Disclaimer: One time, I watched a biography of J.K. Rowling on "A&E".
That's as close as I'm ever gonna get to being her. I don't own Remus,
Sirius, Severus, or any of the other characters mentioned in this fanfic,
because if I did, they'd all be shagging like crazy mongooses.
Rating: Better give it an R, because it's rather lime, and makes mention of naughty things. Tee hee!
Author's Notes: I'm watching "Thelma & Louise" right now. Is that affecting this at all? No. Did I need to mention it? No. Is Brad Pitt wearing only a cowboy hat incredibly sexy? Yes.
Anyway. It's my very first Sirius/Remus slash ficcie; I was really inspired to write the rest of this after I saw PoA, because let's face it, the slash was so overt that if it were any more obvious, they'd be making sweet, sweet love right on Lupin's desk. ...or Snape's. Ooh.
Dedication: To a few people. One, to Naomi, because she simply rocks. She's always willing to read the crap I type out. Two, to Tania, because of that frank and wonderful AIM convo we had about slash pairings and all the different, crazy combinations and positions. Three, to Kara, because she's new to the fandom, but loves slash, and I love her. And, four, to Meg. Here's to encouraging you to review, from one slash lover to another.
So, here goes.
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Sleeping In An Unmade Bed
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The room was uncharacteristically light.
A closed window barely allowed a stream of sunlight to fall softly near the feet of the wooden desk; the sliver of a beam touched the specks of dust that aimlessly drifted about the room. Barely skirting the light's edge was a chair, close to the desk; the wood had warped with age, and knotholes pronounced themselves loudly over the oak, but by no means was it ugly or out of place. Rather, the signs of age upon it seemed to fit it naturally. Nothing adorned the top of it but a quietly sitting sheet of parchment, and a quill resting in a full inkpot. The equally old chair was pulled out.
He stared down at the blank paper. Ten minutes ago, he had made the decision to pull out the chair – it had made a loud, scraping sound on the bare, wooden floors, disrupting the silence. Quickly, though, the quiet had reconvened, and now he thought that, possibly, he'd never really moved the chair at all.
Swallowing once and shifting the book he held from one hand to the other, he glanced about the room almost warily. Years upon years of having to live with a (now less than) secret that was almost impossible to hide had instilled within the man a sense of caution that was, at times, dangerously close to paranoia. He was nowhere near as bad as old Moody, but lately, he could feel himself slipping, if only just a little bit.
Gripping his book just a little too tightly, Remus slid quickly into the aged chair. It complained against his weight – or lack thereof, he had become almost as thin as a waif – but issued nothing else. It was quiet again mere seconds later.
Lupin placed the book on the table beside the parchment, spreading a few particles of dust as he did. He managed to hold back a sneeze.
Quietly, he stared at the piece of blank paper in front of him, his cheeks a bit flushed out of embarrassment. Even though the logical part of him was absolutely certain that no one else knew where exactly in the house he was, the more imaginative side of him insistently played and replayed visions of Molly or Arthur or someone else coming up the stairs, creaking the door open, and...
And what, really? Laughing? Not at all likely. Maybe a little confused - maybe - but most definitely there'd be some amount of pity involved. Yes, that was the worst. They would mean well, they would only be doing what they thought was right, but it would be awful. Terrible.
Remus Lupin wasn't pathetic. He was not.
But, there were no telltale footsteps, no door hinges whining under the stress of being used. There really was no sound, at all – and no matter what, Remus would never become accustomed to it.
Silently, Lupin promised himself that this would be the very last time he would do this – the last time he'd just sit at the old desk, staring at the blank parchment, unable to move or speak. He had promised himself this two weeks ago. And four days before that. And a week before that. And...well, it went on like that for quite a while.
He was almost proud of himself that he didn't once cry in this room, though. Not a single tear. It just wouldn't be right – it wouldn't be acceptable. Not here.
Not in Sirius's room.
The ironic thing, Lupin figured, was the fact that his friend's room didn't at all resemble his friend's personality. Everything was so Spartan, so stale and inert; with the window closed, it was oppressively stuffy. Gray and faded and depressed, Remus couldn't at all sense that Sirius had ever, at some point his life, inhabited a room bereft of liveliness. Except, though, for the scent of the room.
The scent was, undeniably, that of Sirius Black. Because of this, whenever Lupin found that his feet had lead him to the familiar spot in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, he would close the door behind him, along with his eyes, and deeply inhale. The musky scent of burning wood and the outdoors and that wild, indefinable undercurrent of something that made the smell unmistakable filled his nostrils, his lungs, and every part of him. It just couldn't be covered by all the layers of dust, or cleaned out by soap and water and brooms and magic.
He could always go back to that smell, and fall into it so completely. It was his warm and soft blanket.
At first, when Remus was still in shock about what had happened, he'd been able to sufficiently cope; after all, it wasn't as if Sirius had never been gone for long stretches of time before. It was bad when they put Sirius in Azkaban; the worst part was that, despite the fact Sirius was such a good friend to him all through Hogwarts, Lupin couldn't help the small, small part of him that was so close to believing that his best friend was guilty. It didn't make sense – and it never could have – but they were all so young and bloody naïve. Lupin, at that point, had still had faith in the Ministry; he actually believed they knew what they were doing, all of the time. They couldn't have made a mistake with something as serious as murders – it just wasn't possible. So how could Sirius be innocent, then?
Remus sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his shaggy mane of not- quite-blonde hair. His heart had fought his mind, and his heart eventually won, because he knew that he trusted Sirius for a reason. He would never, ever be capable of betraying James and Lily – it was out of the question, completely wrong. So after he'd come to terms with the fact that, yes, he almost thought his best friend was quite able and ready to commit murder, he knew – in his heart, not his head – that he was wrong to think that Sirius Black was guilty.
When he realized this, it was the first time that Remus had really lost him.
Things had been so bad, way back then. James and Lily were dead, Sirius was wrongfully imprisoned, Peter had joined the Dark Lord and was in hiding... Remus himself was just trying to scrape by and, at the same time, keep his secret by doing menial jobs, whatever he could to survive. The Marauders were gone, and it felt like everything else had gone along with them.
There was such little hope, all those years ago. And, at least for himself, the hopelessness had returned.
Awkwardly, Remus fumbled with the quill he picked up from the inkpot. Biting his lip, the man watched as black ink pooled at the feather's tip. It was dangerously close to falling and splattering the page he stared intently at.
The blank piece of paper sat there, almost invitingly. After a moment's hesitation, Remus set the quill tip gently to the parchment. The ink quickly bled through the paper, pushing itself out, crawling from the central point of the quill tip, encircling it. He lifted the quill from the parchment, and the blackened spot gave the parchment an eye to stare up at him with.
The paper had been blank for over seven months. It had sat there, along with the quill and the ink, untouched, collecting dust, for so very long. Remus had told Molly that she could do whatever she very well pleased with all the other rooms in the house, but was not to touch this one. She understood, and she knew exactly why.
He put the quill back down on the table, and it gently tickled the edge of the blotched parchment. His glance trailed over the old desk, through the sun drenched dust particles, to the bed that lay in the corner of the room. The sheets, pushed back on the unmade bed, were an invitation that Remus accepted.
As he had done many times before, Remus climbed onto the bed, and pulled the covers up his face; he closed his eyes. Inhaling Sirius into him, he sighed as much of himself away as he could, and remembered.
====
"Sirius?" he had asked what seemed to be forever ago, as he poked his head into the room. "What are you doing?"
There he was, sitting at that desk, quill in hand, blank parchment spread out before him. He turned around, and smiled a bit at Remus, long black hair framing his face.
"Hey there, Moony. I was just going to write a letter." Lupin reciprocated the smile, and entered into the room. It was as bare as it ever was, but far less dusty, back then. The window was open.
"Oh? To whom?" Remus questioned, closing the door softly behind him as he entered into Sirius's old-and-present room. He logically knew that there was really only one person Sirius could write to, but that never stopped him from asking.
"Harry," the other man replied, nibbling at the writing tip of the quill, which had not yet been touched by ink. "I'm just trying to think of what to say."
"Having trouble with coding it?" Remus asked, tilting his head a little bit as he crossed the expanse of the room, coming to rest behind where Sirius was sitting. Sirius smirked.
"Nah, the coding's fine – it's thinking of exactly what to code that's got me royally buggered. There hasn't been a single interesting happening here." Remus couldn't help but laugh a little bit.
"It can't be that bad," he said. Sirius leaned back to look up at Remus with upside-down eyes.
"Oh, it's that bad," Sirius replied succinctly. Bringing up his head once again to its normal position, the man easily turned himself around in the chair, resting his chin on the back of it, looking up at Remus. A tiny little smile still tugged at his lips, and for that brief moment, Sirius looked so much younger than he really was.
"I mean, honestly, what am I supposed to write? 'Dear Harry – I cleaned house today. There was lots of dust, and I sneezed. Then I made pasta, but it didn't taste like pasta at all. Love, Snuffles'?"
"Hey; I had some of that pasta, and it was just fine," Lupin replied. "Actually, it was pretty good."
"Yeah, well, you only had some after Molly caught me red-handed with the cooking. She managed to salvage it. Y'know, as much as it could be salvaged, considering I...uh, managed to set the sauce on fire."
Lupin bit his lip to keep himself from laughing.
"Should I even ask how you managed that?" Remus questioned, a wry smile on his face. Sirius laughed self-deprecatingly, running his fingers through his still surprisingly long hair.
"Probably not," he said in turn, mirroring Remus's grin. They smiled like that at each other for a good few seconds more; Lupin's smile faded slightly, and he coughed politely, tearing his glance away from Sirius to the blank piece of paper. Something definably awkward had transpired, but neither were quite sure what, exactly, it was.
"Well, if you're going to write, I should leave you alone," Remus stated. He turned to leave, but felt something warm enclose his hand; blinking in surprise at the touch, the werewolf turned around slightly, looking down at Sirius's hand insistently holding his. Sirius himself looked just as surprised at his action as Remus was.
Quietly, Sirius let his hand go, and idly scratched at his hair.
"You...don't have to go. I mean, if you don't want. You, ah, you can stay. If you want, that is," Sirius said, his voice even. Remus refused to look at Sirius, but he knew that his best friend was still insistently looking right at him.
There was the barest minimum of polite pause.
"I actually promised Molly that I would help out with cleaning the living room," Lupin finally said. Remus still didn't require to see Sirius's face to know that the other man had, finally, averted his gaze.
"Oh. Well, that's okay. Shouldn't put that off, because I've seen Molly when she gets mad, and it's not a pretty sight. I'd rather be back in Azkaban with the Dementors than facing her wrath." Sirius punctuated his words with a laugh, which quickly became strained, trailed off, and died. Remus knew that Azkaban was still a touchy subject; apparently, so did Sirius, and his smile disappeared completely. And now that he was looking away, Remus found it safe to let his eyes rest on the other man again.
"Actually," Lupin began tentatively, "I don't think she needs me for another hour or so."
For some reason, Remus could feel his heart speed up after the words left his mouth.
The air in the room seemed so much heavier than it was before; swallowing as inaudibly as he could, Lupin continued looking at Sirius, who was by no means looking at him. Subconsciously Remus furrowed his eyebrows, studying the other man's face as he had caught himself doing on more than one occasion as of late.
His hair was not what it used to be: lanker, duller, and with a barely perceptible gray strand here and there, Sirius's hair had lost its glory from years before. His cheeks were a bit more hollowed, but in Lupin's estimation, that simply accented Sirius's cheekbones. His skin didn't glow anymore. Lines of age crept along his forehead and under his eyes, and indeed, he looked older because he was older.
His eyes, though; his eyes, while darker than before, still held that glimmer, that indescribable glint that could produce raging inferno, or comforting flame, or sometimes both at once. His soul had remained untouched and unscathed during all those tumultuous years apart – and that suppressed yearning, that familiar, hidden and unmitigated desire to touch and hold and never, ever let go for fear of loss was overwhelming Remus.
They had been alone, then; at least, they felt alone with each other. Lupin took in a deep breath, and watched as Sirius turned around a bit, lifting the quill from the inkpot to begin writing, his eyes slightly downcast.
Steeling himself, Lupin reached out his hand and closed the short distance between then by placing his hand on Sirius's shoulder. Sirius leaned back in his chair again to look up at Remus, and a puzzled expression flitted across Sirius's etched features. It was soon replaced with outright shock as Remus leaned down, and pressed his lips tentatively against those of his best friend.
The kiss was, to say the least, awkward – almost childish, as it were. Remus was holding onto Sirius's shoulders in a vice-like grip, nervousness having swamped him along with the electric tingle running down his spine. His neck was beginning to hurt from the odd position, which was most likely not doing anything good for Sirius's neck, either. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, as opposed to Sirius, whose eyes were wide, wide open.
Just as quickly as it had begun, Remus pulled away, breaking the chaste meeting of lips. Cheeks flushed dark crimson barely brushed against the steadily reddening skin of Sirius's face as he moved back, forcing himself to make eye contact with the upside-down visage of his best friend. Blinking only once, Sirius lifted his head back up to stare at the blank letter before him, keeping his back to Lupin. Remus took this as a bad sign, and winced in spite of himself.
"I'm sorry," Remus whispered, unconsciously clenching and unclenching his fists by his sides. Sirius still didn't say anything, nor did he look at his friend, which did nothing to alleviate the awkward silence that sat heavily in the dusky room. Despite the quiet, Remus's words were barely audible.
No one said or did anything for what felt like a very long while.
Having not removed his sight from a spot on the wooded floor of the room, Remus sighed deeply, his cheeks still deeply red. Without any sort of vocal utterance, he turned slightly; with a furtive glance at Sirius, who had not moved himself, Remus started towards the door, outwardly silent, but inwardly shouting at himself for being such an idiot.
His hand was on the doorknob when he heard the scuff of the chair and the creak of the floorboards under approaching footsteps. Before Remus could say anything, he felt a familiar hand on his shoulder turn him around, pressing him against the closed door.
Sirius's lips descended upon his; he was practically crushing Remus's mouth, and the werewolf could almost taste the desperation on Sirius's tongue. He let out a cry of surprise into Sirius's mouth, but did nothing more to contradict the kiss – rather, he wrapped his arms around Sirius, and kissed back as best he could. Remus moaned softly as tantalizing pinpricks of electricity traveled up and down his spine and back again, fuelled by Sirius's rough hands on his shoulders, his back, everywhere and nowhere at once...
Sirius easily maneuvered their bodies so that Remus was no longer against the door, but being lead – pushed, even – towards the large bed that lay against the far wall of the room. The sandy haired man issued no complaints when he found himself sprawled on the large mattress, and pinned under his best friend.
"I've waited so long...couldn't...God, Moony..." Sirius said between breaths, roughly kissing and sucking at Remus's neck. As disjointed as his ramblings were, at least he could speak: all Remus could do to respond was moan and whine contentedly, and writhe under the other man's touches.
From then on, everything was a blur of touching, caressing, kissing, and robes being hastily opened and flung off as best as possible. Remus only got as far as tugging Sirius's robe half off his left shoulder, but it was good enough. An incredible lust had consumed Remus – but, unlike the bloodlust that overtook him each full moon, this was not something that he feared. It was new, it was different, but not at all wrong or out of place.
The sex itself was purely indescribable, as far as Remus felt matters were concerned. He had never been with a man in the most biblical of terms before, so in essence he was – as sad as he thought it to be – a thirty- five year old virgin. It hurt at first, but Remus expected it to; in the end it didn't matter, because Sirius was right there, above him, in him, kissing and holding him, and helping him to feel such pleasure and completion the likes of which Remus didn't know could ever exist.
By the time they were both satisfied, Remus had found himself with his head laying on Sirius's chest and a strong arm around his own shoulders. Both were covered in a very fine layer of sweat; although he was sticky and overly warm, Lupin couldn't imagine feeling any better.
Neither of them said much of anything for a little while. Sirius idly stroked his fingers through Remus's hair, which felt heavenly to Remus. He murmured softly in appreciation, and smiled just as gently. Sirius leaned down slightly, and kissed the top of his best friend's head, sated.
The quiet was comfortable, for as long as it lasted.
"You know," Sirius started, still stroking his fingers through Remus's hair, "when I was in Azkaban, I thought that I was going to die."
Remus furrowed his eyebrows, knowing full well that post-coital talk wasn't really supposed to involve talk of Azkaban, or horror akin to it.
"But you didn't," Lupin responded, his voice soft.
"No. I didn't." Sirius's fingers didn't stop their petting of Remus's dirty blond hair. "By all means I should have, but I didn't. At the very least, I was supposed to have just broken down and lost my mind." Lupin bit his lip in worry; reaching out, he took Sirius's free hand in his own, and squeezed it tenderly.
"But you didn't," Remus whispered again.
"No." Sirius squeezed back. "I didn't."
"Why, Sirius? I mean, I know that if it was me in there instead of you, I would have...well. I wouldn't have kept it together." Sirius smiled a bit.
"Sure you would have, Moony." Remus gave a non-committal mumble. "The fact that I knew that I was innocent helped me through a bit. You know, spitting indignation."
"And you're the master of spitting indignation, Padfoot."
"Why thank you, Moony, it's always nice to know that I'm appreciated in my fields of expertise." His smirk faded a little. "And the fact that I knew it was Pettigrew. Never doubted that for a second; always hated the little bastard."
Remus knew that that wasn't at all true, but he let it slide. Briefly, he wondered whether Sirius only shared his thoughts like this when he shared his bed.
"Anger kept you going?" Remus asked. Sirius took in a deep breath; under his cheek, Lupin felt the rise and fall of his chest. He heard his heart beat a little faster than before.
"Somewhat. Not entirely." He paused. "There was you."
Remus closed his eyes, and smiled into Sirius's chest. He kissed it, and did his best to look up at the face of best friend who was now, actually his lover. He felt weird, admitting such a thing to himself, but is was only weird insofar as that it had been something Remus knew he had wanted for a very, very long time.
In school, Remus had actually fancied Lily Evans since he had seen her in first year; sweet, intelligent, and far too beautiful for someone like him, Remus had no trouble at all falling completely in love with her. Of course, he was too shy to say anything about it, but he had had a feeling that Lily knew.
Then, of course, there was James.
"All those years, wasted," Lupin remarked quietly.
"Twelve years," Sirius agreed.
"And all of school," Remus supplemented, laying down on his back, working out the kink in his neck that he'd managed to develop after laying at such an odd angle on Sirius.
Sirius smirked, and chuckled.
"You mean your crush on Lily? Yeah, that was wasteful, I guess. Pretty girl - very pretty girl, I can see why you'd fancy her," the black haired man said. "But seven years? Seven year itch I can understand – seven year crush, that's just insane."
"I didn't have a crush on her for seven years," Remus quietly countered. Sirius blinked.
"Didn't you? So when did you stop fancying her?"
Remus smiled softly.
"So what of your fancying James?" he asked in turn, looking over with that smile of his at Sirius. The other man turned his head to look at Remus; he appeared shocked for just an instant, before his face went blank.
"James? You thought I had a crush on James? Remus, honestly, that's just ridiculous." Sirius laughed and looked away. "James Potter, really..." Remus propped himself up on his elbow, still smiling himself.
"Sirius, look at me." He did so. "Now, look at us. We're approaching middle age, we're both very naked, we're laying in bed, and we're both men. I don't care how uncomfortable you were with yourself when you were seventeen, but it's doing you no good lying to my face like you are now. Lying pretty pathetically, might I add."
Sirius looked steadily at Remus for a few moments, before his expression dissolved into a sheepish smile.
"Dammit Moony, how the hell is it that you can read me like a bloody book?" Remus smirked.
"I was the quiet one, remember? I did a lot of observing." Sirius sighed deeply, and flopped onto his back.
"And I suppose you observed me acting like an arse in James's presence, eh?" The werewolf laughed,
"If that's how you want to put it, then yes. Yes I did." His smile faded slightly as Sirius turned onto his side, his back now towards Remus. He shifted over, draping his arm over Sirius's body, resting his lips just close enough to the other man's ear.
"I also observed you when you finally got a real chance to talk with Harry." He felt Sirius's body stiffen under his arm.
Sirius was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment.
"He's so much like him, Moony," he whispered.
"I know he is, Sirius."
There was quiet again.
"I stopped fancying Lily after third year, to answer your earlier question," Remus said, "because that's when I realized that I was starting to fancy you." He imagined that Sirius would be rather thrown off by his sudden changing of the topics again; and, indeed, he was. Sirius turned himself over slightly, never once losing the skin-to-skin contact between the two of them.
"Seriously?"
"Oh, quite seriously."
There was an incredulous little smile playing at Sirius's lips.
"You never told me because...?"
"Because I am who I am, and you were who you were," Remus responded succinctly. Sirius furrowed his eyebrows.
"And who, exactly, was I?" Remus smirked.
"You were a very stubborn young man, who was just as stubbornly denying the fact that he was in love with his best friend." With a knowing little smile, Sirius kissed the tip of Remus's nose.
"I wasn't in love with my best friend," he said; before Remus could rebut, Sirius continued on.
"I wasn't. I may have fancied James, yes, but it wasn't love." Sirius paused for a moment. "I might've loved him, had he not been so annoyingly straight." Remus smirked, reaching out to lightly brush a strand of hair out of Sirius's eyes.
"Poor Sirius, dashed by the sexual inclination of James Potter," he cooed mockingly. On his part, Sirius sighed dramatically, and smiled.
"Well. I guess things have worked out alright for me, though. All's well that ends well," he finished, his voice trailing off and fading near the end of the sentence. He closed his dark, yet somehow faded blue eyes for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts; when he opened them again, Sirius stared intently at Remus's face.
"I love you, Remus."
Sirius's words were not said in the normal manner that Sirius delivered words in, far from it, really. Gone were the tones of joviality that seemed to tinge everything that Sirius said, and there was nothing lenient about it – there was no taking it back. He almost sounded...desperate.
Sirius continued to stare at Remus, his eyes echoing his statement; answering it, the sandy haired man leaned forward, and gently pressed his lips against Sirius's. Remus pulled back, and stroked his best friend's cheek comfortingly; he smiled.
"I know you do."
They kissed again, and this time, Sirius deepened it.
====
They returned to that room and to that bed as often as they could. They didn't always have to make love – in fact, Sirius even refused to call it that, citing that it was 'pointless to try and make something that exists already, so let's not kid ourselves and just shag like crazy'. Sometimes, both would be so exhausted from the trials of simply being involved with the Order that one or both hadn't the energy to put into sex; so, instead, they talked about whatever they possibly wanted. Sirius extolled his horrifying accounts of Azkaban, which left Remus feeling disturbed, guilty, and very much wanting to hold his friend. Remus spoke of teaching at Hogwarts, and what it felt like to be called 'sir' by the Slytherins. Both spoke freely of James and Lily, of Peter, even of Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape when they had attended Hogwarts as students.
The letter that Sirius had tried to start to write for Harry had been ignored in favour of talking, sex, even minor arguments about the Order and Sirius's house arrest.
"From one prison to another, that's all it is," Sirius had said. Remus, for all he knew of the danger that Sirius could draw to himself should he step outside, agreed fully.
It had been a shock to everyone when Sirius died. It wasn't expected; Sirius, the rogue, the only one to ever escape Azkaban, couldn't have been killed by a simple curse. It was impossible to believe; Harry, who had taken Sirius's death particularly hard, wasn't helping things.
"It's my fault!" seemed to be the boy's new catchphrase.
"It isn't your fault," was everyone else's.
While everyone worried over Harry, Lupin went quietly unnoticed as he snuck up to the bedroom upstairs. He pushed open the door; the inside was just as it had been left before. He felt numb, walking into the room and closing the door behind him; moonlight blithely intruded into the room, its beams resting softly upon the rumpled bed.
Remus shuffled forward in a daze. He passed by the desk, barely glancing at the blank parchment, and sat on the bed; his hand idly smoothed out the cooling sheets atop the mattress. Just that morning, Sirius had throw the comforter and sheets aside haphazardly, and as usual, had not bothered to make the bed after he was done with it.
Remus, still wearing his shoes and robes, fell back onto the pillows, and brought the covers up to his chin. He turned to his side, and stared at the space Sirius usually occupied. The imprint of his head was still on the old pillow beside Remus's; he couldn't help his fingers when, of their own accord, they reached up, and gently stroked the indentation.
He'd fallen asleep; dreamless, he awoke in the morning to find the indentation there, but not Sirius.
"Oh, God," he whispered softly, staring at the empty space beside him. Everything around him was Sirius; the covers smelled of him, and his taste still lingered so clearly in Remus's mouth. When he closed his eyes, the steady sound of Sirius breathing beside him filled his ears. There was nothing when he opened them again.
There hadn't even been a body when he died. Maybe if there had been any physical trace of him left, Remus wouldn't have felt as utterly empty as he did; maybe if they could even have a proper burial and funeral for him, it would alleviate the heavy feeling crushing down on him. But no, Sirius Black was still an 'escaped convict'. Nothing public could be done for him, not even a tombstone.
Once again, Remus Lupin found himself completely alone.
He didn't leave Sirius's room if it could be helped, and he didn't at all set foot downstairs for close to four days. Without the energy to eat, never mind talk with anyone, Remus didn't see the point of traversing down all those stairs; it was essentially pointless. There was only one man that he wanted to talk to, and of course, it was quite impossible for anyone at all to speak with Sirius. The closest he could get was to lie in bed with the covers drawn up his chest and to his chin; he would close his eyes, listen for the breathing, and inhale deeply the scent of the sheets.
Sometime past the third day after Sirius's death and before the end of the fourth, a knock on the door interrupted Remus's new ritual. He didn't crack open an eye, nor did he make a sound; he hoped, instead, that whoever wanted to disturb the room would just go away. His hopeful wish was in vain.
The doorknob turned, and the person pushed against the door; stubbornly, it wouldn't open, since Remus had made sure to lock it behind him. With an utterance of 'Alohomora!', though, the lock became essentially useless. The door opened, and an all too familiar man with flowing black robes, lank hair, and a hooked nose entered.
"Oh, good," Snape said, standing in the doorway, looking at the man in the bed. "For a while there, I'd thought maybe you'd done the rash thing and killed yourself." He closed the door behind him as he walked inside.
"Go away, Snape," Remus muttered. He clutched at the covers, and turned his head to the side, lying resolutely against the pillow.
"I would, but I've been sent to bring you downstairs." Snape walked over to the chair by the desk, and sat down on it.
"They sent you?" Remus asked, with more than a touch of bitter incredulity in his voice. Snape brushed a stray particle of dust off his robes.
"Yes. They did," he responded curtly, crossing his arms over his chest. Remus still refused to look at him, and only brought the covers further up against his skin.
"Lousy choice, I must say," the werewolf stated, closing his eyes again. Snape let out a deep, resigned sigh.
"For once, I find myself agreeing with you, Lupin. Were I in your situation, I'd rather the Order sent Voldemort himself to get me than you."
"Of course you would, Snape. The Dark Mark on your arm says it all, doesn't it?" Remus bit off. The Potions master said nothing for a long few moments.
"So now that he's dead, you're attempting to sound like him, are you?"
"Fuck off," Remus growled warningly, looking angrily over his shoulder at the man sitting in the chair. He sneered, in turn.
"Look at you, holed up inside of here like a bloody coward." Snape got up from the chair. "You're pathetic, Lupin."
This comment seemed apt in pushing Remus over the proverbial edge, and something deep inside of him snapped. From the combined weight of Snape's words, Remus's loneliness, and Sirius's death, the shaky barrier that had been holding back the man's torrent of emotions had now broken completely. Careful and controlled, Remus sat up in the bed, swung his legs over, and stood up right in front of Snape.
"I am not a coward." His words were barely above a whisper, but they cut clear through the room, resounding to the both of them. Snape stared back at him, his face blank.
"Lupin - "
"And I am NOT PATHETIC!" he shouted. Roughly, he shoved Snape backwards, anger freely coursing through his veins. Snape stumbled backward, hitting the wall with his back. Quickly, Remus strode up to Snape, grabbing him by his collar; adrenaline fuelled him, and he felt lightheaded from lack of food and movement, but he didn't care.
Everything was overwhelming him. Lupin didn't go as far as snarling, but he felt it inside – that feral part of him, that emotionally dominated, logically bereft, primal instinct that released itself every full moon was now feeding him what he wanted to feel. Anger. Oh, God, the anger that he felt, and suddenly, he wanted very much to strike the man in the face, for insulting him, for insulting his dead best friend, for...
Then Remus looked at him. Really, he looked at him. Snape's eyes were widened, but not entirely with fear; he continued to stare directly at Remus, not making a sound.
"Reminding you of the Shrieking Shack at all?" Snape asked, his voice sounding conspiringly quiet.
It all rushed back to him, like a surging mob through broken gates. The night there, in the Shrieking Shack, the prank that Sirius had set up – the one that went wrong. He couldn't remember most of it; all he could see were shades of red, and smell blood pumping through everyone's veins – the adrenaline levels were high, which had set his senses off. Snape had been scared, and he had smelled it on him.
Sirius was there. And he had been watching.
Remus's mouth hung open slightly, and he stared hard at his fists, still curled around Snape's collar. Quietly, he let them go; Snape smoothed it out as best he could, and watched Lupin as he walked slowly back over to the bed. He sat at the edge of it.
"I...I don't know what came over me." Snape said nothing, and continued to stand close to the wall, far from the werewolf. Remus looked up at him, and his entire body felt numb.
"I'm sorry that he hated you, Severus."
Snape continued to stand for a moment, and the two of them looked at each other, regarding, if not studying. He glanced surreptitiously at the desk, where the blank piece of parchment and quill sat, then over at the rumpled bed. His face was expressionless.
"I'm sorry that he loved you, Remus."
Severus left after that. An hour later, Remus followed, but not after curling up into the bed sheets again, and inhaling Sirius into his body. Getting up, he closed the blinds that covered the windows, and left.
He shut the door behind him, and left the room characteristically dark.
====
Yep. There you go.
I hope you enjoyed it! I'm very tired, alas, and can't think of anything to write, so all I can really do is shamelessly beg for reviews, because I'm a writer, and that's what I do.
- Chibikat
Rating: Better give it an R, because it's rather lime, and makes mention of naughty things. Tee hee!
Author's Notes: I'm watching "Thelma & Louise" right now. Is that affecting this at all? No. Did I need to mention it? No. Is Brad Pitt wearing only a cowboy hat incredibly sexy? Yes.
Anyway. It's my very first Sirius/Remus slash ficcie; I was really inspired to write the rest of this after I saw PoA, because let's face it, the slash was so overt that if it were any more obvious, they'd be making sweet, sweet love right on Lupin's desk. ...or Snape's. Ooh.
Dedication: To a few people. One, to Naomi, because she simply rocks. She's always willing to read the crap I type out. Two, to Tania, because of that frank and wonderful AIM convo we had about slash pairings and all the different, crazy combinations and positions. Three, to Kara, because she's new to the fandom, but loves slash, and I love her. And, four, to Meg. Here's to encouraging you to review, from one slash lover to another.
So, here goes.
====
Sleeping In An Unmade Bed
====
The room was uncharacteristically light.
A closed window barely allowed a stream of sunlight to fall softly near the feet of the wooden desk; the sliver of a beam touched the specks of dust that aimlessly drifted about the room. Barely skirting the light's edge was a chair, close to the desk; the wood had warped with age, and knotholes pronounced themselves loudly over the oak, but by no means was it ugly or out of place. Rather, the signs of age upon it seemed to fit it naturally. Nothing adorned the top of it but a quietly sitting sheet of parchment, and a quill resting in a full inkpot. The equally old chair was pulled out.
He stared down at the blank paper. Ten minutes ago, he had made the decision to pull out the chair – it had made a loud, scraping sound on the bare, wooden floors, disrupting the silence. Quickly, though, the quiet had reconvened, and now he thought that, possibly, he'd never really moved the chair at all.
Swallowing once and shifting the book he held from one hand to the other, he glanced about the room almost warily. Years upon years of having to live with a (now less than) secret that was almost impossible to hide had instilled within the man a sense of caution that was, at times, dangerously close to paranoia. He was nowhere near as bad as old Moody, but lately, he could feel himself slipping, if only just a little bit.
Gripping his book just a little too tightly, Remus slid quickly into the aged chair. It complained against his weight – or lack thereof, he had become almost as thin as a waif – but issued nothing else. It was quiet again mere seconds later.
Lupin placed the book on the table beside the parchment, spreading a few particles of dust as he did. He managed to hold back a sneeze.
Quietly, he stared at the piece of blank paper in front of him, his cheeks a bit flushed out of embarrassment. Even though the logical part of him was absolutely certain that no one else knew where exactly in the house he was, the more imaginative side of him insistently played and replayed visions of Molly or Arthur or someone else coming up the stairs, creaking the door open, and...
And what, really? Laughing? Not at all likely. Maybe a little confused - maybe - but most definitely there'd be some amount of pity involved. Yes, that was the worst. They would mean well, they would only be doing what they thought was right, but it would be awful. Terrible.
Remus Lupin wasn't pathetic. He was not.
But, there were no telltale footsteps, no door hinges whining under the stress of being used. There really was no sound, at all – and no matter what, Remus would never become accustomed to it.
Silently, Lupin promised himself that this would be the very last time he would do this – the last time he'd just sit at the old desk, staring at the blank parchment, unable to move or speak. He had promised himself this two weeks ago. And four days before that. And a week before that. And...well, it went on like that for quite a while.
He was almost proud of himself that he didn't once cry in this room, though. Not a single tear. It just wouldn't be right – it wouldn't be acceptable. Not here.
Not in Sirius's room.
The ironic thing, Lupin figured, was the fact that his friend's room didn't at all resemble his friend's personality. Everything was so Spartan, so stale and inert; with the window closed, it was oppressively stuffy. Gray and faded and depressed, Remus couldn't at all sense that Sirius had ever, at some point his life, inhabited a room bereft of liveliness. Except, though, for the scent of the room.
The scent was, undeniably, that of Sirius Black. Because of this, whenever Lupin found that his feet had lead him to the familiar spot in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, he would close the door behind him, along with his eyes, and deeply inhale. The musky scent of burning wood and the outdoors and that wild, indefinable undercurrent of something that made the smell unmistakable filled his nostrils, his lungs, and every part of him. It just couldn't be covered by all the layers of dust, or cleaned out by soap and water and brooms and magic.
He could always go back to that smell, and fall into it so completely. It was his warm and soft blanket.
At first, when Remus was still in shock about what had happened, he'd been able to sufficiently cope; after all, it wasn't as if Sirius had never been gone for long stretches of time before. It was bad when they put Sirius in Azkaban; the worst part was that, despite the fact Sirius was such a good friend to him all through Hogwarts, Lupin couldn't help the small, small part of him that was so close to believing that his best friend was guilty. It didn't make sense – and it never could have – but they were all so young and bloody naïve. Lupin, at that point, had still had faith in the Ministry; he actually believed they knew what they were doing, all of the time. They couldn't have made a mistake with something as serious as murders – it just wasn't possible. So how could Sirius be innocent, then?
Remus sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his shaggy mane of not- quite-blonde hair. His heart had fought his mind, and his heart eventually won, because he knew that he trusted Sirius for a reason. He would never, ever be capable of betraying James and Lily – it was out of the question, completely wrong. So after he'd come to terms with the fact that, yes, he almost thought his best friend was quite able and ready to commit murder, he knew – in his heart, not his head – that he was wrong to think that Sirius Black was guilty.
When he realized this, it was the first time that Remus had really lost him.
Things had been so bad, way back then. James and Lily were dead, Sirius was wrongfully imprisoned, Peter had joined the Dark Lord and was in hiding... Remus himself was just trying to scrape by and, at the same time, keep his secret by doing menial jobs, whatever he could to survive. The Marauders were gone, and it felt like everything else had gone along with them.
There was such little hope, all those years ago. And, at least for himself, the hopelessness had returned.
Awkwardly, Remus fumbled with the quill he picked up from the inkpot. Biting his lip, the man watched as black ink pooled at the feather's tip. It was dangerously close to falling and splattering the page he stared intently at.
The blank piece of paper sat there, almost invitingly. After a moment's hesitation, Remus set the quill tip gently to the parchment. The ink quickly bled through the paper, pushing itself out, crawling from the central point of the quill tip, encircling it. He lifted the quill from the parchment, and the blackened spot gave the parchment an eye to stare up at him with.
The paper had been blank for over seven months. It had sat there, along with the quill and the ink, untouched, collecting dust, for so very long. Remus had told Molly that she could do whatever she very well pleased with all the other rooms in the house, but was not to touch this one. She understood, and she knew exactly why.
He put the quill back down on the table, and it gently tickled the edge of the blotched parchment. His glance trailed over the old desk, through the sun drenched dust particles, to the bed that lay in the corner of the room. The sheets, pushed back on the unmade bed, were an invitation that Remus accepted.
As he had done many times before, Remus climbed onto the bed, and pulled the covers up his face; he closed his eyes. Inhaling Sirius into him, he sighed as much of himself away as he could, and remembered.
====
"Sirius?" he had asked what seemed to be forever ago, as he poked his head into the room. "What are you doing?"
There he was, sitting at that desk, quill in hand, blank parchment spread out before him. He turned around, and smiled a bit at Remus, long black hair framing his face.
"Hey there, Moony. I was just going to write a letter." Lupin reciprocated the smile, and entered into the room. It was as bare as it ever was, but far less dusty, back then. The window was open.
"Oh? To whom?" Remus questioned, closing the door softly behind him as he entered into Sirius's old-and-present room. He logically knew that there was really only one person Sirius could write to, but that never stopped him from asking.
"Harry," the other man replied, nibbling at the writing tip of the quill, which had not yet been touched by ink. "I'm just trying to think of what to say."
"Having trouble with coding it?" Remus asked, tilting his head a little bit as he crossed the expanse of the room, coming to rest behind where Sirius was sitting. Sirius smirked.
"Nah, the coding's fine – it's thinking of exactly what to code that's got me royally buggered. There hasn't been a single interesting happening here." Remus couldn't help but laugh a little bit.
"It can't be that bad," he said. Sirius leaned back to look up at Remus with upside-down eyes.
"Oh, it's that bad," Sirius replied succinctly. Bringing up his head once again to its normal position, the man easily turned himself around in the chair, resting his chin on the back of it, looking up at Remus. A tiny little smile still tugged at his lips, and for that brief moment, Sirius looked so much younger than he really was.
"I mean, honestly, what am I supposed to write? 'Dear Harry – I cleaned house today. There was lots of dust, and I sneezed. Then I made pasta, but it didn't taste like pasta at all. Love, Snuffles'?"
"Hey; I had some of that pasta, and it was just fine," Lupin replied. "Actually, it was pretty good."
"Yeah, well, you only had some after Molly caught me red-handed with the cooking. She managed to salvage it. Y'know, as much as it could be salvaged, considering I...uh, managed to set the sauce on fire."
Lupin bit his lip to keep himself from laughing.
"Should I even ask how you managed that?" Remus questioned, a wry smile on his face. Sirius laughed self-deprecatingly, running his fingers through his still surprisingly long hair.
"Probably not," he said in turn, mirroring Remus's grin. They smiled like that at each other for a good few seconds more; Lupin's smile faded slightly, and he coughed politely, tearing his glance away from Sirius to the blank piece of paper. Something definably awkward had transpired, but neither were quite sure what, exactly, it was.
"Well, if you're going to write, I should leave you alone," Remus stated. He turned to leave, but felt something warm enclose his hand; blinking in surprise at the touch, the werewolf turned around slightly, looking down at Sirius's hand insistently holding his. Sirius himself looked just as surprised at his action as Remus was.
Quietly, Sirius let his hand go, and idly scratched at his hair.
"You...don't have to go. I mean, if you don't want. You, ah, you can stay. If you want, that is," Sirius said, his voice even. Remus refused to look at Sirius, but he knew that his best friend was still insistently looking right at him.
There was the barest minimum of polite pause.
"I actually promised Molly that I would help out with cleaning the living room," Lupin finally said. Remus still didn't require to see Sirius's face to know that the other man had, finally, averted his gaze.
"Oh. Well, that's okay. Shouldn't put that off, because I've seen Molly when she gets mad, and it's not a pretty sight. I'd rather be back in Azkaban with the Dementors than facing her wrath." Sirius punctuated his words with a laugh, which quickly became strained, trailed off, and died. Remus knew that Azkaban was still a touchy subject; apparently, so did Sirius, and his smile disappeared completely. And now that he was looking away, Remus found it safe to let his eyes rest on the other man again.
"Actually," Lupin began tentatively, "I don't think she needs me for another hour or so."
For some reason, Remus could feel his heart speed up after the words left his mouth.
The air in the room seemed so much heavier than it was before; swallowing as inaudibly as he could, Lupin continued looking at Sirius, who was by no means looking at him. Subconsciously Remus furrowed his eyebrows, studying the other man's face as he had caught himself doing on more than one occasion as of late.
His hair was not what it used to be: lanker, duller, and with a barely perceptible gray strand here and there, Sirius's hair had lost its glory from years before. His cheeks were a bit more hollowed, but in Lupin's estimation, that simply accented Sirius's cheekbones. His skin didn't glow anymore. Lines of age crept along his forehead and under his eyes, and indeed, he looked older because he was older.
His eyes, though; his eyes, while darker than before, still held that glimmer, that indescribable glint that could produce raging inferno, or comforting flame, or sometimes both at once. His soul had remained untouched and unscathed during all those tumultuous years apart – and that suppressed yearning, that familiar, hidden and unmitigated desire to touch and hold and never, ever let go for fear of loss was overwhelming Remus.
They had been alone, then; at least, they felt alone with each other. Lupin took in a deep breath, and watched as Sirius turned around a bit, lifting the quill from the inkpot to begin writing, his eyes slightly downcast.
Steeling himself, Lupin reached out his hand and closed the short distance between then by placing his hand on Sirius's shoulder. Sirius leaned back in his chair again to look up at Remus, and a puzzled expression flitted across Sirius's etched features. It was soon replaced with outright shock as Remus leaned down, and pressed his lips tentatively against those of his best friend.
The kiss was, to say the least, awkward – almost childish, as it were. Remus was holding onto Sirius's shoulders in a vice-like grip, nervousness having swamped him along with the electric tingle running down his spine. His neck was beginning to hurt from the odd position, which was most likely not doing anything good for Sirius's neck, either. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, as opposed to Sirius, whose eyes were wide, wide open.
Just as quickly as it had begun, Remus pulled away, breaking the chaste meeting of lips. Cheeks flushed dark crimson barely brushed against the steadily reddening skin of Sirius's face as he moved back, forcing himself to make eye contact with the upside-down visage of his best friend. Blinking only once, Sirius lifted his head back up to stare at the blank letter before him, keeping his back to Lupin. Remus took this as a bad sign, and winced in spite of himself.
"I'm sorry," Remus whispered, unconsciously clenching and unclenching his fists by his sides. Sirius still didn't say anything, nor did he look at his friend, which did nothing to alleviate the awkward silence that sat heavily in the dusky room. Despite the quiet, Remus's words were barely audible.
No one said or did anything for what felt like a very long while.
Having not removed his sight from a spot on the wooded floor of the room, Remus sighed deeply, his cheeks still deeply red. Without any sort of vocal utterance, he turned slightly; with a furtive glance at Sirius, who had not moved himself, Remus started towards the door, outwardly silent, but inwardly shouting at himself for being such an idiot.
His hand was on the doorknob when he heard the scuff of the chair and the creak of the floorboards under approaching footsteps. Before Remus could say anything, he felt a familiar hand on his shoulder turn him around, pressing him against the closed door.
Sirius's lips descended upon his; he was practically crushing Remus's mouth, and the werewolf could almost taste the desperation on Sirius's tongue. He let out a cry of surprise into Sirius's mouth, but did nothing more to contradict the kiss – rather, he wrapped his arms around Sirius, and kissed back as best he could. Remus moaned softly as tantalizing pinpricks of electricity traveled up and down his spine and back again, fuelled by Sirius's rough hands on his shoulders, his back, everywhere and nowhere at once...
Sirius easily maneuvered their bodies so that Remus was no longer against the door, but being lead – pushed, even – towards the large bed that lay against the far wall of the room. The sandy haired man issued no complaints when he found himself sprawled on the large mattress, and pinned under his best friend.
"I've waited so long...couldn't...God, Moony..." Sirius said between breaths, roughly kissing and sucking at Remus's neck. As disjointed as his ramblings were, at least he could speak: all Remus could do to respond was moan and whine contentedly, and writhe under the other man's touches.
From then on, everything was a blur of touching, caressing, kissing, and robes being hastily opened and flung off as best as possible. Remus only got as far as tugging Sirius's robe half off his left shoulder, but it was good enough. An incredible lust had consumed Remus – but, unlike the bloodlust that overtook him each full moon, this was not something that he feared. It was new, it was different, but not at all wrong or out of place.
The sex itself was purely indescribable, as far as Remus felt matters were concerned. He had never been with a man in the most biblical of terms before, so in essence he was – as sad as he thought it to be – a thirty- five year old virgin. It hurt at first, but Remus expected it to; in the end it didn't matter, because Sirius was right there, above him, in him, kissing and holding him, and helping him to feel such pleasure and completion the likes of which Remus didn't know could ever exist.
By the time they were both satisfied, Remus had found himself with his head laying on Sirius's chest and a strong arm around his own shoulders. Both were covered in a very fine layer of sweat; although he was sticky and overly warm, Lupin couldn't imagine feeling any better.
Neither of them said much of anything for a little while. Sirius idly stroked his fingers through Remus's hair, which felt heavenly to Remus. He murmured softly in appreciation, and smiled just as gently. Sirius leaned down slightly, and kissed the top of his best friend's head, sated.
The quiet was comfortable, for as long as it lasted.
"You know," Sirius started, still stroking his fingers through Remus's hair, "when I was in Azkaban, I thought that I was going to die."
Remus furrowed his eyebrows, knowing full well that post-coital talk wasn't really supposed to involve talk of Azkaban, or horror akin to it.
"But you didn't," Lupin responded, his voice soft.
"No. I didn't." Sirius's fingers didn't stop their petting of Remus's dirty blond hair. "By all means I should have, but I didn't. At the very least, I was supposed to have just broken down and lost my mind." Lupin bit his lip in worry; reaching out, he took Sirius's free hand in his own, and squeezed it tenderly.
"But you didn't," Remus whispered again.
"No." Sirius squeezed back. "I didn't."
"Why, Sirius? I mean, I know that if it was me in there instead of you, I would have...well. I wouldn't have kept it together." Sirius smiled a bit.
"Sure you would have, Moony." Remus gave a non-committal mumble. "The fact that I knew that I was innocent helped me through a bit. You know, spitting indignation."
"And you're the master of spitting indignation, Padfoot."
"Why thank you, Moony, it's always nice to know that I'm appreciated in my fields of expertise." His smirk faded a little. "And the fact that I knew it was Pettigrew. Never doubted that for a second; always hated the little bastard."
Remus knew that that wasn't at all true, but he let it slide. Briefly, he wondered whether Sirius only shared his thoughts like this when he shared his bed.
"Anger kept you going?" Remus asked. Sirius took in a deep breath; under his cheek, Lupin felt the rise and fall of his chest. He heard his heart beat a little faster than before.
"Somewhat. Not entirely." He paused. "There was you."
Remus closed his eyes, and smiled into Sirius's chest. He kissed it, and did his best to look up at the face of best friend who was now, actually his lover. He felt weird, admitting such a thing to himself, but is was only weird insofar as that it had been something Remus knew he had wanted for a very, very long time.
In school, Remus had actually fancied Lily Evans since he had seen her in first year; sweet, intelligent, and far too beautiful for someone like him, Remus had no trouble at all falling completely in love with her. Of course, he was too shy to say anything about it, but he had had a feeling that Lily knew.
Then, of course, there was James.
"All those years, wasted," Lupin remarked quietly.
"Twelve years," Sirius agreed.
"And all of school," Remus supplemented, laying down on his back, working out the kink in his neck that he'd managed to develop after laying at such an odd angle on Sirius.
Sirius smirked, and chuckled.
"You mean your crush on Lily? Yeah, that was wasteful, I guess. Pretty girl - very pretty girl, I can see why you'd fancy her," the black haired man said. "But seven years? Seven year itch I can understand – seven year crush, that's just insane."
"I didn't have a crush on her for seven years," Remus quietly countered. Sirius blinked.
"Didn't you? So when did you stop fancying her?"
Remus smiled softly.
"So what of your fancying James?" he asked in turn, looking over with that smile of his at Sirius. The other man turned his head to look at Remus; he appeared shocked for just an instant, before his face went blank.
"James? You thought I had a crush on James? Remus, honestly, that's just ridiculous." Sirius laughed and looked away. "James Potter, really..." Remus propped himself up on his elbow, still smiling himself.
"Sirius, look at me." He did so. "Now, look at us. We're approaching middle age, we're both very naked, we're laying in bed, and we're both men. I don't care how uncomfortable you were with yourself when you were seventeen, but it's doing you no good lying to my face like you are now. Lying pretty pathetically, might I add."
Sirius looked steadily at Remus for a few moments, before his expression dissolved into a sheepish smile.
"Dammit Moony, how the hell is it that you can read me like a bloody book?" Remus smirked.
"I was the quiet one, remember? I did a lot of observing." Sirius sighed deeply, and flopped onto his back.
"And I suppose you observed me acting like an arse in James's presence, eh?" The werewolf laughed,
"If that's how you want to put it, then yes. Yes I did." His smile faded slightly as Sirius turned onto his side, his back now towards Remus. He shifted over, draping his arm over Sirius's body, resting his lips just close enough to the other man's ear.
"I also observed you when you finally got a real chance to talk with Harry." He felt Sirius's body stiffen under his arm.
Sirius was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment.
"He's so much like him, Moony," he whispered.
"I know he is, Sirius."
There was quiet again.
"I stopped fancying Lily after third year, to answer your earlier question," Remus said, "because that's when I realized that I was starting to fancy you." He imagined that Sirius would be rather thrown off by his sudden changing of the topics again; and, indeed, he was. Sirius turned himself over slightly, never once losing the skin-to-skin contact between the two of them.
"Seriously?"
"Oh, quite seriously."
There was an incredulous little smile playing at Sirius's lips.
"You never told me because...?"
"Because I am who I am, and you were who you were," Remus responded succinctly. Sirius furrowed his eyebrows.
"And who, exactly, was I?" Remus smirked.
"You were a very stubborn young man, who was just as stubbornly denying the fact that he was in love with his best friend." With a knowing little smile, Sirius kissed the tip of Remus's nose.
"I wasn't in love with my best friend," he said; before Remus could rebut, Sirius continued on.
"I wasn't. I may have fancied James, yes, but it wasn't love." Sirius paused for a moment. "I might've loved him, had he not been so annoyingly straight." Remus smirked, reaching out to lightly brush a strand of hair out of Sirius's eyes.
"Poor Sirius, dashed by the sexual inclination of James Potter," he cooed mockingly. On his part, Sirius sighed dramatically, and smiled.
"Well. I guess things have worked out alright for me, though. All's well that ends well," he finished, his voice trailing off and fading near the end of the sentence. He closed his dark, yet somehow faded blue eyes for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts; when he opened them again, Sirius stared intently at Remus's face.
"I love you, Remus."
Sirius's words were not said in the normal manner that Sirius delivered words in, far from it, really. Gone were the tones of joviality that seemed to tinge everything that Sirius said, and there was nothing lenient about it – there was no taking it back. He almost sounded...desperate.
Sirius continued to stare at Remus, his eyes echoing his statement; answering it, the sandy haired man leaned forward, and gently pressed his lips against Sirius's. Remus pulled back, and stroked his best friend's cheek comfortingly; he smiled.
"I know you do."
They kissed again, and this time, Sirius deepened it.
====
They returned to that room and to that bed as often as they could. They didn't always have to make love – in fact, Sirius even refused to call it that, citing that it was 'pointless to try and make something that exists already, so let's not kid ourselves and just shag like crazy'. Sometimes, both would be so exhausted from the trials of simply being involved with the Order that one or both hadn't the energy to put into sex; so, instead, they talked about whatever they possibly wanted. Sirius extolled his horrifying accounts of Azkaban, which left Remus feeling disturbed, guilty, and very much wanting to hold his friend. Remus spoke of teaching at Hogwarts, and what it felt like to be called 'sir' by the Slytherins. Both spoke freely of James and Lily, of Peter, even of Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape when they had attended Hogwarts as students.
The letter that Sirius had tried to start to write for Harry had been ignored in favour of talking, sex, even minor arguments about the Order and Sirius's house arrest.
"From one prison to another, that's all it is," Sirius had said. Remus, for all he knew of the danger that Sirius could draw to himself should he step outside, agreed fully.
It had been a shock to everyone when Sirius died. It wasn't expected; Sirius, the rogue, the only one to ever escape Azkaban, couldn't have been killed by a simple curse. It was impossible to believe; Harry, who had taken Sirius's death particularly hard, wasn't helping things.
"It's my fault!" seemed to be the boy's new catchphrase.
"It isn't your fault," was everyone else's.
While everyone worried over Harry, Lupin went quietly unnoticed as he snuck up to the bedroom upstairs. He pushed open the door; the inside was just as it had been left before. He felt numb, walking into the room and closing the door behind him; moonlight blithely intruded into the room, its beams resting softly upon the rumpled bed.
Remus shuffled forward in a daze. He passed by the desk, barely glancing at the blank parchment, and sat on the bed; his hand idly smoothed out the cooling sheets atop the mattress. Just that morning, Sirius had throw the comforter and sheets aside haphazardly, and as usual, had not bothered to make the bed after he was done with it.
Remus, still wearing his shoes and robes, fell back onto the pillows, and brought the covers up to his chin. He turned to his side, and stared at the space Sirius usually occupied. The imprint of his head was still on the old pillow beside Remus's; he couldn't help his fingers when, of their own accord, they reached up, and gently stroked the indentation.
He'd fallen asleep; dreamless, he awoke in the morning to find the indentation there, but not Sirius.
"Oh, God," he whispered softly, staring at the empty space beside him. Everything around him was Sirius; the covers smelled of him, and his taste still lingered so clearly in Remus's mouth. When he closed his eyes, the steady sound of Sirius breathing beside him filled his ears. There was nothing when he opened them again.
There hadn't even been a body when he died. Maybe if there had been any physical trace of him left, Remus wouldn't have felt as utterly empty as he did; maybe if they could even have a proper burial and funeral for him, it would alleviate the heavy feeling crushing down on him. But no, Sirius Black was still an 'escaped convict'. Nothing public could be done for him, not even a tombstone.
Once again, Remus Lupin found himself completely alone.
He didn't leave Sirius's room if it could be helped, and he didn't at all set foot downstairs for close to four days. Without the energy to eat, never mind talk with anyone, Remus didn't see the point of traversing down all those stairs; it was essentially pointless. There was only one man that he wanted to talk to, and of course, it was quite impossible for anyone at all to speak with Sirius. The closest he could get was to lie in bed with the covers drawn up his chest and to his chin; he would close his eyes, listen for the breathing, and inhale deeply the scent of the sheets.
Sometime past the third day after Sirius's death and before the end of the fourth, a knock on the door interrupted Remus's new ritual. He didn't crack open an eye, nor did he make a sound; he hoped, instead, that whoever wanted to disturb the room would just go away. His hopeful wish was in vain.
The doorknob turned, and the person pushed against the door; stubbornly, it wouldn't open, since Remus had made sure to lock it behind him. With an utterance of 'Alohomora!', though, the lock became essentially useless. The door opened, and an all too familiar man with flowing black robes, lank hair, and a hooked nose entered.
"Oh, good," Snape said, standing in the doorway, looking at the man in the bed. "For a while there, I'd thought maybe you'd done the rash thing and killed yourself." He closed the door behind him as he walked inside.
"Go away, Snape," Remus muttered. He clutched at the covers, and turned his head to the side, lying resolutely against the pillow.
"I would, but I've been sent to bring you downstairs." Snape walked over to the chair by the desk, and sat down on it.
"They sent you?" Remus asked, with more than a touch of bitter incredulity in his voice. Snape brushed a stray particle of dust off his robes.
"Yes. They did," he responded curtly, crossing his arms over his chest. Remus still refused to look at him, and only brought the covers further up against his skin.
"Lousy choice, I must say," the werewolf stated, closing his eyes again. Snape let out a deep, resigned sigh.
"For once, I find myself agreeing with you, Lupin. Were I in your situation, I'd rather the Order sent Voldemort himself to get me than you."
"Of course you would, Snape. The Dark Mark on your arm says it all, doesn't it?" Remus bit off. The Potions master said nothing for a long few moments.
"So now that he's dead, you're attempting to sound like him, are you?"
"Fuck off," Remus growled warningly, looking angrily over his shoulder at the man sitting in the chair. He sneered, in turn.
"Look at you, holed up inside of here like a bloody coward." Snape got up from the chair. "You're pathetic, Lupin."
This comment seemed apt in pushing Remus over the proverbial edge, and something deep inside of him snapped. From the combined weight of Snape's words, Remus's loneliness, and Sirius's death, the shaky barrier that had been holding back the man's torrent of emotions had now broken completely. Careful and controlled, Remus sat up in the bed, swung his legs over, and stood up right in front of Snape.
"I am not a coward." His words were barely above a whisper, but they cut clear through the room, resounding to the both of them. Snape stared back at him, his face blank.
"Lupin - "
"And I am NOT PATHETIC!" he shouted. Roughly, he shoved Snape backwards, anger freely coursing through his veins. Snape stumbled backward, hitting the wall with his back. Quickly, Remus strode up to Snape, grabbing him by his collar; adrenaline fuelled him, and he felt lightheaded from lack of food and movement, but he didn't care.
Everything was overwhelming him. Lupin didn't go as far as snarling, but he felt it inside – that feral part of him, that emotionally dominated, logically bereft, primal instinct that released itself every full moon was now feeding him what he wanted to feel. Anger. Oh, God, the anger that he felt, and suddenly, he wanted very much to strike the man in the face, for insulting him, for insulting his dead best friend, for...
Then Remus looked at him. Really, he looked at him. Snape's eyes were widened, but not entirely with fear; he continued to stare directly at Remus, not making a sound.
"Reminding you of the Shrieking Shack at all?" Snape asked, his voice sounding conspiringly quiet.
It all rushed back to him, like a surging mob through broken gates. The night there, in the Shrieking Shack, the prank that Sirius had set up – the one that went wrong. He couldn't remember most of it; all he could see were shades of red, and smell blood pumping through everyone's veins – the adrenaline levels were high, which had set his senses off. Snape had been scared, and he had smelled it on him.
Sirius was there. And he had been watching.
Remus's mouth hung open slightly, and he stared hard at his fists, still curled around Snape's collar. Quietly, he let them go; Snape smoothed it out as best he could, and watched Lupin as he walked slowly back over to the bed. He sat at the edge of it.
"I...I don't know what came over me." Snape said nothing, and continued to stand close to the wall, far from the werewolf. Remus looked up at him, and his entire body felt numb.
"I'm sorry that he hated you, Severus."
Snape continued to stand for a moment, and the two of them looked at each other, regarding, if not studying. He glanced surreptitiously at the desk, where the blank piece of parchment and quill sat, then over at the rumpled bed. His face was expressionless.
"I'm sorry that he loved you, Remus."
Severus left after that. An hour later, Remus followed, but not after curling up into the bed sheets again, and inhaling Sirius into his body. Getting up, he closed the blinds that covered the windows, and left.
He shut the door behind him, and left the room characteristically dark.
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Yep. There you go.
I hope you enjoyed it! I'm very tired, alas, and can't think of anything to write, so all I can really do is shamelessly beg for reviews, because I'm a writer, and that's what I do.
- Chibikat