Fic for scarlet_malfoy: Balances (Sirius/Remus)
Author/Artist: marseverlasting
Giftee: scarlet_malfoy
Title: Balances
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Sirius/Remus, Sirius/others
Era/Time-Frame: Marauders
Rating: PG
Summary: The scales have always been tipped, one way or the other; most of the time it's away from Remus, and sometimes he tries to tip them back.
Warnings: angst, woe, sorrow, etc.
Author's Notes: I'm sorry this kind of came out - uh, bleaker than intended. But really, I've never found Sirius and Remus' relationship to be very proportionate, one is usually always in control of the other, and most of the time that's Sirius. Stupid Sirius. Many thanks to my Caitlin MacNamara, an inspiration as usual, despite the copious amounts of booze we drink. And thank you to my very own Sirius; you are a constant headache and I love you dearly
BALANCES
The telephone rings once.
"Hello?"
"Remus?"
"Yeah."
"It's James."
"Yes, I know."
"Do you think you can come over?"
"Come over where?"
"Here, to Bristol. To stay at my place for a bit."
"To Bristol?"
"It's Sirius."
"What's he done now?"
"He's run away."
A pause. "Like, actually run away?"
"Seems to be. He's staying here. I don't know for how long, maybe for a while. The rest of the summer at least."
"Why has he run away?"
James pauses, coughs. "I think that's for him to tell you. I'm actually not sure on all the details yet."
"Is he okay?"
"In what sense?"
"What do you mean, in what sense?"
"He's not hurt, if that's what you mean."
"Okay." Pause. "How is he feeling, then?"
"Feeling?"
"Emotionally. I'm assuming he didn't run away for fun."
James pauses. "That's why I'm asking you to come over."
Remus pauses. "Oh, right."
"I've met happier corpses."
"That bad?"
"I'd say so."
"Why me?"
"What do you mean, why me?"
"I mean, why call me over?"
James pauses, maybe thinking. "He likes you?"
"He likes you too."
"Frankly, I don't have any idea what to do anymore."
"You know we had a -"
"Yes." James sighs. "I chose to ignore it. I don't know who else to ask, Remus."
Remus pauses, swallows, and starts fresh, like he's rubbing his eyes: "Yeah, no, sure - I mean, I can. When do you want me?"
"Now would be good."
"James, it's four in the morning."
James sighs. "You want me to put him on the phone?"
"Is he awake?"
"He's always awake. He's got the no sleeping thing again."
"Insomnia?"
"Sure. Listen, you want to talk to him?"
"If he wants to talk to me."
The phone changes hands, jumbled and knocked about, and then Sirius is on the other end. He speaks in a very quiet voice. "Hi."
"Hi." They both breathe heavily. "How are you?"
"I've been better."
"I heard." Remus fiddles with his phone's curlicue cord absently. "You want me to come over?"
"Is that why James called you?"
"I guess so. I thought maybe you had asked him."
"I didn't."
"Oh."
Sirius coughs, sniffles, making a rough-sound as he wipes his nose and rubs his hand over the mouthpiece. "Remus, you want me to be honest?"
"Not really."
"Too bad." Sirius pauses, and Remus can hear him chatter indistinctly to James before turning back to the phone. "Truth is - no. No, I don't really want to see you."
"I understand." Remus sighs. "You want me to hang up?"
Sirius, in a quiet voice: "No."
"Then what do you want me to do?"
Sirius is silent for a bit, and then in a panicked, heavy kind of whisper: "I really don't know."
"Sirius?" A mumbled reply. "How drunk are you?"
"Very."
Remus sighs. "Listen, I'll come over tomorrow. If you really can't - stand me, then I'll go home. I don't have to be there for more than ten minutes."
Sirius talks, offstage, with James again, then back to the phone. "I guess so."
"Okay."
Sirius hangs up with a click. Remus holds on to his end for a long time, pressing the incessant off-hook tone to his ear until he falls asleep.
&
"Hi."
James hugs Remus, patting his back and releasing. "It's good to see you." James looks tired and pale, artfully untidy hair now genuinely messy, oily and sleep-tangled knots. Three days growth of stubble dusts his jaw, the smell of cigarettes and booze reeks from his T-shirt where Remus presses his nose into his shoulder.
"You look tired."
James nods. "It's been a long few days."
"What happened?"
James walks Remus through the front hall, offers him a seat at the kitchen table. He opens two beers on the lip of the kitchen counter and hands one to Remus. "Sirius just - showed up one night, at the front door. No bags, no nothing. He was really drunk and crying pretty bad. This was at, uh, two in the morning. I stayed up all night with him. I think he was trying to tell me what happened, but he couldn't spit it out. He puked at about six, and then fell asleep." James takes a long draught of his beer, rolling the bottle about in his hands. "He's been in his room ever since - I mean, the guest bedroom, which is his bedroom, I guess. He doesn't come out. Just sits in there and plays his records and lies in bed and gets drunk. I've been hanging out with him, but he hasn't said much at all about - well, why." James shrugs. "I don't even know what to do anymore. Mum makes him food but he won't eat it, not unless I fuckin spoon-feed it to him, at least." James shakes his head, and drains the rest of his beer. "I don't know, Remus, I honestly don't."
"Was it - is it about what happened last month?"
"What? Oh - no. Well. I mean, that's kind of between you guys. I know you had a falling out, but I don't think this is about - that. He's mentioned you sometimes though. I think he misses you."
"Doesn't seem like it."
"I know," James says, shrugging. "But that's Sirius. You want to go see him?"
"I'm not sure."
James chuckles, a touch bitterly. "I don't blame you. But, I mean, he doesn't hate you - just, uh, don't expect a warm welcome."
"I wasn't."
James bites his lip, and gives Remus a thoughtful look. "What - did you do, if you don't mind my asking."
"I -" Remus pauses on the word, running his hand over his prickly chin and frowning. "I wasn't who he wanted me to be."
James nods, shrugs. "Well, I'm going to have a shower and maybe grab a nap," James says, getting up to slide his beer bottle along the counter, clattering it against the dozen-strong collection of empties gathered there, brown-coated soldiers dead at Sirius' hand. "Wake me up if - yeah." He leads them up the stairs. "My bedroom's at the end of the hall, and this one -" he points at the closed door before them "- is Sirius."
Remus nods. "See you."
"Good luck, Moony."
"Thanks."
&
Remus stands at the bedroom door for a long time, hand poised to knock, hovering hesitantly before the wood as if repelled by a magnet. Rock music thumps from behind the door, a filtered groaning of scraping and lashing that spurs Remus' memory. He wants to leave, but finally, heart fighting against brain, Remus raps his knuckles against the sterile white wood and waits for a response. None comes. Carefully, he twists the door knob, letting it squeak open a good six inches before slipping in.
"Oh, great," Sirius says, curled up in bed and presently twisted to get a look at the door. "It's you." He turns back and faces the wall. "Close the door, please."
If James was looking bad, that's no comparison to Sirius. He's got a good week's growth of beard, scratchy black scruff like brush bristles spreading along his jaw; his hair is gross and tangled, curly and gleaming black getting in his eyes and spreading like a tentacle-halo when he drops his head to the pillow; he's got dirt streaked across his face, smeared where maybe James tried to wipe it away, patterned like the ashy stage make-up of tramps and Shakespearean thieves. He's positively ghoulish and dark, especially in the dim candlelight of his room - and what a room it is; smelling of stale cigarettes and weed, the saccharine sweet of booze; a half-empty tumbler of scotch and a heaping ashtray rests on his bedside table; a good half-dozen empty wine bottles sit on every surface, some corked with slender white candles and clothed in their wax drippings; the ledge of the sole window has seven bottles of J&B scotch (two empty, five full) lined up neatly in a row; magazines litter the floor like slippery paving stones, magazines that have retrospectives on Otto Dix and analyses of early Hitchcock and Novello's role in The Lodger and architectural studies of American Brutalism. There's a pile of yellowed letters on the desk. His clothes are everywhere.
Remus doesn't flinch at the chaos, just presses his back up against the door and gives Sirius a wounded look which goes ignored. "Hi."
Sirius brushes him off. "You want something?"
"To see how you are."
"I'm fantastic, thanks."
The record starts over, another screaming guitar-howl of introduction that makes Remus smile, just a bit.
"Janis Joplin," Remus recognizes quietly. "I bought you that record."
"Big Brother and the Holding Company, actually," Sirius says. "And yes, you did."
"Can we talk?"
"Isn't that what we're doing?"
"I mean, actually talk."
"No thanks. Nothing to talk about." Lazily, drawing himself like Lazarus from the grave, Sirius sits up on the edge of the bed, pushing the heavy comforters from his body. He's shirtless, dressed only in black boxer shorts and a necklace James bought him. He stretches broadly, muscles sent sleep-twitching along his arms and back. "You want a drink?"
"Fine."
Sirius drains what's left in his tumbler and fills it with fresh scotch, opening a new bottle of J&B from his window sill. Sirius asks if he wants it watered; Remus shakes his head. Sirius fills a second, empty tumbler with five fingers of scotch and cradles it in his hands awkwardly. They drink in silence.
The large bay window shows the rainy day outside, flat white clouds that stretch out forever and drop haphazard showers over Bristol. The houses outside are bleak and soggy, filled with deep and heavy colours of red brick and black-slatted shingles and dark brown wood and other things made thick with rain, cookie-cutter flats repeated infinitely in their familiarity, image recurring time and again house by house by house, lit uniformly by the orange streetlamps.
"Kierkegaard, huh?" Remus asks, nodding to the book splayed open beside Sirius' pillow.
Sirius shrugs.
"Fear and Trembling. Is that mine?"
"Don't think so. I bought it a while ago."
"Oh."
They sip their drinks, the fire of the scotch burning comfortably down to Remus' stomach. Sirius downs his like water, imbibing in large gulps that he wipes away with the back of his hand, coughing and sniffling and leaning forward elbow-to-knee.
"You want to talk about what happened?" Remus tries again.
"No."
Another long silence; sipping their drinks; watching the flat landscape of rain; constantly aware of the three feet of separation between them. Sirius lights up another cigarette, cracks open a side window for what seems like the first time in a week. He offers the pack to Remus, who declines. Remus watches as Sirius sucks the cigarette down, watches the tip glow orange and collapse into ash flicked in the ashtray. Sirius finishes and lights his next fag with the dying butt of the first.
Remus takes another stab. "Have you read Either/Or?"
"What?"
"Kierkegaard."
"Oh, no. I haven't." Sirius lets out another breath of smoke. "Any good?"
"I'd say so."
Back to awkward silence, fitting their rattling minds and need for talk into the confines of the situation, into scotch and smoke and the three feet of distance that one heavy month ago would have been so close it hurt.
"Listen, I'm tired of these Pinter pauses. Can we talk about something?"
"I left your birthday present at home. I got you a book of Caravaggio paintings. Glossy print, you love shit like that. That would have been your present." Sirius stubs his cigarette out and sets upon finishing his glass of scotch. "I'm sorry."
"It's all right." Remus watches as Sirius slides the empty tumbler onto his bedside table. "Can you stop drinking?"
"A challenge or a request?"
"A request."
"I can stop, I just don't want to." Sirius pours himself another tumbler-full; he looks at Remus' half-empty glass. "Fill up?"
"No thanks." Sirius holds the bottle of J&B poised, lips turned expectantly. "Okay, fine." Sirius fills his tumbler again with the smoky stuff. "You're turning into an alcoholic."
Sirius sighs. "Can we not make this any more dramatic than it already is?"
"It's not dramatic if it's true," Remus murmurs. "You know I love you, right?"
"Do you?"
"What kind of question is that?"
After fifteen minutes of silence, there's a knock at the door. "Come in," Remus says for Sirius, and James slips into the room, bare-chested with a towel around his waist, clean with his hair down in wet tendrils but not rid of that desperate look of needing sleep.
"How're you guys doing?"
"Terrific," Sirius says listlessly. "Want a drink?"
Sirius doesn't notice it, but Remus catches the way James' shoulders droop in an almost-sigh, the way his lips twitch almost imperceptibly at the corners. "Yeah, sure."
The tumblers appear from nowhere; Sirius picks an empty one from the floor, fills it with scotch, waters it from a half-empty water bottle and hands it to James. Only Remus notices that James doesn't drink from it the whole time he's in the room.
"I didn't mean to - uh, intrude," James says, swilling the liquor around his glass. "I just wanted to know if you're staying over, Moony."
Remus gives an uncertain look to Sirius, who responds only with a cold, wall-eyed stare. "I - I guess."
"Okay," James replies, placing his tumbler on the desk. "We'll share a bed," James says with a shrug. "Or I could make up a couch."
"He can stay in here," Sirius says, suddenly.
"What?" Remus asks.
"You can stay in my room if you want."
Remus gives a weak smile. "I heard you, but - you sure?"
"If you don't want to, I don't care."
Remus looks around the rotten room, the room that stinks of sweat and booze and Sirius. "Yeah. Okay, I'll stay here."
James nods, and leaves the room.
"You know," Sirius says, lighting another cigarette and sucking on it heavily, "I didn't want to come here."
"To the Potter's?"
"But I had no where else to go."
"You're always welcome here, though."
"Oh, I know I am." Sirius drops his head to his hands; speaks to the floor. "He tells that to everyone, though. I'm not special. I mean," he laughs, mostly at himself, "after that - after that last day - well, you know, you were there. And then this summer, I wanted so badly to leave home, to leave everyone and everything I knew, leave no trace behind, vanish to, to Belgium or Spain or America, even - and I was going to, too - but then - he was literally the only one I had left and I just couldn't leave him. I hated him for it, but I need him because no one else would take me in, and I realized I needed him so bad it hurt. And I realized I needed him - needed him far more than he needed me. You know how awful it is to need someone you hate?"
"You don't hate him."
Sirius shrugs. "You're right."
Remus frowns, downs the rest of his scotch. "Did you ever think about me?"
Sirius darkens. "What do you mean?"
"About calling me? About coming to stay with me?"
Sirius laughs, and downs his drink in turn, the flush of the alcohol spreading up to glow his cheeks red. "No. You're even worse."
"Sirius, what else could I do?"
"Love me like I love you?
Remus looks at his feet. "You can't ask someone to do that."
"Then, where else do I go?"
The question hangs, and Remus leaves the room.
&
"How is he?"
"Passed out," Remus says with a shrug, settling into the couch beside James. There's an old Western on the telly; Remus recognizes the soundtrack but can't place the actors. "Has he been drinking this much since he got here?"
"Today was a good day." James holds a glass of ice water to his temple and watches the TV with a look of total resignation. "He's a wreck."
"You're looking better though," Remus says, touching James' knee fleetingly. "Has he been - a handful?"
"Four. And I only have two hands."
"It's all right, I'll take him from now on."
"We both will. I care about him too, you know." James sounds a touch defensive, which makes Remus shy away. "It's just. He can be so."
"Pessimistic?"
"That's putting it lightly. All he does these days is obsess over, like, Nietzsche and Bergman. He listens to that same damn record every day and - well, you saw him."
"Our own little nihilist."
James barks a laugh. "Yeah." They pause for a moment, and James looks to Remus. "How have you been?"
Remus shrugs. "I've been better."
"I guess we all have."
"It wasn't the greatest end for the year."
James licks his lips before biting the bottom. "No, I suppose it wasn't."
"Listen, about that -"
"No explanation necessary."
"No," Remus says, "I think there is."
"If you don't want to talk about it," James says with a shrug, "that's fine."
"Can I ask you something?" James nods. "Were you and Sirius ever - in love?"
"In love?"
"Maybe not conventionally - but, you know. Together."
James leans back, rolling over to turn to Remus, resting his forehead on his friend's shoulder and speaking quietly into the cloth of his shirt. "Not like Sirius wanted. I was always there for him, just - not always like he needed."
"He loved you?"
"Who didn't he love?"
Remus laughs, and then silence overwhelms them.
"I need a drink," James says after a bit. "Want a beer?"
"Please."
They drink their beers slowly, suckling on the glass lips like pups; stirring in their seats to press closely together out of shared exhaustion, emotional and what else.
"Do you love him?"
Remus' eyes flutter open, he must have been falling asleep. "Pardon?"
"Do you love Sirius?"
"Of course I do." James' expectant silence is clear. "Oh, you mean like - I'm not sure. I mean. More than friends, right?"
"Right."
"I don't know." Remus sucks at the beer, swallowing a mouthful and sighing. "It's just - I hate it. I hate being just another brick in his wall, another pillow for him to rest his head when he feels like it. I do love him. Badly. And I wish I didn't. Where's the balance."
"No balance."
"I care for him - I care for him so much more than he cares for me." Remus frowns and Sirius echoes in his head. "I just can't stand it." Remus finishes his beer; James takes it from him and drops it on the coffee table. "You want to know what happened on that last day?" James nods, and Remus takes a deep breath. "He kissed me."
"He kissed you?
"And then I punched him."
"You punched him?"
Remus chuckles, soft laughter that fades into darkness. "Yeah. First time I punched anyone."
"Why did you punch him?"
"Because he kissed you the same day. Remember that? I saw him crawl into your bed - uh, naked. You guys kissed for a while - or, it felt like a while, probably less than a minute, actually."
James blushes. "Oh. Right. Yeah."
"You told him that - you were just friends."
"Yeah."
"And then he came and kissed me."
"Oh."
Remus nods. "So, you see now."
"I see now," James says with a nod. "I'm sorry."
"Not your fault," Remus waves off. "Definitely not your fault."
"I didn't know you -"
"Not your fault. But you see why we can't - why he's so - I mean, Hitler and Eva Braun had a more loving relationship."
They both laugh at that, before falling back on their warm shoulders and hesitant sleep, rocked to bed by the lullaby of rain pattering gently on the sloping roof.
"I just don't know what to do," Remus murmurs into the night.
"Who does."
"As much as I hate him, I love him."
James nods.
"It's not fair," Remus says sullenly. "Because I'll always go back, even when he does the - even when he's the world's biggest dick and I'll want to strangle him and maybe I even will, I'll still love him."
"I guess that's how - love works." James nearly flinches at the word.
"Ah, the comfort of Job," Remus says with a laugh. "I guess we should go to bed, huh?"
James agrees. "Are you sure you want to sleep with him? I can still make up the couch."
"Better get this over with sooner than later."
"I guess so."
The boys grasp hands, pat backs, and make their way upstairs.
&
The bed is warm when Remus crawls in, wrapping his arms around Sirius' waist, hand sliding up to cup the boy's muscled shoulders. They smell strongly of their booze, and Sirius of stale sweat and the pervasive stench of tobacco. Remus kisses Sirius' back chastely and settles into sleep.
"Remus?
His eyes flutter open. "Yeah?"
"Thanks for coming."
It nearly makes him laugh. "No problem." Silence for a bit. "Listen, I'm sorry I punched you."
"It's okay."
"I'm really sorry." Remus snuffles into the skin of Sirius' shoulder, kissing him again there and tasting on him the sour tang of sweat.
"My head is spinning," Sirius says glumly.
"Mine too," Remus assures him.
They're quiet after that, lulled by the rattle of rain, the uniform rise and fall of their chests, and Remus thinks Sirius has gone to bed so amuses himself with kissing his friend's back as gently as possibly, playing thin lips over skin, little pink tongue just tickling the surface of warm flesh.
"I'm losing all my brothers," Sirius says suddenly, stirring Remus from his reverie.
"What?"
"It's all falling apart," Sirius moans, "I'm losing everyone."
"You're not losing me," Remus says, smoothing his hands over the flat stretch of Sirius' tummy. "I'm still here." He doesn't rightly know why; the balance is so wrong, all the emotion he pours into Sirius only to retain the barest shreds of friendship, salvaging the scraps that Sirius drops from the table. There is no symmetry; when they fight it's long and stretches on to nowhere; when they make up it's short and indulgent before Sirius craves the love of someone else, crawling into James' arms, or the bed of some girl. And then Sirius tells him he loves him; kisses Remus when it hurts, when Remus is about to hit breaking point. It's almost a relief when Sirius leaves again, and Remus can hate him in peace. Where is the justice in it? The give and take is all wrong - all give and no take; where is Sirius when Remus needs him? But here he is now, and even though these moments don’t make up for the pain of wait and want, Remus fulfills his side of the friendship, of the love, because he's grown up like that, like someone who needs to be there.
Sirius sobs in his arms, and Remus holds on tight. He doesn't rightly know why. Because this is all he can get? These cold arms in hurt, on tobacco-stained sheets? Sirius isn't the suave, wonderful cock-o-the-walk from school; he's a frightened and lonely boy away from the things that prop him up, living for something he isn't sure he believes in, craving things that'll kill the people around him. Maybe they both have their addictions, Sirius to love, Remus to want.
Sirius rocks in his arms, and Remus holds on tight. He doesn't rightly know why. Is it all a lie, the fabrication of their relationship that Remus spins around him like a cocoon, keeping him warm and safe from the realization that Sirius will one day leave him properly, for good? Is this just some comforting fantasy, these arms in the night, before Sirius realizes that he needs more than just this awkward blond boy from school?
"You're still here?"
Remus nods into his back. "I'm still here." And he doesn't know why.
"I love you," Sirius says. "I'll love you forever, Moony." Sirius falls asleep again, hands gripping Remus' under the covers and keeping them tight together and warm.
Ah, Remus thinks, that's why.
Giftee: scarlet_malfoy
Title: Balances
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Sirius/Remus, Sirius/others
Era/Time-Frame: Marauders
Rating: PG
Summary: The scales have always been tipped, one way or the other; most of the time it's away from Remus, and sometimes he tries to tip them back.
Warnings: angst, woe, sorrow, etc.
Author's Notes: I'm sorry this kind of came out - uh, bleaker than intended. But really, I've never found Sirius and Remus' relationship to be very proportionate, one is usually always in control of the other, and most of the time that's Sirius. Stupid Sirius. Many thanks to my Caitlin MacNamara, an inspiration as usual, despite the copious amounts of booze we drink. And thank you to my very own Sirius; you are a constant headache and I love you dearly
BALANCES
The telephone rings once.
"Hello?"
"Remus?"
"Yeah."
"It's James."
"Yes, I know."
"Do you think you can come over?"
"Come over where?"
"Here, to Bristol. To stay at my place for a bit."
"To Bristol?"
"It's Sirius."
"What's he done now?"
"He's run away."
A pause. "Like, actually run away?"
"Seems to be. He's staying here. I don't know for how long, maybe for a while. The rest of the summer at least."
"Why has he run away?"
James pauses, coughs. "I think that's for him to tell you. I'm actually not sure on all the details yet."
"Is he okay?"
"In what sense?"
"What do you mean, in what sense?"
"He's not hurt, if that's what you mean."
"Okay." Pause. "How is he feeling, then?"
"Feeling?"
"Emotionally. I'm assuming he didn't run away for fun."
James pauses. "That's why I'm asking you to come over."
Remus pauses. "Oh, right."
"I've met happier corpses."
"That bad?"
"I'd say so."
"Why me?"
"What do you mean, why me?"
"I mean, why call me over?"
James pauses, maybe thinking. "He likes you?"
"He likes you too."
"Frankly, I don't have any idea what to do anymore."
"You know we had a -"
"Yes." James sighs. "I chose to ignore it. I don't know who else to ask, Remus."
Remus pauses, swallows, and starts fresh, like he's rubbing his eyes: "Yeah, no, sure - I mean, I can. When do you want me?"
"Now would be good."
"James, it's four in the morning."
James sighs. "You want me to put him on the phone?"
"Is he awake?"
"He's always awake. He's got the no sleeping thing again."
"Insomnia?"
"Sure. Listen, you want to talk to him?"
"If he wants to talk to me."
The phone changes hands, jumbled and knocked about, and then Sirius is on the other end. He speaks in a very quiet voice. "Hi."
"Hi." They both breathe heavily. "How are you?"
"I've been better."
"I heard." Remus fiddles with his phone's curlicue cord absently. "You want me to come over?"
"Is that why James called you?"
"I guess so. I thought maybe you had asked him."
"I didn't."
"Oh."
Sirius coughs, sniffles, making a rough-sound as he wipes his nose and rubs his hand over the mouthpiece. "Remus, you want me to be honest?"
"Not really."
"Too bad." Sirius pauses, and Remus can hear him chatter indistinctly to James before turning back to the phone. "Truth is - no. No, I don't really want to see you."
"I understand." Remus sighs. "You want me to hang up?"
Sirius, in a quiet voice: "No."
"Then what do you want me to do?"
Sirius is silent for a bit, and then in a panicked, heavy kind of whisper: "I really don't know."
"Sirius?" A mumbled reply. "How drunk are you?"
"Very."
Remus sighs. "Listen, I'll come over tomorrow. If you really can't - stand me, then I'll go home. I don't have to be there for more than ten minutes."
Sirius talks, offstage, with James again, then back to the phone. "I guess so."
"Okay."
Sirius hangs up with a click. Remus holds on to his end for a long time, pressing the incessant off-hook tone to his ear until he falls asleep.
&
"Hi."
James hugs Remus, patting his back and releasing. "It's good to see you." James looks tired and pale, artfully untidy hair now genuinely messy, oily and sleep-tangled knots. Three days growth of stubble dusts his jaw, the smell of cigarettes and booze reeks from his T-shirt where Remus presses his nose into his shoulder.
"You look tired."
James nods. "It's been a long few days."
"What happened?"
James walks Remus through the front hall, offers him a seat at the kitchen table. He opens two beers on the lip of the kitchen counter and hands one to Remus. "Sirius just - showed up one night, at the front door. No bags, no nothing. He was really drunk and crying pretty bad. This was at, uh, two in the morning. I stayed up all night with him. I think he was trying to tell me what happened, but he couldn't spit it out. He puked at about six, and then fell asleep." James takes a long draught of his beer, rolling the bottle about in his hands. "He's been in his room ever since - I mean, the guest bedroom, which is his bedroom, I guess. He doesn't come out. Just sits in there and plays his records and lies in bed and gets drunk. I've been hanging out with him, but he hasn't said much at all about - well, why." James shrugs. "I don't even know what to do anymore. Mum makes him food but he won't eat it, not unless I fuckin spoon-feed it to him, at least." James shakes his head, and drains the rest of his beer. "I don't know, Remus, I honestly don't."
"Was it - is it about what happened last month?"
"What? Oh - no. Well. I mean, that's kind of between you guys. I know you had a falling out, but I don't think this is about - that. He's mentioned you sometimes though. I think he misses you."
"Doesn't seem like it."
"I know," James says, shrugging. "But that's Sirius. You want to go see him?"
"I'm not sure."
James chuckles, a touch bitterly. "I don't blame you. But, I mean, he doesn't hate you - just, uh, don't expect a warm welcome."
"I wasn't."
James bites his lip, and gives Remus a thoughtful look. "What - did you do, if you don't mind my asking."
"I -" Remus pauses on the word, running his hand over his prickly chin and frowning. "I wasn't who he wanted me to be."
James nods, shrugs. "Well, I'm going to have a shower and maybe grab a nap," James says, getting up to slide his beer bottle along the counter, clattering it against the dozen-strong collection of empties gathered there, brown-coated soldiers dead at Sirius' hand. "Wake me up if - yeah." He leads them up the stairs. "My bedroom's at the end of the hall, and this one -" he points at the closed door before them "- is Sirius."
Remus nods. "See you."
"Good luck, Moony."
"Thanks."
&
Remus stands at the bedroom door for a long time, hand poised to knock, hovering hesitantly before the wood as if repelled by a magnet. Rock music thumps from behind the door, a filtered groaning of scraping and lashing that spurs Remus' memory. He wants to leave, but finally, heart fighting against brain, Remus raps his knuckles against the sterile white wood and waits for a response. None comes. Carefully, he twists the door knob, letting it squeak open a good six inches before slipping in.
"Oh, great," Sirius says, curled up in bed and presently twisted to get a look at the door. "It's you." He turns back and faces the wall. "Close the door, please."
If James was looking bad, that's no comparison to Sirius. He's got a good week's growth of beard, scratchy black scruff like brush bristles spreading along his jaw; his hair is gross and tangled, curly and gleaming black getting in his eyes and spreading like a tentacle-halo when he drops his head to the pillow; he's got dirt streaked across his face, smeared where maybe James tried to wipe it away, patterned like the ashy stage make-up of tramps and Shakespearean thieves. He's positively ghoulish and dark, especially in the dim candlelight of his room - and what a room it is; smelling of stale cigarettes and weed, the saccharine sweet of booze; a half-empty tumbler of scotch and a heaping ashtray rests on his bedside table; a good half-dozen empty wine bottles sit on every surface, some corked with slender white candles and clothed in their wax drippings; the ledge of the sole window has seven bottles of J&B scotch (two empty, five full) lined up neatly in a row; magazines litter the floor like slippery paving stones, magazines that have retrospectives on Otto Dix and analyses of early Hitchcock and Novello's role in The Lodger and architectural studies of American Brutalism. There's a pile of yellowed letters on the desk. His clothes are everywhere.
Remus doesn't flinch at the chaos, just presses his back up against the door and gives Sirius a wounded look which goes ignored. "Hi."
Sirius brushes him off. "You want something?"
"To see how you are."
"I'm fantastic, thanks."
The record starts over, another screaming guitar-howl of introduction that makes Remus smile, just a bit.
"Janis Joplin," Remus recognizes quietly. "I bought you that record."
"Big Brother and the Holding Company, actually," Sirius says. "And yes, you did."
"Can we talk?"
"Isn't that what we're doing?"
"I mean, actually talk."
"No thanks. Nothing to talk about." Lazily, drawing himself like Lazarus from the grave, Sirius sits up on the edge of the bed, pushing the heavy comforters from his body. He's shirtless, dressed only in black boxer shorts and a necklace James bought him. He stretches broadly, muscles sent sleep-twitching along his arms and back. "You want a drink?"
"Fine."
Sirius drains what's left in his tumbler and fills it with fresh scotch, opening a new bottle of J&B from his window sill. Sirius asks if he wants it watered; Remus shakes his head. Sirius fills a second, empty tumbler with five fingers of scotch and cradles it in his hands awkwardly. They drink in silence.
The large bay window shows the rainy day outside, flat white clouds that stretch out forever and drop haphazard showers over Bristol. The houses outside are bleak and soggy, filled with deep and heavy colours of red brick and black-slatted shingles and dark brown wood and other things made thick with rain, cookie-cutter flats repeated infinitely in their familiarity, image recurring time and again house by house by house, lit uniformly by the orange streetlamps.
"Kierkegaard, huh?" Remus asks, nodding to the book splayed open beside Sirius' pillow.
Sirius shrugs.
"Fear and Trembling. Is that mine?"
"Don't think so. I bought it a while ago."
"Oh."
They sip their drinks, the fire of the scotch burning comfortably down to Remus' stomach. Sirius downs his like water, imbibing in large gulps that he wipes away with the back of his hand, coughing and sniffling and leaning forward elbow-to-knee.
"You want to talk about what happened?" Remus tries again.
"No."
Another long silence; sipping their drinks; watching the flat landscape of rain; constantly aware of the three feet of separation between them. Sirius lights up another cigarette, cracks open a side window for what seems like the first time in a week. He offers the pack to Remus, who declines. Remus watches as Sirius sucks the cigarette down, watches the tip glow orange and collapse into ash flicked in the ashtray. Sirius finishes and lights his next fag with the dying butt of the first.
Remus takes another stab. "Have you read Either/Or?"
"What?"
"Kierkegaard."
"Oh, no. I haven't." Sirius lets out another breath of smoke. "Any good?"
"I'd say so."
Back to awkward silence, fitting their rattling minds and need for talk into the confines of the situation, into scotch and smoke and the three feet of distance that one heavy month ago would have been so close it hurt.
"Listen, I'm tired of these Pinter pauses. Can we talk about something?"
"I left your birthday present at home. I got you a book of Caravaggio paintings. Glossy print, you love shit like that. That would have been your present." Sirius stubs his cigarette out and sets upon finishing his glass of scotch. "I'm sorry."
"It's all right." Remus watches as Sirius slides the empty tumbler onto his bedside table. "Can you stop drinking?"
"A challenge or a request?"
"A request."
"I can stop, I just don't want to." Sirius pours himself another tumbler-full; he looks at Remus' half-empty glass. "Fill up?"
"No thanks." Sirius holds the bottle of J&B poised, lips turned expectantly. "Okay, fine." Sirius fills his tumbler again with the smoky stuff. "You're turning into an alcoholic."
Sirius sighs. "Can we not make this any more dramatic than it already is?"
"It's not dramatic if it's true," Remus murmurs. "You know I love you, right?"
"Do you?"
"What kind of question is that?"
After fifteen minutes of silence, there's a knock at the door. "Come in," Remus says for Sirius, and James slips into the room, bare-chested with a towel around his waist, clean with his hair down in wet tendrils but not rid of that desperate look of needing sleep.
"How're you guys doing?"
"Terrific," Sirius says listlessly. "Want a drink?"
Sirius doesn't notice it, but Remus catches the way James' shoulders droop in an almost-sigh, the way his lips twitch almost imperceptibly at the corners. "Yeah, sure."
The tumblers appear from nowhere; Sirius picks an empty one from the floor, fills it with scotch, waters it from a half-empty water bottle and hands it to James. Only Remus notices that James doesn't drink from it the whole time he's in the room.
"I didn't mean to - uh, intrude," James says, swilling the liquor around his glass. "I just wanted to know if you're staying over, Moony."
Remus gives an uncertain look to Sirius, who responds only with a cold, wall-eyed stare. "I - I guess."
"Okay," James replies, placing his tumbler on the desk. "We'll share a bed," James says with a shrug. "Or I could make up a couch."
"He can stay in here," Sirius says, suddenly.
"What?" Remus asks.
"You can stay in my room if you want."
Remus gives a weak smile. "I heard you, but - you sure?"
"If you don't want to, I don't care."
Remus looks around the rotten room, the room that stinks of sweat and booze and Sirius. "Yeah. Okay, I'll stay here."
James nods, and leaves the room.
"You know," Sirius says, lighting another cigarette and sucking on it heavily, "I didn't want to come here."
"To the Potter's?"
"But I had no where else to go."
"You're always welcome here, though."
"Oh, I know I am." Sirius drops his head to his hands; speaks to the floor. "He tells that to everyone, though. I'm not special. I mean," he laughs, mostly at himself, "after that - after that last day - well, you know, you were there. And then this summer, I wanted so badly to leave home, to leave everyone and everything I knew, leave no trace behind, vanish to, to Belgium or Spain or America, even - and I was going to, too - but then - he was literally the only one I had left and I just couldn't leave him. I hated him for it, but I need him because no one else would take me in, and I realized I needed him so bad it hurt. And I realized I needed him - needed him far more than he needed me. You know how awful it is to need someone you hate?"
"You don't hate him."
Sirius shrugs. "You're right."
Remus frowns, downs the rest of his scotch. "Did you ever think about me?"
Sirius darkens. "What do you mean?"
"About calling me? About coming to stay with me?"
Sirius laughs, and downs his drink in turn, the flush of the alcohol spreading up to glow his cheeks red. "No. You're even worse."
"Sirius, what else could I do?"
"Love me like I love you?
Remus looks at his feet. "You can't ask someone to do that."
"Then, where else do I go?"
The question hangs, and Remus leaves the room.
&
"How is he?"
"Passed out," Remus says with a shrug, settling into the couch beside James. There's an old Western on the telly; Remus recognizes the soundtrack but can't place the actors. "Has he been drinking this much since he got here?"
"Today was a good day." James holds a glass of ice water to his temple and watches the TV with a look of total resignation. "He's a wreck."
"You're looking better though," Remus says, touching James' knee fleetingly. "Has he been - a handful?"
"Four. And I only have two hands."
"It's all right, I'll take him from now on."
"We both will. I care about him too, you know." James sounds a touch defensive, which makes Remus shy away. "It's just. He can be so."
"Pessimistic?"
"That's putting it lightly. All he does these days is obsess over, like, Nietzsche and Bergman. He listens to that same damn record every day and - well, you saw him."
"Our own little nihilist."
James barks a laugh. "Yeah." They pause for a moment, and James looks to Remus. "How have you been?"
Remus shrugs. "I've been better."
"I guess we all have."
"It wasn't the greatest end for the year."
James licks his lips before biting the bottom. "No, I suppose it wasn't."
"Listen, about that -"
"No explanation necessary."
"No," Remus says, "I think there is."
"If you don't want to talk about it," James says with a shrug, "that's fine."
"Can I ask you something?" James nods. "Were you and Sirius ever - in love?"
"In love?"
"Maybe not conventionally - but, you know. Together."
James leans back, rolling over to turn to Remus, resting his forehead on his friend's shoulder and speaking quietly into the cloth of his shirt. "Not like Sirius wanted. I was always there for him, just - not always like he needed."
"He loved you?"
"Who didn't he love?"
Remus laughs, and then silence overwhelms them.
"I need a drink," James says after a bit. "Want a beer?"
"Please."
They drink their beers slowly, suckling on the glass lips like pups; stirring in their seats to press closely together out of shared exhaustion, emotional and what else.
"Do you love him?"
Remus' eyes flutter open, he must have been falling asleep. "Pardon?"
"Do you love Sirius?"
"Of course I do." James' expectant silence is clear. "Oh, you mean like - I'm not sure. I mean. More than friends, right?"
"Right."
"I don't know." Remus sucks at the beer, swallowing a mouthful and sighing. "It's just - I hate it. I hate being just another brick in his wall, another pillow for him to rest his head when he feels like it. I do love him. Badly. And I wish I didn't. Where's the balance."
"No balance."
"I care for him - I care for him so much more than he cares for me." Remus frowns and Sirius echoes in his head. "I just can't stand it." Remus finishes his beer; James takes it from him and drops it on the coffee table. "You want to know what happened on that last day?" James nods, and Remus takes a deep breath. "He kissed me."
"He kissed you?
"And then I punched him."
"You punched him?"
Remus chuckles, soft laughter that fades into darkness. "Yeah. First time I punched anyone."
"Why did you punch him?"
"Because he kissed you the same day. Remember that? I saw him crawl into your bed - uh, naked. You guys kissed for a while - or, it felt like a while, probably less than a minute, actually."
James blushes. "Oh. Right. Yeah."
"You told him that - you were just friends."
"Yeah."
"And then he came and kissed me."
"Oh."
Remus nods. "So, you see now."
"I see now," James says with a nod. "I'm sorry."
"Not your fault," Remus waves off. "Definitely not your fault."
"I didn't know you -"
"Not your fault. But you see why we can't - why he's so - I mean, Hitler and Eva Braun had a more loving relationship."
They both laugh at that, before falling back on their warm shoulders and hesitant sleep, rocked to bed by the lullaby of rain pattering gently on the sloping roof.
"I just don't know what to do," Remus murmurs into the night.
"Who does."
"As much as I hate him, I love him."
James nods.
"It's not fair," Remus says sullenly. "Because I'll always go back, even when he does the - even when he's the world's biggest dick and I'll want to strangle him and maybe I even will, I'll still love him."
"I guess that's how - love works." James nearly flinches at the word.
"Ah, the comfort of Job," Remus says with a laugh. "I guess we should go to bed, huh?"
James agrees. "Are you sure you want to sleep with him? I can still make up the couch."
"Better get this over with sooner than later."
"I guess so."
The boys grasp hands, pat backs, and make their way upstairs.
&
The bed is warm when Remus crawls in, wrapping his arms around Sirius' waist, hand sliding up to cup the boy's muscled shoulders. They smell strongly of their booze, and Sirius of stale sweat and the pervasive stench of tobacco. Remus kisses Sirius' back chastely and settles into sleep.
"Remus?
His eyes flutter open. "Yeah?"
"Thanks for coming."
It nearly makes him laugh. "No problem." Silence for a bit. "Listen, I'm sorry I punched you."
"It's okay."
"I'm really sorry." Remus snuffles into the skin of Sirius' shoulder, kissing him again there and tasting on him the sour tang of sweat.
"My head is spinning," Sirius says glumly.
"Mine too," Remus assures him.
They're quiet after that, lulled by the rattle of rain, the uniform rise and fall of their chests, and Remus thinks Sirius has gone to bed so amuses himself with kissing his friend's back as gently as possibly, playing thin lips over skin, little pink tongue just tickling the surface of warm flesh.
"I'm losing all my brothers," Sirius says suddenly, stirring Remus from his reverie.
"What?"
"It's all falling apart," Sirius moans, "I'm losing everyone."
"You're not losing me," Remus says, smoothing his hands over the flat stretch of Sirius' tummy. "I'm still here." He doesn't rightly know why; the balance is so wrong, all the emotion he pours into Sirius only to retain the barest shreds of friendship, salvaging the scraps that Sirius drops from the table. There is no symmetry; when they fight it's long and stretches on to nowhere; when they make up it's short and indulgent before Sirius craves the love of someone else, crawling into James' arms, or the bed of some girl. And then Sirius tells him he loves him; kisses Remus when it hurts, when Remus is about to hit breaking point. It's almost a relief when Sirius leaves again, and Remus can hate him in peace. Where is the justice in it? The give and take is all wrong - all give and no take; where is Sirius when Remus needs him? But here he is now, and even though these moments don’t make up for the pain of wait and want, Remus fulfills his side of the friendship, of the love, because he's grown up like that, like someone who needs to be there.
Sirius sobs in his arms, and Remus holds on tight. He doesn't rightly know why. Because this is all he can get? These cold arms in hurt, on tobacco-stained sheets? Sirius isn't the suave, wonderful cock-o-the-walk from school; he's a frightened and lonely boy away from the things that prop him up, living for something he isn't sure he believes in, craving things that'll kill the people around him. Maybe they both have their addictions, Sirius to love, Remus to want.
Sirius rocks in his arms, and Remus holds on tight. He doesn't rightly know why. Is it all a lie, the fabrication of their relationship that Remus spins around him like a cocoon, keeping him warm and safe from the realization that Sirius will one day leave him properly, for good? Is this just some comforting fantasy, these arms in the night, before Sirius realizes that he needs more than just this awkward blond boy from school?
"You're still here?"
Remus nods into his back. "I'm still here." And he doesn't know why.
"I love you," Sirius says. "I'll love you forever, Moony." Sirius falls asleep again, hands gripping Remus' under the covers and keeping them tight together and warm.
Ah, Remus thinks, that's why.