Work Text:
“It’s not that simple anymore,” he says, because it isn’t.
“I still love you. Do you still love me?” He hates when Sirius does this, hates when he reduces wars and anger and 12 years of absence still trying so hard to push itself between them into do you love me? Because that’s a stupid fucking question. He has loved Sirius Black for a hundred thousand years.
“That’s not the point.”
“Do you still love me?” Remus knows he will get nowhere else until he answers the question. He debates saying something like I’ll never stop loving you but whenever he used to says those things, lifetimes ago, Sirius would laugh and call him queer, and Remus would say okay, kettle, because Sirius was always the mushy one and they were both complete and utter shirt-lifters, and Sirius would say what the fuck does this have to do with kettles, Moony? And Remus would have to explain. So now all he says is yes.
“Then it’s still just as simple.”
Oh, Remus hates him sometimes, hates how black and white he always is, how it’s yes or no, I love you or I don’t, how Remus is always the one who has to figure out the semantics and the facts and all those things you need to live on because you can’t live on words, Sirius, he can’t sustain himself on those kisses Sirius places to his collarbone even though Sirius seems to carry the whole universe inside of him. And Sirius always called him boring and Remus let him because even if it wasn’t the whole universe contained in Sirius’ bony hips it sure as hell was his.
“That’s not how the world works, Sirius. We’re not 16 anymore.”
Sometimes Remus wishes they were, wishes is was still as simple as Sirius sneaking into his bed at night and James and Peter (Peter Peter Peter) doubled over laughing, of course we know, you idiots. But then he remembers the 12 years of unbearable loneliness, the way he spent so long refusing to speak his name, how every time some stranger would press their lips to his he was brought back to a time when he was 16 again and sneaking off with his best friend to snog behind a tapestry. They had been so pleased with how sneaky they were being until Remus was ambushed by a bunch of 7th years and Sirius almost got expelled because of the four bodies that ended up in the hospital wing, and it took them two and a half weeks to recover. Remus has never been afraid of his friends but when he saw Sirius standing over the group of boys he could tell from the look on Sirius’ face (even if he could only see out of one eye) that he would kill each one of those boys for him, if he had to. After that they were even more careful, because Sirius is one strike and you’re out and Remus doesn’t think he can handle being queer on top of being a werewolf.
In those 12 years of absence he begins by picking up girls because he thinks they’ll remind him the least of Sirius, but their hair is long and they’re thin, and hip bones and long slender fingers and he realizes that contrary to what he had once thought, Sirius was most like the girl in their relationship. So then he switches to short hair and soft bellies, girl or boy he stops caring, and he always asks do you like dogs and more often than not the houses he sneaks out of at night belong to cat people.
“No, we’re not 16, we’re mid fucking thirties going on sixty and you look like shit and I look like shit but I love you so who the fuck cares?”
Remus remembers a tiny little flat and Sirius’ stupid fucking record player and the Beatles as loud as it would go, and Sirius would whisk him around the living room/kitchen/bedroom and he would let himself believe for a few moments that yeah, all you need is love. But you can’t eat love, and love can’t buy you new clothes or pay the rent and the song always ended, anyway.
“It isn’t that simple.” He sounds like a broken record, like that fight they had where Remus destroyed Sirius’ record player and Sirius didn’t come home for two days. Remus didn’t sleep the entire time because it was war and he didn’t know if Sirius was angry or dead. He borrowed money off of James and Lily who promised not to tell and he bought Sirius a shiny new record player, and when Sirius finally came home he marched right fucking past it and kissed Remus until he couldn’t breathe, whispering I’m sorry I’m sorry I love you, Moony Moony Moony.
Sirius is whispering those words now, in between kisses, because Sirius knows him and he knows that Remus never wants to be not kissing Sirius. When he was 15 he decided if he could only do one thing for the rest of his life it would be to kiss Sirius, and that hasn’t changed even though everything else has.
“Sirius. Sirius we’re old and falling apart at the seams, and the order and Harry and it’s mother fucking war again Sirius, Padfoot, are even listening to me?”
“Yes. We’re old and it’s war and what a good fucking reason to spend every free moment of my day in love with you.”
“You’re hopeless.” He remembers, once, talking to James, he’s a hopeless romantic, and James had said are you sure it’s Sirius Black you’re sleeping with? But it was, and knows that because he was constantly chanting his name, waiting for the day when it wasn’t Sirius beneath him, above him, all around him, but Sirius always answers. The first few nights when Sirius falls asleep beside him, head drooling onto his shoulder and legs sprawled on top of him, Remus fights sleep as long as possible because he’s certain he’s dreaming. He still does this now, too, not because he can’t believe that Sirius would ever love him but because he can’t believe he’s really back. Everything he never let himself wish for for 12 years, pushing into his hips and kissing him until he feels like he might pass out, Padfoot sleeping beside the tame wolf every full moon.
He told Lily one day, he’s a hopeless romantic, and Lily had just nodded, of course he is, and Remus, not for the first time and not for the last, thought that Lily Evans was quite possibly the smartest person in the world. How do you know?
Because Sirius Black has been desperate for love his whole life, and he wants to make sure no one else ever feels that way. Especially you.
Remus had no idea how Lily had such a good understanding of someone she claimed to still dislike immensely, but that night when Sirius came into his bed he tells him I love you, too, and after that they stop switching beds and Sirius’ four poster goes unused for the rest of the year.
“Sirius. Sirius, that’s not how it works.”
Sirius pulls him down so he’s sitting on his lap at the kitchen table. Sometimes Remus likes to imagine what Sirius’ mother would say if she could see them. One time Sirius had grabbed him and kissed him right in front of his mother’s portrait and Remus was sure the whole world could hear her screaming about filthy, sodomizing half breeds.
“Moony. Remus.”
One day he woke up and every trace of Sirius was gone, and the only proof that he had ever been there at all as the bite marks on Remus’ neck. Sirius had crawled into bed the night before and kissed him for the first time in weeks, and the sex they had wasn’t the angry sex that verged on full out hate fucking. He knows Sirius didn’t trust him and he doesn’t blame him, because he hadn’t been particularly trust worthy, but Dumbledore’s order of not even Sirius echoed through his head so he didn’t tell Sirius anything. Sirius had kissed him and left marks on his body, love bites, whispered I miss you, Moony, and Remus had fallen asleep curled up next to him. When he woke up Sirius and all his things were gone and Remus doesn’t look in the mirror for weeks, trying to pretend that Sirius Black was never there in the first place.
He moves in with his parents and leaves his things behind. They all smelled like Sirius. Like dog.
“Please, Moony. This is a gift, Remus, don’t you see that? We came back together again, we found each other again, this is it, this is our second chance. Twelve years without you and the first thing I thought when I saw you was Remus is here, everything will be all right again. Every single minute in Azkaban, every minute that wasn’t spent thinking about James and Lily and Harry, every other thought in my mind was about you. Do you remember when I left?”
“How could I forget?”
“I thought you were a traitor, Moony. I thought you were on their side, but I still couldn’t just leave. I pretended I was there to keep an eye on you but I couldn’t leave. I was certain you were working for Voldemort but I kissed you when I left because even then, even then I loved you. I hated you, Remus, I did. But every second of my life from the time I was 14 has been spent loving you. It’s written in my DNA.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Shut up. We’ve been given this chance. This gift. You still love me, and I still love you. It’s that simple. You always try to overcomplicate things. It’s why you were so bad at potions. It would say to crush something and you would completely demolish it. Stop making mountains out of mole hills, Remus. We’re old and falling apart and life fucking sucks and we deserve this.
“I can’t sleep without you.”
When Remus had heard that Lily and James were dead because of Sirius Black he vomited until there was nothing left in his stomach. Every time he tried to sleep after that he would see Sirius Black, burned into his eyelids, and from that point on he would stay awake until he crashed so hard he couldn’t dream. At Hogwarts he would get a potion every night to give him dreamless sleep and Pomfrey never asked why.
He is 34 years old but he looks like he’s on the wrong side of 45 and he feels like he’s pushing mid-fifties, at least. Every full moon he transforms into a vicious beast controlled by a potion and he locks himself in a closet and hates himself. He’s dirt poor. He has lost everything and everyone. Almost.
He is Remus Lupin and he has loved Sirius Black since he blew up his cauldron in second year and Sirius had bought him a new one, hidden under his pillow, what are you talking about Remus that wasn’t me, maybe you have a secret admirer. He is Remus Lupin and he has loved Sirius Black ever since that time he lied to Dumbledore to try and save Remus two month’s detention. Dumbledore hadn’t believed him but Remus remembers an arm around his shoulders, ah well, I tried, and James’ angry voice, hey thanks for sticking up for me and Peter there – oh wait. Sirius had some excuse but Remus didn’t hear because that arm stayed wrapped around his shoulders the whole back to the dorms. He is Remus Lupin and he has loved Sirius Black ever since he quit smoking cold turkey because Remus hated the way it tasted.
He is Remus Lupin and he loves Sirius Black and that’s pretty much it, that’s who he is, not werewolf or poor, not even queer, every person who ever tried to define him had been wrong because Remus Lupin has always been defined by Sirius Black.
That night he sleeps in Sirius’ bed and when Molly Weasley comes in the next morning to ask Sirius a question he hides, but she says “You can get out of the closet, now, Remus, literally and figuratively,” and he thinks that him and Sirius must really be bad at hiding things. And then he thinks how useless and tiring and time consuming it is, hiding something everyone knows anyway.
They don’t tell Harry because he has enough on his mind. After. Later. When things calm down. When we win, they agree. That’s when we’ll tell him.
Sirius never gets to do this. Neither does he.
When he was 18 Sirius had got down on one knee and said what do you say, Moony, and Remus had said get the fuck up, you daft fool. Now they’re 35 and lying in bed and Sirius says, “We could get married, you know.”
And Remus says “No, we couldn’t.”
“Why do you always have to shit in my cereal, Remus?”
“I’m not shitting in anyone’s cereal, Padfoot. We cannot legally get married.”
“I’m an escaped convict fresh out of Azkaban, kiss on sight, and I doubt a Dementor could kiss half as well as you can, Moony. I can’t exist legally at this point. When has legality ever stopped us?”
He does, Remus thinks, have a point. But still. “I’m not marrying you.”
Sirius looks hurt. “Why not?”
“Because Sirius Lupin is an awful name.”
Sirius barks in what Remus knows to be his way of laughing. “Who the fuck said I’d be taking your name?”
“Remus Black isn’t any better.”
“Admit it, you just have commitment issues.”
Remus rolls onto his side to look Sirius in the eye. He’s all stubble and so much hair and thin, thin, thin. Remus is constantly trying to feed him, because he’s afraid he’s going to wither away into nothingness. Sirius does the same to him.
“I spent 12 years of my life with a ghost in my bed. Commitment is something I’m very good at.”
Sirius kisses him, then, and Remus knows Sirius considers the conversation over but he wants to explain.
“It’s not that I don’t want to marry you.” Kiss. “It’s just that.” Kiss. “Look at our fucking lives, Pads.” Kiss. “Do you really think we need marriage to show what this is?” Kiss. Longer kiss. “Twelve years in Azkaban and we picked right back up again.” Really long kiss. Somehow Sirius has gotten his pants off without him noticing, something Sirius has always been exceptionally good at. “That says more than any ring.”
“Are you really still talking?”
Remus shuts up.
A week and a half after that conversation Remus buys a shitty little apartment and once again leaves most of his things behind. The stuff he does bring back he washes three times and then sprays it all with something called Evening Breeze that he had taken from Ginny. Remus didn’t even know breezes smelled.
Dumbledore comes by, “You have to be strong for Harry.”
“Then who the fuck is supposed to be strong for me?”
A werewolf bite and a poor childhood, fine. Screaming parents, this is your fucking fault! You did this to him! Remus could handle that. And then Hogwarts, somehow, Hogwarts huge and menacing, rising up in front of him, after all those years of thinking it wasn’t possible. And friends. Real friends, whose first instinct wasn’t to run away screaming but to start figuring out what animals would work best (“Sirius should be whatever animal is ugliest.” “Shut up Potter, you’ve always been jealous.” “Yeah, you’re right. I dream about you, Sirius Black.”). Real friends and Sirius Black. Sirius Black and kisses pressed to the inside of his thighs. Real friends and Sirius Black and thigh kisses and then
Alone again, horribly alone, an angry wolf and a how the fuck could he? Twelve years of pain and then an answer, an obvious answer – he didn’t. Twelve years and then a desperate kiss against a cave well, did you… was there ever…? No, never. Not really. What about you? Oh well, there was this one Dementor, more special than the rest – Right. Stupid question. It’s not the happiest he’s ever been – he’s still poor and old and falling apart, his best friends are dead, the love of his life is a criminal and there’s a war raging around them – but he thinks, finally. Finally, a payoff for all those shit years.
Give him werewolf bites. Give him the fear of being an outcast barred from Hogwarts. Give him 12, 15, 20 years of how could he? Give him all of it, fine. But take this back. Take this back, give him back, because this is irreversible.
If Remus Lupin had a sickle for every time he thought that life wasn’t fair he would be richer than the Malfoy’s. But he was wrong. Wrong, wrong, all wrong. Give it back, give it all back, he’ll do it again, I’ll do it all over again, just please, please give him back to me.
Life isn’t fair.
Dumbledore stays away. Everyone stays away. Molly sends food over, which he is immensely grateful for. She is the only one he writes back.
Tonks comes over without an invitation, “I’m going to cook, clean, make sure you don’t starve to death. You’re already half way there.” Then she knocks over a picture of his mother.
“Shit. Shit, I’m sorry. Shit.”
She keeps coming, and Remus isn’t stupid but he finds himself liking the company. He hasn’t laughed once but Tonks makes his mouth muscles twitch into what, he thinks, is supposed to be a smile. He thinks he’s forgotten how. And he’s selfish because he’s playing with her heart but his was torn out and stepped on and blasted to pieces, taped back together and blasted once more, and right now he doesn’t care.
The first time she tries to kiss him he steps away and says “I was fucking him.”
And she says “I know.”
He thinks she doesn’t get it so he says “I’m in love with him. Was in love with him.” Am. Was. It doesn’t matter.
But she nods. “I know.”
“Tonks, please. It’s too soon.”
He regrets these words immediately because he knows she’ll read into them and think that he’s implying there will come a point where it will no longer be too soon, and she does.
The next time she says “I could be him.”
“What?” He knows exactly what she means.
“Him.” They never say his name. “I could be him. I could look like him.”
“Don’t. Don’t you dare. Don’t you ever dare.”
“But –”
“Don’t ever change yourself like that. Find someone who wants you, the real you, whoever that is.”
“But I want you.”
He looks up and she is plain, plain, plain, brown hair and small nose and ears uncommonly large and he realizes in horror that this is Nymphadora Tonks, really.
They are Sirius’ eyes. The Black family eyes. He can’t look at them.
She’s beautiful.
“Tonks –”
“This is war. And I know you loved him, and I know you always will, but this is war and I – I want you. I’m not him but he’s gone and this is war and I want you.”
Sirius. Sirius where are you. Sirius what do I do. How could you leave again. I don’t want to hurt her. Sirius what do I do.
“Please go, Tonks. And maybe – maybe we should stay away. For a bit.”
He doesn’t want to admit that he misses her the second she walks out the door.
When Dumbledore dies he thinks ah, fuck it, and he knows that’s no way to start a relationship but this is war. So he kisses her and that night she comes back to his place and he has to relearn his way around a woman’s body. Right before he takes her pants off he mentions, in a disclaimer he’s not proud of, “I’m still going to love him,” but he needs her to know. But she just says “Me too,” and then they don’t talk.
He loves Tonks, he thinks. He loves the way her hair turns different colours every time he kisses her and he loves the way everything turns a bright, fluorescent pink every time she comes. But there’s always that ghost between them, and Remus always sleeps on what was Sirius’ side of the bed because he doesn’t want to act like she’s a replacement and Tonks keeps her eyes every colour except grey. And he finds himself loving her, inexplicably.
At first he hates himself for it. But then, more than a year after the fact, the anger part of the mourning process kicks in.
I deserve this. I fucking do. You’re not allowed to leave me all the fucking time and expect me to wait around pining after you. I deserve to be fucking happy.
The anger part doesn’t last long because he realizes Sirius would agree.
He proposes to Tonks and then realizes he needs to start calling her something else. He settles on Dora. Truth be told he likes Tonks more, but it no longer seems appropriate. Tonks has more money than him and he know it’s ridiculous to feel upset at this, to subscribe to these outdated roles of who the breadwinner should be, but Remus has always been proud even when he had no cause to be. He always used to refuse Sirius’ ridiculously lavish gifts until Sirius angrily told him to stop being a selfish git, it’s a fucking gift, Remus, accept it. Remus has always hated being poor and he was always upset whenever a situation arose that reminded him that he was. But they didn’t really have time for that, now. No time to worry about how your wife is the one keeping a roof over your head when your friends are dropping like flies. Besides, he thinks bitterly, it was ridiculous to worry about his manhood being questioned when a year and a half ago he’d had his dick up another man’s ass.
When Tonks gets pregnant he freaks the fuck out and runs away and he’s not fucking proud. When he apparatus away from his pregnant wife he can see Sirius’ face in front of him, angry and disappointed, you were never a coward, Moony, and he thinks he might be going mad.
Harry tears him a new asshole when he sees him and he realizes, realizes that he’s the spitting image of his father, but he’s Lily Evans through and through. He slinks home with his tail between his legs (figuratively) and when Dora sees him she hexes him immediately. He knocks his head and when he wakes up there’s tentacles on his face.
“I deserved that.”
She doesn’t answer, just glares at him over her pregnant belly.
“I… well, I wanted to say sorry. I’m sorry, Dora, I am, I just… I honestly thought you would be better off. I have made you an outcast, and… and what if…” He can’t even finish that sentence. It’s hard to talk with tentacles on your face but he decides he’ll wait until she decides he deserves to have them removed, if she ever does.
“And you thought growing up without a father would be better?”
“What if… what if he’s…”
“He won’t be.”
“But what if?”
“Then there’s nothing we can do about it now. And if he was, wouldn’t it be better to have a father who understands?”
(Remus never really clues in on the fact that they have started calling the baby he without any evidence to support that claim, but Tonks seems to just know and so he goes along with it.)
Remus doesn’t say anything, because she’s right.
“Remus… Remus, does this have anything to do with him?”
“No.” He doesn’t even have to think about it, because it doesn’t. She looks relieved.
“Dora, I’m sorry. Believe me I am. I hated myself for what I did to you and I hate myself for how I dealt with it. I’m sorry. I love you.”
She stares at him before spinning on her heel and walking away. He’s motionless until she says, “Fix your face, you look ridiculous,” so he does, padding after her like a scolded child.
The next few months are a blur to him. His son is born and he realizes that every feeling of love he has ever felt pales in comparison to how he feels when he looks at Teddy for the first time. Everything in his life, he thinks, has led up to this moment, this tiny little thing with brown hair –
Wait, blue hair.
Green?
Yellow?
“Well. At least he’s not a werewolf.”
“Or he’ll just be an incredibly colourful werewolf.”
He kisses her and she’s sweaty and it smells like child birth, which Remus didn’t previously know was a smell but now that he knows he desperately wises to go back to not knowing. But everything is still kind of perfect, and a fire is lit in his heart that hasn’t been there since Sirius died, but a fire greater than anything he had ever felt before.
He will fight. They will win. His son will grow up in a world without Voldemort.
He fights. They win. His son will grow up in a word without Voldemort. But he will not be there.
Remus Lupin’s life was split into two.
The first part is called Sirius, the second is called Tonks. Remus always gets too attached to people, maybe because he had spent most of his childhood thinking he would always be alone. Remus is a lover, despite fighting all of his life.
When he dies he sees these parts of his life. He sees Sirius and everything hurts, but that might just be death. Sirius is smiling and kissing him, he’s 14 and Sirius’ harmless flirting that was anything but harmless. Years of trying to convince himself, no, you’re not in love with him, idiot. And then a drunken kiss, no, Sirius, that doesn’t count, and a sober kiss the morning after, what about that, does that count? Kissing, always kissing, but never enough kissing.
He never got to kiss Sirius enough.
He relives Sirius and then he relives Tonks. Her face when he told her to leave, a year of what’s wrong with Tonks and knowing it’s me, I’m what’s wrong with Tonks. He didn’t get to kiss Tonks enough, either. Not nearly enough kissing in his life. Tonks beside him, Tonks’ hair turning different colours, how surprised he was when he found out her pubic hair changed to match. Tonks’ glowing face as she held their son.
Two parts of his life, Sirius and Tonks. Two parts and an epilogue. The epilogue is his son. Teddy eclipses them all.
He thinks, oh no. He thinks, this can’t be happening. He thinks, I wonder if Tonks is still alive. He thinks, I hope I see Sirius again. He deeply hopes Tonks survived. He feels a great wave of shame and unbearable pain at the thought of his son, and he prays that Tonks will be there with him, to watch him grow and tell stories of his dad, Remus Lupin, a decent guy who defined his life by love.
He thinks, I love you Sirius.
He thinks, I love you Dora.
He thinks, I love you the most, Teddy.
He closes his eyes (were they open in the first place?). There will be time to deal with the politics of death but Remus Lupin has been tired for 37 years. It’s time to sleep.
Maybe when he opens his eyes he’ll be with Sirius. Maybe. But for now he wants some sleep.
Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the scary werewolves bite.
Bit late for that, don’t you think?
Eh. Semantics.
Sirius for god's sake stop talking and go to sleep.
Goodnight, my moonshine. Sleep tight. Don’t let the Sirius bite.
Now that I won’t complain about.