Chapter Text
I. Mirror
Every night, it's the same.
He locks the bathroom door.
He removes all his clothes, one by one.
He pushes the pile aside with his foot and stands in front of the mirror.
Then he lets his calloused hand run slowly over his white chest; his fingers get caught by the regular unevenness of his ribs. His stomach is just a sag beneath his rib cage, his waist too pronounced, giving rise to overly prominent hips. His shoulders are slumped, his back hunched from too many years spent crouched against a wall. His long legs look like an insect's, grotesque and hairy, attached to two buttocks as hollow as his cheeks.
His wizard reflection has an evasive gaze; he hates it when his face is being stared at. He remembers the first time he saw himself, in a puddle of water while on the run: he thought he was looking at someone else. Tears have carved furrows under his eyes, bitterness has marked the corners of his mouth, and torment has cracked his forehead with a thousand creases. His grey gaze is a sea of sadness since vengeance no longer drives him, and when he meets it in the mirror, it is just too much to bear.
He slips into his oversized pyjamas, turns off the light, and crawls straight under the covers.
Severus cannot bear to see him in this state anymore. Long ago, he was the lover of a proud and confident seventeen-year-old who would take him by the hand and lead him into the kitchens, into a classroom, even behind a curtain; he was handsome and flamboyant and never even considered the possibility of being rejected. They didn't love each other yet at the time, there was Lily for one and James for the other, but they fucked like crazy, with their clumsy hands, their overly eager mouths, their cocks saturated with desire.
Sirius always turns his back to him in bed. Severus puts down his book and leans towards him, brushing the hair away from his ear to tease him soflty about his eagerness to sleep. In the year they've been together, Sirius has learned to open up more, and it doesn't take much for him to roll over onto his back with a faint smile. Severus still wants him, and his hands quickly open the rough pyjama top, revel in the touch of his bare chest, move down to his pelvis...
“Turn off the light,” he asks every time.
At first, Severus would try to refuse, but when Sirius starts pleading, it's too upsetting to be in the mood for sex. So now he obeys and has to guess in the dark, clinging to the sparkle of his eyes in the dark, contenting himself with the sound of his moans in the darkness. Sirius whispers that he loves him, but sometimes Severus wonders if he isn't just convinced that the ugly Snape is the only one who will have him at this point.
"Eat some more."
"I'm not hungry..."
"Eat anyway."
"You think I'm too skinny, don't you?"
"No, of course not..."
"No, go on, say it, you think I'm too skinny!"
"Sirius... You're a damn handsome man, skinny or not."
"So you think I'm too skinny. No need to pretend, you know. I don't like you lying to me. How can I trust you if..."
"YES, I think you're too skinny, Sirius, what do you think? You're barely healthier than when you got out of Azkaban. Feed yourself, get some exercise! What's the point of making potions to heal your muscles if you don't make us of them?"
"I've stopped drinking your potions, anyway!"
"You... what?"
"Can't you see it's pointless? I'm done for, a pile of bones ready to be scrapped!"
"..."
"Severus..."
"That's it."
A week later, they are gone.