Fic: The Improbable Adventure of Being Alive
Your user name: remuslives23
Team: Team Sirius
Title: The Improbable Adventure of Being Alive
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Genre(s): Angst/Romance
Word Count: 2244
Summary: He'd always planned to spend his life with Remus, but fate and Peter Pettigrew had set him on a different path. Now, does he have a second chance to grab hold of the life he thought had slipped through his fingers?
Notes: Magical AU. Alternative version of canon which ignores a certain event in OOTP. Thank you to my beta, D, for whipping this into shape. Title from a quote by Diane Ackerman: "Life is a thing that mutates without warning, not always in enviable ways. All part of the improbable adventure of being alive, of being a brainy biped with giant dreams on a crazy blue planet."
Prompt: 23. "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be." ~ Douglas Adams
Sirius stood on the stone stairs and stared out over the grounds of the school he had once thought of as home, his stomach churning. It was almost unrecognisable. The grounds - scene to many a snowball fight, lazy summer afternoon naps, and clandestine kisses - were littered with debris from the castle walls. Uprooted trees burned slowly, sharp cracks regularly breaking the eerie silence, and the ground itself was scarred with deep gouges, sliced open in the life-and-death battle that had come to its violent conclusion less than an hour earlier.
He stepped down off the step and onto the grass. His foot hit a large piece of stone, sending it rattling across the rubble, and he watched it with numb fascination. He should be tired - exhausted - after months of catching naps whenever and wherever he could as he and Remus hid from Voldemort’s Death Eaters. He should be starving - parched - after resorting far too often to eating scraps from an overflowing Muggle bin and quenching his thirst from dirty puddles of rainwater, but he wasn’t. His body - pushed to its limits over the last year - felt light, weightless, and his mind detached from everything around him, as if he’d been watching one of Remus’ black and white films instead of being in the heart of the action.
“Shock”, he heard Lily’s ‘don’t mess with me, I’m a Healer’ voice whisper in his mind, and he nodded absently in agreement. He walked without a set destination, slowly picking his way through the ruins, stepping around the drying patches of blood that spotted the ground without so much as a pang of sorrow. The acrid scent of smoke lingered in the air, filling his lungs with every breath as the spiraling grey plumes made the sky above murky and grey.
A wail from the direction of the castle made him turn around, a spark of something painful flaring to life inside him, putting the first crack in the dark ice around his heart. He could see the swirl of cloaks in the shadows of the Hall, hear the anguished sobs of the bereaved and the subdued murmurs of the survivors. With a shaky exhale, Sirius turned away once again, edging his way around a large chunk of a turret he suspected was from Gryffindor Tower. An ember of that same indistinguishable emotion from earlier smoldered hotter and brighter in his gut.
Sirius felt a jolt of pain shoot up his leg and he looked down, his eyes widening at the sight of his trouser leg in ragged tatters, a long, jagged wound running the length of his calf beneath the shredded fabric. How had that happened? He poked at the injury, sending a fresh wave of hurt washing over him, but the shallow cut was clotting just fine and he had other things to get on with.
If only he could figure out where to begin.
"Hey."
Sirius hadn’t heard Remus approach but he wasn’t surprised by his presence. Remus had always been there when Sirius needed him; before Sirius had even realised he needed him most of the time. He couldn't look at him, afraid that the very sight of Remus right now would make the ruin of his life finally real, that Remus would make him feel everything that he’d kept dammed up over the last sixteen years.
"Are you alright?" Remus asked, and Sirius nodded curtly. He could feel the heat of Remus' body, a body he'd once known better than his own, at his back, and he tried to repress a shiver. Then Remus' hand was lightly pressing between his shoulder blades and Sirius couldn't stop himself from turning, his neck twinging at the sharp movement.
Remus gave him a tired half-smile, the lines around his eyes deepening, and a warmth he hadn't felt in too long suffused every cell of his body. Sirius wanted to bury his face in Remus' chest and cry as every year, every day, every minute, he'd been without the other man began to filter through the cracks in the hard shell he forged. How had he gone so long without the feeling the other man had always inspired in him? How had he managed to breathe without seeing Remus' smile, without hearing his laugh, every day?
Sirius stepped away from Remus as the loss of those years became too much and Remus' hand fell away. As he turned away from the other man, Sirius caught sight of a broken wand almost hidden beneath a ripped tapestry and his heart clenched at the thought of its owner's fate. He tugged it free, the dark wood shattering as he closed his hand around it, leaving splinters in his cupped palm. Sirius swallowed hard, tightening his fist around the fragments.
He heard Remus groan quietly, and he looked over his shoulder. The other man had his hand braced against his hip - the fabric of his trousers was ripped and singed but there was no bloodstains - as he sank down to sit on the trunk of a fallen tree. "Rest, Sirius," he said softly, patting the space beside him. "Let me have a look at your leg."
Sirius looked down at the torn skin of his calf again and shook his head. "My leg is fine." He barely recognised his own voice; it sounded unnatural, pervasive in the oppressive silence.
"Sit down, anyway," Remus insisted. Sirius sighed but sat down beside Remus, fingering a large shard of wand as they both gazed out over the ruined grounds.
"They’ll rebuild," Remus said with a certainty Sirius wished he could feel. "Minerva will see to it."
Sirius nodded automatically then winced as the sharp wood pierced his thumb. He glanced down, watching with morbid fascination as blood welled up out the wound then slowly dripped to the grass below. His nerve endings cried out as his thumb swelled and throbbed. Sirius closed his eyes, relishing the sharp tendrils of pain that unfurled along the digit and into the palm of his hand. That, and the burning in his leg, made it finally sink in.
He was still alive.
Two wars. Two wars, countless losses and betrayals, losing James and Lily, losing Remus in an entirely different way... He had so many scars that needed time to heal; time he would miraculously now have. He exhaled sharply through his nose. Voldemort was gone and he and Remus had done what they'd both thought was impossible. They'd survived.
"It’s over," Remus said wondrously, putting Sirius' thoughts into words. "It’s really over."
He turned to Sirius, as if for confirmation, and Sirius saw the spark of realisation light Remus’ shadowed eyes, turning them the same clear sky-blue he remembered so vividly, a memory that he'd hidden away for twelve years so it couldn't be taken from him. His own eyes welled with the tears he'd managed to fight back so far and he quickly looked away.
"Yeah," he breathed, dropping his gaze to the splatters of blood at his feet as he blinked away his tears. "It's over."
They'd spent years of their lives fighting this war. It had taken Remus from him in a hail of suspicion and lies. It had taken him from Remus, burying him in Azkaban for twelve long years with only his memories of how their life together had fallen apart to keep him company.
Sirius glanced at Remus, tracing his profile with eyes that felt disturbingly wet again before he looked away. So much had been stolen from them. This was not the life they were supposed to have, not the life they'd planned late at night, curled around each other in a bed far too small for two almost-men. They'd had plans: a flat together, jobs, god-fathers to any progeny produced by James and Peter. They were going to be bonded once the werewolf laws changed - and Sirius had been determined that they would be the ones to see that they were - and spend the next ninety or so years loving and laughing and getting old together.
They were going to live happily ever after.
"It wasn't supposed to be this way," Sirius murmured, voice hoarse and so low he wasn't sure if Remus had heard him. He looked up, swallowing hard when he saw Remus staring back at him, his head cocked questioningly. "Our lives," he clarified, watching as a sad comprehension snatched the glimmer of light from Remus' eyes. He silently cursed himself for taking yet another moment of peace and contentment from Remus.
Remus' head turned and he gazed contemplatively out over the grounds. "No," he said eventually. "Nothing went the way we planned it, did it? Peter betraying us, James and Lily gone, you in Azkaban, and me..."
Remus' lips tightened briefly as the old grief they both knew so well darkened his eyes then he shook his head. "It all seemed so easy when we were talking about it." He gestured towards the lake. "I can still remember the day we planned it all out. The smell of the lake and the grass -" Remus grinned suddenly, glancing at Sirius from the corner of his eye. "You with that doggy whiff you used to say was a new aftershave when anyone else noticed it."
Sirius surprised himself with a sharp bark of amusement. Remus looked pleased at his reaction, his lined face brighter as he turned back towards the lake. "We were lying under the big tree with the really rough bark you liked to pick off and you were teasing me by running your fingers under my shirt and over my stomach."
"You liked it," Sirius retorted, and Remus snorted.
"Yeah, when we were in private. Not when you got me so turned on I could barely walk back to the castle for dinner."
Sirius huffed in amusement then his smile faded. It had been so long since those lazy, carefree days. "Do you still like that?" he asked suddenly, surprised by his own question.
Remus' mouth quirked and pink stained his cheeks. "Er, yeah," he said, voice huskier now. "Yeah, I do." He shot Sirius a nervous glance. "At least, I think I do. It's been... a long time."
Hope flashed through Sirius and he couldn't help the smile that turned up the corners of his mouth. He looked down at his hands, absently noting that the wound from the splintered wand had stopped bleeding, leaving streaks of russet across his grimy palm. In the years they'd spent apart, he'd lost the memory of how Remus' skin had felt beneath his hands, how it had tasted and smelled. Would it still be the same now? Were they still the same?
Sirius turned his hand over, frowning at their aged appearance. He didn't recognise himself in the mirror some days, and when he looked at Remus, he was still startled by the deep creases around his eyes, the grey in his hair, the weariness that dimmed those blue eyes that had seen so much pain already. Were they just too different now? Had their hearts - like their bodies - become too weary to contemplate starting over now they finally had the freedom to do so? Could they really salvage something from the life they'd left in tatters?
Remus stood and stretched, arching his back carefully, before turning to face Sirius. "This isn't the life we thought we'd have," he agreed quietly. "But it's the life we've ended up with."
He touched a gentle finger to Sirius' chin and drew his face upwards, catching his eye and smiling softly. "We took different roads to get here, Padfoot, but we're together again now. We can't go back, but we can go the rest of the way together."
He held out his hand to Sirius, not trying to hide the fact it was trembling. "If that's what you want."
Sirius felt something unknot inside him and he smiled, taking Remus' hand and allowing him to pull him to his feet. He found the remnants of his teenage bravado and pulled Remus in close, brushing their lips together lightly. Remus' mouth turned up into an approving smile, and Sirius laughed, giddy with relief, before catching Remus' lips with his own.
It was like coming home. The taste - Gods, he remembered this taste! - of Remus' lips, the scrape of his stubble, the soft moan that reverberated through Sirius and set his blood on fire. Their lips parted and tongues met, tentatively stroking, testing all the old hot spots that used to drive each other mad with desire. Sirius' hands clenched in Remus' cloak, holding him close, feeling the heat of his body warm his own. Long, elegant fingers combed through the untamed hair at his nape before cupping his face. A calloused thumb traced the curve of Sirius' neck, and Sirius shuddered. A guttural groan was torn from his lips and he deepened the kiss, desperately trying to make up for all the kisses they'd missed.
Their bodies pressed together tightly, hands clutching and tugging, until the distant rumble of falling rubble made them remember where they were. Panting slightly, they broke apart, but kept each other close. Sirius leaned in, brushing his nose against Remus' jaw and breathing in the scent of him.
"I want," he whispered, finally answering Remus' question. "I want very much."
fin.
Team: Team Sirius
Title: The Improbable Adventure of Being Alive
Rating: PG
Warnings: None.
Genre(s): Angst/Romance
Word Count: 2244
Summary: He'd always planned to spend his life with Remus, but fate and Peter Pettigrew had set him on a different path. Now, does he have a second chance to grab hold of the life he thought had slipped through his fingers?
Notes: Magical AU. Alternative version of canon which ignores a certain event in OOTP. Thank you to my beta, D, for whipping this into shape. Title from a quote by Diane Ackerman: "Life is a thing that mutates without warning, not always in enviable ways. All part of the improbable adventure of being alive, of being a brainy biped with giant dreams on a crazy blue planet."
Prompt: 23. "I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be." ~ Douglas Adams
Sirius stood on the stone stairs and stared out over the grounds of the school he had once thought of as home, his stomach churning. It was almost unrecognisable. The grounds - scene to many a snowball fight, lazy summer afternoon naps, and clandestine kisses - were littered with debris from the castle walls. Uprooted trees burned slowly, sharp cracks regularly breaking the eerie silence, and the ground itself was scarred with deep gouges, sliced open in the life-and-death battle that had come to its violent conclusion less than an hour earlier.
He stepped down off the step and onto the grass. His foot hit a large piece of stone, sending it rattling across the rubble, and he watched it with numb fascination. He should be tired - exhausted - after months of catching naps whenever and wherever he could as he and Remus hid from Voldemort’s Death Eaters. He should be starving - parched - after resorting far too often to eating scraps from an overflowing Muggle bin and quenching his thirst from dirty puddles of rainwater, but he wasn’t. His body - pushed to its limits over the last year - felt light, weightless, and his mind detached from everything around him, as if he’d been watching one of Remus’ black and white films instead of being in the heart of the action.
“Shock”, he heard Lily’s ‘don’t mess with me, I’m a Healer’ voice whisper in his mind, and he nodded absently in agreement. He walked without a set destination, slowly picking his way through the ruins, stepping around the drying patches of blood that spotted the ground without so much as a pang of sorrow. The acrid scent of smoke lingered in the air, filling his lungs with every breath as the spiraling grey plumes made the sky above murky and grey.
A wail from the direction of the castle made him turn around, a spark of something painful flaring to life inside him, putting the first crack in the dark ice around his heart. He could see the swirl of cloaks in the shadows of the Hall, hear the anguished sobs of the bereaved and the subdued murmurs of the survivors. With a shaky exhale, Sirius turned away once again, edging his way around a large chunk of a turret he suspected was from Gryffindor Tower. An ember of that same indistinguishable emotion from earlier smoldered hotter and brighter in his gut.
Sirius felt a jolt of pain shoot up his leg and he looked down, his eyes widening at the sight of his trouser leg in ragged tatters, a long, jagged wound running the length of his calf beneath the shredded fabric. How had that happened? He poked at the injury, sending a fresh wave of hurt washing over him, but the shallow cut was clotting just fine and he had other things to get on with.
If only he could figure out where to begin.
"Hey."
Sirius hadn’t heard Remus approach but he wasn’t surprised by his presence. Remus had always been there when Sirius needed him; before Sirius had even realised he needed him most of the time. He couldn't look at him, afraid that the very sight of Remus right now would make the ruin of his life finally real, that Remus would make him feel everything that he’d kept dammed up over the last sixteen years.
"Are you alright?" Remus asked, and Sirius nodded curtly. He could feel the heat of Remus' body, a body he'd once known better than his own, at his back, and he tried to repress a shiver. Then Remus' hand was lightly pressing between his shoulder blades and Sirius couldn't stop himself from turning, his neck twinging at the sharp movement.
Remus gave him a tired half-smile, the lines around his eyes deepening, and a warmth he hadn't felt in too long suffused every cell of his body. Sirius wanted to bury his face in Remus' chest and cry as every year, every day, every minute, he'd been without the other man began to filter through the cracks in the hard shell he forged. How had he gone so long without the feeling the other man had always inspired in him? How had he managed to breathe without seeing Remus' smile, without hearing his laugh, every day?
Sirius stepped away from Remus as the loss of those years became too much and Remus' hand fell away. As he turned away from the other man, Sirius caught sight of a broken wand almost hidden beneath a ripped tapestry and his heart clenched at the thought of its owner's fate. He tugged it free, the dark wood shattering as he closed his hand around it, leaving splinters in his cupped palm. Sirius swallowed hard, tightening his fist around the fragments.
He heard Remus groan quietly, and he looked over his shoulder. The other man had his hand braced against his hip - the fabric of his trousers was ripped and singed but there was no bloodstains - as he sank down to sit on the trunk of a fallen tree. "Rest, Sirius," he said softly, patting the space beside him. "Let me have a look at your leg."
Sirius looked down at the torn skin of his calf again and shook his head. "My leg is fine." He barely recognised his own voice; it sounded unnatural, pervasive in the oppressive silence.
"Sit down, anyway," Remus insisted. Sirius sighed but sat down beside Remus, fingering a large shard of wand as they both gazed out over the ruined grounds.
"They’ll rebuild," Remus said with a certainty Sirius wished he could feel. "Minerva will see to it."
Sirius nodded automatically then winced as the sharp wood pierced his thumb. He glanced down, watching with morbid fascination as blood welled up out the wound then slowly dripped to the grass below. His nerve endings cried out as his thumb swelled and throbbed. Sirius closed his eyes, relishing the sharp tendrils of pain that unfurled along the digit and into the palm of his hand. That, and the burning in his leg, made it finally sink in.
He was still alive.
Two wars. Two wars, countless losses and betrayals, losing James and Lily, losing Remus in an entirely different way... He had so many scars that needed time to heal; time he would miraculously now have. He exhaled sharply through his nose. Voldemort was gone and he and Remus had done what they'd both thought was impossible. They'd survived.
"It’s over," Remus said wondrously, putting Sirius' thoughts into words. "It’s really over."
He turned to Sirius, as if for confirmation, and Sirius saw the spark of realisation light Remus’ shadowed eyes, turning them the same clear sky-blue he remembered so vividly, a memory that he'd hidden away for twelve years so it couldn't be taken from him. His own eyes welled with the tears he'd managed to fight back so far and he quickly looked away.
"Yeah," he breathed, dropping his gaze to the splatters of blood at his feet as he blinked away his tears. "It's over."
They'd spent years of their lives fighting this war. It had taken Remus from him in a hail of suspicion and lies. It had taken him from Remus, burying him in Azkaban for twelve long years with only his memories of how their life together had fallen apart to keep him company.
Sirius glanced at Remus, tracing his profile with eyes that felt disturbingly wet again before he looked away. So much had been stolen from them. This was not the life they were supposed to have, not the life they'd planned late at night, curled around each other in a bed far too small for two almost-men. They'd had plans: a flat together, jobs, god-fathers to any progeny produced by James and Peter. They were going to be bonded once the werewolf laws changed - and Sirius had been determined that they would be the ones to see that they were - and spend the next ninety or so years loving and laughing and getting old together.
They were going to live happily ever after.
"It wasn't supposed to be this way," Sirius murmured, voice hoarse and so low he wasn't sure if Remus had heard him. He looked up, swallowing hard when he saw Remus staring back at him, his head cocked questioningly. "Our lives," he clarified, watching as a sad comprehension snatched the glimmer of light from Remus' eyes. He silently cursed himself for taking yet another moment of peace and contentment from Remus.
Remus' head turned and he gazed contemplatively out over the grounds. "No," he said eventually. "Nothing went the way we planned it, did it? Peter betraying us, James and Lily gone, you in Azkaban, and me..."
Remus' lips tightened briefly as the old grief they both knew so well darkened his eyes then he shook his head. "It all seemed so easy when we were talking about it." He gestured towards the lake. "I can still remember the day we planned it all out. The smell of the lake and the grass -" Remus grinned suddenly, glancing at Sirius from the corner of his eye. "You with that doggy whiff you used to say was a new aftershave when anyone else noticed it."
Sirius surprised himself with a sharp bark of amusement. Remus looked pleased at his reaction, his lined face brighter as he turned back towards the lake. "We were lying under the big tree with the really rough bark you liked to pick off and you were teasing me by running your fingers under my shirt and over my stomach."
"You liked it," Sirius retorted, and Remus snorted.
"Yeah, when we were in private. Not when you got me so turned on I could barely walk back to the castle for dinner."
Sirius huffed in amusement then his smile faded. It had been so long since those lazy, carefree days. "Do you still like that?" he asked suddenly, surprised by his own question.
Remus' mouth quirked and pink stained his cheeks. "Er, yeah," he said, voice huskier now. "Yeah, I do." He shot Sirius a nervous glance. "At least, I think I do. It's been... a long time."
Hope flashed through Sirius and he couldn't help the smile that turned up the corners of his mouth. He looked down at his hands, absently noting that the wound from the splintered wand had stopped bleeding, leaving streaks of russet across his grimy palm. In the years they'd spent apart, he'd lost the memory of how Remus' skin had felt beneath his hands, how it had tasted and smelled. Would it still be the same now? Were they still the same?
Sirius turned his hand over, frowning at their aged appearance. He didn't recognise himself in the mirror some days, and when he looked at Remus, he was still startled by the deep creases around his eyes, the grey in his hair, the weariness that dimmed those blue eyes that had seen so much pain already. Were they just too different now? Had their hearts - like their bodies - become too weary to contemplate starting over now they finally had the freedom to do so? Could they really salvage something from the life they'd left in tatters?
Remus stood and stretched, arching his back carefully, before turning to face Sirius. "This isn't the life we thought we'd have," he agreed quietly. "But it's the life we've ended up with."
He touched a gentle finger to Sirius' chin and drew his face upwards, catching his eye and smiling softly. "We took different roads to get here, Padfoot, but we're together again now. We can't go back, but we can go the rest of the way together."
He held out his hand to Sirius, not trying to hide the fact it was trembling. "If that's what you want."
Sirius felt something unknot inside him and he smiled, taking Remus' hand and allowing him to pull him to his feet. He found the remnants of his teenage bravado and pulled Remus in close, brushing their lips together lightly. Remus' mouth turned up into an approving smile, and Sirius laughed, giddy with relief, before catching Remus' lips with his own.
It was like coming home. The taste - Gods, he remembered this taste! - of Remus' lips, the scrape of his stubble, the soft moan that reverberated through Sirius and set his blood on fire. Their lips parted and tongues met, tentatively stroking, testing all the old hot spots that used to drive each other mad with desire. Sirius' hands clenched in Remus' cloak, holding him close, feeling the heat of his body warm his own. Long, elegant fingers combed through the untamed hair at his nape before cupping his face. A calloused thumb traced the curve of Sirius' neck, and Sirius shuddered. A guttural groan was torn from his lips and he deepened the kiss, desperately trying to make up for all the kisses they'd missed.
Their bodies pressed together tightly, hands clutching and tugging, until the distant rumble of falling rubble made them remember where they were. Panting slightly, they broke apart, but kept each other close. Sirius leaned in, brushing his nose against Remus' jaw and breathing in the scent of him.
"I want," he whispered, finally answering Remus' question. "I want very much."
fin.