Geminus

Sirius is reunited with his half. They have been apart for three days. He catches the scent of him before he is even in the room. Sweat and blood, hormones, pheromones, ancient dust, the evaporating vestiges of a nonhuman musk. His sharpened senses, the Padfoot parts, nearly sting with the promise of the spices in the air.

Scabbed over and shaking, Remus creeps into the dormitory, rustling into his own bed, lying still for a moment, then rustling out again and pulling back the casements at Sirius' feet. In this point-blank, curtained-in closeness his scent is powerful and subtly new. There is a new bitterness, half-enticing and half-revolting, familiar but still strange. He is weak, thin, and pale, as he always is after his transformations.

"It was bad this time," he whispers, pressing his mouth into the hollow under Sirius' cheekbone.

Sirius says nothing, but turns his head a fraction of a degree toward Remus, who snakes his arm across Sirius' chest. Their hands meet in the center gully of Sirius' ribcage, and their fingers intertwine at once, with no fumbling, fitting together like a hinge.

"I killed something," says Remus. Hardly any air escapes him, hardly any sound, but Sirius hears. His heart convulses, electrified, thudding inside him. He knows it is audible to Remus, who is even more sensitive than he. "You can smell it on me," Remus says darkly, throatily.

He can. It's a mammal. Not human. Remus would not be here if it was human.

"Rabbit?" asks Sirius, tasting the phantom blood in his mouth, feeling the dry grit of fur, the heat of the kill, the dying twitches.

"Cat," Remus whispers, and inhales sharply. Sirius' sense-empathy shifts slightly; the flesh between his teeth toughens, there is the faint echo of an excruciating yowl.

"It wasn't you," Sirius murmurs. "It was the wolf. It was not you."

"I am the wolf," Remus says, fully aloud and with an angry rust on his voice. "The wolf is me. We are not sep - separate things." He draws a shaky, uneven breath, and hisses, "I can still taste it."

So can Sirius. He turns onto his side, facing Remus. They are nearly the same height and match exactly. Their knees touch, and their bellies. Hot breath washes over Sirius' face, humid and laden with a myriad of primal, organic taints. He breaks their fabric of fingers and grips the back of Remus' head, smashing down the gentle curls, and kisses him with a steady, gentle pressure. He sweeps Remus' mouth with his tongue, seeking out the musky exotica of the kill, cleaning it out; then he retreats, opens his mouth to Remus, offers him a well of new tastes, better ones, cleaner ones, ones that Remus knows well. Remus licks at him with a shocking hunger, searching and probing with a vigor more befitting Sirius himself.

Then, with a gasp, he breaks away, turning his face to the ceiling. "Next time - what if - next time -"

Sirius grabs Remus' face more roughly than he intended, yanking it back toward him, squeezing his cheeks between fingers and thumb, feeling as Remus must the reflexive pang of discomfort and shock at such a violent gesture. He relaxes his grip but does not let go.

"Don't," he commands. They have spoken before of what ifs. Remus has frightened him with the terrifying depth of his hypotheses, the bleak and unequivocal surety of his contingency plans. Sirius has had nightmares of third days, of lateness, of slipping between the Willow's roots and down the passageway, heart thudding feet thudding the scent of blood running two kinds of blood climbing stairs finding rocking feet rhythmic sway and a sudden feeling like falling.

"I know," breathes Remus. "I know." Sirius lets go his face, dropping his hand to his waist. Remus squirms against him, and they touch in new places, familiar comforting places, places that sparkle now with a blind, escalating heat.

"Padfoot," says Remus, nodding curtly, with a ridiculous auspice and solemnity to his tone. This is their ritual: detached salutation, a token of distance.

"Moony," echoes Sirius, frowning unsociably. Remus pushes against him, shockingly, wantonly hot, hard, damp, desperate. Sirius pulls up his nightshirt, which has become clingy with sweat. Remus, like a delayed reflection, does the same. Their bodies magnet together, geminous, fitting and molding, bony joints digging, softnesses giving way. Sirius' hand goes over the moist ripples of Remus' ribs, stopping at the new, deep scratches, tracing the gravelly length of each scab. Remus rocks against him, rubbing his cock against Sirius' sweat-slicked-belly, sending jagged charges of a tense, unbearable pleasure through the depths of his abdomen. Sirius pushes back, they move in time, the bed creaks, Peter turns over in his sleep, and the only sound in the room is their breathing. Their rhythms match with an instinctive precision. Their faces lock together at the mouths, their tonguesdarting and weaving together, exulting in each other's slickness, roughness, taste. Their hands grab and slide and grip, rubbing greedily, decadently. Skin drags on sweaty skin. Thin, nimble fingertips explore underneath folds, root in the darkness. The paw and gasp, stung occasionally by the bare edge of a fingernail. The pace quickens. It is no longer clear whose is whose, what is where. Free of the burden of ownership, they combine, writhe, move as one, feel as one, ascend together in a gasping abandon.

Sirius comes, hot, powerful, with a painful, catching, throaty gasp; Remus follows like an echo, letting free a tiny moan, audible only to Sirius. They lie stuck together, tangled together, together, still jerking and juddering involuntarily. Their breathing is ragged and out of sync. The scents in their closed-off space are heavy, wet, impossibly numerous. The stain of the forsaken cat is gone, overpowered. This close together, Remus and Sirius both smell the same.

They fall asleep knotted in Sirius' sheets, breathing deeply with their mouths open, draped unabashedly over one another like puppies. When Remus wakes in the darkness, gasping, Sirius is immediately awake to hush him and smooth his face with a soft hand, alert and focused as if he has been watching over all along.