Hearts are Blind (Severus Snape X OC)

In The Company Of A Man

She'd been gone for a year and a half. Such a faint bit of time in the grand scheme of things, but if he didn't know better, he'd thought she'd been gone for a decade, the way the man lugged himself around in such bitterness and defeat. How pathetic was he? His already pale skin had turned gray over the last year and it stretched over the bones in his face, making him even more terrifying than he'd already been. No wonder his students steered clear... He looked like a bloody reaper of souls.

"What the hell are you staring at?"

Oh, well that wasn't very nice, at all. He had such a temper to begin with, but now he was impossibly fragile over the tiniest things. Not a single word could be spoken to him—Merlin forbid even look at him—without fear of the man-child having a temper-tantrum.

"I was just looking at your ghostly soul," Jasper said breathlessly, with a squint over the potion master's shoulder. "There it goes! Hurry and catch it, before it possesses someone and makes them wear black—"

"Give me my shipment."

Not even the teensiest glimmer of annoyance. Should he try harder? Should he reach under the shop counter for a handful of powdered ginger root to throw in his face and make him sneeze?

"Well, Severus, I can't, in good conscience, give it to you," Jasper said with a solemn nod. Then he added with a smile, "Not without a 'please'."

The potions master's eyes darkened to an abysmal black, as if they hadn't already been black to begin with. This was a whole other level of the color. His hair hung in greasy strings in front of his sunken face and he bared slightly crooked teeth at the shopkeeper.

"Then I shall take it from you," Severus whispered evilly.

Jasper held his gaze easily, clear blue eyes hardening just a little. Severus didn't waver, either. Jasper closed his eyes and sighed. "Fine," he said and turned away. "Be that way, Severus. Abuse me. Ignore my letters. Only come in for your little school supplies and to threaten a poor, sick man."

The potions professor didn't answer and the apothecary owner continued to the back of the shop for the aforementioned shipment. He carried the box back into the store front and set it atop the counter. "Twenty-two galleons, please," Jasper said tightly.

Severus had been reaching in his pocket for the coins, but now he looked back up sharply. "Twenty-two?" He repeated with a sneer of anger. "You raised the price?"

"Well, I did say I was a poor, sick man." Jasper pouted slightly, yet there was condescension in his tone.

The potions master's eyes flashed. "What you are is a bastard." Coming from anyone else, it might have sounded in jest, but coming from Severus... He meant it.

"Come now, old friend," the man replied with a smirk. "You should be nicer to me. What will you do when I'm not around anymore?"

Severus kept his glare intact. He finished fishing out the coins from his pocket and dropped them on the counter with a noisy clatter. "I'm not your friend," he said with complete assurance. Then he took the box and left.

~

She didn't know how he'd found her... but that hardly mattered now. His letter had shaken her terribly. She knew she wasn't supposed to go near that place again, but she also couldn't ignore such an ominous note. She spent several hours, hands shaking, pacing her Chicago flat and trying to decide what the next step would be. She could send word to her parents. They could go check on him... Then again, they didn't know him. What if this was his one and only cry for help and not going sent him over the edge? What if he thought that she didn't care? What if he really did the unthinkable..?