Collide: Chapter 5, Part Five
Title: Collide
Pairing: Remus/Sirius of Harry Potter fandom
Rating: NC-17 overall; this part is PG
Summary (for all parts): AU (Remus never went to Hogwarts). Everytime Remus gets close to someone, they start to uncover the truth about his strange disappearances and injuries. He can't stand the look on their face when he tells them the truth so instead he erases any trace of their relationship from their mind with a simple obliviate. Tired of getting intimate with someone only to become strangers again, Remus resolves never to get involved with anyone ever again. Of course, resolutions are made to be broken.
In this part: Motorbikes are ridden, wine is drank, and things are said that cannot be taken back
A/N: Many thanks go to
lupinslittlesis for kindly allowing me to borrow her characterisation of Alphard, Sirius' uncle. If you're interested in Sirius' uncle as a werewolf, I'd definitely recommend checking out her series, Mentors.
Previous parts: Chapter 1: part one | two | three
Chapter 2: part one | two
Chapter 3: part one | two | three | four
Chapter 4: part one | two | three | four
Chapter 5: part one | two | three | four
It's been a while, guys. I know. A whole new canon ago (although thankfully, little if anything is affected in Collide). Just to refresh your memory, in the last part Remus was wondering why Sirius seemed to distant while they fooled around at James and Lily's wedding when later Sirius himself appears and Remus finds it in himself to spontaneously ask him out to dinner. Sirius (of course) accepts, leaving Remus a nervous wreck. Onwards!
Part Five
By the time five o'clock rolled around, Remus was a verifiable nervous wreck. Delilah wasn't much help, not that he expected her to be, given how she loved to tease him.
"So, where you going?" she asked, leaning against the desk where he was pretending to work but was in fact staring off into the distance.
"No idea," he replied morosely. "I hope it's not somewhere fancy… or foreign."
Delilah raised an eyebrow and Remus explained. "I never order what I want when I can't read the menu. Even when I think I know the language it still gets all muddled and I don't want to order something and then not finish it or -"
"You're rambling," she cut him off. He felt his face colour and lowered his eyes down to the parchment in front of him. "I'm sure he won't take you to a restaurant where they only speak Russian or something," she said in her most reassuring tone and Remus had to concede that she was right.
"What if I have to pick the restaurant?" he thought aloud suddenly. That would make sense, given that he had technically asked Sirius out.
"I'm sure you'll think of something," Delilah said with a smile which grew as she nodded her head towards Remus' left shoulder. He turned and there was Sirius looking even more gorgeous than usual. He was wearing his black leather jacket and his windswept hair gave away that he had come on the motorcycle. He gave Remus a lazy half-smile as if he knew that every female in the library had their eyes on him. It was a moment before Remus remembered to return the gesture.
"I guess I'll be going then," Remus said, half to Delilah and half to himself. He didn't hear her reply as he grabbed his coat, his eyes still on Sirius.
"Hi," Sirius said, a grin coming to his features. Remus couldn't help but return the gesture.
"Hi."
"Ready to go, then?"
Remus nodded and followed Sirius out the door, turning once to throw Delilah a smile.
Remus quickly learned that when on a motorbike with Sirius Black, you held on tight. Swerving through London traffic and darting down narrow alleys, Remus expected them to crash any second. It wasn't exactly reckless - Remus noticed Sirius always checked before switching lanes - but it made Remus grip Sirius tightly around the waist, perhaps the intended effect.
Remus lost track of where they were as the graffiti whirled past on the dirty brick walls. He could reach out and touch the walls if he wanted to. If Sirius even swerved slightly… They stopped and Remus raised his head and looked around. An empty alleyway. Were they lost?
Sirius touched his hand briefly and Remus realized he was still gripping on tightly. Embarrassed, he let go and dismounted the motorbike.
"Where are we?" he asked, unable to keep the worry out of his voice.
Sirius just grinned before walking to one of the walls and touching it briefly in different spots. His hands flitted like butterflies over the brick until he stopped with a soft murmur. One touch of his wand and the brick rolled away exposing a plain wooden door.
Sirius paused, his hand on the plain doorknob, until Remus came up behind him.
"After you," he said as he opened the door towards him. Remus took a step forward and hit a wall of sounds and smells.
He blinked and stepped forward to let Sirius in behind him. The restaurant looked like something out of a movie from the red and white checkered tablecloths to the soft Italian music to the couples drinking red wine and sharing pasta.
He was just turning to ask Sirius where they were when a large dark-haired man approached them with a grin.
"Sirius!" he exclaimed, looking very pleased to see Remus' companion. "Been too long!"
"Far too long," Sirius agreed from behind him. Remus stepped to the side to allow the men to shake hands, noticing that Sirius seemed completely at home here. He wondered briefly who else he had taken here before dismissing the thought. It doesn't matter, he told himself but he wasn't quite able to ignore the feeling of jealousy that had unexpectedly appeared. He busied himself taking in the surroundings while Sirius conversed with the other man whose name he hadn't caught. He was watching a toddler throw her pasta at her mother when he felt a soft touch on his sleeve.
He looked over to see Sirius inclining his head towards the back of the restaurant where the maître d' was leading them. Weaving through the tables, it became obvious to Remus that there were muffling charms on the table. Despite a woman shouting at her companion, her face flushed with anger, Remus could only hear muffled voices. This was not the only magic in use: candles floated over the tables and food appeared in the blink of an eye.
"Here we are," the maître d' said brightly, placing menus on the table. "Enjoy, gentlemen."
Remus felt himself blush as Sirius pulled out his chair for him. "Thank you," he murmured before sitting down. Sirius just smiled before taking his place across from Remus.
"What is this place?" Remus asked immediately.
"Gatto Nero," Sirius replied. "My family and I used to come here. I still do." He opened the menu and Remus did likewise rather than ask questions about Sirius' family that Sirius didn't want to answer.
Remus looked down and blinked twice. The entire menu was in Italian. He glanced up at Sirius who seemed to have no problem reading the menu at all. He knew Latin, he should be able to figure out Italian, he thought. He recognized the names of some of the pastas, though had trouble translating their description. Fettuccine Primavera. He knew what that was, he realized triumphantly.
"Did you need some help translating?" Sirius offered belatedly.
Remus shook his head. "I'll just have the fettuccine primavera."
"So I suppose not all werewolves are carnivores?" Sirius said with a teasing smile.
Remus shook his head. He knew Sirius was only teasing but he had never been able to joke about what he was, probably because there was no one to joke with. Loosen up, he told himself.
"Ready to order?"
Remus nodded. "I think so."
Sirius tapped his wand on the menu twice before pausing. "We should really go with a Chardonnay, but I find myself in the mood for red…" He glanced up at Remus, silently seeking his advice.
"Red's fine. Whatever you think," Remus said hurriedly. He couldn't compete with Sirius when it came to wine knowledge, even if he wanted to, so he figured it best not to even try.
Sirius smiled and tapped his wand a third time. "Now we wait,"
"So how have you been keeping?" Sirius asked. Remus felt a foot brush against his trousers.
"Fine, fine. You?"
"Oh not bad. The Ministry's keeping me busy these days. We're trying to assess if the changes in the policy will have any effect." Remus nodded. "What do you think?" Sirius asked suddenly and Remus found himself caught a bit off guard.
"Um… it's hard to say," he said, honestly. "There are those who, no matter what sorts of employment regulations you enforce, will still live with a pack in isolation. It takes more than policy changes to change how people see werewolves."
"I know, but I can't control how people think. I wish I could. I mean, you're a human being just like the rest of us."
Remus gave a wry smile. "How nice of you to notice."
Sirius flushed. "That's not what I - I mean - "
"It's fine," Remus interrupted.
"My family…" Sirius rubbed at the back of his neck. "My uncle was a werewolf, you see. I grew up being told what a monster he was."
Remus grimaced involuntarily.
"He's gone now," Sirius said softly. He fiddled with his knife, seemingly lost in his own world. "Infected someone."
"I'm sorry."
Sirius nodded and there was a moment of silence before it was broken by a soft popping sound. Two glasses and a bottle appeared on the table. Remus watched as Sirius poured the wine expertly.
"Cheers," he said with a smile as he clinked his glass against Remus'. "Cheers," Remus echoed.
Sirius smiled a moment after taking a sip of his wine. "My uncle would have liked this. He was a connoisseur, you see. Before he was bitten. After that, well… not too many people still talked to him, being what he was. If he hadn't already been wealthy…"
Remus nodded, silently wondering if they were going to dwell on lycanthropy all evening or if Sirius merely felt like he could talk to Remus about his uncle. He appreciated being the one that Sirius could talk to, only when you spent most of your time trying very hard not to think about something, it was shaking to have it mentioned so many times in one evening.
"You have a job though," Sirius pointed out unnecessarily.
"I suppose I'm lucky," Remus mused.
"I'm not sure luck had much to do with it."
"Well, if Dumbledore hadn't been old friends with the head of the library," Remus argued gently.
"I'm sure you're very good at what you do, though. Dumbledore may have had the connections, but you're there on your own merit. See, that's the thing most werewolves lack - the connections. We're hoping that with the new bill being passed you won't need connections, that employers won't be able to discriminate when hiring, but…" he sighed. "There's a long way to go."
Remus laid his hand on Sirius'. "You're doing good work," he said softly. He admired Sirius' optimism, he really did, and couldn't find it in him to remind Sirius that employers could easily make up other reasons for firing a lycanthropic employee. Legislation only went so far.
Their dinners came moments after and lycanthropy was forgotten for the moment. It was only a moment though, and soon Sirius was back at it, asking him his opinion on policies in America and Australia. Remus found himself missing the Sirius who didn't know what he was, who treated him like a normal man. Remus was about to change the subject from detainment facilities when Sirius asked what the transformations were like. His face was the picture of boyish curiosity and as much as Remus wanted to ignore the question or tell Sirius he wasn't in the mood to talk about it, he felt compelled to answer.
"They're hell, honestly," he said bluntly. "You just wait and wait for the moonrise and you know you can't stop it, it will always come. Then you black out, you're just gone, and you just have to trust that wherever you are is sturdy and secure enough to keep a fully grown werewolf from getting out. And even when you know it's secure, you still wake up in cold sweat, disoriented and wondering who you might have killed tonight. That's the worst part, the not knowing, not being able to control it. I could take the pain of having my bones bent and broken every month if I was able to somehow control it."
"But you do have somewhere secure to go…"
"I go to St. Mungos."
"Lily…" It dawned on Sirius. Remus nodded. "That's where you met."
"Yes. She's different than the others… looks at me like a human being after." His mind couldn't help but wander to the other healers that had looked after his wounds and their looks of disgust even as they treated him. He felt sick. He needed to get out of here; he was beginning to feel trapped, overwhelmed by Sirius' questions. He took another sip of wine and his head started to swim. He glanced at the empty bottle near his elbow.
"You must have been bit young," Sirius said, "if you didn't go to Hogwarts."
"You know, Sirius," Remus said, aware even as he said it that he was going to blow it, blow it all, "I really thought that you might see me as a … person but it's obvious that you only see me for what I am a couple nights a month."
Sirius looked stricken but Remus couldn't stop. He'd been to too many doctors and specialists that asked him the exact same questions as Sirius was asking him now. Too many people that looked right past him to see the wolf.
"No, it's not like that," Sirius protested after a moment. "Remus it's really -"
"Thank you for dinner," Remus said tersely, scribbling his Gringotts account number on the napkin with the quill he kept in his robes. "Good night."
He couldn't look at Sirius as he stood, his eyes were focused on the door. He walked briskly towards it, ignoring Sirius' protests, knowing full well he was making a scene. He nodded to the maître d' before opening the door to the alleyway.
"Remus, wait, please!"
He closed his eyes and apparated.
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