Quo Animo:

The eleventh and twelfth bits.

Remus

We're not asleep. Neither you nor I. There are no pretenses of it, either. We've magicked away the worst of the unsightly fluids (read: semen), and slipped our trousers back on, and now we're just lying in my bed, tangled up in each other. The rough pad of your thumb is abrasive, distracting as it wears circles in my skin. Is the least of my current bodily aches. I don't think that you actually broke my skin anywhere with your teeth, this time, but that doesn't mean that I'm not covered in shallow scratches and dark bruises and love bites and teeth marks.

You're curled around me, an arm thrown haphazardly across the same marked and scarred stomach your head rests upon. One of my legs is trapped between yours, the other dangles from the mattress, toes just brushing the floor. My hand absentmindedly plays with your hair, now tousling, now resting, now stroking. We breathe softly. Evenly. Contentedly. And I am satisfied in a way that is almost entirely unrelated to sex.

There was a time when fifteen minutes was forever. When "enough" was actually a time stamp that meant something. That time has passed. Now it's hardly even an instant, but the satisfaction sticks even as we begin to move. It's not like we can actually stay here forever. After all, I've got places to be. Furniture to tear up. Ghost stories to legitimate.

I'll ache in much worse ways come morning.

"Hey, uh," there's a hand clutching mine when I finally sit up. The kicker is that it belongs to you. The voice, too. And it's not the voice or a man that's uncertain or afraid like it was all those mornings ago or angry like I feared that it might be. It's just you. As I've always known you to be: there.

A long moment follows in which there is no sound and it occurs to me that you reached out without any plans of where to go from there. It is an action that is so undeniably you that I can't help but smile.

I've never known anyone else who is so quick to plunge into anything headfirst. You don't bother with a safety net, or restraint, or plans. You completely disregard any worries and possible consequences. Lately you've been falling more into yourself, and I'm sure that I'm the one to blame, but just this, this one simple spontaneous action is enough to let me know that you're okay. Really okay.

I press your hand to my lips because I can't help it. Not that I would have stopped myself had I been able to. "See you tonight."

Suddenly your eyes aren't smiling so brightly. But you're still wearing that expression that says you're "okay and just worried about Moony" as opposed to "freaking the fuck out over everything and it's all your fault."

So you let go of my hand and I put on my shirt and cloak because the air is much chillier outside of your immediate proximity. I wish I could stay for longer.

But the moon is calling, and she won't be denied.

There's a moment when I'm sorely tempted to just crawl back into your space. Just get back in the general realm of you. Surely the Wolf could just hold off a few more minutes. Except for how I know it can't. I know it won't be denied.

So I run, instead.

And it's not easy. I'm sore from the moon, sore from the strenuous activities (ahem) that we just engaged in, and I'm hardly athletic at the best of times.

Yet I run. Because it is absolutely necessary for me to do so. This is not necessarily so that I get there on time, I did leave myself a sufficient time-cushion for safety, so much as it is because of a sudden rush of excess energy that I'm not used to and don't quite know how to deal with.

I make myself run. I make myself poke the knot to stop the willow's whomping. I make myself walk down the passage to the shack and I make myself go up the stairs. I cover up the mirror (which really has no business being there) before I make myself disrobe so I won't ruin my clothes.

Then I huddle under a blanket to keep warm in the chilly house until I start to feel the prickling of hair growing in on my back. That's where it all starts. Slowly. But it gets faster when my nails start to grow and my teeth become longer and sharper and more dangerous and it snowballs from there into a frenzy of slick crunching noises as bones crack and shoot out, and screams progress through the halfway point between human and canid and things begin to smell. To scent. Ears pick up on more. Mice in the floorboard, bugs in the walls, scampering. Uninteresting. Only one thing is important.

where are you

Down the stupid human stairs, back up them, down again.

where are you

Something in the way. Smash. Not anymore. Being alone hurts, being alone hurts.

where are you

A wall with a hole in the shape of a large paw. A wolf without a pack is shame a wolf without a pack is shame a wolf without a pack is shame a wolf without a pack is shame a wolf without a pack is shame a wolf without a pack is same and it hurts and where are you.

A couch gains a set of claw marks and is upturned on the other side of the room. A howl splits the loneliness and makes it more. But then the scent hits the air and it doesn't hurt so much anymore.

there you are

The large antlered one, james something offers, struts forward leading the small one peter and you.

pack

And you.

You step forward. Offer your stomach. Accepted. And then freedom. All life in the damn human place (the shack says the something) with its scritching walls and scampering floors is only pretend alive. Outside, with creeping trees and crawling dirt and the moon and the moon is where the real live is.

Another cry moves the air, but it's a happy one, joined by yours.

And we're off.

Sirius

It's not going to work out between us. I can already see how this whole thing is going to go. How it's going to end. It'll be great for a while. Unbelievable. Like it is. But then we'll start getting comfortable with it. I'll start getting comfortable with it. Being less careful. Bothering with less control. Reverting to the primal, selfish fuck that I hate to know that I am.

I'll start to bite deeper. Bruise darker. Fuck harder. I'll stop paying as much attention to what I'm doing to you, start concentrating more on what I'm getting from it. 'Cause Sirius fucking Black is a brat like that. Selfish like that. Can never keep the focus off himself. Myself.

I'll start to really hurt you. I know I will. The worst part is that I know I won't be able to make myself stop. Won't be able to make myself care enough to stop.

You certainly won't make me stop. You'll just gasp sharper and move more desperately in that turned-on moremoremore way that you have that breaks my brain. You'll push into it, feed it, make me feel it too. Won't stop it. Won't fix it.

Won't even see what's wrong.

No. I'll be the only one suffering for it. I'll love it as much as I hate myself for it, and then I'll start to hate you for making me hate me.

At least, that's the only way I can see it going down.

Of course, I've never really been near a working relationship between lovers or, you know, whatever it is we are. I don't really know how it is supposed to work. Or, it's more like I know how it's supposed to work, I just have no idea how it actually would.

And now you've got me thinking about things like relationships, and big scary words like commitment and maybe even love, which really isn't a word that's all that long but is certainly one of the biggest ones out there, starting to tug at my mind in places I'm not really interested in thinking about and I don't want to be a bloody girl.

But I suppose that part of the point of this is that neither of us has to be.

And fuck if that isn't a revelation-and-a-half.

The walk from the Gryffindor common room to the Hospital Wing is probably a little bit shorter than it is from any other House, but it's not like it's just a minute. It's actually a walk. As in, the amount of distance that old or fat people have to go before they consider it exercise. And I need that. Not the exercise, the time. I know I'm really not usually big on the whole introspection thing, but right now I just need a moment to think, and this is the perfect opportunity.

Because it's a pretty long distance to walk, and I really just can't think as quickly about these things as you can.

I have to force myself to go through it logically. That doesn't come naturally to me, you know. Logic. I work better with feelings. Not like emotions, but like gut instincts where there are some things you just know and you're one of those things. But I know you're going to make us do the feelings talk thing. And if you don't, well, then I will. Because it's important to you even if you don't want to admit it. And I know these things. I've been your roommate and best mate for years, and these things are the sort of things that you just end up knowing after a while.

So.

...Logically...

...

Never mind.

Screw logic. Logic is yours. I've always sucked at it. And anyway how am I supposed to figure anything out when I can't even pick a place to start? These are the facts. They're really simple.

I like you. You like me. The sex is awesome.

We can work the rest out later. And if we're a little bit doomed, as I think we might be... well, what's a little doom between friends?

Actually, that's a terrible argument, too. Doom in any context is awful. Especially when it's got anything to do with you. The real argument is about how there's nothing I can do about it- about this- and that I know myself too well to even think that I could make myself not let this happen. Or to think that I could stay away from you in this (or fucking any) situation. This thing has happened without my permission and has continued to just go even when I dug in my heels and tried to stop it.

A testament to my awesome self control, I'm sure.

I walk into the hospital wing. Last night wasn't a bad transformation as far as they go, but I still need to be there. Here. And I see you. Lying there. Sleeping and vulnerable and as torn apart as you could possibly look with your skin still put together. And, just for a moment, I think I love you too much to let this happen. To let everything end like that. Like I'm afraid it's going to. And then you open your eyes and smile at me. That broken, old as planets, soft smile. The one that's crooked and does that thin scar going from your bottom lip to the middle of your chin in a paler color than the rest of your face. And I smile back, and I know with everything in me that I love you too much to deny you a single experience you ask for that's in my power to give.

It's okay, though. About our ending.

I've been wrong before.

Let's just hope that I can be wrong when I want to be, too.

A/N:

Well, that's it.

First story I've ever been able to finish. Ever. This is seriously a milestone. AWESOME.

So, thank you so much to all of the people who favorited and reviewed and even just read and stuff. But especially the favers and reviewers. You not only reminded me that I did have a story to finish, but also made my squishy insides feel warm and fuzzy, too. Not in a gross way, though ;P. Now I've just got to go through and fix it all. When you take several years to write a relatively short piece the writing style and standards and everything change, go figure. If you want moar stuff, well, I've got a few fluffy one shots and a pretty damn angsty one you can check out if you want to, but they're really nothing special. Otherwise, check out my favorites. Or my community. I think I've been reading this pairing long enough to have found a few good ones.

And sorry it took so long to get out this measley chapter. There were just a ton of little things that bothered me about it that I couldn't quite figure out how to fix...

So... yeah!

Thanks,

Misprocuous