May Madness 19 (#17)

[inkgeist.livejournal.com]

Title: Wicked Wolves 17
Author: inkgeist
Pairing/Characters: Severus/Remus
Word Count: 500
Rating: PG tops
Warning: Unbeta-ed. Body worship (is that even a fetish/squick worthy?)
Challenge: May Madness Day 19 "Everything has beauty but not everyone can see."
Notes: Having started with the theme "bury your secrets in my skin," the prompt above begged to be about Remus's scars and how Severus develops a new level of respect/empathy for Remus.
Getting back on the May Madness wagon but this chapter follows the last one I wrote, hence #17




“For goodness sake man, cover that” greeted Severus as he half carried Remus through the door of the pub.

“Shut it,” Severus felt more than heard the low growl.  He had a hand on his wand, but the offending werewolf looked away and Remus returned to his regular mild manner. “None of us are much to look at, especially after the moon.” Remus closed Severus’s coat and left the room on his own. When they were well out of ear shot, even by werewolf standards, Remus threw his arm around Severus for support.

“Imbecile! I’m perfectly capable of defending myself” Severus hissed. “I did not risk drowning so you could get yourself killed.”

“I’d like to think you risked drowning for the same reasons I stood up for you. It was the right thing to do and because I wanted to.” They didn’t speak after that. Remus was asleep before he was properly in bed.

Idiot. Severus gently rolled Remus onto his side and slowly removed his coat. He knew better than using a drying charm near leather but he couldn’t leave Remus sopping wet. Towel in hand, Severus watched mesmerized as water droplets slid off Remus’s skin becoming small rivers along his scars both fresh and faded.
Rolling Remus onto his back, Severus saw more evidence of teeth, claws and his curse. The Bite was prominently just over his right nipple looking as fresh as the newest scars. There were faint claw marks from Remus’s face to his neck that Severus surely noticed but had never seen. Severus wondered if they were the reason Remus wore his hair long- until very recently, he’d hidden behind his hair as well.

Severus acknowledged that both of them hid, he hated Remus for it because he saw so much of himself in Remus. Severus hid the mark and later the hollow that had replaced it. He had every right to feel ashamed, he had made the choice to be marked, Remus never had that choice. And yet Remus has always been all I wanted to look at, perhaps because of his scars – they are a promise of what lies behind that mask.

He traced the line beginning on Remus’s left cheek and ran past to the right of his mouth with one hand as he traced the contours of the scars on his neck with the other. Severus repeated the motion but stopped at Remus’s mouth as his other hand traced the part of his neck that Remus had bitten. It completed the now gorgeous mark on his neck that had gone from something he hadn’t chosen, to something that Remus had helped him reclaim. Severus had never felt more dashing.
He gave into the urge or running his teeth over the contours of The Bite from the top down. On his way back up he encountered amber eyes looking at him in wonder. “Beautiful,” Severus watched Remus’s eyes widen when Severus traced it with his tongue.