Title: Like Painting With Your Eyes Closed
Rating: PG
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
A/N: This has been done a million times before, so it's just me hopping on the bandwagon.




Like Painting With Your Eyes Closed




It was raining the day I first met you.


I remember that as clearly as the sound of your voice when you introduced yourself, or the warmth of your hand when I shook it. It’s strange how you recall the most insignificant of details, how your mind can circle around the strangest of things. Your hair curls up at the ends when it’s wet, did you know that?


There was a certain wildness to you that scared me at first, but on the other hand there were the uncertainty and the feeling of hopelessness that I was sure nobody noticed but me. Because you knew how to play the part of careless, reckless boy, and you did it well. So well, in fact, that you deluded even James, the best friend who didn’t seem to know you at all. You hid the quiet part of you for him, the part of you I recognized. To me, you were as transparent as glass, your mind was like a book for me to read and it so happened to be my favourite.


When you wanted to do crazy things you went to James, when you wanted to talk you sought out my company. It has always been like that and I have always accepted it. I remember the soft, almost wistful sound of your voice, always ready to lull me into a pleasant state of drowsiness. I loved it, and I love it still. It is your voice I try hardest to remember when I’m about to transform, and if there were one thing that could prevent it from happening, it would be your voice, Sirius. It would be your voice.


James and I had a fight once. I think it made an impression on the both of us because it never happened again. It was about you. He told me I had a negative influence on you, I was making you soft. It struck a nerve, I think I even hit him. He didn’t know that the gentle, serious you had always been there, he couldn’t know because you hardly ever showed him. James came up to me the next day and apologized, said he didn’t mean it. I forgave him and we never talked about it again. Sometimes I think he found it as hard to share you as I did.


I never told you about this did I?


Do you remember that night before the Christmas holidays when we were sitting in the Gryffindor common room? I think it was in our fifth year. Everyone had gone to bed but you and me, and we were sitting cross-legged in front of the fireplace watching the flames. You were telling me stories about your life and the things you wanted to do when you grew up, and the light was reflected in your eyes. Suddenly your placid murmurings ceased and you reached out and grabbed my hand. I still remember the way my heart caught in my throat. We held hands in perfect silence, the fire crackling before our eyes. There was an aching stillness to you that night, a sense of beautiful tranquillity. At that moment I knew with absolute clarity that I loved you, Sirius. And, what’s more, that I had always had.


It took me months before I could force the words past my lips. The summer holidays had just begun and you were staying over for a few weeks. It was past midnight and you were lying asleep next to me, oblivious to the world and my love for you in particular. Your face was turned towards me, glowing in the moonlight, and I couldn’t stop looking at you, to me you were so beautiful that it hurt in the way only love can do. I love you, Sirius, I whispered to your sleeping form, and I discovered that speaking the words only reinforced the feelings behind them. I reached out and with bated breath I touched your face, your hair, and I let my fingers rest in the palm of your open hand. To my surprise and delight, you instinctively curled your fingers around mine and moved closer. I suddenly understood that I would give up the world for you if you asked me to.


When I told you all this years later, you laughed and called me mental. You were always of the complimentary kind. Why didn’t you just say it when I could actually hear you? you asked me, and I don’t know if you truly understood me when I said Because it was heartache every moment with you, Sirius. Loving you was sublimely painful yet it was the only thing I considered worth feeling. I couldn’t risk you to take that away just yet. You pulled me towards you and kissed my temple. I love you, Moony, you whispered against my ear. Even though you’re insane.


I thought I could never lose you. I thought our love could never be touched. I was wrong. My betrayal matched your supposed one, because I believed what they told me. I believed your loyalties had changed. I believed you were wicked and cruel while I knew you to be kind-hearted, selfless, loving. Know that I have been punished by my lack of faith in you. Know that those long years without you have been the darkest of my life. You forgave me sooner than I could.


When you came back and I realized my terrible mistake there was hardly time for reconcilement. We embraced each other with the force of twelve years’ worth of silent aching, and I couldn’t possibly describe the joy of touching you again. We whispered desperate Forgive me’s into each others hair, and for a moment we were 18 again.


You once told me that loving me was like painting with your eyes closed. I never quite understood what you meant -- which I know you secretly enjoyed because mostly it was the other way around -- until that moment. I suddenly understood that sometimes, it doesn’t matter what the outcome will be, that sometimes, the act of loving itself is enough. Sometimes you just have to let faith surprise you, guide you, and not let anything distract you from the simple pleasure of being together. Don’t think. Just do it. And I did, Sirius, I surrendered myself to you all over again in that brief, everlasting hug, and nothing, not even the danger I knew was imminent, could ever make me believe that there was anything beyond this all-consuming loving you.


I was right about something at least. Because even though you’re gone, again and for real this time, to me you’re still here. How can you lose something that’s become part of you? You’re all I know, Sirius, and I know how me saying these things about you would have made the younger you cackle with disbelief at my so-called insanity, but there you have it. You are all I know. The most magical moments of my life are the ones I spent with you, Sirius. Don’t ever forget that.




~The End~

Well, I've been on a HP high for nearly a month, and it hasn't faded away completely yet, so I shrieked 'no way!' when i saw what kind of shortie you posted! :shine:

Your style is always flawless, and a pleasure to read. If the majority of other authors out there would write love (het, slash, doesn't matter) like you do, people would read more. :yes:

Mena, you sure know how to flatter someone ^_^

Thanks for your very kind words! I´ve been (partly I still am) on a massive HP high as well, which is why I wrote this in the first place. Remus/Sirius is one of those loves I can't believe I didn't discover sooner. :love:

Oh yes Hp high indeed - more I crave and more I get when I turn to this forum and find you posting this gem.
It is so beautifully written that it makes my heart ache. Your words fit the emotions, embrace them and make them shone so truly that I can feel them stir in my heart. To read this is to read about how love should be - and what we all long for. Someone who will love us like that.


Truly truly amazing!!