this morning, I saw a ghost that forgot to float away
Title: Worst Time
Author: veterization
Rating: T/PG-13
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Summary: It's summer, and Remus hasn't seen Sirius in months, not until he shows up impulsively at his door. Sirius did, Remus muses, always have a talent for showing up at the worst time.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Era: MWPP
It’s summer.
It’s the midst of July heat, nothing but heat and sweat and laziness, and of course, Remus is alone.
Penmanship only goes so far and dammit, Remus is sick of it. He misses voices, sensations, touches, and he wants to see Sirius. He wants him here, and of course, since Remus is an unlucky person to the core, it’s only natural to expect to expect him when Remus isn’t expecting anyone.
The whole world is a sunbath and Remus is hot. He doesn’t care about the sweat, though, he doesn’t even care about the heat. His stringy excuse of hair and his frail excuse of a body hasn’t seen a showerhead in too long, and it’s not like he cares about that either. It’s summer. It’s nothing but two eternities to go through without his friends.
Without Sirius, of course.
Of course.
And then the doorbell is destined to ring, because Remus is such a cynic. He wishes for it to happen, the day that he’s shocked with Sirius’ surprise arrival because Sirius is full of surprises, and because he’s wishing, he knows it won’t happen.
Remus gets up, aversely at best, and weighs options.
It’s either the mailman, a young boy selling sugary lemonade on a scorching July day, or, at worst’s best, it’s the police because their neighborhood has always been questionably shady.
In all candor, he’s stupid to open the door in the first place.
Sirius stands at the threshold, in the humidity and cold all together because it’s raining, one of those rains that’s warm in the proximity of backyards as it pitter patters against pavement, but not a hundred feet higher where the wind kicks in and the rain is harsh and icy.
There’s a weathered broomstick that drops to the floor and shaggy hair, and that’s it. It’s just Sirius.
And then Remus is frozen, the sight of his friend almost paralyzing his vision. He blinks once, and then again, and then once more, as though waiting for this chimerical apparition to vanish.
“Dammit,” Remus breathes, and covers his face with his palms, his fingertips itching at his hairline, “get the hell out of here.”
Sirius isn’t even offended. He smiles, and through the crooks and lines of his fingers, Remus sees a blur of his own flesh and Sirius’ beaming mouth. He curls his lips upward in one of those notorious smiles that just seems to make Remus giggle childishly for no reason.
Sirius already has creases from his interminable smiling plaguing his face. The lines down his nose, the wrinkles over his lips, all of them deep and prominent when he smiles even more, they’re not ugly. The pulchritude is almost ridiculous, but Remus sees memories in those wrinkles because he knows he’s responsible for at least some of them.
He hides underneath his palm, a small grin of his own concealed with his hands. Remus masks the laughter bubbling up in his throat by biting his tongue with demanding teeth, because Sirius is at his door and smiling like a fool, and what part of that isn’t funny?
And damn, he’s forgotten his smile. What it looks like, what it sounds like when a single vibration of a snicker worms its way through into sound. Sirius’ lips break apart his cheeks and it’s contagious, because then Remus is smiling too.
And it’s stupid, because neither of them should be smiling. Sirius is drenched and is missing a shoe from vacuously deciding to fly through streams of rain, breezes rippling at his numb skin as well. He’s pale and chalky from his adventure, but all of it looks like it’s faded into nothing but mild discomfort because that smile is just too chipper to be feigned.
Then there’s Remus, barely wearing anything at all with the exception of his pajama pants that he hasn’t gotten out of in days and a shirt that can stretch all the way down to Remus’ knees because in truth, he’s quite lazy and doesn’t care about appearance when there’s no one there to appear to.
But still, there’s a smile etched on their faces, Remus still hiding behind his own grin and Sirius showing it only because he thinks that Remus can’t see it behind the curtain of his fingers. Remus is the first to talk again because Sirius still hasn’t gotten the hell out of here, and if he is, he has the impulse to stop him right away. Sirius is on his doorstep, standing there like Christmas came early, and if he turns him away he’ll go straight to James’.
Damn James.
“You bastard,” Remus mumbles, but now you can even hear the smile in his words and the façade is over.
The appropriate phrase is asking why Sirius is here, what he’s doing, is something wrong, but instead Remus shrivels back a few steps and ignores the traditional host etiquette by ignoring Sirius’ well-being out in the steady rain.
“Oh, what the hell are you thinking,” Remus pules, and Sirius laughs more, and it’s even more contagious than the smile itching at his lips, “and I haven’t showered in days and my hair even though it looks fine it’s just straw soaked in butter on my head and I smell like shit and I’ve worn this shirt for sixty-something hours and I haven’t even brushed my teeth-”
Remus is almost glad he’s rambling because he knows that Sirius doesn’t listen to calm and coolly composed words, he listens to nonsense, and the random assortment of words falling from the werewolf’s tongue isn’t logical at all. Remus interrupts himself from his monologue.
“Damn, damn you,” Stray chuckles work their way through his words and now they’re both laughing, insane and creepy and bordering on pointless, because this isn’t funny at all, “you always know the worst time to be anywhere, don’t you, Sirius Black.”
It’s not a question at all and Sirius knows it. So he doesn’t bother answering, instead crossing the threshold with a soggy boot making a muddy imprint on the fresh carpet, but it’s not the carpet Remus is worried about. It’s the propinquity and that Remus can smell dirt and sweat and rain even as far away as he currently is, and when he finally opens his eyes with another whiff of what can only muddle together to be the odor of soaked dog he realizes that they can’t be as far apart as he has assumed.
Sirius’ cold and numb hands tug on his wrists and pull them away from his face, and there’s a shocking lack of reluctance from Remus. Maybe it’s because he’s realized that Sirius smells just as bad as he does. Maybe it’s because it’s been forever and a day since he’s seen Sirius and he’s done pretending he cares that he showed up inopportunely.
“Tch,” Sirius manages to grunt out on a cold tongue. All of Sirius is cold. The clothes that is latching onto his flesh, the gloves that are glued on his appendages, the hair that’s matted on his forehead, his frosty nose and his chilled thumbs, it’s all cold, “Like I care.”
“Shut up,” Remus retaliates, even though Sirius isn’t talking anymore. But he doesn’t like the tch, the sarcasm awakened by the long travel, the smile that still won’t budge.
And then there’s a hand, slithering up his shirt like a snake. And it’s cold, freezing from cold wet rain, but Remus doesn’t even jump or wriggle away. There’s an icy shirt pressing up against his chest, soaking it, cooling it even though Remus doesn’t need to be cooled, and he slumps against it.
“Nn,” he murmurs, “cold.”
Sirius nods even though Remus’ nose is now in the cool cavern of his neck, breathing in the scent of sweat and ice, and underneath it all, the underlying musk of Sirius that Remus doesn’t even like that much but still feels like home when he breathes in.
Another hand reaches up, not up his shirt, but to the back of his thigh, grabbing it with impatient fingers that wanted not only to see Remus, but to touch him, because it’s been too long for the two boys. Remus mewls and Sirius echoes him, pressing a single open-mouthed kiss from frozen lips to his wrist.
“Haven’t showered,” Remus repeats, and a scowl plays on his features, “y’know, it’ll be bad.”
Remus doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Whether it’s his own stench, mingling with Sirius’ to create a harmony of tangled and sharooshing odors, or what’s to come within the next few minutes because he knows it will and he knows it’s ineluctable. And of course Sirius will be cold and rough and fast because his hormones control his teenage mind. But Remus still doesn’t know what to associate his words with when he refers to the inevitable future as bad.
“I know,” sighs Sirius, “and I love it.”
It can’t be the stenches that they’re talking about anymore. Sirius’ fingers tickle up his back, hitching up more of his shirt to rub the bottom of Remus’ spine. The bones of his vertebrae shift at the soft kneading of the raven’s probing fingers.
“You’re filthy,” Remus comments, and it’s true, his cheek pressed against a dirt-splattered shirt and Sirius’ equally dirty words revolving around his mind, unfocused and jumbled.
“Haven’t showered either.”
“Right.”
“Maybe we should.”
“Or maybe we shouldn’t.”
Showers are wet and hot, nothing but steam and pools of water falling down delicate eyelashes and blurring visions. The smoke of the water will make it all slick and smooth, undeniably smooth and glabrous too, as dirt and grime wash down thighs and kneecaps. It takes too long, and Remus is just as impatient as Sirius. He pins his lip between his teeth and before even waiting for a response, he pulls on the hem of Sirius’ shirt.
“Shower’s cleaner.”
“Shower’s wetter.”
The shirt is off, and all that’s left is Sirius’ shivering chest.
“…shower’s hotter.”
“I’m not cold.” Remus breathes, and Sirius breaks.
And it’s practically tongue first as Sirius fuses their lips together, his mouth the only thing warm on his whole damn body.
And it’s just like Remus remembers, bumping tongues and grinding teeth. Impatience and fumbling and deep grumbling in throats, never bothering to do anything right. It’s all urgency because they can never be together fast enough, they can never touch enough, and they can never memorize the sensations enough.
Sirius bites on Remus’ lip and it hurts, but it’s not like Remus cares anyway. And then they fall into this rhythm, the rhythm Remus had assumed to fade enough to be forgotten, but it’s all the same. Sirius’ mouth hot on his, his moans being swallowed Remus’ throat, his thighs bumping against the werewolf’s.
It’s all pain and hurt and the undeniable swirl of pleasure warped into a frenzy, a frisson, and Remus wonders how long it will last before school starts and it’ll be everyday that kisses will be sneaked and friskiness whenever he feels like it will be available.
He doesn’t want to ever take his eyes off of Sirius, and damn, he misses it. Summer’s been too long, too hot, too sweaty without Sirius, and now that he’s here, flesh and blood boiling under his skin, Remus is nothing but a mess of things. He wants Sirius, he wants his lips on his and his eyes locked on him, and he’ll be damned if Sirius will ever leave this house again.
“Should’ve come earlier.”
“I know,” Sirius whispers, and his mouth bumps against the werewolf’s as he says it, and the friction is enough to drive Remus insane. His tongue licks Sirius’ lip, if only to hear his voice, hear his strangled moans, and it’s worth it as Sirius grabs him by the waist and practically shoves him onto the wall, climbing his body with a knee hooked over Remus’ leg.
“Gods.”
“I know,” Sirius repeats, and grinds his hips, “I know.”
Author: veterization
Rating: T/PG-13
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Summary: It's summer, and Remus hasn't seen Sirius in months, not until he shows up impulsively at his door. Sirius did, Remus muses, always have a talent for showing up at the worst time.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Era: MWPP
It’s summer.
It’s the midst of July heat, nothing but heat and sweat and laziness, and of course, Remus is alone.
Penmanship only goes so far and dammit, Remus is sick of it. He misses voices, sensations, touches, and he wants to see Sirius. He wants him here, and of course, since Remus is an unlucky person to the core, it’s only natural to expect to expect him when Remus isn’t expecting anyone.
The whole world is a sunbath and Remus is hot. He doesn’t care about the sweat, though, he doesn’t even care about the heat. His stringy excuse of hair and his frail excuse of a body hasn’t seen a showerhead in too long, and it’s not like he cares about that either. It’s summer. It’s nothing but two eternities to go through without his friends.
Without Sirius, of course.
Of course.
And then the doorbell is destined to ring, because Remus is such a cynic. He wishes for it to happen, the day that he’s shocked with Sirius’ surprise arrival because Sirius is full of surprises, and because he’s wishing, he knows it won’t happen.
Remus gets up, aversely at best, and weighs options.
It’s either the mailman, a young boy selling sugary lemonade on a scorching July day, or, at worst’s best, it’s the police because their neighborhood has always been questionably shady.
In all candor, he’s stupid to open the door in the first place.
Sirius stands at the threshold, in the humidity and cold all together because it’s raining, one of those rains that’s warm in the proximity of backyards as it pitter patters against pavement, but not a hundred feet higher where the wind kicks in and the rain is harsh and icy.
There’s a weathered broomstick that drops to the floor and shaggy hair, and that’s it. It’s just Sirius.
And then Remus is frozen, the sight of his friend almost paralyzing his vision. He blinks once, and then again, and then once more, as though waiting for this chimerical apparition to vanish.
“Dammit,” Remus breathes, and covers his face with his palms, his fingertips itching at his hairline, “get the hell out of here.”
Sirius isn’t even offended. He smiles, and through the crooks and lines of his fingers, Remus sees a blur of his own flesh and Sirius’ beaming mouth. He curls his lips upward in one of those notorious smiles that just seems to make Remus giggle childishly for no reason.
Sirius already has creases from his interminable smiling plaguing his face. The lines down his nose, the wrinkles over his lips, all of them deep and prominent when he smiles even more, they’re not ugly. The pulchritude is almost ridiculous, but Remus sees memories in those wrinkles because he knows he’s responsible for at least some of them.
He hides underneath his palm, a small grin of his own concealed with his hands. Remus masks the laughter bubbling up in his throat by biting his tongue with demanding teeth, because Sirius is at his door and smiling like a fool, and what part of that isn’t funny?
And damn, he’s forgotten his smile. What it looks like, what it sounds like when a single vibration of a snicker worms its way through into sound. Sirius’ lips break apart his cheeks and it’s contagious, because then Remus is smiling too.
And it’s stupid, because neither of them should be smiling. Sirius is drenched and is missing a shoe from vacuously deciding to fly through streams of rain, breezes rippling at his numb skin as well. He’s pale and chalky from his adventure, but all of it looks like it’s faded into nothing but mild discomfort because that smile is just too chipper to be feigned.
Then there’s Remus, barely wearing anything at all with the exception of his pajama pants that he hasn’t gotten out of in days and a shirt that can stretch all the way down to Remus’ knees because in truth, he’s quite lazy and doesn’t care about appearance when there’s no one there to appear to.
But still, there’s a smile etched on their faces, Remus still hiding behind his own grin and Sirius showing it only because he thinks that Remus can’t see it behind the curtain of his fingers. Remus is the first to talk again because Sirius still hasn’t gotten the hell out of here, and if he is, he has the impulse to stop him right away. Sirius is on his doorstep, standing there like Christmas came early, and if he turns him away he’ll go straight to James’.
Damn James.
“You bastard,” Remus mumbles, but now you can even hear the smile in his words and the façade is over.
The appropriate phrase is asking why Sirius is here, what he’s doing, is something wrong, but instead Remus shrivels back a few steps and ignores the traditional host etiquette by ignoring Sirius’ well-being out in the steady rain.
“Oh, what the hell are you thinking,” Remus pules, and Sirius laughs more, and it’s even more contagious than the smile itching at his lips, “and I haven’t showered in days and my hair even though it looks fine it’s just straw soaked in butter on my head and I smell like shit and I’ve worn this shirt for sixty-something hours and I haven’t even brushed my teeth-”
Remus is almost glad he’s rambling because he knows that Sirius doesn’t listen to calm and coolly composed words, he listens to nonsense, and the random assortment of words falling from the werewolf’s tongue isn’t logical at all. Remus interrupts himself from his monologue.
“Damn, damn you,” Stray chuckles work their way through his words and now they’re both laughing, insane and creepy and bordering on pointless, because this isn’t funny at all, “you always know the worst time to be anywhere, don’t you, Sirius Black.”
It’s not a question at all and Sirius knows it. So he doesn’t bother answering, instead crossing the threshold with a soggy boot making a muddy imprint on the fresh carpet, but it’s not the carpet Remus is worried about. It’s the propinquity and that Remus can smell dirt and sweat and rain even as far away as he currently is, and when he finally opens his eyes with another whiff of what can only muddle together to be the odor of soaked dog he realizes that they can’t be as far apart as he has assumed.
Sirius’ cold and numb hands tug on his wrists and pull them away from his face, and there’s a shocking lack of reluctance from Remus. Maybe it’s because he’s realized that Sirius smells just as bad as he does. Maybe it’s because it’s been forever and a day since he’s seen Sirius and he’s done pretending he cares that he showed up inopportunely.
“Tch,” Sirius manages to grunt out on a cold tongue. All of Sirius is cold. The clothes that is latching onto his flesh, the gloves that are glued on his appendages, the hair that’s matted on his forehead, his frosty nose and his chilled thumbs, it’s all cold, “Like I care.”
“Shut up,” Remus retaliates, even though Sirius isn’t talking anymore. But he doesn’t like the tch, the sarcasm awakened by the long travel, the smile that still won’t budge.
And then there’s a hand, slithering up his shirt like a snake. And it’s cold, freezing from cold wet rain, but Remus doesn’t even jump or wriggle away. There’s an icy shirt pressing up against his chest, soaking it, cooling it even though Remus doesn’t need to be cooled, and he slumps against it.
“Nn,” he murmurs, “cold.”
Sirius nods even though Remus’ nose is now in the cool cavern of his neck, breathing in the scent of sweat and ice, and underneath it all, the underlying musk of Sirius that Remus doesn’t even like that much but still feels like home when he breathes in.
Another hand reaches up, not up his shirt, but to the back of his thigh, grabbing it with impatient fingers that wanted not only to see Remus, but to touch him, because it’s been too long for the two boys. Remus mewls and Sirius echoes him, pressing a single open-mouthed kiss from frozen lips to his wrist.
“Haven’t showered,” Remus repeats, and a scowl plays on his features, “y’know, it’ll be bad.”
Remus doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Whether it’s his own stench, mingling with Sirius’ to create a harmony of tangled and sharooshing odors, or what’s to come within the next few minutes because he knows it will and he knows it’s ineluctable. And of course Sirius will be cold and rough and fast because his hormones control his teenage mind. But Remus still doesn’t know what to associate his words with when he refers to the inevitable future as bad.
“I know,” sighs Sirius, “and I love it.”
It can’t be the stenches that they’re talking about anymore. Sirius’ fingers tickle up his back, hitching up more of his shirt to rub the bottom of Remus’ spine. The bones of his vertebrae shift at the soft kneading of the raven’s probing fingers.
“You’re filthy,” Remus comments, and it’s true, his cheek pressed against a dirt-splattered shirt and Sirius’ equally dirty words revolving around his mind, unfocused and jumbled.
“Haven’t showered either.”
“Right.”
“Maybe we should.”
“Or maybe we shouldn’t.”
Showers are wet and hot, nothing but steam and pools of water falling down delicate eyelashes and blurring visions. The smoke of the water will make it all slick and smooth, undeniably smooth and glabrous too, as dirt and grime wash down thighs and kneecaps. It takes too long, and Remus is just as impatient as Sirius. He pins his lip between his teeth and before even waiting for a response, he pulls on the hem of Sirius’ shirt.
“Shower’s cleaner.”
“Shower’s wetter.”
The shirt is off, and all that’s left is Sirius’ shivering chest.
“…shower’s hotter.”
“I’m not cold.” Remus breathes, and Sirius breaks.
And it’s practically tongue first as Sirius fuses their lips together, his mouth the only thing warm on his whole damn body.
And it’s just like Remus remembers, bumping tongues and grinding teeth. Impatience and fumbling and deep grumbling in throats, never bothering to do anything right. It’s all urgency because they can never be together fast enough, they can never touch enough, and they can never memorize the sensations enough.
Sirius bites on Remus’ lip and it hurts, but it’s not like Remus cares anyway. And then they fall into this rhythm, the rhythm Remus had assumed to fade enough to be forgotten, but it’s all the same. Sirius’ mouth hot on his, his moans being swallowed Remus’ throat, his thighs bumping against the werewolf’s.
It’s all pain and hurt and the undeniable swirl of pleasure warped into a frenzy, a frisson, and Remus wonders how long it will last before school starts and it’ll be everyday that kisses will be sneaked and friskiness whenever he feels like it will be available.
He doesn’t want to ever take his eyes off of Sirius, and damn, he misses it. Summer’s been too long, too hot, too sweaty without Sirius, and now that he’s here, flesh and blood boiling under his skin, Remus is nothing but a mess of things. He wants Sirius, he wants his lips on his and his eyes locked on him, and he’ll be damned if Sirius will ever leave this house again.
“Should’ve come earlier.”
“I know,” Sirius whispers, and his mouth bumps against the werewolf’s as he says it, and the friction is enough to drive Remus insane. His tongue licks Sirius’ lip, if only to hear his voice, hear his strangled moans, and it’s worth it as Sirius grabs him by the waist and practically shoves him onto the wall, climbing his body with a knee hooked over Remus’ leg.
“Gods.”
“I know,” Sirius repeats, and grinds his hips, “I know.”