[FIC] To Sit a Dead Man Between Us: Part V, Section I
Title: To Sit a Dead Man Between Us, Part V
Author: imochan
Pairing: Sirius/Remus
Rating: NC17
Summary: In the beginning, the middle, and something of an end.
Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI
PART V:
The Subject of It Is War, And The Pity of War
The motorbike begins to act rather odd as they round the crest of some low, March-white clouds in the outskirts of Surrey, and Sirius swears (words chapping his lips), because if things go off like they did the last three times, there is a dark and frozen pond beneath them, and he doesn’t, honestly, really relish that thought much at all.
"All right?” calls James from up ahead; his broom swings around, hitting Sirius with a rush of cold, moist air.
“Fine, she’s fine - ” he shouts, and the motorbike gives a heavy, resentful-sounding cough in response.
“Doesn’t much sound like,” James calls, wheeling up and back. “You want we should put down and you can - ”
“Go on,” Sirius snaps, swinging an arm wide, and giving the motorbike’s handles a distracted squeeze as it bucks. “Go on, I’ve got her!”
“Do not,” James laughs. “She’s - oop, ha ha ha, pull up, you idiot! Pull up!”
“Fucking - ” he nearly wrenches his arms from their sockets, leaning full-back in the seat as the motorbike bucks a twisted sort of spiral in the air, before deciding to lilt sadly, gracefully, directly towards a cluster of dead-bare treetops.
Sirius hears James yell something else entirely unhelpful, before he ducks his face behind an elbow and holds on furiously through the air-shattering snap of branches, the scrape of metal and the smell of exhaust, the coughing, struggling motor, and the hard, buffeting whip of twigs against his face.
He thinks, oddly, that that bird just better shut it’s fucking, fucking mouth, before he realizes that the worst has passed, and it’s not a bird because it’s fucking March, and it’s just the sound of his ears ringing, because he’s smacked his head into a great and tremendously solid tree trunk.
“You,” he says, to the motorbike, which is purring sadly. “Ow - god - are just awful.”
"You've had a bloody month to work on that thing," James chokes, still laughing, as he pulls the broom up to hover just by Sirius’s aching head. "Where's the pay-off, exactly?"
"It's the sidecar, the sidecar!" Sirius spits, grunting when he pulls his arm free from between the handlebars and a knotted mass of broken branches. "It doesn't know what way is up-like, without it!"
James wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand, still shaking, and Sirius considers reaching out and whacking him headfirst against the tree trunk by the tail of his broom.
"It's just heartsick, mate, give it some time," James grins, and Sirius throws a twig at him.
"Fuck, just - ” Sirius tries to extract a leg, and feels his jeans snag and rip along the hem, the scrape of bark against his ankle. “Augh - augh, fuck, didn’t this used to be a hell of a lot easier?”
“I’ve no idea what you mean,” says James, with a sickly sweet tilt of his head. And he is still bobbing on his broomstick, golden and rakish and able to execute a vertical figure-eight into a Prunestein Half-Twist Feint, with no hands, and Sirius is suddenly old (and possibly drunk, possibly not, possibly just hung-over, possibly just a miserable, stubbled sort of failure), and covered in motor-oil and twigs.
“I hate you,” says Sirius. “You’re going to be insane with jealousy when I bend her into submission.”
“Ahh, bated breath!” sings James, and takes his broom into a lazy spiral toward the still-frosted earth. “Shall I call for - ”
“If you do anything other than shutting your fucking mouth,” Sirius spits, and almost topples out of the branch as he finally wrenches his ankle free. “I swear - ”
“Oop,” James grins, head tilted upwards, his specs glinting white against the sun. “Carefully now, pumpkin!”
“Some mate, you’re all pet-names and generally unhelpful all ‘round, and I’ve just hit my head on an immovable fortress of tree,” says Sirius, because things are awfully vague and woozy, all of a sudden.
“For worse or better?” calls James.
“I could die,” says Sirius, and crosses his eyes at the ground below when it threatens to rock out beneath him. “Wouldn’t you be sorry then.”
James makes a tight, angry sort of noise, and says, “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” which is quite odd, considering Sirius had been pumpkin shortly before.
“What?” he calls. “What - are you - ”
“Nothing,” says James, and squints up at him again, broom in his hand. “Nothing, look - here, all right, just shut up.”
And James gives the broom a little toss, the flick of his wrist and his wand sending it up to hover gently in the air beside Sirius’s branch and the now-rather-peeved motorbike. And Sirius can still see all the places that this broom is James’s: the palms grooves, worn and slick, the snicks at the tail end where James’s boots would scrape and dig when he kicked from the stirrups, the slight line by the head where it was broken, once. Remus said he’d managed to repair it for James’s birthday, although honestly it came out later that it had been Evans all along. (Remus said they should have known better, his charm work was never that good, honestly, she just didn’t want them to know, they would have made A Thing About It.)
“Today, Princess Loretta, if you please?” shouts James, and Sirius drops an icicled-acorn on him on purpose, when he scoots sideways onto the broom, and takes a long curve to the edge of the pond.
James is still squinting up into the tree as he lands, one hand shielding the sun from his eyes, the other reaching out to grab the tail of the broom as Sirius finally gets two feet on the frosted ground.
“Nice bit of work, there.”
“The sidecar, I’ve told you,” Sirius sighs, shaking strips of cold bark and dead leaves from his sleeves. “It’ll only be one or two more runs before she’s used to it.”
“Not like this, I hope,” James sighs. “We can’t all baby-sit your deathtrap training regiments, not every day.”
Sirius tugs a twig out from underneath his collar, and frowns at it. “And your blindingly positive attitude is definitely the remedy.”
“Speaking of remedy,” says James.
“Shut up, I went, already,” says Sirius. He hadn’t. He is cold and frustrated and very good at lying, and tired of everyone fawning over him like some invalid, just because he was silly and stupid enough to go and get hit in the leg with a silly, stupid jinx.
“Did not, when,” sniffs James, leaning back on the broomstick, arm hooked around it.
“Last, er. I don’t know, last week, some time,” he says, and rolls his eyes.
“Never did,” says James. “McGonagall came by anyway, and Lily asked her, and she said Poppy had the stuff and the tests ready all week, and you never showed.”
“Your wife’s a bloody rat,” says Sirius, and ducks the business end of the broomstick that comes swinging at him.
“Stop playing about,” James says, sharply. “Nerve damage, they said, you’re - ”
“There’s not a damage about it,” Sirius snaps, and bounces a fist off his thigh, for demonstration, for good measure. He is fine and flexible and not the least bit concerned because if there’s no scar, than what’s the use. “They were worried about a stupid jinx, just worried, it wasn’t definite anyway, and it’s fine, it’s been fine for weeks, so stop being such a cuntrag about it.”
“Oh, for - ” James crouches down by the edge of the lake, scooping up a palm-full of half-melted snow. “Fine.”
“No time for moping, more manly problems await!” Sirius says, grandly, generously, and tries not to be peeved that James doesn’t look up at his sweeping, masterish gesture toward the trapped and shivering motorbike.
James mumbles something about problems, and Sirius thinks very strongly about that lump of ice and James’s exposed neck.
“What,” he sighs. “What, I hate that word.”
"How's the furry one," says James, for some odd reason, because it is an awful change of subject. “The furry problem.”
"Fine," lies Sirius. "He's fine, he's sleeping it off, isn’t he. That's an awful change of subject."
"Mm, well aware," says James, and shrugs, glancing backward over his shoulder. "I'm not particularly interested in sequitur at the moment. What with you having just bashed your poor head into a tree, and being all un-damaged, entirely."
He pulls a twig from his hair, and winces when it tugs at a snarl. "My poor head is immune to your shoddy tactics.”
“O-ho,” James snorts.
“My poor head,” mutters Sirius, flicking the twig away. “Has nothing to do with any of this - this."
"This war," says James, quite bluntly.
"Fuck you," spits Sirius, always so bloody murderous when James uses that tone. “All right, just.”
“Oh, stuff it,” James snaps. “D’you really want to just keep on like this? Honestly, you’re - it’s a mess, you’re making a ruddy mess of it, you can't go promising people things, and then go and get all banged up because you wanted to take a little risk for the sake of -- fuck, what was the point?”
Sirius stares, the edges of his vision going vaguely red and blurry - though he imagines that may be a concussion and altitude sickness and not actually a murderous urge to pulverize his best mate into small, smoldering bits.
“Beg your pardon,” he hisses.
“I’ve had it,” says James, sharply, standing. "Enough, I've had enough. See?"
“You’ve had something,” mutters Sirius, and squares himself off to face the pond in preparation for a tremendous, gratifying sulk.
“It doesn’t work this way,” says James, voice clear and precise, and Sirius feels the space between his shoulder-blades start to crinkle horrendously, which means James is giving him The Very Serious and Unpleasant Grown-Up Face. "You have to be careful."
“I don’t - ” he starts.
“I’ve fucking had it, I said. Lily won’t barely let me touch her for fear of babies appearing and mucking things up, and people are disappearing, and you're still hoping that I won't fucking notice?"
"The hell - " he starts, rounding on James, fists balled.
James shoves at his shoulder with one hand - with his elbow locked, which means he's not thinking very clearly, considering. "You prick - I don't need protecting," he growls, and he shoves again. "Worry about your fucking, fucking self!"
Sirius tries to catch at his fist and grabs at his wrist instead, not really sure if he's shoving James back or pulling him forward. "What the hell do you know about what you need?" he growls, voice scraping on his throat because the words are fast and heavy. "You'd give up everything for her, in a bloody second, wouldn't you? You know you would, you - and! She’s right - for your fucking family, too - why the hell should she give you a kid, you'd just as soon put a bloody big sign around your neck: Hullo Yes Ready And Willing To Die For Greater Good!"
"Because I love her," James snaps. "That's exactly it, you daft - "
"Yeah," Sirius hisses, fingers squeezing on his wrist. "That's it, exactly."
James is silent; his face is sort of red, and his specs are crooked.
"So," swallows Sirius, suddenly sort of hoarse, and the most embarrassed, suddenly, that he's ever been in front of this person he's never, never been embarrassed in front of before. "So don't say. Not that, christ. All right?"
James squints at him, and Sirius looks away, pulling his hand off James's wrist - it will be easier to punch him in the face this way, he thinks, when he says something stupid or incriminating.
"You don't - " says James, quietly, and then stops.
"What."
"Nothing."
"You do," says Sirius. "Need protecting. I mean, for the love of - look at you."
"Oh, shut it," sighs James, and unceremoniously pushes him into the thawing pond.
He is still dripping when he stands at the door of No. 4 Underwood Road: the keys are never where he remembers they were last, and Remus got a nasty letter from the landlord the morning after Sirius said, hold on, hold on ha ha ha ha fuck it, and jammed his wand in the lock (Remus had got them drunk enough to spend 15 minutes sitting on the stoop, stifling manic, idiotic laughter in each other’s necks, but Sirius knew that wasn’t what the letter was on about). And he busies himself finding his wand in the plastered-down pocket of his jacket - the keys are now either in the bottom of the pond, or in the front pocket of his other jeans, which he remembers crumpled fondly on the top of Remus’s laundry bin.
Lauunndry, he’d sung, in the morning, when he’d pulled Remus’s oxford off over his head, and tossed it somewhere in the direction of the bin, and dabbed at the small scrapes on Remus’s neck that were causing all the fuss about washing up in the first place, what with the blood staining Remus’s collar and Sirius’s jeans, where he’d been liberally dripped on.
That’s two moons worth right there, he’d said, and Remus had made a face like, ouch, or maybe, that is utterly disgusting and unacceptable how do I live in this pigsty I am supposed to be an adult.
I’ll do it, Remus had said, and craned his neck a little, and Sirius had seen the shape of the cuts on his neck: shallow and pink, little vees like scraping claws or the tips of pointed teeth dragging in the air.
Er, he’d said. I think this was me, by the way, he’d said, and pressed a thumb against the tiny gouges.
And Remus had made a funny sort of noise, as if he were terribly amused, but very, very tired, and he pressed a hand to Sirius’s shoulder, simply. He’d said, Never mind. Aren’t you meeting James?
And now, he shakes himself off in the doorway, with his hair plastered to his temples and his cheeks, and his trousers making puddles underneath his feet. He refuses to give James the pleasure of any sort of drying charm. If he’s going to be accused of being, he thinks, of being generally miserable, he’s not going to make the guilt go away very easily, he’s decided. I’m going to play the fucking part, he thinks, HULLO WORLD I AM GENERALLY SOPPING WET AND GENERALLY MISERABLE AND HA HA HA YOU THINK YOU’VE GOT THE BEST OF ME HAVE YOU OH HO OH HO.
Generally miserable, he thinks, and snorts, what fucking rot. I have reason enough, if I wanted, he thinks, I could be generally logically miserable, I could be a basket case. He shakes a bit of water from his sleeve, and thinks, if it were like that, he thinks, I could be an absolute nutter by now. And it’d be nothing more than expected.
He is taking great pains to slosh as loudly as possible up the stairs, when he almost runs headlong into Remus, who is only eight hours or so off a full moon, who is one step off the first floor landing, and who is in his coat and scarf, and looking suddenly, vaguely surprised and put-off at the timing of this particular encounter.
"What the hell," says Sirius, arms stretched to block his way. "Where are you going, you have a fever."
"Er," says Remus. "Why are you wet?"
"I'm going to kill James," says Sirius. "Where are you going."
Remus raises an eyebrow (there is a scrape on the underside of his jaw which is still bleeding). "Were you swimming? On purpose? Why were you - it's the middle of March."
"You are bleeding on the stairs," Sirius hisses, and takes a step forward.
Remus raises his palms, but doesn't budge. "I'm fine," he says, finally. "I have to - "
“I’m going to kill James,” says Sirius. “And then finish what the fucking werewolf started.” And he takes three more steps, and Remus blinks at him, not quite innocently and almost bored.
“Horrible sort of threat,” murmurs Remus, hands falling to the banister and the wall, again. “And not at all very funny.” (Although the edges of his mouth are tipped upwards, maybe.)
“Wasn’t meant to be,” Sirius glares. “It’s like can feel you dying of cholera from here, you dumb shite.”
“Not quite the appropriate analogy, thank you,” Remus says, politely, brightly. “What did you do for James to try and drown you, exactly.”
“I don’t care,” says Sirius, harshly, because it didn’t do a thing and now all he wants more than ever, ever, is to have fixed this all years ago, before he could ever imagine a time when James would turn to him and say We can’t do this, mate. “Babies, maybe.”
“What?” Remus blinks. “I don’t think that’s - ”
“Not him,” says Sirius, and he has two of his fingers tucked up against the hem of Remus’s jumper, and he is feeling quite glassy-eyed and scattered-wide, at the moment, and he thinks perhaps the hypothermia has caught up with him. “In general. General sprogs. Fuck, I don’t know.”
“Er,” says Remus, and makes a half-completed gesture with one hand, as if he thinks it might be a good idea to check Sirius’s temperature, or perhaps to stop him leaking all over the stairwell. “Clearly.”
“He,” says Sirius, fingers curling into another cable of Remus’s jumper, because he is entirely uninterested, suddenly, in anything except wool and warm skin and damp cheeks, and not having to stand on his own feet, for a while. “Thinks I am a problem.”
“You’ve always been a problem,” says Remus, his hand still hovering somewhere near Sirius’s shoulder, and their faces are very close, now. “You are what they refer to as a ‘Problem Child’.”
“It’s a very kind way of putting it,” he says, against Remus’s mouth.
“How would you say it?” murmurs Remus.
He kisses Remus, there on the stairs. Remus is taller than him, like this, and he has to lean up, and the tips of his knuckles on his fisted hand graze the front of Remus’s chest, so he can feel the moment when Remus inhales, slowly, and he likes it.
“Maybe,” he says, against Remus’s mouth, which is dry and still quite pale. “I don’t know, like that.”
“That didn’t say anything of the sort,” smiles Remus.
“Didn’t,” he mutters. “Didn’t say. Christ. Christ, you piss me off, Lupin.”
“I know,” says Remus, and smiles like he does when he is hiding something: a secret, a shame, a headache, the last piece of baklava.
“Don’t make that face at me,” he says, and touches his knuckles to Remus’s chest, again.
“Don’t treat me like a child,” grins Remus, teeth bared, body swayed backwards, slightly. “And I swear to god, if you keep dripping on me, I’ll evict you.”
“Filthy talk,” Sirius growls, and fumbles with the doorknob to the flat, even though he’s perfectly happy to pin Remus up against the wood of the door, like this. “Just keep it up, creature of the night.”
“Those - ah - those jokes are only funny when I don’t still feel like raw meat,” Remus murmurs, fingers over Sirius’s damp ones, on the doorknob; his voice hitches when the door swings open, and Sirius’s ankles bump against his, when they stumble inside.
“I’ll show you raw meat,” Sirius hisses, half-laughing, half on the verge of something else entirely which makes him feel as though he is teetering violently between sunlight and some dark, damp and dusty cell, where the walls close in with every breath.
Remus laughs, and he has both hands against Sirius’s face, and he kisses him, when he says, “That doesn’t, that doesn’t make any sense,” and Sirius keeps pushing, because it’s so rare and wonderful he thinks maybe if he doesn’t keep forcing time to move on, the moment will freeze before he can kiss Remus back, or open up his shirt, or bury his face in the damp hair at his nape, or anything of the sort, and he doesn’t want that (he doesn’t know which way, he thinks, that the teetering will go).
“God,” mumbles Remus, around his mouth, at the threshold to his bedroom (which is the only fucking proper bed in the flat, thinks Sirius, in my life, fuck it). “I can’t believe it - you’re as good as going to tie me down, aren’t you. T’keep me here.”
Sirius makes an affected, interested noise (his tongue is occupied), and Remus boxes his ears with a loose fist, and once of them ends up with a jumper-sleeve half-off and Sirius gets his feet tangled in the haphazard laundry basket, and reaches out behind himself to keep from toppling backwards.
Remus grins, holding onto the front of Sirius’s shirt with curled fingers. “You’re - ”
In a mood? He thinks. About close to imploding if I don’t get to peel those stupid clothes off you? He thinks. Absolutely, he thinks, Absolutely, completely, entirely, wholly in -
“Don’t say it,” he hisses, and Remus pushes him back against the mattress, with a fist to his sternum, fingers tangling with the buttonholes, and his teeth closed on Sirius's bottom lip. He makes a rough sort of noise in his throat when his knee slips and his elbow presses into Sirius's shoulder, and Sirius catches at his thigh to keep them from toppling.
Remus pauses to draw back, eyelids heavy, fingers moving slowly over the exposed part of Sirius’s skin, where the collarbone meets the collar-of-his-shirt, where it is cool and tingling.
"Did you want - " Sirius manages, because his breathing has managed to get sort of tangled up and shallow.
"No - I," Remus mumbles, wetting his lips.
Sirius bends a leg, sliding his thigh against Remus's ribs; his hips tilt, and Remus's spine curves, a little, in answer. "If you did," he says. "We could if you - "
"Shut up," whispers Remus, head bowed, cheek tucked just under Sirius’s jaw. “Just - “
Sirius raises a hand, smoothes his palm over the scruffy hairs at Remus's nape, weaves his fingers into it so he can tilt Remus's head, so he can nip his teeth at the skin there, just behind his ear.
Remus's laugh huffs against his neck, his cheek; and Sirius wants to tear away every last layer of that lingering resistance, these odd moments where Remus still pretends to be surprised, of all the stupid, bloody things to be.
“C’mere,” he mumbles, and leans back, weight onto one elbow, his spine pressing to the sheets, his other hand tugging at the front of Remus’s trousers. “An’ get these open.”
Remus teeters on his knees; his breathless grin fades when Sirius lies back, fingers hooking into the flies of his trousers, pulling them open as he pulls Remus forward with it, and Remus makes a rough, questing sound.
“C’mere, I said,” he whispers, mostly to himself, because when he glances up through his hair he sees Remus is watching him with incredulity, and even better, with anticipation. And maybe it makes him a little braver, he thinks, maybe this will be good, he thinks, when he presses one firm palm to the back of Remus’s thigh and tugs him in closer still, with Remus’s knees wedged up against his underarms, and his other hand shoving at the opening of Remus's pants.
Remus is so barely shaking he is almost still, with his hands caught where they first tried to catch his weight, one on Sirius’s shoulder, the other pressed against the wall, above Sirius’s head, and he is almost, almost, not breathing, except that it is the only sound he is making. When Sirius presses one palm flat to the small of Remus’s back, just under his waistband, and his tongue rasps up the underside of Remus’s cock, throat aching and his mouth too wet, lips too stretched, Remus exhales, and Sirius can only imagine that he is just this side of trying to chew off his own tongue.
He cranes his neck, and presses firmly with the hand that is resting on the damp skin of Remus’s back. He closes his eyes when he sucks in his cheeks, long, slow movements, and a slight and playful curl of tongue. (He feels the pulses, the hardening, and it makes him giddy.)
“Oh, fuck,” whispers Remus, suddenly, politely, into the air above the damp mess of Sirius’s hair, and there is a tightening of his thighs, and his knees slip by Sirius’s ribs. “Fuck.”
He grips tighter, thumb dragging along the damp skin of Remus’s hip, his inner thigh, and behind his balls and Remus makes a sound like the summer, cotton sun: soft, warm, muffled behind the thick air, like -- nnh. His skin is lit, now, thinks Sirius; when he moves his head to mouth at the thin, silver-tissue scars on Remus’s inner thigh, Remus’s breathing sounds like the crackle-hiss of a match, scared of itself, that first hesitation before the flare. He presses his thumb back, farther, and Remus thrusts, and he grins when Remus’s cock slides against his cheek, the corner of his mouth, slippery and shameless.
“Want this?” he mumbles, tongue dragging along the tip of Remus’s erection, again, fingers circling the base, other hand holding him splayed and shaking, just this side of pressing in, and I know, he thinks, I know I know I know, I’m a horrific tease, I just want to hear it.
But Remus makes an eager, incoherent sound, and there is a thud of bone against wood when Remus’s arm slips from the headboard and tries to tangle in Sirius’s hair. His fingers catch against Sirius’s jaw, instead, around the hot, damp curve of his neck, and Remus tugs, once, upwards.
He lets go of Remus’s cock, reluctantly, letting his mouth slide against the bones of Remus’s shoulder as he struggles to sitting, Remus’s thighs still tight and hot around his hips. He lets his fingers slip up into the damp curls by Remus’s nape, spreading them there letting them rest heavily, feeling the weight, as he tips Remus’s head to the side, mouth against his neck.
“Gonna fuck you,” he hisses, in Remus’s ear, and Remus’s fingers twitch against his hip.
“Mmh - about time, too,” Remus mumbles, the damp slide of a shaking smile against his jawline, and that rare, surprised sort of shudder, when he reaches down, fingers grazing the crease of Remus’s arse, nails pressed to the skin.
Remus shifts like a staccato, like his uneven breath is in every inch of his skin and bone and flushing nerves. His shoulders are high, sharp shadows in the light, his elbow scrapes Sirius’s ribs like the rip of a matchlight, when he raises himself off Sirius’s thighs, pushing his trousers and pants down to his knees, making to turn.
“No,” Sirius manages, fingers closing damp and tight on Remus’s wrist, holding Remus where he is as he leans back, hips arching under Remus’s weight.
“Like,” he mumbles, wetting his lips, tongue gone dry. “Maybe, like this.”
It’s not usually like this; usually Sirius likes to have his elbows locked, his head made heavy and weak from excitement, with his body slick and heavy over Remus’s, with all of Remus’s body pressing back up against his; he likes to bury things into the dark place behind Remus’s ear. He likes to press down, usually (and Remus, he thinks, if given the chance to pause, Remus might just starting thinking about orgasms, and then they’d never accomplish fucking anything).
“Like this?” murmurs Remus, a legitimate question; he is still caught in the shifting (ready to turn to the sheets, and Sirius swallows heavily, throat thick with the thought of the length of Remus’s bare, rough back, and his thighs spread and gathered up under his hips and oh, oh yeah, that - that might be nice too).
“Yeah,” Sirius grins, bares his teeth, feels the air hit the inside of his mouth, his tongue, like a hissing chill, there is almost a crackle in the air when he exhales.
And Remus leans over him, sliding up over Sirius’s thighs, straddling his hips; his skin feels damp, and hot, and tissue-thin - there is the tight shift of bone under it all, under his thumbs (which are on Remus’s hips), there is the terrifyingly bright and familiar burgeoning push of blood through veins, under his lips and tongue and teeth (which are scraping along Remus’s throat).
“Don’t suppose,” pants Remus, dry fingers encircling Sirius’s wrist, lifting his hand. “You’ve got anything to make it easier on me.”
“Later,” he mumbles, and lets Remus slide a finger of his captive hand between Remus’s parted lips, warmwet roughness of Remus’s tongue curling over his fingerprints, his knuckles; he rubs his thumb in the small dint of Remus’s chin.
Remus shifts, he lets his hand fall from Sirius’s wrist to Sirius’s chest, palm hot and dry over the place where Sirius feels that his lungs, tight and rib-wrenched, are struggling to get enough air. Remus lifts his body, his knees tighten around Sirius’s hips; Sirius lets his finger slip from Remus’s mouth, and paints a slow, wet circle over the back of Remus’s thigh. He slides his finger up and in, and Remus makes a light, uneven noise, hand curling over Sirius’s collarbone.
He likes this part, the shuddering points of this act where he can exert this kind of heedless power, and watch, narrow-eyed and excited, watch the way Remus’s face flickers with arousal, how tight his breathing gets, how his shoulders winch and release, spine arcing, the small pressings and pushings of Remus’s hips. He likes the way he can feel Remus’s body tighten, the scrabble of his fingers, the wshht of breath against his jaw, his ear, his throat, the heavy, hot, involuntary twitch of Remus’s cock through his thin t-shirt, against his belly.
He shoves at Remus’s trousers with his other hand, growling against Remus’s jaw when they snag, when they won’t just come off, and Remus groans, shakily, shifting awkward and disarming in how unpracticed it looks, when he fumbles to pull one leg out, and then the other. He leaves them crumpled underneath Sirius’s thighs, and bare to the waist, in only his socks, face pink and mouth parted, he settles over Sirius’s hips again, and oh, thinks Sirius, this is just lovely, with the way they fit together now, with Remus’s legs spread wide over his lap, the hot line of his cock trapped against Sirius’s stomach, the way Sirius can grip at his arse with one hand, pulling him open, pulling him close, when he thrusts, twists, a finger up inside him again. And Remus kisses him, both palms cupping his jaw, fingers framing the flush and the heat in his face. It has force, in it, panting and claustrophobic and almost desperate, almost euphoric.
You’ve got me, he thinks, he wants to say, it’s all right, it’s all right mate, you’re fine, you’ve had me for a long time yet.
But he presses closer with his hips, instead, squeezing Remus’s thigh with one hand, and twisting two fingers now, deeper inside Remus, with the other. Remus’s body is tight, abrasive, it always has an edge of resistance, a safeguard in his awkward jointedness, which is so often so unpliable, worn and wobbly edges of a puzzle-piece, a hot coil of danger in the way his teeth go immediately for Sirius’s bottom lip, when he exhales. But it doesn’t matter, Sirius thinks, and snaps at the hot air between their mouths, grinning.
It doesn’t matter, he thinks, because I know all your secrets. I know all your secrets and I know, I know I know I know, I know that means you can’t be scared of me, anymore.
He flicks with his thumb at the sensitive, dark-patched skin just behind his twisting, thrusting fingers, and Remus’s spine arcs, bows, sharply, a hiss-lit exhale - fuck, fuck, ah - Sirius - against the corner of his mouth.
“Christ,” he manages, wet and shaking into Remus’s mouth. “Christ - you feel so - ”
Remus kisses him again, into shaking, excited silence, and he can feel Remus wedge a hand between them, between their bellies, gripping at his own cock, stroking it so his knuckles press against Sirius’s body, rucking up his shirt, and he hisses, teeth closing on Remus’s bottom lip, when he feels the damp head of it sliding against his bared skin.
“Like that?” he manages; his voice doesn’t sound like his own, it rattles in his skull, fires down into his joints, he feels Remus’s fingers stutter in their stroking, the clench of his body when he shifts, makes a sound like nhh.
“Wait, fuck - ” Remus hisses, when Sirius slides his fingers out from Remus’s body, gripping him with both hands now, over the curve of his arse, and Remus’s hips pull back into his palms, fingers fumbling between them at the flies of Sirius’s jeans. There is the clink of his belt, the thick, slithering sound of leather, the click-click-click-click of the zipper, Remus’s now-slick fingers pushing at the thin fabric; he pushes up into the touch, and oh, he thinks, oh god oh god this is so good. He kisses Remus, hard, and the heavy, slow, awkward touch of Remus’s fingers on his cock falters, shifts, Remus is gripping hard at the back of his neck with his other hand: five points of heat against his spine.
“C’mon,” he manages, thick and humid in the tight air between their mouths, licking the promise onto Remus’s tongue. “C’mon - let me - ”
“W-wait,” Remus arches, pushing his hips back, up, hands sliding roughly to Sirius’s hips, shoving at his jeans, and Sirius grins, feels it stretching - lewd and tight - over his face. “You have to - ”
“Budge up,” he whispers, nudging at Remus’s thigh. Remus lifts himself up onto his knees, and now it is suddenly slower, languid and careful. He thinks, he could take his time here. He slides his tongue over the inside of his teeth and he thinks he could go slower. He could push Remus down to the sheets and mouth up the inside of his bared thighs, could hook Remus’s knee over his shoulder when he tongues at the dark, comforting divots of his body, could make him shake with the want to come, could make Remus tug and twist at his hair with scrabbling, desperate fingers. He could take his time, and taste all of him, he thinks. He could fuck him like this first, he thinks, Remus could ride him, and then he could turn him to the mattress, curl up behind him, hold him open and fuck up into him with his arms wrapped all the way around his body like a shaking vine, like a coil of bandages, stroke his cock and crane his head to kiss him, to mouth at the damp ridges of Remus’s spine, and ah, oh - fuck - he thinks, desperately, I can’t -
But Remus is panting, hot and damp and shaking against his temple, his hands gripping, pushing down on Sirius’s shoulders. He shifts his own hips, lying back enough to shuck his jeans and briefs, letting them stay rucked down and tangled on his ankles, and he grips the base of his own cock. His vision narrows when he strokes it, slow, watching the smears of dampness over the creases of skin, between his fingers; he presses the head of it up against the skin behind Remus’s balls, holding him open with the ‘l’ of a thumb and finger, rubbing it there against his entrance, teasing, and Remus swears at him, softly, incoherent, a scrape of nails over his shoulders. He holds himself there, careful not to disturb this tenuous, aching, wonderfully filthy sort of moment, when he stretches an arm, fumbling between the mattress and the springs for the small, sticky jar.
“If -- you’re going to,” Remus whispers, voice teetering on the damp and shaking skin of Sirius’s temple. “Come on.”
He grins, nipping at the skin against his mouth, a tendon of Remus’s throat. He slicks himself, fingers cold and wet and just this side of uncontrollably shaking. “You do it, then, if you’re so - ” he hisses. Remus is shifting, spreading his thighs, gripping Sirius’s cock with his own fingers, directing it as he lowers his hips. “Fuck - eager.”
Their thighs are wet, the press of heat is obscene, he thinks, and he's not in control, he thinks, he doesn't want to be, he wants to give it up, out - he shoves his hips up, his cock deeper, oh - let me see, he thinks, let me see this moment mould itself into desperation, to wring the words from your mouth. It doesn't matter, he hisses, what I say - you'll say no, you'll say no. He knows.
“Come on,” he groans. “Oh, oh, fuck.” He has to shut his eyes; Remus has tipped his head to the side, lolling, the curve of his throat, the slope of his neck pale and bared.
“Why the hell - " he hisses, panting because he cannot quite laugh. " - should I keep giving you. You all these chances."
Remus fists a handful of his hair, and it stings when his body bucks, and he leans forward to brace himself. "A-ah -- me?" he whispers, face red and eyebrows drawn.
Sirius narrows his eyes, mouth skimming the damp skin of Remus's throat, thumbs tightening on the front of his hips, pulling him down, in, and Remus swears sharply, against his ear.
"You know," he whispers, craning his neck so his mouth catches on the bunched nerves of Remus's jaw; he plants one foot on the cushions to press his hips up, jeans catching at his damp skin. "You know I'm not patient."
"Ah - fuck - " Remus jerks, against Sirius's hands, slumping to one elbow by Sirius's head, and when Sirius looks up at him in this scrabbling, claustrophobic space, he sees that Remus has his eyes squeezed shut, and the scars on his nose stand out from the flush in his face.
"No - " hisses Remus, and grips at the back of Sirius's neck. "Don't say - "
Sirius feels the growl in the back of his throat like a hot, boiling mass: he forces it into Remus's mouth, bites it out against Remus's lower lip; Remus wraps both hands against the back of Sirius's neck and hauls him up to sitting, with both his thighs tight around Sirius's waist. He feels the high, tight shudder that grips at Remus’s spine, he feels the absolutely stifling, dizzying surge of his own hips up into Remus’s body (he digs his heels into the mattress and has to brace himself back on one hand; he’s never been this deep, shoving up hard into Remus when he’s already been worked open enough to be fucked to the hilt, when Remus is already panting high in the back of his throat, as though he can’t breathe, when Remus is gripping his neck and shoulders, and pushing down).
“Oh - f-fuck,” he stutters, because he is suddenly on the verge of being ruthless, and this is suddenly-almost violent, and it is being dragged out of him because Remus - with his back bowed, and his wet thighs, and his tongue catching between his teeth when he inhales - looks as if he’s still almost, a - ah - fuck, Sirius, almost not deep enough.
“Shit - ” he chokes on his own whisper. “Shit - look, look at you.”
Remus flushes, sharply, and pulls Sirius’s face up to his with his fingers digging into Sirius’s jaw and his teeth scraping Sirius’s tongue when he kisses him. Sirius grunts, and digs his heels into the mattress again, hips pistoning up, Remus gripping at his hair and the headboard for any kind of - but, oh, god, it hits him, he’s fucking him, god, yes, he can’t tell if he’s speaking, if he’s groaning, if he’s even in his own body, anymore, but god -
Remus comes with his face buried in Sirius’s neck, teeth white-hot points against his throat, and a hot spread of wetness suddenly smeared between them, and the tightness of his body, every space where his skin is pressed against Remus’s body, the heat bleeds into his skin, and just makes him want to swallow it up, devour it, lick it teethe it down into his belly taste it on his tongue and his teeth let it fill him up from the inside out every part of him better than anything than everything and his oh fuck, he thinks, I love this I love this Remus this is this is I - oh.
The fade out is slow, and still so hot, and the position is achingly, tryingly familiar, with Remus’s thighs wedged in tight around his waist, and naked, sweaty limbs all jangled together, feeling reformed, feeling renewed and old and drawn to a trembling, happy blank, all at once. He slides his palms, numb and weighted, up Remus’s slumped spine, sliding his fingers up into Remus’s damp hair, and Remus exhales, ragged, as if he’s had the wind knocked from him.
“Mgfh,” says Remus, into Sirius’s neck, a soft groan whistling against the cooling sweat on his skin. He feels like laughing, like burying the warmth bubbling in his chest and squeezing his ribs into Remus’s skin, of kissing him and feeling it in both their throats. He shifts, turns his head, tips Remus’s chin up with his thumb and rubs his mouth over Remus’s, slow and lazy.
“Good?” he mumbles.
Remus snorts, softly, shifting his heavy weight from Sirius’s lap. Sirius sighs, closes his eyes, and feels it: a soft wince, as Sirius slips out, and the sound of rustling, rasping sheets, the dip of the mattress beside him.
“Ow,” says Remus, muffled.
“Sorry,” rasps Sirius, and it doesn’t know what it’s for, except that somewhere along the way, he was probably responsible for something.
“Don’t,” says Remus, turns his cheek to the pillow; Sirius glances over - heavily, sleepily - sees one bleary-bright eye, and the sharp glint of an eyetooth. “Do just be pleased with yourself, and we can all move on.”
“Christ,” says Sirius, and smoothes a happy, uninhibited palm down Remus’s spine. “Has nobody ever fucking taught you how to bask?”
“Ahm amf maffkinh,” says Remus, into the pillows.
Sirius laughs, he can’t help it, it’s so ridiculous.
“I am basking,” repeats Remus, his head slightly raised this time. “You’re ruining it.”
“I’m the cause of it,” Sirius corrects, grinning at the ceiling, tucking an arm behind his head.
“Egoist,” mutters Remus, and glances at the sweaty, damp mess that is Sirius’s shirt, plastered and drying to his skin. “Er, sorry.”
“I don’t mind,” Sirius laughs, again - he can’t stop it, being so happy, why can’t it be like this, he thinks, all the time, would that just ruin the whole thing? “I don’t mind. Christ.”
“Still,” Remus mumbles, tucking his chin into his folded arms, watching Sirius with heavy-lidded eyes. “Could have been a bit more organized about the whole thing.”
“Fuck that,” he laughs. He resists the urge to glance down at his wrinkled jeans, still tangled-caught around his ankles, at his smeared stomach and his flushed skin. He thinks, maybe, he’d rather look at Remus, anyway: over his skin and scars and tiny, fresh scrapes, turned pink and orange-flesh in the late-day light, at his closed eyes and his finally, finally, maybe-easy breathing. I’d rather be here, he thinks, forever, maybe, even though that sounds, that sounds so stupid. But I would, he thinks. And Remus is asleep, he thinks, or dozing unconcerned, shaken out and put back together, just like him, so he can’t think to ask, can’t think to slide a hand up into his hair and press his mouth to the shell of Remus’s ear. He can’t think to ask, but would you?
At the end of April, Remus stands in the kitchen by the pot of bubbling pasta, watching Sirius hack at a bowl of tomatoes (meant for the sauce, for supper), and he says My Da's sick.
Sirius curses at a spurt of slimy, malicious tomato-seeds on his shirtsleeve. "What," he says. "Sorry, what?"
"My Da's sick," says Remus, again. "I'm going to go. See him."
Sirius frowns, and jabs at the pile, again. "Shit, mate," he says.
"There's a train tomorrow morning," says Remus. When Sirius glances over at him, he has one arm crossed, the other arm propped against it, and the knuckle of his thumb against his teeth, which means he has practiced this stupid fucking conversation inside his head at least 5 times, thinks Sirius, and tried to imagine all the ways that I'll fuck it up for him, or he'll fuck it up for me.
"You need a lift?" he asks, which means the motorbike, newly beaten into relative submission.
"No," says Remus. "Sorry, I - "
He pauses, and Sirius glances at him again, and Remus gives him a funny, distracted sort of grin from behind his fingers.
"I’ll come with," says Sirius, even though he knows.
"Sorry," says Remus, again. "I've no idea for how long..."
"So you'll write," says Sirius, and shrugs, and he suddenly hates everything. "So, it's fine."
"I think it's done," says Remus, and Sirius stares at him for five, endless, sun-stopping seconds, with his ribs slowly sinking and wobbling in his chest, with his spine just this side of failing to hold his body straight, before he realizes that Remus is taking the boiling pot off the stove, that Remus is sidestepping around him to the sink, that Remus meant the pasta.
Fuck, he thinks, and viciously mangles the last whole tomato. Oh my god.
"You know, when you cut off your finger," says Remus, draining the water so that the steam rises up and bounces off the basin and the walls and their skin, dissolving. "I'm not going to do a bloody thing to sew it back on for you, I’ve warned you."
"Blah-blah-blah," grins Sirius, flicking a bit of tomato skin at him. "You say that now, but you'd be pained when you're old and crippled and alone and require my culinary expertise."
He is standing very close, Sirius realizes. Closer than he ever does without someone stepping in first, to eat up all the edgy space around him, so that he thinks, someone, he has a sudden, clear path where there wasn't one before. He is standing with his hip and his side and his arm pressed against Sirius's hip and side and arm, so that they are standing at the counter, both of them facing out toward the window, and they are looking at tomato pulp and steaming noodles, rather than at each other.
"You should stay," says Remus. "Here, I mean."
"Well," Sirius mutters. "Yeah."
"I'll still go half-rent, I meant," says Remus.
"Your da," says Sirius. "He'll be fine." Which means, the hell you will.
Remus is silent, and out of the corner of his eye, Sirius can just see the tightening of the jaw; he can feel the tension in the shoulder pressed against his arm, which is I am going to move away now, which is, how the hell do you know that.
So he hooks his arm around Remus's shoulders, around his neck, so his loose fist rests just under Remus's chin, so he can hold him there and wait for Remus to fucking cry, already, he's only been waiting for that since he met him, and he hasn't ever, not once, and it's absolutely infuriating, he thinks, considering how many times he has (whether anybody was there to notice, or not).
But Remus doesn't. So he says, Because he's a good bloke. Because I like him, all right, he'll be fine, and Remus laughs, a little, instead.
Regulus presses four fingers to the wood of the door. Fear is like a trickle of ice in his throat, like a melting, shaking coil of gelatinous snakes in his belly. His palm slips on the knob; his wand is searing where it presses to his chest inside his pocket. The door opens gently, silently, and just he feels the crackle of the ward crumble like dust at his whisper, at the strange and dark protection at his back, over his face, around his neck and in his wand, time seems to grow into one, fluid, strange and immortal space. It is like, he thinks, he moves through it, and leaves four whole seconds behind him at the threshold.
The man is standing in his tiny kitchen with his wand drawn halfway up his torso, just turned, just in that instant. There is a shattered cup on the linoleum floor. There is an amber puddle pooling slowly under the porcelain. There is a kettle steaming softly on the gas stovetop.
Regulus has it, like that cold-water spike up into his backbone, up into his throat and his tongue and his voice, and the odd thing is, he thinks, is that it sounds exactly like he has always sounded, except that he is, for the first time, ahead of it all. The man, for the first time, Regulus imagines, is too late. He crumples, a little, and goes shocked and soft in the eyes, before his legs lock and his ankles tip and he falls to the ground. And the puddle of tea seeps a dark pool in the left leg of his ripped denim jeans.
Regulus takes care to keep his feet straight and his steps careful as he crosses the floor. The kitchen, except for the dripping tea, looks as if it has been cleaned recently, and it smells of sweet herbs. The walls are soft egg-cream coloured, and there is a newspaper spread tidily on the wood table, and the icebox is green like the flesh of an olive and it is all sort of awkward and wonderful. The teakettle is the colour of a poppy. He thinks that he likes it, quite a bit. He thinks, pausing, that if he had a kitchen, if he had a flat, if he was just coming home to fix a cup of tea, he would want this one, he would want to do that sort of thing right here.
The man is staring at the ceiling, and Regulus knows that he would probably like to close his eyes at this point, but it’s a risk. It takes time, and he is losing a lot of things, very rapidly. He steps over the man, one foot on either side of his ribs.
“For the unjust murder of Opaline Travers,” he says, a buzzing in the back of his skull where his mask is drawn tight and tied. He crouches, and his robes pool in the broken ceramic and cooling tea. “For daring to stand against our Lord.”
"I am supposed to - " he says, knees against the man's hips, wand pressed to the place where the man's collarbones dip to meet.
The man has eyes like a doe, soft and brown and sleepy with Stupefy, with the oncoming. His lips are half-open in the space of a word. With a wand pressed to his heart, you can imagine the sound behind the breathing. Please. Don't. Do. Please. or even Ah.
"Ah - " Regulus whispers, and finds enough hatred in himself to taste bile on his tongue. "Ah -Avada Kedavra."
He wipes his wand on his trousers. I wish someone would be proud, he thinks, that they'll never, ever find this body.
( continued)
Author: imochan
Pairing: Sirius/Remus
Rating: NC17
Summary: In the beginning, the middle, and something of an end.
Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI
PART V:
The Subject of It Is War, And The Pity of War
The motorbike begins to act rather odd as they round the crest of some low, March-white clouds in the outskirts of Surrey, and Sirius swears (words chapping his lips), because if things go off like they did the last three times, there is a dark and frozen pond beneath them, and he doesn’t, honestly, really relish that thought much at all.
"All right?” calls James from up ahead; his broom swings around, hitting Sirius with a rush of cold, moist air.
“Fine, she’s fine - ” he shouts, and the motorbike gives a heavy, resentful-sounding cough in response.
“Doesn’t much sound like,” James calls, wheeling up and back. “You want we should put down and you can - ”
“Go on,” Sirius snaps, swinging an arm wide, and giving the motorbike’s handles a distracted squeeze as it bucks. “Go on, I’ve got her!”
“Do not,” James laughs. “She’s - oop, ha ha ha, pull up, you idiot! Pull up!”
“Fucking - ” he nearly wrenches his arms from their sockets, leaning full-back in the seat as the motorbike bucks a twisted sort of spiral in the air, before deciding to lilt sadly, gracefully, directly towards a cluster of dead-bare treetops.
Sirius hears James yell something else entirely unhelpful, before he ducks his face behind an elbow and holds on furiously through the air-shattering snap of branches, the scrape of metal and the smell of exhaust, the coughing, struggling motor, and the hard, buffeting whip of twigs against his face.
He thinks, oddly, that that bird just better shut it’s fucking, fucking mouth, before he realizes that the worst has passed, and it’s not a bird because it’s fucking March, and it’s just the sound of his ears ringing, because he’s smacked his head into a great and tremendously solid tree trunk.
“You,” he says, to the motorbike, which is purring sadly. “Ow - god - are just awful.”
"You've had a bloody month to work on that thing," James chokes, still laughing, as he pulls the broom up to hover just by Sirius’s aching head. "Where's the pay-off, exactly?"
"It's the sidecar, the sidecar!" Sirius spits, grunting when he pulls his arm free from between the handlebars and a knotted mass of broken branches. "It doesn't know what way is up-like, without it!"
James wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand, still shaking, and Sirius considers reaching out and whacking him headfirst against the tree trunk by the tail of his broom.
"It's just heartsick, mate, give it some time," James grins, and Sirius throws a twig at him.
"Fuck, just - ” Sirius tries to extract a leg, and feels his jeans snag and rip along the hem, the scrape of bark against his ankle. “Augh - augh, fuck, didn’t this used to be a hell of a lot easier?”
“I’ve no idea what you mean,” says James, with a sickly sweet tilt of his head. And he is still bobbing on his broomstick, golden and rakish and able to execute a vertical figure-eight into a Prunestein Half-Twist Feint, with no hands, and Sirius is suddenly old (and possibly drunk, possibly not, possibly just hung-over, possibly just a miserable, stubbled sort of failure), and covered in motor-oil and twigs.
“I hate you,” says Sirius. “You’re going to be insane with jealousy when I bend her into submission.”
“Ahh, bated breath!” sings James, and takes his broom into a lazy spiral toward the still-frosted earth. “Shall I call for - ”
“If you do anything other than shutting your fucking mouth,” Sirius spits, and almost topples out of the branch as he finally wrenches his ankle free. “I swear - ”
“Oop,” James grins, head tilted upwards, his specs glinting white against the sun. “Carefully now, pumpkin!”
“Some mate, you’re all pet-names and generally unhelpful all ‘round, and I’ve just hit my head on an immovable fortress of tree,” says Sirius, because things are awfully vague and woozy, all of a sudden.
“For worse or better?” calls James.
“I could die,” says Sirius, and crosses his eyes at the ground below when it threatens to rock out beneath him. “Wouldn’t you be sorry then.”
James makes a tight, angry sort of noise, and says, “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” which is quite odd, considering Sirius had been pumpkin shortly before.
“What?” he calls. “What - are you - ”
“Nothing,” says James, and squints up at him again, broom in his hand. “Nothing, look - here, all right, just shut up.”
And James gives the broom a little toss, the flick of his wrist and his wand sending it up to hover gently in the air beside Sirius’s branch and the now-rather-peeved motorbike. And Sirius can still see all the places that this broom is James’s: the palms grooves, worn and slick, the snicks at the tail end where James’s boots would scrape and dig when he kicked from the stirrups, the slight line by the head where it was broken, once. Remus said he’d managed to repair it for James’s birthday, although honestly it came out later that it had been Evans all along. (Remus said they should have known better, his charm work was never that good, honestly, she just didn’t want them to know, they would have made A Thing About It.)
“Today, Princess Loretta, if you please?” shouts James, and Sirius drops an icicled-acorn on him on purpose, when he scoots sideways onto the broom, and takes a long curve to the edge of the pond.
James is still squinting up into the tree as he lands, one hand shielding the sun from his eyes, the other reaching out to grab the tail of the broom as Sirius finally gets two feet on the frosted ground.
“Nice bit of work, there.”
“The sidecar, I’ve told you,” Sirius sighs, shaking strips of cold bark and dead leaves from his sleeves. “It’ll only be one or two more runs before she’s used to it.”
“Not like this, I hope,” James sighs. “We can’t all baby-sit your deathtrap training regiments, not every day.”
Sirius tugs a twig out from underneath his collar, and frowns at it. “And your blindingly positive attitude is definitely the remedy.”
“Speaking of remedy,” says James.
“Shut up, I went, already,” says Sirius. He hadn’t. He is cold and frustrated and very good at lying, and tired of everyone fawning over him like some invalid, just because he was silly and stupid enough to go and get hit in the leg with a silly, stupid jinx.
“Did not, when,” sniffs James, leaning back on the broomstick, arm hooked around it.
“Last, er. I don’t know, last week, some time,” he says, and rolls his eyes.
“Never did,” says James. “McGonagall came by anyway, and Lily asked her, and she said Poppy had the stuff and the tests ready all week, and you never showed.”
“Your wife’s a bloody rat,” says Sirius, and ducks the business end of the broomstick that comes swinging at him.
“Stop playing about,” James says, sharply. “Nerve damage, they said, you’re - ”
“There’s not a damage about it,” Sirius snaps, and bounces a fist off his thigh, for demonstration, for good measure. He is fine and flexible and not the least bit concerned because if there’s no scar, than what’s the use. “They were worried about a stupid jinx, just worried, it wasn’t definite anyway, and it’s fine, it’s been fine for weeks, so stop being such a cuntrag about it.”
“Oh, for - ” James crouches down by the edge of the lake, scooping up a palm-full of half-melted snow. “Fine.”
“No time for moping, more manly problems await!” Sirius says, grandly, generously, and tries not to be peeved that James doesn’t look up at his sweeping, masterish gesture toward the trapped and shivering motorbike.
James mumbles something about problems, and Sirius thinks very strongly about that lump of ice and James’s exposed neck.
“What,” he sighs. “What, I hate that word.”
"How's the furry one," says James, for some odd reason, because it is an awful change of subject. “The furry problem.”
"Fine," lies Sirius. "He's fine, he's sleeping it off, isn’t he. That's an awful change of subject."
"Mm, well aware," says James, and shrugs, glancing backward over his shoulder. "I'm not particularly interested in sequitur at the moment. What with you having just bashed your poor head into a tree, and being all un-damaged, entirely."
He pulls a twig from his hair, and winces when it tugs at a snarl. "My poor head is immune to your shoddy tactics.”
“O-ho,” James snorts.
“My poor head,” mutters Sirius, flicking the twig away. “Has nothing to do with any of this - this."
"This war," says James, quite bluntly.
"Fuck you," spits Sirius, always so bloody murderous when James uses that tone. “All right, just.”
“Oh, stuff it,” James snaps. “D’you really want to just keep on like this? Honestly, you’re - it’s a mess, you’re making a ruddy mess of it, you can't go promising people things, and then go and get all banged up because you wanted to take a little risk for the sake of -- fuck, what was the point?”
Sirius stares, the edges of his vision going vaguely red and blurry - though he imagines that may be a concussion and altitude sickness and not actually a murderous urge to pulverize his best mate into small, smoldering bits.
“Beg your pardon,” he hisses.
“I’ve had it,” says James, sharply, standing. "Enough, I've had enough. See?"
“You’ve had something,” mutters Sirius, and squares himself off to face the pond in preparation for a tremendous, gratifying sulk.
“It doesn’t work this way,” says James, voice clear and precise, and Sirius feels the space between his shoulder-blades start to crinkle horrendously, which means James is giving him The Very Serious and Unpleasant Grown-Up Face. "You have to be careful."
“I don’t - ” he starts.
“I’ve fucking had it, I said. Lily won’t barely let me touch her for fear of babies appearing and mucking things up, and people are disappearing, and you're still hoping that I won't fucking notice?"
"The hell - " he starts, rounding on James, fists balled.
James shoves at his shoulder with one hand - with his elbow locked, which means he's not thinking very clearly, considering. "You prick - I don't need protecting," he growls, and he shoves again. "Worry about your fucking, fucking self!"
Sirius tries to catch at his fist and grabs at his wrist instead, not really sure if he's shoving James back or pulling him forward. "What the hell do you know about what you need?" he growls, voice scraping on his throat because the words are fast and heavy. "You'd give up everything for her, in a bloody second, wouldn't you? You know you would, you - and! She’s right - for your fucking family, too - why the hell should she give you a kid, you'd just as soon put a bloody big sign around your neck: Hullo Yes Ready And Willing To Die For Greater Good!"
"Because I love her," James snaps. "That's exactly it, you daft - "
"Yeah," Sirius hisses, fingers squeezing on his wrist. "That's it, exactly."
James is silent; his face is sort of red, and his specs are crooked.
"So," swallows Sirius, suddenly sort of hoarse, and the most embarrassed, suddenly, that he's ever been in front of this person he's never, never been embarrassed in front of before. "So don't say. Not that, christ. All right?"
James squints at him, and Sirius looks away, pulling his hand off James's wrist - it will be easier to punch him in the face this way, he thinks, when he says something stupid or incriminating.
"You don't - " says James, quietly, and then stops.
"What."
"Nothing."
"You do," says Sirius. "Need protecting. I mean, for the love of - look at you."
"Oh, shut it," sighs James, and unceremoniously pushes him into the thawing pond.
He is still dripping when he stands at the door of No. 4 Underwood Road: the keys are never where he remembers they were last, and Remus got a nasty letter from the landlord the morning after Sirius said, hold on, hold on ha ha ha ha fuck it, and jammed his wand in the lock (Remus had got them drunk enough to spend 15 minutes sitting on the stoop, stifling manic, idiotic laughter in each other’s necks, but Sirius knew that wasn’t what the letter was on about). And he busies himself finding his wand in the plastered-down pocket of his jacket - the keys are now either in the bottom of the pond, or in the front pocket of his other jeans, which he remembers crumpled fondly on the top of Remus’s laundry bin.
Lauunndry, he’d sung, in the morning, when he’d pulled Remus’s oxford off over his head, and tossed it somewhere in the direction of the bin, and dabbed at the small scrapes on Remus’s neck that were causing all the fuss about washing up in the first place, what with the blood staining Remus’s collar and Sirius’s jeans, where he’d been liberally dripped on.
That’s two moons worth right there, he’d said, and Remus had made a face like, ouch, or maybe, that is utterly disgusting and unacceptable how do I live in this pigsty I am supposed to be an adult.
I’ll do it, Remus had said, and craned his neck a little, and Sirius had seen the shape of the cuts on his neck: shallow and pink, little vees like scraping claws or the tips of pointed teeth dragging in the air.
Er, he’d said. I think this was me, by the way, he’d said, and pressed a thumb against the tiny gouges.
And Remus had made a funny sort of noise, as if he were terribly amused, but very, very tired, and he pressed a hand to Sirius’s shoulder, simply. He’d said, Never mind. Aren’t you meeting James?
And now, he shakes himself off in the doorway, with his hair plastered to his temples and his cheeks, and his trousers making puddles underneath his feet. He refuses to give James the pleasure of any sort of drying charm. If he’s going to be accused of being, he thinks, of being generally miserable, he’s not going to make the guilt go away very easily, he’s decided. I’m going to play the fucking part, he thinks, HULLO WORLD I AM GENERALLY SOPPING WET AND GENERALLY MISERABLE AND HA HA HA YOU THINK YOU’VE GOT THE BEST OF ME HAVE YOU OH HO OH HO.
Generally miserable, he thinks, and snorts, what fucking rot. I have reason enough, if I wanted, he thinks, I could be generally logically miserable, I could be a basket case. He shakes a bit of water from his sleeve, and thinks, if it were like that, he thinks, I could be an absolute nutter by now. And it’d be nothing more than expected.
He is taking great pains to slosh as loudly as possible up the stairs, when he almost runs headlong into Remus, who is only eight hours or so off a full moon, who is one step off the first floor landing, and who is in his coat and scarf, and looking suddenly, vaguely surprised and put-off at the timing of this particular encounter.
"What the hell," says Sirius, arms stretched to block his way. "Where are you going, you have a fever."
"Er," says Remus. "Why are you wet?"
"I'm going to kill James," says Sirius. "Where are you going."
Remus raises an eyebrow (there is a scrape on the underside of his jaw which is still bleeding). "Were you swimming? On purpose? Why were you - it's the middle of March."
"You are bleeding on the stairs," Sirius hisses, and takes a step forward.
Remus raises his palms, but doesn't budge. "I'm fine," he says, finally. "I have to - "
“I’m going to kill James,” says Sirius. “And then finish what the fucking werewolf started.” And he takes three more steps, and Remus blinks at him, not quite innocently and almost bored.
“Horrible sort of threat,” murmurs Remus, hands falling to the banister and the wall, again. “And not at all very funny.” (Although the edges of his mouth are tipped upwards, maybe.)
“Wasn’t meant to be,” Sirius glares. “It’s like can feel you dying of cholera from here, you dumb shite.”
“Not quite the appropriate analogy, thank you,” Remus says, politely, brightly. “What did you do for James to try and drown you, exactly.”
“I don’t care,” says Sirius, harshly, because it didn’t do a thing and now all he wants more than ever, ever, is to have fixed this all years ago, before he could ever imagine a time when James would turn to him and say We can’t do this, mate. “Babies, maybe.”
“What?” Remus blinks. “I don’t think that’s - ”
“Not him,” says Sirius, and he has two of his fingers tucked up against the hem of Remus’s jumper, and he is feeling quite glassy-eyed and scattered-wide, at the moment, and he thinks perhaps the hypothermia has caught up with him. “In general. General sprogs. Fuck, I don’t know.”
“Er,” says Remus, and makes a half-completed gesture with one hand, as if he thinks it might be a good idea to check Sirius’s temperature, or perhaps to stop him leaking all over the stairwell. “Clearly.”
“He,” says Sirius, fingers curling into another cable of Remus’s jumper, because he is entirely uninterested, suddenly, in anything except wool and warm skin and damp cheeks, and not having to stand on his own feet, for a while. “Thinks I am a problem.”
“You’ve always been a problem,” says Remus, his hand still hovering somewhere near Sirius’s shoulder, and their faces are very close, now. “You are what they refer to as a ‘Problem Child’.”
“It’s a very kind way of putting it,” he says, against Remus’s mouth.
“How would you say it?” murmurs Remus.
He kisses Remus, there on the stairs. Remus is taller than him, like this, and he has to lean up, and the tips of his knuckles on his fisted hand graze the front of Remus’s chest, so he can feel the moment when Remus inhales, slowly, and he likes it.
“Maybe,” he says, against Remus’s mouth, which is dry and still quite pale. “I don’t know, like that.”
“That didn’t say anything of the sort,” smiles Remus.
“Didn’t,” he mutters. “Didn’t say. Christ. Christ, you piss me off, Lupin.”
“I know,” says Remus, and smiles like he does when he is hiding something: a secret, a shame, a headache, the last piece of baklava.
“Don’t make that face at me,” he says, and touches his knuckles to Remus’s chest, again.
“Don’t treat me like a child,” grins Remus, teeth bared, body swayed backwards, slightly. “And I swear to god, if you keep dripping on me, I’ll evict you.”
“Filthy talk,” Sirius growls, and fumbles with the doorknob to the flat, even though he’s perfectly happy to pin Remus up against the wood of the door, like this. “Just keep it up, creature of the night.”
“Those - ah - those jokes are only funny when I don’t still feel like raw meat,” Remus murmurs, fingers over Sirius’s damp ones, on the doorknob; his voice hitches when the door swings open, and Sirius’s ankles bump against his, when they stumble inside.
“I’ll show you raw meat,” Sirius hisses, half-laughing, half on the verge of something else entirely which makes him feel as though he is teetering violently between sunlight and some dark, damp and dusty cell, where the walls close in with every breath.
Remus laughs, and he has both hands against Sirius’s face, and he kisses him, when he says, “That doesn’t, that doesn’t make any sense,” and Sirius keeps pushing, because it’s so rare and wonderful he thinks maybe if he doesn’t keep forcing time to move on, the moment will freeze before he can kiss Remus back, or open up his shirt, or bury his face in the damp hair at his nape, or anything of the sort, and he doesn’t want that (he doesn’t know which way, he thinks, that the teetering will go).
“God,” mumbles Remus, around his mouth, at the threshold to his bedroom (which is the only fucking proper bed in the flat, thinks Sirius, in my life, fuck it). “I can’t believe it - you’re as good as going to tie me down, aren’t you. T’keep me here.”
Sirius makes an affected, interested noise (his tongue is occupied), and Remus boxes his ears with a loose fist, and once of them ends up with a jumper-sleeve half-off and Sirius gets his feet tangled in the haphazard laundry basket, and reaches out behind himself to keep from toppling backwards.
Remus grins, holding onto the front of Sirius’s shirt with curled fingers. “You’re - ”
In a mood? He thinks. About close to imploding if I don’t get to peel those stupid clothes off you? He thinks. Absolutely, he thinks, Absolutely, completely, entirely, wholly in -
“Don’t say it,” he hisses, and Remus pushes him back against the mattress, with a fist to his sternum, fingers tangling with the buttonholes, and his teeth closed on Sirius's bottom lip. He makes a rough sort of noise in his throat when his knee slips and his elbow presses into Sirius's shoulder, and Sirius catches at his thigh to keep them from toppling.
Remus pauses to draw back, eyelids heavy, fingers moving slowly over the exposed part of Sirius’s skin, where the collarbone meets the collar-of-his-shirt, where it is cool and tingling.
"Did you want - " Sirius manages, because his breathing has managed to get sort of tangled up and shallow.
"No - I," Remus mumbles, wetting his lips.
Sirius bends a leg, sliding his thigh against Remus's ribs; his hips tilt, and Remus's spine curves, a little, in answer. "If you did," he says. "We could if you - "
"Shut up," whispers Remus, head bowed, cheek tucked just under Sirius’s jaw. “Just - “
Sirius raises a hand, smoothes his palm over the scruffy hairs at Remus's nape, weaves his fingers into it so he can tilt Remus's head, so he can nip his teeth at the skin there, just behind his ear.
Remus's laugh huffs against his neck, his cheek; and Sirius wants to tear away every last layer of that lingering resistance, these odd moments where Remus still pretends to be surprised, of all the stupid, bloody things to be.
“C’mere,” he mumbles, and leans back, weight onto one elbow, his spine pressing to the sheets, his other hand tugging at the front of Remus’s trousers. “An’ get these open.”
Remus teeters on his knees; his breathless grin fades when Sirius lies back, fingers hooking into the flies of his trousers, pulling them open as he pulls Remus forward with it, and Remus makes a rough, questing sound.
“C’mere, I said,” he whispers, mostly to himself, because when he glances up through his hair he sees Remus is watching him with incredulity, and even better, with anticipation. And maybe it makes him a little braver, he thinks, maybe this will be good, he thinks, when he presses one firm palm to the back of Remus’s thigh and tugs him in closer still, with Remus’s knees wedged up against his underarms, and his other hand shoving at the opening of Remus's pants.
Remus is so barely shaking he is almost still, with his hands caught where they first tried to catch his weight, one on Sirius’s shoulder, the other pressed against the wall, above Sirius’s head, and he is almost, almost, not breathing, except that it is the only sound he is making. When Sirius presses one palm flat to the small of Remus’s back, just under his waistband, and his tongue rasps up the underside of Remus’s cock, throat aching and his mouth too wet, lips too stretched, Remus exhales, and Sirius can only imagine that he is just this side of trying to chew off his own tongue.
He cranes his neck, and presses firmly with the hand that is resting on the damp skin of Remus’s back. He closes his eyes when he sucks in his cheeks, long, slow movements, and a slight and playful curl of tongue. (He feels the pulses, the hardening, and it makes him giddy.)
“Oh, fuck,” whispers Remus, suddenly, politely, into the air above the damp mess of Sirius’s hair, and there is a tightening of his thighs, and his knees slip by Sirius’s ribs. “Fuck.”
He grips tighter, thumb dragging along the damp skin of Remus’s hip, his inner thigh, and behind his balls and Remus makes a sound like the summer, cotton sun: soft, warm, muffled behind the thick air, like -- nnh. His skin is lit, now, thinks Sirius; when he moves his head to mouth at the thin, silver-tissue scars on Remus’s inner thigh, Remus’s breathing sounds like the crackle-hiss of a match, scared of itself, that first hesitation before the flare. He presses his thumb back, farther, and Remus thrusts, and he grins when Remus’s cock slides against his cheek, the corner of his mouth, slippery and shameless.
“Want this?” he mumbles, tongue dragging along the tip of Remus’s erection, again, fingers circling the base, other hand holding him splayed and shaking, just this side of pressing in, and I know, he thinks, I know I know I know, I’m a horrific tease, I just want to hear it.
But Remus makes an eager, incoherent sound, and there is a thud of bone against wood when Remus’s arm slips from the headboard and tries to tangle in Sirius’s hair. His fingers catch against Sirius’s jaw, instead, around the hot, damp curve of his neck, and Remus tugs, once, upwards.
He lets go of Remus’s cock, reluctantly, letting his mouth slide against the bones of Remus’s shoulder as he struggles to sitting, Remus’s thighs still tight and hot around his hips. He lets his fingers slip up into the damp curls by Remus’s nape, spreading them there letting them rest heavily, feeling the weight, as he tips Remus’s head to the side, mouth against his neck.
“Gonna fuck you,” he hisses, in Remus’s ear, and Remus’s fingers twitch against his hip.
“Mmh - about time, too,” Remus mumbles, the damp slide of a shaking smile against his jawline, and that rare, surprised sort of shudder, when he reaches down, fingers grazing the crease of Remus’s arse, nails pressed to the skin.
Remus shifts like a staccato, like his uneven breath is in every inch of his skin and bone and flushing nerves. His shoulders are high, sharp shadows in the light, his elbow scrapes Sirius’s ribs like the rip of a matchlight, when he raises himself off Sirius’s thighs, pushing his trousers and pants down to his knees, making to turn.
“No,” Sirius manages, fingers closing damp and tight on Remus’s wrist, holding Remus where he is as he leans back, hips arching under Remus’s weight.
“Like,” he mumbles, wetting his lips, tongue gone dry. “Maybe, like this.”
It’s not usually like this; usually Sirius likes to have his elbows locked, his head made heavy and weak from excitement, with his body slick and heavy over Remus’s, with all of Remus’s body pressing back up against his; he likes to bury things into the dark place behind Remus’s ear. He likes to press down, usually (and Remus, he thinks, if given the chance to pause, Remus might just starting thinking about orgasms, and then they’d never accomplish fucking anything).
“Like this?” murmurs Remus, a legitimate question; he is still caught in the shifting (ready to turn to the sheets, and Sirius swallows heavily, throat thick with the thought of the length of Remus’s bare, rough back, and his thighs spread and gathered up under his hips and oh, oh yeah, that - that might be nice too).
“Yeah,” Sirius grins, bares his teeth, feels the air hit the inside of his mouth, his tongue, like a hissing chill, there is almost a crackle in the air when he exhales.
And Remus leans over him, sliding up over Sirius’s thighs, straddling his hips; his skin feels damp, and hot, and tissue-thin - there is the tight shift of bone under it all, under his thumbs (which are on Remus’s hips), there is the terrifyingly bright and familiar burgeoning push of blood through veins, under his lips and tongue and teeth (which are scraping along Remus’s throat).
“Don’t suppose,” pants Remus, dry fingers encircling Sirius’s wrist, lifting his hand. “You’ve got anything to make it easier on me.”
“Later,” he mumbles, and lets Remus slide a finger of his captive hand between Remus’s parted lips, warmwet roughness of Remus’s tongue curling over his fingerprints, his knuckles; he rubs his thumb in the small dint of Remus’s chin.
Remus shifts, he lets his hand fall from Sirius’s wrist to Sirius’s chest, palm hot and dry over the place where Sirius feels that his lungs, tight and rib-wrenched, are struggling to get enough air. Remus lifts his body, his knees tighten around Sirius’s hips; Sirius lets his finger slip from Remus’s mouth, and paints a slow, wet circle over the back of Remus’s thigh. He slides his finger up and in, and Remus makes a light, uneven noise, hand curling over Sirius’s collarbone.
He likes this part, the shuddering points of this act where he can exert this kind of heedless power, and watch, narrow-eyed and excited, watch the way Remus’s face flickers with arousal, how tight his breathing gets, how his shoulders winch and release, spine arcing, the small pressings and pushings of Remus’s hips. He likes the way he can feel Remus’s body tighten, the scrabble of his fingers, the wshht of breath against his jaw, his ear, his throat, the heavy, hot, involuntary twitch of Remus’s cock through his thin t-shirt, against his belly.
He shoves at Remus’s trousers with his other hand, growling against Remus’s jaw when they snag, when they won’t just come off, and Remus groans, shakily, shifting awkward and disarming in how unpracticed it looks, when he fumbles to pull one leg out, and then the other. He leaves them crumpled underneath Sirius’s thighs, and bare to the waist, in only his socks, face pink and mouth parted, he settles over Sirius’s hips again, and oh, thinks Sirius, this is just lovely, with the way they fit together now, with Remus’s legs spread wide over his lap, the hot line of his cock trapped against Sirius’s stomach, the way Sirius can grip at his arse with one hand, pulling him open, pulling him close, when he thrusts, twists, a finger up inside him again. And Remus kisses him, both palms cupping his jaw, fingers framing the flush and the heat in his face. It has force, in it, panting and claustrophobic and almost desperate, almost euphoric.
You’ve got me, he thinks, he wants to say, it’s all right, it’s all right mate, you’re fine, you’ve had me for a long time yet.
But he presses closer with his hips, instead, squeezing Remus’s thigh with one hand, and twisting two fingers now, deeper inside Remus, with the other. Remus’s body is tight, abrasive, it always has an edge of resistance, a safeguard in his awkward jointedness, which is so often so unpliable, worn and wobbly edges of a puzzle-piece, a hot coil of danger in the way his teeth go immediately for Sirius’s bottom lip, when he exhales. But it doesn’t matter, Sirius thinks, and snaps at the hot air between their mouths, grinning.
It doesn’t matter, he thinks, because I know all your secrets. I know all your secrets and I know, I know I know I know, I know that means you can’t be scared of me, anymore.
He flicks with his thumb at the sensitive, dark-patched skin just behind his twisting, thrusting fingers, and Remus’s spine arcs, bows, sharply, a hiss-lit exhale - fuck, fuck, ah - Sirius - against the corner of his mouth.
“Christ,” he manages, wet and shaking into Remus’s mouth. “Christ - you feel so - ”
Remus kisses him again, into shaking, excited silence, and he can feel Remus wedge a hand between them, between their bellies, gripping at his own cock, stroking it so his knuckles press against Sirius’s body, rucking up his shirt, and he hisses, teeth closing on Remus’s bottom lip, when he feels the damp head of it sliding against his bared skin.
“Like that?” he manages; his voice doesn’t sound like his own, it rattles in his skull, fires down into his joints, he feels Remus’s fingers stutter in their stroking, the clench of his body when he shifts, makes a sound like nhh.
“Wait, fuck - ” Remus hisses, when Sirius slides his fingers out from Remus’s body, gripping him with both hands now, over the curve of his arse, and Remus’s hips pull back into his palms, fingers fumbling between them at the flies of Sirius’s jeans. There is the clink of his belt, the thick, slithering sound of leather, the click-click-click-click of the zipper, Remus’s now-slick fingers pushing at the thin fabric; he pushes up into the touch, and oh, he thinks, oh god oh god this is so good. He kisses Remus, hard, and the heavy, slow, awkward touch of Remus’s fingers on his cock falters, shifts, Remus is gripping hard at the back of his neck with his other hand: five points of heat against his spine.
“C’mon,” he manages, thick and humid in the tight air between their mouths, licking the promise onto Remus’s tongue. “C’mon - let me - ”
“W-wait,” Remus arches, pushing his hips back, up, hands sliding roughly to Sirius’s hips, shoving at his jeans, and Sirius grins, feels it stretching - lewd and tight - over his face. “You have to - ”
“Budge up,” he whispers, nudging at Remus’s thigh. Remus lifts himself up onto his knees, and now it is suddenly slower, languid and careful. He thinks, he could take his time here. He slides his tongue over the inside of his teeth and he thinks he could go slower. He could push Remus down to the sheets and mouth up the inside of his bared thighs, could hook Remus’s knee over his shoulder when he tongues at the dark, comforting divots of his body, could make him shake with the want to come, could make Remus tug and twist at his hair with scrabbling, desperate fingers. He could take his time, and taste all of him, he thinks. He could fuck him like this first, he thinks, Remus could ride him, and then he could turn him to the mattress, curl up behind him, hold him open and fuck up into him with his arms wrapped all the way around his body like a shaking vine, like a coil of bandages, stroke his cock and crane his head to kiss him, to mouth at the damp ridges of Remus’s spine, and ah, oh - fuck - he thinks, desperately, I can’t -
But Remus is panting, hot and damp and shaking against his temple, his hands gripping, pushing down on Sirius’s shoulders. He shifts his own hips, lying back enough to shuck his jeans and briefs, letting them stay rucked down and tangled on his ankles, and he grips the base of his own cock. His vision narrows when he strokes it, slow, watching the smears of dampness over the creases of skin, between his fingers; he presses the head of it up against the skin behind Remus’s balls, holding him open with the ‘l’ of a thumb and finger, rubbing it there against his entrance, teasing, and Remus swears at him, softly, incoherent, a scrape of nails over his shoulders. He holds himself there, careful not to disturb this tenuous, aching, wonderfully filthy sort of moment, when he stretches an arm, fumbling between the mattress and the springs for the small, sticky jar.
“If -- you’re going to,” Remus whispers, voice teetering on the damp and shaking skin of Sirius’s temple. “Come on.”
He grins, nipping at the skin against his mouth, a tendon of Remus’s throat. He slicks himself, fingers cold and wet and just this side of uncontrollably shaking. “You do it, then, if you’re so - ” he hisses. Remus is shifting, spreading his thighs, gripping Sirius’s cock with his own fingers, directing it as he lowers his hips. “Fuck - eager.”
Their thighs are wet, the press of heat is obscene, he thinks, and he's not in control, he thinks, he doesn't want to be, he wants to give it up, out - he shoves his hips up, his cock deeper, oh - let me see, he thinks, let me see this moment mould itself into desperation, to wring the words from your mouth. It doesn't matter, he hisses, what I say - you'll say no, you'll say no. He knows.
“Come on,” he groans. “Oh, oh, fuck.” He has to shut his eyes; Remus has tipped his head to the side, lolling, the curve of his throat, the slope of his neck pale and bared.
“Why the hell - " he hisses, panting because he cannot quite laugh. " - should I keep giving you. You all these chances."
Remus fists a handful of his hair, and it stings when his body bucks, and he leans forward to brace himself. "A-ah -- me?" he whispers, face red and eyebrows drawn.
Sirius narrows his eyes, mouth skimming the damp skin of Remus's throat, thumbs tightening on the front of his hips, pulling him down, in, and Remus swears sharply, against his ear.
"You know," he whispers, craning his neck so his mouth catches on the bunched nerves of Remus's jaw; he plants one foot on the cushions to press his hips up, jeans catching at his damp skin. "You know I'm not patient."
"Ah - fuck - " Remus jerks, against Sirius's hands, slumping to one elbow by Sirius's head, and when Sirius looks up at him in this scrabbling, claustrophobic space, he sees that Remus has his eyes squeezed shut, and the scars on his nose stand out from the flush in his face.
"No - " hisses Remus, and grips at the back of Sirius's neck. "Don't say - "
Sirius feels the growl in the back of his throat like a hot, boiling mass: he forces it into Remus's mouth, bites it out against Remus's lower lip; Remus wraps both hands against the back of Sirius's neck and hauls him up to sitting, with both his thighs tight around Sirius's waist. He feels the high, tight shudder that grips at Remus’s spine, he feels the absolutely stifling, dizzying surge of his own hips up into Remus’s body (he digs his heels into the mattress and has to brace himself back on one hand; he’s never been this deep, shoving up hard into Remus when he’s already been worked open enough to be fucked to the hilt, when Remus is already panting high in the back of his throat, as though he can’t breathe, when Remus is gripping his neck and shoulders, and pushing down).
“Oh - f-fuck,” he stutters, because he is suddenly on the verge of being ruthless, and this is suddenly-almost violent, and it is being dragged out of him because Remus - with his back bowed, and his wet thighs, and his tongue catching between his teeth when he inhales - looks as if he’s still almost, a - ah - fuck, Sirius, almost not deep enough.
“Shit - ” he chokes on his own whisper. “Shit - look, look at you.”
Remus flushes, sharply, and pulls Sirius’s face up to his with his fingers digging into Sirius’s jaw and his teeth scraping Sirius’s tongue when he kisses him. Sirius grunts, and digs his heels into the mattress again, hips pistoning up, Remus gripping at his hair and the headboard for any kind of - but, oh, god, it hits him, he’s fucking him, god, yes, he can’t tell if he’s speaking, if he’s groaning, if he’s even in his own body, anymore, but god -
Remus comes with his face buried in Sirius’s neck, teeth white-hot points against his throat, and a hot spread of wetness suddenly smeared between them, and the tightness of his body, every space where his skin is pressed against Remus’s body, the heat bleeds into his skin, and just makes him want to swallow it up, devour it, lick it teethe it down into his belly taste it on his tongue and his teeth let it fill him up from the inside out every part of him better than anything than everything and his oh fuck, he thinks, I love this I love this Remus this is this is I - oh.
The fade out is slow, and still so hot, and the position is achingly, tryingly familiar, with Remus’s thighs wedged in tight around his waist, and naked, sweaty limbs all jangled together, feeling reformed, feeling renewed and old and drawn to a trembling, happy blank, all at once. He slides his palms, numb and weighted, up Remus’s slumped spine, sliding his fingers up into Remus’s damp hair, and Remus exhales, ragged, as if he’s had the wind knocked from him.
“Mgfh,” says Remus, into Sirius’s neck, a soft groan whistling against the cooling sweat on his skin. He feels like laughing, like burying the warmth bubbling in his chest and squeezing his ribs into Remus’s skin, of kissing him and feeling it in both their throats. He shifts, turns his head, tips Remus’s chin up with his thumb and rubs his mouth over Remus’s, slow and lazy.
“Good?” he mumbles.
Remus snorts, softly, shifting his heavy weight from Sirius’s lap. Sirius sighs, closes his eyes, and feels it: a soft wince, as Sirius slips out, and the sound of rustling, rasping sheets, the dip of the mattress beside him.
“Ow,” says Remus, muffled.
“Sorry,” rasps Sirius, and it doesn’t know what it’s for, except that somewhere along the way, he was probably responsible for something.
“Don’t,” says Remus, turns his cheek to the pillow; Sirius glances over - heavily, sleepily - sees one bleary-bright eye, and the sharp glint of an eyetooth. “Do just be pleased with yourself, and we can all move on.”
“Christ,” says Sirius, and smoothes a happy, uninhibited palm down Remus’s spine. “Has nobody ever fucking taught you how to bask?”
“Ahm amf maffkinh,” says Remus, into the pillows.
Sirius laughs, he can’t help it, it’s so ridiculous.
“I am basking,” repeats Remus, his head slightly raised this time. “You’re ruining it.”
“I’m the cause of it,” Sirius corrects, grinning at the ceiling, tucking an arm behind his head.
“Egoist,” mutters Remus, and glances at the sweaty, damp mess that is Sirius’s shirt, plastered and drying to his skin. “Er, sorry.”
“I don’t mind,” Sirius laughs, again - he can’t stop it, being so happy, why can’t it be like this, he thinks, all the time, would that just ruin the whole thing? “I don’t mind. Christ.”
“Still,” Remus mumbles, tucking his chin into his folded arms, watching Sirius with heavy-lidded eyes. “Could have been a bit more organized about the whole thing.”
“Fuck that,” he laughs. He resists the urge to glance down at his wrinkled jeans, still tangled-caught around his ankles, at his smeared stomach and his flushed skin. He thinks, maybe, he’d rather look at Remus, anyway: over his skin and scars and tiny, fresh scrapes, turned pink and orange-flesh in the late-day light, at his closed eyes and his finally, finally, maybe-easy breathing. I’d rather be here, he thinks, forever, maybe, even though that sounds, that sounds so stupid. But I would, he thinks. And Remus is asleep, he thinks, or dozing unconcerned, shaken out and put back together, just like him, so he can’t think to ask, can’t think to slide a hand up into his hair and press his mouth to the shell of Remus’s ear. He can’t think to ask, but would you?
At the end of April, Remus stands in the kitchen by the pot of bubbling pasta, watching Sirius hack at a bowl of tomatoes (meant for the sauce, for supper), and he says My Da's sick.
Sirius curses at a spurt of slimy, malicious tomato-seeds on his shirtsleeve. "What," he says. "Sorry, what?"
"My Da's sick," says Remus, again. "I'm going to go. See him."
Sirius frowns, and jabs at the pile, again. "Shit, mate," he says.
"There's a train tomorrow morning," says Remus. When Sirius glances over at him, he has one arm crossed, the other arm propped against it, and the knuckle of his thumb against his teeth, which means he has practiced this stupid fucking conversation inside his head at least 5 times, thinks Sirius, and tried to imagine all the ways that I'll fuck it up for him, or he'll fuck it up for me.
"You need a lift?" he asks, which means the motorbike, newly beaten into relative submission.
"No," says Remus. "Sorry, I - "
He pauses, and Sirius glances at him again, and Remus gives him a funny, distracted sort of grin from behind his fingers.
"I’ll come with," says Sirius, even though he knows.
"Sorry," says Remus, again. "I've no idea for how long..."
"So you'll write," says Sirius, and shrugs, and he suddenly hates everything. "So, it's fine."
"I think it's done," says Remus, and Sirius stares at him for five, endless, sun-stopping seconds, with his ribs slowly sinking and wobbling in his chest, with his spine just this side of failing to hold his body straight, before he realizes that Remus is taking the boiling pot off the stove, that Remus is sidestepping around him to the sink, that Remus meant the pasta.
Fuck, he thinks, and viciously mangles the last whole tomato. Oh my god.
"You know, when you cut off your finger," says Remus, draining the water so that the steam rises up and bounces off the basin and the walls and their skin, dissolving. "I'm not going to do a bloody thing to sew it back on for you, I’ve warned you."
"Blah-blah-blah," grins Sirius, flicking a bit of tomato skin at him. "You say that now, but you'd be pained when you're old and crippled and alone and require my culinary expertise."
He is standing very close, Sirius realizes. Closer than he ever does without someone stepping in first, to eat up all the edgy space around him, so that he thinks, someone, he has a sudden, clear path where there wasn't one before. He is standing with his hip and his side and his arm pressed against Sirius's hip and side and arm, so that they are standing at the counter, both of them facing out toward the window, and they are looking at tomato pulp and steaming noodles, rather than at each other.
"You should stay," says Remus. "Here, I mean."
"Well," Sirius mutters. "Yeah."
"I'll still go half-rent, I meant," says Remus.
"Your da," says Sirius. "He'll be fine." Which means, the hell you will.
Remus is silent, and out of the corner of his eye, Sirius can just see the tightening of the jaw; he can feel the tension in the shoulder pressed against his arm, which is I am going to move away now, which is, how the hell do you know that.
So he hooks his arm around Remus's shoulders, around his neck, so his loose fist rests just under Remus's chin, so he can hold him there and wait for Remus to fucking cry, already, he's only been waiting for that since he met him, and he hasn't ever, not once, and it's absolutely infuriating, he thinks, considering how many times he has (whether anybody was there to notice, or not).
But Remus doesn't. So he says, Because he's a good bloke. Because I like him, all right, he'll be fine, and Remus laughs, a little, instead.
Regulus presses four fingers to the wood of the door. Fear is like a trickle of ice in his throat, like a melting, shaking coil of gelatinous snakes in his belly. His palm slips on the knob; his wand is searing where it presses to his chest inside his pocket. The door opens gently, silently, and just he feels the crackle of the ward crumble like dust at his whisper, at the strange and dark protection at his back, over his face, around his neck and in his wand, time seems to grow into one, fluid, strange and immortal space. It is like, he thinks, he moves through it, and leaves four whole seconds behind him at the threshold.
The man is standing in his tiny kitchen with his wand drawn halfway up his torso, just turned, just in that instant. There is a shattered cup on the linoleum floor. There is an amber puddle pooling slowly under the porcelain. There is a kettle steaming softly on the gas stovetop.
Regulus has it, like that cold-water spike up into his backbone, up into his throat and his tongue and his voice, and the odd thing is, he thinks, is that it sounds exactly like he has always sounded, except that he is, for the first time, ahead of it all. The man, for the first time, Regulus imagines, is too late. He crumples, a little, and goes shocked and soft in the eyes, before his legs lock and his ankles tip and he falls to the ground. And the puddle of tea seeps a dark pool in the left leg of his ripped denim jeans.
Regulus takes care to keep his feet straight and his steps careful as he crosses the floor. The kitchen, except for the dripping tea, looks as if it has been cleaned recently, and it smells of sweet herbs. The walls are soft egg-cream coloured, and there is a newspaper spread tidily on the wood table, and the icebox is green like the flesh of an olive and it is all sort of awkward and wonderful. The teakettle is the colour of a poppy. He thinks that he likes it, quite a bit. He thinks, pausing, that if he had a kitchen, if he had a flat, if he was just coming home to fix a cup of tea, he would want this one, he would want to do that sort of thing right here.
The man is staring at the ceiling, and Regulus knows that he would probably like to close his eyes at this point, but it’s a risk. It takes time, and he is losing a lot of things, very rapidly. He steps over the man, one foot on either side of his ribs.
“For the unjust murder of Opaline Travers,” he says, a buzzing in the back of his skull where his mask is drawn tight and tied. He crouches, and his robes pool in the broken ceramic and cooling tea. “For daring to stand against our Lord.”
"I am supposed to - " he says, knees against the man's hips, wand pressed to the place where the man's collarbones dip to meet.
The man has eyes like a doe, soft and brown and sleepy with Stupefy, with the oncoming. His lips are half-open in the space of a word. With a wand pressed to his heart, you can imagine the sound behind the breathing. Please. Don't. Do. Please. or even Ah.
"Ah - " Regulus whispers, and finds enough hatred in himself to taste bile on his tongue. "Ah -Avada Kedavra."
He wipes his wand on his trousers. I wish someone would be proud, he thinks, that they'll never, ever find this body.
( continued)