The Things Sirius Black Things About When He Thinks About Remus Lupin

by aejaycee

For there were thousands of things that Sirius Black thought of when he thought of Remus Lupin, and he hoped he always would: warm jumpers, folded with the arms tucked in so that they wouldn't fray, and a slight Welsh lilt at the end of the word 'fuck' when he burned his long, shaking fingers with the tip of a match trying to light a cigarette.

There was no shortage of things that Sirius Black thought about when he thought about Remus Lupin.

Once, when they were studying together, Remus smudged a dot of ink onto his nose and Sirius thought about it for a maddening few days; it nearly made him angry, the way it had just sat there like a liquid kiss, perched on the tip of scars and skin and a concentrated frown. Sirius had been watching him study and Remus knew it, but neither of them brought it up–– not yet.

Sirius wondered sometimes, staring up at the ceiling from his four-poster bed, if Remus was ever just a few feet away and being driven mad but the sheer multitude of mental images that his name could spawn. He doubted it bothered him, Remus. A full moon was coming up, and that was all that seemed to bother him: the pull of the moon on him just like it pulled at the tides and pulled the worry from the corner of his mouth and pulled a shade over his eyes. The last bit, Sirius knew, was intentional–– Remus didn't want them, the boys, to see the wolf glinting behind it. But Sirius saw it...or, at least, he thought he did.

He thought about that, too. It wasn't all.

For there were thousands of things that Sirius Black thought of when he thought of Remus Lupin, and he hoped he always would: warm jumpers, folded with the arms tucked in so that they wouldn't fray, and a slight Welsh lilt at the end of the word 'fuck' when he burned his long, shaking fingers with the tip of a match trying to light a cigarette. The fact that Remus smoked in the first place, and did it like a god-damn champion, all delicate pursed lips and purpose. The fact that Remus wasn't mourning his own damaged skin when he burned it, but the loss of the cigarette he'd been trying to light–– after all, his skin was already beyond damaged, and there was only so much time for smoking between class.

As time wore on, Sirius thought of all these things and more in conjunction with the name of the man who slept in the bed beside his–– eventually in his bed beside him. He thought of cold winter mornings and the way moonlight looked bouncing off water and one single drop of crimson blood on snow. He thought of tea made just right and a shuddering breath that left his own mouth when Remus was on his knees and the color lilac–– the same color of the wildflowers that grew outside of the Lupin's cabin in Wales.

He thought of cigarette butts and light filtered green through the greenhouse roof and the first bite of an apple and skin that was impossibly, impossibly smooth beneath a network of scars.

He thought of starry nights on top of the Astronomy tower and the sound of the laugh in someone's throat as they call you a pretentious berk with their hands on their hips and the crackle of a fireplace and the feeling of someone's fingers raking through his hair.

He thought of jazz music on a vinyl record and the wrinkle between brows above eyes reading the morning paper and the soft, almost hoarse 'good morning' after a full moon when Remus was trying to sound pleasant but it was clear his bones were aching.

He thought of raw meat and red wine and lingering hugs and touches to the wrist and cold feel and orange sunsets and the last shadows of summer spreading across the floor of the flat they shared, to make way for the fall.

He thought of rainy nights and rainy mornings and there was always so much god-damn rain, especially things were bad between them. But it rained when things were good between them, too, and those were the times when Sirius thought of bright yellow umbrellas and the blades of struggling grass that grew between the sidewalk cracks and the distant, distant sound of children splashing into a deep puddle.

Remus was all of these things, and all of these things were Remus. They were inexplicably tied up, connected in Sirius's mind and he had no desire to try and separate them. They were the things he thought about when he thought about the man he loved, and it seemed absurd to him that they could ever exist on their own, without the tether to memories.

Remus was the scratch of a quill on parchment and the smell of a candle that had just been burned out and a long bath after a terrible day, the scent of jasmine in the air. He was the warm body in a waiting bed, all white sheets and clean pillowcases; he was the first real meal after leaving a hospital and he was the stomach-punch sensation at the apex of a tall hill.

He was Remus, and so were all those things–– Sirius thought about him an awful lot, you see.

And years later, after infamy had crashed around his name like he always joked it would and there was nothing between Sirius and his thoughts and nothing but a sea and a brick wall and a host of dementors between Sirius and the world, his thoughts did him a favor: they reduced themselves, like a fraction simplifying itself or a cell dividing in reverse. There was no longer the rushing tide of adjectives and vows and small actions that sprung to mind when Sirius thought about Remus, because Sirius didn't feel like he was allowed to think about Remus Lupin and the dot of ink on his nose or the way his head bowed when he laughed, as if thanking some deity for a moment of peace.

There was a night lit up by jack-o-lanterns that became a night of screams and green light and Sirius's mind unhinging itself from the base as that baby ––his godson–– was ripped from his arms. His mind had collapsed in on itself and let all the good thoughts fly free, out into the universe where they'd likely do no more damage than they'd already done...than he'd already done.

There was Halloween 1981, bright red with blood and regret and his own failed promise to keep Harry safe. There was the neon glint of Peter's smile, the blinding flash of wands as the Ministry arrived. There was the fact that this was all his fault branded into the still-beating cavern of his chest, burning him so brightly that he didn't need to open his eyes to see, to feel.

There were no more thoughts about Remus: just one.

From that night forward, for twelve long years and even after, there was only one thing that Sirius Black thought when he thought of Remus Lupin. It came in the form of him curled up in the corner of his cell, still counting down to the next full moon with the hollow slick in the back of his throat that reminded him that Remus would be doing it alone–– always alone from now on.

From that night forward, the only thing that Sirius Black thought when he thought of Remus Lupin was a small parade of repeating words on repeat: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

The days faded to grey, and his guilt was the only thing that could burn him anymore. They called him desensitized, but he forgot about the guilt, always beating that same pattern into the hole in his chest where James used to tell him a heart must surely exist: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

And he liked to think sometimes, that that was what he'd do if he ever got the chance to do time all over again, when he bumped into Remus Lupin on the train platform at age eleven for the first time. There would be no cracking of jokes or offer to help with his trunk. Just an 'I'm sorry' and a polite nod of his head as Sirius shuffled off to go isolate himself somewhere where he couldn't go off like a bomb and take everyone he loved with him. It would hurt, sure, but it would hurt Sirius. Remus would never have to know the electric-shock-pain of knowing Sirius, of being his best friend–– and more. Of being taken in alleys and kissed under stars and held through the night but alone come the morning. Of handling full moons with destructive grace but domestic disputes with heartbreaking Rightness and of handing Sirius the keys to freedom even when he worried he had him trapped.

But Sirius was a selfish creature and even in his imagination he couldn't handle a world without ink spots and kisses in the greenhouse and the shocked, nearly-shy gasp Remus had made the first time Sirius had gotten a hand under his shirt, and so he stopped fantasizing after a while. He stopped pretending he could change anything, because he couldn't. He stopped, and that may have been the only thing, besides his innocence, to keep him sane all those years. Just Sirius Black, listening to the hysterical sounds of the waves outside his cell and the steady beat of rain that his thoughts drummed on the insides of his ears: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."