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Summary
Working with a partner is great! Working with an ex-partner is…a nightmare.
Written for Padfoot Fest 2025.
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Once Bitten
philadelphia12
https://archiveofourown.org/works/72675376/ -
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“Let’s say I learned to expand my opinion of you, in time,” Remus says. “I did admire your grit and your courage from the beginning, the sheer ease with which you seemed to do all the things that seemed so impossible to me.”
“Oh, now you’re just being silly,” Sirius protests, but with all the air of a stroked cat. “What else? What else did you like about me?”
“I liked how you appear completely frivolous in most aspects of your life, but then express your opinions rather proficiently, if the occasion calls for it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I liked how you never smoke a cigarette properly to its end… as though you can’t even be stopped for one more minute. I guess I envied your vigour, your strength. And I’m intrigued by how you seem to forever exist in the moment… you rarely ever seem to reflect upon anything you do or say.”
“You know, you pay the worst compliments out of anyone I know,” Sirius says. “But please, do go on.”
“It amazed me how, though blessed with all the gifts of wit and intellect, you would choose to use so little of them in your daily life.” Remus smiles at him. “I concluded it must be the effect of being all those things I never knew — joyful, charming, beautiful… It was clear you were the sort of man I could never be.”
“Pfft. You just wanted to be closer to my legs, admit it.”
A strand of hair has fallen into Sirius’s face. Remus reaches out to push it behind his ear. “But I think what amazes me most, to this day, is how you could have chosen to care for me, of all people.”
“You’re right,” Sirius replies glibly. “It remains a miracle.”
“Thanks.”
“Just, you know… considering how I’ve never had much care for any person. I just can’t muster the same interest in people you have. I’d never have the energy to agonize about what people think of me for hours and hours.”
“An enviable disposition.”
“I don’t know…” Sirius says thoughtfully. “Perhaps I just concluded early on that most people don’t care about you, and you’re better off not caring too much about people, either.”
He watches as Remus silently takes his hand and places a kiss on his fingers.
“I didn’t like anybody very much for a very long time, until finally, there was James, and now, you.” Sirius smiles. “So it is somewhat of a miracle.”
“I admit, sometimes it feels like I’m still in a dream,” Remus says quietly, clutching the nearly empty basket to his chest. “The sort of dream one suddenly, and harshly, wakes up from.”
Sirius stops him, shaking his head. “No dream,” he says, with a sly grin. “Or if it is, then at least I’m dreaming, too.”
He leans in for a kiss. Shortly, Remus pulls away, blinking at the sky.
Sirius’s face falls. “What?”
“I’m just… I’m just trying to take all of this in,” Remus says, still facing the sky. “I’m trying to preserve it, you know? One last memory - of you and me, together, our last summer before we all leave school. Who knows what will happen to us?”
Sirius grins. “Sap. I can tell you what will happen. Life.”
“Oh, come on, please. Just grant me this one memory?”
Sirius shakes his head affectionately. “It seems just like you, to prefer a memory over the actual thing. You always like to live in memories before the thing is even over.”
“I…” Remus tries to protest, but he knows Sirius is right.
“I mean, you always start moping long before Christmas because Christmas means that soon, another year will have ended.” Sirius puts his arm around Remus’s shoulder.
“Fine. Keep mocking me,” Remus replies. “Pretend that nothing affects you. It’s your trick, behaving as though you don’t care about a thing in the world. But I know you. I know you care just as much as I do.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. I know you like to pretend that beneath it all, there’s just an obsidian core at the depth of your heart.”
Remus leans in, his mouth close to Sirius’s ear now. “But I know what obsidian is made from. Do you?”
Sirius nods, his face buried so deep in Remus’s hair that it almost renders the movement imperceptible.
“It’s made from lava.”
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Bookmark Notes:
lovelyy
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Bookmark Notes:
Amazing story. Too tier bickering. Clever wrap up. Just loooooove love
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