Title: In Your Blood
Recipient: conspiratorsb
Pairing: Remus/Sirius, Lily/James with doses of Lily/Sirius and Lily/James/Sirius
Rating: NC-17 to be safe
Word Count: 1,969
Warnings: Sex, infidelity, first war, het, slash, angst
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Lily though everything was going to be alright. She thought they would make it through the war whole, if not a little torn around the edges. She was wrong, so very wrong.
Author's Notes: The quotes to separate the passages are from Lydia's In Your Blood. A big thanks to my beta Shannon, she's amazing.
She watched them unravel.
And when green light filled her house, she thought they had looked so much better whole.
-It seems we can drive forever but can never get away from here.-
Remus had been gone for a week and three days when everyone began to worry. Dumbledore wasn't willing to admit that Remus wasn't just on a mission; he was missing, in every sense of the word.
Missing.
-So when it's always on your mind but you never speak of the name.-
The first day he was missing, Lily came home to three boys men holding a meeting in her kitchen.
"What's happening?"
Sirius didn't look up from his pacing. Door to icebox. Curse. Repeat. She thought Peter looked nervous, perhaps because he was sitting so close to Sirius' pacing. James looked as though he might sick up.
"Remus didn't report."
Peter's words hung in the air, and James met her eyes when she crossed the room to touch his shoulder I'm here I love you. There was worry and doubt in his hazel eyes, as well as something Lily could not identify. Her own stomach clenched painfully. It's not the time to tell him. She rubbed her sweating palms against the rough fabric of James' shirt.
"When was the last time-"
Her words were cut off by the shattering of glass when Sirius hurled Peter's teacup against the wall.
Without speaking, Sirius left.
"I'm gonna go-- Yeah." James stood and kissed her cheek as she absently placed a protective hand over her flat belly. It will not stay flat for long. Lily watched his retreating form, then turned to Peter for more of an explanation.
"Secret mission. Dumbledore isn't saying shite, and Sirius isn't very pleased."
"Who heard from Remus last?"
"Sirius. Remus sent him a Patronus. Nothing special, but he was supposed to be back last night. Sirius panicked this morning." Peter smiled a little and Lily returned it. Sirius didn't function well without Remus for long periods of time, and the last two weeks Remus' absence had taken a toll on him.
"He screamed-" Peter said.
"Naturally."
"-at Dumbledore."
"Oh, for the love of Merlin."
"Yeah." Peter let out breathless laughter. "You should have been there. No one could calm him down. Marlene had to stun him."
Lily laughed. Sirius loved Remus.
"Dumbledore isn't going to reveal Remus' mission, especially to Sirius." Peter looked pensive.
Lily rubbed her stomached and her chest felt tight.
-But it's really these road signs and freeways that I can't take.-
She was already in bed when the door opened and James crept in. The clock said 3:10 when he slid between the sheets. She didn't turn over, even though she knew her breathing would give away her conscious state.
"He wanted to stay at his place in case Remus came home."
James smelled like booze, cigarettes and Sirius (curry, rain, Remus, dog).
"Lily, I-"
She curled tightly into a ball and prayed for Remus' return.
-It's like a ball and chain around your waist or this simple state. Your mind's sick again.-
The third day Remus was missing, she came home to a drunken Sirius on her sofa. Smoke hung heavy in the air, a fog that twisted like white, ashen coals in her chest. Sirius didn't look up from the hand that held his cigarette when she shut the door.
Lily ignored the sight of Sirius in only his pants.
She turned her head when James tried to kiss her, but did not yell, only accepted his lips (swollen and sore) against her cheek (burning with unshed tears) and retreated to the bedroom.
She listened to Sirius drink himself to sleep and sang lullabies to her belly until James came to bed and cried into his pillow.
Lily ignored that too.
-I'm tasting nothing but four words, please don't leave me.-
The fifth day Remus was missing (like a sweater, it only takes one loose string before it disappears), Lily came home to a passed out Sirius and what could have been all the beer bottles in England in her rubbish bin. He was mumbling words into her grandmother's pillow cover as he drooled in unconsciousness Moony, home, please. Peter was cooking in her kitchen.
"Hey."
There was a large fry up in the pan he was handling, and he almost upturned it at her greeting.
"Oh hey, Lily." Peter seemed surprised to see her. The knot in her chest burned and she shifted to open the icebox, but found nothing but alcohol, both Muggle and wizard kinds alike. Part of her felt like drinking it out of spite, but her belly objected.
"How long has Sirius been out?"
"I'm not sure. He was like that when I got here. Thought I'd make him a fry up before I left."
Of course, take care of Sirius. A fucking group effort where it usually only took one.
"Any news?" Lily rubbed her stomach absently, knowing the answer.
"No. None at all."
-But if you make it different then we'll make out way to the surface.-
The days dragged on much in the way of petulant children who refused to take their medicine; pathetic and unrelenting in their pattern.
It had been a fortnight, a fucking fortnight - We're all going mad, Remus.
Dumbledore hadn't organized a search, hadn't said anything at all. He didn't need to. Whatever Remus had been doing for the past two weeks was more important than any of them, especially Sirius' suffering. James had left for a short mission, just to deliver a note, and would be gone until the following night. Lily had simply nodded her head when he told her. He promised to come back. She kept her mouth shut because her secret ached to get out. It wanted to be found.
Sirius had moved on to Muggle vodka.
He spent the entire night smoking and drinking on her couch. Lily spent the whole night wondering if her husband and Sirius looked as beautiful entwined together as Remus and Sirius did.
She doubted it.
And she told him so when she fucked him on the couch that night.
After, Lily told him everything, screaming until her voice was raw and her hands were shaking and he cried into her belly, naked and shaking.
"I'm so sorry. I love you. I'm so sorry. I love you, Remus."
Yes, Lily thought, so am I.
-Because I know all the words and I sing you everything.-
When James came home, Lily slapped him, once for her and once for Remus, and twice for the childlike man on her sofa (Remus, he's dying without you) and the one growing inside her.
Sirius burned cigarettes into his arm; Lily cleaned the wounds, but did not heal them. The rings were burned into flesh, one after the other in an arch of black circles.
They, shaped as a whole, formed a crescent moon.
-Well they're just thoughts so go ahead and speak.-
Fifteen days after he was supposed to report, Remus showed up at Headquarters with three broken ribs, many infected cuts, dirty, bruised, and sporting a badly healed clavicle and haunted eyes.
No one spoke of the moon waiting to rip him apart in a couple days time.
Sirius refused to leave his bedside. James wouldn't leave hers "A baby, wow.", but Lily was too busy watching them unravel…All of them.
-You can spend the night and hope to sleep all day.-
It took three months until Sirius ended up banging down her door, James slept through the abuse. Lily had a bump, a life inside of her, and she called it Jesus.
James didn't understand.
Sirius clasped on her wooden floor. "Make me stop."
Lily poured him a glass of water and lit his cigarette.
"Lily. You have to make me stop." She didn't touch him; simply sat next to him and enjoyed the show.
"Make me stop checking his arm for a fucking tattoo. Make me stop following him down dark alleys and doubting every kiss and every-- fuck, please, just make me stop."
His blunt fingers dug into her skin and her heart twisted at gray eyes that looked as if they couldn't take one more tear or one more moment without the sight of scars and kind, mahogany-tinted eyes. Lily slapped him until her hand was sore (red, so red) and Sirius' tears were sobs. Her breathing was the only other sound in the flat.
"Oh Jesus, dear savior." Sirius buried his head in the swell of her stomach. "I do not deserve to see the proof of your life, but give it to me anyway. I am an unworthy subject."
"I didn't know you read the Bible." Lily ran her hands through his tangled hair, wondering who was really saving who. Oh Remus, look what your love has created.
Sirius cried harder, clutching at her shirt with needy fingers that belonged more to Remus than to him.
"Read it to piss off my Mum, but then Moony," Sirius gasped, and pressed almost painfully against her growing (as they spoke) belly. "He believes."
Sirius' sobs started again.
"You poor bastard," Lily's voice was cold and she wanted to hate him. "He believes in you, and you can't believe him."
What is wrong with you? Why can't you just let it alone and love him? Lily thinks these things but does not give them voice. Sirius doesn't deserve the love he receives, however bountiful.
"He gets that goofy smile on his face," Sirius said, when the sobs died down. "You know the one that lights up his whole face and makes all the scars go away and all those lines, like there is nothing better than Jesus and me reading him. You know that smile."
"What?" Sirius lifted his head and Lily stared into truthful and hopeless eyes.
"You used to love him, when you were Evans."
She had loved many people. Severus (sweet kisses and betrayal); Remus (no match for the madness of Sirius Black). Lily smiled at Sirius and tugged his head down to her belly again.
"Yes, but that is the great thing about James. He makes me forget all of them. You know that."
"Mm-hmm," Sirius mumbled into sleep. "Like my Moony. My Moony."
Yes, she thought, we all churn inside.
-I still won't remember your face, the features mix too well with this alcohol.-
Sirius punished himself in her bedroom until sun up. He took James' cock down his throat until he choked, and Lily made him submit to the entirety of her fist without lube until he came. And James made love to her while Sirius fucked him from behind, even as his prick was wound up tightly in a cock ring.
He came when she said he could.
Lily could not have hated him more and she denied him James' kisses as well as withholding her own kisses. It was all punishment, but it still wouldn't make him stop.
And he knew that. They all knew that.
Remus came looking for him at five. Sirius wasn't hard to find, abused and broken (perfect), curled naked in the middle of their bed.
"I could have loved you forever."
Remus looked shattered, unraveled and resigned as he gazed (haunted, lovingly) at Sirius' sleeping form.
"Who are you kidding, Remus?" Lily waited until he met her eyes. "You already do."
It only took one to make them dissolve into history.
