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MORE FIC! I was going to refrain from spamming, but then I got asked to cross-post, so! Here I am! Just puppy fluff. For imochanand yeats.
Remus/Sirius, PG, in which there is The Trick, Severus Snape throws things, James punches someone, Remus thinks entirely in facts, and there are fourteen rather lonely buttons on some pajamas.
Encyclopaedia
Remus doesn’t want Sirius to tell him that he loves him. He doesn’t want Sirius to lean in between cigarettes on the roof and kiss him, doesn’t want a long moment as he is washing dishes in the sink, doesn’t want to wake up to find Sirius watching him.
He doesn’t want to get what he wants, because the unfolded origami crane feeling of loving Sirius is perfect, and right, and Remus understands it. Everyone thinks Remus ought to have had his fill of secrets, but he hasn’t. They still make his breath come faster, like looking at Sirius when he’s covered in mud from a quidditch match, still make his stomach drop, like the way Sirius brushes his hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand when he’s studying, still inspire feelings he can’t quite wrap his fingers around, like when Padfoot sleeps next to him as he reads.
He doesn’t want sympathy, or worse still, empathy. He doesn’t want the pitying look in James’s eyes or the disgusted one in Sirius’s, so he keeps it to himself. It’s quiet and understated and not quite tragic, and no one can discover this particular secret because of the revealing pull of the inconstant moon. He’s happy.
Then, there’s sixth year and I must inform you that there has been an accident, Mr. Lupin in McGonagall’s clipped tones and oh god, Moony, I’m so - and don’t call him that and pain, sharp and steadying, when he’s watching James hit Sirius in the jaw, watching Sirius take every blow James deals, watching Severus Snape sleep in the infirmary.
There are three things that he never tells anyone about that night, and they are (1) he tries to apologize to Snape and Snape throws a bottle of dreamless sleep potion at his head, (2) everyone thinks he ought to be mad at Sirius, but he isn’t, not even the smallest bit, not at all, (3) he doesn’t cry.
Then Sirius crawls into bed with him, warm and shaking, and waits, curled in the furthest corner of the bed, until Remus reaches out to run his fingers along the curve of Sirius’s jaw, black and blue beneath his touch. Sirius says, please, and Remus says, I’m not angry. Sirius begs with unspoken words for Remus to be angry, to hate him, to connect fist to face, like putting together a particularly simple jigsaw puzzle with only two pieces, but Remus can’t. He thinks Sirius might be more upset about this than he is, but he understands. He’s had nearly his whole life to get used to the fact that there’s a monster hidden somewhere inside of him; Sirius has only had tonight.
Then things go pear-shaped, and Remus stops thinking almost entirely. When Sirius starts acting strangely, he forces himself to think entirely in facts. If he doesn’t let himself imagine, then he can’t hurt himself by hoping.
Dogs sleep fourteen hours a day. This is the first thing Remus tells himself every time Padfoot curls up around his feet and dozes, paws twitching in rabbit-chasing dreams. This is what Remus tells himself when Padfoot hides under his bed and won’t come out for three days, until James lures him out with a plateful of bacon.
Hogwarts dorms are cold at night is enough to justify letting Sirius stay when he sneaks into Remus’s bed in the middle of the night, teeth chattering, fingers like ice against Remus’s stomach. Remus only rolls over to let Sirius curl against his back, settling against him until the shaking stops and Sirius’s breathing evens.
Nightmares are terrible is more of an opinion than a fact, but Remus repeats it to himself when Sirius wakes up screaming. If he doesn’t think, it’s easy to hold Sirius close, to pretend the dampness against his collar is from the shower he took hours ago, to let Sirius’s fingers curl against his shirt as he tells him it’s all right, over and over, until it’s not words anymore, just the sound of his voice.
The acceleration of gravity is 9.8 m/s/s. Remus reminds himself of this basic physical fact as he watches Sirius fall during a quidditch match. He has just enough time to think, in the endless ten seconds between when he loses his grip on the broomstick and crumples against the ground, he cannot possibly be falling a million miles an hour. Rationality, however, has never been known to keep his heart from flipping over, and this is no exception.
Three broken bones, a punctured lung, and a dislocated hip will take four hours to heal. Remus knows this is a fact because Madame Pomfrey tells him Sirius will have to stay for four hours, and then, by all means, they can take him back to Gryffindor tower. Remus thinks her attitude may have something to do with the level at which Sirius is shouting, audible two hallways away. They’re trying to put his hip back in the ordinary, commonplace way, to avoid keeping him all week, which they’d have to do if they used magic. It seems to involve Frank Longbottom and Kingsley Shacklebolt holding him down while Professor Wright shoves. Remus asks, might I try? And Madame Pomfrey says, by all means, Mr. Lupin, it’s more than I can do.
When Remus goes in, Sirius is pale and wild-eyed and trying to punch Kingsley in the nose. Frank is already nursing what looks like a rather spectacular black eye. Remus says, very quietly, stop that, and somehow, Sirius does, and then he’s quiet and Remus has to do multiplication tables quickly in his head to keep from thinking anything at all.
Two times two is four.
Three times nine is twenty-seven.
Four times six is twenty-four.
Five times twelve is sixty.
Remus moves to stand next to the bed and Sirius turns into him, face against his shirt (seven times six is forty-two). Remus takes his hand, and murmurs the sort of reassuring nonsense he always wishes someone would say after the full moon. Sirius relaxes slowly, and Remus says, all right, try again. Everyone stops staring, but Sirius shakes his head when Kingsley tries to push his shoulder down. Frank pushes, once more, large hands wrapped around Sirius’s thigh, bracing a little. Sirius goes white, and then, somehow, with a soft click, it goes back. Sirius’s face clears, slowly.
There are twenty-seven bones in the human hand. Remus thinks Sirius has broken every one in his.
A sleeping draught causes eight minutes of sleep for every kilogram of body weight. When Remus leaves to get a glass of pumpkin juice for Sirius to wash the potion down with, Sirius is tucked in his bed, surrounded by chocolate frogs and cards that occasionally explode, leaving glitter all over the blankets. When he returns, Sirius is already asleep, curled into a very small ball in the middle of Remus’s bed, fingers clutched in the blankets, eyelashes dark against his cheeks. Remus thinks about moving him, but Sirius is over eleven stone, and he doesn’t want to mix magic with potions. He thinks about waiting for Sirius to wake up, but he’ll sleep for nearly ten hours, give or take. He thinks about sleeping in Sirius’s bed, but Peter’s snoring will keep him up, if he’s that close.
Sirius’s pajamas have fourteen buttons. Remus climbs into bed with him and counts them five times before he manages to fall asleep to the steady sound of Sirius’s breathing, and the feel of his hands curled against Remus’s chest.
There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on Earth. Remus tries to count them all, until the numbers get so large that they lose meaning in his head, sitting on top of the spire of astronomy tower, Sirius lying on his back next to him. Sirius says, finally, do you get it? Remus agrees without really thinking about it, because one never knows, with Sirius. He could be talking about the concepts they learned yesterday in potions and he could be talking about the meaning of life.
Adding powdered lacewing to a disappearing draught will make it explode is what Remus is thinking when Sirius leans in, just like that, and kisses him, unexpected and warm. Then he can’t even think facts, let alone anything else, because Sirius’s hands are cold against his face from the chilly March air, and Sirius is making a low, questioning noise in the back of his throat, so Remus has to kiss back, just to make sure he understands, and then it’s both of them, Sirius’s mouth soft and a little uncertain under his, Remus’s fingers curling against the wool of his jumper, one thousand six hundred and seven stars (at least, that have been counted) suddenly forgotten.
Sirius’s hands shake, and his chest shakes, and Remus has to tilt his face up to keep him from looking away. “I’m sorry,” he says, just once, an apology from a boy who doesn’t apologize.
“There was never,” Remus murmurs, against his mouth, between kisses, “anything to forgive you for.”
In the end, Remus thinks, just maybe, thinking can get you in just as much trouble as imagining can, but, he thinks, it’s all right, after all.
Remus/Sirius, PG, in which there is The Trick, Severus Snape throws things, James punches someone, Remus thinks entirely in facts, and there are fourteen rather lonely buttons on some pajamas.
Encyclopaedia
Remus doesn’t want Sirius to tell him that he loves him. He doesn’t want Sirius to lean in between cigarettes on the roof and kiss him, doesn’t want a long moment as he is washing dishes in the sink, doesn’t want to wake up to find Sirius watching him.
He doesn’t want to get what he wants, because the unfolded origami crane feeling of loving Sirius is perfect, and right, and Remus understands it. Everyone thinks Remus ought to have had his fill of secrets, but he hasn’t. They still make his breath come faster, like looking at Sirius when he’s covered in mud from a quidditch match, still make his stomach drop, like the way Sirius brushes his hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand when he’s studying, still inspire feelings he can’t quite wrap his fingers around, like when Padfoot sleeps next to him as he reads.
He doesn’t want sympathy, or worse still, empathy. He doesn’t want the pitying look in James’s eyes or the disgusted one in Sirius’s, so he keeps it to himself. It’s quiet and understated and not quite tragic, and no one can discover this particular secret because of the revealing pull of the inconstant moon. He’s happy.
Then, there’s sixth year and I must inform you that there has been an accident, Mr. Lupin in McGonagall’s clipped tones and oh god, Moony, I’m so - and don’t call him that and pain, sharp and steadying, when he’s watching James hit Sirius in the jaw, watching Sirius take every blow James deals, watching Severus Snape sleep in the infirmary.
There are three things that he never tells anyone about that night, and they are (1) he tries to apologize to Snape and Snape throws a bottle of dreamless sleep potion at his head, (2) everyone thinks he ought to be mad at Sirius, but he isn’t, not even the smallest bit, not at all, (3) he doesn’t cry.
Then Sirius crawls into bed with him, warm and shaking, and waits, curled in the furthest corner of the bed, until Remus reaches out to run his fingers along the curve of Sirius’s jaw, black and blue beneath his touch. Sirius says, please, and Remus says, I’m not angry. Sirius begs with unspoken words for Remus to be angry, to hate him, to connect fist to face, like putting together a particularly simple jigsaw puzzle with only two pieces, but Remus can’t. He thinks Sirius might be more upset about this than he is, but he understands. He’s had nearly his whole life to get used to the fact that there’s a monster hidden somewhere inside of him; Sirius has only had tonight.
Then things go pear-shaped, and Remus stops thinking almost entirely. When Sirius starts acting strangely, he forces himself to think entirely in facts. If he doesn’t let himself imagine, then he can’t hurt himself by hoping.
Dogs sleep fourteen hours a day. This is the first thing Remus tells himself every time Padfoot curls up around his feet and dozes, paws twitching in rabbit-chasing dreams. This is what Remus tells himself when Padfoot hides under his bed and won’t come out for three days, until James lures him out with a plateful of bacon.
Hogwarts dorms are cold at night is enough to justify letting Sirius stay when he sneaks into Remus’s bed in the middle of the night, teeth chattering, fingers like ice against Remus’s stomach. Remus only rolls over to let Sirius curl against his back, settling against him until the shaking stops and Sirius’s breathing evens.
Nightmares are terrible is more of an opinion than a fact, but Remus repeats it to himself when Sirius wakes up screaming. If he doesn’t think, it’s easy to hold Sirius close, to pretend the dampness against his collar is from the shower he took hours ago, to let Sirius’s fingers curl against his shirt as he tells him it’s all right, over and over, until it’s not words anymore, just the sound of his voice.
The acceleration of gravity is 9.8 m/s/s. Remus reminds himself of this basic physical fact as he watches Sirius fall during a quidditch match. He has just enough time to think, in the endless ten seconds between when he loses his grip on the broomstick and crumples against the ground, he cannot possibly be falling a million miles an hour. Rationality, however, has never been known to keep his heart from flipping over, and this is no exception.
Three broken bones, a punctured lung, and a dislocated hip will take four hours to heal. Remus knows this is a fact because Madame Pomfrey tells him Sirius will have to stay for four hours, and then, by all means, they can take him back to Gryffindor tower. Remus thinks her attitude may have something to do with the level at which Sirius is shouting, audible two hallways away. They’re trying to put his hip back in the ordinary, commonplace way, to avoid keeping him all week, which they’d have to do if they used magic. It seems to involve Frank Longbottom and Kingsley Shacklebolt holding him down while Professor Wright shoves. Remus asks, might I try? And Madame Pomfrey says, by all means, Mr. Lupin, it’s more than I can do.
When Remus goes in, Sirius is pale and wild-eyed and trying to punch Kingsley in the nose. Frank is already nursing what looks like a rather spectacular black eye. Remus says, very quietly, stop that, and somehow, Sirius does, and then he’s quiet and Remus has to do multiplication tables quickly in his head to keep from thinking anything at all.
Two times two is four.
Three times nine is twenty-seven.
Four times six is twenty-four.
Five times twelve is sixty.
Remus moves to stand next to the bed and Sirius turns into him, face against his shirt (seven times six is forty-two). Remus takes his hand, and murmurs the sort of reassuring nonsense he always wishes someone would say after the full moon. Sirius relaxes slowly, and Remus says, all right, try again. Everyone stops staring, but Sirius shakes his head when Kingsley tries to push his shoulder down. Frank pushes, once more, large hands wrapped around Sirius’s thigh, bracing a little. Sirius goes white, and then, somehow, with a soft click, it goes back. Sirius’s face clears, slowly.
There are twenty-seven bones in the human hand. Remus thinks Sirius has broken every one in his.
A sleeping draught causes eight minutes of sleep for every kilogram of body weight. When Remus leaves to get a glass of pumpkin juice for Sirius to wash the potion down with, Sirius is tucked in his bed, surrounded by chocolate frogs and cards that occasionally explode, leaving glitter all over the blankets. When he returns, Sirius is already asleep, curled into a very small ball in the middle of Remus’s bed, fingers clutched in the blankets, eyelashes dark against his cheeks. Remus thinks about moving him, but Sirius is over eleven stone, and he doesn’t want to mix magic with potions. He thinks about waiting for Sirius to wake up, but he’ll sleep for nearly ten hours, give or take. He thinks about sleeping in Sirius’s bed, but Peter’s snoring will keep him up, if he’s that close.
Sirius’s pajamas have fourteen buttons. Remus climbs into bed with him and counts them five times before he manages to fall asleep to the steady sound of Sirius’s breathing, and the feel of his hands curled against Remus’s chest.
There are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on Earth. Remus tries to count them all, until the numbers get so large that they lose meaning in his head, sitting on top of the spire of astronomy tower, Sirius lying on his back next to him. Sirius says, finally, do you get it? Remus agrees without really thinking about it, because one never knows, with Sirius. He could be talking about the concepts they learned yesterday in potions and he could be talking about the meaning of life.
Adding powdered lacewing to a disappearing draught will make it explode is what Remus is thinking when Sirius leans in, just like that, and kisses him, unexpected and warm. Then he can’t even think facts, let alone anything else, because Sirius’s hands are cold against his face from the chilly March air, and Sirius is making a low, questioning noise in the back of his throat, so Remus has to kiss back, just to make sure he understands, and then it’s both of them, Sirius’s mouth soft and a little uncertain under his, Remus’s fingers curling against the wool of his jumper, one thousand six hundred and seven stars (at least, that have been counted) suddenly forgotten.
Sirius’s hands shake, and his chest shakes, and Remus has to tilt his face up to keep him from looking away. “I’m sorry,” he says, just once, an apology from a boy who doesn’t apologize.
“There was never,” Remus murmurs, against his mouth, between kisses, “anything to forgive you for.”
In the end, Remus thinks, just maybe, thinking can get you in just as much trouble as imagining can, but, he thinks, it’s all right, after all.