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small_gifts2007-12-10 01:10 am
paulamcg.livejournal.com) wrote in small_gifts2007-12-10 01:10 am
Fic: Almost Dark Again for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daphnaea
Title: Almost Dark Again
Author:paulamcg
Written for:daphnaea
Beta: My incredibleishonn. Thank you so much again for all your… spring buds!
Rating: PG
Prompt: The prompt I claimed was an Order mission (first war), but perhaps this fulfils a bit better the ambiguous request for ambiguity (bonus: some degree of resolution). Someone also receives an owl and received one off-stage.
Summary: December 1979 has defeated Remus to the point of taking up quarters at Sirius’s, whom he can’t expect back from an Order mission yet.
Almost Dark Again
When I wake up on the comfortable couch I’m sweating under the quilt I found in his closet. Perhaps I should have taken off some of my clothes, but at least the fever stopped rising while I was sleeping, and I slept better than ever since… I can’t remember since when. It’s got almost dark again.
He’d left the lights on in the tree, and I decided not to touch them or anything else I wouldn’t need to. Of course, he’s been impatient enough to decorate early and done it with perfect, expensive taste. In the gloom the twinkle of the stars on the branches is clear but subtle, nothing like the blinking of the garish multicoloured garlands adorning the cheap shops, those I hoped could hire me. Oh, a star on the top would be too conventional for him. Perhaps he’s charmed the moon to show the real one’s phases, and I’m not sure how funny or charming that is. At least it’s a waning crescent now. This should be the best part of the month.
I must have closed my eyes again for more than a moment, as now all I can see in the window besides black is the reflection of his stars. An unerring owl’s frantic tapping on the screen has drawn my attention to this picture straight from a dream I’m determined to forget immediately. If this is the beginning of another nightmare, my caricature of a life is getting a bit too repetitive.
After seeing that the letter is in his handwriting – and dated today, not something he’d prepared to be sent in case… I lean my forehead against the glass in relief. Still, I can’t savour the cheerful wishes, the playful questions, the vivid descriptions of any non-confidential details he’s been able to think of. Reassurances that he’s safe and sound. Promises to ask me for a visit as soon as he’s finally back from this prolonged mission. There’s the face of a ghost in front of me, surrounded by darkness. The letter was written to someone who could still feed himself and pay the rent of a room, with a little help from parents, who had not yet been…
He’ll be disappointed with my lack of spirit when he finally returns. At least he won’t have to ever invite me again. Perhaps I’m defeated enough to open his kitchen cupboards without permission, too. It can actually be clever to start preparing a bath first.
If only the water doesn’t end up left running and leaking over onto this luxurious rug. These days I keep forgetting what I’m doing.
Having found the tea, I’m going through his selection of tinned food, wondering if I should start with something gentle, like soup, when I hear the keys. It can’t be him now, but only his best friends also know his personal charms for sealing and unsealing the door. I rush out of the kitchen, not fumbling for my wand, so as to defend myself, any more urgently than I hurry to hide the signs that I’ve come to seek shelter and slept here.
Too slow, with the quilt still pressed against my chest, I watch how my Sirius almost falls through the doorway, then stays with his back against the wall beside it. He’s wearing only thin Muggle garments, no cloak. After the rest it has just enjoyed, my body’s soon quicker than his – or my mind. Without hesitation I’ve taken the few steps and wrapped my arms – and the quilt – around him before he’s properly registered my presence.
He leans on me, presses his cold face to my neck and inhales deeply through his nose. “Oh, God,” he says in a breath out, then draws another shuddering breath in, and continues, “Don’t wake me.”
Perhaps he thinks I’m holding him in a dream. At the end of his nightmare.
I won’t have the strength to hold him standing, or to carry him, if he collapses. Besides, smelling that he’s dirtier than me makes me remember that the hot water will soon flood the floor, so I guide him towards the bathroom.
Here the light switches on magically, as always when anyone enters, and now its yellow warmth brings him closer to his senses. He stares at me through the mirror, until I sit him on the toilet lid and reach to turn off the tap.
“You are here,” he says, first knitting his brows. “What are you doing here?” Now there’s joy in his eyes, while he’s still trembling and pulling the quilt tighter around himself.
I turn away again, looking for the soap. “Giving you a bath.” Then I remember that he’s freezing and I kneel to take off his drenched shoes.
“How did you know?” he asks in awe.
“I didn’t. I prepared it for myself. I mean… I could ask you the same. What are you doing here? In the letter you said you wouldn’t…”
“You got it? Great! I told James to keep kicking me awake so I could finish it on the train. You know, we weren’t in the condition to Apparate, and then I walked…”
This time I manage not to say anything about myself. “But why did you write that…?”
“To gain some time to shape up a bit. To surprise you.”
While peeling the damp clothes off, then my clothes – dryer but not much cleaner – I leave the talking for him. He’ll say that now I can shape him up. I don’t know about that, but I support him and step into the bath with him.
I’ve looked forward to submerging into the water. Without him I’d perhaps forget to keep my head up.
Until I got him back now, I hadn’t touched anyone after being summoned to see… something for the very last time. To see the ancient house, the bare apple trees. Not to take anything with me. Hardly a final memory of caressing their cold cheeks.
But now the bliss of this warmth turns into a womb, and here his body needs mine. I’ll agree to still live, and as fully as possible.
I rub the dirt off his arms; he traces my scars, even the one on my shoulder, and I hardly wince. He can see how much thinner I’ve become, but he’s lost weight as well.
Perhaps later, after making the soup, in the benevolent glow of his moon, I’ll let him know that since a week ago, if I remember correctly, there’s no other home.
Author:
paulamcgWritten for:
daphnaeaBeta: My incredible
ishonn. Thank you so much again for all your… spring buds!Rating: PG
Prompt: The prompt I claimed was an Order mission (first war), but perhaps this fulfils a bit better the ambiguous request for ambiguity (bonus: some degree of resolution). Someone also receives an owl and received one off-stage.
Summary: December 1979 has defeated Remus to the point of taking up quarters at Sirius’s, whom he can’t expect back from an Order mission yet.
Almost Dark Again
When I wake up on the comfortable couch I’m sweating under the quilt I found in his closet. Perhaps I should have taken off some of my clothes, but at least the fever stopped rising while I was sleeping, and I slept better than ever since… I can’t remember since when. It’s got almost dark again.
He’d left the lights on in the tree, and I decided not to touch them or anything else I wouldn’t need to. Of course, he’s been impatient enough to decorate early and done it with perfect, expensive taste. In the gloom the twinkle of the stars on the branches is clear but subtle, nothing like the blinking of the garish multicoloured garlands adorning the cheap shops, those I hoped could hire me. Oh, a star on the top would be too conventional for him. Perhaps he’s charmed the moon to show the real one’s phases, and I’m not sure how funny or charming that is. At least it’s a waning crescent now. This should be the best part of the month.
I must have closed my eyes again for more than a moment, as now all I can see in the window besides black is the reflection of his stars. An unerring owl’s frantic tapping on the screen has drawn my attention to this picture straight from a dream I’m determined to forget immediately. If this is the beginning of another nightmare, my caricature of a life is getting a bit too repetitive.
After seeing that the letter is in his handwriting – and dated today, not something he’d prepared to be sent in case… I lean my forehead against the glass in relief. Still, I can’t savour the cheerful wishes, the playful questions, the vivid descriptions of any non-confidential details he’s been able to think of. Reassurances that he’s safe and sound. Promises to ask me for a visit as soon as he’s finally back from this prolonged mission. There’s the face of a ghost in front of me, surrounded by darkness. The letter was written to someone who could still feed himself and pay the rent of a room, with a little help from parents, who had not yet been…
He’ll be disappointed with my lack of spirit when he finally returns. At least he won’t have to ever invite me again. Perhaps I’m defeated enough to open his kitchen cupboards without permission, too. It can actually be clever to start preparing a bath first.
If only the water doesn’t end up left running and leaking over onto this luxurious rug. These days I keep forgetting what I’m doing.
Having found the tea, I’m going through his selection of tinned food, wondering if I should start with something gentle, like soup, when I hear the keys. It can’t be him now, but only his best friends also know his personal charms for sealing and unsealing the door. I rush out of the kitchen, not fumbling for my wand, so as to defend myself, any more urgently than I hurry to hide the signs that I’ve come to seek shelter and slept here.
Too slow, with the quilt still pressed against my chest, I watch how my Sirius almost falls through the doorway, then stays with his back against the wall beside it. He’s wearing only thin Muggle garments, no cloak. After the rest it has just enjoyed, my body’s soon quicker than his – or my mind. Without hesitation I’ve taken the few steps and wrapped my arms – and the quilt – around him before he’s properly registered my presence.
He leans on me, presses his cold face to my neck and inhales deeply through his nose. “Oh, God,” he says in a breath out, then draws another shuddering breath in, and continues, “Don’t wake me.”
Perhaps he thinks I’m holding him in a dream. At the end of his nightmare.
I won’t have the strength to hold him standing, or to carry him, if he collapses. Besides, smelling that he’s dirtier than me makes me remember that the hot water will soon flood the floor, so I guide him towards the bathroom.
Here the light switches on magically, as always when anyone enters, and now its yellow warmth brings him closer to his senses. He stares at me through the mirror, until I sit him on the toilet lid and reach to turn off the tap.
“You are here,” he says, first knitting his brows. “What are you doing here?” Now there’s joy in his eyes, while he’s still trembling and pulling the quilt tighter around himself.
I turn away again, looking for the soap. “Giving you a bath.” Then I remember that he’s freezing and I kneel to take off his drenched shoes.
“How did you know?” he asks in awe.
“I didn’t. I prepared it for myself. I mean… I could ask you the same. What are you doing here? In the letter you said you wouldn’t…”
“You got it? Great! I told James to keep kicking me awake so I could finish it on the train. You know, we weren’t in the condition to Apparate, and then I walked…”
This time I manage not to say anything about myself. “But why did you write that…?”
“To gain some time to shape up a bit. To surprise you.”
While peeling the damp clothes off, then my clothes – dryer but not much cleaner – I leave the talking for him. He’ll say that now I can shape him up. I don’t know about that, but I support him and step into the bath with him.
I’ve looked forward to submerging into the water. Without him I’d perhaps forget to keep my head up.
Until I got him back now, I hadn’t touched anyone after being summoned to see… something for the very last time. To see the ancient house, the bare apple trees. Not to take anything with me. Hardly a final memory of caressing their cold cheeks.
But now the bliss of this warmth turns into a womb, and here his body needs mine. I’ll agree to still live, and as fully as possible.
I rub the dirt off his arms; he traces my scars, even the one on my shoulder, and I hardly wince. He can see how much thinner I’ve become, but he’s lost weight as well.
Perhaps later, after making the soup, in the benevolent glow of his moon, I’ll let him know that since a week ago, if I remember correctly, there’s no other home.
no subject
It’s reassuring that the ending here turned out erotic enough to satisfy you (as well as, to my surprise, more R/S fans than I dared hope) while I didn’t compromise my style of subtlety. I suppose the pups sharing a bath is not an unusual scenario, but while some familiarity in it could appeal to readers, I perhaps managed to handle it in my characteristic way. I’m also particularly glad that this piece showed to you why I can avoid sex (while writing).
At the same time it’s essential that the eroticism doesn’t overshadow what else this piece is about in addition to (preface to) R/S interaction. It’s good to know I’ve succeeded in conveying something, perhaps in a poignant way, without ever coming out and saying it, and I’m startled when you come out and say it. Perhaps due to identifying with Remus I was never totally aware of his neglecting himself. I could feel something having broken and something breaking apart. And I knew about it, as my post-OotP Remus has remembered it. But here Remus is ignoring – keeps “forgetting” – it so that neither of us was capable of a conscious decision concerning the neglecting.
You also ask a highly important question – the one about questioning! I have to hope it doesn’t look too illogical that Remus questions his welcome and then interacts with Sirius so intimately without more hesitation on either side.
First of all, I wonder whether it is necessary to interpret this story so that the relationship has already been established as such an intimate one – as the single and permanent intimate one – in a mutual unambiguous agreement. Do these scenes leave such a possibility open that both Remus and Sirius have (or at least one of them has) refrained from spelling out – perhaps also failed to figure out – whether they want to live as a couple?
I get the impression that Remus has wished Sirius had invited him more often, perhaps asked him to move in to share the flat. There could be something that has stopped them from making any progress in this respect. I still know too little about young Remus and Sirius. My post-OotP Remus has recently mentioned that James shared the flat with Sirius before getting married in August 1979. I’m not surprised if Remus has enough self-doubts to suspect that Sirius hesitates to share with someone who isn’t known to be engaged to a girl and could also be outed as not fully human. I don’t know if I’ll ever take Sirius’s perspective and confirm what has held him back – whether he just hasn’t realised that Remus wants to live with him.
In any case I think it’s not unlikely that Remus’s reaction to his parents’ deaths is such depression which makes him doubt himself as someone worthy of Sirius’s love (particularly when, due to his part-human status, he’s had major difficulties in starting any kind of a career or even making a meager living, and his parents have been murdered by Death Eaters probably because of their involvement with other part-humans – while the latter fact is not mentioned anywhere outside the chaptered post-OotP story) . Besides, his needing to feel defeated before he can take what he needs from Sirius’s cupboards suggests (to me) that while he perhaps generally dislikes depending on others, he’s been particularly careful that Sirius doesn’t give him something (like home) just because he’s needy but (if such a dream could come true) because he’s Sirius’s true love.
I’m not sure all this makes sense yet, but thanks to your inspiring comments I’ve got a bit further in figuring out what there is behind this story. At the same time, particularly a reader of this single piece alone is not less correct when extrapolating quite differently.
no subject
I find your explanation more than a little fascinating, because I'd gotten the impression that it was Remus, not Sirius, who had been holding back. I'm not sure I could tell you why. That Sirius might have inadvertently triggered such doubt in Remus makes the relationship between them even more interesting, because Sirius seems perfectly content to find him there. I think it also answers your question of "Do these scenes leave such a possibility open that both Remus and Sirius have (or at least one of them has) refrained from spelling out – perhaps also failed to figure out – whether they want to live as a couple?" If, for the various reasons that you stated, both of them had misread the other's intentions/wishes/fears, then it's perfectly plausible to think that both of them might have hesitated to write anything in stone.
All of this is making me look more and more forward to reading your WIP. :)