Fic: Shake, Rattle and Roll for skysparcz

[desetoiles.livejournal.com]

Title: Shake, Rattle and Roll
Author/Artist: desetoiles
Written for: skysparcz
Rating: R for language and boysex
Summary and/or Prompt: Train tracks and spilled sweets, hiding places, knee-deep snow...minus the sweets.
Any other random notes, warnings, etc.: An excessive use of dashes and silliness. Beta by last_radio. Word count: 1,939

The wind blows crisp as they break the snow-crust, two sets of footsteps sinking knee-deep into the expanse. Chill lurks everywhere, in the wind, in the clouded half-moon, creeping through their robes and trousers, caressing clammy skin and bringing thoughts of warm hearths and good tea. Stars peek occasionally through parting clouds as two figures work their way up a snowy hill.

Sirius lingers behind smoking a cigarette, wandering as Remus plods several feet ahead. His head changes height as he walks, up, down, with every penetration through the knee-deep snow. Sirius prefers to linger, smoke trailing from his fingers straight-up into the atmosphere. He, at least, stays on the surface instead of sinking.

“Sirius.” Remus looks back at him. “Hurry up.”

Sirius can barely make out his face in the dim light. It seems shadowed, worried, accentuates the sharp lines and too-thin frame even behind overlarge robes. “You’re hurrying enough for the both of us, I think.” The left side of his lips crooks upward just a little.

Remus huffs and continues to trudge through the snow, sinking with every step, robes ballooning, scarf flopping against his back. “We’re trying to find the railroad tracks, Sirius, not going for a leisurely smoke. You’re asking for someone to find us.”

“Right,” Sirius replies, exhaling smoke out his nose, “because that flapping you’re doing is so much more secretive. Look. We’re walking up a bloody hill in the middle of the night with no charms. If someone wants to find us, they’re not going to have any trouble, whether I smoke or not.” There aren’t many places to hide on the barren hill, and they can’t risk charms if they want to avoid detection.

Sirius needs the cigarette. He can’t help but feel uneasy, sense a presence he can’t place. It creeps into his bones, channels the canine, casts a shadow on what he’d hoped would be an easy mission and some time alone with one of his favorite people. He wonders if Remus senses it.

Remus keeps walking. “That’s not the point. The point is—”

Sirius sighs and stubs his fag into the snow before grabbing a handful of the cold white powder and rolling it between his gloved hands. Whether the other man senses the presence or not, he’s ready for the attitude to stop.

“—that we’re trying to get somewhere in a timely fashion so that we don’t attract any unwan—oof!”

The snowball hits him directly in the back of the head; Sirius is pleased to see his aim hasn’t wavered in the two years since his Quidditch days.

“Sirius” Remus hissed, spinning around. “OOF!”

The second hits him in the nose, leaving his face gaping and spattered in snow. Calmly, Sirius bends down a third time.

“SIRIUS BL—Don’t you—SHIT.” Remus brushes the snow again off his face. The man isn’t laughing; Sirius frowns.

“Sirius, will you STOP it?”

“If you chill out a bit.” He tosses the fourth snowball from one hand to another, waiting with more patience than he is normally blessed with.

“I’m chilled, Sirius. Hell, I’m freezing with no warming charms and all I want to do is get there so I can be not so chilled. We have a job to do. Dumbledore will be angry if we don’t finish this tonight.”

Without even answering, Sirius chucks the last snowball; this time he aims for his shoulder.

A breeze picks up, ruffling Sirius’s hair. He rounds his eyes and hopes the innocent look will make Remus cave.

He’s right; Remus’s lip begins to twitch. “Right,” he snaps, bending down. “You want a snowball fight? I’ll give you a snowball fight.” Remus begins to make a giant snowball, muttering to himself.

Sirius is ready. He cracks a grin, bends his knees and the next thing Remus knows, Sirius grabs him and they fall into the snow and start tumbling, Sirius’s fingers tickling through the thick wool and Remus half trying to squirm away, both bodies tumbling, circling, rolling down the other side of the hill.

They come to a violent stop at the bottom, snow down their backs and up their sleeves. A dark head thunks loudly against something iron.

“FUCK,” Sirius curses, letting go of Remus and rolling a bit on his own. It hurts worse than the time James chucked a bludger at his head, which is saying something. His eyes water and he wipes them before Remus thinks he’s crying.

“Are you okay?” Remus scrambles over to him.

“I’m fine.” He waves vaguely and blinks several times, attempting to get his vision back to normal. “Found the tracks.”

“So I saw,” Remus quips. He frowns. “Are you sure you’re—”

“YES.” Sirius tries to bat away the other man’s hands. “Ow, Remus, stop, I’m okay!”

“But you hit your head, you might have a concussion, what if—”

“I DON’T, I’m fine.” Sirius jerks away; he hates being coddled, even if there’s a lump growing on the back of his head from the railroad track. “I’ve had a million concussions before, and this isn’t half that bad. Why don’t we just find the spot, yeah?”

Remus pauses for a moment, then sighs. “Yes. Okay. But don’t you dare go to sleep, okay? Come on.”

The two young men link arms and follow the line of the tracks, toes brushing gently against the iron, padding softly through the snow. They veer left, down a slope, toward the side of the hill, and come to a stop. Sirius peers at it. “You sure this is right?”

Remus nods. “It has to be.”

Sirius shrugs; he’s done stranger things before. With his wand he taps three times against the snowy hillside and murmurs a password. Instantly a roughly hewn door appears. “Well, imagine that,” he mumbles.

Inside is a tiny wooden room with a small woodstove and candles in sconces.

“What a fire hazard,” Remus murmurs, hanging his cloak and scarf on a stand and lighting the candles. Sirius nods in agreement and lights the stove; after a few moments the room begins to warm up. He tosses his wet outer garments onto the floor and walks over to the table, his thick black boots clomping against the rough wood.

“So what do we have?”

“Charts. It looks like the Prewetts have been keeping a graph of all the movements they’ve been monitoring. See?” Remus points to the most recent one. “Fifty degrees northeast…” He peers at it, frowning.

Sirius looks down at the complicated squiggles, which move under Remus’s wand point. “Two killing curses, a Cruciatus, and four stuns.”

Remus looks up at him, backlit by the candles. It fills him out, and Sirius smiles. “I can’t believe you can read that.”

“Why d’you think Dumbledore sent me to finish the job?”

Remus chuckles, then frowns. “But, then, why am I here?”

“Bait,” chirps Sirius, wiggling his eyebrows. Remus groans and throws a candle stub at him. “Haven’t I been beaten up enough tonight?” Sirius pouts and rubs his cheek. “You’re upsetting my delicate balance.”

“You were the one throwing snowballs.”

“You’re the one turning this into a drill assignment.”

“Well, someone has to take it seriously. Otherwise we’d completely forget what we’re out here for and end up shagging on the floor or something.” Remus waves his hand and huffs. Sirius wiggles his eyebrows again, but sits down to work.

There is heavy action that night to the South, magical equipment reading what seems to be a battle. The two men re-copy a stack of charts. They glance at it occasionally, worrying, but there is nothing they can do until the charts are finished. They sit close, knees touching, as Sirius reads and Remus writes.

But all Sirius can think about is the candlelight making Remus’s skin rosy, about the sharp line of his jaw and how this is their first night alone together in three weeks.

It hangs thick in the air, cinnamon thoughts permeating the two men’s minds, hands brushing gently against each other, lingering, moistened lips, softened shoulders.

Halfway through, Sirius can think of nothing else, knows that he will get nothing else done before he is satisfied. He slides a hand over Remus’s shoulder, presses his lips close to his ear and murmurs, “We should take a break.”

Remus shifts but shakes his head. “We have fifteen ch—“

Sirius runs his tongue along the tip of Remus’s ear and bites the lobe gently.

Remus trails off and closes his eyes. “I suppose we could stop for a—a bit.” He gulps and Sirius feels him relaxing into him.

“Mmhmm,” Sirius agrees, trailing kisses down his jaw. The magical monitor picks up a couple of curses closer to the boys, but he ignores it. “Just a short one.”

“Not that short,” Remus says with a quirk in his lips, his eyes still closed. He tilts his head and Sirius follows the line, across his chin, kissing the sweet skin, the thin lips. Remus parts his mouth and Sirius slides his tongue in.

A hand slides to his knee and suddenly Remus climbs onto him. The kiss ends. Grinning, Remus unclasps the other man’s robes and pushes them off, exposing bare skin just-dry from their tumbling in the snow. Immediately Remus bends down, attacking his bare chest with teeth and tongue, tugging and sucking at a nipple, making his way down Sirius’s toned chest.

Within a few seconds, both are undressed, kissing with flickering shadow-skin. Sirius slides his hand over the other man’s cock, strokes as Remus pushes over him.

They move together in cut-time. With a small cry Remus buries his head in Sirius’s neck and he strokes his hair, resting his cheek against the smooth, fresh-smelling hair, pushing, stroking, pushing…

Suddenly the room shakes, vibrates, sends dust rattling off the ceiling, makes them clench their teeth and grasp each other, eyes panicked. Remus slides off of him and lands with a thunk on the dusty floor. “Death eaters,” he whispers, scrambling to get up and fasten his trousers at the same time.

Still half-erect, Sirius scrambles up out of the chair and pulls out his wand. He brandishes it, looking around for the monitor. His pants remain around his ankles and he nearly trips in the process. The room continues to shake, tremble, roar, and the sound is familiar, but he can’t place it. “Where are they? Fuck, where—”

The horn of the locomotive cuts him off, practically splitting their eardrums as the weighty iron mass flies down the snowy tracks above them. They freeze, looking above, dust falling from the rafters.

It passes, and the room ceases to shake. Sirius remains frozen, legs apart, arms out, trousers around his ankles, scowling and forcing himself to breathe normally. It takes him a minute, even, before he can speak. “I thought we were dead,” he croaks, bending down to pull up his trousers. His hands shake something horrible as he fumbles with the zipper, with the button. “I fucking thought—”

But his sentence is drowned out by Remus’s laughter; Remus, who is holding up the chart they’d been monitoring that night. Sirius frowns. “Why the hell are you laughing?”

Remus shakes his head and doubles over, wheezing. Sirius glimpses something odd on the parchment, but it flops over with his boyfriend. Sirius scowls and, not even bothering to put on his robes (even though his chest is kind of cold), he stomps over to the other man and grabs the parchment.

Sirius scowls at it. The loopy handwriting glowing purple against the black ink is unmistakable.

Back to work, boys.