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Ron winced as the bass started rattling his teeth as he waited to be served. More booze wouldn't help, but it might make him less inclined to vomit at everyone loving very loudly around him.
He'd lost Luna to a witch with purple hair about ten minutes after arriving, leaving him alone to grow steadily more miserable.
Finally, the wizard behind the bar headed towards him, but before he could open his mouth someone appeared next to him and cut in.
“Er, hello? Am I fucking invisible?” Ron demanded.
He froze as the man turned towards him, wearing a look of disdain. “Weasley, I'm merely reporting someone having fainted while dancing, not stealing your position for whatever sad little cocktail you’ve chosen.”
“Tetchy as ever, then,” Ron said, putting down his cocktail menu.
“No, merely trying to keep this place as safe a space as it needs to be.”
Ron exhaled hard through his nose. “Why are you here?”
“If you're asking existentially, I have no clue and have wished several times that I wasn't. If you're asking with regard to sexuality, however, it's clearly because I identify under the umbrella acronym that fits the clientele. Why are you here?”
“I just fucking love rainbows,” Ron deadpanned.
He looked up through his eyelashes as Severus Snape looked down at him. He was surprised to find the wizard wearing a half-smile.
“The person who fainted… Did she have blonde hair and a flower crown by any chance?” Luna had form for it, so he had to check.
“What in Salazar’s slick dick is a ‘flower crown’?! But no, they weren't wearing any flowers.”
Ron silently appraised the subtle use of pronouns and outwardly laughed at the question.
“Sorry, Ron, I'm back,” the barman apologised. “What'll it be?”
“Firewhiskey old fashioned, please. Would you like a drink?” He asked the older man next to him.
Dark eyes narrowed slightly and Ron met their gaze. Eventually Severus seemed to find what he was looking for and nodded to the barman. “Same, please.”
Ron was about to offer a seat when the thin, black-clad body of his old Potions Master perched on the stool next to him. He tried to recall the last time he'd been in the man's presence and couldn't. He'd certainly never seen him in the club before, but the wizard seemed familiar with it.
“Do you come here often?” Ron asked.
“Not as often as I used to.”
Ron felt awkward as fuck as he waited for his drink. There was no chatter from beside him and he suddenly felt exhausted. Like he'd rather be at home under a blanket and the special ‘sleepy-time’ tea that Hermione used to give him when he was wracked with insomnia post-war.
His chest gave a miserable ache and Ron shifted awkwardly on the bar stool.
“Two double firewhiskey shot Old Fashioneds, on the house of course for my favourite live-in member of law enforcement.”
“You've gotta stop this,” Ron groaned. “I’ll get a bollocking for accepting freebies and drinking on the job. But thank you,” he added.
“You forgot to thank me for ‘making you look hot in front of your date’, Weasley.”
Before Ron could respond, the barman had shot off to serve someone else.
“Sorry,” Ron mumbled, then knocked back his first mouthful.
“What for?”
“That he made a joke that you were my date.”
“Why?”
Ron frowned at him. “Well I doubt I'd even be your fifth choice out of this entire club, would I?”
He watched the bob of Severus Snape’s throat as he too drank a deep mouthful.
“Don't be so harsh on yourself, Weasley. You'd be at least third.”
Ron was very confused, because it sounded as though he'd just been flirted with. He was notoriously terrible at recognising it.
“What did he mean, live-in law enforcement?”
Ron sipped his drink and flicked his tongue at the citrus oil coating the rim of the glass. “When I'm here, if they have trouble at the door I go up, flash my Auror credentials and try and get whoever is hating queers to fuck off - either of their own volition or into a Ministry Holding Cell.”
“Does that happen often?”
“More than I'd like to admit for a society that's supposedly understanding.” Ron made a face. “It's usually the same suspects though.”
“It must be difficult for you that even a safe space such as this isn't a relief - if you're always on duty even when it's unofficial? Who makes you feel safe?”
Ron shrugged. “But, better me than the alternative. And I can't be here every night so I feel like when I am, I should do it. My friends come here. People that need encouragement to be who they truly are come here to find themselves. They deserve protection.”
Ron noticed the shine to the man's hair as he gave a nod of agreement.
“So what do you normally do when you come here, before playing saviour to all queer wizardkind?”
“Sit at the bar, get hit on by absolutely nobody, and then go home sad.”
“Fucking hell, Weasley, that's depressing.”
Ron shrugged and drank some more. He couldn't dispute the stone cold truth. “What do you do when you come here?”
Snape finished his drink and pushed it back towards the bar side. “Sometimes I just come here to let out a breath somewhere safe. Sometimes I come here to find someone to fuck. Sometimes I come here to dance.”
“Dance? Really? You?”
There was a despairing sigh. “How disappointing. You claim to want to protect the people within this club and maintain the safe space, but then laugh at the attempts of one of them to lose themselves within it.”
“What, no, that's not what I-”
“Wasn't it?”
Ron felt sick with himself. You're such a fucking arsehole.
“I just… I didn't know you came here. I don't know you at all, beyond school and everything that happened in the war. I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you in the way you think. Just… surprised. Honestly.”
“Even when you were at school I was coming here. Hoping to blend into the furniture rather than be noticed or find any pleasure in being here. Like yourself.”
Ron closed his eyes and downed another mouthful.
“Would you like to dance, Weasley?”
Thanking Merlin he'd already swallowed his drink when he heard that, Ron froze. He couldn't remember the last time he'd danced with anyone. Panic shot through him. He'd come straight from work and was pretty sure he needed a shower.
But it was rude to leave a request hanging.
“Sure. If you call me Ron? And let me call you Severus?”
A muscle twitched in a sallow cheek as the wizard fought off a smile. “I think that can be permitted for one evening.”
Tossing back the last of his drink, Ron eased off his seat and pulled off his outer work robe. He didn't know what to do with his hands, so, in a move that he'd attribute to the firewhiskey come the morning, he held one out to Severus.
The wizard looked like he was about to laugh, but at the last moment reached out and slipped their fingers together.
Ron also blamed the firewhiskey for the way that touch made him a little breathless.
His touch was grounding, however, as Severus led them out of the seating area surrounding the bar. They stepped without notice into the thick of moving bodies. Ron immediately felt claustrophobia prickling at his skin and mind, but forced it back in its psychological box as he'd been taught.
“Um, how do we-?”
His awkward question was swallowed by the music and instead, warm hands settled on his hips and turned him around. The fingers stayed splayed there, gently holding him back-to-chest with Severus.
Hot breath whispered in his ear, “Is this okay?”
Ron was momentarily stunned by the reality of anyone being able to whisper into his ear. Usually he was taller than everyone. Behind him, Severus was moving very gently in a soft sway that he moved Ron's hips to in time to the music.
“Mmhmm,” he hummed through a dopey smile.
Wiry arms then wrapped around his waist from behind and pulled him flush against Severus’ surprisingly strong body.
“Still okay?” Another whisper came.
Ron closed his eyes, seeing the flashing colours of the lights through the lids. He couldn't remember the last time someone had made him the little spoon, taken him in their warm arms - made him feel safe.
They stayed like that for a good while, shifting in time to the music through a few different songs. One was bouncy but Severus' rhythm stayed the same - slow and steady.
“You smell delicious,” a rumbling purr tickled his ear. “I wonder if you taste like orange bitters?”
Ron immediately began to sweat. He was surely not hearing those words from this wizard? He looked back over his shoulder and found a worried expression.
“Too far?” Severus asked, for the first time seeming vulnerable. “I apologise.”
He immediately withdrew his arms and Ron wanted to scream.
“No! No not at all, Severus. It was good.”
Ron turned to face him, crowding close again. He lifted his arms to loop them around Severus' neck. His fingers brushed long, dark hair and Ron had an urge to sniff it.
They were nose-to-nose, keeping a far slower rhythm than the song required. Nobody paid them a blind bit of notice, however, and Ron felt brave enough to press his body in a little closer.
Severus' hands had stayed respectfully on his hips until that point, but then one crept up to curl around Ron's back and the other drifted just slightly south. One thumb hooked into the waistband of his trousers whilst criminally long fingers gently groped his arse.
Never one to miss a chance to go tit-for-tat, Ron threaded his fingers into the black curtain of hair dripping down between Severus’ shoulder blades, lifting his other hand to stroke the wizard's cheek with his thumb.
Groin to groin, there would be no missing any stirring of attraction in either party. For the first time in too long, Ron found himself hoping.
“Any closer and you'll be in my chest cavity,” Severus smirked at him. “Are you always this… tactile?”
Ron blushed and dropped his gaze.
“Not a complaint,” Severus went on. “I just don't often have cause to find myself locked up in the arms of a man half my age.”
Ron didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing, instead choosing to quicken the pace of their dance.
The music level dropped as a slower song started playing.
“Thank Circe, I can stop pretending to hear you through the racket,” Ron breathed in relief.
Severus laughed, a dark little chuckle that made Ron mentally preen to know he'd evoked it.
“Can I ask you a question?” Severus tilted his head and Ron’s pulse kicked up a notch.
“Yeah, sure…”
“How long have you been coming here?”
That wasn't what Ron had been expecting.
“I think about a year and a bit?” He struggled to remember. “After my divorce.”
He realised that his addition had been the answer of the real question all along as Severus' expression gave away a hint of relief.
“I didn't really understand my preferences until I was over twenty. Bloody stupid, really. Nearly ruined both our lives with a marriage that was never going to last.”
“It's not stupid to need time to understand yourself.”
“I know, but-”
“And let's be frank, your teenage years were eaten up by a war you should never have had to fight. Where's the room for self-exploration and experimentation when you're constantly convinced the next knock on the door is Death?”
Ron's protest died in his throat because Severus was right.
“And if it helps, I truly understand. Godric knows it's taken me many more years than you to properly unpick the barbed wire of my attractions and infatuations. War makes things feel absolute. When it ends, the fear thaws and leaves you facing the choices you made during it.”
Ron nodded and looked shyly down between them.
“This is a safe space,” Severus repeated his words from earlier in the night. “I come here to openly be able to do things I would never do beyond its walls.”
“Oh?” Ron playfully asked. “Such as?”
“Dance with beautiful, blue-eyed redheads who practically melt into my body and shiver at my touch.”
“Very smooth.” Ron rolled his eyes but couldn't fight the smile which sprung to his lips. “Anything else?”
“No… everything else I'd do outside of this club, too.” Severus’ smirk was gorgeously wicked.
“Where?” Ron murmured breathily, unable to pull his gaze from the wizard's mouth.
“Where do you think?”
The words were a low drawl and Ron dared himself to stay close so that Severus could tell the effect he was having on him.
“Hmmm… bathroom wall?” Ron offered, biting coquettishly into his lower lip.
“Oh, inject a modicum of class into proceedings, I beg of you.”
Their lips were nearly touching.
“Oh, a fancy man… kitchen table?”
Ron held his breath as they kissed, immediately welcoming in a persistent tongue. He squeezed with his arms and rolled his hips forward. He started to feel dizzy.
“Do remember to breathe, darling idiot,” Severus muttered against him.
Ron swallowed the words and kissed back harder, which they then started to do in turn until they stood properly necking with each other in the middle of the dancefloor but absolutely no longer dancing.
Hands roamed, crotches rutted, throats groaned - stoking a full on rampant heat that burned through every part of Ron until he thought he might just combust.
Eventually they broke lip contact but stayed forehead to forehead, both gasping hot air over each other's flushed faces.
“Are you sure you wouldn't consider the kitchen table?” Ron grinned.
“The closest you'll get is a sofa and I'd be extremely pedantic about which,” Severus bartered.
Ron pretended to think before he leant into the man's ear and whispered, “Why don't we just fuck in a bed and save the agony tomorrow?”
“Whose?”
“Mine probably wouldn't meet your impeccable standards.”
Severus’ only response was a quirked eyebrow.
“Let me just find Luna to say goodbye, and then… bed?” He grinned bashfully.
Severus kissed him, hard.