Disclaimer:
Don't own, don't sue.
Author's notes:
Uhh…shield your eyes from this car crash of a fic. I like some bits but others…
Ox
Enjoy, enjoy!
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Eloquent to Awkward
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The things Remus doesn't know, Sirius suspects, could fill more than just a bathtub.
That's what Evans said last night, when they were being sixteen on a rooftop - cigarette smoke curling up between their eyelashes - looking at the stars (or the clouds painted across the sky anyway). She said to Sirius, "Remus is a damn smart kid, Sirius Black, but you better be careful with him, because the things he doesn't know could fill a bathtub."
Sirius wanted to tell her that every day he is more careful with Remus than he would be if he were in charge of the moon itself. He wanted to tell her that she doesn't know anything if she thinks she gets to tell him to be careful with his Remus. Hewanted to tell her about all the things no one knew, and how if we got caught up in them, there wouldn't be any where to go but deeper down inside and then you wouldn't know anything. He wanted to make her understand about lies, but he thought it might scare her.
James would get mad if Sirius scared her. He was so pathetically high over the fact that she'd consented to spending the week at his parent's cottage in Wales (as long as Alice and the McKinnon girl could come as well). If Sirius ruined it for him by spouting of some philosophical crap at Lily that went over her head and left a burning trail, James'd never forgive him.
Sirius consoled himself by thinking that the things Lily Evans didn't know could fill a small lake. She's right about Remus not knowing some things, but Remus knows more about life than she does.
Sirius likes that Remus knows things. He likes that Remus knows how to speak French and Russian almost fluently, and that only James and Peter and Remus's grandmother happen to know, so sometimes they go places with other people, and get into situations where knowing how to speak either French or Russian can be put to use, and people always get this big wide look in their eyes – like its magic, like look at him, he's speaking in words I can't understand, but there – those people do- those are real words, real, like ink and paper.
Sirius also likes that while James can speak a bit of French (and Peter none of either), only Sirius shares the same fluency that Remus does, and so they can talk dirty to each other over breakfast and no one is the wiser.
Remus knows about what it's like to hurt for something that he can't do anything about, too. Sirius doesn't exactly like the concept that Remus should have to suffer for anything, but it seems to instil in Remus some edge (some stark beauty) he wouldn't have otherwise. It also gives Remus and Sirius a sort of depth of understanding between each other that James, with his perfect family, and Peter, with his simplicity of being average in all things, don't get at all.
Remus knows how to lie. He can lie so well that even McGonagall can't tell. Sirius is good at talking his way out of things but he couldn't lie if you paid him to do it. He can spin a story like it's straw into gold, but the second the story starts to get into the far-from-the-truth realm, his words start to freeze up in his mouth, and his shoulders tighten, turning him from eloquent to awkward in the blink of an eye.
Remus is like poetry when he lies. He says them so smooth they're butter and even when Sirius knows that Remus isn't telling the truth he starts to feel himself get caught in it. Begins to believe. Sometimes Sirius wonders if this is why he isn't so freaked out by Remus being a werewolf. That maybe because he hears Remus lie about it so often, someplace down inside him still doesn't think it's true.
Sirius likes that Remus knows about muggle things. Remus boils water by putting it is a funny white whirring thing that looks like teapot and sits on a strange metal curly thing – the water always tastes strangely better than magically heated water. Some essential part must be lost in translation in charm boiling.
For Christmas last year, Remus gave him two tickets to a muggle rock gig in London and a t-shirt stuck all over with safety pins and badges. Sirius's favourite part was the look of surprise and excitement when Sirius asked Remus to go with him to the gig. He figured that Remus would just assume Sirius, of course, was inviting him. He likes that Remus rarely ever assumes things about anyone - every good thing that comes to Remus is unexpected luck, a present from fate.
There are the bits Lily was right about, too, though, the things Remus doesn't know.
For example, Remus doesn't know about what happened last year when they came out together…well, they didn't exactly come out – it was more like Snape happened across them in the Herbology storage shed with their tongues down each other's throats and it wasn't twelve seconds before the whole castle knew about them.
After that all the fuss died down pretty quick, the reason being that most students had picked where they stood on the issue after Caradoc Dearborn and Fabian Prewett had come out together (actually 'come out', as in they chose to) last year at the leaving feast and on top of that it seemed Gryffindor was ready to protect their own regardless of orientation - since the threat had come from Slytherin they had a common enemy.
Once or twice there were a few scuffles, like when Regulus came after Sirius and punched him so hard in the chin (in just the way Sirius taught him three years before) that he broke his jaw. Remus knows about that one – he's always been so careful with Regulus, nervous to give the kid any reason to dislike him, but he saw Sirius in the hospital wing, and pale skin on pale sheets, his chin purple and scary, Sirius saw a bit of Remus break, just a little. The next day Regulus had a bruise too, and that was the end of it.
There was also the thing with the two Hufflepuff girls who'd been following Sirius around since year three, all quiet like, and when they heard, they snapped and gave Remus a bar of poisoned chocolate and he was damn lucky he was a werewolf then 'cause otherwise he wouldn't have noticed how it smelled too sickly sweet and cloying.
The fight he didn't know about (and Sirius worked to keep it that way) was the one with James. When Snape caught them in the shed that afternoon, there was really only one person whom Sirius cared about finding out. He had reason to be worried, because that night while Remus was downstairs in the common room talking to Lily about muggle poets or whatever James had sat Sirius down on the bed with the most peculiar expression on his face.
"I can't believe you're…you're one of…them." James said it like he couldn't believe that Sirius was one of those axe murders or child pornographers. He said it like it made him feel ill.
Sirius felt his own sickness rise in his throat, and the hot vice of tears he would not shed press up tight behind his eyes.
"It's just a phase, right Padfoot, like in that shitty book my mum sent us last year that said how boys in dorms experimented or whatever. I mean….Remus and you – you gotta stop it. You sort this out, we'll get you both birds and…and…we'll fix you."
"I'm not broken, James. Neither is Remus, right. We're gay or whatever, this is just who we are."
"No, you don't get it Sirius, that isn't who you are. You just gotta change it. I mean, you weren't thinking about shagging blokes when you were in nursery, were you? What about Ellena Bramley, in Year two. You wanted her, didn't you?" James sounded desperate and incredulous - it frightened Sirius.
"That's ridiculous James, I didn't want anyone in Year two, I was twelve, and likewise, you didn't think about shagging Birds in nursery. I knew you then, too, James - all you thought about was eating worms."
"I don't…understand. Why don't you just stop?"
"I don't want to, James. Moony and I have been at it since Year five, and I watched him all of Year four. I'm not any different than I was at breakfast this morning, so you can quit fucking looking at me like that."
James wasn't listening to Sirius, he could tell by the white lines around James's mouth and the hesitant shaking in his voice. "You aren't a pouf, Sirius. It's wrong. I can't be friends with a fucking pouf."
"I love Remus."
James still wasn't listening, he only said, quieter: "I can't be friends with a fucking pouf. Stop it."
Almost whispering now, Sirius looked up at James and gave him his best cold Black stare, "Well, James, you better figure out how to be friends with a fucking pouf, because you've got two of 'em, and if you can't, I'm sorry, but…"
They were silent for long loping moments.
"Don't make me choose, Jamie. You are my brother, but I can't pick you."
The air seemed to blow out of James and his eyes widened comically. "But you…" He tried to speak, but he couldn't. Sirius was just as surprised as James, soft, 'oh' slipping from his mouth because he was crap at lies, and so that hadn't been a lie. The more he though about it though, the truer it was. It didn't mean he loved James any less than he loved Remus, but he thought that if it came down to it, he could probably live without James, and…well he couldn't live without Moony.
"Think about it, will you, Prongs. I'll see you later." Sirius left, but at the last minute, he turned around, his eyes suddenly darker grey in the half shadows of the doorway, his mouth; a red slash across his face. "If Moony even so much as scents that you aren't so full of approval that it's coming out of your arse I will hurt you."
And James knew that Sirius couldn't tell a decent lie as well as anyone.
Another thing Moony doesn't know is that he is so painfully beautiful.
Sirius can't remember a time when he didn't look at Remus, and have to catch his breath a little. Even the first time he ever saw Remus, when he was all small smiles and hooded eyes on the train, his fingers carefully wrapped in white bandages, Sirius had thought that boys weren't meant to be so pretty.
Certainly, Remus isn't any sort of Greek god. But the long angles of Remus's legs and the soft curve of the insides of his elbows, the skinny awkward press of his throat and back against Sirius's in the black folds of school curtains is more perfect than any summers-on-the-beaches-of-Cyprus Quidditch deity-boy could ever be.
Sirius likes the way Remus's hands look against pale sheets of paper, he likes the way when Remus was angry or really wants him, his eyes spark up feral yellow. He likes the way Remus's hair curls on the nape of his neck when it got too long, and sometimes, when he first wakes up, the front forms into little ringlets that Sirius can pull and they'll spring back up. He likes the soft gingery smell of Remus and the map of thin angry lines across his back that are fading slowly away with less new additions every full moon.
He likes the sound of Remus's voice pressed against the shell of Sirius's ear and he likes that Remus is all of these beautiful things and doesn't care. It doesn't change him the way Ellena Bramley had suddenly got less witty and more nasty when she grew tits in Year three or how Crabbe hadn't been such a bad sort, for a Slytherin anyway, until he discovered he could get muscles.
He likes how Remus tells Sirius that he is beautiful, both when Sirius feels like the most despicable beast to ever live and when he agrees.
The knowledge of Remus's beauty, Sirius tries to make him understand every day, but Remus won't listen to him. Sirius doesn't mind, it's his favourite puzzle, and Remus will know someday.
"Sirius?" Remus's voice calls out over the wet salty wind, after a moment he appears over the crest of a dune. "What are you doing?"
"Thinking." Sirius replies, feeling the side of his mouth turn up at the sight of Remus in his white linen long-sleeved shirt and his bathing trunks, faded red in the midday light.
"That's new." Remus replies, voice low and amused. "Do you always think in the nude?"
"I'm not nude, you twat. I'm tanning, see I have this lovely towel covering my bits." Sirius says, a full grin splitting his face.
"You don't tan, Sirus you go straight from white as milk to burnt to a crisp. You better have suntan lotion on because I'm not going to be responsible for coating you with aloe vera."
"Mon amour, je suis brûlant seulement pour vous, will you not care for my broken body?"
A soft wry laugh bubbles from Remus's lips "No, mais votre brûlures sera refroidi par mon cœur de glace. We were going to drive to Pwheli for the day – what do you think?"
"Can we get fish and chips?" Sirius asks, standing and dusting the sand of his bum. He looks over to Remus who has the most ridiculous grin across his face. His nose is freckled from the week in the sun and his hair hangs limp around his face, stiff with dried salt water. He is exquisite.
"Probably."
"Then I'm in."
They walk back to the cottage, bumping together rhythmically, colliding with every other step. Silence sits between them softly like a dog lounging in front of a fire. After a few moments, Remus slides his hand into Sirius's.
"I love you so much. You know that, right?" Sirius turns to look at Remus as he says it, squeezing his hand a little. Remus looks surprised, but they say those words to each other with such conviction rarely enough that that this is reason enough to surprise him.
"Of course I do. I love you, you know that."
"Yes." Sirius smiles, and for a moment, he leans his head against Remus shoulder even though it's slightly uncomfortable because Remus is a bit shorter than him. The thing is, Remus doesn't know how much but Sirius will tell him and Remus knows how bad Sirius is at lying, too.
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notes: According to google translator, the French bits are as follows:
Sirius says, "My love, I am burning only for you, will you not care for my broken body?"
And Remus replies, "No, but my heart of ice will cool your burns. We were going to drive to Pwheli (which is, by the way, a costal town in Wales) for the day – what do you think?"