HP -- Sacrifices
Title: Sacrifices
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Remus Lupin, Sirius Black
Rating: a light PG-13
Word Count: 558
Warnings: a bit of blood
Summary: A long night has wound to an end for a werewolf boy, but for his friends, it is only beginning.
Author's Note: Another one-in-the-morning fic, inspired by jenwryn, whose " Falling Into Pale" made me itch to write something. And by the song "Animal I Have Become" by Three Days Grace.
SACRIFICES
There is blood smeared on Remus’s face, but all Sirius can think is how cold his hands are inside his good dragonhide gloves. Everything is cold. So damn cold.
There is blood caked under Remus’s nails, too, brown now, flaking. There are gashes up and down his arms, some of them still halfheartedly dribbling, and his face is ashen. Mud mingles with the blood, and bits and pieces of leaves, and thick, coarse hairs.
The deer is long dead, and its wide, round, glazed eyes watch the weak dawn play on the undergrowth with a peace that is so complete as to be terrifying. Its side is ripped open, and it’s a hasty job-ragged is the word Sirius thinks. Then he wishes he could unthink it, just as he wishes that he could unsee the shredded flesh and its spilled contents. The burden of living that it no longer bears.
He tries to throw his cloak back, and it catches on his elbow. Less than melodramatic. He supposes he might as well look the part of the fool; he acts it daily. When at last the heavy fabric of the cloak submits to his will, he slips one arm under Remus’s shoulders and the other beneath the boy’s knees, and he cradles the pale, limp form to his chest. The blood is everywhere, in various stages of drying. Sirius is even going to have to brush the kid’s teeth, unless he wants a full-fledged panic episode tomorrow morning. Today morning. Later. Not later enough.
“Little melodramatic yourself, mate,” he whispers towards an ear half-hidden by matted hair paradoxically painted darker by the faintness of the light. “Pulling a stunt like that.” Remus doesn’t stir, though little hitching breaths are darting in and out of his lungs. The sound has a quiet ring of illness to it, of not-right, but their consistency and audibility conspire to send the relief beating through Sirius’s veins, and the relief robs him of his adrenaline.
Remus knuckles his eyes without waking when Sirius sets him on the bed-or, rather, on the towel James has laid over it. Everything smears a little further, more and more grotesquely distorted, and some of the conglomerate stuff crumbles and flutters down to the terrycloth.
“Won’t he know?” James murmurs.
Sirius moves Remus’s hand out of the way and commences scrubbing gently at the mess on his face. The soaked white washcloth schlups softly, and it is eerily similar in color to Remus’s skin.
“Not if we don’t tell him,” Sirius answers.
Peter wrings his hands, and then another towel, which he places in Sirius’s waiting open palm. “What if he vomits up deer guts? I mean, how else could you explain that?”
Sirius attempts to ignore his urge to vomit up something significantly less exciting. “You’d better just hope to hell we don’t have to try,” he replies, his voice sounding clipped even to his own ears.
“Hope to hell?” Peter repeats hesitantly. “Isn’t that kind of counterintuit-”
He notices the look Sirius is giving him and shuts his mouth, seeming to shrink appreciably.
James clears his throat quietly. “What do we need to do?” he asks.
Sirius folds his arms across his chest, looking down at the unnatural pallor of the boy sprawled out on the bed.
“Make a few sacrifices,” he says.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Remus Lupin, Sirius Black
Rating: a light PG-13
Word Count: 558
Warnings: a bit of blood
Summary: A long night has wound to an end for a werewolf boy, but for his friends, it is only beginning.
Author's Note: Another one-in-the-morning fic, inspired by jenwryn, whose " Falling Into Pale" made me itch to write something. And by the song "Animal I Have Become" by Three Days Grace.
SACRIFICES
There is blood smeared on Remus’s face, but all Sirius can think is how cold his hands are inside his good dragonhide gloves. Everything is cold. So damn cold.
There is blood caked under Remus’s nails, too, brown now, flaking. There are gashes up and down his arms, some of them still halfheartedly dribbling, and his face is ashen. Mud mingles with the blood, and bits and pieces of leaves, and thick, coarse hairs.
The deer is long dead, and its wide, round, glazed eyes watch the weak dawn play on the undergrowth with a peace that is so complete as to be terrifying. Its side is ripped open, and it’s a hasty job-ragged is the word Sirius thinks. Then he wishes he could unthink it, just as he wishes that he could unsee the shredded flesh and its spilled contents. The burden of living that it no longer bears.
He tries to throw his cloak back, and it catches on his elbow. Less than melodramatic. He supposes he might as well look the part of the fool; he acts it daily. When at last the heavy fabric of the cloak submits to his will, he slips one arm under Remus’s shoulders and the other beneath the boy’s knees, and he cradles the pale, limp form to his chest. The blood is everywhere, in various stages of drying. Sirius is even going to have to brush the kid’s teeth, unless he wants a full-fledged panic episode tomorrow morning. Today morning. Later. Not later enough.
“Little melodramatic yourself, mate,” he whispers towards an ear half-hidden by matted hair paradoxically painted darker by the faintness of the light. “Pulling a stunt like that.” Remus doesn’t stir, though little hitching breaths are darting in and out of his lungs. The sound has a quiet ring of illness to it, of not-right, but their consistency and audibility conspire to send the relief beating through Sirius’s veins, and the relief robs him of his adrenaline.
Remus knuckles his eyes without waking when Sirius sets him on the bed-or, rather, on the towel James has laid over it. Everything smears a little further, more and more grotesquely distorted, and some of the conglomerate stuff crumbles and flutters down to the terrycloth.
“Won’t he know?” James murmurs.
Sirius moves Remus’s hand out of the way and commences scrubbing gently at the mess on his face. The soaked white washcloth schlups softly, and it is eerily similar in color to Remus’s skin.
“Not if we don’t tell him,” Sirius answers.
Peter wrings his hands, and then another towel, which he places in Sirius’s waiting open palm. “What if he vomits up deer guts? I mean, how else could you explain that?”
Sirius attempts to ignore his urge to vomit up something significantly less exciting. “You’d better just hope to hell we don’t have to try,” he replies, his voice sounding clipped even to his own ears.
“Hope to hell?” Peter repeats hesitantly. “Isn’t that kind of counterintuit-”
He notices the look Sirius is giving him and shuts his mouth, seeming to shrink appreciably.
James clears his throat quietly. “What do we need to do?” he asks.
Sirius folds his arms across his chest, looking down at the unnatural pallor of the boy sprawled out on the bed.
“Make a few sacrifices,” he says.