FIC: One Word, Curled Like a Snake (HP: RL/SS, NC-17)
Title: One Word, Curled Like a Snake
Author: Thamiris
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Remus Lupin/Severus Snape
Rating: NC-17
Length: 802 words
Summary: Snape visits Lupin and says one word for an entire night, unexpectedly placed.
Note: ndancer and pandarus, two of my favorite people ever, were born today. They're both beyond verbal justice, smart and generous as hell, the kind of women I'm awed to know, and this is for them.
___
One Word, Curled Like A Snake
by Thamiris
All Snape says is, "Yes." One word for an entire night, unexpectedly placed.
He appears silent and scowling at Remus' door, announcing himself with one sharp rap that could belong to no one else. Remus, on his bed dreaming of his own fading history, rises so abruptly that his blanket falls to the floor where it curls like a green snake. When Snape leaves near dawn, he will kick it into a different shape.
Like all good sanctuaries, the room's door is bolted and barred; it takes a minute to undo the locks and latches, another to consider the wisdom of this. Then Snape steps inside, and they stare at each other, one flagstone between them like the square on a checkerboard. Remus waiting for a stream of sarcasm, a rant about Harry, a taunt about Sirius, smells the truth before his brain processes it, ripe and almost repulsive, just as Snape moves, a black cloud blocking light.
Then Snape's tongue is too busy for speech. His kisses taste bitter as an unripened apple, and he likes to bite where Remus will bruise most easily. Instead of stopping him, Remus, who hates violence on a lunar scale, bites back, hard; Snape growls, and they tumble onto the bed, lie grappling on the mattress in a rough sea of sheets.
A black button flies across the room. A black button, Remus' sanity, his good sense...So much is now quietly undone. This is the curse of being alone: you begin to think yourself a walled tower, unscalable, unbreachable, to believe, foolishly, in the myth of your own strength, and you build that myth word by false word.
Beyond his first ignored question, Remus has followed suit, keeping his mouth shut except for Snape's kisses and, later, when the moon is sinking, for Snape's cock, which he sucks with a perverse, inexplicable hunger until Snape pulls him up. They're face to face again, nothing between them, nothing said, and this time when they grapple, Remus wins.
Penetrating Snape is like falling from a great height, the same blinding dislocation, the same violent noiseless rush. Then it starts, and they're like animals with their ugly noises and mindless need, rutting, biting, scratching. Even when Snape comes, his thighs spread obscenely wide, he remains fiercely quiet, eyes narrowing as he stares up at Remus, daring something with their opaque glitter. He has a look of death about him, though his too-white skin and semen are warm.
Pretending should be easy in the quiet dark, to remember other times, someone else, but it's not. What's happening is too disquieting because it's Snape, too disquieting because it's good, inevitable, better than Remus ever--
"Yes," Snape says, louder than his usual whisper. Such triumph in a single word, and it spreads to his face, where the harsh lines unsettle for a smile.
When Remus tries to turn his head, tries to jerk away from the thin pale body beneath him, Snape grasps his chin, then deliberately thrusts up. A twisted line of words gathers inside him, but when Remus opens his mouth to free them, only a moan escapes. He can't even close his eyes, open everywhere, as though Snape is the one inside him, as though he's been pierced by a single affirmative word.
His last resort is to turn gentle, to slow down and be himself, decent and kind. Remus fails instantly, shamefully, too far fallen, and gives up, fucking Snape more roughly than before, ramming into him, while Snape watches without blinking, Snape, who can surely see too much with the sun creeping into the room, changing the light.
As Remus begins to come, he notices, startled, that Snape's eyes aren't black after at all, but a deep, deep shade of blue, and takes this secret with him to the end.
Afterward, as Snape dresses and Remus learns again how to breathe, they continue to say nothing. No love is declared, no future planned; Snape has not been transformed into a warm, patient man, while Remus will still turn into a monster during the full moon. This is not a fairy tale, not an epic myth; such things don't exist anymore.
Snape does visit Remus in his office the next day where, with remarkable sarcasm, piling disclaimer upon rude disclaimer, he tells Remus of the Wolfsbane potion, which will allow him to keep his mental faculties when he becomes a werewolf.
"Dumbledore's idea, I assure you," Snape says with a sniff. "I wanted him to sack you. You're a danger to everyone here."
Remus endures the abuse, allowing himself a few barbs and eyerolls, everything normal once again, except that Snape has blue eyes and Remus no longer locks his bedroom door. Snape still speaks only a single word during the night, but somehow that's enough.
___
The End
Author: Thamiris
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing: Remus Lupin/Severus Snape
Rating: NC-17
Length: 802 words
Summary: Snape visits Lupin and says one word for an entire night, unexpectedly placed.
Note: ndancer and pandarus, two of my favorite people ever, were born today. They're both beyond verbal justice, smart and generous as hell, the kind of women I'm awed to know, and this is for them.
___
One Word, Curled Like A Snake
by Thamiris
All Snape says is, "Yes." One word for an entire night, unexpectedly placed.
He appears silent and scowling at Remus' door, announcing himself with one sharp rap that could belong to no one else. Remus, on his bed dreaming of his own fading history, rises so abruptly that his blanket falls to the floor where it curls like a green snake. When Snape leaves near dawn, he will kick it into a different shape.
Like all good sanctuaries, the room's door is bolted and barred; it takes a minute to undo the locks and latches, another to consider the wisdom of this. Then Snape steps inside, and they stare at each other, one flagstone between them like the square on a checkerboard. Remus waiting for a stream of sarcasm, a rant about Harry, a taunt about Sirius, smells the truth before his brain processes it, ripe and almost repulsive, just as Snape moves, a black cloud blocking light.
Then Snape's tongue is too busy for speech. His kisses taste bitter as an unripened apple, and he likes to bite where Remus will bruise most easily. Instead of stopping him, Remus, who hates violence on a lunar scale, bites back, hard; Snape growls, and they tumble onto the bed, lie grappling on the mattress in a rough sea of sheets.
A black button flies across the room. A black button, Remus' sanity, his good sense...So much is now quietly undone. This is the curse of being alone: you begin to think yourself a walled tower, unscalable, unbreachable, to believe, foolishly, in the myth of your own strength, and you build that myth word by false word.
Beyond his first ignored question, Remus has followed suit, keeping his mouth shut except for Snape's kisses and, later, when the moon is sinking, for Snape's cock, which he sucks with a perverse, inexplicable hunger until Snape pulls him up. They're face to face again, nothing between them, nothing said, and this time when they grapple, Remus wins.
Penetrating Snape is like falling from a great height, the same blinding dislocation, the same violent noiseless rush. Then it starts, and they're like animals with their ugly noises and mindless need, rutting, biting, scratching. Even when Snape comes, his thighs spread obscenely wide, he remains fiercely quiet, eyes narrowing as he stares up at Remus, daring something with their opaque glitter. He has a look of death about him, though his too-white skin and semen are warm.
Pretending should be easy in the quiet dark, to remember other times, someone else, but it's not. What's happening is too disquieting because it's Snape, too disquieting because it's good, inevitable, better than Remus ever--
"Yes," Snape says, louder than his usual whisper. Such triumph in a single word, and it spreads to his face, where the harsh lines unsettle for a smile.
When Remus tries to turn his head, tries to jerk away from the thin pale body beneath him, Snape grasps his chin, then deliberately thrusts up. A twisted line of words gathers inside him, but when Remus opens his mouth to free them, only a moan escapes. He can't even close his eyes, open everywhere, as though Snape is the one inside him, as though he's been pierced by a single affirmative word.
His last resort is to turn gentle, to slow down and be himself, decent and kind. Remus fails instantly, shamefully, too far fallen, and gives up, fucking Snape more roughly than before, ramming into him, while Snape watches without blinking, Snape, who can surely see too much with the sun creeping into the room, changing the light.
As Remus begins to come, he notices, startled, that Snape's eyes aren't black after at all, but a deep, deep shade of blue, and takes this secret with him to the end.
Afterward, as Snape dresses and Remus learns again how to breathe, they continue to say nothing. No love is declared, no future planned; Snape has not been transformed into a warm, patient man, while Remus will still turn into a monster during the full moon. This is not a fairy tale, not an epic myth; such things don't exist anymore.
Snape does visit Remus in his office the next day where, with remarkable sarcasm, piling disclaimer upon rude disclaimer, he tells Remus of the Wolfsbane potion, which will allow him to keep his mental faculties when he becomes a werewolf.
"Dumbledore's idea, I assure you," Snape says with a sniff. "I wanted him to sack you. You're a danger to everyone here."
Remus endures the abuse, allowing himself a few barbs and eyerolls, everything normal once again, except that Snape has blue eyes and Remus no longer locks his bedroom door. Snape still speaks only a single word during the night, but somehow that's enough.
___
The End