A/N: SLASH WARNING!!! This is a RL/SB pairing, so, yeah. 2 guys, woohoo. Seriously though, this takes place sometime during the second war with Voldemort and this is a self-contained installment, ie no new chapters. The theme is based on a song by Ani Difranco and its lyrics are found at the end of the story. Rating reflects sexual situations and four-lettered words. And perhaps poor grammar, but you can interpret that as the writer's prerogative, the stamp of my genius. Ri-ight…bye now.
Remus Lupin's POV
It was like the forties again. Low rumblings. Shuddering buildings. Air raid sirens. Clouds of smoke peppering the London skyline. It was the nuclear age, but luckily we remembered that in time to make them forget. It only took a Ministry task force of 200 Obliviators to secure nearly every Muggle weapon of mass destruction. Atomic bombs, nuclear missiles, scuds laced with viral infection. Some poor soul was charged with secreting them all away, and then he was killed, because we have long been without our innocence. But I tried not to think of that as we drove out to the field behind our village on one cool summer evening. Sirius was there on my left, laughing with everything he could spare, and that was a sight that nearly allowed me to forget what we were living through.
"I can't believe you own a car, Moony," he teased, not for the first time.
"I took to driving in America. It's not as easy to get around in most states as it is here," I explained yet again.
"Still," he said, but trailed off. I pulled over to park beneath the sprawling branches of an obliging tree, trusting him to follow as I opened the door and stepped outside. The loud protests of abused hinges and my own knee joints sent the birds into the sky and sent a turrent of leaves into our hair. I laughed as Sirius shook out his mane like a rain-soaked puppy, but I left the leaves in mine, climbing up onto the hood of the car, planting my shoes on the bumper, and waiting for him to come and make me clean again.
I struggled to keep my eyes open as he ran his fingers through my hair, pausing at each patch of gray, silently apologizing for something he did not do. When he pulled his hand away, it was full of thumbnail flowers that had somehow survived the fall with their frailty intact. I picked out two of them and asked him to close his eyes. "For the ferryman," I said, placing the blooms on his coppery eyelids, the soft blue of them adding to a perfect work of art.
"You're the Fairy Man," he hummed, shivering when I blew the flowers off his face.
"What is it you wanted to tell me?" I asked.
"Can't we just sit here for a while first?" he quietly whined in return. "Look, who's that handsome devil?" he grinned, pointing up at himself in the fast-darkening sky.
"The lapdog of humanity," I sighed, knowing what he was going to say.
"I'm going back to the Front," he answered, finally.
"How soon?" I asked, wondering why I ever stopped grieving over him, when I knew he'd always leave again.
"Tomorrow. I only just heard," he answered, inching closer to me so our thighs touched and the metal of the hood groaned in complaint.
"I'm going to have a print of your arse on my car," I chuckled, fighting a cringe at the desperation I heard there.
"And what I lovely arse it is," he answered in kind, lolling his head to rest on my shoulder, stretching briefly to kiss my neck.
"Pity I can't reach it," I mumbled, resigned to saying goodbye the only way we knew how, silent and straining and scared shitless it was forever.
I stopped his hand before it got too far into my jeans.
"Where?" he asked, killing me with the level of patience and forgiveness in his voice.
"Not on the car."
"In?" he suggested, licking the sweat off my neck like a sweet-starved child.
"Too small, remember?" I answered, pushing his hair behind his ears again and again because it was intent on tickling me, because it knew I didn't want to laugh.
"Fuck, Remus, string me to the tree and have your way with me if you want, only let me touch you," he growled, and I said a prayer for patience.
"Get in the car," I told him, slipping out of his hold, redoing the button of my pants and settling down behind the wheel, startled to find him beside me already. In minutes we were home again, both fighting to make it last and both fighting to get it over with.
"Watch the lamp," I breathed as he flung our shoes over his shoulders.
"I can't take my eyes off you," he whispered, planting his knees on either side of mine, hooking his ankles under mine for balance as he leaned in to kiss me, his hands busy untucking my shirt and pulling my pants down with one unforgiving tug.
"Sirius, let me up," I gasped.
"It's not your turn," he reminded me as he let me turn us over.
"Please," I moaned, watching him peel his shirt off and toss it over the lamp, knocking it over and filling the room with a broken orchestral sound. "Please Sirius, I need you to sweat into these sheets, so I can remember."
"Remus, you'd never forget," he smiled, but he let me take him anyway. For a near eternity, we didn't move. We just stared into each other's eyes, with the same wonder that we always felt, like we were only just realizing that it was love and it was forever. But then I saw the tears on his cheek and realized I was crying. We lost it then, me turning him around, burying my face in his back and finishing it before he could yell at me for trying to memorize every contour of his body as if a memory was all I had left of him.
"Did you hear that?" he asked into my hair after, his arms wrapped around me, hand over my heart like he knew I was dying.
"It was just a siren," I answered.
"I thought it was screaming," he said. All I could do was push his hand harder against my heart and hope that he believed that it hadn't been me.
In the morning I helped him pack, waiting until he was done throwing battle robes into his bag before pulling them out and folding them for him.
"What should we say this time?" he asked. We were at the door now, my hand refusing to let go of the handle of his case. What did I want to say? I wanted to tell him not to leave. I wanted to tell him that I wouldn't survive another 12 years without him, that I'd die before I went through that again. I wanted to scream at him that he had nothing to prove, that I'd go in his place, that we'd be forgiven for running. That we deserved a happy ending.
"I'll see you soon, no matter what." That's what I said, hoping that he'd let it be true.
"Goodbye," he answered, gently prying my hand from his bag, pulling it up so he could kiss my wrist, his tongue briefly warming the scar that marked the first time he left. And then he was gone.
The End…sniffle
Independence Day by Ani Difranco
we drove the car
to the top of the parking ramp
4th of july
sat out on the hood
with a couple of warm beers
and watched the fireworks
explode in the sky
there was an exodus of birds from the trees
cuz they didn't know
we were only pretending
and the people all looked up and looked pleased
and the birds flew around
like the whole world was ending
and i don't think war is noble
and i don't like to think love is like war
but i got a big hot cherry bomb
and i wanna slip it through the mail slot
of your front door
you can't leave me here
i got your back now
you'd better have mine
cuz you say the coast is clear
but you say that all the time
so many sheep i quit counting
sleepless and embarrassed
about the way that i feel
trying to make mole hills out of mountains
building base camp at the bottom
of a really big deal
did i ever tell you how i stopped eating
when you stopped calling me
i was cramped up
and shitting rivers for weeks
and pretending that i was finally free
now you can't leave me here
now that you're back
you'd better stay this time
cuz you say the coast is clear
but you say that all the time
we drove the car
to the top of the parknig ramp
4th of july
i planted my dusty boots on the bumper
sat out on the hood
and looked up at the sky