such_heights: amy and rory looking at a pile of post (hp: lumos)
Amy ([personal profile] such_heights) wrote2008-11-26 03:44 am

FIC: Let's Call This Whole Day Off [HP]

This weekend saw the birthdays of two very dear and old friends, gathered during my first fledgling days of fandom. [livejournal.com profile] nekare and [livejournal.com profile] magnetic_pole, happy birthday belatedly for Saturday! ♥ Below is a wee snippet as a token of my affection.

Let's Call This Whole Day Off
Harry Potter ; Remus/Sirius ; PG ; 900 words
In which Remus has research fatigue, Sirius gets into a fight, and sleep is a long-overdue luxury.



The last of their supply of candles were burning down as Remus reached for yet another yellowing file. He picked up his mug, taking a long sip before realising that the tea inside had gone cold long ago. "God," he muttered, swallowing with a grimace.

He opened the report, scanning scratchy quill marks in a mish-mash of hands looking for any indication of unexplained money changing hands, sightings of dubious characters in adjacent places, anything at all that could give advance warning of what the other side were thinking, what their next move might be. Remus was trawling through records from a contact in Gringotts, eye-witness interviews, even Muggle police reports. His head was spinning, and every time he shut his eyes he just saw an endless list of dates and names and places.

Rubbing his eyes furiously with the heel of a hand, he picked up his quill once again and dipped it into the inkpot.

10th November, around sunset. Lucius Malfoy seen outside Granville Crescent - last known whereabouts of Rodolphus Lestrange. Poss. some kind of base/HQ?

Remus' hand hovered over the parchment, head drooping too much to write more.

Then someone was moving beside him, and Remus blinked, looking up to see Sirius performing some sort of intricate manoeuvre with stacks of paper. He cleared space until there was room for a new mug that steamed gently like a pre-Christmas miracle.

"I-- what?" Remus asked. "You weren't here. Before." Advanced sentence construction had taken its leave a few hours previously.

Sirius laughed. "Hello yourself. Just drink the tea."

Remus grabbed it like a marooned sailor grasping for fresh water, the hot, sweet burn going down his throat and awakening a dormant sensation of feeling faintly human. "Oh wow," he said. "That's -- thank you."

"You look a state," Sirius said by way of reply.

Remus grinned ruefully at that, then he looked at Sirius properly. "Merlin, so do you, what happened?"

There were slashes running along Sirius' cheek, and a jagged cut that ran down his throat and disappeared beneath his robes. Sirius hissed a little as he readjusted his shoulders. "Ran into a little trouble on the way back from Dumbledore's, but nothing to worry about - you should see the other guy."

"Sirius, are you--"

Sirius waved him off. "I'm fine, I'm okay. Alice patched me up a bit before she took off, said the damage was mostly cosmetic anyway. Which, you know, is a terrible tragedy and everything, but it'll all heal up all right."

Remus laughed, though it wasn't funny at all.

"You, on the other hand," Sirius breezed on, "have clearly been entangled in a battle of epic proportions."

"Yeah, you think NEWTs were bad - a run in with some Death Eaters would have been a nice break from this horror."

"Looks like you've got some good leads, though," Sirius said, peering over Remus' shoulder.

"We can only hope. I've just got to follow up on--"

"No, you don't." Sirius clasped Remus' shoulder. "It's officially stupid o'clock now, we're going home."

"But I--"

"Oh believe me, I will body-bind you and sling you over my shoulder if I have to."

Remus glared at him. "You'd never take me."

Sirius scoffed. "Yeah, you keep thinking that. More to the point, I don't want to be the one that has to dig your corpse out of a stack of property reports in a week, so come on already."

Sirius looked about to haul him up bodily, so Remus sighed in defeat and stood up. "We'll have to walk," he said, "I'm in no position to Apparate myself in one piece."

"Nah, I've got you." Sirius pulled Remus against him, hissing as he made contact with his shoulder.

Remus attempted to pull away at that. "You said you were fine."

"I am, it just -- ah -- smarts a little. Right then, homeward bound, you ready?"

Before Remus had a chance to reply, they were off, exchanging musty filing cabinets for a table and chairs and moth-nibbled sofa that Sirius sagged against as they appeared.

"Ugh," he said, looking suddenly drained.

"Uh," Remus agreed, his brain still entirely shorted out.

Between them, they somehow managed to function, Sirius giving instructions on matters such as locking the front door and no, try not to walk into that doorframe while Remus steered him into the bedroom. They lay down clumsily, tugging off the reminders of the day in haphazard, tired movements.

Remus let his head fall back against pillows, his wand clattering to the floor as his whole body sagged, a tension released that he didn't know he'd been holding. Sirius groaned next to him, a mixed sound of discomfort and relief Remus could relate to.

"Are you holding up okay, do you need--"

"Sleep," came Sirius' drawled out reply. "Sleeeep."

"Bad day," Remus muttered, his eyes closing inexorably.

"Yeah," Sirius agreed.

Outside, the wind in the night was whipping up an icy storm, the brunt of November hitting London with full force. Remus listened to it idly as sleep began to creep over him, wondering how exactly he was going to wake up again in a few hours.

A slow exhale by his side, then Sirius reached out, fumbling for his hand. That was better, the warm point of contact, their fingers entangled and their palms pressed together.

"Sleep," Sirius said again, grateful and prompting.

Remus smiled slightly as the wind howled on and Sirius curled in closer. "Yeah, sleep," he murmured, already halfway to oblivion.

[identity profile] glass-icarus.livejournal.com 2008-11-26 04:20 am (UTC)(link)
aww, sweet! :D i missed your pups.
gorgeousnerd: #GN written in the red font from my layout on a black background. (Remus/Sirius do it doggie style.)

[personal profile] gorgeousnerd 2008-11-26 04:31 am (UTC)(link)
It's officially stupid o'clock now, we're going home.

I think I'm going to be quoting this here after. :D Thanks for satisfying my need for Sirius/Remus!

[identity profile] lefaym.livejournal.com 2008-11-26 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
Awww, that's lovely. :)

[identity profile] mindabbles.livejournal.com 2008-11-26 05:01 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, yay! Remus/Sirius from you! What a wonderful scene. I could feel the fatigue of the long day. Such a lovely ending. :)

[identity profile] sleeper6.livejournal.com 2008-11-26 05:32 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, this is so nice. The hand-holding bit at the end makes it perfect.

[identity profile] onehundredmoons.livejournal.com 2008-11-26 05:53 am (UTC)(link)
Really nice. I only really read R/S fic by you now, m'dear. Your writing always keeps me interested. :)
woldy: (Remus)

[personal profile] woldy 2008-11-26 05:56 am (UTC)(link)
Very nice! I love the banter & Sirius' bravado about being injured, though my current predicament is a little too similar to Remus' for me to be able to laugh at that :-/ . Oh, and "a new mug that steamed gently like a pre-Christmas miracle" wins my All-Time Tea Descriptions award.

[identity profile] nekare.livejournal.com 2008-11-26 07:28 am (UTC)(link)
ZOMG YOU ARE SO AWESOME. ♥ Thank youuuuu! And this was just fantastic and adorable and I'm sleepy myself right now so I can totally relate and oh, lovely, truly. :333

[identity profile] cinnamon-sakaki.livejournal.com 2008-11-26 10:57 am (UTC)(link)
Yay! I haven't read fic in yonks. This was a nice sweet story to cheer me up in my dreary work day!

[identity profile] littlemissgg.livejournal.com 2008-11-26 11:10 am (UTC)(link)
Absolutely lovely!

[identity profile] trowicia.livejournal.com 2008-11-26 04:24 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, how I love them! They're just so comfortable and sweet and them. I always adore how you work with the boys. :) ♥

[identity profile] liseuse.livejournal.com 2008-11-26 05:14 pm (UTC)(link)
This is absolutely adorable. I love Remus' appreciation of his new mug of tea, and how well you captured the lack of logic and sentence structure that comes from having been working too hard for too long.

[identity profile] taigne.livejournal.com 2008-11-26 08:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Thankfully I'm not quite at Remus' level of fuzzy so I'm hiding from the nastycold November and reading this lovely fic, so snuggly the ending!

[identity profile] leashy-bebes.livejournal.com 2008-11-26 08:17 pm (UTC)(link)
zomg, research fatigue! I feel his pain. Really loved this fic, very warm and fuzzy, very puppy-ish.

[identity profile] brighty18.livejournal.com 2008-11-27 01:31 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, this was lovely! I always love your work. Sadly, I can totally relate to poor Remus right now - but then I imagine that many of us can! And your Sirius is so darling in a gruff and amusing sort-of way.

I love now this bit paralleled Sirius' remark in OotP about wishing for a Dementor attack: "Yeah, you think NEWTs were bad - a run in with some Death Eaters would have been a nice break from this horror."

Great!

[identity profile] rev02a.livejournal.com 2008-11-27 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
*swoon*


(Beautiful.)

[identity profile] magnetic-pole.livejournal.com 2008-11-27 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
Oh! I was so delighted to find this, A. Back in the morning, after some sleep, with a better comment. *hugs* Thank you! M.

[identity profile] magnetic-pole.livejournal.com 2008-11-27 07:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Back again, feeling a little more rested. Argh, A, why are our lives so busy? And we're not even fighting Voldemort!

Loved this tiny slice-of-life, my favorite sort of fic. *hugs* Thanks again, sweetie. M.

[identity profile] fullmoon-dreams.livejournal.com 2008-11-27 10:41 am (UTC)(link)
That is so sweet. I especially liked the holding hands at the end.

[identity profile] lyras.livejournal.com 2008-11-27 01:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah, so lovely! I feel for them both in their exhaustion. So nice to see you writing HP fic occasionally!
ext_41195: (Default)

[identity profile] crooked.livejournal.com 2008-11-27 07:43 pm (UTC)(link)
oh, isn't this just LOVELY? ♥ god, i think we can all relate to that level of exhaustion, and you capture it perfectly. this is all sorts of sweet and reading it is making me a tad late BUT oh so worth it.

brilliant as always, m'dear! :)

here via magnetic_pole

[identity profile] secretsolitaire.livejournal.com 2008-11-28 04:27 am (UTC)(link)
Mmmmmmm. Just lovely. *sinks into this with Remus and Sirius*

[identity profile] cherryfeather.livejournal.com 2008-11-28 05:56 am (UTC)(link)
nnngghaaaahhh they're just so adorably fuzzy and cute. Totally feeling the puppies on this one. We've all been there. (Especially the cold tea bit. -shudders-)

[identity profile] nellie-darlin.livejournal.com 2008-12-01 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
yay! :D It's SO LONG since I read any fic (let alone R/S) and this is a great one to get me started again - remind me of how bittersweet their time was.