Seven Times Touched | Remus/Sirius | M | 995 words
Title: Seven Times Touched
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Rating: Umm…M?
Disclaimer: No infringement intended on JK Rowling, Micheal Ondaatje, Richard Linklater or Rupert Brooke.
Words: 995
Summary: “The way of Love was thus/ He was born, one winter morn/ with hands delicious/ And it was well with us.“
A/N: Dedicated to two lovlies;![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
fleshdress and underlucius for being inspiring and for showing so much faith in me. Set in the ‘lie low at Lupin’s’ time period which I always fancied was in a run-down shack on one of the Scottish islands. I appropriated a couple of phrases from The English Patient & Before Sunset because I am violently obsessed with those texts. And this is my first proper, fully-fledged and posted Remus/Sirius. Feedback would be so very lovely.
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Song
The way of Love was thus.
He was born, one winter morn,
With hands delicious.
And it was well with us.
Love came our quiet way,
Lit pride in us, and died in us,
All in a winter’s day.
There is no more to say.
Rupert Brooke, 1913
i.
Remus imagines that the smudges are simply motorbike grease, the lines, no more than just dirt and streaks of oil. The grey is just dust and spider webs collected in his hair from spending too long in the Potter’s back shed. He reaches out – before he can really help himself – before his heart can clench in his chest and pull him back to immobility – reaches out and drags his thumb across Sirius’ skin. He waits for the smooth brown, slightly freckled Sirius to appear, like some phoenix renewed from beneath the grime and filth and the years of wreckage.
Instead Sirius’ skin just pulls beneath the pads of his fingers, wax-yellowed, age-spotted paper, revealing all too clearly the jagged bones that sit so near the surface these days. For a moment another skull superimposes itself on Sirius, blazing hot, lurid green and it makes Remus turn away. Bile burns in his throat. He turns away. He forgets to tell Sirius why.
ii.
The light is like icicles without the sun when Sirius steals into the room, on the edge of daybreak. He can walk silently, despite the stiffness in his joints, and sometimes it plays on the edge of his mind that he isn’t really here anyway so what does it matter if he slinks through rooms like an icing-powdered ghoul?
Remus, however, looks real. He is flushed, blankets askew, sleep-moulded against the pillows of the couch. He has so far refused to let Sirius sleep anywhere but the bedroom, and no matter how many times Sirius looks at him Remus refuses to come to bed. So every morning Sirius rises before the Scottish light and creeps in to sit beside Remus, fingers hovering over the hawkish lines of his face. The thin, slim bones of his nose, the delicate cheekbones, the not-quite-there eyelashes. Sirius once read the description of Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon and thought that it had to be Remus Hammett was describing.
Remus dreams that there are moths, made out of the fleshy pads of fingers that hover over him in the morning. But when he rises from beneath the soil-heavy dreams, all he finds is a cup of tea sitting on the floor, steamy tendrils washing over his skin.
iii.
When Sirius lifts his hand, by candlelight, on the eighth night of his stay, Remus thinks two things. First, that the veins, they are red, there is blood; Sirius is real. Secondly, that if somebody touches him, truly touches him; he might just dissolve into molecules.
Please, and his voice breaks, and he hates that it does, Please, Sirius. Don’t.
Sirius’ hand falls back to the threadbare plaid blanket, an autumn leaf still longing for the branches.
Stay? Sirius says.
Can’t.
iv.
Remus is silhouetted coal black against the metal sky. He is not more than a metre or two from the house. There are seabirds above, those too, little more than cardboard cutouts tossed indifferently upon the North Wind. Through the window Sirius watches the form - slender, angular at the shoulders, grey robes licking at the ground. It has been half an hour and Remus hasn’t moved, and Sirius finds he cannot move either. Separated by the frosted-pale glass, that makes the world just that much more hazy, neither man can stir.
Sirius reaches out his fingers and, realising they are shaking, blames the cup of coffee he brewed too strong and dark this morning. He is out of practice. At both lying and making coffee.
The black silhouette stays immobile upon the indefinite horizon. Through the window Sirius lets his fingers follow the body, Remus’ body. He coasts over the long neck, the slim hips, the curve of Remus’ bony ankle that Sirius knows is there. But all he can feel is the freezing, slippery-wet touch of the windowpane.
It begins to rain, suddenly; that cold, fierce, driving rain that tastes of metal and snow.
Remus turns and looks in the window. It is empty.
v.
It is in the raspberry darkness of mid-winter that he comes.
It is too dark, no sound but the dampness of snowfall, it is more that Sirius feels the air move, shift, settle around a shape he knows is Remus.
The bed creaks as Remus sinks into it, bedclothes shifting as reluctantly as the tide against the warm sand of a beach.
Then he feels it, through the blinding dark, Remus’ hand against his chest, warm and dry and the touch is so soft…so fearful.
Sirius finds his voice; Remus, I won’t break.
Silence. Sirius feels his hair stand on end.
I might, Remus whispers. Sirius can hear the words drawn across sadly smiling lips.
A second hand joins the other against his shoulder.
Sirius thinks he might die right there.
vi.
Remus wants to slice the moment open, like an artichoke heart. Peel through the layers, separating flesh from flesh, bone from muscle, carefully dissect it as a surgeon might with the tip of his scalpel. For the heart is an organ of fire. And maybe, just maybe, Remus imagines, somewhere very deep, having peeled away the hurt and pain and terror that has scarred him, he will find that most inner layer still extant. That layer where lies the beautiful, untouched heart that he knows Sirius once possessed.
He cannot speak that to Sirius. He can’t. He breathes out and feels the words pressing against both their skins, their ravaged skins, and he just hopes Sirius can feel them because he cannot find the words.
Remus leans down slowly and like a moth brushes his lips to Sirius’.
vii.
They dissolve. Skin to skin.
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Title: Seven Times Touched
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Rating: Umm…M?
Disclaimer: No infringement intended on JK Rowling, Micheal Ondaatje, Richard Linklater or Rupert Brooke.
Words: 995
Summary: “The way of Love was thus/ He was born, one winter morn/ with hands delicious/ And it was well with us.“
A/N: Dedicated to two lovlies;
fleshdress and underlucius for being inspiring and for showing so much faith in me. Set in the ‘lie low at Lupin’s’ time period which I always fancied was in a run-down shack on one of the Scottish islands. I appropriated a couple of phrases from The English Patient & Before Sunset because I am violently obsessed with those texts. And this is my first proper, fully-fledged and posted Remus/Sirius. Feedback would be so very lovely.*
*
*
*
Song
The way of Love was thus.
He was born, one winter morn,
With hands delicious.
And it was well with us.
Love came our quiet way,
Lit pride in us, and died in us,
All in a winter’s day.
There is no more to say.
Rupert Brooke, 1913
i.
Remus imagines that the smudges are simply motorbike grease, the lines, no more than just dirt and streaks of oil. The grey is just dust and spider webs collected in his hair from spending too long in the Potter’s back shed. He reaches out – before he can really help himself – before his heart can clench in his chest and pull him back to immobility – reaches out and drags his thumb across Sirius’ skin. He waits for the smooth brown, slightly freckled Sirius to appear, like some phoenix renewed from beneath the grime and filth and the years of wreckage.
Instead Sirius’ skin just pulls beneath the pads of his fingers, wax-yellowed, age-spotted paper, revealing all too clearly the jagged bones that sit so near the surface these days. For a moment another skull superimposes itself on Sirius, blazing hot, lurid green and it makes Remus turn away. Bile burns in his throat. He turns away. He forgets to tell Sirius why.
ii.
The light is like icicles without the sun when Sirius steals into the room, on the edge of daybreak. He can walk silently, despite the stiffness in his joints, and sometimes it plays on the edge of his mind that he isn’t really here anyway so what does it matter if he slinks through rooms like an icing-powdered ghoul?
Remus, however, looks real. He is flushed, blankets askew, sleep-moulded against the pillows of the couch. He has so far refused to let Sirius sleep anywhere but the bedroom, and no matter how many times Sirius looks at him Remus refuses to come to bed. So every morning Sirius rises before the Scottish light and creeps in to sit beside Remus, fingers hovering over the hawkish lines of his face. The thin, slim bones of his nose, the delicate cheekbones, the not-quite-there eyelashes. Sirius once read the description of Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon and thought that it had to be Remus Hammett was describing.
Remus dreams that there are moths, made out of the fleshy pads of fingers that hover over him in the morning. But when he rises from beneath the soil-heavy dreams, all he finds is a cup of tea sitting on the floor, steamy tendrils washing over his skin.
iii.
When Sirius lifts his hand, by candlelight, on the eighth night of his stay, Remus thinks two things. First, that the veins, they are red, there is blood; Sirius is real. Secondly, that if somebody touches him, truly touches him; he might just dissolve into molecules.
Please, and his voice breaks, and he hates that it does, Please, Sirius. Don’t.
Sirius’ hand falls back to the threadbare plaid blanket, an autumn leaf still longing for the branches.
Stay? Sirius says.
Can’t.
iv.
Remus is silhouetted coal black against the metal sky. He is not more than a metre or two from the house. There are seabirds above, those too, little more than cardboard cutouts tossed indifferently upon the North Wind. Through the window Sirius watches the form - slender, angular at the shoulders, grey robes licking at the ground. It has been half an hour and Remus hasn’t moved, and Sirius finds he cannot move either. Separated by the frosted-pale glass, that makes the world just that much more hazy, neither man can stir.
Sirius reaches out his fingers and, realising they are shaking, blames the cup of coffee he brewed too strong and dark this morning. He is out of practice. At both lying and making coffee.
The black silhouette stays immobile upon the indefinite horizon. Through the window Sirius lets his fingers follow the body, Remus’ body. He coasts over the long neck, the slim hips, the curve of Remus’ bony ankle that Sirius knows is there. But all he can feel is the freezing, slippery-wet touch of the windowpane.
It begins to rain, suddenly; that cold, fierce, driving rain that tastes of metal and snow.
Remus turns and looks in the window. It is empty.
v.
It is in the raspberry darkness of mid-winter that he comes.
It is too dark, no sound but the dampness of snowfall, it is more that Sirius feels the air move, shift, settle around a shape he knows is Remus.
The bed creaks as Remus sinks into it, bedclothes shifting as reluctantly as the tide against the warm sand of a beach.
Then he feels it, through the blinding dark, Remus’ hand against his chest, warm and dry and the touch is so soft…so fearful.
Sirius finds his voice; Remus, I won’t break.
Silence. Sirius feels his hair stand on end.
I might, Remus whispers. Sirius can hear the words drawn across sadly smiling lips.
A second hand joins the other against his shoulder.
Sirius thinks he might die right there.
vi.
Remus wants to slice the moment open, like an artichoke heart. Peel through the layers, separating flesh from flesh, bone from muscle, carefully dissect it as a surgeon might with the tip of his scalpel. For the heart is an organ of fire. And maybe, just maybe, Remus imagines, somewhere very deep, having peeled away the hurt and pain and terror that has scarred him, he will find that most inner layer still extant. That layer where lies the beautiful, untouched heart that he knows Sirius once possessed.
He cannot speak that to Sirius. He can’t. He breathes out and feels the words pressing against both their skins, their ravaged skins, and he just hopes Sirius can feel them because he cannot find the words.
Remus leans down slowly and like a moth brushes his lips to Sirius’.
vii.
They dissolve. Skin to skin.
* * * * *
mood: typey
14 acorns | break