james potter (mrlilyevans) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2015-01-11 09:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log, james potter, remus lupin |
Who: James & Remus
What: talking & eating after the full moon!
When: Tuesday, January 6th, early afternoon (backdated)
Where: Remus’s flat
Warnings: nah.
Status: logged, complete
The full moon, even now that Remus was taking Wolfsbane, was always exhausting. It was a long, adrenaline-filled night, during which James always ended up using more energy than he even knew he had. And that was nothing compared to what it took out of Remus, transforming into Moony. It was James’s tradition to bring him food the next day, starting in the days when Remus had been in the hospital wing for a while after-- not an entirely altruistic gesture, because he often ate a lot of it himself. It was a tradition he intended to keep up here, and on this particular full moon, he felt it was owed somewhat more than usual.
When he’d finally dragged himself out of bed, he collected the food available in the flat-- probably made by Lily earlier that morning-- and packed it up, then headed downstairs to supplement it with coffee and extra pastries from the cafe. Carrying two big bags of food and a tray with their two coffee cups, he took the lift back up and let himself in to Remus’s flat.
… And then, for the first time, hesitated before invading his friend’s privacy. He stepped quietly over to Remus’s bedroom door and peeked inside, just to make sure he wasn’t going to intrude on something that he shouldn’t. When he’d confirmed that Sirius wasn’t present, he toed the door the rest of the way open and announced himself as he normally would. In a sing song voice, as he plopped himself down on the bed and the food and drink on the table beside it.
“Morning, Moony!”
--
Remus might have been exhausted, but he wasn't bleeding. When he didn't have Wolfsbane and when he didn't have anyone to attack, Remus lashed out in aggression toward his restraints first, and then himself. It wasn't uncommon for Remus to be bitten and scratched raw, to wake up in the morning naked and bloody and pained.
But between the Wolfsbane Potion and the fact that James and Sirius accompanied him, Remus was left mostly unscratched. He had a couple of bruises from rough tumbling, because a tamed wolf wanted to play (and play hard), but for the most part he just felt wrung out and run ragged.
Remus had cleaned up upon getting home, taking a quick shower to wash off dirt, and then he'd bundled up in his softest pajamas and collapsed in bed to sleep. Every transformation took a couple of days to feel normal again, but when he wasn't dealing with injuries and loneliness it got that much easier.
He shifted underneath the blankets and rolled over away from James with a mumble. "Mmmmhallo."
--
“I brought food,” James said, in the same sing-song voice, trying to coax his friend out from under the covers. “Including chocolate! Look, Moony, chocolate pastry!”
He dug the chocolate-filled croissant from the bakery out of one of the bags and leaned over the lump that was Remus underneath the covers, waving it around near where he thought his friend’s face was. He knew his friend was always worn out after a full, but he always popped his head out eventually.
--
Curiosity got the better of him and he peeked out from under the comforter. He was pale, his eyes sunken and dark, and his hair was a tousled mess -- but he had an appetite, apparently, because he grabbed the croissant and took a bite. His little groan at the taste of it was as good as a thank you.
--
“You’re welcome,” James said happily, glad that his Moony-baiting had been successful. And now that Remus was eating, he felt that was permission enough for him to eat as well. He pawed through the bags until he came up with the bacon and sausage he’d hastily wrapped in foil before leaving his own flat, and took an enormous bite out of a piece of both, at the same time. He stopped chewing long enough to say, “There’s coffee, too.”
--
"Bless you." Remus reached out and pawed at James's face, giving it an affectionate pat before he dragged himself to sit up. He felt like he'd run a marathon, muscles and bones aching and exhausted from being stretched and torn and changed. Limbs felt like jelly, and in these hours after the full moon he really allowed himself to just indulge in rest.
"I need coffee. Six sugars and cream. Maybe seven…" He yawned, rolling his shoulders, and for a little while he'd forgotten the conversation he'd had with James and Sirius immediately prior to leaving.
--
Having anticipated this particular need, James simply pointed to the tray of coffee-- the little cardboard tray mainly being necessary for the fact that there were so many little sugar and cream packets to carry. He could have thrown them into the bags, but since Java Moment had so helpfully offered their own solution, he’d simply gone with it. “Help yourself.”
Then, maybe less helpfully, he held out the two slices of bacon and one sausage that he’d already bitten into two or three times. “Want some? Lily made it.”
--
Remus leaned over to start fussing with his coffee, dumping six, then seven sugars in before adding cream, with the croissant between his teeth to keep his hands free. "Mm-hmm," he said, because his mouth was full. The one thing that really didn't suffer after the transformation was his appetite, as he was making up for all that expended energy.
He set down the croissant, took a sip of coffee, and then stole a piece of bacon to quietly munch on. "Is Sirius still asleep?" he asked, before looking over his shoulder for the clock. "I don't even know what time it is…"
--
“Probably,” James said, before he remembered the other reason why Remus might be wondering about what Sirius was doing. Then his brain, muddled from a night out and a late sleep in, not to mention the bacon and sausage he was consuming, caught up to him. And then he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to remember anything because he hadn’t been told.
Just a half a second too late, he added, “Lazy sod.”
--
Remus took a slow sip of coffee, watching James shrewdly with a raised eyebrow. He waited. And then he waited some more. And then, finally:
"I know you know."
--
Surprise registered for a moment on James’s face. Then he covered it quickly and said, completely innocently, “Know what?”
--
Remus reached over and prodded James in the chest with a slender finger. "You're a shit. Sirius told me you know."
--
“He would,” James said, letting out a sigh as he dropped the innocent act. “I suppose he was getting back at me for telling on him. But he hadn’t told me when I said that, and then he went and told me, and--” He stopped himself mid-sentence and took another bite of his bacon and sausage. Once he’d swallowed enough to form words around it, he said, “Anyway, yes, I know. And you know I know, and Sirius knows we both know, so everybody knows that everybody else knows.”
He paused after this entirely unnecessary sentence, and looked at Remus. “Was I not supposed to know?”
--
Remus sighed, wrapping his hands around the cup for warmth. "No, it's not … I'm just under a lot of stress, before the moon, and I would have liked to, I don't know. Sit you down. Delicately. Politely." It was his way of saying he wasn't ready, but he'd never intended on keeping it a secret. He just didn't know how to approach it with James without feeling somewhat mortified. He didn't know what James would think, was half convinced James would laugh. There was some part of him -- some distant, paranoid part -- that thought that James would recoil in disgust because of the werewolf thing.
James didn't care, James had never cared, but Remus could only listen to certain rhetoric for so long before it really stuck in the back of his mind. He'd never voice that fear out loud, but it made him brace himself for James's response.
--
“Like you were breaking up with me,” James said, in total seriousness. But it was the kind of seriousness he affected when he was really not being very serious at all, and a moment later he smiled and reached out to pat Remus on the cheek. “I told Sirius you wouldn’t have wanted him blabbing about it. And, you know,” he added, pulling his hand back to reach for his own coffee instead, “I wouldn’t have been so obnoxious about it if I’d actually known what the secret was.”
Which-- was obvious, because if he’d known the secret then he wouldn’t have needed to harass them about it in the first place, but he ignored that for the moment and placidly stirred two creams and a sugar into his cup.
In truth he hadn’t closely examined how he felt, beyond feeling defensive over Remus’s privacy and over the blunder he’d made about it. But upon considering it, as he stirred, the only negative emotion he could find in his heart of hearts was maybe a little bit of jealousy. Not because he wanted to be with either of them-- if he had, it would’ve happened already-- but because they were his best friends and for the first time, there was something between the two of them that distinctly did not include James. So far it had not significantly impacted his life, however, so his interest in their happiness was winning out.
After a few moments, he finally added, “All he told me, you know, was that you slept together. So if there was anything else you wanted to add, this isn’t a bad moment for it.” He lifted his hands to show the bacon and sausage in one fist and the coffee in the other. “There isn’t much I can’t handle when I have breakfast food. Which is probably,” he added thoughtfully, tangentially, “Why they always dropped our school schedules off over breakfast.”
--
Remus raised his eyebrows. "'Slept together'? That's what he said?" He smiled mildly and took another sip of coffee. There certainly hadn't been sleeping involved, and looking back on what they'd done, he had mixed feelings of embarrassment and pride. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to hide under the covers or … brag. Because it had been good. Really good. Almost mortifyingly aggressive and intense, but Remus could only blame the tug of the full moon for so much.
He chuckled to himself and tapped his fingertips against the cup. "All right."
--
For a moment James thought he might have said the wrong thing. Maybe Sirius was supposed to have said something different, because it had meant something different to Remus. He was about to inform his friend that Sirius had said it in tiny, smooshed together letters, in case that helped make up for the way it had been phrased, when he suddenly realized that Remus didn’t appear to be bothered at all.
Perhaps he’d gotten it wrong. Maybe it was Sirius’s delicate sensibilities that needed to be protected, in which case, he’d stopped himself from blurting out something private just in time.
Instead, he raised his eyebrows at Remus. “All right?”
--
"Yeah, all right." Remus sipped. "It's just … a delicate way of putting it." And that was rather sweet, and sort of tied his stomach in a knot. It was a strange jumble of emotions, feeling like something was new and familiar at the same time. Sirius was still himself, they were still friends, but now there was this added thing between them, this heat, with memories that made Remus's mind wander and want more. He'd never been with a person more than once, had never been in a relationship, and he couldn't even say for certain that what he had with Sirius was remotely similar to what James had with Lily, or if they were just friends who'd shagged on the kitchen floor and considered doing it again (preferably somewhere else).
He broke off a flaky piece of croissant and popped it into his mouth, opting not to elaborate unless asked. James wasn't wrong; he did like his privacy and he did keep guarded walls up. His desire to be liked meant rarely stating opinions first, preferring to test the waters with what everyone else thought before either admitting agreement or keeping quiet.
He certainly didn't share details of his sex life prior to this. What was he supposed to say? He went home with a girl, shagged her, and left before she woke up for breakfast? He wasn't proud of it, he didn't like it, but Remus was cagey about his condition and desperate to keep secrets and afraid of getting close, but … celibacy because of it wasn't always on the table.
--
James stared at him for a moment, trying to decipher his expression. Finally, because he didn’t know quite what Remus meant, he chose the interpretation that made for the most fun in teasing his friend. “Delicate, eh?” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. “Can’t have been; I hear it didn’t happen in the bed.”
He was pretty sure that comment was meant to torment him, make him worry that he was in the place where his friends had shagged-- but why would that matter? He’d lived in a dorm room with them for seven years. If he’d tried to avoid places where they, as teenage boys, had ever done something naughty, then he’d never have been able to sit or stand anywhere. (Besides, at the moment, he was sitting on the bed. Which was precisely where it hadn’t happened.)
--
Remus's cheeks went hot, but he smirked. He felt like he had to share it. Even a little bit. "No, it didn't," he admitted. "It happened against the kitchen counter."
Pause. "And the floor."
--
“Moony, you sly dog,” James said, laughing. He reached out and gave his friend a gentle punch in the shoulder-- slightly harder than he might have on any other day after the full, because Remus wasn’t quite as beat up as he usually was.
He sobered a few moments later, and examined his friend’s face more closely. “Seriously, though. Are you two okay? You and Sirius?”
--
Remus bit his lip. "I… mm." He tipped his head, letting his eyes close thoughtfully for a moment. "I think so," he said. "I want to be. I don't know if that's going to change in practice or not, but I want it to be all right."
He glanced at James, and he suddenly looked far more uncertain. He didn't know if this was going to be okay. He didn't know if they were going to make it through this with their friendship intact, or if they'd try to be … what, lovers? and fail. Remus was so cautious with people as a rule that this was an extraordinary leap of faith and he was terrified, deep down.
"I love him," he said simply, with a shrug. "I always have, like I love you." And then, another hint of a smile. "Well, not quite like I love you."
--
Impulsively, after watching Remus’s face change from thoughtful to uncertain to loving, James reached forward to hug him. “We love you too, Moony,” he said, patting him on the cheek as he pulled back. “It’s going to be alright.”