Fic post!!

Jul. 31st, 2005 03:39 am
momebie: (Default)
[personal profile] momebie
Fic for [livejournal.com profile] just_juxtaposed for the [livejournal.com profile] hp_tradeoff who likes R/S and wanted something sweet. I think the Dreaded Real Life ate my fluff, but it should make you feel gooey.

Title: A Day Off
Summary/Subject matter: Remus helps Sirius take a day to decide what's really important.
Pairing(s): Sirius/Remus
Rating: PG
Link or LJ cut:

“I can’t take it anymore,” Sirius said as Remus walked into the little kitchen. Most people took for granted that they didn’t have whinging boys using their chair space or eating all of their toast, Remus thought that some of the time these people were lucky. But then, there were other times.

“Maybe if you’d actually get some sleep, instead of coming over here every night, partially scarred and half drunk. Maybe, maybe you could get some sleep if just one night you went to your own flat and took a shower and got into bed.”

“Pffftt…” Sirius blew into the wood grain on the table. Remus wished that one morning they would have a conversation in which he wouldn’t have to watch the top of Sirius’ head as it was buried in his arms. This was not to be the morning.

“You know it. You’d heal faster too if you’d actually take the potions the ministry gave you. You can’t just keep getting into battles with Death Eaters and wearing down your body a little more every day. Soon there will be none of you left. And then who would I have around to leave my towels in wet piles on the floor or drop crumbs all over the table. This place would be downright spotless if you wouldn’t insist on sleeping over.”

“Yeah, and you’d be downright unshagged.” Sirius looked up finally. His eyes were rimmed in red and there were little pieces of hair pasted to his forehead. He worried that one day Remus wouldn’t be teasing him, that he’d mean it. Today Remus was fighting a grin, just as he had in the days before. Sirius felt he could relax for one more day.

Remus sat down and pulled a piece of cold toast off the plate Sirius had pushed away. He took a bite and chewed it thoughtfully. Sirius gripped the table and looked as if he might fall over waiting for what came next. Remus took another bite and let him wait. “So, you can’t take it anymore yeah? I suggest maybe you stop rolling over and begging for it.”

Sirius was unsure whether to laugh at Remus or punch him. Instead he sighed and dropped his head back onto the table.

“Also,” Remus said around a mouthful of toast, “if you keep doing that you may get splinters.”

“Unnghhhh..” said Sirius.

Remus dropped the half slice of toast back on the plate and reached across the table, placing his hand on the back of Sirius’ neck. “I’m sorry, I’m being a prat. It’s just that I’m so used to the melodramatics you see.”

“One day, I’m gonna pull a real showstopper Remus, and then you’ll wish you’d just been paying attention in the previous acts.”

“Probably true enough. So, what can’t you take anymore?” He smoothed some of Sirius’ hair back and started scratching him lightly just between the shoulder blades. Sirius’ toe started tapping, which caused Remus to smile.

“I just,” Sirius, with his head still on the table, started waving his hands around in the air. It reminded Remus of the time Kingsley had dressed as the headless horseman for Halloween. None of the first years would leave their dorms alone for weeks after that. “I just don’t know Remus.”

“Well, for you to not be able to take something, something has to be happening. Unless you can’t take nothing anymore, in which case I say you should stop reading existential propaganda.”

“It’s just everything. We can’t stop the Death Eaters, and we keep losing aurors. Frank and Alice have been in St. Mungo’s for a week already with no recovery. James’ parents have been killed and now he has a baby to worry about so I don’t even see my best mate anymore. And then there’s Remus, even though I don’t even know what he is.”

“I’m a werewolf,” Remus whispered. He stopped scratching Sirius’ back and pulled his hands back across the table. He hated this part of the talk.

“No, no.” Sirius sat up and looked at him. His mouth was drawn into a line that made his face seem narrower than it was and showed off the cheekbones that used to not stick out so much. Remus saw Sirius almost every day, but every once in a while something would catch him off guard. Today, his shirt was hanging off him. His already slender frame seemed to be shrinking. Oddly, Remus never noticed this when Sirius was wearing nothing at all.

“I mean,” Sirius continued, “I can’t define us. I can define every other relationship I’ve ever had. Most of them are black and white, friend or enemy. But you’re…you’re my friend whom I think of as more than just a friend, if that makes any sense.”

Remus shook his head. He couldn’t ever make any sense out of Sirius when he talked this way. Remus knew exactly what he was saying, but he wasn’t sure how to take it, so he ignored it. He ignored it until it was 2am and Sirius stumbled through his fire place dirty, scratched and tumbling. Until he was undressing Sirius and helping him stand in the shower. Until Sirius was kissing him and pulling him desperately closer…

“I think maybe you just need a healing day. What say we go out? I can take Padfoot for a walk and then from there we can just find something to keep us out of the flat for a while so that you don’t have to look at walls that remind you of things.” Remus shivered as he was reminded of things that had happened the night before. Personal, tender and savage things. Things that he never wanted to end. Sirius seemed to reciprocate the shiver.

“I think maybe you’re right then.” Sirius said. He stood up and left the kitchen. Remus heard him walk halfway through the living room, and then heard the click clack of Padfoot’s toes pacing about in the little area by the front door. Remus stood and carried the plate to the sink. He didn’t dump the toast, but it made him feel better to have the mess quarantined to that area. It was something he could control. He turned to survey the empty kitchen for any traitors to his regimen. Satisfied, he headed to the front door, to let the puppy out for a romp.

He walked Padfoot past their favorite bake shop where the owner always gave him the sweet rolls from the night before, and past the playground where Padfoot could run around with the children and tire himself out. People very rarely noticed the kid in his early twenties sitting against the fence and reading, but if they did they usually commented on how friendly his dog was and moved on.

In dog form, Sirius was the most loyal and caring entity Remus had ever come across. He sometimes wished he could keep Sirius as a dog, but realized this was selfish of him. He wished this because he thought that it was the only way he’d ever get to keep Sirius at all. The human Sirius was plagued by bouts of rudeness and melancholy and would get piss drunk and take up most of the bed while wrapped in all of the covers. The dog Sirius mainly just licked your face and left dog hair at the foot of the bed. Of all of the Bodily Fluids of Sirius Black that Remus had encountered over the years, dog slobber was one of the more preferable ones.

They walked through the park that was two blocks from Remus’ little flat and Remus sat beneath their favorite tree and read some more while absentmindedly throwing a stick for Padfoot or calling for him to stop terrifying the ducks. The sun was just setting before Padfoot disappeared into the shrubbery and Sirius returned to sit next to him.

Their shoulders brushed as he sat down and Remus tensed. Inside the flat contact was common and comfortable. In the world outside, where the boundaries of their odd relationship did not apply, Remus didn’t know what to feel. It made him nervous.

“How’s the book?” Sirius asked, scratching is back against the trunk of the tree, shaking Remus’ shoulder in the process.

“Oh, you know, it’s full of words and such. Which incidentally, are easier to read when they’re not moving.”

“Sorry,” muttered Sirius, and he laid his head back against the tree trunk and looked at Remus through the side of his eyes. Remus pretended he didn’t feel like he was being watched and turned the page of his book. He didn’t know what had happened for the last three pages. Contact with Sirius usually made it hard to concentrate. Sirius laid his head sideways on Remus’ shoulder and stretched his legs out.

“Comfortable?” Remus asked, rather stiffly.

“Oh, most definitely,” said Sirius, who brushed his forearm across Remus’ nose as he stretched and yawned. “You sure do know how to wear an old mutt out.”

Remus gave up on trying to remember what he was reading about and closed his book. “I think an old mutt would be much easier to wear out. You’ve now spent four hours romping. We didn’t even get to go to any places where you can’t take dogs.”

Sirius sniffed. “Those places don’t deserve our patronage anyway.”

“Says the man who just spent all day not thinking and leaving his poor werewolf friend to do all of it for him.” Remus tucked his hands behind his head. He hadn’t meant it to sound catty, but Sirius winced.

“I, I’m sorry Moony.” Sirius whispered. He rolled his head on Remus’ shoulder so that he was looking up into his face. Remus looked down at him, his face didn’t change.

“Nothing to be sorry about. I’d do the same thing really, if I could. Unfortunately, I can only do it once a month.”

Sirius grinned. “You’re furry little problem.” He started to laugh. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes and his shoulder shook against Remus’ side. Remus even let himself chuckle.

“Yes, yes. Although, I think you’re more of a furry little problem than that. You I get to deal with every day.”

“And you love it,” said Sirius, calming himself. He pushed away and lay down, placing his head into Remus’ lap so he could look up. His face sobered and he started playing with the blades of grass by his waist. He only fidgeted when he was nervous. Sirius fidgeting had the added affect of also making Remus nervous.

Remus closed his eyes. “You’re right, I do.”

Sirius stopped breathing for a moment. Remus was sitting absolutely still, his hands by his sides, being careful not to touch the boy in his lap. Sirius reached out and grabbed one of them; he placed his own hand over top of it and squeezed it quickly. They sat there, Sirius with his head in Remus’ lap and their fingers intertwined. Remus wouldn’t open his eyes.

“You know Moony, I have been thinking today. Moony, Moony. I may never call you Remus again.” He reached up with his other hand and brushed a piece of fringe out of Remus’ eyes. Remus looked down into Sirius’ face. Then he looked at the fingers tangled with his. His whole body turned hot and then very cold.

“Really? What are you to start calling me then? Insufferable git? I rather thought that was my name for you.” Sirius smiled. He sat up so that he could look Remus in the eye. He left his hand where it was.

“Moony, I’ve been thinking for a long time. It’s all I do anymore. I can’t sleep because my mind never stops, and at least the alcohol makes it think about other things for short periods of time. But I never stop thinking really.” He swallowed and started to look away. Feeling that he might look insincere, he turned back. Remus looked very sad.

“I thought you might say something like that. At least as Padfoot you can’t talk, and I don’t have to worry about what you’ll say. But now, now I guess I’ll just go back to my flat. I’ve complicated things, I know, and I understand if you don’t want to see me anymore. Oh Godric.” He slapped his forehead with the hand that wasn’t trapped under Sirius’. “I sound like a bloody girl.”

Sirius giggled. Remus slapped him. Sirius slapped Remus back. This started a wrestling match to rival those of Potter and Black ’76. It felt good, this contact, this allowing themselves to be happy. Remus finally won out because he really was the stronger of the two, always had been. He straddled Sirius’ waist and pinned his wrists to the ground.

“Moooony,” Sirius whispered up at him.

Remus made a face. “Ugh, Sirius, can’t you lose the dog breath when you transform?”

Sirius licked up the side of Remus’ cheek. Remus jumped back and released Sirius’ wrists. Sirius sat up and dumped Remus off of him. He then leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. It wasn’t like the way Sirius had ever kissed Remus before. It was slow and gentle. Sirius’ tongue lazed around Remus’ mouth instead of trying to conquer it. Remus suddenly felt very light headed. Someone giggled.

Sirius looked up to see two girls standing several meters away from them on the path. “Sod off!” he cried. Remus threw his hand up to clamp over Sirius’ mouth.

“You can’t yell at children!”

“But they, I,” Sirius looked from the girls, who were running away, back down to Remus. He looked dazed. “Perhaps we should finish this elsewhere.”

“Mmm..perhaps,” Remus whispered as Sirius reached down to pull him up.

As they walked off down the path Sirius tucked his arm over Remus’ shoulders. It was gloaming and he thought he could risk it. No one would really look to see who they were.

“Remus,” he said. “I think I know why you’ve always been the one I could talk to, and why you’re the one I always come to, and why- why I’m so attracted to you.”

“You’re what?” Remus yelped.

“Yeah. I uh, I think I might love you.”

They walked the remainder of the way back to the flat in silence. It was dark by the time Remus pulled the key out of his pocket and let them in. It would be the first time in a year that Sirius had entered through the front door.

“I think I knew that,” Remus said finally, as he placed the keys and his book on the table next to the door and started a fire in the fireplace. He laid down on his stomach on the rug in the middle of the floor and placed his head on his folded arms, watching the fire and sorting out his feelings. Sirius lay down next to him and curled up on his side, placing an arm over Remus’ back. He was asleep in twenty minutes and Remus was still gathering his thoughts. Sirius let out a snuffle and Remus leaned forward and kissed him on the nose.

“You know Snuffles, can I call you Snuffles? I think I could love you too.” He placed his head down and looked to the side. Remus watched the flames play on Sirius’ face until he fell asleep.

Date: 2005-07-31 12:14 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wickedevra.livejournal.com
This is awesome! I love the way you showed the tension, and then catharsis, and finally peace. It's nice to see tham peaceful. And for some reason this line is really striking: Personal, tender and savage things.

Date: 2005-07-31 03:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] marilla82.livejournal.com
It's beautiful, hon! Lovely!

*hugs you*

Date: 2005-08-09 05:28 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] xrated13.livejournal.com
EeeEEEeeeEE. this is awesome

Date: 2005-08-27 10:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jennuine.livejournal.com
akjhdfskgjhgatjkrhkjshOMG.

I'm so, so, so, SO sorry I did not get around to being a proper mod and checking posts earlier. How could I have missed this???

Anyway. *clears throat* OMG THANK YOU!!!! This was great, sweet and poignant and I loved Moony, Moony. I may never call you Remus again. - It just struck me as something so sweetly Sirius and *sighs happily* just - thank you!

Date: 2007-08-09 12:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shinzuku.livejournal.com
“Oh, you know, it’s full of words and such. Which incidentally, are easier to read when they’re not moving.”

That was cute.

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