[for Sirius]

[the_beta]

The new hut isn't new at all: smaller than the last and dusty from the sudden abandonment of its owner.  Yesterday Remus moved most of his life here in his hamper, only to cart it back to the compound with the sheets for a wash.  Today, he's been back to the old place with his commandeered wheelbarrow for his books, and a note he feels somewhat

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[not_the_grim]

Several books from the top of one of the stacks is the telltale red spine of Fight Club. When Sirius slinks up the steps, he slips it free, the cover well worn and the pages dog-eared. The past year, there's nothing he's read more, and he's never been particularly careful with his material possessions.

Leaning in the open doorway, skinny hips canted forward, he thumbs through the pages. "This one's mine," he says to announce his presence, and glances up to where Remus diligently cleaning the room inside.

[the_beta]

For a moment his insides freeze up and squeeze, all kinds of startled and surprised, and, yes, elated. But there's no leaping up and going over, just another swipe of the coarse brush over the floor as he exhales, and then there's dropping it, sitting back up on his bare heels to look over at Sirius.

"So take it. Or leave it, it'll still be here when you want it again," he says with deliberate mildness. It almost sounds like he's actually just talking about the book.

[not_the_grim]

"Where else would I keep it?"

The novel is afforded a last perfunctory once over before he tosses it aside to land with a slap beside the rest. He hooks a casual thumb into a belt loop on the front of his already perilously low-riding blue jeans, but remains otherwise unmoving in the doorway.

[the_beta]

"Wherever you're staying, I guess--" but that's not really what he wants to say. Or it is, but it isn't what he needs to say. If he can't stand to be petty about it on the beach the other night, he can't stand to be petty now, with Sirius halfway into the hut. "Look, about what I said, I'm sorry. And I'm sorry I didn't track you down to say so."

Wiping his hands dry on his thighs, he stands to pick at the folds in his shirt and stop having this talk from a corner. "People keep asking me how I get on with you, and I never know how to tell them I'm pretty shit at it." Like now, all this talking, like he does when he's feeling cagey. It never gets him anywhere, but there he is, filling the space with words.

[not_the_grim]

"What people?"

How to get on with him would be a relevant enough question, Sirius guesses, if he held any illusions about his own worth. If you've got to ask, he reckons it probably means he's not the sort you want to bother getting on with in the first place. He certainly doesn't make it easy to do.

[the_beta]

"Neil's been asking since we met," he admits. It'd feel a bit like selling him out if the fact of it wasn't so ridiculous. Or, ridiculous until he thinks about the things Neil says and has to wonder if these people know Sirius at all. "A Rob Chase? I don't think he said more than a handful of words before he started comparing you to a hurricane. Badly, at that.

"Your clothes are still in the other hut, do you--do you want me to leave them there," he asks, as if nothing is wrong at all. With Sirius standing there, he can't be sure anymore.

[not_the_grim]

"I'll get new ones, no worries," Sirius answers. The clothes box makes it astonishingly easy for him to even care about whether he's got something clean to wear or not. Beyond that, though, he's not going back to that old hut again, and Remus shouldn't have to, either.

"What do you tell them?" he asks, head canted and dark hair falling across his eyes. "Neil and Rob."

[the_beta]

"That I don't know how to manage you and don't always possess the inclination to try," he says tiredly, lifting his arm to wipe damp from his brow, push his hair out of the way.

Sometimes he feels he ought to listen to more to people like Neil, like Rob. Find out what their stories are, how Sirius fits into that story, why they care so much. But his stories about Sirius are much longer, and hard to tell. And what if the stories were similar--could he stand to hear it, those feelings spoken back to him like he has an answer for them? A solution? "That I'd rather you just come back when you want to."

[not_the_grim]

And here he is, because he wants to, so it's obviously a sound philosophy. The idea of managing Sirius at all, as if he's a small child or a sports team, is fairly ludicrous.

"Come here," Sirius finally says, as much acceptance or acknowledgment of Remus' apology as the smaller man is likely to get. It's perhaps a better alternative depending upon how he looks at it.

[the_beta]

It is the east, Remus thinks with a soft crook to his mouth, and of course Sirius is the sun, dragging everything in. And he goes wondering about the stories again, because Rob called him a hurricane instead. Something that never makes you warm, the way Sirius can with a nod or a bright smile or a come here.

He drops the brush. Wanders over until he's in Sirius' space, saying alright like he's giving in but also like he's asking, are we, are you. His eyes hood slightly, once he's close enough to focus on the pieces of Sirius' face rather than the whole, grey eyes, thin nose, curled mouth. Taken apart like that, it's easier not to get lost in the sleek, purebred look of him, more like a racing dog than the mutt he used to become.

[not_the_grim]

There was a time when so much blind obedience would have been distasteful to Sirius in the extreme. Even in the early days when Remus would all but dissolve at a casual touch, Sirius preferred him incredulous and spirited. But maybe giving in isn't always about weakness, maybe sometimes it's just about doing what feels correct to do. Just now, with Remus peering up at him with pale, expectant eyes, all Sirius can think is how much he missed this infuriating little bastard.

Tongue touches against his bottom lip briefly, his hand sliding from Remus' shoulder to neck, fingers splaying against warm skin and into soft, haphazard hair. For a long moment he simply looks at Remus, thumb brushing against the sharp line of his jaw, but then he's kissing him full and warm on the lips. It is entirely possible that Sirius doesn't taste any better today than he did that day in the kitchen when Remus pushed him away, but somehow he doubts it will much matter.

[the_beta]

Sirius always tastes like cigarettes, really, always has hints of bitter smoke and sour coffee on the tongue he uses to coax Remus' mouth open with such ease. It had only been Remus' own bitterness making him complain; he hardly knows what a mouth tastes like, that isn't this mouth.

Eyes sliding shut, he shifts up onto the balls of his feet to lean into Sirius, push up against his mouth even as he's opening for him, hands bracing warm and easy on his sharp hips. Sharpness that makes his stomach flip over and not quite right itself, but he doesn't say anything: he's gotten used to this, too.