My Finals fic for the QLFC! It's been really amazing, getting to the Finals like this. I never thought we'd get so far! Thank you to all my amazing teammates for their support and awesomeness (and Sims2, I haven't stopped playing it). My prompts were rumor about Falmouth, Cornwall, There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story. - Frank Herbert, You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. - John Green, and Young Volcanoes, Fall Out Boy.
"Have you ever wondered about book characters, Pads?"
Sirius wonders about Remus sometimes. Not in a condescending, oh-he's-gone-mad way, but in a real, curious way. He doesn't really understand him, certainly not the way he often thinks he does. Most of the time he is arrogant, thinking he can read Remus like a book, but he can't, not really.
"I don't read," says Sirius, yawning and stretching. "Remember?"
"You do too," replies Remus, tone neutral. "You've got books hidden under your bed, I've seen them."
"Why are you looking under my bed?"
Remus only laughs. Remus is good at keeping secrets; he is practically woven with them.
"I was just thinking," says Sirius's boyfriend, a fact that will delight and shock him even as he takes advantage of it. "Book characters don't stop after the end of a story. They still have lives. The author just chooses to end the story there, you know? They end the story but the story itself doesn't end."
"Okay," says Sirius indifferently, because he doesn't quite get it and he knows if he tries he still won't, and he'd rather look mean than stupid.
Remus sighs and turns away, tucking his head into his elbows. Sirius wonders if he can properly enjoy the sun from that angle. "Rumor is Falmouth's got a great aquarium," mumbles Remus right into the crook of his elbow.
"Rumor?" says Sirius, laughing to cover up the lingering cruelty in the air as he props himself onto his elbows. "You're not sure?"
It looks like Remus might be shrugging, Sirius can't really tell. "I've never been there, I don't know what it's like. But it might be nice...a break from all the Quidditch."
Remus has the exasperated tone he always carries when he speaks of sports. Sirius loves it as much as he wants to punch him for it.
"Okay," says Sirius again, but this time for a different reason.
They walk to the field together, a few feet from each other, their hands in their pockets. They know not to look too queer, not in Muggle public. It takes Sirius some time to realize that the aquarium is indeed a Muggle business; he was expecting magic laced in every corner. It is strange for him to be somewhere so mundane.
Sirius pays, as Sirius always does. Remus has long learned to look away and swallow his pride.
Sirius likes the bones the most, and he leaves Remus to look at the fish by himself. It doesn't even cross his mind that he might like Sirius to pull him into some dark corner where they can lock lips. That doesn't fit the image in his mind of his Moony, and besides, it's an aquarium. It's full of fish and children and not exactly sexy. So he looks at bones instead.
When he is finished he wanders around looking grungy and surly, enjoying the dirty looks from Muggle parents. He likes playing the role of the angry teen. It helps him forget how close it is to his real life.
He returns to find Remus only three or four inches from the glass, fingers pressing against it so hard they are making smudges. Sirius doesn't know what to say, so he stands behind him, running his hands through his own hair and wishing it was Remus's.
Remus figures out he is there, of course, whether by some basic intuition or he hears him or because he's a werewolf Sirius isn't sure. He grins, but it feels unreal.
"Why do you stick around with me?" says Sirius, surrounded by the glow of fish tanks, slants of blue light washing over Remus's face. "Why do you keep me around after all I've done to you?"
If he was speaking to anyone other than Remus, this would be a very sudden conversation. With Moony, it's not. He's used to it by now.
"You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices," replies Remus, smiling, sweeping light brown hair back with the palm of his hand.
"I like that," says Sirius, eyes swimming with the glare of tank lights. "You should write it down, maybe use it in a book."
"I won't be writing any books, Sirius," says Remus. He says it with finality, as though the world that oppresses him will even go so far as to stifle his imagination.
He turns back to the tank and begins the strange ritual people have with fish at aquariums, looking but not touching, silently communicating but not willing to admit it. Sirius doesn't want to communicate silently with fish. He wants to look at bones, or better, leave this aquarium and Falmouth and maybe even England, somewhere far away where Voldemort wasn't rising to power. He wants to take Remus with him, but he knows Remus would never come with him, not when he has fish to gaze into the eyes of and books to read. Not when there are people he can fight for.
Sirius has always told people he is the same way. He is a Gryffindor, after all. But even Gryffindors get scared when they face death. He once read a quote in those books he doesn't read about how bravery isn't being fearless, but accepting your fear. Sirius wonders what Remus would say if he told him. He would have a lot to say, Sirius thinks guiltily, not just mumble "okay."
Remus, before Sirius can think to stop him, punches the glass in front of him, hard enough to make his hand red. He is startling people, Sirius sees, and getting rude stares. Sirius pulls Remus into a corner. Remus has had enough people staring at him for one lifetime.
"I feel..." says Remus, voice hushed, cracking. "I feel like we're the beginning of the end. That before long the world is going to be shit, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I'm so angry all the time, even though I'm trying to hide it...there's fire inside me, and one of these days it's going to burst like a young volcano."
When he finishes he stares at his shoes, leaving Sirius the opportunity to lift his chin and say, "We're going to fix this. We're going to save these people, all these Muggles and the wizards and this town and the Quidditch pitch and even this aquarium, okay? We're going to do it, and afterward we can come back and say, 'look, we did it'. I promise."
Sirius doesn't make promises he can't keep. He hasn't made a promise in years. Remus knows that.
Remus clutches at his shirt and whispers, "Okay."