Playing With Fire

Playing With Fire

Don't you know I feel the darkness closing in...

I am all that I'll ever be

When you lay your hands over me

But don't go weak on me please

I know that it's weak,

But God help me, I need this...

Remus Lupin lies wide-awake, tossing restlessly, kicking the blankets off and turning onto his back. He doesn't actually need the blankets - he is, as a rule, something akin to a living furnace. Most mornings, he wakes up to at least one icy hand burrowed under or against him. It isn't unusual for Remus to find Sirius curled against him on particularly cold nights - or any night really-, even if the other young man usually falls asleep chest down, his limbs sprawled in all directions as if he is claiming the area around him for some unknown country.

Remus isn't used to this; he is always somewhat surprised by the strange intimacy of sleeping next to another person, of waking up with another body beside his own. The utter trust involved in the act leaves him pleasantly and thoroughly bewildered, so that there are mornings that Sirius will open his eyes and find Remus turning his head in embarrassment, having been staring at his sleeping form with a look of intense concentration.

And yet, somehow, his bed has been empty for two nights, and sleep has become an impossibility.

The flat is small and frigid, not because Remus is young and poor and cannot afford the luxury of heat, but because he has been too distracted - no, that isn't it, stop pretending - to light the fire.

Sirius usually gets home early in the afternoon, and lights the fire before he leaves again for the Nightwatch, and an hour or so after Remus walks in the door, relieved of his duties for the Order. It isn't that Sirius is, in particular, more domestically inclined than Remus; he does it out of habit, and Remus has gotten so used to it, he never bothers with it. Somehow, it has become a symbol to Remus of Sirius' presence, in the flat, in his life; in that small piece of space that isn't connected to the everyday nightmare that is his reality, his life.

Which of course Remus knows is absurd, because there is no space of any size that isn't touched by the horrors that colour his days and haunt his nights. His life is the everyday nightmare of a soldier who is fighting on the losing side. And that would be alright, if that nightmare would obey his wishes and prayers and stay at the threshold, but it has seeped under the door and in through the cracks between the warped boards of their floor, and pervaded the last place left, which was never really safe, but had always pretended to be. And now Remus can sense the wariness of distrust that clings to Sirius in the same way that the scent of cheap fags hangs on him.

The grate has been cold for two nights. Remus hasn't bothered to touch it. Something about starting the fire himself feels like giving in, admitting that something is wrong - which there is. It is glaring and obvious and hangs in the air when the two are apart, but even more when they are together. Remus knows it is childish to purposely ignore the empty grate like he does - he'll be home eventually, he'll come home, he has to -, but he does it anyway.

It is easier than looking at the problem directly. Remus has the nagging fear that if he actually bothers to confront the smoldering distrust that has lurks at the edges his and Sirius' every interaction of late, everything will catch fire like a house made of matches, and what remains of the world - the place that may be corrupted, but hasn't yet fallen - will be burned to ashes like everything else.

It doesn't change that there is something forbidding in Sirius' eyes, and that Remus is falling back more and more on the minute splinter of safety that can be found in silence, and avoids looking into Sirius' eyes, lest he lose what little hold he has left on his emotions. To Remus, it's better to be numb than to be broken open and bleeding.

Remus turns back over, and drags the blankets back over himself, and manages eventually to fall asleep without frigid fingers sliding along his ribs or the mattress sagging under the weight of a body - he'll come home - he has to - other than his own.

*

Sirius opens the throttle on his bike, tearing through the sky like some avenging angel, urging the engine harder, faster, - please baby come one, just a little faster - so that the snarl of the bike between his thighs is loud and feral like that of another creature.

He isn't sure himself why he is in such a rush to return home. He doesn't truly want to open the door and see Remus standing in the center of the kitchen with accusations alight in his eyes or sitting quietly reading under the dying light of a candle. Worse, he doesn't want to open the door to find the flat empty. Not empty in the sense that Remus is simply gone, but empty of his clothes and his cloak and his books, and that he is gone now and forever, without a word, and although Remus is not the type to flee in the night - Moony's too brave for that -, Sirius know that the Dark Lord can change the will of even the strongest person - not Remus, not him -, no matter how they may fight it.

Emptiness means the betrayal he suspects includes him, and that Remus is everything Sirius has been told he is - treacherous, inhuman, half-breed - they always say half-breed -, that he is a heartless, worthless, soulless beast created out of the blackness of Hell - but he isn't, he isn't -, that Sirius' fears are real, and that he can't trust the only person in his world that there is left to trust.

Sirius' fears are real. The shouting matches have given way to silences, and a part of Sirius hisses in suspicion when Remus arrives back at the flat late at night from places he will not name. Sirius knows Remus is hiding things from him; every time he comes home, he knows that this could be the time the darkness creeps in too far - not tonight, just not tonight.

Sirius would rather avoid this possibility, and with it the slim piece of comfort that is to be found in the exhausted - beautiful, intelligent, feral - eyes of a man he cannot trust, but whom he loves, for ten thousand unquestionable reasons.

But there is nowhere else to go. Sirius would have liked to talk to James who is his brother in every way that matters - more than my own brother, Jamie, more than anyone on earth - and is half his heart, or even to Lily, who he has never seen eye to eye with, but whom he loves just the same. He'd love to see baby Harry, to hold his godson and know he's still his happy gurgling, messy-haired baby self, safe from the monsters under his crib - because those monsters are the real thing - and the countless evils that threaten him. But it has been nearly a month since Sirius has seen them, and it will be a long time yet before the Potters will be able to return to the land of the living.

It is something like they have simply been erased from the universe, leaving only a few infinitesimal traces behind them. This is a good thing, Sirius knows - they're better off this way, stop being fucking selfish-, but he hates it anyway, with that blind, raging-at-the-heavens fury that Remus only shakes his head at and responds to with tired smiles or an impulsive, silencing kiss.

More than anything, Sirius would give almost anything to talk to James, to know that he's well and hale, confide his despair, and know that is still one person he can trust wholly.

At one time, there had been more than one person he trusted like that. But that had changed; Regulus is dead now - how could you be so stupid -Merlin, I'd have taken your place - was it my fault-, Peter is hiding out, and Remus hadn't looked Sirius in the eye properly for weeks.

Sirius didn't really know when it had begun, but they have stopped really looking each other in the eye, even really looking each other in the face most of the time. They don't talk, save concerning the most mundane topics. They don't wrestle playfully, or shove one another around corners when no one is looking to kiss like love struck boys or love struck fools. It has reached the point that sex is something like a fight - Christ, harder, harder, and I can forget for just this second -, with the only intent to get off as hard and as fast as possible. They aren't careful or affectionate or even attentive, really Instead, they are beings of hot, violent mouths and hands that cling and grasp hard enough to leave finger shaped bruises.

To call what they do making love is insult to the term. It is fucking, pure and simple.

The only sounds heard in their bedroom are the squeal and sigh of bedsprings, the crack of the ancient headboard smacking the wall and the breathless moans and curses as they come. They barely speak at all to one another outside of that - were it to even be considered conversation - save about the most commonplace, worthless topics like who was to get more Floo powder - I'll get more while I'm out, and we're out of milk as well - or to ask if any owls have come.

Sirius wonders why they continue fucking - he supposes it's the familiarity of it, something to cling to in the rising tidewater of suspicion that threatens to pull them under. It has the recognizable cadence of emotion, but it lacks the honesty and depth that used to make Remus's voice shatter into something very like a howl when he came - Oh, God, Remus I love you -, and could cause Sirius' vision splinter like crystal as his lashes shone damply in the aftermath of climax.

And then he remembers that it means Remus is - in some strange, unhinged way that has no basis in fact and cannot be affected by the harsh truth of reality - still his.

He also remembers the horror of the Muggle home that was been blown apart, and how his regiment arrived in time to do nothing more than wipe the minds of the witnesses. Sirius was the one to hear the mewling whimpers drifting up from the still-smoking ruin of the small Muggle house, and God, he'd thought it was a cat or some small creature with the misfortune of being in the wrong place, wrong time, and that would have been bad enough - Christ¹, no one expects a kid to make that sound - but apparently the couple had had a baby girl.

It was all he could do not to breakdown right there, but he cleared away the splintered remains of a crib - fucking hell, you can still the flakes of pink paint under the singe marks - and picked her up and held the little thing close to his chest as he called for backup, because he couldn't stand to see what they'd done to her - those fucking heartless bastards.

He made it through to the end, but barely, and went straight to his bike - please baby, just get me up and take me home -, ignoring the sound of one of the newer recruits as the sound of retching came from the young man on his knees on the sidewalk. Sirius didn't think about the blood on his shirt or the little girl's dark dark hair, which looked nothing like Harry's, but was enough to remind Srius of the small boy and is still enough to make his stomach turn and his eyes sting as he urges bike toward the flat - home - although he doesn't quite know what he'll do when he gets there, and toward Remus - I need you tonight, please be there, please - a man he isn't sure he knows at all anymore.

Now he is here, above London, praying to gods he doesn't believe in that he can just make it to - my love, my friend, my heart - Remus - my enemy? - who needs more than anything at this exact moment, although to fall into that embrace - two small scars on his right shoulder, and his arms are like steel, but they don't look it -may be a fall into the most obvious trap that could be set.

This is the hardest thing. Sirius knows he can't trust Remus, knows it because it is the only explanation for the silences and the awkwardness and the fear that runs through his like fire when Remus' eyes fall from his, and another shred of faith is stripped away from Sirius.

He sets his bike down and leaves it standing outside the door, not caring what happens to it as his standard issue, uniform boots pound up the steps, catching on a step so that he almost trips - fuckshitfuckbloodyhell - even though he isn't climbing the stairwell with any great speed.

Sirius can see his hands shaking as he fumbles with his keys in the lock, and the heavy keys on the ring jingle like sleigh bells and catch the light as the tumblers clack and fall in the lock. Then the door swings open, and Sirius feels more than sees the flat's front room is empty.

For just one moment, Sirius feels his world give way under him. He is ready to fall to his knees and scream till his lungs are raw and bleeding, when the tap turn off in the bathroom and Remus appears, his hair in mild disarray and a blank expression that turns immediately to alarm as he sees the front of Sirius's uniform.

"Sirius, why is there bloo -,"

He is able to say nothing more, because Sirius is very suddenly pulling him by the front of his faded black jumper against the copper buttons that line the stained, navy uniform that is now soiled with blood.

Remus immediately reaches up to tangle his fingers in Sirius' hair, and the two are biting each other's lips and making small sound of pain and anguish and the evidence of their violent and obvious arousals grind against one another. They are clumsy and careless, and Sirius' uniform in a ragged and abused thing as Remus shoves Sirius hard to the wall and doesn't unbutton the stained jacket to get it off. Remus's jumper is tugged anxiously aside with hands that fumble and shake violently.

It isn't very long before their hips dig almost painfully into each other at a steady, desperate rhythm, and they are gasping and whispering one another's names, before Sirius is describing in a barely coherent voice the horrors of what he has seen as he groans and snarls into Remus's mouth, who is snarling right back, and tugging his hair to the point that it hurts like his shoulders do as they dig into the wall. Remus whispers ragged words of comfort even while his short nails make angry purple crescents on Sirius' shoulder and his other palm impatiently wipes away hysterical tears as Sirius begs "faster" and "harder" and arches hard into him.

It doesn't take long for the snarls and the groans, the frantic grinding of their hips and the fury of their mouths to send them both over the edge, and Remus lets out a feral wail as Sirius moans, biting into Remus' exposed shoulder as he comes himself.

They collapse heavily against the wall, barely able to hold their own weight their knees buckle and their arms give out, so that all they can do is cling to one another, panting wild eyed and exhausted on the floor. The ruined jacket is left where it has fallen, and they are barely able to drag themselves upright and then to the bedroom, where Remus pulls the rest of Sirius' uniform from his body before removing his own vestments and stretching out next to him.

Sirius knows he cannot trust this man, but loves him just the same, and pulls himself closer to the living fire of Remus' body beside him, which may blaze with the hellish inferno of treachery. Sirius can accept this, so long as he can curl against this flame and for this moment, and maybe not even so long as that, be warmed even if it may mean getting burned.