FIC: Every Love and Each Regret 1.6
Jul. 20th, 2008 12:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leashy_bebesEvery Love and Each Regret Part 1, Chapter 6 [Click here for previous chapters]
PG-13 or more, there's swearing, don't be offended.
I'll hopefully be updatng this fairly regularly from now on.
Lyrics from Radiohead's Karma Police although I was thinking of the far sexier reggae version by the Easy Star Allstars when I wrote this.
So, this is the final chapter of part 1. Two more parts to come, each with 6 chapters.
for a minute there i lost myself
Twenty minutes out of London, James gives Sirius a significant look and says he's off to find Lily. Aware of both the strange atmosphere and the fact that Lily is always surrounded by girlfriends, Peter trails after him and the door clicks shut behind the pair of them.
Even though they've been writing it's hard for Sirius to speak to Remus, actually speak, and trust himself not to fuck up with every sound that comes out of his mouth. Maybe, in part, it's because of the letters. Or more accurately, one particular letter.
At first, Remus' replies had been short and stilted - never just brief notes, but not the gently teasing, rambling letters he'd sent in other summers. Sirius had known how luck he was to have received any reply at all, and he'd displayed restraint and self discipline for the first time in his life, holding back on the kind of letter he really wanted to send, while constantly drawing out details from Remus about his days, his homework, the books he was reading, his parents.
And then, out of sequence - they always wrote in strict sequence, none of the excitable 'Oh, and I forgot to say…' notes of old flying back and forth - a letter had arrived from Remus, long and rambling and full of painful phrases that Sirius doesn't think will ever leave his mind. It wasn't the diatribe about the shack that Sirius had been half-waiting for, in fact the letter wasn't really about anything. It was as though Remus had sat down and poured out every thought in his head - happy, unhappy, important, trivial - and sent it off before he could change his mind.
Sirius doubts that Remus would expect him to have such chunks of the letter memorised, but he doesn't think Remus has ever been so brutally honest before, and it is not something that Sirius can easily forget. There was even a paragraph, seemingly apropos of nothing in which Remus described, in excruciating detail, the transformation as he knew it, described feeling his bones break, his muscles reshape themselves, his whole damn spine change shape.
Sirius remembers having to chew his lip ragged to keep from swearing as he read, Padfoot I never expected to be happy. Unhappiness is fine when there's nothing to compare it to, just like being alone and never having been in love. Only when you get that bloody taste of what it is that you're missing out on does it start to drive you mad when it goes again.
It wasn't self-pity, Sirius knew that. It was a statement of the facts. Remus had never expected to be happy, and although he never wrote it, the clear implication was that Sirius was the one who had dangled those things in front of him - friendship, trust, love, affection - only to snatch them away with his overwhelming stupidity. He hadn't known how, or even if, he should respond to the letter, so he'd taken the easy way out and replied to the previous letter Remus had sent - the normal one, the I-did-this, have-you-done-that, tell-James-the-other one.
He felt like a coward until Remus' reply arrived with the post-script, Don't worry about that letter. I just wanted to tell you those things, after which he just felt confused.
So Sirius doesn't know what to expect when the door snicks shut behind James and Peter, but it's definitely not Remus' wide, easy smile. Sirius wants to smile back, is desperate to smile back, but his face seems to freeze and Remus’ own smile turns into a frown. He reaches over and taps Sirius’ ankle with his foot.
“Don’t give me that face,” he says. “I’ve forgiven you so stop looking like I’m about to hex you.”
“Sorry,” Sirius says, unsure what else to say and Remus rolls his eyes, getting to his feet and sitting next to Sirius instead, their shoulders brushing.
“You can stop saying that once the other person forgives you,” he says in a quiet voice, like he’s whispering some big secret, and then he winks at Sirius, who feels completely wrong footed.
“Just like that?” Sirius asks, and wants to kick himself. He’s been waiting months for Remus to forgive him, and now he’s trying to talk him out of doing so?
Remus shrugs and says, “It was quite a few months.”
“Two and a half,” Sirius says immediately. “Nearly three.”
“I know,” Remus nods. “I – d’you not think I missed you too?” he asks suddenly, turning in the seat to look at Sirius. “I mean – don’t get me wrong, you’re still an idiot,” Remus says with an affectionate smile. “But I don’t know, I started to think that I was making myself more miserable by ignoring you than – well, than I already - ” Remus breaks off and looks at Sirius closely. “We’re good,” he says earnestly.
“Yeah?” Sirius asks hopefully.
Unexpected, wonderful, completely inappropriate, Remus’ hand drops onto Sirius’ thigh and he says, “I missed you,” in a low voice with a significant undertone.
“Guh,” Sirius says insightfully, staring at Remus’ hand, unable to lift his eyes from long, pale fingers.
He laughs into Sirius' ear and Sirius only realises then how close Remus is, looking up only to be startled by wide, amber eyes looking into his own without judgement or anger. Remus' hand squeezes his leg and in spite of the window in the compartment door, he leans in to press his lips against Sirius' neck.
"Really missed you," Remus says.
"You - you want to do this again?" Sirius asks barely able to hope.
"Don't you?" Remus asks, although there's no question in his tone, not really, because he knows the answer is yes. Sirius nods anyway and Remus flicks his wand at the glass in the door sending it cloudy for as long as it takes to kiss Sirius thoroughly.
With economic movements and gentle pressure, Remus pins Sirius to the seat. His lips trail over Sirius' cheeks, his forehead, down his throat and all the time he breathes in through his mouth as though he's desperate to relearn the taste and feel of Sirius all at once. As for Sirius, all he can do is turn his face up, offering himself to Remus, and wrap his arms around Remus' waist, his fingers diving to graze against skin that he'd thought was off-limits forever.
Remus' mouth is so gentle as it moves across his skin, that Sirius doesn't expect the fervour of his kiss, the slip-slide of Remus' tongue dancing with his own, the threat-promise of Remus teeth grazing his lips. Remus' hand goes into Sirius' hair for a moment, deep enough to cradle the back of his skull before sliding down to cup the back of his neck instead.
It's just a kiss, some part of Sirius' mind yells frantically, because he thinks he's losing sight of that. His heart is racing and there seems to be nothing but music in his head, purple lights bursting behind his eyes. He feels like Remus' kiss is changing him somehow, either giving him something new, or returning something he'd unknowingly been missing. Remus' thumb is stroking the same path along his cheekbone over and over again and it's so tender and heartfelt, so at odds with the hungry, biting kiss that Sirius feels an urge to cry stronger than any he's known since childhood.
This, he thinks, this sensation that life has just started again as something new and fresh, and better, this must be what being born is like. He feels like he's disappearing, melting into Remus, becoming just an extension of him, of his kiss, as though he's only alive at the points where they touch. It should be scary, it should be uncomfortable, but Sirius relishes ever crazy second of it, his hands shaking as he runs them down Remus' back, fingers digging into cloth-covered flesh.
"You are so - " Sirius starts, mumbling the words into Remus' mouth. "Remus, I - "
"Shh, just - mmm - " Remus hums appreciatively at the taste of Sirius' throat. "Shut up, will you? I can't concentrate with you - "
"You shut up," Sirius grins, nudging Remus' head up to look him in the eye. They smile at each other, relieved, happy, relieved to be happy.
"They'll be back soon," Remus points out, kissing Sirius' nose before disentangling himself. He doesn't make a move back towards the opposite side of the carriage, for which Sirius is grateful.
Instead, when James and Peter come back ten minutes later, Remus and Sirius are sitting side by side, unconsciously mirroring one another's postures, touching at shoulders, elbows, hips, thighs. Even their feet are overlapping slightly.
It is a position the other Marauders will become very familiar with over the years.
Three and a half years later...
PG-13 or more, there's swearing, don't be offended.
I'll hopefully be updatng this fairly regularly from now on.
Lyrics from Radiohead's Karma Police although I was thinking of the far sexier reggae version by the Easy Star Allstars when I wrote this.
So, this is the final chapter of part 1. Two more parts to come, each with 6 chapters.
for a minute there i lost myself
Twenty minutes out of London, James gives Sirius a significant look and says he's off to find Lily. Aware of both the strange atmosphere and the fact that Lily is always surrounded by girlfriends, Peter trails after him and the door clicks shut behind the pair of them.
Even though they've been writing it's hard for Sirius to speak to Remus, actually speak, and trust himself not to fuck up with every sound that comes out of his mouth. Maybe, in part, it's because of the letters. Or more accurately, one particular letter.
At first, Remus' replies had been short and stilted - never just brief notes, but not the gently teasing, rambling letters he'd sent in other summers. Sirius had known how luck he was to have received any reply at all, and he'd displayed restraint and self discipline for the first time in his life, holding back on the kind of letter he really wanted to send, while constantly drawing out details from Remus about his days, his homework, the books he was reading, his parents.
And then, out of sequence - they always wrote in strict sequence, none of the excitable 'Oh, and I forgot to say…' notes of old flying back and forth - a letter had arrived from Remus, long and rambling and full of painful phrases that Sirius doesn't think will ever leave his mind. It wasn't the diatribe about the shack that Sirius had been half-waiting for, in fact the letter wasn't really about anything. It was as though Remus had sat down and poured out every thought in his head - happy, unhappy, important, trivial - and sent it off before he could change his mind.
Sirius doubts that Remus would expect him to have such chunks of the letter memorised, but he doesn't think Remus has ever been so brutally honest before, and it is not something that Sirius can easily forget. There was even a paragraph, seemingly apropos of nothing in which Remus described, in excruciating detail, the transformation as he knew it, described feeling his bones break, his muscles reshape themselves, his whole damn spine change shape.
Sirius remembers having to chew his lip ragged to keep from swearing as he read, Padfoot I never expected to be happy. Unhappiness is fine when there's nothing to compare it to, just like being alone and never having been in love. Only when you get that bloody taste of what it is that you're missing out on does it start to drive you mad when it goes again.
It wasn't self-pity, Sirius knew that. It was a statement of the facts. Remus had never expected to be happy, and although he never wrote it, the clear implication was that Sirius was the one who had dangled those things in front of him - friendship, trust, love, affection - only to snatch them away with his overwhelming stupidity. He hadn't known how, or even if, he should respond to the letter, so he'd taken the easy way out and replied to the previous letter Remus had sent - the normal one, the I-did-this, have-you-done-that, tell-James-the-other one.
He felt like a coward until Remus' reply arrived with the post-script, Don't worry about that letter. I just wanted to tell you those things, after which he just felt confused.
So Sirius doesn't know what to expect when the door snicks shut behind James and Peter, but it's definitely not Remus' wide, easy smile. Sirius wants to smile back, is desperate to smile back, but his face seems to freeze and Remus’ own smile turns into a frown. He reaches over and taps Sirius’ ankle with his foot.
“Don’t give me that face,” he says. “I’ve forgiven you so stop looking like I’m about to hex you.”
“Sorry,” Sirius says, unsure what else to say and Remus rolls his eyes, getting to his feet and sitting next to Sirius instead, their shoulders brushing.
“You can stop saying that once the other person forgives you,” he says in a quiet voice, like he’s whispering some big secret, and then he winks at Sirius, who feels completely wrong footed.
“Just like that?” Sirius asks, and wants to kick himself. He’s been waiting months for Remus to forgive him, and now he’s trying to talk him out of doing so?
Remus shrugs and says, “It was quite a few months.”
“Two and a half,” Sirius says immediately. “Nearly three.”
“I know,” Remus nods. “I – d’you not think I missed you too?” he asks suddenly, turning in the seat to look at Sirius. “I mean – don’t get me wrong, you’re still an idiot,” Remus says with an affectionate smile. “But I don’t know, I started to think that I was making myself more miserable by ignoring you than – well, than I already - ” Remus breaks off and looks at Sirius closely. “We’re good,” he says earnestly.
“Yeah?” Sirius asks hopefully.
Unexpected, wonderful, completely inappropriate, Remus’ hand drops onto Sirius’ thigh and he says, “I missed you,” in a low voice with a significant undertone.
“Guh,” Sirius says insightfully, staring at Remus’ hand, unable to lift his eyes from long, pale fingers.
He laughs into Sirius' ear and Sirius only realises then how close Remus is, looking up only to be startled by wide, amber eyes looking into his own without judgement or anger. Remus' hand squeezes his leg and in spite of the window in the compartment door, he leans in to press his lips against Sirius' neck.
"Really missed you," Remus says.
"You - you want to do this again?" Sirius asks barely able to hope.
"Don't you?" Remus asks, although there's no question in his tone, not really, because he knows the answer is yes. Sirius nods anyway and Remus flicks his wand at the glass in the door sending it cloudy for as long as it takes to kiss Sirius thoroughly.
With economic movements and gentle pressure, Remus pins Sirius to the seat. His lips trail over Sirius' cheeks, his forehead, down his throat and all the time he breathes in through his mouth as though he's desperate to relearn the taste and feel of Sirius all at once. As for Sirius, all he can do is turn his face up, offering himself to Remus, and wrap his arms around Remus' waist, his fingers diving to graze against skin that he'd thought was off-limits forever.
Remus' mouth is so gentle as it moves across his skin, that Sirius doesn't expect the fervour of his kiss, the slip-slide of Remus' tongue dancing with his own, the threat-promise of Remus teeth grazing his lips. Remus' hand goes into Sirius' hair for a moment, deep enough to cradle the back of his skull before sliding down to cup the back of his neck instead.
It's just a kiss, some part of Sirius' mind yells frantically, because he thinks he's losing sight of that. His heart is racing and there seems to be nothing but music in his head, purple lights bursting behind his eyes. He feels like Remus' kiss is changing him somehow, either giving him something new, or returning something he'd unknowingly been missing. Remus' thumb is stroking the same path along his cheekbone over and over again and it's so tender and heartfelt, so at odds with the hungry, biting kiss that Sirius feels an urge to cry stronger than any he's known since childhood.
This, he thinks, this sensation that life has just started again as something new and fresh, and better, this must be what being born is like. He feels like he's disappearing, melting into Remus, becoming just an extension of him, of his kiss, as though he's only alive at the points where they touch. It should be scary, it should be uncomfortable, but Sirius relishes ever crazy second of it, his hands shaking as he runs them down Remus' back, fingers digging into cloth-covered flesh.
"You are so - " Sirius starts, mumbling the words into Remus' mouth. "Remus, I - "
"Shh, just - mmm - " Remus hums appreciatively at the taste of Sirius' throat. "Shut up, will you? I can't concentrate with you - "
"You shut up," Sirius grins, nudging Remus' head up to look him in the eye. They smile at each other, relieved, happy, relieved to be happy.
"They'll be back soon," Remus points out, kissing Sirius' nose before disentangling himself. He doesn't make a move back towards the opposite side of the carriage, for which Sirius is grateful.
Instead, when James and Peter come back ten minutes later, Remus and Sirius are sitting side by side, unconsciously mirroring one another's postures, touching at shoulders, elbows, hips, thighs. Even their feet are overlapping slightly.
It is a position the other Marauders will become very familiar with over the years.
Three and a half years later...