Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters belong to J.K. Rowling and the wizarding world.
Notes: Remus/Severus slash. Remus' pov - at some point he refers to himself in third person, please don't be confused.
It hurt. Everything hurt, and he was lying on the ground while the fight raged on around him. The fight, the battle, the war, it all came down to this – this night, this moment, this rising dawn. This was all there would ever be of the war that had existed his whole life. Consumed his whole life, and failed to kill him. Lucius had failed to kill him – the blonde man had gone down quickly, as had Narcissa and her sister. He and Severus had learned how to speak with their eyes, and no single wizard stood a chance against them.
No wizard except . . .
If it hadn't hurt so much, inside, he would have laughed. Yes, they had learned to speak with their eyes. Learned how to communicate when pain ran deeper than words and Remus could show up in the dungeons and never have to say Hold me, or I need you, or Please, please make me forget everything but how it feels to be in your arms. And now, now he was on the ground, stretched out alongside all the other corpses while Harry – dear, innocent Harry – fought the darkness. Only he wasn't dead. He wasn't dead and he wasn't going to die and it wasn't supposed to be like that! There were never any promises with Severus, never any words, and if he sometimes imagined that those brittle, black eyes were offering him the world . . .well, that was only his imagination.
It was not supposed to be like this, he cried, but his eyes were closed and no one could hear him. And then he felt his head lifted and cradled in someone's lap – a too familiar lap, and the smell of sweat and fear and promises that he thought he had imagined assaulted his nose. If it hadn't been tainted with the scent of death, it would've been the most beautiful thing he had ever smelled. And, oh, it made his lungs ache, his whole chest burn with the pain of it. He and Severus spoke with scents and eyes and gestures – gestures like holding an injured werewolf while the final battle went on without them. Gestures like thin, potion stained fingers brushing the blood off Remus' cheeks – but how could he be bleeding when his face wasn't injured, and why did his blood taste of salt water?
Gestures like dying for someone who did not deserve it, who nearly killed you when you were only sixteen and stood by and watched you suffer as his friends laughed. Someone who never told you they loved you. But he did love you. Every time he turned to you, or let you turn to him – he loved you all along. And now, now you are dying and yet you sit there with his head in your bony lap running your cool hands across his eyebrows, over his forehead and down the line of his nose, as though you are trying to burn the memory into your fingers to take with you when you – you . . .
Remus opened his eyes.
There, a shadow against the lightening sky – so the world had survived, when it no longer mattered – dark hair, dark eyes, dark blood welling slowly from the gash down his cheek . . .There was Severus, rocking Remus in his weakening grasp. Remus wondered who was making that dreadful keening noise, whining like a dog that had lost its master . . .Or a wolf about to lose its mate.
He and Severus had learned to speak with their eyes, on the countless field missions where they slept on the ground, cushioned only by their robes and by each other, taking solace where they could. It is hopeless. Not while we live. We will not win. We have to win. I need you. I need you. I need you. And it should have been his eyes closing; it was him – the half-breed, the subhuman – that Voldemort meant to kill. But language had gotten in the way. Language with glances and gestures, and Severus had made the one gesture that meant everything. The one word he was never supposed to say.
And it is supposed to be his hand stiffening as it rests on another's face, him saying – in their own, mute tongue – what he has felt for so long. I love you. He should have said it before, because, in their language, it is something that can only be said once. It is fatal, like 'Avada Kedavra,' only without the awkward lisping speech and extravagant green light. It is fatal, because in their language loving someone means being willing to die for them. In their language there are no words, there are only actions and truths reflected in black eyes as they take the curse that was not meant for them. In their language love has the final word because death is the final gesture, and Severus . . .Severus spoke first.