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Over every elm, the half-light hovers.
Down, you lie down too.
Through every shade of dusk, a hush impinges. Robins
settle to the nest; beneath, the deep earth
breathes, it
breathes. ...
Dennis Lee, "You Too Lie Down"
Down, You Lie Down Too by Resonant
The pallet smelt strongly of camphor and grapefruit, but by now he was used to everything smelling of healing potions, if it didn't smell of something worse.
The body beneath the blankets was warm and still. Harry pressed his back against it, laid his glasses on the floor in front of him, and fell into an exhausted half sleep.
"What the devil -- Potter? Are you hurt?"
Harry opened his eyes. An hour or so before sunset, it looked like, from the light coming in where the wall was missing. "No," he said. "No more than I was this morning." He turned over.
"I see." Snape's skin was even more unhealthy-looking than it had been in the days before the war, and there were deep grooves on either side of his mouth. "You couldn't find someone else to fulfill your sudden need for human contact? Someone who likes you?"
Harry raised himself up on his elbow and pointedly looked around what was left of the library. "Is there anyone else?" He was confident that most of Lupin's contingent would be able to get back here from the dormitory wing, but it was going to take some time.
"Not at the moment, no." He was close enough to feel that impatient sigh he'd heard so often.
"Thought not." He smiled a little and hooked his leg over Snape's hip.
Snape's mouth tightened. "The life force, is it?"
"Mm." He smelt of camphor and grapefruit and a tantalizing, nostalgic whiff of tobacco.
"I wish the life force would manifest itself in a more practical manner. Perhaps an irresistibly powerful desire to provide food."
"If I had any food --"
"Yes, I know." Snape dropped an arm over Harry's shoulders and drew him closer. His neck was dirty.
Harry undid the clasp at the throat of Snape's robe and dug through waistcoat and shirt and undershirt until at last he found skin. It was cold in the ruins of the library. He spread his hand over Snape's breastbone.
Snape unbuttoned Harry's outer robe, which was an odd shade of greenish gold. His mouth quirked when he found another robe underneath, and then someone's much-too-large Quidditch reds under that. "Your wardrobe gets more fascinatingly eccentric with each passing week."
Harry sat up, shook off the robes, hauled the uniform over his head, and pulled the robes back on quickly. "I expect to set a trend," he said. "People pay attention, you know."
"No doubt." Snape, bare to the waist, pulled him down again. They both inhaled as their skin touched.
Snape undid Harry's trousers with quick efficiency. His hand was cold, but his grip was sure. "Ah!"
Harry grasped the moving fist and urged it into a faster rhythm, then held on for a while, enjoying the feel of the muscles flexing in Snape's wrist. "Yeah ... 's good," he murmured, and moved his hands down to cradle his balls as he came.
When he opened his eyes, Snape was watching him with an expression of mild interest, as though he was a well-informed lecturer. Harry grinned at him suddenly and dived under the blankets, undoing trouser buttons as he went.
There was a very ugly bruise on Snape's hipbone. Harry licked it, and Snape's hips snapped forward, pushing his cock wetly against Harry's temple and hair. Harry rubbed his cheek against it and took it in his mouth as far as he could manage.
He wished Snape would say something -- his voice was the only really sexy thing about him -- but Snape limited himself to sighs and gasps. He was more careful of his depth than most, though, making only slow controlled pushes even when he was so ready Harry could taste it.
Harry tightened his mouth; there was a gasp above him. He used his fingertips to stroke teasingly through the dark hair, and got back a sigh. He stroked a thumb over the triangle of soft, vulnerable skin at the base of Snape's cock, rubbed light circles over his balls, pressed up rhythmically against the skin behind them.
Snape's thighs tensed and a fine tremble went through the narrow hips. Harry stilled, holding Snape's cock loosely in his mouth without moving for a breathless, silent moment. Then he gave a sudden hard suck, and another.
Snape gave a high wordless cry and pulled back as he came, so that Harry had to follow him quickly to catch as much of it as he could. He didn't know why he wanted to. On a stomach this empty it would probably give him heartburn.
He stayed where he was, mouth gentle around Snape's cock, until Snape's hand on his head urged him up. Harry pressed against Snape's slack body and pulled the blankets up around both of them.
Snape touched Harry's chin with a fingertip, then leaned forward. Harry felt his warm tongue, probably cleaning up a drop of spunk he'd missed. He closed his eyes as Snape's lips moved over his jaw, his cheek, the corner of his mouth.
"Did you succeed in tracking the manticore?" Snape laid his head back down on the folded sack he was using for a pillow.
"Yes." The thing's foul and corrosive blood was the reason he was wearing such an odd assortment of hastily liberated clothing.
"I suppose you'll be expecting me to take a turn at watch now." Snape pulled Harry's robes together and fastened them both at his neck.
"You'd just go to sleep standing up in the corridor again," Harry said without opening his eyes. "Might as well do it here, 's more comfortable."
Snape pushed him over and spooned up behind him, wrapping an arm over his chest. "Comfort, Potter, is a luxury to which it is unwise to become accustomed."
"If you say so." Snape's hand was resting over Harry's breastbone. Harry put his own hand over it and relaxed into sleep.
... You too lie
down, the drowsy room is
close and come to darkness.
Hush, you
too can sleep at last. You
too lie down.
Dennis Lee, "You Too Lie Down"
-end-
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Read the anniversary sequel to Bruise, Marked