schemingreader

This past week, hill_ admitted (in comments here) that she prefers to pinch-hit in fests, because she thinks her tastes are "too vanilla." I decided to do an informal fan exchange with her, and to write her something just for her. I hope this is to your taste!

Title: Vanilla
Author: schemingreader
Pairing: Snape/Lupin
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: explicit and graphic description of men having sex
Author's Note: For hill_--in praise of vanilla. rexluscus beta-read for me--thank you!

The truth about vanilla is that it's as much as smell as a taste. Saturate your nose with glistening, soulful vanilla, and you can taste it. It's not like walking through a sweetshop, but more subterranean and wild. Surely this is the unruly beast itself, the raw vanilla that's clawing your senses.

Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses. New York: Random House, 1990. page 159.


Vanilla



The smell of Remus Lupin's neck was mysterious and heady. Severus knew that anyone who had a nose as big as his couldn't admit to a superior sense of smell, so he would never ask someone whether they were wearing aftershave, even if he could ask it snidely. He would never admit to sniffing someone whom he'd only brushed up against accidentally in the corridor. Someone whom he's supposedly always hated and who had no reason to idly chat with him. Someone who still, when he thought Severus wasn't looking, looked at him.


Severus is never not looking at Lupin.


For thirteen years, he kept a secret about Lupin—the secret of his lycanthropy. He didn't let the Dark Lord know when he was a Death Eater or use it to his advantage when he turned to Dumbledore. But he had betrayed Lupin, finally, in anger, and now he could never tell his other secret—the secret of his wish to bury his face in the other man's neck, to take great lungfulls of that enticing, smoky scent. It was a secret he'd carried since before he knew Lupin's bigger secret, and would probably never tell it to anyone.


In all the literature about werewolves, there is nothing that suggests that they manufacture some spicy scent from some inhuman gland. If it were perfume, or soap, or detergent, it wouldn't have persisted all these years. He has smelled it on Lupin's skin and hair since they were in school, and when they were teachers together at Hogwarts.


It inflames him. He wants to press against the man in the shabby jumper, press his whole body against the solid flesh of his chest, put his mouth on that juncture between the head and neck, and taste.


Here in the Black family home at Grimmauld Place, Lupin is surprisingly relaxed. Or he's acting as though he is—he doesn't like to show much. Severus understands that, though it amazes him that Lupin can be so controlled and yet so pleasant, as though Severus hadn't harmed him. But he always behaved that way toward Black as well—now it seemed to him less a weakness, and more a mystery.


For in some way, he was the same as Sirius Black to Lupin, who had trusted them both with his secret.


It was a mystery, how Lupin always smiled gently and seemed easygoing when the house was trying to spit them all out: the last, disgraced heir to the House of Black, the half-blood cousin with her strange talent, the various children, and of course Severus himself. How the house hates them all, but must hate him the worst, to throw Lupin at him in the deserted upstairs corridor. They are jostled together suddenly, so that Severus comes off balance. His cock hardens and his eyelids droop with the intoxication of Lupin's scent.


He puts his arms out without thinking and catches the other man. "Watch where you're going, Lupin!"


"Sorry, Severus," Lupin replies with typical mildness. His eyes suddenly flicker in reflection of the wall lamps. "The house, you know." He doesn't right himself immediately, but leans in to whisper, "You don't really mind, though, do you?"


Severus realizes that he has the other man in a sort of embrace, a loose one, his hands around Lupin's upper arms. The triceps shift under his fingers. Severus is sure that his nostrils are flaring, because he is dying to catch more of that delirious smoky Lupin smell.


"You're bent, aren't you," Lupin murmurs almost politely. But there is menace too.


"It's none of your—" Lupin's eyes are the same color as his hair in this light; the color of some dark honey. What is it that smells so good and spicy? "Amortencia," Severus mutters, "musk and candyfloss." He gives in to temptation. The werewolf's streaky hair has always looked coarse to him, but oh, it's so soft against Severus' face as he roots for the source of that smell.


Lupin leans against the flocked wallpaper, turning his head to one side and crushing his cheek against Severus' head. A low sound like a groan or a growl is coming from his throat. Severus is exploring the skin behind Lupin's ear. He takes the sweet vulnerable flesh of the earlobe into his mouth and tastes. Lupin grabs at him to bring him closer, trying to thrust his cloth-covered erection against something firm. He grabs Severus' arms, so that they seem to be dancing or wrestling. Severus is hanging on as best he can because Remus Lupin is kissing him. Now he knows why the call it a soul kiss.


Lupin finally leans his head away. "Has it been that long for you, too?" Severus forces his eyebrows down, shuts down as much of himself as he can, but it doesn't stop the trembling in his legs. He feels he is shaking with a terrible craving.


"Shut up," he says, so quietly, but there is no shade of meaning to it, for everything he means he has accidentally said in that kiss.


"You are so thorough in everything," Lupin's voice is low as he pulls Severus in closer. "So systematic."


It's like a taunt, again, because Severus can't be systematic or even rational in the face of this.


"If you are planning to prank me or tease me, I'll kill you," Severus grates. It is difficult to sound threatening when his prick is pressing against Lupin's thigh.



"That's not the sort of teasing that I had in mind," Lupin says with his usual deceptive mildness. He presses back against Severus.



"You have something in mind?" Severus' voice goes lower. It is the one thing that has ever worked for him.



"You're using the voice on me," Lupin shivers and smiles.



Severus puts his mouth by Lupin's ear and mouths as quietly as he can, "Remus. I want to go to bed with you."



Lupin looks a bit shocked. "Oh. All right."


Severus steps back and Lupin turns. It's only a few steps down the hall to his room. He unlocks the door silently and motions Severus in ahead of him. He faces the bed but Severus gathers him into his arms in the middle of the room and kisses him. His lust has so much in common with hunger; it is oral. He wants to taste and taste and taste.



When he releases Lupin's mouth to kiss more, Lupin gasps. "I had no idea..." his voice trails off. Severus is pushing him toward the bed as he licks and sucks down that fragrant neck.



The smell of Lupin's neck reminds him of something tropical. "Madagascar," he mutters to himself, "Tahiti." He has to taste it all, sliding Lupin's arms out of his jumper and shirt. He has to taste the rich smoky sweat in Lupin's armpits as he pushes him down onto the bed. The smell is fainter in the light brown hair of his chest and his belly, but Severus roots there. His tongue needs to touch every sensitive place--nipples, navel, the trail of hair from the navel to the groin.



By the time he gets Lupin's cock in his mouth, it is Severus who is groaning, almost loudly enough that he doesn't hear Lupin's begging. Finally he hears Lupin over his own moans, gasping, "Stop--I want--I'll come too soon!"



Severus looks up into Lupin's face. He is flushed and his eyes are bright. He still looks the same as he did when they were in school, even though his face is marked with all the things he has suffered. He still has the curiousity and attentiveness there of the younger Lupin, the one he'd privately thought should have been his friend, not Potter's and Black's. Even after the horror of understanding what Lupin was--is--Severus coveted that open gaze, that attentive look.



"What do you want, Severus?" Lupin asks quietly. "Do you want to fuck me?"



Severus has never actually gone that far with another person; he's only ever had silent mutual wanks and blowjobs in the loo. Lupin might never offer again, though. "Yes," he says silkily, "I want to--fuck you." Lupin sighs and squirms; at least Severus knows how to say it right. Lupin reaches up and begins to unbutton his robes.



What is he going to have to do, to make this good? They are lying on their sides, face to face, now, and he runs his hands down Lupin's back. The muscles of the other man's buttocks fit into his hands perfectly. He pushes and pulls, feeling his way, sliding his finger along the crease to touch the outside of Lupin's anus, listening intently to the way that makes him expel air. "Oh yes, lubricant," he says to himself. Lupin has Summoned it, or has it next to the bed, or something, and puts the jar down next to him. He pulls his legs up, exposing himself--his penis points straight up. Severus caresses and puts his face close to sniff as he works his lubricated finger inside.



He's going to put his penis in this hot, tight space in a few minutes. Lupin's body clutches his finger so tightly. He had better concentrate hard or he is going to come thinking about it. All right, now he has to get another finger in--he stops to kiss Lupin on the mouth. His own prick brushes Lupin's and his naked skin is against Lupin's body. The hard muscle relaxes and he puts in two fingers, moving them in and out, kissing Lupin's mouth.



Lupin pulls his body up and puts his legs on Severus' shoulders, and reaching down, spreads the lube on his cock. Then Lupin guides his penis into Lupin's body. It's so hot, it's so good, Lupin is groaning, the bed is full of that scent, he wants to bite Lupin's neck. He leans forward but can't reach to kiss him because the legs are in the way.



They are both making noises; the tightness and heat and the slickness are going to be his undoing. Lupin pulls him in, gasping "Harder, oh!" and trembling a little; Severus must be hitting the right place inside. So he pushes harder and harder, harder and harder, his ears filled with a roaring, getting closer and closer and suddenly Lupin is crying out and his cock is spurting between them. It's too much and Severus makes a noise and comes for what feels like minutes.



Then he doesn't quite know what to do and just kneels there, tears on his face, his ears popping. Lupin pulls his legs down and pulls Severus down to him and holds him.



"It's funny, I thought you'd want to tie me up or blindfold me or something," he says, pushing Severus' hair out of his face.



"Why?"



"Some people like to play those games in bed. I thought you might be like that." It's not a judgment, just curiousity--just his typical, bright curiousity.



"Do you?" Severus asks, trying to keep his voice neutral.



"No. I think I like things more vanilla. But I'm willing to try what you want, next time."



Next time! A bubble of stupid happiness insists on rising in his throat, in spite of everything he does to push it down. Vanilla means just sex, right? "No," he says. "Vanilla is fine with me."