Chapter 2

He wakes with a pounding heart and proof of his dream's potency still moist along the flat plane of his belly.

She finds him every night, these days. Like the ghost of an unforgettable lover, the smell and taste of her saturate his dreams, and the feel of her body entwined with his leaves his skin tingling long after he wakes. He has no explanation, other than to assume it must be the fate of the confirmed bachelor to conjure his perfect companion, if only for the night.

But the day beckons. No matter that he would prefer to shut his eyes in the hope she might find him again in the dark.

As if she were real.

He snorts.

Women like that, he thinks, do not choose men like him. Not outside their dreams, anyway.

He rolls out of bed, wincing at his creaky joints, and makes his way to the shower where the evidence of his need will be washed away.

If only he could rid himself of the longing so easily.

~~**~~

"Snape." The line supervisor barks a greeting, and Severus nods. The man demands little in the way of conversation, which is fortunate, Severus thinks, as he's capable of providing even less.

He needs only do his work, and the boss leaves him be. Head down, focused on the task at hand...literally...though it requires no concentration. The mind-numbing repetition gives him time to think, which is not necessarily an improvement. Often, he wishes he could turn off his mind the way the boss stops the belt when they fall behind. It might be a relief to stop his spinning thoughts and drift into the sort of daze his co-workers seem to don like a jacket.

Instead, his thoughts skitter like a rock on the surface of the water, barely dipping below, still maintaining momentum. If his life had been the least bit interesting, he thinks, he might enjoy reviewing the perambulations of times past whilst working his post. But life has taken him nowhere worth mentioning save the minor deviation of living elsewhere for a while before returning here. To this place others call home.

He lifts his eyes just enough to peer at those others working the line with him. They're mostly men he remembers dimly as children; none of them friends then, some of them mates now...good for the occasional pint and game of darts after work but nothing more.

They'd welcomed him back with minimal fuss, as if they'd always expected it would be just a matter of time. The unforgivable crime of having gone away, absolved, since he'd been sent. The sins of the parents are not, it would seem, visited on their sons.

Besides, it's not as if he'd returned here a conquering hero...no fairy tales of valour lending him the aura of other. There isn't much to tell, and even less to remember, save the lingering certainty that he has in some fundamental way fucked something up.

Nothing new there.

The finishing bell rings, rousing him from wandering thoughts. Endless days lie ahead, rising in front of him like rows of bricks, cracked and sooty. Soon, he thinks, they will surround him, completing his prison.

"Sev!" shouts Devin, a stocky man who works down the line and who makes it his business to drag Severus to the pub at every available opportunity. "You comin' along?"

"Not today, mate," he says. "Need to tend to some things back at the house."

Devin looks dubious, but Severus's tone brooks no argument.

He heads back to the rickety two-up, two-down that feels even more temporary than any of the other stripped-down places he's occupied over the years. There, he sheds work boots and coat, hesitating for a long moment in front of the whisky bottle left on the side table last night. He's not much of a drinker, but he's been turning to it more than he'd like lately, just to take the edge off. The edge of what, he doesn't even know, he realises, and wonders for a moment if a bit of edge might do him some good.

The bedroom upstairs is small, barely large enough for a narrow bed and oversized wardrobe. The bed came with the rental, but the cabinet is the one piece of furniture salvaged from his folks' house on Spinner's End after fire ripped through the place a few years back.

He traces the scorch marks marring the wood. Battle scars, he thinks. But it's his now, and the only tangible link he's got to his past. He runs his fingertips along the surface, admiring the grain and weathered stain still visible despite its injuries. It has been used well.

Severus opens the door and deposits keys, badge, and wallet...all the detritus of his workday...before allowing himself to reach for the soft white pouch lying in the back corner of the shelf.

It's a ritual he doesn't understand, which does nothing to reduce its urgency. He closes the door to the cabinet and settles himself on the bed. Only then does he allow the pouch to fall open.

Pulled from the neckline of his shirt whilst undressing his first night in this place, he'd been surprised to find it twisted between the fibres of his undershirt. He has no idea how it got to be there, no explanation for how something so clearly feminine could have come to be so close to his skin.

No matter. He'd pulled it carefully from the threads entangling it and tucked it away.

He couldn't say why he had bothered, only that he knew he must.

There are precious few things that Severus knows, and he hangs on to them firmly.

He knows his childhood home is better off burnt to the ground. He would never have lived there now in any case, not with memories of his drunken father and fading mother pouring from its walls.

He knows he's not sorry to have tried to make a go of it away from here, though he cannot explain the failure that brought him back, full circle to where he began. His memories of those years have already acquired the shape and colour of the ones from childhood...grey and flat and filled with disappointment.

Which reminds him of something else he knows.

Something fundamental.

Whatever Severus Snape touches turns to dust.

He knows that should fire ever sweep through this place, the one he will never call home, there would be no one to mark his absence, not a soul to genuinely mourn him. It wouldn't be much of a loss, he thinks. Nor is there anything amongst his worldly goods worth salvaging.

Only.

He can't explain it; he knows it to be completely nonsensical.

There is one item that, for no good reason, he would do anything in his power to shield from harm.

It has no earthly function. It carries no monetary value, nor is it ornamental in any objective sense.

But it is his in a way that nothing in this life has ever been, and he knows he would surrender anything to protect it.

It lies coiled on the white cloth, the item he pulled from his body so many nights ago, and he brings a long finger to trace its contour.

He is a fool; he knows this.

To so revere a single strand of hair, coiled on itself as it lies on the white cloth he holds in his hand.

He wakes with the illusion of her scent lingering on his skin.

If he could find a way to capture it, he would. A mote of his own imagination contained in a bottle. He would tuck it away alongside her hair.

Her hair.

He knows it's not, but thinks of it as hers just the same.

The door to the wardrobe is open, and on impulse, he reaches in to take out the cloth holding that hair. It doesn't belong here, hidden away. He should keep it close, keep it safe from harm.

There is a part of him that knows he's deluded. Obsessed with a woman who doesn't even exist.

He figures this might be marginally better than obsession with a woman who does, and who would never in a thousand years return his regard. After all, Devin's preoccupation with the bint who works in the office got him nothing but a night down the nick and a probationary warning from the boss.

On the whole, he's decided, women...those not featured in his dreams...pose far more risk than reward. The ones of his acquaintance turn away, avoiding his gaze as if he might harm them with just a glance. He doesn't know what he does that's so off-putting, but the awareness gnaws at him, leaving him perpetually off balance.

He makes his way to the kitchen to rummage for something salvageable in the fridge. Stale toast and tea will do, and he eyes the whisky bottle he'd successfully avoided the night before.

She's not in there, he thinks. He'd gladly capture her scent and the memory of her voice and touch inside a bottle, like a genie in those old tales, but he knows no amount of drink will bring her to him.

Besides, he tells himself as he grabs the bottle and heads to the kitchen, he may be pathetic...he pours the half-full bottle down the sink...but he will not abide being both pathetic and drunk. Not like his father.

He's not sure why he cares. It hardly takes all his mental capacity to get through the day. He surely would be more than adequate even half pissed.

But as he watches the last of the amber liquid swirl down the drain, he feels the tightness in his chest loosen.

He might be a failure out in the big world, and he is surely destined to live the remainder of his sorry days alone.

But he'll be damned if he'll walk through even this half-life with anything less than his full consent.

And if he feels most real...and loved...in the presence of the ghostly woman who inhabits his dreams, then he'll accept it as a gift and do his damnedest to keep the wisps of memory that tether him to the feeling from melting away in the harsh light of day.

~~**~~