one of those days when the hat doesn't help

carminablue @ 2007-10-22T17:35:00

2007-10-22T21:39:43Z

NEW FIC.

It's called Foreign Tongues.

I absolutely adore this one. I'm not going to lie. I wrote it for prompt 21 of barefootboys

It's got a mild R rating, so beware.

The Underground sits beneath the pulsating streets of London, its walls lathered in sweat and piss, its floor sprinkled with grease and chewed gum. The air is thick with subterranean humidity and pheromones, giving everything a hazy less-than-sober atmosphere. This is the perfect dank and disgusting place for secret actions of depravity, and it is here that Remus’s fleeting call to illicitness begins.

Pasted against a grime coated wall, there is a neon orange sheet of paper, with edges that are torn and flapping in the oncoming wind of the trains. Remus notices it out of the corner of his eye, and while the something rational on the surface of his brain tells him its presence is inconsequential, his curiosity is mysteriously peaked. His fingers fumble against the corners of the flier, and he squints at it, trying to read the message that had been covered with layers of permanent marker graffiti.

Party-Halloween, midnight, the basement of Calipso. Masks encouraged.

The message is simple, and despite his better judgment, Remus has an undeniable need to obey. The cynical voice in his mind reminds him that wearing a mask to a party in the basement of a club is nonsensically childish, but the neon sheet still demands his obedience. He debates this claim with himself for a few moments, amusing himself with the image of an orange piece of paper stamping its foot petulantly. It is easy for him to imagine it pouting at him with graceful immaturity, its imaginary flier voice whining oh-so-perfectly against his ear. Come on, Moony, it seems to whisper, its voice all too alluringly familiar, a little debauchery will do you some good.

Remus winces before sighing discordantly. It is pathetic, he thinks, that my delusional personifications of inanimate slips of paper are making me break my promise to myself. It is pathetic, he repeats to himself, that something as simple as a sheet of paper can lead me to thinking of Sirius.

Sirius. His subconscious both rejoices and laments the introduction of his name, as warm thoughts flood Remus’s brain, soothing and scalding the inside of his skull. Thoughts of Sirius remind Remus once again what it means to be truly lonely and yet truly loved; extremes that the war has done little to reconcile. He remembers masked suspicion and painful silence that spoke volumes. He remembers naïve fifteen year-old dreams and whispered laughter. He remembers treacherous glances that had once held friendship-but never love- and he remembers promises that had never been openly broken but that had long since been shattered.

Predictably, the rapid daydreams of Padfoot encourage Remus’s uncharacteristic decision to heed the flier. It isn’t as if he has anything planned for Halloween anyway, and a bit of caution-less drunken debauchery is a perfect distraction from the beautifully cold, sweet loneliness of Sirius Black.

----

Halloween night is uncommonly warm, and though he is uncomfortable in the warmth, Remus mentally refuses to remove his worn-at-the-elbows twill coat. As he approaches the club, he is slowly losing his certainty, and fretfully toys with his mask, a cheap thing of black, shabby plastic. Remus bought it at a second-hand store, and he suspects that it once had been covered in black sparkles. The mask, like him, had seen better days.

He steps into the ground floor of Callipso feeling strangely out of place, his patched clothes clashing violently with the refined elegance of the patrons. He knows this gathering is much too tame for his purposes, but he remembers the true party is being held in the basement. Nervously, he approaches a daintily dressed girl carrying red martinis to assorted couples at tables, and the girl, without a word, places her tray carefully on an empty table and leads him outside and around the back. With an unseen strength that seems uncharacteristic for a girl so delicate, she flings open the rusted doors to a storm cellar and gestures downward. Remus slips down the stairs quickly, but the girl slams the doors shut behind him before he can even whisper a bashful thank you.

Remus’s eyes quickly adjust to the underground darkness, and a bacchanalian sea of barely clothed bodies seems intent on drowning him in their drunkenness. Remus is certain now that this was a bad idea, and he scrapes up the steps, his knees scuffing over each hidden level. Like an animal caught in a trap, he claws at the storm doors, rust slicing beneath his fingernails, but he is too late. The sea has caught up with him, and he is being violently pulled under by its waves.

A scantily clad androgynous mass with a cat-painted face and fiercely red-violet hair spills liquor on Remus’s pants before graciously handing him the leftovers, slurring in a delirious attempt to be seductive. Remus smiles pityingly at it, suddenly feeling strangely ill, though he downs the alcohol without much fuss. It is too late to run, so as he slips his mask on, he reasons he might as well enjoy the waves.

----

It is two hours later.

Alcohol has stolen Remus’s identity. He is no longer a person, but part of a collective, a willing member of the shifting mass of bodies mesmerised by liquor and melody-less music. What the mob does, he does, and where the bodies lean, he leans, spurred on by a tantalisingly potent mixture of mob psychology and drunken highs. His body grinds relentlessly against a dark-haired stranger wearing a mask of golden brown. His informal partner returns the friction, and Remus finds himself rejoicing in a jolt of pleasure that is deeper than his skin. He leans against the masked stranger, his hands mindlessly slipping below the other man’s hips, mechanically fingering the hardness that waits there, anticipating Remus’s fumbling touch. The stranger sighs before pressing his lips violently to Remus’s, his insistent tongue demanding entry.

Remus does not resist, and returns the kiss just as forcefully. With this, they unwillingly separate themselves from the crowd, and as foreign tongues clash belligerently against scraping teeth, their fingers slide through unzipped trouser fronts and caress each other with rough, foreign fingertips. They come separately within seconds, and Remus slurs out a name that is unintelligible against his liquor and the music.

Remus blinks, Sirius on his mind, and the stranger has once again dissolved into the crowd. Remus suddenly feels warm, and the stickiness on his fingertips that he had once enjoyed now repulses him. Not-quite sober, he rubs his hands distastefully against his coat before slipping out into the cold November darkness. His face is burning with heat that is not entirely from the temperature below, and Remus disappears back into London.

----

A few hours later, he is awoken by Dumbledore’s gentle knocks against the door of his flat.

James is dead.

I love me some prompts!

2007-10-08T23:28:48Z

Title: The Autumn Years
Author: carminablue
Rating: PG
Written for Prompt 2 of barefootboys
Disclaimer: Own not.
Summary: Autumn is not always a season. I basically used each section of the poem as a prompt for each section of the fic. It all ties in together at the end.

I am really behind on these prompts. I blame school for being an ass. Comments would bring me much joy.

It is almost too warm for our sweaters.

The trees are ablaze in gold, their leaves glinting defiantly in the breezy sunlight, rustling in laughter as they spend their last warm days in the sun together. I wonder if they knew they were going to die. I wonder if they know that in a few short weeks they will have fallen, scattered by the wind, forced to leave their leave friends behind. It’s a ridiculously depressing thought, and a strange one for a thirteen year old boy to be having, especially when his friends are have a snowball fight of leaves.

James has gathered the leaves into a pile of jewels. He is rustling them indiscriminately with his fingers, crunching them between his fingers like sand. He tosses a pile experimentally in the air, and they fall to the ground, laughing as they land, as if sharing in his unexplained autumn joy. We are infecting the dying world with life.

James tosses a pile of leaves experimentally at Peter, who moves to protect his face, his coordination a foil to the lithe movements of the leaves as they slip through the air. James laughs and splashes the leaves at him again. Peter stands quickly, tripping over the laces of his trainers, grabbing a wad of leaves between his chubby fingers, throwing them in James’s direction. James smiles, and runs, Peter chasing behind him in pursuit.

I smile, and pause for a moment, expecting to see Sirius follow, but I find I have somehow lost track of him. I turn, somehow desperate to find a friend I know hasn’t gone far.

It is raining leaves, and Sirius is spinning, his hands in the air, his face glowing with aristocratic awe. He is not making a sound, but his open mouthed smile causes the air to echo with the sound of life. I remember knowing, even at the naïve age of thirteen, that this was the most beautiful sight I would see in my natural life. I remember realizing, though not quite understanding, that Sirius Black inexplicably was life, and was somehow about to change the unwritten laws of nature. His arms raised, he was nature’s last hope, the one who would turn back time and keep time from causing the leaves to drift away, friends scattered by the cold winds of winter.

Of all of us, Remus always had been the one least likely to be noticed.

James and I announced our presence to the world with every footstep. Our shouts would echo undeniably through long corridors, our gestures exaggerated in the minds of our peers, who regarded us in a perfect mixture of disdain and awe. Every word we spoke seemed to be repeated. Every deliciously mischievous thought talked about for weeks. We were the stuff of legend. We were Hogwarts chosen two. As much as we liked to pretend to include Remus and Peter in our spotlight, it was obvious that it would never work. It was obvious that without us, they would be unknown.

Peter, it seemed, could manage to create a bit of fame of his own, though it was always stolen or the result of unplanned embarrassment. It was known that he was not the sharpest boy in our year, and there always was a good amount of fun had at his expense, whether he was aware of it or not. I never really tried to hard to stop it, unless it got too much out of hand. Peter’s purpose seemed to be to contrast the brilliance that was James’s and mine. His friendship was a useful one. He was one of us, of course, and he definitely was invited to share in our brotherhood, but everyone knew that his real purpose was to make James and I seem better than we were.

Remus was different. He was always different. He was more than content to just disappear into the background, leaving James and I to our glory and Peter to his mistakes. I suppose his contentment at being overlooked had everything to do with his secret, but that didn’t change the fact that I hated it.

Remus did not deserve to be overlooked. Remus deserved to be flaunted to the world. Being flaunted was not in his way, and most of his perfection lay in that very fact. Remus was almost like a hidden treasure, left only for our Maraudery eyes.

And sometimes, on late autumn nights, for reasons that I never truly understood, Remus slipped out of bed and back into the common room. There he would sit, patiently staring at the dying fire, undoubtedly thinking of something mysterious and oh-so Remus-like.

On nights like those, when he’d let me sit beside him, my arms wrapped around him and my nose in his hair, I’d breathe in the sweet smell of Remus and know that he was mine to appreciate, and no one else’s.

1980 would be the beginning of autumn.

Everything would be slipping away, inevitably preparing to drift away like autumn leaves, already turned too brown to cling to life. Everything will dissolve into funerals, the Prophet headlines melting into one long obituary.

The Order will be losing. Hope of victory will be impossible.

There will be, like always, a few joyous occasions and births that will set the long autumn days aglow with hope. These small celebrations will be necessary but always an unintentional disrespect to the funerals that will continue.

The Order will grow listless, and they will fight more for survival than they will for the cause.

It will be morning, and Sirius Black will sit, his ink-stained fingers thumbing the pages of his newspaper. His tea will turn cold by his elbow, and he will blink his eyes mechanically, watching the black and white print blur as the pages flip. This will be third morning this week that he will not have any breakfast.

He will remember the days long before, when he thought that he was invincible. He will remember the nights, spent warm in another’s arms, when he truly believed that no harm would come to them. He will forget the naïve days of Spring, and they will not be able to bring him solace.

He will feel as if autumn has stolen the music from the world.

Evening will fall, and will follow an afternoon that will have been bleaker than the morning. He will sit, alone, like the undead, his eyes rimmed with frustration and fear.

Then Remus will come, his scar-lined face painted in worry, and he will kiss Sirius’s fears away, and he will sing to him of Spring.

carminablue @ 2007-10-02T18:34:00

2007-10-02T22:47:58Z

Okay. So I was going to post this in response to barefootboys prompt 1, but someone had already posted a similar idea and I didn't want to be redundant. At any rate, I still want to put this up because I rather like it, so there. There's a hint of R/S but it isn't very obvious at all. You don't really have to see it in a slashy way at all if you do not wish to.

He is making a calendar. There is nothing left for him to count down to, nothing left for him to wait for, but yet he counts the days, trying to find a pattern in the cold, trying to create order out of nothing. There is no day here, and there is no night, so he marks down the end of each day indiscriminately, counting the hours the way one would count stars.

Stars. He thinks he remembers what stars look like, and he thinks he remembers the moon. He tries not to think of the things he has lost. He isn’t even sure if any of it ever existed. He is sure, though, that it gives him hope. Hope is unwelcome to him. Hope takes the guilt away, and he knows he deserves every last drop of it.

A calendar, he realizes, brings sanity along with comfort. He wakes after a long morning-night, and makes a mark on the wall to mark another day or hour that has passed. It makes no difference to him how long it has been. There is nothing more for him to wait for.

After he marks the wall he reminds himself that he deserves freedom. This is not always enough. He finds he is forgetting what freedom is so the thought has little meaning for him now. He thinks freedom has something to do with the feeling of someone’s skin against his, and the sound of laughter and frantic whispers against his ear in the middle of the night. He thinks that freedom is the smell of someone’s mother’s perfect cooking, or the taste of a mug of hot chocolate after a particularly windy day. But soon even those thoughts, however vague, mean nothing to him. He cannot remember what laughter is, or how a whisper tickled his ears, or what cooking or hot chocolate were for. He cannot remember what any of it means. He tries to remember something else, anything else, in the hopes that it might help him remember freedom, but he is losing them too. He knows he should be angry. He knows that he should resent this place for taking his memories of freedom from him, but it is impossible to have emotion in this place. Emotion is lost the moment it is felt, sucked away by the cloaks that hover by his door.

He shivers, and an instant later, he forgets what cold is. He falls asleep, his eyes and brain numbed by the presence of nothing at all.

He opens his eyes, and makes another mark.

He does not remember that he has forgotten. He does not remember that there was anything left to forget.

But then he sees the moon.

Maybe, he thinks, it was all just a beautiful dream.

It is easier to believe it is a dream than to believe that somewhere someone is sitting in the moonlight, counting off the day-nights too. It is easier to dream than to know that he is not the only one who is truly alone.

FIC FINALLY

2007-10-02T22:21:02Z

Title: From the Desk of Sirius Black
Rating: PG
Posted for barefootboys prompt 1: Calendar

Hope you all like it and it's not TOO random. It's my first time writing for a comm like that, so, hopefully everything's cool.

.

October 23, 1975

Dear ~~Moony~~ Remus,

~~Listen, it’s really not my fault cause that git was asking for it and it’s not like he’s dead or anything because James had to go and play the fucking hero and save him and~~

~~Are you okay? I know I’m an arse but~~

Please talk to me again I don’t think I can take this any more. It’s like something inside me is dead or something and I can’t explain it but I can’t deal with you not talking to me and it’s not like it’s that big of a deal so PLEASE

It was pretty shitty, what I did.

I’m sorry about it, I really am, and I didn’t mean to put you in danger like that, because now that I think about it I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if anything ever wound up happening to you because of me. And I’m sorry. I don’t regret doing that to him, but I definitely regret hurting you and putting you in danger like that.

I miss you and your quiet laugh and watching you study and the smell of your sweaters and I haven’t gone near you really in over two fucking weeks and it’s really fucking strange because I’m not fucking queer or anything but I can’t stop thinking that

You you really don’t have to forgive me. I wouldn’t forgive me.

~~But~~

Yeah. I’m really sorry.

~~I love you~~

Sirius

P.S. It’s been two weeks, though, that you’ve had to be mad at me. That’s what the calendar says anyway. I know because I circled the night it happened because it was obviously really important. I need a reminder of how much of a fuck up I am, anyway, so that’s what September 1st and October 23 and December 23 are circled because So anyway, maybe that’s enough time for you to be over it? No rush or anything. Because you have all the time in the world to get over this or not at all. and I’m rambling. You’ve probably found about five million grammar mistakes in this letter. That seems like a very Remusy thing to do, right? Checking the grammar in apology letters? Is it queer that I find the thought of that to be really adorable? It has to be, right? Because that’s such a girl thing to say and Shite.

carminablue @ 2007-09-30T22:53:00

2007-10-01T03:02:58Z

Right. So I still need inspiration desperately but luckily

barefootboysis starting tomorrow so I shant be without something to start my creative juices for much longer. Additionally, I've been listening to all my playlists on my iPod so that usually sets me up to write something. I'll be starting something tonight, but it's impossible to know when I will finish it considering how much work I've been getting for school. But I shall find myself sometime. I have to, otherwise I will go insane.

Lunchables Brigade!

2007-09-28T01:28:43Z

Right. So AP American tests are absolutely horrible. I deplore studying, especially when it is a subject I do not care for. Usually I am a history FREAK, but US history does not appeal to me at all. It bores me to tears.

grrrrr.

I'm also in the mood to write something, but I don't know what. I'm waiting for inspiration to fall right out of the sky. Quite literally.

If anyone has something, that would be AMAZING.