more than these bones

slow burning crimes ||

LOCATION: Order Headquarters DATE: Saturday, 22 July 1978

It had been quiet at Order Headquarters for the last week – Gretchen assumed. 

That was how she always pictured the creaking old building when she was away from it: frozen in time, dust undisturbed, the meetings halted and comrades awaiting her return to liven things up. 

It wasn’t true, of course; if staring up at musty ceilings while she was sleepless and undercover and simply imagining things could will them into existence, she’d have no debt to her name and a great deal fewer breathing enemies. 

The illusion was shattered from the moment Gretchen stepped over the threshold of Chalet Moody. Her boots hit the ground and life was suddenly all around her. People shuttled from room to room, some meeting having just been let out; papers exchanged hands and waves greeted her and—although she couldn’t pinpoint where it came from—someone in the house was injured, because the whole foyer reeked of isopropyl alcohol and yet-unfaded healing charms. 

Gretchen inhaled deeply, taking extra pains to pause wipe her boots on the welcome mat. It was not politeness so much as theatre – equal parts wanting to be seen returning, mysterious and triumphant, from the classified undercover mission that’d kept her away from her favorite haunt…and a desire to hide how stiff her limbs were when they moved; how badly purpled her eye was beneath her sunglasses; how her normally lithe motions were blunted with a limp. 

All she needed to do—beyond reporting to Moody that yes, she was alive and no, she hadn’t lost any of her increasingly, gratuitously complicated codes—was drop off her charmed compass, borrowed on the sly by Moody from the Auror Department, and sneak a few heavy-duty vials of medicinal elixirs into her bag. That much, even injured—even hiding it—was doable. It was all she needed to do, and she was determined to do just that —

—until she caught sight of a familiar face, about to turn the corner at the end of the hall and wander deeper into the belly of the house.  Gretchen pressed her stride forward, trying (quite unlike herself) to avoid attracting attention, even as she caught up to her target and grabbed them—urgently, but not roughly; she didn’t have the strength—by the elbow. 

“I need to talk to you,” she said, voice low. “Privately, pretty please.” 

Moody’s home - headquarters - still felt like a new place to Remus despite the already-impressive amount of time he’d already accrued there. He was currently unemployed, a couple applications out to different part-time jobs that he didn’t hold much hope for, and therefore primed to spend time doing whatever he could do at the old house. 

Map making, ways to use the age-old method for the Order’s more secretive purposes, had drawn him in that day. His humble expertise on the matter - not that he brought up the Marauders Map by name, the string of it already gathering dust in Filch’s office too much to bear - was quickly established, aided by Peter who had also found himself in the dusty manse that afternoon.

It was otherwise busy at headquarters, even as Remus’s day ticked by quickly in just that one little room. He could hear chatter coming from the rooms nearby, rushed to the hall with Peter when they heard the commotion of Dedalus being brought in with - luckily - nothing worse than a splinched pinky finger in a panicked too-quick apparation away from a potentially dangerous situation. He was in good hands, though, and the day continued on as planned; it felt good to be working, learning.

The early-development maps rolled up and put away, Remus finally properly left the room they’d commandeered - Sirius was going to be home soon, and while the odds were quite high that his partner would want to head straight for headquarters himself, Remus was still weighing whether or not he wanted to meet him at the flat first or wait for his grand appearance.

It wasn’t Sirius’s appearance that surprised him only moments later, though; it was Gretchen, with sunglasses on and an urgency Remus was only used to when she had something exciting to tell him. But as he blinked down at her, half-smile on his face, he knew that it wasn’t quite the same excitement she was radiating at the moment.

“Sure, sure, hey, Gretch,” he greeted her, just as quietly - matching her energy - and nodded towards the door he’d just left. Peter had slipped out earlier, Vince had stalked out for a cigarette and never came back a couple hours previous and the others who had shared the space with them had found other haunts in the house to occupy. “That one’s empty - just left it. You okay?”

epoch | remus & gretchen | the barns

- 

“Right now,” said Gretchen, smiling up at Remus as she closed the manila folder she was working out of, the papers piled inside still fanned out and askew, but covered from pedestrian eyes by a firm elbow rested atop it all…providing the perfect perch for Gretchen to rest her chin upon as she tried to dazzle her young prodigy. “I’m working on talking to one of my favorite people!” 

With a wink, Gretchen acknowledged the flattery for what it was - making it into an inside joke they could grin about together instead of something heavy Remus would have to figure out how to balance alongside all the rest of the curveballs, approval wars and stoic eyes of judgment hidden amongst the Barns’ curricula. 

“But before that, I was working through some new intelligence! Moody brought it back in preparation for his werewolves seminar.” If Gretchen was being offensive by calling it that–what it, by all accounts, was, even if Moody had padded the talking points with musings about giants and the gross mistreatment of goblins–she was blissfully unaware of it. In her opinion, just saying werewolves seminar took as many teeth out of the sentiment as minutes it saved looking for an inferior option. 

Gretchen had always loved the farmhouse’s kitchen, the windows outdated but bright even through the screen slats that kept the bugs out; the cabinets worn wood and the walls all painted in yellow and green homey tones, contrasting the tartan wallpaper acting as a backsplash above the counters. It was a place designed to make one feel at home, no matter how foreboding Moody tried to make the rest of the house seem…so Gretchen was eager to make Remus feel at home now. Beneath the table, she used to a foot to nudge the chair across from her - sliding it out, in invitation for him to join.  

“You didn’t hear this from me…especially if you talk to Moody, since he asked me not to take these papers out of even my closet bedroom…not that the old codger put a lightbulb in there or anything; expecting me to hold a wand and keep the papers straight and draw up plans all at once, like the ridiculous, lovely fool that he is…” 

After momentarily losing her train of thought, Gretchen was smiling up at Remus again, her painted nails drumming a sprightly beat atop the folder: one at a time, but falling faster and faster behind one another like a heartbeat growing stedier with panic. Thum-thum-thum-thum. Thum-thum!thum!thum!  

“I can’t tell you the when or where, but I’m sure he’s going to send me out undercover as soon sa we’re released from here. Sooner, maybe, if he’s worried about the pack traveling to a new base camp soon…” Unlike a lot of what Gretchen did, none of what she was doing now was for show. The way her thoughts–and, therefore, her eyes–kept wandering back to the file folder; the worry at her lip, and the clear, anxious empathy that knitted her brows together. All of it was unfiltered Gretchen, more focused on volunteering than recruiting than she’d been in her whole tenure of befriending Remus Lupin. 

“Maybe a job for you one day,” she said, the statement seamlessly turning from fond jest to genuine, starry-eyed offer in her mouth. Still, she danced around it–not the first dancing she’d done in this kitchen, and not likely to be the last..and fixed Remus with a look of genuine curiosity. “Have you been thinking about that at all, where you’d want to get more involved? I’m sure it’s the night before the big dance and you’re the last pretty girl in the castle, but what has you most excited so far?” 

-

Remus grinned right back, noting the way Gretchen - as smooth and graceful as she ever was, even with the flatter misdirection - closed the folder and rested her elbow atop it. The mess inside was still visible, corners of pages peeking out, but Remus knew better than to acknowledge it, and certainly better than to try and take a clearer look.

It wasn’t for him. Gretchen had her reasons, that’s all he really needed to know. Nearly two weeks at the Barns was enough to have instilled that simple lesson in him.

“Ah,” Remus said, that funny nervous taste in his mouth hitting him again at the mention of werewolf seminar, but the intrigue was too powerful, his piqued interest far too genuine to have him do much of anything else but raise his eyebrows, eyes widening just a bit as he waited, breathlessly, for more information. The urge to squint at the hidden papers welled in him, but he still knew better, even with the reveal that it contained information about people like him. The chair being slid out beneath the table for him was a welcome distraction he quickly took, sitting as comfortably as he could in the tiny wooden chair - not constructed for someone of his stature, but nothing he couldn’t make work with a polite stretching of his legs out into the middle of the little kitchen.

The moment he heard you didn’t hear this from me he was leaning forward as much as he could, as if Gretchen was literally about to whisper the rest of her words to him, but he couldn’t help it. The tapping of her fingers on the table was a welcome rhythm, the kind that - unknowingly or not - tended to make Remus feel more anchored into a moment, less likely to drift off into his anxious thoughts.

“Undercover?” Remus echoed, more fascinated than confused - he knew, at least vaguely, the sort of things Gretchen tended to get up to with the Order - and sure the impassioned glint in his eye would give him away. “Undercover to - the pack? As in,” his brain was firing off all cylinders, trying to wrap around the new information and stay as subtle as possible somehow all at once. “A werewolf pack, you mean?”

He had his suspicions, and had since that first day in Alastor Moody’s home, that Gretchen knew about him. The same way he was sure Moody knew about him, and most likely anyone else Dumbledore had considered in some need to know camp. Gretchen, despite their very real friendship, had been in charge of scouting and recruiting him, after all. Not that he didn’t think Dumbledore would have passed him by if Gretchen hadn’t taken an interest, but there was plenty that had gone on in the ramp up to Remus’s offer that he didn’t know about yet.

Gretchen hadn’t really brought it up to him, not bluntly, but Remus trusted his gut on these things. When the lads had found out, retreating into themselves to figure out their reactions and, unbeknownst to him, how they’d confront him with support, he’d known almost immediately. Not 100% with facts, of course, but that feeling in his gut. Gretchen had never treated him differently, though; at least not beyond the special, starry-eyed treatment she gifted him, but that wasn’t the kind he was used to from people afraid of him.

So when she asked him about his plans, he swallowed lightly and met her eyes with a quiet resolve.

“Maybe,” he agreed, with a slight nod of his head. His eyes fell back down to the folder, not able to stop himself - the desire to know more about others like him was a flame in his chest, a rope being pulled taut despite not being for him just yet. “I guess I - hadn’t really thought about it yet? I mean, you know how much I love dueling, but I imagine that’s going to... change, dramatically, the first time I have to actually... do it, against someone who isn’t just trying to earn points for form.” He ran a hand through his hair, thoughtful and relaxed in a way that only showed when he was deep in thought on a single blessed track.

“Working undercover sounds...” he trailed off, biting his bottom lip as he settled into contemplative silence. It sounded exciting, is what it sounded like. Maybe that’s all it needed to sound like for now. “Exciting,” he admitted, almost sheepish. “Like proper spy movie stuff, isn’t it? But, er.” He blinked, down at the folder again; still not trying to peek at it, but letting the existence of the thing drive him forward before he chickened out. “I dunno how good I’d be at it. Might be better suited for, y’know, cracking codes or something.” He glanced up at her, hungry for information and not bothering terribly to hide it. “What do you do when you’re undercover?”

not one of those who can easily hide // sirius & remus

- 

Sirius stumbled, stunned and stunning, out into the clear expanse of beyond-the-barn. Calling it outside did not feel like enough. This—patch of farmland, sap-scented oasis, whatever you wanted to call it—could not be one bite-sized piece of a larger world. It was a world unto itself, sable-black skies stretched tight over the heavens, pin-pricked one hundred thousand times to let in the light of the stars. 

The grounds went and went and went. Even when the rolling grass and hay-bale stacks collided with the trees, there wasn’t a wall of forest to know where their kingdom ended, nor where it began. They melted into one another, a seamless exchange. Sirius was sure that, if he walked into the trees surrounding the west boundary of the property, he’d loop around; emerge suddenly, sunsoaked, from a hollow of trees at the eastern fence. 

The crickets sang. Sirius sang, too. He hummed under his breath as the boys swished through the overgrown grass, muffling the sounds of the party behind them as the big barn door creaked on its track and wheeled shut, into place. The melody was nothing special, but it nagged at him; a song long-remembered from a radio long forgotten. 

When Remus pulled him in for a kiss, Sirius wasn’t surprised. But the air was knocked out of his lungs all the same. HIs chest burned warm as his fingers gripped safeholds against the fabric of Remus’s shirt. He could taste the whiskey clinging to Remus’s lips; he could taste the smile there, too. Sirius leaned in, surprisingly chaste although not lacking in enthusiasm – letting himself be kissed. Letting himself make a memory here, with his love, under the stars. 

Click. He would have taken a picture if it were possible. In the absence of a camera, Sirius clicked against his memory instead. 

He had a mighty fine memory, Sirius Black, despite all he tried to repress and erase from the record. It was never something he thought of as a strength outside of school – but, then again, Sirius had only used his memory to catalogue offenses and wounds and revenge due, before Remus came into his life and teased him away from vindictiveness with something kinder. Something more worthy of keeping to record. 

Sirius grinned, then eased his forehead forward; rubbing his cheek against Remus’s cheek so that he could feel the scrunched-up smile lines; brushing their noses together in the dark. He gave Remus another quick kiss, successful at first but marked by teeth-against-teeth as he laughed and pulled away. He should have known they were both smiling too hard to pull it off. But, then again, Remus and Sirius baring their teeth at one another wasn’t nearly as often so pleasant. 

“I am so in love with you,” said Sirius, which was not a response to Remus’s clever ribbing – but felt worth saying, nevertheless. Sirius meant it where it was directed, at Remus. But it meant it in general, too. Every blade of grass, every star, every stamen of pollen caught in the breeze He loved it. He was in love with it. Leaning in for another kiss, he added: “You don’t need hands to protect me, baby. You do it every day.” 

Slightly slurred as his words were, Sirius gait was confident as he caught Remus by the wrist, two fingers pressed against the other man’s pulse before he guided him away. Toward the dark shadows the stretched around the barn, blackening the grass in every direction. 

“I believe you and I have some unfinished business,” he said, turning over one shoulder. A mischievous wink; a crooked, craving smile. “Let’s see if I can find that lighter hidden somewhere on you. No hints, please. I want to take the scenic route.” 

-

“Are you?” Remus asked breathlessly, no hint of surprise but every hint of go on, I’d like to hear more about how in love with me you are, because you saying it is my favorite thing in the world and we’re drunk and dumb and giggling and fumbling in the dark. “That’s really such a funny coincidence, you know; I’m rather in love with you, too.”

They were just kissing under the stars, blanketed by cricket song and rustling grass and gentle wind in the trees. A cacophony of sound, all background to the heat of Sirius Black in his arms, against his lips, grinning into his neck. It was, surely, the booze in his system doing most of the thinking, but it felt like they were alone, floating in some kind of breathable space, even with the clear sound of partying coming from not that far behind them. It was the light - not unpleasant - spin in his head whenever Sirius kissed him, whenever he was pulled along (like right now) to find a more sturdy sort of secret place.

What they needed with secret places when there was nothing but them, in the whole world, Remus didn’t care to wonder about. It was simply Sirius pulling him by the wrist, fingers pressed to Remus’s whiskey-and- anticipation fueled skittering heartbeat, guiding him behind the barn. Which was even better, Remus thought, as he outwardly giggled softly at the slur in his love’s words - neither of them wasted, perfectly tipsy instead - because there was suddenly a wall, and his back was suddenly leaned against it, and that freed up so much attention he could give to Sirius instead of his silly legs.

“Unfinished business, he says,” Remus laughed, leaning his head back against the wall - it was splintered old wood, that didn’t magically change no matter how many cups he’d gone through in the past few hours, but they’d luckily managed to find a spot that didn’t feel too painful through any piece of clothing. “You’ve been thinking about that unfinished business all day, haven’t you?” As if Remus hadn’t been!

“I won’t give any clues,” he vowed, solemnly, as if Sirius was pledging his sword and shield to his cause instead of joking about searching him, bodily, for a vintage muggle lighter. Flicking some of his unruly fringe out of his eyes, Remus grinned at the shorter man, pulling him close - and, with surprising accuracy despite the alcohol, gracefully moving his legs apart so Sirius could fit between them, pressed to Remus’s chest now, more comfortably. And then he kissed him, of course, because how could he not? Chests flush together, heat circling between them, the distant sound of some forest creature rustling through the trees an easily ignored distraction.

“Tell me more about the duel,” he said, lopsidedly grinning; cheeky and, rarely, leaning into the smug novelty of it all. His hands combed through Sirius’s hair, pushing it back out of his love’s face, before dropping down to settle, lazy but anchored, at Sirius’s hips. “If we’re finishing up that business of ours, I mean. The excitement’ll wear off by tomorrow, but I - that way you were looking at me, afterwards? I’ll be feeling that one for a while, I think.”

is there a line that I could just go cross? || s & r

DATE: week two, day eleven LOCATION: the barns SUBJECT: post-dark magic demonstration

They hadn’t talked about it yet. 

It was that fact that confirmed Sirius’s knowledge that what they—he and Remus—finally did speak, it would not be to have a conversation but a Conversation, with extra emphasis and a capital letter introduction to spare. 

That didn’t scare Sirius, to know in his bones that it was coming. That it would lead to something, a definition of a problem or an observation of him from someone who knew him so intimately well already. Not in the way it might have scared him once, before he and Remus found such solid ground in life together. 

Sirius had come a long way from the boy he was in sixth year, who was so afraid to label the burgeoning, fragile thing growing between him and Remus that he accidentally let Remus believe that he did not want him instead. He was a man now—albeit a young man—who’d found love and was making a life for himself and had certainly overcome hurdles before. 

But, if yesterday’s demonstration was any indication, he hadn’t come as far from his past as he previously thought. Sirius had overcome hurdles, yes, but he wasn’t that naive. He knew that most of the hurdles in his life had been laid across the track by himself. Call it self-loathing, call it self-sabotage, call it anything you wanted. Everything in his life was easier to summit when Remus was by his side; the only thing Sirius feared was the day he proved himself unworthy of that help. 

As far as he was concerned, Sirius was at his worst when he was most…himself. He was in his purest, uncut, undiluted form in the moments that exploded in furious, bright flashes and marked the manic ups and perilous downs of his jagged, thrumming lifeline. Passion, arguments, drunken shouts of unrestrained joy and wracking sobs of anger. That’s when he was the ugliest, but the problem was: he was at his most beautiful during the climbs to that point. The shiny smile and the foot on the pedal, turning to wink at the people on the passenger-side before he drove headfirst into the brick wall. 

That’s what people craved—expected—from Sirius; that’s what caused them to flock to his side at parties and why his city-snow-slush eyes hung like twin full moons in their memories. He was the drug and, just like the drugs he loved so much? There was always a point where the high became an apex. Where the floor disappears and the fall starts before your mind or your dropping stomach or your better judgment can register it. Sirius got people high, got them loose, got them feeling good and craving more. And then he broke them. He always did. 

And then they left. They always did. 

Not Remus, though. Not Remus, who loved Sirius more, somehow, when he was sober. Remus who knew how to draw a smile out of him when he was stuck in the mud and fog of his tired brain; who knew how to get him to stop and take a breath when energy gave way to inspiration gave way to delusions of grandeur. Remus, despite all he’d seen and all he knew? He’d never left. And Sirius, for all his doubt and paranoia and abandonment issues, wasn’t afraid. Because somehow, some way, he knew that Remus wasn’t leaving; not over this.

They just needed to figure out what they both stood and where their next step was from there. It was easy enough, broken down like that. Sirius only feared the breaking-down to come in the meantime, the silence that came because the boys could not share a bed and whisper about it in the darkness; the pressure that came with knowing it was not only Remus’s eyes on Sirius but everybody’s, and that they’d take their cues from Remus. 

(Remus who, despite being Sirius’s best friend and rock—despite being famously an enabler—was the one person who’d never gone easy on Sirius when it really counted, when nobody else was brave enough to push back.) 

At least they would be able to talk—to have their Conversation—away from those prying eyes. Gretchen Ollivander, fan of Remus that she was, had offered up her mint solo room. It was more of a broom closet with a cot in it than a room, but Sirius was too busy to think about that. He thought, instead, about how funny it was that this was the only scenario in which Remus is waiting for you in a broom closet, for some privacy struck him with anxiety instead of deep, rushing anticipation. 

Sirius wasn’t late on purpose so much as he chose to walk slowly. He wasn’t late because he didn’t want to see Remus; only late because he couldn’t stomach to be the first to arrive. There was something so…impossibly sad about the thought of sitting on the bed, knees pressed together like a schoolboy and hands gripping the edge of the mattress; eyes on the ground and waiting for Remus to show up, like a pup waiting for his owner to come home and fearing he never would. Remus didn’t make Sirius feel like that. He would never. But Sirius wasn’t going to put himself in a position where his mind could play tricks on him. Bad things happened to Sirius alone, in the dark with his thoughts, serving some little sentence. 

You have your father’s eyes, people used to tell Sirius all the time when he was growing up. 

You should see my brain, Sirius always wished he could answer them. Spitting image of my mother’s.  

At the door, Sirius knocked twice. When it opened, he leaned in the frame – oozing into the room instead of entering it. 

“Hi,” he breathed. Sirius would not—could not—leave it up to chance to see if Remus would pull him close for a hug. He leaned in on his own, brushed a gentle kiss against his partner’s sunburned cheek. “I’m so sick of fresh air.” 

@remus-whoisleft​

-

It hadn’t been an ideal way to handle the aftermath, but Remus felt helpless under so much scrutiny.

It was a silent understanding between Sirius and Remus, after all, that they didn’t talk about things - even Talking about Things, important uppercase distinctions and all - unless they were alone. And usually if they were in the privacy of a warm bed, with no other ears to hear their practiced whispers.

It just wasn’t doable at the Barns. They’d been very pointedly assigned separate bunks, which Remus couldn’t fault anyone superior to them for - the chance for distraction was admittedly higher in that scenario, though he was a bit offended that they didn’t trust the two of them to keep their hands off each other while in very crowded rooms. 

None of that was currently terribly important, though. After the demonstration he’d lost sight of Sirius and become woefully aware of the whispers, the incisive looks shared between two or more comrades as the aftermath settled on them all. Like they hadn’t all just watched Alastor do all the same shit - like watching Sirius, elegant and dangerous, casting those curses had been some sort of unholy revelation.

Which - Christ, maybe it was. Remus’s stomach had certainly sank when Sirius was called on to participate, and a flare of righteous anger had blown up right beside it. Moody had called on Sirius, Remus was quite sure, for one reason and one reason only.

One reason, one word, five letters. Black.

Remus and James had shared one brief look - worried and serious and angry all at once - as Sirius had slid through the crowd toward their leader, and that was that. They just had to watch as Sirius, impressive and magnetic, did exactly as he was asked to do by Alastor Moody.

It had been shocking to watch it all come from the wand of his soulmate, and hardly surprising at all, somehow at the same time. 

Did it frighten him? 

He didn’t let himself think about it. 

The hushed silence - impressed and scared, it seemed, in equal measure - at the end of the demonstration nearly drove Remus to shout something, anything, to get the crowd to move on. It didn’t happen; he just watched Sirius, that worried little quirk in his mouth all the while, and then the day continued on.

Continued on in a blur, obviously, because Remus was lost in his thoughts. Annoyed at all the whispers, fiery with the need to stand up for his best friend. But Sirius didn’t need that; the place was small enough that even if Remus wasn’t by Sirius he could see the other man going about the day, talking with Lily and James and others. Looking withdrawn, a bit, but still looking like Sirius. Nothing was stopping Remus from going to him then, but he knew the conversation wouldn’t be... entirely them if he did. It would be Remus and Sirius in the light of day, with at least five people trying to eavesdrop on them to see what Remus’s reaction to the dark magic would be.

So when Gretchen pulled him aside and told him they could have her room for the night, he very nearly cried in relief; the day’s frustration welling up in him but, luckily, ending in a lovely, grateful hug instead.

And that’s where he found himself, pacing the tiny closet as best he could while he waited for Sirius to show up. Gretchen had took it upon herself, surely fighting every instinct in her for gossip, to go and find him and send him the proper way. Remus bit his fingernails as he took his couple steps forward, spun around and took a couple steps in that direction, nearly jumping out of his skin when the door finally opened.

Sirius went for the hug as soon as he entered, which was a relief - Remus was going to do them same, but had been worried that Sirius might be... off, unwelcoming of physical affection off the bat. Knowing the day he must have had, Remus wouldn’t have blamed him; but he melted into the hug. The same old Sirius, warm and smelling like faint traces of his cologne. Remus breathed in deep.

“Hey,” he murmured back, kissing Sirius’s cheek and staying there, just for a few moments. They so rarely got this sort of privacy over the past almost-two weeks, that even with a potentially uncomfortable conversation looming he couldn’t help but melt into his partner’s arms. “I miss the flat,” he agreed, with a soft little huff of a laugh. He pulled back just enough to look Sirius in the eyes, searching for clear signs of... well, anything bad. Mania, misery. He took the one small step backwards to sit on the edge of their proffered cot for the night, holding out a hand for Sirius to take, to guide him to sitting down beside him.

“So,” he said, reaching out to push a strand of Sirius’s hair lightly behind his ear and taking a deep breath in preperation. “How was your day?”

come and get your love | r&s

- 

This might have been a grounding moment for Sirius: a heady dose of reality settling in, a reminder that this was real life and a milestone and a signifier that he was an adult. But…god. God! Reality had no business here. When Sirius looked up, he was staggered by dreamscapes. 

Remus, turned profile so that the sharpest angles of his face—proud nose, peaked cheekbones, blunted, kissable jawline—were half cast in shadow and half drowned in neon, competing blues and reds highlighting him from the busy streetsigns below. His lips pursed around the joint and a cloud of smoke filled the air between the two boys, making everything seem slower, more dreamlike – a venture shared by the hand slowly trailing along Sirius’s stomach, warming him within and without.  

What, was Sirius just supposed to accept this—all of this!—was reality? No, he couldn’t wrap his head around that. Not here, on his film set, the scenery dreamed up in his sleep before he’d ever even met with a realtor; even kissed Remus for the first time. He was deeply, deeply asleep. He did not want to ever wake up. In this dream kingdom, after all, Sirius had gotten much nicer things than he deserved; above all, the lithe-limbed king, bending low to huff Sirius’s hair into place and roll his eyes and clink their glasses together. 

Our little flat. Our little life.

Remus was right, and it was only because of the grin that erupted across Sirius’s face that the welling-up in his eyes didn’t break one happy tear loose. 

“Just us,” he echoed, as their toast echoed around the large room, complementing the music instead of competing against it. “You and me against the world, angel.” 

Sirius set his glass down too, not following Remus’s lead so much as laughing too hard to trust himself to hold it – red wine was surely going to stain the boys’ sheets at some point in the near future, knowing them, but they could avoid that one type of mess on their first night. A smoldering joint for some reason did not seem so lethal to Sirius, so he took it with confidence between two fingers. 

(It was a wonderful, unspoiled kind of confidence. It left no room for Sirius to wonder if it grew from the fact that he had already become a burn mark, in the eyes of his family and so many old friends; that it wouldn’t seem as macabre to him anymore, as seeing something playing at an imitation of blood against the bed he was about to christen with his new family.) 

Grinning—and not bothering to hold back a snort—Sirius shook his hair out of his eyes as he rolled them, sitting up even as he took ownership of the joint from Remus. One arm extended as a kickstand behind himself; the other deposited the joint safely into the corner of his smile, where he took a much less considerate drag and let the smoke marinate against the walls of his lungs for as long as he could, before letting out a pithy, dramatic exhale through his nostrils. 

“Did I look like a dragon?” he asked, suddenly boyish – in that way he sometimes transformed, an abrupt trick of light or of attitude allowing him to look his age. “Or just a French fucker?”

One wink, then Sirius was leaning back again – not to lay, but bending his arm to duck just slightly out of Remus’s reach. “It’s your turn,” he said, pulling the joint out of his mouth just long enough to gently tease, then perching it back between his lips again. “Come and get it.” 

-

“I’m sure you’re right,” Lily said, voice hopeful. But she did not have as much faith in leadership as Remus. As much as she tended to be trusting of people, overly trusting some would say, she viewed authority figures with a healthy dose of skepticism until they proved themselves. McGonagall had more than earned Lily’s trust over the years, and she was inclined to trust Dumbledore as well, but Alastor Moody was an unknown quantity, and Lily had every intention of feeling him out before she decided if he deserved her trust. “It would definitely make sense, and I’m sure it’s not an accident.” She spoke almost to herself, because it wasn’t Remus she was trying to convince.

“Still, there’s definitely room for improvement, don’t you think? I mean, if they want to limit information, shouldn’t they not have us all in the same place at the same time? Because now we know everyone who’s in the Order. There should be tiers, or cells… Maybe I can talk to Professor McGonagall.” Now Lily was rambling, her mind already going a mile a minute, coming up with ways to make things better. 

It wasn’t that she was trying to criticize the organization, it was just one of the ways she showed the excitement bubbling up in her. Whenever something was important to her, she wanted to make it the best she could. It had been the same when she’d been Head Girl, she’d always been talking James’ ear off with one improvement project or another. Of course, then she’d had a reason to be improving things, she’d been in charge. Sort of. Now she certainly wasn’t. Now was more like her first year as a prefect when she’d been a mouthy fifteen year old with more ideas than the then Head Boy and Girl appreciated.

Lily shivered as Remus spoke, and she pressed closer to his free arm, both for warmth and reassurance. It hadn’t occurred to her that being captured would lead to being tortured for information, that the training they received at the barns might include how to resist such torture. In a small voice, she said as much. “I hadn’t thought about it like that. I was imagining the barns as all cool spells and dueling practice not, Not Breaking Under Torture 101.” She tried for a joke, even though it fell a little flat.

She was grateful when Remus changed the topic, nodding along with his words. “They must have, and I bet they use a lot of auror intelligence, too, with Moody being head of the department—” She paused for a moment, then giggled. “I almost said I’d ask Edgar, but that’s probably not the best idea. Speaking of, tell me you can’t believe Edgar Bones is moonlighting as a vigilante.”

-

“Yeah, I - sort of got the feeling we were all there for a sense of, er, well - comfort probably isn’t the word. Strength in numbers? Not trying to scare us off?” Remus mused, worrying at his bottom lip between relief-filled drags of his cigarette. “I reckon they’ve got so many spells and wards up on that place that anyone trying to give away the location’ll be hexed to next Thursday. The rest - I dunno. There aren’t that many of us, are there? It felt comforting to see some older folks there. Can you imagine if it was just, y’know, us and Caradoc Dearborn standing in a circle in there? Christ.”

As Lily shivered closer to him Remus made sure to wrap his arm properly around her shoulders, offering what - very little, but something - warmth he could. Anyone who saw them walking would be convinced they were closer than friends, but that thought hadn’t bothered either of them since, most likely, at least third year. The talk of torture, the shift to morbidity - the humor was there, but it still left that painful sinking feeling in his chest. Lily being tortured for information was bad enough, thinking about any of them in that situation. Thinking about Sirius in that situation... it was enough to quell the excitement of newly-acquired vigilantism for a few moments.

“It’s going to be that, don’t worry. Cool spells they’d never teach us at school, saving the world training.” He said, giving her a side-armed squeeze to try and will some of the more negative thoughts away. It wasn’t that easy, obviously, but he was drawing on that excitement to help the cause. “You’re too bloody good to be captured and tortured, anyway. You’re going to be a nightmare to fight against, we’ve always known that.”

“Merlin,” Remus laughed, glad that the topic change had worked and the mood felt instantly lighter - back on the precipice of enthusiasm rather than dread. “I, honestly, feel like it suits him. He was always this golden boy at school, wasn’t he? Seeing him break the rules like this is... challenging, maybe, but I reckon if any new recruits were going to get scoped by Moody it makes sense it was him.” He glanced over at her, grateful for the chance to delve into some gossip instead of less enticing conversation. “How do you two get along these days, anyway? Did you catch James shooting any jealous looks at him? Because that would be hilarious.”

allegiances || remus & adelaide

Adelaide stared at Remus across the fire for too long. She knew she had, just as she knew he’d seen her. Technically, she was in another conversation, but she was doing little more than feigning interest with cursory acknowledgments. There was only so much she could take when it came to the intricacies of the Auror department. 

She returned to a moment when it seemed like they were changing to something of true interest—illusions and concealment, only to realize that was among the qualifying criteria. She spared one more passing glance at Remus before walking away entirely. She circled the bonfire widely and stepped over the bench to take the seat next to him. She took a long sip of the beer hanging loosely in her fingers and turned to look at him.

“You’re one of Gretchen’s, no?” Adelaide asked. 

@remus-whoisleft​

-

Remus had to hand it to the almost complete two weeks of training at the Barns - Adelaide Dubois staring at him from across the campfire didn’t completely terrify him, even as it continued to happen. Not that Adelaide was, say, more frightening than some of his other new comrades - she was certainly up there, with her stern looks and French accent and the having the general air of someone who could likely beat him up.

But it was fine, because he had a beer dangling between his fingers and the stories that night were decidedly on the more interesting-and-amusing side rather than devastating and eye-opening. Adelaide probably just wanted to speak with him and was waiting for a less entrenched moment; he thanked training for letting him think clearly about that, instead of jumping to the conclusion that she was about to yell at him for something.

He was glad to be right, anyway, even though he still tensed slightly - just from the unknown, and the fact that they’d only really interacted briefly before now - when Adelaide found her way to beside him on the bench. Remus cleared his throat slightly and smiled at her, taken aback by the question but not enough to throw him off completely.

“Er,” he started, rolling the question around in his head for a moment. “As in - one of her friends? I like to think so, yeah. She’s been helping me a little extra with my dueling, as well, but - y’know - we both have a passion for it, so it makes sense. Is that what you mean?”

Remus had to admit - as much as he hated his own patronus, there was really nothing as interesting as watching others with their patronus.

Not everyone in their little cluster of new recruits had summoned one before, which was where Remus really shone - it gave him an excuse to put off summoning his in front of the crowd, but he enjoyed helping anyone struggling. With form, mostly; there was only so much he could do to get his comrades to pull up an appropriately happy memory.

It was a hard charm to pull off, he knew, so he was grateful enough that a quick cast of his for Moody’s discerning eyes was all he had to do to get away with otherwise... well, not slacking, but staying quiet and off to the side enough. The older Order members didn’t need his help, either, so he was happy enough to sit on a soft, warm patch of grass nearby and just... watch the proceedings. Silvery wisps of magic floated all around the wooden-gated practice area, and plenty of solid-form patronuses galloped around when called upon. Sirius’s dog was immediately recognizable, as was James’s stag - no surprises there, ever, considering this Animagus forms.

Sitting comfortably enough, watching Frank Longbottom direct Caradoc Dearborn in his casting, Remus let his mind wander. To earlier days, watching breathlessly as his father cast his patronus - a massive albatross, an otherwise frightening seabird that Remus had learned to appreciate just from seeing the silvery form of it spring from his father’s practiced wand. Not that Lyall took young Remus along on more dangerous trips for work, of course, but the leading expert on Non-Human Spiritous Apparitions had to keep his patronus casting in excellent form - on the rare occasion he might run into something that would need it.

It had always fascinated Remus. Before he knew he’d ever get to Hogwarts he dreamed of casting his own; when he made it to Hogwarts he couldn’t wait until they were taught the charm.

Then, well. Remus’s patronus was a wolf.

He remembered seeing it for the first time, one of the first students in his class to produce a corporeal patronus. And it was a fucking wolf. He had dismissed it immediately, face going red even as his classmates oohed over the bloody obvious thing. Not everyone cast a corporeal patronus that day, but thank god he hadn’t been the only one. The questions would have been heinous to field otherwise.

It didn’t matter, he knew. It wasn’t like the wolf was a werewolf, it didn’t really reveal anything about him beside some superstitious whatever when it came to what one’s patronus said about their inner soul. But he hated looking at it, hated that he hadn’t been able to conjure something better.

Lost in his head as he was, he didn’t realize he was being spoken to until Dorcas Meadowes’s shadow was directly over him. He blinked up at her, smiling apologetically.

“Sorry, Doe. I was miles away. I didn’t see - did you get a patronus out?”

It would be silly to think that the events stretching over the two-week period of The Barns weren’t going to be important trickling down the rest of Remus Lupin’s life, but in the distant future - maybe even the not-so distant future - Day Nine would, perhaps, loom most large in his ever-growing list of where did it all go wrong?

And the thing was, it was a lovely day. 

Even the crash course on Disenfranchised Populations - Werewolves, Trolls, Giants, Goblins and Centaurs - didn’t dampen the mood entirely, though he did spend the majority of Moody’s diatribe about werewolves (how they in particular were being courted by Voldemort’s forces, most likely due to being the closest to human and still desperate for respectful recognition compared to the others) sneaking glances around the group for reactions. His friends, of course, stayed mildly neutral, a couple looking briefly at him for a sympathetic, understanding nod. 

The looks of discomfort on some of the others’ faces were... noticeable. But, again, it didn’t wreck the day. It did inspire a nice brisk walk afterwards to shake off the lingering nerves, but the sun was shining, it wasn’t too hot, and Gretchen Ollivander was the first person he ran into when he ducked into farmhouse. She was sat at the kitchen table, a few papers spread out around her, brilliant golden hair catching an unfair amount of sunbeams through the nearest window.

“Hey, Ollivander,” he said brightly, still working off some of that lingering titch from the seminar but more or less easygoing. The high of his duel with Gretchen the week before hadn’t worn off, nor, did it seem, had her pride in him, which was always a good way to calm down. “What are you working on?”

we can be heroes | remus&sirius | the barns

- 

If you asked Sirius, the duel was over in the blink of an eye but it took Remus ages to cross the lawn and rush back into Sirius’s arms. 

(But of course it was a good thing that nobody asked Sirius, who would have also sworn on any holy book that Remus’s wink as he took the field had happened in slow motion; that the sun willingly disturbed its own rotation to angelically backlight the endearing gesture.) 

Spectacle was not the right word for Remus’s duel with Gretchen Ollivander. The word drew too many associations with flash and not substance; with making a scene for the hell of it. Sirius, for example, was a fucking spectacle. 

When it came to Remus, the only word that would do was: spectacular. 

Sirius could not look away. The one time he tried, he found he was not alone in his fascination, his admiration. A magnetic pull to watch Remus, to seek him even in the thickest crowds, was not a new sensation for Sirius. But he got to watch it in real time, the pied piper pull of Remus Lupin, as it settled over the rest of the crowd.  The countryside had finally gone as quiet as promised. There was nary a whisper or laugh from the onlookers as they—old friends, new heroes—watched the flashing wands, the delicate choreography of battle. Not even a fencepost creaked under the captivated eyes of the Order’s finest. 

Until, there!

Gretchen’s momentum was disturbed, her early lead shattered in a way it hadn’t been all afternoon. In the space of a heartbeat, Remus pulled himself onto level ground, matching the battle-tested blonde blow-for-blow. Had they been fencing, their swords would have sung against one another, blades chiming out the points as they were gained and met, gained and met. Sirius could practically hear it. 

Around him, too, he heard the onlookers stutter back to life: gasps as the spells became more complicated and unexpected; silent incantations and feigned wrist movements ensuring the opponent was as surprised as the audience. 

And at the center of it all: Remus. His limbs moving lithe and lovely, cutting through the air so quickly they should have whistled; a jungle cat with enough reedy wherewithal to move silently, but enough teeth to sink in fatally on the first opportunity. It was a symphony of untapped power, and Sirius knew—knew, had always known—that the power radiated just skin-deep beneath Remus’s translucent skin. The reason it didn’t show itself more readily was because Remus wouldn’t allow it to – ever-careful, ever-cautious, ever-repenting. 

Hope Lupin could pretend she was a ‘lapsed’ Catholic all she wanted. As far as Sirius was concerned, it was a hereditary burden, not so different from his own family tree. What other excuse was there for the piousness, the martyrdom, the sheer-bone-deep-fucking guilt that Remus carried around every day, just for being alive? Sirius could see it from a mile away. Sirius wanted to pray – on his knees for this one thing that could make him believe. Believe in himself, even, among less elusive gods. 

It nearly went without saying that Sirius was: hot and bothered throughout the entire thing. His academic interest in the magic, his pride in seeing Remus take the cork out of himself for once…they towered high, but they were no match for those rolled up sleeves; the sinewy bicep muscles and blue-sky veins working together in a ripple across Remus’s arms. 

As the duel went on, the situation became more dire: a furrow of Remus’s brow, dug low in concentration; a high red flush on his cheeks as adrenaline replaced stamina; tousled hair silver-streaked-golden-wheat in the sunlight when Gretchen made the mistake of repeating the same wind-tunnel hex that had taken Remus by surprise last time they dueled, back at school. 

If she didn’t guess he’d obsess over learning to neutralize that one, thought Sirius. She doesn’t know him as well as she pretends to. 

Sirius had, of course, seen this confidence and sheer power radiating from Remus before. Most recently—and most often, thank gods—when he was pinned down or pressed against a wall, happily helpless against a Remus who gave up control just enough to take control. It was impossible to not conflate the two. 

When the duel ended, Sirius’s fascination  did not. The shimmering enchantments were still warping the air in the fields when the outcome was clear. Around him, Order members broke into cheers, schoolboy whoops and whistles all aimed at congratulating Remus on a well-deserved win. And Sirius did the only thing he could do: stood among them, shoulder to shoulder, beaming with pride and waiting his turn. 

The crowd thinned, spirited away by the promise of food, and Sirius’s path was finally clear. He did not ‘go to’ Remus so much as he stumbled against him, hands finding hips and lips finding cheek before Sirius pulled back to resume his marveling. 

“Fucking hell,” he said; all teeth. There was no way to stop looking at Remus—not that he wanted to—radiating victory and savoring the taste of sheer-fucking-earned success. “I mean….I mean…!” 

It was not that there was nothing to say, just that there was nowhere to begin. It all seemed equally important, clawing out the hollow of Sirius’s chest with its sheer, demanding volume and rendering him speechless. And proudly so! 

“Unbelievable,” Sirius swore. “Un-fucking-believable! By gods. I’ve never seen you do that. I mean! I have, but not…like that. That was incredible. That’s the only word! The only one. Incredible, Moons. Nobody’s going to talk about anything else for days, rightfully so. I wish I could play it back for you somehow, that was just sheer! Fucking! Skill.” 

Despite the warm day—and the direct sun they were baking in—Sirius’s palms traced the full path of Remus’s arms, gripping tight as if he was trying to warm the taller young man up; selfishly enjoying the knotted oak roots of muscle beneath his touch, made more dramatic through the fabric-softened comfort of Remus’s henley. 

“Mildly?!” Sirius asked it in sheer disbelief, unable to access even passing jealousy through his enthusiasm. “Mildly. Fuck off, he was captivated. So was everyone. You were heroic.” 

It was impossible to accuse Sirius of putting Remus on, fidgeting and fawning about the way he was, energy on overflow and poured rightfully into unabashed reassurances. Remus was, factually, the toast of the town; Sirius was, gratefully, invited to sip the champagne and join the applause. 

“Well?” He slid one hand into Remus’s, melted away. “Don’t hold out on me! Tell me. How do you feel?” 

The lunch bell had melted away into the background by now and, save for some stragglers hovering yards away, the boys found themselves alone. The lunch tables by the farmhouse looked tempting, and Sirius didn’t want to keep Remus from his adoring public…but the red barn, abandoned and casting shade onto all it surrounded, looked even more tempting in its solitude. 

“I won’t kidnap you from your admirers for too long…” Sirius promised – breathlessly, suddenly, eyes wandering over toward the red barn and locking there, hungry. 

To run off in some whirlwind escape with Remus, when both of them were flying high like this, was always a treasure, however temporary. It probably had nothing to do with the fact that Sirius was still halfway-hard from watching Remus at work – even less to do with his preference of working Remus up to match, rather than easing himself down. That’s what you’d hear if you asked Sirius, at least; and he was an excellent liar, on better days. 

“But we could take the long way. I can tell you all about it, how fucking great you looked even from the cheap seats. Before everyone else butts in and I get to spend all of lunch listening to them tell it with all my enthusiasm, but none of my very patented charm.”  

-

Sirius’s enthusiasm was infectious enough as it was, but mingling together with the post-duel high Remus was still reeling from? It was dangerous, in the best sort of way. The sort of way that might get to Remus’s head, that might make him cocky when the next big duel practice rolled around and Gretchen, glowing with praise as she had been, fought twice as hard to get her sportsmanlike revenge. 

But those were problems for another day, surely, and Remus just let the sun beat down on his dizzied happiness as Sirius shot off his complimentary excitement. Hands were on his hips one moment, a kiss against his cheek before Sirius realized he had far too much to say to limit himself just so yet; Remus, a bit sweaty and still red-cheeked from exertion, listened to it all with that lopsided, still half-abashed grin on his face.

“I do kind of wish I could see it, too, just - y’know - to catch my form, anything I needed to work on,” he babbled, a brave attempt at reeling himself back in to humble. “Filming it all seems - torturous, though, and dangerous if the tapes get lost - I’ll have to make do with Gretchen walking me through it next time.”

Familiar, beloved hands on his arms, warmer than the rays of sun above them, Remus felt like he could fight a bear. Or take a very long nap. Or both.

“Was he?” He mused softly, delighting in Sirius’s delight, eyes sparkling as he watched his love enthuse over him. “I can’t even begin to imagine him being captivated, unless he was, y’know, looking for ways to take me out. Don’t you get that feeling that he’s kind of always looking for weaknesses, or something? He has that... aura.” He laughed, loud and bright, shaking his head at his own breathless ridiculousness, shrugging off compliments as he basked in them at the very same time. “C’mon. Not heroic. They all just love a bit of flash, it’ll blow over when Gretchen jinxes me next time.”

“I feel,” he said, answering truthfully, no attempts to sidewind at all: “Incredible. Haven’t had a proper duel since the last club meeting before finals and - honestly, not even a proper proper duel since the first time Gretch and I dueled, but. It felt good. I feel... like I’m supposed to be here, that sort of cemented it.”

Sirius’s hand slid into his, an offer being made to take the long way ‘round to lunch - which, of course, was only a few steps away. Sirius was already moving towards the deserted red barn, picturesque in an American Gothic sort of way, and Remus, as always, was powerless to do much of anything but follow the other man’s lead. Grinning, stupidly, exhausted and exhilarated and full of a certain kind of energy that his love most surely could feel from his inches away.

“You know how much I love hearing you talk about how great I look, and how much I love your particular brand of charm,” Remus mused, as if there were any doubt he was going to follow Sirius even if it meant getting lost in the nearby woods for enough time to miss lunch and dinner. His eyes followed Sirius’s gaze to the barn, confirming his suspicions that that was where they might be headed. A quick glance over to where lunch was being served - plenty of comrades talking excitedly, ravenously downing their lunches, paying no extra special attention to them. 

The adoring crowd could wait; he really only cared about being adored by one person anyway.

“I expect nothing less,” he started, walking slowly towards the barn and waiting for Sirius to catch up, knowing the slack between their arms - hands clasped in the middle - wouldn’t stay taut for long. “Than a full recounting, you know. Of my swagger, obviously, and how dashing I must have looked all sweaty and panicked when she nearly got me with that wind-tunnel hex again.”

not one of those who can easily hide // sirius & remus

How many nights had Remus kept watch as Sirius held court, the magnetic field of the party room seeming to rotate around him as its living center? Sirius didn’t know the answer to that, but he did know that he preferred the way the tables had turned, tonight. 

Remus was red-cheeked and rumpled, oscillating charmingly between owning his wide, flattered smiles and hiding them modestly behind the temporary reprieve of one hand, or the rim of his plastic cup when he paused for a drink. 

And Sirius was convinced—in that dogmatic, eversure way of his—that Remus had never had such a handsome vantage point as Sirius himself had right now. 

He was seated on the floor of the red barn, surrounded by scattered hay and cigarette butts, his back gamely supported by the bale that made up Remus’s throne. Nestled comfortably at Remus’s knee, fingers playing thoughtlessly around the curve of his partner’s ankle, Sirius had everything he needed. His other hand held a drink, something strong and sippable, warm on his tongue; heavy in his chest even as it made him feel more lightheaded. 

He was at the perfect height, too, to nudge his chin against Remus’s thigh occasionally – not to plea for the other man’s attention, only for the careful ministrations Remus never needed to be reminded about, anyway. A scratch to the head; a kind, calming look; a polite whisper to repeat a joke or story detail from across the circle that he could tell Sirius missed in the moment. 

It was easy to watch, from down there – to see Remus bask, to bask in his basking. To notice the look of dazed delight on his face; to appreciate the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed down protestations and accepted praise. For once! 

Sirius held out as long as he could, wanting to linger in the glow of the evening—in the glow radiating from Remus—and soak up every appreciative moment possible. But as drinks were poured again and again into his cup—as praise was rightfully poured over Remus; as color rose high across both of the boys’ cheekbones and ‘late night’ stretched into the hours once spent at school helping one another from nightmares—he could soon wait no longer. 

In one smooth motion, Sirius pushed up to stand – a short-lived height, replaced in favor of lowering himself to sit on Remus’s lap instead. The small bale perch was no match for their years spent learning to intertwine. His hands, free now that he’d abandoned his drink on the floor, sank into the grip of Remus’s, twenty fingers latched together before Sirius even settled his weight. 

Sirius leaned in close, snaking around to murmur into the other man’s ear. He looked a happy mess: hair falling into his eyes and sticking to the sweat on his forehead; his balance off; his lips fully brushing flush against Remus’s earlobe on his first attempt to whisper. 

“Are you over all the compliments yet, or can I get away with telling you how fucking handsome you look tonight?” he asked, voice low and rasping with something urgent; playful, but pointed. Which made sense, since Sirius had been unable to turn his mind toward any thoughts other than how enchantingly, commandingly powerful Remus had looked during dueling practice.  

“I,” Sirius decided, righting himself—so that he could see Remus’s face properly, run a finger across the plane of his cheek—and feeling more sly than he certainly looked. “Am absolutely ravenous for a smoke break.” 

It shouldn’t have been an issue to do that in place, with clouds of smoke already hanging around the, the taste of tobacco still fresh on each boy’s tongue. But Sirius wasn’t asking to bum a cigarette; he was planning a heist. He saw someone make a motion, out of the corner of his eye, to offer him a lighter; they either got distracted or thought better of it, Sirius unsubtle in the way he was sizing Remus up. 

Everyone else had gotten their chance to worship at the altar of Remus Lupin tonight. 

Sirius could share, but he was no saint. 

“Come with me? You know I’m shit with a lighter, and you can use those dueling skills to protect me from anything that goes bump in the night.” 

@remus-whoisleft​

-

A consistently topped-off drink in one hand and the hair at the nape of Sirius’s neck in the other; Remus Lupin felt, a bit, like a king.

The high from his duel with Gretchen hadn’t worn off, mostly because his fellow Order members hadn’t let it, Gretchen herself included. Friends circled around him at intervals to go over details, ask him which spells he used at which junction; it was overwhelming but in the best way. Comfortable on his bale of hay seat, Sirius cozied up below with his back against it and Remus’s legs, Remus let himself get a little more drunk than he might have otherwise. The nights at the Barns were for drinking, of course, but Remus didn’t fancy a bunch or morning running sessions while fighting even the mildest hangovers.

Tonight was different, and he didn’t mind letting go and having fun, because that’s still all it was. The duel had been league-rules, all for sport and practice; no one had gotten properly hurt, no one had shot to maim or kill. He didn’t have to think about the reality of what the rest of his duels might look like on the horizon, he could just get swept up in the warm, dusty-smoke atmosphere of the barn. Surrounded by people he adored, feeling the enamored gaze of the person he loved most in the world: life was good.

Life was even better when Sirius Black, tipsy and flushed and smiling, lifted himself up into Remus Lupin’s lap.

There was no time to pretend to be shocked by the sudden overt display of affection, too drawn in immediately by the closeness as he was. Remus placed his plastic cup down, not caring that it wasn’t terribly balanced on the hay beside him, and snaked his arms around Sirius’s waist, pulling him close.

Who cared if they were ridiculous; they were the only ones who really existed in that moment as far as Remus was concerned.

The compliment washed over him, warming his chest and sending a bolt of that same warmth down the rest of him. Remus didn’t answer immediately, though; he smiled, lopsided and happy, at Sirius, taking the time to look him over thoroughly now that he was eye-level. The light sheen of sweat they all shared made Sirius look otherworldly, some kind of sun-god come down to party with mortals; his hair a lightly damp mess but handsomely so, like they’d just finished doing something nefarious.

Sirius’s lips brushed against Remus’s cheek while he spoke and a spike of lovely want coursed through him, love and desire and that lingering cockiness - such a rare emotion for him! - all mingling into something absolutely wonderful. Not a bloody care in the world, just the low voice of his love calling him handsome.

“You know you’re the only one whose compliments I really care about,” he laughed, quiet and honest, eyes flickering down - for a moment too long, if he had the time to worry about such things - to look at Sirius’s lips. “You can tell me whatever you want, Pads.”

Absolutely ravenous was all that Remus really heard from what Sirius said next, since it was really the only true part of the statement. Remus was ravenous too; his fingers tightened, briefly, on Sirius’s hips. 

“We really must do something about that, then,” he murmured, leaning in to brush just a little bit against Sirius’s neck as he spoke. It was fine; it’s not like their relationship was a secret to anyone else in the barn, and if the were being watched? A show was in order until they were properly alone. He turned his face to kiss the finger that Sirius had drawn across his cheek, smiling his dopey little smile.

“Lighter’s in my pocket,” he pointed out, moving his legs slowly to make to stand up without dropping Sirius unceremoniously in the process. “Along with my wand. Might have to help me dig them out once we’re out there,” he grinned at him, cheeky and obvious and standing up, no cares in the world, with an outstretched hand to lead Sirius outside. The giggles and glances from their friends and comrades were clearly there, but Remus was only focused on the heat of Sirius’s body pressed against his as they “sneaked” outside.

The dark outside the barns was deep and heavy, but the stars were beautifully bright; they seemed closer to the ground then they did anywhere else, reminding him faintly of being home in Wales. The din of the party inside the barn followed them outside, muffled by the wooden doors, and Remus stopped in their escape, just beside the doors, to pull Sirius close. To kiss him, deeply, tasting like the cheap whiskey the crew had managed to procure from the closest town.

Crickets chirped, a blanket of soft sound in the dark.

“My hands might be a bit too full to protect you from anything,” he said, grinning against Sirius’s lips. “But I don’t think we need to worry about anyone but us going bump in the night, my love.”