This is the prologue, the prologue.
Oct. 2nd, 2005 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
momebieTitle: The Closet Door
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katilara
Rating: This part's probably PG13
Characters/Pairings: At this point it's Sirius with unrequitted S/R
A/N: So I had this idea a long time ago about a bar named The Closet Door and I started wondering what kind of people went there. This is really the experiment for that. It's another way of looking at the war. Since this is the prologue it is introspection from Sirius' point of view. The other parts will have dialogue and more characters, but they will all take place inside the bar. Much love to my betamarilla82 and to brak4werewolves for reading it over again for me.
Look out, they're coming after us with big guns. They're only gonna tell you all the bad things I've done. Even if the words they say aren't true they've won, and I'm left here dyin’ in the sun.
--Augustana, Stars and Boulevards
Sirius stared down into his drink and thought about liquids and how you dyed them brown. It can’t have been a natural state; it seemed to him that naturally, liquids were clear. But also naturally, he could feel his nose, and right now he could not. He supposed the cause was the same something that made the liquid brown.
Drinking muggle liquor was different than drinking the fire whiskey he and his friends had secured for parties in their youth. Fire whiskey excited you, made you invincible and attractive to everyone. Muggle liquor weighed you down; your mind and your limbs moved slower while everyone around you moved faster. Sirius wondered why the liquor was having an opposite effect on those other people in the bar, but decided that the difference was purely genetic. He wondered if he would have been able to feel anyone else’s nose.
He had found The Closet Door purely by accident. A walk is what he had wanted, just to get out of the stale flat whose piles of rubbish and grate glowing perpetually green from visitors and floo calls only served to remind him that tomorrow he’d have to wake up and leave again. The same routine over and over and over in a whirlwind spiral that sucked him down as the war flared up around them, like being tossed in a tornado in reverse with the ground waiting for you at the end. The Death Eaters were too fast and too numerous. Maybe the Death Eaters drank muggle liquor too.
It was the cold that had sucked him in. Rather, the warm had sucked him in; the cold had only served to turn his extremities mind bogglingly numb while completely ignoring the insides that he didn’t want to feel anymore. If Nature was cruel, Fate was crueler. He often imagined them getting together on Tuesday’s like his mum and aunts used to, just to create ways to torture their respective children. Everyone enjoyed a little light worldly pain when it wasn’t their own.
The spit froze on Sirius’ lips as he licked them nervously and watched in through the windows of the first well lit building he had seen. Not many places were open in his part of muggle London this late at night, but The Closet Door was a night orchid that only bloomed once the shops around it had closed and the respectable people of the day had scurried off to wherever respectable people went. This just left the drunkards and gay men for the splashes of color to fall on. Most of the patrons fit both descriptions.
An hour and three glasses of something called Glenlivet later Sirius was pleasantly numb inside and out and had forgotten completely about why he had been out in the cold in the first place. But if you asked him he’d just teeter on his bar stool and grin, rake his long thin fingers through his tangled hair and tell you that he had come to find you. Wouldn’t fancy a shag would you? Because if there was one thing a closet door was good for, it was hiding all manner of sins.
Sirius didn’t think it odd that all of the patrons were men, or that the building was filled with dark corners that seemed purposefully designed for unspeakable deeds. After all, one of his best mates was gay, and he was never uncomfortable around him. In fact, he was increasingly more comfortable around him than he was around his heterosexual mates, the two of which spent those nights not dedicated to fighting the war with girls or talking about them. Love and hate were all Pete and James had time for, and so Sirius spent a great deal of the time in the middle ground with his mate Remus wondering why anyone would want anything else.
Sometimes he hoped that Remus would find love too, but he knew that if Remus did he would be lost. And who wanted a gay werewolf besides Sirius anyway? He understood Remus more than he cared to admit. It was almost as much as he understood exactly how he felt about Remus, but Remus could never know. If there was one thing Sirius had learned in his most noble Black upbringing it was that those that you loved always ended up leaving you, or dead at the hands of your little brother, whether it had been on purpose or not. So there. Sirius didn’t know if he was gay, but he knew that he liked Remus, and that he was comfortable with the idea of being gay.
That first night Sirius brought someone home with him, another bloke. He hadn’t ever had sex with a man and by all practical definitions he didn’t have sex with this one either. There were tongues involved, and hands, and lips, but his insides were still numb from the liquor and there was no emotion. Sex without passion seemed like the only way to make it to tomorrow. Tomorrow he would be himself, tomorrow he would feel something, tomorrow night he would sleep and not let Remus be the last thing he thought about. Passionless sex and his idea of the future fused into a tangled skein that would sit at the bottom of his stomach for the next several days, a nagging reminder that Sirius was unworthy of Remus’ company.
Sirius repeated this behavior for some time, a month at least, until he finally admitted to James in an offhand manner that he had found a lovely little bar that had some fit regulars and a muggle drink that could melt the ice from Durmstrang’s goal hoops. He had hoped James might just pass the information on to Remus, because Sirius telling Remus was too much like asking Remus on a date.
Boy’s Code dictated that even if you wanted to shag your mate senseless on the spot whenever you saw him you never acknowledged it. Lust was an Emotion, with a capital E. Emotion was for birds and married couples. James hadn’t just passed the info along to Remus, he had insisted that both of them go with Sirius some night soon. They three of them just happened to have two nights from now off from Order duty, why didn’t they meet up then and Sirius could show off this wonderful new place. Sirius wanted to punch James and shag Remus. It was a mixture of feelings that occurred alarmingly often lately.
Sirius stared down into the brown liquid left in his glass and wondered whether or not drinking what was left of it would make him forget the way back to his flat. He shrugged for his own benefit and swallowed what was left in the glass before sliding off his barstool and swaying slightly as he surveyed the pickings.
A young man winked at him; a young man with a slight frame, hollowed eyes and dusty brown hair that stuck to the nape of his neck, weighed down by the beer he was sweating out. Sirius fancied that because he was a dog he could smell these things. Tomorrow he would have to bring the real Remus to his hiding place, the ultimate show of trust from one mate to another. Tomorrow he would be himself, tomorrow he would be vulnerable, tomorrow night he would sleep and pray to Nature and Fate that Remus was the last thing he saw.
Author:
katilaraRating: This part's probably PG13
Characters/Pairings: At this point it's Sirius with unrequitted S/R
A/N: So I had this idea a long time ago about a bar named The Closet Door and I started wondering what kind of people went there. This is really the experiment for that. It's another way of looking at the war. Since this is the prologue it is introspection from Sirius' point of view. The other parts will have dialogue and more characters, but they will all take place inside the bar. Much love to my beta
marilla82 and to brak4werewolves for reading it over again for me. Look out, they're coming after us with big guns. They're only gonna tell you all the bad things I've done. Even if the words they say aren't true they've won, and I'm left here dyin’ in the sun.
--Augustana, Stars and Boulevards
Sirius stared down into his drink and thought about liquids and how you dyed them brown. It can’t have been a natural state; it seemed to him that naturally, liquids were clear. But also naturally, he could feel his nose, and right now he could not. He supposed the cause was the same something that made the liquid brown.
Drinking muggle liquor was different than drinking the fire whiskey he and his friends had secured for parties in their youth. Fire whiskey excited you, made you invincible and attractive to everyone. Muggle liquor weighed you down; your mind and your limbs moved slower while everyone around you moved faster. Sirius wondered why the liquor was having an opposite effect on those other people in the bar, but decided that the difference was purely genetic. He wondered if he would have been able to feel anyone else’s nose.
He had found The Closet Door purely by accident. A walk is what he had wanted, just to get out of the stale flat whose piles of rubbish and grate glowing perpetually green from visitors and floo calls only served to remind him that tomorrow he’d have to wake up and leave again. The same routine over and over and over in a whirlwind spiral that sucked him down as the war flared up around them, like being tossed in a tornado in reverse with the ground waiting for you at the end. The Death Eaters were too fast and too numerous. Maybe the Death Eaters drank muggle liquor too.
It was the cold that had sucked him in. Rather, the warm had sucked him in; the cold had only served to turn his extremities mind bogglingly numb while completely ignoring the insides that he didn’t want to feel anymore. If Nature was cruel, Fate was crueler. He often imagined them getting together on Tuesday’s like his mum and aunts used to, just to create ways to torture their respective children. Everyone enjoyed a little light worldly pain when it wasn’t their own.
The spit froze on Sirius’ lips as he licked them nervously and watched in through the windows of the first well lit building he had seen. Not many places were open in his part of muggle London this late at night, but The Closet Door was a night orchid that only bloomed once the shops around it had closed and the respectable people of the day had scurried off to wherever respectable people went. This just left the drunkards and gay men for the splashes of color to fall on. Most of the patrons fit both descriptions.
An hour and three glasses of something called Glenlivet later Sirius was pleasantly numb inside and out and had forgotten completely about why he had been out in the cold in the first place. But if you asked him he’d just teeter on his bar stool and grin, rake his long thin fingers through his tangled hair and tell you that he had come to find you. Wouldn’t fancy a shag would you? Because if there was one thing a closet door was good for, it was hiding all manner of sins.
Sirius didn’t think it odd that all of the patrons were men, or that the building was filled with dark corners that seemed purposefully designed for unspeakable deeds. After all, one of his best mates was gay, and he was never uncomfortable around him. In fact, he was increasingly more comfortable around him than he was around his heterosexual mates, the two of which spent those nights not dedicated to fighting the war with girls or talking about them. Love and hate were all Pete and James had time for, and so Sirius spent a great deal of the time in the middle ground with his mate Remus wondering why anyone would want anything else.
Sometimes he hoped that Remus would find love too, but he knew that if Remus did he would be lost. And who wanted a gay werewolf besides Sirius anyway? He understood Remus more than he cared to admit. It was almost as much as he understood exactly how he felt about Remus, but Remus could never know. If there was one thing Sirius had learned in his most noble Black upbringing it was that those that you loved always ended up leaving you, or dead at the hands of your little brother, whether it had been on purpose or not. So there. Sirius didn’t know if he was gay, but he knew that he liked Remus, and that he was comfortable with the idea of being gay.
That first night Sirius brought someone home with him, another bloke. He hadn’t ever had sex with a man and by all practical definitions he didn’t have sex with this one either. There were tongues involved, and hands, and lips, but his insides were still numb from the liquor and there was no emotion. Sex without passion seemed like the only way to make it to tomorrow. Tomorrow he would be himself, tomorrow he would feel something, tomorrow night he would sleep and not let Remus be the last thing he thought about. Passionless sex and his idea of the future fused into a tangled skein that would sit at the bottom of his stomach for the next several days, a nagging reminder that Sirius was unworthy of Remus’ company.
Sirius repeated this behavior for some time, a month at least, until he finally admitted to James in an offhand manner that he had found a lovely little bar that had some fit regulars and a muggle drink that could melt the ice from Durmstrang’s goal hoops. He had hoped James might just pass the information on to Remus, because Sirius telling Remus was too much like asking Remus on a date.
Boy’s Code dictated that even if you wanted to shag your mate senseless on the spot whenever you saw him you never acknowledged it. Lust was an Emotion, with a capital E. Emotion was for birds and married couples. James hadn’t just passed the info along to Remus, he had insisted that both of them go with Sirius some night soon. They three of them just happened to have two nights from now off from Order duty, why didn’t they meet up then and Sirius could show off this wonderful new place. Sirius wanted to punch James and shag Remus. It was a mixture of feelings that occurred alarmingly often lately.
Sirius stared down into the brown liquid left in his glass and wondered whether or not drinking what was left of it would make him forget the way back to his flat. He shrugged for his own benefit and swallowed what was left in the glass before sliding off his barstool and swaying slightly as he surveyed the pickings.
A young man winked at him; a young man with a slight frame, hollowed eyes and dusty brown hair that stuck to the nape of his neck, weighed down by the beer he was sweating out. Sirius fancied that because he was a dog he could smell these things. Tomorrow he would have to bring the real Remus to his hiding place, the ultimate show of trust from one mate to another. Tomorrow he would be himself, tomorrow he would be vulnerable, tomorrow night he would sleep and pray to Nature and Fate that Remus was the last thing he saw.
