Scars

Waiting keeps your words at bay

Tending to the sores that stay

Happiness is just a gash away

When I open a familiar scar

Pain goes shooting like a star

Comfort hasn’t failed to follow so far

The light flashed off the switchblade briefly before he set it against his pale skin, watching as blood welled up in its path. A rush of pain, warm and sharp and sweet, washed over him, and he smiled in pleasure.

"Why do you do that, Lucius?" Severus asked curiously. They were both sprawled out on Lucius’ bed, staring at the bright red blood oozing out of his pale arms.

Lucius shrugged. "It feels good."

"Really? I don’t like doing it."

"Wrong mindset, is all," the blond boy replied, rolling onto his back. His gaze immediately sought out his friend’s face and his huge dispassionate black eyes. Severus had such an odd face, pale and narrow, and his eyes were much too large for it. His nose, too, was outsized, although it hooked majestically and gave him the look of some long-dead Caesar. At the moment he was occupied in toying with his shoulder-length hair.

"I need a haircut," Severus observed absently. Lucius grinned up at him, gray eyes sparkling with amusement. His own hair, white-blond and always perfectly groomed, was longer than his friend’s, falling past his shoulderblades in its neat ponytail. No one would ever dare to tug it in play, as Severus’ hair sometimes was. Sometimes in something less good-natured than play, as well, although few cared to cross him openly. He and Lucius could have split Slytherin House down the center if they had wished, between the academics and Quidditch types, but their friendship left no question of their leading an open in-House war. And though the leader of the scholastic smart-asses might have been less intimidating than the boy who commanded the loyalties of the heavily muscled athletes, Severus had other ways of getting even.

"Why don’t you grow it out?" Lucius asked lazily, reaching out to catch a lock of soft sable hair. Severus laughed as the blond tugged on his hair, pulling his face down.

"Because I wash it every night and washing waist-length hair would be a nightmare."

"I could help you," Lucius suggested, with a teasing leer. Snape rolled his eyes.

There was a heavy thump outside, and the door to the sixth year boys dorm flew open. Bellatrix Black stumbled in, her arms wrapped around Evan Rosier. Her back was to the two boys on the bed, but Evan jerked backwards in disgust as soon as he entered the room. "Christ, can’t you two do that somewhere else?"

"Unlike you, we have no recourse to the girls’ dorm," Severus drawled. Lucius simply smirked, and dragged the dark-haired boy down on top of him with mock possessiveness.

Bellatrix snorted. "Whatever, Malfoy. You’re such a pretty boy. Come on, Evan, we can kick out whoever’s in the girls’ dorms."

Lucius watched them go with a wry smile. Everyone assumed that he and Severus were lovers. Ironic, really, when the one thing they had not shared was sex. When what they were was so much more taboo than simply gay lovers: friends.

Severus shifted off him and flopped back onto the bed, his hair fanning out around him like a dark halo. "You got blood on my shirt, Luce," he complained.

"Hmm? Oh, sorry." With a wave of his wand and a whispered charm, the bloodstains vanished. Lucius sighed and sat up, pulling Severus closer to him until his soft black hair was spread over Luce’s thigh. "Suppose I should wrap up, then. Hand me the knife, would you?"

Severus shrugged and passed over the switchblade. "Does it really feel good?" he asked. There was no condemnation or concern in his tone, only idle curiousity.

"Yes," Lucius answered, biting his lip as another sweet pang of pain shot up his arm, settling into a duller, burning ache. He sighed in contentment. "It feels unbelievably good."

Severus twisted around to look his friend in the face. "You look like you’re about to come," he remarked.

"How would you know?" Lucius replied teasingly.

Severus pulled a face, and slapped lightly at Lucius’ leg. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah. Yes, I guess I do." He looked down at his best friend, and felt a strange rush of happiness and pain at Severus’ so-familiar features, big black eyes to thin lips to pointed chin. /What the hell?/ he wondered. "Want to try? You might like it better if I do it; I know what I’m doing better than you."

Severus considered for a moment. "Sure, what the hell." He sat up and squirmed around until he faced Lucius, and extended his left arm.

Lucius examined the proferred flesh thoughtfully, smoothing gentle fingers over the pale, unmarked skin. At last he decided where to begin, and traced a small pattern from the crook of his elbow to halfway down his forearm with his fingertip. He marked off the design in his mind, and set the point of the knife to Severus’ skin.

Severus made no sound as Lucius etched a delicately curving line in his flesh, although his cheeks alternated between icy pale and bright pink as pain flowered in his arm. Slowly, he began to understand what his friend meant: as he focused all of his attention on the first brilliant burst of pain when a new line was carved, it brought more pleasure, the pain increasing but now entwined with the hot sensuous ache of desire.

He opened his eyes, only now aware that he had shut them, and looked at the pattern Lucius had etched into his skin: an ivy vine, twining into an S. "S for Slytherin or Snape?" he inquired, not noticing the effect his momentarily husky voice had on his companion.

"For whatever you want, although I was thinking of S for Severus," Lucius replied.

Severus nodded. "Hard to tell it’s an S at all, with all the blood," he observed clinically.

Lucius had finished his work, and set the knife aside. "Yes, I suppose you’re right," he agreed dispassionately, looking down at the scarlet liquid welling up from the marks he had inflicted. Without pausing to think, he bent and began licking the blood away.

Severus sucked in a breath sharply. The skin of his arm was already unusually sensitive at the moment, and Lucius’ tongue lapping at any part of his body was enough–more than enough–to spark the flames of carnal desire.

The blood tasted strangely sweet, with undertones of salt and metal. Lucius continued to run his tongue over the still-bleeding wounds, one hand gripping Severus’ wrist and the other his bicep. It wasn’t until Severus whimpered softly that he realized he was holding tightly enough to leave bruises.

He lifted his head, blood staining his pale lips red. "Do you see what I meant?"

Severus smiled shakily, wondering in a distant corner of his mind if it was even possible to be more turned on than he was at the moment. "Yeah, I think so."

And pens and pen-knives take the blame

Crane my neck and scratch my name

But the ugly marks are worth the momentary gain

When I drive a sharpened object in

Choirs of angels seem to sing

Hymns of hate in memorandum

Lucius stood outside Severus’ door, shivering. Strange, that even now he ran to his friend in his distress, even when Severus was the cause. He swallowed hard and opened the door.

Severus looked up in surprise. "Lucius? What..." He did not complete his question, for Lucius had flung himself at him, burying his face in the soft flesh at the joining of neck and shoulder.

Lucius was distantly aware that he was crying. Everything was wrong, so wrong, and he knew he needed to stop crying but he couldn’t, he should be strong but he wasn’t, he needed to cling to Severus and sob his heart out because he only now realized what a mess he had made of his life.

Severus stared straight ahead, allowing Lucius his space in the only way he knew. Eventually, he brought up a hand to stroke his long white-gold hair, trying to soothe him although it was truly un-Slytherin of him to do so.

Lucius’ hand shot out, grabbing Severus by the wrist and digging his fingers in. Severus looked down at the pale long-fingered hand and the narrow band of gold on the ring finger, and did not ask.

It was all wrong.

Narcissa hadn’t noticed. She was a Ravenclaw, after all, and Ravenclaws suffered through sex at the best of times. Hadn’t noticed that Lucius had looked away and seen large black eyes in a pale narrow face staring back at him, hadn’t noticed that his fingers expected a mass of straight black hair instead of long golden ringlets, hadn’t noticed that when he spilled himself inside her for the first time, he had whispered someone else’s name.

He had left her, thrown on a robe and rushed down the cold corridors of his ancestral home to the one person he had ever disregarded the rules enough to trust. Ravenclaw that she was, she shrugged, curled up, and spent the night contemplating her gorgeous, expensive, brand-new wedding ring.

Severus carefully pulled his wrist free of Lucius’ grasp and sat back, ignoring in the name of friendship the tear tracks down his pale, terrified face. Lucius rubbed his eyes dry and watched in silence as Severus turned away, reaching for something on his nightstand. Turning back, he held out what he had taken from the table. A switchblade.

Wordlessly, he offered his left arm.

Severus’ right arm was covered in scars, long, pale traceries that looked more like lacework than the result of two years of self-mutilation. His left arm had one scar only. The scar Lucius had carved into his flesh back at school, visible proof of the trust Severus placed in his friend.

Lucius took a deep breath and gripped the knife tightly, turning it this way and that to catch the light. "Are you certain?" he asked softly.

In reply, Severus rested his arm palm-up in Lucius’ spare hand.

Severus shut his eyes as the first knifestroke dug into his flesh. Pain washed over him, warm and soothing, and he felt his tension drain away along with his blood. Allowing his head to fall back, he forgot the world, forgot Lucius’ wedding, forgot everything but the lines being etched into his arm.

Ages later, the knife was placed aside. Severus felt a cool wave run through his arm and looked down. The blood obscured the cuts, but before he could clean them Lucius bent over, kissing the still-warm blood. The dark-haired boy buried his free hand in the other’s long, soft blond hair, pulling his head up.

Lucius stared deep into his eyes for a long moment, then leaned forward and pressed his bloody lips to Severus’ mouth. His lips parted and their tongues slid together to dance, the metallic tang of blood overwhelming everything else.

Severus felt Lucius tracing letters along his neck, from his ear down to his shoulder. /I love you/ was brushed across his skin with bloody fingers, and he smiled into the kiss.

He wrapped his good arm around his best friend and lightly traced his reply along his cheek. /I know./

And as the skin rips off

I cherish the revolting thought

That even if I quit

There’s not a chance in hell I’d stop

And anyone can see the signs

Mittens in the summertime

Thank you for your pity,

You are too kind

The next night, Lucius held a banquet. Narcissa sat at his side, his cool, calculating Ravenclaw bride, and if she noticed that her husband’s eyes often strayed from her admittedly flawless features, she did not comment.

Severus toyed with his long white gloves, tugging lightly over new scars. Lucius caught his gaze and they both smiled, knowing what the gloves concealed.

Beneath opaque white fabric, S.S. and L.M. lay engraved in his skin, the letters entwined as those they symbolized would never be. Still, it was pleasant to think that they were marked indelibly into his flesh, together at least in their scars.

And you might say it’s self-destructive

But you see I’d kick the bucket

Sixty times before I’d kick the habit

And you might say it’s self-inflicted

But you see that’s contradictive

Why on earth would anyone practice self-destruction?