Summary: Sometimes they're violent. But they're boys. It's how they let out their emotions, how they deal with their hurt.

Warnings: language, allusions to sex, violence, and drug use

Other Notes: for rs small gifts 2007; prompt: Sirius and Remus arrested by Muggle police.

Also, this story has experienced some formatting woes. I've tried to fix them, but please tell me if there is anything still amiss and I will correct it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters, including and especially Sirius and Remus.

x

Sirius has been practicing. He's had a lot of time, Remus keeping him waiting for twenty minutes or more now, stuck inside the pub as if this were some sort of bloody Order mission, but it's not, just another night of—

Well. He can keep the flame in his hand now long enough to light a cigarette. He can feel the surge of magic through him, just before it appears, scorching into his palm and leaving burn marks that Remus will, later, carefully lick until they are calm.

He will say: silly Sirius and smile like the whole thing is funny.

x

This is how they started: Sirius sitting on the floor of his flat, conjuring fire from his skin.

Remus doesn't need keys; he magics every lock clear; he came in when Sirius wasn't expecting.

For two hours, Remus tried to teach him, until they dissolved into the dissolute smoke of Sirius's cigarette, Remus's joint. Remus laughed a long time. When he finished, he pushed Sirius down, back against the hardwood floor, fingers pressing bruises into his wrists, kissed him so that he could not breathe.

Sirius remembers almost nothing, now, nothing but the magic that pulsed beneath the sheen of Remus's skin. He does not need wands, does not even need spells. And it is not the werewolf in him, no, nothing as simple as that. Even before the bite, Remus was exceptional.

x

Remus is stumbling when he gets out.

Sirius's back is cold. He's still wearing the jacket he got for a few spare coins back in September, at the first chill, and the wall behind him is wet with winter chill. The headlights of stray cars flash across the mouth of the alley. Remus's face is lit, for a moment, so sick and pale Sirius wants to save him, wants to hurt him, all together, all at the same time.

He falls and Sirius catches him. He is grabbing at Sirius's neck, grabbing carelessly and harshly, his fingers the stinging type of cold that only Remus's fingers ever are. Sirius keeps him standing, puts all of his effort into the task, only manages barely to grunt out, "Why do you do this? You wretch, why do you do this?"

"If I'm a wretch, so are you," Remus mumbles back, and then he falls on his knees on the snow. Right out of Sirius's arms. Sirius has never hated him more.

x

"I don't know how this happened," Sirius remembers saying. Even the memory of the words is hazy. Remus was holding his hand. He had never felt a boy's fingers press just that way against his before. Terror flitted up in him, rushing along with his toofast blood. He closed his eyes, but it was worse then, just the feel of Remus's fingers and the sound of Remus's breath.

x

"Just answer me," Sirius says. He is kneeling in the snow at Remus's side. Remus is looking at his boots. Sirius can see the part in Remus's hair, can feel Remus's bony shoulder beneath his own palm.

"Oh, I don't know," Remus says, rattling breath. "I guess I'm just—like you said—a wretch. I'll get—better—promise."

He's sincere. Sirius can tell, in the tone of his voice, in the way he grips fearfully at Sirius's body to pull himself up. He's mumbling something, grasping, taking Sirius's hands—a touch more gentle than he expected.

Remus is pulling him toward the road.

He realizes he left his cigarette behind in the alleyway. His last one.

Remus is gripping his hand. Remus is pawing at his waist. Remus is clutching him, holding him, desperate, almost sweet. They are blinded by the sweep of headlights. "I love you," Remus whispers.

Sirius pushes him away.

Hisses, "We're in the middle of the street!"

Remus is stunned, hurt.

He steps back. A half step.

Then forward again and punches Sirius in the gut.

x

Sometimes they're violent. But they're boys. It's what they do. It's how they let out their emotions, how they work through their hurt.

x

Five, maybe ten minutes later, the cops show up. They are Muggle policemen, not like the Aurors or other Ministry officials that Sirius knows, and for a moment, even as they are pulling his hands taut behind his back, he is thinking only of this. Of the color of their uniforms. Of the gruff sounds of their voices.

Sirius doesn't know wandless magic but Remus, he is sure, could free himself in a minute from the grip of this Muggle. But he doesn't. He is hanging his head so that Sirius cannot see into his eyes, so slumped over he can barely hold his own body up, and in the posture of him and in the bend of his neck Sirius reads his defeat.

"Public drunkenness," Sirius says, later. "Causing disorder in the streets. Disgraceful. Disgusting. We're Order members. What are we going to tell Dumbledore, huh? Or Lily? James?"

"James would find this funny," Remus answers. He is sitting in one corner of the cell and Sirius in the other. They are not looking at each other, although Sirius can see, just out of the corner of his eye, the toe of Remus's worn out boot and the tips of his fingers hanging over his bent knees.

"James would—"

He's right, isn't he?

"—Shut up," he snaps, and turns purposefully away.

There is singing coming from the next cell over. The tune is off and the voice a little shaky, but he isn't any worse than Sirius, and anyway, listening saves them both the trouble of filling up the gap between them with words. Then—

"I want to tell them about us," Remus says.

"Them?"

"Everyone."

He's trying to catch Sirius's eye. Sirius isn't sure if he will let him, gives only too quick glances—he's so nervous he's shaking and the room might be spinning; his palm itches where the fire scalded them.

"You don't understand," is all he says. "They'll hate us."

Remus should know better. Remus understands hate. Remus is already hated.

That's why, a voice in Sirius's head tells him, he doesn't care anymore.

He would hold him, in this moment, he would pull him close, he would tell him yes, tell him soon, tell him we can—but Sirius Black is not a liar, and he cannot give this secret up. It's eating at him like the flames he can barely conjure, bruising something inside like Remus's fingers at the pulse-points of his wrist. But it's his and he needs it.

"You don't understand," he says again, and then, "I—"

love you. Fuck. I do. love you—

"I hope James…I hope he gets here soon." Remus doesn't answer him, at first. Sirius has to take another full, deep breath, put shape to the wrong words because the right ones will not come. "Thanks for calling, by the way," he says, as if this were something worth giving, this empty thanks. "You know I—"

"He's not that good at it either," Remus reassures him. He is tearing at the laces of his shoe. His clothes are dirty, and his hair uncombed. "I could hear Lily helping him on the other side of the line. Still. Good thing Dumbledore made him get one."

"Yeah," Sirius says. "Good thing."

The singing from the next cell over is louder now, a little screechy, a little difficult to bear. Sirius scrapes his fingers against the dirty floor. Remus tilts his head back against the wall and closes his eyes, his lashes thin black lines against his pale and pallid skin.