Bill/Remus Drabbles
I did these forever ago for a fic exchange (for Christmas, if I remember correctly). I figured I should eventually get around to posting them to my own journal.
Author: captainpookey
Recipient: westwardlee
Title: Christmas Contemplation
Characters/Pairing: Bill/Remus, Bill/Fleur, Tonks, Molly
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~457
Summary: Bill considers his relationship with Fleur. [#1]
Author's Notes: Thanks to pesky_whistpaw for beta-ing! And thanks to ceria_taliesin for helping me brainstorm a bit as well.
He can see that she is beautiful. He does not bother to deny it. Once it made his eyes glow and his heart beat faster, but that was a long time ago.
She wears the ring he gave her. He wears the ring she gave him.
He loves her, but then why doesn’t her smile take his breath away? And why doesn’t her touch make his face hot and his skin prickle...?
“Bill, what are you doing out here?”
Bill jumped slightly, craning his neck to peak at the kitchen door behind him.
“Sorry if I startled you,” Remus Lupin commented, as he slipped on a pair of gloves.
The door shut with a creak, and the warmth Bill had momentarily felt at his back dissipated into the chilly December air. “Needed to get away for a few minutes. You?” He shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets while Remus took a seat on the Burrow’s back step beside him.
“As fond as I am of Molly, I won’t deny that her taste in holiday music is questionable.”
The two men laughed, their voices lost in the howl of the wind and a flurry of snowflakes.
They sat side-by-side on the porch, shoulders touching. Bill felt warmer for a reason he couldn’t quite pin down on any one thing, despite the fact that his jacket was thin and his hands ungloved.
“Can I ask you a question?” Bill didn’t look at Remus as he spoke, his eyes instead focused on the hills in the distance.
“Sure.”
“It’s the war, right?”
“What is?” Remus blew warm air into his hands, rubbing them together.
“The reason everything’s so difficult. The reason I feel so... far away. From everyone. From Fleur.” He was not making sense and he knew it. He did not know why he was talking or what he was saying. He did not really know this man beside him, and he should not have been telling him these things, but he could not stop himself quickly enough. After a second-thought he muttered, “You know what? Nevermind.”
They sat in silence for some time longer, stooped together with their boots in the snow.
“It’s not always the war.”
“You’re being cryptic.”
“And you weren’t?” Remus countered with a wry smile,“I’m old. I’m allowed to be cryptic. You’re still young.” He stood up, placing his hands on Bill’s shoulders and squeezing. “Sometimes people put distance between themselves and others for a reason. Usually, to keep from confronting the problems they know are there,” he explained softly. “Think about it.”
Bill didn’t understand what Remus was talking about, and by the time he turned to inquire into it, Remus had disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving Bill with nothing but the memory of his words and the echoing warmth of his hands on his shoulders.
Title: The Decline of All Things
Rating: PG-13 (minor language/alchohol)
Summary: Bill + Remus + Alcohol = ? [#2]
Word Count: ~631
“Tonks around?” Bill poked his head out from the hearth of Grimmauld Place’s fire, the emerald flames appearing to eat up the back half of his ponytail.
“No, just me today. Why?” Remus glanced over the top of the Daily Prophet.
“She left her cardigan at the Burrow last night. Mum was worried she’d need it today, what with the blizzard and all.”
“Ah, well. Care to drop it off and have a drink with me? You look like death warmed over.”
Bill considered the proposal halfheartedly, because he already knew the answer. “I suppose I could use just one.”
~ ~ ~~~
“Well, I did it, I did. You told me to do it, so I did. D’you know what it is I did? Eh?” Bill giggled madly, swaying against the wall despite the fact that his bottom was firmly planted against the floorboards.
“What is it that you did... er, do?” Remus hugged a mug of something cold and amber to his chest. Every once in a while he would forget it was there and tip it to one side or another a bit too much so that it sloshed onto his hand or the sleeve of his robe.
Grimly, Bill waggled a barren ring finger in Remus’s face, nearly poking his companion in the eye (or otherwise up the nose) in the process. “You told me to,” he repeated.
“Did I?” Remus couldn’t remember any such advice, but then again, he couldn’t remember why his chair was on the floor either. “How did Fleur take that?”
Remus didn’t notice that Bill had taken his mug until he saw the younger man gulp half of the contents down in a coughing fit.
Bill cleared his throat, “ ‘Why Beeel! ‘Ow can you do zis to meee? I thought we were een looove. You are an ‘orrible man! ‘Ow can you stand yourseeelf? ‘Ow can you just walk a-way after all of zis? Ees it something that I deeeed? You are as bad as You-Know-’Oo’ !” He shattered the mug against a nearby cabinet for effect, causing Remus to jump.
“Not well, then,” Remus muttered, his eyebrows creased together. “Yet perhaps better than she could have taken it?”
“Quite possibly.”
“Well, I do think at least that can call for a toast,” Remus mused.
“Here, here!” Bill declared, latching onto any excuse that would allow him to forget about the events of the last few days. He staggered upward, using Remus’s shoulder and the wall to his advantage. “Toast to-- to-- well, to-- What do I toast to?”
“Hm...” Remus helped himself up using Bill’s arm and they swayed together for a moment on the spot, puzzled.
“To being thoroughly plastered before midmorning!” Bill decided with a flighty laugh, already looking for what was left of their liquor supply. It was a fairly difficult task, seeing as there were two tables, two Remuses, and two kitchen stoves suddenly whirring about in front of him.
Bill took a brave step forward and onto the fallen chair’s leg and seeing as Remus was still fastened to the ground, the resulting movement didn’t agree with either of them and they toppled forward, tangling together on the floor in the spilled spirits.
“For a lonely old werewolf, you understand people pretty well,” Bill muttered groggily into Remus’s side, not bothering to extricate his arm from around Remus's thin chest. “And you smell kind of like honey...” His words slurred together and lost themselves in the fabric of Remus’s sweater.
Remus prickled slightly, his body stiffening under Bill’s weight.
“Thank you, Bill, but will you get your knee out of my... err...?” He glanced down and his cheeks flushed.
Bill responded with a loud, obnoxious snore before Remus could specify where, exactly, Bill had managed to stick his knee.
Title: Say No More
Rating: PG-13 [minor language]
Summary: Confrontation. [#3]
Word Count: ~560
“--NO, MUM. NOT THIS YEAR. NOT NEXT YEAR. NOT EVER. NOT EVEN FOR CHRISTMAS. THE EARRING STAYS.”
A door slammed.
Remus heard the crunch of snow and the clomp of feet grow closer, and from the corner of his eye he saw the familiar pair of dragonhide boots come to rest next to his old leather loafers.
“I hope you’re not here for a drink, because I’m afraid you cleaned me out last time,” Remus stated mildly.
Bill chuckled, but shook his head. “I wanted to thank you for helping me out like that. I needed it.”
Remus shrugged, his shoulders hunching up just a little too far and his arms stiffening just a little too much. “So did I,” he admitted.
“Is there any way that I can return the favor?”
Remus didn’t respond right away, instead tilting his head to the side thoughtfully, scuffing at a rock.
“Redecorate your Gringott’s vault, maybe?” Bill prodded, “I’m sure we could get a nice Werewolf-of-the-Month calendar in there somewhere. You and I could be the cover models.”
The corner of Remus’s mouth twitched. “Why did you break it off with Fleur?”
“What?” Bill scowled. “What’s that got to do with anything?” He crossed his arms at his chest defensively.
“I’m calling in my favor,” Remus remarked casually. He turned toward Bill, hands clasped loosely together in a challenge to Bill’s rigidity.
“I didn’t love her anymore,” Bill replied tersely. There was something about the quiet way that Remus simply stared at him, as if he had all the time in the world to hear his tale, that, for some reason, compelled Bill to keep talking. “Damnit, but you knew that, you old coot. And why should it matter to you? Why is it so vital that you know?”
“Why is it so vital that you tell me everything about your life, then? That you always happen to find me when you need condolence?” Remus challenged. “I’m trying to figure everything out. I can’t always be the person you come to, Bill. I have my own worries.”
With that, Remus withdrew himself a bit; he shifted on his feet and fiddled with the buttons on his coat, his glare wavering and settling back down into a quiet avoidance that bordered on melancholy. “I need to know because I need you to stop.”
“Remus,” Bill’s hands were suddenly tight around Remus’s biceps. “A good man once told me that people use distance to avoid problems.”
Before Remus could get a word in edgewise, Bill’s warm lips muffled his own, his scratchy chin rubbing against Remus’s cheeks. It was quick, rough, awkward, and sharp-- and yet somehow, it managed to dissolve the wad of forming tightness in Remus’s chest.
“I see no problems,” Bill muttered, dropping his hands to his side and turning on his heel.
Left in the cold, the wind dancing and nipping at his ankles, Remus watched Bill stomp back through the dirt and muddied snow. If his mind had been clear prior to this meeting, it certainly wasn’t anymore.
The kitchen door opened, Molly’s cheerful trill broke the crisp air, acting as if it were a trigger that released some inner form of unrest in Remus.
“I see a problem!” Remus shouted across the back lawn. Bill hovered half in and out of the doorway. “It’s that bloody earring, Bill!”
Title: Conclusions Aren’t Always Conclusive.
Characters/Pairing: Bill/Remus
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The Conclusion. [#4]
Word Count: ~228 words
Lips clambor together, teeth gnash, fingers search wildly for anything and everything. Scars are lost and contorted beneath hands and kisses and stray hairs.
Old wounds kept them distanced, but fresh wounds pull them together. There is too much pain between them to keep them apart; too many lost friends, missing family members, and memories better off forgotten.
They know there are problems here, but distance is not what they need. Their problems run together like the scars on their faces. They don’t have to talk about them now.
They don’t have to explain why they extinguished a flame.
And they certainly don’t need to explain why they never bothered to light one.
It’s cold outside, their breath is hot, their skin is sweet; that’s the only justification they need.
It’s been too long a time since Remus let his guard down. He doesn’t have the heart to ressurect it. His fight is in his lips, in his hands. What he’s fighting for he’s not sure, but Bill knows exactly what it is; Clarity.
Yet with Remus’s hands knotted in Bill’s mane of red hair and raking across the front of his chest, Bill can feel any grasp he may have had on that clarity slipping progressively farther away from him with each kiss.
For some reason, this doesn’t bother him as much as it should.
Author: captainpookey
Recipient: westwardlee
Title: Christmas Contemplation
Characters/Pairing: Bill/Remus, Bill/Fleur, Tonks, Molly
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~457
Summary: Bill considers his relationship with Fleur. [#1]
Author's Notes: Thanks to pesky_whistpaw for beta-ing! And thanks to ceria_taliesin for helping me brainstorm a bit as well.
He can see that she is beautiful. He does not bother to deny it. Once it made his eyes glow and his heart beat faster, but that was a long time ago.
She wears the ring he gave her. He wears the ring she gave him.
He loves her, but then why doesn’t her smile take his breath away? And why doesn’t her touch make his face hot and his skin prickle...?
“Bill, what are you doing out here?”
Bill jumped slightly, craning his neck to peak at the kitchen door behind him.
“Sorry if I startled you,” Remus Lupin commented, as he slipped on a pair of gloves.
The door shut with a creak, and the warmth Bill had momentarily felt at his back dissipated into the chilly December air. “Needed to get away for a few minutes. You?” He shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets while Remus took a seat on the Burrow’s back step beside him.
“As fond as I am of Molly, I won’t deny that her taste in holiday music is questionable.”
The two men laughed, their voices lost in the howl of the wind and a flurry of snowflakes.
They sat side-by-side on the porch, shoulders touching. Bill felt warmer for a reason he couldn’t quite pin down on any one thing, despite the fact that his jacket was thin and his hands ungloved.
“Can I ask you a question?” Bill didn’t look at Remus as he spoke, his eyes instead focused on the hills in the distance.
“Sure.”
“It’s the war, right?”
“What is?” Remus blew warm air into his hands, rubbing them together.
“The reason everything’s so difficult. The reason I feel so... far away. From everyone. From Fleur.” He was not making sense and he knew it. He did not know why he was talking or what he was saying. He did not really know this man beside him, and he should not have been telling him these things, but he could not stop himself quickly enough. After a second-thought he muttered, “You know what? Nevermind.”
They sat in silence for some time longer, stooped together with their boots in the snow.
“It’s not always the war.”
“You’re being cryptic.”
“And you weren’t?” Remus countered with a wry smile,“I’m old. I’m allowed to be cryptic. You’re still young.” He stood up, placing his hands on Bill’s shoulders and squeezing. “Sometimes people put distance between themselves and others for a reason. Usually, to keep from confronting the problems they know are there,” he explained softly. “Think about it.”
Bill didn’t understand what Remus was talking about, and by the time he turned to inquire into it, Remus had disappeared back into the kitchen, leaving Bill with nothing but the memory of his words and the echoing warmth of his hands on his shoulders.
Title: The Decline of All Things
Rating: PG-13 (minor language/alchohol)
Summary: Bill + Remus + Alcohol = ? [#2]
Word Count: ~631
“Tonks around?” Bill poked his head out from the hearth of Grimmauld Place’s fire, the emerald flames appearing to eat up the back half of his ponytail.
“No, just me today. Why?” Remus glanced over the top of the Daily Prophet.
“She left her cardigan at the Burrow last night. Mum was worried she’d need it today, what with the blizzard and all.”
“Ah, well. Care to drop it off and have a drink with me? You look like death warmed over.”
Bill considered the proposal halfheartedly, because he already knew the answer. “I suppose I could use just one.”
~ ~ ~~~
“Well, I did it, I did. You told me to do it, so I did. D’you know what it is I did? Eh?” Bill giggled madly, swaying against the wall despite the fact that his bottom was firmly planted against the floorboards.
“What is it that you did... er, do?” Remus hugged a mug of something cold and amber to his chest. Every once in a while he would forget it was there and tip it to one side or another a bit too much so that it sloshed onto his hand or the sleeve of his robe.
Grimly, Bill waggled a barren ring finger in Remus’s face, nearly poking his companion in the eye (or otherwise up the nose) in the process. “You told me to,” he repeated.
“Did I?” Remus couldn’t remember any such advice, but then again, he couldn’t remember why his chair was on the floor either. “How did Fleur take that?”
Remus didn’t notice that Bill had taken his mug until he saw the younger man gulp half of the contents down in a coughing fit.
Bill cleared his throat, “ ‘Why Beeel! ‘Ow can you do zis to meee? I thought we were een looove. You are an ‘orrible man! ‘Ow can you stand yourseeelf? ‘Ow can you just walk a-way after all of zis? Ees it something that I deeeed? You are as bad as You-Know-’Oo’ !” He shattered the mug against a nearby cabinet for effect, causing Remus to jump.
“Not well, then,” Remus muttered, his eyebrows creased together. “Yet perhaps better than she could have taken it?”
“Quite possibly.”
“Well, I do think at least that can call for a toast,” Remus mused.
“Here, here!” Bill declared, latching onto any excuse that would allow him to forget about the events of the last few days. He staggered upward, using Remus’s shoulder and the wall to his advantage. “Toast to-- to-- well, to-- What do I toast to?”
“Hm...” Remus helped himself up using Bill’s arm and they swayed together for a moment on the spot, puzzled.
“To being thoroughly plastered before midmorning!” Bill decided with a flighty laugh, already looking for what was left of their liquor supply. It was a fairly difficult task, seeing as there were two tables, two Remuses, and two kitchen stoves suddenly whirring about in front of him.
Bill took a brave step forward and onto the fallen chair’s leg and seeing as Remus was still fastened to the ground, the resulting movement didn’t agree with either of them and they toppled forward, tangling together on the floor in the spilled spirits.
“For a lonely old werewolf, you understand people pretty well,” Bill muttered groggily into Remus’s side, not bothering to extricate his arm from around Remus's thin chest. “And you smell kind of like honey...” His words slurred together and lost themselves in the fabric of Remus’s sweater.
Remus prickled slightly, his body stiffening under Bill’s weight.
“Thank you, Bill, but will you get your knee out of my... err...?” He glanced down and his cheeks flushed.
Bill responded with a loud, obnoxious snore before Remus could specify where, exactly, Bill had managed to stick his knee.
Title: Say No More
Rating: PG-13 [minor language]
Summary: Confrontation. [#3]
Word Count: ~560
“--NO, MUM. NOT THIS YEAR. NOT NEXT YEAR. NOT EVER. NOT EVEN FOR CHRISTMAS. THE EARRING STAYS.”
A door slammed.
Remus heard the crunch of snow and the clomp of feet grow closer, and from the corner of his eye he saw the familiar pair of dragonhide boots come to rest next to his old leather loafers.
“I hope you’re not here for a drink, because I’m afraid you cleaned me out last time,” Remus stated mildly.
Bill chuckled, but shook his head. “I wanted to thank you for helping me out like that. I needed it.”
Remus shrugged, his shoulders hunching up just a little too far and his arms stiffening just a little too much. “So did I,” he admitted.
“Is there any way that I can return the favor?”
Remus didn’t respond right away, instead tilting his head to the side thoughtfully, scuffing at a rock.
“Redecorate your Gringott’s vault, maybe?” Bill prodded, “I’m sure we could get a nice Werewolf-of-the-Month calendar in there somewhere. You and I could be the cover models.”
The corner of Remus’s mouth twitched. “Why did you break it off with Fleur?”
“What?” Bill scowled. “What’s that got to do with anything?” He crossed his arms at his chest defensively.
“I’m calling in my favor,” Remus remarked casually. He turned toward Bill, hands clasped loosely together in a challenge to Bill’s rigidity.
“I didn’t love her anymore,” Bill replied tersely. There was something about the quiet way that Remus simply stared at him, as if he had all the time in the world to hear his tale, that, for some reason, compelled Bill to keep talking. “Damnit, but you knew that, you old coot. And why should it matter to you? Why is it so vital that you know?”
“Why is it so vital that you tell me everything about your life, then? That you always happen to find me when you need condolence?” Remus challenged. “I’m trying to figure everything out. I can’t always be the person you come to, Bill. I have my own worries.”
With that, Remus withdrew himself a bit; he shifted on his feet and fiddled with the buttons on his coat, his glare wavering and settling back down into a quiet avoidance that bordered on melancholy. “I need to know because I need you to stop.”
“Remus,” Bill’s hands were suddenly tight around Remus’s biceps. “A good man once told me that people use distance to avoid problems.”
Before Remus could get a word in edgewise, Bill’s warm lips muffled his own, his scratchy chin rubbing against Remus’s cheeks. It was quick, rough, awkward, and sharp-- and yet somehow, it managed to dissolve the wad of forming tightness in Remus’s chest.
“I see no problems,” Bill muttered, dropping his hands to his side and turning on his heel.
Left in the cold, the wind dancing and nipping at his ankles, Remus watched Bill stomp back through the dirt and muddied snow. If his mind had been clear prior to this meeting, it certainly wasn’t anymore.
The kitchen door opened, Molly’s cheerful trill broke the crisp air, acting as if it were a trigger that released some inner form of unrest in Remus.
“I see a problem!” Remus shouted across the back lawn. Bill hovered half in and out of the doorway. “It’s that bloody earring, Bill!”
Title: Conclusions Aren’t Always Conclusive.
Characters/Pairing: Bill/Remus
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The Conclusion. [#4]
Word Count: ~228 words
Lips clambor together, teeth gnash, fingers search wildly for anything and everything. Scars are lost and contorted beneath hands and kisses and stray hairs.
Old wounds kept them distanced, but fresh wounds pull them together. There is too much pain between them to keep them apart; too many lost friends, missing family members, and memories better off forgotten.
They know there are problems here, but distance is not what they need. Their problems run together like the scars on their faces. They don’t have to talk about them now.
They don’t have to explain why they extinguished a flame.
And they certainly don’t need to explain why they never bothered to light one.
It’s cold outside, their breath is hot, their skin is sweet; that’s the only justification they need.
It’s been too long a time since Remus let his guard down. He doesn’t have the heart to ressurect it. His fight is in his lips, in his hands. What he’s fighting for he’s not sure, but Bill knows exactly what it is; Clarity.
Yet with Remus’s hands knotted in Bill’s mane of red hair and raking across the front of his chest, Bill can feel any grasp he may have had on that clarity slipping progressively farther away from him with each kiss.
For some reason, this doesn’t bother him as much as it should.