fic commentary (HSETTS)
Mar. 15th, 2005 09:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynneCommentary for His Sightless Eyes Turned Towards the Sky, which is in the lead in the poll. Btw, there's a three-way tie for second fic, so could someone break it so I know which fic to comment on next?
Warning: original fic (and therefore this commentary) rated NC17.
I never expected this fic to be as popular as it seems to have turned out. It seems especially strange, as I wrote this as an expansion of a drabble for Queerditch Pub. The theme was “the five senses” and the challenge was “Remus/Sirius - blindness”, and of course I had to make it Bring Back Black, and as a bonus, make the blindness the price to pay for bringing Sirius back—at least on Sirius’s part. Remus had a different price to pay.
There’s always a price to pay, Remus thinks, looking down at Sirius sleeping on the bed. His arm is flung up to cover his eyes, and Remus almost laughs at the irony. But the question is, is the price too high?
It certainly isn’t for Harry, who is ecstatic to see his godfather back, even if his godfather can’t see him in return.
It isn’t for Tonks either, who is just happy to have her favorite cousin back, no matter if he lost something irrevocably in the returning.
He doesn’t think it is for Dumbledore, but Dumbledore is undeniably the general of their little army, and such unexpected occurrences as a soldier’s return from the dead and subsequent disability are hardly ever welcome, even if the general likes said returned soldier in the first place.
This is one of the paragraphs I added when I expanded the drabble; originally I just had Harry, Tonks, Snape, and Remus. But I think it fits to have Dumbledore in here, and that he wouldn’t necessarily like it. He’s the one who thinks of death as the next great adventure, after all, as well as being a general.
It is for Snape, but Snape never wanted Sirius there in the first place, so his outrage is just something to be expected and summarily ignored. Any price is too high to be paid, even if Snape is not the one paying it.
And it definitely isn’t too high a price for Remus, who would have given almost anything to have Sirius back. He just wishes the price had been his own sight, because Sirius has suffered far too much. He doesn’t need this added misery.
I toyed with the idea of making Remus the blind one at first, but life’s given both of them too many lemons, and it fit better to have Sirius blind, so that’s what I did.
“Remus?”
Remus starts at the mumble from the figure on the bed. He quickly moves to Sirius’s side as Sirius flings out a questing arm.
“I’m right here, Sirius,” he says, when Sirius’s hand bumps his chest. He grabs the hand, which then pulls him closer.
“Going to be hard to get used to,” Sirius says conversationally. “Being unable to see you, I mean. Harder to touch you…”
“It shouldn’t be,” Remus says around the lump in his throat. He takes Sirius’s hand and spreads the fingers out, and presses it against him. “You know me well enough. You can see with your fingers, can’t you?”
Sirius smiles and moves closer, leaning his forehead against Remus’s. “It’ll take getting used to…” he says, but Remus can hear the smile in his voice to match the smile on his face.
“Won’t take long,” Remus whispers. “You get to touch me as much as you want. And,” he bites back a grin, “pretty much wherever you want, and even in public. You can blame it on being unable to see where your hand is going.”
Never let it be said that I don’t think Remus had his own generous helping of mischievousness. Or that he wasn’t horny. :p
Sirius laughs delightedly.
“Not,” Remus adds virtuously, “that I’m encouraging you to grope me publicly.”
Right. Of course not. We all believe you.
“Definitely not,” Sirius agrees, the grin on his face turning slightly wicked. “After all, if you were encouraging me to grope you publicly, I’d have to take you up on your challenge, wouldn’t I? After all, a Marauder never backs down on a challenge, does he?”
“Of course not,” Remus says. “Though mind, I’m not encouraging it.”
“Right,” Sirius says, and Remus looks up, for that twinkle that he knows will be in Sirius’s eyes—and almost slumps in disappointment when it isn’t there, obscured by some opaque film in front of the irises, and Remus wonders wildly for a moment if there is some way to get rid of that film, because Sirius’s eyes are so pretty, even if they can’t see anymore—but then he shakes himself slightly, and tells himself not to let Sirius know about this kind of thought, because Sirius needs only encouragement right now—
That bit about the opaque film was actually inspired by something about me. Dunno how many of you know, but I was half-blind from birth with a cataract, and in my surgery to get it out (at around five months old or so), my parents had them remove that opaque film, so that my left eye looks normal, save that the pupil is extremely small. They didn’t want that reminder of my blindness, and I think Remus feels the same, even if he won’t admit it to himself. Though I guess Sirius’s eyes being pretty is a good enough excuse. :)
“Moony,” Sirius whispers, his hands wandering lightly up and down Remus’s back. “Remus.” Said as if tasting the name, as if it is something new and wonderful, and Remus feels like breaking down and crying at that wondering way that Sirius said his name, but then he tells himself Stiff upper lip and holds himself together because he doesn’t know what falling apart would do to Sirius now.
“Sirius,” Remus whispers in return, and hates the slight wobble in his voice, hates that he might—
“Remus, it’s all right,” Sirius murmurs. “You don’t have to be strong for me. I’m not going to break. At least this is better than the alternative.”
The alternative. The alternative that Remus has carefully not been thinking about, that Sirius could have left more than just his sight in the land of the lost, that he could have left everything and never come back to Remus at all…the thought is unbearable, and Remus quickly shoves it away.
This is where it became obvious to me that this was going to be a sort-of epilogue to a WiP of mine (that I haven’t worked on in a really long time…) about the Veil leading to Limbo and Remus bringing Sirius back from it. I need to finish that fic—I like it.
Sirius draws Remus closer in his arms as if that touch is all he has left, fingers running up and down the ridges of his spine. “It’s all right if you let go,” he murmurs again. “I’m the last person who would think less of you, and letting down your barriers doesn’t make you any less strong. If anything, it makes you stronger, that you can let them down at all.”
Oh God, Sirius, shut up! Remus wants to yell. You shouldn’t be the one reassuring me right now! He wants to wail, to scream, to tear into things and rip them apart. He wants to be the one who was blinded, because he doesn’t need his sight, he isn’t the one who has a godson to watch finish growing, he doesn’t need to see because no matter what he would always see his flesh torn apart in ways that not even that blessed potion that let him keep his mind could heal. When Remus guided Sirius home, a successful Orpheus with his Eurydice back again, he’d thought that if any price had to be paid, he would be the one that paid it. Not Sirius, who’d done enough paying for at least a lifetime, if not more.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice always depresses me. In that WiP I’m writing, I just had to do an Orpheus-type thing, only he—meaning Remus—succeeds, which makes me happy.
But how does one say something like that to Sirius, who would have given his sight and so much more to see Remus whole and happy, as he’d assured Remus so many times? How to tell Sirius about half-formed regrets, regrets that have nothing and yet everything to do with him, when with Sirius things are still all or nothing? How does one tell Sirius Black anything at all, when it was clear that he should have been a mule rather than a dog for how stubborn he is about things he doesn’t want to hear?
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Remus says, muffled into the fabric of Sirius’s robe, and that is true enough too. There are so very many things to say, and not enough words to say them, though he supposes I love you would make the best start.
Apparently Sirius thinks so too. “I love you,” he says. “That hasn’t changed, not through Azkaban or Grimmauld Place or even Limbo, as absurd as it may seem. How many people would survive even one of those places, let alone all? You don’t need to worry about me, Remus.”
“But that’s why I need to worry about you!” Remus says, quickly, before he can stop himself and tell himself that Sirius doesn’t need to know these private doubts, that he needs to be strong for both of them, even if he is so tired of being strong all the time… “You’ve survived all that, but how much more can you take? What if, one day—” He cuts himself off. Sirius certainly doesn’t need to hear that.
Isn’t it funny how the characters in one’s head grow and change all the time? The Remus in my head right now would prefer remaining silent to bursting out that he needs to worry about Sirius to Sirius himself.
“I can take as much as I need to,” Sirius says firmly. “At least as much as you can. You’ve survived lycanthropy and being alone and the death of everyone you care about…I can survive at least being blind, which isn’t so bad in the scheme of things.”
“It shouldn’t be you who’s blind,” Remus says miserably. “It should be me. I’m the one who used the spell. I’m the one who traveled back and forth from Limbo without being dead. You aren’t the one who should pay for what I did.”
Growth and change. The Remus in my head now would again prefer remaining silent to saying things like that, things that expose him so. I don’t precisely wince when looking back at this Remus, but I don’t think he’d say things like that anymore.
Sirius shakes his head. “We share the price,” he says. “You’ve lost things too, for being in there, though I don’t know if you’d count the mists of Limbo taking your memories a fair price.”
There’s Remus’s price for bringing Sirius home, which I go into more detail in Mind over Matter, should I ever finish it. I really need to…
“Definitely,” Remus interrupts him. “I’d have done almost anything to get you back. We can create new memories together, and some of them I’m not so sad to get rid of.”
“But it’s a price I don’t think you should have had to pay,” Sirius says, and puts a finger on Remus’s lips to stop him talking. Or rather, on the right corner of Remus’s lips; he misses the center, where he was probably aiming. But Remus keeps quiet anyway. “So we’re even,” he says. “You don’t think I should have had to pay with my sight, and I don’t think you should have had to pay with your memories. So no more feeling guilty about it, all right?”
“Not something you can really guarantee,” Remus says wryly, but he does feel better. Somehow, Sirius just has that way about him, that he can make Remus feel better so easily, even if it is balanced by how easily he can hurt Remus too…but Remus stays away from those memories. They aren’t what is needed now.
No, what is needed now is just—them. Sirius’s hands on his back like that, and Remus’s hands on Sirius’s hips. Sirius’s lips traversing the curve of Remus’s ear, and Remus’s sigh of contentment.
“You know what I feel like,” Remus whispers when Sirius hesitates, his hands stilling on the small of Remus’s back. “You don’t need your eyes for that. How many times have we done this, after all?”
“Not enough,” Sirius says, though Remus can feel the smile against his cheek. Then a rough exhalation, warm breath washing over his jaw. “Never enough.”
Remus almost wants to point out that they can’t begin to make up all the lost time now, because even if there are many things Sirius can’t do now that he’s blind, even if he’d been allowed to do them before he fell through the Veil, there is one thing that he does need to learn how to do, and that is cope, and surely Dumbledore will want him to start learning how as soon as possible—but Sirius soon drives the matter out of his head, because he never could think properly when Sirius’s mouth was on his throat. He minded, at first, turning over this most vulnerable point to Sirius’s ministrations, but Sirius has repaid his trust tenfold, with tiny nips and small butterfly kisses, until the last things Remus can remember or even wants to are the initial objections.
That whole paragraph is only two sentences. Dude, I wrote such long sentences…
Remus reaches out to undo the claps of Sirius’s robes, but his hand has barely brushed the clothing before Sirius trails a hand up his arm and closes around his wrist, gently tugging it away. “Let me,” Sirius breathes. “Let me see how far touch will take me.” And even before Sirius starts touching him again, Remus knows that it will take him pretty damn far.
Sirius shifts closer until both their erections are pressed hard against the other’s thigh, and Remus swallows at the feel of Sirius against him again, and knows that this is one memory that will never be completely taken away, because this is something he just can’t forget. Sirius’s mouth on his neck, clever fingers drawing away superfluous robes slowly and teasingly, peeling them away to reveal burning hot skin—unforgettable. Remus arches up as Sirius’s hand trails down his chest as if rediscovering the planes and angles of it, letting the pads of his fingers do his seeing for him now.
Parts of this fic are making me go o.O now that I’m looking back on it, but I like the description in that paragraph.
“Sirius,” Remus says, as Sirius uses hands and mouth to coax him higher and higher, and Remus throws his head back, unable to look anymore at what Sirius could not see. He shuts his eyes tightly as he feels Sirius tug his boxers down, throwing them haphazardly to the floor, and he lets out a hiss as Sirius’s hand closes gently around his cock.
See, Sirius? he wants to say. See what your touch on me can bring us both to— for Remus feels the way Sirius trembles and burns almost as intimately as he feels himself, —no matter if your eyes look off into a place neither of us can go? Even with the loss of one of your senses, the others are so sharp that it’s almost painful, what you can do to me with them— And then Remus lost coherent thought as Sirius’s mouth replaced his hand, but he didn’t miss it. What use was coherent thought when Sirius was such a master at using his tongue and teeth in ways that never cease to amaze Remus, no matter how often he should have the privilege to experience them firsthand?
“Open your eyes, Remus,” Sirius says, and Remus’s eyes fly open. He doesn’t know how Sirius knew that his eyes were closed, but he doesn’t question it, just dismisses it to the wonders that can be Sirius rising to a challenge, but it doesn’t matter now when he can so clearly see Sirius lounging between his legs and shrugging out of his robes.
Sirius knows Remus closed his eyes just because that’s what Remus does during sex, according to me in this fic. :p He probably figured that, even if he couldn’t see it directly, it was a good bet that Remus had his eyes closed.
“I can’t see you, Remus,” Sirius continues, pulling the robes over his head and tossing them onto the floor, “so you’re going to have to see for both of us. Not just now, but later too.”
“Always,” Remus promises, watching as Sirius sits back on his heels, the last of his clothing slipped to the floor. Then he leans forward and grabs Sirius’s wrists, drawing him closer so that Sirius’s bare skin can finally lie where it belongs, nestled close to Remus’s, their naked cocks brushing each other in a sunburst of sensation that Remus has to choke back a cry at.
Then Sirius shifts slightly, and mutters something in a voice almost too low for Remus to hear though he too knows that spell by heart and can recognise it anywhere, and Remus can’t bite back his cry anymore at the way Sirius’s cock is suddenly so much warmer inside him than it was just brushing his thigh, his own cock, and Sirius’s sweat-flecked forehead is buried in Remus’s shoulder and his hands seek to bring them even closer than that one thrust has done so far, and Remus is just so glad that he has this again that he is willing to offer up thanks to any deity that may exist. His Sirius is back, with him and within him, and despite so many sacrifices, if this one moment were caught in a snowglobe for Remus to look at and experience whenever he might please, he would say that all is right with the world.
So much thinking. Too much, really, especially for a sex scene, only I don’t know how I could have written it any other way. Sigh. I do like the snowglobe line, though. :)
Then Sirius explodes, the Dog Star gone supernova in a single instant, and the aftermath of the blast catches Remus too and carries him to the edge and past. His eyes are open and he can see Sirius throw his head back, his sightless eyes turned towards the sky and higher, as if he can see the stars and actual sight was only hindering his vision, and then he slumps back, down to Earth and to Remus again, who gathers him closer, heedless of the semen cooling between their bodies.
…I have to confess that part of the paragraph was inspired by Annie’s Slackened Ties and how she really manages to pack a wallop into a climax scene (not that I think mine lives up to her example). If you’re reading this…ta, Annie. You’re quite the influence.
Sirius shifts off Remus and mutters a cleaning charm, and Remus chuckles, because he feels too boneless to have even managed that, and wonders where Sirius got the energy. But then the wondering is lost in a haze of contentment as Sirius slides an arm around his waist and buries his face in his shoulder again. Remus brings the covers up around them both and shifts his weight slightly so that Sirius doesn’t wake up with pins and needles, and is, for the first time in many months, if not years, happy to go to sleep. Even if all isn’t right with the world right now, Remus knows, it will be soon, and that’s enough for him.
Well, there’s that. Now that I’ve reread this, I really think I need to finish working on the (supposed) novel-length fic that inspired part of it, and that this is supposed to be a sort of epilogue to, even if it was posted first.
Writing this was a bit of an emotionally-charged experience—the issue of blindness really hits home with me, and I’m more than a bit afraid of it, knowing what it’s like to be more than halfway there (because not only do I have the luck to be completely blind in my left eye, I’m legally blind in my right if I don’t have my glasses, my nearsightedness is so bad). I’m not sure I’d be able to put on the brave face that Sirius is—but Sirius is trying to be brave for Remus as well as himself, and Remus is a bit emotionally fragile here. Even if the Remus in my head has changed slightly, I think that Remus still would be emotionally fragile in this situation: lost Sirius to Azkaban, got him back again, strained relationship during OotP (as Remus was constantly gone), lost him again to the Veil, and then had to go through the ordeal of Limbo taking his memories to get him back…yeah, Remus is entitled to a bit of a breakdown. And since I think Remus was the one who more often than not had to be strong in OotP, when Sirius was stressed and frustrated about the house and not being able to do anything useful, I figured it was only fair to let Sirius be the strong one here.
Again, I’m a bit surprised people liked this as much as they did. I guess they like it when someone learns to live with a disability, or something? Doubt it’s because the sex was hot. :p
Warning: original fic (and therefore this commentary) rated NC17.
I never expected this fic to be as popular as it seems to have turned out. It seems especially strange, as I wrote this as an expansion of a drabble for Queerditch Pub. The theme was “the five senses” and the challenge was “Remus/Sirius - blindness”, and of course I had to make it Bring Back Black, and as a bonus, make the blindness the price to pay for bringing Sirius back—at least on Sirius’s part. Remus had a different price to pay.
There’s always a price to pay, Remus thinks, looking down at Sirius sleeping on the bed. His arm is flung up to cover his eyes, and Remus almost laughs at the irony. But the question is, is the price too high?
It certainly isn’t for Harry, who is ecstatic to see his godfather back, even if his godfather can’t see him in return.
It isn’t for Tonks either, who is just happy to have her favorite cousin back, no matter if he lost something irrevocably in the returning.
He doesn’t think it is for Dumbledore, but Dumbledore is undeniably the general of their little army, and such unexpected occurrences as a soldier’s return from the dead and subsequent disability are hardly ever welcome, even if the general likes said returned soldier in the first place.
This is one of the paragraphs I added when I expanded the drabble; originally I just had Harry, Tonks, Snape, and Remus. But I think it fits to have Dumbledore in here, and that he wouldn’t necessarily like it. He’s the one who thinks of death as the next great adventure, after all, as well as being a general.
It is for Snape, but Snape never wanted Sirius there in the first place, so his outrage is just something to be expected and summarily ignored. Any price is too high to be paid, even if Snape is not the one paying it.
And it definitely isn’t too high a price for Remus, who would have given almost anything to have Sirius back. He just wishes the price had been his own sight, because Sirius has suffered far too much. He doesn’t need this added misery.
I toyed with the idea of making Remus the blind one at first, but life’s given both of them too many lemons, and it fit better to have Sirius blind, so that’s what I did.
“Remus?”
Remus starts at the mumble from the figure on the bed. He quickly moves to Sirius’s side as Sirius flings out a questing arm.
“I’m right here, Sirius,” he says, when Sirius’s hand bumps his chest. He grabs the hand, which then pulls him closer.
“Going to be hard to get used to,” Sirius says conversationally. “Being unable to see you, I mean. Harder to touch you…”
“It shouldn’t be,” Remus says around the lump in his throat. He takes Sirius’s hand and spreads the fingers out, and presses it against him. “You know me well enough. You can see with your fingers, can’t you?”
Sirius smiles and moves closer, leaning his forehead against Remus’s. “It’ll take getting used to…” he says, but Remus can hear the smile in his voice to match the smile on his face.
“Won’t take long,” Remus whispers. “You get to touch me as much as you want. And,” he bites back a grin, “pretty much wherever you want, and even in public. You can blame it on being unable to see where your hand is going.”
Never let it be said that I don’t think Remus had his own generous helping of mischievousness. Or that he wasn’t horny. :p
Sirius laughs delightedly.
“Not,” Remus adds virtuously, “that I’m encouraging you to grope me publicly.”
Right. Of course not. We all believe you.
“Definitely not,” Sirius agrees, the grin on his face turning slightly wicked. “After all, if you were encouraging me to grope you publicly, I’d have to take you up on your challenge, wouldn’t I? After all, a Marauder never backs down on a challenge, does he?”
“Of course not,” Remus says. “Though mind, I’m not encouraging it.”
“Right,” Sirius says, and Remus looks up, for that twinkle that he knows will be in Sirius’s eyes—and almost slumps in disappointment when it isn’t there, obscured by some opaque film in front of the irises, and Remus wonders wildly for a moment if there is some way to get rid of that film, because Sirius’s eyes are so pretty, even if they can’t see anymore—but then he shakes himself slightly, and tells himself not to let Sirius know about this kind of thought, because Sirius needs only encouragement right now—
That bit about the opaque film was actually inspired by something about me. Dunno how many of you know, but I was half-blind from birth with a cataract, and in my surgery to get it out (at around five months old or so), my parents had them remove that opaque film, so that my left eye looks normal, save that the pupil is extremely small. They didn’t want that reminder of my blindness, and I think Remus feels the same, even if he won’t admit it to himself. Though I guess Sirius’s eyes being pretty is a good enough excuse. :)
“Moony,” Sirius whispers, his hands wandering lightly up and down Remus’s back. “Remus.” Said as if tasting the name, as if it is something new and wonderful, and Remus feels like breaking down and crying at that wondering way that Sirius said his name, but then he tells himself Stiff upper lip and holds himself together because he doesn’t know what falling apart would do to Sirius now.
“Sirius,” Remus whispers in return, and hates the slight wobble in his voice, hates that he might—
“Remus, it’s all right,” Sirius murmurs. “You don’t have to be strong for me. I’m not going to break. At least this is better than the alternative.”
The alternative. The alternative that Remus has carefully not been thinking about, that Sirius could have left more than just his sight in the land of the lost, that he could have left everything and never come back to Remus at all…the thought is unbearable, and Remus quickly shoves it away.
This is where it became obvious to me that this was going to be a sort-of epilogue to a WiP of mine (that I haven’t worked on in a really long time…) about the Veil leading to Limbo and Remus bringing Sirius back from it. I need to finish that fic—I like it.
Sirius draws Remus closer in his arms as if that touch is all he has left, fingers running up and down the ridges of his spine. “It’s all right if you let go,” he murmurs again. “I’m the last person who would think less of you, and letting down your barriers doesn’t make you any less strong. If anything, it makes you stronger, that you can let them down at all.”
Oh God, Sirius, shut up! Remus wants to yell. You shouldn’t be the one reassuring me right now! He wants to wail, to scream, to tear into things and rip them apart. He wants to be the one who was blinded, because he doesn’t need his sight, he isn’t the one who has a godson to watch finish growing, he doesn’t need to see because no matter what he would always see his flesh torn apart in ways that not even that blessed potion that let him keep his mind could heal. When Remus guided Sirius home, a successful Orpheus with his Eurydice back again, he’d thought that if any price had to be paid, he would be the one that paid it. Not Sirius, who’d done enough paying for at least a lifetime, if not more.
The story of Orpheus and Eurydice always depresses me. In that WiP I’m writing, I just had to do an Orpheus-type thing, only he—meaning Remus—succeeds, which makes me happy.
But how does one say something like that to Sirius, who would have given his sight and so much more to see Remus whole and happy, as he’d assured Remus so many times? How to tell Sirius about half-formed regrets, regrets that have nothing and yet everything to do with him, when with Sirius things are still all or nothing? How does one tell Sirius Black anything at all, when it was clear that he should have been a mule rather than a dog for how stubborn he is about things he doesn’t want to hear?
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Remus says, muffled into the fabric of Sirius’s robe, and that is true enough too. There are so very many things to say, and not enough words to say them, though he supposes I love you would make the best start.
Apparently Sirius thinks so too. “I love you,” he says. “That hasn’t changed, not through Azkaban or Grimmauld Place or even Limbo, as absurd as it may seem. How many people would survive even one of those places, let alone all? You don’t need to worry about me, Remus.”
“But that’s why I need to worry about you!” Remus says, quickly, before he can stop himself and tell himself that Sirius doesn’t need to know these private doubts, that he needs to be strong for both of them, even if he is so tired of being strong all the time… “You’ve survived all that, but how much more can you take? What if, one day—” He cuts himself off. Sirius certainly doesn’t need to hear that.
Isn’t it funny how the characters in one’s head grow and change all the time? The Remus in my head right now would prefer remaining silent to bursting out that he needs to worry about Sirius to Sirius himself.
“I can take as much as I need to,” Sirius says firmly. “At least as much as you can. You’ve survived lycanthropy and being alone and the death of everyone you care about…I can survive at least being blind, which isn’t so bad in the scheme of things.”
“It shouldn’t be you who’s blind,” Remus says miserably. “It should be me. I’m the one who used the spell. I’m the one who traveled back and forth from Limbo without being dead. You aren’t the one who should pay for what I did.”
Growth and change. The Remus in my head now would again prefer remaining silent to saying things like that, things that expose him so. I don’t precisely wince when looking back at this Remus, but I don’t think he’d say things like that anymore.
Sirius shakes his head. “We share the price,” he says. “You’ve lost things too, for being in there, though I don’t know if you’d count the mists of Limbo taking your memories a fair price.”
There’s Remus’s price for bringing Sirius home, which I go into more detail in Mind over Matter, should I ever finish it. I really need to…
“Definitely,” Remus interrupts him. “I’d have done almost anything to get you back. We can create new memories together, and some of them I’m not so sad to get rid of.”
“But it’s a price I don’t think you should have had to pay,” Sirius says, and puts a finger on Remus’s lips to stop him talking. Or rather, on the right corner of Remus’s lips; he misses the center, where he was probably aiming. But Remus keeps quiet anyway. “So we’re even,” he says. “You don’t think I should have had to pay with my sight, and I don’t think you should have had to pay with your memories. So no more feeling guilty about it, all right?”
“Not something you can really guarantee,” Remus says wryly, but he does feel better. Somehow, Sirius just has that way about him, that he can make Remus feel better so easily, even if it is balanced by how easily he can hurt Remus too…but Remus stays away from those memories. They aren’t what is needed now.
No, what is needed now is just—them. Sirius’s hands on his back like that, and Remus’s hands on Sirius’s hips. Sirius’s lips traversing the curve of Remus’s ear, and Remus’s sigh of contentment.
“You know what I feel like,” Remus whispers when Sirius hesitates, his hands stilling on the small of Remus’s back. “You don’t need your eyes for that. How many times have we done this, after all?”
“Not enough,” Sirius says, though Remus can feel the smile against his cheek. Then a rough exhalation, warm breath washing over his jaw. “Never enough.”
Remus almost wants to point out that they can’t begin to make up all the lost time now, because even if there are many things Sirius can’t do now that he’s blind, even if he’d been allowed to do them before he fell through the Veil, there is one thing that he does need to learn how to do, and that is cope, and surely Dumbledore will want him to start learning how as soon as possible—but Sirius soon drives the matter out of his head, because he never could think properly when Sirius’s mouth was on his throat. He minded, at first, turning over this most vulnerable point to Sirius’s ministrations, but Sirius has repaid his trust tenfold, with tiny nips and small butterfly kisses, until the last things Remus can remember or even wants to are the initial objections.
That whole paragraph is only two sentences. Dude, I wrote such long sentences…
Remus reaches out to undo the claps of Sirius’s robes, but his hand has barely brushed the clothing before Sirius trails a hand up his arm and closes around his wrist, gently tugging it away. “Let me,” Sirius breathes. “Let me see how far touch will take me.” And even before Sirius starts touching him again, Remus knows that it will take him pretty damn far.
Sirius shifts closer until both their erections are pressed hard against the other’s thigh, and Remus swallows at the feel of Sirius against him again, and knows that this is one memory that will never be completely taken away, because this is something he just can’t forget. Sirius’s mouth on his neck, clever fingers drawing away superfluous robes slowly and teasingly, peeling them away to reveal burning hot skin—unforgettable. Remus arches up as Sirius’s hand trails down his chest as if rediscovering the planes and angles of it, letting the pads of his fingers do his seeing for him now.
Parts of this fic are making me go o.O now that I’m looking back on it, but I like the description in that paragraph.
“Sirius,” Remus says, as Sirius uses hands and mouth to coax him higher and higher, and Remus throws his head back, unable to look anymore at what Sirius could not see. He shuts his eyes tightly as he feels Sirius tug his boxers down, throwing them haphazardly to the floor, and he lets out a hiss as Sirius’s hand closes gently around his cock.
See, Sirius? he wants to say. See what your touch on me can bring us both to— for Remus feels the way Sirius trembles and burns almost as intimately as he feels himself, —no matter if your eyes look off into a place neither of us can go? Even with the loss of one of your senses, the others are so sharp that it’s almost painful, what you can do to me with them— And then Remus lost coherent thought as Sirius’s mouth replaced his hand, but he didn’t miss it. What use was coherent thought when Sirius was such a master at using his tongue and teeth in ways that never cease to amaze Remus, no matter how often he should have the privilege to experience them firsthand?
“Open your eyes, Remus,” Sirius says, and Remus’s eyes fly open. He doesn’t know how Sirius knew that his eyes were closed, but he doesn’t question it, just dismisses it to the wonders that can be Sirius rising to a challenge, but it doesn’t matter now when he can so clearly see Sirius lounging between his legs and shrugging out of his robes.
Sirius knows Remus closed his eyes just because that’s what Remus does during sex, according to me in this fic. :p He probably figured that, even if he couldn’t see it directly, it was a good bet that Remus had his eyes closed.
“I can’t see you, Remus,” Sirius continues, pulling the robes over his head and tossing them onto the floor, “so you’re going to have to see for both of us. Not just now, but later too.”
“Always,” Remus promises, watching as Sirius sits back on his heels, the last of his clothing slipped to the floor. Then he leans forward and grabs Sirius’s wrists, drawing him closer so that Sirius’s bare skin can finally lie where it belongs, nestled close to Remus’s, their naked cocks brushing each other in a sunburst of sensation that Remus has to choke back a cry at.
Then Sirius shifts slightly, and mutters something in a voice almost too low for Remus to hear though he too knows that spell by heart and can recognise it anywhere, and Remus can’t bite back his cry anymore at the way Sirius’s cock is suddenly so much warmer inside him than it was just brushing his thigh, his own cock, and Sirius’s sweat-flecked forehead is buried in Remus’s shoulder and his hands seek to bring them even closer than that one thrust has done so far, and Remus is just so glad that he has this again that he is willing to offer up thanks to any deity that may exist. His Sirius is back, with him and within him, and despite so many sacrifices, if this one moment were caught in a snowglobe for Remus to look at and experience whenever he might please, he would say that all is right with the world.
So much thinking. Too much, really, especially for a sex scene, only I don’t know how I could have written it any other way. Sigh. I do like the snowglobe line, though. :)
Then Sirius explodes, the Dog Star gone supernova in a single instant, and the aftermath of the blast catches Remus too and carries him to the edge and past. His eyes are open and he can see Sirius throw his head back, his sightless eyes turned towards the sky and higher, as if he can see the stars and actual sight was only hindering his vision, and then he slumps back, down to Earth and to Remus again, who gathers him closer, heedless of the semen cooling between their bodies.
…I have to confess that part of the paragraph was inspired by Annie’s Slackened Ties and how she really manages to pack a wallop into a climax scene (not that I think mine lives up to her example). If you’re reading this…ta, Annie. You’re quite the influence.
Sirius shifts off Remus and mutters a cleaning charm, and Remus chuckles, because he feels too boneless to have even managed that, and wonders where Sirius got the energy. But then the wondering is lost in a haze of contentment as Sirius slides an arm around his waist and buries his face in his shoulder again. Remus brings the covers up around them both and shifts his weight slightly so that Sirius doesn’t wake up with pins and needles, and is, for the first time in many months, if not years, happy to go to sleep. Even if all isn’t right with the world right now, Remus knows, it will be soon, and that’s enough for him.
Well, there’s that. Now that I’ve reread this, I really think I need to finish working on the (supposed) novel-length fic that inspired part of it, and that this is supposed to be a sort of epilogue to, even if it was posted first.
Writing this was a bit of an emotionally-charged experience—the issue of blindness really hits home with me, and I’m more than a bit afraid of it, knowing what it’s like to be more than halfway there (because not only do I have the luck to be completely blind in my left eye, I’m legally blind in my right if I don’t have my glasses, my nearsightedness is so bad). I’m not sure I’d be able to put on the brave face that Sirius is—but Sirius is trying to be brave for Remus as well as himself, and Remus is a bit emotionally fragile here. Even if the Remus in my head has changed slightly, I think that Remus still would be emotionally fragile in this situation: lost Sirius to Azkaban, got him back again, strained relationship during OotP (as Remus was constantly gone), lost him again to the Veil, and then had to go through the ordeal of Limbo taking his memories to get him back…yeah, Remus is entitled to a bit of a breakdown. And since I think Remus was the one who more often than not had to be strong in OotP, when Sirius was stressed and frustrated about the house and not being able to do anything useful, I figured it was only fair to let Sirius be the strong one here.
Again, I’m a bit surprised people liked this as much as they did. I guess they like it when someone learns to live with a disability, or something? Doubt it’s because the sex was hot. :p
