Like The Swans
Pairing: Remus Lupin / Sirius Black
Rating: "R" – for Slash and descriptions of homosexual relations
DISCLAIMER: This story is fictional – that's F-I-C-T-I-O-N. It never happened, and is not real. It is the product of my own imagination. It contains descriptions of male slash (that's male/male homosexual relations). If you do not like this type of content, or if you find homosexuality or its practice offensive, please click the "Back" button or close your Internet browser NOW, and do not read any further. All characters and copyrights are owned by J.K Rowling and Warner Brothers™ (AOL Time Warner), but this story is owned by me and is all my own work.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: The words "Tovareeshchah Stalin, mi preevetstehveoo vas!" is a Russian turn of phrase. Formerly a great compliment, now a great insult, it has been written in the Roman alphabet in a pronounceable way for those who cannot read Cyrillic script. Properly reading "Товарищ Сталин, мы приветствуем вас!", it roughly translates as "Comrade Stalin, we salute you!". The author apologises for any offence possibly caused by this, and strongly assures that none was meant, intentionally or otherwise. Thank you, and enjoy the story…
Alone…
Surrounded by people, yet so alone…
The frumpy shape half sat, half collapsed onto the bright green bench beside the lake. All around him, muggles swarmed past, licking ice-creams, drinking from the never-ending supply of Coke cans that the fat, jolly man standing at the cold vendor cart was tirelessly dishing out to the world and more.
A man who could very easily have been Remus Lupin's alter-ego.
Yet the Coke man was blissfully unaware of the dilemma going through the middle-aged werewolf's mind. Indeed, he was, actually, blissfully unaware of what a werewolf even was, never mind what such a creature would look like. And if he had have known, Remus didn't think that he would be quite so keen to sell his wares just two yards away from him. Not even the same city as him, big as Liverpool was.
Remus loved to sit in Sefton Park of an afternoon. Just to sit and while away the hours until it was time to slink back home to his tiny flat above a tobacconist's shop in the south end of Allerton. "People-watching", he called it. He would spend day after day sitting on this same bench at the water's edge, making up stories about the people who passed him by. This lady by the Coke stand was lady in waiting to a beautiful queen in a far off country he probably couldn't even pronounce. That man over there looked so much like a Soviet spy that on a normal day he would have had to fight the urge to stand up and shout "Tovareeshchah Stalin, mi preevetstehveoo vas!", but shouting half-insulting, half-endearing phrases in major eastern European languages at random people he had never met had somehow lost its appeal today.
People were certainly noticing him, however. Well, it was not strange to see a middle-aged gentleman, even one whose normally neat-and tidy, moustached face had not seen a razor since the previous morning, sat alone by the lakeside. Though, to be fair, not many people around him had chosen to dress in an old, baggy cardigan, jumper, shirt and corduroy trousers for the June midday sun. 'They probably think I'm still drunk from last night or something,' he thought, and the Remus who would have shouted at the suspected Russo-Baltic policeman would have giggled, because Remus never drank. He hated not being in control of anything. But instead of laughing at the thought of the possible reasons as to why he was here, he sat quietly, shoulders slumped, periodically tearing chunks off a mouldy half-loaf of bread and throwing it out onto the shimmering, glassy water to his anterior.
There were ducks on the lake. Mainly those small, brown ones that never stop quacking at anything that moves, but amongst them were a few large drakes, their heads and necks a gorgeous shade of the deepest bottle green. Every time a lump of bread would hit the water, the ducks would try to grab at it, but the drakes would casually swim up to them and steal it, pecking any duck that got in their way. The antics of the water faring fowl bored him, but he liked sitting here anyway. It was a mindless task, and it let him think…
Or forget…
Remus dropped his gaze to the bread in his hands. A leftover from the meal that he had prepared for his old lover the previous night, it was hard, stale and a little bit mouldy. 'Just like us', he pondered. For ever since Sirius had burst back into his life, that's how he saw them. Old friendships die hard, they say, but old relationships? It was a very little known secret that the pair had been lovers. Before Lily and James died, anyway. And that whole business with Peter and the muggles. His conscious mind had convinced itself that Sirius must be guilty, must be, that there was no other explanation. But something in the back of his mind, a thought, buried deep under lashings of logic and sensibility, that thought said that Sirius was innocent.
They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Indeed it does, for not a day went by since Sirius's incarceration that he didn't miss him, need him, yearn for the day when they would be together again. Ache for just another hour, even just another few minutes, with him. But now, after twelve long, lonely years, when they had finally been reunited?
They used to have such a good relationship. They had been so involved with each other. They used to be so close. The stolen kisses in public. A quick cuddle in a deserted aisle in the supermarket, and a sly grope on the bus back to their flat. Remus remembered how they would sit up talking some nights, talking about everything and nothing, not even noticing that the sun had risen high in the morning sky. That they would make love every night, an act seeming to be the most beautiful thing in the world. How every stroke, every movement, was like knocking on the Gates of Heaven itself.
But now…
The night before, as Remus had lain next to his life-long partner as he had done so many times since leaving school, naked apart from a contented smile which had come so naturally but now seemed so enforced, he had thought of how long he had wanted this moment, how long he had waited for Sirius to share his bed once more. For this one, stolen night, before his lover would flee into hiding. And as Sirius had reached out and stroked his mottled, scarred skin, he remembered how that sensation had always made him feel so special. But that night, all that he felt was… aaaarrrrggggggghhhhhhhhh. And Sirius had been so rough, so desperate for release that he had not even bothered to check if Remus had even climaxed. Sirius had turned to him and said that he had been waiting for that moment for so long. 'But you shouldn't make love to someone just because you want a quick thrill,' he thought bitterly. 'We have hands for a reason, and they can easily take care of those sorts of matters.' God knows Remus knew that. He had been consoling himself with his own feeble efforts for twelve years, all the time yearning to have sex with Sirius again. But that was because all he wanted was to be close to the man he loved.
'Still loves,' he thought, unable to decide whether the concept made him feel joyful or miserable.
Remus looked up at the lake again, to throw his last scrap of bread to the ducks. As he did, he noticed two swans, two obviously male swans, glide up to the group of birds. He stared, almost hypnotised at the sight which lay before him. The swans, blinding, pure white, their beaks the colour of the Estonian midnight sun, began to circle each other, tied into an intricate dance of such grace and beauty that the likes of humankind cannot and will not ever understand. So many muggles walked past the lake, oblivious to the splendour which lay before them. If only they would open their eyes! Remus alone seemed to recognise the apparition of peace and wonder that lay before him, as the swans gently, delicately entwined their necks together. At this sight, tears gently rolled down his cheeks as he silently, openly wept at their act of union. So incomprehensible, and yet so obviously clear, how the swans seemed only ever to seek out one partner, forever, how they would dance and touch, exposed for all to observe and yet so private none could see. How they would both retire in amongst the reedy plants on the water's surface and disappear, away from prying eyes, to make love… to mate… mate for life…
"We used to mate for life…" sobbed the werewolf, oblivious to anyone who could hear him.
But the pair had spent so much time apart. Could they ever be as they once were? So close, so in tune with each other's thoughts? And however much Remus wanted them to be, however much he was willing to beg any Deity who would listen to his pleas, he realised just one thing – that despite how much he loved him, for the first time ever he was no longer sure if he really wanted Sirius anymore. They had spent just too much time apart. Too many years Remus had spent, wasted, lonely, hating him for a crime that not only did he not commit, but tried to prevent.
Why couldn't they be as close as they once had been? To be happy, and unashamed. Parading their love for all to see, instead of hiding away for fear of other people's opinions, not even sure of their own feelings for one another any more.
Why couldn't they continue to live as they once had lived, mating for life, curled up and entwined in each other's bodies and each other's hearts?
Why couldn't they live, free, forever more, with not a single fear or worry in the whole world?
Why?
Why couldn't they be, even if only for a few minutes, or even two seconds?
Just for one moment, a single, perfect moment?
Why couldn't they be like the swans?