The Moment

TITLE: The Moment

BY: Dev-Aki Basaa

~~

I say nothing as he takes my hand, holding it, staring at it. He pushes up my sleeve and runs one finger over a scar. His calloused finger-pad feels rough, but good, if not familiar. There was a time when Sirius' hands were as soft as any wealthy young man's, but that time had passed.

The moment stretches long. I feel his warm breath against my arm and his touch has a detachment to it as he studies me.

He pauses on a scar near the crook of my elbow. It's pinker than the others. It doesn't have the silver shimmer of age. "I don't know this one," he says and looks up at me. I can already see the anxiety in his eyes.

"I used to know them all."

I pull my arm from him and shift to put it around his waist instead. There's no point to this, no point in proving how much time has passed -- we both already know too well. I whisper as I speak.

"The ones you know are still there. You can learn the new ones, if you'd like."

There is another long moment and the silence seems to thrum inside my head allowing haunting thoughts to take hold. It is hard to push them away even as I watch him smile.

"I'd like that," he says and I close my eyes. I release a deep breath. I suppose I have my own anxiety that too much time has passed.

His kiss is unexpected, even for the moment. It's also different from those long distant kisses I remember. He is unsure and hesitant; his trembling breath rushes over my lips. I let him set the pace of our lips and the touch of our tongues. He'd once done that for me in an uncertain first kiss that seemed a lifetime ago. He doesn't taste the same; I'm sure I don't either. His scent has changed, but his grace remains and it doesn't take him long to fall back into that press and confidence which always made me swoon.

Lying on my back, I think I could be sixteen again. I feel as nervous and giddy as I did then. Much as he did that first time, he explores me, touching and listening and sending me out of my mind. The familiarity is a comfort; the soft voice in my ear thick with remembered arousal.

"Oh, Moony--"

I've never heard anything so wonderful. It surpasses the first time I'd heard him say my name in passion and I nod and whisper his name in turn. I feel his lips curl at my neck and it's like a stolen moment on the common room couches and not on my davenport in my dilapidated flat.

I let it all overwhelm me, lost to the mix of memory and magic and rediscovered love. I cradle his body between my legs and know a peace I've not felt in over fourteen years. I don't know how far this moment will go; it's so much so fast. I wonder how long before he has to leave yet again; I wonder how long until he has any true freedom at all. As he takes my wrists and pins them above my head, I push the worries from my mind. Do they matter now? With him here, his grey eyes alive and his lips against my jaw, does anything else in the world really matter?

For this long moment, it doesn't.

~end