Contraria Contraiis Curantur

The bastard was still in his chair, knees framing bony thighs, and making his robe pull uncomfortably tight against his lap--there was a reason Snape favoured loose robes, by Merlin! "Black-"

"Yeah, Snape?"

"If you're quite through with your little exhibition of seductive skill and deductive prowess, I should like to have the circulation back in my thighs."

"But I'm not."

"Not," Snape repeated, and gave Sirius a look that very clearly said that if he had a quill and his bottle of red marking ink, he would be deducting points from Sirius for poor communication skills with every word.

"Not finished," Sirius elaborated, and then he breathed--the bastard breathed over his lips, and Snape found his hands, quite of their own volition coming to rest on that emaciated waist. Which was radiating heat. Of course. He chuckled, and Snape turned his face upwards towards the sound, lips parting under the invisible pull of the Black family charm. "Oh, we're going to hate ourselves in the morning," Sirius said, and plastered his body flat against Snape's with a groan and a feral grin.

"We-you-" Snape tried once more to shove Sirius off the chair, hampered by his nerveless arms and fingers more inclined to pull that body closer than push it away. "There will be no morning after," he said in his best menacing voice.

"Didn't know you were into snuff," Sirius said, and smirked, catching Snape under the jaw and dipping his head to trace his tongue along the tendons that stood out starkly beneath sallow skin.

Snape stiffened, and this time did try to push Sirius away. "That was not funny, Black."

Sirius held on, laughing, and settled down onto his haunches as Snape ordered his brain not to think about what was pressed intimately against his thighs with no more than a few layers of cloth between them. "Glad to hear it," Sirius said, though his lips quirked with some private amusement at the corners. "Having been dead, I have to admit it's lost any kink appeal."

Snape struggled with the dual sensation of denying entirely the pleasurable tingle provoked by Black's casual discussion of kinks, and the bottom of his stomach dropping out wrenchingly at the reminder that he had, indeed, been dead. "Are you through slobbering on me?" He demanded instead.

"Almost." The darkly seductive husk returned to Sirius's voice, and Snape's head snapped around to meet those eyes of corrupted blue. "Almost," he said again, and this time, tightened his fingers in Snape's hair and tilted the Potions Master's face up towards his own.

Snape did not whimper, clutch at Sirius's robes, part his lips expectantly, or any of the other things he found himself doing in reaction to those pale lips descending towards his. He did, however, lean forward for a kiss.

And found himself inexplicably miffed when Sirius's lips passed his mouth by entirely, barely brushing the tip of that prominent nose, and parting, instead, over the scar, warm and wet and slick, the flat of his tongue sliding with disturbing erotic familiarity over tingling new skin.

Breath hitched in Severus's throat, and the long, stained fingers that had been so poised to shove the man away clutched instead, harshly. This close to Sirius, he could see the shifting of his throat and jaw when he spoke against the scar. "Tell me you feel nothing, Snape, and I'll stop."

Then, those lips closed over the scar, and the bastard sucked, wrenching a groan from Severus that felt like it began somewhere in his balls and tried to crawl out into that hungry mouth along with his brains and power of speech.

Sirius's breath was cold against moist skin when he spoke again in a roughened whisper. "Good then." And when Snape's hand came to rest over the bared scar that marked Sirius's heart beneath, he made a soft, strangled sound and crushed Snape's palm against his skin, wrapping dextrous fingers over the deep contours of silver-pink tissue.

Snape's eyes widened when Sirius ground his hips against his sternum, and curled his fingers in the other's grip, whispering. "What does touching this do to you?" He had a very good idea, already, what touching the scar did to the part of Sirius making itself known beneath Snape's ribs.

"Try it and see," Sirius offered, hips still shifting restlessly against Snape's chest, as if trying to be subtle. The thought made Snape snort quietly--there was nothing subtle in rutting against a man's chest, however restrained the movement.

Arching a brow, and deciding that it shall all be blamed on the drink the next morning if things turned out pear-shaped, Snape leaned forward, letting his hand slide down to rest on Black's belly, and almost laughed when his skin jumped at the first touch of Snape's tongue, copying Black's ministrations over his own scar. "Do you like that?" He was pleased to discover that the sinister rough silk tone had returned to his voice, leaving him sounding less like a breathy adolescent and lending him confidence to close his lips over unnaturally healed skin and trace its contours with his tongue.

Black whimpered, buried his fingers in Snape's hair, and clutched for an answer.

Snape stopped.

Still panting, Sirius let out a whimper more suited to Padfoot, and when he looked down at Snape, the blue of his hooded eyes was almost swallowed by widened pupils. "Why did you stop?" His words were breathless, but definitely not adolescent.

"I shan't continue if you intend to rip my hair out by the roots every time you approve, Black."

Making a noise between thwarted lust and vague disgust, Sirius loosed Snape's hair, looking down at his hands with a grimace. "You really know how to spoil the mood."

"I rather thought the mood was spoilt when you attempted to scalp me." Unfortunately, though Snape's voice remained rich, deep, and smooth, 'sinister' had taken a vacation only to be replaced by 'petulant.'

Sirius scrubbed his hands on his jeans with a curl of disgust that, Snape noted, did not loosen the thighs pinning him in place. "Not much danger of that happening again. When's the last time you washed your hair?"

Snape's eyes narrowed.

"No. Really."

Snape bared his teeth.

"That's it. Come on." Impatiently, Sirius slid backwards off the chair, grabbed Snape by the front of his robes and hauled, both men staggering with the imbalance of weight between them. Before Snape could regain his balance, Sirius was already dragging him bodily towards the stairs. "Better hold back the tirade till we're up the stairs, Snape. Wake her and we won't be back in the mood for hours," he advised in a hiss.

Snape's glare grew more menacing, but he did remain silent, allowing Sirius to lead him--not out of fear for Mrs. Black's shrieks and screams, but for fear of witnesses to him being led so docilely by the house's owner.

Only when he realized where Sirius was taking him did Snape dig in his heels. "Absolutely not."

"Why not? What's so bad about a bath?"

"I have no interest in being washed like an infant." Snape folded his arms across his chest, a symbolic distance even if the action didn't make Sirius step away from him.

In fact, it made Sirius slide disturbingly close. So close, in fact, their noses almost touched. "Believe me, Snape, this will be nothing like bathing an infant." Any other words he might have had were mumbled into Snape's lips, and soon after, his tongue as well, and Snape found it increasingly difficult to remember why he'd had any objections in the first place.

The water was already running, and Sirius was meticulously opening his buttons one after another by the time Snape's reason returned to him. Who could begrudge him the feeling of surreality? Sirius Black was undressing him, and eyeing him with a hunger that had nothing to do with feeding him to a werewolf.

Dog, perhaps.

But not a werewolf. He hoped.

Snape prayed to Merlin that Lupin wasn't hiding in a cupboard somewhere waiting to join in on the fun.

"Do you really have to wear so many damn buttons?" Sirius growled under his breath, tugging one free roughly enough to rock Snape on his feet.

"Pull them off my waistcoat, and you will find out how many there are, Black, as you sew them back on."

Sirius batted Snape's arms out of the way irritably, digging the next button out of its thick wool confines. "Well don't you own anything without so many? Maybe with a zipper? Merlin, I'd kill for a zipper," he muttered.

"While I do not own anything with zippers, there may be a handful of items without quite so many buttons," Snape conceded.

"Then wear one next time," Sirius snapped, grumbling under his breath about ruined moods and damaging a fellow's sex drive.

Snape noted, as he glanced down Sirius's body that the man's own open shirt and shamelessly worn Muggle jeans. "I don't think there's any danger of losing your sex drive," he said dryly, at last, attempting to give the glare of superiority to long fingers that had abandoned buttons for the tight confines of his trousers, its effect marred only by the hitch of his breath and the flush creeping upwards from his collar. At last, he brushed Sirius's hands away entirely, flicking the remaining buttons free, and then neatly folding first waistcoat then shirt, and laying them on the vanity. "I will keep it in mind for next time," he conceded, and then stilled when he looked into the mirror, catching the heated gaze with which Sirius watched his bared skin. "I know you've seen a man undressed before, Black. And I assure you, my legs haven't changed much since you and your friend felt the need to show them to the school."

Sirius flinched.

But for once, the barb, the dart of past wrongs gave Snape no warming smugness, no righteous feeling of strength. Black looked like a struck dog.

Snape laid his hand over the scar on Sirius's chest, keeping it there when the other man started, and waited for the pale eyes to lift once more to his own. He fancied he could feel the hammering of a heart through the flesh of his palm. "It was another lifetime, Black," he said, once Sirius had raised his eyes, the words spoken with one brief quick-fading lance of wounded pride as he accepted that truth. This man bore as little resemblance to the golden Gryffindor as he himself did to the boy with the greying pants and helpless rage.

Slowly, a worn hand crept up to cover Snape's, and he found himself wondering how and when Sirius had lost a notch on his index finger, and how he'd gotten the burn that scarred his wrist a pale pink in two places. He felt his hand lifted to that warm mouth, and then kissed, with more uncertainty than Black had shown claiming his scar. "Another lifetime?"

"Wasn't it?" Snape's finger unfurled, and traced over Sirius's lower lip, noticing for the first time that it was chapped, as if the man had a nervous habit of biting it. "Do you feel like you did then?"

At this, Sirius looked away, but only as far as Snape's shoulder, as if not wanting to let his eyes out of the confines of Snape's body. "I don't remember what I felt like," he said slowly, quietly, but without the hints of self-pity that would have made Snape's lip curl in disdain. "I was happy then."

And twelve years with Dementors did not leave a man happy thoughts to revisit. Snape wasn't certain which was worse--having been happy and losing it all or having gone from one disastrous encounter to the next. Perhaps they'd both earned a change.

Bending, and ignoring the faintly creaking protest of his lower back, Snape pulled their hands away from Sirius's chest and replaced them with his lips, eyes flickering upwards to watch Sirius's eyes haze over and close under such a simple gesture. He wondered if Sirius had expected to be the instigator throughout after their hasty fumblings in the chair.

Aching back or no, new beginnings or not, Snape decided that both of them were too old for hasty fumbling of any sort. Straightening and wrapping his dignity around himself in place of his robes, and still grasping Sirius's fingers, he pushed the heavy black hair from Sirius's face, letting it rest behind one emaciated shoulder, and waited for him to open his eyes. "Patience," he said when Sirius did, "is a virtue I will presume you never had time to learn. We will begin there."

A defiant corner of Sirius's lips twitched upwards. "You've been teaching too long, Snape. I don't need a professor in bed."

A coil of something that felt suspiciously like jealousy tightened beneath Snape's ribs, thinking unwillingly of a certain colleague of his, in Defence Against the Dark Arts, who he was quite sure Sirius would not mind getting into bed. "Are my assumptions wrong then?" He asked, trailing stained fingertips over Black's flanks, resisting the urge to count ribs as his fingers flowed over the prominent curve of each one. "Did you, somewhere in your years of dodging Death Eaters, feeding Dementors, and hiding from Aurors somehow manage to find time to indulge in more than hasty hormonal gropings against the inevitability of dying young and pretty?"

"Did you?"

"I was never pretty." Snape smirked, and slid his palms up Sirius's spine, soaking in the man's shivering despite the heat radiating between them. He watched his hand appear behind Sirius's shoulder, burnt cobweb strands of hair obscuring his palm and sticking against his skin with the humidity of the filling bath. He watched the hand as if it weren't his own when it folded around the back of Sirius's skull and cradled flesh and bone tenderly. "And I lost my taste for hurried groping a good twenty years back with no regrets."

"Snape-" Snape stepped backwards, out of the hesitant circle of Sirius's arms, and knelt, dragging Sirius's jeans and shorts down his legs. Silently, he conceded the advantage of zippers, about to confess as much when he startled at the feeling of cold fingers latticing through his hair, and looked up past scarred hips and belly into heavy eyes. Sirius shrugged the shirt from his shoulders, leaving his clothes in careless heaps, and stepped out of them, pulling Snape to his feet. "The bath's full," he said. And yet the words felt like those cool fingers still sliding through his hair.

"What did I say about patience?"

"That I never had time to learn it," Sirius answered promptly, shattering the hesitant silence that had settled between them as they undressed with a sudden and shamelessly golden grin.

Snape's lips quirked. "Indeed you haven't. Plebeian."

"Snob. Quick shag's not good enough for you then?"

Snape spared him the barest glance. "I believe in savouring that which is of worth."

Sirius snorted. "You want a Malfoy then, Snape."

"I didn't mean monetary worth, Black," Snape's voice was quiet, but without the menacing sibilance that most often rendered his soft tones sinister.

"You've changed."

"We've established that."

"No--you've changed a lot. I remember you toadying around to Malfoy and Regulus our last year-"

Snape held up a hand, rested it again on Sirius's chest, and spared a vague curious thought for whether there was some magical residue in that scar that covering it should subdue Black like blinders for a beast. "You would have as well if a group of Gryffindors had seen you as an easy solitary target."

"Do you have to be so reasonable?"

Genuine amusement flickered over Snape's face. "Does it get under your skin that I am?"

"Yes!"

"Should have tried it years ago." Snape shook his head, pushing gently with the hand over Sirius's scar, then let go and lowered himself into the deep claw-footed tub. "Are you still planning to join me?"

"I think--I might just watch."

"Well I'm not in here to wash my own hair." Snape folded his arms over his chest and raised what he hoped was a challenging eyebrow. "Losing your nerve?"

"No." To Snape's surprise, Sirius grinned again, and shoved him forward with a light touch on the shoulders. "Appreciating the view. Budge forward."

Snape did so with no further protest than to stiffen his spine when he felt Sirius's hands press down on his shoulders. "Come on, Snape. I'm not washing your hair dry, and there's not enough room for me to drown you."

Still looking vaguely suspicious, Snape allowed himself to be dunked under, eyes shut tight, and the fingers of one hand pinching his nose. When he rose, he felt Sirius's body shaking lightly behind him. "Not one word," he said, releasing his nose with studious dignity.

"Is that why you never went swimming in the lake?" Sirius asked, pouring a generous amount of shampoo into one hand. It smelled, Snape noticed, of rosemary.

Still, Snape hesitated before answering. "In part," he said, permitting Sirius to reposition him until he was half reclining against warm skin, Sirius's longer hair gently tickling his shoulders in the water.

"What was the rest?"

Snape tilted his head back until he could catch a glimpse of Sirius's face. "I sink," he said dourly.

"Could've gone in with gillyweed. Me and James did a few times--took a walk around the bottom Seventh year on a dare, and Sixth year, we dosed ourselves up on gillyweed and waited in the shallows for-" he stopped, abruptly.

"Me," Snape said, but this time, he smirked, and settled back against Sirius's chest, humming despite himself at how unutterably good Black's fingers felt massaging those maddening little circles into his scalp which was beginning to tingle pleasantly. When no denial or apology seemed forthcoming, he continued. "You really were an appalling lot of bullies."

"We were kids."

"That excuses nothing."

"I know."

Snape twisted around, and the surprise must have shown on his face, for Sirius shrugged, and turned him back with firm hands, resuming the scalp massage. "I remember you better than I remember James," Sirius said. "You and Peter." Snape's shoulders stiffened, and Sirius laid his hand briefly over the tensed muscles. "I don't think of you like Peter, just--the two of you weren't tied to very happy memories."

"I was under the impression that your pranks provided you with very pleasant memories."

"They did," Sirius confessed. "But having to look at you after--no. Interesting, the things the Dementors left. Up until I went into Azkaban, I'd remember the looks of rage you gave us, the way your face would go all white and you looked like you wanted to hex us all, but after Azkaban, I couldn't remember that look anymore--just the way you'd flinch in the corridors and stare at your plate during meals." Sirius's voice trailed off, and his hands stilled, holding Snape's head gently between their palms. "Duck and rinse," he said, quietly.

"You never said," Snape pointed out once he resurfaced, though he didn't move when Sirius poured a second handful of shampoo and began to lather it in.

"Didn't want to. It wasn't right, remembering you hurting and afraid. I wanted to remember you pissed off the way you were supposed to be," Sirius said, still quietly, but with surprising heat. "I wanted things back the way they were supposed to be."

Snape snorted, and let his arms unfold, resting them, after a moment, on Sirius's thighs, long fingers draping comfortably over bony knees.

"Yeah," Sirius said, "stupid Gryffindors."

"Mm," Snape disagreed. "Merely stubborn."

Sirius didn't answer. Instead, one soapy hand slid from Snape's hair, and down his arm to the elbow, gently grasping and turning over the forearm, staring at the black-burnt brand marking him. "It didn't disappear," he said, then shifted his grip, trailing his fingers along a mark more faint, this one lighter than the dungeon-pale skin beneath it, running in a clean line from wrist to elbow. "Not a poison?"

"It was," Snape said hesitantly, vaguely surprised to find himself telling the truth, "largely symbolic." He watched Sirius's fingers smooth over the scar that neatly bisected the dark mark. "At the time, I wanted to see how far I could go this way."

"And?"

Snape's lips twitched, and he turned his arm back over so that Sirius's hand rested on its back, both blemishes hidden. "Clearly, not far enough."

"Why not poison?"

"I would have succeeded."

"And you didn't want to?"

"No. It was a clinical fascination, a desire for physical manifestation of my perceived psychological disturbances and previously inflicted neuromagical injuries."

"In plain English?"

"I hurt and wanted to bleed," Snape said, watching Sirius's hand creep upwards towards his wrist. "Another aspect of my youth that I've since outgrown."

A warm breath exhaled itself against the nape of his neck, and Sirius's fingers slid forward the last few inches, lacing with his own and squeezing. "Any other interesting scars, tattoos, or marks?"

"No. And why do you sound so damned interested?" Snape tried to work irritation into his voice, but it ended on an admittedly sultry note when Sirius pressed his lips against Snape's throat and bit. "Planning to mark me yourself then?"

"Got it in one," Sirius murmured, lips parting for his tongue to drag over the mark, then upwards. Snape was just beginning to relax into the unfamiliar heat against the skin of his neck when Sirius choked, gagged, and pulled away, coughing over the edge of the tub, scrubbing at his mouth with the back of one hand. "Duck, rinse," he said, oddly muffled.

Snape sneaked a glance back at Sirius only to see the man foaming, quite literally at the mouth with shampoo suds and choked on a short gasp of laughter that ended in a sputter when Sirius ducked him forcefully under the water, then emerging thrashing, water spraying everywhere from flailing arms and hair. "Rabid, Black?" Even coughing a portion of water out of his lungs didn't seem to put a damper on the amusement value of Sirius Black's lips frothing with rosemary shampoo.

"Funny." Sirius spat and choked the last of the foam from his mouth, then sank up to his nose in the water, glaring up at Snape, though without real venom, only wounded pride.

Dislodged from his comfortable resting place and free of shampoo, Snape shifted in the tub to face Sirius, smoothing his hands up the emaciated chest, and around Sirius's throat, lacing his fingers at the back of his neck, unable to withhold a smile. "You have no idea how many times I wanted to see the four of you foaming with scourgify." The bitter memory was softened in the way Snape's thumbs rubbed circles over Sirius's jaw.

"Do we have to keep talking about that?" Sirius asked, then held his breath, stilling beneath Snape's ministrations.

Snape considered, and then, "No." He shook his head and leaned forward, pressing his lips again to Sirius's scar and sliding forward until their chests all but touched. "I'm sorry," he said, and quelled that hurt little voice in the back of his mind that still demanded to know why he was apologizing to Sirius Black for bringing up his own misery at the mutt's hands.

Sirius laced their fingers together again, and his hand shook when he brought his lips down to cover the starburst between Snape's dark brows, tingling heat flowing once more from the point of contact. "I'm sorry too," he said, looking into Snape's face and answering that hurt little voice completely in three simple words.

They watched each other, each searching for a topic in the present, without roots in the past until Snape smiled, taking the easy way out. "Move, mutt."

Sirius's eyebrows leapt at the insult spoken in such a silken affectionate tone, and slid forward in the tub, changing places awkwardly with Snape in the narrow slick confines. "Never took you for a dog fancier."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Snape said, and lowered Sirius's head into the water until dark waist-length strands floated like waterweeds, lightened eyes nearing Malfoy silver as they held Snape's dark gaze and caught his breath in his chest. "I hope," he said, pulling Sirius upright and pouring shampoo into his palm, "you don't expect me to create maudlin terms of endearment now."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Snape." Sirius hunched forward, wrapping his arms around his knees, and Snape tried to ignore the prominence with which each bone of Sirius's spine made its presence known through his skin.

"Good."

"I like how you say mutt now anyway." Snape's hands stilled over Sirius's hair, and he could feel the smirk all the way from the back of Sirius's skull.

Snape snorted and gathered the long hair in one hand, beginning to work in shampoo with the other, watching as the long back before him stretched, arched, and rumbled with a deep moan. "Thump your leg in this tub and you're cleaning the overspill."

"Belt up and keep rubbing. That feels great." With a wriggle, Sirius scooted back until the small of his back nestled up against Snape's belly, then stopped, chuckling. "I see you agree."

Snape felt his face heat just a little more than the warmth of the water should allow, and discarded his first impulse to deny any knowledge of what Sirius meant. Instead, he gave in, reached down, and pulled Sirius back against him firmly, hooking a long leg around his waist and leaning forward to murmur in his ear. "Are you objecting?"

"Are you offering?" Sirius's voice dropped several notes when Snape's evening-stubbled jaw brushed his temple.

"Yes," Snape said, sliding an arm after the leg, resting on his belly and smoothing downwards. "After you rinse. I don't intend to repeat your mouth full of suds stunt."

Sirius disappeared abruptly under the water with a bark of laughter and grinned up at Snape through the suds as he surfaced. "I'm rinsed. Now, we shag?"

"What did I say about patience?"

"Still haven't had time to learn it, Snape." Sirius settled himself back against Snape, stroking a hand down one lean thigh and tugging it back into its place around his waist.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor."

Sirius shivered. "You always sound that sexy taking points?"

"Merlin, I hope not," Snape said with heartfelt earnestness, genuinely hoping his students only became abruptly more attentive in their seventh years because of their upcoming NEWTs.

"If Professor Winterbloom'd sounded like that, I might have paid more attention in Potions."

Snape silenced him with warm wet fingers over his lips, and pulled Sirius back against his body. "Pay more attention now."

Sirius's eyes hazed over and closed as Snape's fingers smoothed down from his lips to his chest, rubbing over the scar and teasing downwards. "I'm paying attention."

"So you are." The words curled against Sirius's ear moments before Snape's tongue, and he pressed up into long fingers with a shudder. Rather than stroking, Snape let his hand mould to hardened flesh, trapping Sirius between palm and belly, simply absorbing heat and pulse through his skin. "No, hold still." Tightening his leg, and bringing a hand down to grip Sirius's hip, Snape held him close, feeling the bony torso heaving against his chest and smiling. "I told you I want to teach you patience," he said, and rocked his hips forward once, wringing a groan and muttered curse from Sirius, but the squirming stopped by the time the water sloshed back over them.

"Sod patience." Sirius's grumble was vaguely mutinous, quickly followed by a wordless yelp of protest when Snape unwound himself and stood, dragging Sirius upright by one hand.

Steadying himself on a shoulder as he stepped out of the tub with as much dignity and poise as a naked dripping man could possibly muster, Snape looked Sirius up and down, their hands still joined. "Well, are you coming?"

"I was trying to when you decided it was time to get out."

Snape stared, incredulous. "Surely you can't tell me you were comfortable in there." His eyes flicked to the tub's confines which, while enjoyable enough for bathing, or even some amount of stroking invoked visions of bruised knees and quickly cold water. He shuddered.

Glancing down at his feet, and the suds still sliding down his legs, Sirius's lips quirked in an abashed grin. "I was distracted."

Snape scoffed, and pulled a towel from the rack. Raising his arms to block the expected throw, Sirius made a surprised noise when, instead, Snape wrapped the thick warmth around him, and steadied his way out of the tub, one arm around his waist. "And I promised to teach you the worth of patience," he said, tossing his head in an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge a wet strand of hair from the bridge of his nose. "We've waited all evening--it's no reason to bruise you on porcelain or endure you through a bout of pneumonia because you wanted to play the impatient adolescent."

Delicately, Sirius caught the hair with his fingers, pulling it back and tucking it, dripping, behind Snape's ear, silent.

Able to endure only so much of standing still staring at one another, Snape snapped. "What?"

Sirius spoke very quietly. "This isn't going to be just one night is it?"

"I don't do one night stands, Black." Beneath Snape's arm, tremors ran the length of Sirius's spine. "Black?"

"Haven't done this in a long time."

"I'm told it's like riding a broom."

Sirius lifted his eyes. "More than one night, Severus. I haven't done this since Moony."

"When?"

A muscle leapt in Sirius's temple, and his hands came to settle on Snape's waist. "1980. December."

Snape's breath hissed quietly beneath the faint gurgle of the draining tub.

"You?"

"December." Snape's lips twitched. "1980."

"It was quite a year then." Sirius stood still, letting Snape towel him dry, watching the short precise movements of long sallow hands. "Who was it?"

Snape glanced up, resting on one knee and lifting Sirius's foot, looking away only to meticulously dry each toe and switch legs. "You don't want to know," he said finally. "And we agreed not to talk of the past." When he stood, his knees creaked, and he winced, staggering lightly and raising a steadying hand to Sirius's waist.

"Think we've talked enough?"

"You really are the most impatient creat-" Snape's words disappeared into the crush of Sirius's lips, and the towel fell from distracted fingers. He tingled everywhere Sirius touched--and a good many places he didn't.

Sirius let go, leaving Snape where he stood, and when he returned, it was to lift Snape's hand, lay a cool jar in its palm and fold Snape's fingers over it. "Let's test out that patience of yours. It's been a while since my last one-nighter too."

Snape only raised his eyebrows, watching Sirius sprawl comfortably on the bed, damp spots left heedlessly beneath his tangled hair. He looked from the man on the bed to the jar in his hand, and uncapped it, raising it to his nose and laughing quietly. "What is this fondness for rosemary?"

"I'll tell you later." Sirius slid back on the bed, watching Snape with an expression that the Potions Master found particularly disreputable-looking.

"Golden Gryffindor indeed," he said under his breath, giving his dripping hair a brusque towelling and tossing the towel into a corner, deciding that the warmth of the fireplace would have to do the rest on its own. Most of the rest. Snape's eyes snapped to a rivulet of water just cresting Sirius's collarbone, drawing a ragged curve over a wasted pectoral and diffusing over the starburst scar that glowed vivid pink to warmth and firelight.

"What was that?"

Snape's eyes trailed slowly back to Sirius's face, following once again the drying line of that single droplet. "Nothing that bears repeating."

"Golden Gryffindor. I heard you." Sirius smirked, raking fingers through his hair and shaking them free when it snarled, another shower of drips meandering down his arm and chest.

"Purely an aesthetic admiration, I assure you." The mattress sank under Snape's knee, and his hand not holding the jar came to rest on Sirius's shoulder, pressing him to the bed as he allowed his tongue to follow the trail he'd admired before only with his eyes, drinking the water from the freshness of Sirius's skin.

"Is this purely aesthetic too?" Sirius's voice had roughened, and his eyes, when Snape met them, were very dark, pupils large.

"No," Snape said, sliding over the top of him, letting, at last, his weight pin Sirius to the bed, skin to glorious skin from lips to tangled feet. "This is shamelessly carnal." His mouth pressed to Sirius's, sighing into the parting of lips and meshing of tongues, fresh and faintly flavoured of rosemary. He drew back with a quiet chuckle and a growl of thwarted curiosity as Sirius's leg slid once more over his hip to latch around his waist impatiently. "I will find out why the rosemary."

Sirius arched up, almost, but not quite closing his eyes and watched Snape through a screen of eyelashes, arms skimming Snape's shoulders as his hands splayed downwards over scapulae and spine. "I'll tell you if you earn it."

"And what," Snape asked, already hovering close enough to Sirius's chest to leave him shivering from hot breath over silvered scar, "is your price?" He felt himself smiling when cool fingers slid up into his hair, gently bringing his lips into contact with curse-damaged skin. "And what does this do to you?"

He could barely make out the pleasured curve of Sirius's lips, letting his fingers and breath play over the starburst. Up close, the damage was no more extensive than his own scar, and yet bigger, deeper, with a red heart that seemed to pulse faintly with every breath Sirius took. "It's like being strung through with harp wire," Sirius said, fingers flexing over Snape's scalp, short nails leaving tight tingling tracks through his hair.

"Always?" Snape asked, pausing in his touches. It did feel oddly as Sirius described, the touch of lips or fingers plucking long notes from his skin and nerves that resonated through his veins.

"Only when you touch it."

"Anyone?"

Beneath him, Sirius shifted, curling up with a light pressure on Snape's skull until they could see each other's eyes. "Only you."

"Magical resonance," Snape said quietly, and Sirius fell back into the pillows with a groan, though he didn't release his hold on Snape's hair or the lazy stroking of his fingertips.

"You really know how to kill a mood."

Snape felt his lips curling into the sneer that terrified his students and worried Molly Weasley at Order meetings without fail. "You never studied magical resonance, did you, Sirius?" He resisted the urge to chuckle--the sneer and voice that went with it affected Sirius as well, but the evidence against his hip most certainly did not speak of terror or worry in the least.

"No. Why, should I have?"

Snape pressed two fingertips against the scar, the lightest possible touch. "Demulcio," he whispered, holding on when Sirius stiffened and bucked beneath him, eyes wide.

"What the hell, Snape?"

"Magical resonance, Sirius, is much like the theory of sympathetic magic, but rather than a simple like affecting like, resonance--builds between its halves. More like a chord played than two identical notes on different scales."

Sirius shifted; he was looking down at Snape again, and his fingers were still. "You're a sick bastard getting harder giving a lecture on magical theory."

"I assure you, this is a special class--and far more practical than theory." Snape found himself laughing, resting his chin just beneath the scar and allowing Sirius to return to stroking him, small shifts of their bodies the only other friction provided.

"Better be. I don't even want to think about you getting hard in Potions class."

"Now who's ruining the mood?" Snape complained, and smoothed his fingers over Sirius's skin, circling the discoloration idly.

"So what's it good for?"

"Aside from shameless sensualism," Snape said, "not very much at all. Too unstable for practical use or anything potentially damaging to either of us." He bent, resting the tingling ache in his forehead against Sirius's chest, a rush not unlike a pensieve overtaking him and catching his breath, leaving him holding tightly to the body beneath.

Sirius's voice was rough, shaky. "Sensualism's good."

"Indeed." He licked his lips, suddenly dry as the silence, comfortable until now, became oppressive. Beneath him, Sirius's chest hitched on a deep breath, and Snape forced his hand still, palm resting over the starburst soothingly save for the tingling tendrils that wound up his arm from the point of contact. "There's no turning back now, Sirius," he said, willing himself to meet Sirius's eyes, to see what colour they became in the deep golds of firelight. He only got as far as the lips.

Sirius licked them, leaving them glistening, and drew in another breath, then pulled Snape up along his body and pressed their mouths together. Distantly, Snape felt the jar find its way back into his hand. "There was no turning back the moment you died for me, Severus."

And then there was no talking, either.

Snape's eyes remained open even as Sirius's closed, obscuring the colour, but not before Snape caught a glimpse of fathomless depths flecked with improbable gold.

Warm lips still worked beneath his, tongue not unlike the flickerings in the fireplace, heated against his own. Their kiss rumbled with Sirius's supplicant moan and legs that had been tangled climbed high over Snape's ribs, inviting without the words mouths were too busy to provide.

Even when Snape tried to pull away, just enough to ask one last time if Sirius was sure, hard arms and legs and sinewy muscle tightened around him to a growl of impatient protest, and he gave in.

*

A joint popped quietly, a staccato counterpoint to mingled panting, and Sirius winced, catching his breath as their bodies shifted, reconfigured, and wrapped around each other, speaking in soft wordless murmurs and touches. His lips found Severus's scar and closed over it, a delicate soundless thrum running through joined bodies and tangled limbs. They turned their faces away from the fire, its warmth drying sweat and water from their skin. When it burned low, and the room cooled, Sirius sat up, dragging the heavy duvet from the foot of the bed and pulling it around them, wrapping Severus back into his arms, forehead to forehead, chest to chest, they slept.

Their banter could resume in the morning.

Epilogue:

Severus woke to discover that Sirius had appalling morning breath.

Sirius woke many times in the night to discover that Severus snored.

They woke, still tangled together in the morning, and neither minded.

Severus took his tea with milk--milk first, then tea.

Sirius took his tea like a child with milk and sugar both, and glared at Severus over the table, daring him to say anything about it.

Severus didn't, however, and instead, placed another piece of toast onto Sirius's plate. "You're too bony," he muttered under his breath, ignoring the vaguely curious, suspiciously amused look from the werewolf over the edge of the Daily Prophet.

Sirius grinned and ate his toast--with jam. And added more sugar than tea to his next cup, then ate three pieces of toast and stole the sports section.

Disappearing back behind the Prophet, Remus smiled.