(no subject)
Title: Coordinates, Too
Pairing: Sirius/Remus
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: R
Summary: A touch off is worse than catastrophe. MWPP-era, post-Shack.
A/N: Written for pruegirl17. And-hearts-semicolon to thedeadparrot for the beta.
Coordinates, Too
Here's Remus: This gently slouching quiet boy who likes his books, and quiet places, and quiet things. And him. Remus likes him strangest of all. Remus is a secret sentimentalist who saves little tokens and a scrap of nothing-paper Sirius gave him in second year. His fingers are always moving, absent-minded. He's got big amazing eyes but they seem closed most of the time, or else they're always catching him at the wrong moment, and also he Never. Forgets. Anything.
And this is him: Hands shaking and sometimes talking faster than his thoughts. Once he did a cartwheel outside Transfiguration, just for the fun of it, and when Greevy got kicked in the face he yelled at him for being in the way. His limbs are long and he uses them to pull the others into sporadic boys-club embraces, yelling in their ears. He is oddly sensitive about cats. Sometimes he is possessed of a strange grace stemming from upbringing and aristocracy, both of which he tries to forget or deny. He likes to kiss Remus on the shoulder and curl up behind him, just there, because oh they fit so well.
:::
Early that morning Sirius tortures James with plans for an elaborate welcome-back, plans which involve Remus heralded in to fanfare and wildly-colored confetti, and also a scrappy-looking Gryffindor banner for a cape. Maybe a laurel wreath? Trumpets?
"Well it was a joke," he says to James, who balks, and then says, "Don't make a big thing of it. Really, Sirius, don't do anything funny." And Sirius says he wasn't going to, not really, and Christ How Stupid Does James Think He Is? He says, "Like I'm going to throw a parade after he's been six days in the infirmary," but James hardly even knows what a parade is in the first place and Sirius scoffs.
In the afternoon, cold and clammy, he hauls Peter out to the lake where they chuck rocks together. Sirius whines, overwrought. Peter affirms everything; says "yeah," and "that's right." Then he says, "Do you think it'll be different now?"
Sirius says, "Why should it?" But he doesn't forget it.
Later the set in James's jaw worries him, makes him wonder, but when they see him Remus smiles faintly and Sirius can breathe again. Remus is smiling at him and it will be okay. He's got this sweet medicinal smell about him, clinical, and completely foreign. His fingers are wrapped in clean white gauze this time and Sirius wants to ask him what he's got in his palm (he holds it half behind his back like they won't notice), but he doesn't. Instead he offers him his ill-got pumpkin juice, half-empty, when Remus says he's thirsty. The gauze shimmers in the firelight as the drink switches hands. Sirius starts to say something but Remus coughs, interrupts him.
:::
In the Hall they sit James and Sirius side-by-side, and Remus across from Sirius with Peter right next to him. Next morning Sirius is already sitting in Peter's spot and Remus only blinks before he sits down next to him. After all, Sirius doesn't need James beside him and Remus doesn't need Peter in order to properly stir his porridge, spear a sausage.
He says, "What've we got?"
Remus says, "It's Thursday." Sirius waits for him to go on but he doesn't say anything. He watches him swallow instead and all the while Peter is going on about the Curse of the Bogies and how he's just worked it out, no really, he has, you wouldn't believe it. Remus smiles indulgently and Sirius inches forward, to the left. He can feel his thigh but he is not touching it. No one notices.
In History of Magic he thinks about putting his hand between Remus's legs. They only take notes like they're supposed to, though, and stare at the back of everyone else's heads. A fly flits around between them and Remus doesn't even flinch.
:::
He says, "Can I have a look?" and shoves his parchments aside to make room. "Here. You can slide it over and we can both see." Remus says, "It's all right, I'm done with it," and hands him the book, and Sirius lies with a faint smile of appreciation. He hates the library. Everyone looks up when Remus shuts the door.
:::
In March they both develop an affinity for walking but the walks are always private. Remus goes when he first wakes up, and sometimes when the others stumble out of bed to go down to breakfast they find Remus's canopy long open and his bed empty. Sirius just goes when it feels like he should be doing something else. One day he's just come back from a labyrinth path half-plowed in the forest when he finds Remus sitting in the courtyard. A girl from Ravenclaw is sitting at his feet.
He is saying, "Oh, my dad's got one, and he keeps writing that it-" and then his words are inaudible in the wind. The girl is smiling. Her hair is red-brown and she keeps brushing it out of her eyes. She looks at Remus's hands and that's because his hands are always moving, and he gestures a bit wildly even when he's only talking about chess and other things that move at glacial paces.
"Hi," Sirius says loudly, and they jump. He raises his hand in a half-wave, and Remus returns it, staring at his hair. The girl follows his gaze. She says, "Hi, Sirius," and he doesn't know her name and just mumbles hi again, cheeks tinged pink. They won't stop looking.
In the dorm he realizes he's still got bits of dry leaf woven in his hair, and he paws at his bangs irritably.
:::
"Don't," he says, and Peter starts.
"What's that?"
"I know what you're thinking," he says, accusing.
Peter smiles diffidently and says, "That's something. I don't even know what it is I'm thinking." His breath hitches like he is going to go on about Divination (that's what Sirius thinks) or some other such thing, but then he's quiet.
He says, "’M not joking, Peter. Don't look at me like that."
"I'm not looking at you!" he cries shrilly. Then Peter looks at the clock face just beyond Sirius's shoulder, and then Sirius's shoulder, and then Sirius’s face, and now Peter’s face is positively cranberry. "Sorry," he says. "Sorry, but you just said-I can't help it, now, can I?" Then he says: "Sirius, does this-where’s Remus?"
Sirius smiles, tight. "Why would you ask that?"
He grips the arm of the chair and Peter knows better.
:::
He won't copy Sirius's star charts. "So what'll you do?" he says, because Remus was not there the last midnight they observed the sky, and if he had been they wouldn't have needed their telescopes to know the moon. "It's due tomorrow."
"I'll go on my own tonight."
"You won't get the same answers."
"I'll calculate the difference."
"You're mad."
He finds Remus waiting in the astronomy tower near sundown. He says it's early and Remus compliments his perception. Then Sirius says he's never done it like this before, just waiting for the stars to come. Remus says nothing. There are only little rustles as he shifts his papers and sighs; companionable, busy little noises. Sirius lays back and stares at the clouds, burnt cotton in oranges and pinks, and waits for the slow fade-in.
Everything goes grey.
The next time Sirius opens his eyes night has set in, and Remus is hunched over his parchments like they are precious things and he is hoarding them. Sirius sits up, brushes the gritty stone from his back, and asks Remus how long he slept.
"Well, look," Remus says, jabbing his quill upward, to the sky. Obviously he means long enough: Sirius has missed it. He looks down. A moment passes.
"Do you ever really think about them?" Remus says.
"Them? Stars?"
"It seems so lonely."
Sirius isn't used to this. He doesn't know what to say and says: "Because there're so many and you're-we're-or what?"
"No, I mean it seems lonely up there."
"What, lonely for the Other Beings? Isolated?" His smile is playful, not cruel.
Remus says, "No, not for them. I don't know. I was just saying…." He cranes his neck and tendons strain, veins pulse. He looks up to the stars, tiny seeds scattered across a wide blue plain. Sirius wants to tell him stop it look down and look at me. What he says is, "It's bad enough down here," and Remus just stares.
"Shooting star," Sirius says hopefully, later. "Just above the trees over there."
"I didn’t see it," Remus says stiffly. "You write it down." He thrusts the parchments into Sirius's hand. Sirius considers them for a moment and then jots down two numbers. Vision becomes coordinates. He forgets it.
:::
For reasons unfathomable Sirius is dreaming about shelling peas. He floats along for a while through dreams and consciousness, and then something is happening. There is a soft drone against his ear, pressure, and he feels about to tip off the edge of the world, or the bed. Every syllable feels like a little kiss against the shell of his ear. Remus says Are you sleeping?
"Brother John," he says stupidly. He opens his eyes and at first there is no difference.
Then Remus is there. He is darkened with shadow and glowing blue around the edges; he is a lovely thing to see, but when he crawls over Sirius he is all elbows and knees and graceless with haste. He says Remus and Remus says, "Don't talk." So he doesn't.
They take a moment to undo their pants and nothing more. It's quick. Remus rubs his cock against him insistently, against Sirius's cock, his legs, between them. He pants softly. The noise he makes when he comes is more like surprise than pleasure, and it all feels so secret and hidden that he is certain Remus will leave. But he settles gingerly beside Sirius and they lay shoulder-to-shoulder, silent.
After a moment Remus grabs him by the wrist and contemplates his hand for a moment. Then, delicately, he begins to lap at the stickiness there, at himself. Sirius groans. They don't talk about it.
:::
"D'you reckon I should've apologized?"
James has got a book open tent-style over his head, and the pages muffle his words. "For the thousandth time, yes."
Sirius nods, not surprised, and lifts the book off James's face. The ink is cheap. (It's a replacement text. There was an incident the previous year involving combustible sweets, and it wiped out an entire crop of history books.) The words have smeared together and no one will ever know Grisella the Gargantuan kept dragons like most people did ponies and died in the year 1341. The ink has also left a bruise-looking mark on James's forehead. "Look pretty stupid," Sirius says, and James thinks they're still talking about him, Sirius, and says, "You are pretty stupid. You had a chance and you lost it."
Sirius slides off the bed with a huff. "I think it's stupid you forget something for one fucking minute and end up paying the rest of your life."
:::
It rains so much that spring the trees sag, weary-looking, and everyone grouses at everyone else about everything. Quidditch practices are grey and misting, but sometimes the sky opens up and pours on them with cold, hard rain. One day the sun makes a brief cameo and it reflects golden in the puddles that have gathered in the stands. It's lovely. It's so lovely Sirius goes momentarily blind and tumbles into James, on his broom, who calls him a stupid-fuck-look-where-the-hell-you're-going. After the rain, water droplets cling to tree branches, blazing like fireflies. One fat drop plops down in the middle of Sirius's forehead and he sputters indignantly. "It's not enough I'm practically drowned," he complains to anyone who will listen.
They trudge their way back to the tower like defeated soldiers. He bypasses the showers and heads straight to the common room, where Remus is half dozing on one of the chairs, legs tucked in to his knees and a book laid across them. Sirius stares at him for a long moment.
Remus inhales. Opens his eyes and blinks myopically. Finally he says, "You were out in that?" And Sirius blinks back at him, and looks down to the puddle of rainwater at his feet, dripping from his robes, and his broom, which has also dotted and smeared someone's tidy homework.
"It's called Quidditch practice."
Remus frowns. "Was it-? I thought that this was…" He shakes his head. "Never mind."
"All right, I won't."
end
Pairing: Sirius/Remus
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: R
Summary: A touch off is worse than catastrophe. MWPP-era, post-Shack.
A/N: Written for pruegirl17. And-hearts-semicolon to thedeadparrot for the beta.
Coordinates, Too
Here's Remus: This gently slouching quiet boy who likes his books, and quiet places, and quiet things. And him. Remus likes him strangest of all. Remus is a secret sentimentalist who saves little tokens and a scrap of nothing-paper Sirius gave him in second year. His fingers are always moving, absent-minded. He's got big amazing eyes but they seem closed most of the time, or else they're always catching him at the wrong moment, and also he Never. Forgets. Anything.
And this is him: Hands shaking and sometimes talking faster than his thoughts. Once he did a cartwheel outside Transfiguration, just for the fun of it, and when Greevy got kicked in the face he yelled at him for being in the way. His limbs are long and he uses them to pull the others into sporadic boys-club embraces, yelling in their ears. He is oddly sensitive about cats. Sometimes he is possessed of a strange grace stemming from upbringing and aristocracy, both of which he tries to forget or deny. He likes to kiss Remus on the shoulder and curl up behind him, just there, because oh they fit so well.
:::
Early that morning Sirius tortures James with plans for an elaborate welcome-back, plans which involve Remus heralded in to fanfare and wildly-colored confetti, and also a scrappy-looking Gryffindor banner for a cape. Maybe a laurel wreath? Trumpets?
"Well it was a joke," he says to James, who balks, and then says, "Don't make a big thing of it. Really, Sirius, don't do anything funny." And Sirius says he wasn't going to, not really, and Christ How Stupid Does James Think He Is? He says, "Like I'm going to throw a parade after he's been six days in the infirmary," but James hardly even knows what a parade is in the first place and Sirius scoffs.
In the afternoon, cold and clammy, he hauls Peter out to the lake where they chuck rocks together. Sirius whines, overwrought. Peter affirms everything; says "yeah," and "that's right." Then he says, "Do you think it'll be different now?"
Sirius says, "Why should it?" But he doesn't forget it.
Later the set in James's jaw worries him, makes him wonder, but when they see him Remus smiles faintly and Sirius can breathe again. Remus is smiling at him and it will be okay. He's got this sweet medicinal smell about him, clinical, and completely foreign. His fingers are wrapped in clean white gauze this time and Sirius wants to ask him what he's got in his palm (he holds it half behind his back like they won't notice), but he doesn't. Instead he offers him his ill-got pumpkin juice, half-empty, when Remus says he's thirsty. The gauze shimmers in the firelight as the drink switches hands. Sirius starts to say something but Remus coughs, interrupts him.
:::
In the Hall they sit James and Sirius side-by-side, and Remus across from Sirius with Peter right next to him. Next morning Sirius is already sitting in Peter's spot and Remus only blinks before he sits down next to him. After all, Sirius doesn't need James beside him and Remus doesn't need Peter in order to properly stir his porridge, spear a sausage.
He says, "What've we got?"
Remus says, "It's Thursday." Sirius waits for him to go on but he doesn't say anything. He watches him swallow instead and all the while Peter is going on about the Curse of the Bogies and how he's just worked it out, no really, he has, you wouldn't believe it. Remus smiles indulgently and Sirius inches forward, to the left. He can feel his thigh but he is not touching it. No one notices.
In History of Magic he thinks about putting his hand between Remus's legs. They only take notes like they're supposed to, though, and stare at the back of everyone else's heads. A fly flits around between them and Remus doesn't even flinch.
:::
He says, "Can I have a look?" and shoves his parchments aside to make room. "Here. You can slide it over and we can both see." Remus says, "It's all right, I'm done with it," and hands him the book, and Sirius lies with a faint smile of appreciation. He hates the library. Everyone looks up when Remus shuts the door.
:::
In March they both develop an affinity for walking but the walks are always private. Remus goes when he first wakes up, and sometimes when the others stumble out of bed to go down to breakfast they find Remus's canopy long open and his bed empty. Sirius just goes when it feels like he should be doing something else. One day he's just come back from a labyrinth path half-plowed in the forest when he finds Remus sitting in the courtyard. A girl from Ravenclaw is sitting at his feet.
He is saying, "Oh, my dad's got one, and he keeps writing that it-" and then his words are inaudible in the wind. The girl is smiling. Her hair is red-brown and she keeps brushing it out of her eyes. She looks at Remus's hands and that's because his hands are always moving, and he gestures a bit wildly even when he's only talking about chess and other things that move at glacial paces.
"Hi," Sirius says loudly, and they jump. He raises his hand in a half-wave, and Remus returns it, staring at his hair. The girl follows his gaze. She says, "Hi, Sirius," and he doesn't know her name and just mumbles hi again, cheeks tinged pink. They won't stop looking.
In the dorm he realizes he's still got bits of dry leaf woven in his hair, and he paws at his bangs irritably.
:::
"Don't," he says, and Peter starts.
"What's that?"
"I know what you're thinking," he says, accusing.
Peter smiles diffidently and says, "That's something. I don't even know what it is I'm thinking." His breath hitches like he is going to go on about Divination (that's what Sirius thinks) or some other such thing, but then he's quiet.
He says, "’M not joking, Peter. Don't look at me like that."
"I'm not looking at you!" he cries shrilly. Then Peter looks at the clock face just beyond Sirius's shoulder, and then Sirius's shoulder, and then Sirius’s face, and now Peter’s face is positively cranberry. "Sorry," he says. "Sorry, but you just said-I can't help it, now, can I?" Then he says: "Sirius, does this-where’s Remus?"
Sirius smiles, tight. "Why would you ask that?"
He grips the arm of the chair and Peter knows better.
:::
He won't copy Sirius's star charts. "So what'll you do?" he says, because Remus was not there the last midnight they observed the sky, and if he had been they wouldn't have needed their telescopes to know the moon. "It's due tomorrow."
"I'll go on my own tonight."
"You won't get the same answers."
"I'll calculate the difference."
"You're mad."
He finds Remus waiting in the astronomy tower near sundown. He says it's early and Remus compliments his perception. Then Sirius says he's never done it like this before, just waiting for the stars to come. Remus says nothing. There are only little rustles as he shifts his papers and sighs; companionable, busy little noises. Sirius lays back and stares at the clouds, burnt cotton in oranges and pinks, and waits for the slow fade-in.
Everything goes grey.
The next time Sirius opens his eyes night has set in, and Remus is hunched over his parchments like they are precious things and he is hoarding them. Sirius sits up, brushes the gritty stone from his back, and asks Remus how long he slept.
"Well, look," Remus says, jabbing his quill upward, to the sky. Obviously he means long enough: Sirius has missed it. He looks down. A moment passes.
"Do you ever really think about them?" Remus says.
"Them? Stars?"
"It seems so lonely."
Sirius isn't used to this. He doesn't know what to say and says: "Because there're so many and you're-we're-or what?"
"No, I mean it seems lonely up there."
"What, lonely for the Other Beings? Isolated?" His smile is playful, not cruel.
Remus says, "No, not for them. I don't know. I was just saying…." He cranes his neck and tendons strain, veins pulse. He looks up to the stars, tiny seeds scattered across a wide blue plain. Sirius wants to tell him stop it look down and look at me. What he says is, "It's bad enough down here," and Remus just stares.
"Shooting star," Sirius says hopefully, later. "Just above the trees over there."
"I didn’t see it," Remus says stiffly. "You write it down." He thrusts the parchments into Sirius's hand. Sirius considers them for a moment and then jots down two numbers. Vision becomes coordinates. He forgets it.
:::
For reasons unfathomable Sirius is dreaming about shelling peas. He floats along for a while through dreams and consciousness, and then something is happening. There is a soft drone against his ear, pressure, and he feels about to tip off the edge of the world, or the bed. Every syllable feels like a little kiss against the shell of his ear. Remus says Are you sleeping?
"Brother John," he says stupidly. He opens his eyes and at first there is no difference.
Then Remus is there. He is darkened with shadow and glowing blue around the edges; he is a lovely thing to see, but when he crawls over Sirius he is all elbows and knees and graceless with haste. He says Remus and Remus says, "Don't talk." So he doesn't.
They take a moment to undo their pants and nothing more. It's quick. Remus rubs his cock against him insistently, against Sirius's cock, his legs, between them. He pants softly. The noise he makes when he comes is more like surprise than pleasure, and it all feels so secret and hidden that he is certain Remus will leave. But he settles gingerly beside Sirius and they lay shoulder-to-shoulder, silent.
After a moment Remus grabs him by the wrist and contemplates his hand for a moment. Then, delicately, he begins to lap at the stickiness there, at himself. Sirius groans. They don't talk about it.
:::
"D'you reckon I should've apologized?"
James has got a book open tent-style over his head, and the pages muffle his words. "For the thousandth time, yes."
Sirius nods, not surprised, and lifts the book off James's face. The ink is cheap. (It's a replacement text. There was an incident the previous year involving combustible sweets, and it wiped out an entire crop of history books.) The words have smeared together and no one will ever know Grisella the Gargantuan kept dragons like most people did ponies and died in the year 1341. The ink has also left a bruise-looking mark on James's forehead. "Look pretty stupid," Sirius says, and James thinks they're still talking about him, Sirius, and says, "You are pretty stupid. You had a chance and you lost it."
Sirius slides off the bed with a huff. "I think it's stupid you forget something for one fucking minute and end up paying the rest of your life."
:::
It rains so much that spring the trees sag, weary-looking, and everyone grouses at everyone else about everything. Quidditch practices are grey and misting, but sometimes the sky opens up and pours on them with cold, hard rain. One day the sun makes a brief cameo and it reflects golden in the puddles that have gathered in the stands. It's lovely. It's so lovely Sirius goes momentarily blind and tumbles into James, on his broom, who calls him a stupid-fuck-look-where-the-hell-you're-going. After the rain, water droplets cling to tree branches, blazing like fireflies. One fat drop plops down in the middle of Sirius's forehead and he sputters indignantly. "It's not enough I'm practically drowned," he complains to anyone who will listen.
They trudge their way back to the tower like defeated soldiers. He bypasses the showers and heads straight to the common room, where Remus is half dozing on one of the chairs, legs tucked in to his knees and a book laid across them. Sirius stares at him for a long moment.
Remus inhales. Opens his eyes and blinks myopically. Finally he says, "You were out in that?" And Sirius blinks back at him, and looks down to the puddle of rainwater at his feet, dripping from his robes, and his broom, which has also dotted and smeared someone's tidy homework.
"It's called Quidditch practice."
Remus frowns. "Was it-? I thought that this was…" He shakes his head. "Never mind."
"All right, I won't."
end