Black Ice

Remus' mother still likes to drive her Muggle car, and sometimes he likes to go with her. The low rumble of the engine, finding its way through roads filled with common people, gives him a tiny grasp at normalcy, something he has longed for his entire life.

'Beware of the Black Ice,' she told him, last winter break, while they road through the countryside by night. 'Those patches of almost melted ice that appear along the road. It's called black ice, because it looks black against the macadam by night. You only see it when it's already too late, and the car is already slipping.' Remus knows his mother harbours the wish that one day her son will want to learn Muggle ways.

So, when he looks at Sirius Black's eyes, grey eyes, eyes the colour of ice just before melting, he wonders if he should listen to his mother. But then the mouth that assaults his is hot, hot, hot, scorching hot, and leaves paths of fire along his jaw, his neck, his chest and navel. And when said mouth takes him completely, Remus is pretty sure the world has plunged into Hell and Sirius' tongue is made of lava. The icy stone against his back is burning him from friction, and the fingers on his thighs are branding him, and it can't be ice, because ice couldn't possibly survive in this heat. And he's melting, too, when those fingers are suddenly inside, no ice to prevent the fever he knows will kill him.

'Sirius, stop! I...I'm...' he says. But Sirius just looks up at him, and his eyes are no longer grey, but black, black from lust, black like burned coals, no, no, black like black ice against the macadam, and Remus thinks he should have listened to his mother, because Sirius doesn't stop. He just tilts his head and takes him further and doesn't stop. He just doesn't stop.

And the explosion is white. And black and white is grey, like red, blue and yellow is grey, because everything turns grey, like ashes after a fire, like Ice before melting, like the silver that Muggles say burns werewolves, like Sirius' eyes. And white catches the light, that burns, burns, is hot, but it's not fire, because ice burns, too, how could he have forgotten that? And why, why didn't he listen to his mother? Because he's falling, falling. He slipped in the Black ice, and he's falling, spiralling and falling. Like a Muggle car, whose wheels have been caught in the black ice, and it slips, and it glides, and it cartwheels, until it falls and ends in a white explosion of Fire against Ice. Yes, he really should have listened to his mother, because he doesn't want to fall and end in a white explosion of fire and melt the ice that burns, that is still burning him. But is too late, because he's already falling.

But when he falls, he falls into Sirius' arms, and he's glad he didn't listen to his mother.