Work Text:
"Lucius?" Severus' once silken voice was the croak of an injured frog as he slowly woke. Through the cloud of bleariness in his eyes he perceived the patrician features, stone grey eyes, and that perfectly smooth and pale hair.
Severus, despite the pain in his throat, the ache in his joints, had an irrational desire to grab a lock of that hair in his fist and yank it. Not completely understanding where he was but realising he was alive and would never get such a foolish chance again, his hand rose so blasted slowly...
"Ah! He's moving! Severus? Are you with us now?"
Behind Lucius a rather shrewd looking woman in a simple day dress of muslin with an overdress of burgundy, stood watching the scene unfold. She began to smirk, somehow guessing where the Potions Master's hand was travelling.
Fingers, long stained by work at a potions table, elegant in their spidery length, twined themselves in the hank of pale hair faster than any would expect. Lucius was far to late to stop the inevitable and gave out a cursed shout with invectives that betrayed a long ago summer's evening when the two men in the absurd tableuax had gotten plastered in Muggle London and involved in nothing more base than a barroom brawl.
Just as quickly as Severus' fingers had tugged Lucius' hair with relish, the hand now joined the other on the fading man's even breathing chest. Eyes now closed, but a smirk ghosting those thin lips, he fell back into the comforting arms of Somnus.
Lucius turned, his eyes flashing indignantly at the sound of laughter at his expense. "You overstep your boundaries, Mud... muggle," he snarled, glaring at the smile of mirth on the woman's decidedly generous lips.
"I did warn you, Sir," she replied with perfect deference to the master of the house. "You would have your own way, though. Can you not be happy that at least he has finally wakened?"
Lucius sighed and mentally squashed his wounded pride. He had had a lot of practice in doing that lately. So far it had kept himself and his family out of Azkaban. The future was an unknown commodity, though, and Azkaban still loomed like the dreary tower it was over the Malfoy family.
"Yes. Severus did wake. That is progress, at least."
Lucius gently laid a hand over the thin hands laced over the injured wizard's chest. "You are alive, Severus, and for that I shall forgive your impertinence."