#bonebloom

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Sirius had eventually broken his promise. 

He'd tried so hard. He'd got into just the right amount of trouble. Had watched as Remus took hit after hit. Had worn cruelty like his inherited crown until his mind felt strange without it. It had appeased Orion. His mother had even acknowledged the positive change in him—how he'd turned out more like her than she had initially thought. 

To everyone at court, he'd made Remus come to heel. Had found a loophole to somehow be himself and to be the legacy no one expected him to be. People whispered that perhaps he really could continue the Dynasty as King—he'd taken on his mantel as the monster. Uncaring, wild, ruthless. And the worst part, to Sirius, was that it had been easy to deceive everyone. They had been waiting for him to put Remus up as a sacrifice.

And for over a decade, their flirtation has smouldered—sometimes scorching other relationships in its wake—while Remus holds himself back. After all, he was the one who first shut the metaphorical door in Sirius’s face. For ten years, he’s believed all that's left are stolen, shame-filled, yearning glances of Sirius, taken in through windows and from a distance. But Sirius knows most doors don’t stay closed—and exactly how to coax one, make it beg to open. This is the story of Remus’s forty-third birthday. Of the years after a marriage ends and a life begins in the middle of things: of queer joy growing like blue irises, of fatherhood, of desire, and of learning to forgive oneself for old punishments.

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Then Remus let himself peek out of his second-floor bedroom window, as a little treat. Dragged his eyes around, slow and indulgent, until they landed—of course—on the object of most of his ire and interest: Sirius Black.

And as always, he was there—surveying his garden, hose swung around one hand. He’d once overheard Sirius tell someone that it was good to water your Hydrangea canes in the Spring, even if it was too cold for anything else.

Today, he was draped in an olive robe, gorgeous gold embroidery on the sleeves, surprisingly modest compared to the usual get-up.

Remus let himself enjoy this one—like it was the first, deep hit off a quitter’s last cigarette.

And he was quitting something that day. So he let his eyes trace over the man, luxuriating in the distance.

Sirius was tall, lithe, moved every muscle with a practiced grace that was intoxicating. And as he moved, the art that skated over most of his skin seemed to rise, to move and dance with him. Remus knew some of them now— the tattoos that were usually kept at such a distance and made Remus’s mouth water. He’d seen some up closer, even, over the years. But as always, he craved to know how they might feel, under his tongue, against his cheek.

He craved to know what any of Sirius might feel like. They hadn’t even shaken hands once, in the ten years of being neighbours.

But that was what made this little look Remus was taking so good, wasn’t it?

Somewhere around that thought was when Sirius looked up, met his gaze. Let a lazy smirk twist around his mouth and lifted his hand in a flippant wave, a flash of an emerald ring on one of his fingers.

Then he stared at Remus as he took a seat at his patio table, flung his legs up into another chair and slowly let his hair out of his bun.

Remus gulped, even if he already knew this show was for him.

Somewhere along the road, Sirius figured out that Remus maybe, perhaps, obviously, liked long hair. And so sometimes, when they were in broad daylight, and he was sure Remus was watching, he would give him this—like a naughty present.

His hands untangling his hair, then tying it back up again. Oil-slick blue-green-black. The way it curled and softly brushed against skin. How it begged—to be twisted. Pulled.

Remus laughed at the absurdity, even as he felt something predictably tighten between his legs. He was used to this provocation now. It’d been this way—worse even—for years. He’d known he was fucked when it came to Sirius almost immediately. But the gravity of it had mounted year after year of living so close to each other—of letting something simmer between them but then barely using their words to make it spark.

And because it was only seven am, and he had his whole day ahead, he felt no need to rush Sirius.

He kept watching. Cocked his head to the side, let his tongue flick out to lick his chapped lip, slowly took a sip of water out of his cup and let a hand almost palm himself lightly.

Smiled innocently back when Sirius’s hands seemed to stutter for a second.

This is what they did. No words, just this maddening, escalating exposure.

Sirius let his hands move naturally from his scalp, down to his neck, as if he were just making an adjustment to the green robe he wore. Tugged it a bit to the side, as if his chest needed to feel a touch of cool breeze. And Remus grinned, because he knew the green definitely was for him. So he let himself run a hand down his body, and lightly, but clearly. Reached his destination and gave one firm squeeze.

Sirius seemed to exhale a very deep breath with that.

And the Lenten rose pink blush that bloomed across his cheekbones: that was a great birthday present.

Remus felt like his heart was racing. He liked when he won one of these bouts fair and square.

Check. Mate. Black.

Or whatever.

Because they had been playing this game for years. Remus just didn’t know if there were any rules. 

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The land remembered.

She remembered when the mortals curled her into mortar and plucked her into stone. How, eventually, it was all laid up in a complicated cairn.

Humans had left such markings on her before. Small stacks of pebbles to track the footfall of stags from pools, of children to homes. But they called this cairn a castle. And humans didn't follow as much as flock to it.

Its birth alone shifted everything about the landscape. The limbs of her young firs leaned further north in search of light. Its persistent umbra threw valleys that once grew sun-loving ferns into darkness—now only bed to moss and decay. The sunken caves of her lake looked through panes of clear sand into carved spaces called rooms. Human children, in matching pelts, sat beside fires. Their heads buried in dry leaves—" books, reading, students," her mermaids muttered.

The castle felt like some young, brash mountain that had bloomed across her visage. Its magic was new, bold. It threw all her rhythms off with its love for extempore. She'd always known ancient melodies that rose and fell with the light, the constant lap of lake against shore. Had felt the way the humans would seek her magic out around bonfires with dance and chants. But this still, rocky crag was alight—popping, fizzing, beautiful with new magic. Its improvisation took words and turned her ancient magic into glinting blades—spells. So many for each student to throw in jest, rage or joy. Every day, some new release was mined out of her.

She couldn't help but be curious about the castle and the little ant-like mortals that lived within it. The sinuous eels in the lake would listen to the humans whispering and report back to her. Her fauna crept into the castle at night. They saw wondrous things. Coves of cotton, built by humans for shelter, for sleep, for pleasurable things that made absolutely no sense at all. A room where they had mirrored her sky to float above them. She had asked the rocks if she could move them slightly—allow the natural sky to stream into the hall. The castle shyly declined. Instead, every night she sent her emissaries to help. Mist to soften the magic and thunder to keep time.

Yes, they carry the weight of war, grief, and betrayal between them. But their love and (blood)lust twists and stretches, trying to hold it all together. For Remus, his obsession with Sirius isn’t always a choice—it's the way his Wolf survives. And Sirius is his mirror in every way—in his grief, desperate longing and desire.

They love each other profoundly, and Vampirism just adds to the intensity.

This is a story of grief, memory, monstrosity, and what it means to love someone through your trauma and theirs.

Alice Walker wrote Even So, the poem that inspired Waiting for Light Her words are featured in the collage above!

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Once, right after a fight with Sirius, he’d hobbled up the steep stairs of the Astronomy tower.

He had tried to cry, but sometimes, when all the types of pain got mixed up, the tears, too, would calcify. So, he had taken some pills then. To melt.

His mother had come to him at once, floating, somewhere in the clouds. She had spoken to him like he was just a boy and didn’t yet know of the cruelties of the world ahead:

Cariad, some griefs are too big to carry. They are like mountains we’re not meant to climb. They’re just there to keep you safe from the past. You either walk forward, toward the ocean and let it take you away. Or you turn back and end up climbing the same mountain forever.

Later, much later, Remus would find himself almost at Sirius's doorstep.

There, finally, Remus felt his breathing slow. His head nodded off to the side. He wished for Sirius—his hands, his shadow. If only the absence he felt could take Sirius's shape. Even that would be enough. 

Maybe there was no rhythm or melody this body could learn. Maybe there was nothing practised about how this body could love. But when Remus floated above himself, even he could see that every sinew, every muscle, every bone would fight to be the first to cut themselves out in prayer for Sirius. 

He knew now: it was not the tide, or the moon, but Sirius who would dictate where the flesh of his heart went when he died. 

He wanted to howl the truth of it: “Look at me, Sirius. I turned back. I am climbing the bloody mountain for you.”