Things I Have Loved
Dear Internet: I own none of these. I lost a conversation about a moose and how it is different than a stag. This fic is much different from that one.
Sirius wanted to see the ocean. He was living with James, then, and working summers at a muggle bar washing dishes, to pay them back for all they had done. I loved him then, when he was careless and messy haired, with his motorbike magicked to fly and his smile slightly haunted. He told me it had never crossed his mind that we were both boys and I was a werewolf and all the thousands of things that could go wrong, that were already wrong with their relationship. He just informed me, out of the blue as I walked him home from work that we were going to see the ocean, he had never been there before. We drove all night, through suburbs and over cities, I clung to his back and opened my eyes when I could for the lights that rushed by. I heard him laugh, felt it where my cheek rested against his shoulder, my hands against his chest. Wind whipped through my hair, tired though I was I couldn't sleep and I wouldn't have it any other way.
In the winter, the ocean was abandoned and cold. He pulled a blanket from the side bag on his motorbike and we slept where the tide couldn't reach. He tangled me in his arms, one hand playing with my hair in the early hours of the morning. I don't think he slept, I only could for a few hours, and when I woke the sun had mostly risen and he was sitting on an outcropping of rock staring out into the sea. I wanted to go out, sit with him, but my feet slipped on the rocks and my hands couldn't find a place. When he looked back a big, dumb grin crossed his face, a kid given everything he could ever want. He climbed back across the outcropping, no magic involved, just his scuffed trainers knowing more than I did where to look. He was laughing, no care, no concern, no budding war with dark wizards and no danger. Just this. He reached out, impulsively I grabbed his hand and he pulled himself to me, crashing into my body and wrapping both arms around me. He was warm where I was cold, happy where I couldn't understand who would want to be out here in this weather. Obviously he did, climbing over rocks to reach high places where he could watch waves crashing into the shore. He had no interest in magic, just in what he could do, in the power of the ocean itself. He jumped from one outcropping to another while I watched from the sand, each time afraid he wouldn't make it, I would lose him, have to find my way back on my own.
He slipped. His hands dug into the rock, hanging there, and for a moment I was sure I was going to have to teach myself to drive his motorbike. His trainers pushed against the rock, trying and trying again to find grip on the damp outcropping pushing up from the sea. There was no way I could get that far out there, I had forgotten my wand, not knowing the trip was going to take this long, or even that it would happen when I picked him up the night before. A wave broke against it, taking my young love with it, and I only had to be afraid for a second when he washed up on the beach, laughing and spitting up salt water. I couldn't help it. I ran to him, took him in my arms and felt his laughter hard against my hands. I called him stupid, I called him immature, suicidal, insane, everything I could think of, but he only laughed, told me how much fun it was, I should try. I gave him a hard slap to the side of his head and reminded him he could have died.
It rained so hard the way home I hardly noticed he was still soaked wet. I held him close and loved him all the more for the fear I could have lost him. The closer we got to James' house the more we came back to what was real, to the dark wizards and a final year of school, to impending war and the knowledge that the love we shared was not something the world was ready for, and knowing that tomorrow night was another full moon, another cycle dangerous to everyone around me. But he kissed me at the doorway and I could forget all that, secure and safe in the knowledge that if nothing else, I had him.