Title: Come in from the Cold
Team: Team MWPP
Rating: Rish
Warnings: Language, boy!love, angst, poetry disguised in prose, sexual themes, a stolen scene from an old movie I can not remember
Summary: Things might have had a chance to alright, until he went and started to play the piano.
Prompt: The hands playing the piano
Genre(s): Angst
Come in from the Cold
my heart is tired. my eyes are red. but i am here, which is more than i can say for some.
he is eleven and walking through the smoke of the train when grey eyes find him from across the platform just as his mother kisses his cheek.
they are connected then. kisses, sirius.
yes. yes they are.
tell me, promise me you just won't forget.
It's cold on the window sill and the stone stings the back of my thighs. A sliver of moon hangs high overhead and I know I should be sleeping, but I can't. The tiny pebbles of the stone are making indentions on the flesh of my thighs and it gives me goosebumps. I run my hand over the patterns they make against my bare skin.
And I wish my hands were his. The cold creeps in and stings. I sit on my hands and let my robes flap open in the frigid breeze. There's a crack in the stone, a void in the pattern
"Pads..."
I suck in a breath and tighten the curl of my fingers around the stone. How does he make his voice sound like that, honey and gravel that feels like molten lava when it reaches my ears? I just shrug and stare into the darkness, willing myself not to turn and meet his stare. I feel his eyes burning into the back of my head. I hear him shifting behind me, from one foot to the other, probably in soft slippers.
tell me, promise me you just won't forget.
he says the tiny scars and the ugly (twisted and marring and haunting and forver) scar on his hip, are because his parents beat him. he doesn't flinch when he says it, just tries to look sad and alone and innocent (he is. he is. he has never been).
he fails.
sirius shakes his head. and in the deepest of the nights when he is awake in his bed, trying to tell himself friends will stay even if he lies... he can hear Sirius say: i won't believe that.
tell me you'll listen...
Things have been better, or rather, they were better. He's been looking at me again and the silent treatment ended two weeks ago, replaced by polite, if cold, smiles, and James and Peter have actually started to behave normally; like everything is okay. And maybe things would have been okay, maybe things between us could have gotten back to the way they were before I fucked up; when I thought we had been on the cusp of something tangible between us, written between sweet kisses and innocent caresses.
But then he went and started to play the piano.
The piano. Who the fuck plays the piano anymore?
"You should come inside soon. You'll catch a cold."
tell me you'll listen...
he cries when they find out. but he is too tired and sore and bleeding all over infirmary linen to hide it.
james smiles and just says: everything will be okay. peter looks uncertain at james' words and for the first time, he is surprised at peter's ability to be right in the most crucial times.
sirius just curls his hand over his wrist, padded bone caressing his wrist and then pressing, pressing, pressing over his pulse point until he gasps.
grey eyes meet his frightened ones and sirius says: don't ever lie to me.
i'll sing songs to you, for only you. if you lend me your ears forever.
He pauses and I can feel the heat of his hand as it hovers over my shoulder, but he doesn't touch me. I don't know if I want him to move that final inch and touch me or if I want him to just go back inside and pretend as though he never saw me.
Sometimes, I wish I had never seen him.
Because then I would never have fallen in love with him. It was so slow, this stupid decent into madness, but ever since he started talking to me again, started to cast glances in my direction, correcting my essays with tiny scoffs and little smiles like he did before... he's been everywhere. And a week ago, he took up the piano.
i'll sing songs to you, for only you. if you lend me your ears forever.
he raises his eyebrows when they say they'll find a way to make it better. it's always james, trying to save the world. peter is the only one who seems to know that the world doesn't want to be saved.
sirius keeps on staring.
it is then, when they are pouring over books in the library (which they won't enter for anything but him, homework be damned) that he realizes how closely kisses and sirius have become intertwined.
he says: sirius. (he comes all over his hand, his sheets and then curls up; wishing he was back home.)
i've written letters to you on whitest paper, they've all returned to me a pale brown.
The cold is licking its way into my body and I wish I was numb to him.
Numb to the slide of his hands over piano keys, the way he runs beautifully pale skin in delicate patterns over bone keys, ebony and pallid. Ever since he began to play in an attempt to release some tension from the moon, I haven't been able to breathe correctly. Every time I close my eyes, I think of how those long, graceful fingers would feel playing across my ribs or trailing down the curve of my neck. The stretch of his neck as he strains to get notes right, how I long to tongue my way across it. Or the way he moves his mouth as he tries to remember hand positions on keys and how I just need to press my lips against his, just to remember how it feels.
I crave it.
There is a crack in the stone, a void in the pattern marking my thighs. I read it like Braille, tracing it with my fingers, and it whispers words I dare not speak, words that keep me awake well into the night. When I suck in breath, it feels tight in my chest, like it no longer belongs to me. It isn't mine anymore.
Neither is he, but that doesn't stop me from breathing, nor does it stop me from longing for what once was.
i've written letters to you on whitest paper, they've all returned to me a pale brown.
he says: fuck. when he looks at the map to find sirius' dot overlapping a seventh year ravenclaw.
he takes up smoking and watching the way sirius' hand bones ripple underneath his skin or the way lips curl around words.
words like fuck. words like yes. words like mine.
he retreats into muggle music, just so he can push away the leather trousers and laughter and images of heat and want and lust and just... he takes up writing to, just so he can fight off the temptation to just do it. nothing works and he wonders if being a gay werewolf isn't as bad as this in his chest.
i'll wait in line.
I can still feel his gaze lingering behind me, probably leaning against his bed post, just inside the window and I wonder if he has figured out why I sit on this windowsill, so close to his bed and the magically shrunken piano underneath.
I close my eyes, reliving the image of Remus--Moony (he's definitely my Moony when he plays) just earlier, before the dorms became dark and the sounds of snores and rustling bed sheets descended. He had sat bathed in the glow of the candle light, biting his bottom lip in the way he so often did as he learned a simple song. I still hear the minor chord in my head and I wondered then, as I do now, if the sound, so bittersweet, made him think of us. I wonder if it made him think of how he used to press his lips to mine, before running his tongue against my lower lip. Or maybe it made him think of how things had gotten back to normal when I suddenly decided to shake everything up and want him again.
How could I ever have stopped?
i'll wait in line.
he's smoking in the spring sun, listening to janis' crackling voice. he imagines the way she sits next to dylan, how beautiful they are together and how their voices sound as if they were made to be played simultaneously.
then he thinks about how sirius' voice would sound with his.
it takes three fags and four cups of tea, three hastily written lists and four rounds of "it ain't me babe" to make his breathing go back to normal and thoughts of sirius' lips poised for ecstasy to slip from his mind.
but. sirius comes in and ruins everything.
sirius says: it's not me you're lookin' for. then there are kisses against the back of his neck and sirius speaking with dylan and janis between breaths and lips.
they leave when the song ends and he thinks about temptation, and how exactly to get rid of it.
don't leave. say you won't go. because i can't help but want you out, out, out.
My robe slips off one of my shoulders and I shiver in the darkness, but the chill is a welcome relief to the heat I've been subjected to throughout the day. Remus just radiates heat, and my body temperature seems to rise every moment I am with him. This moment is no different, and although my shoulder is bare and the stone is freezing against my legs, I feel feverish in his company.
There is movement behind me and I brace myself against the stone. It is in the moonlight that I can't seem to control my thoughts or my feelings, all I want to do is touchtouchtouch and I pacify my overactive imagination by watching the shadows play across his sleeping form. But tonight he has caught me and I cannot get peace. There is silence for a moment, and I just close my eyes and shiver in the darkness. But there is movement and then the slide of silk against skin; I cannot help my gasp.
I do not have to turn around to know he's wearing the robe I gave him for Christmas last year. It's a deep blue that makes his skin glow and his eyes a more piercing color than ever. He had giggled when he opened it, and pressed a kiss to my cheek, so close to my mouth that I had stared, shocked, at him until he blushed. I remember nights spent running my hands over the soft material, and the equally silky skin beneath it. But he had not worn the robe since the previous spring... since I made such a mess of everything.
don't leave. say you won't go. because i can't help but want you out, out, out.
he says nothing for three months.
it's the longest three months of his life but when it ends, he feels like his smile is more genuine.
sirius doesn't apologize, only leaves chocolates and notes that say: you know why and puzzle it out and fuck and can't you see and moonymoonymoony. he stares into grey eyes that belong to someone who almost made him a murderer and still wants.
he hates himself a little more. then he takes up the piano. because he can't control his hands, they want so badly to wander where they can not go. where they are forbidden. and when he plays he thinks about kisses and sirius and how badly he wishes for james to make everything alright.
peter just makes sure he eats at dinner. he sometimes is glad for the constant inadequacies of his friends.
you've fucked me. fucked me and ruined me. i am ruined for everything that is not you.
He walks closer, the silk dragging the floor and muffling the soft pads of his footsteps. The tension in my body skyrockets and the temperature of my chilled skin has increased exponentially. I wish he would go back to bed, but he ignores my silent plea and settles himself next to me, close enough to let the silk tickle my exposed thigh and hand. I shudder and attempt to swallow down the choked sound that escapes my throat.
The rough, wispy flick of a muggle lighter catches my attention and I turn toward him. His face is illuminated in the glow of the small flame. The lighter is black and looks striking against the pale contrast of his hand. The orange flame licks at his cigarette, which is held between two lips perfect for kissing, his eyes staring down at me through the glow of the light. I look away as soon as I can manage to make my head turn; he is a captivating sight to behold.
you've fucked me. fucked me and ruined me. i am ruined for everything that is not you.
he smokes. then he slips into sirius' bed to stare into grey eyes.
he thinks of kisses.
he says: say it out loud. sirius says: you lied to me.
he nods. yes. that is why sirius is dangerous because there is cleverness and loyalty and a twisted sense of darkness that makes sirius do things like kill without a second glance.
he says: i lied and you punished who?
sirius' eyes glow in the darkness of the curtains. then he knows. but sirius speaks anyway, curling a hand around his wrist and feeling the pulse of blood. alive.
sirius says: myself.
he acts on kisses.
this is it. for that, i am forever sorry.
His inhale is seamless, his chest expanding against the silk. I count the seconds he holds the smoke in, imagine the swirl of the smoke inside him. I try not to acknowledge my desire to be that smoke, to be a part of him in too many ways. He exhales cleanly and I recognize the smell immediately. I jerk my head to look at him and I cannot swallow my gasp now, not with the way he looks at me, knowing exactly what I am thinking and communicating with such force I feel as if it will knock me off the sill.
He's smoking cloves. The sweet smell melts in the air and I long for a drag. I started smoking cloves shortly before I left my parents' home. At first, it was just to piss them off, but I had become addicted to the sweetness on my tongue. It was how I imagined Remus would taste.
"Want a drag?"
I don't move, his voice is still hushed with sleep and cold, but my hands and lips twitch; hand to grab the clove and bring it to my lips, my lips to touch a place his lips have been.
"I didn't know you smoked." My own words are dressed in bravado, but we both know they are weak. He chuckles, almost soundlessly beside me and takes his free hand to turn my head; his fingertips sizzling against the scruff of my chin. I feel as if I may combust at any moment from the electricity emitted from his touch. His eyes are burning, alive and beautiful, so intense and all for me.
"I miss the way you taste."
And I tumble back into his heat.
this is it. for that, i am forever sorry.
he stares at sirius' sleeping form. he traces patterns on pale skin and thinks about temptation. he thinks about love, about romance and how simple this all really is if it had nothing to do with him.
sirius stirs. he smokes and puts the cigarette out on sirius' neck.
sirius pretends to sleep. he pretends.
the sun rises and he looks at grey eyes again. he looks at grey eyes and recalls kisses. he thinks that maybe this really is simple.
sirius says: i love you. i know you know. but i... i love you.
he sits. he stares into grey eyes and kisses sirius' mouth before slipping out of his pants and pressing into jutted hips. sirius' mouth kisses at him.
he says: i know. do you know? sirius jerks, eyes slipping shut before opening again.
sirius says: yes. say it.
he says: i love you. and the world falls apart.
hold on tight love. hold on tight...
