characters property of JK Rowling. no profit intended or made. written for Victoria P. thanks to Eodrakken for beta.
Footnotes
by bow.
Sirius smells of sweat, dead things, rotted things, hippogriff dander. They’re smells Remus doesn’t want to think about, and if he’d eaten today, the stench would’ve made his lunch rise up again in the back of his throat. He lets go of Sirius before he wants to. It’s past sunset, too dark for Remus to read the expression on Sirius’s face, and that’s just one more small cruelty of fate.
“You must be starved. Bone-tired.” Sirius nods, shifts from one foot to the other. And then they’re both silent for a moment. Remus doesn’t know what to offer him first.
In the end, Remus doesn’t have to make the decision, because Sirius heads straight toward the kitchen. The cupboard doesn’t hold enough food for the both of them, nor the right kind of food. There’s no meat, nothing of substance, nothing fit for a celebration--if that’s what this is. Remus tries to wave the empty pantry off as an oversight. He does not admit that he doubted Sirius would show up here, that he’d have rushed to the market if he’d known.
Sirius shrugs and eats half a jar of olives, digging them out of the container with a spoon, the brine dripping over the countertop. He doesn’t bother to sit down. Then he empties a pot of marmalade onto a plate, mopping it up with too many slices of rye bread. Remus eats a slice, too, and it’s stale.
Their conversation is careful. Remus doesn’t ask Sirius how long he’ll be staying; he doesn’t trust himself to urge Sirius to leave for his own safety. Between bites, Sirius states that he nearly fell off the hippogriff over Shropshire. Remus is glad he didn’t, and tells Sirius so. Sirius snorts, pausing to lick his fingers, and asks what happened to his old motorbike. But Remus doesn’t know, and he doesn’t want to relive that, anyway, so he covers Sirius’s mouth with his own. It’s a test, a trial, and the sweetness of the marmalade acts as a veneer over the sour taste in the back of Sirius’s mouth. Several rye seeds are caught in Sirius’s teeth; Remus can feel them there.
He presses his lips together as he pulls back, and Sirius says Moony in such an easy tone, as if he’s forgotten the history behind the nickname. Color has begun to creep back into his face. Remus finds himself unable to say “Padfoot” in return, preferring the legitimacy of “Sirius,” then “Sirius Black,” more softly yet. Remus still tastes the marmalade.
Outside, it sounds like summer, happier times. The crickets chirp quietly. It’s windy, and it sounds like Buckbeak is rustling in the mulberry bushes out back. Sirius taps his spoon against the rim of his plate. The ringing is insistent, but Remus doesn’t know what it’s demanding.
“I could run you a bath,” Remus says to fill the silence.
He sets out several bottles of shampoo, none more than a quarter full. The corners of the labels have begun to peel. He turns the taps with an easy flick of his wand and waves his hand through the water to check the temperature, as if Sirius were a child. And like a child, Sirius sheds his clothing piece by piece onto the tile floor before stepping cautiously into the bathtub.
Remus takes one close look at the pile of rags and carries it outside, dropping the clothes back behind the house to burn later.
When he returns, Sirius is scrubbing at his shoulders with a washcloth. His feet are flat on the bottom of the tub, legs spread slightly, cock hanging red and soft between them. There are three inches of pale grey water sitting in the bathtub.
There was a time when Remus would have climbed into the water after him, and it wasn’t so long ago as it seems.
Instead, he leans back against the door, and despite the steam off the water, the air is chill on his cheeks. “It’s not safe for you here,” Remus says, “you should leave.”
“I know. In the morning.” Sirius rinses his hand in the standing water, and Remus is glad that he didn’t simply agree.
Sirius slips into a spare set of Remus’s robes afterward, the hem falling just below his knees. They share the bed. Remus lies on his back and tries to sniff out the scent of Sirius beneath the perfume of the shampoo. The bed frame knocks once against the headboard, wood on metal, and it’s strange and wonderful to realize that it’s because of Sirius.
“Don’t leave in the morning without saying goodbye,” Remus says, as if the thought is only a footnote.
“Do you remember,” Sirius replies, joggling the mattress, “when we were thirteen, and my Mum and Dad went to Fiji? They sent letters to me and Regulus at Hogwarts--silktails brought them to us in the Great Hall.”
“I don’t. What’s a silktail?”
“It’s a bird, a rare bird. They don’t live anywhere in the world but there.”
“Sounds like an expensive way to send post.”
“I’ll send you one every day, or near it.”
“Ordinary owls should be fine,” says Remus. It’s been a long time since he looked forward to the mail.
Sirius grunts sleepily beside him, and Remus curls his hand around Sirius’s forearm, grip tentative at first, then tight. He imagines tiny white birds, dovelike, flying across three oceans to bring him letters written in Sirius’s haughty script. They rest their wings briefly before taking off again with letters from Remus in their beaks, heading for home.
And Sirius will return soon enough, still thin enough that Remus can trace the grooves between Sirius’s ribs, close his fingers around Sirius’s wrist. This time, Remus will climb into the bathtub and clamber atop Sirius, the scalding water beating over their backs like an ablution.
Remus will begin all his return letters “Dear Padfoot,” and the nickname finally feels right again, for it’s clear now that the man lying before him is a creature of the earth and not of the stars.
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