Fic: All the World's a Stage for liseuse
Title: All the World’s a Stage
Author/Artist: labelleetlabete
Recipient: liseuse
Rating: R/NC-17
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): *Rough sex, smoking, (mild) drinking, gratuitous sexual puns, iambic pentameter, and a number of historical inaccuracies.*
Word count: 7,620
Summary: London, 1606. The Marauders are members of Shakespeare’s acting troupe. Four scenes of varying length.
Notes: I started out on burgundy, but soon hit the harder stuff writing for prompt 2 (and you may still find hints of it) and ended up with wildcard, and 3. It became a (massive) beast of its own! Thank you to the lovely mods, and my dear Natskins for the beta. Title is from Jaques’ oft-quoted monologue from As You Like It. liseuse, I hope you enjoy!
Four scenes, as part of a larger whole that tells the story of two lovers, four actors, and of the people and lives they have found with each other therewithal.
SCENE I. Anteroom at court, after a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Enter Sirius, leaning against a wall and emanating gloom. Remus, offstage.
“Sirius? … Sirius? … Wherefore dost thou hide?” called Remus, peering around corners, into alcoves, and other likely places to find his long friend and recent lover causing mischief. “Ah, here.” He smiled softly, spotting Sirius, slouched against a wall, packing his pipe. “There’s a fair face to find.”
“Is’t fair?” Sirius peered up through a curtain of loose hair with eyes sharp and dark. “Fair foul feel I.” He bent back to his work, evening out the tobacco in the small bowl, careful not to spill the costly substance.
“A fickle face!” Remus raised his eyebrows and chanced closer, and Sirius stepped away, bending to the fire to light his pipe from a glowing coal. “Alas,” he sighed, “that I am fated to find you in mood most melancholy, spouting speech as black as your name.”
Sirius’ head snapped around, glaring as a stream of smoke issued from his lips. “Say not that I am Black, for I am none of that House of snakes suckling at society’s teat,” he spat. Remus settled back against the stone wall, watching warily as Sirius hurled himself up, pacing. “They that extract milk and expel poison.”
“The performance was well done. I take it you saw your father?” Remus tried to ask gently, casually, as if he didn’t know that Sirius’ rancour stemmed from hatred of his family and all that they represent.
“Ha!” Sirius barked out a laugh, whirling through his cloud of smoke. “The good Duke I did espy there sitting, all in comfort amongst his trailing dotards,” he scoffed, “the beslubbering scum of their own crook-pated puttock, the very spunk of his retinue and my unfortunately blooded kinsmen, and the Archbishop sat at his elbow.” He puffed angrily at his pipe as he paced sending reeking clouds up to hang about the rafters.
“Was’t thy brother not become a man of the cloth?” asked Remus, again softly, shifting uncomfortably.
“Ay, ’tis so, and with’t a man of the stews.” Sirius’ eyes narrowed, focusing on Remus on the other side of the room. “Think you that he deserves such a name? Fie!” He made a violent gesture. “To call him my brother offends me by association, and to call him a man insults God’s creation!”
Somewhat taken aback by his friend’s unbridled hostility, Remus folded his arms. “It puffs and steams like a furnace and blows as much air!” He shot back. “Peace, Sirius, you are too hot.”
Voice lowering to a deadly hiss, Sirius turned moodily to gaze out the paned window. “Why should I not speak so of such fear-mongers? They deserve far fouler than that which my tongue can serve,” he muttered darkly, seeming to lose his train of thought as he looked away. “They that speak backwards: when one ear hears a sweeting of empty flattery, the other is filled with the cowardly, obstreperous falsehoods they to use to debase all others.” Remus made as if to speak, stepping forward, catching Sirius’ eye as he faced him again, barking out, “The whole of that House is no thing but an over-gorgèd beast, puking and mewling in pathetic splendour; so full of itself and bereft of wit that it cannot perceive the depths of its own deceit!” He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, fisting a hand in his hair, crying, “Rank, false, and base!”
Eyes wide at this shocking display of malevolence, Remus strode to him, gasping, “Sirius, they are your kinsmen!”
“Oh, kin! What is kin?” Sirius laughed hysterically, eyes as wide as those he faced, looking quite mad with a wreath of smoke dancing about his head and his violent motions. “Kinsmen much removed, would that I could truly remove them from earthly bounds. Yet I am unbound by ties of kinship or love to any of the insects.” Sirius ground his heel into the carpet, as if imagining each of his family’s hated faces blotted out by his movement.
“Your mood is most black,” spoke Remus shortly, pursing his lips, as though having abandoned hope for reasonable discourse. Carefully, keeping his distance, but somehow bubbling with the fiery impulses only Sirius seemed to be able to bring to the surface, he tried, “And you are most Black.” Before Sirius could interject with some villainous comment to match the indignant scowl on his features, Remus added, “You are loyal, you are proud, and you are noble.”
“I care nothing for their nonsense!” He roared. “They are as noble as the dullard sat at a chess board, moving each piece and playing at feeling powerful, the God of their pitiful circles, thinking lofty thoughts that bounce around their empty skulls.” Each word dripped with venom as Sirius stalked back and forth across the room.
Remus raised his eyebrows. “And you can also be cruel.”
“Bad blood say I. A pox upon them all. I shall be glad to die as the last of that name.”
“What, no sons?”
Sirius shot Remus a look that would curdle milk. Despite the weight of that considerable grimace, Remus smiled a little. The air felt heavy, teeming with smoke and bitterness as Sirius stared at him, hovering as if on the edge of something, before sliding down the wall and crumpling in a heap. Remus settled down beside him, brushing a stray lock of black hair from his face and pressing a kiss to his temple. “Forget your family’s ills.”
He slid his hand into Sirius’ broad palm, taking his pipe and drawing on it, tasting the thick, heady flavour of tobacco: bold with a fine sweetness that may have attested to its quality and may have been the imaginings of Sirius’ lips. Remus blew a smoke ring and smiled softly, murmuring, “Comes meus fuit illo miserrimo tempo.”*
Sirius watched the ring widen and disappear into wisps. Still smiling gently, Remus handed the pipe back to Sirius and kissed his lips, saying, “Thou art as valiant as the lion and as churlish as the bear, but when seen through my eyes, thou art still most fair.”
Sirius gazed at Remus, looking befuddled but fond, tortured but comforted, with eyes wide yet hard, looking impossibly young. He bit his lip and buried his face in Remus’ neck.
*‘It was my companion at that most miserable time,’ inscribed on Sir Walter Raleigh’s tobacco pouch from when he was in the Tower of London.
SCENE II. The Rose and Thorn, a whorehouse managed by James’ sometime lover Lily.
Patrons milling about and carousing merrily. James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter, seated. Lily, behind the bar. Ale, beer, and wine flow freely.
Pouring another measure of wine into his cup, Sirius began prosthelytizing. “Plainly spoken, my wits fails to see why our most auspicious lords called for that tale. It is drivel-”
“It is romance!” insisted James, banging his fist on the scarred tabletop.
“And romance has no place in art when uncoupled with tragedy; for to love is to suffer, and to yearn for that suffering,” he asserted, feeling very wise as he settled back into his seat, shoulder brushing Remus’ next to him.
“When was’t that you got so long-suffering? Faith, I remember you thus,” spoke James through a grin, spreading his arms wide, his cup sloshing dangerously, “an unbearded youth constant’ at pains to claim that love was all; the sun shone on your being and you reflected it outward,” he smirked, gesturing with his cup before quaffing a hearty mouthful.
“Mark you, the sun still shines for Remus when look he upon you,” observed Peter quietly from the space beside James, seeming somehow to shrink into his shadow.
“Unbearded!” Lily laughed, having overheard their conversation as she scrubbed a nearby table. James choked slightly and immediately smoothed his hair as she sauntered over. “But as a youth came thee hence, as smooth as silk and twofold richly-made. I’faith didst first thou play the Ganymede; most comely did thy patrons learn a bitch to bear!” She slapped the rag she’d been holding against the table, with a slanting smile and mischief in her eyes.
James roared with laughter and drew her to him, planting kisses along the tops of her breasts and finally to her mouth. She pretended to struggle in his arms, blushing magnificently under his ministrations.
Aghast, Sirius started to rise, scolding, “Beware indeed of the green-eyed monster, for she has slithered this way-”
“And well pleasant was’t!” shot James through a lewd grin, waggling his brows and grabbing Lily by the hips to pull her ‘slithering’ into his lap.
“If I had hereabouts sold my wares, no doubt thy profit’d marry have doubled! Shillings would then bestuff thy purse, better fillings than this!” Sirius gestured wildly towards James.
“And you!” Sirius whirled to face Remus, who was trying, and failing, to hide a smile and stem the chuckles that kept bursting forth. “What, think you not that I had espied your eyes, fixed so firmly on my course? Faith, ne’er lent it doubt to thine interest, impressive as t’were, as it shew through thy canions and hose!” He made a vulgar gesture to his lower half.
Eyes twinkling and cheeks shining, Remus nonetheless quipped, “Ah, but mayhap it were simple jealousy, to see you upon the stage, all the admiring eyes upon you, our bard’s wondrous clever tones spouting from twixt thy lips,” he sighed. “And yet I am made for the back hand, better an editor than an orator.”
“Well, thou didst always manage things the rearwise,” jibed James. Peter guffawed as Sirius snorted and shot him an indulgent smile.
Turning his eyes back to Sirius, Remus shot, “Seeing you there, in your codpiece, t’was then that I first fell in love with you. Only after did I find the truth of the matter so grossly exaggerated!”
The table erupted in laughter and Sirius’ mouth fell open as he cried “Slander!”
Patting his hand, Lily reassured him, “Worry not, you have other talents, pet,”
“I shall show you my well-honed talent,” leered James.
“Rather, ‘hand-honed’ I should say, sirrah!” corrected Sirius, inciting a small scuffle that unseated Lily and ended in several bites and bruises, along toothy smiles and mussed hair.
Leaning on his hand and looking thoughtful, Remus murmured, “Yet now bethink me of the tale, an oddly choice to choose at court.”
“To play the Midsummer at the mid-Autumn?” Lily enquired, leaning against James’ chair.
“Ay, but the tale is merry and light; aside from the lovers there is no strife.” Remus noted, frowning. “Remark you this, were many women there to-night?”
“The Bishop brought with him his daily dame and with them others,” piped Peter, almost instantly. “But I care not who came, for Sirius to play the weaver was great jest!” he laughed almost wildly in remembrance.
“Yes!” cried James, leaning forward. “And never was role suited so to its player.” He nodded sagely.
Remus eyes slid slyly sideways to cut at Sirius. “Did I not know better I’d swear’t: Will’s thought was bent upon thee ever, even as he did pen the part.” He fought back a smirk, eyebrow twitching as he hid his mouth.
“But perhaps thou art better suited for Helena, quoth’a, ‘I am your spaniel’!” snickered Peter.
“Most kindly hast thou hit it! Most canine are you, an’ the collar fit it,” Remus leaned against Sirius, draping an arm across his shoulders and nuzzling his jaw fondly.
“Mm, ‘only give me leave, unworthy as I am, to follow you’,” he quoted almost lazily, leaning into Remus’ touch, his tongue darting out to flit against the soft underside of his wrist. Remus laughed, pulling his hand away with a blush to rest at the small of Sirius’ back.
“That one needs a stronger leash,” chuckled James. “But, no, you are certainly for Bottom.”
“Thou hast none of her guile,” Lily agreed, shaking her head and grinning.
“Go to! You slay me, your words cruel barbs into this my gentle heart.” He clasped a hand to his breast, gasping as if in agony. Just as suddenly, he drew himself up, straight-backed and imperious, and sniffed, “Nick Bottom hath none of my looks, my grace, or my most excellent charm.”
“No, merely the ego,” Lily snorted, shaking her head and returning to her work at the bar.
James nodded in Lily’s general direction, a smile playing about his lips. “Yet to name him Bottom, and to have you for him, makes you in effect the personification of an arse!” He roared, throwing his head back and slapping a beaming Peter on the back.
“Which, to be sure, is your most admirable trait,” remarked Remus coyly, lips turning up slightly. Sirius blushed and nuzzled his nose into Remus’ neck, as he slid a hand through Sirius’ soft, dark hair.
“Never mind the mention of the ass’ head,” poked Peter, looking almost amazed at his own daring as Remus chuckled, running his fingers through Sirius’ hair, and touched his cup to Peter’s in salute.
“Yes, but you might still love me with the head of an ass,” Sirius sulked, pouting, though still wiggling intermittently at the slow circles Remus’ long fingers traced across his skull.
“True.” With a mischievous half-smile, Remus leaned down, lips brushing against the shell of Sirius’ ear, to whisper, “’t matters not the appearance of your head, buried as oft as ‘tis twixt the pillows of my bed; your arse round, spread, and succulent, in the air,” Remus chuckled. “Truly ‘tis the quick of my passion pricked!”
Sirius smiled and closed his eyes, groaning and pushing his head against Remus’ fingers. “I do so love a good soliloquy on the virtues of my very fine backside,” he purred.
“But I have neither the patience nor the wealth of vocabulary to do it justice, though I may deign to show rather than tell as I feel.” Remus gazed at Sirius from under lowered lashes, his short breaths seeming to speak volumes in the closeness of the room.
“Zounds! Ye archèd lovers, you are yet not alone, and your vulgarities offends my sensibilities!” James clapped his hands over his eyes, feigning a swoon.
“Take care,” Peter muttered quietly, “unfriendly eyes may rest upon you.” His eyes seemed to dart around the room, seeking possible adversaries.
“Well right you are, fair sirs,” Sirius rumbled through a grin. “God gi’ good e’en.” Sirius rose and bowed to Peter and James, who raised their cups in salute. Lily beckoned to Remus from across the room, glowing with excitement.
Remus wriggled out of Sirius’ grasp, with a bashful smile and the flush of wine and wit across his cheeks. “Anon, my dog star. Yonder the lady awaits.”
Sirius raised his eyebrows and sighed, but nonetheless gave Remus a little push towards the bar. Lily, beaming, retrieved a thick bundle of parchment from behind a few bottles and pressed it into Remus’ hand. He accepted it with a broad smile and a chaste kiss on the cheek (which even so had James spluttering and cursing his name) before rejoining Sirius. Weaving through wobbling patrons, they quit The Rose and Thorn, the night heavy with promise.
SCENE III. Sirius and Remus’ apartments.
Remus, seated at a desk, notating a sheaf of parchment. Sirius, splayed across a large four-poster bed.
“How can’st thou pore over heavy tomes and bend your mind so ceaselessly to the written word when I am but feet away? Is’t that you have become so spiritual that you yet crave nothing of the flesh?” Sirius moaned.
“Anon, my churl. I must needs complete this my task; tis a new act to be practiced on the morrow. Will shall have my head should I not be finished. Hold thy tongue.”
Sirius huffed. “I’ve better uses for that appendage, as well as others, well you know.”
“I’ll have none of your obscenities.”
“My obscenities? I’ve seen the things he has you write!”
Remus looked up, bemused. “Just because you cannot say ‘Coriolanus’ without laughing does not make it any less a brilliant tragedy.”
Sirius sniggered and stretched out, staring at the canopy of the bed, candlelight flickering shadows across his skin and the bedclothes. Remus’ quill scratched furiously across pages of parchment, his eyes aglow with focus.
“Oh, alas!” sighed Sirius, rolling onto his stomach and gazing at Remus. “am I come to be too long in my days to draw thine eyes to my virtues?”
“No,” snapped Remus. “Your beauty waxes like an endless moon, ever full for the plough at harvest.” The easy sexuality of their banter made so familiar, it almost lazily progressed, seeping through Remus’ concentration. He tapped his quill impatiently, biting his lip and rewriting some clumsy couplet.
Sirius grinned and raised himself to his hands and knees, clearly not missing the reference. He stretched out his arms and hands before him, arse raised like a puppy asking to play. “Methinks the farmer ought to sow his berip’nd crops. Bespoke you well, for the moon begs for the plough.” He grinned and wiggled his arse in the air.
Remus glanced up, pausing despite himself to see Sirius splayed out for him, his length bulging obscenely from beneath dark hose under his loose tunic. “And full ripe hast thou become to plant your own seed,” he snorted.
“And a kindly vessel see I, here before me,” he shot back, waggling his brows.
“Peace!” Remus’ head snapped up, his patience tried, huffing, “But a little minute and I shall be with you, but first give pause and halt thy twitt'ring, for this is for you. And I am for you also, would you but keep thy patience,” he looked up for a moment, unconsciously running his eyes across Sirius’ body, poised on their bed. “Begin without me if you must, but I must see your character's completion before your own.” He ducked his head again to his work.
Sirius was quiet a moment before asking in a small voice, “…Is he really dying?”
“If I can make it so,” he sighed.
Sirius blinked, before settling back against the pillows, letting his hand slowly stroke himself through his thin hose. Biting his lip, Remus peered intently at the spidery scrawl Shakespeare had left for him, the dramatic last scene from his next work (though rumour told he laboured on several just then). Sirius smiled a little to himself; for all his impatience, he admired Remus’ iron will, comforted by the knowledge that those deft fingers and that singular focus would soon be on him.
After what seemed like centuries, eons, Remus scribbled an end note, crossed his ‘t’, and calmly set down his quill. Blowing gently on the wet ink, he muttered, “Peace be with thee, fair soldier, for I have done.”
Sirius sat up straighter. “Have you finished? How is’t?” he asked, excited despite himself.
“T’is brilliant; pity tis; and pity tis tis brilliant, for I shall have to watch you die as him,” spoke Remus through a crooked smile, standing quietly, advancing towards the bed. “But you shall do so most admirably.” He shucked off his stockings and began loosening the buttons of his doublet, baring his collar and exposing the linen shirt beneath. “But now that I have managed one bravely soldier of yours, what shall I do about the other?”
Sirius grinned, spreading his legs and shifting against the pillows, his hand resting on his inner thigh. “Do as thou wilt, magician mine.”
Remus crawled up onto the bed, settling between Sirius’ legs and leaning forward, a small grin playing across his lips, centimetres from Sirius’. He could taste his breath as he whispered, “Magician? Is’t so?”
Sirius licked his lips, willing himself not to give into the magnetism between them and make the first move. He felt Remus’ gaze burn him as it roved over his body. “To weave words is a magic to be sure,” he breathed. “The surest bewitchment, other than love.”
Remus surged forward and captured Sirius’ lips in a kiss. Sirius groaned and fisted his hand in Remus’ loosened doublet, bringing them closer and deepening the kiss, an embarrassing small sound escaping his throat as Remus’ tongue slipped into his mouth. Pulling back to bite Sirius’ full lower lip, Remus gasped as Sirius rolled his body, brushing against Remus’ growing hardness. Closing his eyes, Remus pressed back against Sirius, his lips bruising, his hands slipping beneath Sirius’ loose shirt, dragging across the hot skin of his stomach and chest. Sirius’ hands deftly undid the rest of the buttons down Remus’ doublet and traced down his sides to unlace the ties that kept his hose up, mentally cursing Remus’ fastidiousness as he fumbled.
Remus chuckled low in his throat and broke off the kiss, resting his forehead against Sirius’. “Eager, love?”
Sirius abandoned his task, snaking a hand up Remus’ back to tangle in his hair, tilting his head back and brushing his nose along the long line of Remus’ neck, and he arched playfully to the new sensation. Sirius paused, inhaling Remus’ scent, which, he thinks, has always been wonderful: a hint of sweetness over a musky, masculine smell, layered over with parchment and soft leather bindings. “To eagerly love you, yes,” he rumbled, smoothing a kiss over Remus’ pulse, sucking as he his tongue flick out against it.
Remus cursed and abruptly withdrew, kneeling on the bed between Sirius’ splayed legs, his hair tousled, and his eyes glinting golden in the low light from the candles. “You defy sumptuary laws; your skin is much too fine for such clothing…” With a strong hand on the back of Sirius’ neck, Remus tugged him forward, nipping at his lips before pulling the shirt over his head. He groaned, smoothing his hands across the smooth spread of Sirius’ unblemished chest and shoulders. Sirius shivered under the feel of those calloused, capable hands burning trails across his skin with teasing, clever fingers.
Remus smiled again, bestowing a searing kiss on Sirius’ stomach, before sliding down his stockings, taking care to feel every inch of bared skin as he did so. Sirius kicked them off impatiently, giggling as Remus kissed the sensitive underside of his knee, using his leg to hook around him and draw him in for a kiss. Remus responded with fervour, tongue wriggling against Sirius’ almost obscenely, Sirius pressing up against him as if he could climb inside him or swallow him whole. His tongue flicked against Sirius’, muffling his moan as his hand wrapped around his cock, determinedly stroking Sirius’ slowly and firmly, shuddering at the thin, high sound Sirius made as his thumb dragged over the tip. Panting, he drew back, resting his forehead against Sirius’, hand slowly stroking down his length.
“God, I do love you like this, wanton and mine,” he hissed. He reached up and loosed the strip of leather binding Sirius’ hair back, letting it fall in midnight waves across his broad shoulders. He slid his free hand through the silky locks. “I’ve been wanting to do this all day,” he murmured.
Sirius breathed out a chuckle. “What, touch my hair? How pure of you.” He swept a kiss across Remus’ lips and pulled away, pushing him onto his back and straddling his hips, grinning as he ground down against Remus’ now obviously hard length. “Do you know what I have wanted you to do all day?” He waggled his eyebrows.
Remus thrust up against Sirius, his fingers finally freeing his hose from their stays at his unbraced doublet. He paused, looking up with what would’ve looked rumpled but innocent, with his tousled hair, flushed cheeks, and red lips agape, but for the predatory look glowing in his amber eyes. “I can guess.” Sirius licked his full lips, looking for all the world as predatory, his silvery eyes winking. Remus groaned and pushed down his hose, freeing his cock.
Sirius grinned, pushing up Remus’ doublet and shirt, drawing his hands across his chest, before tossing the cloth aside, scraping his teeth along Remus’ collar bone, licking at his adam’s apple as he arched his neck. Remus cursed, pulling away and leaning over the bed to the hidden compartment just beneath, removing a small vial of oil. He poured some into his palm and smoothed it over his cock, gripping the base as he coated it thoroughly. Remus glanced up at Sirius, spread before him, and bit his lip again. “On your back, soldier,” he grunted.
Sirius panted through a grin, a primal flash of white teeth as he reclined across the bed, hair dark and shining across the pillows in the dim light, his legs tipped apart in a wanton splay, exposing his almost painfully hard cock, standing at high noon, red and leaking against his stomach.
“Say that you are ready, for I cannot wait much longer.”
“Mercy, wait not,” Sirius gasped, tucking one knee to his chest and shifting his hips upward as if to present himself for the taking. “I shall die if you do.”
Remus groaned and closed his eyes, and Sirius felt the tip of his cock press against him, an immediate response to his plea. And then a bit more pressure, as he leaned closer, and the low deep burn of sex as Remus pushed fully inside him, Sirius sounding a quiet whine sounding from deep in his chest. And Sirius’ legs shake slightly, and he gasps, bites his lip hard. He pauses, shuddering, then pushes back against Remus, biting back a groan as the pain briefly intensifies. For a moment Remus is entranced by the scene before him, watching Sirius wiggle beneath him, flushed and gasping and stunningly splayed. He gulps, and drops a kiss at the juncture of neck and shoulder, nuzzling his hair and breathing in Sirius’ scent, leather and wine and smoke and spice. He comes back to himself when Sirius’ eyes meet his, heavy-lidded and lust-addled as he pants out, “Come on, have me,” rocking back again.
A flash of heat speeds through Remus’ limbs, and he surges forward with a growl, grabbing Sirius’ leg to wrap it around him, which he does, eagerly, then arches up sharply as Remus’ cock slams into him, and he grabs his head, gentle, but firm, steady, next to his. “Do not speak,” he panted, claiming Sirius’ mouth in a wild, ruthless kiss, before tearing away. Sirius groaned and slid his hands down Remus’ back, making him roll his body closer in response. And suddenly Remus’ hands are on him as he all but hauls Sirius into his lap, and his hips slam into him as his eyes flutter shut of their own accord.
And Sirius is so incredible, hot, and tight, as he wraps his legs around Remus, tightening and thrusting himself up, cocking his hips and pushing back, hard, against his thrusts. And then they’re crashing together, hard and furious, making deep, guttural sounds, and Remus’ nimble hands are everywhere. And Sirius can’t stop touching Remus, the long planes of his shoulder blades, every inch of secret skin coming to life and tingling and twisting and writhing above him. And he sees flashes of the shape of Sirius’ shoulders, the scrape of bright teeth, the tousle of tangled dark hair. And their chests slide together, and Remus’ skin burns, and his gut aches, and whimpers are tearing their way across Sirius’ swollen lips. And the ancient wood of the bed is groaning under the strain, but not as loudly as Sirius, whose arms are wrapped around Remus, pulling him close as he rides his cock, sliding hard and fast as Remus bucks, driving up into him, burying loud moans in his neck, and shoulders, and letting his tongue taste every part of his body that tempted him throughout the day.
And Remus’ hands are all over his body, and Sirius knows that all he’ll be doing while trying to memorize lines, or going over blocking, is feeling the scratches where Remus’ fingernails rake across his back and the soreness in his limbs and stomach, and struggling to cover up that spot where, Christ, Remus just bit him, fucking hard, just above his collarbone.
A groan fights its way out of Remus’ chest, and one of his hands falls to the bedspread, gripping tightly as he thrusts into Sirius, over and over again, feeling sharp bones crash against soft skin, even as Remus wrenches one of his hands away to drag across Sirius’ scalp and yank on his hair, pulling his head back and making him arch his back and hiss through a moan, because Remus knows that he likes it hard. And his lips are suddenly at his throat, exposed and long, biting and licking and sucking and Sirius’ eyes squeeze shut as his hands clench against Remus’ back. Remus he can hear his breath loud over the creaking of the bedframe and the muffled shifting of the mattress, panting into Sirius’ neck, and Sirius breath is ragged against his chest, and his movements becoming jerky, wild, so Remus grabs him closer and presses tight up against him, rolling his hips and whispering unimaginable obscenities into his ear, breaking off into a quiet shudder as he hears Sirius’ strangled cry, and feels the spurt of sticky warmth as Sirius comes.
And he pulls back just a fraction so he can see Sirius, brows knit together, mouth fallen open, lips swollen and abused. Remus grabs his hipbones with bruising strength, squeezing his eyes shut hard, as Sirius’ hands slip beneath him and grab his arse, drawing him deep as he can inside. And he feels himself let go, letting out a sound that is almost inhuman, like the wind ripping through the trees, arching his back and pushing up against Sirius, lifting his body and coming deep inside.
And when he finally stops seeing stars, he forces his leaden, shaky limbs into motion, just long enough so he can withdraw. Sirius moans quietly, and curls up into Remus’ heavy, sweating body, collapsed on the bed next to him, just breathing. After what feels like an eternity but probably is the span of a few minutes, Sirius pulls open his eyes to see Remus, lying on his side and just watching him, his eyes a dull gold, clouded with pleasure.
“Oh. Hello, beautiful,” Sirius hears a voice like his own, but too syrupy and low, mumble. He lets out a heavy sigh before sitting up and stretching, feeling all his muscles come to life, and the soft ache of exertion settle in alongside a few sharper pains he’ll have to investigate later. But now he’s bogged down by this quiet sensuality, feeling sated and calm. He reaches out and hauls Remus into his arms, curling around his hard body, feeling the heat roll off him. He kisses his shoulder, right at the base of his neck, and Remus sighs. “Where have you been hiding, my little beast?” Sirius mumbles, nuzzling his face into Remus’ slightly damp hair and breathing in his scent.
He can feel the little shift of a chuckle more than hear it, and knows Remus is smiling just a little, just before he pulls away, like Sirius knew he would. Sighing again, Sirius heaves himself up onto one arm, propping his head on his elbow to see Remus grab a soft cloth and wipe at his stomach. Frowning slightly, he looks up to meet Sirius’ slightly bemused grey eyes, as he hands the cloth to him.
“Do you like what you see?” he rumbled through a small laugh, stretching slowly, languorously, indulgently naked. Remus’ brows knit together as he surveys the long red scratch marks along Sirius’ back, the marks of his fingernails, and the bites and bruises on his chest, neck, and shoulders.
“I hurt you,” he breathes in a voice that hurts Sirius more than any of the scratches, bites, and sundry injuries that come with bedding Remus. Grabbing his hand, Sirius tugged Remus, sprawling, onto the bed, pressing a sloppy kiss to his lips.
“Oh, punish me again,” he laughed, dragging the bedcovers over their sticky limbs and trapping Remus beneath him, landing a poorly-aimed kiss on the side of his mouth. Humming in contentment and throwing an arm over Remus’ chest, he insisted, “We are warriors both, Remus, and the rules of fair play do not apply in love and war.” The last thing he saw before the candle blew out was Remus peering at him, blushing faintly, with the shy smile that, even in remembrance, makes Sirius’ chest thrum with warmth.
SCENE IV. The Globe Theatre, The Lord’s Rooms.
Sirius, lounging with his head in Remus’ lap.
Night gathers as Sirius reclines across a long, plush seat tucked away into the Lord’s Rooms at the Globe, laying his head in Remus’ lap, who curled, cross-legged at the end. Sirius’ eyes closed as Remus’ slipped his hands into his hair and across his scalp, as his motions silently begged. The room is quiet, but for the far off sounds of actors rattling about the stage below, the whisper of cloth, and the occasional sighs tumbling from Sirius as Remus’ hands massaged a particularly satisfying spot.
A smile playing about his lips, Remus looked down at Sirius’ upside-down face, and murmured, “You are very quiet. Whilst my ears thank you,” he paused to rub behind Sirius’ left ear, one of his favourite spots, as if to punctuate. “…it is most out of character.”
“Tush.” Sirius scolded, not opening his eyes. “My mind rests not ever on you.”
“Liar,” Remus goaded, still softly, making circles with his fingertips.
“Never,” Sirius retorted, before groaning quietly in pleasure and shifting to give Remus better access.
“Well. What kind of delightful fancies are whirling within your otherwise very heavy head?” he laughed, scratching at his hairline.
“When was’t that I came to London?” he cocked his head, leaning his cheek against Remus’ knee.
“Thou knowst you were young,” Remus sighed, “only in your sixteenth year.”
“You were younger,” Sirius skulked, frowning.
“Ay, but I made none such a splash,” Remus laughed, jostling Sirius as he giggled into his hand. “Recall: thou didst bring some scandal when that thou flounced into the theatre, a wayward morsel from the highest order decided as a stager.”
Looking up slightly cross-eyed, Sirius sniffed, “I cannot help that people are always interested in my comings and goings. It is hard being always the centre of attention.”
Remus looked sideways at Sirius. “Oh, very hard, like a bed of silk,” shot Remus, voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Saucy!” laughed Sirius, stretching back and preening. “What was’t they said of me?”
Remus licked his lips, remembering the pamphlet published almost immediately following Sirius’ first performance. “Oh, some damnation, yet extolling of the ‘lascivious writhing’ of your ‘tender limbs’, the ‘gorgeousness’ of your wrappings, though by troth they ought to have said gaudiness; was’t not the year you played Viola?” he clucked in distaste.
“Now who plays the boy!” Remus leaned down and nipped the top of Sirius’ ear, causing him to grab at Remus’ hair, making him gasp and arch his neck. Sirius chuckled and released him as Remus smacked him lightly.
Settling down, Remus sighed, “An ingle full fair made you then and a very man make you now; not so with the green of spring, but burst forth into the full flush of summer.”
Sirius blushed and dug his nose into Remus’ thigh. “In sadness, tell me: do you think I chose wrongly?
To take office in the role of the player?” He glanced up, eyes wide and innocent looking, shining with some unspoken unease.
“What?” Remus wrinkled his brow. “Wish you now that you had chosen some other course?”
“Sometimes,” he groaned, scrubbing a hand over his features. “I think that I could have done something of import if I were still a part of my family. ‘d wear as much of a mask in court or at home as I do upon the stage,” he muttered darkly, glancing down and biting his lip.
Remus raised an eyebrow and straightened, taking Sirius’ face in his hands. “If I know you, and I do, in all my senses,” he added with a snort, “what ever you did would cert’ get you locked in the Tower for treason.” He stroked along Sirius’ jawline with a finger, relishing the rasp of stubble he found there. Then he frowned again, leaning over to look at Sirius. “Do you think then that you do nothing? That the stage is only an amusement? One moment to contemplate the words you quote will show that it is not so. I know you know this, despite your thick skull there’s brains in there yet.” Remus knocked playfully on Sirius’ skull, prompting him to grab and bite the offending hand. Remus laughed and scrubbed behind Sirius’ ear, making him release his hand and groan in contentment.
“Though, I must admit, shouting your completion over the very plush where their pampered buttocks will rest, for all its folly, has a sort of delicious poetic justice.” Remus grinned and glanced over at some of the grander seats in the small balcony.
“Doesn’t it?” Sirius hummed in pleasure, speaking through a smile, not in the least repentant. “And that,” he punctuated with his forefinger raised, “will be my only contribution to the aristocracy.”
Puffing out a laugh, Remus continued, “Having thus befoul’d the Lord’s Rooms, hear me: You may not be at court, but the stage is a pulpit, though the words you speak are not your own. You are a tool, Sirius, but a lovely tool, to sow the seeds of discord.”
Somewhat taken aback, Sirius paused and fixed his eyes steadily on Remus, as if he’d had some inner revelation. He never could figure out how Remus always knew exactly how to dismantle his preconceived notions and reaffirm him in other, subtler ways. After a brief silence, he asked quietly, “Are you not nervous in these times? You write the words that make a martyr of me.”
Remus chuckled softly, stroking the dark hair that had splayed out over his thigh absent-mindedly. “I am protected behind Shakespeare’s good name. And you are protected behind it as well, for you speak only what is given to you by him. It’s perfect.” He paused, looking out at the rapidly darkening sky, clouds turning to wisps of purple in the gloaming. “Though, you are right; the shadow of religious persecution hangs above everything, and everywhere the remembrance of the pestilence.”
Sirius hummed. “Most especially since the powder plot, although I recall they hung him, did they not?” He cocked his head, looking almost canine, looking up for approval.
Not taking his eyes off the horizon, Remus muttered a response. “Among other things, they did.”
“A Yorkshire man like yourself, was he not?”
“Mm. Not all of us are made so incendiary,” Remus smiled.
“Or Catholic,” he laughed.
Remus turned his head sharply and peered down at Sirius. The next words he spoke carefully, low and even. “Well, that’s a bit misleading. You don’t know much about me, do you?”
Sirius’ eyes widened, visible even in the growing dark. “You were Catholic in your youth?” he hissed, secret and close, as if he hoarded a dangerous secret.
“Yes.” Remus’ eyes hardened for a moment, lost in memory of the rites and regulations of his childhood, before gentling again, sliding his hand over Sirius’ chest. “Where thought you that I learned my letters and Latin?” He sounded amused, which irked Sirius’ waning sense of propriety.
“I thought that Will had taught you. Or you yourself,” Sirius huffed, crossing his arms and turning his head into Remus’ knee.
“Will has taught me much that I did not know.” Remus nodded and closed his eyes. No reply came from Sirius, though he could feel little breaths puffing against his leg through his hose. He leaned in, questioningly. “Are you worried? I’faith, I’ve lost my faith,” he intoned faintly.
“Lost it?” Sirius looked up and they met eyes.
“Or, rather, I believe another gospel now,” he whispered. Sirius’ eyes softened, and he craned his neck upwards for a kiss, laughing when it landed on Remus’ chin, before he ducked his head and their lips met. Bent almost double, Remus cradled Sirius’ head and licked at his lower lip, dragging his tongue along the inside before plunging inside to draw against Sirius’. Sirius squirmed and made a soft sound he would later deny, surging up into Remus to claim his mouth.
Sirius broke away with a small gasp, exhaling heavily as he settled back into Remus lap and looked up at him again, his features open and looking almost hurt. Remus stroked his temple with his thumb and waited. “Sweet Remus,” he exhaled, “what hideous sin did you commit in a previous lifetime to deserve such a scoundrel as ever I am? How do you remain such a patient and gentle man?” He drew his brows together.
Remus laughed, sounding light and musical through the air. “Scoundrel? All I need do is stroke your hair and you are a lamb 'neath my fingers.” He scratched a little at the base of Sirius’ skull.
Sirius squirmed, muttering, “But I am-“
“You are nothing but what you are.” He smiled. “Doubt thyself and look no further than mine eyes, and you shall see yourself as you are meant.” These words he barely whispered, as if he had never meant them to be spoken aloud.
“Would that I always were so temperate.” Sirius scoffed darkly, his downcast eyelashes painting inky shadows beneath his eyes. “Do I not vex you constantly? The choler of my character much engenders my own sadness, nay, melancholy, as black and thunderous ever must I seem.” He sighed.
“Sometimes.” Remus played with a stray lock of hair curling over Sirius’ forehead. “You are never so thunderous as after visiting our patron.”
Rolling over and feeling equally dour, Sirius scowled in memory. The king lined the pockets of The King’s Men, but he also represented a world of inequality Sirius had fought against, and to disassociate himself from.
“But though it be autumn, and the wind pick up and the cold bluster to our very bones, should I ever remember you as the sweet breath of lilac, a heady wine for my senses in the fecund seasons of this world.” Remus paused, looking abashed for a moment, staring out into the evening with a faint blush staining his cheeks, either passion or nerves or embarrassment, but the tension broke and he looked down again. “I love your tempests as your rarer temperance.”
He sat up, mirth racing across his features. “But, come now!” He slapped Sirius’ chest lightly, making him jump, and chided, “It was I who ever played the brains, and you the brawn! And I have got no brawnier, so what am I to do without my complement here?”
“Thou speakst true,” Sirius nodded, stretching his arms and shifting in Remus’ lap. “My mind is none so powerful nor near as beautiful as my body,” he punctuated by stretching out his leg and pointing its foot delicately, “so it were best that I make use of it.” He glanced up with a licentious grin, licking his lips and sliding his hand over Remus’ thigh.
“Foul-minded thing!” he scolded good-naturedly and tapped Sirius on the nose. “You are to rehearse for Caius Martius tonight! You must be bold and stout as a soldier ought.” He squared his shoulders and looked down expectantly at Sirius.
“Methinks you have given my stout soldier about as much courage as he may need, you varlet you,” he rumbled, chuckling and curling up to carefully remove himself from Remus’ lap.
“Me!” Remus gasped, standing and feigning shock, his eyebrows raised. “T’was you who played the lecher tonight, throwing me down and ravishing me most thoroughly.” He poked Sirius in the chest before leaning in to grab him at the hip, breathing in his ear, “I’d blush to think of’t if an you had not managed yourself most handily, crying out in pleasure.”
He bit his lip as Sirius turned his face into his neck, drawing his lips from its base to just behind his ear, where he chuckled, “You blush nonetheless.”
Remus turned his head, his lips just breaths from Sirius’, his eyes dark. “Maybe so-“ he began, but was soon cut off by some commotion from somewhere near the stage.
“Sirius!” shouted James’ voice from below.
Sirius groaned, giving Remus an indulgent smile before calling out, “What is it now, have you soiled your cradle-clothes?” He laughed to himself as Remus covered his mouth, shaking his head.
An indignant squawk sounded from below, before James snapped, “It’s just there’s a fine gown waiting for you to try!”
Sirius, dragging a partially entwined Remus, made his way over to the edge of the box, looking out for James and shouting, “Strangle yourself with’t!” with a laugh.
“Anon!” shouted Remus, struggling to hold in his laughter at their childish jibes. James, barely visible by the light of a torch, waved his hand as if to shoo him away.
“Sirius!” Remus reprimanded. “Thou no longer playst the chit, so do not speak as one!” Sirius had the good grace to look at least a little repentant. The severity of the moment was offset by the fact that Remus couldn’t keep the side of his mouth from twitching up, as he did when he wanted to laugh but knew he ought not. “Make you now a gallant, and a bold, and a gentle man.” He brushed off Sirius shoulders, giving him a small smile. Sirius laughed and ducked his head again to Remus’ neck, pulling him close and sucking on his pulse point.
James bellowed again from the stage, calling “Sirius!” but sounding more insistent.
Gasping out a laugh, Remus shouted again, “Anon!” he tried to swat Sirius’ wandering hands away, giggling all the while. “He comes!”
Sirius snorted and nudged Remus’ nose with his, pulling him close, murmuring, “I leave you for that?”
Remus grinned and slid his hand through Sirius’ hair, pulling him in for a kiss, tasting sweet and sunny and full of laughter. He pulled away, resting his forehead against Sirius’, smiling and looking up shyly, saying, “I’ve words to wield, and you are for the stage tonight.”
*
And, because I just couldn’t resist a nice pair of paned hose:
Sorry for the terrible quality photo. Done on my lunch break with a regular ol’ #2 pencil on computer paper.
Happy Holidays! Xx
Author/Artist: labelleetlabete
Recipient: liseuse
Rating: R/NC-17
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): *Rough sex, smoking, (mild) drinking, gratuitous sexual puns, iambic pentameter, and a number of historical inaccuracies.*
Word count: 7,620
Summary: London, 1606. The Marauders are members of Shakespeare’s acting troupe. Four scenes of varying length.
Notes: I started out on burgundy, but soon hit the harder stuff writing for prompt 2 (and you may still find hints of it) and ended up with wildcard, and 3. It became a (massive) beast of its own! Thank you to the lovely mods, and my dear Natskins for the beta. Title is from Jaques’ oft-quoted monologue from As You Like It. liseuse, I hope you enjoy!
Four scenes, as part of a larger whole that tells the story of two lovers, four actors, and of the people and lives they have found with each other therewithal.
SCENE I. Anteroom at court, after a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Enter Sirius, leaning against a wall and emanating gloom. Remus, offstage.
“Sirius? … Sirius? … Wherefore dost thou hide?” called Remus, peering around corners, into alcoves, and other likely places to find his long friend and recent lover causing mischief. “Ah, here.” He smiled softly, spotting Sirius, slouched against a wall, packing his pipe. “There’s a fair face to find.”
“Is’t fair?” Sirius peered up through a curtain of loose hair with eyes sharp and dark. “Fair foul feel I.” He bent back to his work, evening out the tobacco in the small bowl, careful not to spill the costly substance.
“A fickle face!” Remus raised his eyebrows and chanced closer, and Sirius stepped away, bending to the fire to light his pipe from a glowing coal. “Alas,” he sighed, “that I am fated to find you in mood most melancholy, spouting speech as black as your name.”
Sirius’ head snapped around, glaring as a stream of smoke issued from his lips. “Say not that I am Black, for I am none of that House of snakes suckling at society’s teat,” he spat. Remus settled back against the stone wall, watching warily as Sirius hurled himself up, pacing. “They that extract milk and expel poison.”
“The performance was well done. I take it you saw your father?” Remus tried to ask gently, casually, as if he didn’t know that Sirius’ rancour stemmed from hatred of his family and all that they represent.
“Ha!” Sirius barked out a laugh, whirling through his cloud of smoke. “The good Duke I did espy there sitting, all in comfort amongst his trailing dotards,” he scoffed, “the beslubbering scum of their own crook-pated puttock, the very spunk of his retinue and my unfortunately blooded kinsmen, and the Archbishop sat at his elbow.” He puffed angrily at his pipe as he paced sending reeking clouds up to hang about the rafters.
“Was’t thy brother not become a man of the cloth?” asked Remus, again softly, shifting uncomfortably.
“Ay, ’tis so, and with’t a man of the stews.” Sirius’ eyes narrowed, focusing on Remus on the other side of the room. “Think you that he deserves such a name? Fie!” He made a violent gesture. “To call him my brother offends me by association, and to call him a man insults God’s creation!”
Somewhat taken aback by his friend’s unbridled hostility, Remus folded his arms. “It puffs and steams like a furnace and blows as much air!” He shot back. “Peace, Sirius, you are too hot.”
Voice lowering to a deadly hiss, Sirius turned moodily to gaze out the paned window. “Why should I not speak so of such fear-mongers? They deserve far fouler than that which my tongue can serve,” he muttered darkly, seeming to lose his train of thought as he looked away. “They that speak backwards: when one ear hears a sweeting of empty flattery, the other is filled with the cowardly, obstreperous falsehoods they to use to debase all others.” Remus made as if to speak, stepping forward, catching Sirius’ eye as he faced him again, barking out, “The whole of that House is no thing but an over-gorgèd beast, puking and mewling in pathetic splendour; so full of itself and bereft of wit that it cannot perceive the depths of its own deceit!” He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, fisting a hand in his hair, crying, “Rank, false, and base!”
Eyes wide at this shocking display of malevolence, Remus strode to him, gasping, “Sirius, they are your kinsmen!”
“Oh, kin! What is kin?” Sirius laughed hysterically, eyes as wide as those he faced, looking quite mad with a wreath of smoke dancing about his head and his violent motions. “Kinsmen much removed, would that I could truly remove them from earthly bounds. Yet I am unbound by ties of kinship or love to any of the insects.” Sirius ground his heel into the carpet, as if imagining each of his family’s hated faces blotted out by his movement.
“Your mood is most black,” spoke Remus shortly, pursing his lips, as though having abandoned hope for reasonable discourse. Carefully, keeping his distance, but somehow bubbling with the fiery impulses only Sirius seemed to be able to bring to the surface, he tried, “And you are most Black.” Before Sirius could interject with some villainous comment to match the indignant scowl on his features, Remus added, “You are loyal, you are proud, and you are noble.”
“I care nothing for their nonsense!” He roared. “They are as noble as the dullard sat at a chess board, moving each piece and playing at feeling powerful, the God of their pitiful circles, thinking lofty thoughts that bounce around their empty skulls.” Each word dripped with venom as Sirius stalked back and forth across the room.
Remus raised his eyebrows. “And you can also be cruel.”
“Bad blood say I. A pox upon them all. I shall be glad to die as the last of that name.”
“What, no sons?”
Sirius shot Remus a look that would curdle milk. Despite the weight of that considerable grimace, Remus smiled a little. The air felt heavy, teeming with smoke and bitterness as Sirius stared at him, hovering as if on the edge of something, before sliding down the wall and crumpling in a heap. Remus settled down beside him, brushing a stray lock of black hair from his face and pressing a kiss to his temple. “Forget your family’s ills.”
He slid his hand into Sirius’ broad palm, taking his pipe and drawing on it, tasting the thick, heady flavour of tobacco: bold with a fine sweetness that may have attested to its quality and may have been the imaginings of Sirius’ lips. Remus blew a smoke ring and smiled softly, murmuring, “Comes meus fuit illo miserrimo tempo.”*
Sirius watched the ring widen and disappear into wisps. Still smiling gently, Remus handed the pipe back to Sirius and kissed his lips, saying, “Thou art as valiant as the lion and as churlish as the bear, but when seen through my eyes, thou art still most fair.”
Sirius gazed at Remus, looking befuddled but fond, tortured but comforted, with eyes wide yet hard, looking impossibly young. He bit his lip and buried his face in Remus’ neck.
*‘It was my companion at that most miserable time,’ inscribed on Sir Walter Raleigh’s tobacco pouch from when he was in the Tower of London.
SCENE II. The Rose and Thorn, a whorehouse managed by James’ sometime lover Lily.
Patrons milling about and carousing merrily. James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter, seated. Lily, behind the bar. Ale, beer, and wine flow freely.
Pouring another measure of wine into his cup, Sirius began prosthelytizing. “Plainly spoken, my wits fails to see why our most auspicious lords called for that tale. It is drivel-”
“It is romance!” insisted James, banging his fist on the scarred tabletop.
“And romance has no place in art when uncoupled with tragedy; for to love is to suffer, and to yearn for that suffering,” he asserted, feeling very wise as he settled back into his seat, shoulder brushing Remus’ next to him.
“When was’t that you got so long-suffering? Faith, I remember you thus,” spoke James through a grin, spreading his arms wide, his cup sloshing dangerously, “an unbearded youth constant’ at pains to claim that love was all; the sun shone on your being and you reflected it outward,” he smirked, gesturing with his cup before quaffing a hearty mouthful.
“Mark you, the sun still shines for Remus when look he upon you,” observed Peter quietly from the space beside James, seeming somehow to shrink into his shadow.
“Unbearded!” Lily laughed, having overheard their conversation as she scrubbed a nearby table. James choked slightly and immediately smoothed his hair as she sauntered over. “But as a youth came thee hence, as smooth as silk and twofold richly-made. I’faith didst first thou play the Ganymede; most comely did thy patrons learn a bitch to bear!” She slapped the rag she’d been holding against the table, with a slanting smile and mischief in her eyes.
James roared with laughter and drew her to him, planting kisses along the tops of her breasts and finally to her mouth. She pretended to struggle in his arms, blushing magnificently under his ministrations.
Aghast, Sirius started to rise, scolding, “Beware indeed of the green-eyed monster, for she has slithered this way-”
“And well pleasant was’t!” shot James through a lewd grin, waggling his brows and grabbing Lily by the hips to pull her ‘slithering’ into his lap.
“If I had hereabouts sold my wares, no doubt thy profit’d marry have doubled! Shillings would then bestuff thy purse, better fillings than this!” Sirius gestured wildly towards James.
“And you!” Sirius whirled to face Remus, who was trying, and failing, to hide a smile and stem the chuckles that kept bursting forth. “What, think you not that I had espied your eyes, fixed so firmly on my course? Faith, ne’er lent it doubt to thine interest, impressive as t’were, as it shew through thy canions and hose!” He made a vulgar gesture to his lower half.
Eyes twinkling and cheeks shining, Remus nonetheless quipped, “Ah, but mayhap it were simple jealousy, to see you upon the stage, all the admiring eyes upon you, our bard’s wondrous clever tones spouting from twixt thy lips,” he sighed. “And yet I am made for the back hand, better an editor than an orator.”
“Well, thou didst always manage things the rearwise,” jibed James. Peter guffawed as Sirius snorted and shot him an indulgent smile.
Turning his eyes back to Sirius, Remus shot, “Seeing you there, in your codpiece, t’was then that I first fell in love with you. Only after did I find the truth of the matter so grossly exaggerated!”
The table erupted in laughter and Sirius’ mouth fell open as he cried “Slander!”
Patting his hand, Lily reassured him, “Worry not, you have other talents, pet,”
“I shall show you my well-honed talent,” leered James.
“Rather, ‘hand-honed’ I should say, sirrah!” corrected Sirius, inciting a small scuffle that unseated Lily and ended in several bites and bruises, along toothy smiles and mussed hair.
Leaning on his hand and looking thoughtful, Remus murmured, “Yet now bethink me of the tale, an oddly choice to choose at court.”
“To play the Midsummer at the mid-Autumn?” Lily enquired, leaning against James’ chair.
“Ay, but the tale is merry and light; aside from the lovers there is no strife.” Remus noted, frowning. “Remark you this, were many women there to-night?”
“The Bishop brought with him his daily dame and with them others,” piped Peter, almost instantly. “But I care not who came, for Sirius to play the weaver was great jest!” he laughed almost wildly in remembrance.
“Yes!” cried James, leaning forward. “And never was role suited so to its player.” He nodded sagely.
Remus eyes slid slyly sideways to cut at Sirius. “Did I not know better I’d swear’t: Will’s thought was bent upon thee ever, even as he did pen the part.” He fought back a smirk, eyebrow twitching as he hid his mouth.
“But perhaps thou art better suited for Helena, quoth’a, ‘I am your spaniel’!” snickered Peter.
“Most kindly hast thou hit it! Most canine are you, an’ the collar fit it,” Remus leaned against Sirius, draping an arm across his shoulders and nuzzling his jaw fondly.
“Mm, ‘only give me leave, unworthy as I am, to follow you’,” he quoted almost lazily, leaning into Remus’ touch, his tongue darting out to flit against the soft underside of his wrist. Remus laughed, pulling his hand away with a blush to rest at the small of Sirius’ back.
“That one needs a stronger leash,” chuckled James. “But, no, you are certainly for Bottom.”
“Thou hast none of her guile,” Lily agreed, shaking her head and grinning.
“Go to! You slay me, your words cruel barbs into this my gentle heart.” He clasped a hand to his breast, gasping as if in agony. Just as suddenly, he drew himself up, straight-backed and imperious, and sniffed, “Nick Bottom hath none of my looks, my grace, or my most excellent charm.”
“No, merely the ego,” Lily snorted, shaking her head and returning to her work at the bar.
James nodded in Lily’s general direction, a smile playing about his lips. “Yet to name him Bottom, and to have you for him, makes you in effect the personification of an arse!” He roared, throwing his head back and slapping a beaming Peter on the back.
“Which, to be sure, is your most admirable trait,” remarked Remus coyly, lips turning up slightly. Sirius blushed and nuzzled his nose into Remus’ neck, as he slid a hand through Sirius’ soft, dark hair.
“Never mind the mention of the ass’ head,” poked Peter, looking almost amazed at his own daring as Remus chuckled, running his fingers through Sirius’ hair, and touched his cup to Peter’s in salute.
“Yes, but you might still love me with the head of an ass,” Sirius sulked, pouting, though still wiggling intermittently at the slow circles Remus’ long fingers traced across his skull.
“True.” With a mischievous half-smile, Remus leaned down, lips brushing against the shell of Sirius’ ear, to whisper, “’t matters not the appearance of your head, buried as oft as ‘tis twixt the pillows of my bed; your arse round, spread, and succulent, in the air,” Remus chuckled. “Truly ‘tis the quick of my passion pricked!”
Sirius smiled and closed his eyes, groaning and pushing his head against Remus’ fingers. “I do so love a good soliloquy on the virtues of my very fine backside,” he purred.
“But I have neither the patience nor the wealth of vocabulary to do it justice, though I may deign to show rather than tell as I feel.” Remus gazed at Sirius from under lowered lashes, his short breaths seeming to speak volumes in the closeness of the room.
“Zounds! Ye archèd lovers, you are yet not alone, and your vulgarities offends my sensibilities!” James clapped his hands over his eyes, feigning a swoon.
“Take care,” Peter muttered quietly, “unfriendly eyes may rest upon you.” His eyes seemed to dart around the room, seeking possible adversaries.
“Well right you are, fair sirs,” Sirius rumbled through a grin. “God gi’ good e’en.” Sirius rose and bowed to Peter and James, who raised their cups in salute. Lily beckoned to Remus from across the room, glowing with excitement.
Remus wriggled out of Sirius’ grasp, with a bashful smile and the flush of wine and wit across his cheeks. “Anon, my dog star. Yonder the lady awaits.”
Sirius raised his eyebrows and sighed, but nonetheless gave Remus a little push towards the bar. Lily, beaming, retrieved a thick bundle of parchment from behind a few bottles and pressed it into Remus’ hand. He accepted it with a broad smile and a chaste kiss on the cheek (which even so had James spluttering and cursing his name) before rejoining Sirius. Weaving through wobbling patrons, they quit The Rose and Thorn, the night heavy with promise.
SCENE III. Sirius and Remus’ apartments.
Remus, seated at a desk, notating a sheaf of parchment. Sirius, splayed across a large four-poster bed.
“How can’st thou pore over heavy tomes and bend your mind so ceaselessly to the written word when I am but feet away? Is’t that you have become so spiritual that you yet crave nothing of the flesh?” Sirius moaned.
“Anon, my churl. I must needs complete this my task; tis a new act to be practiced on the morrow. Will shall have my head should I not be finished. Hold thy tongue.”
Sirius huffed. “I’ve better uses for that appendage, as well as others, well you know.”
“I’ll have none of your obscenities.”
“My obscenities? I’ve seen the things he has you write!”
Remus looked up, bemused. “Just because you cannot say ‘Coriolanus’ without laughing does not make it any less a brilliant tragedy.”
Sirius sniggered and stretched out, staring at the canopy of the bed, candlelight flickering shadows across his skin and the bedclothes. Remus’ quill scratched furiously across pages of parchment, his eyes aglow with focus.
“Oh, alas!” sighed Sirius, rolling onto his stomach and gazing at Remus. “am I come to be too long in my days to draw thine eyes to my virtues?”
“No,” snapped Remus. “Your beauty waxes like an endless moon, ever full for the plough at harvest.” The easy sexuality of their banter made so familiar, it almost lazily progressed, seeping through Remus’ concentration. He tapped his quill impatiently, biting his lip and rewriting some clumsy couplet.
Sirius grinned and raised himself to his hands and knees, clearly not missing the reference. He stretched out his arms and hands before him, arse raised like a puppy asking to play. “Methinks the farmer ought to sow his berip’nd crops. Bespoke you well, for the moon begs for the plough.” He grinned and wiggled his arse in the air.
Remus glanced up, pausing despite himself to see Sirius splayed out for him, his length bulging obscenely from beneath dark hose under his loose tunic. “And full ripe hast thou become to plant your own seed,” he snorted.
“And a kindly vessel see I, here before me,” he shot back, waggling his brows.
“Peace!” Remus’ head snapped up, his patience tried, huffing, “But a little minute and I shall be with you, but first give pause and halt thy twitt'ring, for this is for you. And I am for you also, would you but keep thy patience,” he looked up for a moment, unconsciously running his eyes across Sirius’ body, poised on their bed. “Begin without me if you must, but I must see your character's completion before your own.” He ducked his head again to his work.
Sirius was quiet a moment before asking in a small voice, “…Is he really dying?”
“If I can make it so,” he sighed.
Sirius blinked, before settling back against the pillows, letting his hand slowly stroke himself through his thin hose. Biting his lip, Remus peered intently at the spidery scrawl Shakespeare had left for him, the dramatic last scene from his next work (though rumour told he laboured on several just then). Sirius smiled a little to himself; for all his impatience, he admired Remus’ iron will, comforted by the knowledge that those deft fingers and that singular focus would soon be on him.
After what seemed like centuries, eons, Remus scribbled an end note, crossed his ‘t’, and calmly set down his quill. Blowing gently on the wet ink, he muttered, “Peace be with thee, fair soldier, for I have done.”
Sirius sat up straighter. “Have you finished? How is’t?” he asked, excited despite himself.
“T’is brilliant; pity tis; and pity tis tis brilliant, for I shall have to watch you die as him,” spoke Remus through a crooked smile, standing quietly, advancing towards the bed. “But you shall do so most admirably.” He shucked off his stockings and began loosening the buttons of his doublet, baring his collar and exposing the linen shirt beneath. “But now that I have managed one bravely soldier of yours, what shall I do about the other?”
Sirius grinned, spreading his legs and shifting against the pillows, his hand resting on his inner thigh. “Do as thou wilt, magician mine.”
Remus crawled up onto the bed, settling between Sirius’ legs and leaning forward, a small grin playing across his lips, centimetres from Sirius’. He could taste his breath as he whispered, “Magician? Is’t so?”
Sirius licked his lips, willing himself not to give into the magnetism between them and make the first move. He felt Remus’ gaze burn him as it roved over his body. “To weave words is a magic to be sure,” he breathed. “The surest bewitchment, other than love.”
Remus surged forward and captured Sirius’ lips in a kiss. Sirius groaned and fisted his hand in Remus’ loosened doublet, bringing them closer and deepening the kiss, an embarrassing small sound escaping his throat as Remus’ tongue slipped into his mouth. Pulling back to bite Sirius’ full lower lip, Remus gasped as Sirius rolled his body, brushing against Remus’ growing hardness. Closing his eyes, Remus pressed back against Sirius, his lips bruising, his hands slipping beneath Sirius’ loose shirt, dragging across the hot skin of his stomach and chest. Sirius’ hands deftly undid the rest of the buttons down Remus’ doublet and traced down his sides to unlace the ties that kept his hose up, mentally cursing Remus’ fastidiousness as he fumbled.
Remus chuckled low in his throat and broke off the kiss, resting his forehead against Sirius’. “Eager, love?”
Sirius abandoned his task, snaking a hand up Remus’ back to tangle in his hair, tilting his head back and brushing his nose along the long line of Remus’ neck, and he arched playfully to the new sensation. Sirius paused, inhaling Remus’ scent, which, he thinks, has always been wonderful: a hint of sweetness over a musky, masculine smell, layered over with parchment and soft leather bindings. “To eagerly love you, yes,” he rumbled, smoothing a kiss over Remus’ pulse, sucking as he his tongue flick out against it.
Remus cursed and abruptly withdrew, kneeling on the bed between Sirius’ splayed legs, his hair tousled, and his eyes glinting golden in the low light from the candles. “You defy sumptuary laws; your skin is much too fine for such clothing…” With a strong hand on the back of Sirius’ neck, Remus tugged him forward, nipping at his lips before pulling the shirt over his head. He groaned, smoothing his hands across the smooth spread of Sirius’ unblemished chest and shoulders. Sirius shivered under the feel of those calloused, capable hands burning trails across his skin with teasing, clever fingers.
Remus smiled again, bestowing a searing kiss on Sirius’ stomach, before sliding down his stockings, taking care to feel every inch of bared skin as he did so. Sirius kicked them off impatiently, giggling as Remus kissed the sensitive underside of his knee, using his leg to hook around him and draw him in for a kiss. Remus responded with fervour, tongue wriggling against Sirius’ almost obscenely, Sirius pressing up against him as if he could climb inside him or swallow him whole. His tongue flicked against Sirius’, muffling his moan as his hand wrapped around his cock, determinedly stroking Sirius’ slowly and firmly, shuddering at the thin, high sound Sirius made as his thumb dragged over the tip. Panting, he drew back, resting his forehead against Sirius’, hand slowly stroking down his length.
“God, I do love you like this, wanton and mine,” he hissed. He reached up and loosed the strip of leather binding Sirius’ hair back, letting it fall in midnight waves across his broad shoulders. He slid his free hand through the silky locks. “I’ve been wanting to do this all day,” he murmured.
Sirius breathed out a chuckle. “What, touch my hair? How pure of you.” He swept a kiss across Remus’ lips and pulled away, pushing him onto his back and straddling his hips, grinning as he ground down against Remus’ now obviously hard length. “Do you know what I have wanted you to do all day?” He waggled his eyebrows.
Remus thrust up against Sirius, his fingers finally freeing his hose from their stays at his unbraced doublet. He paused, looking up with what would’ve looked rumpled but innocent, with his tousled hair, flushed cheeks, and red lips agape, but for the predatory look glowing in his amber eyes. “I can guess.” Sirius licked his full lips, looking for all the world as predatory, his silvery eyes winking. Remus groaned and pushed down his hose, freeing his cock.
Sirius grinned, pushing up Remus’ doublet and shirt, drawing his hands across his chest, before tossing the cloth aside, scraping his teeth along Remus’ collar bone, licking at his adam’s apple as he arched his neck. Remus cursed, pulling away and leaning over the bed to the hidden compartment just beneath, removing a small vial of oil. He poured some into his palm and smoothed it over his cock, gripping the base as he coated it thoroughly. Remus glanced up at Sirius, spread before him, and bit his lip again. “On your back, soldier,” he grunted.
Sirius panted through a grin, a primal flash of white teeth as he reclined across the bed, hair dark and shining across the pillows in the dim light, his legs tipped apart in a wanton splay, exposing his almost painfully hard cock, standing at high noon, red and leaking against his stomach.
“Say that you are ready, for I cannot wait much longer.”
“Mercy, wait not,” Sirius gasped, tucking one knee to his chest and shifting his hips upward as if to present himself for the taking. “I shall die if you do.”
Remus groaned and closed his eyes, and Sirius felt the tip of his cock press against him, an immediate response to his plea. And then a bit more pressure, as he leaned closer, and the low deep burn of sex as Remus pushed fully inside him, Sirius sounding a quiet whine sounding from deep in his chest. And Sirius’ legs shake slightly, and he gasps, bites his lip hard. He pauses, shuddering, then pushes back against Remus, biting back a groan as the pain briefly intensifies. For a moment Remus is entranced by the scene before him, watching Sirius wiggle beneath him, flushed and gasping and stunningly splayed. He gulps, and drops a kiss at the juncture of neck and shoulder, nuzzling his hair and breathing in Sirius’ scent, leather and wine and smoke and spice. He comes back to himself when Sirius’ eyes meet his, heavy-lidded and lust-addled as he pants out, “Come on, have me,” rocking back again.
A flash of heat speeds through Remus’ limbs, and he surges forward with a growl, grabbing Sirius’ leg to wrap it around him, which he does, eagerly, then arches up sharply as Remus’ cock slams into him, and he grabs his head, gentle, but firm, steady, next to his. “Do not speak,” he panted, claiming Sirius’ mouth in a wild, ruthless kiss, before tearing away. Sirius groaned and slid his hands down Remus’ back, making him roll his body closer in response. And suddenly Remus’ hands are on him as he all but hauls Sirius into his lap, and his hips slam into him as his eyes flutter shut of their own accord.
And Sirius is so incredible, hot, and tight, as he wraps his legs around Remus, tightening and thrusting himself up, cocking his hips and pushing back, hard, against his thrusts. And then they’re crashing together, hard and furious, making deep, guttural sounds, and Remus’ nimble hands are everywhere. And Sirius can’t stop touching Remus, the long planes of his shoulder blades, every inch of secret skin coming to life and tingling and twisting and writhing above him. And he sees flashes of the shape of Sirius’ shoulders, the scrape of bright teeth, the tousle of tangled dark hair. And their chests slide together, and Remus’ skin burns, and his gut aches, and whimpers are tearing their way across Sirius’ swollen lips. And the ancient wood of the bed is groaning under the strain, but not as loudly as Sirius, whose arms are wrapped around Remus, pulling him close as he rides his cock, sliding hard and fast as Remus bucks, driving up into him, burying loud moans in his neck, and shoulders, and letting his tongue taste every part of his body that tempted him throughout the day.
And Remus’ hands are all over his body, and Sirius knows that all he’ll be doing while trying to memorize lines, or going over blocking, is feeling the scratches where Remus’ fingernails rake across his back and the soreness in his limbs and stomach, and struggling to cover up that spot where, Christ, Remus just bit him, fucking hard, just above his collarbone.
A groan fights its way out of Remus’ chest, and one of his hands falls to the bedspread, gripping tightly as he thrusts into Sirius, over and over again, feeling sharp bones crash against soft skin, even as Remus wrenches one of his hands away to drag across Sirius’ scalp and yank on his hair, pulling his head back and making him arch his back and hiss through a moan, because Remus knows that he likes it hard. And his lips are suddenly at his throat, exposed and long, biting and licking and sucking and Sirius’ eyes squeeze shut as his hands clench against Remus’ back. Remus he can hear his breath loud over the creaking of the bedframe and the muffled shifting of the mattress, panting into Sirius’ neck, and Sirius breath is ragged against his chest, and his movements becoming jerky, wild, so Remus grabs him closer and presses tight up against him, rolling his hips and whispering unimaginable obscenities into his ear, breaking off into a quiet shudder as he hears Sirius’ strangled cry, and feels the spurt of sticky warmth as Sirius comes.
And he pulls back just a fraction so he can see Sirius, brows knit together, mouth fallen open, lips swollen and abused. Remus grabs his hipbones with bruising strength, squeezing his eyes shut hard, as Sirius’ hands slip beneath him and grab his arse, drawing him deep as he can inside. And he feels himself let go, letting out a sound that is almost inhuman, like the wind ripping through the trees, arching his back and pushing up against Sirius, lifting his body and coming deep inside.
And when he finally stops seeing stars, he forces his leaden, shaky limbs into motion, just long enough so he can withdraw. Sirius moans quietly, and curls up into Remus’ heavy, sweating body, collapsed on the bed next to him, just breathing. After what feels like an eternity but probably is the span of a few minutes, Sirius pulls open his eyes to see Remus, lying on his side and just watching him, his eyes a dull gold, clouded with pleasure.
“Oh. Hello, beautiful,” Sirius hears a voice like his own, but too syrupy and low, mumble. He lets out a heavy sigh before sitting up and stretching, feeling all his muscles come to life, and the soft ache of exertion settle in alongside a few sharper pains he’ll have to investigate later. But now he’s bogged down by this quiet sensuality, feeling sated and calm. He reaches out and hauls Remus into his arms, curling around his hard body, feeling the heat roll off him. He kisses his shoulder, right at the base of his neck, and Remus sighs. “Where have you been hiding, my little beast?” Sirius mumbles, nuzzling his face into Remus’ slightly damp hair and breathing in his scent.
He can feel the little shift of a chuckle more than hear it, and knows Remus is smiling just a little, just before he pulls away, like Sirius knew he would. Sighing again, Sirius heaves himself up onto one arm, propping his head on his elbow to see Remus grab a soft cloth and wipe at his stomach. Frowning slightly, he looks up to meet Sirius’ slightly bemused grey eyes, as he hands the cloth to him.
“Do you like what you see?” he rumbled through a small laugh, stretching slowly, languorously, indulgently naked. Remus’ brows knit together as he surveys the long red scratch marks along Sirius’ back, the marks of his fingernails, and the bites and bruises on his chest, neck, and shoulders.
“I hurt you,” he breathes in a voice that hurts Sirius more than any of the scratches, bites, and sundry injuries that come with bedding Remus. Grabbing his hand, Sirius tugged Remus, sprawling, onto the bed, pressing a sloppy kiss to his lips.
“Oh, punish me again,” he laughed, dragging the bedcovers over their sticky limbs and trapping Remus beneath him, landing a poorly-aimed kiss on the side of his mouth. Humming in contentment and throwing an arm over Remus’ chest, he insisted, “We are warriors both, Remus, and the rules of fair play do not apply in love and war.” The last thing he saw before the candle blew out was Remus peering at him, blushing faintly, with the shy smile that, even in remembrance, makes Sirius’ chest thrum with warmth.
SCENE IV. The Globe Theatre, The Lord’s Rooms.
Sirius, lounging with his head in Remus’ lap.
Night gathers as Sirius reclines across a long, plush seat tucked away into the Lord’s Rooms at the Globe, laying his head in Remus’ lap, who curled, cross-legged at the end. Sirius’ eyes closed as Remus’ slipped his hands into his hair and across his scalp, as his motions silently begged. The room is quiet, but for the far off sounds of actors rattling about the stage below, the whisper of cloth, and the occasional sighs tumbling from Sirius as Remus’ hands massaged a particularly satisfying spot.
A smile playing about his lips, Remus looked down at Sirius’ upside-down face, and murmured, “You are very quiet. Whilst my ears thank you,” he paused to rub behind Sirius’ left ear, one of his favourite spots, as if to punctuate. “…it is most out of character.”
“Tush.” Sirius scolded, not opening his eyes. “My mind rests not ever on you.”
“Liar,” Remus goaded, still softly, making circles with his fingertips.
“Never,” Sirius retorted, before groaning quietly in pleasure and shifting to give Remus better access.
“Well. What kind of delightful fancies are whirling within your otherwise very heavy head?” he laughed, scratching at his hairline.
“When was’t that I came to London?” he cocked his head, leaning his cheek against Remus’ knee.
“Thou knowst you were young,” Remus sighed, “only in your sixteenth year.”
“You were younger,” Sirius skulked, frowning.
“Ay, but I made none such a splash,” Remus laughed, jostling Sirius as he giggled into his hand. “Recall: thou didst bring some scandal when that thou flounced into the theatre, a wayward morsel from the highest order decided as a stager.”
Looking up slightly cross-eyed, Sirius sniffed, “I cannot help that people are always interested in my comings and goings. It is hard being always the centre of attention.”
Remus looked sideways at Sirius. “Oh, very hard, like a bed of silk,” shot Remus, voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Saucy!” laughed Sirius, stretching back and preening. “What was’t they said of me?”
Remus licked his lips, remembering the pamphlet published almost immediately following Sirius’ first performance. “Oh, some damnation, yet extolling of the ‘lascivious writhing’ of your ‘tender limbs’, the ‘gorgeousness’ of your wrappings, though by troth they ought to have said gaudiness; was’t not the year you played Viola?” he clucked in distaste.
“Now who plays the boy!” Remus leaned down and nipped the top of Sirius’ ear, causing him to grab at Remus’ hair, making him gasp and arch his neck. Sirius chuckled and released him as Remus smacked him lightly.
Settling down, Remus sighed, “An ingle full fair made you then and a very man make you now; not so with the green of spring, but burst forth into the full flush of summer.”
Sirius blushed and dug his nose into Remus’ thigh. “In sadness, tell me: do you think I chose wrongly?
To take office in the role of the player?” He glanced up, eyes wide and innocent looking, shining with some unspoken unease.
“What?” Remus wrinkled his brow. “Wish you now that you had chosen some other course?”
“Sometimes,” he groaned, scrubbing a hand over his features. “I think that I could have done something of import if I were still a part of my family. ‘d wear as much of a mask in court or at home as I do upon the stage,” he muttered darkly, glancing down and biting his lip.
Remus raised an eyebrow and straightened, taking Sirius’ face in his hands. “If I know you, and I do, in all my senses,” he added with a snort, “what ever you did would cert’ get you locked in the Tower for treason.” He stroked along Sirius’ jawline with a finger, relishing the rasp of stubble he found there. Then he frowned again, leaning over to look at Sirius. “Do you think then that you do nothing? That the stage is only an amusement? One moment to contemplate the words you quote will show that it is not so. I know you know this, despite your thick skull there’s brains in there yet.” Remus knocked playfully on Sirius’ skull, prompting him to grab and bite the offending hand. Remus laughed and scrubbed behind Sirius’ ear, making him release his hand and groan in contentment.
“Though, I must admit, shouting your completion over the very plush where their pampered buttocks will rest, for all its folly, has a sort of delicious poetic justice.” Remus grinned and glanced over at some of the grander seats in the small balcony.
“Doesn’t it?” Sirius hummed in pleasure, speaking through a smile, not in the least repentant. “And that,” he punctuated with his forefinger raised, “will be my only contribution to the aristocracy.”
Puffing out a laugh, Remus continued, “Having thus befoul’d the Lord’s Rooms, hear me: You may not be at court, but the stage is a pulpit, though the words you speak are not your own. You are a tool, Sirius, but a lovely tool, to sow the seeds of discord.”
Somewhat taken aback, Sirius paused and fixed his eyes steadily on Remus, as if he’d had some inner revelation. He never could figure out how Remus always knew exactly how to dismantle his preconceived notions and reaffirm him in other, subtler ways. After a brief silence, he asked quietly, “Are you not nervous in these times? You write the words that make a martyr of me.”
Remus chuckled softly, stroking the dark hair that had splayed out over his thigh absent-mindedly. “I am protected behind Shakespeare’s good name. And you are protected behind it as well, for you speak only what is given to you by him. It’s perfect.” He paused, looking out at the rapidly darkening sky, clouds turning to wisps of purple in the gloaming. “Though, you are right; the shadow of religious persecution hangs above everything, and everywhere the remembrance of the pestilence.”
Sirius hummed. “Most especially since the powder plot, although I recall they hung him, did they not?” He cocked his head, looking almost canine, looking up for approval.
Not taking his eyes off the horizon, Remus muttered a response. “Among other things, they did.”
“A Yorkshire man like yourself, was he not?”
“Mm. Not all of us are made so incendiary,” Remus smiled.
“Or Catholic,” he laughed.
Remus turned his head sharply and peered down at Sirius. The next words he spoke carefully, low and even. “Well, that’s a bit misleading. You don’t know much about me, do you?”
Sirius’ eyes widened, visible even in the growing dark. “You were Catholic in your youth?” he hissed, secret and close, as if he hoarded a dangerous secret.
“Yes.” Remus’ eyes hardened for a moment, lost in memory of the rites and regulations of his childhood, before gentling again, sliding his hand over Sirius’ chest. “Where thought you that I learned my letters and Latin?” He sounded amused, which irked Sirius’ waning sense of propriety.
“I thought that Will had taught you. Or you yourself,” Sirius huffed, crossing his arms and turning his head into Remus’ knee.
“Will has taught me much that I did not know.” Remus nodded and closed his eyes. No reply came from Sirius, though he could feel little breaths puffing against his leg through his hose. He leaned in, questioningly. “Are you worried? I’faith, I’ve lost my faith,” he intoned faintly.
“Lost it?” Sirius looked up and they met eyes.
“Or, rather, I believe another gospel now,” he whispered. Sirius’ eyes softened, and he craned his neck upwards for a kiss, laughing when it landed on Remus’ chin, before he ducked his head and their lips met. Bent almost double, Remus cradled Sirius’ head and licked at his lower lip, dragging his tongue along the inside before plunging inside to draw against Sirius’. Sirius squirmed and made a soft sound he would later deny, surging up into Remus to claim his mouth.
Sirius broke away with a small gasp, exhaling heavily as he settled back into Remus lap and looked up at him again, his features open and looking almost hurt. Remus stroked his temple with his thumb and waited. “Sweet Remus,” he exhaled, “what hideous sin did you commit in a previous lifetime to deserve such a scoundrel as ever I am? How do you remain such a patient and gentle man?” He drew his brows together.
Remus laughed, sounding light and musical through the air. “Scoundrel? All I need do is stroke your hair and you are a lamb 'neath my fingers.” He scratched a little at the base of Sirius’ skull.
Sirius squirmed, muttering, “But I am-“
“You are nothing but what you are.” He smiled. “Doubt thyself and look no further than mine eyes, and you shall see yourself as you are meant.” These words he barely whispered, as if he had never meant them to be spoken aloud.
“Would that I always were so temperate.” Sirius scoffed darkly, his downcast eyelashes painting inky shadows beneath his eyes. “Do I not vex you constantly? The choler of my character much engenders my own sadness, nay, melancholy, as black and thunderous ever must I seem.” He sighed.
“Sometimes.” Remus played with a stray lock of hair curling over Sirius’ forehead. “You are never so thunderous as after visiting our patron.”
Rolling over and feeling equally dour, Sirius scowled in memory. The king lined the pockets of The King’s Men, but he also represented a world of inequality Sirius had fought against, and to disassociate himself from.
“But though it be autumn, and the wind pick up and the cold bluster to our very bones, should I ever remember you as the sweet breath of lilac, a heady wine for my senses in the fecund seasons of this world.” Remus paused, looking abashed for a moment, staring out into the evening with a faint blush staining his cheeks, either passion or nerves or embarrassment, but the tension broke and he looked down again. “I love your tempests as your rarer temperance.”
He sat up, mirth racing across his features. “But, come now!” He slapped Sirius’ chest lightly, making him jump, and chided, “It was I who ever played the brains, and you the brawn! And I have got no brawnier, so what am I to do without my complement here?”
“Thou speakst true,” Sirius nodded, stretching his arms and shifting in Remus’ lap. “My mind is none so powerful nor near as beautiful as my body,” he punctuated by stretching out his leg and pointing its foot delicately, “so it were best that I make use of it.” He glanced up with a licentious grin, licking his lips and sliding his hand over Remus’ thigh.
“Foul-minded thing!” he scolded good-naturedly and tapped Sirius on the nose. “You are to rehearse for Caius Martius tonight! You must be bold and stout as a soldier ought.” He squared his shoulders and looked down expectantly at Sirius.
“Methinks you have given my stout soldier about as much courage as he may need, you varlet you,” he rumbled, chuckling and curling up to carefully remove himself from Remus’ lap.
“Me!” Remus gasped, standing and feigning shock, his eyebrows raised. “T’was you who played the lecher tonight, throwing me down and ravishing me most thoroughly.” He poked Sirius in the chest before leaning in to grab him at the hip, breathing in his ear, “I’d blush to think of’t if an you had not managed yourself most handily, crying out in pleasure.”
He bit his lip as Sirius turned his face into his neck, drawing his lips from its base to just behind his ear, where he chuckled, “You blush nonetheless.”
Remus turned his head, his lips just breaths from Sirius’, his eyes dark. “Maybe so-“ he began, but was soon cut off by some commotion from somewhere near the stage.
“Sirius!” shouted James’ voice from below.
Sirius groaned, giving Remus an indulgent smile before calling out, “What is it now, have you soiled your cradle-clothes?” He laughed to himself as Remus covered his mouth, shaking his head.
An indignant squawk sounded from below, before James snapped, “It’s just there’s a fine gown waiting for you to try!”
Sirius, dragging a partially entwined Remus, made his way over to the edge of the box, looking out for James and shouting, “Strangle yourself with’t!” with a laugh.
“Anon!” shouted Remus, struggling to hold in his laughter at their childish jibes. James, barely visible by the light of a torch, waved his hand as if to shoo him away.
“Sirius!” Remus reprimanded. “Thou no longer playst the chit, so do not speak as one!” Sirius had the good grace to look at least a little repentant. The severity of the moment was offset by the fact that Remus couldn’t keep the side of his mouth from twitching up, as he did when he wanted to laugh but knew he ought not. “Make you now a gallant, and a bold, and a gentle man.” He brushed off Sirius shoulders, giving him a small smile. Sirius laughed and ducked his head again to Remus’ neck, pulling him close and sucking on his pulse point.
James bellowed again from the stage, calling “Sirius!” but sounding more insistent.
Gasping out a laugh, Remus shouted again, “Anon!” he tried to swat Sirius’ wandering hands away, giggling all the while. “He comes!”
Sirius snorted and nudged Remus’ nose with his, pulling him close, murmuring, “I leave you for that?”
Remus grinned and slid his hand through Sirius’ hair, pulling him in for a kiss, tasting sweet and sunny and full of laughter. He pulled away, resting his forehead against Sirius’, smiling and looking up shyly, saying, “I’ve words to wield, and you are for the stage tonight.”
*
And, because I just couldn’t resist a nice pair of paned hose:
Sorry for the terrible quality photo. Done on my lunch break with a regular ol’ #2 pencil on computer paper.
Happy Holidays! Xx