Slipped Leash

Sirius's heart was hammering in his chest even before he killed the Triumph's motor, stuffing the keys in the pocket next to his wand, but leaving on his gloves.

Layers. Layers were good.

Protective layers were even better.

He closed his eyes momentarily, reliving his last downfall--who'd known a tongue on his palm could make him feel like that?

No, there would be no liquefying of his brain via libido tonight. None. Not a trace.

Even if he had done as he promised. Even if Sirius never woke up with more than that teasing ghost of the Morsmordre on some portion of his anatomy.

"You can't have me."

"You've made that clear. And I have had you. Several times."

"Only my body."

"Your body will do. It's very pretty."

"I--ah! God!--hate you!

"Feels good? Doesn't it?"

Shaking off the memory before it could make his trousers any tighter, Sirius slammed his hands onto the seat and pushed off, stalking towards the club with a renewed air of determination, heading straight to the back and the dark blue eyes waiting for him there.

. . . That should have been waiting for him there. Sirius flattened his palms against the table, ready to launch into his well-rehearsed speech, and stopped, only then realizing that the booth was empty.

"Slumming again?" That voice murmured in his ear, though there was no more touch than the breath on his neck.

Sirius jolted forward. It was enough. With a growl, he jerked away, lifting his jaw to take advantage of his single inch of superior height and looked down his nose into full lips, clean-cut cheekbones, and eyes that shouldn't have been that intensely indigo in such a dark club. "I'm only here to deliver a message."

"Oh, please. Let's not be so formal. I'm not here on business after all." One hand, almost too-thin now, gestured to encompass the clearly Muggle club. He leaned in, again, touching Sirius only with breath and words that smelt faintly of cherries. "I like it when you call me God."

Sirius shuddered, swayed towards that seductive warmth, and then threw himself upright, remembering abruptly why he came. "No." He tried not to be unsettled when the answer only made Him lick his lips.

"You came all this way to turn down my invitation?"

Sirius opened his mouth to object. To let loose with all the reasons why this was as fucked up as it was. And instead, snapped, "Yes. And every other invitation."

"Oh." He stepped back, waving, though those eyes pinned him intensely. "Until next time then?"

Sirius would not answer. Would not growl. Would not so much as turn as he stalked away without a backwards glance.

There. Would. Be. No. Next. Time.

And he was not jealous of the blond that He was suddenly wearing like a coat.

And he was not running away.

To prove it to himself, and to the world, and not at all to prove it to any form of deity past or present, Sirius threw himself at the bar, lunging unsuccessfully for the bartender's sleeve. "Hey! Hey, I want a fucking drink!" He snarled as another body joined the throng, jostling him into a skinny youth. He sneered. Black lips. Black eyes. Black hair. "Fucking creative," he muttered, ignoring entirely the fact that his riding clothes consisted of nothing but inky leather themselves.

"Bad day?"

Sirius's head snapped towards that voice, eyes narrowing. If he hadn't heard the voice, he'd never have expected it from the man wedged next to him at the bar.

"Snivellus."

"Snape," he corrected, biting the name off at the end, and ignoring Sirius far too easily for comfort.

"What are you doing here?" A flicker of blond and blue caught the corner of Sirius's eye and his jaw tightened. He had a pretty good idea what Snape was doing there. If anyone would slither off to Voldemort it was Snivellus.

"The same as you. Getting a drink." Snape looked him over, toasting him with a glass of virulent sapphire and an insincere soot-painted smile. "With far better results from the looks of things."

Sirius's eyes flicked over Snape's clothing dismissively. "Rich coming from a man in a dog collar and make-up." He would not look at the blond. "What is it? The new Death Eater off-duty uniform?"

"Now what would make you think I'm a Death Eater?" Snape's voice was laden with quiet irony, and he tossed back his drink in one go, setting it on the bar and leaning back on his elbows, the play of light and shadow through fishnet sleeves revealing little but suggestions.

"Because that's your style, Snivellus. Hiding behind someone stronger than you."

Snape's eyes narrowed, revealing only glittering jet beneath the thick smudges of kohl. "I'd advise you not to call me Snivellus without your friends to back you up, Black."

"I'll call you Snivellus because that's who you are." For an instant, Snape flinched, spreading vicious heat through Sirius's chest. "Snivellus." He bared his teeth and leaned in close enough to smell the gin. "Snivelly."

He didn't expect the sharp shove of retaliation or the slender body that slammed him to the floor, all fishnet, leather, and snarling yellowed teeth.

He'd only drawn his arm back for one good punch when he felt himself grabbed by the shoulder and hauled to his feet by one massive hand, the companion of which was clamped, comically huge, around Snape's scrawny bicep. "I think you lads had best settle this outside," their owner said behind a pleasant smile that entirely belied the grip he had on both of them.

On his other side, Snape opened his mouth to snarl a retort before his eyes focused on the far side of the room and his face drained entirely of colour, allowing himself to be led docilely to the back exit and tossed unceremoniously into the alley. From the outside, Sirius noticed sourly, the door didn't have a knob to let them back in. Fine. He didn't want to go back in there.

"Leaving already?" A thin hand clamped down on Sirius's wrist, tightening when he tried to shake it loose.

"Yes." With a vicious jerk, Sirius pulled away, turning and stalking down the alley only to have a skinny body plaster itself against his back, arms locking around his chest.

"Coward." The word was whispered against his skin with acidic precision, and blood roared in Sirius's ears.

Sirius grasped Snape's wrists with one hand, slamming them to the wall above the greasy git's head, revealing the Mark standing new and raw through a rip in the netting, stark against the pallor of a wiry forearm. "Traitor," he spat, eyes narrowing at it.

Slowly, and with glittering eyes, Snape turned his head, long tongue snaking out between pitch-dark lips and curling lovingly over the Dark Mark burnt into his forearm. "Never seen one up close and personal before, Black?"

"Merlin, you really are a disgusting little freak."

"Is this where I tell you you're hurting me?" One long sallow finger traced his knuckles, and Sirius growled.

"Teach you to try to go about looking for trouble."

"On the contrary," Snape said with deadly quiet, and a fire in his eyes that Sirius was sure hadn't been there last year at school. "You're the one who went looking for trouble." His last words were whispered almost seductively. "And I dare say you've found it."

Sirius snorted, squeezing the delicate wrists together until he felt bones grind satisfyingly against each other. "You're no kind of threat to me, Snivellus."

"You're not that stupid, Black. I could steal your mind and store it in a vial now--it wouldn't need to be very big. I could wear it on a chain around my neck and leave you a hollow shell, wrap your memories in illusion, addict you to something only I can give you for cessation of nightmares and a decent night's sleep. How do you know I haven't taken a dose of bleeding heart?" Snape's tongue ran over his bottom lip, leaving the paint glistening, suggestive of the potion--oily, black, and capable of utterly obsessing a man with his poisoner. "How do you know this isn't poisoned?" The sinuous murmur was halted with a grunt as Sirius's thigh wedged sharply between Snape's, pressing painfully.

"You seem healthy enough," Sirius said, refusing to play the Slytherin game.

Rather than pull away, Snape clamped down, and rode Sirius's thigh, dark eyes glittering. "And you, for a straight boy, don't seem to mind."

"None of your business if I'm straight." Sirius snapped without thinking, dragging Snape's knuckles against the wall, a layer of skin left behind on the brick. But he didn't pull his thigh away from the skinny legs and hips working against it, loosing crawling tendrils of heat upwards towards his groin. He flinched, but only tightened his hold.

Snape hissed, fingers stinging as they flexed spider-like in Sirius's grasp and ground against him, inching up his thigh. "In this, as in all things, Black, you lack conviction," he panted, bearing down his weight until leather creaked and groaned, and not letting go when Sirius tried to step back, pull away from him. The movement only arched Snape against the wall, strands of oily shadow catching and fanning against the brick. "Either fuck back or run away."

One sharp hipbone ground into Sirius's groin and Snape's tongue coasted, impossibly red, over his lower lip, fading to bruised purple as the lipstick wore away. With a groan, Snape thrust against him, the resulting jolt of shock as much as lust, and Sirius let go abruptly, hands raised to shove Snape off of him only to find himself with an armful of Snape and a mouthful of that tongue, feeding him the bitter taste of castor oil and gin and poisonous words.

"You never could get it up for anyone normal, could you? Only straight boys," another lick, "werewolves," a bite, a grind that oozed heat sickeningly into Sirius's groin, "and Death Eaters."

Sirius snapped back as if struck, grabbing Snape by the shoulders and pinning him against the wall, disgust warring with the insistent hardness of lust. "I don't," he growled, "fuck Death Eaters."

Snape's face twisted into a rictus of pained pleasure, body shuddering violently against him then sagged, head bowed. Panting heavily, he eyed Sirius through lowered lashes with burning dark eyes and licked his lips, revealing obscenely red flesh beneath the soot. "You just did."

Sirius swore, and this time, when he shoved Snape away from him, he only slid to the ground laughing breathlessly, sprawled against the bricks like a boneless doll as Sirius turned on watery knees and ran. "Come back, Black!" Snape called after him hoarsely, still laughing. "Stop running away and take your Mark like a man! You know you want it! Why else would you-"

The roar of the Triumph's engine drowned out the last of Snape's laughter, but even the cold of the London night sky did nothing to quell the painful tightness of Sirius's trousers.

*

James opened the door, sand-eyed, bleary, and tousled, but all that came from his mouth at the sight of Sirius on his doorstep was an inarticulate croak.

Sirius raised hollow eyes, and got no further than the lower rim of James's glasses, then looked away. "I can't be your Secret Keeper, Jamie."