The Last Time We Saw You

{It's four in the morning, the end of December

I'm writing you now just to see if you're better

New York is cold but I like where I'm living

There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening}

The wedding had been a small affair on a moonless night. Remus’s arm was slipped through Jane’s happy grip, and the two of them united in an emotional ceremony both parties assumed was destined for them since their school days. The best man, tall and dark, smiled very kindly and cried very kindly. Most cried for the couple, and for the future, and for the beauty of the day‘s hope. This one bled tears of shortfall and defeat. What he had wanted for ages and thought was his to keep drifted past in a tall vision of shabby black suit on the arm of a schoolgirl, and he cried for his loss.

{Ah, the last time we saw you, you looked so much older

Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder

And you treated my woman to a flake of your life

And when she came back she was nobody's wife}

Remus remembers the first time new keys hit new mantle. The city flat was spacious, but small enough for two people. Soon the cold wood floor was warm with rugs and furniture and home, and affectionate hearts were balmy with as much complacency as Remus thought he’d ever be allowed. Then one evening when Jane was out looking for work and he was finishing a bit of writing, a knock came to the door. Old friends hugged happily, and Sirius sat himself upon a bony couch that seemed to be the drab centerpiece to the living room. Remus brought them drinks and answered that Jane was out at the moment. There was a wholeness to the apartment that hadn’t been there before, something Remus just realized came in with Sirius like a missing piece, and suddenly his chest was tight with fear. A lifetime of moments culminated to the present, and Remus knew what Sirius was there to explain.

    “Your place is making me jealous, Moony, I never knew you were such a decorator.” Sirius plucked at the ragged couch in sarcasm. Remus smiled.

    “Jane hasn’t got around to the look of things yet. She’s been busy.” he looked down, and something fell in Sirius’s eyes.

    “How is she? That is to mean...how are things...with the two of you?” Black asked with a seriousness not normally displayed. Remus thought for a moment that there was an almost jealous tone to the question, but dismissed it.

    “We’re happy.” he confirmed, and then was puzzled by the hint of denial in his voice.

    “Oh Remus.” It was an almost breath, and at once their eyes met. Sirius’s gaze was cavernous with meaning and neglect and anger and repression and hope. He stumbled over words long meant to have been said, and Remus was sitting with Sirius, near enough to reach and reach twice over.

    “What is it?” Remus told more than asked in a force unlike himself, although still kind and comfortable, knowing when not all was right with Black. Sirius flew off the couch at Remus’s faint touch of concern on his leg, anger and confusion in his manner.

    “It’s THIS, Remus!” he gasped into the permanent dust of the air in the room now alive with conflict. His back turned, head hung to the side of his stiff shoulders. Remus was only slightly taken aback, his eyes searching Black’s uneasy figure for a clue, although something in his mind told him this should have been expected from the beginning. Sirius was now talking again, gesturing with hands. “Your wedding day...when, when...why did you do it?” Tears stung his face as in punishment for leaving this until now. “I thought we would go on forever, Remus. I was almost certain.” Sighing, he knew he’d have to explain fully.

“You were everything to me. Those other girls, they meant nothing compared to our nights. Our full moon nights.” A smile played fleetingly for the memory, and he turned more calmly to his friend still sitting on the couch. “But then you married one...” and he found he couldn’t finish the sentence.

    Remus was on him and around him in a flash of need and love and beautiful assurance. Their lips met as release flooded through them both, and Sirius found himself clinging to Remus in a way he never thought possible before. Remus kissed him deeply, cursing himself for his ignorance and wanting to make up for it. He tugged on Sirius’s hips as hands ran lovingly through his reddish-brown hair. He wanted to give Sirius everything, everything he knew he’d never given Jane, and could never truthfully give her again. How he’d never acknowledged these feelings even to himself was an outrage now that he knew how perfectly their lips fit together. Sirius needed affirmation, Remus needed confirmation, and together they made their way to the bedroom.

{And what can I tell you my brother, my killer

What can I possibly say?

I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you

I'm glad you stood in my way}

The sounds of their matrimonial lovemaking were interrupted by the burst of a door. Angry footsteps led themselves to the room, and Remus’s eyes met boiling Sirius’s, who was standing in the doorway. Though Jane detached herself into the sheets, Remus was frozen in grief. Sirius had walked in on one aspect of married life that had obviously never sunk in. Wild eyes of both men fought to free themselves beneath fumbling exterior, and Black withdrew from the room in a fit of apologies. Jane had witnessed their intruder’s anxiety, and her actions were wary as she dressed, obviously imagining what Sirius might have said had he been given the gift of speech at that awkward moment.

{If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me

Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free}

Jane wanted him, she wanted fortification, wanted to stay and believe in his clarity. Wanting more than he could give split the wolf‘s stomach. She lay there, her back covered so thinly with dusk light, beckoning him to her. She led his hand to her bare body, muscles clenched in determination and fear for what they had as he wavered. How could he possibly lay fingers upon something that had never touched his heart? And immediately she knew, and soon she left.

{Yes, and thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes

I thought it was there for good so I never tried}

Remus's lips were cracked and dry. Streams of dark chocolate dribbled through their arid region in a tired sting. The apartment was littered; his mood was trash and his life a loose remnant of garbage day, left decidedly uncompressed. His shaver sat undisturbed in its quiet tray, his shoes on their sides somewhere between the bed and the sink. He would make small attempts at tidying up the place, hoping somehow under the panes of dust, something of himself could be reclaimed. Nothing would do until he wrote. He would write to contain himself, and write to free himself, and let the subject evolve until he had said it all.

{And Jane came by with a lock of your hair

She said that you gave it to her

That night that you planned to go clear}

Then suddenly, Jane was there, like a torch of purpose from his past. She was clutching a note and trying her best to look forgiving. Remus invited her in carefully; knowing any gesture he practiced couldn’t possibly close the void between them, but reacted kindly all the same. The words of the tragedy came fitfully but clearly, and Remus fell to his knees for James and Lily. Tears came understandably easy, and Jane resisted the urge to comfort him. He cried thickly into his hands, his small frame shuddering with pain. Then came the words of Sirius’s betrayal, and with the mention of the name, cutting eyes riddled with tears gazed sadly upwards. They questioned her, and she nodded, clasping the crumpled note in her fingers. Remus rose to his feet, and as resistant arms grasped for comfort in platonic embrace, he landed the letter he had been composing to Sirius into a nearby drawer, which would not be opened again for 13 years.

{And what can I tell you, my brother, my killer

What can I possibly say?

I guess that I miss you,

I guess I forgive you

I'm glad you stood in my way}