Severus/Bellatrix, comic PWP, and no apologies...

A Taste of Eternity

"Lucius will join us in a bit." Motioning distractedly for him to sit, Bellatrix busied herself at the sideboard. "I'm so glad you could make it tonight, Severus. I don't imagine you spend much time in polite company."

Ignoring her obvious Dumbledore barb, Severus selected a tenuous perch on the edge of a long, uncomfortable settee. Shaped like an elongated hand and upholstered in velvet--acid velvet, judging from the way the colors shifted from puce to magenta and all points between. Though it looked like a castoff from Boy George's charmed garage sale, the damned thing had probably cost more than what he made in a year. Accentuating its largess, tufted pillows lay scattered about it on the floor, along with a heap of fringed brocade that might have been an antimacassar, had there been a piano to drape it over, which there was not. Gods, what slobs these purebloods were, he thought.

A cork popped. Glass clinked. "Drink?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Please."

An uncomfortable silence stretched between them, broken only by the crackling fire, soft clinking of crystal, and Bella's discordant humming.

Severus cleared his throat. "Lucius said you'd been abroad."

"Eastern Europe...the mountains are so lovely this time of year," she murmured in singsong. "Forbidding and austere, but overflowing with the Elixir of Life. I feel like a new witch!"

Hoping it wouldn't trigger an in-depth recount of what probably had been a series of tiresome spa visits, Snape guaged his next response carefully. "Yes, I thought you looked...different."

"Never better." Turning, she offered him a glass. "Hope red's alright?"

"Fine, thank you." As he reached for the long-stemmed glass, Severus pretended to ignore Bellatrix's tipsiness and tottering footsteps. It wasn't the first time he'd seen her like this, and while Soon-to-be-Blotto-Bella always made him a bit nervous, she was still better company than her Homicidal-Hedgewitch alter ego.

Plopping herself precariously close to him on the settee, she giggled. "Comfy?"

He could smell the headiness of the wine on her breath and feel the softness of her breasts against his arm as they swelled against her bodice's black lace. Odd, she wasn't wearing her characteristic corset this evening but then, what Bella did at home was her business. "Quite," he said.

She raised her glass. "A toast!"

Ignoring the wine just splashed on his trousers (thankfully, not his best), Severus continued following suit. "What shall we toast, Bella?"

"To us! To Night! To things only the Night knows!"

Knowing he shouldn't encourage her, he awaited her usual nattering about the Dark Lord and all his purported might. When she really got going, she sounded more like a besotted schoolgirl than one of the fiercest and most unpredictable Death Eaters alive. He'd half expected her to conjure her name and Voldemort's in little flaming hearts on the salon's paneled walls. "What kind of things, Bella," he drawled. "What secrets does the Night know?"

"The true nature of darkness, dreams, and..." Wide-eyed, she slid her small, soft hand along his thigh.

He'd never really noticed her hands before, but this one felt surprisingly warm through his thin trousers. Warm, and, as it began squeezing--

"--desire," she breathed, lips grazing his.

Strong. Quite strong. Severus swallowed, wondering where in the hell Lucius could be. Watching, perhaps? Severus wouldn't put it past the rotter.

The hand squeeze-squeezed again. Harder. Higher this time. Inching herself closer, eyes boring into him like twin pitch pits, Bellatrix rubbed the tip of her nose against his and purred, "Mmm...here's to knowing what the Night knows. To us, Severus!"

To us? Severus fought the sudden urge to hex her across the room but that hand --her hand--that maddening, migrating monument to masturbatory bliss was--

"Ooohhh..."

Idiot! Beautiful Bella Pureblood would never sully herself for a half-blood. Unless, of course the half-blood in question happened to be Voldemort. To us, indeed, Severus thought bitterly. "To Night, Bella." He drained the glass in a single gulp.

"Tonight," sighed Bellatrix.

The wine, a bold blend of plum and blackberry, brimming with spicy notes, coursed through him. Underneath it, however, was a flavor he didn't recognize: a lingering essence in the aftertaste, zesty and coppery, yet sensual and mysterious. Sudden warmth spread through him, imbuing every particle of his being with a curious insubstantiality he'd only experienced in dreams. As the room started slowly spinning, Severus looked up just in time to see the ceiling whisked away like a cobweb in the wind. High above them, stars winked and glittered in their endless, ebony canopy.

"Bella, what did you..."

The words died in his throat as the walls disappeared, the settee turned into a pile of soft furs, and his clothes--her clothes–- dissolved.

"No one but the Night knows," whispering enigmatically, she nuzzled against his throat. 

Severus felt as though he'd wandered into a dream. Bella--now a completely naked, wriggling, and extremely attentive Bella-- resumed her ministrations upon his person southerly, to a certain, previously neglected spot that, now, was neither soft nor insubstantial. When her tongue began flicking over the tip of that spot, Severus arched into her and moaned. If this is a dream, he thought. 

Her nimble tongue and the tropic of her mouth quickly eclipsed all rational thought. Desire, long-repressed, rang through his every cell; the earth thrummed like a huge heart beneath him; and the whispering grass, as it grew long around him, gave up all the secrets of the universe. Even Bella was no longer a being apart, but part of him. Their halves had become whole. Opening his eyes, Severus met the moon's unblinking gaze, but could discern every detail of the knoll upon which he lay and the forests beyond, as if it were daylight.

Realization came before he did.

"It-it's b-b-b-blood," he stammered. "You put blood in the wine!"

"Not just any blood, Severus:  vampire blood!" Canines blazing in the moonlight, Bella laughed.  "Guess you've never had Carpathian blood wine, before, silly man." 

"It's not exactly on the Hogwarts wine list if you...oohh!"

Bella interrupted. Pulling him to the floor, she straddled him. As she began kissing him deeply, her hand guided him into another spot, one as warm and wet and welcoming as her mouth, yet tighter and more tantalizing than her throat.

Much tighter. "Mmmm..." Grasping her ample hips, Severus pulled her close.

"Why Lucius thinks you're a genius, I'll never know. I'd ask him but..." She lifted a corner of the brocade coverlet to reveal Lucius, fanged and gape-mouthed, drool pooling on the floor by one alabaster cheek. "One sip knocked him cold. He never could hold his--Ooohhh!" she gasped as her sweet spot found a sweet spot of its own.

Carpathian blood wine, Severus mused as he thrust inside her velvet core. A taste of eternity, the Elixir of Life. "How delightfully devious of you, Bella," he said, adding to himself, however short-lived the moment may be...

"Shhh!" Leaning over, long curls cascading around him like an inky cataract, Bellatrix pressed a finger to his lips. "He'll be out for a week. We, on the other hand, could be at this all night or more." She increased her speed.

"Indeed!" Thrusting harder, Severus beamed.