you, tell me.

You, tell me.

“Why would he come with me?” Sirius says, still mad they got him on this plane, with that nerdy boy, that will only bother him.

The boy in question, glasses on, mop of hair hiding his eyes and freckles, wearing a fucking grandpa jumper, is frantically typing on his computer keyboard. They are both in the private jet that is taking them to their location, but he hadn’t spoken to Sirius yet. He just looks about his age, and Minnie, Sirius’ mentor, told him he was there to help him get the information they need. But Sirius barely gets why he would need help; he does very well by himself already.

Well, maybe Reggie could help him; his brother is one year younger but Sirius often call him “little monster” because despite being only eighteen, Sirius’ brother is a killer. Metaphorically, because Reggie is always killing it, and he always gets what he wants. Hence, he would be helpful for any mission Sirius gets, because Regulus, indeed, always gets what he wants. But Regulus is a killer, literally. Too. Because they’re all murderers, technically, under the orders of the Order.

Which doesn’t explain the presence of that pretty boy in front of Sirius. Does he even know how to fight? Sirius never saw him before, and he had worked for the Order for 4 years already, 2 years being truly active, but still. He never saw him before.

“I told you already,” Minerva answers, from the other side of the phone.

Sirius left the main room of the plane to call her; he was not sure the walls were thick enough to not let his conversation be eavesdropped but he didn’t care.

“But I don’t need anyone to complete this.”

“Then help and protect him at least. But you won’t need to do that.”

What?

“What?” Sirius says, out loud. “He looks like he can barely defend himself.”

“Sirius…” his mentor starts, and her voice sizzles. “I have work to do.”

“’right. I’ll deal with that by myself,” Sirius answers, rolling his eyes. He hates the fact that he will not be free of movement.

Then, Sirius came back to his seat like a frustrated puppy. A rottweiler one.

The thing is: Minerva told him already why, how, and what. She’s some sort of mission manager. She does her job perfectly and so, of course, she told Sirius about all the details already, even about his new partner. And why he’s there.

“He’s here to help you with the information collect,” Minerva said, few days ago.

Minerva McGonagall is like a mother to Sirius. Regulus and him lost their parents when they were young. She rescued them, formed them, and educated them a bit, in the meantime. She’s the mother figure they didn’t get to have, and Sirius is glad she’s there for them. Sirius would do whatever she asks for, but still, he doesn’t get why she got that boy with him. Doesn’t she trusts him enough? He can do well on his own.

“I don’t need nobody,” Sirius answered.

“You need him. We do. He’s able to enter any database or network. He is our best element. You two are about to enter a military zone, and their networks are not easy to infiltrate.”

At that Sirius had been vexed. Wasn’t he the best element already?

That’s why Sirius was pouting, on that plane, with the boy, sitting in silence. It had been 5 hours already, and none of them spoke to each other yet. He was looking through the window, sighing and huffing every once in a while.

They have to infiltrate a military base, and get to their database. Well, it’s more of a militia than the army of a country; it’s a new organisation that keep growing. They’re developing a drug trafficking network. It’s been months, and every time the Order discovers a new hub, they keep sending Lily, Mary and Marlene. These three pass everywhere it seems, and Mary often tells Sirius about their mission, when they’re back. Most of the time, it’s just a little hub, Mary told him, but sometimes it’s a full traffic crossroad, if the metaphor fits. The hubs of the traffic can be huge. It’s a big deal, Mary told him.

They’re at it, right now, Sirius knows. The place they’re heading is in Chile. In the middle of Chile. That’s why they sent Sirius. And that boy, with him, that’s still typing on his computer keyboard. He truly looks like a nerd. Like what are you doing so interesting with that computer of yours? Typing shit? Pretending to be a hacker? The boy did nothing to him, apart from being pretty — prettier than Sirius — and being there with a purpose Sirius can’t quite grasp. But Sirius’s frustrated. He wonders how hard it is going to be.

When they’ll be in the base, they’ll have to infiltrate the whole thing and get to the centre of it, where the computers and data are stored. Sirius knows the plan of the base by heart. Then the boy is supposed to use his computer-skills. Sirius doesn’t know shit about computers. He just knows how to on and off them. And how to send e-mails. And even that, he struggles. He always forgets to answer the important ones. No one bother to send him a lot of e-mails, anyway.

Sirius sighs again, and crosses his legs the other way, inverting them. He sits back a bit, and then looks at the boy in front of him. Who’s staring at him.

Finally, he’s looking at Sirius. Finally, he looked up from his computer.

But the boy doesn’t say anything.

His name’s Remus. Remus Lupin, Minnie told him — even though he’s not supposed to know his real name, and she’s not supposed to tell him. Sirius is just supposed to call him Remus.

“What?” Sirius ends up saying, because the boy is staring at him with his brown eyes, and Sirius doesn’t like the fact that they’re staring at each other in silence.

The boy runs a hand through his hair, and slicks it back with both his hands. Then he sits back on his seat. But he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he’s studying Sirius, with a neutral expression on his face. Sirius, who rolls his eyes, before sighing again. And the boy smirks slightly at that, before going back to his computer.

That’s it? Sirius rolls his eyes again. Is that boy mute? Maybe he is. Maybe Minnie forgot to tell him.

Sirius choses to look by the window at the sky, defiling at his right.

When they arrive, on a little local airport, the pilot quickly turns around and flies away from them without any more ceremony. Then Sirius is left with the boy.

He now has his computer on a briefcase, a rifle on his back, a gun on his hip, and he’s not even wearing the usual all-black Order’s uniform. He’s still with his white shirt, his brown knitted jumper over it, and some fucking pleated pants. And polished leather shoes. With white socks, for fuck’s sake. He looks like a savant mix between a star-wars nerd, a philosophy teacher, and a wanted criminal with an arsenal of weapons that could scare the army itself. Perfect.

Minnie! I take it back, I don’t want to be part of this anymore!

But Sirius can’t say that; it’s a bit too late, now. Minerva is far away, and they’re both alone on the windy tarmac.

The boy is eyeing at him.

Sirius is wearing the uniform of the base they’re supposed to infiltrate. Which means a dirty-white shirt, with a name tag on it — Peter, in charge of the accessories and costumes when they’re on infiltration missions, had fun and put “Pad Foot” as a name. With ugly trousers. And ugly shoes. Plus his own weapons; a hand gun, a knife hidden in his belt, another one hidden in his shoes. Remus gets to look like this, and Sirius looks like that? That’s insulting.

Once again, he doesn’t have the choice, though.

Sirius puts his long dark hair into a bun, and then says, “There’s a three hours walk from here to the base. If we walk quickly enough, we’ll get there before the night falls.”

They’re in the middle of Chile, and there’s nothing around them.

“Is it okay for you?” he asks the boy. He’s not on his computer anymore. Maybe they’ll get to talk to each other a bit on the way.

The boy just nods, and starts to walk out of the take-off runway, towards the tall grass and trees. It’s not really the forest Sirius expected, but there’s a few trees. And mountains in the background. There’s the sun high in the sky, on the decline. Maybe it’ll be night when they’ll arrive.

They have to infiltrate the base at night, when less people are awake, and less people are making surveillance patrols. The vigilance is low at night. So they’ll wait in front of the base anyway if it’s not night yet when they arrive. Sirius doesn’t know if it’s going to be quick or not, but he already knows the boy in front of him doesn’t seem fun. He would have rather Reggie or Mary.

Sirius follows him, before he’s losing him; the boy has long legs.

“So,” Sirius starts, to make the conversation, after around ten minutes of silence. Otherwise, the walk is going to seem longer than it is. “Is this your first mission?”

The boy thinks a bit, biting his lower lip, before answering. “No.”

“You hesitated?”

Remus doesn’t comment. Sirius ignores the fact that the boy doesn’t comment. He continues.

“What was the precedent mission you went on?” he asks Remus. He’s a bit curious, but he sort of expects him to say something lame.

“Oh, Black,” Remus says, smirking, but there is a hint of something gloomy in Remus’ eyes. Sirius doesn’t have the time to identify it clearly, and he already hates the sentence Remus is about to pronounce. “You’re not supposed to ask that. You should know it.”

Sirius tries not to roll his eyes again. Annoyingly attractive the boy is, looking at Sirius like that. Remus is close to him, and so Sirius can see his eyes and freckles better; but Sirius also sees scars, all over his face. He didn’t really notice them before. But Sirius knows you have to get real deep wounds to get scars like that.

Sirius knows it, face is one of the body parts that heals the better. So how did he got such scars? In a mission? In his childhood? In both? Sirius knows there’s a few orphans like him that integrated the Order sooner than Regulus and him did. Lily was recruited when she was six. Of course she didn’t go on missions at first. They waited for her to be fourteen, before asking her if she wanted to be trained, and she agreed. She told Sirius, once, that she didn’t had anything else anyway.

She lost her parents in a fire. Her house brunt to ashes, and she escaped because her six years old’s bedroom was on the first floor. She couldn’t save her parents. She told Sirius she was an only child and didn’t had brothers nor sisters. Mary and Marlene sort of are her sisters.

When she said she didn’t know anything else than the Order, and that she chose it because of that, she had a sad look in her eyes. Then Sirius asked if she was there just because she didn’t had the choice. He said he wouldn’t judge her. He couldn’t.

Then she said that now that she was mature enough, she saw it differently. Lily had a fair mind, and craved justice — which was oddly rare among them. She always estimated what was needed and what wasn’t; what was good, and what was not, even if she was also human, and knew she could be wrong.

Her and Sirius weren’t that close. But that day, that meaningful conversation echoed in Sirius. He wanted to see things like that. But he somehow couldn’t. See it as “I only do good, and I only do fair”. Sirius knew, sometimes, it wasn’t fair.

Sirius wasn’t a psychopath; the Order tested each member once in a year, with psychologic tests, to check if they were getting mental or not. They were just out of teen years sometimes, and they were given weapons, and killing missions. They were making murderers out of them. it was a burden. Sirius thought it was fair to check if everyone was alright. And not going completely off the rails.

He was good. The tests weren’t saying he was a complete psycho.

Sirius wasn’t a psychopath; he was a killer, nuance. He wasn’t happy to do it; it just had to be done. He had a pragmatic mind. He was a bit of a fatalist. If he died, then he died. He wasn’t willing to do anything to fulfil a mission, yet, he wouldn’t let people walk on him.

Regulus was even less sensible than him; Sirius wouldn’t let people get to him. Regulus, on the other side, wouldn’t let people get to the people he loved. He was stronger than Sirius, because the latter never found the strength to protect the people he loved.

Yes, call him a coward. He only had Regulus anyway, and Regulus didn’t need to be saved nor protected. So it was alright, if Sirius was a coward. No one would ever notice.

Sirius crossed the path of those kind of people, willing to do anything to make the mission a success. To check a goal, like it was just a to-do list. At some point, they were ejected of the Order, because they were completely losing their minds; you had to stay focus all the time, during missions. Keeping your blood cold.

So when Remus doesn’t want to tell Sirius about him, he’s intrigued. Now, he wants to know why he has huge scars on his pretty face. Even if it’s just to try to guess. He wants to know more, somehow. He’s intrigued.

“Yeah. I know,” he says nonetheless. “You can’t tell me?” he asks, grinning confidently.

Remus smiles softly. He’s about to tell Sirius something about him, Sirius is sure of it. He’s so persuaded he’s going to get a positive answer he doesn’t realize right away what Remus’ answer truly is.

“No.”

And the boy doesn’t speak anymore, still with his smile on his face. He looks up in front of him, and not at Sirius anymore, and Sirius feels a bit ashamed for trying to use his charm on that random boy. Remus is making him do useless and embarrassing stuff.

Sirius isn’t the kind to care. Usually, he makes the others care. He, is careless. Always. Right now, he still doesn’t care.

When all of this is finished, when that mission is over, if they’re still alive, they’ll never see each other again, he bets.

Sirius, sighs, for himself, for once today, and keeps walking in silence.

At some point, around the middle of the way, they see a river, on the side. Sirius is sweating, and Remus too.

“Should we stop here for a bit?” Sirius asks, already walking to the water. He doesn’t wait for the boy or his answer.

Sirius crouches next to the edge of the river, drinks water, and then he hears footsteps next to him. He looks up, a bit of water running down his chin. He wipes it, almost embarrassed. Almost.

Remus looks down at him, the sun behind his head, and his shadow casting on Sirius face. With the sun rays behind him, he looks divine, and Sirius is starting to wonder if he doesn’t go fucking mental for real for having that kind of thoughts. What’s wrong with him. Is he such a simp that the sight of a pretty boy, one pretty boy, is enough for him to lose his focus? They’re on an important mission, for fuck’s sake.

Yes, he’s pretty, but shit, why does Sirius needs to notice the hair that suddenly look honey-blonde, and that sharp jaw line. Is it necessary?

Sirius looks away, and put his elbows on his knees, arms stretched in front of him. He’s looking at the stream of the river.

“You’re not thirsty?” he asks, at some point, looking at the other boy again, who’s not looking at him anymore.

Remus looks at the river, and the landscape, now. Mountains and trees. And a river.

“No, not really.”

“You look sweaty,” Sirius notes, and it’s true. He doesn’t know what to say else.

“I do,” Remus says, simply. It sounds half like an affirmation, half like a question.

“Yes.”

The boy crouches next to Sirius, cups water in his hands and washes his face a bit, before running a hand through his hair. His hair get wet, and they stay slicked back.

Hot, Sirius thinks, before cursing at himself mentally.

“Do you like it better?” Remus adds, looking at him in the eye, perfectly serious.

Sirius blinks. Did he just—? Sirius doesn’t think, and answers.

“Yes.”

Then he wonders if he shouldn’t have answered something else — what, exactly? — before realizing he’s never wondering such things usually, when he’s talking to people. That nerdy boy makes him nervous.

“Perfect,” the boy says, and smiles, still crouching next to Sirius.

“Maybe you shouldn’t wear that jumper,” Sirius says, pointing at the said jumper, and he realizes Remus’ face is close to his.

He’s prettier when he’s closer—

“Hm-hm,” the boy hums negatively. “It’s an important part of the costume,” he says, looking at the floor, picking on the grass distractedly.

“What costume?” Sirius asks, distracted by the boy’s lips. He has a little mole on the line of his upper lip.

“The one I’m wearing.”

“Ah, yes,” he says, snapping out of his reverie, standing up.

All of the plan comes back to his mind, like a little slap on the face. That’s why Sirius needs to wear that ugly outfit. The plan. He’s supposed to be a guard, accompanying some sort of investor. That’s how they’re supposed to get into the base. Minerva told Sirius they often had these kind of visits. They got the info thanks to Mary, Lily and Marlene. Outside visitors, that came here to see big bosses, or the place. Or negotiate. They could be in charge of existing hubs, or they could be there to offer help, creating a new hub or giving money, or new clients.

There was a variety of reasons, in fact, for someone exterior to come there. Remus was just supposed to be one of those mysterious visitors. The guards mostly didn’t know who they were, and Sirius’ mentor told him they wouldn’t even question them having weapons on them. Everyone would be armed anyway. If they were discovered, they would probably die. The guns and rifles were just for show.

They just needed to have the proper documents. They had it. So it was going to be a piece of cake.

Unless that boy Remus is completely useless, and doesn’t know how to fight. He doesn’t look like he’s ever stepped outside, or at least it looks like it’s been a while. He’s pale looking, despite his skin being tanner than Sirius’. He looks like he hasn’t slept for hours, and he looks a bit awkward. Not in a weak way, but Sirius finds it hard to picture him fighting. Or him making great use of his guns.

As Sirius is standing now, Remus looks at him from below, and the sight of it makes Sirius’ stomach flutter. He wonders what’s wrong with him, once again, then the boy stands too, and he’s taller, so Sirius has to lift his head a bit to meet his gaze.

I am doomed, he thinks. His mind goes blank shortly after that.

“You’re wearing one too,” Remus says, as if he was reminding him of it, rearranging Sirius’ shirt collar. “A costume,” he adds, after a pause.

“I am.”

No thoughts, head empty.

Remus smiles, and he knows what he’s going, Sirius can read it in his eyes. Sirius yanks away from him, faster than he wanted. Shit, shit, shit, his mind chants. He’s losing his skilfully studied laid back attitude. Remus laughs softly. He has his hands on his trousers’ pockets, and his rifle on his back clicks.

“Maybe we should go.”

“Yeah, the pause is over,” Sirius confirms slowly, smiling, and as he quickly regained his composure, he walks with Remus to the path they were following before they stopped.

*

*        *

“It’s fucking easy,” Sirius says, in a whisper. He is following Remus, who’s leading the way. The hallway is narrow and dark, and they can’t walk side to side in it. Their steps are accompanied by the sound of Remus’ riffle clicking in his back. “It’s almost suspicious.”

“Shut it, will you,” Remus says softly, his tone contrasting with his words. Sirius has been speaking for the past minutes.

The latter rolls his eyes.

They arrived hours ago, and they had to wait an hour before entering the place. They planned to enter by the main entrance, and see if the guard would let them in with their fake papers or not. The plan was, if he doesn’t let them in, they kill him, and they have to hurry the fuck up when they’re in. But they didn’t had to kill the guard. He let them in easily.

The Order told them they had different possibilities in term of ways to get inside the base; the main entrance, the back one, mostly used during emergencies and for meals deliveries. If Sirius digs in his memory, there was also that option where they had to climb the side of the main building to get in. In the dark, they would have gone unnoticed, but it was tiring to do that, and plus, Remus had his computer in his hand. He needed it, and it wouldn’t have been a piece of cake to do. Sirius shrugged, and just said they should try the main entrance. Remus didn’t say nothing, and followed him. Sirius just used his acting skills to pretend he knew the place very well, and that he was just back from X airport, because he had to get the special guest — Remus — and bring him here. Another local airport they use for the traffic, an information they also got from Lily, Mary and Marlene.

And since they’ve been inside of the base, they met very few people, and every single one of them few people only smiled at them and walked past them. Apparently, Sirius, disguised as a crusty guard and his special guest-Remus looking like the chestnut-haired double of Clark Kent, were not suspicious for a bit. Sirius experienced missions with more action than this. It was almost boring; he almost wanted to piss Remus off just for the sake of passing time.

“Don’t you find it weird?” Sirius asks, after another few seconds. He can see Remus being visibly tired of him talking again, and it makes him smile. He has nothing against that man, once again, apart from the fact that he is prettier than him, but riling him up is entertaining.

“I don’t care,” he soberly replies. It’s almost like he wants to add, the sooner it is over, the better it is, but Remus doesn’t say anything else.

“I do,” Sirius says, a smile in his voice, his head lifted. The ceiling is ugly, but at least there is A.C. in this loathsome base. “There is always action when I am here—”

And he doesn’t get to finish his sentence, because he bumps into Remus’ back. He takes a step back, and he sees Remus lifting his right hand, to signal him to wait in silence. He stopped right in front of a door that is the end of the corridor, and he listens to what’s happening behind it. They are close to the exact place they’re supposed to reach in the base. It is right behind that door. After a dozen seconds where Sirius is too far from the door to hear anything, Remus seems to be satisfied with what he heard, and he suddenly speaks to Sirius.

“There’s always action when you’re here, Black?” he whispers, and there’s a hint of excitement peeking through his voice. Sirius doesn’t see his face, because his back is turned at him, so he is not sure of it of course, but he feels like Lupin might be smiling a bit.

“Always, Lupin,” Sirius answers lowly, confidently, his arms crossed on his chest.

“Then you will be served, I think,” Remus adds, talking so quietly it’s almost as if he never spoke.

Remus takes his gun out of his belt holster with his free hand — the one that isn’t holding his precious computer — and he clicks his silencer on. He takes a step back, and takes a deep breath, as if he is in a middle of a meditation, before kicking the shit out of the door; the door, that basically flies away from the shock. He destroyed the door with his foot, and Sirius think he is starting to like this nerdy guy.

As soon as they step into the room, Remus, ahead of Sirius, shoots on the leg the first guard that tries to stab him, before aiming for his shoulder. He does not miss. The man, now on the floor, is screaming of pain, and Remus is not even dirty from the blood that spattered on the walls and furniture. The man who’s just been shot is lucky actually, because he can still make it out alive with the wounds Remus gave him. But most of all, Sirius is smiling, and he can’t help it. Remus, at least, knows how to use a gun, and he is surprised by his preciseness. Maybe he is going to be helpful, after all. Maybe he knows how to defend himself, indeed.

Sirius shots the next man that tries to get his gun out of its pocket, and there is a third one that tries to get to Remus, but Sirius shots him too. He is not as clement as Lupin. Sirius aims for the chest, as he learnt in the Order’s training camp when he was fourteen, and they are not likely to survive it all. Remus takes a few more steps into the room, that look like a meeting room.

He is braking his gun at the four people sitting around the table, just like Sirius does too.

“Do not move,” he says, and his voice is cold.

Remus is the one in charge here, and Sirius is completely mesmerized by his charisma. The men around the table don’t move, don’t speak, don’t try anything. They look at Lupin too, like he’s some sort of apparition. Sirius is weirdly waiting for Remus to make the first move. Is he going to kill them? Or keep them hostages? In fact, Sirius doesn’t know what Lupin needs him to do, right now.

One thing is sure, if Remus is busy hacking stuff on his computer, he will not be able to keep four men at gunpoint at the same time. Two against four still passes, but one against four is suicide. because Sirius sees they have guns at their belts, too.

“Get the fuck out of here!” one of the men suddenly yells, “Guards, get hi—” and he’s interrupted by the cold glare Sirius is shooting at him, aiming right at his head.

“One. More. Word. And you join the world of the dead.”

The man shuts the hell up, and Sirius is glad. Four is too much, but if they start yelling on top of it all, he is not going to keep his cool much longer.

“Who are you?” another one says, almost calmly. Looking at them, they probably aren’t the head of the organization. They’re nearly dressed like Sirius is, with a guard uniform, but they have red armbands.

“We are the one asking questions,” Remus says calmly. “You speak English.”

“Yes,” one of them answers, and Remus turns toward him.

“Where’s the central computer?” he asks.

“Not here.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he says, still apparently as calm as he was before the man obviously lied to his face. They both know it’s here; Sirius studied the plans of the base so much he has more chance of losing himself in the hallways of the Order’s base than this one. He knows it by heart, and he guesses Lupin knows it as much as him.

“It is not here.”

Remus is pointing his gun at the man who lied. “I said, don’t lie to me.” He tilts his head to the first guard he shot, when he entered the room. He now stopped his screaming, but he is still whimpering like a wounded animal, on the floor. “Isn’t this enough of an example?” he adds, tired already.

Sirius feels in his tone like Remus is having the impression of losing his time already. So Sirius analyses the situations; and by that, it means he scans the room. There are six seats, but only four of them are taken. There is a window behind the four men, and they are on the second floor, so he sees the landscape behind the dirty glass. There is another interesting detail about this room. A door, in the background, concealed in the wall, and almost invisible. But it’s there. And Sirius knows why there is a door, here, because he fucking knows the plan of this place by heart.

The man is not answering Lupin, so Sirius does it for him.

“The door,” he says. “It’s right there. The control room is behind it.”

Remus shrugs, still pointing at the men with his gun. “I was kind of expecting one of them to say it themselves.”

“We’re not fucking traito—” the first man who talked to Sirius yells, draws his gun. Soon, he is in a melting position in his seat, because Sirius is faster than him. Sirius shoot him, and even if blood is pouring out of his throat, he almost looks like he just fell asleep on his seat. Sirius sighs, and aims his gun at another man. There is only three out of four left, and he feels like it’s going to be easier.

However, the men left have their hands to their gun too, and Sirius doesn’t knows for how much longer they’ll be able to handle them.

“Come on, let’s finish this,” Remus says, before walking backward to the door at the back of the room.

Sirius follows him. Remus unlocks the door rather easily, and quickly, they disappear behind the door. Remus lock them in, with the three locks of the door, and Sirius notices it is an armoured door. It is not kickable like the one Remus kicked broken before. The thought makes Sirius smile. Lupin kicked a door open.

He turns around, and says, “You provoked them.”

Remus is opening his own computer already, and cables, to connect it with the computer tower of the central unity. He doesn’t spare a glance at Sirius, already focused on his task. This is why they got him on this mission, and he seems to intend making this as fast as possible.

“I did not,” he replies, anyway.

“You did. You said you wanted them to say where their information was, when you already knew where it was. It’s a bit sadistic,” Sirius adds with a crooked smile, his arms crossed on his chest, and resting the weight of his whole body on one leg, one of his hips sticking out.

Remus looks up from his computer. The room is dim, and a little green light emanates from the side, lighting Remus’ skin green. His glasses reflects the green light, and in his glasses’ reflect, he can also see that Remus’ computer is turning on. Remus shrugs.

“You just killed three people, and I am the sadistic one.”

“I saved your ass,” Sirius says, stunned by the audacity Lupin has.

“Oh, thanks,” Remus says, smiling. And despite how weird Sirius finds him, he is charmed by that strange charisma he seems to possess. “Well now, you will have to save my ass again, while I’m busy fulfilling the actual mission,” and Sirius scoffs at what he implies — that Sirius is not helping the mission, that he is useless now, which is a bit true, because he doesn’t know shit about computers and how you do to infiltrate a database. “Because you know. I look like I can barely defend myself.”

Sirius scoffs harder.

“You heard me?”

“Black,” Remus says, his smile still on his face, but his eyelids relaxed. He runs a hand through his hair.

“Call me Sirius,” he snorts.

“Black.”

“What.”

“It’s going to be a sodding nightmare to get out of here. Please, use your last two braincells to think a bit, and get an idea on how to get out of here quickly once I’m done.”

Sirius notices Remus curses a lot, and he’s starting to find it funny. Where’s the awkward nerd he thought he was, in the plane? How weird he is.

“Don’t say I have only two braincells left,” he argues.

Remus snaps his eyes out of his computer screen. “I say whatever I want. You know I am right.”

“I don’t have two braincells left,” Sirius snaps, shooting him a glare. His tongue pokes the inside of his cheek.

“Is this the only thing you comprehended?" Oddly enough, there is no real aggression in his tone. "I said, it’s going to be a sodding nightmare to get out of here. Do you think those three men,” Remus starts, calmly, “That witnessed the shooting of one of them, that are involved with mafia and drug traffickers, if they are not themselves, and that are known to make people disappear as a valid solution for their problems,” he enumerates,  “Are going to wait, sagely, with the four other corpses we left?”

Sirius stares back at him. Remus suddenly looks like he’s trying to hide his stress.

“No, okay, you’re right,” Sirius says, like it’s a pain in the ass to admit it.

“Thanks,” Lupin says, not smiling but it’s almost like so, and it’s like he knows Sirius knows he is right. He quickly drifts his attention back to his computer, and as soon as everything seem to be in place, connected and all, he furiously starts typing on his keyboard, just like when they were still in the private jet.

Then there is silence, only troubled by Lupin’s fingers against his keyboard. Sirius doesn’t hear anyone, behind the door, and as much as it is an armoured door, it must be well-isolated too, because he doesn’t think no one is behind that door, waiting for them to get out. He firmly believes Remus is right; people are going to wait for them behind that door, and at first, the more he thinks about the problem, the less he finds solutions.

Sirius ends up mentally counting how much ammunition they have left, and how many corridors they have traversed, to retrace an exit path. Sirius goes over the entire floor plan in his head, trying to find the best path through the building, but the more he does this, the more he feels like it's mission impossible. They're going to get picked off either way. Not to mention that the meeting room they came in through has only one exit; the entrance.

Then, he tilts. There is another exit, in that room. The window.

But he still has to figure out how they will get out of here, this room, without being riddled by bullets, because even though they have bulletproof vests under their clothes, it might not be enough. And he also has to figure out how they will get out of the room by the window knowing they are on the second floor, and jumping by the window is dangerous because it basically means they have to jump for a bit less than ten meters. Without forgetting the fact that they have to be back before dawn, so when it is around six in the morning. Taking into account the walk from here to the airport, they have around an hour left.

Sirius, his back against the metal door, is facing Remus, his eyebrows furrowed, his eyes lost in the void. He is probably a bit dishevelled, but he is so focused, he doesn’t really mind, at the moment, even though he would have, if he wasn’t stuck in a room that felt like a safe. He really felt like they trapped themselves, by locking themselves here to let Remus do his thing. Remus, who hadn’t say anything since he started typing on his computer like a mad man. He’s doing his best too, Sirius can see it. He tries to do as quick as he can. So it gives Sirius the want to do better too, and think harder about solutions to all the issues his brain came up with.

This isn’t an impossible mission, he needs to convince himself of it. This is not an impossible mission, it’s a hard-kind one, and he has to find a solution. He is Sirius Black. He knows how to handle this, he handled worse. Plus he has to come back home. Regulus stole his “psycHOTic” t-shirt this morning, his favourite t-shirt, and there is no way he lets him live that down. It’s his t-shirt. His infuriating brother would be able to stole it from him if he dies.

“Argh,” he lets out, and Remus snorts. Sirius ignores him.

For the bullets that are going to wait for them when they get out, Sirius has a few ideas. But he needs to ask Lupin if it’s possible to set it up. Them ideas, plus their bulletproof vest, they could manage it, and make it out alive. At some point, while pacing around the room a bit to stretch his legs, he even sees a few grenades. He makes good note of it, since it quickly becomes one of the things they’re going to need in Sirius’ plan to get out of here in one living piece.

For the window, and the ten meters, well, they are probably going to have to improvise. Sirius saw balconies, on the façade, earlier, and on the plan they are supposed to be under their window, if he’s not wrong. He has a doubt suddenly; superposing the different plans of the different floors together is harder than Sirius expected. He remembers the balcony being the residences of the higher grades of the militia, hence the balconies. But hence the danger of jumping there. But do they have the choice to pick another option?

And lastly, for the time, it must be okay, if Remus hurries the fuck up. Sirius hates how all of this relies on too sketchy bases. It’s all “ifs” and “maybes”, and he hates how the solutions he found in his head sound, how unsure he sounds, to himself. He has to get himself together. The more the minutes pass, the closest it gets to the moment they’ll have to go, and do all he imagined. If himself, he isn’t sure, than how Remus could possibly—

“Done,” Remus sighs, finally, getting Sirius out of his thoughts. “It’s loading, aaand… it’s done,” he says, lifting his eyes to meet Sirius. Something in Sirius’ chest flinch. Remus stands up, and he stretches his arms above his head. His jumper lifts, his shirt lifts, and Sirius sees Remus’ tiny waist, and scars striping his skin, and he has to keep himself from drooling. “So, how are we getting out of here, mister genius?”

“Uh. First of all I need to know if you can control the lights from here.”

“Hm, yeah. It’s not called control room for decoration purposes.”

“Do you ever stop being sarcastic?”

Remus almost smiles, a little smirk twitching at the side of his lips. “No.”

Sirius shakes his head. He might be pretty as hell but he is equally infuriating to talk to.

“So anyway, I was saying. Maybe you could turn off the lights right before we get out of here. And also triggering the fire alarms, and especially the fire extinguishing systems.”

“What… Do you want me to make it rain on the soldiers out there,” Remus says, a bit incredulous, pointing at the door with his chin, meaning the people behind the door.

“I want to create as much confusion as possible,” Sirius says, and he reaches for the grenades. Crouching next to a box with a few of them inside, he takes one in his hand, carefully. “We’re also going to use this.”

Remus looks at him with an interested and interesting look on the face.

“You’re going to trigger as many things that can create confusion using the system you just infiltrated,” he says, before adding, “And then I’ll throw these as soon as the door is opened. This way, the closer ones are going to be eliminated, and the ones arriving after are going to be confused as hell.”

Sirius puts the grenade he took in its box, before standing up again. Remus is smiling at him crookedly, now.

“It will give us enough time to jump by the window.”

And like that, Remus’ smile drops. “By the window? Did you forgot we’re on the second floor? There must be… around t—” Remus starts.

“Around ten meters. Yes, I know,” Sirius cuts him, and Remus closes his mouth. “There should be balconies, under us. We can jump on them, and it’ll only be five meters.”

Remus stares at him in silence, half looking like Sirius is crazy, half seriously considering his balcony-idea and nodding.

“Have you ever jumped five meters high, Lupin?” Sirius teases him, with great pleasure.

And then it’s Remus’ turn to scoff. “Of course,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“Great,” Sirius replies, his smirk far from fading.

“And… that’s it?” Remus adds, after a little pause. He sits back in his chair, and starts to do stuff on his computer again. Probably setting all the stuff Sirius asked him to.

“I guess? Do you think it’s going to work or nah?”

“It doesn’t really matter. What I think of your plan,” Remus says, and somehow, Sirius hopes he would have said it was bloody brilliant. “If it doesn’t work, what is plan B?”

“Plan B?”

Remus shrugs. “Yes, plan B. It’s the bare minimum.”

“There is no plan B. We’re stuck in a fully closed room, the door is armoured, and there is no way out other than the door. The window is the closest exit we have, it leads directly outside, and it is somehow the safest. As you said earlier, armed people are going to wait for us right behind that door, if they’re not waiting already,” at that, Sirius noticed how quiet it was, and he truly wondered if there was anyone behind that door. Sirius shrugs helplessly. “There is no place for plan B, Lupin, this is almost like a suicide exit.”

Remus nods. Sirius expected him to argue. “Alright,” is all he says, before typing some more, and clicking too, on his keyboard.

Quicker than he did to recuperate all the data, he sets it all, before looking up at Sirius a few minutes later. Sirius walked behind him to see what he was going, even though he doesn’t understand at all what is displaying on Remus’ screen.

“Done,” Remus finally says, meeting Sirius’ gaze. “I also turned the air-conditioning to the max,” he adds, smirking, and Sirius likes it very much when he smiles at him like that because his heart does little loops in his chest. “So by the time we get out, and trigger the sprinkling from the ceiling, it will be a cold shower.”

“You’re definitely sadistic,” Sirius says, still leaning a bit over his shoulder. He smirks back at Remus.

“You like it, don’t lie,” Remus says, lifting his eyebrows, still smiling.

Hop, another looping in his chest.

“Hm,” Sirius says, before straightening his back, his hands on his pockets. He cannot stop himself from smiling, as if they weren’t at all about to risk their lives once more, in some sort of impossible-to-make-it-out-alive exit, imagined by a nineteen year old. The nineteen year old being Sirius himself.

They are screwed, he thinks. Or maybe not. Something in the way Remus is smiling too gives him a weird hope, and strength too.

Remus closes his computer, and he unhooks his gaze from Sirius’. “I programmed the lights, the alarm, and the extinguishing systems to all start in a minute,” he stares at his watch. “In exactly forty seconds. Be ready, Black,” he says, before putting his computer in his bag, and slipping the handle of his bag over his head.

Sirius walks to the grenade’s box, and takes two. He gives one to Remus, and says, “Will you ever stop calling me Black, and call me Sirius, instead? It’s starting to piss me off,” he scoffs to Remus, but he still has that smile in the corner of his lips.

“Maybe,” Remus retorts, smirking equally. “Black.”

It’s like he refuses to call him Sirius, despite the fact that they’re maybe not even going to make it.

Sirius snorts. “Be ready, Lupin,” and Remus is already toward the door. Five seconds pass, in perfect silence, and suddenly, they hear noise from the other side, and Remus is already unlocking every latch of the door with quick and precise movements.

It’s a mix of screams, fire alarms, and water pouring down the ceiling that welcome them, and the flickering lights — they are flashing like mad poltergeists —, enter the room by waves. But neither Sirius nor Remus have the time to give it any second thought. They are already pulling the pin on the grenade, and throwing it in the room. Before they hide. Remus hides behind the armoured door, and Sirius hides behind the wall, on the other side, his gun in both his hands now. They don’t have to wait for the explosion for too long, because the building shakes, and rumbles, like a huge mad monster. Orange fire light emanates from the meeting room, and they hear the fire from the explosion cracking around them. The fire estinguishing systems are going to empeach the building from collapsing because of the fire spreading.

Quickly, and in an odd synchrony, Remus and Sirius get out of the computer room, and the first thing Sirius sees is the fact that if there was someone or something in the meeting room, it is now gone. The room is empty of anything, and the floor itself has an immense hole in it. Two grenades were probably too much.

He doesn’t have time to really think about it, because he opens the window quickly, and he jumps, without thinking, as soon as it's opened. He hears bullets piercing the air, and he feels Remus following quickly after him.

Sirius sees the balcony before reaching it, but when he lands on it, it’s with a loud thump. Remus lands on him, and even if he managed to not kick him in the face, he lands on the balcony clumsily and they find themselves face to face. Their bodies are pressed together, and Sirius can feel the warmth of Remus. He puts his hand on Remus’ waist, as a reflex, to steady him, but all Remus does is staring at him, in his eyes, and Sirius feels a bit weak in the knees.

“A— Are you okay?” he stutters a bit, breaking the silence. He’s torn between helping Remus getting up, so he can get up too, and pulling him closer.

“I am,” Remus says, with his little smirk. He looks like a shy nerd, but Sirius knows he isn’t really a shy nerd. “And you, pretty boy?” Remus asks teasingly.

See? Not a shy nerd.

Still, all Sirius’ mind remember from Remus’ sentence is being called “pretty boy”, and the last words of his phrase echo in his head. This is definitely better than “Black”.

“Fine,” Sirius lies simply, because his heart races so fast it’s nauseating. Nonetheless, he is glad he didn't stutter.

Then bullets fly above them. They’re visibly not fired at them, because it’s like they’re shot horizontally from the window, instead of targeting them below, but it’s a reminder of their current situation. There’s a hole in the middle of the room, but when their armed men will manage to get to the window, Remus and Sirius will be in a position of weakness. If they both managed to make it, yet, it’s only the first part of the plan. They have to get the fuck out of here. They hear muffled screams from the window above them, muffled by the distance and by the alarms, and by the fire systems, and all the mess.

“Come on,” Sirius says, grabbing Remus’ waist to make him stand up, and he almost chokes at how feeling his tiny waist makes him feel. He. Wants. To. Keep his hands on it. But Remus stands up quickly, and Sirius too.

Remus is the first one who jumps the last five meters, and Sirius jumps them too, before he realizes everyone is up there, and there is no one waiting for them yet, on the ground floor. So they run. They run in the night, toward where they arrived earlier. In the hurry, Remus has grabbed Sirius’ hand, because he’s slower with his case and his rifle in his back, but Sirius doesn’t care. All he hears in his head, is “pretty boy”, and how he feels because a boy he met hours ago called him “pretty boy” and holds his hand.

Pretty boy, pretty boy. I am a pretty boy.

It’s all Sirius’ brain is able to comprehend. And how warm Lupin’s hand feels in his. He likes it. His grip is tight on it, and he will not let it go.

They run through the forest, and at some point they reach the river they stopped by, earlier. They make little pauses, where they just walk fast, but they always start running again, and they run by the river, by little roads, where they see no one, because it is the middle of the night, but every time they hear a branch crack or an animal from afar, they look at each other in silence, and they both have the same thoughts; they fear they’re on their traces already. Because Remus and Sirius can only run, and they have cars, and quads, and motorbikes. They are faster, but they ignore where the two are. It is their only advantage, because on top of that, they’re in the middle of Chile, and the soldiers of the base probably know the zone way better than them.

When they finally make it to the airport they are supposed to reach, the pilot is waiting for them, and they run on the tarmac, glad they could find their way back even in the dark and the slight panic. No one is running after them for the moment, and they see no car, no quad, no motorbike in the large horizon. The forest is far away now, only a few trees  peak from the floor. There is no one. Only a the same private jet they arrived in, a man, the pilot, waiting outside of the cabin, is a different one than the one who drove them here, and a few weeds coming out of the cracked concrete. They stop running a few meters away from the plane, and they wave at the pilot. Remus drops Sirius’ hand and Sirius feels his whole arm empty of something. He does not show it.

He lifts his index and his middle finger, sticked together, and the rest of his fingers bent. It is one of the recognition signals of the Order, and the pilot mimics it. Sirius walks faster than Remus, despite being shorter and having shorter legs, and he starts to climb in the plane, after the pilot. Then, he looks back. Remus isn’t holding his hand anymore, but he doesn’t feel him on his back either.

When his head turns toward Remus, he is standing a meter away from the plane, and he is searching for something in his pocket. The pilot doesn’t look at them, and just turns on the engine; the jet starts making a grumbling noise. Sirius ignores it. Remus gets a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. His long and gracious fingers open the packet, and at the same time, the engine is turning off.

Remus ignores it again. He lights his fag nonchalantly, and proceeds to take a drag of it. Too slowly, he takes it off his lips, and he exhales the smoke in the hot air. Sirius’ eyes are still on him. He notices a scar striping his bottom lip. The place is dark, it’s the middle of the night, still, and only the little orange light coming from the end of his fag and the headlights of the plane are lighting up the place. Remus looks up, around him a bit, like Sirius isn’t here. Like the plane isn’t here. Like they probably don’t have a gang of drug traffickers running after them in the forest. Like he has all the time in the world. He is a mysterious creature, right now, and Sirius can’t help but wonder who he is. In every possible way. He looks out of a movie, out of a fiction, he looks out of this world.

It’s annoying, because he shouldn’t, they’re in the real life, and they are wanted by criminals right now.

“Do you really think it’s the right time to smoke?” Sirius sarcastically throws at him, because he fears the said drug traffickers will catch them up.

The pilot seems to struggle with the engines and he tries to turn it on once again.

“Bloody hell!” Sirius says under his breath, starting to get down the few steps of the plane he climbed before, to get Remus to come inside of it so they can get the fuck out of here quickly. But with a precise gest, Remus reaches for his handgun, clicks it on, and brakes it at Sirius. Of course, he has to be a trained spy too, and Sirius wants to roll his eyes.

Lupin doesn’t say anything. But Sirius stops moving. He feels his blood warm on his veins.

From above, seeing Remus, a fag between his pretty lips, aiming his gun at him with his right hand while the left one still holds his computer, is a nice view. Remus eyes’ shot him a cool glare, despite his whole body language speaking relaxed. He knows how to defend himself, for sure.

Sirius leans his back against the metallic railing of the stairs, and crosses his arms on his chest. He smirks. He knows Remus isn’t going to shoot him. He knows; yet the thrill is something.

“Haven’t you killed enough people tonight?” he teases, transforming all his frustration and all his stress into what he knows best. Confidence. Remus tilts his head at that. He looks reflective at that, like he is thinking deeply about what Sirius just said. He lets out smoke out of his mouth, exhaling slowly, without being able to remove the cigarette from between his lips. His hands are all taken — by the computer, by the gun.

Sirius remembers it’s the same person who called him pretty boy. His heart races. He doesn’t know a lot of people who would dare pointing a gun at him, just because he’s pissing them off or something, and he likes it. His mischievous smile gets wider.

Remus unclicks his handgun, and puts it back in its pocket. Before taking the fag out of his lips, after dragging on it. Few seconds later, he opens his lips again and exhales another cloud. He’s hot. Doing the bare minimum. He knows it. He still wears the grandpa jumper, and his glasses on his nose like he’s about to conference on something very specific and that will make him look clever as fuck. He’s hot, Sirius thinks.

He climbs down the last steps of the stairs, where he stopped before Remus pointed his gun at him, and he walks to him. They just met, but he finds him way more interesting than he did few hours ago, before the mission, when they were still on that plane. As Sirius reaches Remus’ personal space, the plane’ engine is turned on again by the pilot, in his cabin. He probably wonders who these two oddballs are, and he’s probably watching them with tired eyes, wanting to fly away already, rather than wait a second more on this crusty tarmac that smells like old fuel and hot air. But Sirius long forgot about everything around him. He’s only few centimetres away from Remus, and all he wants right now is crossing them centimetres. The tension between them is thick, and he feels electricity between them.

Remus’ corner lips twitch. He is not smiling. But Sirius sees he’s refraining himself from doing it. He sodding knows.

He pulls his fag between his index and middle fingers from his lips for the umpteenth time, his eyes on Sirius — just as he's watched him walk down those stairs without saying a word — and blows his smoke out the side of his face. Remus scrunches his nose, and his eyes look like slits for half a second. Instead of taking another drag, he tosses his cigarette butt over Sirius' shoulder, and his hand moves gracefully, and slowly, even as the end of his fag disappears behind Sirius. Remus' arm falls gently to the side of his body, and he puts his hand in his pocket.

The esquisse of a smirk appears at the corner of Remus' lips, and his impassive face seems so close, Sirius can feel his air on his skin, and his smell of cigarettes turns in his head. Remus tilts his head. That bring their lips even closer.

“You coming? We’re going to be late,” he says, his eyes looking at Sirius' mouth. And he takes a step to the side, their shoulders hit softly, before Remus walks to the plane, and climbs the stairs, leaving a stunned Sirius behind him.

He stays there for an instant, before quickly turning around, walking to the plane, and retorting, “Late? And who’s fault is that.”

Sirius slams the door of the plane behind him once he's in it. Remus took the same seat he took earlier, and Sirius does the same, and sits in front of him again, like for the outward journey.

“You two? Ready?” the pilot says from where he is. “This is going to take a few hours. You can sleep, I’ll wake you guys up when we’ll be at our destination.”

Remus nods. Sirius does too. The pilot takes it as an answer, and he doesn’t add anything else, before closing the door of his cabin for good. The plane turns around, before accelerating. Sirius can see it through the window. Remus doesn’t take his computer out of its bag, and he looks at the window instead. Sirius forces himself not to look at him too much. He looks at the window too. He sees the landscape in the distance, the huge and empty landscape, and he sees himself getting out of the floor, and getting higher. Soon, he sees the landscape from another perspective, like another dimension had just been added. Like before the world was x and y, and now z is visible.

“Didn’t know you had such a significant addiction to cigarettes,” Sirius says when they’re high, almost as high as the clouds. They remind him of those Remus created from his mouth.

“We met exactly…” and Remus, this bastard, checks his watch theatrically, before continuing, “Nine hours ago. Maybe a bit more.”

Sirius stops looking at his window, and he looks at Lupin instead. Who’s already looking at him.

“Well, I also know you’re a sarcastic, sadistic nerd with anger issues, too, and yet if we were normal blokes, in a normal life, I would probably have learnt about it all after several years of knowing you. So nine hours it is,” he replies, shrugging.

Remus sits back in his seat. “Do we look like normal blokes in a normal life, to you?” he asks, his eyebrows raised, a slight smile at the corner of his lips, like he finds that hypothesis highly amusing. He seems to be interested in what answer Sirius is going to give.

Sirius shamelessly studies the boy in front of you attentively and Remus doesn’t blush at it. He has scars on his face, like he has been slaughtered before, and a handgun hooked at his hip. Looking at it reminds him of Remus’ slutty slim waist. He took off his rifle from his back, and it’s now resting next to him, leaning on his seat. They’re in a jet, and Sirius knows he has blood on his shoes, on his trousers, and on his shirt as well. Remus doesn’t have blood on him, somehow, by some kind of prodigy, but he can see little spots of dirt on his polished leather shoes, remains of their walk in the forest. There is a lot of things around them that indicate that they are not normal blokes in a normal life, indeed.

“Alright, we don’t,” Sirius admits. It's the second time of the day he has to admit Lupin is right. It is becoming a habit.

A frank smile blooms on Remus’ face. Sirius’ heart flutters in his chest. He takes his breath away, with that smile.

Remus is not a normal bloke; he’s a dangerous one. He remembers Minerva telling him about Lupin being their best element. Is it what she was talking about? Is he able to charm anyone with that smile of his? Sirius feels like a fool, yet, the way Remus is scrutinizing him makes him feel good. And somehow hot.

“Still,” he continues, to distract himself from the gorgeous sight of Remus smiling. But he quickly realizes he doesn’t have anything else to add.

Remus looks at him expectantly, his smile not fading for a bit; he seems to be highly entertained by Sirius’ behaviour, and his nervousness.

“Still…?” he repeats after Sirius, crossing his legs, and leaning forward.

Sirius forces himself not to shift in his seat. He tries to not look too affected by Remus’ confidence. It is also another unusual thing about Remus Lupin; Sirius is overly confident, but Remus seems able to match his teasing, and he’s not used to it.

“Still, it was fun.”

Remus puts his elbow on the table between them, and his chin on his hand. His second hand joins his elbow. Sirius feels the urgent need to do something under his gaze, so he undoes his bun. His black wavy hair fall on his shoulders. A few locks fall on his face, and he pushes clumsily a few of them behind his ears. His curls are destroyed by too many hours spent tied in a destructive hairstyle in a humid area, but now at least he can focus on his hair band between his fingers. He feels Remus’ eyes on him, literally burning the skin of his face and his neck.

“It was fun, yes,” Remus says with a warm voice, and when Sirius shots him a look, he smiles at him. Sirius smiles back at him.

Remus takes his computer out of his bag, and he opens it, under the look of Sirius. “I’m going to send the Order all the things we gathered,” and Sirius’ heart flutters at how Remus said ‘we’. “Then I’ll take a nap. I’m fucking tired.”

“Alright,” Sirius replies. “I think I’m going to sleep too,” and he reaches for a blanket that’s on the little shelf above their seats. He sees that there is also another one for Remus, folded above his seat.

He curls himself in the blanket, and he pushes the button which extends the plane’s seat.

“Good nap,” Remus says without lifting his eyes from his computer.

“Thanks,” is all he answers.

Sirius sees the reflection of his screen on his glasses. He then stops looking at him, but even under the blanket, he wonders what Remus looks like without his glasses, before drifting to sleep.

✁⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯⋯

Sirius is asleep. He fell into Morpheus’ arms way too quickly. Remus closes his computer. He is tired to no end. He passes a cold hand on his warm face. His eyes burn him from looking at a computer screen for too long and his cheeks are hot, just like his forehead. He overdid himself again. The sky is still dark, and he can still see the stars by the window, but looking at his watch, the sun is going to wake soon.

The view is amazing, though, and so he spend a few minutes looking aimlessly to it. Wondering if stars can help him, because he is lost. Nights saw his despair and his madness, and now, they see him where he is, where he stands in life tonight. Do they judge him? Stars are beautiful, but they are far and cold. He thinks about the nights, when, in his coldness, he wished to join them. But there he stands.

Before the Order asked him to do this mission for them, Remus was a little hacker, working for different organisations, just for money’s sake. Remus had nowhere to go, nowhere to call home, and he spent the last months sleeping on dead end streets. He has the rage, and he knows it is also because of that they recruited him, somehow. And not only for his hacking skills. Despite the fact that he was known in the field. Some people were even after him. It’s also how he got the scars. When Sirius asked him, he didn’t expect it, and his blood started to boil in his veins; it was a reminder of why he was there.

An organisation called Moon asked for his services few months ago, maybe around a year now, and they were proposing a huge amount of money. Remus almost earned around ten thousand for that job; it consisted in securing their network, like the majority of the jobs he got. Some other times he had to steal data. Anyway, he quickly realized Moon was linked to very dark stuff. Remus often did shady stuff, back then, or worked for shady organisations, before that. People who were stealing money, people who were stealing data, people who were destroying other’s data. He didn’t mind it, because in exchange, he got money for it. But there, it concerned humans, and his deontology — somehow — had been questioned. He refused to do it. But instead of just letting him go, instead of letting him disappear in nature, they sequestrated him for weeks, months, and they tortured him; that’s how he got the scars on his face. He doesn’t know why they did that instead of just killing him. But they did. Maybe they expected him to change his point of view, and do the job, in the end.

He never changed his mind. He might have been rubbish, but he was ready to die anyway. No one ever waited for him, apart from himself. That is probably what saved him.

And Remus should have known better. “Working” for such people, and being naïve, expecting them to show clemency. They tortured people for a living. Of course they wouldn’t let him go like that.

Instead of crumbling down, Remus became stronger. What doesn’t kill you make you stronger, huh? Remus hates that sentence. He doesn’t know how he isn’t dead already. Why he hasn’t been killed by them, or killed himself after all he endured, after escaping and having nowhere to go, and sleeping on the streets like a lost trash. Now he has the rage. He earned it.

He found peace in the meantime, though. The Order took him under its protection, to avoid him being killed by the people who were after him, and gave him time to cope, but it’s not completely over.

Sometimes, he feels it again, the soft violence that lives inside of him, like water. His violence is like water. It looks calm. It’s a symbol of life, it’s what kept him alive; without it, he would have stayed, rotting, in that dark room they were keeping him in. His violence is cold, most of the time. Like it’s not there, like it’s sleeping. And sometimes it boils. It’s awake. Even then, it looks inoffensive. It’s not like fire, it’s not spreading. But he needs to be careful not to spill it when the water is boiling, because it hurts nonetheless. It might hurt others.

I better try to sleep too, he thinks, and he looks away from the stars. He grabs a blanket too, and puts it on his long legs. He is surprised to see that the blanket covers him correctly. He always has too long legs for plane blankets. This one is the right size, and he isn’t cold with it.

He shots a last glance at Sirius. He doesn’t know if he’s going to see that bloke again. He hopes so. He really does. Sirius Black an interesting person.

Thinking about what lead him here isn’t the best way to make himself sleepy, so instead he thinks about how Sirius’ eyes speak for him. How they burn, how they shine, how they try to guess who Remus is, how they try to pierce through his skin. Remus doesn’t know who he is. It would be fun if Sirius Black figures it out before him.

Remus smiles softly. There is a continuous white noise that makes him tired. His eyes close by themselves. Yeah, it was fun. Maybe he’s going to ask to stay with the Order, in the end.