It all came down to instinct. Feet left a scent behind, even through shoes, and those little trails called to Remus' sensitive nose, luring him to follow them wherever they may lead: sweaty little child-footprints trotting across fragrant grass to the Quidditch showers; brisk tread redolent of feline threading through the castle; complex sugar-coated mystery drawing up short at the gargoyle's feet. Achingly familiar scent of pain and nostalgia, perfect pheromones and strange ingredients blending into the only smell that Remus had always been able to pick up, even when the moon was at her weakest.

He longed to roll in that scent, to bury his face in the dirty socks of it, to nuzzle between the toes and lick along arches he just knew would be high and elegant. His cock hardened every time he caught a whiff of it, the perfect retaliation for years of standing by and simply not helping, a subtle torment known only to its recipient. It filled Remus' days with difficult erections, and his lonely nights with dreams that haunted with their animal simplicity.

If there was one thing that his relationship with Severus Snape would never be, it was simple.

"Impatient for your potion, Lupin?" Snape drawled sarcastically. Remus' nose had brought him to Snape's door hours early -- one day before the change his skin itched with the need to be someone else, cock throbbing with the pulse of the tides, brain buzzing with moonlit static. "I assure you I planned on bringing it down presently."

Remus opened his mouth for a polite lie, foolishly glancing down to avoid the cutting black glass of Snape's eyes; his gaze fell instead, inevitably, upon enticing bare feet. "I want to suck your toes," he blurted, tongue betraying him, a desert of need that thirsted for a single taste of Snape.

"I beg your pardon?" said Snape, disbelief colouring his words.

Remus winced, and more unwanted truth fell from his lips. "Your feet. I want to lick them."

Snape raised one cultured eyebrow and stared for long moments; Remus quite literally held his breath, guarding against air so delectably laden with Snape's essence. The scent was dark, rich and pervasive, cleansing the palate of the taint of everyday school life until he was all Remus could smell. "Perhaps we should continue this conversation in private," said Snape, his voice heavy with amusement and other, less favourable things.

Remus followed him into his quarters, the door thudding behind him with a certain dull finality. He knew that, whatever else happened, Snape would exact payment for this revelation, probably in the most humiliating way possible. Slytherins used knowledge as a weapon, and Snape would know that this was, in its way, as damning as the secret he'd been forbidden to reveal.

Snape motioned Remus to sit by the fire, taking the other chair for himself. Snape was obviously just out of the bath, damp hair a green silk dressing gown that he settled about himself almost demurely. Remus felt positively Victorian, aroused by the finely turned ankles, calves covered in curling black hairs, wiry muscles stretched over a long, spare frame. The robe gaped enough to reveal a thin chest much like Remus' own, sparse hairs dusting the exposed breastbone.

"You want to suck my toes," said Snape, his tone dripping mockery.

Remus flushed, clutching at the edge of his robes as if they held his shattered dignity, and could shield his shame if he only positioned them correctly.

Snape took his embarrassed silence for the assent it was. "And the reason for this sudden desire?" he asked, flexing his feet. Remus suppressed a moan -- it was like an illicit glimpse of cleavage, seeing those agile, shapely toes move and stretch just on the periphery of vision.

"I... the scent," said Remus. "It's a wolf thing."

"Why my feet?" Snape prodded, sounding genuinely curious. Remus shrugged painfully, unable, unwilling to explain. Snape asked, "And if I do allow you this liberty with my person, what will you offer in exchange?"

Remus flinched at the not unexpected question, words that spelled 'whore' with their silences and sullied the clean lines of desire. He gathered his wits, tasting the answer on his tongue, the thing he'd held inside since their school days just waiting for Snape to ask. "Anything," he breathed, then forced out the rest, protecting them both from his foolish need. "Anything that will not scar or otherwise permanently damage me or my position here."

Snape raised his eyebrow. "That... covers quite a lot, Lupin."

Remus nodded wretchedly, musk filling his lungs, making his brain swim with memories of lust and hate. "I... it's been a long time," he said quietly, letting Snape draw the wrong conclusions from simple truth.

"Indeed. As it has been for me, that I had such liberties," came the thoughtful reply.

Remus swallowed, asking politely the question that James had jeered at Snape for years, "Do you even like men?"

Snape's smile was slow and viscous, like honey. It was not particularly reassuring, or pleasant. "I will enjoy you."

Remus' apprehension grew as his desire wound tighter, the instinct to bare his throat in supplication warring with the tiny voice of reason screaming itself hoarse in the back of his mind. "How do you want me, then?"

"You may begin with your original request," said Snape in silken tones. "Strip, and then kneel."

Remus neatly folded his robes, placing them on the chair he'd vacated, and knelt nervously, awaiting Snape's next instruction. Snape handed him a small pot, not lubricant as he'd expected, but the thick wild honey that was provided with tea as a matter of course here at Hogwarts. It would give his tongue direction, a task, and mute the flavour as well, making Remus work for his reward.

Snape leaned back, crossing his legs and stretching out one foot enticingly.

Remus carefully dripped the heavy golden fluid over the top of Snape's foot, then smeared it over the parchment-thin skin with a light, massaging touch. Snape's expression was of languid disinterest, but his hands tensed when Remus' fingers dipped between his toes, slid along the arch of his foot. Remus inhaled deeply as his hands worked, smelling the sweet pollen of the honey, the spice of Snape's soap, and underneath the just-emerging musk of his body.

"I've wanted this forever," said Remus reverently, only barely aware that he'd spoken before running his grateful tongue over the top of Snape's foot. Snape twitched, but sticky hands held him in place as Remus licked and sucked back down, lips quickly coated with the thick honey, mouth flooded with the delicious combination of sugar and Snape. He methodically cleaned the smeared mess from skin as fine as expensive silk, luxury like Remus could never afford, and was costing too much even now.

He kept his breathing deep and even, a small part of his mind recognising that he would never again take honey in his tea without an erection. Sensing impatience in the twitch of an ankle, Remus mouthed wetly along the outside of Snape's foot, lifting it so he could nip at the callused heel, teasingly avoiding the sensitive arch. Remus suckled at the ankle bones, each little protrusion laved with careful attention, and was rewarded with harsh breaths from above.

He drank in the sounds like tiny triumphs, each admission of arousal like cool water on a parched throat. His tongue moved on without him, licking a fat, wet stroke from ankle to toes, then his teeth nibbled back down, biting once again at the heel. Snape's feet were long and narrow, and Remus took his time going over every millimetre of the sensitive arches, first licking away the sweet honey, then peppering kisses and gentle nips until Snape's breath turned fast and shallow, and he delighted Remus with a small moan.

Remus smiled to himself, the tiny power heady in this voluntary helplessness. He bit harder at the pads of Snape's feet, teeth just shy of marking. The moans grew more frequent, the breathing less controlled. Remus nursed that spark of satisfaction, wallowing in the illusion of control right up until Snape began to speak.

"I am going to fuck that impressive mouth of yours, Lupin. Perhaps I will make you beg for it, force you to prostrate yourself for the privilege of sucking my cock. You should see yourself, on your knees before me, worshipping at my feet. Would you like it better if they weren't so clean, still redolent of the day's accumulated filth?"

Remus stifled a whimper, closing his lips over Snape's big toe and sucking like it was his prick. Remus scraped teeth along the underside just to hear Snape's recitation falter, then moved on to the next one. It was hard to separate from its fellows, but he licked and sucked around it until he was sure it was clean, until it tasted of nothing more than Snape's flesh and Remus' mouth, and the place where they met and merged.

Snape continued speaking, each word a nail in the coffin of Remus' pride and self-respect. "How will you feel as you sleep, belly full of your potion and my seed? I should fuck your ass as well and send you to your bed with my come dripping out both ends. Will it be better or worse, knowing that it was me that used you, made you howl like the animal you are?"

Remus was on all fours now, licking the smallest toe, running his tongue in the creases to get the very last of the honey. His heart hammered in his throat, making it hard to swallow the suddenly cloying sweetness. He was impossibly hard, aroused by the realisation of his longest-held fantasy, but even more by Snape's words, the thought of himself filled with Snape's come and vitriol. He felt like whining and groveling, showing his tender belly in a display of animal sincerity.

"This is only the beginning," said Snape in a low growl that sent a shiver cascading over Remus' bare skin. "I will fuck you in every conceivable position, take you between classes so you have to teach with my come dripping down your thighs, make you spread yourself open for my pleasure, crawl and beg for a single touch of my flesh. I will addict you to my body; you will be ruined, forever defiled by the bargain you have made tonight."

Remus whimpered, the toe popping out of his mouth with an obscene wet sound, senses drowning in honey and Snape. He bent down low to nuzzle Snape's other foot, and a low, needy whine escaped his throat, ass in the air and cock bobbing as if it had its own life, separate from this degradation. Snape merely uncrossed his legs, spreading them to give Remus a glimpse up those thighs, leading his eyes to the erection tenting the fabric above. Remus found himself transfixed and salivating, unable to look away.

Snape followed his hungry gaze and smiled cruelly, opening his dressing gown to reveal the lean lines of his body, the unearthly pallor of his skin. His cock was long, flushed dark and purple, the head slick, the musk of his sex drifting down to Remus' eager nose. Snape's eyes glittered beneath heavy lids, his gaze fascinating, snake-like. "Stay."

Remus froze, waiting. Snape stood, dressing gown left behind like a shed skin. He circled, and Remus lowered his forehead to the green rug, finally noticing the pattern of Slytherin snakes twining through it in scratchy silver thread. Wondering if he'd have the imprint of them in his knees the next day. Grateful it wasn't real silver, and trying not to question whether he'd have endured the burn of it anyway. The rug was fragrant with years of Snape's scent, his hands sweet and sticky where they clenched at nothing above his head. He shivered with vulnerability and need, face down in Snape's quarters with his ass offered up to Snape's cruelty.

"You don't want to enjoy me, do you, werewolf?" asked Snape. A shudder shook his self-image to pieces when long fingers ran delicately down his cleft. They toyed with his pucker, cool and dry and almost ticklish. "Yet your body is so ready for me."

"Yesss," Remus hissed out, one of those fingertips dipping ever so slightly inside of him. A part of him worried that Snape might take him dry, just like this, but his mouth didn't seem to care either way. "Fuck me, Severus, fill me up with every bit of hate you ever had for us."

The fingers left, replaced by something smaller, hard and cool. A murmured spell, one so familiar to other times and places, and his entrance was relaxed, wet and welcoming. The tip of Snape's wand pressed startlingly inwards, the tapered shape sliding easily. The wood was as uncompromising as the man, rigid and almost painful where it poked into deep places no one ever reached. The moan that escaped Remus' lips perfected his humiliation as Snape dragged it back along his prostate.

"Show me how you want my cock," said Snape, moving the tip of the wand in little circles just inside him, massaging the muscles of his opening relentlessly.

Hating his own eagerness, Remus pushed back without hesitation, sliding himself onto Snape's long, slender wand. Remus could hear the surprise in a quick exhalation of breath; Snape obviously hadn't thought he would be so compliant, but then, Snape had really never understood him at all. He was a werewolf, yes, a monster, but the beast inside him longed to be tamed again, like he'd been with Padfoot and Prongs to keep him in check.

He rocked forward just a little, then back again, taking the length of it right up to Snape's hand, the contact pulling another gasp of something, lust, disgust or surprise, from Snape's lips. Snape whipped the wand out, fast and shocking, and grasped Remus' hips roughly. "You want this," he said, lining himself up, as much question as statement.

"Always," said Remus, aching with the need of it. He could feel the moon close in the sky, one night from full, building a howl in his throat one whimper at a time. Snape thrust, splitting him open and filling him with heat, lust, hate and all the other things they never spoke of, thighs cold where they met Remus' flushed body. Remus held himself very still, shivering beneath his overheated skin, waiting, offering.

Snape took. He slid in and out with fluid strokes, cock thick and hot and just what Remus wanted after so very long. He hit Remus' prostate over and over, aim impeccable and design obvious. "You will come just from this," he purred, silken voice torn and tattered by desire, "or you will not come at all.

Remus' body sang with tension, the myriad humiliations of the evening coalescing in his balls as a deep, heavy ache. Snape's strokes were just smooth enough to frustrate the animal part of him that wanted to be fucked with passionate abandon, and just deep enough to draw a sound from him every time regardless. He began to push back, meeting Snape's hips with a sharp snap of his own, throwing off the rhythm and daring Snape to lose control.

Snape growled low in his throat, a sound that reverberated deep in Remus' battered psyche. Snape clutched at Remus' hips with bony fingers and began a savage, punishing rhythm of short, sharp strokes that turned Remus' whimpers into little cries. Remus was close, so very close, his cock leaking copiously, sparkling humiliation dripping from his body onto the shining silver thread of Snape's House icon. His balls were tight, slapped roughly from behind by Snape's heavy sac, and he bit his lip to try and find that final spark to send him over the edge.

"Such a fucking slut, Lupin, coming to my quarters and begging for my cock," Snape murmured, voice rough and breathing harsh. "Giving it up for me of all people, lowly Snivellus fucking your ass while you whimper and cry."

The old, hated nickname was enough, the dirty scrape of it off his ears and down into his brain, an image of himself, hard and embarrassed, as James exposed Snape to the laughing crowd, his thin body and thick, quiescent cock calling to Remus even then. Remus' climax let loose that feral howl, face streaked with sweat and the possibility of tears as his come spattered meaningless white noise across Snape's gaudy symbol.

Snape growled deeper, fucking Remus harder as he moaned, ass suddenly excruciatingly sensitive, the touch to his prostate exquisite torment now that his moment had come and gone. He was truly a vessel now, being used for nothing more than Snape's pleasure, his own spent in futile graffiti. He stretched himself out, arching back against Snape's anger and hate, tightening up around his lust and pain until he spilled that contempt, wasting his seed in the infertile ground of Remus' body.

Snape pulled out slowly, fingers releasing their bruising grip, breathing evened out enough to cast a cleaning charm on himself and his rug, leaving Remus a sweaty mess. "Get out," he said calmly, retrieving his robe and dressing himself back in his old familiar masks.

Remus pulled himself together more slowly, dressing himself heedless of the lingering stickiness clinging and smells of sex, Snape and honey. He left silently, and Snape let him get almost to the safety of the corridor before saying, "I'll be up soon with your potion. Don't bother cleaning up."

Even as the lust sang renewed in his veins, making a chorus with moon and beast, all Remus really heard was the roaring howl of despair at the sure knowledge that his wolf had finally damned him. He went upstairs slowly, feeling the little twinges left by sex all over his body, and the deep ache of regret in his chest.