omg schoolboy remus!!!11 *dies*
angeluspixy is one of my new favorite people. Why? Because she provided this delicious, delectable, FUCKING GORGEOUS picture that TOTALLY IS my Young!Remus:
OMG the MUSSED HAIR and the LOOSE TIE and the MOUTH and the LOOK on his face! He BEGS to be kissed hard and fast and NOW. Holy goddamn motherfucking SHIT. GAAAAAAAH.
This picture was SO FUCKING HOT that I dropped everything and wrote a fic. It's dark, and it's weird, and it's not really a drabble because it's over 1,000 words, but it's not really a story, either. I think. I don't know. It's weird; I wrote it in a rush of an hour of creativity. This is dedicated to the magnificent ignited for making me this TOTALLY HOT-ASS ICON and for just being awesome in general. OMG STEF! *loves* Also, shout-out to circe_tigana and her obsession with Naked!Remus, because yes. *g*
The Dark Center of the Universe
By: Annie Sewell-Jennings
*****
"I might disintegrate into the thin air if you like
And I'm not the dark center of the universe like you thought"
--Modest Mouse, "The Dark Center of the Universe"
*****
He thinks now that he has probably always loved Remus Lupin, but he did not know it until six weeks ago, on the morning after the prank. Except prank isn't really the word for what he did, is it? No, what Sirius did was far too cruel and adult for a word that weak and childish. He'd tried to turn his best friend into a murderer. Gentle, tender Remus, whose greatest fear was to hurt another living being, and Sirius had known this, but in a moment of utter stupidity didn't care enough to remember.
And the next morning, it was Remus who paid, Remus who woke with gashes on his sides because his friends weren't there to help him that night, Remus's face with angry red slashes across the cheek and nose, forever marred by Sirius's stupidity.
Sirius cried that morning. Not out loud, no, but behind his hands, behind his futile apologies, there were tears. "I'm so fucking sorry, Moony, please don't hate me, I didn't think, and I know that's no excuse, but Remus, you have to believe me, I'd never--"
"But you did, didn't you." Remus's voice was heavy, like a stone that's still sitting in the bottom of Sirius's stomach, waiting to be digested. And the look in his eyes was so dead, so devoid of all emotion that it wrapped tight around Sirius's throat and refused to let go. "I think it would be best if you left, Sirius, and did not return for a very, very long time."
Sirius's voice sounded warped even to his own ears, thick with desperation. "Remus--"
It was when Remus turned his back on him that Sirius realized that his heart was breaking and his world was falling to pieces, and that could only mean that he was in love.
So it turns out that Joni Mitchell was right after all, and you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
Remus will not speak to him. He holds his silence like armor, steely and impenetrable, cuts his eyes away whenever Sirius walks into a room, purses his lips with disdain like he's just smelled something particularly nasty. Sirius sometimes wonders if Remus can smell his guilt.
Sirius sometimes wonders if Remus can smell everything.
His world is thick with Moony, pulsing with the aftershocks of Remus's comings and goings, haunted by the ghost of a friend he used to have and a lover he'll never know. In the mornings, Sirius wakes to the smell of Remus's nightmares, the sour-salt scent of his sweat clinging to the drapes and curtains, and it makes him restless and feverish. When they pass in the hallways, it makes Sirius nearly sick to his stomach to look at the tall, slender grace of him and not have Remus look back.
Love caught Sirius off guard, infected him with deadly poison, clouded up his world and made him forget how to live. If it weren't for the mercy of James, he would be failing at least two of his classes. His head's so fogged up with Remus that he can't think of charms or Arithmancy, can't concentrate on simple hexes, and his potions have all been arse ever since that fucking awful morning. There is something innately terrible in falling in love with someone at the very same moment you've lost them forever, and Sirius thinks it might be the death of him.
The worst part is, Sirius thinks Remus knows.
For a long time, Remus ignored him, pretended that Sirius did not exist. But in the last couple of weeks, Remus has taken to being everywhere. When Sirius comes out of classrooms, he'll find Remus leaning against the wall across from him, fingertips playing over his lips like he's on the verge of merciless laughter. If Sirius tries to go hide in the library, he'll find Remus's long legs sprawled carelessly across Sirius's favorite velvet chaise, fingers curled around the battered pages of a book in a way that's almost stunningly erotic. He's started staring holes through Sirius as though he knows everything. It makes Sirius feel faint and flushed, makes him feel like his skin's been stripped off his skeleton and Remus can see straight through to the marrow.
It's driving Sirius insane. He cannot sleep at nights, his dreams ripped apart by the burning image of Remus's thunderstorm eyes, by the scars that Sirius slashed across his face, by his spindly fingers that were so long they could reach into the secret chambers of Sirius's heart and rip out his entire life if he wanted. He cannot eat; food tastes ashen and dead in his mouth, like the cigarettes Moony has started smoking, like he can only taste the imaginings of Remus's absent kisses.
And then one night, there is Astronomy.
They all gather in the Astronomy Tower with Professor Gillespie, a frazzle-haired woman with coffee-stained robes who talks so fast that Sirius's fingers often cramp up when trying to take notes. She rushes them all through the telescope, motor-mouths through the constellations and planetary charts, and when she starts to plow through the lunar cycles in one prattling rambling spew of words, Sirius watches as Remus walks away.
Sirius follows the smooth, languid stride of Remus's long legs, watches his spindly shadow flicker across the stone walls until he stops. Sirius stops, too; he doesn't want Remus to see him, doesn't want to feel that sickening churn of anguish when Remus cuts him down. No, tonight he just wants something easy and secret, something to comfort him. He just wants a glimpse.
The bright flare of a lighter; the gentle exhalation of burnt tobacco. Remus is smoking again, and when did he pick up this habit? Something drops in Sirius's stomach when he realizes that Remus never used to smoke before the prank, and he wonders if absolutely everything changed that night. Did the stars realign themselves that hastily, that drastically, all because Sirius Black was a giant fucking prat? Fuck. Sirius doesn't know. He just knows that as he watches the dark silhouette of Remus Lupin curling those deadly-gorgeous fingers around the edge of the cigarette, something in Sirius's heart is weeping, and he doesn't think it will ever, ever stop.
"I know you're there."
This is the first thing Remus has said to him since the morning after, and it is sharp and malicious, razorblades disguised as words. Sirius feels the sting, like salt in the wounds, and when he steps forward into the light, he sees Remus illuminated by the dim orange glow of the cigarette and the brighter silver flare of the waxing moon.
Fuck, but it's just not fair that Remus should be this savagely beautiful, an unforgiving etching of dark limbs and disheveled hair, cloaked in the weight of his too-big secondhand robes. Remus has grown thin in these last few weeks, all the baby fat gone from his face, leaving him with a jagged collection of angles and bones. He leans carelessly against the wall, shoulders loose and mouth twisted, just waiting to tear Sirius apart.
Slowly, Remus's eyes drag up and down over Sirius, narrow and full of distrust so furious that it makes Sirius feel dizzy. "How nice to know that you think so little of astronomy," he drawls. "But then again, I suppose we already knew that, now, didn't we."
That voice has been whispering illicit wants in Sirius's dreams for last few weeks, and now it's dripping with acid, dry and bitter, a twisted nasal sound that assaults his senses and makes him sharply, achingly aroused. "I followed you," Sirius says helplessly, and Remus gives him a sarcastic look that stings like napalm.
"Really."
Sirius's palms are sweating. He can smell fear on the air and knows that it's his own. "What are you doing out here, Remus?" he asks softly. "It's not like you to skip a lecture."
Remus takes another long drag from the cigarette, flares his nostrils a bit, exhales smoke into the air as he throws his head back a bit, honey-whiskey hair all messy around his face. "Oh, because you know me so well, right, Padfoot?" he sneers. Sirius never wants to hear him say that name that way again, all twisted around like an insult when it used to be an endearment. "Personally, I found the professor's lecture to be rather useless. I've known astronomy since I was a child. Had to, didn't I, being the monster I am."
"You're not a monster, Remus."
Remus ignores him. "Did you know, Sirius, that when I was a boy, I used to think the world revolved around the moon? It only made sense, you see; my life was centered around that blasted silver hunk of shit, so why shouldn't everyone else's be, too? I was young, assumed that everyone else went through the pains of transformation, had their blood and bones ripped apart every month by that merciless bitch, until I grew up and realized that no, I was just lucky."
He throws his cigarette against the wall and it explodes in a furious shower of sparks. Sirius flinches as Remus turns his starved, furious gaze on him. "But you, Sirius. You've never learned the lesson that the world doesn't revolve around you, have you?"
Sirius thinks he might start crying soon if Remus doesn't stop talking, stop throwing words like daggers, stop saying those terrible things that aren't true. "No," he whispers. "I've learned my lesson, Remus."
Laughter spills out of Remus, thick and mad. "Have you now?" he demands. "Stubborn, pigheaded Sirius Black has finally learned something? Miracle of miracles, saints be praised. Stop the fucking presses."
Now Sirius is getting angry, offended, because he has, God he has, and he can't take any more punishment, any more of this merciless tease, these barbed and cruel words, he can't take it when his heart is snapping in two. "I have," he insists.
Remus glares. "Prove it."
So Sirius kisses him fast and hard and ugly on the mouth, doesn't spare Remus any lies or misconceptions, just kisses him with the full force of his need, his ache, his want, his guilt, his grief, his heart, his everything. He assaults Remus's lips with every single horrible thought that's ripped through his skull since that awful morning, grabs his collar between his lips and forces Remus to kiss him back, because he loves him, loves him so much, and no, Sirius is not the center of the universe, no, because that's Remus. That's Remus.
See, Moony? See? Everything has changed, everything, and the stars did realign themselves, and Professor Gillespie is full of shit because this is gravity, this is starlight, this is all we've ever needed.
And then Remus shoves him hard, knocks Sirius to the ground, his mouth swollen and red and his scars even redder. "You haven't learned anything," Remus says dully, and when Sirius looks into his eyes, all he sees is light years of regret.
*****
END
OMG the MUSSED HAIR and the LOOSE TIE and the MOUTH and the LOOK on his face! He BEGS to be kissed hard and fast and NOW. Holy goddamn motherfucking SHIT. GAAAAAAAH.
This picture was SO FUCKING HOT that I dropped everything and wrote a fic. It's dark, and it's weird, and it's not really a drabble because it's over 1,000 words, but it's not really a story, either. I think. I don't know. It's weird; I wrote it in a rush of an hour of creativity. This is dedicated to the magnificent ignited for making me this TOTALLY HOT-ASS ICON and for just being awesome in general. OMG STEF! *loves* Also, shout-out to circe_tigana and her obsession with Naked!Remus, because yes. *g*
The Dark Center of the Universe
By: Annie Sewell-Jennings
*****
"I might disintegrate into the thin air if you like
And I'm not the dark center of the universe like you thought"
--Modest Mouse, "The Dark Center of the Universe"
*****
He thinks now that he has probably always loved Remus Lupin, but he did not know it until six weeks ago, on the morning after the prank. Except prank isn't really the word for what he did, is it? No, what Sirius did was far too cruel and adult for a word that weak and childish. He'd tried to turn his best friend into a murderer. Gentle, tender Remus, whose greatest fear was to hurt another living being, and Sirius had known this, but in a moment of utter stupidity didn't care enough to remember.
And the next morning, it was Remus who paid, Remus who woke with gashes on his sides because his friends weren't there to help him that night, Remus's face with angry red slashes across the cheek and nose, forever marred by Sirius's stupidity.
Sirius cried that morning. Not out loud, no, but behind his hands, behind his futile apologies, there were tears. "I'm so fucking sorry, Moony, please don't hate me, I didn't think, and I know that's no excuse, but Remus, you have to believe me, I'd never--"
"But you did, didn't you." Remus's voice was heavy, like a stone that's still sitting in the bottom of Sirius's stomach, waiting to be digested. And the look in his eyes was so dead, so devoid of all emotion that it wrapped tight around Sirius's throat and refused to let go. "I think it would be best if you left, Sirius, and did not return for a very, very long time."
Sirius's voice sounded warped even to his own ears, thick with desperation. "Remus--"
It was when Remus turned his back on him that Sirius realized that his heart was breaking and his world was falling to pieces, and that could only mean that he was in love.
So it turns out that Joni Mitchell was right after all, and you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
Remus will not speak to him. He holds his silence like armor, steely and impenetrable, cuts his eyes away whenever Sirius walks into a room, purses his lips with disdain like he's just smelled something particularly nasty. Sirius sometimes wonders if Remus can smell his guilt.
Sirius sometimes wonders if Remus can smell everything.
His world is thick with Moony, pulsing with the aftershocks of Remus's comings and goings, haunted by the ghost of a friend he used to have and a lover he'll never know. In the mornings, Sirius wakes to the smell of Remus's nightmares, the sour-salt scent of his sweat clinging to the drapes and curtains, and it makes him restless and feverish. When they pass in the hallways, it makes Sirius nearly sick to his stomach to look at the tall, slender grace of him and not have Remus look back.
Love caught Sirius off guard, infected him with deadly poison, clouded up his world and made him forget how to live. If it weren't for the mercy of James, he would be failing at least two of his classes. His head's so fogged up with Remus that he can't think of charms or Arithmancy, can't concentrate on simple hexes, and his potions have all been arse ever since that fucking awful morning. There is something innately terrible in falling in love with someone at the very same moment you've lost them forever, and Sirius thinks it might be the death of him.
The worst part is, Sirius thinks Remus knows.
For a long time, Remus ignored him, pretended that Sirius did not exist. But in the last couple of weeks, Remus has taken to being everywhere. When Sirius comes out of classrooms, he'll find Remus leaning against the wall across from him, fingertips playing over his lips like he's on the verge of merciless laughter. If Sirius tries to go hide in the library, he'll find Remus's long legs sprawled carelessly across Sirius's favorite velvet chaise, fingers curled around the battered pages of a book in a way that's almost stunningly erotic. He's started staring holes through Sirius as though he knows everything. It makes Sirius feel faint and flushed, makes him feel like his skin's been stripped off his skeleton and Remus can see straight through to the marrow.
It's driving Sirius insane. He cannot sleep at nights, his dreams ripped apart by the burning image of Remus's thunderstorm eyes, by the scars that Sirius slashed across his face, by his spindly fingers that were so long they could reach into the secret chambers of Sirius's heart and rip out his entire life if he wanted. He cannot eat; food tastes ashen and dead in his mouth, like the cigarettes Moony has started smoking, like he can only taste the imaginings of Remus's absent kisses.
And then one night, there is Astronomy.
They all gather in the Astronomy Tower with Professor Gillespie, a frazzle-haired woman with coffee-stained robes who talks so fast that Sirius's fingers often cramp up when trying to take notes. She rushes them all through the telescope, motor-mouths through the constellations and planetary charts, and when she starts to plow through the lunar cycles in one prattling rambling spew of words, Sirius watches as Remus walks away.
Sirius follows the smooth, languid stride of Remus's long legs, watches his spindly shadow flicker across the stone walls until he stops. Sirius stops, too; he doesn't want Remus to see him, doesn't want to feel that sickening churn of anguish when Remus cuts him down. No, tonight he just wants something easy and secret, something to comfort him. He just wants a glimpse.
The bright flare of a lighter; the gentle exhalation of burnt tobacco. Remus is smoking again, and when did he pick up this habit? Something drops in Sirius's stomach when he realizes that Remus never used to smoke before the prank, and he wonders if absolutely everything changed that night. Did the stars realign themselves that hastily, that drastically, all because Sirius Black was a giant fucking prat? Fuck. Sirius doesn't know. He just knows that as he watches the dark silhouette of Remus Lupin curling those deadly-gorgeous fingers around the edge of the cigarette, something in Sirius's heart is weeping, and he doesn't think it will ever, ever stop.
"I know you're there."
This is the first thing Remus has said to him since the morning after, and it is sharp and malicious, razorblades disguised as words. Sirius feels the sting, like salt in the wounds, and when he steps forward into the light, he sees Remus illuminated by the dim orange glow of the cigarette and the brighter silver flare of the waxing moon.
Fuck, but it's just not fair that Remus should be this savagely beautiful, an unforgiving etching of dark limbs and disheveled hair, cloaked in the weight of his too-big secondhand robes. Remus has grown thin in these last few weeks, all the baby fat gone from his face, leaving him with a jagged collection of angles and bones. He leans carelessly against the wall, shoulders loose and mouth twisted, just waiting to tear Sirius apart.
Slowly, Remus's eyes drag up and down over Sirius, narrow and full of distrust so furious that it makes Sirius feel dizzy. "How nice to know that you think so little of astronomy," he drawls. "But then again, I suppose we already knew that, now, didn't we."
That voice has been whispering illicit wants in Sirius's dreams for last few weeks, and now it's dripping with acid, dry and bitter, a twisted nasal sound that assaults his senses and makes him sharply, achingly aroused. "I followed you," Sirius says helplessly, and Remus gives him a sarcastic look that stings like napalm.
"Really."
Sirius's palms are sweating. He can smell fear on the air and knows that it's his own. "What are you doing out here, Remus?" he asks softly. "It's not like you to skip a lecture."
Remus takes another long drag from the cigarette, flares his nostrils a bit, exhales smoke into the air as he throws his head back a bit, honey-whiskey hair all messy around his face. "Oh, because you know me so well, right, Padfoot?" he sneers. Sirius never wants to hear him say that name that way again, all twisted around like an insult when it used to be an endearment. "Personally, I found the professor's lecture to be rather useless. I've known astronomy since I was a child. Had to, didn't I, being the monster I am."
"You're not a monster, Remus."
Remus ignores him. "Did you know, Sirius, that when I was a boy, I used to think the world revolved around the moon? It only made sense, you see; my life was centered around that blasted silver hunk of shit, so why shouldn't everyone else's be, too? I was young, assumed that everyone else went through the pains of transformation, had their blood and bones ripped apart every month by that merciless bitch, until I grew up and realized that no, I was just lucky."
He throws his cigarette against the wall and it explodes in a furious shower of sparks. Sirius flinches as Remus turns his starved, furious gaze on him. "But you, Sirius. You've never learned the lesson that the world doesn't revolve around you, have you?"
Sirius thinks he might start crying soon if Remus doesn't stop talking, stop throwing words like daggers, stop saying those terrible things that aren't true. "No," he whispers. "I've learned my lesson, Remus."
Laughter spills out of Remus, thick and mad. "Have you now?" he demands. "Stubborn, pigheaded Sirius Black has finally learned something? Miracle of miracles, saints be praised. Stop the fucking presses."
Now Sirius is getting angry, offended, because he has, God he has, and he can't take any more punishment, any more of this merciless tease, these barbed and cruel words, he can't take it when his heart is snapping in two. "I have," he insists.
Remus glares. "Prove it."
So Sirius kisses him fast and hard and ugly on the mouth, doesn't spare Remus any lies or misconceptions, just kisses him with the full force of his need, his ache, his want, his guilt, his grief, his heart, his everything. He assaults Remus's lips with every single horrible thought that's ripped through his skull since that awful morning, grabs his collar between his lips and forces Remus to kiss him back, because he loves him, loves him so much, and no, Sirius is not the center of the universe, no, because that's Remus. That's Remus.
See, Moony? See? Everything has changed, everything, and the stars did realign themselves, and Professor Gillespie is full of shit because this is gravity, this is starlight, this is all we've ever needed.
And then Remus shoves him hard, knocks Sirius to the ground, his mouth swollen and red and his scars even redder. "You haven't learned anything," Remus says dully, and when Sirius looks into his eyes, all he sees is light years of regret.
*****
END