Grand Opening Post!
So. My first fic post in my new fic journal. I shall be running for cover after clicking the "Update Journal" button.
This was actually written a while ago - sometime back in August, I think - and was first posted on FanFiction.Net. Then I decided to take a bit of a risk and I posted it on
remusxsirius, where it received a good number of positive reviews. So I think this is a good piece to start off with, and I hope you do too :)
Oddly Endearing
Authoress: chelime
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize isn't mine.
Summary: Remus/Sirius slash complete with angst, humor, the Order, new hobbies, slobbery kisses, and an oddly endearing song composed by one Sirius Black for his love muffin.
Authoress's Notes: This was a plot bunny that had been floating in my head for a while, but I was kind of scared to write it, mostly because I knew it would involve me having to make up a song for Sirius to sing, and I wasn’t sure I could capture Sirius in the song. I made up several drafts of a possible song for Sirius to sing and finally decided that the song included in here just seemed like something Sirius would write, for exactly the reasons that Remus gives at the end. I hope you enjoy it.
“What,” Remus said, trying valiantly (and failing valiantly) to keep the horror from creeping into his voice, “is that?”
“Well, I thought that’d be fairly obvious,” Sirius replied, obviously affronted. “Don’t you like it?”
“I like it,” Remus said quickly, “it’s just, well, that’s the sort of thing you see in a shop window and you go, ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ but you don’t actually go in and buy it.”
Despite knowing Sirius for seven years, Remus still had yet to understand the boy’s (for in this case, Remus could not bring himself to call Sirius a man) monetary whims. He might not spend his money often, but when he did, it always seemed to be on something more expensive and more ridiculous than his last purchase. And now here he was, back after a day spent in Muggle London, holding a guitar of all things.
“Wasn’t it you that said yesterday that I needed a hobby? Well, here it is!”
“You can’t be serious.”
“As a matter of fact, I-“
“And if you make another Serious Sirius joke, I will eat you during the next full moon.”
“Hmmph. Well. Anyway. This is my new hobby. I think it’s a good hobby, don’t you?”
“Do you even know how to use it?”
“It can’t be that hard, can it? I mean, it’s wood and bits of string, honestly, I think I can-“
“Well, go on then. Let’s see what you can do with it.”
Sirius looked a little bit startled by this suggestion, but then shrugged casually and settled down cross-legged on the bed. “Here goes nothing,” he said, and plucked a few strings of the guitar.
Remus winced.
“All right, I probably should have bought one of the books that bloke offered me-“
“You probably should have never bought the guitar in the first place-“
“What’ve you got against guitars, eh? Look at it, Moony, it’s so beautiful-“
Remus had to admit that it was a rather beautiful guitar, crafted from mahogany-colored wood and complete with intricate whorl patterns all along its neck. Well, he thought ruefully, if Sirius never learns how to play it, at least it can serve for decorative purposes…
Remus sat next to Sirius on the bed. “I’m going to have to go away for a while,” he said, figuring he might as well get it out there now, before he’d lost his nerve (especially as he’d been about to say it, but then Sirius had to go and whip out that infernal guitar). “I’m not sure exactly how long, but probably no more than a week. I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
Sirius’s head was lowered, his long, dark hair blocking his face from view. Remus could tell that he was probably biting his lip, a horrible habit, and frowning in that way that caused a rather unattractive crease in his forehead. His fingers plucked idly at the guitar strings, each note soft and short. “It’s for the Order, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not allowed to tell me about it, are you?”
“No.”
“Is it dangerous?”
Remus smiled wryly. “It’s for the Order.”
Remus could sense how Sirius’s frown deepened. “Right.”
Remus hesitantly reached out his hand, gently laying it on the small of Sirius’s back. “We both knew what we were getting into when we joined. Besides, I bet you’ll hardly even notice that I’m gone, busy as you’ll be with that blasted guitar-“
“But that’s just it, Moony-I always notice when you’re gone! In every bloody thing that I do and don’t do, I notice that you’re not here! D’you know how many times I’ve opened up the Daily Prophet to do the crossword puzzle, got stuck, and then shouted out the clue, thinking you’d shout back, ‘You twat, it’s pixies, obviously-‘”
“I’ve never called you a twat,” Remus muttered, tugging at his collar.
“D’you know how many times I’ve started butchering the lyrics to ‘All You Need Is Love’ in the shower just so you’ll come into the bathroom to correct me and then, inevitably, start singing with me?”
“I always thought you messed up that song far too many times to be entirely plausible-“
“And do you know-“ Sirius’s voice shook with repressed emotion, “-do you know how many times I’ve fallen asleep clutching your pillow, pretending that it’s you, only to wake up and realize you aren’t there, you were never there, and you might not ever be there again because the bloody Order sent you on a mission that could bloody well end up being the mission that you don’t return from?”
Hands clenched, lips quivered, eyes watered. You might not ever be there again! Remus knew it was true. Of course he knew it was true. He’d always known that being a part of the Order was dangerous, knew it was a cause worth dying for that he most likely would end up dying for. But then why had Sirius’s words made his stomach clench in fear?
“We both knew what we were getting into,” Remus whispered helplessly.
“Yeah,” Sirius agreed. “Yeah, we did. Which is why you’ll leave tomorrow with no more than an, ‘I’ll see you later, Padfoot,’ like you’re just going to the library or across the street to get a coffee or something, and then when you come back, we’ll hug and kiss and I’ll say, ‘How was it?’ and you’ll say, ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ and that will be that, and we’ll go on like nothing’s ever happened because that’s how we’re expected to live, like everything’s okay, like everything will be okay when we just don’t know that.”
I should say something, Remus thought in a detached way. Something about how everything really will be okay, and how we’ll make it through this alive, both of us, because good always conquers evil, that’s just how it is.
But he didn’t.
“I’ll write you a song while you’re gone,” Sirius suddenly burst out, a note of desperation in his voice. “It’ll be the first thing I play on my guitar. That’s how I’ll christen it. With your song. And you have to come back to hear it. Promise me you’ll come back to hear it?”
Remus dragged his eyes up to look at Sirius, noting the distress in his eyes and the anxiety apparent in every line of his face.
“You’re not going to write me some sappy love song, are you? A ballad extolling all of my virtues and my beautiful and manly body?”
Sirius barked a laugh. “God, no. You will never hear me composing a sappy love song. What do you think I am, a poof?”
“Well-“
“Don’t answer that. Besides, ‘manly?’ A flobberworm has a more manly body than you, Moony.”
“I’d be insulted,” Remus said with a grin, “but you’re the one that’s just admitted to shagging a bloke with a body like a flobberworm.”
“I didn’t say like a flobberworm, I said less manly-“
“Is that really any better?”
“Well-oh, bugger this. I’m writing you a song and that’s that. No mushy, saccharine, ‘Your eyes are as lovely as a thousand bright suns’ crap. Sirius Black would not degrade himself to singing such a thing anyway.”
“Glad to hear it,” Remus said with a yawn. “Now it’s rather late, and I have to get up rather early. Bedtime, Paddlebrains.”
“Yes, Mr. Moonykins, sir!”
But when the covers had been pulled down and the lights had been turned off, neither was thinking of sleep.
And after they said their goodbyes in a more thorough (and rather more satisfactory) way than ever before, Sirius pulled Remus tightly to him, dropped a kiss on his temple as the haze of sleep began to overtake them both, and whispered, “Just come back to me, Remus. Come back and hear your song.”
xXxXx
Perhaps, he pondered, if he entered the flat very quietly, he could avoid it until morning. After all, it was very late, surely he wouldn’t still be up at this hour? Furthermore, it had been quite a while, perhaps he had forgotten about it, or simply given up, as he was inclined to do with any project that lasted more than three days.
He slowly placed his keys on the coffee table. They made a soft plunk against the wood.
“Mooooooony!”
Remus stifled a groan as Sirius’s head appeared around the doorframe. In the next moment, he was engulfed in a hard hug with a rather unnecessarily slobbery kiss being placed on his cheek.
“You’re back! How was it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Right. Right. Well, come on, then, our room. I’ve been working on it nonstop.”
“Working on what nonstop?”
“You know what, Moony. I’ll bet you’ve been thinking of nothing else for the past five days.”
“On the contrary, if I thought about it too much, I would always wind up getting scolded for whimpering.”
“You did not whimper.”
“Fabian Prewett offered to give me a hug if I was feeling scared. Gideon, on the other hand, told me to grow some balls and quit my whining.”
“You’re lying. Fabian Prewett wouldn’t hit on you. Wait a minute-was Fabian Prewett hitting on you? That conniving little bastard, I’ll show him scared-“
“All right, all right, I was lying! The thought of you writing a song for me was my only source of comfort on such a desolate mission. There. Happy now?”
“Hmmm. I think there was entirely too much cheek in that statement, but I suppose I’ll accept it. Now, come on, I want you to hear the song I wrote for my love muffin.”
“I am not your love muffin,” Remus started to say, but then he found himself being ushered (in a half dragged, half carried sort of way) into the bedroom where he was plopped unceremoniously into his Moony Chair (so dubbed by Sirius because it was where Remus always settled in to read). He watched dubiously as Sirius pulled his guitar out from under the bed and settled himself on the mattress.
“Now, it’s not much as of yet because I only managed to teach myself two or three true chords, and then the rest I’m fairly certain I made up, but they sounded rather spiffing so I decided to use them in Moony’s Song.”
Remus had no idea whether to feel terrified or intrigued by this bit of information.
“Well, here goes nothing.” And, settling his fingers on the strings of his guitar, Sirius began to sing.
“Oh, Remus
My sweet, senile Remus
There’s something between us
Something I can’t describe
Oh, Remus
My tufty-tailed Remus
In bed you’re quite sensuous
And I find it rather divine
Oh, Remus
My bookwormy Remus
You ravage my anus
But don’t worry, I think it’s fine
Oh, Remus
My well-endowed Remus
You send tingles through my-“
“That’s quite enough!” Remus said loudly, failing to hide the ghost of a smile that touched his lips.
“Come now, Moony, I was just getting to the best part!”
“I’ll bet you were,” Remus muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It didn’t completely erase his grin.
“No, really. Just let me sing the last two verses. Please?”
Remus had a defiant No poised on the edge of his tongue, but then he looked into Sirius’s eyes and knew-as he always came to know when he was about to deny Sirius something-that to this man, he could never say no.
“Go on, then,” he said in a very reluctant tone. “Destroy my poor virgin ears.”
“Those ‘poor virgin ears’ were deflowered the moment you met me, you silly Moony.”
“I suppose they were. Sing your song.”
Sirius settled his fingers on the guitar strings once more and picked up the tune:
“Oh, Remus
My love, my own Remus
I can’t cook, clean, or sing-us
But you make me want to try
Oh, Remus
I’ll always love Remus
Cause there’s something between us
And it’s love, and I think it’s all right
Yeah, it’s love, and it’s got to be right.”
It was, Remus had to admit, rather touching.
“So, er, what do you think?” Sirius asked, looking, in a most decidedly un-Sirius-ish way, quite anxious.
Remus stood from his chair and placed himself right in front of Sirius. Gently, he took the guitar from Sirius and bent to replace it under the bed, then straightened and, without further preamble, pressed his lips hard against Sirius’s.
“So-so you liked it, then?” Sirius said breathily against Remus’s lips.
“It was puerile, entirely too sexual, filled with nonsensical and a few made-up words, and, though I am a bit reluctant to admit it, oddly endearing. Much like you are.” Remus’s smile made the tender calluses on Sirius’s hands completely worth it. “I loved it.”
This was actually written a while ago - sometime back in August, I think - and was first posted on FanFiction.Net. Then I decided to take a bit of a risk and I posted it on
remusxsirius, where it received a good number of positive reviews. So I think this is a good piece to start off with, and I hope you do too :)
Oddly Endearing
Authoress: chelime
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Anything you recognize isn't mine.
Summary: Remus/Sirius slash complete with angst, humor, the Order, new hobbies, slobbery kisses, and an oddly endearing song composed by one Sirius Black for his love muffin.
Authoress's Notes: This was a plot bunny that had been floating in my head for a while, but I was kind of scared to write it, mostly because I knew it would involve me having to make up a song for Sirius to sing, and I wasn’t sure I could capture Sirius in the song. I made up several drafts of a possible song for Sirius to sing and finally decided that the song included in here just seemed like something Sirius would write, for exactly the reasons that Remus gives at the end. I hope you enjoy it.
“What,” Remus said, trying valiantly (and failing valiantly) to keep the horror from creeping into his voice, “is that?”
“Well, I thought that’d be fairly obvious,” Sirius replied, obviously affronted. “Don’t you like it?”
“I like it,” Remus said quickly, “it’s just, well, that’s the sort of thing you see in a shop window and you go, ‘Oh, that’s nice,’ but you don’t actually go in and buy it.”
Despite knowing Sirius for seven years, Remus still had yet to understand the boy’s (for in this case, Remus could not bring himself to call Sirius a man) monetary whims. He might not spend his money often, but when he did, it always seemed to be on something more expensive and more ridiculous than his last purchase. And now here he was, back after a day spent in Muggle London, holding a guitar of all things.
“Wasn’t it you that said yesterday that I needed a hobby? Well, here it is!”
“You can’t be serious.”
“As a matter of fact, I-“
“And if you make another Serious Sirius joke, I will eat you during the next full moon.”
“Hmmph. Well. Anyway. This is my new hobby. I think it’s a good hobby, don’t you?”
“Do you even know how to use it?”
“It can’t be that hard, can it? I mean, it’s wood and bits of string, honestly, I think I can-“
“Well, go on then. Let’s see what you can do with it.”
Sirius looked a little bit startled by this suggestion, but then shrugged casually and settled down cross-legged on the bed. “Here goes nothing,” he said, and plucked a few strings of the guitar.
Remus winced.
“All right, I probably should have bought one of the books that bloke offered me-“
“You probably should have never bought the guitar in the first place-“
“What’ve you got against guitars, eh? Look at it, Moony, it’s so beautiful-“
Remus had to admit that it was a rather beautiful guitar, crafted from mahogany-colored wood and complete with intricate whorl patterns all along its neck. Well, he thought ruefully, if Sirius never learns how to play it, at least it can serve for decorative purposes…
Remus sat next to Sirius on the bed. “I’m going to have to go away for a while,” he said, figuring he might as well get it out there now, before he’d lost his nerve (especially as he’d been about to say it, but then Sirius had to go and whip out that infernal guitar). “I’m not sure exactly how long, but probably no more than a week. I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
Sirius’s head was lowered, his long, dark hair blocking his face from view. Remus could tell that he was probably biting his lip, a horrible habit, and frowning in that way that caused a rather unattractive crease in his forehead. His fingers plucked idly at the guitar strings, each note soft and short. “It’s for the Order, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not allowed to tell me about it, are you?”
“No.”
“Is it dangerous?”
Remus smiled wryly. “It’s for the Order.”
Remus could sense how Sirius’s frown deepened. “Right.”
Remus hesitantly reached out his hand, gently laying it on the small of Sirius’s back. “We both knew what we were getting into when we joined. Besides, I bet you’ll hardly even notice that I’m gone, busy as you’ll be with that blasted guitar-“
“But that’s just it, Moony-I always notice when you’re gone! In every bloody thing that I do and don’t do, I notice that you’re not here! D’you know how many times I’ve opened up the Daily Prophet to do the crossword puzzle, got stuck, and then shouted out the clue, thinking you’d shout back, ‘You twat, it’s pixies, obviously-‘”
“I’ve never called you a twat,” Remus muttered, tugging at his collar.
“D’you know how many times I’ve started butchering the lyrics to ‘All You Need Is Love’ in the shower just so you’ll come into the bathroom to correct me and then, inevitably, start singing with me?”
“I always thought you messed up that song far too many times to be entirely plausible-“
“And do you know-“ Sirius’s voice shook with repressed emotion, “-do you know how many times I’ve fallen asleep clutching your pillow, pretending that it’s you, only to wake up and realize you aren’t there, you were never there, and you might not ever be there again because the bloody Order sent you on a mission that could bloody well end up being the mission that you don’t return from?”
Hands clenched, lips quivered, eyes watered. You might not ever be there again! Remus knew it was true. Of course he knew it was true. He’d always known that being a part of the Order was dangerous, knew it was a cause worth dying for that he most likely would end up dying for. But then why had Sirius’s words made his stomach clench in fear?
“We both knew what we were getting into,” Remus whispered helplessly.
“Yeah,” Sirius agreed. “Yeah, we did. Which is why you’ll leave tomorrow with no more than an, ‘I’ll see you later, Padfoot,’ like you’re just going to the library or across the street to get a coffee or something, and then when you come back, we’ll hug and kiss and I’ll say, ‘How was it?’ and you’ll say, ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ and that will be that, and we’ll go on like nothing’s ever happened because that’s how we’re expected to live, like everything’s okay, like everything will be okay when we just don’t know that.”
I should say something, Remus thought in a detached way. Something about how everything really will be okay, and how we’ll make it through this alive, both of us, because good always conquers evil, that’s just how it is.
But he didn’t.
“I’ll write you a song while you’re gone,” Sirius suddenly burst out, a note of desperation in his voice. “It’ll be the first thing I play on my guitar. That’s how I’ll christen it. With your song. And you have to come back to hear it. Promise me you’ll come back to hear it?”
Remus dragged his eyes up to look at Sirius, noting the distress in his eyes and the anxiety apparent in every line of his face.
“You’re not going to write me some sappy love song, are you? A ballad extolling all of my virtues and my beautiful and manly body?”
Sirius barked a laugh. “God, no. You will never hear me composing a sappy love song. What do you think I am, a poof?”
“Well-“
“Don’t answer that. Besides, ‘manly?’ A flobberworm has a more manly body than you, Moony.”
“I’d be insulted,” Remus said with a grin, “but you’re the one that’s just admitted to shagging a bloke with a body like a flobberworm.”
“I didn’t say like a flobberworm, I said less manly-“
“Is that really any better?”
“Well-oh, bugger this. I’m writing you a song and that’s that. No mushy, saccharine, ‘Your eyes are as lovely as a thousand bright suns’ crap. Sirius Black would not degrade himself to singing such a thing anyway.”
“Glad to hear it,” Remus said with a yawn. “Now it’s rather late, and I have to get up rather early. Bedtime, Paddlebrains.”
“Yes, Mr. Moonykins, sir!”
But when the covers had been pulled down and the lights had been turned off, neither was thinking of sleep.
And after they said their goodbyes in a more thorough (and rather more satisfactory) way than ever before, Sirius pulled Remus tightly to him, dropped a kiss on his temple as the haze of sleep began to overtake them both, and whispered, “Just come back to me, Remus. Come back and hear your song.”
xXxXx
Perhaps, he pondered, if he entered the flat very quietly, he could avoid it until morning. After all, it was very late, surely he wouldn’t still be up at this hour? Furthermore, it had been quite a while, perhaps he had forgotten about it, or simply given up, as he was inclined to do with any project that lasted more than three days.
He slowly placed his keys on the coffee table. They made a soft plunk against the wood.
“Mooooooony!”
Remus stifled a groan as Sirius’s head appeared around the doorframe. In the next moment, he was engulfed in a hard hug with a rather unnecessarily slobbery kiss being placed on his cheek.
“You’re back! How was it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Right. Right. Well, come on, then, our room. I’ve been working on it nonstop.”
“Working on what nonstop?”
“You know what, Moony. I’ll bet you’ve been thinking of nothing else for the past five days.”
“On the contrary, if I thought about it too much, I would always wind up getting scolded for whimpering.”
“You did not whimper.”
“Fabian Prewett offered to give me a hug if I was feeling scared. Gideon, on the other hand, told me to grow some balls and quit my whining.”
“You’re lying. Fabian Prewett wouldn’t hit on you. Wait a minute-was Fabian Prewett hitting on you? That conniving little bastard, I’ll show him scared-“
“All right, all right, I was lying! The thought of you writing a song for me was my only source of comfort on such a desolate mission. There. Happy now?”
“Hmmm. I think there was entirely too much cheek in that statement, but I suppose I’ll accept it. Now, come on, I want you to hear the song I wrote for my love muffin.”
“I am not your love muffin,” Remus started to say, but then he found himself being ushered (in a half dragged, half carried sort of way) into the bedroom where he was plopped unceremoniously into his Moony Chair (so dubbed by Sirius because it was where Remus always settled in to read). He watched dubiously as Sirius pulled his guitar out from under the bed and settled himself on the mattress.
“Now, it’s not much as of yet because I only managed to teach myself two or three true chords, and then the rest I’m fairly certain I made up, but they sounded rather spiffing so I decided to use them in Moony’s Song.”
Remus had no idea whether to feel terrified or intrigued by this bit of information.
“Well, here goes nothing.” And, settling his fingers on the strings of his guitar, Sirius began to sing.
“Oh, Remus
My sweet, senile Remus
There’s something between us
Something I can’t describe
Oh, Remus
My tufty-tailed Remus
In bed you’re quite sensuous
And I find it rather divine
Oh, Remus
My bookwormy Remus
You ravage my anus
But don’t worry, I think it’s fine
Oh, Remus
My well-endowed Remus
You send tingles through my-“
“That’s quite enough!” Remus said loudly, failing to hide the ghost of a smile that touched his lips.
“Come now, Moony, I was just getting to the best part!”
“I’ll bet you were,” Remus muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It didn’t completely erase his grin.
“No, really. Just let me sing the last two verses. Please?”
Remus had a defiant No poised on the edge of his tongue, but then he looked into Sirius’s eyes and knew-as he always came to know when he was about to deny Sirius something-that to this man, he could never say no.
“Go on, then,” he said in a very reluctant tone. “Destroy my poor virgin ears.”
“Those ‘poor virgin ears’ were deflowered the moment you met me, you silly Moony.”
“I suppose they were. Sing your song.”
Sirius settled his fingers on the guitar strings once more and picked up the tune:
“Oh, Remus
My love, my own Remus
I can’t cook, clean, or sing-us
But you make me want to try
Oh, Remus
I’ll always love Remus
Cause there’s something between us
And it’s love, and I think it’s all right
Yeah, it’s love, and it’s got to be right.”
It was, Remus had to admit, rather touching.
“So, er, what do you think?” Sirius asked, looking, in a most decidedly un-Sirius-ish way, quite anxious.
Remus stood from his chair and placed himself right in front of Sirius. Gently, he took the guitar from Sirius and bent to replace it under the bed, then straightened and, without further preamble, pressed his lips hard against Sirius’s.
“So-so you liked it, then?” Sirius said breathily against Remus’s lips.
“It was puerile, entirely too sexual, filled with nonsensical and a few made-up words, and, though I am a bit reluctant to admit it, oddly endearing. Much like you are.” Remus’s smile made the tender calluses on Sirius’s hands completely worth it. “I loved it.”