Disclaimer: JKR is the goddess of Harry Potter. I am merely playing with her toys.
Pairings: Remus/Sirius, light James/Sirius.
Rating: R
Warnings: Scenes of a sexual nature, angst, language, non-linear.
Summary: Remus always knew what he wanted. It took him a long time to get it and a short time to loose it. Remus loved Sirius. Hopelessly.
Based on the song Good Life by One Republic.
Author's Note: Dear God, my Harry Potter muse was gone for so long. Then, it just came back and decided I had to write this in four hours. So...here it is! Something new I thought I'd try. This does not go in chronological order (Remus POV). It starts with the boys out of Hogwarts and in the Order, then goes back and forth over the decades they are together and apart. Review if you like! :)
Hopelessly
Woke up in London yesterday
Found myself in the city near Piccadilly
Don't really know how I got here
I got some pictures on my phone
Remus blinks at the bright sunshine hitting him at entirely the wrong angle. Something is wrong: His window is right behind his bed; light shouldn't be hitting him at all. He's chosen his flat very carefully, every detail hashed out in that almost obsessive way of his. James always teases him about it.
He blinks thrice more before feeling up to opening his eyes, rubbing the sleep out of them. When he sits up, he finds out he is not in fact on his cheap mattress. Or rather in his room at all. The floor beneath him is hard and cold, but smooth to the touch. Kitchen, then. Although how...?
His gaze falls on pair of Muggle trousers clad legs dangling at his eye level. Follows them upward to find James. Drooling and slumped onto the counter, head pillowed on one arm while the other is in the dirty sink. How he's managed to stay upright like that is anyone's guess.
As amusing the picture is, it still doesn't tell Remus much about how they came to be here, although some images are beginning to make themselves clear through the haze. He sweeps a look around the rest of the room to find Peter and Sirius. The former is inexplicably smushed between the minuscule gap between the counter and fridge in rat form, where as Sirius...
His face is obscured by his long hair, and he is wearing nothing a bright fuchsia and orange leotard with neon green wizarding robes sleeves on his legs. (Where his pants have gone, Remus doesn't want to contemplate). Sirius' shirt is gone. Instead, on his chest is a large two fists wide yellow and red tattoo of a growling werewolf. Remus looks down at his own torso to assure himself that he did not take leave of his senses completely as well only to find, to his utter and complete horror, a chest peppered with bright red lipstick, nail scratches, and bluish bite-sized bruises, and his own pants absent. That, however, is not the reason he is terrified. For lower down, right above his sensitive bits is a tattoo.
Admittedly not one half as loud as Sirius's. It is quite small, only two inches wide and an inch tall. What it is, is a dog inked in black. One that looks suspiciously like the grim...or Padfoot.
Then it all comes back.
He remembers drinking copious amounts of alcohol to celebrate James' last night as a bachelor. He remembers wandering the streets of Muggle London, a little tipsy, and James pointing out a disgusting outfit in the window of a random Muggle shop. Remembers Peter daring Sirius to wear it, and Sirius agreeing. It's a blur after that, but he remembers taking pictures of Sirius posing in more and more outrageous, simpering, girly poses and James acting as the fawning boyfriend with the camera Remus' father gave Remus on his thirteenth birthday. And then. Then he remembers walking past a group of kids sitting outside a Muggle club, sporting too many piercings and tattoos in place that had no business being pierced or tattooed. His memory cruelly reminds him of how a now very, very drunk James pushed a much more drunk Peter toward them to ask where they got their tattoos, and then suggesting Remus and Sirius get ones of their own. ('Because you're both canines, of course. Won't make sense for Pete and me to get them, Remus.' The bastard).
Remus' head hurt.
"Shit." The not-very-soft utterance seems to be enough to wake up Sirius and James who were closest to him.
James wakes up first, slapping himself on his face in the process. Sirius is slower, calmer. He rolls over onto his back first, sits up, and finally pushes the hair out of his face. His bright red, lipstick smeared face. They look at each other for an instance, both horrified at what they are seeing.
James barks out a loud laugh.
"Oh shite."
Remus can only agree with Sirius' sentiments.
New names and numbers that I don't know
Address to places like Abbey Road
Day turns to night, night turns to whatever we want
We're young enough to say:
Remus pulls his large trunk behind him, glancing left and right for an empty compartment where he can sit and read in quiet. Away from everyone else. He has no illusions of how lonely and horrible his life will likely be if he gets too close to anyone, and they find out his secret, and then they'll shun him, and... No. It's better Remus doesn't make any friends. He's getting to go to Hogwarts, and that is enough.
Up ahead of him, a red haired (like fire, he thinks absently) girl and oily haired, sallow faced boy leave a compartment. Sighing in relief, Remus quickly makes his way to the abandoned compartment, head down. It isn't.
He doesn't realize until after he's shoved his trunk in the carrier overhead that he notices the two boys already sitting there. Both looking at him with broad, impish grins that promise too much mischief.
"Sit down, won't you? You look like you're 'bout to pass out, seriously." Says the messy haired, hazel eyed boy.
"But." The gray eyed one grins even more broadly. "I'm Sirius." And then he stretches his hand out to Remus. "Siriusly Black."
Hazel Eyes snorts. Pulls Remus onto the seat next to him by the scruff of his robes.
If ever there was a chance of Remus not making friends here. Well, Remus thinks... that train has good and well left the station and made it halfway to India by now.
Oh this has gotta be the good life
This has gotta be the good life
This could really be a good life, good life
"Oh...oh yeah...mmm. Like that, yeah. Fuck, Padfoot."
It's Wednesday, and Remus is making his weekly Prefect rounds when he hears that familiar voice coming from the slightly ajar door of an unused classroom in a very rarely tread corridor in the castle. These are usually the rooms where Remus finds a stray couple or two getting up to very little good . He just – hadn't expected two of his best mates to be that couple.
Which they are not, he tells himself sternly. Just mates fooling around, he assures himself.
He's unsure what to think of this...whatever the hell it is. He knows he's not all that normal himself, what with being a werewolf and maybe, slightly, possibly queer himself, if the grope in the dark with the Ravenclaw Seeker after the last match is any indicator. Not. Just. Doing it with mates? Mates as close as brothers, even? That he has a bit of difficulty wrapping his mind round.
"Jesus, Prongs, not so loud. D'you want to entire bloody castle to hear?"
James says something to low for Remus to fully make out, but whatever it is makes Sirius laugh that soft, quiet laugh of his. It's cut off abruptly, and Remus can imagine what they are doing. How they're moving. James' cock in Sirius' mouth, thrusting in and out. And in. Out. In. Out.
Gods, he is so hard. Presses the heel of his palm to his crotch.
Remus doesn't know how long he stands there in the dark hallway, outside the abandoned room. All he knows is it's long enough for James to groan out a 'Stop, stop. Stop, please, Merlin. Motherfu-' And then he hears Sirius moaning and the slick slap slap slap of hips meeting arse. The gasps, grunts, curses.
His back is pressed tight against the stone wall by now. Listening. Resisting the urge to pull his own dick out and rub one out right here.
The enchanting spell is broken he hears Lily's voice somewhere down the hallway. "Remus?"
Sounds in the room stop abruptly. Remus opens his eyes (when had he closed them?). Sees Lily coming closer, and all Remus can think is 'Oh no. No, no, no, no. Lily can't catch James and Sirius. She's only just starting warming up to James after that Snape incident last year – this'll – No.' So he peels himself off the wall, halts her a safe distance away from the classroom.
"I'm fine, Lily," he answers, knowing James and Sirius can hear him. Know he's heard them.
"That time of the month?" Lily smiles understandingly.
It's a good enough excuse, seeing how full moon was this past weekend. Remus runs with it. "Yeah," he breathes. "Just a bit tired, is all."
The next morning Remus promises himself he's going to act as if nothing happened, but then decides he hasn't the courage to deal with it first thing in the morning. He takes a quick shower, and leaves the dormitory before either James or Sirius are awake.
By the time he's halfway through breakfast, he feels remotely confident with keeping things completely and utterly not weird between them all. That is why, when James and Sirius stumble into the Great Hall, more than a little late with Peter in tow, and refuse to meet Remus' eye, he greets them as he would any other morning and hands over the rolled napkins of toast he saved them all. Partly because they will be late for Transfiguration, partly because Remus is a Very Good Friend.
"Thanks," James mutters uncharacteristically, and takes the napkin from him, while Sirius just averts his eyes and scratches his neck. Peter is oblivious.
Remus rolls his eyes, shoves Sirius' breakfast in his hands and says, "Don't want to be late. Come on."
Three days later, everything is okay.
Prongs is back to harassing Lily Evans. Sirius is pranking left, right, and center. Peter...acts like Peter. And Remus stands there in the middle of it all, knowing the whole while it may not last for long.
"There's a war coming," he says one night over the evening Daily Prophet.
"Hmm." James looks up distractedly from scribbling a twelve inch essay due to Flitwick tomorrow. He's got eleven inches left to do.
"We'll be fine," Sirius says from his perch by the fireplace.
"Yeah," Peter pipes up. "We've got each other."
Remus doesn't say anything. He doesn't know what they've got here, this odd medley of four. Four corners that should never have touched. Four boys that shouldn't have been friends under normal circumstances. Four constants. Four variables.
He stares at Sirius, watches his long hair fall into his gray eyes. The graceful curve of his neck, bare only because he's tired of his hair today and has it tied up.
"Yeah," he mutters, not expecting anyone to hear him. "Each other."
Sirius does. Sirius always does. It might be the dog in him. "Marauders, mate. We're the Marauders."
Say oh, got this feeling that you can't fight
Like this city is on fire tonight
This could really be a good life
A good, good life
Remus sees the red and green wand sparks flying in the night sky. Happy fireworks. They're celebrating. Remus doesn't understand how they can when Remus – when he's lost everything in a matter of moments.
Everything he ever had, everything he thought he ever needed. Gone.
He storms through the flat Sirius and he share. Shared. Whatever. Opens all the cupboards; breaks the china; smashes the coffee table; blasts apart the fireplace. And screams. He screams, pulls at his hair, shouts, and curses and yells until he is hoarse. Until only the silence echoes.
Remus sells the flat Sirius bought for them for a higher price. Takes pleasure in it. Feels vindicated when he knows nothing can ever truly make him feel that way. Or feel, period. He's numb. It's a good, achy kind of numbness. The one that spreads all throughout your body and makes you feel high. Like the LSD shit Sirius made Remus try once.
There it is again. That name. Remus hates it. Hates him (tries to).
He's twenty fucking one. He doesn't need this shit. His life's been fucked up enough, thanks. So, he leaves. Takes a moment to lament Harry's fate. He loves the kid, after all, but knows he safer with his aunt. Though, Remus does stop by Privet Drive one last time. He sees a mop of dark hair through the kitchen window.
Remus Apparates before he can do something he'll regret.
To my friends in New York, I say hello
My friends in L.A. they don't know
Where I've been for the past few years or so
Paris to China to Col-or-ado
There are no prospects for Remus in England. He's a werewolf, a breed that's played a big role in the Dark side in the war. The best option is for him to leave to the Muggle world. So he travels. Taking odd jobs, living weekly paycheck to weekly paycheck, very rarely using the money he's got from selling the old flat.
He goes to Paris first. Lives in a ramshackle walk-up in the Starving Artist district. He meets one of the criteria. He pretends he's a writer. Even sells a couple of short stories. Stories about four best friends. They love him in Paris. The gruff Englishman who vanishes mysteriously three days every month.
In Paris he sleeps with a slew of people. Men and women. Fat and short. Thin and ugly. Pale and pretty.
One of them reminds him of Lily. Alana with her Lily-like beautiful hair, and green but not quite the exact bottle green shade eyes. He's gentle with her, and that night he brings out the photographs for the first time. It's the first time he allows himself to cry. He leaves Paris four days later.
Barcelona is next. Stays there for about four months, working as the bloke who cleans up the beaches after everyone has left for home. It's peaceful there. So different it is from the hustle-bustle of Paris and it's pasty French people. The sea ebbs and flows serenely most nights. It's perfect, really. Until...until he sees a fat kid getting kicked around one evening by other, older boys. The kid looks too much like Peter.
Napoli is next. Then Zurich, Dresden, Bosnia, Lublin, Aalborg. He debates going to the Netherlands, but it's too close to what he is escaping. He makes his way east once more. Nitra, Budapest, Sibiu. Kea, one of the smaller islands of Greece. It is here he stays the longest: Almost two years.
It is the most beautiful place Remus has seen. He gets a job as a fisherman's helper at the island. They let him live in their boat and eat in their house. He's allowed use of the boat whenever he wants because the fisherman is getting along in the years and has no one to leave it to. The best part is, there are no wizards on this island. So, every full moon Remus can take the fishing boat out to an abandoned rock island with a couple of caves twenty miles away and howl and howl without anyone ever finding out. It's perfect for him. He thinks he can live like this forever. He's mastered living like a Muggle so that's never a problem.
No. The problem is Aric.
Aric is wonderful at first. He is tan, golden, bright, happy, just like the island itself. He is everything Sirius was not. Aric is in love in with Remus, and Remus thinks that might be enough. Which it is. Until the questions start.
'Where do you go every month?'
'Why won't you tell me anything about England?'
'What do you keep in that big suitcase?'
'When will you be honest with me?'
But the one that hurts the most, both him and Aric is this:
"Who was he?"
Remus closes the worn album. He looks at the pictures once every month, but he still hasn't told Aric anything about them, or that he is a wizard, or that what Remus is really doing is running. Running hard and fast from his past because he is a coward.
"No one."
"Remus – "
Remus does not let him finish. Shoves Aric against the doorway and kisses him harsh and bruising. They stumble onto the bed, Remus between Aric's legs. That night, Remus fucks him slow and sweet, sort of like how he was with Alana. He doesn't want to hurt him. Never wanted that.
"I'm sorry," he wants to whisper into Aric's skin. But he resists. Instead, he accepts Aric's repeated I love yous with I knows of his own.
He's gone the next morning.
Next day finds him in Istanbul. He travels everywhere he can. Wizarding Apparition has it's perks. Remus makes it all the way around the world from Kea, Greece to Providence, USA.
He's very close to home by early 1993 when Dumbledore's letter reaches him. He's only the second person to contact him from back home. Last was Hagrid, asking for a few pictures of James and Lily for Harry.
Remus doesn't even think about saying no.
He leaves Shetland that very night.
Sometimes there's airplanes I can't jump out
Sometimes there's bullshit that don't work now
We are god of stories but please tell me-e-e-e
What there is to complain about
"So we..."
"Yeah." Jesus fucking Christ he slept with Sirius. Repeatedly, by the state of both of them. They look wrecked.
James left some while ago with a hearty slap on the back to both of them and a loud, "About bloody time!"
Remus has decided to act as though he never spoke. He's imagined this so, so many times over the years. Ever since that time in Sixth year when he heard James and Sirius in that abandoned room, and every fucking day since. He's wanked to that memory more times than he can count.
Now, apparently he got what he wanted and he can't even remember it. Remus hates his life.
He feels sick. Like that time his Mum decided to take a holiday in Portugal and an aeroplane was the only way to travel. He feels like he's flying and falling and hurtling at a wall at great speeds all at the same time when all he wants to do is crawl across the floor to Sirius and snog the living daylights out of him. So caught up is he in this fantasy that he almost misses it when Sirius suggests they just –
"Maybe forget about it? I mean – it's not like we – like you. I..." Sirius trails off with a lost expression on his face.
It's a decent enough suggestion. They're best mates, and this might just mess with it. Why ruin a good thing? Especially when all Remus has is these three boys. Chances are, if he ruins things with Sirius, James will side with him (because they're brothers and brothers stick together) and Peter will follow because Peter always follows. Then again, James and Sirius did this. They're still fine, and as far as he knows, they haven't been fucking even now.
Remus looks at Sirius. Really looks at him. His eyes keep shifting away from Remus, and he plays with a loose thread on the carpet. There is the most adorable of pouts on his face. Remus wants to kiss it. He looks like a man who's just been told he can't have what he desperately wants.
In all the years Remus has known him, lost has been one look Sirius has never sported. He's always been confident bordering on cocky, but there's a vulnerability to him now that belies his bravado. There, sitting on Remus' living room carpet in his ugly tutu and spelled green robe sleeves, for the first time since Remus has known him, Sirius looks the eighteen year old boy he is.
In the end the kiss is inevitable, and Remus has no intentions of not remembering this one.
"ARGH!" They don't stop even when Peter asks for them to help him crawls out from between the counter and the fridge.
When you're happy like a fool
Let it take you over
When everything is out
You gotta take it in
"You didn't remove it." Sirius' voice sounds awed, as if Remus still keeping a drunken mistake of a tattoo is something akin to a miracle. After all they've been through, Remus thinks he can understand it.
"You have yours," he points out. He rubs his palm over Sirius' starved, caved-in stomach. He's not much more than a skeleton, even now, two years out of Azkaban.
He's not the same man anymore. He's bitter, moody, quiet. He hates this house, and is bored easily. Remus remembers all too well how dangerous a bored Sirius is from their school days. He wishes he could do more than ease the physical tension. Even then, Remus has to sometimes wonder if Sirius is really into it as he says he is.
Azkaban killed something in him. It may not have driven him crazy like it does everyone else, but the Sirius Black that came out is not the same. No one would be, Remus concedes. But Sirius had always felt so...larger than life. So full of life. The bravest of them all; quickest; most handsome.
And Remus hates it. He hates himself even more for expecting more of Sirius than he can give at the moment. It's selfish and cruel.
"Harry will be here today," Sirius says. It's one of the few things he is willing to talk about. "He'll be looking a lot like James by now, watch."
Something sinks in Remus. Something heavy and lead-filled. He gulps around it. "Yeah. James."
He remembers Aric and how he was never good enough because he was never taller or brunette or Sirius. Sometimes, he wonders if maybe he isn't Sirius' Aric.
Oh this has gotta be the good life
This has gotta be the good life
This could really be a good life, good life
The first time they make love, sober, Remus is trembling. Can't believe this is happening.
It's after James' and Lily's wedding. A beautiful summer ceremony. Remus took as many pictures as he could. He plans on making copies of all of them.
"I love you," he can't help but stutter out at the apex of his pleasure.
"Me too. I love you," he hears during the after glow.
Remus smiles into Sirius' sweaty armpit. He can't imagine anything that can be better than this: Him and Sirius, together, lying in bed late at night, tracing each other's tattoos. "I'm glad we got them."
"Mmm. Me too." He can hear Sirius' answering smile "Who knew Prong's drunken idea would actually have some merit?"
"Not me."
He doesn't care that in an hour or so they'll have to get up and go on respective patrols for the Order. Or that come tomorrow he and Sirius will be at each other's throats because Sirius left his pants lying around and 'This is really my house, Sirius' Remus will say, but won't actually kick him out because all he wants, all he's ever wanted is to be with Sirius.
Ever since that stupid day he walked into an occupied compartment and Sirius made a ridiculous pun that became old three hours into their first ever train ride. Even then, Remus remembers wondering how it would be to be friends with someone so vibrant and loud and trusting.
He loves that he got the chance to find out.
Say oh, got this feeling that you can't fight
Like this city is on fire tonight
This could really be a good life
A good, good life
Tonks is very much like Sirius from before he went to Azkaban. It is that, more than anything else, that draws Remus to her. She helps him during that awful, terrible summer after Sirius dies, leaving Remus alone again, for good. Tonks helps him care again.
So what if she's another Aric? At least Tonks knows who she's being pitted against. It makes Remus feel slightly better. He'll be fine eventually. He just needs time. Tonks gives him that time. Then she asks him to marry her. He can't see any reason why he shouldn't. Second try at happiness isn't a crime, is it?
Despite reservations from himself, and her family, Remus does it. Mostly because he can't keep facing Tonk's wistful glances. He could leave like he did with Aric, but Remus isn't twenty six anymore. He's grown up, has learnt to deal with problems like adults. And yet...when he finds out Tonks is pregnant, he runs.
Or. Tries to. Harry doesn't let him. Too much like his mother, he is, despite appearances. She would have sent Remus flying across the room too.
When he goes back to his wife and not-yet-born child, he goes with the intention of staying, no matter what happens. For the first time since the Marauders, Remus Lupin is going to stick to a commitment.
It's worth it, he thinks, when he first holds little Teddy Lupin in his arms. First time Teddy looks at him, his eyes are gray. 'Black gray," Andromeda tells him. 'He has Black eyes.'
Remus can't speak, but is inclined to agree.
Hopelessly
I feel like there might be something that I'll miss.
He doesn't want to give the picture of James, Lily, and Sirius at James' and Lily's wedding to Harry. It's the last time they were all together and happy. The last time they stood arm in arm without suspicion of each other, or doubted every word that came out of their mouths. Harry needs it more though. He sticks it to the album (his first ever present to grown-up Harry, although he won't know it) carefully. On the back is written the date and names and confessions Harry might never see unless he unstuck the photograph.
Hopelessly
I feel like the window closes oh so quick.
They apologize to each other all the time. Now that they know neither of them was the real spy, they apologize until their throats are dry. Remus likes to think it means he is forgiven, but doesn't know for sure.
Worries the time for apologies may be long lost, somewhere in the past with all the secrets and lies and betrayals and loves.
Hopelessly
I'm taking a mental picture of you now.
Remus will never forget the moment Sirius falls through the veil. It's imprinted into his eyelids, photograph-like. He doesn't forget it even as Dolohov is sending the curse that will end his life. He takes a moment to think about Teddy. His chest constricts as he thinks of his son having to grow up without a father. But he has faith in Harry. Harry will succeed. Harry will be there. He'll take care of Teddy. Be a better godfather than the one he had. Then he thinks about Dora. Sweet, beautiful Dora who only wanted love, just like the rest of them. But it is Sirius whom he thinks about last when the curse connects.
When the mist clears, Sirius is the first one he sees. Much younger than before. Much beautiful than before, but he doesn't care about that.
"Padfoot."
"Moony." His impish grin is back, and that makes Remus' heart (does he still have one, even though he's dead?) thuds erratically in his chest.
I'm de – dead?"
It comes out as a question, even though he knows he is. How else could he see Sirius otherwise?
Sirius nods.
Remus takes a moment to look around his surroundings. It's not much. Just thick fog and bits and pieces of foliage. "Are you serious?" He'd expected a bit more out of the afterlife.
Sirius smirks. "I am Sirius. Siriusly Black."
After that, Remus doesn't give a flying fuck how terrible afterlife is aesthetically. He has all he's ever needed.
In life or death.
'Cuz hopelessly
The hope is we have so much to feel good about.
The first time Harry holds Teddy, he promises himself he will tell him all he can about his parents.
About his father who was a wonderful man, if a bit flawed. About how his mother would always trip over that one troll leg. Or how his father had helped make the best map the world had ever seen.
And if Harry wants tell him the story Remus told him at the Burrow during Christmas after everyone had gone to bed. The story of how his father loved someone who wasn't his mother, then so what?
Love was complicated. It tore people apart. It mended hearts. It won wars.
Love kept him going.
Oh this has gotta be the good life.
This has gotta be the good life.
This could really be a good life, good life.