Fic! :]
Oh yes, here there be fic. ;]
I still owe a couple of people fic commentaries-- I promise I'm working on them! And I'd still welcome more requests, because I've had a blast doing the first couple. Give me a chance to commentate-- commentize? commentatify?-- over here!
Title: Portals of Discovery
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Remus/Sirius
Spoilers/Warnings: Erm, spoilers for Harry Potter I suppose. The third/fourth/fifth books specifically. As for warnings, beware a totally screwed up timeline-- I've got no idea when this happens, and while it's not wildly AU I may have strayed from canon to put Remus and Sirius in Grimmauld Place when I wanted them there; I'm honestly not sure!
Summary: He shouldn’t be so surprised that he is somehow swallowing unsaid words without wanting to, but Sirius still manages to shock him into certain reactions. Remus and Sirius readjust to each other post-Azkaban and pre-veil.
Notes: For saraannette, on the glorious occasion of the anniversary of her birth. I was so totally neurotic about this fic that I emailed it to her, instead of posting, but she effectively squashed my paranoia with her squee, so I decided to go ahead and post. Title gacked from a James Joyce quote (A man's errors are his portals of discovery), largely because it sounded cool.
I’ll understand if you don’t -- I mean, I’ll understand,” Sirius says.
Remus turns, one eyebrow up, and waits.
“I just -- I mean, I haven’t -- look, I don’t know how much of a choice Dumbledore gave you,” Sirius says, at which point a few things become startlingly clear. Remus isn’t sure what to say.
“He,” he shouldn’t be so surprised that he is somehow swallowing unsaid words without wanting to, but Sirius still manages to shock him into certain reactions, “he gave me plenty of choice Sirius.”
“Yeah, alright,” Sirius says. He doesn’t sound like he’s in a particularly believing mood, nor does he look like it, and Remus inwardly curses himself for not having a quicker response.
“Sirius,” he says, “I want you here, alright?”
“Alright,” Sirius repeats, sounding annoyed. His eyes are dark and the lines around them have never been so evident. Remus wants, very suddenly, to hit something. Or someone.
“Sirius,” he says. Sirius shakes his head.
“Look, I know when you’re humoring me, alright? Just shut it.”
Which brings into Remus’ gut the short, stabbing realization that maybe twelve years has changed them both more than they realize. Sirius did used to know, but maybe he doesn’t anymore. And maybe he wants to scream, and curse, and hex things.
“I’m not,” he says instead, and pushes himself up out of the armchair, and goes to make himself some tea.
Sirius follows him a few minutes later. You used to know when Sirius entered a room. Things got brighter, and bigger, and more cinematic. Now they got dustier. They turned sepia-toned.
“I’m not going to get in the way,” he says, sounding determined, and a ghost of a long-forgotten smile skims Remus’ mouth.
“Yes you will,” he says, “but I won’t mind.”
He wonders, instantly, if you can’t make that joke with a man who has been in prison for twelve years, who no longer knows when you’re humoring him, who, somehow, hates the idea of being in your house, of being a burden.
There is a bark of laughter from Sirius, but it does nothing to ease Remus’ fears. Sirius’ laughter always had a trace of bitterness in it. Now the bitterness has increased tenfold, and it is strange and foreign and painful to hear it in the middle of the kitchen.
He wants to turn around, but he is scared. Scared of how Sirius will look as he laughs, scared of the sadness and the age crowding away the trust and the ease with which Sirius used to talk to him. He is scared, and he thinks Sirius is too, and that scares him even more.
“Sirius,” he says, “you won’t be in the way. I --”
“I hate being in the way,” Sirius says darkly, and begins hauling his bag up the stairs.
‘You’re in your own house for Merlin’s sake!,’ Remus wants to yell up the stairs, but reminding Sirius of whose house this is will not help. He still knows that.
And anyway, maybe Sirius doesn’t want to be here. Maybe he doesn’t want to be here, with Remus, in this house. And maybe this is when something crushing and unnamed blooms in Remus’ stomach and gleefully, painfully begins to swell.
********
Sirius chose his own room. Remus didn’t even dream of having one ready for him. Sirius knows this house better than Remus ever will, and Sirius is the unknown quality. He always was, but now there is something frightening about it, instead of endearing. Or rather, in addition to.
It’s stomach-twisting to realize that Sirius is still endearing at all, and Remus goes back to making breakfast and ignoring the fact that he isn’t alone here anymore.
Sirius does come down to eat, eventually, just as he’s come down to eat (eventually) every day for the past four days. He comes down, and he thanks Remus sullenly for breakfast, and Remus can hear in Sirius’ step, see in the curve of his mouth that he doesn’t want to be here. He thinks he’s in the way. He hates this old house, he hates this old feeling, he hates --
What, a pointy little voice asks, he hates what?
Remus begins to butter toast.
********
He lets Sirius make his own breakfast after the first week. It helps in the most minimal way, but maybe it does help. That’s something.
Sirius shuffles downstairs, moping, in the mornings. Of course, now that Sirius is older (it’s more than that, it’s, ‘now that it’s been twelve years,’ except that age has nothing to do with it) Remus can’t call it moping. It’s something darker, and sort of twisted, and Remus will never admit it, but he’d rather Sirius would just mope. Even pouting would be alright.
Sirius shuffles downstairs, brooding, and shoves a piece of toast into the toaster. Sometimes his fingers shake. Always they are pale, and skinny, and sharp. Sometimes they shake. And Remus wants very much to hold them still, and sits on his own hands to stop himself.
********
“Look,” Sirius says, and Remus cannot remember the last time Sirius spent so much time stuttering and pausing and being generally un-Sirius (he can actually -- he was saying something about Remus and really kind of and er and I quite like you -- I mean, you do know -- I -- bugger -- but he pretends he can’t).
“Look,” Sirius says, “I really -- I mean Moony I don’t want to -- I’m only going to be in the way, and you know this house -- anyway. Maybe I’ll find a flat. Or something.”
Remus wants to hit him. Hard. On the jaw. Because how dare he want to leave and how dare he honestly think he was in the way and how dare -- how dare -- he call him Moony in the midst of all this awkward, awful conversation?
“Alright,” Remus says.
********
“Sirius,” Remus says, “Sirius. I, uh -- Sirius.”
Sirius turns from his moping -- sulking? brooding? whatever the hell he’s doing, it’s making Remus want to scold him in the most ridiculous and nostalgic way -- to look at Remus. There is a very sudden moment in which Remus remembers Sirius, the Sirius who laughed and teased and bit Remus’ lower lip. There is a sharp ache permeating the room, and Remus holds on for dear life.
“Yeah?” Sirius says, and Remus bursts into paragraphs.
“I don’t think you’re in the way Sirius; Merlin’s beard try to get your stupid thick head around the idea that I missed you will you? And I -- look, don’t go and get a bloody flat, alright? There’s no point in you getting a flat. And I know you hate it here -- actually, if you want to get a flat you really ought to. Because -- yes. I’m making a fool of myself. If you don’t want -- I mean I have missed you, hell Sirius but if you don't -- you should get a flat. I, uh -- yes.”
Sirius is staring at him like he’s grown another head, or started speaking Latin, or -- and does he dare to hope -- like he’s actually thinking.
“Moony,” he says, “Jesus Christ Moony.”
Remus doesn't know what that means, but he feels suddenly very small, and remembers when he had a crush (a real crush, the sort that crushes you, presses you into the ground, makes you want to burst into sonnets, or snogging) on Sirius, which was really from being thirteen on. He remembers the feeling when he'd accidentally let something slip, like his face must be an incredibly vibrant red and oh hell, he has it now.
"I," he says, "I, uh, I'll go. I mean, to my room. Uh, to the room over there. Which I am living in."
"Moony," Sirius says, sounding strangled, and Remus is so angry, suddenly -- how can Sirius call him that now?
********
Remus is lying in his bed, and thinking. He shouldn't be thinking. It will only get him in trouble. He learned that during the first war, during nights of lying awake and thinking about Marlene McKinnon, and the Longbottoms.
Except then he had Sirius next to him, Sirius hitting him on the back of the head and telling him to 'stop thinking so hard or you'll break something.' Had Sirius.
"Moony," says a low voice in the dark, and Remus starts up, hitting the back of his head on the headboard.
"Sirius --!" He hisses, and Sirius laughs for a second, brief and bitter.
"Sorry. I just -- look, if you --"
But Remus remembers what happened the last time there were this many pauses in the conversation. He made a complete fool of himself.
"Sirius it's fine. You can get a flat, and --"
"And what? Leave you here by yourself?"
"I know you hate it here," Remus says quietly. Tired. He's tired.
"I hate this house," Sirius says, perching on the edge of the bed, "I don't hate it here."
He's a silhouette in the dark, and Remus cannot see his face, but he thinks that maybe Sirius is, well (and he cringes), serious.
"Alright," he says quietly.
"No," Sirius says, bends down, and presses his lips against Remus', hard.
Remus will think afterward that it was a renewal of sorts, a remembering. He will think that it was a reunion, or perhaps a rejuvenation. But at the time he wasn't thinking at all. And that was good.
"I missed you too," Sirius says, and Remus wants to smile, to open his mouth and let out rainbows and butterflies and probably happy anthropomorphic deer. He wants to say something, anything, but nothing has ever gotten through to Sirius like actions.
When Remus leans forward, puts his hand on the back of Sirius' head, and pulls, he thinks maybe Sirius is surprised. He used to treasure the moments when he could surprise Sirius. He treasures this one, stores it in that warm place near his bellybutton, and always sees it in full-color, though the room is full of shadows.
I still owe a couple of people fic commentaries-- I promise I'm working on them! And I'd still welcome more requests, because I've had a blast doing the first couple. Give me a chance to commentate-- commentize? commentatify?-- over here!
Title: Portals of Discovery
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Remus/Sirius
Spoilers/Warnings: Erm, spoilers for Harry Potter I suppose. The third/fourth/fifth books specifically. As for warnings, beware a totally screwed up timeline-- I've got no idea when this happens, and while it's not wildly AU I may have strayed from canon to put Remus and Sirius in Grimmauld Place when I wanted them there; I'm honestly not sure!
Summary: He shouldn’t be so surprised that he is somehow swallowing unsaid words without wanting to, but Sirius still manages to shock him into certain reactions. Remus and Sirius readjust to each other post-Azkaban and pre-veil.
Notes: For saraannette, on the glorious occasion of the anniversary of her birth. I was so totally neurotic about this fic that I emailed it to her, instead of posting, but she effectively squashed my paranoia with her squee, so I decided to go ahead and post. Title gacked from a James Joyce quote (A man's errors are his portals of discovery), largely because it sounded cool.
I’ll understand if you don’t -- I mean, I’ll understand,” Sirius says.
Remus turns, one eyebrow up, and waits.
“I just -- I mean, I haven’t -- look, I don’t know how much of a choice Dumbledore gave you,” Sirius says, at which point a few things become startlingly clear. Remus isn’t sure what to say.
“He,” he shouldn’t be so surprised that he is somehow swallowing unsaid words without wanting to, but Sirius still manages to shock him into certain reactions, “he gave me plenty of choice Sirius.”
“Yeah, alright,” Sirius says. He doesn’t sound like he’s in a particularly believing mood, nor does he look like it, and Remus inwardly curses himself for not having a quicker response.
“Sirius,” he says, “I want you here, alright?”
“Alright,” Sirius repeats, sounding annoyed. His eyes are dark and the lines around them have never been so evident. Remus wants, very suddenly, to hit something. Or someone.
“Sirius,” he says. Sirius shakes his head.
“Look, I know when you’re humoring me, alright? Just shut it.”
Which brings into Remus’ gut the short, stabbing realization that maybe twelve years has changed them both more than they realize. Sirius did used to know, but maybe he doesn’t anymore. And maybe he wants to scream, and curse, and hex things.
“I’m not,” he says instead, and pushes himself up out of the armchair, and goes to make himself some tea.
Sirius follows him a few minutes later. You used to know when Sirius entered a room. Things got brighter, and bigger, and more cinematic. Now they got dustier. They turned sepia-toned.
“I’m not going to get in the way,” he says, sounding determined, and a ghost of a long-forgotten smile skims Remus’ mouth.
“Yes you will,” he says, “but I won’t mind.”
He wonders, instantly, if you can’t make that joke with a man who has been in prison for twelve years, who no longer knows when you’re humoring him, who, somehow, hates the idea of being in your house, of being a burden.
There is a bark of laughter from Sirius, but it does nothing to ease Remus’ fears. Sirius’ laughter always had a trace of bitterness in it. Now the bitterness has increased tenfold, and it is strange and foreign and painful to hear it in the middle of the kitchen.
He wants to turn around, but he is scared. Scared of how Sirius will look as he laughs, scared of the sadness and the age crowding away the trust and the ease with which Sirius used to talk to him. He is scared, and he thinks Sirius is too, and that scares him even more.
“Sirius,” he says, “you won’t be in the way. I --”
“I hate being in the way,” Sirius says darkly, and begins hauling his bag up the stairs.
‘You’re in your own house for Merlin’s sake!,’ Remus wants to yell up the stairs, but reminding Sirius of whose house this is will not help. He still knows that.
And anyway, maybe Sirius doesn’t want to be here. Maybe he doesn’t want to be here, with Remus, in this house. And maybe this is when something crushing and unnamed blooms in Remus’ stomach and gleefully, painfully begins to swell.
********
Sirius chose his own room. Remus didn’t even dream of having one ready for him. Sirius knows this house better than Remus ever will, and Sirius is the unknown quality. He always was, but now there is something frightening about it, instead of endearing. Or rather, in addition to.
It’s stomach-twisting to realize that Sirius is still endearing at all, and Remus goes back to making breakfast and ignoring the fact that he isn’t alone here anymore.
Sirius does come down to eat, eventually, just as he’s come down to eat (eventually) every day for the past four days. He comes down, and he thanks Remus sullenly for breakfast, and Remus can hear in Sirius’ step, see in the curve of his mouth that he doesn’t want to be here. He thinks he’s in the way. He hates this old house, he hates this old feeling, he hates --
What, a pointy little voice asks, he hates what?
Remus begins to butter toast.
********
He lets Sirius make his own breakfast after the first week. It helps in the most minimal way, but maybe it does help. That’s something.
Sirius shuffles downstairs, moping, in the mornings. Of course, now that Sirius is older (it’s more than that, it’s, ‘now that it’s been twelve years,’ except that age has nothing to do with it) Remus can’t call it moping. It’s something darker, and sort of twisted, and Remus will never admit it, but he’d rather Sirius would just mope. Even pouting would be alright.
Sirius shuffles downstairs, brooding, and shoves a piece of toast into the toaster. Sometimes his fingers shake. Always they are pale, and skinny, and sharp. Sometimes they shake. And Remus wants very much to hold them still, and sits on his own hands to stop himself.
********
“Look,” Sirius says, and Remus cannot remember the last time Sirius spent so much time stuttering and pausing and being generally un-Sirius (he can actually -- he was saying something about Remus and really kind of and er and I quite like you -- I mean, you do know -- I -- bugger -- but he pretends he can’t).
“Look,” Sirius says, “I really -- I mean Moony I don’t want to -- I’m only going to be in the way, and you know this house -- anyway. Maybe I’ll find a flat. Or something.”
Remus wants to hit him. Hard. On the jaw. Because how dare he want to leave and how dare he honestly think he was in the way and how dare -- how dare -- he call him Moony in the midst of all this awkward, awful conversation?
“Alright,” Remus says.
********
“Sirius,” Remus says, “Sirius. I, uh -- Sirius.”
Sirius turns from his moping -- sulking? brooding? whatever the hell he’s doing, it’s making Remus want to scold him in the most ridiculous and nostalgic way -- to look at Remus. There is a very sudden moment in which Remus remembers Sirius, the Sirius who laughed and teased and bit Remus’ lower lip. There is a sharp ache permeating the room, and Remus holds on for dear life.
“Yeah?” Sirius says, and Remus bursts into paragraphs.
“I don’t think you’re in the way Sirius; Merlin’s beard try to get your stupid thick head around the idea that I missed you will you? And I -- look, don’t go and get a bloody flat, alright? There’s no point in you getting a flat. And I know you hate it here -- actually, if you want to get a flat you really ought to. Because -- yes. I’m making a fool of myself. If you don’t want -- I mean I have missed you, hell Sirius but if you don't -- you should get a flat. I, uh -- yes.”
Sirius is staring at him like he’s grown another head, or started speaking Latin, or -- and does he dare to hope -- like he’s actually thinking.
“Moony,” he says, “Jesus Christ Moony.”
Remus doesn't know what that means, but he feels suddenly very small, and remembers when he had a crush (a real crush, the sort that crushes you, presses you into the ground, makes you want to burst into sonnets, or snogging) on Sirius, which was really from being thirteen on. He remembers the feeling when he'd accidentally let something slip, like his face must be an incredibly vibrant red and oh hell, he has it now.
"I," he says, "I, uh, I'll go. I mean, to my room. Uh, to the room over there. Which I am living in."
"Moony," Sirius says, sounding strangled, and Remus is so angry, suddenly -- how can Sirius call him that now?
********
Remus is lying in his bed, and thinking. He shouldn't be thinking. It will only get him in trouble. He learned that during the first war, during nights of lying awake and thinking about Marlene McKinnon, and the Longbottoms.
Except then he had Sirius next to him, Sirius hitting him on the back of the head and telling him to 'stop thinking so hard or you'll break something.' Had Sirius.
"Moony," says a low voice in the dark, and Remus starts up, hitting the back of his head on the headboard.
"Sirius --!" He hisses, and Sirius laughs for a second, brief and bitter.
"Sorry. I just -- look, if you --"
But Remus remembers what happened the last time there were this many pauses in the conversation. He made a complete fool of himself.
"Sirius it's fine. You can get a flat, and --"
"And what? Leave you here by yourself?"
"I know you hate it here," Remus says quietly. Tired. He's tired.
"I hate this house," Sirius says, perching on the edge of the bed, "I don't hate it here."
He's a silhouette in the dark, and Remus cannot see his face, but he thinks that maybe Sirius is, well (and he cringes), serious.
"Alright," he says quietly.
"No," Sirius says, bends down, and presses his lips against Remus', hard.
Remus will think afterward that it was a renewal of sorts, a remembering. He will think that it was a reunion, or perhaps a rejuvenation. But at the time he wasn't thinking at all. And that was good.
"I missed you too," Sirius says, and Remus wants to smile, to open his mouth and let out rainbows and butterflies and probably happy anthropomorphic deer. He wants to say something, anything, but nothing has ever gotten through to Sirius like actions.
When Remus leans forward, puts his hand on the back of Sirius' head, and pulls, he thinks maybe Sirius is surprised. He used to treasure the moments when he could surprise Sirius. He treasures this one, stores it in that warm place near his bellybutton, and always sees it in full-color, though the room is full of shadows.