Green Is The Colour Of.....
Resolution
Special thanks to Cravedom for not only your lovely review, but also for your good advice. It had never occurred to me that the summary made this story (which has grown to considerably more!) sound like a drabble. I'm taking your advice to heart, and you'll soon see the result.
In the meantime, hope you all enjoy this next chapter, and I hope you'll tell me if you do. Or even if you don't. Hitting that little button is always greatly appreciated! Now on to......
Resolution
Severus lay on his bed pretending not to listen to the Boy.....Man.....Who Refused To Leave downstairs. Not only had he come and destroyed Severus' delusion of peace, it sounded as if he were destroying everything else as well.
After a bit it was silent, and Severus thought perhaps the intruder had finally given up and left of his own accord. This delusion was also shattered when he heard the sound of the stairs being mounted, and then footsteps approach the closed door to his room.
He hated himself for the way he held his breath, half of him wanting the door to open, to feel the green eyes he ached for on him one more time, the other half cowering away from the pain such a sight would yet again cause.
"I'm not leaving!" the stubborn voice came through the door, and the footsteps retreated, going to the room across the small hallway, leaving Severus again hating himself for feeling absurdly relieved on both contradictory accounts.
Stop it! he told his foolishly pounding heart yet again.
Pulling his shattered walls around him, letting the ice build to the numbing point, he rolled over and went to sleep.
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But sleep wouldn't come, and after several hours spent trying to force it whilst being invaded by the thought of sparkling emeralds, Severus flung himself onto his back with a wounded sigh.
Three years
His insistent heart would not allow his previously stoic mind any peace, roiling that thought over again and again, and he once more bit back the urge to howl out his pain and anguish.
Knowing that the source of his pain was only a few short steps away made him feel invaded, humiliated at the foolish folly of his own heart. All the pain he carried inside, pain that had ebbed to a dull and ever present ache, came screaming back as raw and throbbing as a fresh wound.
Three years
The appalling amount of time that Severus had spent deluding himself into thinking he was happy and satisfied. Could ever be happy and satisfied. Time Harry had spent more wisely, growing into the man he now was. The man Severus, from the moment he'd looked up at the sound of his name being said, until it had been rudely flung in his face, had refused to see.
Seeing, being made to see, only increased the pain. He could no longer delude himself that Harry was a boy. He could no longer delude himself that his love was strictly pure. He could no longer delude himself that he didn't want, now more than ever, Harry.
His heart, never easily quieted, wouldn't allow it. His mind, always the more rational, was now overruled. His body, no longer under the command of his mind, finally betrayed them both.
He cursed it silently, even as his hand slid lower. He tried not to think of what it was doing, even as it opened his trousers. He tried not to anticipate as his disloyal hand released the hard evidence of his body's betrayal.
But he couldn't help the quiet gasp that escaped him as his hand embraced his stiff cock like a long lost friend.
He couldn't help the small moans that escaped his lips as his hand, which seemed to have acquired a life of it's own, caressed, squeezed and tugged his now weeping cock.
He couldn't help the thrust of his hips as they propelled his cock into its determined affair with his hand.
He had absolutely no power at all over the loud groan of long denied satisfaction that erupted from his mouth as his hot seed erupted from his long denied cock. Nor over the fast, hot gasps that followed.
Nor over his dimmed awareness, which failed spectacularly at hearing the commotion from across the hall.
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A suprising feeling of calm washed over Severus as he lay back after spelling away the wet and sticky issue of his traitorous body. Along with it came the return of his rational mind, which mercilessly tramped down his heart, silencing it's pitiful protestations, enabling him to reach a startlingly simple solution to the problem across the hall.
Tell him the truth
The very thing his heart had been begging him to do all along, although Severus ignored that. His mind gripped hold of and focused on what his pathetic heart refused to acknowledge.
Harry didn't feel the same.
Couldn't feel the same.
Harry loved another.
Severus' mind knew this even if his heart refused to acknowledge the fact. He'd seen it with his own eyes. Harry loved another, and if Severus finally told him the truth, not only would Harry finally understand why Severus had left, Severus' heart would have no choice but to acknowledge the fact.
Not after it heard Harry say it. Not when confronted with irrefutable proof of the foolishness of wishing. And hadn't that been what his mind had been trying to tell his heart all along?
You don't get what you wish for. His mind savagely reminded his heart.
Harry would be surprised, of that Severus had no doubt. And Severus would let him off easily. Severus would tell Harry he realised Harry loved Ginny, that Harry should be with her, and there would be no need for the boy to have to say anything, thereby saving both himself and Severus any additional embarassment and discomfort. Harry would go then, realising he couldn't stay, and Severus could go back to rebuilding his quiet illusion.
His mind, satisfied with this resolution, finally allowed the exhaustion the day's events had caused to claim him, and he turned to his side.
As for the pain, he would do as he always did.
He would ignore it.
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