Last year it was The Official Unwritten Slash Month, this year it's the Official Challenge Month. The similarities? A month of fics by one author. The difference? This time, YOU are in control.
Each fic will be written based on a challenge. This can be any type of challenge, from a single word to a full-blown challenge. The rules are simple, they must be Harry Potter and they must be slash. So get involved, get reviewing and together we'll make November the Challenge Month.
(Challenges can be submitted via Reviews, or, preferably, emails until the Fanfiction messages service starts to work. If your submission is anonymous, please leave an email address so I can contact you if I chose to write your fic, this address will also be kept private.)
Challenge: Broken, from WWOMB.
Broken
Broken, It was something he tried very hard not to think of in conjunction with Sirius. He couldn't handle thinking of Sirius as broken, as completely, irreperably destroyed by Azkaban, not now he'd finally been freed of that place.
When Sirius threw back his head and laughed, neatly cut hair moving gracefully, teeth bared, his eyes glowed. Remus could almost believe, in those moments, that their life had been as it should. That Sirius had been here for the whole of the last 13 years, not just the last month. That Sirius was happy - they were happy - they were carrying on the childishness of their beginning, that they were in love.
Ironically, it was when they had sex that Remus knew he wasn't the man he'd been. Before, SIrius was gentle and tender. He'd made a point of touching Remus when they made love, making him believe that his scars, his curse, would not turn Sirius from him. Even playing rough, taking him from behind, he still touched him, still opened him until he begged for it, ensuring he wouldn't be hurt. The sex now was a twisted parody fo those days. He'd barely open Remus with one finger, barest traces of lube lining the way. He'd be rough, right from begining to end, and tore Remus more often than not. Tiny tears, but they seemed to hurt his heart just as much as his body. He wouldn't touch him, either, Remus noted. One hand braced on his back, he'd enter him, use him and slump into sleep. Remus' pleasure, although it always happened, seemed incidental.
Broken. he didn't want to think on it. When he showed Sirius how to use cutlery again, when he cut sirius' hair, fed sirius up, clothed him and unclothed him, he thought hopefully that he was filling in the cracks.
When he left Sirius once a week to go into town to do his shopping, he could see those cracks show again. When Sirius wrote to Harry, forced to lie about where he was and tell Harry he was still on the run, ratehr than safe and warm in Remus' house, the cracks deepened. Sirius hated lying, he hated being trapped, and he hated hurting people. He hated the circumstances that drove him to it.
At nights, Sirius took all this out on Remus, trying to fill the crack with water that would turn to ice in his heart and break them further. Remus would cry under the treatment, cry for the broken pieces he couldn't put back together again. Cry for the pain that had been caused in Sirius life. He'd cry also because, in these moments, sometimes Remus couldn't work out who the broken one was.