Do you take prompts? If not, have a nice day, but if so, I love your Bound series, and I was wondering if you'd consider a prequel about Remus first realizing that he's both desperate for, and desperately possessive of, Sirius, when they were back in school.
YES, hello, I do, however it goes without saying that it takes me forever to actually post them LOL. Anyway, I wrote this yonks ago and tidied it up this afternoon because I was in a Mood, and here we go.
Warnings for jealousy, Hogwarts era, casual promiscuity and references to Sirius/OFC, werewolfy imagery, Irish Remus and general angst regarding boys being careless with each others’ feelings. enjoy! lol.
It’s Halloween, and Remus is miserable.
***
It’s Halloween, and Remus is miserable.
There's a party in the dungeons; the Slytherins are hosting. "They're twats," James declared before he left their dorms, deliberately dishevelled in his pirate costume, a cutlass dangling from one hand and cider in the other. "But they throw a good piss up."
Peter agreed, predictably affable and struggling into his Peter Pan outfit. Sirius ignored them both, concentrating on doing his eyeliner right. He's a self-declared glam rock icon tonight, black glitter and flares and Marc Bolan curls. His pirate costume (second mate to James's Hook, of course) lay discarded on his bed in favour of something louder, more offensive, more Muggle.
They've all been too polite to ask why. (They all know it's because Regulus might be there).
The party probably is good. Remus isn't there.
He was there, for an hour or so. Just long enough for two chipped mugs of butterbeer heavily spiked with cheap whiskey and to see Sirius with his tongue down Margot Holdings' throat, his lipstick smearing crimson onto hers.
Remus begged off then, made his escape after throwing James some crap excuse about how the moon two nights ago was still making him feel woozy. James knew it was bullshit. He said nothing though, and let Remus scarper off like a kicked dog. James is the best of mates that way; he bulldozes through most conversations and into people's lives but he knows when to be quiet, how to keep a secret.
When to let Remus skulk off to their dorm to hide in his bunk and stew about Sirius.
Remus pulls the curtains tight. He kicks his shoes off, but leaves the rest of his costume as it is, pressing his face to the pillow and probably smearing lazy Dracula greasepaint all over it. It was a half-arsed effort, really. Three quarter-arsed, at best; Remus doesn't like dressing up as monsters. (He has enough of a time playing human).
He closes his eyes, then opens them again. He huffs grumpily against the pillow, wriggling to get comfortable and failing. He feels crap. He has no valid excuse for it―not one he's willing to admit to.
James knows about Remus and Sirius, and the bed hopping between them. He has ears, and eyes, and the dorm's not that big. It's not really a secret. The four of them just act like it's one, for everybody's sake.
Whatever it is, it's usually just a mess. And not a particularly monogamous one.
Remus has no reason to be upset about it. He and Sirius aren't an item. They're something, but Sirius isn't breaking any rules by snogging pretty girls under dimmed party lights. It might be nice if he didn't do it in front of Remus, but it also might be nice if he hadn't tried to make Remus a murderer two years ago. There's a lot of ways they could be nicer to each other. In perspective, the kissing doesn't seem that bad.
Remus could do the same, and might, if he trusted himself around anyone other than Sirius. (If there were girls as pretty as Sirius).
Remus doesn't trust himself with people other than Sirius, though. He's bookish and boring and plain and sometimes he daydreams about ripping his classmates apart. He's tall and pleasant and polite, and he's forever five years old, a rag doll in a wolf's jaws in a field in Ireland, changed and scarred. Sirius gets it, even if he can be a prick. He pushes buttons. He lights up the room. He gets under Remus's skin and makes him feel sane at the same time. He's one of the few people Remus trusts himself and the wolf around, even if he doesn't really trust Sirius anymore. Sirius fucked that right up for the both of them. It's confusing, but Remus is smart. He'll figure his way around it.
He devours books instead, pages and scrolls and tomes. He tries to be boring. He tries to be plain. He tries to be someone people like but mostly forget, the nice Irish lad tagging along with loud James and cocky Sirius and sweet Peter. He worries sometimes that he's doing it too well.
He tries not to think of Margot's hands on Sirius's waist, but he falls asleep to fevered images of them just the same.
***
Remus half-wakes to the <i>swish</i> of curtains flinging open. There's a low giggle and then the thump of platform boots hitting the floor.
"Moony." The bed dips. "Moooonyyy."
Remus is half asleep, surfacing from dreams he's already forgetting. He snuffles into his pillow, as if he can bury himself like a mole and back into sleep.
He's almost back asleep when he feels arms wrapping around his chest, Sirius spooning up behind him. He smells like alcohol, the remnants of cologne and clean sweat. He smells like someone else too; Remus shuts that thought down as quickly as he can, but it's too late. That little wolfy part of him that doesn't vanish with the full moon is always attuned to these things, pricking up its ears and growling low and threatening. Remus feels it in his belly. He's wide awake now.
"Sirius," he whispers, low and annoyed. He swallows. "You know this isn't your bed, yeah?" he grumbles.
Sirius laughs. He's drunk, loose and pliant. Remus doesn't know if that means he fucked her. He could tell, if he tried, if he let the wolf sniff her out. He's not going to do that though. He's got to have some self respect.
Sirius snake arms squeeze around him tighter. His knees are tucked up behind Remus's. "I couldn't find you," he slurs. "And then James said you were sad." Sirius exhales on a half yawn.
Remus waits, but Sirius doesn't say more, as if this is enough of an explanation as to why he's crawled into Remus's bed and wrapped around him like a vine.
Honestly, it is. Sirius can be complex, and sometimes he can be impressively simple.
And if Remus keeps his eyes shut, and doesn't look at the time on his watch, then he can pretend it's only been half an hour since he left the party―that Sirius noticed quickly and didn't stay on for hours, 'til dawn was approaching and the morning birds were chirping, didn't finger Margot behind a statue and kiss her neck until he left marks and then saunter back to his other mates, proud and loose-limbed and swigging whiskey before working up a sweat on the makeshift dance floor. That he didn't ask James as an afterthought once he'd had his fun, <i>hey, where did Mooney bugger off to?</i> That he didn't come and hop into Remus's bed as a way to end his night instead of the purpose of it.
It's a night thought. It's horse shit, and Remus knows it, but if he never sees the time then it will never be confirmed. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, if your best mate is a careless prick but you weren't there to see it, then did it really happen?
Behind him, Sirius's breath gusts over the back of his neck, and then again. The rhythm of sleep. His chest rises and falls easily, pressed all up against Remus's back, hips flush against Remus's pyjama-clad thighs. Remus keeps his own breathing shallow, tries not to breathe him in. It makes his head spin a little, not quite enough oxygen getting into his lungs. He's wide awake, and so is the wolf, the scar on his shoulder prickling like pins and needles and his senses tingling too.
His pillow is going to smell like Sirius for days now after this, longer if he hides the case from the elves and doesn't let them wash it. He'll want to roll in it, smell like Sirius, rub his face over the plain cotton and mouth at it until his breath dampens the pillow and Remus can taste it on his tongue. He might let himself do it. He'll hate himself afterwards, but he might let himself all the same.
He blinks, his vision swimming a little from his half-held breath before he gasps down a lungful, and there it is. Sirius all around him, thick in the air. He smells sweet, and sleepy, relaxed and content, and with a bitter pang Remus can smell her too. The wolf inside him can smell her. Remus braces for the comforting lurch of anger, of rage, for gnashing teeth and snarling lips, but it doesn't come.
There's a whine building in his chest instead, something sad and bereft, hurt. It feels like ears pulled back against his head, like a soft muzzle pressed against the cold ground. It sounds like a kicked dog, crawling on its belly back for more anyway.
Remus sniffs, blinking the sting away from his eyes and feeling his lashes come away wet. He curls a fist into his blanket, fingers tense and his breath shaky as he alternates between short sharp breaths and letting himself breath Sirius in, his chest tight from more than Sirius's boa constrictor arms. His eyes droop eventually, his face sore from frowning, but sleep hovers in his periphery like the moon slipping out of view over a highway.
Remus is too smart to fall for Sirius. The wolf isn't.
***