hp fic // It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah [remus/sirius; pg-13.]
title: It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
author: crooked
pairing: Remus/Sirius
rating: PG-13
word count: 1754
summary: In stressful times, Sirius turns to a surprising source of comfort.
a/n: written to commemorate the occasion of my dear closet_zebra's birthday! i love you, cupcake ♥ (title taken from Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.)
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah
He knows where Sirius is; it’s where he always is when life threatens to overwhelm him.
Remus shoves his hands deeper into his coat pockets, the fingerless gloves he’d pulled on before leaving doing little to keep his hands warm. A heavy rain starts to fall as he cuts through Allen Gardens to get to Buxton Street. He curses beneath his breath, wondering how a native Englishman neglects to bring an umbrella with him on a grey December day. The spires of St Anne’s eventually come into view, and the nine-year-old in Remus, who still remembers putting on his best trousers for Sundays at church, blushes and apologises in the general direction of the heavens for his foul mouth.
He pushes the heavy doors open and steps inside the cavernous building, all stone and wood and iron, and Remus instantly feels a shiver run down his spine. The Romantic side of his brain thinks the church can somehow sense the dark creature lying dormant inside him, but his sensible nature kicks in and tells him it’s simply cold as an icebox and he is soaking wet.
Remus looks around: holy water fonts - brass crucifixes with small bowls attached - adorn either side of the doors; candles, some lit and some unlit, line a small alcove just inside the vestibule; a wooden table that looks perilously close to toppling over is piled high with worn missals; the floor beneath his feet is grey stone, chipped in some places and uneven in others; another set of smaller doors are propped open and lead into the church.
And there, seated in the very middle of the dark, cavernous building, he sees Sirius.
His head is bowed, and the light from the large stained glass window casts a muted glow over him so that he appears to be some raven-haired apparition. With his worn leather jacket (that Remus knows is studded and decorated with zippers and buckles) and black motorcycle boots, Sirius looks better suited for a rock concert than the pew of a church. He’s as out of place in the sacred building as Remus feels he is. But while Remus is there looking for Sirius, he knows Sirius is there searching for something else.
Remus’ worn trainers barely make a sound on the floor as he moves toward Sirius, his whispered prayers getting clearer with each step. He says them in Latin, Remus knows, because you can take the altar boy out of the church, but you can’t take the church out of the altar boy. Or something like that. He thinks clearer when he’s not spent the last hour and a half waiting for Sirius over cold lasagne, wondering if he’d been captured by Death Eaters.
Sirius hears him anyway; he’s always had that odd, superhuman hearing, damn him. “Hi, Moony.” Remus sits down beside him; Sirius gets up from the kneeler he’d been kneeling on, and he slips onto the wooden bench. “How did you know where to find me?” he asks, unwinding the onyx and silver rosary beads from his hand.
“You’re predictable,” Remus answers, smiling. Sirius reaches out and pushes Remus’ fringe back, drenched and plastered to his forehead. “Got a bit wet.”
“You forgot your umbrella again.” It’s a statement and a counterpoint to prove that Remus is every bit as predictable. He smiles and nods, and Sirius pulls his wand from inside his coat. Remus is dry and just slightly warmed in a matter of moments.
The silence that falls between them seems heavier, somehow, and Remus is certain it’s because they’re in a church. He can feel the marble eyes of the saints’ statues staring down at them, judging them as the abominations they are, both separately and together: werewolf, wizards, queer. According to everything the church stands for, they should’ve both burned up on crossing the threshold of the consecrated building, but they don’t, and Remus’ increasing belief that organised religion is a load of bollocks is only strengthened.
Sirius shifts closer after a moment, their shoulders and thighs pressed together. Remus glances over and sees that Sirius is staring straight ahead. There’s a large crucifix suspended over the altar, and it makes Remus uncomfortable to look up and see the suffering etched on Jesus’ face. But Sirius can’t seem to look away; it’s as if the image brings him peace. Remus doesn’t pretend to know what’s going through Sirius’ head, even though he can recite his daily routine by memory. He might wear his heart on his sleeve where his emotions are concerned, but Sirius has a mind that’s impossible to read without the power of Legilimency. He suspects it’s from years of learning to hide his true beliefs and feelings from his family.
Whatever the cause is, Remus is cursing it as he sits beside Sirius, not knowing what to do or say to make him go home and eat their cold dinner.
“I’d tell you, you know,” Sirius says. His voice is quiet, but the church is quieter and it startles Remus. “I’d tell you, if I could.”
Remus nods. “I know.”
“It’s just one of those things.”
“I know.”
‘Those things’ have been coming up more and more often lately. If it’s not something Sirius is keeping secret from Remus, it’s something Remus is keeping from him. The flat (Sirius’, which they spent most of their time at; Remus still keeps his, in its shitty neighbourhood and with the radiator that stopped working months ago) is so safeguarded with spells and hexes that using the Floo or Apparating in is impossible. Remus keeps his key on a few strands of yarn from Sirius’ Puddlemere United scarf, the rest of which was tragically destroyed in the Great Exploding Snap Tournament of 1979. It’s stupid, but he’s convinced himself that keeping the key to Sirius’ flat on something that once belonged to Sirius will make it that much harder for Sirius to ask for it back someday.
“Moony?”
Remus blinks and realises he’s lost himself to his thoughts again. “Yeah, right. Hello.”
Sirius grins, the first genuine one he’s seen in at least two days, and Remus breathes a bit easier. He watches as he tucks the rosary beads carefully into a velvet pouch and slips it into his coat pocket. It’s something most people would never believe about Sirius if Remus told them. It’s something he himself barely understands: how a bloke so unholy and profane ninety-seven percent of the time can find solace in a religion he claims to have given up when he was disowned from his family.
It works, though, because Sirius stands up and wraps his scarf around Remus’ neck, tugging him up by the tails. He tucks the ends of the scarf into his jacket, and then Sirius presses a soft kiss to Remus’ lips.
“C’mon, let’s go reheat whatever horrible tasting frozen shit you cooked me,” he says, and Remus misses as he swats at Sirius’ shoulder. Remus’ only specialty is beans on toast, and that only turns out right when Sirius isn’t distracting him with roaming hands until the toast burns and the beans scorch the bottom of the saucepan.
The rain is only falling in a light shower as they step out of the church and onto the street, but Sirius still holds his umbrella up for the both of them. Remus huddles close to him under the large black canopy, sharing a little grin as he places his hand just above Sirius’ on the handle, their fingers brushing.
They don’t say a word as they make the trek back to Shoreditch station, taking the long way around the park. They stay silent on the short train ride back to their neighbourhood. Sirius doesn’t tell Remus that disturbing rumours about Remus and his involvement with other werewolves surfaced earlier in the day, or that those rumours came from the lips of Peter himself. He also doesn’t tell Remus that those rumours play a part in his decision to insist Peter is made the Potters’ Secret-Keeper; he doesn’t tell him about the Fidelius Charm at all. Remus doesn’t tell Sirius that he’d smoked half a pack of cigarettes while watching the street from the fire escape, his heart leaping into his throat and then sinking each time an approaching dark-haired figure wasn’t him. Or that he has to go on a mission the day after tomorrow that will keep him away for three nights. He can’t give Sirius any details anyway, so he’ll just leave it until the moment he has to leave for the train station.
But none of that matters once they step into the flat. Remus laughs at the face Sirius pulls when he sees the lasagne, which is cold and not very tasty but reheated and eaten anyway. Sirius takes the bottle of red wine in one hand and Remus’ hand in the other, leading him over to the couch after they clear the dishes. Remus lets Sirius push him down into the cushions and settle between his legs, taking the bottle as Sirius passes it to him. He drinks deeply, laughter bubbling up as Sirius twists to pull him down for another kiss, licking the cabernet from his lips.
And suddenly Remus gets it. He understands why Sirius escapes to churches whenever the tide threatens to crash over his head: it makes everything seem right and in balance, even if it’s just an illusion. That’s what the flat is for him; it’s their own little protected corner of the world where nothing bad can touch them. Sirius always comes home, kisses Remus and asks about his day; they always curl up on the couch and he strokes the skin at the nape of Remus’ neck, teasing him with kisses until Remus takes him into the bedroom and fucks him into the mattress. No matter who they are or what they do outside of the flat, they’re always just Remus and Sirius once they come home.
He leads Sirius to the bedroom, pressing his back to the wardrobe in the corner as Remus kneels before him, mimicking Sirius in the pew. Remus realises he’s created his own religion, of sorts: the flat is his church, the key is akin to Sirius’ rosary beads, and Sirius himself is the deity to which he prays. Maybe it’s an illusion - as much as an illusion as Remus’ cynical nature thinks Sirius’ quasi Catholicism is - but it’s all he has, and Remus clings to it.
author: crooked
pairing: Remus/Sirius
rating: PG-13
word count: 1754
summary: In stressful times, Sirius turns to a surprising source of comfort.
a/n: written to commemorate the occasion of my dear closet_zebra's birthday! i love you, cupcake ♥ (title taken from Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.)
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah
He knows where Sirius is; it’s where he always is when life threatens to overwhelm him.
Remus shoves his hands deeper into his coat pockets, the fingerless gloves he’d pulled on before leaving doing little to keep his hands warm. A heavy rain starts to fall as he cuts through Allen Gardens to get to Buxton Street. He curses beneath his breath, wondering how a native Englishman neglects to bring an umbrella with him on a grey December day. The spires of St Anne’s eventually come into view, and the nine-year-old in Remus, who still remembers putting on his best trousers for Sundays at church, blushes and apologises in the general direction of the heavens for his foul mouth.
He pushes the heavy doors open and steps inside the cavernous building, all stone and wood and iron, and Remus instantly feels a shiver run down his spine. The Romantic side of his brain thinks the church can somehow sense the dark creature lying dormant inside him, but his sensible nature kicks in and tells him it’s simply cold as an icebox and he is soaking wet.
Remus looks around: holy water fonts - brass crucifixes with small bowls attached - adorn either side of the doors; candles, some lit and some unlit, line a small alcove just inside the vestibule; a wooden table that looks perilously close to toppling over is piled high with worn missals; the floor beneath his feet is grey stone, chipped in some places and uneven in others; another set of smaller doors are propped open and lead into the church.
And there, seated in the very middle of the dark, cavernous building, he sees Sirius.
His head is bowed, and the light from the large stained glass window casts a muted glow over him so that he appears to be some raven-haired apparition. With his worn leather jacket (that Remus knows is studded and decorated with zippers and buckles) and black motorcycle boots, Sirius looks better suited for a rock concert than the pew of a church. He’s as out of place in the sacred building as Remus feels he is. But while Remus is there looking for Sirius, he knows Sirius is there searching for something else.
Remus’ worn trainers barely make a sound on the floor as he moves toward Sirius, his whispered prayers getting clearer with each step. He says them in Latin, Remus knows, because you can take the altar boy out of the church, but you can’t take the church out of the altar boy. Or something like that. He thinks clearer when he’s not spent the last hour and a half waiting for Sirius over cold lasagne, wondering if he’d been captured by Death Eaters.
Sirius hears him anyway; he’s always had that odd, superhuman hearing, damn him. “Hi, Moony.” Remus sits down beside him; Sirius gets up from the kneeler he’d been kneeling on, and he slips onto the wooden bench. “How did you know where to find me?” he asks, unwinding the onyx and silver rosary beads from his hand.
“You’re predictable,” Remus answers, smiling. Sirius reaches out and pushes Remus’ fringe back, drenched and plastered to his forehead. “Got a bit wet.”
“You forgot your umbrella again.” It’s a statement and a counterpoint to prove that Remus is every bit as predictable. He smiles and nods, and Sirius pulls his wand from inside his coat. Remus is dry and just slightly warmed in a matter of moments.
The silence that falls between them seems heavier, somehow, and Remus is certain it’s because they’re in a church. He can feel the marble eyes of the saints’ statues staring down at them, judging them as the abominations they are, both separately and together: werewolf, wizards, queer. According to everything the church stands for, they should’ve both burned up on crossing the threshold of the consecrated building, but they don’t, and Remus’ increasing belief that organised religion is a load of bollocks is only strengthened.
Sirius shifts closer after a moment, their shoulders and thighs pressed together. Remus glances over and sees that Sirius is staring straight ahead. There’s a large crucifix suspended over the altar, and it makes Remus uncomfortable to look up and see the suffering etched on Jesus’ face. But Sirius can’t seem to look away; it’s as if the image brings him peace. Remus doesn’t pretend to know what’s going through Sirius’ head, even though he can recite his daily routine by memory. He might wear his heart on his sleeve where his emotions are concerned, but Sirius has a mind that’s impossible to read without the power of Legilimency. He suspects it’s from years of learning to hide his true beliefs and feelings from his family.
Whatever the cause is, Remus is cursing it as he sits beside Sirius, not knowing what to do or say to make him go home and eat their cold dinner.
“I’d tell you, you know,” Sirius says. His voice is quiet, but the church is quieter and it startles Remus. “I’d tell you, if I could.”
Remus nods. “I know.”
“It’s just one of those things.”
“I know.”
‘Those things’ have been coming up more and more often lately. If it’s not something Sirius is keeping secret from Remus, it’s something Remus is keeping from him. The flat (Sirius’, which they spent most of their time at; Remus still keeps his, in its shitty neighbourhood and with the radiator that stopped working months ago) is so safeguarded with spells and hexes that using the Floo or Apparating in is impossible. Remus keeps his key on a few strands of yarn from Sirius’ Puddlemere United scarf, the rest of which was tragically destroyed in the Great Exploding Snap Tournament of 1979. It’s stupid, but he’s convinced himself that keeping the key to Sirius’ flat on something that once belonged to Sirius will make it that much harder for Sirius to ask for it back someday.
“Moony?”
Remus blinks and realises he’s lost himself to his thoughts again. “Yeah, right. Hello.”
Sirius grins, the first genuine one he’s seen in at least two days, and Remus breathes a bit easier. He watches as he tucks the rosary beads carefully into a velvet pouch and slips it into his coat pocket. It’s something most people would never believe about Sirius if Remus told them. It’s something he himself barely understands: how a bloke so unholy and profane ninety-seven percent of the time can find solace in a religion he claims to have given up when he was disowned from his family.
It works, though, because Sirius stands up and wraps his scarf around Remus’ neck, tugging him up by the tails. He tucks the ends of the scarf into his jacket, and then Sirius presses a soft kiss to Remus’ lips.
“C’mon, let’s go reheat whatever horrible tasting frozen shit you cooked me,” he says, and Remus misses as he swats at Sirius’ shoulder. Remus’ only specialty is beans on toast, and that only turns out right when Sirius isn’t distracting him with roaming hands until the toast burns and the beans scorch the bottom of the saucepan.
The rain is only falling in a light shower as they step out of the church and onto the street, but Sirius still holds his umbrella up for the both of them. Remus huddles close to him under the large black canopy, sharing a little grin as he places his hand just above Sirius’ on the handle, their fingers brushing.
They don’t say a word as they make the trek back to Shoreditch station, taking the long way around the park. They stay silent on the short train ride back to their neighbourhood. Sirius doesn’t tell Remus that disturbing rumours about Remus and his involvement with other werewolves surfaced earlier in the day, or that those rumours came from the lips of Peter himself. He also doesn’t tell Remus that those rumours play a part in his decision to insist Peter is made the Potters’ Secret-Keeper; he doesn’t tell him about the Fidelius Charm at all. Remus doesn’t tell Sirius that he’d smoked half a pack of cigarettes while watching the street from the fire escape, his heart leaping into his throat and then sinking each time an approaching dark-haired figure wasn’t him. Or that he has to go on a mission the day after tomorrow that will keep him away for three nights. He can’t give Sirius any details anyway, so he’ll just leave it until the moment he has to leave for the train station.
But none of that matters once they step into the flat. Remus laughs at the face Sirius pulls when he sees the lasagne, which is cold and not very tasty but reheated and eaten anyway. Sirius takes the bottle of red wine in one hand and Remus’ hand in the other, leading him over to the couch after they clear the dishes. Remus lets Sirius push him down into the cushions and settle between his legs, taking the bottle as Sirius passes it to him. He drinks deeply, laughter bubbling up as Sirius twists to pull him down for another kiss, licking the cabernet from his lips.
And suddenly Remus gets it. He understands why Sirius escapes to churches whenever the tide threatens to crash over his head: it makes everything seem right and in balance, even if it’s just an illusion. That’s what the flat is for him; it’s their own little protected corner of the world where nothing bad can touch them. Sirius always comes home, kisses Remus and asks about his day; they always curl up on the couch and he strokes the skin at the nape of Remus’ neck, teasing him with kisses until Remus takes him into the bedroom and fucks him into the mattress. No matter who they are or what they do outside of the flat, they’re always just Remus and Sirius once they come home.
He leads Sirius to the bedroom, pressing his back to the wardrobe in the corner as Remus kneels before him, mimicking Sirius in the pew. Remus realises he’s created his own religion, of sorts: the flat is his church, the key is akin to Sirius’ rosary beads, and Sirius himself is the deity to which he prays. Maybe it’s an illusion - as much as an illusion as Remus’ cynical nature thinks Sirius’ quasi Catholicism is - but it’s all he has, and Remus clings to it.