disclaimer: Not mine. Some are of Whedon, some are of Rowling. Sue me not. Pennies you will get only.
words: 500
note: For emeraldswan. Long overdue. Payment for good guessing.

*~*~*~*~*

She was sitting on the sofa in his family home. Lounging actually. Like she was comfortable on the ancient and threadbare-in-places thing.

"What are you doing here?"

"Sitting." She answered cheerily.

She always answered cheerily. He'd noticed that about her. Not all the time, but with him, she was extra-special sunshine. Probably to brighten his personal dark rain cloud aura.

Her grin widened. "Waiting for you."

"Miss Rosenberg-"

She shot off of the sofa, pressing her fingertips to his lips to shush him. Her hand was quite warm and smelled of that vanilla lotion she and her blonde slayer friend liked to use. They were all so full of scents, these Americans, and he noted each and every one of them.

"Oh don't, Mister I'm-so-not-loveable-because-I-kill-people. Who hasn't?"

He blinked. It was all he COULD do. Killed people? What? Her? Rubbish. He must have heard incorrectly. Bloody hell, were his ears failing him with age?

"You know. I know you know. You just have to know. They must had said something. They live to talk, those Order people. They talk about me like I should be the other pea in your wicked little pod. The killers. The ones that dabbled too hard in the dark. The ones that should not be allowed to live."

It was rare for Severus Snape to be at a loss for words, but he was. He had not heard wrong. He had most definitely not heard wrong, and no, he had not known. No one had told him. They had not seen fit to tell him this huge thing about her that would make her make sense to him. She had seemed until now like a puzzle with ill-fitting pieces. He could sense the dark on her. It was on her skin like smoke or spice. It clung to her. The way she had tried to cling to him through this whole ordeal. He'd tried to be noble about this because what could a young woman possibly want with a damaged old thing like himself?

But he saw now.

And he would cling back

Because it would irritate the whole lot of them, the do-gooders. Granted, he was technically part of them, but THEY didn't count him as part of them. Because of that thing he'd done that time, as this redhead's little friend Dawn would say. It was startling to him that their little group, the slayers' group, liked him. They didn't care how coarse or abrupt he was, they just snarked, another Dawn saying, right back. They did not care that he'd done what needed to be done, even though it had hurt many. This group, especially the redhead, seemed to understand it all too well.

He brushed some hair from her cheek. "It was good of you to wait."

She just grinned impishly at him. "Can we move past all the posturing and just snuggle now? I've been wanting to snuggle with you for the longest time."

Severus scowled. Merlin help him, what in the name of the petulant gods was he getting himself into here?

*~*~*

end