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The first thing Sirius Black noticed when he met Remus Lupin was the color of his hair. A dark, almost reddish blonde, catching the Sunday morning light streaming through the church windows. A natural blood-stained blonde.
Then his eyes, the way they pinned him in place, despite being a warm honey-brown. As gentle as the breeze seconds before a summer storm. Sirius shifted against the hard wood of the church pew, and imagined sinking his teeth into the sliver of Remus’ ears peeking out from under his hair.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sirius was 10 when he first met Remus, and he was 16 when he met him again. Everything had happened in the years in between and nothing had changed. It was the dead of summer, 1986, in the woods behind the old church. Remus had his hands buried in the fur of a dead rabbit, a gun lying discarded next to him. And Sirius knew, when Remus pulled out his bloodied hands and wiped it on his shirt and accidentally got some in his hair: Mercy, Tennessee would never be enough for them.
A small town nearly on top of the Alabama state line, and Remus filled up the whole space. An in-between, an anomaly, a beautiful boy with hands that could swallow him right up. Yeah, Sirius thought. A beautiful boy. He felt an awful sort of satisfaction admitting this to himself right behind the remains of his father’s church. Six years since Reverend Black burnt to a crisp and Sirius would always be a disappointment.
Sirius and Remus found their way to each other in the back row of the nearly empty school house. There weren’t enough children in Mercy to justify splitting up the students into grades, so the schoolhouse was split into two–younger kids on one side and the older ones on the other.
It was an awful set up. The blackboards were always chalk stained, the windowsills were covered in shriveled sun-bleached flies, and the floorboards were creaky and warped. Bibles stacked on the edge of every table, a rotting American flag, and a crucifix. Sometimes Sirius just closed his eyes and imagined being eaten by the ivy growing outside, just to drown out the teacher’s voice. Imagined the taste of communion wine on his tongue, the sound of his father’s sermons hanging heavy in the church and holding himself under cool river water. Thought of someone pulling him out, all reborn with his hair plastered to his neck and shoulders, whisking him away from this haunted town.
There were 8 younger kids and even less older kids–just James, Regulus, Mary, Sirius, and Remus. Remus. He slipped his hand into Sirius’ own in the middle of one lesson and Sirius found that he didn’t care about anything anymore. He didn’t want to think about Regulus waking up with a choked scream and tear-filled eyes every night, eaten up by nightmares of getting burnt alive. He didn’t want to think about James spending every waking minute talking about the girl he met the next town over and how he felt like a cut-off limb, or the cut of Mary’s blouse and her red lipstick, taunting.
All he ever needed to know was the scar running across Remus’s nose and the hunter’s callouses on his palms and the weight of his gaze and the hair curling around his ears. Remus was salvation. He was a death pact, he was the waiting moon, he was a Tennessee night in an empty field.
Sirius was used to fighting for what he wanted, but Remus just fell into his waiting hands. A prayer, personified. Sirius would spend an eternity in hell if it meant having Remus forever.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 1987, Remus left school in the name of taking care of his father. Sirius was not allowed to leave school, but he did it anyway. He was starting to get used to the burn of his mother’s backhand and the perpetual bruises littering his body (but a part of him was ashamed it took this long). They meant Remus kissing it better.
Sirius didn’t know much about Remus’ father. He could never get Remus to open up about him, as much as he tried. He knew he was a Vietnam veteran, and that he served for two years. Lyall Lupin returned from the war a broken, empty man, and made it everyone else's problem. Sirius couldn’t fathom how he married Hope.
He was convinced Hope Lupin was an angel sent to earth. Sirius fell into the habit of searching for the sign of wings surrounding her whenever he was at Remus’ house.
He never found any, but he tried every time. Sirius was not the kind of person to give up easily.
The first time Remus had told him that, they were lying side by side on the floor of the old house they found barely within town limits. Sirius’ favorite things were always fighting to get out of Mercy.
“Isn’t that funny,” Sirius asked.
Remus turned to look at him. One side of his hair was sticking up awfully, and in the watery evening light his hair looked redder than usual. “Do you think we’ll ever really leave Mercy?”
“We’ll leave, Remus. We could leave right now if you wanted.”
“And you’d leave James and Regulus?”
“James already left.” Sirius shot back. His voice did not waver.
“And Regulus?”
He hesitated for a second, but the glint in Remus’ eyes was a flame. Sirius was a moth that had never known light. “I’d leave Regulus for you. He’s so much like Father, anyway.”
Remus’ eyes turned sad. Sirius coughed because swallowing down words was never easy, and Remus knew. Remus has never heard Sirius tell Regulus I love you, and neither has Regulus. The closest Sirius ever comes to it is sitting on the floor next to Regulus every night, listening to the prayers spilling out of his mouth and completing them with his own.
“You’re so stubborn, baby,” was all Remus said in return.
Sirius couldn’t help the blush that rose on his face. He had been called stubborn before, he had been called a bitch and a whore and every name under the sun for boys like him, but he had never heard it said the way Remus said it. Adoring, eyes wide, fingers tangled in his. Like praise.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remus learned to drive late that fall, and Sirius didn’t find out until he saw the truck parked outside of their house. Their house, because it was a thing now. Just two floors worth of creaking wood and a dirty mattress and bucket of water because there was no water supply.
“Remus, you fucker! When did you learn to drive?”
Remus smiled sheepishly. “I dunno. I figured it wouldn’t be too hard and took her for a few spins after dark.”
Sirius looked at the car in awe, then noticed the dent on the front bumper. “S’this your doing?” he asked, patting it.
Remus nodded, laughing. “Ma almost did my head in when she saw. Said she’s happy I’m finally putting my head to use and learning something, though.” Sirius shook his head, flinging his arms around Remus in a hug. “Want me to teach you?”
Sirius thought about it for a moment. A part of him wanted to learn, but he wanted to watch Remus drive this time. He didn’t care how bad of a driver Remus may be, because Sirius had long since put his life in his hands anyway. Remus would be careful. “You drive,” he told Remus.
“Alright, princess,” Remus replied with a wink. “Where to?”
“Anywhere.” Sirius dropped his head onto Remus’ shoulder. “Take me away, cowboy.”
They drove right past the fading green Thank You for Visiting Mercy sign, the radio turned up high and the wind whipping through their open windows. Sirius found himself looking at the flex of Remus’ freckled, tanned hands on the steering wheel more than the road itself, but Remus didn’t seem to notice. Sirius examined his own hands, much paler than Remus’. Tattoos of the moon phases ran across his knuckles, but the full moon was missing.
It’s in the sky instead. A late afternoon moon, framed by nearly-bare tree branches and the orange-hued start of an early sunset. They drove past the state line and Sirius made them stop at an almost deserted drive-in theater. A nearby sign read Ardmore, Alabama, and Remus pointed out that they drove through Ardmore, Tennessee, just minutes earlier.
“Sister cities”, Remus said. “Must be weird having your house in one state and your neighbor’s house the next state over.”
Sirius didn’t think it would make much of a difference. “Mercy’s nearly the same.”
Remus shook his head. “It isn’t, though. This isn’t Mercy.”
Sirius shrugged, content to agree with whatever Remus said. Remus tossed to him a blanket he had stored in the cab earlier, and they crawled into the truck bed. The afternoon was tipping into a cool fall evening. The breeze was enough for both of them to be shivering.
Some slasher flick was playing on the screen that Sirius thought looked familiar, in the way most shitty movies do. He glanced down at where Remus’ shoes were peeking out of the blanket. Remus had a few inches on him, so it was inevitable that the blanket wouldn’t cover them both. He could see the white and gray pattern of his sock through a hole on the side of his sneaker, and Sirius pressed himself closer to Remus in an attempt to stretch the blanket around them further. Remus wrapped an arm around Sirius in a response, a comforting weight. Time stretched out, warping to flow around them with the breeze.
An obscene amount of whimpering was coming from the screen, where some blonde, watery-eyed girl is getting backed into a corner, mascara clumping her lashes together. Sirius rolled his eyes at the way the slashes and bloodstains across her clothes revealed way more skin than was necessary for any slasher film, then dropped his head onto Remus’ shoulder.
“Remus,” Sirius looked up, only to be met with Remus already looking down at him, eyes soft. “We have a car now.” The movie had come across a silent spot, and Sirius' words rang out loud.
A crease formed between Remus’ brows. He understood. He always did. “We can’t leave yet, Sirius.”
Sirius thought of the depth of Regulus' hysteria and the sound of Walburga shutting herself in her room every night. He thought of leaving Hope alone with Lyall and his empty alcohol bottles and waiting fists, then squeezed his eyes shut. “A car, Remus. You really want to be buried in that town? With everyone else that has haunted your bloodline without stepping one fucking foot outside of Tennessee?”
“Plenty of people in Mercy have cars,” Remus replied, his voice quiet. Sirius felt a hot flash of irritation across his chest.
“Oh, fuck off! You know what I mean. We can’t be in that town forever—you promised we would leave. Find a real house with real furniture in fucking—Nebraska or somewhere like we talked about!” Sirius was no longer whispering, but the scene playing on the screen was loud enough to cover it up. He gripped Remus’ arm, fully intending to yell some more.
Remus just put a hand on his cheek and kissed him.
And oh, it was perfect every time. The blonde on screen was finally meeting her end, lips perfectly glossed and eyelashes clumped together with tears. All of this, and Remus was looking at him. Not the slit up the movie star’s skirt or her pretty pink heels. Not any of the gorgeous Alabama night. Him. Sirius sighed, the tension of their conversation slipping out of him.
“Knew that would work,” Remus mumbled, kissing down Sirius' neck.
Sirius just pulled on Remus’ hair in response, too distracted by the heat of his mouth to do anything else.
“Joke’s on you, I like that.” Remus unlatched from Sirius’ neck with the dopiest smile on his face. And Sirius was not someone easily flustered, but Remus had such a way with his words. Remus laughed at the blush spreading across his face, then pressed a kiss right under Sirius’ ear. “Be mean, Sirius, be absolutely awful. No one can help you otherwise.”
Sirius was in too deep to even register those words.
They drove back to Mercy after the film. Sirius wouldn’t ever admit it out loud, but he knew they couldn’t leave yet. He knew, when he glanced over at Remus in the driver’s seat.
Remus was half of his blood, half of his heart, all of his lifeline. Ardmore, Tennessee, and Ardmore, Alabama. He wanted to be the wind in Remus’ hair and the leather of the steering wheel under his hands. He would stay forever if forever was a boy with light hair and the warmest eyes he’d ever seen.
When they came to a stop in front of the Black house, Sirius tugged Remus down and gave him a quick kiss, so no one would see them. Remus laughed something that sounded like a giggle and it was stupid and perfect–every dumb teenage movie Sirius watched pulled into real life.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a lazy fall that year, taking a while to freeze into a proper winter. Remus and Sirius tried to savor it, spending most of their time together in the car or in their house.
It was one of the warmest days they’ve had in a while when the two boys were lying on the dusty floor of the house, windows propped open with a beer bottle. Sirius was resting his head on Remus’ bare chest, and Remus had a book propped open with the hand that wasn’t running through Sirius’ hair. He had been on the same page for quite a while, though...
That was probably courtesy of the spliff Remus was holding and the spliff Sirius was holding. And possibly what happened before that. He wasn’t too sure, though. He didn’t think he could be sure about very much right then.
Remus gave up trying to read his book and smacked it on the ground with a huff, spine facing up. The Great Gatsby, the cover read.
“What’s it about?” Sirius asked, taking a drag from the spliff. It wasn’t very strong stuff, but they had smoked enough of it that it didn’t matter. Remus wouldn’t tell him where he got it, but Sirius wasn't complaining.
Remus scrunched up his nose and eyes like he was trying very hard to remember. “This guy–name's Nick Carraway–he’s a writer. He’s the one writing the story and telling us about Gatsby, who’s this crazy rich and mysterious man that he’s kinda obs–
“Wait, so if Nick’s writing the story, did he name it after Gatsby?”
Remus blinked. “Yeah–”
Sirius rolled away from him with a dreamy sigh, nearly setting Remus’ hair on fire in the process. “Were they in love, then? That’s serious in love behavior.”
Remus laughed, smoothing down his hair. “Really sounds like it sometimes. Anyway, Gatsby’s dead–”
Sirius shot up with an incredulous noise. “He’s dead? Remus, Gatsby dies?
Remus started laughing even harder, clutching his stomach. It was bright and sparkling, like the night sky. “Yes, Gatsby’s dead. Nick’s devastated about it, too. He spends the whole book convincing us none of it was Gatsby’s fault.”
Sirius flopped back onto the ground with a hmph. “Well, that sucks.” He turned to face the other boy, considering. “Would you name a book after me, Remus?”
Remus reached an arm out to Sirius, tugging him closer. “Yeah,” he said, almost a whisper. “If I was a writer, I would.” Remus took a drag, then held the spliff out to Sirius.
“You’d be real good as a writer. You already read so much,” Sirius replied, wrapping his lips around the spliff. Remus squinted at him like he was remembering something that happened earlier. Sirius smirked at his expression.
“The Lupin curse. No one in my family ever amounts to anything,” Remus murmured, tucking a loose strand of Sirius’ hair behind his ear.
“Well,” Sirius said, breathing out smoke. “You’ll be the first, I swear it.”
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The last months of 1987 and early 1988 made up an odd winter, according to Remus. Sirius didn’t think it was all that unusual, but he listened to Remus’ ramblings anyway.
“It doesn’t make you uneasy the way the weather’s been freezing one day and as hot as summer the next? In the dead of February, too” Remus asked. They were in Remus’ house, TV on and playing some random soap opera.
“Are you complaining about the warm weather? ‘Cause I sure ain’t,” Sirius grumbled. He was painfully hungover from the night before. Remus had presented to Sirius a pack of beers he nicked from the general store. Sirius probably should not have had as much beer as he did, but Remus didn’t exactly abstain from it either. And the bastard looked completely fine today.
Remus returned a sideways glance. “Lightweight.” Sirius swatted at his arm in an attempt to quiet him. Hope was in the kitchen, and Sirius was trying desperately not to let her know about his hangover. There was something about her that made Sirius always want to apologize, to be absolved of any wrong-doing. He doubted it was working, but Hope just hugged him and smiled that bright smile at him every time. He understood where Remus got his laugh from every time Hope did the same; if she was the sun, then Remus was the moon.
The TV had switched to the weather segment, where the weatherman was predicting a cold shock coming in the next few weeks. Remus whipped his head around, listening intently. “Cold again…and today’s nearly seventy degrees out.” The weatherman’s voice droned on where Remus’ voice faltered. “What if this means a terrible spring, Sirius? Storms and–and other things.” Remus sounded almost nervous, but Sirius just chalked that observation up to his throbbing headache making things up. Then he felt a flash of pain where Remus’ ragged nails were pressing half-moons into his arm.
Sirius couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out. “Remus, are you afraid of the weather?”
When the other boy ripped his eyes away from the TV to face Sirius, he wasn’t laughing at all. Sirius hesitated at his wide-eyed, hollow stare. The hand on his arm was nearly drawing blood.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remus started growing a garden spring 1988. Sirius felt like no matter how long he had known Remus, he was always finding out new things about him. And he loved it, really. Because every little thing Remus revealed was for him, and him alone.
So far, the only thing that had taken to the garden was a smattering of violets, stark and lovely against the soil.
“I wish I could’ve grown more flowers,” Remus said, carefully watering each clump of flowers. “S’okay, though. I love violets.”
Sirius, meanwhile, was still in awe at what Remus had grown. Remus had explained that he found an almanac in his father’s office and decided that he would like to grow something. He said it just like that–as if it was so simple and easy. Sirius had started to suspect that maybe Remus was magic, too, and that maybe it ran in the family. The way Remus could face anything and spell it out so simple and plain, like nothing was a challenge too big for his hands.
Remus cursed as he almost trampled some violets under his boot, then leaned down to pluck one. His voice carried into the spring breeze, mingling with the faint sound of wind chimes.
“I remember Ma saying once that violets meant love and faith.” Sirius said, moving to stand side-by-side with Remus, who turned to look at him in surprise.
Sirius shrugged. Remus only understood Walburga through the bruises and she left on his skin and the tension of Sirius’ silence whenever Hope asked about her. “She liked to talk about flowers. Regulus would always ask, and I would always complain and want a regular bedtime story, but Regulus would glare at me and I would glare at him back and act like he wasn’t half my soul and there was nowhere else I’d rather be.” It’s a confession, laid bare.
Remus tilted his head at him, eyes warm and a little sad. A silent, what changed?, and a familiar ache pressed up against Sirius’ throat. He tucked his hands into his back pockets, digging one of his shoes into a pile of dirt. “People change, I guess. Mercy has always been the same unchanging horrible town, and people have to make up for it somehow.”
Remus distracted him from destroying the pile of dirt under his shoe with a soft touch to his hair and the slide of a violet behind his ear. “Not us, though. We’ll stay the same, won’t we, Remus?” Sirius asked, his voice almost pleading. Almost a prayer. The weight of Remus’ hands smoothing his hair down was too much for him to bear. He wanted to just grab his hand and run and run until they were out of Mercy, out of Tennessee, out of everywhere they had ever known. They were two stones, caught waist deep in a proverbial river and lost to the sound of rushing water. Two boys, smiling softly into each other, standing in complete silence.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sirius grabbed the T-shirt full of glass shards under his bed and snuck out of the bedroom. Regulus was asleep, curled in on himself with his brow furrowed like he couldn’t get proper rest even at night. Sirius couldn’t help but slip his hand into his pocket and pull out the worn picture that used to live in the picture frame shattered into pieces. The Black house sat in an awful sort of silence every night, cut through only by the incessant buzz of cicadas and the sound of Sirius’ own aching heartbeat.
Sirius ran his thumb over Regulus' smiling face. They were about 8 and 9 in this picture, untouched by the hurt of the years that would follow.
Sirius and Regulus. Regulus and Sirius. Two stars in the same abyss of sky. Sirius carefully shook out the glass into a clump of bushes behind the house, but not before a shard nicked his thumb. He licked it away, feeling the burn from cleaning up glass with his bare hands earlier that day.
It was worth it, though. Everything. Sirius was afraid of what Regulus would’ve done if he had found the glass, even if some horrible part of him didn’t care. The Tennessee summertime had a way of setting anyone on edge.
A light breeze filtered through the night air, a welcome respite from the stifling humidity of morning. Sirius found himself looking for the moon, thinking of Remus.
Not of Regulus storming into their room earlier and almost breaking his nose. Breaking the picture frame. Not of him taunting Sirius with empty threats and an emptiness in his eyes that would haunt Sirius forever. Blacks couldn’t ever fight normally. They knew how to handle their words, knew the power of a backhand and fiery condemnation.
And Sirius still left the room when Regulus ordered him to. He could never say no to Regulus, not even when he grew up and became tall enough to rest his chin on Sirius’ head. His baby brother, for fuck’s sake. Sirius was afraid he didn’t know how to protect anyone but himself.
The moon blinked out behind a mass of clouds. There were no stars that night.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sirius and Remus found themselves back at that drive-in theater in Ardmore, Alabama, just shy of a year past their first visit. They never visited the same place twice (what’s the use in having a car if we keep driving to the same places, Sirius had argued), but Remus had insisted on wanting to see a movie that day.
It didn’t matter in the end, because as soon as they pulled into the shabby lot of the drive-in, the first raindrops of a downpour smacked against the truck. Remus shifted in his seat uncomfortably, the rain clearly having caught him off guard.
“Do you want to drive back?” Sirius asked. Remus’ fidgetiness was starting to rub off on him, too.
Remus shot him a quick, frightened look, eyes wide, before shaking his head. “No. Absolutely not. I’m not driving in the rain.”
“Are you sure? I bet we’ll beat the rain if we just drive for five mi–”
“I am not driving in the rain, Sirius.”
Sirius dropped his head back onto the headrest. “Okay. Okay, we don’t have to drive back.” He still had not taken up Remus’ offer to teach him to drive, and he was starting to regret that. Remus was gripping the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were going white. The downpour outside was getting harsher, but it was nowhere near as bad as it could be. “Remus. It’s just rain, and we’re inside a car.”
Remus screwed his eyes shut, a crease forming between his brows. In all honesty, he looked like a startling shell compared to the boy Sirius remembered holding his hand in the back of the classroom, so withdrawn into himself. And Sirius was just watching. Just watching Remus as the rain continued, outside. He wanted to reach upwards and find the God he was praying to every night, and tell Him to make the rain stop, tell him to smooth out the furrows on Remus’ face.
Instead, he just sat in the truck, in silence. Gripping the hem of his shorts.
“Sirius,” Remus breathed. So quiet, he could barely hear him over the sound of rain hitting metal. “There’s a baggie somewhere under the bench. Grab it for me?”
Sirius bent to rummage under the seat, without question. He came up holding a crumpled ziploc of weed and papers. In spite of the situation, he huffed a laugh. “Remus. Where on Earth did you get this?”
“It’s Dad’s shit. From ‘nam.”
Sirius looked at him, surprised. He had never answered when he had asked before. Remus had let go of the steering wheel, and he was now sitting on his hands, slouched into the seat. “Fuck, this is almost as old as we are.”
Remus returned a lopsided shrug, made difficult from the fact that he was still sitting on his hands. “It’s good, who cares. Roll me one, will you?”
Sirius obliged. It came easy to him now, rolling and sticking the joint together. He handed it to Remus after lighting it, then rolled one for himself.
The cab filled with smoke fast. Sirius was no stranger to hotboxing in the truck, but something about the rain outside seemed to make it more potent. Remus hadn’t been lying when he said it was good stuff–it was strong, and the high went to his head almost immediately. “Holy shit,” he breathed out.
“Yeah,” Remus sighed.
They sat like that in silence for a few more moments. The smoke seemed to push them closer, and Remus curled up into Sirius’ side. Sirius was surprised, but he looped his arm around Remus anyway. Usually it was the other way around.
“My dad was drafted in ‘73,” Remus mumbled. “Just a few weeks before the draft ended. He knew it was going to happen, he kept on saying it. Then he came back two years later and the only words he knew were in the shape of alcohol and smashed bottles.”
Sirius ran his hand gently through Remus’ curls. The evening was full of surprises, it seemed, and Sirius was at a loss for words.
Remus turned his face down into Sirius’ shoulder, and he could feel his shirt dampen. “I miss him, Sirius. I miss him and I want to fucking kill him at the same time. And I can’t leave.” His voice cracked on the last two words, and he went absolutely still against Sirius. “I want to, so bad. And I can’t do it.”
Sirius thought of Regulus, of his father’s body where it belonged six feet under, and took a long drag. The rain was finally letting down outside, but it was only replaced with wind that bent the barren trees around them.
“Not even for me?” Sirius whispered. He knew he was being unfair. And yet—
“Everything I do is for you,” Remus replied, lifting his head off of Sirius’ shoulder to look him in the eyes. He looked so wrecked, so honest, with curls falling into his puffy, blood-shot eyes.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sirius was dreaming of a gun, of a bullet embedded deep in flesh.
A deer on its side on the ground, a boy on his knees buried elbow deep in innards.
The blood looked quite beautiful in the moonlight, actually. Covering his fingernails, his mouth, the tip of his nose, dripping off the ends of dirty blonde hair. Pouring out from where his hands are pressed to his stomach.
And oh, the moon tonight is red, too. Full and laminated in red, reflecting off of the stars like little fangs. The grass was soft. His hands were soft. The gun was pristine, covered in a rag, untouched.
Wind blew hard, punching right through from one side of him to another, and that was it. There was no talk, no dirtying of his own hands, just the cleaning of a gun and a beautiful boy covered in blood and legs splayed out to the side.
Sirius woke up tasting blood and looked in the mirror to find a gash on the inside of cheek and just his own two hands, bitten fingernails and everything.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sirius hated a lot of people, but in that moment the lady behind the general store’s checkout counter was at the top of the list. Because now Remus was near sobbing into his shoulder, no doubt replaying her earlier cautions: Tornado watch for the following counties: Coffee, Franklin, Grundy, Lincoln, Marion, Sequatchie. Tornado warning for the following counties: Franklin, Grundy, Marion.
Remus’ face was hidden. “Sirius. Sirius, I don’t remember which’s worse, a tornado watch or warning?”
Sirius didn’t have to look at the news to answer. He just had to look outside and see the darkening sky and the sound of the wind rattling the walls of their house. “Marion was on both lists.”
“Fuck. Fuck, what are we going to do?” Remus was starting to shake all over, his voice pitching up as he swore. The joint in his hands was spilling ash onto Sirius’ pants, but he was beyond caring.
“Remus, it’s just a regular storm. It’ll blow over, Tennessee weather and all that.”
As if on cue, the rain turned murderous.
Remus was still refusing to take his head off of Sirius' shoulder, and Sirius’ felt his sleeve starting to soak up tears.
Why they didn’t go to the Lupin’s instead, or even had chosen to listen to that annoying lady and used the store’s storm shelter, he would never know. Remus had a way of making him lose all reason and sense. The tornado sirens (when had they started?) filled his ears, and as if it knocked something in his head out of place, Sirius understood that everything up until this point in his life–Remus crying onto his shoulder, the storm rattling their windows, death making itself known again–had been a series of chance, delicate balance just waiting to be knocked out of place.
Sirius nudged the side of Remus’ head with his hand. “We’re leaving. Come on,”
Remus whipped his head up, incredulous. “Town? You want to leave town now?”
“God, yes I do, but I mean–”
“Are you stupid? Where would we even go, if the tornado doesn’t rip us to shreds fir–”
“You’d rather just sit here and die?”
Remus scrambled away from Sirius, anger in every line in his face. “Oh, so now you admit that it’s dangerous outside?” He shook his head like he was trying to clear it. “All this time you refused to acknowledge it and now we’re just going to lay down and die!”
“Fuck’s sake, Remus, I said let’s leave!” Sirius shot back. All the noise was messing with his brain, probably, because he was starting to see red. So much red and frustration and one single thought broke through: be mean. “Has Lyall been beating your brains around so much you can’t hear anymore? Get the fuck up, Remus. Get over your dumbass fear of the weather.”
Remus was on the ground, flat on his back, eyes impossibly wide. A floorboard, even, wedged between the cardboard boxes doubling as a table and the couch they found in a dumpster. “Everything I’ve done,” and he laughs. “What was it you said? ‘I can lead you to bed, but I can’t make you sleep?’ Big words for someone I’m not sure understands what that means.”
Sirius felt the skin around his fingers start to bleed, warm and sticky, his shirt tight like a noose. “You’re a coward, you know? Just like your father. He looks just like you.”
“Right. I’m not so lucky like you.” Remus’ teeth flash white in the dark. He’s curled in on himself, smaller than an ant.
Sirius screamed, the only sound he could get out of his mouth right then. It came out ragged, a yell more than anything, and then it was drowned out in the whine of a siren, the sound of a tree falling somewhere in the distance. And everything caught up to him. Remus’ mouth, kissing. Remus’ mouth, open, saying be so mean, Sirius.
So he ran. He only looked back once.
—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sirius sat in a church pew, the once-white wood burned deep amber and ebony, and Regulus Black sat next to him, just far enough apart so they weren’t touching. Almost, though, almost.
The town lost three people the night of the tornado. Sirius lost a little more than that.
“Do you ever miss him?” Regulus asked.
Sirius’ head snapped up, but Regulus had just meant father. He was buried a few feet from where they sat, after all.
“I know you don't," Regulus filled in the silence, then turned his face up to the broken roof of the church. It was a nice day with the sun shining all beautiful, washing over Regulus’ face. Saintlike. “You can still be forgiven by Him. I forgive you.”
The crucifix that used to hang on the church wall is strewn on the ground, charred and split into two. One for each brother.
“We were going to leave. Remus and I.”
Regulus’ returning stare was calm. Vacant. “Maybe this is your punishment, then.”
Anger blooms up Sirius’ throat, watered down by all the ache he’s been holding in him. “Punishment for what, Regulus?”
“I don’t know. You must’ve done something. You always do something.” He said it so matter-of-fact, like flowers he picked out of a field and arranged on the dinner table. Sirius wanted to cry.
The thing about the Black brothers was, some way or another, they both learned to cut deep. They bled easy, healed slow and broken. Sirius didn't think he would ever get used to it.
“I never meant leaving the town. I just wanted to go find a storm shelter.” The words tumbled out of his mouth, soft as a whisper.
Regulus shook his head. “Lying is a sin.”
Sirius couldn’t even hate him for that. He was just tired, less than half a person.
Remus was the one that got to leave, in the end.