Fic: One Simple Light
Title: One Simple Light
Author: penhaligonblue
Characters: Remus Lupin/Sirius Black
Rating: A rather low PG-13
Word Count: 461
Notes: My gratitude to mlleelizabeth for the beta read. I have not derived any profit from this story. I’ll read any comments like a grown-up, and gladly take criticism. I mean that: please don’t be shy. Title from Dante's Paradiso, Canto 33.
One Simple Light (1978)
The house had belonged to an old Muggle woman, whose husband had recently died and who was going to live with her daughter somewhere in the south. You have a family, my boy? she had asked Sirius in a wheezing voice. Someone to wait for you to come home?
Not anymore, he had almost said, but instead replied, Not yet.
It was the picture of a charming old farmhouse, from the large soapstone sink in the kitchen to the uneven floor in the dining room. Remus was particularly amused by the toilet, which he found wedged underneath the stairs, with a slanted ceiling that required you to bend your neck to the side while you pissed.
The tub upstairs was of the honest footed variety, and the closet seemed barely big enough to accommodate two old school trunks. On close examination, Remus determined the railing on the stairs to be hand-worked, which seemed to please him. The house had been equipped with running water, thankfully, and the electricity was faulty, but Sirius knew he’d be able to fix that with a few good charms.
The garden was enclosed by a low stone wall and was of a rather modest size, but the property extended to a field across the lane and an adjacent little sloping meadow, in which stood a pair of apple trees that seemed to have just lost their blossoms. Sirius could hardly have found a more absurdly idyllic spot.
The house was, for the time being, all but empty of furniture, and because there was nowhere else they slept that night on the wood floor of the living room (their living room). When Remus awoke it was to the sound of floorboards creaking under Sirius’s feet. The blankets they had laid down the previous night had shifted, and one of Remus’s arms lay bare on the hardwood, the cold creeping up over his shoulder to his chest, making him shudder quietly. He opened his eyes and saw that Sirius was standing at the window, leaning on the sill, early sunbeams pouring in around him. Remus studied the effect of naked light on naked skin, wondering at how the morning whitened the line of Sirius’s hip and the bony curve of his shoulder.
Light of my life, he mused sleepily. He had only meant to mouth it - to roll the words against his teeth and see whether the unoriginality of the phrase really bothered him at all - but he must have spoken aloud, because Sirius swung around, shifting the pattern of light and shadows, and gave him an uncharacteristically shy grin.
Sorry, Remus started to say, but Sirius’s smile, dimly visible in the backlit darkness of his face, had somehow made him forget exactly why he wanted to apologise.
Author: penhaligonblue
Characters: Remus Lupin/Sirius Black
Rating: A rather low PG-13
Word Count: 461
Notes: My gratitude to mlleelizabeth for the beta read. I have not derived any profit from this story. I’ll read any comments like a grown-up, and gladly take criticism. I mean that: please don’t be shy. Title from Dante's Paradiso, Canto 33.
One Simple Light (1978)
The house had belonged to an old Muggle woman, whose husband had recently died and who was going to live with her daughter somewhere in the south. You have a family, my boy? she had asked Sirius in a wheezing voice. Someone to wait for you to come home?
Not anymore, he had almost said, but instead replied, Not yet.
It was the picture of a charming old farmhouse, from the large soapstone sink in the kitchen to the uneven floor in the dining room. Remus was particularly amused by the toilet, which he found wedged underneath the stairs, with a slanted ceiling that required you to bend your neck to the side while you pissed.
The tub upstairs was of the honest footed variety, and the closet seemed barely big enough to accommodate two old school trunks. On close examination, Remus determined the railing on the stairs to be hand-worked, which seemed to please him. The house had been equipped with running water, thankfully, and the electricity was faulty, but Sirius knew he’d be able to fix that with a few good charms.
The garden was enclosed by a low stone wall and was of a rather modest size, but the property extended to a field across the lane and an adjacent little sloping meadow, in which stood a pair of apple trees that seemed to have just lost their blossoms. Sirius could hardly have found a more absurdly idyllic spot.
The house was, for the time being, all but empty of furniture, and because there was nowhere else they slept that night on the wood floor of the living room (their living room). When Remus awoke it was to the sound of floorboards creaking under Sirius’s feet. The blankets they had laid down the previous night had shifted, and one of Remus’s arms lay bare on the hardwood, the cold creeping up over his shoulder to his chest, making him shudder quietly. He opened his eyes and saw that Sirius was standing at the window, leaning on the sill, early sunbeams pouring in around him. Remus studied the effect of naked light on naked skin, wondering at how the morning whitened the line of Sirius’s hip and the bony curve of his shoulder.
Light of my life, he mused sleepily. He had only meant to mouth it - to roll the words against his teeth and see whether the unoriginality of the phrase really bothered him at all - but he must have spoken aloud, because Sirius swung around, shifting the pattern of light and shadows, and gave him an uncharacteristically shy grin.
Sorry, Remus started to say, but Sirius’s smile, dimly visible in the backlit darkness of his face, had somehow made him forget exactly why he wanted to apologise.