Chapter VI: Printemps Qui Commence
The Butterfly Spring faded into summer and those familiar fiery bodies disappeared once the heat came, incredible scorching heat that England was unused to seeing so early in the summer. It was a heat so heavy even rumors stopped circulating. It seemed as if soon blood would stop pumping through veins, and the world, faced with such oppressive heat, would stop spinning slowly on its axis. In the hot, crushing air relationships were staggered, children and adults alike were lazy, and the end of school could not come fast enough for any of the students.
Hot nights followed hot days, hot week after hot week passed, and Remus kept away from Sirius Black and anything that involved him. The tension made thick between them with the hot air stretched and congealed, and Sirius kept his lonely eyes cast downward when he passed his friend in the hall. And it was always easy for Remus to withdraw.
At least Ellen Abott was no longer a factor to be considered. Sirius had caused a huge scene the night after the party by calling everything between them off, and Ellen had spent the rest of the school year finding comfort in Lucius Malfoy's arms. (Naturally, this brought Maeve Zabini a little bit of hope, but Sirius made no acknowledgements of her advances, and she was left feeling disappointed and faintly confused.)
Sirius himself was left more alone than he had ever been in his life, and the feeling gnawed away at the inside of his chest until he couldn't even bear to see the other boy. It was an awkwardness, a loneliness, that lingered between them and drove Sirius half mad. Something, somewhere back in the darkness of that night, had changed everything.
Perhaps it was that one era had ended, another was soon to come, and this was the miserable transition point in between they had to suffer through. They had orbited away from each other, Sirius felt, and waiting for them to orbit back was a misery he felt he could not suffer another day. But each day passed, another and another, the loneliness a great, aching rent in Sirius's chest. He had done something wrong, and he couldn't fix it. There was no punishment he could endure, no re-test to take. He had done something wrong, and he had lost Remus.
Remus himself was alone again. Those kisses still burned on his cheek, but he ignored the feeling. If he couldn't even meet Sirius's eyes, how was he supposed to meet his lips?
Remus was silent on the train ride back from Hogwarts, arms wrapped around his middle, eyes fixed on the window and not what lay outside of it. The scenery barely interested him. It was too fleeting, swishing past in flashes and snatches of suddenly too-dull colors. Gray-greens mixed with lack-luster gold and muddy brown and became a thoroughly unappetizing, muddled display.
In comparison with the world of butterflies and longing tension, everything Remus once found vivid had suddenly lost all its appeal. There was silence between both he and Sirius. Lilly looked towards James, and motioned towards the door of their car meaningfully. Immediately James got the hint, and stood, excusing himself quietly.
Neither Sirius nor Remus noticed. They wouldn't have cared if they did.
"We have to do something," Lilly hissed to James in the hall, after dragging him insistently out of the car for a talk.
"Ow," James said, "you're bloody hurting my arm like that. Have to do something about what?"
"Sirius and Remus!" Lilly exclaimed, as if she apparently felt James had cotton where his brain should be. "Are you blind?"
"No, but a certain girl seems to have broken my arm," James grumbled peevedly.
"Well wake up, James Potter, because we have to do something."
"Do what?"
"I don't know." Lilly folded her arms over her chest and frowned to herself. If the situation had any brains, James thought, it would rectify itself immediately before it had to deal with Lilly on the warpath. She was a formidable enemy to face, and always came out on top when she set her mind to (or perhaps against) something she felt needed to be remedied.
"Well. That's helpful," James said, and wished immediately he hadn't.
"Don't you see how miserable they are? Your own bloody friends!" Ah, yes, a scowl from Lilly Evans. Impossible to face directly in the eye, impossible to stand up against for even a minute before your blood started to curdle and your knees felt weak.
"Well," James said, and then, for lack of anything else better to say, "well."
"There's got to be something," Lilly went on, musing to herself, vehemence gone, replaced with a careful, calculating air.
"Why don't we just - you know. Let them figure it out for themselves?"
"We could do that," Lilly said, very slowly, "if we wanted to watch them spend the rest of their lives being stupid gits."
"Ah." James grinned weakly. "Right. So. What d'you suggest, then?" Lilly pursed her lips thoughtfully, tapping one foot rhythmically against the floor.
"That's what I asked you," she said at last.
"Uhm. I don't know?"
"Not going to cut it."
"Uhm. We could talk to them? Figure out what's wrong?"
"Don't have time for that," Lilly murmured, brow furrowing as she frowned again. "If we only had another day"
"We don't," James pointed out, not helpfully. Lilly glared at him and he wilted under the force of the gaze.
"You're not helping," she muttered.
"Sorry," James mumbled, once again two inches. He worshipped the girl, which was why he was so terrified of her.
"There's nothing we can do for over the summer, is there."
"No," James said.
"Bloody hell," Lilly said, foot slamming vehemently against the carpeted floor.
"It'll work out," James murmured after a while of tense silence. "Really. Sirius is a git, but when he knows what he wants, he gets it."
"And Remus may be quiet," Lilly said, brightening, "but he isn't stupid." They looked towards each other and felt how very much they were partners, in crimes and in their teenage life, and Lilly felt her heart softening so that such softness rose to her eyes. James was breathless, that emerald green the color of every boyhood dream he'd ever had, even the most foolish flights of his fancy made wonderous as they echoed in that gaze of Lilly Evans.
"It'll work out," James repeated, feeling awed and at a loss for words, "It has to."
And, steeped in a world of childhood where anything was possible, even a spring filled with the song of monarch butterflies and a winter where the moon wondered aloud to you from the velvet sky, James Potter truly believed that in The End, it would all work out to a Happy Ending.
"Remus." Remus hefted his bag in his arms and brushed his hair from his eyes with his free hand. Even on the train car, which was kept always comfortably cool, the heat was beginning to get to him. It was going to be a long hot summer. The butterflies, he mused as he remembered his Divination lessons, must have signified this coming heat, their wings like flames dancing on the air. And then he shook his head, thinking himself quite a fool for believing butterflies were anything but butterflies.
"Remus." And outside the world was shimmering with the heat, wavering as the world did when seen through smoke or mist, and he wondered if the air would be moist and heavy, like in the Herbology greenhouse.
"Remus," Sirius said for the third time, and finally Remus woke from whatever daydreams he had been buried in.
"Oh," he murmured, unable to meet Sirius's eyes, hating his own shyness so terribly that for a moment it threatened to surge up like a threatened wolf inside him. His edges trembled. He held the feeling down in his tenuous, weak grasp, managing to keep it at bay. "Mm, Sirius?"
"Remus." He couldn't say anything else. His voice was softer than usual. Remus hadn't noticed until that moment the change in tonality, the way the usual laughter had faded from it. He noticed also that there was the echo of sadness, like a puppy whimpering, threaded through the sound of his own name on Sirius's lips. In his eyes was a pained, haunted darkness that seemed to be pleading with Remus, begging him for a forgiveness Remus did not know how to give.
"Yes?" he asked eventually, aware of just how much his reply was lacking.
"I'll - I'll see you - this summer," Sirius murmured finally, bowing his head in defeat.
"I'll see you," Remus said softly, moving past his friend. There was something in the brushing together of their shoulders, the way Sirius turned his head to the side and fixed his eyes on Remus's profile, the way Remus felt his heart jump in his chest at the contact. There was something in it but they did not yet know what and it went unspoken because it was unnamed. Remus moved off the train and into the sunlight, his heart and his footsteps equally heavy, despite the day's bright and cheery nature.
"Son."
From over the edge of his book, the worn pages pooling him in cooling shade.
"Son."
Distant, like the echo of his name when he heard his father weep through wolf ears.
"Son."
Distant because it disturbed him when he was in another world, living in another world, breathing and eating and drinking too the words on the pages before him. It was hard to uncover Remus when he was buried in a good book.
"Remus." Etienne sat down on the couch beside his son and placed a hand on his shoulder. The sudden contact startled the boy, and he turned quickly, shocked from his reading.
"Mm?" He had half been tempted to say 'oui.' Sometimes, the French words slipped out of him but mostly, they went unnoticed, for the things he said he said quietly. A person had to be listening very closely to catch them.
Etienne sank into the couch back, feeling his muscles relax instinctively. His son's face looked old, too old, as if he were a very sad forty-five year-old trapped in a fourteen year-old suit. It pained him that the only remnants of Dalila were not her vitality or her passion for life, but the bite mark and all the childhood it had left in ruins. "You've gotten quite a lot of mail, lately."
"Mm."
"You haven't answered any of them." Remus's hands tightened on the book cover.
" No."
"Pourquoi pas?" Etienne inclined his head to the side, studying his boy's face. The profile: proud but lonely. The eyes: awash with moonlight, filled with the song of solitude. The mouth: lips that did not frown or smile, except on rare and fleeting occasions. The nose: and it made him think of Dalila, the slight snub to it, so he could not afford to think on it. The cheekbones: his own, the one mark of himself upon his son. The shadows: they were there, even on the brightest of days with the brightest of sunlight, even with a smile upon his face, even with laughter upon his lips; the shadows that lurked and echoed in his eyes, the shadows cast by his long lashes from the outside and that hidden, unspoken misery from the inside. Dark, Etienne thought. A darkness that did not necessarily mean something foul, but a darkness that was reminiscent of texture. All that had texture had shadow. Etienne's son was a rocky, uncharted terrain that Etienne could not begin to map.
"Je ne sais pas," Remus murmured, staring down at his book, held in his hands. The palms: a few scars across them from where wolf-pads had caught on wolf-canines. The fingers: long and delicate, as hers had been, another memory of France, and of the wild woods, and of the bright fire in her eyes. There were words there next to those fingers, thankfully, to tame and counterbalance their hidden and savage strength.
"Tu sais, Remus." One graying eyebrow lifted. Etienne's pale blue eyes were sparkling but serious beneath that brow. He couldn't, Remus realized, lie to his father's eyes.
"Mon ami. Sirius" Etienne watched his son carefully.
"Ton ami."
"Oui."
"Comment l'aime-tu?"
Silence between them. Then,
"Je ne"
"Ne ments pas, Remus. Ne dis pas les mensonges a moi." Remus's fingers, tight and unsure on the book he held, clutching at the pages as if he were drowning and those words were the only things keeping him afloat. After all, Etienne mused, words were maleable, quick to mean one thing and even quicker to represent another. They were the servants of man, of man's tongue and pen and typewriter. They were not like the forest, which housed animals and their wordless muzzles and their wordless paws. They were not like the moon, either, which pulled the earth helplessly, like a puppy, around in its cycles. Over words, you had full control. You shaped them and by your choices alone did they shape you.
"Pardonne-moi." Remus looked away.
"Dis-moi la verite."
There was nothing to it, then, but to tell the truth. Remus's tongue felt dry but his heart felt full. His hands trembled but his heart was still, beating solidly in his chest. Just the truth. He knew it all too well; it had dawned on him suddenly, and it was The Truth, now. The only truth.
"Je l'aime."
"C'est tout?"
"Avec tout mon coeur."
"Et la loupe?"
"la loupe aussi."
"Il te plait. Oui?" Remus found himself suddenly blushing, color suffusing his pale cheeks.
"Oui."
"Et, avec lui, tu ristoujours?"
"Oui."
"Pour toi - pour toi, Remus, je suis hereux."
They were silent for a while, Remus's hands folded on his book in his lap, and Etienne's eyes fixed on something off in the distance, not quite tangible even to his fingertips, even if he stretched his mind with his body in desperate hope.
"Merci, papa."
"just answer the letters, Remus." If this boy - this Sirius Black - felt for Remus even half of what Etienne's son felt in return for him, he would no doubt be mad with worry, after receiving no letters in reply to the dozen or so he had sent.
"All right."
"Tell me - does he?" Etienne queried softly, on impulse, riding the waves of impossible daring to ask this question of his son. For a moment, it seemed to Etienne that Remus would not answer him.
"I don't know." That shadow passed, slow and ponderous, over Remus's features.
"I am sure," Etienne murmured, "from all these letters he has sent you that he most certainly does." He patted his son's shoulder awkwardly, but the both of them were relaxed, unwilling to feel uncomfortable after such words had passed between them. "And," Etienne added after a moment, "I can't wait to meet him."
"Mm," Remus said, very softly, thinking of those blue eyes turned on him, and of the rose he kept still by his bedside, warm and humming with life, roots fed on despair even as its petals unfurled to the warmth of the sun.
As Sirius packed his suitcase he felt oddly calm, calmer than he would have expected to be under the circumstances, certainly. He wasn't a careful packer but he didn't really care about that one galleon, stuffing shirts in with his jeans, a sweater for just in case because his mother was watching. He didn't fold anything, just shoved things pell-mell into the case and planned on sitting atop it to get it to shut.
"Sirius," Aquila Black said discouragingly, heaving a deep sigh.
"Mum," Sirius groaned, continuing to thrust t-shirts into the mess hastily.
"You're making a mess of that," Cassy murmured from beside her mother, rocking one of the twins -- Peg, it was -- in her arms to keep her asleep. "Just like you, Sirius."
"Shut up, Cassiopea," Sirius grumbled, but there was no venom in his voice. He was too cheerful to start a real fight with his kid sister, too cheerful to wake Peg and give his mother extra work and ruin his good mood.
"Mum!" Cassy scowled, turning her back on her brother and instead choosing to hum to little Peg in her arms. Aquila Black nodded firmly in approval of her daughter's mature choice of actions, frowning slightly towards her son, but softening moments later. He would be gone for two whole weeks. It made her worry and made her feel lonely, despite the superficial relief she felt at knowing there would be one less demanding voice crying out through the halls of her house.
"Now," Aquila said softly, "you'll be careful?"
"Yes, mum," Sirius said, as if he were reciting his catechism.
"And you'll make sure if it gets cold to put on that sweater?"
"Of course, mum."
"And you'll take care of yourself?"
"As I always am, mum," Sirius mumbled, lifting a brow in his mother's direction. Aquila Black softened.
"Mm," she said, looking her son up and down and shaking her head slightly, "that's what I'm afraid of."
"Don't do anything da wouldn't do," Cassy murmured, from over Peg's head. Aquila made a face that only Sirius' caught. Laughter was shared between their eyes, the same deep blue, piercing and youthful, wise and childish all at once.
"You know I'd have your hide if you did what Orion'd, in any situation, Sirius Black," his mother said finally. Cassy blinked as Sirius grinned wide from ear to ear, almost splitting his face in two with the expression. Aquila thought how much he looked like her husband, and her first son Ewan, who could charm man or woman, man or beast, the young and the old and everything that lay in between. Sirius was a bit stronger and a bit less flighty than Ewan, though, and that was lucky, for Ewan had always been the type of boy to die quietly somewhere in a pub with the smell of beer kissing his lips. Aquila wasn't about to lose two of her boys to the embrace of the drink, and her husband and her darling son Michael were quite enough to be lost to the mines. Her girls would be her own and Sirius would be free. That gift could never be taken from him. It terrified her and filled her with joy both to know that he would leave her one day to be his own man, far away from the small town of Rhondda, and the miner's dust that filled its air.
"I know, mum," Sirius said. He wasn't nervous, no, because he knew exactly what he was going to do. He'd planned it out every night for at least two hours until it had been perfectly refined. Nothing could go wrong. He had even read his mother's coffee grinds when she wasn't looking to make sure nothing would go wrong, or to plot out the best course of action to take. No, Sirius had decided finally, nothing could put a cog in these carefully oiled works. He knew what he was doing and he was going to do it.
Watch out, Remus Lupin, his eyes said.
You're not gonna get away, even if you see it coming. 'Cause I'm determined, this time, I'm not letting anything get in between us this time.
You can't run from me and you can't hide from me anymore.
And soon, Sirius was sure, Remus wouldn't even want to.
On the muggle train station steam huffed ponderously into the air. The world was layered in a gray smog that the sunshine glinting on metal could not slice through, or even penetrate. Trains left and came in, children's faces pressed against the windows and their breaths condensed on the glass. Mothers wheeled babies before them and held suitcases at their sides, plowing through the crowd. Men looking hot and red and very uncomfortable in their suits dozed on benches while waiting for their trains to arrive, or folded and unfolded and re-folded newspapers as if such actions were terribly important and only they knew why.
In Remus's hand the train schedule shivered with the light yet hot summer breeze. His whole body felt damp in the humid English summer. Next to him a woman fanned herself lazily with a thin paperback novel she did not have the patience to read in such heat. Both Remus and Etienne caught the edges of that disruption of the air and took minute and anticipant pleasure from it.
Raised high above the train station, the sweating face of a yawning clock ticked away time in an impossibly slow manner. Remus folded the schedule one way and then the other and the first way again after that, just to keep his hands busy.
"He's always late," he explained softly to his father, who had been matching his watch's time to the time displayed on the station clock. He let his shirt cuff fall back over his wrist, dropping both his hands back to his sides.
"He's not late, yet," Etienne murmured softly, knowing how on edge his son must be, and attempting to placate him. "And if he were to be late, it would be the train's fault, and not his."
"I know," Remus said, brow knitting together. Perhaps if he concentrated hard enough the train coming in on track eight would suddenly appear before them.
"Fifteen minutes."
"Mm."
The heavy air was laden with buzzing flies and the occasional silent mosquito, wings shuddering against the humidity, thriving in the wetness. Time moved slowly, the hands of the great clock having to thrust hard into the heavy air to move even a fraction, denoting the passage of each painfully slow second.
Hurry up, Remus willed the train, even though he was terrified of Sirius for all too many reasons.
Hurry up, Remus willed the train, so he would find counter-reasons of why not to fear him.
Next to him the woman stopped her fanning and puffed out a sigh. It was resonated in the puffing of smoke from the train pulling out of track five. A mosquito buzzed by his ear and he lifted the train schedule to wave it away.
Minutes passed.
Somehow.
In a little gleam of silver and black, of sunlight catching on the glass windows, the train swerved laboriously into sight, creaking over the tracks, growing towards track eight slowly and quickly all at once. Remus stood and even Etienne found a boyish sort of excitement come over him as he watched the eagerness in Remus's eyes, the light that burst through no matter how he tried to hide it.
As the train pulled into the station Remus rocked forward on his toes, the muscles in his legs tensing, his fingers tightening around the schedule in his hand. The paper crumpled.
"All right," Etienne said softly, noting his son's tension, "come on." He stepped forward, just as eager in his own way to meet this boy, and Remus followed behind him. For all his silence and seemingly calm demeanor, Etienne could sense his son's nervousness as if it were truly tangible in the air. He braced himself, hoping his stolidity would rub off some on Remus's nerves to better brace him.
He had never seen his son this anxious before in his life.
The doors to the train slid open and thick puffs of steam curled up into the sky, a beast coming to rest after a long journey. Women, men and children filed off, the station growing a little louder and a little hotter with the press of their bodies, the flush of the crowd. A baby began to cry, loud and keening in the burning air. Remus didn't blame it for its discomfort one bit.
Behind a man with a bowler hat and a woman whose cheeks were bright pink and shimmering lightly with sweat Sirius appeared, wavering in the heat as if he were some sort of mirage. He'd cut his hair, Remus noted to himself, so that it hung with purposely uneven edges only down to his chin.
Setting his bag down on the cement beside him, Sirius Black lifted his hands and ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back out of his eyes. He stood awkwardly, until his eyes caught Remus leaning forward slightly, felt Remus's eyes fixed on him. Sirius lifted a hand and waved, nonchalant, careless and casual. In his chest Remus felt his heart jump.
"That's him," Etienne said, because it couldn't possibly be anyone other than Sirius Black.
"Yes," Remus said.
"Go on," Etienne urged, but Sirius was already walking towards them, dragging his bag behind him. It made a reptilian sound on the concrete beneath it. He walked with a confident air, insouciant and limber, body proud but swaggering. He wasn't full of himself; rather, he was comfortable, with his body and the air surrounding it, and that ease radiated off of him like a soothing cool on the hot summer day. Etienne got the feeling that, in the winter, it would be equally soothing, only warm, as if wherever you were when Sirius was around was the most relaxed place you could possibly be.
"Hey," Sirius said, watching Etienne's son for a moment with cool blue eyes in the oppressive heat, and then he turned towards Etienne, flashing a grin. "Hullo," he said, holding out a hand, "it's very nice to meet you."
"My son has spoken quite a lot about you," Etienne replied, taking that proffered hand in his own and shaking it gravely, though his own eyes twinkled, "so I believe it is my pleasure entirely." They shook hands, then let go. Etienne liked him immediately and immensely.
"Whatever it is, it isn't true," Sirius murmured, that grin not fading once from his face. He must have been, Etienne mused, very terrified but, like Remus, he hid it well; Remus with a solid poker face, this boy with a charming smile.
"Hello, Sirius," Remus said from beside his father. His voice was warm, but it could have just been from the warmth in the air, or from the warmth of Sirius's own smile. It had an effect, that flashing of teeth and that sparkling of deep blue eyes. Beside him, Etienne could feel the tension fade from his son's body, though he knew Remus was still nervous.
"I'll take your bag," Etienne offered, leaning down to pick it up.
"Naw," Sirius said, "thanks, but I got it." He lifted it up again easily. "Let's just get out of this heat, right?" Etienne wondered about how his laugh would sound. Loud, no doubt, echoing on the air and rippling through your own body, so you couldn't help but laugh, yourself. No wondered Remus liked him so much.
"Mm," Etienne said, "very good thinking."
They piled into the small second-hand Oldsmobile Remus's father had bought a year ago, Remus and Sirius in the back together, Sirius's things piled into the front seat beside Etienne. As they sped out of the parking lot, drawing away from the train station, a breeze rifled through their hair, pressed in from the open windows. There was a silence but it was not uncomfortable, thin and feathery and surprisingly pleasant.
Beside Remus, on the fading upholstery of the car seat, Sirius had slid his hand across the distance between them. His palm was oddly cool, even in the heat, as he rested his hand lightly over Remus's own. He tilted his head to the side, watching Remus's face, his own cast in shadow as a premonition of the rain to come.
"So," Sirius said, flopping his suitcase down on Remus's bed, "this is your room." It was just as Sirius had imagined it, sunlight streaming in through an open window, the bed small and neatly made, a high bookshelf in one corner filled with all kinds of books. He moved around in a slow circle to take everything in, storing it methodically in his memory. Once he was done, he grinned again. "S'just like you, Moony."
"Thank you, I think," Remus murmured, standing on the edge of something just outside Sirius's world. He felt as if he were detached from himself, watching Sirius move from a hidden spot in a corner, or perhaps on the ceiling.
"S'pretty hot here," Sirius said, moving to the window so he could stare out, keep his eyes from Remus's own, gather his strength. It was one thing planning everyone out when he was lying alone in his bed at night. It was quite another thing acting on all that he'd planned, with Remus so close to him, and so real.
"Yes," Remus agreed, "it is."
"I'm not used to it being like this."
"No?"
"It's cold in Rhondda," Sirius explained.
"Right."
"Rains a lot, too."
"Mm. Sounds better than this heat."
"Yeah."
Silence fell between them. Without their hands touching it was uncomfortable, their small motions staggering helplessly. Even their breaths choked, catching on the tightness in their throats.
"Why don't you talk to me, Moony?" Sirius asked at last.
"Sirius," Remus said, and then he could find nothing else to say after that.
"I'm not going to attack you."
"I never said I thought you were."
"Then what happened? What's happening?"
"You know what," Remus murmured, touching his own cheek in memory. His eyes were like amber, all of him trapped deep inside the haunting colors.
"I meant it, Moony." Sirius's gut clenched. He felt as if he were going to be sick. "I miss you."
"I'm standing right here."
"You could just as well be in India."
"But I'm right here."
"It used to be different."
"It's different now," Remus corrected. Sirius turned to face Remus, hands clenched into fists, as if he could punch the situation a couple of times to make it go away. It wasn't much better, Remus thought absently, than his own helpless hands, not even beginning to put up a fight.
"Why don't you understand?" Sirius whispered.
"You never tried to explain anything to me."
"Then let me get close enough to try, Sirius said, taking a slow step forward. It was like approaching a wild animal, or a wounded horse with panic in its gentle equine eyes. But Remus stood his ground, body tensed and small. Sirius leaned over and took his hand, feeling slow as his motions, time's passage connected to their hesitation. Their fingers wove together. "Moony," Sirius murmured.
But what if he knew? Remus's mind nagged, gnawing at his heart.
How much would he hate you then? It snarled nastily.
Could you risk such a loss?
Remus didn't want to lie to Sirius. But it wasn't necessary that he had to find out. Lies were necessary for him, laced in with how he breathed, moved, spent his time, watched things and was watched by them in turn.
"I just want to touch you, like this," Sirius breathed out softly.
"All right," Remus acquiesced. They held each other's hands for a few minutes, just like that, standing face to face and watching the way their lashes trembled when their eyes forced them to blink.
When Etienne called them both down to dinner things with no names had changed, in the air between their bodies, in the spaces between their fingers. Even Etienne could feel it, though he was old, the cutting edge of his youth long forgotten, his displaced heart beating slowly as a clock unwinding and forgotten in the attic-musk dark.
The heat broke and the summer became comfortable again. The sun did not beat down on the world below it and the light it radiated was cheerful, not glaring. Canterbury was not cool but it was not too hot, either, and the days were pleasant, the nights pleasanter with the stars twinkling on and off in the breeze.
As soon as Remus stopped trying to ascribe a name to this thing that lingered, ticking away time with an a-rhythmic beat, between his and Sirius's hearts, things became much less complicated, relations much more relaxed. It wasn't a matter of categorizing anything, Remus realized finally, after thinking otherwise for too long. It was just sitting back, feeling comfortable with Sirius's presence, and waiting for things to happen. Once he gave up trying to control it, it would play out well enough on his own.
In the first few mornings Remus finished reading Sirius The Count of Monte Cristo as Sirius rested himself against Remus's lap in breathless anticipation. They moved on to Hamlet, which had Sirius tensed and anxious in his seat, and Remus couldn't help but equate Sirius to the prince of the tragedy. Rash and impulsive, in that respect - for Remus had never seen Hamlet as hesitant, but rather as plowing head first into things before he paused to even think. Definitely, Remus decided finally, like Sirius Black.
During the long days they wandered outside with the sunshine cast down upon them, warm and friendly, inclusive in the revelations of soft secrets.
Sometimes, they held hands.
Their fingers interlaced, they would walk along the cobblestone, broken here and there, with Sirius's feet scuffing scones in front of them. Etienne let them go out whenever they wanted and left them to their own means. Remus's eyes had changed radically since Etienne had seen them on the platform, waiting for the train. He let Sirius do what he could, and stayed wistfully away from his son and his son's friend for the duration of Sirius's visit.
They would talk of everything or of nothing at all, of James and Lilly, of classes and teachers, of Hogwarts, or perhaps not even of school at all. They would talk about the future as they saw it, or didn't see it. They rarely ever talked about the past. As the young tend to do, they kept their eyes focused forward on an almost palpable image of what would be, what they would be, waiting with aching impatience for time to pass so they could finally be it. The specific details were blurry for the both of them, but as Sirius knew without a doubt Remus would be there, Remus assumed that Sirius would be a constant in his life whose presence he could depend upon.
There were times also that they did not need to speak at all, when they held each other's hands tightly and watched their interlaced fingers unchanging between their thighs. Their footsteps became the rhythm which dictated their breaths and their words, or their lack of words. They learned to easily judge each other's moods and thoughts by watching the way shadows fell over their cheeks, or the way they kept their faces angled - towards or away. It was in this way that Remus learned how Sirius walked, with a loping, canine grace to his limbs, a proud angle to his back that did not suggest dignity but rather confidence. It was in these moments that Sirius found how much he could read in the movements of Remus's eyelids, how much he could feel in the lines and curves of his lips, how much he could understand through the temperature and movements of his graceful hands.
It was in these moments that Sirius began to feel strong and invincible, and Remus began to drink in such feelings into himself and thrive upon them. People did not have roots, flowers did, but what served as Remus and Sirius's roots began to wind together, twining into knots that would be close to impossible to break. What Remus felt, Sirius felt almost as acutely, and the same went for the two in the other direction.
When they didn't hold hands it felt as if they were, those roots clasped like their fingers. They only needed to be close. Separating them would be like uprooting them from these comfortable routines they had fallen into.
In the nights they watched movies, had ice cream, at fish and chips and reveled in the grease of it, the youth of it. On the couch in the sparsely furnished living Remus allowed himself to curl up against Sirius's side, in the circle of his arm, and they fell asleep that way many nights before the movies even ended. They learned the way their bodies fit together most comfortably, that way, with Remus's head on Sirius's shoulder or Sirius's cheek resting on Remus's thigh, one of Sirius's arms snaked around Remus's waist or Remus's fingers tangling in Sirius's hair.
On one ordinary day Sirius took Remus out to a movie and in the comfort of the air-conditioning, against the prickling of the seat coverings against their bared skin, Sirius pushed up the arm rest between them. Barrier removed, he pulled Remus against him, and Remus leaned eagerly into that embrace.
"This," Sirius said, softly and firmly into Remus's ear, "is a date." His breath tickled over Remus's earlobe and cheek.
"I didn't know that," Remus murmured back against Sirius's chin.
"Well," Sirius stated, with more confidence than he actually felt, "now you know."
"I've never been on a date before." Remus's eyes wandered absently to the picture flickering over the movie screen. "I'm not sure I know quite how to act."
"Leave that to me," Sirius said, running his fingers through Remus's hair. "Trust me just a little, will you."
"All right," Remus returned against Sirius's jaw. The bigger boy shivered. Remus was clueless and utterly intoxicating. It was his smell, it was his feel his skin and his hair and especially his lips, shaped by all his deliciously soft-spoken words.
"Sshh," hissed a large woman seated behind them, and they fell silent for the rest of the movie, Sirius toying with the hair at the base of Remus's neck.
After that they bought ice cream and walked the streets in the fading light of dusk with contentment settling pleasurably between them, over the darkening city. Sirius watched Remus from the corners of his eyes, noting how the cone he ate was of course chocolate, how he kept pushing back his too-long bangs so they wouldn't fall into his eyes and obscure his vision. Remus's face was delicate, finely sculpted, more beautiful than Ellen Abott's for all that was captured in those expressions that played over his features. And of course there were those eyes, those fantastic eyes, which made Sirius shiver every time he thought of them and drown each time he saw them. Sirius realized his heart began to swell whenever he saw the curve of Remus's cheekbone, or the way his lips pursed in thought, or curved in a smile at the sweetness of chocolate.
"Thank you, Sirius," Remus murmured suddenly from behind his ice cream cone, "for showing me how stupid I am."
"What?" Sirius asked incredulously, shocked into abandoning the bit of broken cobblestone he had been using like a football.
"Thank you, Sirius, for showing me how stupid I am," Remus repeated, then added as clarification, "and for not letting me end up such an idiot as I otherwise might have, without you there to prevent it."
"Don't know what you're talking about," Sirius scoffed, fending off a blush, "you're not the bloody stupid one, I am." Remus licked at the ice cream thoughtfully, the cold sweetness against his lips and his tongue, making his teeth want to shiver.
"No," Remus said, very softly, "no, you're not."
"You're daft," Sirius muttered, trying to keep his cheeks cool.
"Point proven."
"Aw -- didn't mean it that way."
"But you said it, anyway." Remus smiled that half-smile of his, inclining his head to the side so he could look up sideways at his friend's face. "You're not scared of anything, are you?" Despite that smile, Sirius could tell Remus was completely serious, his eyes somber. You could always tell by Remus's eyes, Sirius knew, just what it was he was feeling, though the hows and the whys were always unclear.
"Scared of a lot of things." Sirius met that gaze firmly.
"You don't show it."
"Doesn't mean I'm not scared. Besides," Sirius went on, frowning faintly, not at anyone in particular but rather in thought, "you don't ever show it, either."
"It's different." The street lamps would come on soon. It was the end of day and the beginning of night. There would be stars in the sky, but they would be obscured by a thin layer of smog from the nearby factories that hung over the city. It was a night like any other.
"Not really. You hide things one way and I hide 'em another. Doesn't mean it's any different, you know, when you get right down to it."
"Fine," Remus said thoughtfully, "then you're braver than I am."
"No," Sirius said, "just stupider, and more careless."
In the darkness Remus thought of Hamlet and of Edmond and of Sirius, of the differences, of the similarities. And then he thought simply of Sirius, and how he could not be compared to anything -- except, perhaps, to these simple summer days -- and felt suddenly strong down to the marrow of his bones.
In the darkness Sirius thought of Remus and the poetry of his eyes, how Sirius himself had never understood or even particularly liked poetry until he saw the flecks of gold in Remus's eyes catch the sunlight. And then he thought simply of Remus's eyes, and how poetry could not possibly do them justice.
Remus to Sirius was just Remus, nothing for the translation of him, for the filtering, for the vocabulary. He just was.
Remus could not think that way, had to go at things through words, find the meanings that way and then discard the words afterwards, left only with the inner truth.
Both of them knew each other, from these days together, as well and as deeply and as naively as they knew themselves.
"You're not stupid," Remus said after a while, "but careless, yes."
"Yeah, well, you know who I'm not," Sirius replied, "I'm not James Potter." There was a bitterness that stemmed from the well of longing in Sirius's voice. Remus had never thought Sirius could be jealous of James before, but as he watched Sirius's face, he realized that he quite obviously was.
"No," Remus said carefully.
"Sorry."
"Don't be." A pause. Remus heard his footsteps behind him on the cobblestone, going nowhere in particular, ambling off behind him like a shadow severed. "You're jealous of him."
"Yeah. Guess so. Feels bad," Sirius went on suddenly, "'cause we've been friends for so long. But he's -- you know. He's the smart one. Does well in all his classes, on the Quidditch team, had Lilly from the start and probably always will. Just -- kinda hard, not to be jealous of him. He's got everything. Always has." Sirius watched the backs of his hands befored him, his hands which seemed incomplete without Remus's against them.
"You know," Remus murmured thoughtfully, "I think he's jealous of you. Half the school is." Sirius shrugged.
"Doesn't mean anything."
"It means as much as your jealousy does." In their walking they had moved closer to each other, shoulders almost brushing.
"S'pose." Sirius turned his eyes on Remus's face. It was lit up by the sudden pool of light cast from a lamppost they were passing under. "Well. There's one thing James Potter doesn't have that I think -- that I think I do."
"What's that?"
"You. Do I, Moony? Do I have you?"
As children making each other green rings out of dandelion stems and placing them on their betrothed's fingers with solemn promises of misunderstood forever, they wed each other by watching the circles of light refracted and echoing in their eyes.
Dark was the city and dark were the shadows in the side alleyways along the street. The silence curled around that darkness like two snakes sleeping together intertwined, stuffed full with pigeon eggs.
Words seemed hardly appropriate but they were desperately needing. Inadequacies reared their heads high before them. Insufficiencies pounded through their blood and filled the spaces behind and before them. Unexplained, this time that passed between them with the world heavy and slowed down. They had stopped walking, now stood to face each other. The next words that came would be promises and they were promises they would have to forever keep or forever live in the shameful memory of breaking them.
They were aware of how incomplete they felt, missing pieces to a greater puzzle, or perhaps bigger than that, two halves of a whole, not big enough to stand on their own, needing each other for even the simplest of tasks. Needing each other even for breathing out and breathing in.
The spaces between them were angular, like the corners to a dark and cold room. The shadows those corners made, splaying out from their feet and mimicking their youthful bodies in ageing spite, whispered to each other of frightful things. They spoke of strangers and of a thousand different directions stretched out on the horizon, insinuating the impossibility of ever knowing where you're going and the misery of knowing where you've come from.
Childhood alienation seemed complete and completely terrifying.
Forever seemed possible but it was unsure whether or not this was something to be confident in or glad about.
"You have me," Remus said, watching the rings of dark blue circle endlessly in Sirius's eyes, "for as long as you want me."
And it was then that forever seemed possible, within Sirius's reach, against his yet un-callused fingertips, and that forever was Remus Lupin and the soft words on his lips. Words were like books and books were forever, lasted every time you read them over. Sirius would last forever and forever was as long as Remus would speak his name.
In the darkness Sirius said, "I have you," but he wasn't even sure if he'd said it, later on. They didn't need to touch each other, stood that way, facing each other along intersecting lines and feeling their veins pound like roots gleaning sustenance from the earth and from each other.
They could have stood like that for minutes or for hours and it would have made no difference, would have amounted eventually to the same thing. For them, for then, time meant nothing and realized it, too, so it did not pass the same in that one spot beneath that one street lamp, with the moths fluttering fuzzily up to the heat and the blinding light, lured more often than not to their bright deaths beneath the lamplight. In carefree moments like those time was kind to young lovers who were just beginning to fall in love in a hot city on a cooling summer night. A night that spoke of dreams weaving themselves through silent bedrooms in the darkened apartments above the pavement. A few cars were moving through the streets but Sirius and Remus were watching each other, were watching time pass silkily over each other's foreheads, creasing their skin.
Time did not matter and childhood was something they were easing slowly out of, a snake shedding its skin, a snail outgrowing its shell.
In silence that knew nothing of chocolate or children they walked the half empty streets back to the apartment building and lingered outside it, watching the stars waver through the clouds and the smog.
"Who needs to be jealous, anyway?" Sirius asked, breaking the quiet, which had inserted itself sinuously between them.
"Some people," Remus replied.
"Yeah, but -- I mean, not me, anyway." Sirius grinned to himself.
"Everyone," Remus said finally, "looks at the same stars. It just depends on how they look at them." Sirius looked him up and down.
"Told you I was the stupid one," he mumbled. He understood exactly what Remus had said but the boy had a way of saying things and making them seem so simple and so beautiful at once. "You gonna ever write, later on, Moony?"
"I don't think so. Most things have been said, already."
"Then I'll help you find new things to say," Sirius insisted.
"But," Remus sighed, "everyone has been looking at the same stars for centuries now."
"Depends on how you look at them, you said. You look at things, Moony, and they're wonderful 'cause it's your eyes seeing 'em."
"I'd end up being jealous of people who said things in ways I couldn't dream of," Remus said. "Let's go inside."
"I'm not jealous anymore," Sirius said, very softly. He wished, deep inside of him, that Remus wouldn't be, either. It was a silent and unspoken agreement that because Sirius had Remus, Remus had Sirius, as well, and while Sirius was content just in knowing this, he wasn't sure if Remus was.
As they took the elevator up to the fourteenth floor they stood in opposite corners, Sirius lounging as he always managed to, Remus finding comfort in the place where wall met wall and then met the floor and they all three joined into one.
It was, Sirius figured as they stepped off the elevator, a pretty good date, all in all. He couldn't fully believe he'd managed to get up the courage. Despite Remus's odd misconception of Sirius's supposed bravery, he'd been absolutely terrified, and had plowed onward with his head bowed low, just so he wouldn't have to face defeat in the eye.
He was lucky, he mused after that, as they said goodnight to Etienne reading in the living room and moved down the hall from him towards Remus's bedroom.
They brushed their teeth conscientiously, a force of habit, and dressed for bed, Sirius doing so in the bathroom with the door closed.
He looked at himself in the mirror, at his face which he knew the girls liked, at his hair which he knew the girls liked, too, the way they could run their fingers through it, or whatever it was they preferred to do. Cutting it revealed more of his face, made him look a little older, he felt. As a boy, he wanted only to look like a man.
It depended on how you looked at things, though.
He peered closer at himself, squinted at his face, smooth with adolescence, unmarked by time or weariness or age, clean of wisdom, misery and pain. That was why he looked so young, but he didn't know it, and it just pissed him off.
He wondered what he looked like through Remus's eyes.
By the side of his bed Remus stared down at his feet, awkwardly silent even when alone as he waited for Sirius to return. He wanted the other boy's words to shape him in the mirror, down to his toes and up to his brow. Words could caress as well as any touch was capable of, if not perhaps better. Sometimes, Remus thought to himself, in that secret place where his heart met his mind, hands were clumsy and too careless for the gentleness of such relations. One mistake and all was crushed.
When Sirius reappeared into the bedroom Remus was sitting on the edge of his bed and Sirius moved to sit next to him. He did not watch the book, half-open on Remus's lap, but rather the hand Remus had rested on the quilt beside his thigh.
" 'For who would bear the whips and scorns of time'," Remus said, and then stopped as Sirius covered Remus's hand with his own.
"You read that one, already," Sirius pointed out, "you were further on when you stopped last night."
"Right," Remus murmured, "I was at 'There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will'"
"Right," Sirius echoed, and leaned forward, kissing the corner of Remus's mouth very gently. A flash of courage had surged up in his veins and he rode upon its mounting waves, giddy with helplessness. His lips moved from Remus's after that, lifted to his brow, dropped to the side of his neck. Remus's heart fluttered in his chest as if it were a falling sparrow.
Their first kiss, their lips brushing together, came after that and was swift, nothing particularly wonderful about it besides the obvious amazement of being kissed with a kiss you truly longed for. Their second was deeper, and longer, more explorative and curious than passionate, and Remus found that he didn't want to close his eyes to it. Sirius could kiss exceedingly well, had obviously had a good deal of experience, but Remus did not allow himself to feel nervous or intimidated. Rather, he kept his eyes on Sirius's eyes and kissed Sirius lips as Sirius did the same. Sirius's breath was hot against Remus's face, their breath mingling and mixing in the diminished space between them. It was comfortable and inquiring. They were just beginning to learn each other, the spaces of their mouths, the curves of their lips, the feel of their hot breath passing between them.
Their third kiss merged into their fourth and their fourth into their fifth, Sirius's hands moving from Remus's cheeks through his hair, his body pressing close. Remus's fingers rested on Sirius's shoulders, neck, face, tracing patterns on his skin and in doing so learning every detail as a blind boy would. Beneath them the bedsprings creaked and the bedsheets rustled, a humming whisper, gossip sliding beneath their legs.
Sirius's hands were warm and uncallused, though they seemed less boyish than Remus might have expected.
Remus was unafraid. He was warm and more a part of his body than he had ever been in his life, and he was unafraid. He had given himself to Sirius, which meant he had belonged to himself in the first place. Just knowing that was power, made him feel powerful. And the kisses were not as he had once planned for. They were not filled with fire and burning, unbridled passion. He found, though, that they were just as he wanted them. From Sirius. And that was all that mattered.
At an unspoken agreement they broke off their kisses and the warm connection between their lips. Sirius continued to stroke Remus's hair away from his face and back against his ears. As he did so his fingers brushed lightly against the smaller boy's cheek, which was the softest thing he had ever felt in all his life.
"Ah," Sirius said. So that was how it was supposed to be. He'd been doing it wrong all along, and he was, deep in the very center of his stomach, fiercely glad he'd finally gotten it right. Against the palm of his hand the side of Remus's face was warm, flushed as if he were blushing.
Remus said nothing.
It didn't seem necessary after that to speak, and it was less necessary for Sirius to move all the way from Remus's bed back to the roll-away mattress he'd been sleeping on throughout the visit. He kept Remus instead tucked close to his chest as they sank back against the pillow, feeling the top of his head tickle the bottom of his own cheek, and they fell asleep like that after a while, each of them breathing along the same steady rhythms. Their contentment was palpable in the air, but neither of them could feel it in sleep.
The same smile did not fade from Remus's cheek even as he slept.
And as he slept he dreamed a long dream, filled with twisting corridors and the roots of a thousand old oak trees.
It was a forest in which Sirius?s arms became the branches of a proud but weathered oak and he was leaning against it, rocked by its embrace.
The sounds of a night-owl mourned a circle in the shell of his ear, writhing through him to the very center of his soul.
But he ignored it because of the warmth he felt and the smile on his lips that did not taste solely of himself any longer.
The woods knew a song, the song of their roots, that you are stronger for the trees around you and their roots in your roots, more of your own tree when there are other trees to compare yourself with.
Rocked in the embrace of the oak he knew in this dream that he was dreaming, and that the moon had no power over him and his hands and the words that speckled the grass as dew would, when the early morning sun began to rise.
There were also no snakes in this world, sliding dryly over the earth, over stones and the strongest, thickest oak roots bared to the wind.
They listened to the hooting of the owl and made a rough, sssa-sssa sound to each other, creating codes in the dawn's light.
And then the dream was darkness, only rest, belonging to himself less than his dreams but more than his own body.
With his lips pressed up against Remus's cheek Sirius slept, too, the deep sleep of one so fully drunk on satisfaction that it threatened to flood all his smiles. His dreams were pleasant and light, holding no weight to affect his face or press down hard on his chest.
He and Remus were holding each other's hands, fingers moving lightly against fingers, touches as soft and as gentle as the breeze, or butterfly wings against your temple in a dark and cobwebbed night.
At the end the visit they had kissed enough to no longer keep count of each particular one, and how it felt, and how long it lasted. They stopped counting also how many times they touched - not because it was no longer important to them but because they did not feel things so fleeting should be kept on file in their minds. They preferred instead to kiss and to touch and to enjoy it, and to remember later the way the sun was shining down upon them, or the way their laughter danced together like leaves tossed upon the air, and not how many or how much or how often.
At the end of the visit it seemed impossible to separate the two of them, moving together and thinking together, unable to go minutes without each other's touch. Etienne felt like the villain in a romantic ballad, tearing two lovers asunder as he drove Sirius back to the train station and helped him unload his bags from the trunk of the car. He stood aside to let them say their goodbyes, watching the way Sirius touched Remus's forearm and the way Remus tilted his head to the side with a slight, slight blush at the touch.
"Au revoir," Remus said, very softly, because Sirius enjoyed those words he couldn't understand simply for the way they sounded on Remus's tongue.
"What's that?" Sirius decided to attempt it, wincing as the words came out brokenly on his lips. "'Oh voir?'"
"It means, 'until we see each other again,'" Remus explained.
"Oh." Sirius flushed. "Not gonna try it. Sounds better when you say it, anyway. Bye, Remus." He chanced a touch to that one spot he loved on the side of Remus's jaw, just below his cheek. It felt good, and neither of them were blushing because of anyone's eyes on them. The blush was because of soft skin against softer skin and the way it made their cheeks flush hot.
"Goodbye."
Sirius shook Etienne's hand not somberly but seriously, and they said goodbye like old friends might. In the back of Etienne's expression Sirius thought he could see understanding and knowledge and a request.
"I will," Sirius said to Etienne, even though he didn't know what the question was, or what the right answer would turn out to be. Etienne seemed to be satisfied with it, though, nodding once in approval.
"Go on," he said, "or you'll miss your train."
"As much as I want to," Sirius added, and then he left without looking back, knowing the second that the train pulled out of the station was the second he started counting the seconds until school started again.
The seats were comfortable enough and he sat with his bag pressed between his ankles as he fingered the vial of moonshine that dangled from the string around his neck.
"Moonshine," he said softly to himself, before allowing his eyes to search out Remus, standing small and firm on the platform.
And perhaps that was what Remus was, not moonlight but moonshine, something all the more precious and all the more amazing.
And perhaps that was just where he wanted Remus to stay, close to his heart, arms wrapped around his neck.
Sirius left the station much the same way he came in: his hands itching to press, childish, against the glass and his eyes clinging to the sight of Remus Lupin that stayed in one place as he himself unwillingly drew away.
"Does he?" Etienne asked his son.
"Yes," Remus said, very softly.
The train pulled out of the station, sleek black body rumbling down the tracks. Remus could taste memories on his lips, had made memories against them and with him and had them stored in his mind like he would store a bar of chocolate in his pocket to last him the whole, bleak day.
"I like him very much," Etienne said, watching with his son the last car disappear over the edge of the horizon.
"Yes," Remus said, rubbing his cheek pensively, "so do I." The thought of anyone not liking him seemed foreign and strange, unusual and unorthodox. Sirius was Sirius, his summer and his kisses and his remembrance of chocolate ice cream melting in its cones, over his fingers, sweet and sticky.
"Let's go," Etienne said, giving his son's shoulder a light squeeze.
"Yes," Remus said, feeling hollow but hopeful, "let's."
The cool Rhondda air was a welcome change to the stuffy city atmosphere. Canterbury had been hot, the perfect temperature at night but the temperature just slightly too elevated during the sunny days.
Sirius sat with his body sprawled out over the river bank
"You look like an idiot, like that," Michael said beside him, smoking a half burnt-out fag, his fishing rod making a lazy line across Sirius's vision of the sky.
"Do you know," Sirius said, "what it feels like to be in love?" His hair felt soft against his own neck and bared shoulders. The sun was a friend in the sky he understood.
"No." Michael grinned widely. "But I do know what a little girl you're turning out to be."
"C'mon, Michael," Sirius muttered, forgetting entirely to be annoyed.
"Asking me about love, laying about like Cassy when she's moody, staring up at the sky -- Sirius Black, you're a bloody adorable little girl."
"Do me a bit of a favor, Michael, and drown yourself."
"I won't. Sorry I can't oblige. But I can tell you that no, I never have been in love, so I can't say what it's like. I can also tell you that yes, my darling little brother, it looks like you are very much in love." Sirius seemed oddly satisfied with this response, despite the fact that Michael was purposely trying to get on his nerves. "Well," Michael said, after a while, letting his fishing line go slack, "should I be congratulating you and the little lady, then?"
"Go fuck yourself," Sirius said half-heartedly.
"I'll pass," Michael murmured, highly amused.
"Getting any bites?" Sirius asked after a while of silence had passed between them, companionable, just bristling with the tension of frayed nerves.
"No. Are you really in love?"
"I dunno. S'why I was asking you."
"Oh. It'd be kinda funny if you were, don't you think?"
"Why?" That, of all things, rubbed Sirius the wrong way.
"You're young, Sirius. I know you like to think you're fantastically grown up but you're young. People your age just -- well, they don't fall in love."
"Yeah. S'what I thought."
And it made sense.
But then there was the way Remus sounded, his breaths ragged in his throat, like when they got down to really kissing that one time in his bed and it wasn't just kissing for kissing anymore but kissing to satisfy themselves in new, wonderful places. He had pressed Remus down onto his bed in the darkness late one night and things had suddenly change to be hot and tense in the pit of his stomach, and he was acutely aware of small things, like the bridge of Remus's nose pressed against his own cheek, and the feel of Remus's teeth against his tongue, and the spots were their hipbones ground together accidentally, and then again on purpose as they tried to recreate that feeling. It was that little sound Remus made, breathless and all worked up, that Sirius's mind had lingered on. Something, a part of Remus, previously undiscovered.
Then, there was the way that his hair fell into his eyes and made him wrinkle up his nose in annoyance. He didn't want to cut his hair but he didn't want it blowing around in his face, either. So there were times on windy days when they were walking together that he couldn't keep his hair out of his face and eyes. It was distracting, Remus had said, and especially so to Sirius, as he couldn't help but lean over to brush it back and away from his forehead. And that led to their being closer, and that led to their kissing, and that was definitely quite a distraction to the both of them, one that lasted sometimes for almost an hour.
Then, there was the way that he read, his voice low and deep and feeling the words more than he could ever feel any human touch.
"Yeah. Can't be in love," Sirius said, laughing softly.
"But you like her a lot, don't you," Michael murmured, and the fishing line went taut as a silvery body was lured in by the worm and thus snagged on the hook.
"Yeah," Sirius said, rolling over onto his stomach and watching the dirt -- unchanging and moist, pleasantly warm -- stay silent and still between his body and the earth. "I like her a lot." He took the fag from Michael's fingers suddenly and took a long drag on it himself. The coughing fire burned through his lungs from it and he kept from choking out loud by sheer will. Michael watched him with a bemused look, one brow lifted high in his forehead.
"What're you trying to prove, Sirius?" Michael asked as Sirius took another long drag. It was easier than the first, though it was by no means pleasant at all.
"S'not bad," Sirius said, handing the cigarette back to his brother.
"The look on your face says otherwise."
"Hm. I'll get used to it. You did."
"Right," Michael said, looking skeptical.
If it took growing up to love Remus, Sirius thought to himself, then he was damn well going to get a start on it, so he could be as close to that goal as possible by the end of the summer. If it took growing up to love Remus, Sirius wasn't going to waste any of his precious time.
TRANSLATION
Why not?
I don't know.
You know, Remus.
My friend, Sirius...
Your friend.
Yes.
How do you like (lit:love) him?
I don't...
Don't lie to me, Remus. Don't tell me lies.
Forgive me. (lit:pardon me)
Tell me the truth.
I love him.
That's all?
With all my heart.
And the wolf?
...the wolf also.
He pleases you. Yes?
Yes.
And with him, you laugh...always?
Yes.
For you -- for you, Remus, I am happy.
Thank you, papa.
