Warnings for all chapters: Drugs, (references to) sex, rock n roll. Curse words, secondary character death. Well, it's Marauder's era. You should know that already.
Reviews welcome, as always.
"I could have been a chef, probably."
You are both lying on the floor, his floor, and you watch him through the delicious haze of marijuana and nicotine. You take a slow drag, feel the warmth engulf you, and you embrace it as it spreads through your lungs. You cough as you pass the joint to him – it's getting stubby now, the cinders are racing toward your fingers with each long inhale – and you laugh as you let the smoke pour out of your body.
"You can't cook, Pads," you say. You know this because you have been living here for the past month, eating greasy takeaway and whatever Alice and Dorcas leave you, sleeping and not-sleeping, but mostly waiting.
"Never needed to learn before, bless those elves. I'm just saying," he pauses, drags the last of the joint, and you reach out to touch the muscles in his throat that go taut, "if I'd had the chance, I could have been a chef."
His neck-skin is soft but for a long raised blemish almost-too-close to his jugular. You run your finger across is, over and over and over again, as if your touch could make it disappear. Ironic, when it was borne from your teeth—or at least, from teeth that belong to you.
"Why a chef?" And you've always been so keen on hearing his thoughts, his motivations – it is your downfall and your obsession all at once. You've never understood how his mind works (and you never will), but that's only made you want to even more. You think that maybe you understand him, or at least, you know him, better than anyone else.
"I'm not bad at Potions. That's all cooking is, yeah? Potions. Chemistry, right?" He looks at you now, and your hand follows the curve of his neck as it moves. "What about you, Moony?"
"You know I hated Potions." You know that's not what he meant, but you just want to hear his voice some more before the waiting comes to an end and you must leave. Any day now, really. And besides, you don't really know what to answer. He laughs, and it envelops you like a warm fog, mingling with the swirling grey above you.
"I meant, you know, as a job. What would you like to have been?" You laugh too, but only because he is, not because it's funny.
"We're not dead, you know. We're only 18." He takes your hand, and, almost too casually, raises it to his lips and kisses it. You focus on it – you're always so focussed when you're stoned – and you try to remember it. Any day, now.
"In case you haven't noticed, O Great Realist o' Mine, there's a war going on." He's still holding your hand – remember this, goddamnit, keep it safe – and he uses it to pull you closer. So close – don't forget this, whatever you do – you can smell his skin. It smells like – don't close your eyes, you're going to need to remember this – sweat and stale sex and your soap. "And who knows how long it'll last?"
Only he can speak of war like this, easily. But you know that he is, really, a very good actor, so good that sometimes you remember what it means to be a Black, and that he could have very well been a Slytherin. Mostly though, the smile makes you forget.
"Oh, I suspect a librarian or something of the sort," you say, and it startles you now how you've never really given it much thought. You, who have always thought of everything. But you are not supposed to dream of futures you'll never have and never did have; you are not supposed to think of possibilities. No one hires werewolves.
"Why Moony, that's perfect. Perfectly boring," he says, and yet, you are not supposed to have this either, this beautifully terrifying man-child-soldier who kisses you when you ask and even when you don't ask. No one loves werewolves either, not like this anyway, not like sharing joints and cigarettes and showers, not like lying on the floor listening to a Bee Gees record and thinking of possibilities.
And yet.
You kiss him instead of answering, and it burns slow and long like the drug-induced miasma you quietly revel in.
"You could be a Minister. Finance, or Defence, or… or Minister for Intoxicating Substances." He kisses you back, and brings his arms around you like he did that first time, back in another lifetime.
"That's not real," and you laugh. Your breath must be tickling his nose because he scrunches it up. You kiss it, too.
"Is too, it's on Ministry posters at the Leaky."
You laugh. "What about Magical Creatures?" As much as you wish it, there is nothing in the world that make you forget that you could never be a politician, not even Sirius Black. He frowns (even that is enough to take your breath away).
"Moons, the full isn't for another two weeks. What's wrong?" Because of course, as much as you pride yourself on knowing Sirius Black's thoughts and interests and pet-peeves and favourite words and tics and fears, he knows just as many of yours too, and then some.
"I love you," you say, and you don't know if it's an answer or a way to avoid this question too. The words force themselves out anyway – it's not the first time you've whispered them, and certainly not the first time you've meant them, but it's the first time they've needed to be said.
"I know." He kisses you again. God, you will never tire of him kissing you. Is it possible to survive on this alone? "And you know I love you too." Of course you know. You know and oh, isn't it a wonderful thing to know that someone loves you? Isn't it a beautiful, perfect, wonderful thing? You know, but you almost wish you didn't, because maybe then it wouldn't be so hard, and you wouldn't have had the chance – no, the fortune to think of possibilities.
He pulls you closer still, and you don't mind, not at all. This is what you've wanted all along, is it not? You've wanted to become part of him. You want him to become part of you.
"I know you're leaving." For all the air and smoke and skin and breath surrounding you, you forget how to work your lungs for a second. "To go live with the werewolves." God, he doesn't know how much he's hurting you. "Pete overheard Dumbledore telling you about Greyback, and I just… put two and two together."
You still cannot speak. There isn't enough oxygen in the world that can tell you what to say.
"I'm not angry," he says (words you didn't know you needed to hear), and all of a sudden the air pushes its way out of your cigarette-blackened lungs. His mouth is on yours again (a mouth you had never known you needed to kiss), and then his hands are in your hair. You never used to like being touched, and you think probably it's because you'd never known what a touch like this could feel like – like all your favourite songs and like Shakespeare and like tea with a bit of milk. When did you become so dependent on him, when did you started needing him, when did you stop being able to breathe on your own?
You are going to have to learn how to live all over again.
"When?" he asks.
"Any day now," you say.
"Where?"
"I don't know." And even if you did, Dumbledore has you sworn to secrecy—you agreed to it, because God knows you would tell Sirius if you could and then he would try to find you (oh, it's a wonderful, grim thing to know someone loves you).
"How long?"
Too long. Anything is too long.
"I don't know. A few months." You bury your face in his neck, your scarred face in his scarred neck, and you forget, for a second, that you are lying on old linoleum softened by your high, and you think, well, I could just not go, right? I could stay here forever, couldn't I?
"Months, Moony," he whispers, and he is still stroking your hair, and you remember that no, you must go. You have to because if you can do anything, anything at all to protect him (and the others too, but mostly him), then you will. You pull back and look at him. Jesus, but he is a monochromatic work of art, with his black hair and charcoal eyes and the silver ring piercing his eyebrow (one that he'd gotten in a pique of Black rebellion last summer).
"I could be a professor, maybe," you say, because you don't want this to end, you want to forget again; you don't want to go any day now. He smiles.
"Professor Lupin. I like that," and now he's kissing you again, and the record's stopped but you don't care, you don't need music to fill this silence. "As long as it's not something awful like History of Magic."
"I don't think Binns is going anywhere anytime soon, so you don't have to worry." He laughs. You bathe in it; allow it to soak into your weary, scar-ridden body.
"I wish you didn't have to go, Moony," and those words slice you like a silver knife, because they are so close to a question, and you know whatever he asks you will say yes. You stay still, not wanting to disrupt this, but it's late and you both have training with Mad-Eye tomorrow, so soon you are going to have to sleep.
You've never hated sleeping before.
"Do we have any crisps?" he asks suddenly, and you laugh, because he is perfect, sometimes more child than man (and sometimes more soldier than child). He kisses you again before rising painfully from the floor, leaving you to roll on your back and look at the ceiling, which is oddly ornate for such an old, dingy flat. It fits though, you think, and then: maybe it wouldn't be so bad to leave, as long as you can come back here. As long as nothing else changes and there are no new scars on his body to discover when you return (a fool's dream, but then again, only a fool would fall in love with Sirius Black). As long as he will still be here, with fat, smelly joints to share and new records and crisps in the cupboards. As long as he will still kiss you.
You are not supposed to feel hope like this.