#sorry peter that sirius was being such a dick :( he was just upset it wasnt about you :( it was maybe a little about you but not complety!!

[pancakehouse]

ok! i need to see 16 please! give me GUN

(send me a siken line and i'll write a mini fic inspired by it)

hi i LOVE u and you're my hero and a goddess and here is a gun just for you annie emmeline!!!!!

16. someone’s pulling a gun and you’re jumping in the middle of it. 

A voice drags Remus into consciousness. A shouting voice, to be specific; one that manages to cut through a strong dose of healing potions and the heavy sleep of a boy who’s just finished nearly clawing himself to death. 

It’s impressively loud, really, and if Remus currently had any control over miraculous things like moving his mouth or speaking, then he’d definitely be telling the posh prick to kindly shut the fuck up right about now. As it is, he can’t do much more than lie there and listen.

“I’m not fucking doing this every month, James,” the voice is saying. Shouting. “He- he’s just - do you know how this fucking feels? To have to stand by, and watch the person you… fuck, I mean look at him! What if- what if he-” 

The voice chokes off, and Remus frowns (or tries to). Something rattles painfully in his ribcage, right near the spot where bones are trying to mend themselves back together, where purple spreads across tender flesh. Where this voice, Sirius’ voice, hoarse and rough and cracked-open, tucks itself right into the mix. 

It takes herculean effort, but Remus manages to force his eyes half-open, right as Peter’s voice sounds from somewhere to his left. “Maybe we shouldn’t, erm-” he’s saying, shaky and nervous.“D’you guys think when we, you know, change…what if he…” 

The room goes quiet, and Remus’ stomach drops. Not because he fully understands what Peter’s talking about, but because he can feel it when Sirius tenses, even from across the room.

“What?” demands Sirius. His jaw is clenched, eyes blazing like he’s a sparked fuse ready to blast the whole castle down around them and delight in the wreckage. “What the fuck does that mean, you useless, spineless little-” 

“Okay, that’s enough!” James cuts in. Bravely (stupidly), he puts a hand on Sirius’ shoulder. If it were anyone else, they might’ve walked away with a torn-out bite of flesh, but as it is, Sirius only sighs, and shakes him off in a manner that’s not-quite-gentle. “Sirius, none of this is Peter’s fault. I know you’re scared, and we’re all tired, but you yelling isn’t helping Moony. And Pete…just, well- the point is that we are going to help him, alright? We’ll be there, and this won’t ever happen again, okay?”

Grey light streams through the curtains, and Remus wonders idly what time it is - what day it is. And he wonders what kind of person it makes him that he’s almost grateful for this, the ache in his body. For the moon and the bandages and the new scars and old. 

Because those are all things he has, and this is also a thing he has: Sirius, here, cheeks damp and shoulders trembling, here, for him. 

And he has James, pacing the floor. And Peter, twitching in the chair by his side. And Sirius, who’s so painfully beautiful even with dark circles and a rumpled shirt, turning to glare at Peter every few seconds, like he’s daring him to move even an inch closer, like he won’t be so forgiving as he was with James. 

Secretly - on days when his joints aren’t so bruised and the moon isn’t an echo rattling his skull - that look sends a spark through Remus. It’s something like his lazy smirk before mouthing off in class, or the easy flick of a smooth, pale wrist before his duelling partner is sent flying across the room. 

It’s like a warning, maybe, written in stocky bold letters: Get out now, before it’s too late. 

But it’s already too late for Remus. Has been for ages - going on years now. And he still remembers the exact moment he realised it: 

Third year, a Hogsmeade weekend, and a cushy buffer of two weeks on either side of the moon. They were all packed inside the Three Broomsticks, crammed in a sticky booth, sipping butterbeers, and cheering over the luck of a free day off. 

Remus remembers Sirius sitting across from him. He remembers watching Anya Patil and her pretty green eyes press her thigh into his, and the way she leaned in too close whenever Sirius spoke, laughed too loud when he made a joke. The way her hand trailed up his shoulder, in a way she undoubtedly meant to appear subtle. 

He remembers Sirius’ knee knocking against his own under the table. The sharp, swooping feeling that went through his stomach. He met Sirius’ gaze across the table, and they’d looked at each other for a long, silent moment. The sounds of the bar, their friends, it all dulled to nothing. 

There was something coiled and tense in Remus’ ribs, then. In the same spot Sirius has always held, from that moment on. Remus thought love was supposed to be slow and gradual - like in the sappy romance novels Lily’s always giving him. A soft fall, like into a riverbed or a pile of grass.

But this was Sirius Black. Everything from his cheekbones to his grin to his words were sharp like a knife. So it stands, Remus supposes, that loving him would be like a gut punch to the stomach. A reducto to the chest. It was someone pulling out a gun, and Remus thinking - Well, what’s one more shot to the ribs? For him? Alright, go on then. 

“I have to go,” Sirius had said then. He jumped up from the booth, Anya’s hand sliding awkwardly off his shoulder, and Remus’ stomach had sunk to the floor. 

This was worse than a moon; he’d take the broken bones and bruises and clawed-open flesh any day over losing Sirius’ friendship. He almost took it back, then, and said: Wait, I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter. I promise. It’s nothing - I’m nothing, we can just - 

But then: “We have to go,” Sirius amended. And then he’d grabbed Remus’ arm, yanked him up, and dragged him all the way out the door. Pushed him up against a cold brick wall, and kissed him with pillow soft lips and warm fingers that slipped under his jumper, curved into his side; right into the weak, tender spots between brittle bones and aching lungs and every ounce of reckless want Remus would allow himself to have. 

More than he should, probably. But then Sirius looks over at him now, and when he sees he's awake his face shifts from the glare he reserves for Peter, and the fear he reserves for James, and softens into something he maybe reserves for Remus alone. And when he grins, razor-sharp, it really doesn’t feel dangerous at all.