[ Which is, ultimately, what she's looking for. She would hate to give Tug to someone that she didn't trust to make sure that he was well cared for considering the food situation on the ship, and she also feels that, given what Charles has said about his perceptions and interactions with Nathan, he should at least be considered in getting to keep something that once belonged to him, even if Tug isn't exactly a something like the bracelet or the coat. ]
I figured as much. Most recently a couple days ago, probably. He mentioned being willing to help with walking them, and Tug especially seemed to like him. I haven't actually brought the subject up to him, outside of saying he could walk them whenever he wanted. [ Claire doesn't edge away any further, but her expression turns careful and carefully curious. ] Told me to tell you hello.
[ The dog isn't inconsequential, and Severus does understand the importance of sorting it all out. He'll be relieved on her behalf that there'll be one less causing chaos for her; maybe two will be less of a complete invasion on her life aboard the ship.
B u t. ]
I don't mind him - or anyone - knowing about us, [ he says after a moment, catching on there without either of them needing to point it out.
Us still feels so strange. ] I also don't think it's anyone's business.
[ Severus doesn't take a tone of finality - the opposite, he sounds like he's waiting for her input. At this point he's sure he doesn't have to inform her that he's not ever going to be comfortable with public displays of affection. They're both private people. ]
[ Two is still a lot of work as it is, and regardless of who cares for which animal, Claire is always going to feel a personal sense of responsibility for them. If it ever got back to her that she had let one of the animals out of her immediate sight and something happened to them, the amount of blame she would feel would be insurmountable, but it's a paranoia she's going to have to put behind her. She can't do it all on her own, and she recognizes that.
That leaves her with the other topic, something she is pretty quick to agree with him about. ]
I don't think that it's anyone's business either.
[ Having it pointed out in that way wasn't her favorite method, but she hadn't been angry. She still isn't. It's just the way things are, the way that they work. It's hardly the worst thing Charles could have gleaned from their encounter, and Severus's reaction and response provides her with enough of a reassurance and confirmation of what she had thought following her door closing behind Charles' back that she feels confident in finding his hand wherever it has gone and slipping her fingers between his. ]
But I don't care if anyone else knows about what's going on. I'm not going to print fliers or anything - [ So don't worry about that. ] - but I'm not gonna pretend like our relationship is a secret either.
[ That is such a heavy R word when used in context, but she's not alarmed by its placement or existence. At some point, the idea that acknowledging it for what it was meant making it real just stopped mattering. ]
[ Relationship is a terrifying word. Severus isn't afraid of commitment - he doesn't do anything easy, that's just him - but the concept, the construct of this in particular, isn't something he ever considered except in the abstract. Serious, casual, anything. And even those daydreams were so long ago.
It opens so many unknown doors. Not all of them good. (Some of them good. He's not sure which is more unsettling to think of.)
Still, he squeezes Claire's hand. ]
That sounds fine. [ Not actively hiding, but neither wearing a banner about it. Easing into the situation. A frisson nervousness still clings to him, but it's one that will take ages to fully dispel. If at all. ] I've never done this before.
[ Claire isn't at all surprised to hear that, at least in its conceptual sense. Though she's gotten used to him telling her things about himself she never expected to hear, it's always a little surprising to hear them all the same, to be trusted with that level of information. Maybe because she herself has such a difficult time giving anybody anything about herself that the payoff when she's able to is more than she anticipates, sometimes not even what she anticipates.
They're never good things, what he tells her, but they're good in giving her perspective, and maybe they seem like arbitrary admissions to him - maybe not - but she doesn't think of it that way. ]
Not once?
[ She doesn't ask it with any degree of incredulity, just a measure fact checking. It's still a little weird to think that she has more experience than him, never mind how little experience it actually is, at least in terms of actual relationships. Throwing that word in there, too - relationship - is such a silent and careful way of testing his definitions of what's going on here without forcing Claire to lay herself bare in having to come right out and ask. ]
[ Severus is insecure and angry about an awful lot of things, but the way he's insecure about relationships is different; he'd have to see himself entitled to one to be really properly bothered by it, maybe. And he doesn't. When Severus thinks there's no way anyone would date him, he also thinks he fucking understands why and doesn't hold it against the world. He has plenty of other things he's busy blaming the universe for.
When they were children, he and Lily thought they'd grow up and get married. Not because they were in love (or lust, they were too young to experience anything like that), but because they were the only things in each others worlds, and a day lasts a lifetime to a nine year old. Those days seemed to go on forever, a whole other reality just the two of them, too innocent to do anything but play. He got older and he thought-- or did he?
Their friendship was cut short before he ever really sorted out how he felt. Now he loves Lily in a way he doesn't know how to define; he wants her to be his family, but he also doesn't want to burden her. Severus has thought for long hours many times if he's in love with her. He usually decides it doesn't matter. If he is or he isn't, it doesn't change the intensity of what he feels or that he's motivated to do what he does for her. Albus assumed, but Albus seems to have changed his mind, slightly. Maybe. Severus doesn't know. The Dark Lord assumed, too. That had been fucking weird.
Why is he thinking about this.
Severus realizes he's probably been quiet for a bit longer than is normal. ]
I've had a sexual relationship, [ he forces himself to say-- and this time it does honestly sound a bit forced. ] I was very young and she wasn't.
[ He considers elaborating on that. Doesn't want to. ]
It was the war. I haven't wanted to engage with anyone since.
[ That's understandable, Claire thinks, nodding to emphasize the point, though it is turned more inward than it is to direct understanding or agreement with what he's saying. An internal acknowledgment of the way things are. After a certain point, things like that become insubstantial and unimportant in the wake of everything else, and while Claire recognizes her desire to connect with other people on some level to the point that she keeps trying even when, deep down, she knows better, she can see down the road, too, and look at what's waiting.
Of course the impression that she gets from those two lines of thought is that they're connected in some way, whether directly or otherwise, that whatever sort of entanglement he sustained with this older woman may have had something to do with his apathy regarding the subject later on down the line. Combined with his overall sense of worth and the perception he has of himself, Claire isn't surprised. With no point of reference for anything else, it's the thing that makes the most sense, even if she recognizes that it isn't the whole story. It's hard to bring something like that up in a way that isn't going to recall unpleasantness, though, and Claire doesn't want that. At the same time, if this is going to happen, they're going to have to answer difficult questions. They've both had bad experiences. It's immature to think they can just be swept under the rug. ]
How old were you? [ Her voice seems very loud following his uninterrupted silence, even if she's keeping it quiet, between them. ] With the older woman, I mean, not during the war.
It's mostly the same. [ There's a verbal shrug in his words. ] Seventeen, eighteen... [ how long did it last? Where was the line when it imploded into hate? It seems hugely unimportant, in retrospect. ] The war ended when I was twenty-one. I... [ Severus looks at her, expression wry. ] It should be clear: I did a lot of things, then. On my own accord, all of them, some more encouraged by outside parties than others. If there's a list of awful things that went on, that is rather far down on the list.
[ It was enabling all of his worst instincts, it was wildly inappropriate, it was probably emotionally abusive, it was ultimately something he didn't enjoy, but it wasn't exactly going to put her in prison. He sees it as something that happened, not something that happened to him. Unlike an incident he keeps out of his mind deliberately, Severus is cognizant of what that affair did to his attitudes about sex. It is what it is. ]
[ Her tone is firm but not clipped or aggressive. Not for the first time, it occurs to her that, logically, she should probably be anywhere else, with anyone else, other than right here. But for as much as that rings as a probable true, there's no getting up and leaving; there isn't even any desire. She is exactly where she wants to be. Claire doesn't feel bad for him - okay, on some level she is always going to feel bad, that's what happens when you care about someone and their life is shit and you're powerless to change anything about it - but she acknowledges it as some fundamental piece and she's not going to discard the individual for the whole. ]
You don't have to spell it out directly for me to understand that a lot of shitty things happened. [ She means that in the sense that they happened to him and also that he was part of them. Claire reconciles that by doing her best to understand the person who's letting her knees occupy space in his lap. ] I'm really not here to judge you. I just want to get a better picture.
[ Still, she kind of wants to find that woman and punch her in the face. ]
[ Severus is privately surprised that he wasn't worried about her judgment. At this point, he thinks she's probably here to stay.
He's not sure when that happened. ]
I suppose if I have 'experience' it's just very uneven. [ This is not so much a joke as just trying to brush off the gravity of admitting all that. Severus doesn't want to dwell on it; he doesn't want to get into the details, he doesn't want anyone to know who it was, he doesn't want to discuss working girls and how women he paid just to make sure those weren't the only experiences in his head were kinder. ] Even if not for that, I never had time. And I wasn't exactly sought after.
[ Uneven is probably a polite way of putting it, she realizes. If the war and this particular relationship go hand in hand in any capacity, then she can't imagine that experience, while probably educational, was anything positive. She doesn't say any experience is better than none, because she of all people knows how untrue that is and doesn't believe it, besides. She's never envied anyone that. ]
If you could call it that. [ She'll never have the opportunity, probably, to determine what she and Gretchen were. West was a failure and a disappointment, and everything before that leaves her too young to have anything substantial. ] If you're really stretching the dictionary definition. They never worked out and they never lasted. For a lot of reasons. All two of them.
[ West more so than Gretchen was a flash in the pan, a longing to connect, finding someone like her and not wanting to let go. That urge hasn't been extinguished, even if her understanding of it as it relates to him has. She feels the same way about Gretchen, even if that sever is more recent. ]
[ Severus wants to say that he thinks it has nothing to do with her, and probably much more to do with her circumstances - but that would probably come off sort of annoying. Though he can still imagine it.
Isolation. ]
An excellent mutual track record. [ FOR THIS TERRIBLE IDEA. But no, he doesn't sound critical; part of him is relieved that neither of them terribly outbalance the other. ] I never thought I'd be suited to it.
[ And he's still not sure. But he likes her. Obviously. ]
[ Claire snorts, a rush of air more than anything, never mind that she's also actually somewhat relieved that their individual circumstances nullify any effort the past has made to outstripe the other. Granted, she's sure they edge ahead in different areas, but Claire isn't counting. ]
I don't think most people do. [ But she squints, because that doesn't sound right. ] Well, maybe people who don't have our track record do, but that's their prerogative. [ She has to untangle her hand to do it, but Claire reaches across his sternum to slip her arm over his opposite shoulder. The result leaves her stretched across him, tucked in close. ] For the record, I think you're doing alright.
[ She still isn't sure either, but she likes him. Obviously. And she'd rather have their excellent mutual track record and all the bullshit that comes as a result than not have anything at all. That, she supposes, has to count for something. ]
[ Claire actually knows how to function around other living people, and Severus isn't scared of female biology. Perhaps it evens out.
(Probably not.) ]
I have to accredit it to you, [ he says lowly, letting her coil around him and sliding his arm to hold her.
Severus doesn't know how to explain, still, why he was as vehemently opposed at first as he was. If he disliked her, if she was less effective in slinking in around his barriers, it would have been easier to screwed around or cut her off. It's riskier this way. He doesn't want to get used to anything. But everyone says they won't remember. Maybe it's fine. To have something for a moment. ]
[ For her part, in the quiet moments when she's left alone long enough to think, she can rationalize all the ways in which this is a bad idea, a bad strategy, can summon up the anxiety inherent in letting it continue when she's pretty sure one or the both of them is going to hurt the other in some way. If it's not an interpersonal thing, then it's going to she wakes up from a jump one day, and he's vanished the way Peter and Nathan have. Or he's going to get murdered by the ship or something. In those moments the risks outweigh the benefits and she recognizes how stupid and reckless it is to get involved.
And then just as quickly she doesn't care and it doesn't matter, and she's letting her arm fall from his shoulder to his side where she can let it drop and just exist here for a while. ]
I only accept payment for accreditation the form of bribes and making out.
[ You know... just so he knows. Hopefully her face has not gone full tomato. After all of that, though, a little levity is probably warranted. ]
[ Severus lets out a quiet bark of laughter, surprised at how frank she is sometimes. But he likes it; he believes she'll be straight with him when he pisses her off - not if. Because he has already, and she's bitten his head off for it, and that's fine.
Her face is a little bit tomato. Severus thinks it's cute. When he ducks down to kiss her it feels a little braver than time days before. ]
[ It's probably never going to be a seamless transition. She's probably always going to miss a little, nine times out of ten, and she's probably always going to kiss him with some degree of apprehension, like an awareness of the fact that it could be the last time before something horrible goes wrong. But she has made a decision that there's not going to be any hesitation, because why should there be? For as much as they both believe that the probability for something going wrong is high enough to justify constant consideration, conscious or unconscious, Claire feels like it's important not to let that translate.
Her fingertips pluck the shirt and gather the material into the curl of her knuckles, and she very easily does not stop to consider how long she has been up here and how irresponsible a dog owner she's being. By her count, she has at least another twenty minutes. ]
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I figured as much. Most recently a couple days ago, probably. He mentioned being willing to help with walking them, and Tug especially seemed to like him. I haven't actually brought the subject up to him, outside of saying he could walk them whenever he wanted. [ Claire doesn't edge away any further, but her expression turns careful and carefully curious. ] Told me to tell you hello.
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B u t. ]
I don't mind him - or anyone - knowing about us, [ he says after a moment, catching on there without either of them needing to point it out.
Us still feels so strange. ] I also don't think it's anyone's business.
[ Severus doesn't take a tone of finality - the opposite, he sounds like he's waiting for her input. At this point he's sure he doesn't have to inform her that he's not ever going to be comfortable with public displays of affection. They're both private people. ]
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That leaves her with the other topic, something she is pretty quick to agree with him about. ]
I don't think that it's anyone's business either.
[ Having it pointed out in that way wasn't her favorite method, but she hadn't been angry. She still isn't. It's just the way things are, the way that they work. It's hardly the worst thing Charles could have gleaned from their encounter, and Severus's reaction and response provides her with enough of a reassurance and confirmation of what she had thought following her door closing behind Charles' back that she feels confident in finding his hand wherever it has gone and slipping her fingers between his. ]
But I don't care if anyone else knows about what's going on. I'm not going to print fliers or anything - [ So don't worry about that. ] - but I'm not gonna pretend like our relationship is a secret either.
[ That is such a heavy R word when used in context, but she's not alarmed by its placement or existence. At some point, the idea that acknowledging it for what it was meant making it real just stopped mattering. ]
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It opens so many unknown doors. Not all of them good. (Some of them good. He's not sure which is more unsettling to think of.)
Still, he squeezes Claire's hand. ]
That sounds fine. [ Not actively hiding, but neither wearing a banner about it. Easing into the situation. A frisson nervousness still clings to him, but it's one that will take ages to fully dispel. If at all. ] I've never done this before.
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They're never good things, what he tells her, but they're good in giving her perspective, and maybe they seem like arbitrary admissions to him - maybe not - but she doesn't think of it that way. ]
Not once?
[ She doesn't ask it with any degree of incredulity, just a measure fact checking. It's still a little weird to think that she has more experience than him, never mind how little experience it actually is, at least in terms of actual relationships. Throwing that word in there, too - relationship - is such a silent and careful way of testing his definitions of what's going on here without forcing Claire to lay herself bare in having to come right out and ask. ]
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When they were children, he and Lily thought they'd grow up and get married. Not because they were in love (or lust, they were too young to experience anything like that), but because they were the only things in each others worlds, and a day lasts a lifetime to a nine year old. Those days seemed to go on forever, a whole other reality just the two of them, too innocent to do anything but play. He got older and he thought-- or did he?
Their friendship was cut short before he ever really sorted out how he felt. Now he loves Lily in a way he doesn't know how to define; he wants her to be his family, but he also doesn't want to burden her. Severus has thought for long hours many times if he's in love with her. He usually decides it doesn't matter. If he is or he isn't, it doesn't change the intensity of what he feels or that he's motivated to do what he does for her. Albus assumed, but Albus seems to have changed his mind, slightly. Maybe. Severus doesn't know. The Dark Lord assumed, too. That had been fucking weird.
Why is he thinking about this.
Severus realizes he's probably been quiet for a bit longer than is normal. ]
I've had a sexual relationship, [ he forces himself to say-- and this time it does honestly sound a bit forced. ] I was very young and she wasn't.
[ He considers elaborating on that. Doesn't want to. ]
It was the war. I haven't wanted to engage with anyone since.
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Of course the impression that she gets from those two lines of thought is that they're connected in some way, whether directly or otherwise, that whatever sort of entanglement he sustained with this older woman may have had something to do with his apathy regarding the subject later on down the line. Combined with his overall sense of worth and the perception he has of himself, Claire isn't surprised. With no point of reference for anything else, it's the thing that makes the most sense, even if she recognizes that it isn't the whole story. It's hard to bring something like that up in a way that isn't going to recall unpleasantness, though, and Claire doesn't want that. At the same time, if this is going to happen, they're going to have to answer difficult questions. They've both had bad experiences. It's immature to think they can just be swept under the rug. ]
How old were you? [ Her voice seems very loud following his uninterrupted silence, even if she's keeping it quiet, between them. ] With the older woman, I mean, not during the war.
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[ It was enabling all of his worst instincts, it was wildly inappropriate, it was probably emotionally abusive, it was ultimately something he didn't enjoy, but it wasn't exactly going to put her in prison. He sees it as something that happened, not something that happened to him. Unlike an incident he keeps out of his mind deliberately, Severus is cognizant of what that affair did to his attitudes about sex. It is what it is. ]
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[ Her tone is firm but not clipped or aggressive. Not for the first time, it occurs to her that, logically, she should probably be anywhere else, with anyone else, other than right here. But for as much as that rings as a probable true, there's no getting up and leaving; there isn't even any desire. She is exactly where she wants to be. Claire doesn't feel bad for him - okay, on some level she is always going to feel bad, that's what happens when you care about someone and their life is shit and you're powerless to change anything about it - but she acknowledges it as some fundamental piece and she's not going to discard the individual for the whole. ]
You don't have to spell it out directly for me to understand that a lot of shitty things happened. [ She means that in the sense that they happened to him and also that he was part of them. Claire reconciles that by doing her best to understand the person who's letting her knees occupy space in his lap. ] I'm really not here to judge you. I just want to get a better picture.
[ Still, she kind of wants to find that woman and punch her in the face. ]
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He's not sure when that happened. ]
I suppose if I have 'experience' it's just very uneven. [ This is not so much a joke as just trying to brush off the gravity of admitting all that. Severus doesn't want to dwell on it; he doesn't want to get into the details, he doesn't want anyone to know who it was, he doesn't want to discuss working girls and how women he paid just to make sure those weren't the only experiences in his head were kinder. ] Even if not for that, I never had time. And I wasn't exactly sought after.
[ Understatement of the century. ]
You have, though. Been in a relationship.
[ Because she seemed so surprised. ]
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If you could call it that. [ She'll never have the opportunity, probably, to determine what she and Gretchen were. West was a failure and a disappointment, and everything before that leaves her too young to have anything substantial. ] If you're really stretching the dictionary definition. They never worked out and they never lasted. For a lot of reasons. All two of them.
[ West more so than Gretchen was a flash in the pan, a longing to connect, finding someone like her and not wanting to let go. That urge hasn't been extinguished, even if her understanding of it as it relates to him has. She feels the same way about Gretchen, even if that sever is more recent. ]
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Isolation. ]
An excellent mutual track record. [ FOR THIS TERRIBLE IDEA. But no, he doesn't sound critical; part of him is relieved that neither of them terribly outbalance the other. ] I never thought I'd be suited to it.
[ And he's still not sure. But he likes her. Obviously. ]
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I don't think most people do. [ But she squints, because that doesn't sound right. ] Well, maybe people who don't have our track record do, but that's their prerogative. [ She has to untangle her hand to do it, but Claire reaches across his sternum to slip her arm over his opposite shoulder. The result leaves her stretched across him, tucked in close. ] For the record, I think you're doing alright.
[ She still isn't sure either, but she likes him. Obviously. And she'd rather have their excellent mutual track record and all the bullshit that comes as a result than not have anything at all. That, she supposes, has to count for something. ]
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(Probably not.) ]
I have to accredit it to you, [ he says lowly, letting her coil around him and sliding his arm to hold her.
Severus doesn't know how to explain, still, why he was as vehemently opposed at first as he was. If he disliked her, if she was less effective in slinking in around his barriers, it would have been easier to screwed around or cut her off. It's riskier this way. He doesn't want to get used to anything. But everyone says they won't remember. Maybe it's fine. To have something for a moment. ]
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And then just as quickly she doesn't care and it doesn't matter, and she's letting her arm fall from his shoulder to his side where she can let it drop and just exist here for a while. ]
I only accept payment for accreditation the form of bribes and making out.
[ You know... just so he knows. Hopefully her face has not gone full tomato. After all of that, though, a little levity is probably warranted. ]
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Her face is a little bit tomato. Severus thinks it's cute. When he ducks down to kiss her it feels a little braver than time days before. ]
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Her fingertips pluck the shirt and gather the material into the curl of her knuckles, and she very easily does not stop to consider how long she has been up here and how irresponsible a dog owner she's being. By her count, she has at least another twenty minutes. ]