Vacation with Sirius Black, Remus found, required a great deal of work.
The expenditure of energy could be linked to a variety of very necessary chores – playing fetch with Padfoot, chasing after Sirius when he began terrorizing the locals, and practically carrying the boy out of a bar they were subsequently ordered to avoid for the remainder of their stay. But all of that would have been bearable (because, honestly, it was no different than how life had been at Hogwarts except that now the alcohol consumption would not land them in detention) had Sirius not possessed an unrelenting tendency to want to do things.
Remus couldn’t understand it. For seven years, he had been forced to cajole, bribe, and even threaten Sirius in order to get him to do his homework, but the moment he didn’t actually have to do something, he was all about doing things. Weirder still, he always wanted to begin a full day’s activity in the morning. The very early morning.
“Moooooony,” Sirius sang into his ear, his breath irrepressibly minty.
Remus peeked at the window, expecting to find the sun dangerously close to the horizon as it had been the past three mornings. But Remus was in for a rather nasty surprise that morning. Because no, the sun was not beginning to peak over the horizon; it was entirely absent. This was very distressing indeed, and while Remus endured many things for Sirius Black – some physically painful and others emotionally damaging – this was taking their friendship too far.
“Nrgh,” he growled, pulling the covers above his head.
Sirius yanked them back, ‘tsked,’ and then proceeded to carry out an alarmingly accurate imitation of Professor McGonagall. “Remus Juniper Lupin--"
“’S not Juniper,” Remus muttered although he knew it was in utter futility.
“Do you really think it is a productive use of your day to lie about?” Remus could practically hear Sirius’s (McGonagall’s) disapproving shake of the head, and it inspired an impulse to throw a punch he had never felt during the transfiguration professor’s scoldings. “I think not, Mr. Lupin.”
Remus had an excellent command of the English language, and so, there were any number of things he could have said to effectively end the conversation in a witty, intelligent manner. Surely he could compose some roundabout, entitled way of saying that remaining abed was an extremely good application of one’s day, particularly when one was on vacation. If he could write a thirty inch treatise on the importance of properly caring for Cornish pixies, then he was quite sure that he could say or pen just about anything in a manner that would leave his audience awestruck.
“Bugger off.”
Just not at this hour.
Sirius let out a Sigh of Extreme Exasperation and Discontent in the Face of a Very Unfun Werewolf. “Come on, Remus. I have things I want to do today, and we got started so late yesterday--"
“Nine is late?”
“On vacation it is.”
“Sun isn’t even up,” Remus hissed, foolishly trying to be reasonable.
Sirius rolled his eyes, his head rotating in tandem. “I had noticed.”
Remus batted a hand in Sirius’s general direction in a feeble attempt at violence. The real beating would come mid-afternoon. “Go ‘way.”
“I will throw you out of this bed.”
“And then I’ll slaughter you in a… highly unpleasant manner involving a spoon and a plunger,” Remus threatened into his pillow.
Sirius blinked very slowly. “I have no idea what you just said.”
“I’ll kill you,” Remus paraphrased, lifting his head just long enough to get that across before letting it fall back onto the white cloth.
“Ah, got it. Well, that is a distinct possibility. One that I’m willing to risk as it is far more likely that you’ll just weep like a girl,” Sirius countered somberly.
As distinctly Sirius as that comment was, the hour in which it was said still had Remus reeling. Thoughts of Polyjuice or very expressive masks filled his head, swirling around the edges of his brain and making him naturally suspicious. “Are you sure you’re Sirius Black?”
Sirius was not amused. “Moony--"
“Because if this is James practicing psychological torture, I am within my rights to bite your arse.”
“I am not James. James is not smart enough to pull such a clever ruse,” Sirius insisted. “Besides, he’s glued to Evans’s freckles.”
Remus made a loud noise of disgust. “Snape then.”
Sirius mimicked the very same noise, but of course his was far more obnoxious. “God, don’t say that Moony. The thought of him anywhere near my hair is just too terrible to endure.”
“Fine. No Polyjuice.” He paused. “Not concussed?”
“Rub my head. You will find no bumps,” Sirius quipped, leaning forward as if genuinely offering.
Remus quirked an eyebrow. “Dirty, that.”
Sirius huffed. “If you are awake enough to find my perfectly innocent – really, I am surprised at you, former Prefect; your badge is likely weeping right now and rusting itself – protestations lewd, you can get out of bed.”
“Before dawn,” Remus reminded him, finding that Sirius was once again overlooking this key fact.
“Before dawn,” Sirius confirmed.
Remus groaned as Sirius flung the covers off the bed, exposing his bare skin to the chill in the room. And although his legs were covered, the pajamas were so threadbare that “threadbare” was a generous adjective. They were really nothing more than overlong handkerchiefs made to look like pants and a white shirt he’d had for entirely too many years. It was unpleasant, but it was the direct result of having next to no money available for anything other than food or school expenses. Not for the first time, he found himself marveling at the fact that Dickens had managed to trick him into thinking poverty was romantic; being poor was bollocks.
“My badge can’t weep,” Remus murmured. “It has no tear ducts.”
“I love that you say it has no tear ducts when it also has no eyes,” Sirius chuckled.
Remus rubbed his eyes harshly. “I loathe all things obvious. Hence my contempt for you.”
Sirius reached over and ruffled his hair. “You say that now, but you won’t when you’ve seen the sunrise.”
He froze, his spine going momentarily rigid. “I’ve seen sunrises before,” Remus said, his voice just a touch too grave.
He didn’t miss the almost imperceptible twitches on Sirius’s face as this registered. Yes, they’d all seen sunrises before, at least once a month, through a haze of bone-crunching pain and soul-depleting relief. Never had Remus been so grateful to hurt and see everyone else hurting with him.
Those mornings, Remus still wasn’t quite human, so he saw sunrises in split perspectives, before he could remember if he was a human or a monster. Sometimes, he had to be told which he was, and he didn’t always believe what he heard.
“This will be better,” Sirius promised, his voice achingly sincere.
He closed his eyes. Sure, Sirius could charm anyone else into doing his bidding, but with Remus, Sirius was most effective at his least charming.
“All right,” he said quietly.
The gloom vanished. Sirius did a quick Irish jig and left a sloppy kiss on Remus’s chin – a lick with a vague impression of lips really. Remus grunted in response to Sirius’s directions (of which the most important was ‘hurry’) and waved as he bounded out the door.
Soon afterwards, Remus wandered down to the beach in paper thin jeans with holes at the knees and a thick green jumper – a present from Peter the Christmas before. Remus suspected James had picked it out to make up for the wide variety of condoms bestowed upon him from Mr. Potter. Peter was never very good at finding good presents for Remus, so he didn’t really mind.
Remus didn’t remember a blasted thing about Sirius’s instructions, but Remus had no trouble finding him. It was impossible for him to be unaware of Sirius, Peter, James, or even Lily nowadays, although that could have been because James was always with her now. He opened the door before they knocked or turned when they tried to surprise him. It used to vex them in school; Remus wondered if they felt the same way now that everything had spiraled out of anyone’s control. He wondered if maybe now they were grateful they could always be found.
Sirius was sitting on the empty beach, feet buried in blue sand. Remus could tell that Sirius was allowing his senses to overtake him, something that was worrisome for reasons Remus could scarcely comprehend. Perhaps he didn’t like how much Sirius could feel without feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes Remus felt like he was suffocating from too many scents. Sirius threw himself in the thick of it. It was a kind of sensory suicide.
Remus sat so that he settled with his legs folded underneath him. Sirius gave him a look, silently admonishing him for not wiggling his toes in the sand properly, and then went back to drowning himself on dry land.
They sat noiselessly, and Remus let it be for awhile. Sirius wanted to enjoy the magic of nature, and Remus was willing to indulge him. But at the same time, something about the quiet made him uneasy. Sirius and stillness never meshed well in his head.
“D’ya miss James?” Remus asked in a hushed voice, guilty over breaking the sanctity of silence. “And Peter?”
Sirius’s mouth shifted. “Yeah,” he answered dully. “Yeah, I wish they could be here.”
The quiet roared up again, and Remus refused to let something so wrong survive. “You know James is busy planning the wedding,” Remus continued, ducking his head to get a better look at Sirius’s eyes, shrouded as always. “And what you said with the freckles, which I would rather not think about any more than is necessary, thanks very much. Then Peter--"
“Working,” Sirius interrupted. “Good for him. Finding a job right after school.” His eyebrows moved in a way that expressly contradicted this.
Remus nodded, pulling his lower lip between his teeth, raking them across the flesh and stirring up skin he’d probably have to swallow. “I just--"
“Could you just stay here for awhile?” Sirius snapped, his voice like a thousand firecrackers let loose all at once. A pre-dawn Bonfire Night. His eyes darted, showing off their razor-like glint. Remus sometimes thought looking Sirius in the eye was uncomfortably close to being stabbed. “Don’t think about how you’d rather be in bed or how things would be better if Jamie and Pete were here or… whatever else you bloody think about.”
Remus stared, not amazed at Sirius’s mood swing (he was used to those by now), but still feeling its effects. He swallowed his words and saw that the first tantalizing hints of morning were starting to bronze their skin.
“I like you being here, Remus,” Sirius told him plainly. “You’re enough. And I… when you’re here, I want you here.”
Remus looked at him for awhile, studying the creases in his face that would one day be permanent and the storm in his eyes that had been with him since birth. He saw a tense jaw, sharpening the curve of his face into a firm line that made him seem years older, and he watched teeth scraping against his bottom lip. Instead of just stirring up skin, Sirius drew blood.
“You never cared before,” Remus observed, his voice shadow – muted and dark. “Why now?”
Sirius looked solemn. Then he lifted his hand and gestured in front of them, and Remus noticed the wisps of light had morphed into a blaze. “Sunrise.”
Obedient in his quiet fear, Remus turned to look at the sun, a ball of fire rising from the ocean, defying all sense of the elements to bring the new dawn. The sky looked as if it was ripped apart with rainbow flame, splitting apart the midnight blue with unseen hands. It was frightening in all its glory.
A quick glance at Sirius revealed an almost peaceful countenance.
He nearly asked something, but he kept it to himself. He knew the answers already. There was a war and there was danger, and where danger went, Sirius Black surely followed. No matter that he would be against his cousins and old friends and his brother; Sirius was going to fight. And he thought there was a chance that he might not come back.
Worse, he thought there was a chance Remus wouldn’t go with him.
Remus reached over and gripped Sirius’s shoulder with bruising force. Remus needed the connection; Sirius needed to know he was there.
“You always were too literal,” Sirius teased, his voice rough and low.
Remus looked at him, briefly preserving the silence. When he did speak, it was much harder than he thought it would be. “I’ll be there,” he said quietly.
Sirius shifted underneath his grasp, the muscles in his shoulder tightening. “Will you?”
“Yeah,” Remus promised. “And we’ll all be there after.”
It was probably stupid and childish and very, very naďve to say that. But really, even though they had left Hogwarts, completing the required passage into adulthood, maybe they were stupid, childish, and very, very naďve. Remus knew they would make a show of being grown-up, but really, they were too young for weddings, income, and responsibility, and far too young for war.
Sirius exhaled and brought his hand up to cover Remus’s, the pad of his thumb brushing against scarred knuckles. And for just a moment, Remus was so present that his chest throbbed, and he almost seized up with sudden self-hatred in memory of when he wasn’t there. He wished more than anything that he could go back and tell himself not to think so much; that sometimes it was all right to have an unrelenting tendency to want to do things.
Sirius let go, and Remus was left breathless only with the memory of agony.
“Damn straight we’ll all be there,” Sirius proclaimed, puffing out his chest with robust house pride. “We’re Gryffindors!”
“Gryffindors,” Remus echoed with less fervor, hating himself for knowing that in times of war, the majority of the Gryffindor house often served as canon fodder. One or two heroes emerged, but they always had the highest number of causalities. He was suddenly intensely grateful that Sirius had never bothered to be awake for History of Magic.
He took a deep breath and glanced around as the sun kissed the ground, turning the sand from blue to gold. “So, what’s on the agenda?”
“First, my dear Mr. Lupin, we nap.”
Remus narrowed his eyes like a guillotine meeting the woodblock. “What?” he deadpanned.
“Well, I have been up since five, you know. The hour of heathens, that’s what that is. I’m exhausted.” Sirius then gave a little wave, flopped back onto the sand, and proceeded to pass out immediately.
Remus just looked at him, briefly contemplating murder. “Prat,” he muttered, glaring openly at Sirius’s unguarded face.
But it was difficult to stay angry at an unconscious person. With nothing else to do, he drew his knees up to his chest and turned his thoughts as far away from the future as he could manage. He focused on Sirius’s sleeping form, using him as an anchor. And even though Sirius slumbered for another three hours, never once did Remus wander.
