one more day up in the canyon
Every so often I go through these phases where I'm utterly depressed, and I'm convinced I'm completely worthless, and have only been fooling people all this time into thinking I was actually worth anything, and now I don't even care enough anymore to fool them.
Usually this results in me going off the internet and reading sf 'til it passes, but I'm allowed to whine once in a while, ne?
Right now all I want to do is get a job somewhere where I can do mindless work eight hours a day, not have to worry about getting fired but be able to quit and walk off whenever I want to, and make just enough money to keep me in a one-room apartment, a fast 'net connection, and enough milk, cheese, rice, and fruit to keep me alive. Sleep fourteen hours a day and daydream the rest. No expectations to meet, no responsibilities to fulfill, nobody to worry about worrying about me. ¿Que quieres en la vida, niña? Libertad. Simple libertad.
Oh well, by tomorrow probably my blood sugar will be up and my blood will be moving again and I'll be over it. Luckily I'm a girl and I'm allowed to blame it on my hormones and thus avoid the horrible trap of recursive depression.
Anyway! Enough angst! Enough of my angst, anyway, so instead I have some icky Snape/Bellatrix hetsmut that's been sitting in my notebook for a couple weeks, since I realized
pornish_pixies only takes slash. Snape/Black tendencies aside, I don't think this qualifies.
Title: Dust of Azkaban
Warnings: R. Very dark. Icky. Mostly plotless. During OotP. Het. Snape/Bellatrix.
Word Count: 1300
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling's. Well, they resemble hers a little, at least.
Dust of Azkaban
The Death Eater meeting was, finally, over. Now there was just the social hour to endure. Severus found a dark corner where he would go unnoticed unless someone was actually looking for him, and tried to calculate the minimum amount of time he was required to stay here and make a mockery of celebrating the mass escape from Azkaban. Dumbledore's spy wanted to flee, now, before he was further defiled by contact with these people. The Master of Dark Arts wanted to hide in the reassurance and security of his own place of power, his dungeon. The recently-returned-to-the-fold loyal Death Eater, still on shaky ground with the Dark Lord, had to at least make an effort to pretend he was enjoying himself, even if he was fooling nobody at all.
"Severus." A cracked, girlish voice several registers too high interrupted his reverie. He turned: Bellatrix Black, fresh out of prison, a glint of insanity in her eyes, dark hair straggling around her shoulders in an obscene parody. "Still the same as always, Severus, hiding in the back."
He let himself smile, forced himself to remember that this had once been one of his dearest friends. "Bella. You look--" as if you have been distilled by Azkaban; no, not distilled; frozen; you are the heart-of-wine, the clear, volatile spirit that drives men to madness, the impurity left when all the rest has congealed into ice-- "lovely, as always."
"Why, Severus, how sweet." She sashayed a step closer to him.
"What-- do you want, Bella?"
"Want?" She smiled. "Only your heart, and mind, and soul, as always, Severus." She lifted one spidery white hand to his face, and then slowly tangled it in his hair. He froze like a muggle in curselight, unable even to flinch away from that deadly touch, as she twined her fingers slickly into and through. "I understand now, Severus. I always thought it was just an affectation, like Lucky's snake fetish, or my voice." She pulled her hand down but didn't step away, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together thoughtfully, and dropped her voice down from that obscene falsetta, suddenly full of smoke and menace and promise and black. "But that wasn't ever it, was it?"
She raised that same hand to her mouth, and started slowly and deliberately to lick it clean, with long strokes of a very pink tongue. Severus could not look away, could not even blink, as she flicked into every fold and crevice, as if to capture every last taste of him. She paused at the base of the thumb.
"It wasn't an affectation. You had simply faced down despair long before any of the rest of us had even glimpsed her. You knew that there were more important things to fight against than the dirt and sourness outside." The pink, alive tongue flicked one more time down her palm, and then she sucked three fingers into her mouth in a motion that had almost nothing in common with a baby's, and she looked him coolly up and down, eyes lingering insultingly long just below his waist.
"Shouldn't you be looking after your husband?" he ground out, finally, around the paralysis that had gripped him.
She popped the fingers out of her mouth, drying them carelessly on her own unwashed hair, and smiled. "I love my husband very much," she said, her voice, horribly, once more the little girl's. "I am his strength and his passion, and there is nothing I will not do for him." She took a step, somehow, even closer, and Severus backed up, hitting the tapestried stone wall behind him. "But Azkaban changes people, Severus. Some of us, it grants gifts. Clarity, and purity, and purpose." She took another step and he had nowhere to go. "From others it takes away. There are certain things I need which my husband can no longer do for me."
Severus dropped his head against the wall and muttered, "What is it with you Blacks and thriving in Azkaban?"
"Haven't you figured it out yet, Severus?" she asked, closing the last the of the gap between them. "We were all already mad." And then she twisted her hands in his hair and kissed him.
Severus, already half-aroused, could do nothing more than press against the wall and scrabble with ragged fingernails on stone for support; her mouth was muggy, her spit was thick and bitter, her breasts incongruously soft against him, her skin and lips as sour as his own.
She broke, then, and moved away just enough for her fingers to begin working the buttons on the front of his robe, and for her mouth to shift to his ear and whisper, heavy and damp, "How was it for you, Severus? The week you spent in Azkaban?"
"Very-- little-- like-- this--" he managed, in between remembering to breathe. Her hand had worked its way inside his outer and was working on his under-robe; the other was busy at the back of his neck.
"Why, Severus, you're all compliments today," she said, still in the little-girl voice, bending her head to nip at the edge of his neck, just above his collar. Her hair against his face smelled of old sweat and despair and the penetrating, persistent dust of Azkaban. He raised a hand-- to push it out of his eyes? and then froze, as she touched him, and he gasped.
"So easy, Severus? I'd almost imagine you haven't gotten any in as long as I have." She rubbed, exquisitely, with the pad of her thumb, and then a ragged fingernail. "Honestly! A teacher! You clearly haven't been taking proper advantage of your position."
Her hand was as skillful as ever; her dark hair hung in lank locks about her shoulders and the wasted remains of her once-handsome face; the madness in her eyes was relieved only by that black spark of mindless, dogged conviction which could outlast even a Dementor's touch. He closed his eyes, the stone wall very cold through the heavy fabric of his robes, and let her have his way with him.
Eventually, he came. Shuddered silently between the cold wall and her hand, then stilled as her touch left him, knitting the edges of his frayed breaths and thoughts back together. And then he opened his eyes, to see her once again licking her fingers clean of him.
And raised his glance, and stood up suddenly straight. "My Lord."
Bella spun, the look on her face that of a dog whose master had just come home, and wiped her hand in her hair.
"Severus," the Dark Lord nodded, his red malicious eyes cataloging every detail of the scene. "How pleasant to see that you're enjoying yourself after all. And here I feared you'd be bored." Rodolphus and Rabastan stood behind him, eyes dull and lifeless, like puppets with nobody pulling their strings. "Sadly, I find myself in need of dear Bella's company -- Surely your -- colleagues -- will be missing you soon?"
"Ah, yes," Severus said, stepping away from the wall, straightening his robes, and reinforcing his barriers. "I do need to be leaving shortly, my Lord."
"Don't let us detain you. After all, we wouldn't want to give anyone reason to be -- suspicious, would we?"
He Apparated to Grimmauld Place and dictated a very precise, if expurgated, report to the werewolf -- Black, for once, had the sense to keep his foul mouth shut. Then he took a very, very long shower, and washed every trace of dust from his body, and every trace of grime and oil from his hair.
Nobody, not even Black, noticed, but for the rest of the week, every feathery unfamiliar touch of hair against his collar or his temple made him certain he was being watched.
So did I manage to make it work? :P And does anybody know of a good place for HP hetsmut, anyway? Everybody but rs.org seems to be slash-only, grumble.
Usually this results in me going off the internet and reading sf 'til it passes, but I'm allowed to whine once in a while, ne?
Right now all I want to do is get a job somewhere where I can do mindless work eight hours a day, not have to worry about getting fired but be able to quit and walk off whenever I want to, and make just enough money to keep me in a one-room apartment, a fast 'net connection, and enough milk, cheese, rice, and fruit to keep me alive. Sleep fourteen hours a day and daydream the rest. No expectations to meet, no responsibilities to fulfill, nobody to worry about worrying about me. ¿Que quieres en la vida, niña? Libertad. Simple libertad.
Oh well, by tomorrow probably my blood sugar will be up and my blood will be moving again and I'll be over it. Luckily I'm a girl and I'm allowed to blame it on my hormones and thus avoid the horrible trap of recursive depression.
Anyway! Enough angst! Enough of my angst, anyway, so instead I have some icky Snape/Bellatrix hetsmut that's been sitting in my notebook for a couple weeks, since I realized
Title: Dust of Azkaban
Warnings: R. Very dark. Icky. Mostly plotless. During OotP. Het. Snape/Bellatrix.
Word Count: 1300
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling's. Well, they resemble hers a little, at least.
Dust of Azkaban
The Death Eater meeting was, finally, over. Now there was just the social hour to endure. Severus found a dark corner where he would go unnoticed unless someone was actually looking for him, and tried to calculate the minimum amount of time he was required to stay here and make a mockery of celebrating the mass escape from Azkaban. Dumbledore's spy wanted to flee, now, before he was further defiled by contact with these people. The Master of Dark Arts wanted to hide in the reassurance and security of his own place of power, his dungeon. The recently-returned-to-the-fold loyal Death Eater, still on shaky ground with the Dark Lord, had to at least make an effort to pretend he was enjoying himself, even if he was fooling nobody at all.
"Severus." A cracked, girlish voice several registers too high interrupted his reverie. He turned: Bellatrix Black, fresh out of prison, a glint of insanity in her eyes, dark hair straggling around her shoulders in an obscene parody. "Still the same as always, Severus, hiding in the back."
He let himself smile, forced himself to remember that this had once been one of his dearest friends. "Bella. You look--" as if you have been distilled by Azkaban; no, not distilled; frozen; you are the heart-of-wine, the clear, volatile spirit that drives men to madness, the impurity left when all the rest has congealed into ice-- "lovely, as always."
"Why, Severus, how sweet." She sashayed a step closer to him.
"What-- do you want, Bella?"
"Want?" She smiled. "Only your heart, and mind, and soul, as always, Severus." She lifted one spidery white hand to his face, and then slowly tangled it in his hair. He froze like a muggle in curselight, unable even to flinch away from that deadly touch, as she twined her fingers slickly into and through. "I understand now, Severus. I always thought it was just an affectation, like Lucky's snake fetish, or my voice." She pulled her hand down but didn't step away, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together thoughtfully, and dropped her voice down from that obscene falsetta, suddenly full of smoke and menace and promise and black. "But that wasn't ever it, was it?"
She raised that same hand to her mouth, and started slowly and deliberately to lick it clean, with long strokes of a very pink tongue. Severus could not look away, could not even blink, as she flicked into every fold and crevice, as if to capture every last taste of him. She paused at the base of the thumb.
"It wasn't an affectation. You had simply faced down despair long before any of the rest of us had even glimpsed her. You knew that there were more important things to fight against than the dirt and sourness outside." The pink, alive tongue flicked one more time down her palm, and then she sucked three fingers into her mouth in a motion that had almost nothing in common with a baby's, and she looked him coolly up and down, eyes lingering insultingly long just below his waist.
"Shouldn't you be looking after your husband?" he ground out, finally, around the paralysis that had gripped him.
She popped the fingers out of her mouth, drying them carelessly on her own unwashed hair, and smiled. "I love my husband very much," she said, her voice, horribly, once more the little girl's. "I am his strength and his passion, and there is nothing I will not do for him." She took a step, somehow, even closer, and Severus backed up, hitting the tapestried stone wall behind him. "But Azkaban changes people, Severus. Some of us, it grants gifts. Clarity, and purity, and purpose." She took another step and he had nowhere to go. "From others it takes away. There are certain things I need which my husband can no longer do for me."
Severus dropped his head against the wall and muttered, "What is it with you Blacks and thriving in Azkaban?"
"Haven't you figured it out yet, Severus?" she asked, closing the last the of the gap between them. "We were all already mad." And then she twisted her hands in his hair and kissed him.
Severus, already half-aroused, could do nothing more than press against the wall and scrabble with ragged fingernails on stone for support; her mouth was muggy, her spit was thick and bitter, her breasts incongruously soft against him, her skin and lips as sour as his own.
She broke, then, and moved away just enough for her fingers to begin working the buttons on the front of his robe, and for her mouth to shift to his ear and whisper, heavy and damp, "How was it for you, Severus? The week you spent in Azkaban?"
"Very-- little-- like-- this--" he managed, in between remembering to breathe. Her hand had worked its way inside his outer and was working on his under-robe; the other was busy at the back of his neck.
"Why, Severus, you're all compliments today," she said, still in the little-girl voice, bending her head to nip at the edge of his neck, just above his collar. Her hair against his face smelled of old sweat and despair and the penetrating, persistent dust of Azkaban. He raised a hand-- to push it out of his eyes? and then froze, as she touched him, and he gasped.
"So easy, Severus? I'd almost imagine you haven't gotten any in as long as I have." She rubbed, exquisitely, with the pad of her thumb, and then a ragged fingernail. "Honestly! A teacher! You clearly haven't been taking proper advantage of your position."
Her hand was as skillful as ever; her dark hair hung in lank locks about her shoulders and the wasted remains of her once-handsome face; the madness in her eyes was relieved only by that black spark of mindless, dogged conviction which could outlast even a Dementor's touch. He closed his eyes, the stone wall very cold through the heavy fabric of his robes, and let her have his way with him.
Eventually, he came. Shuddered silently between the cold wall and her hand, then stilled as her touch left him, knitting the edges of his frayed breaths and thoughts back together. And then he opened his eyes, to see her once again licking her fingers clean of him.
And raised his glance, and stood up suddenly straight. "My Lord."
Bella spun, the look on her face that of a dog whose master had just come home, and wiped her hand in her hair.
"Severus," the Dark Lord nodded, his red malicious eyes cataloging every detail of the scene. "How pleasant to see that you're enjoying yourself after all. And here I feared you'd be bored." Rodolphus and Rabastan stood behind him, eyes dull and lifeless, like puppets with nobody pulling their strings. "Sadly, I find myself in need of dear Bella's company -- Surely your -- colleagues -- will be missing you soon?"
"Ah, yes," Severus said, stepping away from the wall, straightening his robes, and reinforcing his barriers. "I do need to be leaving shortly, my Lord."
"Don't let us detain you. After all, we wouldn't want to give anyone reason to be -- suspicious, would we?"
He Apparated to Grimmauld Place and dictated a very precise, if expurgated, report to the werewolf -- Black, for once, had the sense to keep his foul mouth shut. Then he took a very, very long shower, and washed every trace of dust from his body, and every trace of grime and oil from his hair.
Nobody, not even Black, noticed, but for the rest of the week, every feathery unfamiliar touch of hair against his collar or his temple made him certain he was being watched.
So did I manage to make it work? :P And does anybody know of a good place for HP hetsmut, anyway? Everybody but rs.org seems to be slash-only, grumble.

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Yes, I think too many places are exclusively devoted to slash. Slash is good, but so is het!
I've been working on a McGonagall/Snape version of the same idea, but I dunno.
Anyway, I hope you stop being utterly depressed soon.
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And work on the M/S! Yay! Cannot have too much of properly greasy Snape, ever.
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--C
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--C
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And this bit?
as if you have been distilled by Azkaban; no, not distilled; frozen; you are the heart-of-wine, the clear, volatile spirit that drives men to madness, the impurity left when all the rest has congealed into ice
Wonderful. That was where I started squirming. I didn't stop until it was over.
...
Fiction Alley and its affiliated sites have het content. You could probably send this there, if you wanted.
I'm totally with you on the frustration of having so many good communities be slash-only. Grr.
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FictionAlley would *probably* take this, but I'm a bit iffy about sending something that's unabashedly smut there, since I think of it as a place to go for fairly safe fics. Hmm. I shall have to consider.
We should really think about starting a het-only hp community, just 'cause.
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This would go in the Dark Arts section over there, right? I tend to avoid the whole site, to be completely honest; I just don't have enough patience to wade through gobs of fic looking for the things that might really catch me.
It would have to be a het-only community that didn't have an "ew! slash!" attitude -- my biggest problem with 'pixies is its "ew! het!" thing. But I've got codes....
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Dark Arts would probably do best, although I could say Astronomy Tower and confuse all the fangirls. (Nobody checks on house suitability). It would probably be debated whether it's too close to the NC-17 line, although it's probably not over. Can be fun to browse there sometimes, if you want something different.
Certainly no ew! slash attitudes, no. And it would probably have to be invite-only, like pixies, in order to avoid that, if it actually took off. I have codes, too, but I've no idea how to start and run such a thing, or who to get in on it. Hm.
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otherwise, I cringed and cackled at the wiping her hand in the hair bit. :) Yay hetsmut.
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Besides, Lestrange is just such a *silly* name.
Glad I made you cringe. *grin*.
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Yeah, Lestrange consistently makes them sound like they were being addressed by Pepe LaPew. "Zis is le strange personne!" Or maybe that's just me...
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webcomics was my first fandom.
Yes, exactly. Voldemort is bad enough, but at least it isn't quite as cartoonish.
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Still, an all-hp hetsmut place would be nice.