Still, where did the lighter fluid come from? (emiime) wrote in pervy_werewolf, @ 2008-05-31 22:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | #lmom 2008, author: emiime, kink: kissing, remus/percy |
LMOM, Day 31! Denouement (Weeding) (Remus/Percy, PG-13)
Title: Denouement (Weeding)
Author: emiime
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Remus/Percy
Kink(s): Kissing
Challenge: Lusty Month of May 2008
Word Count: 1296
Summary: There are still a lot of weeds to pull.
Notes: *throws confetti* It's over! Congratulations to everyone who made it through the month! One line in this fic is shamelessly stolen from one of my favorite movies—see if you can spot it. (I'm sure you will!) So much love to all the people who commented and cheerleaded and prompted me throughout the month. I could never have done it without you all! ♥
(Did you miss something? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30)
Remus didn't allow himself to hesitate outside the Burrow, but knocked on the door immediately upon his arrival.
When Molly opened the door, she didn't step aside right away. She looked at Remus with a curious questioning sort of reproach in her eyes, then her expression softened and she moved to allow Remus inside.
"He's in the back garden," was all she said, and Remus nodded his thanks and moved through the house.
Percy was, indeed, in the back garden, in the little patch away from the house near the big oak tree where Molly planted beets and carrots and onions and lettuces. He pulled at the weeds with a steadfast determination that Remus had witnessed in other places, on other occasions.
Remus's feet fell softly on the grass, and Percy didn't turn as he approached, didn't react until Remus knelt beside him.
"Percy," he said, by way of greeting, "You have to listen to me."
"I don't have to do anything," replied Percy, but he sounded weary, not confrontational. He pushed his fringe off his forehead with a gloved hand, leaving a smear of dirt behind.
Remus sat back on his heels. "You're right," he said, "You don't. But I wish you would."
Percy sighed and moved on to the tomato plants, ripping up the tiny, sprouting weeds with efficient jerks of his wrist and tossing them into a wooden crate at his side.
"All right," Percy said after he'd weeded half a row. He, too, sat back, resting there in the dirt as if he didn't care about the state of his clothes, when generally the opposite was closer to the truth.
"All right, what?" Remus was still by the lettuces. He'd been watching Percy, and waiting.
"All right, I'll listen. But I'll talk first."
Remus thought that was fair enough. He moved to the end of the row of tomatoes and settled himself in the dirt, facing Percy. His knees creaked a bit as he did so, but if the two of them were actually going to talk, he didn't mind so much.
"You frightened me," Percy said, staring at a tomato plant. "You said you'd gone to Muggle places and done—things—with them. Had sex with them. Men. Strangers. I still haven't figured out whether the possibility of disease or the fact of your cheating frightened me more. But that's what it was—and it took me a while to figure that out. I wasn't angry. I was frightened. And then—I couldn't go back."
Somehow, Percy's admission that he'd been frightened instead of angry did more to heal the rift in Remus's heart than anything else could have.
"I'm not diseased," he said softly. "I've been checked by Muggle doctors and by our Healers, and I guess I got lucky."
"I guess you did," Percy said, but there was no sarcasm in his tone.
"And as for the rest, Percy—"
"As for you being unfaithful, you mean." Percy lifted his gaze to Remus's, and Remus paused for a moment, surprised by Percy's forthrightness.
He nodded. "Yes. That."
A bird flew overhead in the silence that descended upon them, then, its chatter causing them both to look upwards.
When Remus looked back at Percy, Percy was still gazing at the sky.
"I've never been unfaithful to you, Percy," he said. "I've never been unfaithful to any of my—to anyone I loved. I could never."
Percy looked back at him then. "You said you loved Tonks."
Remus huffed. "You know what I mean."
Percy nodded, conceding the point. "I suppose I do. But what's to reassure me that you wouldn't do it again?"
There was nothing Remus could say that would make everything all right again, no magic words, no healing spells to mend broken confidence.
"Time," he said, finally, the word little more than a whisper.
"Time," Percy repeated.
"Yes. Time, and the fact that I've never done anything to hurt you before—not deliberately. And trust." He shrugged. "That's all I can offer."
He deliberately left love out of it.
When Percy didn't say anything for several minutes, Remus finally stood, his knees popping and protesting.
"I'll leave you to the vegetables," he said, and he turned and began to walk away.
"What about—" Percy began, then he stopped.
Remus turned. "What about what?"
Percy rose from his seat among the tomatoes and approached Remus, holding out his hand as if in a peace offering.
Remus took it.
"You've been telling me a lot of stories lately," he said, "And I've been enjoying them."
Remus nodded, waiting, not breathing, not daring to interrupt.
"And I just thought—for the sake of—" Percy stopped himself again, shaking his head. Two spots of colour burned bright in his cheeks. "I'm such rubbish at this," he said, staring at the grass.
Remus wanted to say you're not, but he thought it best to wait and see exactly what it was Percy thought he was rubbish at.
"The whole—relationship—romance—thing," he said, in answer to Remus's unasked question. "I feel a bit silly," he confessed. He glanced up at the house, as if Molly were watching through a window.
Which, Remus decided, was probably not unlikely.
Remus led Percy behind the wide oak, shielding them from the house and from the gaze of anyone who happened to be watching and worrying and waiting.
Percy embraced him, then, throwing his arms about Remus's neck. "It felt as if I were losing you," he said, his voice choked.
Remus hugged Percy close to him and shook his head. "Why ever would you think that?"
"Because—because I've heard about so much loss from you. Sirius. My uncle Fabian. Even Tonks, whatever she meant to you—clearly she meant something, or you wouldn't have tried to protect her. And how many others? The stories you haven't told me. Your friends. James Potter. Peter Pettigrew. How many more?"
So many more, Remus thought, but he said nothing, only holding Percy tighter.
"I thought it only natural, then, that we’d lose each other," Percy said, the last few words so strangled as to be almost unintelligible.
"Oh, my boy," said Remus. His knees went weak, and he pulled Percy to the ground and laid him on the grass, kissing him softly on the mouth. Percy parted his lips and kissed Remus back.
They kissed until their breath came in short pants, until beads of sweat had formed on Remus's forehead, until they had to stop lest they do something quite unsuitable for doing in Molly Weasley's back garden.
"No," Remus finally said when they'd broken the kiss and were lying entangled in the grass, "That's just it, Percy. Don't you see? I lived all the other stories, and you lived yours, and they all ended. Sirius. Tonks. Penelope. Anthony. But this story is different." He paused for breath, wanting nothing more than to lie there under the shady oak, kissing Percy for the rest of his life.
"Why?" Percy breathed.
"I think you know why," replied Remus, brushing an errant strand of hair from Percy's forehead.
"Because it's ours," Percy said slowly. It was almost a question.
Remus watched as Percy's chin began to wobble.
"That's exactly it," said Remus, "And we're going to live it together. The whole thing. This is only the beginning of our story."
They kissed, then.
Since the invention of the kiss there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure.
This one left them all behind.
"I've still got a lot more weeds to pull," said Percy, afterwards, his hair mussed, his eyes bright behind his glasses.
"I'll help you," Remus replied, and they stood and walked together towards the little garden.