FIC: "Stranger in the House (2/2)," Remus/Sirius, NC-17
Part 1
I want you
I woke up & one of us was crying
I want you
You said, 'young man I do believe you're dying'
I want you
If you need a second opinion as you seem to do these days
You can look in my eyes and you can count the ways
- I Want You, Elvis Costello
It’s nearly dawn when Sirius comes home. The bedroom is full of cold, blue-grey light, and the curtains over the open window flutter with a cool, early summer breeze. Sirius closes the front door quietly, but the air it displaces rattles the closed bedroom door and awakens Remus from fitful, unwanted sleep.
For the moment, Remus forgets he should be surprised by Sirius’s presence for reasons other than scheduling, but even when it occurs to him to be curious, he is placated in a Pavlovian manner by the sounds of Sirius taking off his boots, struggling to keep quiet, coming home. They’re the most wonderful noises in the world, because they mean Sirius is safe, that he has survived another night, another mission, perhaps another attack. They mean life will go on for a little longer yet.
The door to the bedroom creaks when Sirius opens it. He hears the moment of pause as Sirius tries to decide whether he is awake.
“Hello,” Remus whispers into the half-darkness.
“You’re up?” Sirius whispers back, walking to the edge of the bed. He stands there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other like a nervous schoolboy, which he never was, even when he was a schoolboy. He smells like blood and rainwater, which explains why he seems hesitant to touch anything.
“Sort of. Not really,” Remus says.
Sirius grabs a towel that’s been hanging from the bedpost for days, and says, “go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Before Remus can respond, Sirius is in the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He hears the shower being turned on, the clanging of old pipes, the hiss of hot water.
Remus lets out a sigh. He tries not to think about the exhausted pain in his muscles as he rolls to his feet, or the way his bones crack when his weight shifts to the floor. The hardwoods are cold and dry, and the pads of his feet stick to them as he crosses the room. He steps over Sirius’s jacket, lying forsaken by the bathroom door, and notices it smells like ash and spell-fire. His hand finds the doorknob and his heart skips a beat as he turns it, wondering if this time he is not welcome, if this time, Sirius will not appreciate the intrusion. That day is coming, slinking closer with each day spent apart, but Remus knows that when it arrives, it will still feel like a sucker-punch to the stomach.
The bathroom is bright and only a little dingy. The tiles are the same sharp white they were the day they were laid, two summers ago. James and Peter spent two days shirtless on the floor, ripping out old tile, putting down new. It was a gift for Sirius’s eighteenth birthday.
Sirius is in the shower, facing away from the stream of water, his body hunched in on itself like a wounded animal. The door clicks shut and Sirius looks up, his eyes big and full of adrenaline fueled intensity. Remus walks towards the shower, calmly, pausing only to pull down his pants and step out of them. Sirius looks on with feigned disinterest. His eyes dart over Remus’s body curiously, but they don’t meet Remus’s gaze.
“Sirius?” Remus says plainly before steeping into the shower. “How were things?”
Sirius’s face if tense and there is something gritty and dark scrubbed into his pale skin around his hairline. He looks at Remus, calmly, simply, and lets out a sigh that seems to release some of the energy from his body. Without waiting for an invitation, Remus reaches forward and places his hands on Sirius’s hips, pulling him closer. Sirius obliges, his skin warm and soft from the hot water.
“It wasn’t good, Moony. It was...”
Remus’s fingers twitch against Sirius’s sides, and he hates the way this still feels uncertain, even though it shouldn’t. But Sirius leans in close, and his lips are damp against Remus’s lips, and of course he tastes like smoke. Sirius moves like he is sleepwalking his way across the vast terrain of Remus’s body. His hands slide lazily up Remus’s sides while his lips press and glide over Remus’s mouth. It’s the grateful urgency that makes Remus second guess it, the ease with which Sirius melts to his touch. Where there would normally be a struggle there is only yielding and relief.
“You should get cleaned up before the hot water runs out,” Remus says while Sirius is kissing the edge of his jaw.
Sirius blinks up at him, his eyes half-lidded.
“Right. Get rid of all the…” Sirius trails off into a vague gesture and grabs the shampoo from the shelf, but he loses his grip and it clatters against the porcelain between them. Remus grabs it before Sirius can reach down, and pours a small puddle into his hand.
“Here. You’re tired. Let me help,” he says sensibly.
Sirius nods without hesitation, and Remus is relieved. Sirius has never been stingy with his affections, physical or otherwise. He practically invented the brotherly punch to the shoulder, and was probably responsible for the drunken embrace, as well. But when it comes to being touched, Sirius is like a stray: wary and unsure and uncomfortable. He shied away from Remus too, at first. They would touch and touch and touch, and then Sirius would reach his breaking point, and Remus would find his arms pinned down while Sirius worked his mouth and hands across Remus’s wired, appreciative body. Remus was never really in a position to complain, but sometimes he wished Sirius would let himself be touched too, because otherwise it feels unfair, somehow. Uneven.
The hair at Sirius’s temples is caked with something black and viscous, and Remus is scared to wonder what it might be, but he scrubs at it patiently and is grateful for his steady hands. Sirius’s eyes stay closed. When he has worked out all the tangles and foreign substances, Remus turns him towards the stream of water and watches as Sirius’s face and body are coated with long streaks of grey soapiness before it all drains. It is as though Sirius’s outer shell is being peeled away by the heat and the wetness, and beneath it he is all pink skin and twenty-year-old, not battle-weary soldier. Remus wishes that he could take this newly exposed Sirius and cup him in his hands, shelter him from the hardening wind and the encroaching danger like wolves in the walls. He wants to keep him tucked away in some secret place where he will always be new and flushed and clean and whole.
“You don’t have to do this,” Sirius says suddenly.
Remus blinks for a moment, then says, “of course I do.”
Sirius sighs and his face contorts, but his eyes stay closed.
“No, you don’t, Moony. You think you do. You think you have to take care of everyone, but you don’t,” says Sirius.
Remus opens his mouth but can think of nothing to say. He does, sometimes, feel the need to take care of everyone, but this isn’t the same thing. He feels the need to take care of James and Peter and Lily (though she rarely needs it) because they are friends and he wants the best for them. But Sirius, he takes care of Sirius because he could just as soon give up taking care of himself. He takes care of Sirius because he could just as soon give up breathing.
“Go back to bed. I can take it from here,” Sirius says, wiping the soap from his eyes. The edge to his voice is unsurprising at best. Sirius has always possessed a certain viciousness, a razor-sharp edge to his brain that he sometimes wields carelessly. It’s tempting to blame it on his last name, but Remus knows that would be excusing it. Sirius is mean because he can be, because he is so addictive that everyone ignores it when the claws beneath his perfect skin come out. But for Remus, who is always standing too close, it is a deadly thing. There is no stopping Sirius when he wants to hurt someone, and there is no defense when he wants to tear someone apart.
A sinking coldness creeps into Remus’s stomach, like a snake in the dead of winter, and he shivers in the steam. He steps back and pushes the curtain aside, and he has one foot on the floor before Sirius makes a sound, a terrible, broken sound, and grabs Remus by the shoulder.
“Nevermind,” Sirius mutters, pulling him back.
Remus looks at him, truly looks for the first time in weeks, and he’s both disturbed and relieved by what he sees.
There are cracks. There are faults of mistrust and bright, glowing chinks where the light shines through their armor and makes them vulnerable, and they worsen almost daily, but when Sirius’s body melts into Remus’s, it is clear that they haven’t fallen apart just yet.
“All right,” Remus murmurs, letting himself be moved, adjusted, moulded to Sirius.
The lines of Sirius’s limbs fit against Remus’s limbs, and they breathe each other’s damp air, and there is so much need between them that the slow-burn of lust is nearly suffocated. Remus runs his hands across Sirius’s skin: the small of his back, the sharp edge of his hipbone, the strong muscle of his upper thigh. He pulls him close, feels him, all of him, and is frightened by how desperately right it all feels.
Sirius kisses him, sloppy and fierce, biting at his bottom lip and sliding his tongue into Remus’s mouth, wet-hot and slippery. Their legs are tangled, and Remus has one arm braced against the wall behind him so they don’t fall, and his other hand is gripping Sirius’s arse, pulling him closer always closer, like he means to consume him, swallow him whole. The water numbs their skin when they are still too long so they have to move endlessly just to keep the sensation alive. It’s hot, stiflingly humid and everything is hard around them-the walls and the bathtub and the hard beat of water. Sirius’s hands are in Remus’s hair, just kissing him again and again, as though it’s all he can remember how to do. But his body remembers other things, and he is grinding against Remus’s hip in time with the motions of their mouths.
So Remus lets his hand slide between them, his long, precise fingers finding Sirius’s cock and touching it to make Sirius feel something. He is careful and sure, confident in a way that he is never confident, never with Sirius, and he spends a long time on the feeling-feeling the soft weight, the hardness underlying it all that says he hasn’t forgotten how wonderful and perverse this used to be. Sirius whines when Remus lets his fingers skim around the slick-sticky head, and groans, choking, when Remus strokes downward with a twist, but all the sound is absorbed by damp skin. Before Remus can get well and truly started, they are moving, falling and wrestling, and there is the struggle Remus misses when it’s gone.
In a split second, Sirius has the soap and he’s sliding it between Remus’s legs, until Remus stops him and makes him wait.. Delicately, Remus makes sure every part of them below the waist is slick and soapy. Sirius twitches and shudders his appreciation, but doesn’t speak, and Remus kisses him on the temple before turning him around so that Sirius’s arms are braced against the wall.
They used to keep count. How many times Remus threw Sirius over some odd bit of furniture, how many times Sirius came home late and found interesting ways to wake Remus up. They stopped counting months ago, but sometimes Remus still does. Sometimes, in his head, he says One. This is one time that we loved each other. One, and tries so hard to remember the way Sirius’s arms shake when he’s turned on, and the way he kisses when he is about to come.
Before Sirius can complain, Remus is kissing his back, nuzzling his neck, letting his fingers probe and press. They stretch and tease, slide and caress the dark, hidden parts of Sirius’s body that make him fall to pieces. Remus can’t stop himself from looking down at the place where his body is absorbed by Sirius’s, sensitive tissue, red with blood, stretched and pulsing around his fingers, so tight and slick that Remus sometimes thinks he could come just from the sensation. And then he has one arm around Sirius’s waist, because he has to hold him still, and a still Sirius is a rare and deadly thing. He is pushing forward into Sirius’s body, his cock blunt and wet and rock-hard, more than a match for the token resistance he meets before Sirius’s flesh opens, yields to him. There is nothing, will never be anything quite like this again. Even if the world should end and begin all over again, new and unfamiliar, Remus is sure that nothing would ever come close.
Suddenly, Sirius, silent, still Sirius, is talking. Oh, Moony, at first, and then, God, Remus. Because Moony is a friend who you fight with and live with and keep with you all your life. But Remus is a different matter entirely. Remus is a lover, who you sleep with and live for and keep with you inside yourself, so that even when you are dead, you still have him selfishly for an infinite number of eternities, if need be. Remus knows all this. He knows all this because Sirius has told him, in little ways. Sometimes he whispers it into the crook of Remus’s neck when he thinks Remus is sleeping. Sometimes he waits until one or both of them are out of their minds with joy and pleasure and every other sensation their bodies are able to conjure.
“S’alright,” Remus says loudly, over the hiss of the water and the roar of blood in his brain. He makes hushing sounds, but mostly he is too entranced by the way Sirius’s hair sticks to his face and the way his cock feels as it fucks Remus’s palm every time Remus thrusts forward.
“Fuck,” Sirius says in response, grabbing Remus’s free hand where it rests beside his own, braced against the wall.
They move so differently than when they were first starting out. Their motions, which were clumsy and happy once upon a time, are filled with intent, purposeful and defiant, daring all of space and time to come between them. Remus thrusts again and again, amazed still that the body beneath his is there for the taking, that he is allowed to look at it, touch it, taste it, fuck it, make it scream.
It’s this-Sirius’s fingers sliding against the wet tile, Sirius’s fringe stuck to his forehead-that amazes him. It’s the heavy heat that fills his cock, because Sirius is gasping now, and making small, broken sounds. It’s the itch in his fingertips because Sirius’s skin is damp and it shines like a mythical thing, a leviathan in the steam-heat, mythical and terrifying and so, so lovely. He’s hopeless. He thinks there will never be a time when Sirius does not make him hard, fails to excite him just because he’s Sirius and he’s all Remus has wanted since he was old enough to truly understand the meaning of the word.
“Don’t stop. Don’t-” Sirius hisses, and Remus has no intention of slowing down.
In fact, he feels his cock throb at the sound of Sirius’s voice, simultaneously rough with need and soft with desperation. He likes being the one who is needed, desired. He likes to make Sirius shake and cry and fall apart when he comes so that Remus can scoop up the pieces and cradle them close, hold onto Sirius’s body until he can hold himself up.
It’s close now, that undoing. Remus can tell by the way Sirius’s back is arching into his thrusts and the muscles in his thighs are tense and waiting. And Remus feels it, too. He feels it building at the base of his spine, burning in his knees, threading through his limbs like blood, but thicker and headier.
“You,” Remus whispers, “you just…”
Sirius nods frantically, reaching back with one hand to grab Remus’s arse, to pull him deeper so with every thrust. Then Sirius lets out a noise somewhere between a shout and a sob, and collapses against the wall, his arms bracing them both. He spills his release all over Remus’s fist, and onto the wall beyond, and it is washed away by the shower before Remus can think to do a thing about it. Not that Remus is thinking very well to being with. It feels like Sirius’s body is humming and burning, tearing him apart with how good it makes him feel. Sirius’s blunt fingernails dig in to the back of Remus’s thigh and suddenly Remus is coming and coming, doubling over helplessly against Sirius’s naked back, jerking and thrusting as he spends himself deep inside Sirius’s body. Over the whoosh of the water, Remus hears Sirius let out a shaky sigh, and his head lolls backward to rest against Remus’s shoulder.
Some seconds later, Remus eases away, careful to make sure Sirius has his balance. He reaches over and turns off the water with a clumsy flick of the wrist. The moment he steps back, Sirius turns around and his right hand is on Remus’s throat, and he looks like he isn’t sure what to say next, so Remus saves him the trouble and kisses him, once, at the corner of his mouth.
“You have-” Sirius begins.
“I meant what-” Remus says at the same moment.
There is an uncertain pause before Remus tilts his head for Sirius’s to finish.
“You have very interesting views on modern hygiene,” he says tiredly.
Remus laughs, and feels the prickly slide of the things unsaid as they recede into the dark.
“I like to think of them as utilitarian. Keeps everything tidy,” he offers.
Sirius makes an assenting noise and pulls back the curtain.
They don’t talk while they’re drying off, but Sirius wraps the fluffier of two towels around Remus’s waist, and really, that’s all Remus can ask for. When they are both relatively dry and Remus has made sure the water drained properly, and Sirius has used Remus’s wand to cast a cleaning charm on his own, they make their way to bed. Sirius insists on fluffing all the pillows and generally being a spoiled bastard, but Remus smiles patiently and doesn’t comment when Sirius gets the sheets tangled.
They lay on their sides so their faces are inches apart, and Sirius’s knee is tucked between Remus’s thigh, simple yet breathtaking in its intimacy.
“We got there too late,” Sirius says quietly, his face never betraying any hint of gravity.
“How many?” Remus asks, because it’s all he can ever think to ask at moments like this, and it’s something he doesn’t mind answering when he is the one stumbling home with ghosts in his eyes.
“Six. Plus a girl. Found her hiding in the cellar,” says Sirius.
“She was alright?” Remus asks hopefully.
“Nah,” Sirius says, shaking his head and staring down at where his leg disappears between Remus’s legs. “They tortured her. She may as well have been upstairs on the floor with her family.”
Remus feels himself grimace and immediately forms his face into some semblance of neutrality.
“She was covered, just, fuck, covered in it. Blood and things. Her parents', mostly,” Sirius says simply, with no affect. He looks up at Remus then, and his eyes are so large and close, but Remus doesn’t know what to say, what to do to make it alright, to make sleep seem like a reasonable option, to make the world seem like a reasonable place. So he does nothing, because the wrong action, he fears, would do more harm than good.
Sirius looks away, but tucks in closer, curling into Remus’s body. Remus responds in kind, wrapping Sirius in long, wiry boy-limbs and pressing warm, gentle kisses to the part of Sirius’s hair, because it’s all he knows how to do. Maybe it’s not enough. Maybe it is grossly inadequate and Sirius deserves better, but it’s everything Remus can’t bring himself to say very often anymore communicated through the whorls of his fingertips and the roots of Sirius’s hair.
“I think I’m going to fall asleep now,” Sirius says in a gravely voice.
“Go right ahead,” says Remus. He doesn’t say everything will be fine, and he doesn’t tell Sirius he was worried about him, or that he wishes neither of them could be of use to the Order. He flattens his hand against Sirius’s back and presses his cheek to Sirius’s hair, and stays silent.
-end-
I want you
I woke up & one of us was crying
I want you
You said, 'young man I do believe you're dying'
I want you
If you need a second opinion as you seem to do these days
You can look in my eyes and you can count the ways
- I Want You, Elvis Costello
It’s nearly dawn when Sirius comes home. The bedroom is full of cold, blue-grey light, and the curtains over the open window flutter with a cool, early summer breeze. Sirius closes the front door quietly, but the air it displaces rattles the closed bedroom door and awakens Remus from fitful, unwanted sleep.
For the moment, Remus forgets he should be surprised by Sirius’s presence for reasons other than scheduling, but even when it occurs to him to be curious, he is placated in a Pavlovian manner by the sounds of Sirius taking off his boots, struggling to keep quiet, coming home. They’re the most wonderful noises in the world, because they mean Sirius is safe, that he has survived another night, another mission, perhaps another attack. They mean life will go on for a little longer yet.
The door to the bedroom creaks when Sirius opens it. He hears the moment of pause as Sirius tries to decide whether he is awake.
“Hello,” Remus whispers into the half-darkness.
“You’re up?” Sirius whispers back, walking to the edge of the bed. He stands there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other like a nervous schoolboy, which he never was, even when he was a schoolboy. He smells like blood and rainwater, which explains why he seems hesitant to touch anything.
“Sort of. Not really,” Remus says.
Sirius grabs a towel that’s been hanging from the bedpost for days, and says, “go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Before Remus can respond, Sirius is in the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He hears the shower being turned on, the clanging of old pipes, the hiss of hot water.
Remus lets out a sigh. He tries not to think about the exhausted pain in his muscles as he rolls to his feet, or the way his bones crack when his weight shifts to the floor. The hardwoods are cold and dry, and the pads of his feet stick to them as he crosses the room. He steps over Sirius’s jacket, lying forsaken by the bathroom door, and notices it smells like ash and spell-fire. His hand finds the doorknob and his heart skips a beat as he turns it, wondering if this time he is not welcome, if this time, Sirius will not appreciate the intrusion. That day is coming, slinking closer with each day spent apart, but Remus knows that when it arrives, it will still feel like a sucker-punch to the stomach.
The bathroom is bright and only a little dingy. The tiles are the same sharp white they were the day they were laid, two summers ago. James and Peter spent two days shirtless on the floor, ripping out old tile, putting down new. It was a gift for Sirius’s eighteenth birthday.
Sirius is in the shower, facing away from the stream of water, his body hunched in on itself like a wounded animal. The door clicks shut and Sirius looks up, his eyes big and full of adrenaline fueled intensity. Remus walks towards the shower, calmly, pausing only to pull down his pants and step out of them. Sirius looks on with feigned disinterest. His eyes dart over Remus’s body curiously, but they don’t meet Remus’s gaze.
“Sirius?” Remus says plainly before steeping into the shower. “How were things?”
Sirius’s face if tense and there is something gritty and dark scrubbed into his pale skin around his hairline. He looks at Remus, calmly, simply, and lets out a sigh that seems to release some of the energy from his body. Without waiting for an invitation, Remus reaches forward and places his hands on Sirius’s hips, pulling him closer. Sirius obliges, his skin warm and soft from the hot water.
“It wasn’t good, Moony. It was...”
Remus’s fingers twitch against Sirius’s sides, and he hates the way this still feels uncertain, even though it shouldn’t. But Sirius leans in close, and his lips are damp against Remus’s lips, and of course he tastes like smoke. Sirius moves like he is sleepwalking his way across the vast terrain of Remus’s body. His hands slide lazily up Remus’s sides while his lips press and glide over Remus’s mouth. It’s the grateful urgency that makes Remus second guess it, the ease with which Sirius melts to his touch. Where there would normally be a struggle there is only yielding and relief.
“You should get cleaned up before the hot water runs out,” Remus says while Sirius is kissing the edge of his jaw.
Sirius blinks up at him, his eyes half-lidded.
“Right. Get rid of all the…” Sirius trails off into a vague gesture and grabs the shampoo from the shelf, but he loses his grip and it clatters against the porcelain between them. Remus grabs it before Sirius can reach down, and pours a small puddle into his hand.
“Here. You’re tired. Let me help,” he says sensibly.
Sirius nods without hesitation, and Remus is relieved. Sirius has never been stingy with his affections, physical or otherwise. He practically invented the brotherly punch to the shoulder, and was probably responsible for the drunken embrace, as well. But when it comes to being touched, Sirius is like a stray: wary and unsure and uncomfortable. He shied away from Remus too, at first. They would touch and touch and touch, and then Sirius would reach his breaking point, and Remus would find his arms pinned down while Sirius worked his mouth and hands across Remus’s wired, appreciative body. Remus was never really in a position to complain, but sometimes he wished Sirius would let himself be touched too, because otherwise it feels unfair, somehow. Uneven.
The hair at Sirius’s temples is caked with something black and viscous, and Remus is scared to wonder what it might be, but he scrubs at it patiently and is grateful for his steady hands. Sirius’s eyes stay closed. When he has worked out all the tangles and foreign substances, Remus turns him towards the stream of water and watches as Sirius’s face and body are coated with long streaks of grey soapiness before it all drains. It is as though Sirius’s outer shell is being peeled away by the heat and the wetness, and beneath it he is all pink skin and twenty-year-old, not battle-weary soldier. Remus wishes that he could take this newly exposed Sirius and cup him in his hands, shelter him from the hardening wind and the encroaching danger like wolves in the walls. He wants to keep him tucked away in some secret place where he will always be new and flushed and clean and whole.
“You don’t have to do this,” Sirius says suddenly.
Remus blinks for a moment, then says, “of course I do.”
Sirius sighs and his face contorts, but his eyes stay closed.
“No, you don’t, Moony. You think you do. You think you have to take care of everyone, but you don’t,” says Sirius.
Remus opens his mouth but can think of nothing to say. He does, sometimes, feel the need to take care of everyone, but this isn’t the same thing. He feels the need to take care of James and Peter and Lily (though she rarely needs it) because they are friends and he wants the best for them. But Sirius, he takes care of Sirius because he could just as soon give up taking care of himself. He takes care of Sirius because he could just as soon give up breathing.
“Go back to bed. I can take it from here,” Sirius says, wiping the soap from his eyes. The edge to his voice is unsurprising at best. Sirius has always possessed a certain viciousness, a razor-sharp edge to his brain that he sometimes wields carelessly. It’s tempting to blame it on his last name, but Remus knows that would be excusing it. Sirius is mean because he can be, because he is so addictive that everyone ignores it when the claws beneath his perfect skin come out. But for Remus, who is always standing too close, it is a deadly thing. There is no stopping Sirius when he wants to hurt someone, and there is no defense when he wants to tear someone apart.
A sinking coldness creeps into Remus’s stomach, like a snake in the dead of winter, and he shivers in the steam. He steps back and pushes the curtain aside, and he has one foot on the floor before Sirius makes a sound, a terrible, broken sound, and grabs Remus by the shoulder.
“Nevermind,” Sirius mutters, pulling him back.
Remus looks at him, truly looks for the first time in weeks, and he’s both disturbed and relieved by what he sees.
There are cracks. There are faults of mistrust and bright, glowing chinks where the light shines through their armor and makes them vulnerable, and they worsen almost daily, but when Sirius’s body melts into Remus’s, it is clear that they haven’t fallen apart just yet.
“All right,” Remus murmurs, letting himself be moved, adjusted, moulded to Sirius.
The lines of Sirius’s limbs fit against Remus’s limbs, and they breathe each other’s damp air, and there is so much need between them that the slow-burn of lust is nearly suffocated. Remus runs his hands across Sirius’s skin: the small of his back, the sharp edge of his hipbone, the strong muscle of his upper thigh. He pulls him close, feels him, all of him, and is frightened by how desperately right it all feels.
Sirius kisses him, sloppy and fierce, biting at his bottom lip and sliding his tongue into Remus’s mouth, wet-hot and slippery. Their legs are tangled, and Remus has one arm braced against the wall behind him so they don’t fall, and his other hand is gripping Sirius’s arse, pulling him closer always closer, like he means to consume him, swallow him whole. The water numbs their skin when they are still too long so they have to move endlessly just to keep the sensation alive. It’s hot, stiflingly humid and everything is hard around them-the walls and the bathtub and the hard beat of water. Sirius’s hands are in Remus’s hair, just kissing him again and again, as though it’s all he can remember how to do. But his body remembers other things, and he is grinding against Remus’s hip in time with the motions of their mouths.
So Remus lets his hand slide between them, his long, precise fingers finding Sirius’s cock and touching it to make Sirius feel something. He is careful and sure, confident in a way that he is never confident, never with Sirius, and he spends a long time on the feeling-feeling the soft weight, the hardness underlying it all that says he hasn’t forgotten how wonderful and perverse this used to be. Sirius whines when Remus lets his fingers skim around the slick-sticky head, and groans, choking, when Remus strokes downward with a twist, but all the sound is absorbed by damp skin. Before Remus can get well and truly started, they are moving, falling and wrestling, and there is the struggle Remus misses when it’s gone.
In a split second, Sirius has the soap and he’s sliding it between Remus’s legs, until Remus stops him and makes him wait.. Delicately, Remus makes sure every part of them below the waist is slick and soapy. Sirius twitches and shudders his appreciation, but doesn’t speak, and Remus kisses him on the temple before turning him around so that Sirius’s arms are braced against the wall.
They used to keep count. How many times Remus threw Sirius over some odd bit of furniture, how many times Sirius came home late and found interesting ways to wake Remus up. They stopped counting months ago, but sometimes Remus still does. Sometimes, in his head, he says One. This is one time that we loved each other. One, and tries so hard to remember the way Sirius’s arms shake when he’s turned on, and the way he kisses when he is about to come.
Before Sirius can complain, Remus is kissing his back, nuzzling his neck, letting his fingers probe and press. They stretch and tease, slide and caress the dark, hidden parts of Sirius’s body that make him fall to pieces. Remus can’t stop himself from looking down at the place where his body is absorbed by Sirius’s, sensitive tissue, red with blood, stretched and pulsing around his fingers, so tight and slick that Remus sometimes thinks he could come just from the sensation. And then he has one arm around Sirius’s waist, because he has to hold him still, and a still Sirius is a rare and deadly thing. He is pushing forward into Sirius’s body, his cock blunt and wet and rock-hard, more than a match for the token resistance he meets before Sirius’s flesh opens, yields to him. There is nothing, will never be anything quite like this again. Even if the world should end and begin all over again, new and unfamiliar, Remus is sure that nothing would ever come close.
Suddenly, Sirius, silent, still Sirius, is talking. Oh, Moony, at first, and then, God, Remus. Because Moony is a friend who you fight with and live with and keep with you all your life. But Remus is a different matter entirely. Remus is a lover, who you sleep with and live for and keep with you inside yourself, so that even when you are dead, you still have him selfishly for an infinite number of eternities, if need be. Remus knows all this. He knows all this because Sirius has told him, in little ways. Sometimes he whispers it into the crook of Remus’s neck when he thinks Remus is sleeping. Sometimes he waits until one or both of them are out of their minds with joy and pleasure and every other sensation their bodies are able to conjure.
“S’alright,” Remus says loudly, over the hiss of the water and the roar of blood in his brain. He makes hushing sounds, but mostly he is too entranced by the way Sirius’s hair sticks to his face and the way his cock feels as it fucks Remus’s palm every time Remus thrusts forward.
“Fuck,” Sirius says in response, grabbing Remus’s free hand where it rests beside his own, braced against the wall.
They move so differently than when they were first starting out. Their motions, which were clumsy and happy once upon a time, are filled with intent, purposeful and defiant, daring all of space and time to come between them. Remus thrusts again and again, amazed still that the body beneath his is there for the taking, that he is allowed to look at it, touch it, taste it, fuck it, make it scream.
It’s this-Sirius’s fingers sliding against the wet tile, Sirius’s fringe stuck to his forehead-that amazes him. It’s the heavy heat that fills his cock, because Sirius is gasping now, and making small, broken sounds. It’s the itch in his fingertips because Sirius’s skin is damp and it shines like a mythical thing, a leviathan in the steam-heat, mythical and terrifying and so, so lovely. He’s hopeless. He thinks there will never be a time when Sirius does not make him hard, fails to excite him just because he’s Sirius and he’s all Remus has wanted since he was old enough to truly understand the meaning of the word.
“Don’t stop. Don’t-” Sirius hisses, and Remus has no intention of slowing down.
In fact, he feels his cock throb at the sound of Sirius’s voice, simultaneously rough with need and soft with desperation. He likes being the one who is needed, desired. He likes to make Sirius shake and cry and fall apart when he comes so that Remus can scoop up the pieces and cradle them close, hold onto Sirius’s body until he can hold himself up.
It’s close now, that undoing. Remus can tell by the way Sirius’s back is arching into his thrusts and the muscles in his thighs are tense and waiting. And Remus feels it, too. He feels it building at the base of his spine, burning in his knees, threading through his limbs like blood, but thicker and headier.
“You,” Remus whispers, “you just…”
Sirius nods frantically, reaching back with one hand to grab Remus’s arse, to pull him deeper so with every thrust. Then Sirius lets out a noise somewhere between a shout and a sob, and collapses against the wall, his arms bracing them both. He spills his release all over Remus’s fist, and onto the wall beyond, and it is washed away by the shower before Remus can think to do a thing about it. Not that Remus is thinking very well to being with. It feels like Sirius’s body is humming and burning, tearing him apart with how good it makes him feel. Sirius’s blunt fingernails dig in to the back of Remus’s thigh and suddenly Remus is coming and coming, doubling over helplessly against Sirius’s naked back, jerking and thrusting as he spends himself deep inside Sirius’s body. Over the whoosh of the water, Remus hears Sirius let out a shaky sigh, and his head lolls backward to rest against Remus’s shoulder.
Some seconds later, Remus eases away, careful to make sure Sirius has his balance. He reaches over and turns off the water with a clumsy flick of the wrist. The moment he steps back, Sirius turns around and his right hand is on Remus’s throat, and he looks like he isn’t sure what to say next, so Remus saves him the trouble and kisses him, once, at the corner of his mouth.
“You have-” Sirius begins.
“I meant what-” Remus says at the same moment.
There is an uncertain pause before Remus tilts his head for Sirius’s to finish.
“You have very interesting views on modern hygiene,” he says tiredly.
Remus laughs, and feels the prickly slide of the things unsaid as they recede into the dark.
“I like to think of them as utilitarian. Keeps everything tidy,” he offers.
Sirius makes an assenting noise and pulls back the curtain.
They don’t talk while they’re drying off, but Sirius wraps the fluffier of two towels around Remus’s waist, and really, that’s all Remus can ask for. When they are both relatively dry and Remus has made sure the water drained properly, and Sirius has used Remus’s wand to cast a cleaning charm on his own, they make their way to bed. Sirius insists on fluffing all the pillows and generally being a spoiled bastard, but Remus smiles patiently and doesn’t comment when Sirius gets the sheets tangled.
They lay on their sides so their faces are inches apart, and Sirius’s knee is tucked between Remus’s thigh, simple yet breathtaking in its intimacy.
“We got there too late,” Sirius says quietly, his face never betraying any hint of gravity.
“How many?” Remus asks, because it’s all he can ever think to ask at moments like this, and it’s something he doesn’t mind answering when he is the one stumbling home with ghosts in his eyes.
“Six. Plus a girl. Found her hiding in the cellar,” says Sirius.
“She was alright?” Remus asks hopefully.
“Nah,” Sirius says, shaking his head and staring down at where his leg disappears between Remus’s legs. “They tortured her. She may as well have been upstairs on the floor with her family.”
Remus feels himself grimace and immediately forms his face into some semblance of neutrality.
“She was covered, just, fuck, covered in it. Blood and things. Her parents', mostly,” Sirius says simply, with no affect. He looks up at Remus then, and his eyes are so large and close, but Remus doesn’t know what to say, what to do to make it alright, to make sleep seem like a reasonable option, to make the world seem like a reasonable place. So he does nothing, because the wrong action, he fears, would do more harm than good.
Sirius looks away, but tucks in closer, curling into Remus’s body. Remus responds in kind, wrapping Sirius in long, wiry boy-limbs and pressing warm, gentle kisses to the part of Sirius’s hair, because it’s all he knows how to do. Maybe it’s not enough. Maybe it is grossly inadequate and Sirius deserves better, but it’s everything Remus can’t bring himself to say very often anymore communicated through the whorls of his fingertips and the roots of Sirius’s hair.
“I think I’m going to fall asleep now,” Sirius says in a gravely voice.
“Go right ahead,” says Remus. He doesn’t say everything will be fine, and he doesn’t tell Sirius he was worried about him, or that he wishes neither of them could be of use to the Order. He flattens his hand against Sirius’s back and presses his cheek to Sirius’s hair, and stays silent.
-end-