Merry Christmas, mackittenx!
Title: I Am Become As Sounding Brass
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All recognisable characters belong to JK Rowling and Warner Bros.
Summary: Remus is a jerk and Sirius is sensitive, but who can be mild-mannered in the face of abject poverty?
Warnings: Angst, Bible references
Prompt #25: Post-Hogwarts drawn out UST (with an eventual happy-ish ending). It would be nice (but not necessary) if it included one (or more) of: awkwardness, semi drunkeness, Remus moving in with Sirius, mild jealousy & James figuring it out first. I would appreciate it you left out: any violence (including fight!sex) although a little bit of angst is fine (if not encouraged). Any rating is fine.
To: mackittenx
from your Secret Santa
Sirius sits bolt upright, then falls out of bed with an almighty thump. The thumping continues, and it takes him a moment to realise that it’s not a remnant from his dream, nor is it his heartbeat, or his pounding head from where he hit it on the bedside table: it’s coming from the front door. Sirius swears and clumsily stands up, grasping for his wand.
“Lumos.”
He blinks against the sudden brightness and fumbles his way down the hall. The abuse being done to the door intensifies. Sirius comforts himself with the thought that Dark wizards would have just blasted it to splinters, instead of carrying on this charade of knocking.
He unlocks the charms and the door swings open; finally, finally, the pounding ceases. Sirius is a little surprised to see a wet, bedraggled and furious Remus standing on his threshold, trunk at his feet. Sirius’s heart speeds up a little at the shirt fabric sticking to Remus’s skin.
“Bloody hell, what happened to you?” Sirius asks, leaning against the door.
“Is the spare room still free?” Remus bites out, his voice all leashed anger.
Sirius gives his head a little shake, ridding sleep from his mind like a dog shivers water from its fur. “Sure.”
“Thanks.” Remus yanks the trunk through the door and drags it into Sirius’s flat, Sirius trailing behind.
“You’ll have to sleep on the couch tonight, though,” Sirius tells him.
“That’s fine.” The trunk hits the floor, and Sirius flinches. Remus has turned away from him, but Sirius can read the line of his shoulders as easily as the lines of his meticulous handwriting. The message is not “All’s well”.
“Moony?”
“What?” Remus shoots a vicious glare over his shoulder, his gaze almost flaying Sirius.
“What happened to you?” Sirius asks again, quiet and worried. “Why are you all wet?”
“It was raining,” Remus replies, avoiding his eyes and the more complicated question.
“Remus.” Sirius is nothing if not a persistent bugger, especially where his friends’ welfare is concerned. “Why have you turned up on my doorstep at one in the morning? With your trunk? Sopping wet? Not that I’m not pleased to see you, but what happened to your flat?”
Remus turns to face Sirius and raises an eyebrow. “Don’t play stupid, Sirius. It doesn’t suit you. I was evicted.”
“I thought you had a job.”
“I don’t get paid till next week. One week too late for my landlord, obviously. I came back from my shift tonight to find all this on the street.” Remus kicks the trunk bitterly.
“But why are you wet?”
“It was raining,” Remus grates out.
“You couldn’t have just Apparated?”
Remus laughs. It’s not a mirthful sound. “It takes a while to find a disused alley where I live, Sirius.”
Sirius sighs and moves forward to dispense a consoling hug. “Moony, mate. I’m sorry - ”
Remus shoves him away. “Don’t touch me.”
“Remus?”
“I don’t need your fucking pity, Padfoot.”
“But you need my fucking spare room!”
“Oh yes, isn’t it lovely,” Remus retorts as he flings open his trunk. “Exiled prince, Sirius Black, benevolent and tolerant as true nobility ought to be, opens his meagre dwelling to an impoverished werewolf.”
He rifles violently through his belongings, already a mess of clothes, books and household paraphernalia. “James and Lily Potter, paragons of Gryffindor valour and virtue, will send over home-cooked leftovers -” he pulls out a towel - “and even bumbling Peter Pettigrew will convince his mother to knit a scarf.”
Remus proceeds to dry his hair - more an attack than a towelling. “Everyone rally round the werewolf, Homo lupus, come see the specimen!” His voice is muffled until he throws the towel from his head, scowling. He begins to undress, and Sirius can’t look away. “Poke him - ” off with the tie - “admire him - ” gone is the shirt - “be kind to him - ” the shoes are kicked off. “Pity him in his poverty and dejection!” The trousers come down.
Remus stands in pants and socks, swathed in his anger, dignified in his déshabillé. “But don’t, whatever you do, give him anything he wants.”
There is a long silence. Half of Sirius would like to tackle Remus to the floor and punch him in the mouth, the other to tackle him to the floor and give him a blowjob. He’s had both fantasies before; neither has been acted upon.
“What do you want, Remus?”
“To fucking go to sleep.” Remus sits down and peels off his wet socks. He balls them up and throws them at his open trunk.
Sirius shakes his head. “Fine. I’ll leave you to it.”
And the door to his bedroom slams shut.
“Wha - ?!” Sirius wakes again, just as abruptly, but to a lighter room, and James shaking his shoulder. “Merlin, James.”
James sits on the bed. “You sleep like the dead, mate,” he says, shaking his head. “What if I were a Dark wizard?”
“Then you would have been disembowelled, incinerated and defenestrated by the wards I put on the bedroom door.” Sirius smiles and sits up, resting against the headboard. “When did you get here?”
“Flooed in a couple of minutes ago. Noticed Remus on your sofa.” James winks in a terribly unnatural manner. He never has quite got the hang of that accomplishment. “Didn’t wake him up though. Thought he might be a bit . . . shagged out.”
Sirius throws a pillow, his usual reaction when James begins making these innuendoes. It’s a time-honoured tradition, going back to their Sixth Year at Hogwarts, when his bespectacled friend forced out of him a confession about his feelings for Remus, and then proceeded to rib Sirius about it every chance he got. Sirius both loves and hates these moments - James teasing him makes it all seem normal, but the normality gives him too much hope.
“Smutty-minded wanker. He got evicted last night.”
The leer and the wink leave James’s face. “Again?”
Sirius nods. “He turned up past midnight, drenched through and in a foul mood.”
“Can’t blame him.” James shrugs.
“No, this was really foul, Prongs. D’you remember that time back in Fifth Year, after our careers advice interviews?”
“When he threw all his textbooks out the dorm window and didn’t speak to us for three days?”
“When he transfigured Every Flavour Beans into spit-balls and shot them at Snape’s head in Defence?”
James laughs. “He had detention for a week!”
Sirius frowns. “But you remember how unbearable he was?”
“Yeah,” James agrees. And then smiles. “So did you give him a kiss and a cuddle and tell him everything would be all right?”
Sirius uses another pillow to hit James over the head. “Listen to me, you daft plonker! Remus is in no mood to be seduced. Nor am I git enough to try.” He glares and James has the decency to look a little shamefaced. “I have no idea how you managed to convince Lily of your sensitivity and maturity.”
“Oh I never did,” James smirks. “She just wants me for my enormous cock.
Sirius rolls his eyes and gets out of bed, cuffing James around the ears as he does so.
“Look, why don’t we all go out to the pub tonight?” James suggests. “Might cheer Remus up, to spend some time with his mates.”
“Yeah, it’s worth a shot,” Sirius sighs.
James disappears through the fireplace and, pretending not to notice Remus faking sleep on the couch, Sirius goes to take a shower. With a tap of his wand he makes the water hotter than his old heating system should be able to muster, and steps under the stream. Steam rises, turning the small room opaque, clearing his mind. The water washes away excess thoughts, running straight to the heart of the matter.
Sirius wonders why Remus came to him last night. Really, though, he already knows. Ever since Sixth Year, after that terrible prank, Remus needs only say the word and Sirius will roll over. Remus can push as hard as he likes, and Sirius won’t push back. At first he was apologising, atoning for his mistakes. Now . . .
Sirius tips his head backward, stretching his back. Is he still atoning? Remus must think he is.
He loves Remus. It took him a long time to realise that, to figure out it wasn’t just a schoolboy infatuation or brotherly camaraderie, but real love - the kind of love that kept James after Lily for years, even before he knew that he wanted more from her than a kiss and quick feel behind Greenhouse Four. What Sirius wants from Remus he’s never wanted from any girl, no matter how bright her wit or how kind her heart. He wants it from Remus despite his foul moods and his biting sarcasm, or perhaps because of them. He wants it all - from Remus singing to himself while doing research to Remus sulking in the bathroom.
But what would Remus say if he confessed? He’s been lucky with James - an incredulous laugh and then relentless teasing. Remus isn’t likely to call him a faggot and leave the flat in disgust, but Sirius couldn’t handle the slight shifting away, the refusal to meet his eyes, the topics no longer mentioned in his presence.
Sirius turns off the taps decisively at those thoughts. This is why it’s been three years, and he still hasn’t told Remus.
When he comes back through the living-room, dressed and with damp hair, he’s not surprised to find it tidied. But putting the room to rights hasn’t righted anything else for Remus, it seems, and Sirius finds him in the kitchen, scrambling eggs with vicious stabs.
“Morning,” Sirius says, hoping good cheer will be a balm to Remus’s wounds.
Remus turns, startled. Sirius stands in the doorway, running a hand nervously through his hair.
“Morning,” Remus replies, staring for a moment and then looking away hastily. “Eggs?” He tilts the frying pan, breakfast now a supplication.
“Thanks,” Sirius says, and pulls plates and cups from the cupboards.
Remus doles out the scrambled eggs, avoiding eye contact with Sirius. He puts the pan in the sink, then pauses a moment before turning around. He leans back against the counter.
“Sirius?”
Sirius looks up from placing the juice on the table.
“About last night . . .”
Sirius smiles and shrugs. “S’all right, Moony. I know you were upset.”
Remus looks away. “Thanks, but that’s no excuse . . . I said some awful things.”
Sirius crosses over to Remus, giving him a light punch on the shoulder. “Yeah, but you didn’t mean ’em, did you?”
Remus tries to meet Sirius’s eyes, but instead studies the clock over Sirius’s right shoulder. Sirius frowns: Remus looks guilty. “Not entirely,” Remus concedes.
Sirius sighs, wanting to forgive and forget. He slings an arm around Remus’s shoulders, pulling him in for a rough hug. “Don’t worry about it, mate. You had a shit day and you were in a foul mood. I would have been too.” Sirius gives a squeeze, and surreptitiously brushes his lips against Remus’s hair.
“Thanks,” Remus mutters, and pushes away from the counter, out of Sirius’s loose embrace. Sirius catches sight of the grimace on Remus’s face and feels lost. What on earth has he done to piss him off now?
Remus still can’t meet his eyes.
The rest of the day is given over to cleaning out the spare room, which James vacated when he married Lily, and which Sirius has been using as a junk room ever since. Sirius and Remus move about the task of clearing out the detritus without speaking, a dance developed after years of shared dorm life. Remus holds up curious-looking objects silently, and Sirius indicates with a gesture whether they belong on the To Keep or To Throw Away pile. It gives Sirius time to think.
He mostly worries about Remus. At Hogwarts he was the busiest of all of them - between schoolwork, prank-planning and prefect duties, Sirius didn’t know how he’d found time to sleep. Now he drifts aimlessly from one mindless job to another, without purpose or direction. Remus was happy at Hogwarts - he’d had his whole future ahead of him then, with goals to work towards and things to achieve. Sirius supposes a Hogwarts education is about as useful to a werewolf as shoes are to a merperson. Perhaps Remus would have been better off learning to use a cash register or how to sew, instead of how to make four times five equal twelve or how to turn a hedgehog into a pincushion. Now, instead of books and daydreams, he has nothing but burnt food and cheap clothing.
Worst of all, Sirius can’t think of a single way of helping him. He won’t let anyone do anything more effective than invite him round to dinner. Damned Gryffindor pride. Sirius has been trying to get Remus to move in with him for months, but the stubborn bastard has always refused point-blank - until last night. Sirius sighs. The bastard needs more than a house and food - he needs something to make him smile again. Really smile, with teeth and eye-crinkles, not lips stretched politely against a scream.
Sirius misses Moony’s smile. Dammit, when was the last time he’d smiled properly? Sirius has a flash of Remus at Prongs and Lily’s wedding, leaning back in a chair, head thrown back with laughter. In his dress-robes, he’d looked, Merlin, perfect to Sirius. Dashing.
Was that the last time Remus was happy?
“Pads?”
“Hmm? What?”
“Keep?”
“Oh . . . um, nah, throw it.” Sirius reaches out. “Here, I’ll put it in the bin.”
Their fingers brush, and Sirius feels a light jolt at the touch. He smiles and enjoys the feeling, predictable as it is. Remus, he notices, blushes and turns away. Sirius’s lazy contentedness abruptly lurches sideways into confused desire. He tries not to obsess.
But bloody hell, how can he not when Remus is reaching up like that, exposing the white line of skin between shirt hem and trouser belt? When those long fingers are stretching so elegantly? When, fuck, when that neck is tipped and exposed just so? Sirius checks his watch. It’s close enough.
“This place is never going to get clean,” he declares.
Remus turns, a small smile on his face. “Maybe it would if you’d let us use wands. I don’t know how you managed to stuff so much crap in here.”
“What if we throw out something we actually want?”
“It’s not my fault you never perfected the Genus charm.”
Sirius continues, ignoring Remus’s remarks. “And even if we did finish, you still don’t have a bed.” He pauses, looking around the room. “Sod this. James wanted to meet up at the pub tonight. You up for it?”
Sirius’s fire flames green at a quarter to one the next morning, and Sirius tumbles through elegantly. He stands and brushes Floo powder off his clothes, turning toward the fire as it flares green again. Remus barrels through, much less elegantly than Sirius, and crashes into his friend, knocking both of them to the floor.
“’M drunk!” he declares, and then giggles sleepily, letting his head fall on to Sirius’s chest.
“So I see,” Sirius mutters, staring at the ceiling and wondering what to do.
Remus made it his mission that evening to get as sloshed as possible. Sirius stopped drinking when Remus started giggling. He’d wanted to see Remus smile again, but this parody of good cheer only makes him ill. He wonders who’ll feel worse in the morning.
“I dunhavva bed,” Remus murmurs into his neck, his lips pressing wetly into Sirius’s skin. Sirius decides it’s high time their bodies parted. He pushes Remus off and then attempts to pull the both of them into a standing position. It’s a lost cause - Remus ends up slumped against him.
Concluding that it’s cruel to condemn a drunk man to his short and lumpy sofa, Sirius offers to swap sleeping arrangements with Remus.
Remus just nods drunkenly in agreement.
Sirius is undressing Remus for bed - having divested him of his shirt and now working on his jeans - when Remus giggles, splayed out across the mattress. “Whaddaya wan’ wi’me trouserless in y’bed, Pads?”
“To sleep,” Sirius replies, folding the jeans.
“Wi’you?”
“No, I’m sleeping on the sofa.” He pulls back the covers and tries to guide Remus under them.
“No!” Remus protests. “Y’sofa sucks. Lumpy’n’short.” He reaches up, fists a hand into Sirius’s t-shirt and pulls. Sirius topples clumsily on to the bed. “Space’nough for two,” Remus murmurs.
Sirius sighs, then sits up and begins to pull off his own shoes. Remus does have a point, he concedes, and Sirius isn’t about to take advantage of him in this state, so it doesn’t really matter. Still, when he gets into bed and Remus rolls over and burrows into his side, he begins to question the wisdom of his decision.
He’s mentally berating the hope rising in his chest, trying to pour cold logic on it, wishing Remus quickly into sleep, when through the dark and silence he hears, “Y’got hit on by a girl’t th’bar.”
Sirius stretches his mind back. “She was just helping me pick up the crisps.”
“She was touchin’ you ev’ry chance sh’got.” Sirius can feel Remus smiling against his chest. “She was . . . was gonna lick y’face inna min’te.”
“Eugh.” Sirius waits a moment, bringing a hand around to stroke Remus’s hair. He’ll never remember it, in the morning. “Well, what about you and that . . . nance I caught you with in the loos?” Sirius hates to use the word, the hypocrisy burns, but he can’t let on how . . . he can’t let on.
Remus laughs a little. “We were jus’ talkin’.”
“My dear Moony, you may have been talking, but he was chatting you up.”
Remus somehow manages to find the single square inch of space still between them and close that gap, throwing an arm around Sirius. “Eugh.” He shakes his head. “Nuhuh, never. I could . . . couldn’t do that.”
Sirius’s heart sinks a little. He should have known. Never trust a drunk.
“’Vonly ev’ wanted you.”
Cold shock washes through Sirius, and he ceases all movement. In vino veritas.
“Y’th’only one I c’n yell at,” Remus murmurs. “C’n only lose control w’you.”
Remus, finally noticing Sirius’s stillness, twists himself, pushing himself indecently into Sirius, to look upwards. “Y’ve stopped touching my hair.” He sounds worried, and Sirius thinks the confession may have shocked some sobriety into him. “Sorry, shouldn’t’ve said anything.”
“No,” Sirius rasps, trying to speak past his suddenly dry mouth, “it’s okay. Really.”
And then Remus stretches up and kisses Sirius.
It’s hesitant and shy, and not a little sloppy, and Sirius knows he shouldn’t respond, knows he should fend Remus off, wait till he’s sober, not take advantage of him like this; but, a small voice in his head whispers, he kissed you. And so Sirius, never one to shrink from risks, kisses back, rolling Remus over and pressing himself against his friend.
Remus giggles and then moans and kisses more hungrily, sliding in his tongue and bringing his hands up to thread through Sirius’s hair. Sirius feels dizzyingly drunk and stretches a hand out to brace himself against the mattress, trying to stop his world spinning. But there’s no way to find correspondence between his life and the fact that he’s gently brushing his other hand against Moony’s skin, feeling the beloved curve and light stubble, tasting Moony’s mouth, running his tongue against that slight Scottish accent and cheap beer. He laughs at the absurdity of it, spilling mirth into Remus’s mouth.
Remus laughs in response. “This’sh ridic’lous.”
At that, Sirius stops kissing Remus - pulls away and rests his forehead against Moony’s. Remus looks up at him, confused. “Whasswrong?”
“You’re drunk,” Sirius says. The look in Remus’s wide brown eyes causes his conviction to shake, like his arms, which are still propping him up over Remus.
Moony runs the back of his hand against Sirius’s stomach. “Only a li’le.” Ripples of desire flow in the wake of Remus’s hand.
Sirius shakes his head. “No,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to Moony’s forehead. “I can’t do this.”
Remus looks like he’s been hit with a Bludger - the short gasp sounds like he has too. Sirius surrenders and lets his arms buckle, bringing him close to Moony, his mouth to Moony’s neck. “Shh,” he hushes. “I just don’t want you to regret this in the morning.”
He kisses Remus under the ear. “Sleep now,” he entreats as he reaches over, folding Remus in his embrace. “In the morning, we’ll talk.”
“And kiss?”
“And kiss,” Sirius promises.
Sirius wakes to empty arms. To an empty bed. He sits up and feels his heart empty. He gets out of bed and searches the flat: empty. There’s no note on the kitchen table, and in the fridge there’s a full pint of milk and at least six eggs. Sirius sits down on the couch.
“Fuck.”
He doesn’t understand - what has he done wrong? Why has Remus run away? For a moment he wonders if Remus is punishing him, showing him what it’s like to wake up alone and lonely. It’s a childish action, but Sirius knows that if you treat a person like a child - deny him dignity, means and responsibility - inevitably he’ll behave like a child. Sirius dismisses the thought. Remus was the one who was made prefect, after all.
He decides he’ll have to look for Remus, and rises to get dressed. Five minutes later he stands in the living-room, putting on his coat and gloves. He notices Remus’s scarf and gloves, forgotten on the sofa.
A memory from his map-making days slides into Sirius’s mind, and he recalls the Invenium Charm. With a murmur of “Invenio,” and a swish and a flick over the holey wool, he leaves the flat, following the pointing glove-finger created by the locator spell.
He finds Remus in a nearby park, a small, usually deserted place, with nothing to recommend it but a swing-set and a shallow lake. Remus is sitting on a bench. Pigeons crowd round, looking expectant. “Bugger off,” he growls at them. “I can’t even feed myself.”
“Nor dress yourself, either,” Sirius says, sitting down next to Remus. The birds fly away, disappearing into the morning mist. It’s an eerie, beautiful sight, but Remus is too busy staring at Sirius to see or care.
Sirius throws the gloves into Remus’s lap and then winds the scarf around his neck, fussing with it. Remus grabs his wrist, bewildered expression replaced by one of anger.
“Don’t.”
“Fine,” Sirius snaps, his last reserve of tenderness gone. He turns away and pulls out a cigarette, putting it to his lips and lighting it with his wand. Remus lowers his eyes as Sirius takes his first drag.
They sit in silence for a moment, Sirius staring moodily across the empty park, Remus studying his hands. Then Sirius faces Remus, confused and hurt and angry. “I don’t get you, Remus,” he says, his voice reaching out and grasping for understanding, drawing claw marks instead. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Oh, of course there’s something wrong with me,” Remus retorts.
“Damn right there is!” Sirius gesticulates with his lit cigarette. Ash flies. “Sometimes you can be the most sullen-tempered little ingrate I’ve ever met!”
“And what, exactly, do I have to be grateful for?” Remus asks. “I have a shitty job, I’ve got a serial number tattooed on my ankle and I’m sleeping in your spare room!”
“You’ve also got friends who love you, a roof over your head and the best education the Wizarding world can offer!” This is all Sirius has ever needed.
“Fat lot of good that does me! The only people who’ll hire me are Muggles who want to look at something called ‘A-levels’!”
Sirius changes tack. “What about all the work you’re doing for the Order?”
“Oh wonderful, now you’re trying to convince me to be happy because I’m on the losing side of a war against prejudice and a despot who may or may not be evil incarnate.” Remus folds his arms and looks away. “You have no idea how I feel.”
“That’s because you won’t bloody well let me see!” Sirius stubs out the cigarette on the bench and grabs Remus’s hands, desperate now. Remus turns back, and he and Sirius lock eyes. Sirius tries to put as much honesty into his gaze as possible. He can feel the precipice he’s been standing on since last night sliding away beneath him. “What happened last night Remus - between us - look, I know you were drunk. But I wasn’t. I meant it. What I said, what we did. Maybe you don’t feel the same way, but - damn it, Moony, I love you. All I want is for you to be happy.”
Remus tries to interject, but Sirius silences him. “No, listen to me. I can see you’re not happy, and I want to help you, but I don’t know how. When you turned up on Friday night, you said you never got what you wanted.”
Remus looks scared, Sirius realises. He ploughs on regardless.
“Is it me you want?”
Remus loses the colour in his face. “I . . .”
“Is it?” Sirius leans forward, eyes searching for the answer.
“Yes,” Remus manages.
Sirius leans forward, pressing his lips to Remus’s as one presses a seal to an envelope. It seems final and complete, a deal done and signed. “I love you,” Sirius whispers into his mouth.
“Sirius - ” Remus starts, probably trying to tell him how this isn’t helping, how Sirius doesn’t understand.
“Shh.” Sirius strokes his face, eyes not wavering from his. “This doesn’t mean everything’s fixed, I know. But you’ve got me now. I’m not going to go away - I’m going to stay and help you.”
“You can’t fix the world, Padfoot,” Remus bursts out. “You can’t fix me.”
“No.” Sirius kisses him again, the slip of his tongue a letter-opener on an invitation. Sirius stands, regretting the distance but knowing he has to. “That’s up to you. You have to choose, Remus.”
Sirius holds out his hand. “If you fall, I will pull you up,” he says. “If you’re cold at night, I’ll warm you. But only if you want me to. And only if you can let go, and stop being constantly angry at the world. It won’t help you, Remus. It’s a waste of your energy.”
Remus searches Sirius’s face, and Sirius can guess what he’s looking for. Surety, he supposes. A promise that everything will be all right, that he won’t be dependent forever, that he’ll have some measure of dignity. That Sirius’s love will be enough to keep him going.
Sirius can’t promise that. He can only offer a choice.
“You have to choose, Remus.”
And Remus chooses.