Title: Dust
Author: hans bekhart
Rating: PG
Summary: The war swings blind and blackening through a moonless sky, and Snape and Remus are alone in the darkness.
Notes: This was done for the hpliterotica community at for the Quotations Roulette Challege. I took my quote a little abstractly :). Special thanks for lildove42 for the ego massage!
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84. Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticised anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't."
- Elanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)
The lamp casts a golden net upon the earthen floor of the Shrieking Shack and catches nothing but the shadows of two dirty, tired old men. The taller man lay down to sleep some time ago, and the other keeps a silent vigil over him, his knees drawn up to his chest. It is as if the entire world has dropped off to sudden, restless slumber. Even the screams have stopped, and the quiet of the fallen night is heart-breaking, although Severus Snape does not believe that either of them has any heart left to break.
Remus Lupin sleeps quietly beside him, and turns his face away from the little light that not even fear of discovery has managed to put out. It has been dark for weeks, it seems sometimes, and the war swings blind and blackening in the moonless air. They lost Kingsley in the dark, and as each day passes they find only more dead, huddled on the icy ground like lost children, which is usually what they are.
Remus huffs softly in his sleep, and shifts onto his side, away from the light. They have lost track of days and nights and time. They have been exhausted for months, and cannot rely on their own bodies to tell them when it is night any longer. The full moon could come at any time, although they have not seen a moon for weeks. Snape is not afraid. He thinks that Remus might know when it will arrive, but Remus speaks less and less with every swollen skull that breaks under their feet in the dark, unseen. He was never easy to understand, but they have settled into a sort of glad silence that reminds Snape of uneasy truces of chess and a glass of wine and a warm fire. They had found a sort of balance in a way that would have surprised few, that year that Sirius Black escaped.
Remus mutters something incomprehensible. Snape is not bothered by nightmares but he has watched Remus shift and whine like an animal in his sleep for days, weeks, months – it has been a long time since they lost Kingsley to the darkness. He cannot decide whether it is the wolf of the darkness that devours Remus in dreams, and it does not occur to him to ask.
Distantly, the screams begin again. It is a testament to their exhaustion that Remus does not bolt awake, the way they all did when they were five instead of two. Remus mumbles and mutters and his voice falls softly against Snape's ear and the screaming becomes meaningless.
Snape lays a dry hand against Remus' cheek. His skin feels dusty and old, but he has touched Remus in this way three times before and each time it seems to comfort them both. Remus is warm under Snape's hand, his skin a surprising texture of scars and what Snape thinks might have once been laugh lines. He passes his thumb over the ball of Remus' cheekbone, but there have never been tears for him to wipe away. Lower, Remus' cheeks are covered with reddish hair. Their hair is dirty, their clothes smell of sweat and rot, and Remus gave up shaving some time ago, even before they lost Draco. His face alters between absurdity and proportion, his long nose finally evened out by red bristles that stick out like walrus whiskers in the morning (or what passes for morning) before Snape snaps at him to at least attempt to look like a human being.
And every morning (or what passes for morning), Remus merely looks at him, his long fingers scratching his beard thoughtfully, and smiles. It is a small smile, what passes for a smile in the darkness that has fallen over them, but Draco was the last person to smile or laugh, and not even Severus Snape can turn a lip up to that private, mocking glance.
Snape's fingers pass through oily hair, brushing away strands that have fallen into Remus' eyes. His caresses are nearly ritualistic by now, and grow bolder each time Remus sleeps and Snape is left to watch their little light flicker against the encroaching night. It has taken on a force, a voice since they lost Kingsley, and it whispers to him how much easier it would be to abandon Remus, to leave their hateful sancturary and walk out into the arms of Mother Nyx. There would be no more screams, no more children laying cold on the ground, but only darkness, evermore. He has thought that but for the rasp of Remus' beard against his fingertips, the secret pulse that beats in the hollow of his throat, he could believe that they were dead already. In the blackest depths of their time, it is the werewolf who keeps him whole.
Remus' skin smells of dust, and Snape smells of the same, but as he lowers his lips to that secret place below Remus' jaw, the other man's skin smells of life, and blood – blood still warm with life and not spilled carelessly upon the ground – the heat that rises is so seductive that at first, he does not even realize that Remus has grabbed his hand. He is so close to Remus' skin that the scent of death has fallen away from the man, and all that remains is the fact that he is undoubtably alive, more alive than Snape has felt since Draco was lost to them. He had leaned over, one arm balancing his weight on the other side of Remus' thin body, and it is only when he feels himself begin to slide across the earth that he sees Remus' long fingers wrapped around his wrist, cold and dry and sluggishly attempting to bring Snape's arm up around his chest.
His heart does not pound, nor is he particularly startled. Rather, an odd weight settles in his stomach that is at once many things: pain and terror and the slightest thread of hope, of warmth. He stays very still and shifts his weight away from his right arm, and allows Remus to draw his hand up and hold it close, beneath his chin. He is speechless. He has been struck dumb, even in thought. And where there was once only darkness, evermore, the smallest of lights begin to shine.
He draws closer to Remus, holding his breath like a child, as if the softest puff of air against Remus' cheek would shatter him. Remus is warm against Snape's chest, even through the layers of their clothing, and oh, he is dizzy and he lowers his mouth to Remus' jaw. The little flame beside them that not even fear of discovery managed to put out is flickering beside them, and the shadows on their bodies shiver.
Remus speaks, his voice soft and anguished, and it is only now, with his ear close to Remus' mouth and his fingers pushing down the collar of Remus' robes, that he understands what devours Remus in his dreams.
"Sirius," Remus breathes. "Sirius."
It is not a word that should destroy the world.
He breathes out in a hiss and cannot seem to draw the air back into his lungs. Remus sighs and in the distance, is echoed by a high scream. Remus' fingers are wrapped tightly around his own and Snape is paralyzed. To draw back would be to wake Remus. To continue, unthinkable. There are tears on Remus' cheeks now, but Snape does not brush them away. They make tracks through the dust on his skin, and disappear into the darkness.