Chapter 8 - Bizet Carmen
"Sirius, where's my tie?"
"What, this nice soft black silky one?" Sirius asked innocently, holding it up and running his fingers through it. Remus sighed and held out his hand for it. "Give."
"Come and get it."
Remus walked over and tried to snatch the tie form Sirius. However, he pulled it out of his reach and looped it around his own neck. "Sirius! Give me my tie!"
"Make me."
Remus leant forwards until his lips were brushing his mate's lips. "I just told you to give me back my tie, Padfoot."
Sirius' breathing was becoming heavy. Remus smiled and pulled the silk out of his limp grasp. Remus straightened again and knotted the tie around his neck. Sirius swallowed hard and then stood up to link his hands around Remus' waist. He rested his chin on his lover's shoulder. "Remind me where we're going again?"
Remus sighed deeply. "Peter somehow got James, Lilly and us tickets to the see 'Carmen' in London. You know that, Sirius, you're just pretending to be stupid. Now will you please put your shirt and tie on?"
Sirius let him go and started to do up his shirt. "Will I enjoy it?"
"I haven't got a clue. I've never seen it before. It's a muggle thing."
"Do I have to wear a tie?"
"Yes, you do. Come here …"
Remus knotted Sirius' tie while he tucked his shirt in. Remus pulled Sirius tie up to his neck and slowly unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. "That better?"
"Better for me or you?"
Remus frowned, confused. Sirius explained, "Well, it's less buttons for you to undo tonight, isn't it. OK, OK, you don't have to glare like that! Yes it is better, thank you. Honestly, it was a joke! You remember them, don't you?"
Remus grabbed his arms and slammed him against the wall, kissing him forcefully. He pulled back after a moment and started at Sirius through burning eyes. "Sorry," Sirius murmured, knowing that was what Remus wanted to hear. Remus released him and smiled. "We're going to be late if we don't go now."
"'K. I'm coming," Sirius muttered, staring at his reflection in the mirror and pushing his hair behind his ears. Remus grabbed his arm, dragging him out into the hall.
Sirius was bored. He leant his elbow on the chair arm and cupped his chin in his palm. This wasn't exactly his scene. James looked about as impressed as Sirius, though both their partners at least pretended to be enthralled. Peter kept glancing at his watch.
They were about halfway though the opera when disaster struck. A man stood up in the centre of the crowd, pointed at the ceiling directly above his head with his wand and screamed an exploding charm. It was similar to the one in packs of exploding snap cards, but much, much more powerful. The woman playing Carmen, who was on stage, froze, the note she was singing tailing off with a strangled sort of noise. The four wizards sitting on the front row - minus Peter, who had been called away by 'buisness' minutes before - turned, saw what was happening and threw themselves to the floor.
The ceiling imploded, sending shards of cracking plaster and stone crashing towards the seats below. Cracks riddled the ceiling all over the theatre. Suddenly, a huge piece of the roof above the stage, an almost perfect half-circle of rubble held together by chance, fell with a deafening smash. It had fallen breathtakingly slowly, gliding through the air as though on a prearranged path. Carmen stood motionless for a long moment then hurled herself desperately off the edge of the stage, a scream of terror exploding from her throat. Remus looked up as Sirius and James got up onto their knees. He stared, wide-eyed at something directly above, and hurled himself sideways into Sirius, knocking him out of the way right into James. The debris covered most of the stage and the front two rows. Outside the cocoon, mass hysteria and pandemonium ensued.
Falling rubble and other terrified people surrounded those outside. Screams rent the smoky air, making things seem much worse than they actually were.
The four wizards found themselves trapped in a confined space with a hysterical 'Carmen' and part of the front two rows of seats. In complete darkness. They were all screaming and running like headless chickens, pounding on the fragile plaster walls of their prison. Sirius, from his prone position on top of James, shouted, "Stupefy!"
For a moment, red light flashed through the dark and there was a thud as half the people collapsed in a dead faint. James saw to the other half, shoving Sirius off him. Then there was just 'Carmen', who Lilly went to and tried to calm down. Sirius clambered to his feet, lit the end of his wand and looked around for Remus.
He was lying on the floor, his face deathly pale and contorted with pain. Sirius fell to his knees. He could sense something wrong, and could feel Remus scrabbling at their mental bond, holding back pain. "What?"
/My - my leg…/ Remus said though their mind-to-mind bond. He couldn't physically talk. He could barely think straight and Sirius had to concentrate hard to understand. Sirius fanned the thin beam of light down Remus' body to see what was the matter. The moment he realised, he felt sick. He played the light over the ceiling above. It was plated with wooden panels, interspersed with large beams, some of which were hanging off. One of them had splintered right through and fallen right onto Remus' leg - sharp end first. He suddenly realised why Remus had shoved him - he had moved him out of the way of the beam, endangering his own life instead. Sirius shut his eyes as they filled with tears of admiration. How could Remus do something like that for him? How could he love him that much? There was no way he was worth that much …
Sirius turned back to his mate and swallowed the sick feeling. He reached out and loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt to make his breathing easier while telling him, /Thank you./
/Get this thing off me and we'll call it quits, 'K?/ Remus replied, a smile twitching at his lips despite the obvious horrendous pain. Sirius called, "James! A little help, please?"
James trotted over and asked what was wrong. Sirius played his light over Remus' leg again. James went green. "Oh, God."
"Look, can you stop standing there saying 'Oh, God' and get it off me!" Remus grated, his breathing ragged. James looked at Sirius. "Levitation charm?"
"Levitation charm."
Together they whispered the words and lifted the beam up. Remus screamed as the wood was dragged out of his flesh. 'Carmen' and Lilly looked around, 'Carmen's' scream echoing Remus'. They slowly moved the beam between them until it was in a place where it was safe to drop it; they did so. "James, start waking people up. The ministry won't be pleased we knocked them out, so we'd better get them up before they arrive."
James nodded and hurried towards the nearest unconscious body. Sirius went back to Remus. His breath came in frantic gasps. The werewolf told him, /Thanks./
/Anytime. But I'd prefer it if I never had to do it again, mate. Please don't do anything like that again./
/I will if you're ever in danger./
/No, you - /
/I will, Sirius, whether you like it or not./
Sirius knelt beside Remus, unable to hold in a melancholy smile despite the situation, and muttered, "I'm not exactly good at healing charms - can you wait until the Ministry and the people from St Mungo's get here?"
Remus nodded weakly, gritting his teeth against the pain. He felt ill and the pain in his leg was almost unbearable. He knew that the wound was worse than Sirius thought. The beam had actually gone right through his leg, splintering the bone. He had already lost a lot of blood. He swallowed hard and whispered, "Is there any way out?"
Sirius sighed. "I don't know."
Remus shut his eyes and tried to relax. Remus was in too much pain to stop the pain being transferred from one to the other; Sirius' leg started to hurt. Eventually Remus passed out.
The five minutes it took for the Ministry of Magic to arrive and get the cup of ceiling off those trapped inside felt like five hours, particularly to the four wizards. Lilly and James had to keep the people calm and assure them that they would be rescued sooner rather than later, while Sirius watched over Remus.
When the cracked dome started to move, the people inside screamed, and Sirius had to admit to a tremor of fear as the idea that it had finally given up and was going to crash down on them all. Then the whole thing lifted up off the ground and a voice called through the dust, "Get out as fast as possible. Carry any wounded and, please, I know it's hard, but leave the dead."
The people scrambled to comply with the authoritative voice. James looked across at Sirius. There was no way he was going to leave. He scrambled out, leaving his friend, and called to one of the healers. "Hey! Yeah, you! There's a guy in there with a messed up leg - we can't get him out."
The healer ducked inside and conjured a stretcher from thin air, ordering it to float behind her. She looked at Sirius. "I need your help."
Sirius didn't answer but just knelt to help her lift Remus onto the stretcher. He made no sound of pain to normal ears, but Sirius heard the horrible internal scream. /Sorry, love./
/I know. Don't leave me …/
Sirius followed the healer like a puppy, pausing only to be counted off as a survivor. She stopped the stretcher next to one of the bright-yellow-and-fluorescent-green ambulances belonging to the quick-response, mass-incident unit of St Mungo's. There, she looked at the wound carefully and Sirius saw the full extent for the first time. Remus' pain was so obvious to Sirius that his own leg was beginning to ache so badly it hurt to put weight on it and, every time the healer touched the cut, a sharp jolt of pain ran through him. She muttered the relevant charms to mend the bones and heal the skin. She checked him over, forced a blood-replenishing potion down his throat and let him go.
Remus fell straight into Sirius' waiting arms, shaking slightly and close to tears. Sirius didn't try to do anything to comfort his mate; they both knew what the other was feeling. And there was nothing to say.
"What happened here?" Lilly demanded, her hands on her hips. Her brilliant auburn hair had half come out of its once-neat bun; she had lost her diamond-studded tiara; her long green dress was torn in a thousand places; she was covered in a thick layer of dust and grime; she still looked amazing. The Ministry of Magic official cowered away from her.
"Sorry, madam, we aren't allowed - "
"I was a part of this incident. I have a right to know!"
"…classified information …"
"Classified my - "
"Lilly! Stop harassing him. He probably isn't important enough to know anyway - "
"I am! Fine, but if this gets to the Prophet before we have a statement … It has been proved that it was scare tactics from the Death Eaters. That's all we know. We don't know how many perished yet."
"Thank you," Lilly snapped icily, turning on her heel and hurrying to see how Remus was, James tailing behind her.
Sirius had found two seats, both looking dirty and trashed but useable, and they had sat down on them. Remus still wasn't crying, but Sirius knew that the moment they got home he would break down. Then again, he wasn't sure he wouldn't be crying too. Remus was leaning heavily on Sirius, his head rested on his shoulder and his eyes shut. James crouched beside them and asked, "Hey. How's the leg?"
Remus didn't react. Sirius explained what the healer had done. Remus shuddered gently. Lilly reached out and touched his arm. "Why don't you two go home?"
Sirius shrugged. "Peter's got the car and we can't walk back to the Leaky Cauldron. And I don't dare apparate when I'm feeling like this - it'd be worse than drink driving."
"Can't we ask the Ministry for a car?"
"They wouldn't say yes."
"I'm going to ask," Lilly said, stalking away towards someone who looked official. Sirius shook his head. "Don't you have any control over her?"
James shrugged. For a long while they sat there until Lilly came back with a look of triumph on her face. "They're giving us a car back to the Leaky Cauldron. I think we should spend the night there and leave tomorrow. OK?"
Sirius muttered his consent; Remus just snuggled closer to him, needing to feel his arms around him.
When they arrived back at the inn, Tom was only too glad to give them rooms and offered to wash their clothes if they left them outside the door to their room. Sirius and Remus went up to their room leaning heavily on each other.
Remus collapsed onto the bed the moment he could and shut his eyes. Sirius sat on the edge and reached over to pull his tie loose so he could take it off over his lover's head. He started on Remus' shirt, forcing his lover to sit up while he took it off. Then he pulled off the ruined trousers. He stripped off his own clothes and took the clothes outside the bedroom door. He turned back to Remus, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, running his hands though his hair, which was still full of plaster dust. Sirius whined, worried about his mate. For the first time since the dome had crashed over them, Remus looked properly at his mate. He burst out laughing.
Sirius frowned and walked over to the mirror above the roaring fire. His hair had turned grey, coated as it was with plaster dust. His skin also had an unhealthy pallor due to the dust and a thin cut on his cheek had left a dingy red streak running down his face. He grinned at his reflection. "I think we both need a bath."
Remus came up behind him and started to rub his shoulders. "Mm, that's good - lower."
Remus moved his fingers and worked at a large knot in Sirius' muscles. "You're all tense."
"I've had a very stressful evening."
"I know. Bathroom?"
"OK. You're running the bath."
They relocated to the small bathroom and lit the oil burner on the sink and the numerous candles. Remus started the taps running and then went back to rubbing Sirius' back, more roughly than before. Sirius leant both hands on the wall, groaning as Remus' skilful fingers dissipated the tension in his back.
When the bath was run, they both got into it together, Remus sitting between Sirius' legs so he could lean back against his lover's chest. The bath was wonderfully hot and the scented steam soon started to make them both feel sleepy. Remus sighed contentedly, snuggling back. Sirius tightened his arms around him. Finally he could stop worrying.
Eventually they got out of the bath and at least started to dry themselves on the towels before becoming distracted by the far more pressing desire to touch each other. Then they negotiated their way back into the bedroom, virtually falling onto the bed in a heap. Sirius kissed along Remus' shoulder, locking his arms around him. Remus shut his eyes in ecstasy and murmured, "I'm tired, Sirius."
"Too tired? 'Coz I can stop …"
"No, it's just … I can't … I want you to make love to me, Sirius,"
Sirius just smiled, his eyes shining. Slowly, gently he started to move over Remus' body, kissing him, familiarising himself with Remus' body for the thousandth time. The body of the man who had quite possibly saved his life.
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(Again, sorry for the LONG silence! Moving house is evil! My bookshelves are empty! tear How can I survive without my literacy?! Please review to make me feel better. I do appreciate it, you know. Very much. I will pass on any helpful little messages for Remus and/or Sirius after this horrible ordeal I put them through … I'm sure they'd be very grateful.)
