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orange_crushed) wrote2006-05-14 05:49 pm
orange_crushed) wrote2006-05-14 05:49 pm
Landing on the Sidewalk
Landing on the Sidewalk. Remus, Sirius, 1982. Shortish, maudlin whining. PG-13 for language, I guess. And x-posted to the_kennel.
Sometimes he cannot be alone with his own thoughts, or he ends up on the goddam windowsill with his pockets full of stones from the river. If he's going to fall he's going to fall fast; nevermind the stupidity of dying in a gratuitiously muggle fashion.
When Remus opens the drapes, the room is flooded with the waning light of the city- from windows and marquees, every drop plays like a firefly in his eyelashes. The air is warm. Curtains shiver in the summer wind, turning everything to flickering candlelight. The spires of the churches are dark and they disappear, as into deep water.
He unlatches the window and climbs onto the sill, drawing his knees into his chest. His hands splay out against the frame and he rocks there, in between the night sky and the soft darkness of his room.
He doesn't jump.
But it isn't the first time. Like all the others he lets himself fall, backwards, and rolls onto the rug, where his face sinks into the shaggy weave and is still. God, I am an infant, he thinks. Can't even do it properly.
It's still too early to sleep, and he can't think of anywhere else to go; so he turns on all the lights in his apartment and sets the radio blaring. He leaves the window open and listens to cars rumble along the street. There's take-out chicken in the fridge that he cuts up and eats cold, curled up in a ratty armchair with a book at his elbow.
Sometimes he cannot be alone with his own thoughts, or he ends up on the goddam windowsill with his pockets full of stones from the river. If he's going to fall he's going to fall fast; nevermind the stupidity of dying in a gratuitiously muggle fashion.
The radio is good and the book is better. In an hour or so he shuffles off to bed.
The worst thing anybody has asked him is: have you gotten rid of all his stuff ?
God, the implications. First, that something so simple as throwing out shirts and shoes and scratched records could undo it, could fix it; that it could even help. Second- well, Remus isn't sure about the second. He has stuffed everything into a trunk at the foot of his bed, where he can watch it night and day. For what, who knows- signs of imminent betrayal, maybe, or signs of a beginning rot. It's not the cleanest pile of goods ever left behind.
And there is a third. He ignores it, and refuses to accept this as truth, but: the third. They belonged to him, and he loved these things. He drank from the mugs with his mouth and put his feet inside the slippers, and. And. And. There must be a hundred ways to get rid of old things you don't want anymore, but Remus has forgotten every single one.
The items don't add up, and in the end, that is the puzzle that keeps him turning over in his bed. They can't be reconciled. Until they are, he can't be rid of them. It's too difficult to believe that a person who lovingly mended a stuffed elephant by hand could have killed all the people he loved best in the world, but that's it. The unending, unbearable conundrum.
When he is feeling particularly masochistic he takes everything and spreads it out on the bedroom floor and tries to force it all to change. He tries everything he's ever learned about transfiguration and makes some new things up- he unwraps them layer by layer and puts them together again, looking for the hidden meaning. For the clue.
But the novels and the belt buckles are just novels and belt buckles; and the hideous frog statue only does what it was supposed to do, which is wink at him. It's enough to make him cry; but he didn't then and he surely cannot now.
He knows what they do to you, in there. He has heard about the kiss, and all the smaller ways to die that they bring you. And if he really is what he must be, it could never be enough for the savagery and the horror and the lies, but it would be a start.
And if he isn't- Remus sits bolt upright in bed, waking from a dream. And he knows now, knows absolutely that until he asks, he will never be sure. And that the thought of that loved body in hell will keep him company every night until he is.
The only thing he knows how to do is aim high enough. From his tattoo he knows the many dead ends and pitfalls of minor beaurocracy, and knows that he would be finished before he began. He goes to the only person he knows will listen to him, no matter what he says, how rushed and weak it sounds, how desperate.
Dumbledore doesn't keep a summer home; or, if he does, he's hidden it well. On a humid day in August, when the sky lowers its arms in exhaustion and sweats along with the lesser mortals, Remus finds him walking by the lake. His feet are bare and wrinkled and his beard is trimmed short, in a manner that he has never displayed to students.
They exchange pleasantries and Dumbledore asks if he will take a turn down the path and back again, before the house elves summon him for tea.
"Certainly, hea- sir." The path veers from the water and cuts beneath a stand of tall trees, oak and ash. They aren't the brilliant green of an early spring, the way Remus pictures them from school; nor are they beginning yet to turn. He can't remember seeing them like this, caught between the seasons of his memory, heavy and bowed against a relentless heat. "I came to ask- well, I've been thinking. About the trial."
"There wasn't one." The old man taps his wand against his thigh, and it becomes a walking stick.
"Yes. I know."
"You're worried about him."
"No." He ducks his face into his shoulder, suddenly ashamed. "Yes."
"It's alright, Remus." Dumbledore reaches out and lays a hand at the back of his elbow. "The time between one stage of our lives and another is often fraught with certain perils; and some of us are made to endure more than others."
"Right. And some of us- our friends-" he begins sharply, and then cannot finish. His whole body is a rush of blood, erupting into his ears, and there aren't words enough to continue. After a moment, he controls himself. "I'm sorry. I know it was kindly meant, I just can't. I can't accept it and move on, because mostly it's like it never happened. I know it's a foul kind of self-pity, but I would rather have lost a limb or died or something, because I'm fine, I am fine, and still-"
"Everything we start, must end."
"Not this." Remus says suddenly, fiercely. "At least, not without knowing." Dumbledore seems to consider him for a long minute, and then gives him a little nod.
"I'll arrange for you to see him." he says. "It will be incredibly unpleasant, and you may be sorry for it."
"Thank you."
After that it's all exams and Scotland in the summer, mindless chatter that doesn't quite reach the small, delicate fear blossoming in the center of Remus's ribs. It is above his stomach and to the right of his heart; and as it trembles he wonders if he will even recognize what's left when he sees it.
"Lupin, Remus."
"Here."
The guard seems to be laughing at him, in the quiet solid way of those who live among the insane, and accept their presence without fear. Remus has been sweating since he set foot on the boat; and in the great hall where visitors wait, he descended into unconsciously wringing his hat. He isn't frightened but terrified, floating somewhere beyond his body. The building itself does nothing to alleviate his fear, for all its impressive sturdiness. It echoes like a tomb and stinks like a city river. To think, he wore his best robes.
He doesn't know why he dressed this way; perhaps to compensate for the fact that he's visiting a murderer. The whole place is wrinkling him, inside and out- he's sure he will emerge bent and grey, if he emerges at all, if he doesn't pass beyond the doors and become a shadow like all the other shadows he's been made keeper of.
They lead him up a staircase and he feels a rush of something foreign in his heart. He thinks, at least he can see the sea from up here, and then tells himself to be silent. The guard shouts down a long hall and stands still until he hears an answer from the far side.
"Dementors, you know." he says to Remus, who feels rather than knows that he nods. "Can't have them about when visitors are in the hall. Not the pickiest fellows."
"Right, of course." He gives his hat another twist, and shoves it into a pocket.
"Last cell on the right. Ignore the rest, please."
"I will."
"Back here when you're done. I'll wait."
"I-uh. Thank you." he murmurs, already looking down the row. The guard says nothing, only folds his arms across his chest. Remus stands on the edge of the step and then walks forward, eyes to the front, hands close to his thighs. There are low hums from the cells, and hands, which he shuts his eyes against. A woman's voice says Lupin, Remus in a high, mocking lilt; and though he shivers at the sound, he doesn't glance away.
And then he's there. He's a murderer a murderer a murderer.
For all the antagonistic chanting raging in his head, it is the single most horrible thing he has ever done; staring into a cell the size of their bathroom and seeing him lying on the floor. His hair is plastered against his skull and filthy; along the jawbone that Remus can remember kissing, is a scruffy and half-hearted beard. They must cut it with a knife, he realizes. The hands are dirty, as are the simple robes, as is the narrow bed, as is the plate, as is everything.
And still, there is this: the loose, careless way he lies, knees at odd angles. The slender wrists, the eyes hooded in dreams. The sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Remus sits on the floor and stares at him, making no sound.
Remus watches him sleep.
A year passes, or maybe only several moments. But there's a clatter of chains from a cage on the lower levels; and as Remus swallows the lump down into his throat, Sirius opens his eyes and sits up. He rolls his shoulders back and brings his knees up into his chest, and then looks straight ahead and sees the visitor.
"Hello, Sirius." he manages.
"Don't." The other man hisses and reaches for him, arms scrabbling to fit between the bars and catch at him; Remus falls back into stone to avoid his grasp. "Don't- you tricked me once."
"Sirius, I-" he begins. His hands reach up of their own accord, and they very nearly touch the filthy ones that have stretched towards him. "It's me." he says, as calmly as he can. "I've come to see you."
"Oh." He falls back bonelessly, as a cloud. "You should go."
"I- go ?" The lucidity startles him. Sirius is looking at him clearly, as evenly as if there was dinner between them instead of iron.
"Go, go away. Please." Sirius wraps his hands around the bars and looks down the long hall. "They take everything, everything worth having. They took James and they took that time we went down underwater and didn't drown- what a goddam glorious day." he adds, triumph in his voice. "Please go. They'll take you, too."
"Take me ?"
"They'll take your hair." Sirius says, and puts his face against the metal. "Your hands. You itch in your sleep, and they wanted it. They already took your voice, so don't say anything. I can't let them take it again."
"Your memories." Remus stares at him while Sirius shushes him and tries to cover his mouth. "They're taking your memories, and you-"
"I'm saving you." Sirius says in a whisper. "Is that alright ?"
Remus finds, at last, that he can cry.
There's nothing more to be said, no more answers to be sought. Remus takes the skinny hands in his own and holds them until Sirius draws back to pace, and flings himself back down on his stomach. He sits beside Sirius, shoulders against the bars, hearing him murmur about the food and the mice and the bitch down the hall. Remus feels himself sinking into the unreality of it- he could stay here forever, listening to the sound of his voice, pretending life hasn't stopped.
"Did you do it ?" he asks at length, just to have done it. "Did you kill them ?"
"That's a fucking stupid question." Sirius answers, swatting a fly. He slips in and out of clarity long enough to ask Remus what color Lily's eyes were, and carves the answer with the tine of a fork on the stone beneath his bed.
"I have to go." Remus says, standing. "I promise I'll be back, and that I'll get you out."
"Okay."
He leans into the bars and Sirius leans up, and it's the first kiss he's had in ten months, and Sirius's lips feel like gravel; but he remembers them.
Sometimes he cannot be alone with his own thoughts, or he ends up on the goddam windowsill with his pockets full of stones from the river. If he's going to fall he's going to fall fast; nevermind the stupidity of dying in a gratuitiously muggle fashion.
When Remus opens the drapes, the room is flooded with the waning light of the city- from windows and marquees, every drop plays like a firefly in his eyelashes. The air is warm. Curtains shiver in the summer wind, turning everything to flickering candlelight. The spires of the churches are dark and they disappear, as into deep water.
He unlatches the window and climbs onto the sill, drawing his knees into his chest. His hands splay out against the frame and he rocks there, in between the night sky and the soft darkness of his room.
He doesn't jump.
But it isn't the first time. Like all the others he lets himself fall, backwards, and rolls onto the rug, where his face sinks into the shaggy weave and is still. God, I am an infant, he thinks. Can't even do it properly.
It's still too early to sleep, and he can't think of anywhere else to go; so he turns on all the lights in his apartment and sets the radio blaring. He leaves the window open and listens to cars rumble along the street. There's take-out chicken in the fridge that he cuts up and eats cold, curled up in a ratty armchair with a book at his elbow.
Sometimes he cannot be alone with his own thoughts, or he ends up on the goddam windowsill with his pockets full of stones from the river. If he's going to fall he's going to fall fast; nevermind the stupidity of dying in a gratuitiously muggle fashion.
The radio is good and the book is better. In an hour or so he shuffles off to bed.
The worst thing anybody has asked him is: have you gotten rid of all his stuff ?
God, the implications. First, that something so simple as throwing out shirts and shoes and scratched records could undo it, could fix it; that it could even help. Second- well, Remus isn't sure about the second. He has stuffed everything into a trunk at the foot of his bed, where he can watch it night and day. For what, who knows- signs of imminent betrayal, maybe, or signs of a beginning rot. It's not the cleanest pile of goods ever left behind.
And there is a third. He ignores it, and refuses to accept this as truth, but: the third. They belonged to him, and he loved these things. He drank from the mugs with his mouth and put his feet inside the slippers, and. And. And. There must be a hundred ways to get rid of old things you don't want anymore, but Remus has forgotten every single one.
The items don't add up, and in the end, that is the puzzle that keeps him turning over in his bed. They can't be reconciled. Until they are, he can't be rid of them. It's too difficult to believe that a person who lovingly mended a stuffed elephant by hand could have killed all the people he loved best in the world, but that's it. The unending, unbearable conundrum.
When he is feeling particularly masochistic he takes everything and spreads it out on the bedroom floor and tries to force it all to change. He tries everything he's ever learned about transfiguration and makes some new things up- he unwraps them layer by layer and puts them together again, looking for the hidden meaning. For the clue.
But the novels and the belt buckles are just novels and belt buckles; and the hideous frog statue only does what it was supposed to do, which is wink at him. It's enough to make him cry; but he didn't then and he surely cannot now.
He knows what they do to you, in there. He has heard about the kiss, and all the smaller ways to die that they bring you. And if he really is what he must be, it could never be enough for the savagery and the horror and the lies, but it would be a start.
And if he isn't- Remus sits bolt upright in bed, waking from a dream. And he knows now, knows absolutely that until he asks, he will never be sure. And that the thought of that loved body in hell will keep him company every night until he is.
The only thing he knows how to do is aim high enough. From his tattoo he knows the many dead ends and pitfalls of minor beaurocracy, and knows that he would be finished before he began. He goes to the only person he knows will listen to him, no matter what he says, how rushed and weak it sounds, how desperate.
Dumbledore doesn't keep a summer home; or, if he does, he's hidden it well. On a humid day in August, when the sky lowers its arms in exhaustion and sweats along with the lesser mortals, Remus finds him walking by the lake. His feet are bare and wrinkled and his beard is trimmed short, in a manner that he has never displayed to students.
They exchange pleasantries and Dumbledore asks if he will take a turn down the path and back again, before the house elves summon him for tea.
"Certainly, hea- sir." The path veers from the water and cuts beneath a stand of tall trees, oak and ash. They aren't the brilliant green of an early spring, the way Remus pictures them from school; nor are they beginning yet to turn. He can't remember seeing them like this, caught between the seasons of his memory, heavy and bowed against a relentless heat. "I came to ask- well, I've been thinking. About the trial."
"There wasn't one." The old man taps his wand against his thigh, and it becomes a walking stick.
"Yes. I know."
"You're worried about him."
"No." He ducks his face into his shoulder, suddenly ashamed. "Yes."
"It's alright, Remus." Dumbledore reaches out and lays a hand at the back of his elbow. "The time between one stage of our lives and another is often fraught with certain perils; and some of us are made to endure more than others."
"Right. And some of us- our friends-" he begins sharply, and then cannot finish. His whole body is a rush of blood, erupting into his ears, and there aren't words enough to continue. After a moment, he controls himself. "I'm sorry. I know it was kindly meant, I just can't. I can't accept it and move on, because mostly it's like it never happened. I know it's a foul kind of self-pity, but I would rather have lost a limb or died or something, because I'm fine, I am fine, and still-"
"Everything we start, must end."
"Not this." Remus says suddenly, fiercely. "At least, not without knowing." Dumbledore seems to consider him for a long minute, and then gives him a little nod.
"I'll arrange for you to see him." he says. "It will be incredibly unpleasant, and you may be sorry for it."
"Thank you."
After that it's all exams and Scotland in the summer, mindless chatter that doesn't quite reach the small, delicate fear blossoming in the center of Remus's ribs. It is above his stomach and to the right of his heart; and as it trembles he wonders if he will even recognize what's left when he sees it.
"Lupin, Remus."
"Here."
The guard seems to be laughing at him, in the quiet solid way of those who live among the insane, and accept their presence without fear. Remus has been sweating since he set foot on the boat; and in the great hall where visitors wait, he descended into unconsciously wringing his hat. He isn't frightened but terrified, floating somewhere beyond his body. The building itself does nothing to alleviate his fear, for all its impressive sturdiness. It echoes like a tomb and stinks like a city river. To think, he wore his best robes.
He doesn't know why he dressed this way; perhaps to compensate for the fact that he's visiting a murderer. The whole place is wrinkling him, inside and out- he's sure he will emerge bent and grey, if he emerges at all, if he doesn't pass beyond the doors and become a shadow like all the other shadows he's been made keeper of.
They lead him up a staircase and he feels a rush of something foreign in his heart. He thinks, at least he can see the sea from up here, and then tells himself to be silent. The guard shouts down a long hall and stands still until he hears an answer from the far side.
"Dementors, you know." he says to Remus, who feels rather than knows that he nods. "Can't have them about when visitors are in the hall. Not the pickiest fellows."
"Right, of course." He gives his hat another twist, and shoves it into a pocket.
"Last cell on the right. Ignore the rest, please."
"I will."
"Back here when you're done. I'll wait."
"I-uh. Thank you." he murmurs, already looking down the row. The guard says nothing, only folds his arms across his chest. Remus stands on the edge of the step and then walks forward, eyes to the front, hands close to his thighs. There are low hums from the cells, and hands, which he shuts his eyes against. A woman's voice says Lupin, Remus in a high, mocking lilt; and though he shivers at the sound, he doesn't glance away.
And then he's there. He's a murderer a murderer a murderer.
For all the antagonistic chanting raging in his head, it is the single most horrible thing he has ever done; staring into a cell the size of their bathroom and seeing him lying on the floor. His hair is plastered against his skull and filthy; along the jawbone that Remus can remember kissing, is a scruffy and half-hearted beard. They must cut it with a knife, he realizes. The hands are dirty, as are the simple robes, as is the narrow bed, as is the plate, as is everything.
And still, there is this: the loose, careless way he lies, knees at odd angles. The slender wrists, the eyes hooded in dreams. The sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Remus sits on the floor and stares at him, making no sound.
Remus watches him sleep.
A year passes, or maybe only several moments. But there's a clatter of chains from a cage on the lower levels; and as Remus swallows the lump down into his throat, Sirius opens his eyes and sits up. He rolls his shoulders back and brings his knees up into his chest, and then looks straight ahead and sees the visitor.
"Hello, Sirius." he manages.
"Don't." The other man hisses and reaches for him, arms scrabbling to fit between the bars and catch at him; Remus falls back into stone to avoid his grasp. "Don't- you tricked me once."
"Sirius, I-" he begins. His hands reach up of their own accord, and they very nearly touch the filthy ones that have stretched towards him. "It's me." he says, as calmly as he can. "I've come to see you."
"Oh." He falls back bonelessly, as a cloud. "You should go."
"I- go ?" The lucidity startles him. Sirius is looking at him clearly, as evenly as if there was dinner between them instead of iron.
"Go, go away. Please." Sirius wraps his hands around the bars and looks down the long hall. "They take everything, everything worth having. They took James and they took that time we went down underwater and didn't drown- what a goddam glorious day." he adds, triumph in his voice. "Please go. They'll take you, too."
"Take me ?"
"They'll take your hair." Sirius says, and puts his face against the metal. "Your hands. You itch in your sleep, and they wanted it. They already took your voice, so don't say anything. I can't let them take it again."
"Your memories." Remus stares at him while Sirius shushes him and tries to cover his mouth. "They're taking your memories, and you-"
"I'm saving you." Sirius says in a whisper. "Is that alright ?"
Remus finds, at last, that he can cry.
There's nothing more to be said, no more answers to be sought. Remus takes the skinny hands in his own and holds them until Sirius draws back to pace, and flings himself back down on his stomach. He sits beside Sirius, shoulders against the bars, hearing him murmur about the food and the mice and the bitch down the hall. Remus feels himself sinking into the unreality of it- he could stay here forever, listening to the sound of his voice, pretending life hasn't stopped.
"Did you do it ?" he asks at length, just to have done it. "Did you kill them ?"
"That's a fucking stupid question." Sirius answers, swatting a fly. He slips in and out of clarity long enough to ask Remus what color Lily's eyes were, and carves the answer with the tine of a fork on the stone beneath his bed.
"I have to go." Remus says, standing. "I promise I'll be back, and that I'll get you out."
"Okay."
He leans into the bars and Sirius leans up, and it's the first kiss he's had in ten months, and Sirius's lips feel like gravel; but he remembers them.