tampered | log; complete

log; complete

When; Friday, November 21st, late at night
Rating; possible R
Characters; Severus Snape (

eduronox), Remus Lupin (

lupusnonfacit)
Summary; Sirius Black is the magic word. Now literally.
Log;

He knew before he came that his attempts at de-fusing the situation with Severus, his little off-topic comments, would only irritate the already hair-triggered older wizard even more, and so he's prepared for it when he comes through Severus' unlit fireplace, wand tucked safely into his worn leather belt, dusting some ash off of his knees and out of his hair, where it only served to accentuate the dry, wintery look of it.

Remus should be afraid; Severus could be waiting, his own wand at the ready, to kill him as soon as he enters. He's been threatened and promised a few times already, and he knows that Severus Snape makes well on his threats when he sees fit. He really should be afraid, but instead he just feels awkward and he clears his throat and tilts his head disarmingly.

"I got slipper prints on your clean floor, Severus. Sorry."

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Snape is furious. It's not the chaotic, mindless rage of four years ago and a handful of weeks in Lupin's recent past, but the compressed, electric hate of someone whose mind is so jarringly compartmentalized that the current topic of internal debate is what he's going to do to Lupin when he comes out of the fireplace, and not if he's going to do anything.

He doesn't know why - maybe it's because he's really not good at it and he feels like he should be good at everything, maybe it's because cursing him or hexing him might interfere with what they're (ludicrously, stupidly, immaturely) out to do - but the second the werewolf straightens up and faces him, Severus punches him square in the nose with a resounding crack! - a whole lot harder than he did on that curse day month prior.

He can tell, this time, when Severus punches him that it isn't a recoil instinctual blow out of surprise and shock, but a calculated, coiled blow from intent and a malicious desire to return some imaginary, rather, philosophical blow. He nearly overbalances as his neck snaps sharply to the side, pulling a ligament in his neck, and Severus' knuckles are very sharp and dig at the sensitive skin below his eyes, but he gathers himself even in his shock and leans forward. Coughing, dazed, he grasps at his knees with white fingers and breathes heavily, staring at the floor and wondering, in the back of his brain, whether a second blow will come. Maybe a kick.

He watches the pool of blood from his nose gather mildly, before cracking his jaw and speaking in a slow, measured voice, devoid of emotional reaction. Tiredly, he notes that revenge hurts quite a lot, as if this should come as a surprise.

"I'll tell them I slipped and fell down some icy stairs. Want some more?"

Edited 2008-11-22 23:36 (UTC)

Nothing follows, because the second after his knuckles slam into Lupin's face, Severus swears and pulls back, shaking his hand and then holding it, even angrier now, but halfway at himself.

"Christ you... goddamnit..." That hurt, okay? He's glaring hard enough to kill a less man, but shifts his gaze to look at his hand, which this skin of his now split between his first and second knuckles. Some part of him notes that he should really stop swearing so much. It's a bad habit from his youth as a muggle over summer holidays, and crops up when he's not paying attention to his role. A slip that's been happening an awful lot, of lately.

Eventually he looks up, wiping his nose inefficiently with the back of his arm, only serving to spread the blood through his thin, new moon facial hair, smearing the angry red around. He stands slowly, making a soft whooping noise under his breath, like a tired athlete; like he hadn't just been sucker-punched, but rather was dizzy after a second round.

He stares across at Severus with something less like concern than curiosity and a morbid kind of guilt.

"Going to be alright? You need that hand to hold your wand, remember. I can't do this to myself."

"You've never heard of a wizard being ambidextrous?" he snaps, but as if to prove a point, he all but growls an incantation - one Lupin won't recognize, as it's something he's come up with on his own - and his hand heals. He cracks his knuckles and flexes his hand, then points at Lupin's face, empty-handed, and repeats it-- "Stop bleeding on my floor."

Severus keeps his distance, moving a bit, as if he's forcing himself not to pace with barely-lidded angry energy, acting more like a caged animal than the one in the room.

He takes a step backward, sliding a little in the aforementioned puddle, and really he should clean that up, as his hand flies to his face and pats around, nails twitching to scratch the deep awkward itch and whatever Snape's done works and works quickly. He doesn't bother to say, impressive, because the statement is well-written on his face as he clears his throat and shakes the last stars out of his vision.

"You should save that. Merlin knows there might be a use for it," he sighs, voice analytical, as if asking a student if there's something he might have forgotten to bring up that was on the agenda for the day.

"I trust you're going to make this so nobody notices it ever occurred, aside from Regulus."

"Why should I care if anybody ever notices it? Who will argue with me? Granger in some pointless fit? Lily?" his voice is bitter at that, coiling with hate. It's stupid of them to be doing this - he shouldn't be casting binding spells in this state. Something is going to go wrong or he's going to pull something cruel.

"If you're going to be a child about it--" quite suddenly, he feels lightheaded, and something in his voice catches, but he moves on - "--then perhaps I'll just give you epilepsy when the topic comes up."

He's about to answer with something emotionally distant again, something cheeky, but he stops silent as Severus gets to the last part of his question, whites of his eyes suddenly visible as Lupin's mind almost visibly rejects the idea of it. He's scared, suddenly, and a pleading sound seeps into his voice, like it had a few months ago for him, in the shrieking shack. Calm down, listen to me, listen to me and see sense.

"Severus, no-- don't do that. You shouldn't do something like that, it's an unnecessary measure."

"It'd certainly keep you from breaching the subject, wouldn't it?" he all but hisses. He's not out of his mind like he was that night in the Shrieking Shack, but he's most definitely not calm and collected in his anger; far from manipulative, he's just angry. He wants to hurt Lupin and take out some of the pain that's clawing its way around in his own mind.

He blinks and takes a breath. He feels like he's getting a migraine again. It's been common since that curse - the one he won't acknowledge - and he's not really been sleeping. But it doesn't matter.

He shoves the chair from behind his desk out at Lupin. "Sit down," he orders, glaring.

He does sit, without being asked again, immediately seating himself in the chair with his hands folded primly in his lap, head slightly down, as if waiting in an office somewhere in the Ministry to give a statement. Awkward, out of his element, instincts telling him this is a bad idea you are trapped run away.

"It would. That's hardly the point."

He fidgets.

Severus stands in front of him, pacing back and forth openly now, hands at his side, wand in his right hand. He's going over the spell in his head, weaving it and soaking in the nuances and edges and specifics, tasting the colors of it and letting himself understand. He can work the spell to his will and pick out what, exactly, to inflict on the werewolf.

In a moment of clarity he imagines someone mentioning Sirius when Lupin is in the middle of protecting Lily from some sort of danger, and he fumes silently. It's not fair - his own mind shouldn't be sabotaging his attempts at petty victory.

Finally he just decides on stinging his hands when he tries to explain. Severus point his wand at Lupin's head, and begins to speak the incantation.

For a second, as Severus casts, the fear crosses his face in earnest, a grimace on his features, his jaw locked as some of the dried blood on his upper lip and cheek flakes off and falls.

He could have done anything.

Has he done anything?

What has he done?

He hates himself for wondering, the creeping fear, the awareness of exactly who Severus is and what he can do to him, because not hating and blaming a person is far from having a healthy sense of just what they are capable of. He takes a shuddery breath, hands still folded in his lap, complexion looking pale and wintery and old.

"...thank you. You didn't have to do that. It's my loose tongue that meant that you did."

"Stop it," he says, his words brittle and biting. "Stop thanking me for doing completely awful things to you and stop acting like I'm some gracious host you're terrified of. It's insulting."

Because it's insincere. Snape could kill him, yes. He might, too. But there are so many, many things that Lupin can do and say that would ruin him just the same.

He starts to say something else but turns away again, hand on his forehead, whatever headache-migraine-thing it is stabbing at his temple.

When Snape says, stop it, he meets the other man's bothersome dark black magical eyes, before looking away again, off to the side, and standing up slowly to make sure that he won't faint or become dizzy; you never knew with magic, the side effects. And Remus had never liked this kind of magic to begin with, mental magic, subtle magic. He preferred a flashy display, consuming sparks and purifying fire and bright white silver light. You knew what it was. It was unambiguous.

He chews at his tongue.

"I don't understand you. How you always know. What I'm up to, when I'm lying. It's no wonder our childhoods played out the way they did. It bothers me, to be so transparent. Paper-thin-- are you alright?"

"I know when everyone is lying," he says, nearly shouts, still turned away, palm over his eyes. "You said it yourself. It's sad. Do you know how I have to... what I have to-"

He has to try to get this out a few times, starting and stopping but he's forcing it out, despite the pain. "Do you know how I have to make my mind to deal with Voldemort and Dumbledore prying and ripping and sorting everything? Every day every week, since I was a boy."

He feels like a broken computer, and the irony almost makes him laugh. He feels dizzy, and he lets his wand clatter to the desk and grasps the edge of it, knuckles white. A wizard, a broken computer. His head broken, talking about that very thing.

He stands and listens to Severus speak; he speaks so infrequently like this, emotionally and intensely, that as he does Lupin stands and respectfully listens intently to every word, face bloodless and hands at his sides, balled. He knows what the other man is saying is true, and he truly empathizes. It's not normal, it's not natural, it's sad. Like Dumbledore's tame monster.

He only moves when the sound of the other man's wand falling out of his hands and clattering catches his ears, and he crossed the room without speaking, not touching but hovering.

"What's wrong? Come on. Come on, stand up, Severus."

Any continued conversation, any retort or reaction to his sudden stifling concern or approach is washed away, like water being sucked down a drain.

Severus looks up at him. There's a blood vessel burst in his right eye, slash of grotesque red squirming across black and white, damaged. Somehow, that remains the less poignant thing, for the look in his eyes is blank, questioning-

Unrecognized.

Severus stares at Lupin, not afraid, but nothing else - vague curious wonderment, a little confused. He looks around, finding his laboratory familiar, but not the context of being there, not why. Names, reasons, places all refuse to come to him and he's suddenly nervous and defensive, moving away from the other man, hand against his neck now, though the movement is unconscious.

His hands shake slightly when he stares into Snape's eyes, looking back up at him in a way they never should be-- disgust, hatred, annoyance he was used to, as they were types of recognition; the gaze focused only momentarily on him this time is only confused and suspicious, as if Lupin shouldn't be here but as if he is any other wizard. There was no understanding.

He pulls away slightly, moving back toward the chair and sliding again in the blood on the floor, which is growing flaky and sticky at the edges. His stomach stirs in an uncomfortable way, and smells are nauseating.

Remus never was good at realities like this. He didn't like dealing with the world, really dealing with it. He finds his voice eventually, but it's breathless and concerned, for the both of them.

"Severus, what's wrong? For God's sake, answer me, I don't know what's going on." He considers, for a moment, if there's a pensieve anywhere; maybe that's the problem. Maybe it's the mark on his arm, he can't know.

"You're frightening me."

"Why would I frighten you?" he asks, stepping to put the desk between them - not scared, but preventive, strategic. His voice carries the same timbre but his accent is a little off - a bit less refined, a bit less London, as if all the seals holding him together have been shaken loose. "How did you get in here?"

Something hurts in his head, still, and he bends halfway, one hand on the desk again, the other at his temple. It's more uncomfortable than painful, and he feels as if he might be sea-sick from standing on firm ground. The room is still, isn't it? He's not lost anywhere?

He remembers being sixteen and apprenticing at a petrol station. He remembers bringing a flat of soda cans in from the back entrance, and there was a stray dog there. He'd thrown something at it. Because he hates dogs. Why does he hate dogs?

"I came through the fireplace. You frighten me because--"

His face hardens for a moment, and he turns on his heels, not moving immediately but also not facing the other man, fists back to tense balls at his sides. His whole being is screaming get out get out run away again, because this isn't natural, and furthermore, this is Severus. He's not Harry Potter to be comforted or that man-- what was his name --that man, he wasn't that man to be identified with. Severus will hate him for this, cut him down for it later, no doubt. He doesn't care.

"Because you're supposed to be in control, and I am supposed to be in control, and this is not," he mutters in a rough, low voice, before darting out of the room, not bothering with the floo and unable to apparate, just not able to take being there anymore.

He'll run home in his robe and slippers, it's better than staying around.

He sits on the floor behind his desk, head throbbing, dizzy. He has no idea where he is, or what's happening, but he can barely think about it, or anything at all.

An hour later, he can't remember if he blacked out, or if he just sat there in a daze. And he's too tired to be angry.

For now.

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