From Out the Bitter Sea

I walked steadily up the fire escape to the roof of the Library, my boots crunching upon the grit and loose stone. I sought Severus. There was a gulf of misunderstanding between us and we needed to talk. As I stepped over the edging I spied him settling down upon the rooftop, his dark wings dissolving. I stood quietly for a moment, gazing at him.

“You think I despise you,” I said quietly. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Severus glowered down at me. What Lorne had taken from me did not seem to ease the sensation of my gaze upon him. “If you didn’t hate it so much, why else would you take away the part of yourself that could feel me?” he replied, his deep tone flat.

“That part of me did not touch who you are Severus,” I said. “It only touched what you are.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders slightly. “Who I am and what I am…they are the same. I was made into something filthy and corrupt...it is all I know anymore...and why I refuse to feed my own corruption.”

“Severus, when we were in Dream...do you remember why you let go of my hand?”

He paused considering his answer to my question. “In Dream…you were touching me...there was flame...I don’t recall...everything....” Severus trailed off.

I stepped closer to him, gazing directly into his eyes. “You let go of my hand, Severus, when I spoke of love. You may have been changed against your will, but Incubus is not all that you are or ever will be. Grrbrool has named you “Maker”…and Grrbrool does not name falsely.”

Severus scowled, taking a step back away from me. “It is all that I am now...this is what I have been condemned to for eternity, there is no way out of what Lucifer created me to do. And so what if I conjure things for my own amusement, it is something to do to pass away the centuries and amuse those who summon me,” he muttered with more than a trace of bitterness.

I shook my head. “You made soup to feed a hungry and cold stranger. You showed compassion. You dried my flood-soaked clothing, so that I would be warm. You showed kindness.” I continued to walk closer to Severus, standing a hair's breadth away. “What I did with Lorne, I did to help bring forth that part of you. The part you keep buried...hidden.”

“I wasn’t being kind,” Severus snapped. “I was being practical.” He glared at me with icy coldness as I drew nearer and nearer, his pale, chiseled frame stiffening even though he could no longer feel me. “Your things were dripping on me, so I dried them.”

“Severus,” I whispered, shaking my head. Words could not communicate what I wished to say to him. Slowly...tentatively...I placed one hand on his chest. I looked up at him, open, vulnerable, and begin to pulse prana toward him, a feather brush of essence, warm and pure and sweet.

“What...are you doing?” Severus ground out, his deep tone raw. His brows creased and he flinched, the solid muscle of his chest tightening beneath my palm, as his entire frame grew taut. I knew he could no longer affect me or read what I desired. When I gazed at him, he appeared utterly lost and confused.

Severus recoiled at the strange sensation that washing through him. He rocked backwards slightly, his hard abdomen knotted at the sense of purity and his hunger awakened so fiercely that he gasped, although I knew he still didn’t quite understand. What I gave him was in no way like the lust he knew. I answered his confusion, not with words, but with a kiss.

Taking one of his hands in mine, I traced the spikes in his wrist with my finger. My throat ached as I began to experience his suffering. He winced at my touch; the hell-forged spikes and their heat had left his skin permanently raw. I drew one finger over the dark blood seeping down his wrist, wiping it away with one gloved fingertip, and then I kissed the skin. Breathing deeply, a rush of sweet warmth spread from my lips to him and my skin began to shimmer with faint traces of a fiery glow. I closed my eyes, kissing the spikes, his wrist, the palm of his hand, all the while pulsing more of my essence to him, pure and light and full of love, opening myself to him.

Severus was caught between intense pleasure and pain. A low agonized sound escaped him as flashes. I knew him well enough to know that the Lightbringer’s punishments filled his mind; yet, as my lips continued to touch his skin, I gazed up to see his pale eyes widening and refocusing. He panted raggedly, his thick chest heaving as he fought against the desire to feed and the knowledge that what I offered would not be after the manner of Incubi. “Wha...what are you doing...to me?” he rasped.

“I am giving, Severus,” I said softly. “I am giving myself.” I breathed in deeply again, gathering my life force, allowing my essence to flow out of me more strongly, like a wash of cleansing water in the spring, the fragrance of life and love and possibility. It cascaded over the two of us. “I want to give you what I have…because you are hungry and weary and heartsick.” A gentle blue flame began to shimmer over her skin, flickering out and over Severus, enveloping the two of them. I pressed my lips to his chest and wrapped my arms around his strong waist.

Severus dark brows creased as though he couldn’t comprehend such a thing and he winced as the sensation washed through him. I could feel his ache and his hunger intensify almost unbearably. His knees threatened to buckle, his every muscle taut as he staggered slightly before the closed expression set in on his face. It was as though he chased a dream he couldn’t quite hold onto, a memory too hazy and forgotten. It tempted him and he yearned to remember, but the more he struggled the further it slipped away.

As the flame surrounded us he gasped. “I...I don’t understand,” he ground out through clenched fangs, shuddering within my embrace. “I...want to feed...but I can’t,” he roared, his entire frame trembling as he sank to his knees.

I stepped back a little as he fell to the ground, but I kept one hand upon him, one small connection of life and essence. I moved closer to his fallen form, kissing his hair, his face, and touching his lips with my own. “You can,” I whispered. “The only question that remains is will you? Will you taste what I have to give?”

Severus’ breath came in ragged pants as he knelt before me, struggling to move yet paralyzed by a sensation, as he had never been before. Inside he wanted to crawl away from what he knew had to be forbidden while another part of him that mindlessly hungered held him back. He shuddered beneath each brush of my lips. As I joined with him, I could sense that every wash of prana filled him with painful need.

“I can’t,” he rasped. He reached to take and hold the feeling within him as he would have taken and held a soul, pouring out upon it the unearthly pleasure he could bring. “I...cant...I'm trying...I want,” he stammered between ragged breaths.

“You can…if you will,” I whispered. “Feed on this, Severus, not on what the Lightbringer tells you must. He is a Liar and the Father of Lies.” As I spoke, I pushed toward him in spirit, washing him again with purity and inviting him to feed on the essence of my love for him. “You will not harm me,” I said tenderly, speaking softly into his ear, my cheek pressed close to him.

I could feel the Lightbringer’s influence fighting against me as the pain from the spikes in Severus’ clenched fists flared out, bright and angry. His eyes were full of agony and confusion while his body cried out. “It is not...what he tells me...but how he made me...I can’t!” he growled while he still strived, like grasping at smoke, thirsting for water that vanishes in a shimmer of heat. He drew in a sharp breath through his fangs, his eyes mad with desperation, his mind torn and wishing he knew if I were right.

I knelt to kiss Severus’ neck. “Let me help you,” I whispered. I turned to face him squarely, meeting his eyes and said aloud, “Your pain…my pain.” As I did so, a shimmer of radiance cascaded from me, full of warmth, enfolding Severus. I opened my thoughts to him, gently pushing into his, becoming one with the pain of his memories and drawing each into myself, a shared burden. My hands drifted over to the spikes in his wrists as I pulsed prana. At each of my wrists, dark pools of blood began to form. “I give you myself, Severus,” I breathed, my mind to his. “What I give…will sustain…if you only say yes….” I shivered with his pain, my arms burning in agony, but I did not move away, not with my body, my mind, my spirit or my heart.

Severus recoiled and hissed sharply, shaking his horned head furiously, his pale eyes wild. “No!” he bellowed. I could feel him trying to pull way from me, too much inside him, too many trials his body had been through for far too long. He watched horrified, frozen tears sliding down his cheeks, his body wracked by need. Then a pull…a snap…a rushing away…a subtle and strange darkness began creeping from him through blue of the flame surrounding us. “I cant...let you do this,” he growled between clenched fangs, wrenching himself aside, free of my touch, crouching shakily like a wounded animal.

His chest heaved as he shook his horned head as though to clear it, “I can’t let you take...what were meant to be my punishments,” he gasped between pants. “I can’t feed from what you would give me. I tried...if I had...been able to...I would have consumed you utterly....” The wild gleam in his eyes dimmed as he huddled there, defeated.

I felt broken, almost at the end of myself, overwhelmed with compassion for his need. For long moments there were no words between us. Finally, I spoke. “If that is all you can take, Severus, then do it…consume me utterly,” I said quietly.

Severus flinched away, the darkness still pouring from him, pouring into the fire of my touch, until the flame dimmed and guttered out. He pushed himself backwards, wincing as his spikes ground against bone and flesh, adding to his pain and erasing the warmth, leaving him excruciatingly hollow.

The feral gleam returned to his pale eyes briefly at my offer before he shuddered and turned away. “No, I will not...you have...others...who need you. I am not worth this, or anything,” he said with finality.

I shook my head somberly. “You worth is immeasurable Severus.” The blood dripped from my wrists, puddling on the rooftop. My arms throbbed with pain and I felt utterly exhausted, though I did not step away. I said simply, “My offer stands. If you have need of it…if you have need of me…the offer stands.” I lowered my eyes to the rooftop.

Severus sighed heavily, his white-maned head hanging low, his body trembling with hardly the strength to stand. He rasped out a word in a language I did not know and shivered as if in pain. Almost immediately warmth began spreading over my wrists and arms, stopping the blood loss.

“Thank you,” I said sadly. I placed one hand upon his shoulder, trying to give some small solace. Feeling him flinch under my touch, I turned and walked away.