Learning Lines
Sirius got a text from Remus at 10:00 PM – Worst thing about dating your director: getting yelled at for not having lines learned whilst trying to learn said lines :(
He got a little pang of worry reading it, especially seeing the sad face at the end, but he reminded himself that all relationships have hiccups and he himself had been guilty of yelling at lovers over stupid stuff a time or two. He texted back – All directors are dicks (not Minerva) Get drunk with me? xo
He never heard back.
***
“Upon thy life, I charge thee, whate’er thou seest—”
“Hear’st or seest, Remus!”
“Whate’er thou hear’st or seest, stand all aloof, and… and… Line?”
“How many times have you called line this evening, Remus?”
When he began to answer, Severus flew into a rage.
“Shut your mouth; that was rhetorical! Don’t you dare say a word unless your answer is ‘too fucking many times’! You claim to be an actor, so what the fuck is wrong with you that you can’t remember a few bloody words on the page?”
“Hey!” Sirius cut in, dropping what he was working on and striding towards Severus’ seat.
Severus waved his hand dismissively, too busy pinning Remus with his eyes to look in Sirius’ direction.
“Well?”
“I don’t know,” Remus mumbled, lowering his head. “I’m sorry, Sev.”
“Damn right, you’re sorry,” Severus said. “You’ll be even more sorry on opening night when you still can’t get through one bloody sentence. Why don’t you tell your castmates what you spent hours doing last night?”
“I was rehearsing my lines with you,” Remus replied sheepishly.
“Don’t tell me, tell them!”
He turned to Bellatrix, Lucius, and Quirinus behind him on the stage, who all looked extremely uncomfortable. “I was rehearsing my lines with Severus.”
“Then why aren’t they memorized?” Severus demanded.
“I—”
“Them, not me! And project this time, so we can all hear you.”
Remus hesitated, then turned again, shoving his hands in his pockets, and said woodenly, as if it was also something he’d rehearsed, “I don’t care about this play or my fellow actors. I’d rather drink than learn my lines.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Sirius felt himself go cold.
“That’s enough, Severus,” he said, quietly. “Take a break. Now.”
Severus shot Sirius a fierce look, but said, “Very well. Everyone, it is your stage manager’s suggestion that we take a short break, so go and relax. Remus, come here. I want to have a word with you.”
Remus didn’t move. The other actors started filing out of the room.
“Remus, did you hear me? Come here, please.”
Remus swayed a little, but still made no move to leave the stage. “No,” he said, barely loud enough to be heard.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I don’t want to.” Remus, who was still speaking only as loudly as was necessary, took one hand from his pocket to brush the hair from his face, and Sirius could see, even from a distance, how badly he was trembling. “You’re angry with me,” he said, his voice shaking as much as his hand. “I don’t know what you’re going to do when I get down there.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Severus yelled, flustered. He stood up and pointed a finger at Remus, who winced. “Stop acting like a rotten child and come down here so I can speak to you!”
“No.”
Sirius couldn’t let it go on any longer. “Remus,” he said gently, “you’ve done great tonight. Now, go ahead backstage and take your break. I’ll be back there in a minute.”
“No, Remus!” Severus shouted. “You are to come speak with me before you go on break!”
Remus looked from one to the other, seemingly paralyzed with indecision. He opened his mouth, but closed it again without speaking.
Sirius said again, “Go backstage, Reems. Take the stage exit; don’t come down this way. It’s alright, you can go.”
He went, quickly and without a word, and Sirius breathed a sigh of relief before turning on Severus.
“You’re going to drop this shit about his lines.” He was seething. “Understand? I won’t stand there and watch you humiliate him. I’d like to say more, but Remus cares about you – don’t ask me why, but he does. So I have to play nice. Otherwise, I’d…”
He had to stop there because he knew if he stood looking at that punchable face with its permanent scowl any longer he would lose it. Instead, he shook his head in disgust and stalked off to find Remus.
He was lying on floor pillows, curled into the foetal position, under a wool blanket pulled up so high that only his eyes were visible.
“Hey, Moony.” Sirius got under the blanket and fitted his body around Remus’, spooning him. “I told him off for you.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Remus mumbled. “We’re only fighting.”
“All this over fucking up a few lines?” He put an arm around his friend and rummaged around in the blanket until he found his hand, squeezing it, remembering how it had shaken when Severus was barking his orders.
Remus squeezed back and didn’t let go. “Not just that. He’s angry about something that happened earlier. It’s nothing to worry about, Sirius.”
“Sure.”
“Sirius?”
“Yes?”
“Can you tell me whether this is a reasonable boundary to have?”
Boundaries were something that Remus was unsure about, so he often asked Sirius to approve the ones he was setting in his life. Sirius couldn’t imagine a situation in which he would say, “No, that limit your setting is completely unreasonable,” but since it gave Remus confidence to enforce those boundaries, he was always willing to humour him.
Remus turned half-way over and pulled the blanket off his face so he could whisper very quietly. The feel of those soft lips brushing his earlobe made Sirius’ eyes roll back in his head, but the words shook him. “Severus wants me to talk about my students while I’m… getting off. I told him I won’t do it.”
“That’s why he’s angry?” Sirius asked.
Remus turned away again. “He says I’m making him feel like a creep about it, because I said I won’t do paedo fantasies. I could have phrased it more sensitively, I suppose... Well? Is it a reasonable boundary, do you think?”
“Absolutely. Don't cave on this one.” Sirius hugged him tighter. He felt sick. It was possible that Remus hadn’t told Severus yet about the sexual abuse he had endured, both at home and when he was sold to others. But even so, this didn’t sound like a harmless role-play request, especially considering these were actual children, some of whom Severus knew because they were in the play. That part felt very wrong, as did being mad at Remus for refusing.
Before he could say any of this, or ask Remus if he’d been open about his past, Severus walked into the room. He stood in front of them, and Sirius saw Remus’ eyes widen and felt his stomach tense beneath his hand.
“I'll admit I’ve been on edge today,” Severus announced, “and I’d like to make it up to everyone. How does a few boxes of donuts sound? You can run lines together while I pick them up.”
There were lots of cheers, the loudest being from the teens in the room. Remus’ tense muscles relaxed.
“Remus, will you come along for the drive?” Severus asked, smiling down at them. “Make sure I don’t end up with three dozen apple fritters or something?”
Remus went along happily, obviously relieved that the fight appeared to be over. When they came back, however, his eyes were red and puffy as if he’d been crying, and he had a cut on his lower lip. He put the boxes of donuts on a table and then came right to Sirius, taking him aside with a grave look.
“I can’t cuddle with you anymore,” he said, “now that I’m in a relationship.”
Now that they were face-to-face, Sirius could also see a pink mark radiating from the right side of Remus’ mouth, near the spot where his lip was split.
“What happened to your lip?” he asked, barely registering what Remus had just said.
“I bit it,” Remus said.
“Like hell you did. Did Severus hit you?”
“No, I said I bit it. Did you even hear what else I said? I'm not allowed to cuddle with you like that; it's inappropriate.”
“Remus!” Severus yelled from the other side of the room. “Didn’t I tell you to put ice on that?”
“He hit you, didn’t he?” Sirius could barely unclench his teeth enough to get the words out.
“Sirius, stop. He didn’t hit me.”
Severus’ voice boomed out again. “Remus, hurry up and do as I’ve asked before it starts to swell!”
Remus shook his head at Sirius and muttered, “I’m telling you, I bit my lip, that’s all.”
By the next night, the pink mark beside his mouth had become a long, yellow bruise.