Title: Le Gout de Remus
Authoress: OracleVortex
Rating: M
Warnings: Yaoi (Lads with lads)

A/N: I'm not going to tell you what the title means (if you don't know) because I generally don't want you to know before you read the story. If you really can't wait then, fine, go ahead and look at the end or look it up in a translator or something, but that's up to you. I'd rather you didn't though… Anyway, the paring is SBxRL.


It was served with every dessert that he had ever had as a child. It was drizzled over this and spooned over that. Strawberries were dipped in them; nuts and cherries were covered in them. It was a sauce, an accent, and a flavor. It was the basis of certain cakes, the lifeblood of puddings. It was a delicate aroma, and burned incense. It was pure and rich and sweet.

It was chocolate.

And Sirius hated it.

He hated sitting at the dinner table with his parents and his brother, struggling to last out the mere few bites before they were all finished. Sirius would wolf down the chocolate-accented dessert, and then slam down the silver utensil on the linen tablecloth, waiting for the rest of his family. Regulus finished soon after, and their father, Volan Black. Their mother was always the last to finish. Freya Black ate each bite of dessert like she would choke if she went even the slightest bit faster. Tension already thick because of the previous hour of dinner, Sirius spent many long, painful minutes imagining the dessert exploding in her face, causing her to explode into tiny pieces as well.

As the years went on, and as this trying tradition continued, Sirius couldn't stand dessert. He couldn't eat chocolate without being reminded of all those dinners of tense hostility that broke in a yell-fest and was topped off with chocolate treats smashing across the room.

Sirius learned to hate everything associated with chocolate.


"Eat it!"
"Never!"
"EAT IT!"
"NEVER!"
"BLOODY WELL EAT IT!"
"NO, YOU FAIRY SNITCH QUEER!"
"DON'T MAKE ME SHOVE IT DOWN YOUR THROAT, YOU GRIM-BITCH ARSE-BANDIT!"
"ARESHEHAAAAAH!"
"HEEEEYEAAAAAA!"

"Misters Potter and Black!" Madam Pomfrey pulled the two thirteen year olds apart, depositing the one with the better eyes on the bed. "Will you please STOP?"

James fixed his shirt and ruffled his hair even more. "What – I was trying to help!"

"By stuffing a slab of chocolate down his throat?"

James threw his hands up, "The wanker wouldn't eat it!"

"Language," Madam Pomfrey reprimanded. She turned to Sirius, who was pouting with his arms crossed. "Mister Black, why don't you just eat it and save the lot of us the trouble."

"No."

The nurse sighed, "You do realize that you'll have to spend the night here then, don't you?"

"Yes."

Madam Pomfrey sighed again, deeply, and then ushered James to the Hospital Wing door. "Do stop by and collect him tomorrow morning, will you?'

Out in the hall, James said, "Melt the chocolate, Madam Pomfrey – just stick him with a needle!"

"Mr. Potter, please--!"

The noise faded as the door was pulled lightly shut. Sirius growled under his breath, kicking his covers off the mattress and onto the floor. "Chocolate…ew…"

"Why such the hate for it?"

Remus slid out of his blankets, on the bed next to Sirius'. The day previous had been full moon, and Remus was rebuilding his energy through rest, sleep, and the dark colored milk-cocoa candy that the Black heir despised so much. Sirius had been pranked by the Slytherins and spent the earlier part of the current day leaking slime through his ears. Madam Pomfrey's diagnosis and method of treatment was the same for Sirius as it was for Remus, but the boy didn't want to receive it.

Remus walked slowly over to Sirius' bed and crawled onto it. He set down the bar of chocolate that seemed to act as a replacement security blanket, and edged close to Sirius. His features were pale and his hair was ruffled and dull, but there was barely hidden curiosity and amusement in his keen amber eyes. "It's just a sweet, you know."

Sirius shrugged nonchalantly. "I just don't like it." He uncrossed his arms and continued to pout. "You don't get it."

"No," Remus agreed, "I don't." He rested his chin carefully on Sirius' shoulder. "Tell me about it."

"…I'd rather not…"

In a bold move that rather startled and surprised Sirius, Remus slid his arms around the other's torso, fingers dragging across the simple cotton t-shirt. He leaned into Sirius' back, speaking directly into his left ear, "Tell me," he said lowly. Sirius' breath hitched. "I won't laugh – I promise."

So Sirius told him.

The sometimes-werewolf snuggled further against the beater's back, unwrapping the chocolate bar that he had set on the bed, in Sirius' lap. Sirius nervously shifted, unwilling to move from Remus' hold, but wanting to bolt from his rival bonbon. Instead he watched Remus' fingers carefully pry apart the folds of aluminum foil and break off a chunk of chocolate with a sudden snap.

Grey eyes followed the chocolate square through the air in front of him and dismayingly past his face to his left shoulder. Remus' jaw knocked him lightly on the shoulder as the chocolate piece vanished into the boy's mouth. Sirius shuddered.

"How horrible is your childhood…" Remus said gently, lightly pressing his lips to Sirius' cheek, "When you can't enjoy chocolate?"

"Don't…" Sirius said; the single word carried on a sigh.

Remus withdrew, hopped off the bed, and went back to his own. "One day you'll enjoy it as much as I do," he promised.


"No, please…" Sirius said painfully, "Not that…"

Remus, straddling his lover possessively, shook the open bottle of chocolate sauce in one hand, grinning. "It's only a little chocolate, dear Sirius."

"It's disgusting…"

"Then maybe you haven't been eating it right."

Remus drizzled the thick liquid across Sirius' chest –causing the latter to cringe— and messily smeared it with the fingers of his free hand. Bending over, he slowly licked a line from the small scar just above Sirius' ribs, to the graceful line of collarbone. Sirius gasped and arched, knocking the bottle out of Remus' hand. It tipped on them both, coating them with the dark sauce.

The air was heavy with the sweet smell, and their bodies were sticky with it. Remus licked his fingers and then kissed Sirius, who stiffened and then relaxed, muscles subconsciously trying to tense again.

"Well?" Remus asked, after a few moments of rustling sheets and panting movement.

Sirius kissed him in response.


"…He maketh me to lie down in green pastures."

Sirius stood off to one side, dressed – for once in his life – in a long black robe bearing the Black family crest in silver colored stitching on the chest. On the family grounds of the Black family stood all of his living relatives and their families, all similarly dressed in solemn colors of mourning. Remus stood at Sirius' side, handsome and somber in muted tones of black and pearl gray. It was the day when Freya and Volan Black finally took their sleep beneath the dirt.

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the death…"

The inheriting heir of one of the Black fortunes reached into his pocket and pulled out a lollipop, unwrapped it and put it in his mouth.

"I will fear no evil…"

He drew Remus close to him with one arm.

"…for thou art with me."

The lollipop was chocolate. And it tasted like Remus.

-Fin-


The title of the story, translated, means 'tastes like Remus' or 'taste of Remus,' depending on the translation.