lumos_maxima | open rp post #002

open rp post #002

THE OPEN "WE WERE GOING TO RP THAT, REMEMBER?" POST

SO, BASICALLY. If we have ever discussed plotting a PSL or doing a thread but haven't gotten around to doing it,
WELL, NOW WE CAN.

Either comment with a rundown of said plot we'd talked about, or post a starting thread to said plot.

ALSO OPEN TO ANYONE WHO JUST WANTS TO THROW THEIR MUSE AT SNAPE (or Remus, if you'd prefer Remus).
Just leave either a prompt, a thread suggestion, or a thread starter.

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Despite her very suggestion, Bellatrix was well aware that she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep anytime soon and she was well aware that no amount of wishful thinking would make this a figment of her imagination; luckily for her there was little to no wishful thinking lingering in her mind to begin with. It was there to some degree but perhaps more in the sense that she wished she hadn't wanted him at any point, that he hadn't wanted her (and with the memory of the previous night clear in her mind's eye and evident in their bodies and they room they presently inhabited, she was pretty certain she could call it that) because, in the end, it would have made it easier on both of them: they wouldn't be here, one lonely man and one lonely woman whose worlds collided in the least likely of manners. Not that she would like to think of herself as lonely but what was it, in the end, that had brought them down together in a bedroom above an old pub? What was it that had them tangled up between thrusts and grunts and nothing short of debauchery if not that?

She felt him shift on the bed, felt the way the mattress seemed to drop slightly on his side, but didn't think too much of it until she felt him reaching out to her and just that touch seemed enough to startle her, to send a chill down her spine.

Slowly but steadily she turned just enough that she could glance back at him over her shoulder, but whatever she might have meant to say seemed to have gotten lost along the way. However, the way her brows knit together in some form of confusion was quite telling in itself; what was he thinking? That was one of many questions that crossed her mind.

Severus met Bellatrix questioning gaze and he held it while he turned his hand inwards and ran his fingertips back down the very spot he'd just lightly touched with his knuckles. Bellatrix was right: he was still here because he wanted to be. He could have easily left last night after he was done with her; he could have shoved her aside, got dressed, walked out the door and slammed it behind him without a second thought.

But so could have she. She had a husband, after all. Beyond that, Bellatrix was no stranger to being cruel and reckless with other people. She could have up and dressed and left him feeling used and lonely in the old inn. She could have walked out laughing that shrill, unhinged laugh of hers. She still could. In fact, it occurred to him, as he foolishly let his hand wander from her shoulder down the length of her slim, bare arm, that she could choose to turn on him in ways that could leave him seething and recoiling.

Then again, he thought to himself, so could he. He could penetrate her mind if he wanted to. He could scope out the recesses of her most private thoughts and use them against her. He could grab his wand, which was on the bedside table next to him, and press it up against her throat and threaten her in ways that were as cruel as he'd seen her threaten others. And he knew she could exact the same kind of punishment on him if she wanted to.

He hadn't, though; and neither had she. Where they could have been savage towards each other with magic and cruel barbs, they'd instead been savage with each other's bodies and Severus would have been lying to himself if he thought he didn't want that primal sense of feeling so alive rushing through his veins again.

"Come here." It wasn't a request; it was a quiet but firmly issued command.

What are you doing?, was the thought that crossed her mind as his fingertips trailed her skin but she didn't voice it. She watched instead, only watched because for a split-second it felt to her as if breaking the silence would tear the whole scene apart and she wanted, she needed to know, she needed to figure him out and to figure out what was on his mind in ways where upfront invasive attempts would do nothing but cause them to end up with their hands pointed at one another. So though her lips were parted in anticipation of a word or a question, it was he who broke the silence.

His tone was clear to her, but why should listen? There was undoubtedly a moment wherein she considered turning her back on him fully by virtue alone of refusing to comply to any sort of command issued by him under any circumstance, but what else would she do then, when they were alone, the two of them, and there was nothing else to effectively distract her from his voice?

So she allowed herself to roll onto her back, slowly but steadily, exposing pressure marks along the side of her neck as her hair fell to the sode, and then turned to her other side; all the while her gaze did not leave his and though in any other situation her next question could sound aggressive or irritated, it lacked those traits this time- her tone and her gazer betrayed her and easily gave away her confusion:

"What is it?"

For a moment, Severus thought Bellatrix was going to dismiss him, maybe with a scoff or a sneer, and turn away. That was fine, came the pinched thought in his head. He'd just turn away, too, and pretend he hadn't said anything. Maybe he'd lie here, watch the sun rise through the small parting and in the moth eaten holes of the tatty curtains, then get up and get dressed and get out.

That'd be a great deal simpler, came another, more collected thought. But no sooner the thought was in his head that Bellatrix was turning towards him and not away from him. He caught sight of the marks he'd left around her throat from last night - marks he was going to make sure to charm away from her skin before they parted ways - with a quiet sense of triumph.

He shifted properly onto his back to more comfortably face her. Hands resting on his middle, his head turned towards her, sheets tucked haphazardly across his bony hips. At Bellatrix's question, Severus studied her eyes and then her lips, and he lifted his hand and briefly brushed his knuckle across her chin before nudging her chin up and away to get another look at the bruises.

Severus shifted again, this time on his side and he propped his head up on his hand, elbow resting on the pillow. He raised his other hand back to Bellatrix's throat and he placed his thumb and fingers precisely over the imprints on her neck; as if he was checking the imprints against the size of his hand, to see if the glove fitted. And, of course, it did.

"We'll have to do something about these," he remarked conversationally.

It wasn't like her to allow this. Bellatrix was strong and independent and refused to give anyone the satisfaction of so much as thinking they had anything on her. There was the Dark Lord, of course, the sole exception whose orders she followed (mostly) without question. But there was something about Severus and the way he seemed to study her at that very moment - something that should have made her evidently uncomfortable and defensive, but it did not and she found herself allowing him close, or as close as he was right then, just barely brushing his fingers against her in stark contrast to the previous night, the evidence of which (or part of), she found, he would soon press his fingers to.
She could feel how her skin was sore under direct touch. It was an uncomfortable feeling, a hint of pain that traveled all the way to her jaw and to the back of her neck, but it wasn't nearly enough that she'd complain. Battles fought dark spell after dark spell were far worse, she knew that and at the end of the day, satisfaction or no, Severus was going out of his way to not make her hurt.

A lot could be said about how easily they seemed to be avoiding that ever since they'd woken up. A lot could also be said about the way the man in front of her had reached out to her more than once in the last few moments--

-- but it could wait.

"We wouldn't want to arouse suspicion," she agreed, lowering her chin now, her head tilting sideways to rest on her shoulder; her elbow was propped up on the mattress for support, so that she could regard him properly. They were a little too similar sometimes, the two of them. "Or fail to keep this a secret."

"Hm," was all Severus replied.

He held eye contact with her for a moment, then dropped his eyes down to his hand still around her throat. Then he casually let his gaze wander down to her chest, to her bare breasts. Just above her nipple on one of her breasts was an angry-looking bite mark. He knew he had a few similar bite marks on his own skin.

He released her neck and stretched his arm behind him to reach for his wand. Fingers clasping around the handle, he brought it with him as he faced back to Bellatrix. He touched the tip of his wand against the underside of her neck.

"Are you going to keep this a secret? Knowing you and your mouth..." He began tracing the wand slowly down her throat, down her collarbone, her sternum, between her breasts. And upon reaching the bruise just north of her nipple, he suddenly jabbed and twisted his wand against it, enough to cause pain on the damaged tissue.

"Vulnera Sanentur," he smoothly incanted, a spell he'd created years ago in school, and the bruise immediately began to drain away from Bellatrix skin, as though the wand was drawing it out of her.

For a split-second she felt as though, if she didn't turn away of her own volition then, he'd never stop regarding her in this same manner - examining every visible inch of her. It wasn't that it was making her uncomfortable per se, but it was striking her as odd. They were prone to fighting, verbally if anything, more than this.

When he reached for his wand there was another split-second in which he hesitated and nearly moved back to reach for her own, though in the end it was a carefully constructed defense mechanism and not as much a genuine concern that he would try anything. They both had enough bruises on them.

"Far be it from my to stain my own reputation," she remarked with a hint of her typical amusement. Though the wand was there and brushed against her neck, she didn't flinch.
... She did flinch however, when moments later it traced lower down her neck and chest (and oh, she'd almost smirked) and Severus saw it fit to press it onto soft skin, soft but bruised so there was very little to do about the hitched in breath or the way her expression contorted visible into pained discomfort. Nonetheless her gaze remained fixed on herself and on the wand and she watched intently as the incantation made it so that the bruise began to fade.

It was impressive, to say the least.

"... And you're being so kind, aftercare and everything."

"Removing evidence," he corrected her. He was not being kind, nor was he administering aftercare. He was going to stick with that belief, too.

The bruise gone, he moved the wand back up and dug it against the underside of her chin again, forcing her head back. He incanted the same charm, this time running the tip of the wand slowly down the bruise down one side of her neck. They faded as if they were being sucked into the wand. And he did the same on the other side of her neck.

"A pity to get rid of them, really," he said as the last of the bruise on her neck drained away. "They were quite a nice reminder that I finally got my hands around your neck and throttled you, like I've wanted to do for a long time."

Not that throttling her last night had led to shutting her up. The noises she'd made the night before. A memory of her seized up in orgasm underneath him and gasping wantonly, shamelessly, flashed through his mind. No, don't think about that, he scolded himself the moment heat began pooling into his groin.

"Pishposh," she waved her hand almost dismissively but reached up to push some stands of hair away from her face nonetheless; her hair was a mess, but it added some charm to her overall appearance. Even though he'd begun removing any marks of the previous night's affair from her skin she still looked the part.

His remark was met with a laugh, bubbling with excitement much unlike the hollow sound from only moments after he'd woken up. She tilted her head down, making it so she inched just a little closer, though not enough to close the considerably distance between the two - just enough to add emphasis.

"If that's how you've always envisioned it, then by all means you could have gotten your hands around my neck sooner, Severus."

Granted it was unfeasible as circumstances were, but she was teasing more than anything, as evidenced through the smirk tugging at the corners of her lips and the way she looked at him, almost as defying as the night before when she'd been all fingernails digging into his skin, pulling him closer, wanting more.

"I would've been happy to help you work through that desire."

Severus clenched his jaw slightly at Bellatrix's laugh and at the teasing, almost amused remark. And the look she was giving him: it was as if she was attempting to goad him.

"Would you now?" he replied, being careful to not appear too interested. He pulled his wand away from her neck and casually leaned back to place it back on the side table.

"Is that why you're in no hurry to leave?" he asked when he faced back to her. "Because you want me to strangle you?" Though he'd just removed evidence of having had his hands around her neck, he quickly dashed his hand up to snatch her throat; his thumb pressing into the underside of her chin and his fingers biting into the side of her jaw just below her ear.

"Until last night, I never pegged you for a masochist," he quietly observed, studying her eyes and her face. "Does Rodolphus know how much of a slattern for pain you are?"

Her mouth cracked into a grin, all teeth and a little twitch, a subtle indicator that she might just burst into laughter. It wasn't just her - it was him, too. She was teasing him, planting a seed of doubt, but never daring, not outright anyway; yet there he was, his hand pressed against her skin and - oh - she even tilted her head back for him, not looking away even once.

"Perhaps you should ask him." She answered, though her words were quickly followed by a soft (but no less facetious) oh. "Then again, maybe not."

She glanced at his hand, running her index and middle finger over his own, over the back of his palm and wrist, trailing serpentine lines over his skin. "in my defense," she began, her grin fading to something closer to a flirtatious pout. "You're the one who can't keep his hands off me."

Severus was a stark contrast to the glittering expression of slightly unhinged amusement on Bellatrix's face. Where she was grinning, all teeth and eyes that were sparkling with a sense of dare to them, he was stern, stony faced, observing her like a hawk might observe its prey.

His expression darkened at her comment about him not being able to keep his hands off her. She'd caught him out. He felt like his unspoken, if not repressed craving for human touch had been rudely exposed. Well. He couldn't have that. He tightened his grip around her throat for a moment, eyeing the pout she was giving him, then abruptly let her throat go with a brusque, almost uncaring shove.

"Don't think so highly of yourself," he dismissively retorted.

He pushed himself up into a sitting position, drawing his knees up towards his chest. He draped one arm around his knees while pushing his hair away from his face with his other, before dropping that arm around his knees also. The bed sheet only covered his legs; the cool morning air hit his bare back, which was still lined with faint, haphazard scratch marks from the night before.

"Let's just pretend last night was a bad mistake and leave it at that. I think that'll be a lot simpler."

When she felt his grip tighten, there was a brief moment where concerned pushed its way into the back of her mind and she heavily pondered the possibility of pushing him away. But sooner than she could act, he'd let go and she reached up with her own hand to press against the skin of her throat, rubbing circles over where his fingers had set.

"Am I lying?" She rolled back onto her back, her head tilted back on her pillow, exposing her neck, her chest, all the way down to her waist where the fabric of the bedsheets had began to pool. "You're making a bigger deal out of this than it necessarily needs to be," she commented, closing her eyes. "We might as well obliviate one or the other to spare you the misery."

Severus glanced over his shoulder at Bellatrix. He shouldn't have. The sight of her laid back, wild and messy hair askew on the pillow, throat exposed, breasts bare and arched up, nipples swirled tight, was truly a sight to behold. It was not unlike how she looked last night, pinned underneath him. He could feel his resolve starting to break again.

"I'm not making a deal out of anything. I'm clarifying the easiest approach. We pretend this never happened, things will be much simpler, for both of us."

Even as he said this, though, his eyes never stopped taking in the sight of her, and Severus unclasped a hand from around his knees to snag the bedsheet draped across her. He snapped it back with a sharp yank of his wrist, throwing the sheet back and exposing the rest of her nakedness. In one swift motion, he reached for his wand again, pushed himself around onto his knees, and he stretched up to lean over her.

"But," he said, his voice quieter, lower, pressing his wand up against the underside of her chin again, "I ought to make sure you don't obliviate me. I wouldn't put it past you to try."

"Things will be simpler for you," Bellatrix corrected, cracking one eyelid open to look back at him. By the time she did so, she'd reached up with one hand to tug lightly at strands of her own hair, succeeding only in making it look messier than it already did. Now that the initial shock had died down, so to speak, she seemed to be quickly regaining her (over-)confidence. In a way it was all quite cleverly played: as long as she could convincingly assert him that she was hardly bothered by the situation (which was likely a difficult task, both given the state he'd first found her in moments earlier and the fact that it was, well, him), she could try and convince herself that this wouldn't come back to haunt her.

She'd only just closed her eyes again when the feeling of the bedsheet being yanked away startled her and she looked back at him, a bit wider-eyed than she'd intended--
-- and just like that, there it was; his wand again, threatening. As if she'd allow him as much.

"Now why would I do that?" There was a hint of mirth there, halfway through the question, accented on the why.

"I'd rather you were reminded of it," She was taunting him, it was clear not just from his tone but from her body language - the way she shifted under his gaze, purposefully slower, just to lift her head up to regard him better. She was taunting him because she could, because in her own way, she wanted to see him squirm. "Each and every time you look at me. When that's all you can ever dream of doing, should poor, dear Rodolphus suspect your intentions."

Terrible. She could be so.

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open rp post #002

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ugh sorry for the typos I was on mobile

no wuckers bb <333

<3

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