Title from Oh Land's "Frostbite". Poem at the beginning Richard Siken's "Saying Your Names". Check them both out!
Names of spells and names of hexes, names
cursed quietly under the breath, or called out
loudly to fill the yard, calling you inside again,
calling you home. Nicknames and pet names […]
names I called you behind your back,
sour and delicious, secret and unrepeatable, […]
or muffled by pillows, or whispered in sleep,
or caught in the throat like a lump of meat.
I try, I do. I try and try. A happy ending?
Sure enough — Hello darling, welcome home.
I'll call you darling, hold you tight. We are
not traitors but the lights go out. It's dark.
Sirius is the first to wake up, stretching and sitting up before his mind can even register that there is someone else next to him, or before his body can start craving the warmth that was left back in the sheets.
He stares blearily ahead of him, at the bureau with the pair of jeans spilling out from the bottom drawer – at the pile of clothes that littered the floors, his and—
Sirius catches sight of himself in the mirror that hangs on the wall on top of the dresser. It was actually his idea to hang it up there, in a moment of wanting to try out a new kink or something he isn't quite sure of any more. But his reflection is tired, haggard, his hair sticking out at odd angles and resisting any attempt he gives it to try and comb it out with his fingers.
At his side, still curled in the sheets and reaching towards the side of the bed that was rapidly growing cold under the window that was open to the mid-October night, Remus yawns and curls in closer to Sirius' thigh.
His hand moves automatically, brushing back over the thin, greying strands of hair before he stops himself.
Remus stirs at the touch, turning his face in towards the hand even as it pulled away. Then his eyes flutter open, and he stares blankly at nothing for a moment before his eyes focused on the man beside him. "Good morning," he murmurs, voice low and rough and trying not to sound just a little bit confused.
"It's only two in the morning," Sirius comments, forcing his hands to sit still in his lap. "Go back to sleep."
"Mmng, much rather not if you're sitting up." Remus wriggles for a moment, then crawls forward so that he could rest his head in Sirius' lap – something he wouldn't have done if he was truly awake.
Or sober, he thinks dryly. "Then sleep there for all I care." He hadn't meant for it to sound so harsh, so he ends up stroking Remus' hair in reconciliation.
There is a long silence, and for a moment he thinks the young man might have fallen back asleep. That is until his voice, soft in the stillness of the room, floats up to him. "Is something wrong?"
Sirius smirks, turning his head away and watching his reflection do the same. Only, the mirror shows him the way Remus is watching him: eyes wide and attentive and full of concern and something else that is strange and unfamiliar. "Something is always wrong."
Remus falls quiet again, shifting a bit to sling one arm around the warm body he is curled up against. "Are you... regretting it?"
This actually takes Sirius by surprise, and he looks down at the top of Remus' head. "A little late to be asking that, isn't it?"
Remus looks up and glares. "Is that all you're going to say on the matter?"
"Well, what do you want me to say?"
Rolling his eyes, the young man shuffles away and turns over so his back is to Sirius. "We haven't really been talking all that much. It's been two weeks of awkward conversations and avoiding the topic. Then we get really drunk and now look at what kind of position we're in."
Sirius pulls his legs up to his chest, resting his chin on his knees and staring down at the lines that Remus' legs make beneath the sheets. But he doesn't say anything.
The silence draws out for a third time.
Then Remus, his back still to the world, says, "You don't trust me." It isn't a question, was never meant to be a question.
"We're in the middle of a war, Moony, it's hard to trust people."
Remus rolls back over, and his face is dark and troubled and (Sirius is afraid to see) he's very near tears. "You're supposed to be able to trust me!" he shouts. "Me and James and Lily and Peter." Remus pushes himself up, reaching out to cover Sirius' hand with one of his own. "It's always been just us. We do stupid shit all the time but then we forgive each other." His lips are warm and dry against his shoulder.
"Then why do you keep secrets?" Sirius asks, and the gentle touches immediately draw back. Remus folds in on himself and his eyes go distant. "I make it a habit not to trust anyone these days," he goes on. "Not James, or Dumbledore or—" you, especially you because you never kept secrets from me before so why start now but he doesn't say that.
But the point is made.
"Then you just regularly have sex with people you don't trust?" Remus' voice is hard and bitter.
"It's just sex," Sirius says, though what he wants to say is It's not like that.
He scoffs. "Oh sure, to you maybe. I was the first one to confess, the first one to kiss you. Even after that time in sixth year, Sirius, I have trusted and forgiven you—"
Sirius twists around, his lips crashing against Remus' as he pushes the other man back down onto the bed. His hands pin Remus by the wrists to the mattress, pulling them up above his head.
He struggles for a moment, then gives in – returning the kiss and his hands loosening from the fists to reveal crescent-shaped marks on his palm from his nails. He shifts his hips and nips at Sirius' lower lip in a way that Sirius doesn't think is even possible for Remus.
When he draws back from the kiss, Remus follows along, making a small sound of displeasure when their mouths are separated. "Why do you trust me?" he asks, unable to help himself.
"Because you're my best friend," Remus mutters in return. "Because you trusted me when I thought no one else would. Because you trusted a monster when I could have killed you." He reaches his hands up, brushing his long fingers back through Sirius' hair. "When after all those full moons you stayed with me."
Sirius lets the silence draw out between them, closing his eyes and enjoying the feel of the fingers in his hair, of the warmth beneath him, the breath that he can feel ghosting against his chest.
"Why don't you trust me?" Remus says, and the peaceful illusion that Sirius is trying to build shatters.
They stare at each other for a good long while, unable to say anything, and then Sirius is the first to look away.
"It hurts me that the reasons that I trust you are the same reasons why you cannot trust me," Remus says and he starts to wriggle out from under Sirius.
But he is having none of that, and wraps one arm around Remus' waist to pull the other man back beneath him. "I'm leaving in three days and I don't know how long I'll be gone," he tries to say, though it is obvious Remus is trying to ignore him. He moves his hand, pressing his palm against Remus' stomach and the tips of his fingers ghosting over the scars and the edge of his ribcage. He can feel the body beneath him shudder, and a shiver passes through his own spine as well.
"How kind of you to spend one of your last nights with me." There is a bitterness in the voice that Sirius hasn't heard for years, and had hoped he would never hear again. And, like before, it is aimed at him. "Then again, it's like you said, it's just sex, so why should it matter who you spend it with?"
This time, Sirius is able to bark out, "It's not like that!" and earns himself a narrow eyed glare. "What I meant was I'm spending it with you for a reason." He leans down so that his mouth is hovering just over Remus', and he can already sense the response their proximity is creating between them. "Just because you're my best friend, that you trust me through thick and thin, I have to leave so I don't disappoint you."
"It's too late for that, Sirius," Remus says, and closes his eyes against the temptation.
Sirius is not the kind to give up easily, and he touches Remus' jaw, tracing his fingers along the lines and curves before running one finger along the shape of his lips. "I want you to know that when I leave, I will only be thinking of you. And that when I come back to you I will... Merlin, I don't know, I'm not good at sappy romantic partings."
There is a huff of breath against his hand, and Sirius realises that the young man beneath him is laughing. "I never would have guessed, Black," Remus teases, and there is the trace of his old humor back in his eyes. "Then why don't you try saying what it is you want to say and bugger the romance?"
"Even I make myself blush at what I want to say," Sirius says, and after another few lingering seconds, with their mouths touching but not kissing, not doing anything but breathing in each others taste and scent, he closes his eyes. "I'll come back to you. When this is all over, and James and Lily are safe, I will come back straight to you."
"I trust you," Remus says, putting every last bit of belief into those three words.
"I know," Sirius murmurs, and kisses him – slow and drawn out and trying to put every last bit of the feelings he cannot voice into the kiss.
Three days later, after two nights of pretending like that one moment at two in the morning did not happen except for in a hazy dream, Remus wakes to find the other side of the bed cold. Normally, he is used to this, because he sleeps alone. But lately, he has woken to find that Sirius had crawled in to join him during the course of the night.
Neither of them voice it, but they both know that there are things that haunt them while awake or asleep. These things are easier to deal with when they are with someone else.
So when he wakes to find the bed cold, he is a bit worried at first. But then he remembers that, half felt in the haze of sleep, there was the kiss on the side of his face and the whispered promise of I will be back. Content, Remus settles back into his sheets and tries not to feel to eager.
It's not even a week later that he gets the news. It's not even much by the way of news, simply an owl that practically knocks over his well-balanced pile of unwashed dishes that are held together by the promise of I will wash you later.
The letter is short and brief, and is enough to break his heart.
James and Lily are dead. Voldemort is gone. Sirius killed Peter. He has betrayed us.
Remus puts the letter down and he feels inexplicably cold. So he goes to the kitchen, fills the kettle, and puts it on the stove to heat up. He wonders how he will ever forgive his damn friends for bullocksing this one up. They always got themselves into trouble that he had to get them out of. When he is standing in the middle of his kitchen, their kitchen, he tries not to think about the offending piece of parchment that seems to call to him from across the distance of the table and the sink.
He does the dishes instead. He suddenly realises that promises are not enough to keep things held together any more.