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𝚇𝚅 >> 𝚂𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝚃𝙾 𝙿𝙾𝙼𝙵𝚁𝙴𝚈

< 1 MONTH, 3 WEEKS, 4 DAYS >

The night prior, Remus hadn't let him leave as apace as he had planned to.

Holding him back as he left for the doorway, he had given him a long and defeatist look as he gripped his shoulders. He closed the space between him and the entry, blocking Severus' path to the outside and also to the opportunity of shirking the presence of another person (especially since this person had just seen him bleating like a child on the floor). He wanted to return to his office to read and work and eschew the thought of having been seen in such a vulnerable way by anyone other than himself, but he could not. Lupin was too concerned to merely let him leave.

"Now, Severus, you are going to answer me honestly," he said in such a way that Severus already knew he couldn't disaffirm it. "When's the last day that you ate anything other than breakfast?"

Snape loured at him and sniffed, his eyes red as his stiffly-standing legs inched themselves towards the room's egress. "Why must you ask?"

"Because," Remus replied, unbinding his grip on his shoulders to not make it seem as though he was ambuscading his efforts and not keeping him here against his will — which he sort of was — "in the whole weekend I spent in your office, not once did I see you eat dinner."

Severus swithered. "I was merely... engaged in other quite pressing undertakings."

Remus softened his eyes, his lips curling slightly upwards as concernment twisted into examination. "But you are always busy with these things."

A nod. "Yes."

They apportioned a long look between themselves, Lupin giving him a most knowing glance and Snape shooting one of answerable confirmation back. Remus looked down at the floor, the alternating black-and-white square tiles contrasting harshly against his leather moccasin-style slippers — yes, he was wearing house slippers to an Order meeting — and uttered a request so softly it took the short amount of distance between them and the silence of the entire home for Snape to be able to make out the words at all.

"Stay for dinner," he said, and Severus stiffened. He wanted to leave. He didn't care about food; he cared about sequestration.

"No."

Remus sighed. "Why?"

"I have work to do," Snape returned huskily, assimilating the after-effects of tears from his throat and shoving Remus away. "Hundreds of papers to grade. A double life to keep up. An indenture to arbitrate with my employer regarding spy work. Documents to read. Theories to study. I am... most entirely booked."

Remus pressed his lips together in a tight line. "Fifteen minutes," he paltered, which was enough for Severus to put a brief halt on buttoning his robes tighter around his neck, and this was emboldening indeed for the man; damn him for his endearing nature of such unlikely things as commitment and hope.

Somehow, in an act of arrant felicity and skill, Lupin convinced him to stay in that kitchen as he reheated the soup that he hadn't partaken of yet that night, handing it to him in a newly-aseptic wooden bowl and leaning back against the countertop. He surveilled him, eyes neutral, arms crossed, as Severus sat atop its surface to eat. Oddly speaking, it was a nice soup, made of an aberrantly light broth with cabbage and beef laced between its warming bines of steam. Remus explained that it was a recipe from one of his father's friends in Cambodia, and spent a long while talking about how it tastes good with rice but one shan't put rice in the bowl but rather have the rice in another dish and dip it in with your spoon to show that you can afford multiple sets of dishware. Snape only listened, not feeling terribly rapt with the deep explanation of cultural importances but in lieu pivoting on the light that danced through Lupin's eyes when he talked about things he was passionate about, like places around the world and interesting people and the history of the Harlem music boom, and this was good enough for him.