small_gifts | Fic: Fighting the World for last

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Title: Fighting the World
Author:

last_radio
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: "The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough." - Bede Jarrett, O.P.
Summary: Multiple eras. I'd take on the world for you.
Any other notes, warnings, etc.: Huge shout out to my beta,

lyraeinne, to whom I owe much love and gratitude. I really hope I did this prompt justice, because it as such a great prompt. I also hope you like the semi-hopeful ending! (ETA: Just trying to fix the formatting. Again.)

Sirius’s fingers are magic, as far as Remus is concerned at the moment. They’re nimbly undoing the buttons of his shirt, stopping every few moments to caress a section of newly exposed skin; fingers which are shortly followed by his lips, teeth, and tongue. Finally, the shirt is fully removed, but Sirius has frozen in his movements. And when Remus feels the lightest brush of fingers on the inside of his right elbow, he knows exactly why. It’s hard to miss, the inky swirls of Latin, Greek, and Runes permanently etching his shame into his skin.

Before Sirius can ask the question, he says, “It’s a tracer tattoo.” and he knows how his voice must sound; bitter, empty, like a child with one too many broken dreams.

“It allows the Ministry to keep tabs on my movements, so if they want to find me, they can.” He relates this without feeling, if Sirius asked he could recite the entirety of Magical Ordinance 17.1.2 on the Restriction of Dark Creatures, he’s read it over enough times. It‘s immoral and almost illegal, he knows, but he’s also accepted that there‘s nothing he can do about it.

When Sirius looks up, gray eyes have become molten silver as they blaze with internal fire. Remus can almost feel the bubbling of hot anger under the other boy’s skin, a righteous indignation he’s only seen a few times, when the Black family traditions are brought up. He’s not prepared for such an extreme reaction.

“They can’t do that to you,” Sirius whispers, intense fury lacing each word.

“Unfortunately, they can.”

“Fuck them.” He moves closer, so their faces are only inches apart. “They don’t know anything. Not about you. You’re a thousand times better than all of them. You deserve better than this.”

Remus’s hand has moved to the other boy’s shoulder, wanting to capture his passion. “You’d take on the Ministry for me?”

Sirius huffs a small laugh against his lips, warm and enticing. “I’d take on the world for you.”

And then they are kissing, fervently, hungrily, sloppily; trying to reach as much skin as possible, trying to connect on a deeper level - more than just skin to skin, but soul to soul. In the spots where their skin touches, Remus can feel Sirius’s magic simmering just beneath the surface, and he hopes that this tide of emotion will be able to buoy them through the dark times ahead.

=

December brings a bone-chilling freeze to London, to cold for snow, so the city is besieged with ice and wind and terror.

None of this stops Remus from sitting in the open windowsill and chain-smoking his way through half a pack.

When Sirius walks in, he doesn’t look away from his view of the city, not until the cigarette is snatched from between his lips and the other man is inhaling the toxic smoke.

“Regulus is dead.”

Remus isn’t shocked by this. People he knows (knew) are dying on a daily basis. Last week it was the Prewetts. Tomorrow it could be him. Death invades all spheres of life these days. “They find a body?”

“No,” he says, handing the cigarette back. “But he’s been missing for seven weeks. He’s as good as dead at this point.”

The words sound bitter, empty, like a child with one too many broken dreams. Remus recognizes the tone, and wonders when Sirius became so much like him. What happened to the seventeen-year-old who swore to take on the world for him, should he need it? They are barely even twenty yet, but here they sit disillusioned and cynical.

Did that passion dissolve when he realized his best friend was marked for death? Did it happen when he stopped exchanging kisses with his lover, silently accusing him of treason instead (they thought he didn’t notice, but Remus could read it on all of their faces, it’s the werewolf, he’ll betray us all)?

“He chose the wrong side,” Sirius says.

Remus hears all the unspoken words in that statement, but doesn’t respond. They remain there, in the way of the freezing wind, sharing the rest of the cigarettes, and not touching.

=

Remus wakes the morning after his transformation disoriented, confused, and in Hogwarts’ hospital wing. His left side feels like it’s been hit repeatedly by a sledgehammer, his arm is in a sling and wound tightly with blood-stained bandages, and the only thing he can think to say is “Sirius.”

“Ah, yes, Mr. Black was causing quite the ruckus on the grounds last night, wasn’t he?” And there is Albus Dumbledore, sitting at the foot of his bed, holding a bar of Honeyduke’s Finest and smiling an odd little smile. “Then again, Mr. Black never was known for his ability to come and go quietly, if I remember correctly.”

If he weren’t so fearful right now, he might laugh at the situation - at how mundane this seems. How normal. As if Dumbledore was just offering comfort in the form of sweets.

“Where-”

“Sirius is safe, my boy,” Dumbledore says, laying a hand on his leg comfortingly. “He was in custody for a small while, but a very resourceful pair of young people managed to secure him safe, though not necessarily legal, passage from the castle.”

He’s looking at him with that twinkle in his eye and a smile hidden behind his beard, and for the first time in twelve years, Remus feels like laughing in joy.

He doesn’t care that last night was the worst transformation he’s had since November 1981, or that the wolf was so angry (at the dog for leaving his mate for so many years, at the rat for destroying the pack) that he nearly tore off his arm and bruised his entire left side.

None of this matters because Sirius is back.

Lovely, passionate, innocent Sirius is back, and they have a second chance to prove they can do this the correct way. Last time they let fear erode at their souls until they were nothing more than shells, but last night Remus looked into Sirius’s eyes and saw molten silver, burning with anger, a sight he never thought he’d see again.

This time they will win the war. They have to, because they know the truth now. Because Sirius wasn’t the spy, because Peter was the one to betray them all, because they won‘t let themselves forgive him for shattering everything they had held dear. This time they will lend faith to each other, carry each other, and they will this war.

At the door of the hospital wing, Dumbledore turns back to look at Remus and says, “I hope you don’t mind, but I gave Sirius the address of the cottage I assume you will be living at once you hand in your resignation?”

For the first time in far too many years, Remus doesn’t feel bitter, or empty. Just hopeful.