Fic: And In the Morning for trisstiss
Title: And In the Morning
Author: grandilloquism
Recipient: trisstiss
Rating: PG
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): *extreme weirdness*
Word count: 1300
Summary: He remembered a night with a sky that made you wistful and sad and small just to think of it, not just one colour, but every colour, and all of them clear and brilliant and beautiful. He remembered running, not just him but everyone, it felt like, everyone that was and had been and would be, forever, and all of them running, chasing - something.
Notes: I wrote (or started on) about seven different versions of this, all angstier than the last. Finally, this happened. There’s no one legend or fairy tale I used here, but rather a combination of the Wild Hunt, which runs the countryside around Solstice, and fairy rings or getting pixie-led, and coming to the next morning with very little idea of what happened. trisstiss, I hope you like it, and thank you mods, for the extension, and for still being so nice when I went over it.
Time does strange things when you run, as it does when you’re in any kind of rush. Seconds stretch and shorten, minutes loiter as they fly, hours that seem interminable finish in no time at all. Remus didn’t remember how long he had been running, why he was running, only that he was, had been, chasing - something. He slowed, breath coming in out in out in a harsh rhythm. His feet carried him on when he would have stopped, the pattern of one foot in front of the other stronger than his fatigue.
He could hear the heavy beat of his heart in his ears, just out of time with his steps, and above that his breath, slightly slower: step inhale thud thud thud step exhale thud thud thud step inhale thud thud thud step exhale. Slowly, the muscles in his legs screaming at their mistreatment, he stopped.
He was in a forest of skeleton trees, their leaves gone for the season, their branches bearing icicle fruit. What was not covered in snow was limned in frost, making the world a glittering, eye-smarting blur of white-on-grey-on-white-on blue. He didn’t know where he was, and it wasn’t until his breath had calmed somewhat, and the heart noise had retreated that he registered one eerie fact: wherever he was, it was quiet in the way that no forest ever should be.
There were no leaves to stir, no birds to sing, no insects to chirrup, no grass, no wind, no animals. There were trees, and snow, and earth, and ice. Remus’ breath was vapour in front of him, but his shiver was from more than the cold.
Regardless, the cold was doing an adequate job. It was insidious, creeping into his bones and pushing his body temperature down to glacial. He began to shiver, and pulled his coat closed, tucking his bare hands into the pockets.
A sound broke the silence, and if he had been thinking that things couldn’t get any worse, that sound reminded him that he didn’t have the sort of luck that was prudent to depend on. It was the sound of feet through snow, and branches crackling as something pushed through the undergrowth. He licked his lips, and wished dearly that he knew where his wand was.
It was difficult to pinpoint the path the sound came from, but Remus put his back to a tree and faced approximately the right direction, and was rewarded a moment later by a flash of something red in the trees. The crunch of boots on snow became louder, and the brush of clothes against bare branches less as the foliage thinned out. A figure came into view: tall, slim, male, and a contrast of pale skin and dark hair, dark clothes, and the scarlet splash of a scarf wrapped crookedly around his neck. He smiled when he saw Remus.
“I thought I lost you. Or was it was it you that lost me? It does get hard to tell, sometimes.” His voice was friendly, good-humoured, and his smile was alight with mischief.
“I-“ Remus’ hands left his pockets and took an unsteady grip on the icy bark at his back. “Who are you?” He felt like the face, the voice, the smile were all familiar, that he should have known them better than anything, that he loved them better than anything, but he couldn’t place them. It produced a sensation like terror, like fear and loss and all the half-remembered nightmares he had ever dreamt descending on him at once.
The man smiled, easy. “And why should I tell you that?”
“Not merely because it’s polite, I’m sure,” he snapped without knowing it, without any conscious choice to reply. He held his hand to his mouth, and wondered.
“No, not that.” His smile hadn’t faltered, had, if anything, grown. “But maybe I’ll tell you anyway-that is, if you don’t already know.”
Remus felt another acerbic reply between his teeth, but in his mind a name had bloomed, a single flower in the permafrost, and the concentration it required quite stalled everything else. “It’s not-“ he hesitated, “It isn’t Sirius, is it?”
Perhaps-Sirius’ smile turned into a smirk, “You don’t sound very sure.”
“Sirius,” he repeated, with firmness. “Like the star.”
“Something like,” Sirius quirked his head to the side. “Some might beg to differ.”
“But not me.”
“That’s right.” Sirius tugged the scarf off his neck and walked the few steps it took him to get close enough to sling it around Remus’. It smelt of cold weather and Forest. He analysed that thought, because the forest he was in smelled of very little-certainly cold, but clean, with none of the rotting living life growing dying thriving springing magic that clung to the red wool. “Never you.” His brow furrowed, just for a second, and then smoothed; he asked, “Do you know who you are?”
“Remus,” he replied automatically. “Remus Lupin.”
“Well, there’s that.” Sirius took another step closer, and then another, until he was very close indeed, and then prised Remus’ hands off the tree he still clung to. They were numb and painful with cold, and Sirius held them between his own hands, which were warm and dry and a little rough. It sent a thrill of something down his back, that contact, something warm and sweet and heady and electric and familiar. Very familiar. “Though why I ever for a minute thought Remus Lupin,” he stretched the name out mockingly, “could forget who he was, I’m not sure.”
“Who are you,” he asked slowly, haltingly, “to me?”
Sirius’ hands tightened painfully around Remus’, and then eased off. The grin he gave him was just as easy and languid as the others, but it made Remus feel as if something were wrong, as if it were a signal he could parse into a warning.
“Sirius,” he said, when it became obvious he was not going to speak, and liked the sibilance on his tongue so much he said it a second time, “Sirius Black.” And then, “Padfoot.”
Tension dropped from his posture, “Moony.”
“Sirius, what’s-“ he was not yet back together in his own head, not all the way, and he felt thoughts like satellites orbiting around him. “I don’t-“ he wanted to pace, but that would mean letting go of Sirius’ hands. He settled for leaning back against the tree, closing his eyes, frowning. He focused all of his attention inwards, intent on finding the answers.
He remembered a night with a sky that made you wistful and sad and small just to think of it, not just one colour, but every colour, and all of them clear and brilliant and beautiful. He remembered running, not just him but everyone, it felt like, everyone that was and had been and would be, forever, and all of them running, chasing - something.
Sirius had crowded closer, their clasped hands pinned between their chests; the gentle touch of their foreheads together, and Remus’ eyes flew open. Sirius’ eyes, huge in his face, smoke grey touched with charcoal and ash and thundercloud, the thick line of his lashes a dark border, held a smile, and something more. Something familiar.
He felt his shoulders relax, and he swiped his thumb along the outside of one of Sirius’ hands. “Padfoot,” he said, softly. “Can we go home?”
Something in his memory was trickling away, something about the night before, but he didn’t consider it a loss. He couldn’t be sure of where he was, or why his legs ached and his feet hurt, or why his breath was coming a little fast and his heart felt tired in his chest, but Sirius was there, and he was smiling.
“Sure, Moony.”
Author: grandilloquism
Recipient: trisstiss
Rating: PG
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): *extreme weirdness*
Word count: 1300
Summary: He remembered a night with a sky that made you wistful and sad and small just to think of it, not just one colour, but every colour, and all of them clear and brilliant and beautiful. He remembered running, not just him but everyone, it felt like, everyone that was and had been and would be, forever, and all of them running, chasing - something.
Notes: I wrote (or started on) about seven different versions of this, all angstier than the last. Finally, this happened. There’s no one legend or fairy tale I used here, but rather a combination of the Wild Hunt, which runs the countryside around Solstice, and fairy rings or getting pixie-led, and coming to the next morning with very little idea of what happened. trisstiss, I hope you like it, and thank you mods, for the extension, and for still being so nice when I went over it.
Time does strange things when you run, as it does when you’re in any kind of rush. Seconds stretch and shorten, minutes loiter as they fly, hours that seem interminable finish in no time at all. Remus didn’t remember how long he had been running, why he was running, only that he was, had been, chasing - something. He slowed, breath coming in out in out in a harsh rhythm. His feet carried him on when he would have stopped, the pattern of one foot in front of the other stronger than his fatigue.
He could hear the heavy beat of his heart in his ears, just out of time with his steps, and above that his breath, slightly slower: step inhale thud thud thud step exhale thud thud thud step inhale thud thud thud step exhale. Slowly, the muscles in his legs screaming at their mistreatment, he stopped.
He was in a forest of skeleton trees, their leaves gone for the season, their branches bearing icicle fruit. What was not covered in snow was limned in frost, making the world a glittering, eye-smarting blur of white-on-grey-on-white-on blue. He didn’t know where he was, and it wasn’t until his breath had calmed somewhat, and the heart noise had retreated that he registered one eerie fact: wherever he was, it was quiet in the way that no forest ever should be.
There were no leaves to stir, no birds to sing, no insects to chirrup, no grass, no wind, no animals. There were trees, and snow, and earth, and ice. Remus’ breath was vapour in front of him, but his shiver was from more than the cold.
Regardless, the cold was doing an adequate job. It was insidious, creeping into his bones and pushing his body temperature down to glacial. He began to shiver, and pulled his coat closed, tucking his bare hands into the pockets.
A sound broke the silence, and if he had been thinking that things couldn’t get any worse, that sound reminded him that he didn’t have the sort of luck that was prudent to depend on. It was the sound of feet through snow, and branches crackling as something pushed through the undergrowth. He licked his lips, and wished dearly that he knew where his wand was.
It was difficult to pinpoint the path the sound came from, but Remus put his back to a tree and faced approximately the right direction, and was rewarded a moment later by a flash of something red in the trees. The crunch of boots on snow became louder, and the brush of clothes against bare branches less as the foliage thinned out. A figure came into view: tall, slim, male, and a contrast of pale skin and dark hair, dark clothes, and the scarlet splash of a scarf wrapped crookedly around his neck. He smiled when he saw Remus.
“I thought I lost you. Or was it was it you that lost me? It does get hard to tell, sometimes.” His voice was friendly, good-humoured, and his smile was alight with mischief.
“I-“ Remus’ hands left his pockets and took an unsteady grip on the icy bark at his back. “Who are you?” He felt like the face, the voice, the smile were all familiar, that he should have known them better than anything, that he loved them better than anything, but he couldn’t place them. It produced a sensation like terror, like fear and loss and all the half-remembered nightmares he had ever dreamt descending on him at once.
The man smiled, easy. “And why should I tell you that?”
“Not merely because it’s polite, I’m sure,” he snapped without knowing it, without any conscious choice to reply. He held his hand to his mouth, and wondered.
“No, not that.” His smile hadn’t faltered, had, if anything, grown. “But maybe I’ll tell you anyway-that is, if you don’t already know.”
Remus felt another acerbic reply between his teeth, but in his mind a name had bloomed, a single flower in the permafrost, and the concentration it required quite stalled everything else. “It’s not-“ he hesitated, “It isn’t Sirius, is it?”
Perhaps-Sirius’ smile turned into a smirk, “You don’t sound very sure.”
“Sirius,” he repeated, with firmness. “Like the star.”
“Something like,” Sirius quirked his head to the side. “Some might beg to differ.”
“But not me.”
“That’s right.” Sirius tugged the scarf off his neck and walked the few steps it took him to get close enough to sling it around Remus’. It smelt of cold weather and Forest. He analysed that thought, because the forest he was in smelled of very little-certainly cold, but clean, with none of the rotting living life growing dying thriving springing magic that clung to the red wool. “Never you.” His brow furrowed, just for a second, and then smoothed; he asked, “Do you know who you are?”
“Remus,” he replied automatically. “Remus Lupin.”
“Well, there’s that.” Sirius took another step closer, and then another, until he was very close indeed, and then prised Remus’ hands off the tree he still clung to. They were numb and painful with cold, and Sirius held them between his own hands, which were warm and dry and a little rough. It sent a thrill of something down his back, that contact, something warm and sweet and heady and electric and familiar. Very familiar. “Though why I ever for a minute thought Remus Lupin,” he stretched the name out mockingly, “could forget who he was, I’m not sure.”
“Who are you,” he asked slowly, haltingly, “to me?”
Sirius’ hands tightened painfully around Remus’, and then eased off. The grin he gave him was just as easy and languid as the others, but it made Remus feel as if something were wrong, as if it were a signal he could parse into a warning.
“Sirius,” he said, when it became obvious he was not going to speak, and liked the sibilance on his tongue so much he said it a second time, “Sirius Black.” And then, “Padfoot.”
Tension dropped from his posture, “Moony.”
“Sirius, what’s-“ he was not yet back together in his own head, not all the way, and he felt thoughts like satellites orbiting around him. “I don’t-“ he wanted to pace, but that would mean letting go of Sirius’ hands. He settled for leaning back against the tree, closing his eyes, frowning. He focused all of his attention inwards, intent on finding the answers.
He remembered a night with a sky that made you wistful and sad and small just to think of it, not just one colour, but every colour, and all of them clear and brilliant and beautiful. He remembered running, not just him but everyone, it felt like, everyone that was and had been and would be, forever, and all of them running, chasing - something.
Sirius had crowded closer, their clasped hands pinned between their chests; the gentle touch of their foreheads together, and Remus’ eyes flew open. Sirius’ eyes, huge in his face, smoke grey touched with charcoal and ash and thundercloud, the thick line of his lashes a dark border, held a smile, and something more. Something familiar.
He felt his shoulders relax, and he swiped his thumb along the outside of one of Sirius’ hands. “Padfoot,” he said, softly. “Can we go home?”
Something in his memory was trickling away, something about the night before, but he didn’t consider it a loss. He couldn’t be sure of where he was, or why his legs ached and his feet hurt, or why his breath was coming a little fast and his heart felt tired in his chest, but Sirius was there, and he was smiling.
“Sure, Moony.”