Title: Remind Me
Author: juxtaposed
Summary: Remus muses on two nights with Sirius.
Pairing: Er, Remus and Sirius!
Rating: G. Fairly tame. Its all allusions and smoky curtain-ness.
Warning: Slash!
Babblings: Inspired, roughly, by Nickelback's How You Remind Me.
But... Not exactly a song fic. More than a drabble. It is just…certain lyrics put to hopefully good use in a short, short story. This idea occurred while I was listening to this song, exactly 40 minutes after I'd declared to the world that I'd no longer write for a short spiel. Especially, I said, not Marauder-related fics. Yes, eating my words. Bah. Just read.

Remind Me
by juxtaposed

Do you remember? Do you remember how you had come up to me, with your long, dark hair all wet and plastered to your forehead, dripping into your eyes? Do you remember how you had come up to me with rainwater soaking your clothes through, trickling down your skin, hanging off your long, dark lashes? And do you remember how then the drops of water had fallen off the ends of your eyelashes, and it mingled with the teardrops that slid out the corners of your pretty blue eyes, and then it was all just little rivulets of wetness streaking down your porcelain skin? Do you remember what you said to me then?

You had gazed at me with your sorrowful, but still so pretty, blue, blue eyes, blue like the sky, blue like the ocean, only now they were blue in a different way, they were sad and pleading and shot with red. And you had bit down on your rough, red lips, I could see you'd been worrying them for quite a while, they looked so raw and chewed upon, and they were trembling, you were trembling, and I wanted to still them, to still you. Because then I saw your hands, and they were shaking, they were quivering as you clasped them together and fidgeted with your fingers, and I could tell you were scared and cold and nervous and hopeful and soaked to the bone.

So I didn't turn you away, despite the fact I should have. And I didn't tell you to leave, even though I thought it a million times over. I didn't tell you that I didn't want you there, I didn't tell you that there was nothing you could do, I didn't tell you that you'd lost your chance, I didn't tell you that it was all over between us. Because…because it wouldn't have been very nice of me to let you stand out in the cold spring rain, because I'm not the type of person who could just slam the door on anyone, because I could never just turn you away, and because despite everything that had happened between us I couldn't ever hate you, because I still loved you.

I remember…I remember how your blue eyes brightened, how your red lips curved upwards, how your hands steadied, and I remember cursing you right then and there, because I knew then that I was a doomed man. Because I knew that seeing you like that was the best feeling in the world, knowing that I had done it. Knowing that I could make you happy, it was my creation, and I knew it would be my undoing, because I knew that then I would do anything I could just to see you happy, just to see those blue, blue eyes shine, to see your full, rough, red lips turn up into a smile, to see you hold yourself so self-assuredly.

And I was right. I was right, because I let you in, and because when you'd looked at me, suddenly helpless and lost again, all I'd wanted was to make everything better for you, my own needs be damned. So you hadn't even had to say a word, you'd just looked at me with those blue, blue eyes of yours, and I was gone. You hadn't even had to part those pretty red lips of yours to utter a sound, you'd just turned to me, and I'd lost it then, I'd wanted nothing more than to just make you happy again.

It didn't matter what you'd done, what you'd said, it didn't matter what I'd thought, what I'd felt. All that mattered at that moment was that I make you smile again. So I'd forgotten all the harsh things I'd wanted to say to you, I'd forgotten all the hurt looks I'd wanted to throw at you, I'd forgotten all the bad things in the world, because then I was lost in you, I was lost to you, I was lost for you.

I'd kissed you, once, twice, thrice, on the tips on your trembling fingers, then kissed you again once, twice, thrice, on your fluttering eyelids, over your blue, blue eyes, then finally I kissed you, once, twice, thrice, on those slightly bruised, slightly raw, still rough, still quivering, full red lips of yours. And you had kissed me back, and then everything else didn't matter anymore, everything else in the world had fallen away, everything else meant nothing to me, as long as you were kissing me, as long as you were happy.

Does time change anything? Because here we are, and it is twenty-or-so years later, and the scene is oddly familiar. Again, I am lying down in my shack, feeling so lost and lonely and empty without you, feeling hurt and pained and driven mad because when I think of you I don't know what to think. I'd once told you that you were the most confusing human being that I had ever met, and I still stand by that until this day. I have never understood, and I have a strong suspicion I never will understand what goes through that mind of yours.

Does time change anything? You tell me you are sorry now, and it's not like you to say sorry, the only other time I'd ever heard you say those words was twenty years ago, so I am wondering if we are reliving that moment. Because then I was waiting on a different story, and even now I am still waiting for another tale from you. Instead you look at me and tell me you are sorry, once more, but not with words.

You are once again standing at my door, and once again it is a chilly spring night, with rain sluicing down to the ground in insistent patterns, with rain tattooing everything it touches, the grass, the roof, the windows, your skin. Once again, your hair is obscuring part of your face, only this time it hangs further than your eyes, it is like a curtain, covering the sides of your face. It is still dripping wet, and water still trails down your pale skin, and you are again crying, and again your tears run into rainwater till it is all a salty, wet oblivion.

Does time change anything? Once again, you are staring at me through blue, blue eyes, still so blue despite everything that has happened, and again they are sad and begging for something, only this time what they ask for is different. But it is still all too familiar for comfort, as your lips, still red and chewed and raw and even rougher than before tremble, as your hands shake as you clasp them together and your fingers twine.

Does time change anything? Because once more, I cannot turn away from you, I cannot turn you away from me, I cannot leave you to face what the world will throw at you alone, I cannot leave you to become a vagabond or thief. Because I know you'd never make it far as a dead man walking, and I know you couldn't ever cut it as a poor man stealing. Because once more I don't think I could bear to see you leave or hurt or cry, because I still love you, only this time I know I am not weak to do so, only this time I know it is okay for me to.

I have never passed myself off as a wise man, but I would like to think that I wasn't a fool, that I wasn't mistaken, when I gave you my heart all those years ago, over and over and over again, although I was so afraid it would be broken, that you would break it, that I would be wrong about you. But I wasn't a fool, there was no mistake, I've not been wronged yet, and all those years ago I said I love you, well I swear I still do. Its not as if you don't know that, though, I know you know how much I love you, no matter what you've done or not done, no matter what you've said or not said, no matter what's happened or not happened.

All those years ago, you made an innocent mistake, and it seems to the world as if you never paid, but you did, in tenfold, in twenty-fold, in hundredfold. All those years ago, when you first came to me, looking like you do now, still with your blue, blue eyes, wide with innocence and trust and hope and fear, you'd had a reason to regret, but not now, now you have done nothing wrong, instead you are paying for others' mistakes and to the world you deserve them but I know you don't, no matter what horrible things you may have ever done you will never ever deserve this. Because now your blue, blue eyes are bluer, in a different way again, and they are still wide and innocent and trusting and hopeful and so deadly terrified, but now they are also so haunted, plagued by ghosts of a guilty past that was never that guilty.

Does time change anything? One more time, I am letting you in, and again you look as if the world is smiling upon you, which it should be, but in reality it shuns you, and yet you don't seem to know, because your blue, blue eyes are lighting up, and your raw, rough, red lips are smiling, and your arms, now much too thin for my liking but still perfect in their own way in that they are yours, are steady as you make your way in. And again, I am faced by the stark realization that I really am doomed, because damn myself, I want nothing more than to keep you happy, to make all the wrongs in your world right.

Does time change anything?

Because again, I am kissing you, once, twice, thrice, on your fingertips, once, twice, thrice, on your eyelids, once, twice, thrice, on your lips. And again, you are kissing me back, and everything is falling away and lost to the feeling of your lips on mine. Again, there is nothing more than the touch of your skin on mine, there is nothing more than the sensation of your cool, wet hands on my cheeks, my jaw, trailing down my neck and shoulder, moving to unbutton my shirt. Once more, all is lost to me for the touch of your hands against my chest, on my stomach, along my back, sliding down, down, down. And again, nothing meant anything anymore, as long as you were kissing me, as long as your lips were brushing mine, dancing along my skin the way your hands did, moving down, down, down.

Yet once again, we are moving in a frantic, hypnotic rhythm, one that grabs us and compels us and moves us and takes us to places and heights we have never seen, brings us to emotions and sensations we have never felt, lifts and carries us to soar in the highest of high arcs, then crashes us back down into ground in the most exquisite manner ever, and it is all the best thing I have ever experienced, all over again, and I still cant help but wonder if we are reliving the past.

Because if truth be told, it wouldn't be that bad, really, to have you moving towards me, against me, with me, the way you are doing now, to have you gazing at me with your blue, blue eyes, telling me a million different things, to have you kissing me with your rough, bruised lips, again and again and again. I've been tired of living like a blind man, I've felt sick inside, numb, without a sense of feeling or modicum of emotion, but it is all over now, because you are here, and you are bringing me back to who I am.

Do you remember? Do you remember that night all those years ago, when you first taught me who I was, what I was? Because now, as I look at you, as I kiss you, as I touch you, I remember. And as you look at me, as you kiss me, as you touch me, you remind me. This is how you remind me of what I really am…and what I am, is you.

AN: Extreme vagueness and many spiels of non-linear-ness, all wrapped up in fluff and very-hidden smut. I know. Be kind and tell me what you think anyway?