Note: Many thanks again for reading and commenting! In this part, Sirius has a mad idea… and acts on it. Naturally. I'm always happy to hear what you think!
They're Hiding Inside Me, Part 4
When Remus gets back to James's house after dinner, things haven't improved. James tells him that Sirius still hasn't eaten anything. It has now been forty hours since that Jammie Dodger. Suddenly, Remus feels guilty about the dessert he hasn't finished.
"How are you?" he asks Sirius tentatively.
"Ready to kill and eat Wormtail here," says Sirius gloomily.
They're huddled together on James's bedroom floor. Well, James and Remus and Peter are. Sirius has taken up residence on the window-sill.
"Hey!" says Peter. "Just because I'm not a skinny bastard –"
"I'm sure the curse will find a loophole for eating my friends," Sirius says. "Seriously, friends, I think we need to start accepting the possibility that I may have just lost this one."
"Kreacher is always ready to take Master Sirius home," says an unwelcome voice from outside the bedroom.
"And there's all the motivation I need to stay," says Sirius. He lights a new Silk Cut with the dog-end of his old one.
James has objected to the open window, of course, due to the very imminent threat Sirius might just run for it again – but he has objected even more to the cigarette stink quickly filling the room. And it's two storeys down, so in a way they're all counting on Sirius's sense of self-preservation.
Probably not one of their more brilliant ideas, Remus thinks.
They haven't made much head-way in figuring out how the curse works, except that it can be oddly specific at times. It is clear that the Blacks can't keep him from doing things they don't know about. Like smoking. Which is probably good, because it seems to take the edge off the hunger a bit, or so says Sirius. Remus suspects it might just be a trick to get James to let him smoke in the room.
"All right," says James. "We've had two full days. Have any of our plans actually progressed beyond 'let's wait this out and see'? Like, at all?"
There's an embarrassed silence in the room.
"Well, you know my plan," says Sirius, whose nervous hands are playing with his lighter now. Remus thinks he might be eyeing the door again. He, James, and Peter all have their wands within reach.
"Shut up, unknown Black speaking through my friend," says James testily. "Giving up is not a plan. Three to one, you're not going. Anyone got an actual plan?"
Sirius shrugs. "If you're this intent on playing the scheming mastermind," he says, "maybe keep in mind there's a spy outside the bedroom door who will run straight to my mother as soon as we come up with anything even remotely clever."
"Oh, yeah," says James gloomily.
Remus rolls his eyes, then casts an Imperturbable charm on the door. It's not like there's much of value for Kreacher to overhear. "There," he says. "Happy?"
"No wonder you made prefect," says Sirius. "Let's hear what you've got."
Remus looks at the others, but no-one is volunteering. Well, then. "My mum is proposing the nuclear option," he says. "Ministry investigation, trial, the whole shebang."
"Optimist, isn't she," says Sirius, obviously trying not to sound too sarcastic.
"She just wants to help," says Remus. "My dad, on the other hand, is advising caution. It's been a source of tension."
"Oh god, what's that even like in the Lupin household?" says Sirius with a grin. "Are they politely making well-reasoned arguments at each other? Do they take regular breaks to go to the library? Do they share a fag after?"
"How did your parents even figure this out, Moony?" says James suspiciously. "You didn't tell them, did you?"
"My dad just happens to be a world-renowned scientist in the field of Dark Magic," says Remus. "Besides, your parents owled mine, you pillock. Told them everything they needed to figure this out. We'll need to be more careful."
Speaking of which…
There's a crack outside the window. Sirius leans over to look down, an unholy grin on his face.
"I propose a different plan," he says. "Remember that house-elf sacrifice ritual we discovered when we were researching how to become Animagi? I bet you can use it for curse-breaking."
"Master Sirius has always liked his little jokes," comes a voice from underneath the window.
"Say about house-elves what you will," says Sirius, "but they're shit spies." He extinguishes his Silk Cut and slams the window shut.
Then he jumps up from his crouched position on the window-sill, righting himself. "Righty-o," he says. "It's gone midnight. I –"
They witness in idle confusion as Sirius goes white as a sheet. "Oh, shit," Remus hears James say, as they see his legs fold up underneath him.
Peter is closest to him, and in a rare display of good reflexes manages to slow down his crash before he hits his head on the floor.
Silence.
Then: "Sorry, got woozy," says Sirius. He is already moving to get up.
"Stay down," says Peter. "You're starving, maybe you shouldn't be chain-smoking, too, you twat."
"Don't fucking tell me what to do," says Sirius, but it sounds light-hearted enough. At least he has decided to remain on the floor for a little while.
"Yeah, well, you have a delicate constitution," says Peter. "Here's a pillow, put your feet up. What were you saying before you fainted like a girl?"
The colour is returning to Sirius's face, albeit slowly.
"I was going to reflect on the fact that I've got three arms," says Sirius, "and there's only two of you. No wait, other way 'round. Who'll get to chain themselves to me tonight?" From the floor, he flashes them a winning smile.
"Not me," says Peter. "What? You said you were going to eat me."
Lying down, Sirius shrugs. "The way things are going, mate," he says darkly, "this might be your last chance."
Remus is not sure he can survive another night like the last one. Unfortunately, except for the presence of Peter, it's shaping up to be exactly like last night. Sirius is fidgeting. Peter is talking. James needs to go to the toilet. Then Peter needs to go to the toilet, James is talking, and Sirius is still fidgeting.
"I don't remember you three ever being such shitty dorm mates," groans Remus eventually, and is boxed in the side for his trouble.
Fortunately, werewolves heal fast, he thinks, and then he thinks, but if he weren't a werewolf, he wouldn't need to heal quite so often. It's way too late for these bloody conundrums.
At last, Sirius eventually stills. Looking over at him, however, Remus realises he is wide awake, and thinking, and muttering things under his breath. Tough luck, Remus is going to ignore this. This is not going to be his third crap night in a row, he promises himself.
Hours later, still awake, it's getting harder to keep his resolve. Peter and James have long since succumbed to exhaustion and they're sleeping soundly, James with his tiny little snores that drive everyone bonkers even on a good day.
"Moony," says Sirius very, very softly into the night.
He's been doing this for a while and Remus is determined not to let him have this; mostly because rewarding Sirius for being a pain in the arse is just insane from an operant conditioning perspective.
But as a distant clock strikes two, he's starting to realise his curious brain is not going to let him sleep without getting to the bottom of this.
"Moooony."
Sirius is now tugging lightly at their shared handcuff. Remus, sharply reminded why he is usually opposed to all sorts of chains, sighs inwardly. He turns towards Sirius.
Lying flat on his back, Sirius has his head turned towards him. Those clear eyes are wide open and unblinking. Staring him down.
"Moony," Sirius says again.
Oh, for fuck's sake. He's regretting this already. "Yes," says Remus, mentally preparing himself for all sorts of craziness.
He's not prepared for this one. Sirius reaches over, with his right hand that is still bound to Remus's left, and touches his face. It takes Remus a moment to realise that Sirius is tracing a scar with his thumb, the one that streaks all the way from his hairline to his jaw, just narrowly missing his eye.
It's one of the original ones, one that he gave Remus, but Sirius probably doesn't know that and Remus is not about to point it out. Most of it is numb now, anyway.
"What is it like?" asks Sirius. His voice is barely audible over the sleepy silence in the room.
Great, Remus thinks. Two a.m. and Sirius Black in philosophical mood. Plus, that's a bloody open question. "What?" he says eloquently.
"To have us know," says Sirius. "What's that like?" His hand stills, but remains where it is, on the side of Remus's face. It's an odd, floaty feeling. It feels like all the things he doesn't think about, all those daydreams and just, well, dreams, and he certainly isn't thinking about any of that right now. Because it's impossible.
He thinks about the question instead. Remus hardly even remembers being a First Year, because everything that came after it just outshone it. He remembers keeping to himself, spending whole weekends in the library, in the grounds, at the lake, and of course in the hospital wing, always on his own, because he was a child burdened with the impossible task of hiding whole parts of his existence, and in his eleven year old mind, that translated to just hiding altogether.
Oddly, his friends finding out made it so much easier to hide the secret from everyone else.
"Worked out in the end, didn't it," says Remus. Not wanting to add to Sirius's general confusion, he decides to gloss over the initial terror he felt when his friends confronted him after he'd missed the Hallowe'en feast in their second year. He'd expected he was probably going to be bullied or chucked out or both. Twelve year old Gryffindors are not exactly known for their tact or secrecy, after all.
"I feel like I've known all about you, for years," says Sirius. "I've seen all the scars on your body. I've made two of them. Sometimes I feel like I know everything there is to know about you. Don't you find that odd?"
"You don't know half of it," says Remus quietly.
Sirius blinks, then smiles. "Sorry, I forgot. You like to think of yourself as a bloody enigma, Moony."
Thinking has nothing to do with it, thinks Remus. "Where are you going with all this?" he asks carefully.
On the other side of the room, Peter huffs and turns in his sleep. Sirius puts a finger to his lips, waits a minute, then motions Remus closer. When it becomes clear that Peter is still fast asleep, he talks very, very quietly.
"I've kept this all in a box," says Sirius. "A different box than my usual box, I mean, and it was fine for years, except at home. And now all it took was a photo in a magazine and everything came tumbling out and now it's not fine anywhere, and you all know." He flails a bit. "About them. How they are. With me. I - it's just odd."
Sirius is very close now. Remus feels his breath on his face when he talks. He has half a mind of asking Sirius to postpone this until the morning, when they're all a bit more coherent and a bit less chained to each other – but then he remembers the Imperius is stronger during the day, and Sirius may very well not be able to talk about any of this.
Shit.
"It's not – Padfoot, it's nothing new," says Remus. "We all had a pretty good guess. That it wasn't fine, I mean." In contrast to last night's conversation with his own parents – no laws against it, it's not that, he doesn't talk about any of this – he guesses there's no need to be deliberately obtuse about this now.
"Moony," says Sirius. "You are chained to me. You were never chained to me before. This is a whole new level of not fine."
"I'm not pretending it didn't escalate a bit," concedes Remus. "So, how do you feel about it? About us knowing?"
Thy don't usually talk about feelings, at least not the sort of feelings that are orders of magnitude more complicated than James's hopeless crush on Lily Evans or Sirius's long-standing disdain for Severus Snape, and it takes Sirius a long moment to settle on words to describe this.
"Like a museum piece. Fragile," he says, and winces. "No. Exposed? No, that's not right, either, because Ming vases don't run off, do they? You know, like something in a zoo? You're watching me, Moony. You all are. You think, where's he off to next? The broomstick shed? The fireplace? Into town, to steal a car?"
"I always watch you," says Remus, and realises after he's said it that it sounds like a confession.
Unfortunately, Sirius seems to have picked up on that. "I noticed," he says. "Why?"
It's a fair question, under the circumstances, Remus thinks, and probably not one he should be answering a hundred per cent truthfully. "Prefect," he says.
Sirius gives him a brief smile. It vanishes quickly.
"I don't know if I could bear it if it were anyone but you three," says Sirius. "It's like people knowing makes it real. Like I'm standing there with my stupid box full of mad things and it's all people can see anymore, and then I can never be anyone else."
He draws a deep breath, and Remus thinks he can hear a faint shudder. "Like all I am – all I can hope to be – is what my family made me," says Sirius. "No. Like all I am is what's left after my family is finally done with me. And that is the last thing I want to be."
Remus closes his eyes. "You don't want a trial," he says.
Sirius doesn't say anything, merely shakes his head. After Lyall's warning the previous evening, Remus is a bit ashamed to feel so relieved.
And he understands the conflict, Remus does. If he could, would he choose to see Greyback brought to justice? Then the whole world would know what the man did to him when he was four. Or would he choose to continue his quiet life with all its inconveniences and secrecy and the abstract, habitual fear of Greyback returning one day? His preferred option is not exactly Gryffindor, but then, Godric Gryffindor never encountered a werewolf.
Or Walburga Black, for that matter.
Sirius looks so lost in this moment that Remus would reach out and hug him, if he were the hugging type. He's not. Maybe if he'd had a different sort of life, he'd be more at home with all this stuff. Maybe he could be as careless and comfortable with physical affection as James is.
Well. Maybe not quite like James is. Remus will probably never be the licking type.
"Sirius," he says helplessly.
Sirius's voice is just barely above a whisper. "I want this to go away," he says.
There is silence, and darkness, and in there, there's a word. Want. Remus's breath catches in his throat when he realises.
"Padfoot," he says.
"Yeah."
"You said, 'I want'," says Remus. "You haven't said, 'I want' since all this began."
Sirius hesitates, and Remus wonders if he's even noticed. Then Sirius laughs softly. "I'll have to take your word for it," he says. "Thank God you're here. How many people would even bloody notice?"
Remus considers this. "Three," he says. "You said it. We know about your box full of mad things. We're paying attention."
At this, Sirius closes his eyes. "There's one more thing," he says almost inaudibly. "One more mad thing that I want you to know, and it's not dark, or painful. Just mad. Will you let me have this?"
His hand is still cupping the side of Remus's face, and now his fingers are once again lightly tracing his skin. Remus's own hand takes Sirius's and holds it, moving it firmly away from Greyback's scar. He realises he probably shouldn't go along with this, but he can't help being curious at what Sirius – Sirius! – considers mad, warning signs be damned.
Remus nods.
Judging by the look on his face, Sirius has obviously not expected this. But then he leans in, like James did, the night before, but not playful.
Uh-oh.
"I swear, if you lick me –" begins Remus.
He expects Sirius to laugh. He doesn't expect Sirius to laugh and then kiss him on the mouth. It's just lips, but the kiss is warm and close and seems to go on forever, so it can't be entirely accidental.
Remus finds himself very, very surprised.
Not the protesting kind of surprised, granted. It's definitely the baffled kind of surprised. What's probably most surprising is that it's still ongoing. It's not a romantic kiss, after all - if anything, it's a comfort, like the hug he's considered previously. It's just that Sirius is very close now and smells of too many Silk Cuts and this is all very, very new and Remus's heart seems to beat at twice its usual rate. Matches his racing thoughts, he supposes.
In the real world, maybe a handful of seconds pass. Then, on the other side of the mattress, James turns, tugging at Sirius's other hand, and they break apart. Remus knows they can't risk waking James or Peter, that'll turn this moment into an entirely different moment, one neither he nor Sirius have the patience for right now.
Still, since he is already surprised, he can probably spare some surprise for the way he feels about the kiss ending, because it's definitely not relief.
Fortunately, James is still asleep. Though best stop this kissing lark, thinks Remus, and it's the first rational thought in what feels like an eternity. It's not easy, since Sirius is still staring at him with that wide-open, lost expression.
Remus tries hanging on to that sliver of rationality. Someone has to. "Your timing," he points out very quietly, when he thinks he can trust his voice again. "It's shit."
A small smile forms on Sirius's face. "You're right," he says. "When I envisioned this, it was without James and Peter in the room."
"No, not that," says Remus. "Well, that, too, but I meant –"
"You mean the Imperius," says Sirius simply.
"Yes," says Remus dejectedly. He needs to be rational about this. Doesn't mean he has to like it.
"Trust me," says Sirius. "This is the last thing they want. This is my mad idea." He sounds almost proud. "What do you think?"
To be quite honest, Remus thinks that when Lyall Lupin pointed out fighting the Imperius might make Sirius more impulsive, this probably wasn't what he had in mind.
"You don't even know why you want this," says Remus, forcing his voice to be steady .
Another smile. "Forgive me for being forward," says Sirius. "But I really, really do."
The odd thing is, Remus could almost believe it, because Sirius hasn't appeared so much like himself since the last time he saw him, before all this. But Sirius has pointed it out himself. This whole thing is a whole new level of not fine, and it doesn't matter what Remus's stupid teenage brain wants. He is not about to make it worse.
Remus closes his eyes, mentally kicks himself for what he is about to say, then opens them again. "You want to defy them," he says. "I know."
Watching Sirius's smile fade makes him want to scream.
"If that were a concern, I could never do anything," Sirius points out. "It's nothing new. This is."
There is some merit to this, Remus supposes. This, right here, is exactly Sirius's style, and Remus is so tempted to take back his previous words. Instead, he braces himself before going on to turn the knife.
"Later," he says. "Let's figure this out later, okay? After all this is over."
He supposes it sounds reasonable. But he knows his friend. To someone as impulsive as Sirius, "later" means "never", and even if it didn't, "figure this out" means "find all the reasons this is a bad idea". But Remus will be damned if he lets him get any more hurt than he already is.
Remus realises dimly that this is the same line of thinking he himself so utterly objects to when it comes from others. Well, he supposes, now he knows how they feel.
Sirius blinks. "Okay."
Something in his expression closes off. It is terrible to watch, and it's definitely, definitely not what Remus wants. But British restraint and well over a decade of controlling the wolf have left him with the kind of self-control that easily clobbers his teenage impulses – reach out, kiss him back, ask questions later - over the head.
Remus finds he is still holding Sirius's hand. He squeezes it to show – because obviously he can't be expected to use his words at this god-forsaken time of night, not for something as important as this – that he doesn't mind this. That it is okay. That he might even let it happen again.
Later.
"Sleep now, Padfoot," he says, and hates himself.
The next day, everything changes.