Week Three Drabbles!
HELLO, ALL!
Welcome to the third week of our Moony & Padfoot's Last Drabble Writer Standing (Survivor-style) competition. Competition has truly been fierce, and every vote has counted--especially last week. Considering how good this week's drabbles are, I think we're going to have the same problem this week, too.
ONE VOTE CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHETHER SOMEONE STAYS ANOTHER WEEK OR GETS THEIR TORCH EXTINGUISHED.
So, please--vote! You don't want to find out your favourite drabble writer went home because you didn't vote for their fic, do you? Imagine the guilt! Imagine the angst! Will you be able to live with yourself?
Prompts for this week were:
Word Count: Exactly 300 words (and, yes, I DID count them individually, by pointing to each word and counting from 1 to 300--for every drabble.)
Genre: 'Lay low at Lupin's' era
Word Prompt: furry
Enjoy! (And did I mention you should vote?)
Team Padfoot
1.
Title: The Dim Light Hung Low
Author: huntingsnarks
Summary: A study of Remus’ face.
Contains:
The dim light hung low on that ever-weary face. Remus was asleep; had been for at least an hour, if the clock on the mantelpiece was to be at all believed.
Sirius hardly believed in time. He had spent twelve years in a place that time avoided, where minutes and hours, days and years, were nothing more than empty words. He had already spent a lifetime in the study of this face - why not another? There had been precious little to cling to against the numbing fog of Azkaban, and the image of Remus was that lone shard of Sirius’ soul beyond the Dementors’ reach.
A schoolboy’s face had hung in the bare and broken gallery of his mind for more than a decade. Together with Padfoot, it had kept him sane. And now, here in a cramped flat at the edge of nowhere, Sirius was studying anew.
He wondered at the difference; he wondered at the change. The boy had become a man, had grown into the lines that he had always worn an inch beneath the skin.
In sleep, those life-worn creases yielded, decades melting from Remus’ face. Yet even as Sirius studied it, lines tugged back into place at the edge of that soft, familiar mouth.
“You’re staring.”
“Studying,” Sirius corrected, and a smile curled gently across the shut-eyed face. It was the same smile as ever, and the thought burned scarlet in Sirius’ chest. Something had survived of the old days after all, the days of pranks and Prongs and furry little problems. Sirius was a relic of those times, and this smile was another.
And this kiss was yet another: heated, fierce, tragic, timeless.
The dim light hung low as Sirius felt twelve years slide into nothing, Remus branded in the space behind his eyelids.
2.
Title: Fits and Starts
Author: danikos_realms
Summary: Sirius meets Remus after a year apart.
Contains: Hurt/comfort, pre-slash.
Sirius transformed back and knocked on the door, which promptly opened. Remus seemed distracted and vaguely ill. He didn’t look at Sirius; Sirius wouldn’t look at his gaunt self, either, if he could.
“Sirius,” Remus said; it was like a bucket of cold water down Sirius’s spine.
~
After dinner, Sirius sat down at the piano to play something light. “What do you do these days?”
Remus, who was sitting in his worn armchair, shrugged. “I work ‘til six in the town’s pub. What have you been up to?”
“Hiding; I had to be close to Hogwarts for Harry.”
Remus hummed. “Yes, I heard.”
There was definitely something unsaid. “What?” Sirius demanded.
“Nothing.” He paused. “It’s time you stopped throwing yourself between Potters and Voldemort.”
Sirius missed a chord. “Harry doesn’t have anyone else!”
Remus got up so fast that the armchair tumbled over. “What good would you be to him if you were dead? It’s always this reckless behaviour, as if risking your life is the only way to tell people you care. Guess what? Some of us want you alive!”
Sirius winced. “I care about you, Moony.”
Remus snorted. “You know, I never really believed you’d done it. I had no trouble at all believing my dead friend was the traitor, but Heaven forbid it was you!”
Sirius walked to Remus and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well.” The recrimination sounded weaker.
Remus had his head bent low and Sirius caught glimpses of the scarred skin below his hair. He placed his lips against it, and he knew then that the thing they had never spoken of was still there: hot and fiery.
Later, under the furry blanket with his Moony by his side, Sirius thought that Grimmauld Place needed a new start as well.
3.
Title: Journeys End in Lovers Meeting
Author: eprime
Summary: First night. Sirius needs to say something.
Contains: pillow talk
They lay together in Remus' narrow bed. Sirius' hair was still damp. He could feel it adhering to the back of his neck, making him shiver though his body was tucked up against Remus who was radiating warmth in the aftermath of their sexual reunion. He inhaled the jumbled scent of soap and new sweat, and as the heavy thud of his heart began to slow, his furry thoughts began to sharpen.
"I had to protect James."
"I know." Strands of Remus' shaggy hair fell against his cheek as Remus rolled toward him and kissed his temple.
It wasn't just James. It was Lily and Harry, too, but Sirius knew he didn't need to say that. At the core, for all of them, it was James.
"I wanted to tell you." The chasm between the stilted words coming out of his mouth and what Sirius had an agonizing need to express seemed unbridgeable. His hand came up, digging tightly into the flesh of Remus' shoulder.
"I know." The words were soft, but Sirius could sense the syllables being squeezed from a throat almost too tight to speak.
"I didn't want to believe that you..." His own voice choked off.
Warm hands drew him closer into an embrace so fierce it hurt. "I know, Sirius."
"I had to be sure. To be safe."
A shuddering breath wracked him and his ribs ached as Remus held tighter.
"I loved you just as much as I loved him. I know you don't believe that, but I did."
"Sirius."
Remus kissed him slowly, coaxing Sirius into a state of half-lidded silence that Remus whispered into. "I thought you'd gone mad. I thought you'd..." Remus' breath hitched, making Sirius' heart squeeze in sympathy.
"Only for you, Moony," Sirius whispered.
Remus huffed a laugh.
Sirius smiled.
4.
Title: The Persistence of Memory
Author: anothersaturday
Summary: Staying with Remus is making Sirius a bit nostalgic.
Contains: Angst and verrrry briefly implied sex
When the moon waxes, Sirius says, “We could go out.” By this time, he’s been sleeping on Moony’s rollaway for a fortnight, and he suspects he is becoming a burden. Remus doesn’t say it, but nor does he make much effort to hide the little crease of exhaustion between his brows. “I can be Padfoot. Like old times.”
They are at the kitchen table, sharing the next-to-last tin of kippers from the pantry, though Remus is barely eating, his eyes dull and unhappy with the knowledge of what awaits him at moonrise. “That’s quite unnecessary. My potion-"
Sirius swallows his disappointment: because Wolfsbane is practically a miracle, isn’t it, and it’s wrong of him to miss the times before, those nights when Remus was mad and wild, a furry little problem; so grateful, after, to have had Sirius running at his side. “Don’t take it,” Sirius blurts. “Just this once. Go on, Moony, it’ll be brilliant-“
Remus almost smiles, but when he speaks his voice is cold. “Brilliant? Endangering every living creature in a fifteen kilometer radius? Endangering your freedom?” He looks up, meeting the other man’s gaze. “No, Sirius. I don’t call that brilliant.”
He’s right enough: there is no question of them going out tonight. Remus will take his potion, and Sirius will lay low. Hogwarts was a long time ago, after all; they are not boys now. Those nights of freedom are done.
But the night after the full moon, Remus comes to Sirius’s bed, the first time since Azkaban, and in his scars, his sharp delicate bones, Sirius reads the future: they will never be what they were. They will be something new, less bright but more vital: a mouthful of air in the seconds before drowning, fingers twined in the darkness of a locked room.
5.
Title: Rough Winds
Author: chlare
Summary: Sirius lies low at Lupin's, but things aren't as breezy as he might have hoped.
Contains: Some swearing.
It was awkward, the first few days.
He'd gone to 'Dung, Arabella, even Emmaline Vance to call them to arms; Emmaline had actually thrown her arms around his neck even though her look afterward said she was still unsure he wasn't a murderer. It was the moment he'd arrived on Remus' doorstep that he felt the true weight of the situation, of his orders. Lie low at Lupin's.
So very awkward.
They'd bumped elbows, walked in on each other in the bathroom, Moony had even spilled tea.
Moony never spilled tea. Not that Sirius could remember.
Merlin, it was so unbelievably awkward. Until Moony kissed him and it was as though twelve years were gone and they'd never lost each other.
- - -
"I'm not going. I'm not going back to that pit," Sirius very nearly spat as he raved after they'd read Dumbledore's owl. "Can you believe his nerve, Moony?" Sirius was pacing agitatedly now. "I will not go back there and I'm not bloody well going to be a prisoner ag-"
Remus' hands were suddenly curled tightly into Sirius' shirt - a display of emotion and lack of control that Sirius doubted he'd ever seen. The look in Remus' eyes... it made Sirius' words die on his lips.
"You will go. You'll go and be happy, my furry friend. You will ignore that rebellious, clever voice in your head and you'll go to Grimmauld Place." Remus swallowed hard and would only look at the hollow of Sirius' throat. "If you think I don't know what this will cost you, you're wrong, but-- I can't- I cannot lose you again Sirius." The last sentence came out sounding oddly hollow. "I won't." Remus looked up finally, his knuckles white, the bone pushed to the limits of his skin, Sirius noticed absently. "Please."
6.
Title: Worth a Little Risk
Author: dragon_gypsy
Summary: What runs through Sirius' head as he prepares to head off to Remus'.
Contains: Somewhat contemplative Sirius! Ohgod!
Sometime before, Dumbledore had given Sirius Remus' address and a picture of the place - just in case he wanted to send a letter or pay his old friend a visit (though Sirius had been far too concerned with Harry's safety to even think about visiting Remus). He wrote plenty of letters, though he never thought of posting any of them. Everything he wanted to say could be said in person.
Sirius thought long an hard about how he would find Remus. Being a dog had its advantages and all, but there was only so much he could do while trapped in a furry body and on all fours.
In the end, he decided to attempt something risky: To Apparate to a place he had never been before and only knew by a shoddy photo that had been taken from across the street. But he was a Marauder, and he was used to risky things by now. Besides, he had faith in himself and in Remus.
With the picture in one hand and a half-filled bag of his belongings in the other, Sirius willed himself to the small porch of a run-down flat. After the initial, gut-wrenching feeling subsided, he opened one eye, then the other. He looked at the door before him then at the photo and let out a victorious laugh.
It was quickly stifled as the door flew open and nearly knocked him off the narrow step. Before him, taller by a stair, was Remus, face pale and a wooden spoon clutched threateningly in one hand - the effect of which was lessened by the tartan apron he wore over his jumper.
“Wotcher, Moony,” Sirius said.
Without warning, Remus dropped the spoon and threw his arms around Sirius in a fierce hug. “Hello, Padfoot,” Remus murmured.
Team Moony
7.
Title: Care
Author: whitmans_kiss
Summary: Remus worries far too much.
Contains: an entirely G-rated embrace
Dumbledore’s cryptic letter telling of Sirius’ Saturday arrival had come on Tuesday. Remus had staunchly ignored it, leaving it to languish on the counter, not sure how to feel. Dumbledore had been the one to set up him in the small Welsh cottage, and for as much as Remus was keeping a low profile, it made sense to send Sirius here.
But as tidy Xs ticked off days on the calendar hanging on the wall, Remus finally had to admit that he could no longer ignore the inevitable. On Saturday morning, he cleaned the spare room - would they need a separate bedroom? no, it wouldn’t to do presume - and drew a bath, charming the water to remain indefinitely warm. A set of secondhand clothes was folded neatly and placed on a low stool, carefully chosen from memories of Sirius’ size, and dinner, though modest, was made and set on the table; the cupboard was meager, but stocked enough.
Saturday evening is spent fitfully waiting; some time shortly after eight, a light downpour introduces itself. A slight rapping on the door nearly goes unnoticed, but when Remus rises to check, he is greeted by the sudden sneezing of a soaking, matted, furry mass somewhere around the vicinity of his knees. Hand on the doorframe, he looks down into gray eyes, and finds he doesn’t know what to say.
The next thing Remus knows, those gray eyes are looking right back at him, and Sirius’ knees go weak enough for Remus to catch him in an embrace. Arms slip around too-thin frames as they fall into each other, faces pressing into necks, inhaling the stench of wet dog, but never mind the smell, never mind the ribcages underneath fingers, never mind the patched clothes and crooked smiles, just - a whispered, “welcome home.”
8.
Title: The Gardener
Author: escribo
Summary: A meditation on the cultivation of the wild and the rare
Contains:
Sirius spends most his time out of doors since coming to Remus’ cottage in Middlemoor. There he attempts to tame Remus’ neglected garden, coaxing life from the barren soil, often consulting Remus’ old Herbology text with its broken spine. Sirius’d found it in a box whilst spelunking in a cupboard one rainy afternoon. It’d been alongside parchment scrolls covered by the scrawled writing of four boyish hands. He’d asked, do you never toss away anything, Moony? Remus had stammered, twisting together his long fingers. Nothing I loved, he’d finally said, and then they’d both stopped and stuttered, finding it too early in the summer for anything that approached explanation, apology, or declaration.
Sirius leaves for Grimmauld Place soon and the garden will fall back into ruin because Remus is following. He watches now through the open kitchen door to where Sirius is talking to himself, as he often does when he’s alone. His voice is a low rumble, one of Remus’ favorite sounds. Remus listens for a moment more, only stepping forward when Sirius looks up.
“Talking to James again?” Remus asks.
“I suppose I never grew out of the habit. More proof of my insanity?”
“No, not exactly. Not quite. I wish sometimes that I could still hear his voice. Or Lily’s.” Remus steps nearer, the grass soft beneath his bare feet. “I’ve missed them.”
For a moment there is only the sound of the martins in the wood as Sirius absently strokes the furry leaves of the Gynura aurantiaca, its orange flowers a component in the Wolfsbane potion that Sirius is determined to brew before fall.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Remus admits when he finds his voice again. “Maybe most of all because you seemed farthest from me.”
“I’m here now,” Sirius says, and Remus reaches for him.
9.
Title: Insomnia
Author: writerofictions
Summary: Remus contemplates the situation while wrestling with sleep.
Contains: Snuggles!
What exactly am I going to do?
As I think this I am lying in bed, Sirius curled against my side, his chest rising and falling slowly. He seems, for now, almost innocent and for those of us who know him the notion is laughable at best. He is never calm, he is never stoic, but for now? For now he is at peace and so is the world around him. It allows me time to mull this all over, to look at Dumbledore’s choice to send him here to me, and to figure out what exactly it is I should do.
How am I supposed to keep him caged up in this small house? What can I say to convince him that Dumbledore’s choice to lie low is the right one, and that he has to keep his nose clean even if it means weeks or months of suffering at the hands of mind numbing boredom? How can I care for us both, when at times I’m barely stable enough for myself? What of my ‘furry little problem’? Where will he go while I suffer the changes of the moon?
The wheel in my head is turning as Sirius shifts beside me, curling up and burying his face in my neck. It is a small gesture, miniscule at best, but it immediately halts the racing thoughts in my head. Dumbledore sent Sirius here for a reason, and the reason is clear. He trusts me, he has always trusted me, and he will listen to me. I care about him too much to be soft with him, and he cares about me enough to heed my words. Suddenly the other questions seem so obsolete and I kiss his forehead before sliding my arm around his thin waist, settling into sleep.
10.
Title: The Little Things
Author: gorthead
Summary: Even when the entire world has changed, the past has its way of lingering.
Contains: Mild angst (of course)/fluff
"What’s this in your fridge?"
Remus stopped idly turning the pages of yesterday’s issue of the Daily Prophet in response to Sirius’ call from the kitchen. His breath caught and he tried to still the flutter in his stomach for the briefest of moments before he realized how lucky he was to be experiencing it at all. He’d always thought it was an effect of youth, of school days and hormones and accidentally touching thighs in the Great Hall, but now he realized, no, it was Sirius, Sirius at any age, even in another room with grey in his hair and hands rough and cracked from years of damp air and cold stone.
As though summoned, Sirius appeared in the doorway. He’d showered and slept through to midday, and for an instant in the sunlight he was seventeen again and all hands, and it was all Remus could do not to pin him against the wall as though it were the broom closet by the
Hogwarts kitchens that always smelled of baking and of sex. He was standing by the time Sirius spoke again, picking up just where he’d left off.
"Really, though, Remus. It looks like it’s growing something furry." He held up a takeaway container, tilting it so Remus could see its unidentifiable contents. Sirius wrinkled his nose a little in disgust, as though after twelve years in Azkaban and four in the Order, this was the most offensive thing he’d encountered.
Without words, Remus pulled the leftovers out of Sirius’ hand, set the box on the table, and pulled him close, burying his face in Sirius’ hair, in his neck, squeezing his eyes shut against tears he couldn’t explain, breathing deep. It felt, for the first time since they were both much younger, like this was home.
11.
Title: Real Isn't How You Are Made, It's A Thing That Happens To You
Author: lotherington
Summary: "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.” -- The Velveteen Rabbit
Contains: For once, no warnings!
Remus was sat on the doorstep of his tiny terraced house in Liverpool, bare feet on the pavement, a fag between his lips. Dumbledore had sent him a message via patronus that evening, telling him that he was to expect Sirius. He’d been waiting on the front step for hours, smoking under the light from the streetlamp, the warm night air carrying his smoke far and away over the rooftops. He closed his eyes, leant his head against the doorframe, listened to the noise of the television next door and the argument a few doors down. When he dragged his eyes open again, a great black dog was watching him from the other side of the road, sat under the streetlamp. His heart seized. The furry mass walked slowly across the road and into the house and Remus felt a breeze on his back as Padfoot transformed into Sirius.
‘It’s been a long time since I saw you smoking on that step,’ Sirius croaked. Remus nodded, overcome, not trusting himself to turn round just yet, not letting himself believe that it was real.
‘Fourteen years,’ Remus murmured, picking up the cup of tea that was next to him, his hand trembling. Sirius squeezed his shoulder and he stiffened, closing his eyes, tea sloshing over the sides of the mug and onto the cuff of his shabby jumper.
‘Look at me, Remus,’ Sirius said quietly.
‘I want you to be real so badly,’ Remus whispered desperately, dropping the mug to the ground, burying his face in his hands. Sirius pushed Remus’s jumper up and rested a cold hand on his skin, rubbing in slow circles. Remus released a sob at the gentle brush of lips to the back of his neck.
‘I’m here,’ Sirius said. ‘I’m real. And so are you.’
12.
Title: Tea, Whisky and Short Lived Power
Author: ali_wilde
Summary: Of course they don’t resume their old relationship… Well, not the second Sirius walks through the door, anyway.
Contains: bad language
"What are you doing here?"
"Dumbledore thought…"
Remus rolled his eyes. Trust Dumbledore to screw up his life. He was fine; living alone and sleeping alone. Now his ex-lover was thrown back into his life without as much as a by your leave. He didn’t need the complications of Sirius.
Sirius shrugged. "Not my fault."
"Never is," Remus muttered. No, he was not feeling very charitable right now.
"You’d rather I wasn’t here? I understand that, but-" Sirius sighed. "I’ll go."
Remus levelled a gaze at the man who had once meant more to him than life itself. He was no longer the beautiful and carefree Sirius he had been. Traces of that beauty still existed, sure, but they were tinged with shadows, his eyes were wary… guarded. He was too thin, and where was the glitter and make-up of their boyhood schooldays? The flamboyant clothing he loved?
Remus shook his head. "No. I’m… Have a bath. You stink, and I’ll swear you’re still furry from changing into Padfoot so often. First door at the top of the stairs." He ran his knuckles down Sirius’ cheek. "Shave too. Take your time. I’ll make some tea."
"Make it whisky and I’m yours."
Remus laughed. For the first time since their relationship started all those years ago, he felt that he was the one calling the shots. "Tea and you always have been."
"Whisky and there was never anyone else. Never has been."
"Tea." Remus’ resolve was weakening. "And I doubt even you could find anyone to fuck in Azkaban."
"Or out of it." Sirius flashed a grin, reminiscent of his old self. "Bring the whisky and you can wash my back." He disappeared up the stairs without a backward look.
Remus laughed. The feeling of power had been very short lived.
******
Comments are screened. Please include both the number and title of your favourite and least favourite fic in your vote. That's one OVERALL favourite and one OVERALL least favourite, not per team. Participants, you are encouraged to vote, but please don't vote for your own drabble.
VOTING HAS BEEN CLOSED!
Happy Reading! :)
Welcome to the third week of our Moony & Padfoot's Last Drabble Writer Standing (Survivor-style) competition. Competition has truly been fierce, and every vote has counted--especially last week. Considering how good this week's drabbles are, I think we're going to have the same problem this week, too.
ONE VOTE CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHETHER SOMEONE STAYS ANOTHER WEEK OR GETS THEIR TORCH EXTINGUISHED.
So, please--vote! You don't want to find out your favourite drabble writer went home because you didn't vote for their fic, do you? Imagine the guilt! Imagine the angst! Will you be able to live with yourself?
Prompts for this week were:
Word Count: Exactly 300 words (and, yes, I DID count them individually, by pointing to each word and counting from 1 to 300--for every drabble.)
Genre: 'Lay low at Lupin's' era
Word Prompt: furry
Enjoy! (And did I mention you should vote?)
Team Padfoot
1.
Title: The Dim Light Hung Low
Author: huntingsnarks
Summary: A study of Remus’ face.
Contains:
The dim light hung low on that ever-weary face. Remus was asleep; had been for at least an hour, if the clock on the mantelpiece was to be at all believed.
Sirius hardly believed in time. He had spent twelve years in a place that time avoided, where minutes and hours, days and years, were nothing more than empty words. He had already spent a lifetime in the study of this face - why not another? There had been precious little to cling to against the numbing fog of Azkaban, and the image of Remus was that lone shard of Sirius’ soul beyond the Dementors’ reach.
A schoolboy’s face had hung in the bare and broken gallery of his mind for more than a decade. Together with Padfoot, it had kept him sane. And now, here in a cramped flat at the edge of nowhere, Sirius was studying anew.
He wondered at the difference; he wondered at the change. The boy had become a man, had grown into the lines that he had always worn an inch beneath the skin.
In sleep, those life-worn creases yielded, decades melting from Remus’ face. Yet even as Sirius studied it, lines tugged back into place at the edge of that soft, familiar mouth.
“You’re staring.”
“Studying,” Sirius corrected, and a smile curled gently across the shut-eyed face. It was the same smile as ever, and the thought burned scarlet in Sirius’ chest. Something had survived of the old days after all, the days of pranks and Prongs and furry little problems. Sirius was a relic of those times, and this smile was another.
And this kiss was yet another: heated, fierce, tragic, timeless.
The dim light hung low as Sirius felt twelve years slide into nothing, Remus branded in the space behind his eyelids.
2.
Title: Fits and Starts
Author: danikos_realms
Summary: Sirius meets Remus after a year apart.
Contains: Hurt/comfort, pre-slash.
Sirius transformed back and knocked on the door, which promptly opened. Remus seemed distracted and vaguely ill. He didn’t look at Sirius; Sirius wouldn’t look at his gaunt self, either, if he could.
“Sirius,” Remus said; it was like a bucket of cold water down Sirius’s spine.
~
After dinner, Sirius sat down at the piano to play something light. “What do you do these days?”
Remus, who was sitting in his worn armchair, shrugged. “I work ‘til six in the town’s pub. What have you been up to?”
“Hiding; I had to be close to Hogwarts for Harry.”
Remus hummed. “Yes, I heard.”
There was definitely something unsaid. “What?” Sirius demanded.
“Nothing.” He paused. “It’s time you stopped throwing yourself between Potters and Voldemort.”
Sirius missed a chord. “Harry doesn’t have anyone else!”
Remus got up so fast that the armchair tumbled over. “What good would you be to him if you were dead? It’s always this reckless behaviour, as if risking your life is the only way to tell people you care. Guess what? Some of us want you alive!”
Sirius winced. “I care about you, Moony.”
Remus snorted. “You know, I never really believed you’d done it. I had no trouble at all believing my dead friend was the traitor, but Heaven forbid it was you!”
Sirius walked to Remus and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well.” The recrimination sounded weaker.
Remus had his head bent low and Sirius caught glimpses of the scarred skin below his hair. He placed his lips against it, and he knew then that the thing they had never spoken of was still there: hot and fiery.
Later, under the furry blanket with his Moony by his side, Sirius thought that Grimmauld Place needed a new start as well.
3.
Title: Journeys End in Lovers Meeting
Author: eprime
Summary: First night. Sirius needs to say something.
Contains: pillow talk
They lay together in Remus' narrow bed. Sirius' hair was still damp. He could feel it adhering to the back of his neck, making him shiver though his body was tucked up against Remus who was radiating warmth in the aftermath of their sexual reunion. He inhaled the jumbled scent of soap and new sweat, and as the heavy thud of his heart began to slow, his furry thoughts began to sharpen.
"I had to protect James."
"I know." Strands of Remus' shaggy hair fell against his cheek as Remus rolled toward him and kissed his temple.
It wasn't just James. It was Lily and Harry, too, but Sirius knew he didn't need to say that. At the core, for all of them, it was James.
"I wanted to tell you." The chasm between the stilted words coming out of his mouth and what Sirius had an agonizing need to express seemed unbridgeable. His hand came up, digging tightly into the flesh of Remus' shoulder.
"I know." The words were soft, but Sirius could sense the syllables being squeezed from a throat almost too tight to speak.
"I didn't want to believe that you..." His own voice choked off.
Warm hands drew him closer into an embrace so fierce it hurt. "I know, Sirius."
"I had to be sure. To be safe."
A shuddering breath wracked him and his ribs ached as Remus held tighter.
"I loved you just as much as I loved him. I know you don't believe that, but I did."
"Sirius."
Remus kissed him slowly, coaxing Sirius into a state of half-lidded silence that Remus whispered into. "I thought you'd gone mad. I thought you'd..." Remus' breath hitched, making Sirius' heart squeeze in sympathy.
"Only for you, Moony," Sirius whispered.
Remus huffed a laugh.
Sirius smiled.
4.
Title: The Persistence of Memory
Author: anothersaturday
Summary: Staying with Remus is making Sirius a bit nostalgic.
Contains: Angst and verrrry briefly implied sex
When the moon waxes, Sirius says, “We could go out.” By this time, he’s been sleeping on Moony’s rollaway for a fortnight, and he suspects he is becoming a burden. Remus doesn’t say it, but nor does he make much effort to hide the little crease of exhaustion between his brows. “I can be Padfoot. Like old times.”
They are at the kitchen table, sharing the next-to-last tin of kippers from the pantry, though Remus is barely eating, his eyes dull and unhappy with the knowledge of what awaits him at moonrise. “That’s quite unnecessary. My potion-"
Sirius swallows his disappointment: because Wolfsbane is practically a miracle, isn’t it, and it’s wrong of him to miss the times before, those nights when Remus was mad and wild, a furry little problem; so grateful, after, to have had Sirius running at his side. “Don’t take it,” Sirius blurts. “Just this once. Go on, Moony, it’ll be brilliant-“
Remus almost smiles, but when he speaks his voice is cold. “Brilliant? Endangering every living creature in a fifteen kilometer radius? Endangering your freedom?” He looks up, meeting the other man’s gaze. “No, Sirius. I don’t call that brilliant.”
He’s right enough: there is no question of them going out tonight. Remus will take his potion, and Sirius will lay low. Hogwarts was a long time ago, after all; they are not boys now. Those nights of freedom are done.
But the night after the full moon, Remus comes to Sirius’s bed, the first time since Azkaban, and in his scars, his sharp delicate bones, Sirius reads the future: they will never be what they were. They will be something new, less bright but more vital: a mouthful of air in the seconds before drowning, fingers twined in the darkness of a locked room.
5.
Title: Rough Winds
Author: chlare
Summary: Sirius lies low at Lupin's, but things aren't as breezy as he might have hoped.
Contains: Some swearing.
It was awkward, the first few days.
He'd gone to 'Dung, Arabella, even Emmaline Vance to call them to arms; Emmaline had actually thrown her arms around his neck even though her look afterward said she was still unsure he wasn't a murderer. It was the moment he'd arrived on Remus' doorstep that he felt the true weight of the situation, of his orders. Lie low at Lupin's.
So very awkward.
They'd bumped elbows, walked in on each other in the bathroom, Moony had even spilled tea.
Moony never spilled tea. Not that Sirius could remember.
Merlin, it was so unbelievably awkward. Until Moony kissed him and it was as though twelve years were gone and they'd never lost each other.
- - -
"I'm not going. I'm not going back to that pit," Sirius very nearly spat as he raved after they'd read Dumbledore's owl. "Can you believe his nerve, Moony?" Sirius was pacing agitatedly now. "I will not go back there and I'm not bloody well going to be a prisoner ag-"
Remus' hands were suddenly curled tightly into Sirius' shirt - a display of emotion and lack of control that Sirius doubted he'd ever seen. The look in Remus' eyes... it made Sirius' words die on his lips.
"You will go. You'll go and be happy, my furry friend. You will ignore that rebellious, clever voice in your head and you'll go to Grimmauld Place." Remus swallowed hard and would only look at the hollow of Sirius' throat. "If you think I don't know what this will cost you, you're wrong, but-- I can't- I cannot lose you again Sirius." The last sentence came out sounding oddly hollow. "I won't." Remus looked up finally, his knuckles white, the bone pushed to the limits of his skin, Sirius noticed absently. "Please."
6.
Title: Worth a Little Risk
Author: dragon_gypsy
Summary: What runs through Sirius' head as he prepares to head off to Remus'.
Contains: Somewhat contemplative Sirius! Ohgod!
Sometime before, Dumbledore had given Sirius Remus' address and a picture of the place - just in case he wanted to send a letter or pay his old friend a visit (though Sirius had been far too concerned with Harry's safety to even think about visiting Remus). He wrote plenty of letters, though he never thought of posting any of them. Everything he wanted to say could be said in person.
Sirius thought long an hard about how he would find Remus. Being a dog had its advantages and all, but there was only so much he could do while trapped in a furry body and on all fours.
In the end, he decided to attempt something risky: To Apparate to a place he had never been before and only knew by a shoddy photo that had been taken from across the street. But he was a Marauder, and he was used to risky things by now. Besides, he had faith in himself and in Remus.
With the picture in one hand and a half-filled bag of his belongings in the other, Sirius willed himself to the small porch of a run-down flat. After the initial, gut-wrenching feeling subsided, he opened one eye, then the other. He looked at the door before him then at the photo and let out a victorious laugh.
It was quickly stifled as the door flew open and nearly knocked him off the narrow step. Before him, taller by a stair, was Remus, face pale and a wooden spoon clutched threateningly in one hand - the effect of which was lessened by the tartan apron he wore over his jumper.
“Wotcher, Moony,” Sirius said.
Without warning, Remus dropped the spoon and threw his arms around Sirius in a fierce hug. “Hello, Padfoot,” Remus murmured.
Team Moony
7.
Title: Care
Author: whitmans_kiss
Summary: Remus worries far too much.
Contains: an entirely G-rated embrace
Dumbledore’s cryptic letter telling of Sirius’ Saturday arrival had come on Tuesday. Remus had staunchly ignored it, leaving it to languish on the counter, not sure how to feel. Dumbledore had been the one to set up him in the small Welsh cottage, and for as much as Remus was keeping a low profile, it made sense to send Sirius here.
But as tidy Xs ticked off days on the calendar hanging on the wall, Remus finally had to admit that he could no longer ignore the inevitable. On Saturday morning, he cleaned the spare room - would they need a separate bedroom? no, it wouldn’t to do presume - and drew a bath, charming the water to remain indefinitely warm. A set of secondhand clothes was folded neatly and placed on a low stool, carefully chosen from memories of Sirius’ size, and dinner, though modest, was made and set on the table; the cupboard was meager, but stocked enough.
Saturday evening is spent fitfully waiting; some time shortly after eight, a light downpour introduces itself. A slight rapping on the door nearly goes unnoticed, but when Remus rises to check, he is greeted by the sudden sneezing of a soaking, matted, furry mass somewhere around the vicinity of his knees. Hand on the doorframe, he looks down into gray eyes, and finds he doesn’t know what to say.
The next thing Remus knows, those gray eyes are looking right back at him, and Sirius’ knees go weak enough for Remus to catch him in an embrace. Arms slip around too-thin frames as they fall into each other, faces pressing into necks, inhaling the stench of wet dog, but never mind the smell, never mind the ribcages underneath fingers, never mind the patched clothes and crooked smiles, just - a whispered, “welcome home.”
8.
Title: The Gardener
Author: escribo
Summary: A meditation on the cultivation of the wild and the rare
Contains:
Sirius spends most his time out of doors since coming to Remus’ cottage in Middlemoor. There he attempts to tame Remus’ neglected garden, coaxing life from the barren soil, often consulting Remus’ old Herbology text with its broken spine. Sirius’d found it in a box whilst spelunking in a cupboard one rainy afternoon. It’d been alongside parchment scrolls covered by the scrawled writing of four boyish hands. He’d asked, do you never toss away anything, Moony? Remus had stammered, twisting together his long fingers. Nothing I loved, he’d finally said, and then they’d both stopped and stuttered, finding it too early in the summer for anything that approached explanation, apology, or declaration.
Sirius leaves for Grimmauld Place soon and the garden will fall back into ruin because Remus is following. He watches now through the open kitchen door to where Sirius is talking to himself, as he often does when he’s alone. His voice is a low rumble, one of Remus’ favorite sounds. Remus listens for a moment more, only stepping forward when Sirius looks up.
“Talking to James again?” Remus asks.
“I suppose I never grew out of the habit. More proof of my insanity?”
“No, not exactly. Not quite. I wish sometimes that I could still hear his voice. Or Lily’s.” Remus steps nearer, the grass soft beneath his bare feet. “I’ve missed them.”
For a moment there is only the sound of the martins in the wood as Sirius absently strokes the furry leaves of the Gynura aurantiaca, its orange flowers a component in the Wolfsbane potion that Sirius is determined to brew before fall.
“I’ve missed you, too,” Remus admits when he finds his voice again. “Maybe most of all because you seemed farthest from me.”
“I’m here now,” Sirius says, and Remus reaches for him.
9.
Title: Insomnia
Author: writerofictions
Summary: Remus contemplates the situation while wrestling with sleep.
Contains: Snuggles!
What exactly am I going to do?
As I think this I am lying in bed, Sirius curled against my side, his chest rising and falling slowly. He seems, for now, almost innocent and for those of us who know him the notion is laughable at best. He is never calm, he is never stoic, but for now? For now he is at peace and so is the world around him. It allows me time to mull this all over, to look at Dumbledore’s choice to send him here to me, and to figure out what exactly it is I should do.
How am I supposed to keep him caged up in this small house? What can I say to convince him that Dumbledore’s choice to lie low is the right one, and that he has to keep his nose clean even if it means weeks or months of suffering at the hands of mind numbing boredom? How can I care for us both, when at times I’m barely stable enough for myself? What of my ‘furry little problem’? Where will he go while I suffer the changes of the moon?
The wheel in my head is turning as Sirius shifts beside me, curling up and burying his face in my neck. It is a small gesture, miniscule at best, but it immediately halts the racing thoughts in my head. Dumbledore sent Sirius here for a reason, and the reason is clear. He trusts me, he has always trusted me, and he will listen to me. I care about him too much to be soft with him, and he cares about me enough to heed my words. Suddenly the other questions seem so obsolete and I kiss his forehead before sliding my arm around his thin waist, settling into sleep.
10.
Title: The Little Things
Author: gorthead
Summary: Even when the entire world has changed, the past has its way of lingering.
Contains: Mild angst (of course)/fluff
"What’s this in your fridge?"
Remus stopped idly turning the pages of yesterday’s issue of the Daily Prophet in response to Sirius’ call from the kitchen. His breath caught and he tried to still the flutter in his stomach for the briefest of moments before he realized how lucky he was to be experiencing it at all. He’d always thought it was an effect of youth, of school days and hormones and accidentally touching thighs in the Great Hall, but now he realized, no, it was Sirius, Sirius at any age, even in another room with grey in his hair and hands rough and cracked from years of damp air and cold stone.
As though summoned, Sirius appeared in the doorway. He’d showered and slept through to midday, and for an instant in the sunlight he was seventeen again and all hands, and it was all Remus could do not to pin him against the wall as though it were the broom closet by the
Hogwarts kitchens that always smelled of baking and of sex. He was standing by the time Sirius spoke again, picking up just where he’d left off.
"Really, though, Remus. It looks like it’s growing something furry." He held up a takeaway container, tilting it so Remus could see its unidentifiable contents. Sirius wrinkled his nose a little in disgust, as though after twelve years in Azkaban and four in the Order, this was the most offensive thing he’d encountered.
Without words, Remus pulled the leftovers out of Sirius’ hand, set the box on the table, and pulled him close, burying his face in Sirius’ hair, in his neck, squeezing his eyes shut against tears he couldn’t explain, breathing deep. It felt, for the first time since they were both much younger, like this was home.
11.
Title: Real Isn't How You Are Made, It's A Thing That Happens To You
Author: lotherington
Summary: "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.” -- The Velveteen Rabbit
Contains: For once, no warnings!
Remus was sat on the doorstep of his tiny terraced house in Liverpool, bare feet on the pavement, a fag between his lips. Dumbledore had sent him a message via patronus that evening, telling him that he was to expect Sirius. He’d been waiting on the front step for hours, smoking under the light from the streetlamp, the warm night air carrying his smoke far and away over the rooftops. He closed his eyes, leant his head against the doorframe, listened to the noise of the television next door and the argument a few doors down. When he dragged his eyes open again, a great black dog was watching him from the other side of the road, sat under the streetlamp. His heart seized. The furry mass walked slowly across the road and into the house and Remus felt a breeze on his back as Padfoot transformed into Sirius.
‘It’s been a long time since I saw you smoking on that step,’ Sirius croaked. Remus nodded, overcome, not trusting himself to turn round just yet, not letting himself believe that it was real.
‘Fourteen years,’ Remus murmured, picking up the cup of tea that was next to him, his hand trembling. Sirius squeezed his shoulder and he stiffened, closing his eyes, tea sloshing over the sides of the mug and onto the cuff of his shabby jumper.
‘Look at me, Remus,’ Sirius said quietly.
‘I want you to be real so badly,’ Remus whispered desperately, dropping the mug to the ground, burying his face in his hands. Sirius pushed Remus’s jumper up and rested a cold hand on his skin, rubbing in slow circles. Remus released a sob at the gentle brush of lips to the back of his neck.
‘I’m here,’ Sirius said. ‘I’m real. And so are you.’
12.
Title: Tea, Whisky and Short Lived Power
Author: ali_wilde
Summary: Of course they don’t resume their old relationship… Well, not the second Sirius walks through the door, anyway.
Contains: bad language
"What are you doing here?"
"Dumbledore thought…"
Remus rolled his eyes. Trust Dumbledore to screw up his life. He was fine; living alone and sleeping alone. Now his ex-lover was thrown back into his life without as much as a by your leave. He didn’t need the complications of Sirius.
Sirius shrugged. "Not my fault."
"Never is," Remus muttered. No, he was not feeling very charitable right now.
"You’d rather I wasn’t here? I understand that, but-" Sirius sighed. "I’ll go."
Remus levelled a gaze at the man who had once meant more to him than life itself. He was no longer the beautiful and carefree Sirius he had been. Traces of that beauty still existed, sure, but they were tinged with shadows, his eyes were wary… guarded. He was too thin, and where was the glitter and make-up of their boyhood schooldays? The flamboyant clothing he loved?
Remus shook his head. "No. I’m… Have a bath. You stink, and I’ll swear you’re still furry from changing into Padfoot so often. First door at the top of the stairs." He ran his knuckles down Sirius’ cheek. "Shave too. Take your time. I’ll make some tea."
"Make it whisky and I’m yours."
Remus laughed. For the first time since their relationship started all those years ago, he felt that he was the one calling the shots. "Tea and you always have been."
"Whisky and there was never anyone else. Never has been."
"Tea." Remus’ resolve was weakening. "And I doubt even you could find anyone to fuck in Azkaban."
"Or out of it." Sirius flashed a grin, reminiscent of his old self. "Bring the whisky and you can wash my back." He disappeared up the stairs without a backward look.
Remus laughed. The feeling of power had been very short lived.
******
Comments are screened. Please include both the number and title of your favourite and least favourite fic in your vote. That's one OVERALL favourite and one OVERALL least favourite, not per team. Participants, you are encouraged to vote, but please don't vote for your own drabble.
VOTING HAS BEEN CLOSED!
Happy Reading! :)