FIC: Reliance for luminousgloom

[ghosttt.livejournal.com]

Title: Reliance
Author: ghosttt
Recipient: luminousgloom
Rating: PG-13
Contents and warnings (highlight to view): * language, sex offscreen, mentions of animal death *
Word Count: 578
Summary: Yukon Territory, 1876. Sirius comes back from a supply run.
Notes: This is a much-later and very brief sequel to my fic Desperado that takes place in that world (but this piece will definitely make sense if you have not read the longer story). I just could not resist it with the prompt "return after a long absence." I've always wanted to write something sappy and sweet in this verse because the original is so bleak and here it is. Thank you for bearing with me luminousgloom et al. Happy New Year!

Yukon Territory

December 1876

--

When Sirius came in the ring of light he glimpsed upon waking iridescent and crystalline like a moth’s wing illuminated a step into the room and the snowflakes sifting outside from the darkness. “Alright, Moony?” He leant his gun up against the inside wall and set the lantern upon the floor and the light cast golden through the room entire, everything they owned between the two of them and many things they didn’t but were trying very hard nevertheless to keep (the mountains through the window — the brushed-dirt floor and the smell of the pines).

“Alright,” said Remus from the bed, yawning halfway through.

“Got an elk.” Indeed when he came over to sit beside Remus and untie his boots he smelled like its blood, snow and metallic, wind and wild and velvet. “It’s too late now to do nothin more than gut it. But you can help me in the morning.”

“Stuff from Fort Reliance?”

“In the shed. They didn’t have your fuckin tea. Move over.” Remus did. Beside him on the pillow Sirius laid his head. All the long dark hair coiled and kinked from being tucked tight inside his hat. “Roll us a cigarette.”

“It’s the middle of the goddamn night and I’m asleep.”

“Well you sure as hell ain’t asleep now.” He picked up the cigarette stuff from the floor and dropped it between them on the bed. “Pretty please roll us one. You know I’m shit at it.”

“You’ll waste half my fuckin tobacco,” said Remus, and he sat up and rolled it against his knee. He had lived more than fifteen years now without the arm and he thought he was quicker now with one than he had ever been with two.

They smoked together and talked about the folk Sirius had seen in Fort Reliance and then Sirius started touching the scars along his thigh with a soft flowing rasp of fingers and Remus understood he would not in fact be going back to sleep anytime soon and in the morning they would just have to lie in. Which was alright in fact because in the snow all they would have to do was gut the elk and start to smoke it and then they could lie in all damn day if they wanted. He was laughing and saying it had been only two weeks since they had last seen each other as though it had not already begun to gut him, going to bed alone. But Sirius invoked something like blah blah fourteen years blah blah blah and Remus never could resist him when he was like this, which was like trying to be some kind of Shakespearean romantic.

--

When he woke again the sky through the window was white and there was a fine pale dusting of snow like dropped sugar just inside the door and he was curled up with Sirius in the bed against the cold. In the night one of them had drug the bearskin up over them both and the heat of their sex and the fire’s glowing embers had trapped beneath it and he felt it reactive between them and spreading like sunlight. Asleep Sirius did not look so old and Remus looked at him for a while and then he got up and dressed and built the fire back up and put Sirius’s boots and duck coat on and went outside to the shed to gut the elk.

Comments

[brighty18.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like the very much! And I would really love to read more stories in this universe. I like the idea of them on the frontier, it seems to fit very well. And good for Sirius for getting an elk! That's not an easy task, always.

And I really loved this sentence: In the night one of them had drug the bearskin up over them both and the heat of their sex and the fire’s glowing embers had trapped beneath it and he felt it reactive between them and spreading like sunlight. so pretty!

[mustntgetmy.livejournal.com]

Ooh, this had a lot of really lovely descriptions in it. You set the scene so nicely! And the idea of them on the frontier is so interesting and unique. Great fic.

[cevennes.livejournal.com]

This is the kind of warmth you want to wrap around yourself and sink into--and having the context for some of what led up to this makes me want to wail honestly, which is a very common thread with you, but it's such a thrill to see them as older men with something to hold on to. The sense of togetherness and homecoming are almost tangible, and I keep coming back to that line about everything they own and don't own but they're trying to keep, because that's just it; there's so much love to this.

[magnetic-pole.livejournal.com]

Now I'm so curious about the original story! This was a lovely slice of life--hardly any dialogue or overt affection but so many hints of shared intimacy. Enjoyed! M.

[museinabsentia.livejournal.com]

Oh, what an interesting time period to set them in. Your descriptions are lovely, and even with this tiny little snippet out of their lives you can very easily see the setting and them in it. What a lovely job. And the lost arm, what a fabulous translation of werewolf into this setting. I particularly loved Sirius begging Remus to roll his cigarette. It was such a Sirius thing to do, and such a small thing that says so very much about their relationship, especially when Remus gives in so easily. Very sweet and lovely. Wonderful job.