The Times of our Meeting
Written by blacksatinrose.
Pairing(s): Remus/Sirius.
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Thrice they meet, and twice they say goodbye.
Author's Notes: I suck at banter. A lot. Therefore, um, well, I've got two out of three, and there are a handful of things in here which are almost-but-not-quite banter, so maybe it's more like two and a half out of three.
1.
The sour air hung thick and too warm in a room overflowing with bodies pressed too close. Right and left, before and behind, people sat drinking, laughing, talking quietly amongst themselves, seated one and two and three and four to a table, with mugs filled with lager or glasses of brightly colored drinks topped with little umbrellas, close at hand. Though it wasn’t as loud as pubs can get, there were people... everywhere.
That was the first thing that put Remus on edge.
Quietly, blending into the crowd as well as he could, he navigated past standing people, and sitting people and people passing him, coming from the same direction or the opposite direction. Still close to the door, a heavyset man stepped squarely on Remus’s left big toe and muttered an apology as he continued by, and Remus narrowly avoided stepping on someone else’s while moving around an inhabited chair, displaced from one table and now jutting into the aisle.
There was sweat in the air, sweat and laughter, and Remus had no idea where in this pub to look. He searched the shadows at first, the corners along the edges, the farthest points from the electric lights and then, when there was nothing there, he looked one more time. It wasn’t until a waitress nearly collided with him, whispering “I’m sorry!” twice before scurrying away, that he looked to the center of the room at last.
And there was Sirius Black, undisguised, flooded in light, drinking from a large glass of what looked like water, an immense amount of nearly finished food spread out before him like a banquet.
All of the wizarding world, and half the muggle one, was searching for this man, and there he was, in plain view, hair brushed back from his face and pony-tailed, his eyes sunken, and cheekbones sharp. He hadn’t even bothered with taking a corner table.
That was the second thing that put Remus on edge.
With a heavy sigh, he made his way to the table, and wordlessly set his coat down in an unoccupied chair. Sirius glanced up, put his glass down, and said “You’re on time. What the hell?”
Remus raised an eyebrow as he sat, looking round for a server. “I rather like being punctual, actually,” he said, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the low roar of the room.
“Still the same Moony.” Sirius took a drink. Still the same Padfoot.
“I’ve always thought people weren’t given to change without reason.” Remus flagged down the waitress, ordered an amaretto sour. This close, he could smell the liquor coming from Sirius’s cup, which wasn’t water after all, and why would he have thought so?
Sirius offered Remus an untouched plate of chips with bony hands and a palpable reluctance. In truth, Remus was a bit peckish, but he gently pushed it away and shook his head. “I’ve already eaten,” he said and looked over the plates, the half-eaten, dry steak, the bit of chicken, and the almost finished red potatoes and boiled greens. The bread, almost gone now as well. “This is a great deal of food for one person.”
Sirius glanced up and took another bite of his meat. No answer ventured. None needed.
When the waitress arrived with his daiquiri, Remus took it with a smile, turning over a handful of muggle money to her. Watching the exchange, Sirius bit into a chicken leg. “God, this is good,” he said through his chewing; it seemed Azkaban had robbed him of a number of social graces. Or perhaps it was the hunger. Remus said nothing, sipping his drink, until Sirius put down the bone and looked up, wiping his mouth with a napkin. In an instant, he said “I’m leaving England, Moony.” He paused, sipped his drink. “I wanted you to know.”
“Where are you going?” The question came before Remus realized he was going to ask, but he didn’t withdraw it, once it had been spoken.
With a small grimace, Sirius shook his head. “I can’t say, you know that. If they ask you-“
“You ought to know I would never tell.”
“Right. Except they might force you, so it’s better if you don’t know anything at all.” Sirius sipped his drink, and Remus watched his face, the ghost of his former self still lingering around the edges of his eyes. “So I’m not telling anyone. No one. Not even Harry.” He glanced up. “Not even you.”
Which made sense, really. It was good logic, good, solid logic. And Remus hated it.
Sirius nudged the chicken leg with the edge of his fork, and started down at his plate. Remus accepted his drink from the waitress with a little smile, and Sirius watched him so intensely, so deliberately, it was as though he were being memorized.
“I do know you wouldn’t tell, Remus,” Sirius said, finally. “You ought to know I trust-“his voice trailed off. There was only one way to finish that sentence, and as it was a bald-faced lie, Remus could only guess it was a rush of either honesty or embarrassment that stopped him from saying it. “Right. I’m leaving, that’s all. It’s not safe.”
Also good, solid logic, and no it wasn’t safe but of course, neither was sitting in the middle of the room, undisguised, and when had Sirius ever done anything safely anyway? Remus wanted to ask that, actually; he opened his mouth to say it, but the words were stubborn and his voice didn’t quite work, not for those words, so he sipped his drink and said, “I’m being selfish.”
Sirius looked up. His face was pale and tired and worn down. “What?”
Remus waved, a dismissal of the subject, because old habits die so hard. “Nothing, nothing.” He took a chip after all, but only the one. “I suppose I had hoped you would stay with me. After so long alone, it would be useful.” After a moment, he added, “To you, that is.”
Looking at Remus over the edge of his glass, Sirius raised an eyebrow and lowered his head. “To both of us,” he said. “Right. There’s always time for that once we find Peter. When we do... I’d feed him to the sodding hippogriff, but it’d be too fast.”
The entire pub smelled of food and alcohol. Remus looked away and wished he’d ordered something stronger.
2.
The skies were weeping when the bird came to Remus’s house. It was a tropical sort, with multi-colored plumes, shaking raindrops from its feathers with a sort of irritated glare. Truthfully, Remus had expected it for some time; Sirius couldn’t live outside of Britain for long, not while Harry was still in Scotland, at Hogwarts. Not with Peter still at large, and still so capable of hiding.
Outside, the clouds choked sunlight with their grey haze while inside, warmed by the fireplace and still wrapped in his house robe, Remus stirred his tea, and read the note.
Moony, (It always began with “Moony.” The tea was too sweet.)
Harry’s scar is burning. I’ve told him I’m coming back to the Hogwarts area, but Buckbeak and I will need somewhere to stop and rest. Somewhere that isn’t, hopefully, some dank bloody cave.
Would you mind?
Signed,
A friend.
It was the first time Remus had heard from Sirius in weeks, and he would have liked to be able to say he’d expected a note sooner, but he couldn’t, as Sirius was Sirius. The transient, the “come-and-go-as-I-bloody-well-please.” Sirius the fugitive. Sirius, the likely-to-get-me-killed-if-we’re-caught-together, he reminded himself, as he wrote his acceptance. There was nothing like a bit of fugitive harboring to make one’s life complete.
He fed and watered the bird before sending her off to somewhere unrelated. He sent his own owl to Sirius, bearing his reply.
Of course I shouldn’t mind, and in fact, I do not mind. Startling, really.
It will be lovely to see you again.
(“Lovely,” he says. What a positively ancient word. I am beginning to feel my age.)
R.
No names, and not even full initials. That was the rule. It was a bit like a child’s game, really - it reminded one keenly of notes passed during lessons back in Hogwarts; little pages of scribbled words, marked with M, W, PF or P, to avoid implication in the dark deeds planned between them. But now, they passed notes over continents. Now, the stakes were different.
It was late October, and the air had finally grown cool from the long, hazy summer. And there was music in the air: the low whoosh of wind and the rattle of nearby trees dancing with rustling leaves. The world was changing, bit by bit, from green into crimson and gold, and Remus had never been certain whether autumn could be considered his favorite or least favorite of the seasons.
He watched the windows for the gentle fall of yellow leaves. By the time Sirius arrived, two weeks later, the trees had nearly gone barren.
* * *
Sirius was looking much better. There was no denying it. He arrived on Remus’s doorstep in clothes built for warmer climates, looking slightly chilled, his hair cut short as it had been when he was a boy. His face had filled out a bit, though it was still too thin. He greeted Remus with a smile when the door opened, and stood outside for a moment too long before Remus dragged him inside and closed the door, glancing around to be certain no one had seen, though he knew no one would have.
“You ought to wear a cloak. Or a hood.” Remus said, holding out his arm for his owl, which fluttered off of Sirius’s shoulder to land on the outstretched hand. Her claws pinched him, a welcome and familiar sting.
“Couldn’t be bothered. And anyway, I don’t look the way I did when I was last in Britain. I don’t think anyone will recognize-“ Arms crossed, Sirius glanced around the small house with an unspoken judgment on his face. He shook a stray leaf from his back and said, “God, this place is small. Has it always been this small?”
Remus navigated the owl into her cage. “Actually, I’d always thought it was rather too large, so I shrunk it a bit.”
“Very funny, Moony, you’re a wit. It didn’t look this small when we were seventeen. And it was better kept, outside.”
Remus looked away. “It’s been theorized, you know, that over time things tend to degrade in quality.”
Sirius sat down. “You could use a bloody carpenter,” he said, “Or a ladder and a nail or two. Or a sodding repair spell.”
Remus cocked an eyebrow. “You’re welcome to repair it if you’d like. Personally, I would rather not risk being caught by the muggle neighbors.”
Just like that, the atmosphere changed and Sirius sat down, grim faced and alone even in the kitchen of his only living friend. “I don’t have my wand now,” he said quietly. “You ought to know that.”
And, well, he did, but he’d forgotten. It was too easy to forget, particularly there in Remus’s home and with Sirius there. The world seemed so distant, and the past so close he could touch it.
Tea, then. It had always been a help for any awkward situation, which this rather was. “How long are you staying? Would you like some tea?” Remus retrieved a cup for himself and one for Sirius without waiting for an answer.
“Only until morning, probably. A day at most. I can’t rest for long, you know that - he needs me.” Sirius ran his hands through his cropped hair. “I can’t get used to it. The hair, I mean - bloody hell, Remus, it’s so short. I don’t mind, it’s only that it was long for so many years. ...I hadn’t really thought it would ever change.” He stopped, and his words hung, heavy, in the air, imposing a silence broken only by the quiet stirring of tea.
Remus added sugar, as much as he remembered it would take to turn tea palatable to Sirius. “You can stay in my old bedroom. It’s across from-“
“I remember,” Sirius said. He watched Remus move, studied every motion, just as he did in that pub all those months ago. Just as he had all those years ago. Remus tried not to think about it very much.
“Here’s your cup.” Remus lay the cup down, and Sirius drank without words, or questions.
It only took a minute or two to prepare another, and soon the two sat, awkwardly silent again, over the small kitchen table, each watching the wood grain, which was not fascinating so much as it was something to look at besides one another.
Halfway through the cup (and a rather good tea, though it would have been better with biscuits,) Remus felt the need to talk, primarily because he was fairly certain that no one else would. “What have you been doing, then?” He said, between sips. “Clearly hiding somewhere, which I shan’t ask you about for obvious reasons. However you must have done something with your time.”
Sirius didn’t answer. Instead, he finished the last drops of his tea and tried to drink again. Remus’s heart ached.
“Another cup?” Remus said quietly, and reached for the kettle.
Sirius shifted, crossed his arms, uncrossed them, looked up. “Yes. Yeah. I want... do you have anything to eat?”
“Well, I do tend to eat from time to time. As such, I try to keep some edibles in the house.” Remus stood. “I wouldn’t say anything for the flavor, however. One cannot be choosy with their groceries when one is, well, me.” Sirius shrugged, and poured himself a cup with hands still trembling just a bit. It must have been cold outside, Remus decided. At least, he had to hope that it was, that the tremble in those hands did not result from... something else. Twelve years of imprisonment and starvation, two years in hiding. Remus did not want to think about it.
Going through the cupboard, he located bread and jars of jam; he lay them beside Sirius and returned to his search for actual food, for an actual dinner. Sirius, he realized in an instant, would only be with him for one night. And how long had it been since he’d had a reasonable meal, or proper company? He glanced back at Sirius, bent slightly over his mug, holding it between both hands and sipping, eyes up and fixated on...
Remus raised an eyebrow. “You’re looking at me,” he said at last.
Sirius nodded, and set down the cup. “I can’t help it, can I?” he said. Sitting there, smaller than he ought to be because he was thinner than he ought to be, Sirius looked lost, in the room, in the world. He smeared jam onto his bread with thin hands, with knuckles that showed too distinctly from the rest of his long fingers. They hadn’t always been that way - once they were strong and firm and... Remus looked away, because he couldn’t bear to remember.
Remus decided it ought to be easier to talk around things.
He poured himself another cup of tea, and stirred it slowly, to eat the time.
Sirius looked up from his bread again, watching every twist of the spoon, and Remus tried not to break inside.
* * *
When night came, they sat before the fire flipping through Remus’s old scrapbooks. Just after he returned from Hogwarts, he’d managed to look at them again; twelve years had passed before that, when they lay unopened and unwanted, boxed in the back of Remus’s wardrobe. Sirius turned each page with a certain reverence, stared at each photograph as though he wanted to crawl inside.
“James was such a git,” he said, and smiled. “Look at him in that bloody Quidditch Robe. He ought to have been a professional player, you know. It would have been good for him.”
Remus shook his head and leaned closer. In the picture, James stood, his Silver Arrow in hand, leaning against his fellow team-mates. His face was alight, his hair a mess of tufts and unmanageable scruff. Remus traced the edge of the picture with his finger. His heart swelled. “He was otherwise occupied. Between Lily, and the war...”
“The war.” Sirius flipped the page, trapping Remus’s hand for an instant. “Here. This is better. Look, it’s...”
Them. The two of them, hand in hand, beneath the old tree. Beneath the picture, written out in Remus’s meticulous penmanship, 7th year. Just after N.E.W.T.s.
Sirius stared at it, and Remus looked away. It didn’t help, really - the image remained in his mind, and he could not quite shake it loose, though really he would have loved to. Voice shaking, he muttered, “I ought to have taken that out, but I forgot that.... I didn’t want to-“
Then Sirius laughed, and the world was just a bit upside down. And backwards, and unexpected, and God it was good to hear that sound, mellifluous and rich. Sirius shook his head, and Remus didn’t quite know what to say, or what was funny, and if he asked... He didn’t want to ask.
Instead, he looked at the picture again; at his own face, so much younger and just this side of a smile... and at Sirius, and the way he laughed into the wind. Their hands entwined, their scarves caught up in the air, winding around each other in an unending dance.
His past image turned to look at Sirius’s, and they kissed. His fingers moved up, buried themselves in Sirius’s hair, and in the present Remus could feel that, remember it. It was soft and gentle, waves curled around his fingertips to welcome them.
Memories, soft and quiet, danced through his mind.
Remus looked up at Sirius, who was still smiling, still laughing just a little.
“Only you would have taken the time to place that period after every letter of that acronym,” Sirius said; his eyes moved up, and he watched the photograph for a long moment. “I’ve missed you.”
When he reached out and laid his hand atop Remus’s, Remus did not pull away.
* * *
In the morning, once they had slept and eaten, Sirius sat on the floor at the coffee table, his back pressed against the sofa, and scribbled out a note to Harry. Remus watched from a nearby lounging chair, fingers wrapped around a cup of hot chocolate, warmed by its heat. The sweet scent calmed his frayed nerves and soothed the tension beginning to form in the back of his neck as Sirius wrote. Remus saw the date written there - November 22nd. He frowned. “November 22nd? Sirius. That’s only-“
“I know. I’m leaving in a few hours.” Sirius folded the note over and slid it into an envelope.
“You could speak to him from here, you know.”
“No. I mean, I know, but I have to go there, Remus, he needs me. And I can’t floo in case someone sees me. So, this is it, then.” Sirius looked up, and gave an oddly saddened smile. “This is it, then,” he repeated.
“You’re mad, you realize. Tromping through the bloody country that way - you don’t even have a wand.” Remus nearly said he ought to go along, but it seemed presumptuous.
“It’ll be be fine.” Sirius frowned, and stood up. He searched a pocket briefly before withdrawing a wand. It was a darker wood than his original one had been, and noticeably battered, but definitely a wand. “A hit-wizard found me a bit after we met in that pub. He lost.”
Remus laughed, because he ought to have expected it. Sirius and the improbable so often went hand in hand. “Well.” He closed his eyes and took another drink. “James would have done the same for you, were it your son instead of his, and him, instead of you. Of course I understand. But do be careful. I shouldn’t like to hear you’ve been sent back to Azkaban. That would not be an acceptable gift in this coming holiday season.”
Sirius pocketed his wand again, carefully. “As much as I’d love another charming island vacation, I think I might manage to stay hidden.”
Remus wanted to ask when Sirius had ever been quiet, but he thought it inappropriate, so instead he sipped his tea and said, “Yes. You might.”
Later, when the sun grew low and scarlet, it was time for Sirius to leave. Remus stood by the door, chilled by the November air. It had grown cold quickly in recent days, the crispness of winter coming around, and the tree branches rattled like skeletons in the wind. Sirius stood on the doorstep again, lit in crimson by the fading sun, and gold from inside the house.
“Stop worrying, Moony,” he said, “I want to be caught considerably less than you want me to be, I’d wager.” He looked off into the distance, and in that light he was orange and crimson all over his pale face. “Right. I’ll stay in dog form whenever I’m in public; does that soothe your aching worries?”
Remus shook his head, and the wind stirred up leaves, carrying them away in a swirl of color. “It might have done,” he said, “If I were convinced that you actually would.”
Sirius raked his hand through his hair. “Right. I’ve been fine for a year, I’ll be fine now. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
This time, Remus smiled. “We’ve always had differing definitions of stupid.” His voice was soft, and full of regrets; Sirius had only been there for a day, and yet the house already felt empty without him.
Sirius laughed, soft as a whisper, and reached out, his fingers slid through Remus’s hair. Goodbyes could be emboldening couldn’t they, and memories addictive, but God there couldn’t be a worse time.
Remus looked away, almost an instinct, and Sirius twisted his fingers around locks of hair for a moment before he withdrew. The air was cold, colder than it ought to have been, and Remus didn’t know why he couldn’t say anything, but then, what was there to say?
A gust of cold wind flooded over them like a tidal wave - slowly, the outside world grew pale and cold, air heavy with the coming of snow. Remus smelled it in the air, that chill scent; he heard it in the silence. He thrust his hands into his pockets and stood, awkwardly balanced between you’d best be going, and God, don’t leave.
Then Sirius stepped outside, silhouetted in the moonlight, and paused before he looked back. “I’ll be careful,” he said, “If I don’t, then what would you do, Moony? It’d just be you again, you and that traitorous rat.” The coming night lay shadows across his face, settling in the hollows of his cheeks and the circles beneath his eyes. He looked sunken; he looked ill. “As long as there’s you and I, things might be good again, sometime. After it all settles.”
Remus said, “You’ve changed.”
Sirius looked on the edge of saying something, and then on the edge of doing something. And then he did, stepping forward, his skin close to Remus’s, chilled by the night-time air, breath rising in steam from his lips just before they touched Remus’s. They were dry, scratchy, and breathed memories into Remus’s mouth when he opened his lips in response. Remus remembered the softness of 17 year old skin, the scent of closeness, little whispers in his ear, furtive glances and “Stop someone’s coming,” and “isn’t that the point?”
Laughter and crude jokes and wrestling over chocolate frogs, and how neither caught one, but both caught each other.
Sirius tasted like the tea they drank just after dinner, and just before he stood and started for the door. He whispered, “I will come back, Moony,” just before he stepped away and vanished, first into black fur and paws and then into the darkness beyond.
Standing in the door, watching him disappear, Remus decided that he would choose to believe that. He shut the door.
3.
He opened it again at the end of June, when the snow had long since melted into rivers and dried or run away. The world had come alive, again, flowers and green leaves in trees hanging low with muggle children climbing in their boughs. At his doorstep, there was that dog again, just the same seven months before, looking up, mud on his paws, tongue freely lolling, and ears raised in salute. Remus raised an eyebrow and stepped aside; Sirius tracked mud over his newly cleaned floor.
By the time he locked the door and turned back to face the kitchen, Sirius had taken his human form again. A shock of sickness settled in Remus’s gut. All of the progress Sirius had made, all the weight gained, the baths taken, the hair cut and no longer matted and nearly shining again, had been undone. Sirius looked back at him with Azkaban’s eyes, and though Remus intended to say hello, he instead muttered, “Merlin’s beard. You need a bath and a meal.”
It was an unfortunate showing of how things had changed that Sirius was not offended.
“You’re right,” he said, “But I need the meal more.”
Remus tried not to show how very much that broke his heart.
Once they had eaten, or Sirius had, Sirius left to the bathroom for a shower, or a bath perhaps, he didn’t say. Remus cleared the table, and went to his bedroom to find clean clothes for his guest. He searched his own wardrobe for the larger things; Sirius had always been taller, thicker, than he. He looked over each piece, and thought.
He thought that really, he ought to have given Sirius a more substantial meal, although logic said it may have made the man sick anyway. And he thought that Sirius was still much the same as he’d always been, despite what had been said when last they’d met. Only Sirius would live for half a year in a cave in order to be protect to a boy he barely knew, but loved because that was what Sirius did. He loved and loved until he broke, and hated just as much, just as stubbornly.
That kiss, that final kiss, was evidence of the former, if nothing else.
From the bathroom, the stream of shower water sounded over the quiet. Remus whispered, “Thirteen years,” and traced over his lips absently.
The shower turned off, and Remus heard Sirius padding barefoot through the house, looking for him. He called out, “Padfoot,” and when Sirius arrived, naked save for the towel wrapped around his hips, Remus had set out three shirts and a pair of trousers on the bed. Examining them, wishing he had larger clothes, because Merlin knew Sirius would never fit into anything so small, Remus glanced up, and looked at Sirius standing there, framed in the doorway. He looked at Sirius, all bones, and God, actually, he might need a belt. It was difficult, too difficult, to look for long. But he forced himself.
“As you can see, clothes,” Remus said.
Sirius’s lips grew tight as he wrung water from his hair, dripping onto the floor. “Muggle clothes. They aren’t your normal style. Where did you get them?” His voice cut, his eyes focused away.
Remus frowned in confusion for one moment, and nearly laughed the next. “They’re mine, I assure you” he said. “I don’t keep other men’s clothing, you know.”
“They aren’t the sort of thing you’d get for yourself, Remus.” It was more of an accusation than an observation; Remus could almost hear the underlying question, Did some bloke leave it here, and why would some bloke be here anyway, and...
Remus looked at Sirius, who was so endearing with his decades old jealousies. Endearing, and slightly fixated. “I worked in a muggle shop for a time,” he said, and then, “I haven’t had a man here for quite some time actually.” He didn’t know quite why he felt the need to explain himself, but he did.
“Oh.” Sirius lifted one of the shirts, white and ironed straight. He dropped the towel to the floor, still shameless after all those years. Remus, standing across the room, against the wall, reluctantly drug his gaze away from his nakedness. So different, and yet so familiar. Sirius pulled the trousers on, but his fingers stumbled, wet locks of hair falling around his lowered face as he pulled on the too long unused zipper.
“Here.” Remus stepped closer, and pulled at the zipper as well, which was being quite stubborn and not at all cooperative. The metal pressed into his fingertips, a bit of a sting actually. He breathed; Sirius smelled clean and close, and like home. Remus pulled again, harder, this time. “You can’t go home again,” he whispered, not entirely conscious of what he said.
“What?” Sirius was watching him again. This close, Remus could see the yearning there, in his face, beneath the layers of sadness.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I only...” he paused. “Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“It doesn’t matter, hm? I’m not entirely certain why I even said-“
Sirius pressed his lips together, tight and thin. “Yes, you are. I know you, Moony. You don’t say anything just to say it.”
Remus sighed, because one could never argue with the truth. “All right. I said ‘you can’t go home again.’ It’s a book, actually, the title of a-“
“I know what it is.” Sirius grabbed his wrist, tight and rough and still stronger than anyone so thin had a right to be. “But sometimes you can,” he said, his voice hoarse, and his eyes burning, grey fire in the gold bedroom light. “Remus, I said I’d come back.”
“Yes, but I’m not entirely certain what you expected to come back to.” Remus pulled his arm loose, and stared up into Sirius’s face.
“You.” Sirius said it as though it were obvious, which it was, as though it were natural, which... perhaps it was that, as well. His damp skin glistened, dew-like. Time, starvation, and suffering had robbed him of much of his beauty... much, but not all. “What the hell did you think I meant? Why did you think I-“
“That was years ago.”
“It was seven months ago.” Sirius grabbed Remus’s hands, tight between his own. “I don’t want to-- Remus, God, I don’t want to lose this, too.”
And like that, something gave inside of Remus; a familiar feeling, though unfelt for almost fifteen years. He meant to say that they were years ago, and one could not turn back time. He meant to say didn’t know quite what Sirius wanted, or expected, and that he didn’t know what they would do, after all of this time - how to begin reconnecting, how to start sewing up the tears between them which had started even before Sirius had been... gone.
He meant to say a good number of things, really, but Sirius leaned forward, and kissed him, and Remus didn’t pull away, though he knew he should have. (Or should he have? And why?) There it was again, this time even stronger than the last - memories flooding over him, mixed with desire now, and Sirius’s fingers no longer holding his hands, now buried in his hair, pulling him closer. Remus opened his lips, and ran his hands over Sirius’s back, still damp, and with every motion, he felt the bones so close to the surface of Sirius’s skin. For a moment his heart tightened and he pulled Sirius closer, closer into him, because he ought to have done this before, months ago. He ought to have pulled Sirius closer and said, Don’t go, or he ought to have gone with him, or....
Too many regrets, and too many feelings, now, swirling through him. Aching, and the knife’s edge of his own loneliness, responding to the desperation in Sirius’s too-hard kiss. They kissed, again, just as the first faded, tongues brushing together, and Sirius was so close they breathed each other’s breath.
Then they were falling, or perhaps one of them used the other, onto the bed, atop the scattered shirts and rumpled bedclothes. Feet above their heads, the pillows shook and one fell to the floor; Remus moved up, leaning against the headboard, propped up by the remaining pillows, and Sirius followed soon after, coming to rest inches away.
Sirius slid his fingers over Remus’s lips and pulled down Remus’s zipper with his other hand. And trousers could be inconvenient, so bloody inconvenient, but Sirius pushed them down, and pushed his pants down as well till Remus’s cock came free, already growing hard, and Sirius took it in his hand. His palm, dry now but softened by his recent shower, wrapped around it, tight and hot, and he trailed his finger up, through the clear pearls of pre-come gathering just at the tip.
Remus dug his fingers into the blankets, his body, slower to respond than he would have liked, his heart beating fast. He muttered, quiet and low, as Sirius drug his hand slowly down the length of his cock; the velvet pull of skin on skin, and Remus moaned as he grew harder with every stroke.
“This isn’t quite the way it was,” Sirius whispered, and slid his hand down again.
“Time takes its toll.”
“We’ll make it better.” Sirius said and tightened his grip, pulled up, then down again, and god, Remus could barely breathe but he knew he wanted more. He wanted tighter, and faster, and he wanted Sirius’s cock in his own hand because God knew it had been too long. His hesitance overwhelmed by the slow burn building inside of him, he pulled Sirius closer for a kiss as he moved his hand down past Sirius’s bare torso, too thin and dampened by sweat now, and to the hem of his still undone trousers.
Sirius said, “God,” and then “yes,” as Remus freed his cock as well now. Familiar, yet unfamiliar, the hard length of it lay in his palm, and he trailed his finger up to the head just as Sirius jerked his hand downward, and Remus tightened his grip, instinctual and sudden. The space between them grew thick and warm, moist with breath, and Remus kissed him, brushed Sirius’s tongue with his own. Sirius pushed harder, kissed harder, stroked harder too, the pull of flesh, the heat of motion building with Remus’s need.
And it had been too long. Too long since he felt the grip of another man’s hands, the thickness of another man’s cock in his own hand, and more, too long since he had felt this man, this touch.
He pulled his hand downward, fast, then up again, and lingered there a moment, extending his thumb teasing the head, circling the slit, moist and hot. Sirius pushed his hips forward and moaned, and Remus closed his eyes and tried to remember not to stop when Sirius gripped him hard, and pulled his hand down. And up, and again, down, and faster, harder, it was too much. Too fast, too hard, too good, too much to resist anymore and he didn’t. He came in jerks, onto Sirius’s hand and chest, and Sirius brought him through with slowing strokes, till it ended, and Remus could breathe, could feel the prickle of sweat on his back.
He took a long, deep breath and then another, and then gripped around Sirius’s cock harder again. Sirius made a sound in the back of his throat, deep and hoarse, and thrust his hips forward as Remus stroked again. His fingers ran over each vein, up the slight curve, his palm pulled, gentle and rough, up and down, again, again, over and over. His hand grew warm from friction, and Sirius wrapped his own hand, still sticky with come, against Remus’s guiding him. Down, up, again, faster, harder, then tighter, so tight and Sirius said “Fuck,” and moved his hips again. His hand tightened around Remus’s, his other hand digging into the mattress and he thrust once, twice, and came, spilling onto his own stomach, onto Remus’s hand and his own. Remus stroked him still, slowly now, until he stopped moving his hips and the air grew still and quiet.
Then, he felt the Sirius’s fingers against his hipbone, gentle and damp, and Sirius said, “I’ve missed this, too.”
Remus was not entirely certain what all of that was meant to imply. The air still hung with the bitter scent of sex, and Remus did not move closer, though on some level he admitted that he wanted to. Instead, he muttered, “It doesn’t... need to mean anything, you realize. It is forgivable for us to... relive old times, and re-experience old needs. It could simply be-“
Sirius snorted. “Still the same Moony. You never bloody change.” He rolled over then, onto his side, and his fingers traced Remus’s skin, every scar, every protruding rib. “It doesn’t matter; I don’t accept that.” His hand came to rest across a silvery line of scar tissue that ran across Remus’s belly. “Do you remember how we always said, ‘forever?’ It isn’t over yet,” he muttered, and pressed his lips to Remus’s shoulder. “...I hate that I don’t know this scar.”
Remus closed his eyes, pushing back... something. Something terrifying and too large.
“Well. We’ll see where it goes from here,” he said. But he moved closer, even so. And he thought of that photograph; the wind whipping through their hair, the laughter that still echoed in his mind even now. And he reached out and took Sirius’s hand, entwining their fingers just as they had when they were young.
end
Pairing(s): Remus/Sirius.
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Thrice they meet, and twice they say goodbye.
Author's Notes: I suck at banter. A lot. Therefore, um, well, I've got two out of three, and there are a handful of things in here which are almost-but-not-quite banter, so maybe it's more like two and a half out of three.
1.
The sour air hung thick and too warm in a room overflowing with bodies pressed too close. Right and left, before and behind, people sat drinking, laughing, talking quietly amongst themselves, seated one and two and three and four to a table, with mugs filled with lager or glasses of brightly colored drinks topped with little umbrellas, close at hand. Though it wasn’t as loud as pubs can get, there were people... everywhere.
That was the first thing that put Remus on edge.
Quietly, blending into the crowd as well as he could, he navigated past standing people, and sitting people and people passing him, coming from the same direction or the opposite direction. Still close to the door, a heavyset man stepped squarely on Remus’s left big toe and muttered an apology as he continued by, and Remus narrowly avoided stepping on someone else’s while moving around an inhabited chair, displaced from one table and now jutting into the aisle.
There was sweat in the air, sweat and laughter, and Remus had no idea where in this pub to look. He searched the shadows at first, the corners along the edges, the farthest points from the electric lights and then, when there was nothing there, he looked one more time. It wasn’t until a waitress nearly collided with him, whispering “I’m sorry!” twice before scurrying away, that he looked to the center of the room at last.
And there was Sirius Black, undisguised, flooded in light, drinking from a large glass of what looked like water, an immense amount of nearly finished food spread out before him like a banquet.
All of the wizarding world, and half the muggle one, was searching for this man, and there he was, in plain view, hair brushed back from his face and pony-tailed, his eyes sunken, and cheekbones sharp. He hadn’t even bothered with taking a corner table.
That was the second thing that put Remus on edge.
With a heavy sigh, he made his way to the table, and wordlessly set his coat down in an unoccupied chair. Sirius glanced up, put his glass down, and said “You’re on time. What the hell?”
Remus raised an eyebrow as he sat, looking round for a server. “I rather like being punctual, actually,” he said, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the low roar of the room.
“Still the same Moony.” Sirius took a drink. Still the same Padfoot.
“I’ve always thought people weren’t given to change without reason.” Remus flagged down the waitress, ordered an amaretto sour. This close, he could smell the liquor coming from Sirius’s cup, which wasn’t water after all, and why would he have thought so?
Sirius offered Remus an untouched plate of chips with bony hands and a palpable reluctance. In truth, Remus was a bit peckish, but he gently pushed it away and shook his head. “I’ve already eaten,” he said and looked over the plates, the half-eaten, dry steak, the bit of chicken, and the almost finished red potatoes and boiled greens. The bread, almost gone now as well. “This is a great deal of food for one person.”
Sirius glanced up and took another bite of his meat. No answer ventured. None needed.
When the waitress arrived with his daiquiri, Remus took it with a smile, turning over a handful of muggle money to her. Watching the exchange, Sirius bit into a chicken leg. “God, this is good,” he said through his chewing; it seemed Azkaban had robbed him of a number of social graces. Or perhaps it was the hunger. Remus said nothing, sipping his drink, until Sirius put down the bone and looked up, wiping his mouth with a napkin. In an instant, he said “I’m leaving England, Moony.” He paused, sipped his drink. “I wanted you to know.”
“Where are you going?” The question came before Remus realized he was going to ask, but he didn’t withdraw it, once it had been spoken.
With a small grimace, Sirius shook his head. “I can’t say, you know that. If they ask you-“
“You ought to know I would never tell.”
“Right. Except they might force you, so it’s better if you don’t know anything at all.” Sirius sipped his drink, and Remus watched his face, the ghost of his former self still lingering around the edges of his eyes. “So I’m not telling anyone. No one. Not even Harry.” He glanced up. “Not even you.”
Which made sense, really. It was good logic, good, solid logic. And Remus hated it.
Sirius nudged the chicken leg with the edge of his fork, and started down at his plate. Remus accepted his drink from the waitress with a little smile, and Sirius watched him so intensely, so deliberately, it was as though he were being memorized.
“I do know you wouldn’t tell, Remus,” Sirius said, finally. “You ought to know I trust-“his voice trailed off. There was only one way to finish that sentence, and as it was a bald-faced lie, Remus could only guess it was a rush of either honesty or embarrassment that stopped him from saying it. “Right. I’m leaving, that’s all. It’s not safe.”
Also good, solid logic, and no it wasn’t safe but of course, neither was sitting in the middle of the room, undisguised, and when had Sirius ever done anything safely anyway? Remus wanted to ask that, actually; he opened his mouth to say it, but the words were stubborn and his voice didn’t quite work, not for those words, so he sipped his drink and said, “I’m being selfish.”
Sirius looked up. His face was pale and tired and worn down. “What?”
Remus waved, a dismissal of the subject, because old habits die so hard. “Nothing, nothing.” He took a chip after all, but only the one. “I suppose I had hoped you would stay with me. After so long alone, it would be useful.” After a moment, he added, “To you, that is.”
Looking at Remus over the edge of his glass, Sirius raised an eyebrow and lowered his head. “To both of us,” he said. “Right. There’s always time for that once we find Peter. When we do... I’d feed him to the sodding hippogriff, but it’d be too fast.”
The entire pub smelled of food and alcohol. Remus looked away and wished he’d ordered something stronger.
2.
The skies were weeping when the bird came to Remus’s house. It was a tropical sort, with multi-colored plumes, shaking raindrops from its feathers with a sort of irritated glare. Truthfully, Remus had expected it for some time; Sirius couldn’t live outside of Britain for long, not while Harry was still in Scotland, at Hogwarts. Not with Peter still at large, and still so capable of hiding.
Outside, the clouds choked sunlight with their grey haze while inside, warmed by the fireplace and still wrapped in his house robe, Remus stirred his tea, and read the note.
Moony, (It always began with “Moony.” The tea was too sweet.)
Harry’s scar is burning. I’ve told him I’m coming back to the Hogwarts area, but Buckbeak and I will need somewhere to stop and rest. Somewhere that isn’t, hopefully, some dank bloody cave.
Would you mind?
Signed,
A friend.
It was the first time Remus had heard from Sirius in weeks, and he would have liked to be able to say he’d expected a note sooner, but he couldn’t, as Sirius was Sirius. The transient, the “come-and-go-as-I-bloody-well-please.” Sirius the fugitive. Sirius, the likely-to-get-me-killed-if-we’re-caught-together, he reminded himself, as he wrote his acceptance. There was nothing like a bit of fugitive harboring to make one’s life complete.
He fed and watered the bird before sending her off to somewhere unrelated. He sent his own owl to Sirius, bearing his reply.
Of course I shouldn’t mind, and in fact, I do not mind. Startling, really.
It will be lovely to see you again.
(“Lovely,” he says. What a positively ancient word. I am beginning to feel my age.)
R.
No names, and not even full initials. That was the rule. It was a bit like a child’s game, really - it reminded one keenly of notes passed during lessons back in Hogwarts; little pages of scribbled words, marked with M, W, PF or P, to avoid implication in the dark deeds planned between them. But now, they passed notes over continents. Now, the stakes were different.
It was late October, and the air had finally grown cool from the long, hazy summer. And there was music in the air: the low whoosh of wind and the rattle of nearby trees dancing with rustling leaves. The world was changing, bit by bit, from green into crimson and gold, and Remus had never been certain whether autumn could be considered his favorite or least favorite of the seasons.
He watched the windows for the gentle fall of yellow leaves. By the time Sirius arrived, two weeks later, the trees had nearly gone barren.
* * *
Sirius was looking much better. There was no denying it. He arrived on Remus’s doorstep in clothes built for warmer climates, looking slightly chilled, his hair cut short as it had been when he was a boy. His face had filled out a bit, though it was still too thin. He greeted Remus with a smile when the door opened, and stood outside for a moment too long before Remus dragged him inside and closed the door, glancing around to be certain no one had seen, though he knew no one would have.
“You ought to wear a cloak. Or a hood.” Remus said, holding out his arm for his owl, which fluttered off of Sirius’s shoulder to land on the outstretched hand. Her claws pinched him, a welcome and familiar sting.
“Couldn’t be bothered. And anyway, I don’t look the way I did when I was last in Britain. I don’t think anyone will recognize-“ Arms crossed, Sirius glanced around the small house with an unspoken judgment on his face. He shook a stray leaf from his back and said, “God, this place is small. Has it always been this small?”
Remus navigated the owl into her cage. “Actually, I’d always thought it was rather too large, so I shrunk it a bit.”
“Very funny, Moony, you’re a wit. It didn’t look this small when we were seventeen. And it was better kept, outside.”
Remus looked away. “It’s been theorized, you know, that over time things tend to degrade in quality.”
Sirius sat down. “You could use a bloody carpenter,” he said, “Or a ladder and a nail or two. Or a sodding repair spell.”
Remus cocked an eyebrow. “You’re welcome to repair it if you’d like. Personally, I would rather not risk being caught by the muggle neighbors.”
Just like that, the atmosphere changed and Sirius sat down, grim faced and alone even in the kitchen of his only living friend. “I don’t have my wand now,” he said quietly. “You ought to know that.”
And, well, he did, but he’d forgotten. It was too easy to forget, particularly there in Remus’s home and with Sirius there. The world seemed so distant, and the past so close he could touch it.
Tea, then. It had always been a help for any awkward situation, which this rather was. “How long are you staying? Would you like some tea?” Remus retrieved a cup for himself and one for Sirius without waiting for an answer.
“Only until morning, probably. A day at most. I can’t rest for long, you know that - he needs me.” Sirius ran his hands through his cropped hair. “I can’t get used to it. The hair, I mean - bloody hell, Remus, it’s so short. I don’t mind, it’s only that it was long for so many years. ...I hadn’t really thought it would ever change.” He stopped, and his words hung, heavy, in the air, imposing a silence broken only by the quiet stirring of tea.
Remus added sugar, as much as he remembered it would take to turn tea palatable to Sirius. “You can stay in my old bedroom. It’s across from-“
“I remember,” Sirius said. He watched Remus move, studied every motion, just as he did in that pub all those months ago. Just as he had all those years ago. Remus tried not to think about it very much.
“Here’s your cup.” Remus lay the cup down, and Sirius drank without words, or questions.
It only took a minute or two to prepare another, and soon the two sat, awkwardly silent again, over the small kitchen table, each watching the wood grain, which was not fascinating so much as it was something to look at besides one another.
Halfway through the cup (and a rather good tea, though it would have been better with biscuits,) Remus felt the need to talk, primarily because he was fairly certain that no one else would. “What have you been doing, then?” He said, between sips. “Clearly hiding somewhere, which I shan’t ask you about for obvious reasons. However you must have done something with your time.”
Sirius didn’t answer. Instead, he finished the last drops of his tea and tried to drink again. Remus’s heart ached.
“Another cup?” Remus said quietly, and reached for the kettle.
Sirius shifted, crossed his arms, uncrossed them, looked up. “Yes. Yeah. I want... do you have anything to eat?”
“Well, I do tend to eat from time to time. As such, I try to keep some edibles in the house.” Remus stood. “I wouldn’t say anything for the flavor, however. One cannot be choosy with their groceries when one is, well, me.” Sirius shrugged, and poured himself a cup with hands still trembling just a bit. It must have been cold outside, Remus decided. At least, he had to hope that it was, that the tremble in those hands did not result from... something else. Twelve years of imprisonment and starvation, two years in hiding. Remus did not want to think about it.
Going through the cupboard, he located bread and jars of jam; he lay them beside Sirius and returned to his search for actual food, for an actual dinner. Sirius, he realized in an instant, would only be with him for one night. And how long had it been since he’d had a reasonable meal, or proper company? He glanced back at Sirius, bent slightly over his mug, holding it between both hands and sipping, eyes up and fixated on...
Remus raised an eyebrow. “You’re looking at me,” he said at last.
Sirius nodded, and set down the cup. “I can’t help it, can I?” he said. Sitting there, smaller than he ought to be because he was thinner than he ought to be, Sirius looked lost, in the room, in the world. He smeared jam onto his bread with thin hands, with knuckles that showed too distinctly from the rest of his long fingers. They hadn’t always been that way - once they were strong and firm and... Remus looked away, because he couldn’t bear to remember.
Remus decided it ought to be easier to talk around things.
He poured himself another cup of tea, and stirred it slowly, to eat the time.
Sirius looked up from his bread again, watching every twist of the spoon, and Remus tried not to break inside.
* * *
When night came, they sat before the fire flipping through Remus’s old scrapbooks. Just after he returned from Hogwarts, he’d managed to look at them again; twelve years had passed before that, when they lay unopened and unwanted, boxed in the back of Remus’s wardrobe. Sirius turned each page with a certain reverence, stared at each photograph as though he wanted to crawl inside.
“James was such a git,” he said, and smiled. “Look at him in that bloody Quidditch Robe. He ought to have been a professional player, you know. It would have been good for him.”
Remus shook his head and leaned closer. In the picture, James stood, his Silver Arrow in hand, leaning against his fellow team-mates. His face was alight, his hair a mess of tufts and unmanageable scruff. Remus traced the edge of the picture with his finger. His heart swelled. “He was otherwise occupied. Between Lily, and the war...”
“The war.” Sirius flipped the page, trapping Remus’s hand for an instant. “Here. This is better. Look, it’s...”
Them. The two of them, hand in hand, beneath the old tree. Beneath the picture, written out in Remus’s meticulous penmanship, 7th year. Just after N.E.W.T.s.
Sirius stared at it, and Remus looked away. It didn’t help, really - the image remained in his mind, and he could not quite shake it loose, though really he would have loved to. Voice shaking, he muttered, “I ought to have taken that out, but I forgot that.... I didn’t want to-“
Then Sirius laughed, and the world was just a bit upside down. And backwards, and unexpected, and God it was good to hear that sound, mellifluous and rich. Sirius shook his head, and Remus didn’t quite know what to say, or what was funny, and if he asked... He didn’t want to ask.
Instead, he looked at the picture again; at his own face, so much younger and just this side of a smile... and at Sirius, and the way he laughed into the wind. Their hands entwined, their scarves caught up in the air, winding around each other in an unending dance.
His past image turned to look at Sirius’s, and they kissed. His fingers moved up, buried themselves in Sirius’s hair, and in the present Remus could feel that, remember it. It was soft and gentle, waves curled around his fingertips to welcome them.
Memories, soft and quiet, danced through his mind.
Remus looked up at Sirius, who was still smiling, still laughing just a little.
“Only you would have taken the time to place that period after every letter of that acronym,” Sirius said; his eyes moved up, and he watched the photograph for a long moment. “I’ve missed you.”
When he reached out and laid his hand atop Remus’s, Remus did not pull away.
* * *
In the morning, once they had slept and eaten, Sirius sat on the floor at the coffee table, his back pressed against the sofa, and scribbled out a note to Harry. Remus watched from a nearby lounging chair, fingers wrapped around a cup of hot chocolate, warmed by its heat. The sweet scent calmed his frayed nerves and soothed the tension beginning to form in the back of his neck as Sirius wrote. Remus saw the date written there - November 22nd. He frowned. “November 22nd? Sirius. That’s only-“
“I know. I’m leaving in a few hours.” Sirius folded the note over and slid it into an envelope.
“You could speak to him from here, you know.”
“No. I mean, I know, but I have to go there, Remus, he needs me. And I can’t floo in case someone sees me. So, this is it, then.” Sirius looked up, and gave an oddly saddened smile. “This is it, then,” he repeated.
“You’re mad, you realize. Tromping through the bloody country that way - you don’t even have a wand.” Remus nearly said he ought to go along, but it seemed presumptuous.
“It’ll be be fine.” Sirius frowned, and stood up. He searched a pocket briefly before withdrawing a wand. It was a darker wood than his original one had been, and noticeably battered, but definitely a wand. “A hit-wizard found me a bit after we met in that pub. He lost.”
Remus laughed, because he ought to have expected it. Sirius and the improbable so often went hand in hand. “Well.” He closed his eyes and took another drink. “James would have done the same for you, were it your son instead of his, and him, instead of you. Of course I understand. But do be careful. I shouldn’t like to hear you’ve been sent back to Azkaban. That would not be an acceptable gift in this coming holiday season.”
Sirius pocketed his wand again, carefully. “As much as I’d love another charming island vacation, I think I might manage to stay hidden.”
Remus wanted to ask when Sirius had ever been quiet, but he thought it inappropriate, so instead he sipped his tea and said, “Yes. You might.”
Later, when the sun grew low and scarlet, it was time for Sirius to leave. Remus stood by the door, chilled by the November air. It had grown cold quickly in recent days, the crispness of winter coming around, and the tree branches rattled like skeletons in the wind. Sirius stood on the doorstep again, lit in crimson by the fading sun, and gold from inside the house.
“Stop worrying, Moony,” he said, “I want to be caught considerably less than you want me to be, I’d wager.” He looked off into the distance, and in that light he was orange and crimson all over his pale face. “Right. I’ll stay in dog form whenever I’m in public; does that soothe your aching worries?”
Remus shook his head, and the wind stirred up leaves, carrying them away in a swirl of color. “It might have done,” he said, “If I were convinced that you actually would.”
Sirius raked his hand through his hair. “Right. I’ve been fine for a year, I’ll be fine now. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
This time, Remus smiled. “We’ve always had differing definitions of stupid.” His voice was soft, and full of regrets; Sirius had only been there for a day, and yet the house already felt empty without him.
Sirius laughed, soft as a whisper, and reached out, his fingers slid through Remus’s hair. Goodbyes could be emboldening couldn’t they, and memories addictive, but God there couldn’t be a worse time.
Remus looked away, almost an instinct, and Sirius twisted his fingers around locks of hair for a moment before he withdrew. The air was cold, colder than it ought to have been, and Remus didn’t know why he couldn’t say anything, but then, what was there to say?
A gust of cold wind flooded over them like a tidal wave - slowly, the outside world grew pale and cold, air heavy with the coming of snow. Remus smelled it in the air, that chill scent; he heard it in the silence. He thrust his hands into his pockets and stood, awkwardly balanced between you’d best be going, and God, don’t leave.
Then Sirius stepped outside, silhouetted in the moonlight, and paused before he looked back. “I’ll be careful,” he said, “If I don’t, then what would you do, Moony? It’d just be you again, you and that traitorous rat.” The coming night lay shadows across his face, settling in the hollows of his cheeks and the circles beneath his eyes. He looked sunken; he looked ill. “As long as there’s you and I, things might be good again, sometime. After it all settles.”
Remus said, “You’ve changed.”
Sirius looked on the edge of saying something, and then on the edge of doing something. And then he did, stepping forward, his skin close to Remus’s, chilled by the night-time air, breath rising in steam from his lips just before they touched Remus’s. They were dry, scratchy, and breathed memories into Remus’s mouth when he opened his lips in response. Remus remembered the softness of 17 year old skin, the scent of closeness, little whispers in his ear, furtive glances and “Stop someone’s coming,” and “isn’t that the point?”
Laughter and crude jokes and wrestling over chocolate frogs, and how neither caught one, but both caught each other.
Sirius tasted like the tea they drank just after dinner, and just before he stood and started for the door. He whispered, “I will come back, Moony,” just before he stepped away and vanished, first into black fur and paws and then into the darkness beyond.
Standing in the door, watching him disappear, Remus decided that he would choose to believe that. He shut the door.
3.
He opened it again at the end of June, when the snow had long since melted into rivers and dried or run away. The world had come alive, again, flowers and green leaves in trees hanging low with muggle children climbing in their boughs. At his doorstep, there was that dog again, just the same seven months before, looking up, mud on his paws, tongue freely lolling, and ears raised in salute. Remus raised an eyebrow and stepped aside; Sirius tracked mud over his newly cleaned floor.
By the time he locked the door and turned back to face the kitchen, Sirius had taken his human form again. A shock of sickness settled in Remus’s gut. All of the progress Sirius had made, all the weight gained, the baths taken, the hair cut and no longer matted and nearly shining again, had been undone. Sirius looked back at him with Azkaban’s eyes, and though Remus intended to say hello, he instead muttered, “Merlin’s beard. You need a bath and a meal.”
It was an unfortunate showing of how things had changed that Sirius was not offended.
“You’re right,” he said, “But I need the meal more.”
Remus tried not to show how very much that broke his heart.
Once they had eaten, or Sirius had, Sirius left to the bathroom for a shower, or a bath perhaps, he didn’t say. Remus cleared the table, and went to his bedroom to find clean clothes for his guest. He searched his own wardrobe for the larger things; Sirius had always been taller, thicker, than he. He looked over each piece, and thought.
He thought that really, he ought to have given Sirius a more substantial meal, although logic said it may have made the man sick anyway. And he thought that Sirius was still much the same as he’d always been, despite what had been said when last they’d met. Only Sirius would live for half a year in a cave in order to be protect to a boy he barely knew, but loved because that was what Sirius did. He loved and loved until he broke, and hated just as much, just as stubbornly.
That kiss, that final kiss, was evidence of the former, if nothing else.
From the bathroom, the stream of shower water sounded over the quiet. Remus whispered, “Thirteen years,” and traced over his lips absently.
The shower turned off, and Remus heard Sirius padding barefoot through the house, looking for him. He called out, “Padfoot,” and when Sirius arrived, naked save for the towel wrapped around his hips, Remus had set out three shirts and a pair of trousers on the bed. Examining them, wishing he had larger clothes, because Merlin knew Sirius would never fit into anything so small, Remus glanced up, and looked at Sirius standing there, framed in the doorway. He looked at Sirius, all bones, and God, actually, he might need a belt. It was difficult, too difficult, to look for long. But he forced himself.
“As you can see, clothes,” Remus said.
Sirius’s lips grew tight as he wrung water from his hair, dripping onto the floor. “Muggle clothes. They aren’t your normal style. Where did you get them?” His voice cut, his eyes focused away.
Remus frowned in confusion for one moment, and nearly laughed the next. “They’re mine, I assure you” he said. “I don’t keep other men’s clothing, you know.”
“They aren’t the sort of thing you’d get for yourself, Remus.” It was more of an accusation than an observation; Remus could almost hear the underlying question, Did some bloke leave it here, and why would some bloke be here anyway, and...
Remus looked at Sirius, who was so endearing with his decades old jealousies. Endearing, and slightly fixated. “I worked in a muggle shop for a time,” he said, and then, “I haven’t had a man here for quite some time actually.” He didn’t know quite why he felt the need to explain himself, but he did.
“Oh.” Sirius lifted one of the shirts, white and ironed straight. He dropped the towel to the floor, still shameless after all those years. Remus, standing across the room, against the wall, reluctantly drug his gaze away from his nakedness. So different, and yet so familiar. Sirius pulled the trousers on, but his fingers stumbled, wet locks of hair falling around his lowered face as he pulled on the too long unused zipper.
“Here.” Remus stepped closer, and pulled at the zipper as well, which was being quite stubborn and not at all cooperative. The metal pressed into his fingertips, a bit of a sting actually. He breathed; Sirius smelled clean and close, and like home. Remus pulled again, harder, this time. “You can’t go home again,” he whispered, not entirely conscious of what he said.
“What?” Sirius was watching him again. This close, Remus could see the yearning there, in his face, beneath the layers of sadness.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing at all. I only...” he paused. “Nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“It doesn’t matter, hm? I’m not entirely certain why I even said-“
Sirius pressed his lips together, tight and thin. “Yes, you are. I know you, Moony. You don’t say anything just to say it.”
Remus sighed, because one could never argue with the truth. “All right. I said ‘you can’t go home again.’ It’s a book, actually, the title of a-“
“I know what it is.” Sirius grabbed his wrist, tight and rough and still stronger than anyone so thin had a right to be. “But sometimes you can,” he said, his voice hoarse, and his eyes burning, grey fire in the gold bedroom light. “Remus, I said I’d come back.”
“Yes, but I’m not entirely certain what you expected to come back to.” Remus pulled his arm loose, and stared up into Sirius’s face.
“You.” Sirius said it as though it were obvious, which it was, as though it were natural, which... perhaps it was that, as well. His damp skin glistened, dew-like. Time, starvation, and suffering had robbed him of much of his beauty... much, but not all. “What the hell did you think I meant? Why did you think I-“
“That was years ago.”
“It was seven months ago.” Sirius grabbed Remus’s hands, tight between his own. “I don’t want to-- Remus, God, I don’t want to lose this, too.”
And like that, something gave inside of Remus; a familiar feeling, though unfelt for almost fifteen years. He meant to say that they were years ago, and one could not turn back time. He meant to say didn’t know quite what Sirius wanted, or expected, and that he didn’t know what they would do, after all of this time - how to begin reconnecting, how to start sewing up the tears between them which had started even before Sirius had been... gone.
He meant to say a good number of things, really, but Sirius leaned forward, and kissed him, and Remus didn’t pull away, though he knew he should have. (Or should he have? And why?) There it was again, this time even stronger than the last - memories flooding over him, mixed with desire now, and Sirius’s fingers no longer holding his hands, now buried in his hair, pulling him closer. Remus opened his lips, and ran his hands over Sirius’s back, still damp, and with every motion, he felt the bones so close to the surface of Sirius’s skin. For a moment his heart tightened and he pulled Sirius closer, closer into him, because he ought to have done this before, months ago. He ought to have pulled Sirius closer and said, Don’t go, or he ought to have gone with him, or....
Too many regrets, and too many feelings, now, swirling through him. Aching, and the knife’s edge of his own loneliness, responding to the desperation in Sirius’s too-hard kiss. They kissed, again, just as the first faded, tongues brushing together, and Sirius was so close they breathed each other’s breath.
Then they were falling, or perhaps one of them used the other, onto the bed, atop the scattered shirts and rumpled bedclothes. Feet above their heads, the pillows shook and one fell to the floor; Remus moved up, leaning against the headboard, propped up by the remaining pillows, and Sirius followed soon after, coming to rest inches away.
Sirius slid his fingers over Remus’s lips and pulled down Remus’s zipper with his other hand. And trousers could be inconvenient, so bloody inconvenient, but Sirius pushed them down, and pushed his pants down as well till Remus’s cock came free, already growing hard, and Sirius took it in his hand. His palm, dry now but softened by his recent shower, wrapped around it, tight and hot, and he trailed his finger up, through the clear pearls of pre-come gathering just at the tip.
Remus dug his fingers into the blankets, his body, slower to respond than he would have liked, his heart beating fast. He muttered, quiet and low, as Sirius drug his hand slowly down the length of his cock; the velvet pull of skin on skin, and Remus moaned as he grew harder with every stroke.
“This isn’t quite the way it was,” Sirius whispered, and slid his hand down again.
“Time takes its toll.”
“We’ll make it better.” Sirius said and tightened his grip, pulled up, then down again, and god, Remus could barely breathe but he knew he wanted more. He wanted tighter, and faster, and he wanted Sirius’s cock in his own hand because God knew it had been too long. His hesitance overwhelmed by the slow burn building inside of him, he pulled Sirius closer for a kiss as he moved his hand down past Sirius’s bare torso, too thin and dampened by sweat now, and to the hem of his still undone trousers.
Sirius said, “God,” and then “yes,” as Remus freed his cock as well now. Familiar, yet unfamiliar, the hard length of it lay in his palm, and he trailed his finger up to the head just as Sirius jerked his hand downward, and Remus tightened his grip, instinctual and sudden. The space between them grew thick and warm, moist with breath, and Remus kissed him, brushed Sirius’s tongue with his own. Sirius pushed harder, kissed harder, stroked harder too, the pull of flesh, the heat of motion building with Remus’s need.
And it had been too long. Too long since he felt the grip of another man’s hands, the thickness of another man’s cock in his own hand, and more, too long since he had felt this man, this touch.
He pulled his hand downward, fast, then up again, and lingered there a moment, extending his thumb teasing the head, circling the slit, moist and hot. Sirius pushed his hips forward and moaned, and Remus closed his eyes and tried to remember not to stop when Sirius gripped him hard, and pulled his hand down. And up, and again, down, and faster, harder, it was too much. Too fast, too hard, too good, too much to resist anymore and he didn’t. He came in jerks, onto Sirius’s hand and chest, and Sirius brought him through with slowing strokes, till it ended, and Remus could breathe, could feel the prickle of sweat on his back.
He took a long, deep breath and then another, and then gripped around Sirius’s cock harder again. Sirius made a sound in the back of his throat, deep and hoarse, and thrust his hips forward as Remus stroked again. His fingers ran over each vein, up the slight curve, his palm pulled, gentle and rough, up and down, again, again, over and over. His hand grew warm from friction, and Sirius wrapped his own hand, still sticky with come, against Remus’s guiding him. Down, up, again, faster, harder, then tighter, so tight and Sirius said “Fuck,” and moved his hips again. His hand tightened around Remus’s, his other hand digging into the mattress and he thrust once, twice, and came, spilling onto his own stomach, onto Remus’s hand and his own. Remus stroked him still, slowly now, until he stopped moving his hips and the air grew still and quiet.
Then, he felt the Sirius’s fingers against his hipbone, gentle and damp, and Sirius said, “I’ve missed this, too.”
Remus was not entirely certain what all of that was meant to imply. The air still hung with the bitter scent of sex, and Remus did not move closer, though on some level he admitted that he wanted to. Instead, he muttered, “It doesn’t... need to mean anything, you realize. It is forgivable for us to... relive old times, and re-experience old needs. It could simply be-“
Sirius snorted. “Still the same Moony. You never bloody change.” He rolled over then, onto his side, and his fingers traced Remus’s skin, every scar, every protruding rib. “It doesn’t matter; I don’t accept that.” His hand came to rest across a silvery line of scar tissue that ran across Remus’s belly. “Do you remember how we always said, ‘forever?’ It isn’t over yet,” he muttered, and pressed his lips to Remus’s shoulder. “...I hate that I don’t know this scar.”
Remus closed his eyes, pushing back... something. Something terrifying and too large.
“Well. We’ll see where it goes from here,” he said. But he moved closer, even so. And he thought of that photograph; the wind whipping through their hair, the laughter that still echoed in his mind even now. And he reached out and took Sirius’s hand, entwining their fingers just as they had when they were young.
end