Helium Raven (severity_softly) wrote in pervy_werewolf, @ 2008-05-24 23:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | #lmom 2008, author: severity_softly, kink: partially clothed sex, remus/crossover character |
LMOM: An Intimate Alliance of Contradictions, part 22/29 (Remus/Peter, Remus/Severus)
Title: An Intimate Alliance of Contradictions, part 22/29 (I hope)
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairing (this part): Remus/Spencer Reid, hinted at unrequited Reid/Morgan
Fandoms: Harry Potter/Criminal Minds
Characters/Pairing (overall fic): Remus/Peter, Remus/Severus
Summary: "It would take too long to explain the intimate alliance of contradictions in human nature which makes love itself wear at times the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is no possible explanation." ~ Joseph Conrad
Kinks/Warnings: Partially clothed sex
Overall warnings: Angst
Challenge: LMOM '08, day twenty-four
Word Count: 3000-ish
Notes: And now my mind rests with crossovers. Yes, I know Reid either wasn't born or was just a wee babe in '82, but just go with me. I just stuck a current canon compliant Reid into a different year. ;) This part is set sometime in '82. Going to be taking some major leaps in time here in the next few chapters. Stick with me! :D Thanks so so much to innerslytherin and mnemosyne_1 for the beta-reading! (Crossover again tomorrow, and there's a poll at my journal, since I'm undecided!)
Part 1 l Part 2 l Part 3 l Part 4 l Part 5 l Part 6 l Part 7 l Part 8 l Part 9 l Part 10 l Part 11 l Part 12 l Part 13 l Part 14 l Part 15 l Part 16 l Part 17 l Part 18 l Part 19 l Part 20 l Part 21 l Part 22
They gave Mrs. Pettigrew Peter's finger in a box. His finger. And his posthumous Order of Merlin, but that wasn't the part that Remus fixated on in the years that followed. Peter had finally told Remus he loved him, and then a few days later, all that was left of Peter was his finger. The roses he had brought Remus hadn't even started to droop when they put what was left of his lover in the ground.
Peter's finger was buried in a Wizarding cemetery on the Isle of Mull, near Peter's childhood home, even though Remus knew Peter had hated it there.
Several days after the funeral, Remus went to Loch Ness. He'd sewn strands of tawny hair that had clung to their linens inside a stuffed Jobberknoll that Peter had brought with him everywhere since his first day at Hogwarts, and floated the toy out into the black water. Peter had always wanted to see Nessie. Maybe now he would.
Remus watched it drift away until it was out of sight, then stared blankly at the water until the sky grew dark and his body grew numb from cold. All he could feel was the way the tears on his cheeks stung in the November chill.
When he got back to the flat he'd shared with Peter several hours later, he tucked Peter's reading glasses into his breast pocket and, without a word to anyone, left England. There was no war left to fight. The Order didn't need him. Everything he loved had been taken from him. His friends were gone. His enemies were dead. There was no reason for him to stay.
The year that followed was mostly a blur. The werewolf laws were more relaxed in America, he found, and he was able to get a steady job as a teacher's assistant at a tiny little Wizarding primary school on Staten Island, provided he not teach one week out of each month and check in with the Ministry once a month for what they called Psychological Evaluations.
Staten Island was just domestic enough to be comfortable, while being close enough to the major metropolitan areas of New York for Remus to lose himself if and when he wanted. That didn't happen for some time, however. For a while, Remus settled into routine: teach during the day, come home and wallow in loneliness at night, try not to cry, and occasionally take a trip to the American Ministry of Magic to reapply for training to become a Curse-Breaker. Remus though it was ironic that they would let him be employed teaching children, but wouldn't let him seek further training with the Ministry. They claimed it had to do with his citizenship, but Remus recognised their dubious expression.
He had never been particularly good at forming close friendships, not after having been bitten, which he supposed might have been a big factor in how it had become so easy to whisper about him behind his back as the war dragged on. The people he worked with were friendly to him, but that was about as far as it went. Remus wasn't really interested in taking it farther than that, not when everything could so spectacularly go to hell at any moment and leave him alone again. It was easier just to stay alone.
Still, every night he thought of Peter. Some nights he told himself that Peter would be proud of him for moving on, for starting a new life. Other nights he would convince himself that Peter would have thought him pathetic for the way he still clung to a past that was so clearly gone. On those nights, he usually fell asleep with tears in his eyes, clutching Peter's glasses to his chest. Or at least that was how it went for a year, right up until Halloween rolled around and the one year anniversary of Sirius' betrayal was staring him in the face again.
With the full moon less than a week away, he was restless. He had no classes to teach all week. He had nothing but solitude, Peter's bloody glasses staring at him, and a bottle of Firewhiskey, which he drained and replaced twice over the course of the week in spite of his better judgement. When Halloween rolled around, he'd paced the front room of his tiny flat for over an hour before throwing his clothes on and leaving the house to take the Ferry to Manhattan. It would have been faster to Apparate. He'd taken to looking into Muggle gay clubs months ago, but had never actually been, so he didn't even know the Apparition coordinates. Besides, if he took the Ferry, he gave himself time to change his mind.
He slipped into a club about a hour later, and nearly slipped right back out as he took in its inhabitants: large men in leather, a few in miniskirts and lipstick. The man at the end of the bar was wearing chaps with nothing under them.
Merlin, what am I doing? he asked himself, and then answered himself immediately. Forgetting.
He pushed inside and slid up to the bar, placing a drink order, then glanced around the club again. It really wasn't as bad once he was all the way in. Not everyone was tarted up like whores. Remus started scanning the room for blokes on their own before he even realised he was doing it, and finally he settled on a young man across the room who looked just as out of place as Remus did.
He caught the man's eyes and smiled, and Remus kept glancing over and meeting the man's eyes for the next fifteen minutes or so. He finally sent a drink over, and that was when the other man finally crossed the room and slid into the chair next to him. He was even better looking up close, and Remus' eyes traced the square jaw and messy hair with his eyes as the other man offered a small smile and an even smaller wave in greeting. "Ah, hi."
"Hello," Remus answered. "You were drinking red?"
The other man's eyebrows peaked at Remus' accent, but he just smiled a little more, even as he shifted in his seat, looking awkward. "Yeah. Thanks."
"I'm Remus."
The other man brightened a little. "Oh, like Romulus and Remus, traditional founders of Rome. Sent down the river in a basket, nursed by a she-wolf and fed by a woodpecker. Do you have a twin?"
Remus blinked at him, his lips curling slightly. "No."
The other man took a sip of his wine. "Mmm," he hummed as he sat the glass down on the bar. "You think your parents would have named you after the twin that wasn't killed with a shovel. By some accounts, anyway." He met Remus' eyes briefly, and then that awkwardness returned and his gaze darted away, his lips pulling into a thin line. "Sorry."
Remus continued to stare for a moment, and then just started to laugh. Well, at least the other man was interesting in a funny sort of way. "You would think that, wouldn't you?" Remus agreed. "Are you going to tell me your name, or do I have to guess?"
The other man had looked back up and smiled when Remus laughed. He shifted a bit to face Remus. "Oh, sorry. Spencer."
"Good to meet you. I regret that I don't have as much to say about your name as you did mine," Remus joked, though the longer he talked with Spencer, the more he had to fight off a slowly growing guilt that was working its way through the adrenalin and determination, an odd sensation that he was somehow betraying Peter by chatting up some bloke he just met in a bar.
"It's really not half as interesting: dispenser of provisions."
"Have a keen interest in name origins?" Remus asked, and when Spencer just shrugged, Remus added, "Or just Roman mythology?"
"I studied it when I was in grade school."
"That's some memory," Remus said, smiling faintly. Spencer raised his eyebrows and nodded slowly, but didn't say anything, so Remus went on. "I haven't seen you here before."
"I'm not from here," Spencer said. "Actually, I'm flying out of town tomorrow. I was just here on, ah, business."
Remus was surprised at the feeling of relief that flooded him at those words. He felt a bit guilty for it, as it felt a bit cheap to buy Spencer a drink and shag him and never see him again, but Remus knew he wasn't ready for a relationship of any sort, and at least he knew Spencer was on the same page. He thought. He pushed just to be sure. "So you're just going out for a shag before you fly home?"
Spencer coughed and looked into his lap, and Remus could see his eyebrows raise and lower like he was trying to figure out exactly how to respond.
"That is what this is, isn't it?" Remus asked.
Spencer pressed his lips together. "Does your, ah, boyfriend know you're here?"
Remus frowned. "My boyfriend?"
"You're wearing a Claddagh ring on your right hand," Spencer said.
Oh, that. Remus hadn't gone back to Peter's actual grave, but on the six month anniversary of Peter's death, Remus had gone back to Loch Ness to talk to Peter. He'd Apparated to Claddagh after and picked up the ring, though most Americans didn't know what it meant.
"The design is facing inward, which would indicate that you're in love or in a relationship," Spencer said, glancing back up at Remus. "Every time I smile at you, you adjust it with your thumb."
Spencer talked like an encyclopedia. If it weren't for how odd Remus was slowly realising Spencer was, Remus might have been annoyed at the reminder of Peter on the night that he just wanted to forget. As it was, it put him a little on edge, but not enough to walk away. "Peter might know I'm here. He might not. Can't say for sure. He was murdered a year ago tonight."
Spencer didn't even flinch. Remus might not have noticed it, except that every other time he'd ever talked about what happened to his friends, he could could see a distinct wave of panic hit the person he was talking to. It was like he could almost see them trying to figure out how to respond. Spencer just nodded, and after a moment, murmured, "I'm sorry for your loss."
"Do you drink anything stronger than wine?" Remus asked, suddenly wanting to forget.
A look of uncertainty crossed Spencer's face, then he said, "I shouldn't get drunk." He shrugged awkwardly and shifted in his seat. "My team would know."
"Team?"
"Co-workers," Spencer replied, and then looked up at Remus again. There was something understanding and sympathetic in his eyes as he gazed at Remus that hadn't been there before, and Remus felt Spencer's hand move to his knee.
"They wouldn't know," Remus whispered.
Spencer's lips curved into a slow smile, and Remus gripped the edge of the bar when he felt his thumb go for his ring this time.
"They really would," Spencer murmured. "They probably know I'm here, actually, but that's far less likely to cause problems than if they think I'm getting... drunk."
Spencer insisted they not get so arsed that they fell into bed simply for lack of being able to stand. They talked a bit more, and Remus dropped a few more hints about what had happened a year ago tonight. Spencer was sympathetic and sweet and oddly innocent at times. It was only an hour later that Spencer and Remus entered the room at the Muggle inn not too far from the club. Spencer insisted on paying, and Remus wondered if he should feel guilty. Though Spencer had talked about co-workers, they hadn't actually discussed his job, and Spencer's clothes looked about as second hand as Remus' own.
Once inside, Remus pressed Spencer against the door and kissed him, and was overcome with both desire and guilt. He hadn't kissed anyone since he'd kissed Peter the last time, and the slide of Spencer's tongue against his own felt amazing and terrifying at the same time. Remus pulled back to look at Spencer, and reminded himself this was about tonight and nothing else. Spencer gave him a thoughtful frown.
"It works," he murmured, and Remus frowned in return. Spencer's fingers went to Remus' buttons. "To forget, I mean."
"What do you have to forget?" Remus whispered.
Spencers lips thinned until he was almost wearing a grimace and he was silent for a long time, then he tilted his head at Remus and shrugged. "Believe it or not, a lot of the same things you do."
"So you just started shagging random blokes?" Remus said.
Spencer bounced once on the balls of his feet and leaned in to kiss Remus again. "It was better than anything else I wanted to do," he replied, and then he was pushing Remus back toward the bed. Both shirts were open and Spencer's trousers and pants were off first. "Do you have a condom?" Spencer asked, and Remus had to swallow a sigh.
There had been a lot of talk about some new disease killing gay men in the Muggle world, and Remus couldn't blame Spencer anymore than he could protest and use a spell instead. Of course, he'd known that in advance and had come prepared. "Yes," he whispered, and pressed Spencer into the mattress on his back. His blood was racing, both from not having done this in some time and from the growing excitement and nerves of doing this with someone he'd just met.
He fumbled the little packet out of his pocket before unzipping his trousers and rolling it on, careful not to break the thin barrier. He realised too late they didn't have any lubriction, and he looked back at Spencer. He was sprawled out on his back, his knees bent, and he was watching Remus with anticipation. God, he was beautiful, Remus thought, and barely felt the guilt through his arousal. He reached down and took Spencer's cock in his hand, and Spencer let his eyes flutter shut a moment. Remus spit on his fingers and drew them along Spencer's entrance, and this time Spencer squirmed.
"Mmm," he hummed and licked his lips, then arched off the bed a little when Remus slid his finger inside, first one, then two, then a third. Remus kept stroking his cock as he worked, massaging that spot inside Spencer that made him writhe and whimper with need until Remus couldn't stand it anymore. He drew his fingers out and replaced them with his cock, sliding in slowly as he could and realising too late he hadn't even bothered to undress fully.
"Remus," Spencer panted, "Mmm, slow, please. I'm--"
"You're?" Remus whispered, biting lightly along Spencer's jaw and rotating his hips a little to appease his body's need for more as he waited for Spencer to answer.
"I'm not very... experienced," Spencer managed, even as he tilted his head back and reached down to grope Remus' arse through his trousers.
Remus went still. "You're a virgin?"
"No, no!" Spencer corrected quickly. "I'm just, mmm, God, move."
Remus didn't ask any more questions. He just started to move, slowly sinking into Spencer again and again, forcing his body to keep itself in check. Spencer wasn't a virgin, but he responded like one, whimpering and moaning at every little touch and caress, and Remus wished he'd spent more time teasing him in the beginning because it was a heady sensation that caused in him, getting those sorts of reactions from someone. Eventually, Spencer's body had apparently adjusted, and he panted, "harder."
Remus spit against his fingers and spread it around Spencer's entrance (doing a furtive lubrication spell as he did), and then obliged, driving into Spencer with enough force to make him scream. Spencer's nails dug into Remus' back and he had to swallow a growl. He curled his hand around Spencer's cock and stroked in time with his thrusts until Spencer came over his hand.
Remus wasn't far behind, and feeling that familiar fluid slide down the back of his hand, feeling Spencer spasm around him and hearing Spencer cry out with his released undid Remus. He thrust only a few more times and then came, moaning as his hips worked against Spencer before coming to rest.
Remus slid out and collapsed at Spencer's side on his back, closing his eyes and trying to catch his breath. After a long silence, Remus glanced over to see Spencer's eyes were still closed, but he was wearing a contented smile. Remus reached out and touched Spencer's side and Spencer opened his eyes and looked at him.
"Why are you off shagging random blokes in bars?" Remus asked, genuinely curious why someone might start out that way.
Spencer's smile slid a little. "My job keeps me busy and moving all the time. And... I needed to find a way to forget."
"Isn't there anyone you work with--?"
Spencer laughed before Remus finished. "Yes, but he's straight. Incredibly straight. Ex-football player." He shrugged.
"Heh, football," Remus said, rolling his eyes.
He sighed and stretched, finally covering himself up. Spencer pulled the sheets over himself too.
"I spent three years of my life with a man who never once admitted he was gay," Remus murmured. "You never know."
Spencer eyed Remus thoughtfully for a moment, then murmured, "Yeah. Maybe."
Part 23