's thigh tense and the hip twitch that followed. When he pressed, Sev pressed back, and still the kiss persisted.
At last, Roddy broke away, spurring a gasp from Sev, followed by a small disappointed sound that fluttered into a heated groan as Roddy nibbled and sucked his way down Sev's neck. As Roddy finally stopped grinding his teeth against the juncture of neck and shoulder, pulling back with a small, teasing lick, Sev spoke again.
"Is that going to leave a mark?" It was a dampened version of the tone he used on his students, and he eyed Roddy slyly, as best he could, given their relative positions.
Roddy pulled back a little further, to make the looking easier. "Only if you want it to," he offered.
"I don't suppose it matters. There's no one to see it anymore, but you and Lucky." And that thought actually hurt. Sev draped an arm over Roddy's back, fingers oddly tight.
Roddy's hand slid back up Sev's body, pulling at his side, and as Sev got the hint, he rolled into Roddy's embrace. "The war is over, Severus. It's over and we're still here. Twice-damned if it wasn't touch-and-go for a bit there, but you're here, and I'm still with you." He rested his chin against the top of Sev's head — significantly more awkward, now that Sev was taller than him, by a couple of inches. "If you hadn't made it, the world would have a record of one more reason Lestranges die young."
"Don't — don't say things like that, Roddy. Just don't." Sev's arms tightened, and he started to shake. "You're supposed to outlive me, you airheaded tramp."
Roddy held Sev a little closer, turning his head to press his lips to the crown of Sev's head. "Well, at this rate, we'll die in each other's arms. Like as not, of fractured ribs and punctured lungs."
"Sorry," Sev muttered, loosening his grip a bit. "No sense in killing you, if I'm grateful you're alive."
"Thank you, dear. I'm sure your mercy will go down in history." Roddy reached down and pulled up the heavy, down blanket, covering them both. "Now, do stop freezing your ass off. You're making me cold, you are."
Sev's tongue was wedged firmly into his cheek as he deadpanned, "Aren't I supposed to be making you hot?"
What started as a snicker evolved into full-blown gales of laughter, and Roddy nearly rolled off the bed, cackling. "I always said it was the mouth I liked you for."
With that, Severus brought his cold nose up under Roddy's upraised chin, and kissed his way down the Irishman's neck. Roddy teetered at the edge of the bed for a moment, but swiftly regained his balance and his prurient interest, as Sev's tongue lapped at the notch in his collarbone. Struggling to remember what he was doing, Roddy grabbed Sev's shoulders and forced him back a foot.
"You're going to have us on the floor, if you're not careful." Roddy reached down and pulled the blankets back up — off the floor behind him, this time — and then ran his hands along the length of Sev's body, beneath them.
"Thank you. I think I would prefer the bed, this first time." Sev's voice was bone dry, but strained, as Roddy's hands continued their exploration of his flesh. He squeezed Roddy's ankle bone with his toes, before returning his palm to the sharp hip it had occupied before. As Roddy's thigh parted his legs, he curled his own leg around it, possessively. Roddy had always belonged to him, and even now, without a reason, it still seemed true. But, that was a lie — there was a reason. This time, Roddy had given himself, freely. That was what finally loosed his last resistance — that there would be no mistakes about intention versus obligation.
