Interrupted

Title: Interrupted
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Bill Weasley/Severus Snape
Word Count: ~6,837
Warnings (if any): Rough sex, forced marriage, language, angst, cross-dressing,
Summary: Their lives were interrupted, and then they were left to get on with it. Getting on with it is easier than it sounds.
Author's notes: Thanks to slu64 for her beta, and koshweasley and aigooism for their alpha.

Interrupted

The walls were almost dripping in molten gold. Bill glanced right at the girl by his side and smiled. She was resplendently quirky, her hair a shocking pink and her dress full of lace and buttons and everything that he loved about her fashion sense. The man in front of them was speaking but Bill couldn't hear the words; he was only waiting for the moment when the officiator would raise their hands and cast the spell to bond them together as husband and wife.

Suddenly, she looked right at him, a wide grin lighting up her features.

'Love you,' he mouthed with a wink.

She sniggered and then stifled herself. Their hands rose.

Bill awoke with a jerk, sitting bolt upright. He felt his long hair swing over his shoulders and some of it fell into his eyes. He blinked it away, trying to catch his breath. Every night that week he had suffered from the same dream. He reached up to rub at his eyes. He had forgotten stripping out of his dirty clothes, kicking them on the floor and crawling into his sheets naked. He felt the cotton resting on his cock and wished he was awake enough to enjoy the sensation.

His hand fell back to the duvet with a thump and in the darkness he looked at the gold band on his ring finger. It was thinner than the tradition for wizarding men, but it had been all he was able to find at short notice. It was of very poor quality, but he hadn't cared at the time. He had bought two the same and stuffed them into his pocket without further thought.

When he thought about it, perhaps he should have chosen more carefully. It would, however, be there for the rest of his life.

At that desperate thought, Bill threw himself down onto his back and yanked the duvet with him.

~*~

Bill hated his mind. He hated that he dreamt every night of a wedding, of the fact that it rendered him sleepless and that he had to start work at approximately eight in the morning. He tripped over his own toes as he made his way to the kitchen, cursing beneath his breath as the pain ached through his bones.

“I made you tea.”

Bill looked up at the speaker and blinked in the bright sunlight streaming through the kitchen window. The man stood at the sink, drying his hands on a tea towel. His dark hair was long around his thin face, and he was already dressed and ready for the day ahead.

Grunting something which may or may not have sounded like thanks, Bill slipped into position at their small kitchen table and rubbed his eyes again. He was impossibly tired. He would have preferred his usual coffee to tea, but didn't have the energy to request it of the man who had already made the effort, and didn't have to at all. The man bustled around the kitchen for a while longer before sitting down opposite him. Bill saw that he was holding a bowl of cereal, but hadn't begun to eat.

Bill's eyes seemed to hone in on the ring on Severus Snape's finger, the carelessly bought identical ring to that on his own finger. As usual, he couldn't help but think about the dream and how luxurious it was in comparison with the reality of his bonding day.

He had been unable to visit that part of the Ministry since, finding even the smell unbearable and catapulting him back into the memories of a stark room, Severus in handcuffs, shivering, and a Ministry wizard spouting guff about 'for the good of wizarding society'. His cruelly imaginative mind saw the dream catching fire and going up in smoke as he stared at the other man's hand.

His pretty woman, the love of his life, his dream -all gone for 'the good of wizarding society'.

As usual, the thought sparked anger in his blood. The skinny wizard sitting opposite him was all he had and all he was ever likely to have, and it was paltry when he considered what he had wanted.

“I want you,” he said suddenly, hearing how throaty and low his words were. “Now.”
“Now?” Severus asked, his dark eyes sliding warily to his bowl of cereal.

Bill watched as he carefully set it down on the table top and Severus got to his feet, waiting for instruction. Also rising, Bill rounded the table and felt his pyjama bottoms sliding over his thin hips. He had only thrown them on because it was cold. It wasn't unusual for him to wander around naked; if Severus minded, he never commented on it.

If they were anything as a forced couple, they were realistic. Bill remembered the first time that they had succumbed to that reality, that they were all the other had for sexual gratification. They had been silent and tense, muscles taught in their arms and thighs. Bill had caused pain, he knew, but with his partner so tensed and he with so little experience in sleeping with other men, it seemed almost an inevitability.

Two months on, however, they were far better versed.

He grabbed Severus' hips and yanked him close, bumping their chests together. His bare one rubbed against the plain cotton of Severus' shirt; the buttons were cool to him. He ground forward, holding the man tight to his body. Severus held his gaze, remaining silent, the endless darkness of his eyes drawing Bill in, as it always seemed to. He was not an attractive man, but, as he had pointed out, neither was Bill after his run-in with Fenrir Greyback. Bill had made a joke that they were ugly together, Severus had shrugged, and the subject had never arisen again.

Ugly together.

Bill captured Severus' lips, keeping the pressure firm and forcing his tongue inwards. Access permitted, he wrapped one arm around a thin back and slid the other between them. He palmed Severus' not-yet-interested cock, squeezing randomly until he felt life stirring beneath his touch.

He immediately released him and spun him around, pushing him towards the worktops. It was a rough action, but then their sex always was. Bill had been rough before the unfortunate turn in his life which led to his Ministry-commanded bonding, and had even had a penchant for it before his run in with Greyback. Now, however, it was almost as if he had never known any other way. He huddled Severus into the cabinets, trapping his cock against them. He wrapped his arm around his chest and slipped his fingers between buttons on the man's shirt. He sought out one nipple, easily distinguished by the small round circle of dusky hair. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger, releasing it only briefly before he captured it again. He didn't let go the second time and increased the pressure before he twisted the nub he held. A low moan hit the kitchen window.

Beyond the pane, the sea was calm against the beach which was the backdrop to their home. It was beautiful. Bill closed his eyes and lowered his lips to press them into Severus' neck. He had long since given up pretending that he was touching another. There was a distinct scent of man curling into his nostrils, and Severus smelt good -a heady mix of the tea that he so loved and herbs which must have come from years and years of potion brewing. He began to pepper kisses over the scarred wounds which should have killed the man beneath his fingers. As they usually did, they caused Severus to grow more vocal and his body bucked backwards, causing friction for Bill's cock, which was threatening to escape his pyjama bottoms.

“Are you ready for me?” Bill muttered into his ear.
“No,” Severus admitted. It confused Bill that he sounded disappointed. “I didn't think... after yesterday... that you would want...”
“Hush.” Bill kissed his earlobe. “Could you take me anyway?”
“With spit?” Severus asked.
“Of course.” Bill switched sides and enjoyed the weight of Severus' head on his shoulder as it rolled back with pleasure.
“Then yes.”

He wasted no time in unbuttoning the man's trousers and letting them fall to his ankles. He sent his underwear the same way. Using his own bare foot, he firmly kicked those ankles apart, removing Severus' centre of gravity. Bill pulled apart the man's buttocks, revealing darkened flesh with soft, downy dark hair leading into the crack. It surprised him that after the hellish night he'd suffered the sight caused more interest to stir in his crotch. Shimmying out of his bottoms, he pressed his cock into the open crack and rubbed back and forth. The heat was unbelievable.

Putting his palm to his mouth, Bill spat generously onto his skin and reached down to rub himself with it. He repeated the action four times and was still dubious, but Severus had agreed. He put one finger to the man's entrance, finding it roasting and instantly slipped past the first ring. The heat was searing as he pushed further in, twisting his finger gently from side to side. Too soon he was buried in to the second knuckle.

“Another?” he asked.
“No.”

Surprised, but well aware of the ache at his groin, Bill gently extracted his finger and pushed his cock to Severus' entrance. Biting hard into his lip, he locked his toes and rose up slightly, keeping a steady speed as he sank into his partner.

My partner.

The words were alien. He gripped hard into Severus' hips, imagining the way his skin would bleach to white and how his fingers might leave bruises. He gripped harder so that they might become reality. He began to move before he was fully sheathed and Severus hissed beneath his breath. Bill knew how the man's erection would be batting into the kitchen cupboards and began to rock back and forth, nudging further into his body with each repetition. He sped up, bouncing on his toes until he sank in fully, and bit hard into his lip.

“God!” he growled, flexing his fingers once and then putting them back to their task.

His resistance faded and, within seconds, he had begun pounding into the man, yanking him backwards so that his face lowered to the worktop. He saw thin arms come up to brace Severus' weight and watched the long length of his back stretch out, dark hair hanging over his shoulders.

Grunting hard with each harder thrust, Bill felt his completion racing for him as he steamed along, neglecting his partner's needs.

“Touch yourself,” he instructed, throwing his head back and slamming his cock hard into Severus' body. “Wank yourself off... now... come on... stroke it...”

A moan was his answer as Severus complied.

“You like it when I fuck you like this? In the kitchen?” Bill spat out, squeezing his eyes shut as blood pounded in his head and cock.
“Yes...”

The reply was almost a whisper, but with their rough coupling and the absurdity of the domestic setting, it was enough for Bill. He came with a cry of satisfaction as he leaked seed into the man's passage, enjoying the throbs in his belly and thighs while he emptied himself. He immediately began to pant as the pleasure began to fade. Severus' arm was not working, and while he could have checked, Bill was too tired to do anything but assume his partner had also come. Normally, he wasn't given to such blatant selfishness, but his lack of sleep overpowered him, and he slumped against Severus' back.

“I don't know why,” Bill blurted out, the words tumbling off his tongue.
“Why what?” Severus asked, a slight wheeze to his tone.
“Why I come so fast with you. Maybe my head's finally accepted it.”
“Oh?”
“You're all I have,” he ground out. “For life. This is it. How do you feel about it?”

He slid out of Severus' body and stooped for his pyjama bottoms. He pulled them up before gathering his hair together in his hands and holding it away from his neck.

“I feel I could have landed far more desperately,” Severus said quietly, before he turned and surprised Bill with a kiss.

Bill dropped his hair and thin fingers threaded through it. They kissed again, a tentative kiss after explosive words, no matter how calm their delivery.

“I need you to do something for me,” Bill whispered uncertainly, lifting his gaze to match Severus' dark one.

~*~

“What are you doing?” Bill frowned into the room which served as his makeshift office.

There was a low burning candle within and Severus sat at his desk, his nose buried in a book. The sight of the man reading wasn't exactly unusual, but the sight of him sitting in Bill's own office was.

Nearing the desk, he tried to see the book that Severus was reading, but the covers were slammed together and the black leather hastily stuffed out of sight. “Nothing.”

Bill turned instead to the shelves, skimming his eyes along to see which of his books was missing. He would have missed it, if it weren't for the fact that the next book along from the one in Severus' hands actually concealed his secret stash of cigarettes. It surprised him that he felt violated. The book in question was actually a diary, a diary of his first year working in Egypt. There were countless embarrassing thoughts in there, he remembered. He wouldn't have kept it, save for the fact that it was useful if he mentioned an artefact or experience which the Goblins, ever beady, questioned. Bill walked to the desk and sat on the edge, looking down in between his legs.

“Why?” he asked finally, trying to keep his tone neutral –after all, Egypt was in the past, as was the life he had known then.
“I'm sorry,” Severus said at once, keeping his eyes low. “I just needed to know more about the man I am to spend the rest of my life with.”
“Why so curious now? You've been here for a good few months. Why the sudden rush to get to know me?”

Severus remained silent, but brought the diary back into sight and turned it over in his hands. Bill watched him watching the bound covers of the book with intense concentration. As his anger began to fade, Bill simply wanted to know why the man was so fascinated with his past. He wasn't interesting, or so Bill assumed.

“I wanted to know what you were like when you were living a life that you wanted to live,” Severus said quietly. “And I presumed that such a time would be when you first went out to Egypt. I remember it, at the school... Minerva bleated on about you and your success for weeks into the term afterwards. I think the only person who was more sick of hearing your name than I was, was your brother, Charlie.”
“Charlie made his own glamour.” Bill shrugged. “But... I still don't get why now. And why this diary... couldn't you've just asked me anything that you wanted to know about me?”
“I wasn't sure that you would divulge what I wanted to know.”
“And what was that?”
“What kind of man you are. What dreams you have. What you wanted from your life.”
“You won't get those answers from a book,” Bill whispered.
“I think I got a clear enough view,” Severus assured him.

The book was set down between them; it was a silent, threatening presence.

“I wanted to find light in you.”
“Eh?” Bill frowned, knowing that he looked very much like Ron at that moment.
“You look like Ronald,” Severus informed him. “I mean... when you've lived the life that I have, you search for the light in others. I've not always done so but... with you...”

He looked up wordlessly and Bill sighed, slumping onto the desk. Though he didn't know why, he reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind Severus' ear, and smiled at him.

“And what if I want to know about you, hmm?” he asked.
“My past is nothing to note. It landed me here.”
“Where's here?”
“In a loveless union.”
“Is it loveless?”
“You sleep with others.” Severus looked down at his lap.
“How did you-”

The man got to his feet in one fluid motion. “I do not expect you to love me, Bill. But I will not lie and deny that your fidelity would make me feel much more secure. To let me know that you do not despise me for the rules placed on us by others.”

Unsure of where to start, Bill reached up and raked his fingers through his hair. “Look. What you saw... though I didn't know you saw... that was a goodbye, not a continuation. It had been going on for months and then... we ended it because of what was happening. You have my word.”

Severus simply stared at him.

“Have I ever given you reason to think that my word is untrustworthy?”

Severus' dark head shook and he looked down at his shoes.

“Trust me,” Bill pleaded, crossing the two short steps between them on the carpet and putting his hands to Severus' hips. “Please. This won't work if you don't trust me.”
“I trust you,” Severus confirmed.
“Remus was just... he helped me, after Greyback. Helped me control the roughness which I was experiencing.”
“You were delicate before?” One eyebrow rose.
“No, but... well... getting my face mangled made me worse,” Bill conceded.
“I don't mind it, you know,” Severus murmured, looking away. “Your... tenacity, as it were.”
“Good. I've always needed someone who can match me. Let me fly but keep me tethered at the same time.”

Just then Bill became aware of their closeness and Severus' scent on the warm air of his office. They were almost sandwiched together. He crossed the final barrier and wrapped his arms around Severus' back. The man came to him, pliable and willing, and Bill felt Severus' face press into the side of his hair.

~*~

Bill flew upright, the dream ending, as it always did, abruptly. He gasped at the air a few times and, immediately feeling awake, groped for his wand and lit the candles around his bedroom. It was when he saw a long, pale foot dangling from the end of the mattress which was not his own that he realised that he was not alone that night.

Looking down, Bill saw Severus' thin figure stretched out beneath the duvet. One arm was hooked protectively around his pillow with his face turned into the same. Bill appreciated his sleek hair -only slightly tousled- and the clear skin of his upper shoulders and neck. The dark hair was longer than Bill had ever known it. He had made a passing comment one day about liking the wizard's hair, and that he would like it even longer, and since then, he had not known Severus to have a haircut. Unable to resist, he reached out and curled a dark lock around his forefinger. It was soft and clean; the Snape he had known at Hogwarts rarely seemed to wash, and didn't seem to care about what his pupils thought of his appearance.

But he cares about what I think about him.

Bill had found the well-used spy softer than he could have imagined. Severus had bent to his every whim and command, which could have been so easy to abuse, but Bill had held back -in the bedroom, in their every day lives, in granting his permission for Severus to have a part time job brewing for the school. The law said he didn't have to give any freedom at all, but he couldn't see that a life without freedom was worth living.

Severus coughed slightly in his sleep and Bill watched him settle again. Compelled to move, he bent his head and pressed a kiss into the man's hair. There was no stirring, but Bill liked it that way -the silent, stolen moment of a kiss bestowed when the other had no awareness of it. A slice of intimacy unnoticed. Bill lingered, his lips pressed into dark silk. He inhaled.

~*~

“Please, move at this thrilling pace, you know how that thrills me,” Severus said dryly, and Bill nearly hurt his neck with the speed at which he looked up.

Severus threw him a filthy look and skirted round him to get to the sink.

“There you are,” Bill couldn't help a slight grin.

He had expected many things of living with Severus Snape, but a lack of personality was not one of them. The wizard had been so quiet, reserved -even amenable, and Bill was more surprised every day by the man's reservations.

Every now and then, however, he was awarded a small glimpse of the man he had expected -and dreaded- to be living with. It was a far cry from the defeated ghost-like figure who haunted the landings of his cottage and the garden and the beach surrounding it.

Defeated was the perfect word to describe Severus Snape as he was. Bill had never thought to see it, thinking back to the thin, impossibly young teacher who had taught him at Hogwarts. A teacher who, even then, could command thirty pupils with the resonance of his voice and imposing stature. He had only grown more terrifying through each of Bill's years at the school and his brothers, one by one, had trickled into the school, bemoaning the cruel Potions Master, and his unbearable detentions.

“Did you hate being a teacher?” Bill blurted, unable to keep the question inside.

Severus didn't answer him. His movements were stiff as he pulled the back door open, letting a cool wash of air over Bill's bare feet. He had come home from work hot and sticky and shed all of his clothes to jump in the shower, to clear the stench from his skin. He should have known it would be a bad night when Severus didn't hover at the doorway, half in, half out of the bathroom, wondering if he should join him.

Bill had grown used to their odd little existence and it seemed as though Severus had as well; but there were nights when the clouds came down, when Severus seemingly lost control of his defeated persona, and let the anger take hold of him.

Wincing as the door slammed shut, Bill sighed and looked down at his feet. They were aching. It'd been a busy day. The last thing he needed was a Slytherin temper tantrum, but Bill'd be damned if he would spend the night in silence for it.

Determinedly, he followed Severus out of the back door and looked around for him. It was easy to spot him, a tall, dark figure on the beach -the only smidgen of life on a blank horizon. Bill wrapped his arms around his chest and picked his way out of the garden and through the dunes. Sand crept between his toes as he carefully stepped over the patches of stones and sharp shells. As he neared, one of Severus' arms began to rise and fall. Bill heard several splashes of water and stopped to watch; he was trying to skim stones in the water.

His anger when he failed was represented by a small grunt, and Bill hid a smile behind his hand.

“Don't you have something better to do than watch an old man lament his life?” Severus shot bitterly over his shoulder.
“I have nothing better to do than trying to help him realise that his lot isn't so bad,” Bill answered evenly, bending his knees and settling himself down on the sand. It was damp beneath his jeans.
“What would you know about my lot?” Severus muttered.
“What happened to knowing that you could have landed far worse, eh?” Bill enquired. “Changed your mind? Did I beat you in my sleep or something?”

There was no answer and Bill reached out one finger to trail it through the sand at his side.

“Has something happened?” he tried again. “Something to make you angry. Did somebody say something at work?”
“Nothing,” Severus said sharply. “Leave it.”
“I don't like tension.”

Severus gave a dark laugh.

“Tension outside of the bedroom,” Bill corrected. “Arguing. Nobody likes arguing.”
“This isn't an argument,” Severus said shortly, turning on his heel. “I wanted to be alone, you followed me. Now I request that you give me some space.”
“I just wanted to talk things through.”
“Well, with all due respect, I don't want to talk to you.”

Bill rose silently to his feet and looked at Severus, and the way the moonlight from above bleached his skin to an ethereal shade.

“Fine,” he breathed, defeated in his own way, and turned on his heel to head back to the cottage.

***

Glad he wasn't hearing the creaks of doors randomly, Bill shifted over in the bed to make room for Severus. The man was cool as he climbed into the sheets, and Bill felt his heavy gaze upon him as he lay in a state of nearly-asleep bliss. He'd spent the evening alone after their crossed words.

“Good night,” Severus said stiffly, as if someone was forcing his jaws to move.
“Night.”
“I don't feel well.”

The tone of Severus' voice changed with those words; it broke, sounding much softer -much more defeated once again.

“You've been out in the cold all evening, what did you expect?” Bill yawned.

He felt Severus shuddering on the mattress next to him.

“Severus?”
“Mm?”
“Would you like a cuddle?” Bill asked, extremely glad that the room was dark and his trademark Weasley blush would go unnoticed.
“That would be tolerable,” Severus answered stiffly. “Please.”

Bill waited for the man to turn over before he spooned up to him, wrapping his arms around his waist and pulling him backwards.

“I don't understand you,” he confessed.
“Good,” Severus said simply, and spoke no more.

~*~

“Very good of the healers to see him here.”

Bill watched his mother making what seemed like inexplicably large amounts of sandwiches with her wand at his kitchen worktop. Outside the window rain pounded the beach and the waves were rough, surprisingly mirroring his mind and the turmoil in his gut.

“Well it wouldn't have been good to just waltz him into the middle of St. Mungo's. You know he's here because it's out of the way and it's safer here.”

There was a wordless grunt from his mother and Bill knew exactly what she was thinking. He chose not to continue the discussion.

She, on the other hand, had different ideas. “Well, at least soon you'll be rid of him and you can marry the girl you were always meant to marry.”
“Mum!” Bill protested, unable to close his mouth after his reprimand. “You can't say things like that.”
“Why not? My son was forced to marry another man by the very Ministry he fought to save,” she said stonily. “I want you to be happy, Bill, and you're not happy here, with him.”
“You don't know what I am,” Bill retorted before he began to wish he had found a less teenage-like response for her. She turned to look at him with her eyebrows raised.
“It's no home for a man like you,” she said coolly. “This house, it isn't a home. It's a place where two people happen to live. This house should have a family in it.”
“Grandchildren, you mean,” Bill said scathingly.
“Well they wouldn't go amiss.”
“I don't want children, anyway. You know that and you have for a long time. Even if I'd married Dora, we would have spent our life with cats.”
“Rubbish.” She laughed. “You're a Weasley male and twenty-five or fifty, at one point the baby broodiness sets in and you end up with a brood.”
“No, that was you, and dad. I'm not you. The others might be, but...” He made a face.
“Either way, you shouldn't be wasting yourself on him.” She said the final word with such contempt that the fine hairs on the back of Bill's neck rose.

“Mum, with all due respect, you've got no idea how I feel about this and whether I'm happy or not. And if you can't keep your thoughts to yourself, then you can leave.”

Without another word, he turned on his heel, heading for the stairs. He wouldn't admit it to his mother, but he had spent most of his time over the past few days by Severus' bedside, unable to help from worrying and making sure that the man was comfortable. He pushed into Severus' bedroom and walked immediately to the bed. His first surprise was that Severus' dark eyes were open; the second was that he had colour back in his cheeks.

“Hey,” Bill said, alarmed, throwing himself onto the side of the bed and leaning forward to cup his palm against Severus' cheek. “You're awake.”
“Have I been gone long?” Severus asked, his words lazy.
“Four days... they think it's some kind of fever brought on by an ingredient you were using to brew. They said that you should have known better than to touch it without gloves.”

Severus said nothing. His eyes closed and Bill paid close attention to his breathing.

“I probably did.” The words were a whisper and Severus' eyelids remained shuttered. “But sometimes, you forget things...”

Bill had a horrible feeling that he might have been able to finish 'on purpose...' but Severus said nothing more.

“Look at me,” Bill instructed, reaching for Severus' hand. “Are you unhappy here?”
“No,” Severus answered.
“Am I cruel to you?” Bill asked.
“You are... perfect...”
“Am I so unbearable to live with that a fever which makes you delirious is better?”
“No -I simply-”
“Severus.” Bill bent over his face and hovered there. “My mother is standing downstairs in my kitchen telling me to be glad, that this fever might kill you and I might get rid of what she considers to be a huge inconvenience -one which has led my life off track and is a painful burden.”
“She is right.”
“She's wrong,” Bill said fiercely. “Because this will work. It has to work. We have to make it work. I gave you my word for life, and I would like it if you could give me yours. We're both men, we've both got level heads. We can bloody do this. Just... don't give up, eh?”

He hadn't realised during his speech that he had made a fist in the duvet beneath Severus' chin. Dark eyes regarded him with a surprising fear and Bill pulled back, worried.

“You are... somewhat terrifying... when you are impassioned,” Severus croaked. His thin lips curled into a smile and Bill released a breath of relief he hadn't known he was holding.
“I used to be handsome,” he grimaced. “Now I just look grotesque.”
“You are handsome to me,” Severus said simply.

~*~

“Where did you think you would be now, in your life?” Bill asked, from where he sat nursing a tumbler of firewhisky.
“Dead.”
“Be serious.”
“I am deadly serious.”

The brief flash of humour showed in Severus' eyes and Bill tried to cling to it, a warm spark in what had so far been a cold evening. He had managed to transport Severus to the sitting room sofa, so that he could dress, sit up and feel like a human again, but apart from the mechanics, nothing seemed to be any better.

“I thought I'd be a dad by now...” Bill put the rim of his glass to his lower lip. “Adding to the Weasley clan.”
“With a nice woman, no doubt.”
“Well... yeah. I'd never been with a man before you, so...”
“I must have been such a figural disappointment,” Severus sneered.
“Well your tits were really small.” Bill made a face and sipped at his drink. It burned all the way down into his stomach.
“Small and weedy, like the rest of me,” Severus said dryly, and stared at the fire. “I've never been made of much.”
“You don't think a lot of yourself, do you?”
“If you were me, would you find yourself attractive? Consider yourself of great personality and worthwhile traits?”
“Yes,” Bill answered, without batting an eyelid. “Bravery. Loyalty. Intelligence. Devotion.”
“Four things which can lead a man to ruin, and have done, quite successfully.”
“You're such a pessimist.” Bill scowled in his general direction.
“I am a realist,” Severus sighed. “A realist who has seen too much of life to be anything but.”
“After everything you've been through, maybe a bit of hope wouldn't go amiss?”
“Hope is a lie,” Severus advised him. “Though I admire the fact that, after the turn your life took when you were lumbered with me, that you can still believe in it.”

Bill drank some more firewhisky and wondered what to say next.

“I'm for bed,” Severus announced briefly.
“I thought that we could-”
“Not tonight. I have agreed to what you want...” The man's voice softened. “But please. When I feel my best, hmm?”
“I wasn't suggesting that we do that.” Bill knocked back the rest of his drink. “But maybe just something to relax you? Put some warmth into your veins?” He smiled what he hoped was an enticing smile and looked up through his eyelashes at Severus.

“Well... thanks to the law, your wish is my command, I suppose.”
“Only when you want it to be,” Bill dismissed. “Have I ever forced you?”
“No.” Severus coughed slightly.
“And I don't want you to do what I've asked if it's going to cause you grief-”
“I will do it,” Severus said simply.

~*~

Bill bit hard on his tongue to prevent him from telling Severus to go and find a jumper to put on. The summer air didn't even have much of a chill to it, but all the dark-haired wizard was wearing was a thin shirt on his top half and he wasn't long recovered from the illness which had left him housebound for days.

They were sat on the back patio, whilst the sun dyed the sky a wash of pinks and oranges as it set. Down on the beach, an assortment of his brothers were mucking around on their brooms, laughing and trying to shove one another into the sea as they tossed a Quaffle between them.

“You should really go inside,” Bill said finally, unable to help himself.
“I'm fine,” Severus answered, almost in a growl.

In reality, Bill just wanted his family gone. Anticipation was curling into his veins as to what would happen that evening. He had been surprised when Severus had agreed to act out his wishes, all those weeks ago. Bill was both humbled and frightened by Severus' desire to please him, to gratify him sexually, when there was no real need, and certainly no requirement within their bonding contract. His brothers had come over to grill meat on the old Muggle barbecue on his patio, but as ever, they had refused to take the hint and leave when Bill had said pointedly that he had work to do that evening.

“Why can't they just go?” he muttered beneath his breath.
“They're your family,” Severus replied. “Family who accept your life at the moment.”
“And those that don't aren't here,” Bill said dryly, thinking of his mother, and of Percy, and oddly of Charlie, who had been largely silent since his return to Romania four months before.

They said no more and Bill narrowed his eyes looking towards the sun. There was a loud splash and a shout as George successfully dislodged Ron from his broom, and the tall, lanky youngest boy fell face-first into the water. He couldn't repress his chuckle and shook his head.

“Every time, he falls for that,” he said to nobody in particular. Severus didn't answer. He didn't have to. His peaceful silence was just enough for Bill.

***

By the time he had managed to get rid of his brothers and wind down the house for the evening, the sky was dark beyond the open windows and his gut was in complete knots. He was sat on his bed, naked apart from his clingy boxer shorts, waiting.

He had no idea what to expect, what Severus might look like when he appeared from down the hallway, where he was slowly getting ready, adorning his body in the way that Bill had asked. He had no idea where the fetish had even come from. He liked a woman in lingerie, and had always bought his partners expensive underwear. He had always enjoyed stroking it, feeling the satin, silk and lace and rubbing his cock against the delicate fabrics. Despite the hand that fate had handed him, his desires had not evaporated with his chance of a heterosexual marriage.

Footsteps on the landing quickened his heartbeat. He waited and the door was pushed open. Wrapped in a dressing gown, Severus appeared, his eyes worried.

“It might not be what you want,” he warned apologetically. “I have tried, but... Bill.”
“Please.” Bill held up a hand. “Just show me. Please.”

Severus untied the belt at his waist and let the robe from his shoulders. For all the oddity of their forced relationship, and the strains it had put on them both, it seemed nothing as Bill looked on Severus' thin ribs laced into a leather corset, and his cock barely restrained by a pair of feminine silk knickers. His legs looked convincingly feminine in black stockings, feet thin and delicate. Bill wasn't surprised that saliva pooled beneath his tongue. Long dark hair had been carefully dried, framing Severus' face in straight black waterfalls.

“You look perfect,” he breathed, easing off the bed, the tip of his prick already pressing against the elastic of his boxers. “Brilliant... I...”

He came to a halt in front of Severus and put his fingertips to the front of the corset. “This is fucking amazing.”
“I hoped you would like it,” Severus said earnestly.
“I will never understand why you agreed to this.” Bill shook his head in awe.
“And I might never understand why you requested it,” Severus answered honestly. “Or why on earth I am standing here trussed up like a bloody turkey for a man.”

They stared at one another, until Bill had to give in and lean into the wizard. He sniffed his neck.

“You used perfume?” He asked, surprised.
“Yes... I.....” Severus trailed off and his eyes demurely dipped to the carpet. “I thought it might convince you that you were actually with a woman.”
“If I wanted to be with a woman, I would go to a brothel and find one,” Bill muttered in Severus' ear. “But I gave you my word, there will be nobody else, there will only be you.”
“But it does help, this, doesn't it?”

Bill reached between them and allowed the backs of his knuckles to caress Severus' barely hidden penis.

“Maybe. Maybe I'm just finding my attraction in you.” Bill rocked his hips slightly to carry his own erection into Severus' bare hip. “Things are going to change,” he said quietly. “Things will change, Severus, and we are going to be happy.”
“Do you believe that?”

Bill didn't answer him. He chose instead to claim the man's lips, and sink his fingers into the skin of his hips, hinting at the roughness to come, and the heat the feminine attire had sent into his blood.

“I trust you,” Severus said simply, without a hint of resignation.

-fin-