Work Text:
Saturday, June 3rd, 2006
Severus looked up from his position in the bath, sitting with one leg bent under the other, as the one on top was folded over the edge. All the while he was slouched with his back pressed against the wall behind the tub. His gaze met his husband who had just entered the room with a camera that was turned on, a video that would later be sent to their friends to watch as the group was prone to do. Technically, they could have just used their phones, but they all found using an actual camera much funnier, and that was the goal of the videos: to make each other laugh.
“As you can see: my husband is sitting, fully clothed, in an empty bathtub eating a Root Beer Float out of an old McDonald’s cup, the only cup he will drink out of except for his bottles and sippy cups. Except, plot twist, that isn’t a Root Beer Float.” Remus dramatically narrated, before pushing Severus’s leg into the tub and sitting on the edge. “Severus, what are the two key ingredients to a Root Beer Float?”
“Vanilla Ice Cream and Root Beer.” He took a bit of the Ice Cream in his treat.
“What kind of Ice Cream is in that cup?”
“Strawberry.”
“What kind of soda is in that cup?”
“Dr. Pepper.”
“So,” Remus declared, “you cannot call that a Root Beer Float, am I correct?”
“No.”
“And why is that?”
Severus sat up straight, crisscrossing his legs, getting a look on his face only describable as “pretentious, annoyed, and angry in a catholic school boy way” , which to anyone who knew him could recognize as joking, but which would terrify anyone else, especially one who knew him from his teaching days.
“Well?” Remus asked.
“Now you listen here: I have not spent decades being traumatized and mentally ill just to eat an actual Root Beer Float in a normal place you fucking neurotypical bitch.”
Remus could no longer hold up the façade, beginning to laugh a little, though trying to hide it so they could keep going. “I’m not even neurotypical, I have two different anxiety disorders.”
“I have PTSD and OCD too, plus autism, ADHD, and about a million other disabilities, not just neurodivergent ones either, so I win.”
“You win being disabled?”
“Yes!” He drank a little bit of the mixed Dr. Pepper and melted Ice Cream. It didn’t really taste good per se, but he enjoyed it nonetheless.
“I don’t know if that is possible.” Remus laughed again.
“It is, I win.”
“Y’know I’m traumatized too.”
“Oh, yeah, totally.” Another bite. “It must have been so terrible being bit by a big, scary, doggy over four-and-a-half decades ago.”
“First of all: most dog bites don’t lead to painful, traumatizing, transformations every month that get you locked in a cellar with no explanation until you’re ten. Second of all: you’re the one who made me stay up with you for two hours last night because you had a nightmare about a Great Dane and Chihuahua puppies .”
Severus blushed, face falling to its usual expression. “It should be known, only the Chihuahua’s were puppies, the Great Dane was full-grown.”
He laughed more. “No, because all that happened was that the puppies toddled around in the grass, and the Great Dane looked at him.”
“It was set in our backyard!”
“So?”
“And the dog’s weren’t the scary part.”
“What was then?”
“It was scary because when I’m outside by myself and one of the neighbors' dogs comes near me I shout for you and you come scare it away for me, but in the dream I kept screaming and screaming, but you just left me out there alone. I felt trapped and like you were tired of me.”
“Aw, baby.” Remus ruffled his hair as he ate a bit more ice cream. “That won’t happen….None of our neighbors even have a Great Dane.”
Severus couldn’t help but laugh a little himself, lowering his head to look at his rainbow socks. He hated wearing socks, but he had therapy earlier and struggled with changing his clothes, even just taking off socks, so would wear them until his next bath.
“Sev?”
“I still win at being disabled.”
“You cannot be more disabled!” Remus laughed. “That’s now how disability works!”
“My therapist said I have more problems than the three hardest patients she’s had before, and she’s been working thirteen years, so….”
“Is she allowed to say that?”
“I don’t know, but she did.”
“Honestly, it’s believable.”
“Yep, so I am medically diagnosed as being more disabled than you.”
“I don’t think so.” The more the conversation went on, the less serious Remus was.
“I don’t have anymore…drink-food.” Severus frowned after drinking the melted Ice Cream at the bottom, which had just enough Dr. Pepper left in it to be slightly brown.
“Drink-food?”
“Ice cream is food, soda is a drink, so….Drink-food.”
“Alright, then, I’ll get you more, love.” Remus promised, ruffling the elder's hair for the second time.
“But, camera.”
“Bye, bye, camera.” The brunette waved at the screen, Severus mimicking him, then turned it off. “There we go, babe, not-Root-Beer-Float-2.0 time!” And he stood up.
“I’m staying here.”
“Alright, do you want it the same way again?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “....Actually, add caramel too.”
“I—” Remus stopped, mouth open, before shaking his head ‘no’. “Alright, hun, if you want.”
“Thanks!” Severus shouted as the brunette walked out, thinking about whether or not he was allowed a second cup of it. But, really, it was okay, he could eat all he wanted.
There were no limitations here.