FIC: Bittersweet Smoke, Snape/Sanguini, R
Title: Bittersweet Smoke Author: psyfic Pairing: Snape/Sanguini, hints of Sanguini/Eldred Worple Rating: R Word Count: 1,910 Warnings: not-too-graphic consensual sex between male characters. Loosely follows canon. Disclaimer: The characters are Rowling's. The things they get up to here, are mine. No money was made, but a lot of fun was had. Summary: Severus is clearly a man of good taste distinction. Author's Notes: chazpure spake thusly: I don't think I've seen a Severus/Sanguini fic...for that matter, I haven't read *any* Sanguini fic. So blame her.
~(*)~
There are senses beyond those El writes about in my people.
"Call me Dred," he always says, but I do not think of him this way, although I acquiesce when it counts. He is and will remain El to the end of my days, which are without number or so my sire was given to say.
This is falsehood, because we can be killed like any other creatures. Even more easily than humans which are only weaker than us when it comes to physical strength.
Some humans burn with an inner strength, though, and it is to those we can be drawn. I was drawn to one such at the ancient place that reeked of sorcery, the great pile of stones El was invited to and brought me like a trophy, although I would look surpassingly strange on his mantel.
This human was dark and fair at once. Skin so pale I half-suspected a fledgling, but then I sensed his heartbeat and the quicksilver slipstream of his thoughts. We cannot read minds, but when focusing on an individual or animal, the thoughts become a slippery stream of words and images that course past the mind's eye.
His stream was deep and viscous and it scarcely rippled, making me mark him at once. This was a master of the Mind Arts.
I felt myself go hard, my nostrils seeking to scent him, although El pulled up to me and reminded me of our agreement.
We were not bonded, not as humans seem to assume. We can, but El and I prefer our freedom, but he does like me to let others presume we are bonded when mingling. It is an affectation I accept from him. He is a dear, but silly soul and I would not feed from him if he did not offer it so kindly to me.
Of course, we do have sex, but then sex is nothing to my kind. It is a mere mingling of bodies. It is the mingling of mind that we savour, although we rarely find others who are able to achieve it.
As soon as was advisable, given the discourse and social intercourse El insisted on, I slipped from his side and made my way to the the dark/fair human whose name, I had overheard, was the deliciously sibilant Severus Snape.
"Do you teach?"
I felt the question apropos. Several of the older humans at this function were academics.
His gaze was hard, however, far harder than the question warranted, and he looked on me as if I emitted an unpleasant aroma.
"I'm a Potions Master."
"Forgive me," I said readily. "Many here seem to be professors. I am not conversant with all the attendees."
His gaze grew harder still, then he tried to slide into my mind. I was amused at the attempt, harmless as all such attempts except when with another of my kind. I felt his displeasure when he could not penetrate my thoughts.
"You are not human."
"Of course not," I was mildly insulted, but not so much as I wouldn't be willing, still, to converse with this man. Or more.
His head tilted back slightly, as I was taller than he by a few centimetres.
"You're lucky."
It was all he said as he left me abruptly, with a single clear image in my mind's eye from him. It was the image of a shattered vial.
~(*)~
Of course, I followed him as soon as was feasible. It was not in me to leave a conversation unfinished, particularly with one so intriguing.
I found him anon by a darkened antechamber in another part of this castle the humans referred to as Hogwarts.
He trembled with his passions and still his thoughts remained buried to me, submerged beneath that enthralling deep and viscous stream.
"Why do you say I am lucky? Although," I granted, "I am aware of the fact."
He turned so quickly I reassessed him for non-human heritage and, again, found nothing but a human. A remarkable human.
"I wish to be alone," he managed to say through gritted teeth. I could feel the pain now, in his muscles, his too-tight tendons. I ached to ease the pain; it is a weakness among my kind, related to the need to provide surcease to the ill and injured or damaged; and I gave in to it.
"Once I have helped."
Before he could do anything more than start to reach for his wand, I stepped up and grasped his jaw with one hand, and very gently massaged the leaders to the muscles.
He gasped and then held still as I worked, loosening the tension. The physical tension. The sexual tension from him was strong enough I would have sensed it from a league away.
I released his jaw as he reached a hand up to clutch at me.
"What did you do?"
"You were in pain."
He wiggled his jaw and frowned.
"What did you do?" He waited and as I merely assessed him, added, "I would know that I might help myself in future."
"Just call me, and I will help," I promised him, handing him a length of russet cord. "Invoke my name with this in hand."
He stared at the blood cord and then up at me.
"Your name?"
"I am Sanguini."
It saddened me to leave him, but I sensed El was ready to depart.
~(*)~
I was resting when the call came. El was away on one of what he called "a business trip."
Each passing year seemed to bring more and more of such trips.
It was over a year since I had seen the dark/fair Severus Snape and left him the blood cord.
The cord had been saturated with my own blood. Even a drop will call to me, but when summoned with a will, as I had bidden him to do, it would reach me no matter where on Earth or the heavens he could be. Blood calls to blood, as the saying goes. My blood and his need called to me.
~(*)~
It was that odd human holiday, celebrating life in the midst of winter. A vampire could almost approve.
The place he called me from was a different place in that ancient pile of stones he apparently lived in.
It was high and the wind was fierce where he stood, squinting, eyes tearing from it. Or perhaps from something else I could sense as I flew to land near him on this height of stone.
"Severus Snape."
He cursed and turned and froze as he saw me. The cord was clutched in the hand near his heart. I could hear it then, the displeasing cacophony of a diaphoretic beat.
It ran from him, fear-laden sweat dripped from him, and pain leached from him, and I could do nothing but answer.
Without hesitation I reached for his cold, damp form and cradled him to my own silent breast.
~(*)~
Sex is a ridiculous word, for a fairly ridiculous activity.
The meeting of the minds is far superior in every way, second only to The Gift. Sex was no more than assuagement of need, be it profound or petty.
Severus Snape was not a petty man.
The Gift, of course, was not so common. Not so easily committed to. Although, with Severus Snape, sex seemed every bit a gravely significant undertaking.
It was enough.
When I stripped him of all save stiff-necked human pride, I soared with him.
Soon enough he ceased being concerned of our height, being more focused on our pleasure. His confidence in my strength brought me more pleasure than he realised; El has never felt comfortable flying during sex, despite the fact I could easily carry five El's in such a manner.
Preparing a human is easy when the minds embrace. His own slickness lent ease to our coupling.
We entered the clouds as I penetrated him, and as he gasped, calling out to a deity, I slipped deep into his mind. This was what I had sought.
His mind was a magnificent roil of stormwrack, dark and dangerous and with its own precision. Each clap of thunderous thought was well-aimed. Each roll of deliberation was smooth and did not backtrack as with El, nor fade out, as with so many I had shared this intimacy with.
No, Severus Snape was one I had been waiting for, a superlative human, receptive to my thoughts and moods and humours.
We had scarcely begun exchanging thoughts when his human organ contracted in my hand, and the harsh scent of spent seed crowded my senses. That was when I sensed his mortification.
"Do not speak."
He trembled in my grasp, eyes white as I slipped back into his mind and soothed the jagged edges of his shame.
I gently slid my tooth along his collarbone, wanting the scent and taste as we mingled.
Bittersweet smoke suffused my senses. It was a fitting taste for such a man as Severus Snape, so dark, so fair, taut with shame and despair and driven by death.
"It will be as nothing soon," I assured him, taking him higher still until our thoughts mingled with the mist and his breath grew laboured. As we descended, I showed him my own thoughts, my desires. I showed him the Gift, as all humans seemed curious of, and he was no less human than another.
I eased back down, to that great pile of stones where his heart resided. I had seen this in his thoughts, felt it in his bones. I pulled back from his mind.
"I would Gift you, if you but allowed," I said as I touched back down on the heights we had left, extricating him gently from my organ. It would remain extended, the blood need ensured that, no matter how often I found bodily pleasure.
He sought and caught his breath, even as he knelt for his clothing. I watched him dress, fascinated with his economy of movement.
"It is what you sought when you accepted the branding," I noted, watching as the skull and snake mark was hidden once more by his sombre clothing. "To be as an immortal."
He straightened, throwing his cloak over his black-draped limbs and sighed.
"In six months, I will be dead."
"All the more reason for me to Gift you."
He studied me then, eyes of night seeking answers I would gladly give.
"Do you care for me?"
This was the easiest of all.
"I do."
"Then leave the Gift for someone more deserving."
He left me standing on the height as he walked back into the castle.
I could hear the stutter of his heart as he grieved.
~(*)~
He had not called. He had never called me again after the one time, the one night.
I had often wondered what had driven him to call me at all. His strength of will was a sweet ache in my memories.
I found him with the cord clutched in his hand, suffused with his own blood.
The spark of Severus Snape was nearly gone in a room choking with that scent of bittersweet smoke.
I leant over him and kissed his ashen lips. I tasted his lasting regret. I felt his dying anguish.