Attached at the Wrists
“Can… can we jus’ change the subject? ‘Cuz I don’ wanna talk about punishme--, I mean, cons’quences right now.” Remus was now quite drunk. He swayed floppily where he lounged on the bed, supporting himself with one hand pressed flat against the mattress, his eyes glazed over with intoxication. “I’ll show you something.”
On the bedside table was a pile of papers, a shirt, pyjama pants, and two open books, their pages bent. He began rummaging through the pile, feeling for something. Sirius noticed that the house was cleaner lately (probaby because Severus forces him to keep it that way, he thought) but there were little piles of mess like this one on various surfaces. He smiled to think that even with a dictator boyfriend, Remus would always be Remus.
“Here!” Out of the pile, he pulled a pair of metal handcuffs covered in bright red fur. He dangled them from one finger, grinning.
Sirius raised his eyebrows. “Kinky,” he said. “What exactly do you have planned for tonight?”
“It’s my… ummmm… com— compromise with Sev’rus. He doesn’ make me do any o’ that bloody paedo stuff he’s into, an’ I jus’ do whatever the fuck else he wants.” He leaned close to Sirius with a conspiratorial smile and said quietly, as if someone else might be listening in, “He likes to lock me up.”
But he leaned a little too far and tipped, landing half on Sirius where he lay, laughing into his shoulder, until Sirius rolled him over onto his back beside him.
“Why do I suddenly feel like I want to wash these sheets?” he laughed.
Really, he was starting to feel jealous. He didn’t want to think about Severus and Remus having sex in that bed, Remus’ lean body stretched out, arms raised and cuffed at the wrists, at the mercy of Severus’ every whim… Just as quickly as the jealousy had appeared, it turned to a burning nausea as he remembered Remus’ words, Sometimes he’s rough… you know… in bed. He probably used the cuffs for that, the evil bastard.
He had tuned out, and when he tuned back into the conversation, Remus was talking about a book he was reading. “So now he knows she’s up to something, but he doesn’ know she read the letter, and of course he’s gonna fuck her anyway, the horny old fool. It’s wild.”
“Sounds like a good read,” Sirius said.
He was forcing himself to stay on topic and ignore the rape masquerading as “consequence” masquerading as kinky sex. It would be more effective to bring it up tomorrow when Remus was sober and could think on it for a good long while. God, he wanted to save him from this. It was too late to save him from his horrible parents, but there was a chance now to save him from the new monster in his life.
“You know I was telling you about that Ford Madox Ford novel?” he asked.
“Mmm-hmm.” Remus wasn’t really listening. He was fiddling around with something beside Sirius’ shoulder, where Sirius couldn’t see.
“I finished that one, so now I’m on to… Hey, what are you doing?”
Remus was tugging his arm. There was the feeling of something soft and fuzzy on his wrist, and then a click as Remus clamped the handcuff tight around him.
He shrugged, smiling mischievously. “I dunno.”
“I hope you know where the key is.” Sirius eyed the piles of junk on the bedside table, the dresser, the closet shelf. He wondered how embarrassing it might be to walk into a locksmith’s with fuzzy handcuffs swinging from one arm.
“Nope.”
“Remus!”
But Remus ignored him. He was really grinning now, as he pulled Sirius’ cuffed right arm above his head, threaded the handcuffs through a space in the ornate metal headboard, and took hold of Sirius’ left arm.
“No, no, no.” Sirius tried to sound stern, but he couldn’t help laughing at the thought. “Remus John Lupin, you are not locking me up without a key!”
He tried to roll away from his friend’s grasp, which was surprisingly firm despite the man’s delicate hands, but Remus pounced on him playfully and a short wrestling match ensued. It ended with Sirius locked to the bed and Remus triumphant beside him.
“Now yer stuck here,” he boasted.
Sirius tried pulling his arms down. Yep, he was stuck. “If you wanted me to stay the night, you could’ve just asked, you know. No need to be so dramatic.” He scoffed, teasing. “Actors!” Even though he was one, too.
Remus ignored him. He crawled on top of Sirius and kneeled on his shoulders. “D’you like it?” he purred sexily.
Sirius considered for a moment. He had a nice view of Remus’ crotch. It was painful to have knees digging into his shoulders, but also kinda hot, just like the cuffs themselves which dug into his wrists despite the fur. And that man looked incredibly sexy towering over him with eyes like a ravenous animal, his hair wet at the roots with sweat and hanging in his eyes. He had never noticed how… how dangerous Remus could look.
“Yeah,” he breathed, “I like it.” But he couldn’t help adding, “I really wish you had the key, though.”
“Ssshhh,” Remus’ finger traced Sirius’ lips. They opened to his touch. “Shut-up about the key.”
“Moony…”
He didn’t even know what he wanted to say, was only speaking that name to satisfy the desire of tasting some part of him on his tongue. If his hands were free, he would have grabbed him and brought any and every piece of his body to his lips. But for now he was trapped and that meant Remus was in charge – he would be the one to choose the next move. All Sirius could do was wait, and he loved it.
Remus rocked his hips, his knees digging harder into Sirius’ shoulders, and took a hold of a handful of Sirius’ hair at the scalp.
“God, Moony. I'll do anything-”
Suddenly, Remus practically leaped off of Sirius as if thrown, settling once more beside him on the bed. His eyes no longer appeared hungry; they looked pained, and he chewed anxiously on his bottom lip.
“Fuck. We can’t, Seer; we’re jus’ drunk,” he said, still slurring, but with a haunted alertness in his gaze. “Sev’rus’s always so bloody scared I’m gonna go run off with you, and now, now here we fuckin’ are.” He put his head in his hands. “Please don’ tell ‘im, Sirius. He’d kill me for less.”
“Moony, of course—”
“No!” His head was down, but Sirius could tell from his voice and shaking shoulders that he was crying into his hands. “Quit calling me that. I love it, but he hates it. Sirius, he’s so jealous of what we have. He heard you call me Moony at rehearsal once, and when we got home he… he… dragged me in here…”
“Dragged?”
“My hair, he...” His quiet cry turned to full-on sobbing and he gave up trying to hide it behind his hands. “I begged him not to hurt me, but… Then, after, he made me take a cold shower for so long. He kept screamin' at me th’ whole time ‘cuz I couldn’ stop crying.”
Remus’ words were punctuated by the persistent clank of metal on metal as Sirius kept instinctively trying to reach out his arms to his friend, each time being reminded that he was cuffed to the bed.
“This was because of what I called you?” he asked, incredulous. “How could he possibly blame you for what I said?”
“He says I lead you on,” Remus said matter-of-factly, then returned to his story, “When he let me out of the shower, I was so cold, but he wouldn’ let me dry off. He grabbed my hair and held my face reeeeaaaal close to the mirror – you’ll see the one I smashed got replaced; he did that – an’ he said, ‘Look, really look at yerself. Aren’t you 'shamed to flirt when you got that fucked-up face? Sirius doesn’ want you; nobody does. You’re so hideous, Remus.’ And I thought, He’s, like, really, really right. He really was, Sirius, admit it. Tell me the real truth, what I look like, I can take it.”
Sirius had tears running down his face now, too, and no way to wipe them off; he could feel them running into his ears and knew his hair would be wet with them. “Remus,” he choked out, “look at me. Do you think I’d be crying like this right now if I didn’t want you? I can't stand that you're hurting. You’re all I want, the only one. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? Do you?”
Remus evidently didn’t, because his expression didn’t change. He was looking in the direction of the blank wall opposite the bed with the thousand-mile stare of a soldier remembering the war. “My father,” he started, then stopped. He tried again, “After he cut me with th’ pitchfork, Daddy said, ‘There, now no one’s gonna want you ‘cuz everyone can see what you are: damaged goods, inside and out.’” He lay down and curled into a ball with his head pressed under Sirius’ armpit, whimpering like a puppy. “How come you can’t see it, Sirius?” he asked.