Ghosts by seeker

<><><><><><><>

So close to the end, to have come so far and find himself faltering. Severus Snape closed his eyes and let his fingers drift through the shaggy long hair falling about his lover's face. To have survived so much, kept his secrets so long, to get to such a point, and find himself sharing his bed with ghosts.

Not that his lover knew, of course. Not that his lover knew anything, really. Strong hands, desperate with need, traced over his body. Lifted his legs, stroked his flesh, spread and prepared and held him down to enter him. Eyes still closed, Severus felt more than what was happening in the present. He allowed his body to react, and allowed his mind to drift.

Safe, really, so long as he didn't make a sound.

Other hair, brown streaked with gray, thick and shaggy black, slick shiny silver, slid beneath his palms ... the sweat came up the same along skin regardless of the body, the color of the hair, the unique musk of the man. He bit his lip as his lover thrust inside him, arching to allow greater access, whining in sympathy at the broken, affectionate words mumbled against his ear.

Another choice, another path he might have taken, and the body moving against his would have been more compact. Bound with muscle and sinew, hard-won against years of changes a human body was not meant to undergo. Gentle hands cupping his face as they kissed, brushing his hair back from his eyes, soothing the long muscles of his back as he trembled.

Sculpted lips, lines of pain bracketing them doing nothing to take away the tenderness inherent in them, the quiet strength of the man bound by the beast. A sharp chin stropping his chest, bristling hair tickling his face, wiry unnaturally strong arms wrapped around him. How it might have been.

Had his life been different ... but then again, not.

His lover pulled away, and Severus drew him down again, hands drawing his lover's face down to his own unsatisfied arousal. Talented mouth wrapped around him, sucking hard, then soft, and Severus put his hand to his mouth, holding back the names that had no place in this bed at this time for this mission.

But in his mind's eye, it was another head, moving over his groin. Only the once he'd felt it, the shaggy dark hair beneath his palms as he thrust up into the welcoming wet greed of his mouth. A month before the man left, with his wife and his unborn child and his life too soon to be cut short.

A mouth he saw every time the Boy Who Lived challenged him. A square jaw, the image of the other's, that fit so perfectly into the curve of his fingers. Just the once, and then not enough, but enough to make him hate the remnant that lived on.

Or so he told himself.

Sometimes, he even believed himself. Not often enough. He was an outstanding liar, but he'd never been able to lie successfully to himself. It was the main reason he was so bloody brilliant at lying to everyone else.

He shivered, thrust hard, and came down his lover's throat. Greedy lips pulled at him, abusing the tender flesh, and Severus allowed it. One final grace. One last gift.

It wasn't as if he wasn't used to the pain, after all. A different set of lips rose to meet his, wet with his seed, not that he'd ever allowed such intimacy, though he'd dreamed of it often enough.

Slick black hair gleaming under his hands, arrogant mouth distended from being ruthlessly fucked, then just as ruthlessly sucking, until Severus was moaning and writhing helplessly under the sensual overload. A laugh, warmer in the darkness than it had ever been in the light of day, making his skin come out in goose-pimples and hardening him again.

Another laugh, more appreciative than taunting, although there was plenty of the latter as well. Hatred and lust and the understanding of a good enemy, combining in a heady brew late nights in the Prefect's bath, a potent potion unlike any he'd imbibed before or since. Until they'd parted ways, still hating in the light, still wanting in the darkness.

Rather the opposite of his lover this night. Severus leaned into the kiss, pressing his lover's head into the pillow, pinning him to the mattress, measuring enjoyment given by the breathless moans caught between their mouths. One hand, fingers thrust through hair the color of moonlight and the texture of silk; the other hand beneath the pillow, drawing on the weapon left there, too slender to be seen, overlooked in these last desperate days in the wake of the Dark Lord's fall.

One final duty performed for the Light. The wire slid over Lucius' throat, through thin skin and cartilage, leaving nothing but blood and air in its wake.

One last ghost in Severus Snape's bed.

FIN