Please read and review. I'm freakishly nervous about posting this for some reason. Flame me if you feel the need, but I like compliments better. I don't know where this came from. It's strangely inspired by slashfics, Adam Pascal and the movie Everyone for some strange reason. Enjoy, if possible:
The train to Paris is loud and Remus almost wishes he'd been able to use the Public Floo Network instead of this loud Muggle contraption. But he would have seen Remus leaving and another shouting match is the last thing Lupin wants right then.
"Remus? Remus! Why can't you believe me? I love-"
"Shut up, Sirius. Lies aren't going to make this easier."
"Rem? Please."
"I'm leaving."
He hadn't tried to stop Remus from leaving, hadn't held him back or tried to say he loved him again, just stood there, eyes wide and heartbroken as Remus stuffed a bag with books and clothes and anything he couldn't afford to buy once he arrived at his destination, had stared as Remus left him without promising to come back, had just stood there.
Remus doesn't think about why he chose Paris. He doesn't think at all, just sits with empty golden eyes fixed on the empty seat across from him, swaying listlessly back and forth to the rhythm of the train.
Dumbledore had sent him off to the international wizards' library in Rome to pick up texts they'd need for the reconstruction after Harry Potter's defeat of Voldemort after his seventh year. Remus had gone, albeit unwillingly because there was no one else at the time.
A successful mission finished, Remus had escaped the clutches of Albus Dumbledore and his candies and gone to Grimmauld Place, hoping that Sirius wasn't in the mood for an enthusiastic welcome home for the both of them.
He found his way past the horrendous portrait of Agrippa Black and up the steps of the deserted house in the dark. He opened Sirius' door and got an eyeful of a completely bare Sirius with another man eagerly kissing down his chest and lying on top of him.
He said nothing, didn't make a fuss, just slammed the door and walked (quite calmly) down the stairs. Sirius was not so calm, coming down the steps with a series of thuds and muffled curses as he made dressing and walking a single movement. The other man, now dressed, left the building, understanding the situation better than Sirius did.
"Molly? Harry? Oh, fuck, Moony let me explain."
But he hadn't explained. He hadn't even come close to excusing himself. Remus had left and now he is here, empty and alone on a one-way train to Paris.
Remus hasn't been back to Paris since before his mother died, and has no idea where to go. But any soul, if he is determined or uncaring enough can find his way to a drink in a city.
The club is dimly lit and full of people having a good time. It is not the sort of place Sirius considers a good place to go into, so Remus opens the door and steps inside. He is given a drink in exchange for some Muggle money and a seat at the bar opens, so he takes it, stowing his bag at his feet.
Several courageous people attempt to engage him in conversation, but he doesn't reply or even make eye contact, so they quietly slip away to seek animated company. And then Remus is again alone. As it always is, in the end.
A boy enters; his dark hair short against his fair face and he sits at the bar next to Remus. They don't speak to one another after the boy softly orders and receives his drink, but they do meet eyes, the boy's grey ones so close to a much-loved pair in color that Remus cannot look away, cannot help but stare right back.
If his hair was longer and he was older. It would be him.
He smiles. The boy's lips curve at the edges and he looks away, into his drink and caresses the glass that holds the amber liquid before taking another sip and meeting Remus' eyes again.
They wake up in a hotel room the next morning, the boy's dark hair silky against Remus' bare chest. The clear morning sun streams through the glass door that leads out onto the terrace fenced in by cast iron so delicate it looks like fragile black lace. The white sheets shift as Remus breathes in deeply, eyes still closed and the boy snuggles in closer, still deeply asleep.
Remus has never had a black-out after drinking. He remembers the night before in its entirety, as if seeing through a fog. He remembers the drinks, the kisses and the boy's tongue inside his mouth. He can remember the feel of their skin touching and their gasps as they came together. Remus remembers booking a wizarding hotel and learning the boy knew what that meant. He remembers it all.
The boy shifts and wakes up. He looks into Remus' eyes for a long moment. His eyes are a clear grey, like the sky just before it snows and just after a thunderstorm. Remus breathes shallowly and the boy doesn't move for a moment until he leans in and presses their lips together. Then he shuts his eyes, messes up his dark hair with one hand and rolls off of Remus' chest to hunt for his clothes.
The days go on like that, an affair expressed in many glances and in few words. The boy and Remus visit all sorts of places at a leisurely pace that Lupin never could have found on his own.
They eat dinner out or buy food to cook and eat without speaking much. The boy favors jeans and t-shirts as well as his leather jacket which seems to be a trademark. His taste in clothes as well as his seldom exercised accent show that he doesn't originally come from Paris or France at all.
The boy does not ask where Remus goes when the moon is full, doesn't question or break the sounds of Paris with accusations when he returns, merely looks at the older man. He cleans his scratches and cuts. He kisses each bruise and gasps when Remus fists his hand in the boy's dark hair to pull him up so they can kiss and groans when Remus arches his back to press their bodies together. The man closes his amber eyes and throws his head back; the boy too shuts his eyes and buries his head, his lips pressing against the man's neck.
One night, after a succession of sun warmed days and blustery evenings, the two men stumble up the stairs to the hotel suite, little more than three rooms, Remus supporting the boy, who is utterly smashed. He is also singing softly, a tune in French whose lyrics are perhaps less than appropriate, though winsomely voiced. They manage the door and the rest of the flat without difficulty, making it to the bed without incident.
Remus is kissing the boy now and can feel his chest vibrate from the soft singing. Remus seizes the boy's lips with his own, cutting the song short. That kiss ends while they again stare at each other, something Remus has yet to be accustomed to. The boy shuts his eyes and whimpers, pressing his head into the pillow and his hips into Remus' own.
"Say my name," Remus hears himself saying softly. The boy opens his grey eyes, now filled with a quizzical expression. "Just say it. Remus."
The boy cocks his head to one side and then takes a breath as he puts an arm around Remus' neck to pull his head to the other man's ear. "Remus," he whispers, no hesitation present in his roughened soft voice. Then they kiss and the moment ends in the fevered heat that takes them both.
The time is morning and it has been two months and the boy is hunting through the empty cabinets in the kitchen in the hopes of finding some sort of food. Remus is sitting at the table with coffee and a tired expression, reading the paper very slowly, murmuring to himself to decipher the French version of the Daily Prophet.
An owl swoops in through the open terrace and drops a red letter on the endtable. Remus stands up. The letter begins to smoke. The boy looks over and then back, continuing his quest for food. The letter begins to burn and an angry female voice Remus has never heard begins to scream from the spot where the note had been a moment before.
It shrilly recounts the boy's absence, his lack of leaving an address, the fact that they don't actually live in Paris, that she is his mother and that he is a terrible excuse for a son.
In the silence that follows Remus looks at the boy who is frozen stiff, hands clenching on the cabinet doors. He is shirtless, showing an ease with his undress that Remus, in his button down shirt and pants has had yet to achieve or even attempt. The boy, his back to Remus is still frozen and tense. He moves, facing Remus and stares, a new emotion in his oh-so-familiar grey eyes, one that Remus hasn't seen and doesn't care to recognize.
Guilt.
The boy gets a shirt off the sofa and drags it over his head before walking up to Remus and staring into his eyes once again. Remus raises his eyebrows and looks back at the now smoldering piece of parchment.
The boy sighs and fetches his coat and shoes. Remus is waiting by the door. The boy reluctantly meets his eyes and buries his face in Remus' chest, not crying, just avoiding whatever is going to come next. Remus pulls him away so he can stare at him.
The man smiles, amber eyes warm. "Go. Come back," he says. "I'll get croissants and we'll actually have food."
The boy leans and kisses him, just a simple press of two pairs of lips. The edges of his face curve up into a smile, the same as the first one Remus saw on him and he walks out.
Remus returns an hour later with a white box with two pastries in it and shuts the door, leaving the box on the counter.
The door bangs open and a black haired man walks in, sees Remus and kisses him hard on the mouth before greeting him with; "Rem! You're actually here, God I missed you. You were gone. I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened, I can't even think about it anymore, it's just so-"
And he kisses Remus again, his grey eyes closed, but still happy. They open again to navigate the way to the bedroom where he proceeds to ravish his Moony.
"Sirius," Remus moans, all else forgotten in the haze that is produced whenever he is near Sirius Black.
The boys returns minutes later and hears nothing in the hotel flat. His hands in his pockets, he goes to the bedroom, absently wondering why the man would be asleep this early in the afternoon.
He sees a dark haired man and Remus twisted together on the bed with white sheets. His eyes flash to an emotion that Remus would have recognized if his own eyes had been open. It was the same broken look that Sirius Black wore when Remus left London.
The boy turns and leaves the flat, not slamming the door. Remus hears it shut though and opens his eyes. "What wuz that?" he slurs to Sirius, who has heard nothing and doesn't care to talk. They kiss again and everything is forgotten as they touch.
Later the two men are twined contentedly together on the bed. Sirius kisses Remus' neck and looks around the suite. He smiles, happy to have his Remus back after months and wonders how he waited that long to begin with. He doesn't feel like he could ever leave again.
Remus is floating in the contented, tired haze that Sirius produces in him. He smiles and plays with the other man's long, dark hair, unused to its length after several months.
The two men order room service and eat dinner in. Afterwards, Sirius finds a shirt and a bronze cuff bracelet on the sofa. He asks whose they are and Remus answers "a friend's". Sirius doesn't press further.
Later, back in London, Remus puts those things away in a drawer as the only two memories of the boy he has. A t-shirt and a bracelet. No photos, no letters, no sentimental tourist junk. Just a t-shirt and a bracelet that he shuts the drawer on as Sirius calls his name from the kitchen of Grimmauld Place.