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The first few seconds awake were pure panic. His eyes were open, but everything was dark. He couldn't keep from gasping and squirming against the cords that kept his arms drawn uncomfortably tight behind his back. Other bodies were moving about nearby, vaguely menacing.
One of them came closer, boot heels rapping smartly. A wooden floor. No echo, so not a large room.
Cloth rustled and the heat from the body was suddenly warming his face. "Oh relax, you idiot. You're blindfolded, not blinded."
He calmed as he realised he could feel the material on his face. But a new chill spread through him now as he placed the voice.
"He doesn't seem happy to see you, Snape." This from the body farther away from him. He knew that voice, too; if possible, he hated it even more than the first.
"He should consider himself lucky that he isn't seeing me, Greyback," said Snape, his breath hot on Remus's forehead. "Otherwise, he could expect to be dead before long."
"Oh, come now," Remus huffed, straining to talk while lying on his chest, "you're not actually that ugly."
A burst of barking laughter broke out across the room. Near him, Snape didn't move.
Silence fell once the ugly laughter died away, so the sudden motion that came next felt all the more violent for it. His arms were jerked upward, straining his shoulders into blazing pain, and then he was sent hurtling through space until something solid stopped him abruptly and painfully. For a moment, there was no air in his lungs at all; then, the tickle of something soft and scratchy against his face. He'd been planted face-first into a bed, or perhaps a sofa, his arse in the air. There was a massive crick in his neck.
Snape's soft laughter rose up behind him, and its familiarity assaulted him with a rush of conflicting emotions. There had been a brief window, once, in which he'd actually liked the sound of that laugh.
"So," said Snape, coming closer. A knee was suddenly digging into the small of his back. "Do you intend to stand there and watch this, Greyback?" Snape's weight bore down on him, settling in, adjusting itself with care; it felt almost comfortable. A hand squeezed the back of his neck, pressing his face into the cushion, not hard; it could have been a friendly tussle. Remus held still.
"I would," came the growling reply, "But I've important things to do. Like telling the Dark Lord you're interrogating a captured spy."
"Be careful how you set your trap, Greyback," Snape said quietly. "Lest you snare your own foot as well." Remus could imagine the thin smile he would be giving Greyback that meant he was cheerfully plotting the man's disembowelment.
"I'd stick to worrying about yourself if I were you," Greyback laughed. A great commotion of feet and cloth and a slammed door later, Remus and Snape were alone.
Remus wasn't sure what he had expected, what he'd imagined Snape had meant that Greyback would be "watching," but he was relieved when Snape's knee withdrew and footsteps receded across the room. He'd figured one thing out by this point, at least: Snape and Greyback were not allies. Somehow, he was a pawn in their struggle, though it wasn't clear how.
"I don't suppose I need point out," came Snape's voice, "what a colossal idiot you are for letting yourself be caught, Lupin." He was moving things around on the far side of the room; rummaging through something—a drawer, perhaps.
"I suppose I don't have your talent for self-preservation," Remus replied. The barb felt good, even though he knew Snape would barely feel it.
"No, you don't. Nor for anyone else's, either." A drawer slammed shut and the booted footsteps returned to his side. "Can you tell me what in Merlin's name possessed you to go back to the werewolves after my…defection?"
"What, did you think we'd all be so sunk into despair we couldn't continue the fight?"
"No, you simpleton! One of your group had turned traitor! You were risking almost certain exposure!"
Remus opened his mouth to reply, then stopped and thought for a moment.
He'd returned to the werewolves, and Snape hadn't exposed him.
Well—not initially, at least. Eventually, he'd got around to it.
The ropes around Remus's wrists suddenly went slack, and were replaced by Snape's hands. "I used to tell Albus you'd make a miserable spy," he said. A new length of rope coiled around one of Remus's wrists, and he found his arm being stretched out tightly to one side. "He never listened, of course. He was always a terrible judge of character." The rope pulled tight, straining his arm painfully. "Then again, so were you. Had to've been, to fuck me."
"Except we didn't ever fuck, did we?" Remus grunted as his other arm was pulled in an opposite direction. "You were more interested in playing games, trying to get me to ask for it—"
"Yes, well—no games this time. I've waited a year for that fuck and I intend to get it now."
Oh. So that was where this was going. Remus's blood froze in his veins. Irrationally, he pulled at the ropes binding his wrists, knowing they'd be just as secure as they were a moment ago. No. He did not want this to happen—not like this.
"Severus." His tongue stuck in his throat. "You are not this cruel. I know you aren't."
"Nonsense, Lupin. I am exactly this cruel. We spent months dancing around each other, and then the Malfoy brat had to go and force my hand early, just as I was about to see results." Two fists seized the material of his shirt and jerked, tearing the fabric straight down the centre of his back. "Come on, Lupin, be a good sport. Not all the Death Eaters' prisoners get this kind of special treatment."
Remus struggled as his trousers were briskly undone and yanked down his legs. "Severus. For God's sake." He tried kicking, but Snape was kneeling on his calves. Panic was welling in his chest. "Do you want me to beg? Is this some kind of demented payback for all those times in school? Whatever you want from me, you can have it—just don't do this."
Snape got off his calves and pried his thighs roughly apart—as far as they would go with his trousers hobbling him. Air touched his balls and the crack of his arse. Against all reason, a little thrill of arousal went through him.
Now that he was bare, Snape's weight suddenly disappeared. Remus couldn't tell where he'd gone; there was no movement once he'd pulled away. The silence was thick with Remus's breathing.
Then a calloused hand ran lightly over the curve of one buttock. "I think I'll leave you like this," said Snape. And then his footsteps retreated, and the door opened and shut. The silence that followed was empty and still.
From the beginning, their affair (such as it was) had had a certain unreality. One evening during an Order meeting he'd felt Snape's eyes on him from across the table, and looked up to see more than just the usual contempt in his glare. Then he'd felt a hard, pointed toe brush the inside of his knee, and that night he'd lain in bed and tossed off feverishly as he thought about crouching under the big oak table and sucking Snape's cock while the rest of the Order argued away above.
Remus didn't do these sorts of things. He had boyfriends, and every now and then girlfriends. He didn't let himself be groped in empty kitchens by unpleasant people he was barely on speaking terms with. He didn't go into spare bedrooms looking for a quill and come out dishevelled with his spectacles askew and his shirttails untucked. He didn't blush and cough during meetings while an icy hand slithered around in his drawers.
He had no idea why Snape had started it. Or how Snape had known he'd be willing. Maybe he hadn't known. How could he, when Remus hadn't known himself? Every time he touched himself thinking about Snape putting his cock in his mouth or unbuttoning those black robes to show his skinny white body, Remus wondered what sort of person he was becoming. The sort who could fuck without talking. Who could want a body without a care for the soul. It made him feel ill, and excited, and out of control.
They never got past a bit of sucking and frigging each other in the dark. He'd wanted to fuck but he'd been too embarrassed to ask, and he was too awkward to know how to send the signals. Snape had sensed it, though; in the deserted sitting room one night, he'd taken down their trousers and bent Remus over the back of the sofa, then spent an agonising ten minutes rubbing his naked prick between Remus's arsecheeks before coming all over his back and stroking him to a quick, dry climax. Less than a week later, Dumbledore was dead and Remus's world had turned upside down. For those first terrible nights after it happened, he'd jerked himself off and sobbed with shame afterward.
Gradually, his body had forgotten Snape, and something like normality had returned. He took up with Tonks and nearly expired with relief that he still knew how to be normal. If occasionally in bed he found himself thinking of a pale, skinny body and a thick red cock instead of his girlfriend's curvy little arse, he told himself he was just confused. Sex was like that; it made you want things you didn't really want—not deep down.
He'd wondered what would happen if he saw Snape again. Would he still want him, despite the intense hurt and hatred? He'd never really liked Snape to begin with. If Snape still wanted him, would he be tempted to accept? Those hands that had touched him had killed Albus Dumbledore, the man who'd taught Remus to be human again. To think of Snape touching him now made him physically sick. But the tingle in his balls was just as real as the nausea.
It would be easier, somehow, if he weren't given a choice.
Without the aid of vision, he had no idea how much time had passed. His arms had fallen asleep from being stretched out so tightly, and the crick in his neck had turned into a pounding headache. The room had grown colder, or perhaps his blood had simply cooled; either way, the back side of him was freezing. He'd tried rolling a bit to either side to warm himself up. Then he'd drifted off to sleep.
When he woke, he discovered some light must have been getting through his blindfold after all, because it was even darker than before. If he stilled his breath, he could make out faint evening noises—crickets, frogs, night-hunting birds. He was somewhere in the country.
Untold hours later (it could have been ten minutes, for all he knew) he realised he had to piss. He wondered if Snape would return in time, or if he'd have to lie in his own urine. Perhaps that was the idea. Strip him naked and let him piss himself—it was just the sort of torture Snape would go in for. Humiliation, tearing down. Like Snape was convinced the world was trying to do to him. Remus shivered, and waited.
Sometime later, the door whined open and heels rapped across the room to his side. He started as a heavy warm weight fell suddenly atop him—a blanket, he realised in surprise. Wordlessly, the heels crossed the room and Remus heard the sounds of a fire being lit.
After a long moment of soft snaps and pops, Snape spoke. "You'll have food in a moment," he said, sounding unaccountably tired.
"I have to piss," rasped Remus. His mouth was gummy and his throat was dry.
"Ah. Right." The ropes untied themselves and jerked Remus's aching arms underneath him, knotting back together in front. "There's a loo off to your right. Never mind—I'll do it." A spell lifted Remus off the bed and shoved him through space with a huge, invisible hand. It released him as soon as his shins bumped against something that felt like a toilet.
Just to be sure, he felt around with his bound hands to locate the bowl. Finding it, he took up his cock—his trousers were already down—and relieved himself with a long, belly-deep groan.
He'd barely shaken himself off when the spell-hand took hold of him and steered him roughly back to the bed.
"Thank you for that compelling performance," said Snape, suddenly close by. "My day is now complete."
Remus had a sudden thought. "Will you be giving me Wolfsbane while I'm here? Or am I going to live that long?"
"I'll give you the potion. Greyback considers it punishment. See that you don't say anything to disabuse him of that notion."
Another strange remark. "What's going on between you and Greyback?" Remus didn't really expect Snape to answer, but it was worth a try.
"I assure you, you've no reason to be jealous." There was an odd note in Snape's voice that wasn't mockery. Something hard and heavy was suddenly placed on his knees. "You can drink the soup, though try not to be disgusting about it."
Remus was immediately embarrassed again. His prick was still out, and the torn halves of his shirt had slipped down to his wrists; he tried as much as he could to flip the shreds over his crotch, but he couldn't do that and eat at the same time. Face burning, he felt around on the tray for the soup.
After nearly knocking both bowl and tepid tea over twice, he snarled in what he hoped was Snape's direction. "Could you take the blindfold off while I eat, at least?"
Snape had not moved from his side. "Should your blindfold be removed, even for a few moments, the Dark Lord would not allow you to live, since in the unlikely event of your escape, you could take details of this location back to the Order. Do you really think it's worth it just to keep your shirt front clean?"
"Perhaps you could repair my clothes, then?"
Snape rose and moved around to stand in front of him. "There is very little about this situation to hold my interest, Lupin," he said, and Remus could practically hear the disdainfully cocked eyebrow. "The one thing that pleases me is that I rather enjoy the view. Now finish eating so I can rid myself of your company for the night."
Remus returned to his soup, shivering faintly at the feel of Snape's gaze on his skin.
For the next several days, Snape left him alone except to bring him food. Having learned from the loo experience, he left Remus's hands bound only in front, not to the bedposts. Remus awoke after the first night to find his clothes completely gone, and no replacements were forthcoming. During the day, he made his way slowly around the room, learning its layout; there were two tiny windows and a few pieces of wooden furniture, and the warded door gave him a terrific shock when he tried the handle. After that, he spent most of his time curled up on the bed, pulling as much of the blanket over himself as he could with his bound hands.
"I thought Greyback said you were interrogating me," he said one evening as he ate and Snape sat in irritated silence by the fire.
"You've obviously discovered by now that that's untrue," was Snape's dry reply.
"Why aren't you?"
Snape sighed loudly. "I often wonder if you're trying to be this thick, but nobody could keep up this kind of act for so long."
"Can you just answer my question, if you're going to at all?"
"I am not interrogating you because there is nothing to be learned. I know all the secrets you know, so why bother?"
"Oh," Remus heard himself say, quite against his better judgment, "a lot has happened in the year since you betrayed us, Severus. I'm sure I know a few new things you don't."
A loud snort. "Trivial things. I shan't waste my time."
Remus thought quietly for a while. So Snape was holding him here with the other Death Eaters' knowledge, but they thought Snape was interrogating him when in fact he wasn't. Plus, Greyback had something on Snape and it was something to do with Remus. Snape hadn't exposed his place with the werewolves with more than a year's worth of chances…
What on earth was Snape doing?
Instead of asking that, Remus asked, "Can I have my clothes back?"
"No," Snape replied, with a smirk in his voice.
Remus woke some time later in the night—the frogs and insects were still chirping outside, but the fire had gone out. He started to wonder why he'd woken, until he realised that someone was sitting beside him on the bed. They were keeping very still.
An icy sweat broke out under his arms. "S-snape?"
"I haven't touched anyone," said Snape, loudly enough to make Remus jump, "in over a year. Since you."
His voice chilled Remus's blood—slow and dreamy, yet with an undertone of threat. Remus didn't dare reply.
Snape's hand crept under Remus's blanket and curled around his ankle, cold and hard as metal. Without fully intending to, Remus twitched his leg away. Snape reared up and yanked the blanket off the bed so that the fireless, early-morning air hit Remus's naked skin like a douse of water, and then crawled on top of him. He was only wearing light underclothes.
"Get off," hissed Remus, trying to roll away.
"That's the idea," Snape replied softly, and ran that cold hand up the inside of Remus's thigh.
Every hair on Remus's body stood on end. Regardless of his own nausea, his cock quite liked that touch. He tried to angle his groin away from Snape's roaming hand. "I was wondering when you were going to try this, you sick fuck," he spat.
"Oh, quit your captive maiden routine." Snape forced his face into the crook of Remus's neck and gave him a hard nip just under his ear. "You might as well just enjoy this—you always did before, and you didn't like me any better then."
"Actually, I did." Remus was doing his best to sink into the bed, away from hands and tongue and teeth. "You were a right cunt, but at least you hadn't killed anyone I loved yet."
Snape laughed in surprised delight and ground their crotches together with a low moan. "Mm…say that word again…cunt…" He pushed Remus's head back roughly and sucked hard on his neck.
Remus snarled. "You pr—" He stopped himself before the whole word got out; Snape would probably like ‘prick' just as much. He renewed his effort to kick Snape off and eventually got an elbow to connect with a jaw.
Snape pulled back with an "Oomph!" and was still. Remus lay under him and panted. The unseen distance before his exposed face suddenly felt very empty as he waited for a retaliatory blow.
"You've put me in a very awkward spot," Snape said, all traces of erotic playfulness gone. "The least you could do is act suitably contrite."
"I put you in a—" Remus laughed. "You captured me, if you'll recall."
"Greyback captured you." Snape seized Remus's bound wrists and jerked them over his head. "It's a subtle distinction, but an important one." He must have reached to where his wand was, because new ropes yanked Remus's wrists in place, stretching them back and up. Then Snape slipped down his body and swallowed Remus's cock to the root.
He'd only been slightly hard, but after days of no relief, he couldn't have pulled away from all that wet warmth if his life had depended on it. He groaned and spread his thighs without thinking, and Snape's hands were suddenly everywhere, running over his belly and thighs, squeezing his balls to the edge of pain, prodding the crack of his arse—all the tricks he'd learned a year ago when they'd explored each other silently in the dark. Tonks handled him like he was delicate; Snape touched him like he intended to rearrange him.
He thrust mindlessly into Snape's mouth as Snape worked his cock with angry intensity, jerking his shaft hard, bringing Remus to the edge of coming within minutes. Then he thrust a dry finger up Remus's arsehole straight to his prostate, and Remus came with a startled shout.
"There," said Snape, sitting up as Remus lay gasping under him, "that was much better."
Remus growled and pitched him off.
There was an immediate absence of weight on the bed followed by a thump. But before he could even savour his victory, a hand clamped around his throat and Snape's hot breath was puffing in his face.
"I'm getting tired of his," Snape muttered. "Incarcerous."
Ropes coiled around Remus's ankles and jerked his legs up and back in a painful stretch, spreading his arse wide. "Now for that fuck I mentioned," Snape said, and thrust two fingers inside.
The stretch burned, and he bucked as his painfully sensitive prostate was prodded again. "Oleo," said Snape and his fingers slid in more easily, but the agony in Remus's post-orgasmic parts only increased. With no further words, Snape knelt on top of him and thrust inside, bearing down with his whole weight and grunting as he seated himself to the root. Remus yelped and bucked again, but the ropes and Snape's weight kept him in place.
Snape was nothing if not efficient. Immediately his strokes were fast and hard, lifting Remus's arse off the bed with each one and tugging his legs even more. Snape grunted as he fucked, and a weak little flutter of arousal stirred in Remus at the sound of that low voice rough with strain and pleasure. Doing his best to bend his knees and save the muscles in his thighs, Remus lay back and let himself be pummelled, waiting for it to end. Snape finally came with a terrific groan and gave a last, vicious thrust before pulling out.
"For the record," said Snape, clambering off the bed, "you weren't worth a year's wait."
Remus realised Snape was now heading for the door. "Snape!" he cried. "You fucking bastard, don't leave me like—"
The door slammed shut.
It was, without a doubt, the longest night of his life.
He wasn't sure if it took ten minutes or two hours to lose all feeling in his legs. Its return was worse, though, a burning, maddening tingle that made any semblance of sleep impossible. First he tried counting backwards by sevens from a thousand. Then he sang all the House spirit and Quidditch fight songs he could remember from Hogwarts. Once he'd exhausted them, he began again. By the time the pitch-blackness had started to fade into a dull grey behind his blindfold, he'd recited every spell he'd ever learned at least three times. He'd thought of reciting potions ingredients but refused on principle.
The door banged open just as he got to the three varieties of blocking spells for the fourth time.
"Snape," he groaned, "please. I'll do whatever you want—please—"
"Just cooperate," said Snape, sounding a little weary. "Believe me, I can do a lot worse."
"Fine." Remus's eyes burned. "Whatever."
"Evanesco."
His arms and legs dropped, and then the real pain began.
"Eat." Something that radiated heat was set down beside his head. Remus moaned and rolled over slowly.
Sitting up was agony. He sipped down half the soup and left the rest.
"What a pansy you are," Snape snapped from over by the fire. "Wonder how you'd react to real torture."
Remus was way past pride at this point and he didn't particularly want to find out. So he said nothing.
"You quite wanted my cock in your arse back then," observed Snape after a moment's silence. "I don't see what's really changed. We were never friends, after all."
"You are without a doubt the most perverse individual I have ever met," sighed Remus.
"Then your experience has been rather limited. In my present circles I'm considered temperate."
"I doubt that. Sane, maybe. Just barely."
Snape chuckled merrily. "Yes, it's all rather relative, isn't it? Admittedly, I'm also known for not tolerating nonsense."
"You really do have the coldest heart I've ever felt," Remus replied with genuine wonder.
"And you're really extraordinarily innocent. That was always Albus's greatest sin; he sent children to fight his war."
"If anyone's like a child here, it's you—one who pulls the legs off frogs to hear the noises they make."
"No, that would be the Dark Lord, or Greyback." Snape sighed, his chair squeaking as he shifted in it. "If I ever pulled the legs off a frog, it would be because I hated the frog."
Remus didn't respond. He didn't really disagree. After a long moment of thought, he asked, "Do you hate me?"
Snape sniffed. "Not really. Why bother?"
"Why am I still here, then?"
Snape laughed. "Because I am a Death Eater and you are a member of the Order, of course. Do I need another reason?"
"Are you ever going to interrogate me, or are you lying to Greyback?"
"Surely it can't be a shock to you that I'd lie."
"He's your ally, though."
"Hardly. He's an animal."
"He has something on you. You're protecting me and he knows it."
"You've lost your mind." Genuine anger had crept into Snape's voice. "Me, protect you? You're not that good a fuck, Lupin."
"I don't know why you're doing it, frankly, but it's the only explanation."
Snape got up and stalked over to Remus, bringing their noses tip to tip. "And if," he snarled, "the Dark Lord should decide to come here, look into your mind, and see the things that led you to that conclusion, what do you suppose would happen to me—and thus to you, since you are utterly dependent on me at the moment?"
Remus's gut iced over as everything clicked into place.
"Don't think for a moment," Snape went on, "that should the situation arise, I would not sacrifice you to save myself. I did it to Albus and I'd easily do it to you."
"You could easily have done it already," Remus observed.
Snape didn't answer.
Over the next several days, Snape grew more and more agitated.
He barely spoke to Remus at all beyond the absolutely necessary. His boot heels clacked more briskly than ever, and he was constantly bursting into the room in a commotion and lingering for a moment, purposelessly, before storming back out. Remus wondered if it was just to reassure himself that Remus was still there. In the evenings, he sat motionless and silent by the fire for hours, or paced up and down the room, driving Remus nearly to distraction with his ominous tread.
Remus had the distinct impression that the noose, whatever it consisted of exactly, was tightening.
He knew it had been a particularly bad day when Snape would burst in, reconfigure the ropes with a spell to spread Remus out wide on the bed, and then do nothing but stand there for a moment, quiet and restless. Presumably he was simply staring, taking his fill of Remus's perfectly average but pleasingly helpless body. Then he would go sit by the fire and wait for what seemed like hours before releasing the ropes and giving Remus his supper.
One night, the ropes returned after he ate, and didn't come off again. He awoke in the middle of the night, still spread-eagled on his back, to the feel of wet kisses being placed across his belly.
"Wh— Sn— What the hell are you doing?"
"Shut up." Snape's voice was startlingly cold next to the tenderness of his kisses. His mouth moved slowly up Remus's torso.
The fact was, it felt good. But not so good that Remus couldn't muster up the resolve to twist away.
A heavy hand planted itself on his chest and held him in place. "Remember what I said about cooperating?" Snape hissed, pressing hard enough to make breathing difficult. "Just do as you're bloody told for once."
The kisses returned, so oddly gentle, and moved up his neck. The hand that wasn't pressing like a lead weight on his breastbone was running all over him in a teasing caress. In spite of himself, his body began to wake up.
"You stupid bastard," murmured Snape against his skin with a kind of anguish, barely loud enough to hear. "You stupid, stupid bastard."
Remus held still and waited to find out what this was all about.
"You've got us both fucked now." He mouthed Remus's throat wetly. The pain in his voice simply added to Remus's confusion. "All I needed was time, and you've gone and taken it away from me."
"Wh-what are you talking about?"
"Don't—talk."
Remus let his head fall back on the bed.
The mouth on his neck went from kisses to sharp little nips.
"I gave up everything," Snape murmured. He seemed to be talking to himself, treating Remus as an inconvenient eavesdropper. "I threw away my whole life. And then you had to come blundering through it all, you stupid, bloody imbecile." Teeth sank alarmingly hard into his collarbone. "I should just let you die."
Snape moved back down his torso and fastened his teeth around a nipple hard enough to make Remus yelp. "Shut up, you pathetic fool," Snape snarled, and reached between Remus's legs to squeeze his cock and balls, hard, with no intention to arouse. He began biting his way down, harder each time, hard enough to leave a mark now, and each time Remus swallowed a cry. "There's a very simple solution to this!" Snape was telling each of the bites as he went. He sounded angry with himself. "I'd make all my problems go away if I just had done with it and killed you."
Those teeth were getting dangerously close to Remus's groin. "You—you wouldn't do that," Remus insisted breathlessly.
"Wouldn't I?" Snape's humourless laugh puffed air across his half-hard cock. "I kill all the time, Lupin. Three or four times a week, I'd say. It would be out of character for me not to kill you."
"You're not going to kill me," Remus forced himself to say.
"You don't know what I'm going to do, so be silent!" Snape yelled. "I'll silence that mouth of yours," he muttered then, and clambered up Remus's body to straddle his face. Seconds later, a thick cock was pushing past his lips.
He gagged and spluttered for a moment, then willed himself to relax. Cooperate. That's what would get him through this. Just pretend it was a year ago and he'd been fantasising for weeks about having Snape's cock in his mouth. Just pretend he still wanted this man.
It was less difficult to pretend than it should have been.
Once Snape had got himself in Remus's mouth, he slowed a bit, stroking languidly in and out, giving Remus a chance to swirl his tongue around the head and shaft. Remus heard his relieved sigh above him, felt his body relax. His own cock swelled a bit more.
Sometimes, sex was just sex. He sucked harder, saliva dribbling down his chin, and Snape groaned.
He was just getting a good rhythm that didn't make him choke when Snape's pace suddenly changed. He thrust harder, bumping the back of Remus's throat, forcing another gag. Remus made a noise of protest, and Snape only did it again. "Never forget what kind of man I am," Snape said, voice low and strained. "I will kill you." He thrust harder, and Remus jack-knifed as his air was cut off. "You may think I won't, but I'll do it." Another, deeper thrust. Remus was now beginning to panic. "I am not weak." And with that, he began to thrust in earnest, breath growing harsher, body beginning to shake. Remus sucked air through his nose whenever he could, fighting not to suffocate, pulling against his bonds. When his mind began to grow fuzzy with the beginnings of unconsciousness, Snape shouted as though he'd been stabbed, and shot down Remus's throat, then pulled out and spurted onto his face, painting skin and blindfold alike. Remus spat and gasped, clearing the fluid from his throat and mouth, spitting Snape out. They were both still for a moment, panting and gasping, though for different reasons.
When Snape slipped down his body and sucked him off with more of that strange, contradictory sweetness, he did his best to remain unmoved, but Snape would not give up, and after an eternity, he came with a weak cry, and mercifully, Snape left him alone.
Remus awoke when the door banged open.
"That's it, Snape. Time's up. Either you kill him, or you kill yourself and save the Dark Lord the trouble."
Remus held very still and listened to the arguing voices with a pounding heart.
"I'm telling you, Greyback, he knows something and I can get to it, just give me a few more days—"
"Don't you get it? He's coming here! He thinks you're too weak to crack the spy's mind open—he's coming here to do it himself." Remus could hear the nasty grin that was spreading on Greyback's face. "And you and I know what he'll find when he looks in."
Snape was still and silent for a moment, then leapt violently to his feet. A hand clamped on the back of Remus's neck. "All right, Greyback. You can witness it."
Remus's bowels turned to ice.
"The hole's already dug," Greyback said cheerfully.
"My, we were confident in our skills of persuasion, weren't we? Get the door, will you?" A wand dug into to the centre of Remus's back. "Walk, Lupin."
His knees shook as he got to his feet. "Snape—"
"Shut up."
There was something in Snape's voice that told him this was not a ‘shut up' he could negotiate with.
He walked unsteadily through nothingness, head swimming with fear. Shock exploded through him as he walked hard into the doorframe, and Greyback chuckled nastily. Behind him, Snape muttered something insulting under his breath, and dug the wand in harder.
Outside, his feet burned with cold on the frozen ground, and his testicles shrivelled. He tried to go slow but Snape's palm on his shoulder pushed him roughly ahead. He didn't dare resist.
The next few minutes were the longest of his life. His mind was numb with panic. He put one foot in front of the other, trying to drag them, stumbling as Snape pushed him along. Finally, a hand on his shoulder pulled him to a halt, and a new wave of terror swept him. This was it, then.
"Step forward. That's it. To the edge." Snape stepped back and the wand disappeared. Remus held still, not breathing, wordlessly praying.
"Avada kedavra."
A body somewhere to his left hit the ground.
"Stupefy."
He had a split second to scream inside his mind before the world blinked out.
"He's waking up a bit, I think…look, his eyelids are moving…"
The first thing he wondered was whether he was still blindfolded. His eyelids felt like there was something pressing on them. But there was light behind them, turning the darkness red.
Small hands took one of his. "It's all right, Remus. The pain potion's making you a bit groggy, is all."
That was strange. He didn't remember having been in any pain.
"What happened?" he asked, eager to get that part out of the way.
"You were dumped on our doorstep, practically. We don't know by who." Tonks—because he'd identified the voice as Tonks by now—squeezed his hand. "You do remember being captured and everything…right?"
"Yes, of course." Remus coughed. "I remember it quite vividly. How long has it been?"
"Over a month." There was a hitch in her breath. "We thought you were dead."
"I'm—not sure why I'm not." He opened his eyes, and remembered too late that he hadn't seen anything at all for weeks. Light burst in on his brain like an exploding star. He squeezed his eyes shut again, tears burning like acid.
"Oh, Remus. Don't try that again."
"I shan't." He raised his hand, which seemed to be working fine, to wipe at the tears. "Tell me again how I got here? And where here is?"
"You're at St Mungo's. But someone dropped you in front of headquarters. They had to've Apparated, because they were gone as soon as we got outside. You'd been Stunned and you—didn't have any clothes—"
"Yes. I remember that part." The sting in his eyes was beginning to fade a bit. "So you didn't see who brought me back?"
"No one did. Do you know who it was?"
"It was Snape."
Tonks didn't respond.
"Look, don't tell anybody else that, all right? Just—the fewer people who know, the better. Even on our side."
Tonks let out a shaky sigh. "Snape saved your life, then."
"I suppose he did. And I'm fairly certain he killed Fenrir Greyback as well."
"So what did he do it for? Just—for you?"
"I don't know." Who knew why Snape did anything? He'd given it all up as a lost cause. "He might still be working for our side, in some peculiar way. Then again, he might not."
"In which case, it was all just for you."
There was a funny note in her voice. He sat up suddenly. "Tonks—is there something you're not telling me here? Is he—is Snape dead?"
"No." She sighed again, and he heard her sit back in her chair. His hand slipped out of hers. "He's fine, as far as I know, anyway." There was a long pause. "You talked about him in your sleep."
"Oh." His stomach dropped out as realisation set in. Then, he felt strangely calm. "I see."
"Yeah." Tonks stood up. "I'll come by later, okay?" She kissed his forehead, and a moment later the door shut with an unhurried whine.
Alone, he lay in the quiet, and prepared again to open his eyes.