Thieves

Thieves

Theft is theft and raid is raid

Though reciprocally made.

Lovers, the conclusion is

Doubled sighs and jealousies

In a single heart that grieves

For lost honour among thieves.

-Robert Graves, "The Thieves"

I.

Poofter. Nance. Bum-boy. Cocksucker. Remus Lupin knows even before Davey Gudgeon dispels all doubt.

Asleep, he doesn't dream of pouty-lipped girls with soft breasts and demure folds, but of brooding boys with sharp angles and jutting cocks; awake, he strokes himself thinking of Sirius Black. He doesn't speak of this: like Crucio, it is unforgivable.

When Davey Gudgeon, who is tall and dark-haired (like Sirius, but not Sirius), eyes him speculatively in the library stacks and cants his head toward the door, Remus nods. In empty classrooms and stairwells, and under the bleachers of the Quiddich pitch, hands and mouths meet hungrily, and they jerk each other off in a way that isn't sensual so much as compulsive, as if they need this, and need it quickly. He imagines Davey is Sirius; he doesn't wonder if Davey imagines he is someone else. He doesn't care.

Poofter. Nance. Bum-boy. Cocksucker.

Words are hurled at Remus like fists, but he doesn't flinch anymore when they hit him. He only flinched once, the first time, when they were whispered rather than shouted by some Hufflepuff who spies them under the stands. The boy is stunned first, and then disgusted, furrowing his brow and grunting "poofters." Davey is stricken. Remus is simply defeated. By dinner, everyone knows.

Remus defines himself by what he is (prefect-marauder-werewolf-queer) and by what he is not (rich-handsome-popular-athletic). He doesn't flinch when someone calls him a nance, because he knows he is, and there's nothing for it, is there? He knows that no matter how those words sting (and they do sting, they draw blood in unseen places), they are kinder words than he would hear if they found out what he really was.

What is concealed is worse than what is revealed, and in the wizarding world, there are worse things to be than "cocksucker."

And there are worse things than people who are nothing more than faces in hallways and bodies in classrooms spitting words with casual cruelty, for sport more than malice, so he ignores them, drives his meat in listless circles, wincing when the tines of the fork screech against the plate. Sirius throws down his napkin and huffs off and he pretends not to notice, not to be hurt.

After dinner, James asks: "Are you, then?"

Remus nods, and James looks at him suspiciously, as if he's never really seen him before, and then he nods decisively, smiling in his unflappable-James way. "Right, then. So long as it's not my bum you're looking at." Peter, who has only recently discovered girls (and even more recently, wanking), merely blinks and looks bewildered; he can't fathom why a bloke would think of anything other than tits.

II.

Sirius glowers at him in sullen silence and it makes his skin crawl. That glare, grey eyes narrowed and flashing unfathomably, is far worse than all of those berks at dinner with their taunts.

"Stupid cunt."

Sirius' lips curl disdainfully. He is bloody good at looking cold, and Remus has always feared that this look would be unleashed on him, and so it has. Sirius has not moved, he is braced against the window seat with the fading sun casting an aura around his head like an angel Remus saw once in a book of muggle art. Paintings like that hang in churches, and people bow their head when they see them, like Remus is bows his head now, because it hurts to look; because Sirius is too beautiful and too angry and Remus is too ashamed.

"You could've said."

Said what, Remus wonders, barking out a laugh. Oy, mate, I'm bent! Or: Well, Pads, I pretend it's your hand on my prick when I wank!

He says neither of these things, just reigns in his awkward chuckle and shrugs slowly, like weights are pressing on his shoulders, peering up at Sirius through thick lashes with a burning face and clenching stomach.

"What would you've done if I'd said?"

Sirius shrugs, the rise of his shoulders desultory, flippant.

"S'not the point, is it? I shouldn't have to hear it from the rest of the sodding world first." He watches Remus squirm and his heart beats faster. "I thought we were mates, but you'd tell your mate who you were snogging, wouldn't you? You didn't tell." His lips are Quiddich-chapped and he worries them between his teeth. "Why the fuck not?"

Because I would've died if you'd laughed, Remus thinks. And you might've. Prolly would've done. Sirius' lip is bleeding now and Remus wonders if it is his queer-self or his wolf-self that makes him want to lick away the blood. He doesn't answer.

"Fuck you," Sirius sneers. It's a jackboot to the gut; the force of it doubles him over. He bolts so Sirius doesn't see his eyes fill up. When he knocks shoulders with the Slythryn boy in the corridor who barks "Hands off, ponce," he doesn't even hear it. His ears are filled with Sirius and "Fuck you."

Davey isn't surprised the next night when Remus shuffles his feet and mumbles that he can't see him anymore, not meeting his eyes. He doesn't say anything at all, but then, they never really talked much, did they? It hadn't been about talking, hadn't really even been about Remus and Davey, but about what you shouldn't want and what you couldn't have and maybe everyone talking about it made all of that too much, too real. Davey just nods and pushes past him, and Remus can't decide if he feels disappointment or relief.

Either way, it doesn't feel as cold as "fuck you."

III.

Sirius skulks in the hall, stalking Remus. He doesn't know why he wants to see it, needs to see it, but he can't stop himself. He thinks this is what it must feel like to be Imperiused. His fingers itch and he doesn't know who he wants to hurt more, Remus or Davey. He recedes in shadow and Remus never even sees him. Hasn't looked, Sirius thinks sourly. Hasn't ever.

He is vindictive, happy when they do not kiss, do not embrace. He can't hear the words, but the slump of Remus' shoulders shouts shame and surrender and when Davey steps around him and walks away, Sirius smiles. Only for a moment, though, because Mooney's face is so fucking beautiful and sad and it's somehow his fault, even if it's what he wanted.

The oily voice catches him off guard.

"So Lupin's a queer and you're a voyeur. How quaint!"

"Sod off," he starts to say, but doesn't finish, lets it trail away half-spoken. His mouth opens again, and what he says he will regret later but by then it's too late to call the words back.

"You want a real show, Snivellus?"

Snape tries to look indifferent, but Sirius has already seen the flicker of curiosity in his dull, dark eyes.

IV.

"Fuck you" hurts, but not as much as calculated betrayal. The ache of a jackboot in the gut is nothing compared to the sear of a knife in the back.

Exhausted after the moon, clawed and raw in Dumbledore's office, Remus can't even look up, because he's afraid that Sirius is looking at him and he'll be sick, or worse, that Sirius isn't looking at him and he'll be sick. Not for the first time, he wishes he were dead.

Sirius is staring at his hands, picking his cuticles till the skin splits, knowing Remus can smell the blood.

V.

They persist in stubborn silence until they can't stand it any longer because Remus won't demand an apology and Sirius won't beg for forgiveness. The unvoiced howl of their loneliness is a plaintive poison in their blood. When they finally speak to each other, their voices creak like old doors opening into abandoned rooms with a cadence halting and hesitant like first steps on newly-mended bones.

"Why him?" Sirius whispers. He does not add why not me, but Remus hears it.

"Because he would." Remus whispers back. He does not add because I was afraid you wouldn't, but Sirius knows.

They wrap violent arms around each other, trapping their bodies like Devil's Snare and each thinks he will tear the other limb from limb because he is so bloody pissed. But they don't. Remus cries without sound, fat tears trailing down hollow cheeks, and Sirius wonders if it is the boy in him or only the dog that wants to lick them away.

He tightens his grip on Remus and his arms, oh sod it, his whole fucking body, shakes and shakes and shakes, and Remus says "fuck you," softly into Sirius' shoulder, because there is nothing worse than silence.