Dust and Soot and Silence
DUST AND SOOT AND SILENCE
Summary: Sirius receives bad news, and Remus tries to find the right words. A story in four nights.
Characters/Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Rating: R
Words: ~2,000
Notes: Thank you to
stereolightning for beta-reading (and helping me brainstorm titles).
Story:
Remus watches Sirius read the letter that a big, pale barn owl has just swooped in and dropped on their kitchen table before fluttering back out the open window into the night, as silently as it came. From the increasingly tight set of Sirius’ shoulders, Remus can see it’s bad news, but there’s no way to know how bad until Sirius is ready to tell him.
“Regulus is dead,” Sirius says.
He drops the letter to the table with a whispering crumple of parchment, and all Remus’ words turn to stone in his mouth, hard pebbles he can neither swallow nor spit out.
Sirius laughs a sound that is not really a laugh. “That stupid fool,” he says, and shoves his chair back from the table, its legs making a painful screech against the wooden floor. He stalks past Remus, not meeting his eyes, trying to look haughty and unconcerned even here, even when it’s only the two of them in their own home, and Remus’ heart is breaking in his chest.
He follows Sirius into the bedroom, dim despite the streetlights outside the window. Sirius, just inside the doorway of the room, spins to face him, and now Remus sees the desperation in his eyes, a panicked need to feel anything but this. He steps closer and Sirius pulls Remus to him, so hard that Remus stumbles and falls against Sirius’ chest. But Remus goes to him gladly, without a word.
They fall together onto the bed in a hard knot of limbs, Sirius’ elbow in Remus’ ribs and his hand holding hard to his hair. Sirius’ mouth on his feels angry, his touch hot and wanting something Remus fears he won’t be able to give. Sirius’ hands are everywhere, not hurtful but forceful, as if he wants to wrench something from Remus that can’t be named or defined.
Afterwards, in the dark, Remus can hear that Sirius isn’t sleeping. Sirius’ breathing is too even, his body too carefully still. The silence crouches between them in the dark, a monster befouling their air with every poisonous breath it takes, with every minute that Remus allows to pass by unbroken. Remus lies there and wishes he could think of anything to say.
But Sirius, he knows, doesn’t want kind words, and certainly doesn’t want to be made to talk about it. Regulus was Sirius’ brother, but Sirius doesn’t seem to believe he’s allowed to mourn.
The air is close, too warm. Remus clenches his fists beneath the blanket that covers them both, makes his breathing even and slow and pretends not to know Sirius is still awake, hoping that then Sirius will let himself feel whatever he feels, without worrying what Remus will think of it.
What he isn’t expecting is the harsh sob that rips through the air of the silent room.
“Sirius-” he says, before he can stop himself.
Sirius flails, his limbs striking out, his breath coming fast and hard, all his motions wild and insensible, until Remus, terrified Sirius will hurt himself, finally grabs him and pins him down, whispering desperate nonsense sounds of reassurance in his ear, holding Sirius’ body forcibly still with the weight of his own. He’s just as strong as Sirius, though he doesn’t usually take advantage of that strength.
Sirius pants and struggles, then finally goes limp in Remus’ arms, his eyes squeezed shut, his forehead damp with sweat. His heart is pounding under Remus’ hands. And still, they say nothing.
Neither of them falls asleep for a long time.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“I’m sorry,” Sirius says the next morning at the breakfast table, avoiding Remus’ gaze.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Remus says. He’s making toast for both of them, buttering each piece with a skritch of the knife that sounds too loud in the small kitchen, because Sirius looks like he’s not going to bother to eat unless someone puts the food right in front of him. From the look of it, he’s had at least three cups of coffee already, leaving his hands jittery and his eyes too wide. The acrid scent of it hangs between them, caffeinated and sharp.
“I’m - It’s -” Sirius struggles with the words. “It’s not your fault,” he says finally.
Remus slides a plate of toast in front of Sirius and hopes he’ll eat it, but knows better than to make that request out loud.
“I’m here,” he says, and he means it in all the many possible ways it could be meant.
Sirius eats the toast, or half of one piece, anyway.
That night they make love again, and Sirius is gentle and slow and penitent, and Remus doesn’t like that any better. But at least Sirius, exhausted by his own emotions, falls asleep immediately in Remus’ arms.
Remus lies awake for a long time afterwards.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sirius is sent on a mission together with James, something important that can’t be postponed, and Remus paces at home and worries, afraid that Sirius, impetuous at the best of times, will be even more dangerously rash now in his furious grief. Remus knows Sirius can more than hold his own in a duel, but can he keep his emotions in check at the same time? What will he do to the first Death Eater he sees, when he blames Death Eaters for killing his brother?
Remus walks back and forth, his gait tight and his arms clenched to his chest. He pictures Sirius dead, Sirius maimed, Sirius tortured, more vividly than he has done since the very first time the two of them were sent out on separate assignments for the Order.
He can’t imagine how he hasn’t yet worn a bald stripe in the living room carpet by the time Sirius returns, bone-weary and covered in dust, but alive.
There are so many words of worry and fear that Remus doesn’t say aloud. But he takes Sirius in his arms, pulls him close and kisses him fiercely, disregarding the stink of dirt and soot, the grittiness of Sirius’ skin under his hands, and they tumble into bed before Sirius has even shed his travelling cloak.
Sirius forgets to be gentle, and Remus is glad.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It’s nearly a week later that Remus comes home from a mission of his own - not dangerous, but wearying, and he feels heaviness in every step he takes - to find Sirius standing in the darkened living room, motionless by the window, looking out. His face is a dark silhouette in the jaundiced light that spills in from the street.
Sirius doesn’t turn, though Remus knows he’s heard him come in. Remus hangs his cloak on the peg by the door, takes two tentative steps into the room, then stops again. Sirius’ strong profile in the second-hand street light is an arresting sight, but he looks so far away.
Still staring out at the street, Sirius says, his voice almost casual, “It was bound to happen anyway, wasn’t it.”
For a moment Remus doesn’t know what he means, then his heart constricts. Oh. Regulus.
“I don’t know,” Remus says, cautious, aware of the weight of the air between them. “It was certainly always going to be dangerous for him, once he joined their side. It’s not really a commitment you can leave again, once you’ve started.”
“No,” Sirius says. He’s fiddling with the cord that keeps the drapes swept to one side of the window and looking out at the street, though he doesn’t seem to see the rainy London night outside. “I mean, he was always going to join them, wasn’t he? He heard all that rot from our parents for years and years, and then from his friends at school-”
He breaks off, and Remus hears what he isn’t saying. Might Regulus have turned out differently, if Sirius had stayed?
“Sirius,” he says, and he can’t hold back anymore. He goes to Sirius, wraps his arms around him from behind and holds him like that, stands and gazes out at the street from over Sirius’ shoulder, watching the black cabs that swish by, as ceaseless as the surf of a distant ocean.
Sirius sighs, and Remus thinks he might be crying - silent, decorous tears that refuse to announce themselves. But Remus doesn’t turn his head to see if he’s right, just gazes out into the night and holds Sirius tightly against his chest.
Sirius sighs again, and turns just enough so he can rest his cheek against Remus’ shoulder. Remus reaches up one hand to stroke Sirius’ silky dark hair, wondering as he does so whether Sirius’ mother ever did this, caressed him with gentle hands, not demanding anything of him but that he be exactly who he is. So much of Sirius’ family is a blank to Remus, even after all these years. At school, he heard about the heated rows, not about the tender childhood memories. And these days, he hears about nothing at all.
Remus doesn’t see what he could possibly say that would make any difference, but still, he needs to try.
He murmurs against Sirius’ ear, “Sirius, you are the bravest, most remarkable, most fully alive person I know. If your brother couldn’t see in your example that there might be another path to choose, then I don’t know what more you could have done for him. But I know you, and I know you would have withered there if you’d stayed, in that house, in that world. I’m glad every single day that you chose this world instead.”
Sirius reaches up and wraps his arms around Remus’ arms where they circle his chest. “I’m glad, too,” he says, his voice low.
Remus leans in and kisses Sirius, just below his ear. Sirius shivers.
“Will you come to bed with me?” Remus whispers.
Sirius nods, a soft slide of his cheek against the fabric of Remus’ shirt.
Remus takes his hand, Sirius’ palm warm against his, and leads him to their room. He flicks his wand to draw the curtains shut, plunging them into a cradling darkness, then he undresses Sirius piece by piece, unwilling to rush any part of this. Sirius bows his head and watches as Remus’ hands undo the buttons of Sirius’ shirt, the buckle of his trousers. When Remus glances up, Sirius’ expression is reverent and amazed, as if after all this time he still can’t believe Remus, too, is equally reverent and amazed by him.
Remus smiles and - a tiny miracle - Sirius smiles back, some deeper gladness struggling its way through the grief etched in his face.
Remus steers Sirius to the bed, lays him down on it and worships every part of him, kisses his way down Sirius’ body and back up again, taking his time with all the tantalising expanse of Sirius’ skin, and Sirius gasps and sighs, strokes Remus’ hair and pulls him close, his strong hands irresistible against Remus’ back.
Their lips meet, growing frantic now, desperate for more of each other’s touch, more of each other’s skin, more of everything. Remus caresses Sirius’ body, presses him into the sheets, trying with every touch to show him how desperately glad he is that Sirius is here. Sirius’ breath grows ragged, Remus strokes and kisses him, and when Sirius finally cries out, it is not entirely in sadness, although the sound he makes is desperate and raw.
Remus holds him, and holds him, and they fall asleep like that, tightly entangled, Sirius’ heart thudding beneath Remus’ ear. In those last moments before they drift off, Remus doesn’t say anything, but for once, he doesn’t feel the need. Everything he might say, Sirius already knows.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The End
Summary: Sirius receives bad news, and Remus tries to find the right words. A story in four nights.
Characters/Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Rating: R
Words: ~2,000
Notes: Thank you to
stereolightning for beta-reading (and helping me brainstorm titles).
Story:
Remus watches Sirius read the letter that a big, pale barn owl has just swooped in and dropped on their kitchen table before fluttering back out the open window into the night, as silently as it came. From the increasingly tight set of Sirius’ shoulders, Remus can see it’s bad news, but there’s no way to know how bad until Sirius is ready to tell him.
“Regulus is dead,” Sirius says.
He drops the letter to the table with a whispering crumple of parchment, and all Remus’ words turn to stone in his mouth, hard pebbles he can neither swallow nor spit out.
Sirius laughs a sound that is not really a laugh. “That stupid fool,” he says, and shoves his chair back from the table, its legs making a painful screech against the wooden floor. He stalks past Remus, not meeting his eyes, trying to look haughty and unconcerned even here, even when it’s only the two of them in their own home, and Remus’ heart is breaking in his chest.
He follows Sirius into the bedroom, dim despite the streetlights outside the window. Sirius, just inside the doorway of the room, spins to face him, and now Remus sees the desperation in his eyes, a panicked need to feel anything but this. He steps closer and Sirius pulls Remus to him, so hard that Remus stumbles and falls against Sirius’ chest. But Remus goes to him gladly, without a word.
They fall together onto the bed in a hard knot of limbs, Sirius’ elbow in Remus’ ribs and his hand holding hard to his hair. Sirius’ mouth on his feels angry, his touch hot and wanting something Remus fears he won’t be able to give. Sirius’ hands are everywhere, not hurtful but forceful, as if he wants to wrench something from Remus that can’t be named or defined.
Afterwards, in the dark, Remus can hear that Sirius isn’t sleeping. Sirius’ breathing is too even, his body too carefully still. The silence crouches between them in the dark, a monster befouling their air with every poisonous breath it takes, with every minute that Remus allows to pass by unbroken. Remus lies there and wishes he could think of anything to say.
But Sirius, he knows, doesn’t want kind words, and certainly doesn’t want to be made to talk about it. Regulus was Sirius’ brother, but Sirius doesn’t seem to believe he’s allowed to mourn.
The air is close, too warm. Remus clenches his fists beneath the blanket that covers them both, makes his breathing even and slow and pretends not to know Sirius is still awake, hoping that then Sirius will let himself feel whatever he feels, without worrying what Remus will think of it.
What he isn’t expecting is the harsh sob that rips through the air of the silent room.
“Sirius-” he says, before he can stop himself.
Sirius flails, his limbs striking out, his breath coming fast and hard, all his motions wild and insensible, until Remus, terrified Sirius will hurt himself, finally grabs him and pins him down, whispering desperate nonsense sounds of reassurance in his ear, holding Sirius’ body forcibly still with the weight of his own. He’s just as strong as Sirius, though he doesn’t usually take advantage of that strength.
Sirius pants and struggles, then finally goes limp in Remus’ arms, his eyes squeezed shut, his forehead damp with sweat. His heart is pounding under Remus’ hands. And still, they say nothing.
Neither of them falls asleep for a long time.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“I’m sorry,” Sirius says the next morning at the breakfast table, avoiding Remus’ gaze.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Remus says. He’s making toast for both of them, buttering each piece with a skritch of the knife that sounds too loud in the small kitchen, because Sirius looks like he’s not going to bother to eat unless someone puts the food right in front of him. From the look of it, he’s had at least three cups of coffee already, leaving his hands jittery and his eyes too wide. The acrid scent of it hangs between them, caffeinated and sharp.
“I’m - It’s -” Sirius struggles with the words. “It’s not your fault,” he says finally.
Remus slides a plate of toast in front of Sirius and hopes he’ll eat it, but knows better than to make that request out loud.
“I’m here,” he says, and he means it in all the many possible ways it could be meant.
Sirius eats the toast, or half of one piece, anyway.
That night they make love again, and Sirius is gentle and slow and penitent, and Remus doesn’t like that any better. But at least Sirius, exhausted by his own emotions, falls asleep immediately in Remus’ arms.
Remus lies awake for a long time afterwards.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Sirius is sent on a mission together with James, something important that can’t be postponed, and Remus paces at home and worries, afraid that Sirius, impetuous at the best of times, will be even more dangerously rash now in his furious grief. Remus knows Sirius can more than hold his own in a duel, but can he keep his emotions in check at the same time? What will he do to the first Death Eater he sees, when he blames Death Eaters for killing his brother?
Remus walks back and forth, his gait tight and his arms clenched to his chest. He pictures Sirius dead, Sirius maimed, Sirius tortured, more vividly than he has done since the very first time the two of them were sent out on separate assignments for the Order.
He can’t imagine how he hasn’t yet worn a bald stripe in the living room carpet by the time Sirius returns, bone-weary and covered in dust, but alive.
There are so many words of worry and fear that Remus doesn’t say aloud. But he takes Sirius in his arms, pulls him close and kisses him fiercely, disregarding the stink of dirt and soot, the grittiness of Sirius’ skin under his hands, and they tumble into bed before Sirius has even shed his travelling cloak.
Sirius forgets to be gentle, and Remus is glad.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It’s nearly a week later that Remus comes home from a mission of his own - not dangerous, but wearying, and he feels heaviness in every step he takes - to find Sirius standing in the darkened living room, motionless by the window, looking out. His face is a dark silhouette in the jaundiced light that spills in from the street.
Sirius doesn’t turn, though Remus knows he’s heard him come in. Remus hangs his cloak on the peg by the door, takes two tentative steps into the room, then stops again. Sirius’ strong profile in the second-hand street light is an arresting sight, but he looks so far away.
Still staring out at the street, Sirius says, his voice almost casual, “It was bound to happen anyway, wasn’t it.”
For a moment Remus doesn’t know what he means, then his heart constricts. Oh. Regulus.
“I don’t know,” Remus says, cautious, aware of the weight of the air between them. “It was certainly always going to be dangerous for him, once he joined their side. It’s not really a commitment you can leave again, once you’ve started.”
“No,” Sirius says. He’s fiddling with the cord that keeps the drapes swept to one side of the window and looking out at the street, though he doesn’t seem to see the rainy London night outside. “I mean, he was always going to join them, wasn’t he? He heard all that rot from our parents for years and years, and then from his friends at school-”
He breaks off, and Remus hears what he isn’t saying. Might Regulus have turned out differently, if Sirius had stayed?
“Sirius,” he says, and he can’t hold back anymore. He goes to Sirius, wraps his arms around him from behind and holds him like that, stands and gazes out at the street from over Sirius’ shoulder, watching the black cabs that swish by, as ceaseless as the surf of a distant ocean.
Sirius sighs, and Remus thinks he might be crying - silent, decorous tears that refuse to announce themselves. But Remus doesn’t turn his head to see if he’s right, just gazes out into the night and holds Sirius tightly against his chest.
Sirius sighs again, and turns just enough so he can rest his cheek against Remus’ shoulder. Remus reaches up one hand to stroke Sirius’ silky dark hair, wondering as he does so whether Sirius’ mother ever did this, caressed him with gentle hands, not demanding anything of him but that he be exactly who he is. So much of Sirius’ family is a blank to Remus, even after all these years. At school, he heard about the heated rows, not about the tender childhood memories. And these days, he hears about nothing at all.
Remus doesn’t see what he could possibly say that would make any difference, but still, he needs to try.
He murmurs against Sirius’ ear, “Sirius, you are the bravest, most remarkable, most fully alive person I know. If your brother couldn’t see in your example that there might be another path to choose, then I don’t know what more you could have done for him. But I know you, and I know you would have withered there if you’d stayed, in that house, in that world. I’m glad every single day that you chose this world instead.”
Sirius reaches up and wraps his arms around Remus’ arms where they circle his chest. “I’m glad, too,” he says, his voice low.
Remus leans in and kisses Sirius, just below his ear. Sirius shivers.
“Will you come to bed with me?” Remus whispers.
Sirius nods, a soft slide of his cheek against the fabric of Remus’ shirt.
Remus takes his hand, Sirius’ palm warm against his, and leads him to their room. He flicks his wand to draw the curtains shut, plunging them into a cradling darkness, then he undresses Sirius piece by piece, unwilling to rush any part of this. Sirius bows his head and watches as Remus’ hands undo the buttons of Sirius’ shirt, the buckle of his trousers. When Remus glances up, Sirius’ expression is reverent and amazed, as if after all this time he still can’t believe Remus, too, is equally reverent and amazed by him.
Remus smiles and - a tiny miracle - Sirius smiles back, some deeper gladness struggling its way through the grief etched in his face.
Remus steers Sirius to the bed, lays him down on it and worships every part of him, kisses his way down Sirius’ body and back up again, taking his time with all the tantalising expanse of Sirius’ skin, and Sirius gasps and sighs, strokes Remus’ hair and pulls him close, his strong hands irresistible against Remus’ back.
Their lips meet, growing frantic now, desperate for more of each other’s touch, more of each other’s skin, more of everything. Remus caresses Sirius’ body, presses him into the sheets, trying with every touch to show him how desperately glad he is that Sirius is here. Sirius’ breath grows ragged, Remus strokes and kisses him, and when Sirius finally cries out, it is not entirely in sadness, although the sound he makes is desperate and raw.
Remus holds him, and holds him, and they fall asleep like that, tightly entangled, Sirius’ heart thudding beneath Remus’ ear. In those last moments before they drift off, Remus doesn’t say anything, but for once, he doesn’t feel the need. Everything he might say, Sirius already knows.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The End