Facade

Façade

"Oh, and do I deserve to be?

Is that the question?

And if so...if so...who answers...who answers?"

-- Pearl Jam "Alive"

In the morning he woke up and it wasn't real.

It was as simple, as breathtaking, and as unquestioned as that. He woke up, and it hadn't happened. There was a solid weight beside him and he forgot everything but that. It was a gray English morning and the portrait down the hall was shrieking its daily venomous monologue, shrill curses making the walls seem paper thin in the old house. The bedspread he had pulled over his head smelled vaguely of dog-hair and feathers, and the pillow crowded against his cheek was wet with drool - an unsightly sleeping habit he'd never been able to shake. The body next to his was warm and, as usual, pulling incessantly at the covers without a shred of remorse. He yanked back and was rewarded with a sleepy grunt and an arm flung across his chest. He sighed and relinquished the blanket, grinning as the sudden lack of resistance nearly caused an unsightly roll out of the bed.

Familiar eyes gleamed at him, sleepiness erased in that irritating, sudden way Sirius had always had. He could linger abed for hours, but when he decided to wake, he did it instantly; coming out of bed clear-headed and swift while the rest of the world yawned and fumbled for toothbrushes and caffeine. The blanket was yanked from the fingers he'd let go slack. "It's bloody COLD in this mausoleum, Remus."

A faint tug of something - a wrongness - that he pushed resolutely away and refused to acknowledge. "I know." He yanked hard and won them back, the man coming with the blankets. Sirius' length was solid and warm against his side. It was welcome and familiar, but strangely alien. "Padfoot what-"

The question was cut off as soft lips pushed down on his far too hard. The kiss was more eager than skillful, and the passion in it more desperate than primal, another strangeness. Thoughts fled as he let his arms lift and close around the broad - not as broad as it once was - back. The weight against him was sharper than it had been in their youth, hipbones more pronounced, ribs slicing out through pale skin, elegant fingers thin. It felt untrue, somehow, but he didn't let himself care. It was right, it had to be. His hands knew the places that brought shivers and sighs and his lips brushed softly on points that called forth bone-deep moans. He wouldn't think about why this familiarity felt distant, why this moment felt unreal.

Sirius was content to let him lead - a rarity for him. Chilled air made goosebumps appear on heated flesh, each demanding to be kissed, licked, teased away. He fed on the sounds, soft at first and gradually growing guttural, demanding, and loud. Soft black hair - gray threads touching at temple and peak, unwelcome invaders in a dark sea - tangled around long fingers and sharp white teeth nipped at exposed skin. It had been so long - mind shying away from why with the grace of a dancer - and he was heat and welcome and love and lust. Together they were youthful indiscretions and secret hideaways that smelled of mold and sex.

Sirius opened, welcomed, a pause as hands fumbled for wands and a whispered spell. He breathed In Remus' ear. "I've always wanted you. . . "

Shh, shh. His hand covered the crooked, wide mouth as dark eyes danced and smoldered. No memory. No unwelcome reminders of why this couldn't be real. Because it was, it had to be. No gaping holes and tumbles into nothingness as scarred boys screamed and struggled in his arms. Only strong arms that wrapped around, invited.

Tight and slick and whispered names only they had known, years ago. The end came too soon. Rush of pleasure, gasped utterances of love given, accepted. Bodies collapsed together, skin to sweat-slick skin. Sirius pushed, rolling him over and sliding down to pillow his head on his too-thin stomach, pressing small kisses into the sweaty skin. Remus memorized the look of sated blue eyes and sweat-slick black hair. "Sirius .. . ." I love you, I miss you, I can't forget you. None of the words came.

Sirius grinned, flippant, unrepentant, irritating. "I miss you too, Remus."

It came back in a rush and he sat up, Sirius pulling away to sit at the foot of the bed, his expression changing, growing somber and more reserved than it had ever been, shoulders hunching as the lean body drew in on itself. "I thought -"

Remus voice sounded harsh, even to his own ears. "You thought? You thought what? That you could make me forget? That if you looked like Him I'd want you?"

A small thread of anger in the dead voice. "You DID want me."

"I wanted him. I didn't even see you. I saw a memory. Your performance wasn't even that good. If I hadn't gone to bed drunk, I'd never have believed it."

"Liar. You believed it because you wanted it. He's gone, Remus. GONE. And I could do this for you. I could be him for you. I could love you, make you forget, know you as well as he did . . ."

"How did you get in here?"

The voice took on a whine, a pleading. Sirius had never begged, and Remus pushed down an urge to hit, to bite, to growl and howl and attack this dim copy for daring to wear Sirius' skin. "It's almost over, Remus, we could go. We could pretend . . .."

The potion was fading, the man opposite him becoming a blurred rendition of himself, hair shortening and receding, skin paling. His beauty vanished in an instant and the man that was left seemed like a lump of dead clay by comparison. "You thought that this would save you, Peter? You thought you could crawl into my bed and inside of a dead man, whisper old nicknames and I would rescue you? You think I'm that fucking sad, Peter?" Anger surged through his blood, hot and white, and it felt like life.

Naked skin pocked with old scars and new, haunted and vague eyes that twitched without stopping. "I knew you. All of you. I could be more like him than anyone else could be. Please, Moony. They'll kill me. And we're all that's left. I could make you forget that he ever . . ."

Remus trembled and leapt from the bed. He felt the wolf snapping its jaws and baring its teeth and he let it. Sirius had burned so much brighter than Remus. Everything he did was bright and boiling. He loved as fierce as he hated, and he hated so many. Remus had never hated anything. Hatred frightened him. But then, so had love. And now his chance at the one was gone. And this new emotion - this rising hatred - he reveled in it.

"You've spent a lifetime making yourself nothing, Wormtail. I'm just making it final."

The man seemed small and empty now. "This isn't you, Moony."

"You're wrong. It WASN'T me. Before. Now it is." It was what they had made him. All of them. The white-hats who hated him for what he was, and the black-hats who hated him because he didn't do what it was his nature to do. Sirius, who'd left him behind and believed that Remus was capable of treachery. Dumbledore, who used them when it was convenient and locked them away like skeletons in his closet when it wasn't. He wasn't a man, wasn't a werewolf. He wasn't an auror, wasn't a wizard. He wasn't evil, he wasn't kind.

He was Remus.

And now, he was a weapon for the Order.

And when it was over, he'd be gone. Vanished into the gray, like Sirius.

He remembered foggy mornings spent intertwined on expensive but dirty sheets, and long fingers that traced the line of his spine. He thought of dark hair that tickled his chest as his hands closed around Peter's neck. He imagined blue eyes and a bright smile as Peter collapsed, bruised but breathing. He stared at the still form, and wished that he wasn't still too practical to finish the job before he'd been questioned.

He touched the already-rising bruises his fingers had left and imagined, for just a moment, that his hands had circled Sirius' neck, and squeezed.

He loved him and hated him. And somehow, that seemed like what he should feel.