Fic: Coming Home for gryffindorj

[mustntgetmy.livejournal.com]

Title: Coming Home
Author/Artist: mustntgetmy
Recipient: gryffindorj
Rating: NC-17
Contents or warnings (highlight to view): *Anal sex, blowjobs, handjobs, aggressive sex, biting, very, VERY slight bloodplay. Also, there's some angst with a happy ending.*
Word count:3,867
Summary: Sirius goes to lie low at Lupin's, only to discover that Remus's house is actually their old house - and that there have been some unfortunate changes to the decor.
Notes: If you look at it one way it's a PWP, but if you look at it another it's a really dirty tour of a house. My apologies for the juvenileness of the title. I couldn't resist. Happy holidays, gryffindorj! Hope you enjoy.



“Lie low at Lupin’s,” Dumbledore said, and sent Sirius away with directions that should’ve set long buried memories alight. But as he ran partway cross the country as Padfoot, the steady pounding of his paws against the grass his only road music, the names of the village and lane he was headed for held no meaning for him apart from that they were his destination. It was embarrassingly late – not until he bounded down the last lane, in fact – that he started to recognize his surroundings. He scented poplar trees and dandelions, sodden teabags in the garbage bins, old but still potent spills of motor oil on the pavement, azaleas coming into bloom, years old fall leaves softly rotting in the gutters, the particular smell wool jumpers get when they’re only worn on one person’s skin, the particular smell of said person’s skin – he scented home.

He slowed to a halt in front of the cottage – his cottage, their cottage – and figured that Azkaban must’ve done something to his memory. How could he hear the name of this village and this street without understanding their importance to him? It had to be Harry if it wasn’t Azkaban’s fault. He’d been thinking of how close his godson had come to dying in the Tournament every mile of the way here. Then, of course, there was the fact that Voldemort was back. That could’ve been why he didn’t remember. A lot had happened. A lot was about to happen.

But these were just excuses, thin and transparent as the ones he’d given Remus to get him into bed for the first time. (“It’s so cold tonight! My feet are freezing. Come into the bed, Moony, won’t you? Warm me up.”) He hadn’t let himself remember because it hurt too much to think about the last place he’d been happy. And it hurt, too, to think of how much this place – and its wool jumper obsessed occupant – might’ve changed since he’d been away.

He crept to the door, which he could tell had recently been repainted, and scratched at it a little harder than necessary. Paint chips flecked away beneath his nails and he was so intent on doing the door damage that he almost fell into Remus’s legs when Remus finally opened the door. “Come in, come in,” Remus said hurriedly, his gaze on the lane, and Sirius remembered that they were at war again. He scurried through the door, his tail tucked between his legs, and turned back into himself the moment Remus snapped the door shut. Remus immediately moved to embrace him in what was clearly a thank-Merlin-you-and-Harry-are-alright hug and Sirius gave him an answering pat on the shoulder, too struck by the sight of the sitting room to enjoy the feeling of Remus pressed against his chest.

The couch, he thought, thunderstruck, his eyes widening. He got rid of our couch.

Said couch had been burgundy-colored, secondhand, and the first piece of furniture they had bought together. They had slept on it for two solid weeks, as their increasingly complex Order duties ensured that they had little time to go bed shopping. Sirius would wake up from feverish dreams, sweaty from having slept so close to Remus all night, his cock half hard against Remus’s ass. It was summertime and they both slept naked; it was sinful how easy it was to grab hold of so much of Remus, to tweak his nipples, lick his neck, to stroke his fingers along the insides of his thighs until Remus stirred from his own steamy dreams with a moan, so eager for Sirius’s cock he didn’t even open his mouth for kisses. “Don’t stop,” he’d moan. “Don’t you dare fucking stop.” The couch was small and quick to become soaked through with their sweat, and Sirius pistoned his hips faster and faster, pulling Remus’s head back by his hair to bite his throat and see that he hadn’t opened his eyes. “D’you think you’re dreaming?” he’d huff into Remus’s ear, stilling his movements expressly because Remus had told him not to. “Terrible fucking dream if I am,” Remus said, trying to push back and get Sirius to move. Remus would groan out of frustration and wriggle and gasp, but there was a smile on his lips. He was no fool. He knew telling Sirius not to do something only invited him to do it. He’d bare his teeth, huffing, and straining – he so loved being teased. Would do anything to eke out a few more moments of mindless pleasure. Anything, that is, except begging. Begging was Sirius’s domain.

He practically started begging Remus now, wanting to know why he’d gotten rid of the couch and replaced it with two ugly colored armchairs. (And why two armchairs? Had someone else been living here?) But before he could say a word about the furniture changes Remus backed away from him and said, “Would you like some tea?” His gaze flicked over Sirius’s body, taking in his skinniness. “And maybe something to eat?”

It had been days since he’d had a proper meal and the thought of food was too great to resist, so he nodded and followed Remus into the kitchen. Or rather, he followed Remus to the threshold of the kitchen, where he stopped dead, his every sense assaulted by change. Gone were the disturbingly orange curtains in the windows and the worn cupboards with their tiny brass knobs. The refrigerator was new, as were the table and chairs. The walls, once painted a dull yellow that had been mottled by the heavy smoking habit of the previous occupant, were now a cool, mint green.

“Had a grease fire get out of control a while ago,” Remus said, his voice as sedate as the new color of the walls. He set out a teacup for Sirius. “Happened two, three years ago, I think.”

“Shame,” Sirius said, trying not to let on how much the sight of this room upset him. Towards the end, when they slept apart and days without rows were rare as Demiguise, the kitchen was where they had spent their last good moments together. They’d sit with each other while they drank their tea, close but not touching, their silence embracing each other, so closely poised on the edge of apology that their throats were already choked tight with forgiveness. Every daydream Sirius had ever had of reconciliation had involved this room.

Sirius felt hollowed out as Remus set a cup of tea in front of him. He curled his fingers around the cup and the moment the tea touched his lips he felt a double burst of warmth shoot through him: he saw something in the kitchen that had not changed.

The door to the cellar where Remus transformed was still unpainted, still adorned with several variously sized padlocks. Immediately, Sirius recalled the sound those locks made when they rattled. Remus had backed him up against that door, his lips hot on his throat and his hands tight around his waist, too many times for him to ever forget. He’d fall to his knees, shamelessly whimpering endearments and pleas, desperate for his cock. This was where he had done most of his begging. (“Please. I need you. I’ll do anything. Please.”) This was where they went in the hour before the full moon, when Remus was more animal than the wolf he was about to turn into. He’d bite into Sirius, make him scream, use his tongue to soothe the hurt. Remus’s mouth was magic just before the moon - the wet heat of him around Sirius’s cock, the way his tongue swirled around the head, lapping up every drop of precum. There would be times when he’d forget the danger of the moonrise, when they’d only make it down to the cellar seconds before the transformation because Remus would turn him over when the blowjob was through and fuck him so hard Sirius would forget that the name Remus was panting into his ear was his own. He’d find his own bruises from the wolf the following morning, and he even had a few pale scars from a time when Remus dug his nails hard down his back when he came. He’d kissed the blood away right afterwards and then fucked Sirius again, both of them facing the door, the slamming of Remus’s hips and the swelling of Remus’s cock the only parts of him touching Sirius, his movements rough and pounding. And yet because this was Remus at his most unbound, his most unguarded, this was also the only time when Sirius would hear any tenderness from him. “You’re mine,” he’d growl and purr. “You’re perfect and you’re mine.” The moon would be moments away and his voice would change, turn rasping and sweet. “I’m yours,” he’d whisper. “Yours, always. Even now. Even when I don’t remember myself. I lose myself but I don’t lose you.” There were no “I love you’s” – Sirius could count on one hand how many times Remus had actually said that to him – but it was there in his eyes as he changed. The wolf took him over, bowed his back, broke his bones, made him mad with bloodlust, but in the glow of his eyes there was softness when he looked at Sirius. He’d bowl Padfoot over, nip lightly at his ears and let out contented sighs just as he had done only moments before the moon. Sirius would go belly up again, a delayed response that meant, yes, I’m yours.

Sirius smiled at the memory and then gave Remus a pained look. The new table was bigger than their old one and it almost felt like they weren’t even sitting together. Remus misinterpreted Sirius’s sigh and brought Sirius back to reality by asking, “Is it true? Is Voldemort back?”

Something must’ve definitely happened to his mind if he had been able to forget about Voldemort’s return for even an instant. He cleared his throat and told Remus what had happened to Harry in the maze and that Dumbledore was planning to reunite the Order. Remus nodded when Sirius stopped speaking, his calm expression disturbed only by the slightest trembling around his lips.

They were silent while Sirius ate. Remus’s expression was set in such a way that Sirius knew he was thinking about the last time Voldemort had rose to power. Meanwhile, Sirius’s thoughts had veered far away from anything resembling a Death Eater. He was wondering if someone had helped Remus pick out this new table and the color of the walls. Had someone cooked for him here, dared to touch their cellar door? Remus had been twenty-one when Sirius was arrested. It was idiocy to think that he had spent all these years without a bedmate.

Still, when the meal was done and Remus delicately suggested he use the shower, it was impossible for him not to feel hurt when he went into the bathroom and found two toothbrushes sitting side by side in a glass on the sink. How long had Remus been seeing this guy? he wondered. Had this new boyfriend been sent away on some pretext when Remus knew that Sirius would be coming? Sirius dwelled for so long on these and other questions that he barely noticed that the bathroom, much like the kitchen, had been almost entirely remodeled.

Remus set out a pair of his own pajamas for Sirius to wear; they were short on him and his ankles were cold. He was used to feeling chilled – courtesy of Azkaban and his subsequent weight loss – and felt grouchy when Remus turned a pitying look on him as he stood shivering in the middle of the sitting room.

“You should take the bed,” Remus said. “I’ve just put a warming charm on it.”

“I’ll be fine in here,” Sirius said, nodding to the sitting room. Even considering the fact that he wouldn’t be able to lay straight out in one of the armchairs it’d be the comfiest place he’d slept in a long, long while.

“Oh, no,” Remus said, “I insist.” There was a steeliness in his eyes that belied his mild tone. Sirius had argued with him enough times to know that there was no winning against his polite insistences, no matter how much he dreaded seeing the changes that had been made to their bedroom.

He was slow in making his way to the bedroom, thinking about all their nights there – some fast and rough, the pleasure and sense of each other the only thing that existed in the entire world, and others languid, a painstaking account made of each other’s body, exquisitely extended lessons in anatomy – and then all the mornings they’d woken up, sated and curled around each other. He wrapped his hand around the doorknob and could vividly imagine the way it used to feel when Remus would grab his arm on the brink of climax, the pain of his grip melding seamlessly into the pleasure of his release. He’d fall to the bed afterwards, exhausted, and somehow always managing to land in the exact same place. He’d reach out and nuzzle himself into all the warmest parts of Remus, and Remus, so spare with his affections in the afterglow, would run his fingers once or twice through Sirius’s hair. If Sirius could stay up long enough, if the satisfaction and bliss weren’t sufficient lullabies, he would be rewarded by the whisper of Remus’s lips against his temple and by the press of three short words into the hollow of his ear: “I love you,” Remus would say, and it was here in this room, and only here in this room, that he’d say it.

The door creaked open, the room beyond it dark. Sirius stood in shadows for a moment, feeling like this room was a net that had captured and held echoes of every sigh and gasp and moan and exclamation he had let out or drawn from Remus here. This place was the antithesis of Azkaban and its dementors. He had only ever been happy here; they had never argued here.

Sirius reached for the light switch, braced to see their bed replaced, the covers they had snuggled beneath long gone.

The light came on and Sirius blinked. Everything – the bed, the covers, the nightstand where Remus kept his books and Sirius his crosswords – was the same. Sirius stood stock still on the threshold, unbidden emotion rising up hot through his chest.

“I suppose you’re angry,” Remus said, and Sirius started and turned around. “You’re probably upset, thinking that I’ve been bringing people back to our bedroom – the one room that’s gone unchanged – all these years.”

Sirius took a step back. He felt as if Remus had hexed him with these words, though they had been the very sort of thing he’d just been thinking. He balled his hands into fists, feeling every muscle in his body go tight with hurt. “And have you?” he said through his teeth.

“Yes,” Remus said, in an infuriatingly calm tone of voice. “And no.”

Sirius frowned in confusion as Remus looked over his shoulder toward the sitting room and kitchen. He sighed, rubbed his eyes, and said, “Sirius, I haven’t been back here in a long time. Probably not since the first Christmas after James and Lily died. I couldn’t afford to live here. And I suppose even if I could have I…well. The point is, I’ve been renting this place out for years. That’s pretty much how I’ve been feeding and clothing myself since you’ve been away. I approved all the changes the tenants wanted to make because I always assumed I’d never come back here. When I came back a few weeks ago and saw all this…” He mimed a shudder. “I couldn’t believe it. It was like someone had come in and rearranged all my memories of our time here. Well. Not all my memories, I guess. It’s strange, isn’t it? No one dared to change the bedroom.” He offered Sirius a thin smile. “I didn’t mean to bring this up tonight. You’ve had a hard journey and what with everything else that’s going on I know that a few interior decorating changes aren’t the most important things in the world, but still. I saw you looking at the rooms the way I did and I thought you should know.”

Something trembled inside Sirius and he let out a shuddering breath. “You’re wrong,” he said quietly. “It is important.” He turned from Remus and looked back into the bedroom. “I never wanted you to have to be alone. But thinking about you here…” His throat stuck and he looked down at his bare ankles, hoping to master the surge of feeling that was threatening to overtake him.

“I know,” Remus said softly. “That was why I couldn’t stay. And why I couldn’t let this place go completely either. Because this was ours.”

Sirius looked up at him and for the first time since he’d come in he saw what was changed and unchanged in Remus. He was grayer, more lined around the eyes, and yet there was also a softer quality to him, something around his lips that suggested he might be a little freer with his “I love you’s.” His smile, though, as he looked at Sirius was utterly unchanged, and Sirius knew just how it would feel to press the crooked tilt of Remus’s lips against his own.

Sirius met his eyes last and hardly had time to register whether they’d changed or not because he saw that Remus was giving him the exact same sort of searching look. He grinned and struck a pose against the doorframe, knowing he must look preposterous with his out of control hair, bare ankles, and near skeletal weight. “See anything you like?” he joked.

Remus laughed. “Oh, I do,” he said, and to Sirius’s surprise he sounded earnest. “That was always my trouble with you.”

Remus smiled at him and he felt something in his chest give way. What an idiot he had been this entire day, being upset over repainted rooms and missing furniture, feeling like his home had been taken away from him. This house was only a house, just brick and paint and dust. It was Remus who had always been Sirius’s true home.

“Remus,” he said softly. “I don’t know how you expect me to stay in this room alone when you couldn’t.”

Remus let out a snort and shook his head. “You know,” he said, walking slowly toward Sirius, “for a clever bloke you always did have the worst pick-up lines. ‘My feet are cold.’ ‘I have an itch I can’t reach.’ ‘I can’t stay in here alone.’” He stopped mere inches away from Sirius and Sirius felt like every nerve ending on his skin was charged, primed for caresses and kisses and spine bowing pleasure. “Lucky for me your mouth was always better occupied with things besides talking,” Remus said, now so close that his breath glanced across Sirius’s skin. Sirius, unable to wait any longer, pulled Remus closer and kissed him. The taste of his lips was like a door swinging open, the feel of his chest pressed flat against Sirius’s was like stepping over the threshold, and his hands, rougher to the touch but grabbing Sirius the same way, were like the past rearranging itself into the present, a house still standing after all these years.

They kissed their way into their bedroom, kept the lights on as they fell to their bed, their clothes discarded in seconds. They were sweet with each other at first, Remus aware that it had been over a decade since Sirius had been touched gently. He trailed his fingers lightly up the underside of Sirius’s cock until Sirius bucked his hips urgently, desperate for him to go faster. Remus obliged him and whispered soothing nonsense as he came, his own hard-on pressed hotly against Sirius’s naked thigh. Sirius reached for him when he caught his breath, relished the way Remus’s eyes closed and his head fell back. Sirius watched hungrily as his cheeks went pink and he started to draw in quick, shallow breaths.

Sirius’s fingers were slick with precum when Remus pushed his hand away. “On your back,” he growled, and if Sirius hadn’t already been hard already those three words would’ve done the trick. He fell back, spread his thighs, watched as Remus got the lube and prepared himself. It took every ounce of strength Sirius had not to come the moment Remus slid himself down onto his cock, and it took still more strength not to scream in frustration as Remus moved slowly, almost painstakingly. Sirius felt on the brink of madness as he gasped, “Please, faster, Moony, please.” Remus laughed, the sound shuddery with pleasure. He bent to lick Sirius’s throat and whispered, “Of course, Padfoot. You know all you had to do was ask.”

He rolled his hips and Sirius was lost to the tempo and the heat and to how incredibly good it felt. He said things that may have been words or Remus’s name or just a string of mindless consonants. He heard his own name hissed into his ear as Remus clenched tight around him and then he was lost, toppling over into orgasm, his nails raking down Remus’s back, leaving fresh red marks among all the faded scars there.

He stared unseeingly at the ceiling for half a minute when he was done and Remus laughed at the look on his face and threw his arm across Sirius’s chest and started placing lazy kisses along the side of his face. “Well, well,” he said, when he had kissed up to Sirius’s temple. “Look at this.” He ran his fingers through the few strands of gray hair that were growing there.

“What? You think you’re the only one allowed to go gray?” Sirius asked, his voice hoarser than normal.

“Yes, actually,” Remus said. “I believe I even have it in writing somewhere.” He smiled at Sirius and then tucked his head underneath Sirius’s chin. “But in light of recent events I’m willing to forgo all previous contractual agreements.”

Sirius laughed, his eyes falling closed. “Good,” was all he managed to say when he tried to speak. Tiredness was sweeping over him as all-encompassingly as his pleasure just had. With Remus’s warmth pressed up against him he knew it wouldn’t be long until he fell asleep. It took some effort to draw his arm around Remus’s back and murmur, “Missed this. Missed you. Love you, Moony.”

He heard Remus sigh and shift on the bed and he felt certain that he wouldn’t be able to stay awake long enough to hear Remus respond. But it was only a second later that he felt Remus cup his hand around his cheek and press a kiss to his temple, and heard him speak loudly enough for every memory in the house to hear: “I love you, Sirius.”

Sirius grinned and was able to forestall sleep for another instant, long enough to pull Remus to him and allow the room to witness yet another kiss.

Comments

[gryffindorj.livejournal.com]

That was positively filthy and lovely. I will be back later with a real comment. But thank you!!!!

Back with a proper comment. Before I get into saying how much I enjoyed the hell out of this I want to say you never need to apologize to me for any "juvenile" joke. Juvenile humor is where I live and breath. I thought the title was brilliant.

Sorry if this is all over the place. I love top!Remus, and desperate Sirius. I love Remus being aggressive and fucking Sirius agains the door (OMG *bites fist* *dies*). I love the slow sex on the couch. I love the bedroom being completely the same. I love that Remus could read Sirius's reaction completely. The I love you parts got me. Which normally as a writer I shy away from those sort of declarations because they can easily be OTT so I commend you for 1) having in the fic and 2) doing it to perfection. It read so well and perfect and I loved it so much.

My favorite part out of all of it was this: “Well, well,” he said, when he had kissed up to Sirius’s temple. “Look at this.” He ran his fingers through the few strands of gray hair that were growing there.
There is so much about Sirius having grey hair that I love that you won me over with this. It is so brilliant and perfect.

The sex...unf. All of it. I loved how you were able to to wrap so many different sex scenes and different moods into one fic. That was fantastic.

I loved this and enjoyed this so much. THANK YOU!!!

[mustntgetmy.livejournal.com]

I'm so pleased you liked it - and enjoyed the blatantness of the title, like I did, ha ha. You said in your request that you liked smut, and I figured I should try as many different things as possible since everyone's tastes are different in that respect. Glad you enjoyed the door scene. I think that was my favorite :)

You are very welcome and I hope you have a wonderful holiday!!

(PS - great icon)

[cevennes.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I am the planet's biggest sucker for lie low at Lupin's-era fic and this is wonderful. There are so many great details about all the things that have and haven't changed with the years, and how tightly the house itself is tied to their memories; the moment Sirius realizes Remus is his real home is just gorgeous.

And all the emotion strung through this is amazing--everything's so new and raw for both of them still, but the fact that they work their way through some of that, and do it together, was so, so lovely to read; I especially loved Sirius' memories peppered throughout in contrast to the strangeness of the present, and then the joy of it. This is such a great time period to explore their changes and the shifts in their relationship as older people who have been through a whole lot both together and apart, and you did a fantastic job with them! It's gorgeous and bittersweet and it's got all the hope of good things to come, and I love it, completely.

[bearshorty.livejournal.com]

I loved the tour of the house through Sirius' memories of their lovemaking. (And what a fantastic job writing that!) I really felt for him. And the revelations that Remus wasn't the one to change the house, that he didn't let go either was so lovely. Such a great combination of angst and realism in this story. 

My favorite detail was Remus ' inability to say 'I love you' outside the bedroom and saying it easier at the end. That just really made Remus an even more complex person, if that makes sense.

This is a kind of story that I will reread several times and not just because of the awesome sex scenes.

[museinabsentia.livejournal.com]

Wow, I love how you managed to make such an incredibly hot tour of the house still so damned poignant. Just how lost Sirius was with all of the changes that he wasn't ready to deal with since he didn't really have a home left, and then to find out that Remus was just as upset about them, and why they happened and... just wow.

[brighty18.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is fabulous on myriad levels, not the least of which is that you created the perfect present for the equally-fabulous gryffindorj. Seriously man, you nailed this. Such a perfect combination of sexiness and sadness and raw, honest emotion.

I am yet another R/S shipper with a deep and abiding love for the "Lie Low at Lupin's" era and this story is a classic example as to why. You captured that curious of swirl of emotions so beautifully, allowing sex and angst, regret and forgiveness, curiosity and anxiety to mix with the looming, ever-present specter of Voldemort's return and the impending war. That's not an easy task, but you balanced it all well and spiced with exquisite writing.

This was just really, really good!

[huldrejenta.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was fantastic!
I love how the story has such a perfect flow, how all the memories and all the thoughts about the house fit so seemlessly together.
Very hot, very sweet, and at the same time very poignant. And I absolutely love the ending, it's perfect!

[flaminia-x.livejournal.com]

Stunning. I adore all of Sirius's remembrances, the tension in the air as he wonders what's happened over the years, Remus's ability still to read him so well that he knows what Sirius is thinking ... and a perfect ending, of course. So much love!

[magnetic-pole.livejournal.com]

Fabulous! I know I'm missing the point here a bit, but I love the way this story is structured around our memories of place. That's so important to me--it somehow makes everything more vivid, to tie the reunion to their shared memories of being in the same place. (And the line about the particular smell wool jumpers get when they’re only worn on one person’s skin will stay with me for a long time.) Enjoyed! M.

[laroseminuit.livejournal.com]

Oh you liar, that wasn't PWP that was emotionally evocative on a level with O Captain! My Captain! (uh... do not ask me why that is the first comparison to spring to mind).

I loved that Sirius remembered the scent of home, not the address.
Actually, that's a lie; I just loved all of this.

[the-realduck.livejournal.com]

I adore this, just everything. The whole mood you set was right on, and I especially loved the flashbacks. Lie low at Lupin's era is so great because of the painful past, and they way you worked that into the fic was perfect.

[liseuse.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is so heartbreakingly lovely! There is such an evocative feel to Sirius's distressed tour of the house, and all the changes, along with the memories of happier times. And I really enjoyed how you showed the changes in them both, after they've been through so much.

[toyhto-writes.livejournal.com]

Ah, loved this! Sadness and tragedy of that they had to be apart, Sirius feeling jealous of the thought of Remus living his life without him, and also the simple and warm reunion, everything in this fic just works so well together. It's like both a happy and sad story, without being too fluffy or too angsty. I definitely should read more fics written by you!