i t ' s . n o . s e c r e t

It's No Secret
[by victoria p.]

Rating: Adult

Summary: It's no secret that a liar won't believe in anyone else.

Notes: Title and summary from "The Fly" by u2.

Date: July 28, 2005

When he thought about it later, Remus told himself he wasn't actually surprised that Sirius was the traitor. He was only surprised at how easily he'd been taken in, at the end.

Sirius would show up at his flat, push him against the door, and kiss him. They'd stumble around, sometimes not even getting their clothes entirely off before Sirius was sliding inside him, or wrapping his mouth around his cock.

By that time, they were barely friends anymore, hadn't spoken about anything important in weeks, had simply fucked in silence and went their separate ways. They were losing the war and everyone knew it. Sirius's eyes were always cold, and Remus could no longer find it in himself to even attempt a thaw.

No, Remus made his peace with the way things had turned out and simply stopped trusting people, because they all lied. He knew that -- he was the biggest liar of them all. He'd just allowed himself to forget. If it was so easy for him to be fooled, when he knew every trick in the book for inspiring false trust and goodwill in others, then it was surely the only truth left to acknowledge that everyone was a liar. It was just a matter of knowing how far along to take the ride before you got hurt.

He missed his friends. That was the reason for his long exile on the continent, and then in America. Nothing more.

When Sirius turned out to be innocent, Remus accepted that, too.

Lies, truth, it was all a matter of perspective, and if he felt some small measure of guilt for letting Sirius rot in Azkaban for twelve years, he quashed it quickly. The past was gone and dwelling on it only made one maudlin and foolish. Regret was a useless emotion. He didn't have the time or the energy to waste on it anymore.

He conserved his strength, spent his spare time researching new ways of fighting the war he had no doubt was coming, and honing his dueling skills.

So he was not actually surprised when he opened the door that June day to see Sirius leaning against the wall, his lean body curved like a question mark.

"It's not safe," Remus said, pulling him inside. Sirius was thin -- too thin -- and dirty, but he was still strong. He shoved Remus against the closed door, hands fisted in the threadbare t-shirt Remus wore around the house instead of his robes, and kissed him hard.

Remus pushed him into the living room, not breaking the kiss, lips, teeth and tongue hungry for this contact lost for so long. He pressed Sirius to the worn cushions of the couch, stripping off the torn and dirty robes, the stained trousers and graying underpants, dropping them to the floor and kicking them aside.

"Nothing ever surprises you," Sirius gasped as Remus ran hands over his body, so strange and yet so familiar.

"Dumbledore owled," he replied, "but I knew you'd turn up sooner or later."

Sirius laughed against his lips, and then groaned as Remus reached down and stroked his cock. "It's been a long time."

Remus stilled. "I can stop."

Sirius stared up at him, eyes unblinking, and filled with so much raw emotion Remus couldn't process it all. Fear, desire, anger, all tangled together in that steady gaze.

"No. Don't."

On some level, he knew it was the wrong thing to do; it was too easy, and yet at the same time would make everything more difficult. He pushed the thought away, too caught up in the soft-hard slide of muscle and skin beneath him to care.

Sirius tangled his legs around Remus's, hands working at the buttons on Remus's jeans, and Remus inhaled sharply when Sirius pushed them and his y-fronts down over his hips to circle his cock with long, strong fingers.

He let himself settle on top of Sirius, clothes restricting him somewhat as he began to move, thrusting so they rubbed against each other, friction sending sparks along his nerves, fire up his spine.

Sirius tensed and bowed beneath him, panting and gasping, Please, please, please, as he came, spurting warm and wet between their bodies. That was new, Remus noted vaguely, in the small part of his brain not concerned with the heat and pleasure pulsing through him as he slowed his pace, savoring the feel of Sirius's skin against his own. Sirius reached up, fingernails torn and dirty, and brushed Remus's fringe off his forehead before pulling him down into a slow kiss, sucking Remus's tongue into his mouth as Remus finally let himself come, thrusting jerkily against Sirius's thigh.

They lay for a while, Remus couldn't tell how long, until the stickiness became uncomfortable. His wand was still in his jeans, which were still wrapped around his knees. He reached down for it and murmured, "Scourgify." Then he levered himself off of Sirius, pulled his jeans up, and headed into the kitchen to make tea.

"Dumbledore said you'd have more information," he said, loud enough to be heard in the other room. "And I really do want to hear about Harry. But perhaps you'd like a shower first?"

"That'd be brilliant," Sirius replied after a long silence, which made Remus wonder if he'd fallen asleep.

"Bathroom's at the end of the hall."

He tossed together a meal while Sirius showered, and wondered what to say next.

Sirius made it easy, sitting across the table from him and talking about Dumbledore's plans for the Order. He ate as if he hadn't had a meal in weeks.

"Haven't, really," he said. "Been living in that cave outside Hogsmeade, you know the one," and Remus nodded, because he did. "Harry brought me some food, but mostly I ate rats." Remus felt his gorge rise at that, but Sirius didn't notice. He tore savagely into a hunk of bread. "I like the way the bones crunch."

And Remus remembered that Sirius had always been merciless.

The wand was ten inches, mahogany and phoenix feather, surprisingly flexible, and Sirius took to it like a delighted child, reminding Remus of the Sirius he'd known at sixteen, loved at eighteen and despaired of at twenty-two.

Sirius was turning teacups into snitches when Remus pushed him against the kitchen door and kissed him, desperate, hungry kisses as if he were trying to swallow him whole, as if they could fuck their way back in time to when they were eighteen and careless of everything, especially each other. Sirius responded with a moan, pulling away long enough to banish their clothes so they could thrust and rub frantically against each other, heedless of the open blinds on the window and the possibility that anyone from the Order might arrive at any time.

They still didn't talk about it, and Remus thought it was probably better that way, because talking led to promises, and Remus knew those were nothing but lies.

Remus didn't have much to pack; his life fit into a few boxes he shrunk down and slipped into the old battered suitcase he still used, tied closed with neat knots of twine.

"I can't believe you still have that thing," Sirius said, waving a forkful of eggs at it when Remus thumped it down onto a chair in the kitchen.

Remus shrugged. Perhaps at one time, it had had sentimental value, a gift from Sirius upon his eighteenth birthday, the shiny letters mocking him with a title he didn't get to hold until he was thirty-four, and only kept for a year. Now it was simply useful and familiar, and given where they were going, he needed that.

"Is there anything you own that isn't falling apart?" Sirius asked.

"No," Remus replied, giving Sirius a steady look. Sirius didn't flinch, but he turned back to his eggs without another word.

Remus could be just as ruthless when pushed.

Sirius drank too much when he was left alone in Grimmauld Place, and Remus didn't blame him. When the others -- Molly, Tonks, even McGonagall once -- asked him to step in and say something, he always lied and said he would, but he never did. It wasn't his place anymore -- maybe it never had been, though God knows, people had been asking him to rein Sirius in for almost long as they'd known each other, as if Sirius could ever be reined in, ever be controlled, made less than the embodiment of chaos he was -- despite what they might have thought, and he wasn't quite sure what they thought. He decided he didn't much care, but that was a lie, too, because he had always cared what people thought, and Sirius had never let it rest.

Sirius thought only his opinion should matter to Remus, and in those short months they spent together at Grimmauld Place, Remus let him believe it was finally true.

Sirius bent him over the kitchen table -- they only ever fucked outside the bedroom, in a way they pretended was spontaneous, because actually sleeping together was too much for either of them to bear -- and as he teased Remus with long, slow thrusts, he said, "Say something, dammit."

Remus was tempted to say something, the childish joke suddenly striking him as terribly funny, but he refrained. "Fuck, Sirius," he gasped, gripping the edge of the table tightly and holding himself still, "what do you want me to say?"

Sirius laughed and pressed a wet kiss to the nape of his neck. "Fuck is good, and Sirius, and maybe,’ Sirius wrapped a hand around his cock, and Remus growled, "Fuck," again as Sirius continued, thrusting and stroking and talking, now, all the things Remus hadn't wanted him to say, "maybe, yes, and please, and God, and -- fuck, Moony, you feel so good. Miss you so much when you're gone. Just like that."

"God," Remus said, and he meant it, though whether it was a curse, a prayer or a blessing he didn't know. "Sirius, please, just like that." He closed his eyes and dropped his head forward, letting the waves of pleasure crashing through him carry him away. "Missed you, too," he managed, "so much, for so long. God."

When they were done, they laughed long and hard about Molly's reaction if she ever found out what they'd done on the table, and Remus thought things might finally be on the mend.

They had a few good months after that -- Sirius drank less and Remus remembered what it was like to be happy -- and then Sirius fell.

Tonks helped Remus move into a (smaller, cheaper, darker) flat, and it was only when she unpacked his tea set and found the cups turned into snitches, that he realized Sirius was truly gone.

"Everything is going to be all right," Tonks said, slipping to the floor between his knees to lay a hand (smaller, softer, cleaner) on his cheek.

It was a lie and the truth at the same time, and he knew it, even if she didn't. "Yes," he answered, because there was nothing else to say.

end

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