Fic: those who thrive when days are bleak for rhye

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Title: those who thrive when days are bleak
Author/Artist: liseuse
Recipient: rhye
Rating: PG13, but only because of the swearing.
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): None
Word count: 2,050
Summary: The older you get, the more you're away, the less home feels like home, except in all the ways it remains home.
Notes: Dear, rhye, I hope you enjoy this interpretation of your prompt (probably more the wildcard one than #3, if I'm being honest). All my thanks go to my wonderful beta, wildestranger, and any remaining mistakes are mine and mine alone. The title is from Alan Hartley's poem 'Winter in Bishopdale'.



Remus leaned his head on the window, thinking about the slide of the landscape into the familiar moorland and dry stone walls, how they’d changed into something different. He remembered when they meant homecoming, the comforting sound of the conductor announcing that they were now arriving at Mytholmyroyd, the next station stop is Mytholmroyd, and the overstuffed settee in the back sitting room. He’d been nine when they’d moved from the stone farmhouse perched up on Cragg Vale, down to terraced streets which had never stopped feeling strange. And now the horrible flat, with the stupid sticky lock and the sink that kept backing up was more home than 9, Banksfield Road ever had been. But the streets were wrong, and the landscape wasn’t right, and somehow, even in the middle of the worst year of his life, and oh, he laughed inside, wasn’t there a fucking competition for that, he felt his heart lift up at the sight of the moor and the sound of his fellow passengers.

‘Where are we?’ Sirius yawned into his shoulder. ‘We must be nearly there.’ He sounded tired to the bone, huddled in his leather jacket.

‘Just leaving Sowerby Bridge, another five minutes or so,’ Remus said. ‘Nearly at the bright lights.’

‘Oh, good,’ Sirius said, sitting up and stretching. His back clicked alarmingly and he winced as his shoulder pulled. ‘Don’t start,’ he said quietly, ‘it’s fine.’

‘It’s not fine.’ Remus shrugged. ‘Fine describes absolutely fucking nothing right now.’ He caught the disapproving look from the woman opposite him, and smiled apologetically.

‘Okay,’ Sirius said, ‘my shoulder isn’t fine right now, but it will be.’ He ran his fingers through his hair and, in a deliberately jaunty tone of voice, carried on, ‘are there actually bright lights in Mytholmroyd?’ He said Mytholmroyd carefully, like it might be a spell and bring something dreadful once spoken aloud. ‘Because from what Lil’ told me, there’s not much to recommend it.’

‘Lily is from Stalybridge and can keep her trap shut,’ Remus said. ‘We’ve got streetlights. Running water. Even electricity.’

‘One up on the flat then,’ Sirius said wryly. ‘If you grow up in the north do you get special lessons in grumpily defending your place of birth from people born, oh, about thirty miles away.’

‘Yes.’ Remus stood up and dragged their bags down. ‘Starts in primary school, you have to pass an exam before they let you take the eleven plus.’

--

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Remus said, shaking Mr Whelan’s hand.

‘Thanks, lad,’ Mr Whelan said. ‘We didn’t know if you’d be able to make it. Your da’ said he thought you might be caught up.’

‘Managed to get some time off. Dad says he’ll be along later.’ Remus smiled tightly before holding his hand out for Mrs Whelan to shake.

‘Oh, Remus,’ Mrs Whelan said, ‘don’t be dafter than you can help.’ She batted his hand away and pulled him into a hug. ‘Thank you for coming. I know you and Bat weren’t so close the past few years but, oh,’ she broke off, crying into her sleeve.

Remus pulled a handkerchief out of his suit pocket, ‘Here. Take this.’ He squeezed her shoulder tightly before extricating himself and heading for where Sirius was stood, trying not to lean on the church wall. ‘Fucking hell,’ he sighed, leaning back. ‘You’d think I’d be used to this. We’ve been to, what, eight funerals this year?’

‘I think you start worrying when you get used to it,’ Sirius said, pressing his shoulder to Remus’s.

Remus pressed back and then rummaged through his coat pockets for his cigarettes. ‘I’ll hold you to that.’ He lit two and inhaled slowly, head tipped back to the sky. ‘Least we’re all expecting to die. Bat crossed the road wrong one night.’

‘Maybe that’s how we should start fighting this war.’ Sirius exhaled, watching the smoke curl into the grey afternoon. ‘No more spells. Just articulated lorries.’ He turned to face Remus, ‘Come on. Take me to say hello to your mother.’

They walked slowly around the church, Remus nodding at people and stopping occasionally to shake hands and accept soggy hugs, his shoulders ratcheting ever higher with every ‘my it’s nice to see you, don’t get back much do you. That London treating you okay?’ until they finally made it to the graveyard, averting their eyes from the freshly piled earth.

‘Hello, mum.’ Remus stopped to pull a few weeds from in front of the gravestone. ‘Sorry I haven’t been in a while. It’s been a bit of a horrible year. I brought someone to say hello. This is Sirius, you remember, from school. Yes, the one who got me into all that trouble.’

Sirius raised an eyebrow and crouched down. ‘Hello, Mrs Lupin. Don’t believe a word your son says, I only ever ended up in trouble with him. And it was mostly of his own devising. Apart from that incident with the exploding butter dishes, but I got that idea from you.’ He smiled softly at Remus, ‘It’s true, you know, she did. Over Easter lunch.’

Remus laughed, and sent a soft imperturbo around them, slipping his hand into Sirius’s. ‘I’m not surprised, she always was a firecracker, my mum.’ He leaned one hand on the gravestone, stroking his hand over the letters. ‘Right, best get back. You ready for a lot of dreadful singing and a priest who knows nothing about the deceased?’

‘I am always ready for bad singing,’ Sirius declared, standing up and stretching. ‘I thought that Bat was an altar boy? Surely Father McManus must know something about him?’

‘Father McManus is new,’ Remus said wryly. ‘Father Kenny was the one that knew us all, but he died two years ago. I don’t think Father McManus ever saw Bartholomew in person. He’ll just have Sheila’s word to go on, and don’t trust her view of her angelic boy as far as you could throw it in a strong wind.’

Sirius’s smile had a hard edge to it. ‘It’s not even in the same realm as being a good comparison, but that does rather remind me of hearing about how lovely, and charming, and gentle, Regulus had been. Perhaps when he was a child, but definitely not by the time he died. Fucking hell, but we eulogise people into different memories.’

‘We really do,’ Remus said heavily. ‘My mother was a lovely woman, and I miss her, but she wasn’t the saint that Father McManus talked about, and that dad keeps remembering. She shouted and she swore, and she threw the kitchen radio at him once. But he won’t think about that. Just talks about her as if she’d never got on his nerves, not once.’ He checked the imperturbo and slid his hand back into Sirius’s. ‘I promise, if you die during this sodding war, that I will tell the whole world how much you annoyed me, how often I wanted to throw a radio at your head, all your bad habits, and how much I loved you.’

‘How much you loved me anyway?’ Sirius asked, squeezing Remus’s fingers tightly.

‘No.’ Remus said, looking him straight in the eyes. ‘How much I loved you. I mean, I might not use those exact words. Depends who ends up coming to the service. Don’t want to further ruin my chances of gainful employment, after all, but even if I don’t say it, exactly like I’d want to, please, please, know that that’s what I mean.’

‘I’ll know,’ Sirius said, ‘no matter where I am, I’ll know.’ He flicked his wand, bursting the spell. ‘Rightio, come on. Introduce me to everyone. Especially that ravishing blonde in the purple coat. She looks like she knows where the best sherry is hidden.’

--

‘Buggering hell, it’s cold in here,’ Sirius said, his teeth chattering as they stepped into the kitchen. ‘Not believe in heating, your father?’

Remus shook his head, lazily waving his wand at the hearth. ‘Doesn’t believe in very much these days, my dad. Set yourself down in front of the fire, I’ll fill the kettle.’

‘Set yourself down,’ Sirius said, mockingly. ‘Spend more than an hour with your townsfolk, Remus John Lupin, and you get very Northern indeed.’

‘Set thissen ‘d be’t reet way to say it,’ Remus glowered, ‘and you’ve got no room to talk. Shove you and Andromeda in a room and you cut your fucking selves on the accent.’ He shoved at the tap, cursing before tapping it viciously with his wand. ‘I keep telling him to get Sandeep in, fix this bloody tap before the whole system goes. Mother of Christ.’ He filled the kettle, setting it on top of the stove. ‘At least the gas is working.’

Sirius wandered over to stand by the stove, bumping Remus’s hip. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I just sometimes forget that this is where you come from. In my head you start existing as a scruffy eleven year old, on a stool.’

Remus slumped forward, bracing his hands on the countertop edge. ‘I know,’ he said into his forearm. ‘It’s just being back here, seeing everything that’s happened since I last came back. My dad’s barely a person, Mrs Whelan’s had her whole life destroyed, and I can’t even tell anyone what I’m doing. They think I went off to some fancy public school. Sirius, I work in a greengrocer’s, and I can’t tell them that because it’ll just prove that they were right, and then Mr and Mrs Cartwright won’t let Dave go off to grammar school, because what’s the fucking point, if Remus Lupin who got into that fancy school can’t get a proper fucking job.’ His voice cracked as the kettle started whistling. ‘God, it’s all such a fucking mess.’

‘Come here,’ Sirius said, ducking under Remus’s arm, slipping between him and the counter, fastening an arm around his waist. ‘Come here, you bloody big-hearted idiot. Forget the tea. Let’s go upstairs.’

Remus sagged forward, head on Sirius’s shoulder. ‘Okay,’ he said, into Sirius’s coat. ‘Okay.’

--

The next and final stop is London King’s Cross, London King’s Cross where this train terminates.

Sirius ruffled Remus’s hair, ‘Wake up, we’re nearly in the station.’ He smiled down at Remus, whose hair needed a cut and who had dark circles under his eyes. ‘Nearly home, moonshine.’

‘Don’t call me that,’ Remus yawned into his shoulder. ‘’S not funny.’ He rolled his neck, wincing as it clicked, and sat up slowly.

‘It’s fucking hilarious,’ Sirius said. ‘You get this pinched expression every single time.’ He stood to get their bags down. ‘Ready to get back to the sticky front door?’ There was something hesitant in his expression, as if he expected Remus to say that no, he was going to get on the next train back north. ‘I mean, it’s not much, but we’ve got running water.’

Remus laughed. ‘Careful, I’ll swoon,’ he said before bumping his shoulder to Sirius’s hip. ‘Thanks. I know a funeral isn’t the best fun you could have had this week.’

‘Anything for you, moonshine,’ Sirius said, his tone mocking enough to fool anyone listening in. ‘Besides, what else would I have done with my week off?’

‘Gone and got drunk with James? Played endless games of pool with Peter?’ Remus suggested, leaning out of the train window for the door catch as they pulled into the platform. ‘Hassled Lil’ into feeding you?’

‘Nonsense,’ Sirius said as they stepped onto the platform. ‘None of that’s any fun without you around. Can’t play pool with this buggered shoulder, anyway. Pete’d have won, and he’s insufferable when he wins.’ He shouldered his bag and waited for a convenient break in the stream of passengers, before stepping sideways into a shadowy nook. ‘Come on, let’s just apparate home. I’m fucking knackered.’

‘All right,’ Remus yawned, tipping his head to one side, ‘wait for the woman in the blue coat to go past and then we’re clear.’ He leaned solidly into Sirius, and shoved his hand into Sirius’s coat pocket, before brushing a kiss over his cheek. ‘You do know you’re home, right? I know those streets, that accent, but you, you’re home.’

‘I know,’ Sirius said, a little sadly, and a little far away, before apparating them both away with a small, subdued, crack.

Comments

[mutuisanimis.livejournal.com]

Gods, your prose is gorgeous. I can't even begin to point out all the little things in here that made me swoon. I guess the best catch-all is to say that both your boys felt very real, and there was legit banter but also tired auto/routine banter, and Remus struggling with the notion of home is perfect. Plus his worries about what will happen if people know about his life... Guh, it all kills me in the perfect way. Thank you for sharing!

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for this lovely comment! I am very happy that it worked for you and that the different types of banter came across. I was so worried about them!

[museinabsentia.livejournal.com]

This is simply breathtaking. It felt so very real, the pain, but also simply the drain of life during the war. It was so wonderful to see how they are with each other, not just during the good times, or the times when things are bad between them, but when it's simply bad all around them and how they are each others' comfort. You could feel the weariness, and wariness, that life was forcing on them.

Oh, and this: Sirius wandered over to stand by the stove, bumping Remus’s hip. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I just sometimes forget that this is where you come from. In my head you start existing as a scruffy eleven year old, on a stool.’

Sometimes I think we all fall into that trap, and it's nice to see Sirius being aware of it. Just lovely all around.

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading, and for this lovely comment. It is really easy to just start thinking of them as popping into life at eleven, and I'm so intrigued by their lives up until that point and how much going to school changes them.

[brighty18.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was beautiful and moving! Your gorgeous prose feels incredibly natural and you introduce new characters as naturally as if they were old canon friends.

I felt for Remus here.
I felt for Sirius.

This was a simply lovely (albeit sad) slice of life that felt so very real and honest that I can't get it out of my mind.

Wonderful.

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Aww, thank you for such a nice comment! I am very happy that the new characters weren't a distraction from the story. I always try to incorporate other characters into my fic, but usually they're actual canon characters, and I was kind of nervous about trying to write a sense of history for Remus into this because it required entirely original characters in small amounts.

[flaminia-x.livejournal.com]

Stunning -- so much said in so little. Really, there's such a depth of emotion here, you can feel the back story as palpable in the space as anything else. It's so visual, so visceral, that you can't help but be in both of their shoes, somehow simultaneously, and it is raw and cutting and bleak and hopeful and sweet. And there's this: "Fucking hell, but we eulogise people into different memories." Lovely.

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this wonderful comment! I made myself very sad whilst writing it, so it is nice to hear that the visceral air of it is coming through for other people. Umm, that makes me sound horrible (suffer, readers, suffer!), but you know what I mean!

[mindabbles.livejournal.com]

This is just gorgeous. The descriptions and the sense of place are like a painting. It's melancholy in the best way. The relationship between Remus and Sirius is lovely. The idea of what is home was explored so beautifully. Thank you for this!!

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I really enjoyed describing the landscape and place, and may have based it entirely on my own journeys back home from university and the sliding into relief and comfort that Sheffield brought. Thank you for reading!

[dogsunderfoot.livejournal.com]

This is gorgeous!

It's sad and lovely in its sadness. But, more than anything, it's so realistic. It feels like the boys, or how I've always thought they might be. The banter, the tenderness, the cursing, the jokes, the ability to be tired and bitter with each other... All there, showing they loved each other very much.

Well done!

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for this lovely comment! I love writing Remus and Sirius in these tentative moments and days, just before everything completely falls apart but slightly after it's all love and fun in the summer sunshine, so it is nice to see that it works for people reading, as well as inside my head!

[cevennes.livejournal.com]

How beautiful this is, oh my gosh. There's such a sense of place and place tied to emotion here that I found myself smiling and my heartstrings twinging within the same sentence sometimes! (Possibly, there's a word for that and I just can't think of what it is.) I love the way you've woven this story around death, but not only the pain of it--the way you've conveyed the memories (good and bad), and the love and introspection and even the hope that can blossom with it is honestly incredible, not to mention your writing is 500% gorgeous.

Their whole dynamic here was such a joy to read, touching and funny and poignant all at once, and that ending is going to stick with me for a long, long time; I love Remus' concept of home and how he arrives there. Basically: This is astounding.

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for this lovely lovely comment! There's probably a German compound noun for it, but, alas, I don't speak German, so we shall just have to wonder.

I am so glad that you enjoyed it, and thank you for reading and commenting.

[peskywhistpaw.livejournal.com]

Just really, really lovely all around.

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

This is stunning. I just, I completely adore it. I love how textured and real you make Remus's northern childhood; I love the way you evoke grief, and home, and how important going home can be; and oh, my heart broke so much for Remus on "Remus Lupin, who got into that fancy school". And yet, they love each other - not, love each other anyway, but just, they love each other. Thank you so much for this, it's really made my morning.

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I found writing about Remus's childhood really sad and emotional, probably because I based bits of it on mine, and on my mother's, and on people I know's (although none of us, I hasten to add, were ever bitten by a werewolf). So I am very glad that it is working for the reader!

[escribo.livejournal.com]

That was beautiful and sad and completely lovely. I really enjoyed your writing.

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I am very happy that you enjoyed it!

[bearshorty.livejournal.com]

So lovely. You really captured the feeling of coming back to a familiar landscape but a place that is not yours anymore. There was a meditative quality to this piece that I enjoyed. And I really liked your Remus, slipping into his accent, a bit rough around the edges. And the comfort Sirius could provide.

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Writing it made me slightly melancholy because I was thinking back to coming home from university, and watching the landscape change through the train windows, and slipping back into my accent and relaxing, but knowing how much you've changed, so it's lovely to read that it works for the reader.

[onehundredmoons.livejournal.com]

Really wonderful! I especially enjoyed the scene at Remus' mother's gravestone. There is a lot of appeal for me of injecting humor to the darkest times. Happy Holidays, Liseuse!

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Thank you! What's a funeral without some terrible jokes? (Really odd, as I found out last year at a Chapel funeral.) Happy Holidays to you!

[rhye.livejournal.com]

Sorry I am so late commenting! I saw this and read it when it was posted but with two small kids it took me half a day to give a proper read and it's been a busy weekend! I really loved it. I don't know if it's fandom's collective headcanon or what, but my Remus has always been a Northerner as well so I was happily surprised to see you chose that for him too. I really did love your use of my wild card prompt. Landscape and locale have always been a muse to me and you captured that essence to perfectly. People are a product of the places they have been. I love this:

"‘If you grow up in the north do you get special lessons in grumpily defending your place of birth from people born, oh, about thirty miles away.’"

This was a charming yet sad and realistic look at those early war days, thank you so much! ♥

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Heh, no worries! It's a busy time of the year, especially with children around! I am so so happy that you enjoyed this and that it fitted your sense of your wildcard prompt. I have always imagined Remus as a Northerner - possibly because I'm a Northerner and I felt slightly insistent in my head that there should be some people from north of Watford Gap.

I am really glad that you like that line. I sort of stole it from a conversation I had with someone. My mother is from Stalybridge, and I was born in Yorkshire, and lo, it is a family feud about which is better, Lancashire or Yorkshire, and someone I know was boggling how a very small stretch of land can cause such ructions.

[laroseminuit.livejournal.com]

You never fail to impress and once again, this is beautiful. You struck a perfect bittersweet balance between humor and sadness.

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! I am really glad that you enjoyed it.

[huldrejenta.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was absolutely wonderful! Even though this captures a sad and grey time in their lives, reading this made me glad anyway, because it's done so beautifully, and your prose is anything but sad and grey!
There are so many things about this that I love, and one of them is how real it all is, how their talk about accents and eulogies and Remus not being able to tell people what he's doing, make them stand out like such real people with real problems and real issues and real fear. And real love.

Gorgeous story!

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this lovely comment! I am really happy that you enjoyed it!

I find it fascinating thinking about the cover stories that Muggleborns must have to concoct and somehow stick to, and how separated their lives become.

[youcantseeus.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness, this was lovely! I'm such a sucker for fics that evoke Remus's childhood and this one does that in such a believable way. There's such a firm sense of place here that I think you don't get with many fics and your writing is beautiful. This fic feels so real -- partly because of the firmly grounded setting, but also partly because of the tone which has this sharp edge, but never goes too far and never becomes melodramatic. I feel for both characters in this fic.

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Awww, thank you for this lovely comment! I am really happy that the sense of place worked for you. I have a steadfast headcanon about Northern Remus - partly out of Northern solidarity - but this isn't my bit of Yorkshire, so I was worried I wasn't going to be able to evoke it as tangibly as I wanted.

[woldy]

This is really sweet and there are so many great insights: the way memories get sanitized after people die, and the difficulty of going home, and the awkwardness of social class transitions. I love your depiction of Remus, and their gentle jibes at each other.

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I was thinking about how my family completely sanitised who my grandmother was after she died, and the newly reverential way they started to talk about her, and then I started thinking about how Remus and Sirius are going to be seeing that over and over again. These people they knew through school, who had sharp edges and did stupid things, being turned into saints.

[the-realduck.livejournal.com]

What a beautiful work, I loved the painful parts and how you portrayed their relationship. They are exactly what I imagine they to be, with the banter and the swearing, but still bringing each other comfort. So great!

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for this lovely comment! I always have a lot of fun writing the banter and the swearing, and it's always good to know that other people appreciate it!