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rarepair_shortsAuthor: kelly_chambliss
Recipient:paulamcg
Title: Interesting Mistakes
Pairing: Remus Lupin/George Weasley. Previous Remus/Sirius
Request Used: Paula, you said you'd be happy with Remus/Anyone, and for some reason, George occurred to me. I tried to mix in a few of your other likes, too: "I enjoy. . . stories including angst and conflicted emotions, mundane problems with making a living."
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~1800
Summary: Remus has made many mistakes in his life. Is he about to make another?
Notes: Dearpaulamcg, You always leave such thoughtful comments, so I wanted to pay you back with a story of your OTC. I have my doubts about how well any of it works, but I hope you'll enjoy the experiment.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Now go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here."
---Neil Gaiman
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
You know it's a mistake, but you go anyway, following George Weasley up the narrow staircase to his quarters above the joke shop.
"Come up for a drink with me, Remus," he'd said, and you know it's a mistake, but you go.
You've worked at Weasley Wizarding Wheezes for a year; you started as warehouse manager, and now you're the new partner. You never expected to be good at business, but you are. The partnership makes sense.
This drink does not. It's a mistake.
Almost from your first day at the warehouse, the tension has built between you and George. It was there this afternoon as you stood in the showroom in Diagon Alley, watching his shaggy ginger head bend over the figures in your stock report, tension so strong that you could almost feel it, palpable in your hands.
It was there when you finished your business and were invited upstairs.
It's there now.
"Come up for a drink," said George, but you know it's not about a drink. You know that you should make some excuse -- you should say you need to fetch Teddy or you need your wolfsbane or something -- but you don't.
You know it's a mistake.
You go anyway.
You hardly recognise yourself as the Remus Lupin of a year ago.
You're still a widower, a father. A werewolf. But the old Remus was reserved, restrained, cautious.
Not like you, the reckless man going giddily up the staircase behind George.
~~~~~
A year ago, the old Remus had sat demurely on the sofa in the headmistress's cosy study, watching Minerva's thin hands move deftly from teapot to milk jug to sugar tongs and wondering idly how many times in her professional life she'd been called upon to serve tea -- to anxious parents or Ministry officials or prospective staff or visiting dignitaries. . .
. . .or to single-parent former students -- like you -- who were facing penury in a post-war, post-Voldemort world, where attitudes and prejudices had changed a lot less than most people wanted to think.
"Of course, you can still choose to leave the wizarding community if that's what you really want, Remus," Minerva had said as she poured, "but I make no secret of the fact that I think such a move would be a mistake."
She dropped a sugar cube into the tea and Levitated the cup over to him. Old Remus had found the ritual both soothing and a little surreal.
"You've no support network among the Muggles," she continued, following the tea with the obligatory plate of biscuits. "Plus, it won't be easy to find a job that will allow you to take care of Teddy and have several days off every month when the full moon comes round. Far better for you to stay among us and let us help you."
"I won't take charity, Minerva," the old Remus had replied. You remember how mildly he spoke but how strongly he felt. He -- and you -- have had enough of feeling tattered and pitied.
"Charity? Nonsense, no one is talking about charity, although what is wrong with those who have plenty giving to those in need, I have no idea. In any case, I'm talking about gainful employment."
"Which I would love to have. . .except that you know no one will employ a werewolf -- no, not even a war hero werewolf," old Remus had said, forestalling her before she could utter the dreaded H-word herself.
You understand and agree. There are no heroes in war, just the lucky and the unlucky. And the lucky are not always those who survive.
But Minerva would not be put off. "That's where you're wrong," she'd said sharply, setting down her own teacup with a clink of finality. "You forget that I have taught at Hogwarts for over forty years and know virtually every witch and wizard in the British Isles. I have been making inquiries, and I have found you the perfect position."
"Where?" Old Remus was wary, as well he should have been.
"Working with George Weasley."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
You didn't recognise the tension with George for what it was, not at first. You thought it was stress and awkwardness left over from the Battle and from all those deaths. What could you say to the brother who had lost the other half of himself? And what could that brother say to you, a man who'd lost the wife he never should have married?
But when the sound of George and the musk of him began to trigger an erection every time you saw him, you finally understood what was happening. And from the way George's respiration and scent increase when you are together, you know he is having the same reaction to you.
He's eighteen years your junior, damaged by grief and war, and you want to fuck him more than you've ever wanted almost anything.
You can't really explain it, not even to yourself. There's just something about George that draws you. Maybe it's his occasional moments of tentativeness, of vulnerability. He seems so lost without Fred, like a blind thing groping. He reminds you of yourself as you were for so many years after being bitten. Not until Sirius claimed you and fucked you and loved you did you find your way.
But you aren't Sirius, and George isn't you. He's little more than a kid, and you're a grown man, so much older than your years. You have no business thinking of him the way you do as you lie awake at night. No business at all.
But you do it anyway. Every night.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
George opens the door to his flat and wands candles alight.
"Here, sit down," he says, pushing a stack of papers and plates off the settee.
His rooms are a bit of a mess -- well, quite a mess, actually. He doesn’t apologise or explain, and you wouldn't dream of commenting, but you know this is no mere late-adolescent untidiness. This is the mess of a man who is just barely coping, who has to save all his energy just to make it through each day.
You understand. You aren't coping all that well, either.
"Ogden's?" asks George, brandishing a bottle. It's half-empty. "Or I may have a lager somewhere?" He looks around vaguely, as if expecting one to float over to him.
"Ogden's is good," you say.
Soon you have a glass in your hand, and George is sitting opposite you, holding his own glass, perched on the edge of an armchair piled high with dirty robes and socks.
The air is thick with pheromones; your wolf senses can almost see them; your cock is straining. You close your eyes against the desire and cast about for something innocuous to say.
"So how are -- " you begin, but George stops you.
"Don't, Remus," he says.
"Don't what?"
"Don't try to act like this isn't about what we both know it's about."
You sigh and open your eyes. He's right. Yes, you owe him this much.
"All right, George," you agree. "I think we've both felt . . . a connection these last months, and -- "
George half-snorts, half-laughs. "A 'connection'? Is that what you want to call it? Well, fine, I mean, you are the professor. I'm just a lowly shopkeeper, though, so I won't be posh about it. I'll just tell it like it is: we both want to bugger each other's brains out."
"But we won't," you say firmly.
"Why not?"
"Oh, George." You feel infinitely old. "So many reasons it's a bad idea. We can't --"
George's eyes are glittering. Tears? Rage? You don't know.
"Are you going to go all sanctimonious on me?" he demands. "'Think of the child' and 'it's just not right' and that sort of rot?"
You refuse to be baited. "It's not right. I'm not talking about any absolute moral sense, I don't mean that. But neither of us is in a very good place just now, emotionally speaking; we're not thinking clearly. And I'm eighteen years -- "
"No!" George is on his feet, anger and disappointment now warring on his face. "Don't you dare, Remus! Don't you dare say you're too old or I'm too young. No one's young after a war."
"We can't ignore -- "
"Yes, we can! We can ignore anything we bloody well please."
"I wouldn't be good for you," you try, wincing inwardly at the cliché.
"'Good for me?' What, lovers are supposed to be like a green vegetable or something? We don't need to be each other's saviour, you know. I don't want an eternal bonding. I just want to spend time with you. And fuck you, of course."
"Why?" you ask. It's a genuine question and a good one. You're surprised you haven't really thought about it before. "Why are you even interested in me, George?"
"I could ask the same of you," he retorts, sitting down again slowly. "As for me. . .well, what do you want me to say? That I like you? That I like being around you, and it's the first thing I have liked since Fred. . .well, since. That I like the goofy half-smile you give when you're pleased? The way you always look a little worried, which for some reason I find ridiculously hot? Is that what you want to hear? Because it's all true. "
You watch him as he talks, leaning forward with a seriousness he never had as a student. . .or maybe he just hid it well. Maybe it was always there under the class clown performance. War and death do tend to strip away the need for pretence.
"It's all true, but none of it really explains anything," George goes on. "Bottom line, Remus, I don't know. I don't know why I'm interested. I just am."
He flashes you that vulnerable look, a sidelong glance from lowered eyes. Then suddenly he is next to you on the settee, his breath hot in your ear, his arms and legs close and warm against yours. "And you feel the same about me. I know you do. "
He's right; you do. As you feel your body turn into his, feel your mouths meet, taste the heady softness of his lips, you remind yourself that this is a mistake.
Except that for the life of you, you can't think why.
You kiss George back.
kelly_chamblissRecipient:
paulamcgTitle: Interesting Mistakes
Pairing: Remus Lupin/George Weasley. Previous Remus/Sirius
Request Used: Paula, you said you'd be happy with Remus/Anyone, and for some reason, George occurred to me. I tried to mix in a few of your other likes, too: "I enjoy. . . stories including angst and conflicted emotions, mundane problems with making a living."
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~1800
Summary: Remus has made many mistakes in his life. Is he about to make another?
Notes: Dear
paulamcg, You always leave such thoughtful comments, so I wanted to pay you back with a story of your OTC. I have my doubts about how well any of it works, but I hope you'll enjoy the experiment.~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Now go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here."
---Neil Gaiman
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
You know it's a mistake, but you go anyway, following George Weasley up the narrow staircase to his quarters above the joke shop.
"Come up for a drink with me, Remus," he'd said, and you know it's a mistake, but you go.
You've worked at Weasley Wizarding Wheezes for a year; you started as warehouse manager, and now you're the new partner. You never expected to be good at business, but you are. The partnership makes sense.
This drink does not. It's a mistake.
Almost from your first day at the warehouse, the tension has built between you and George. It was there this afternoon as you stood in the showroom in Diagon Alley, watching his shaggy ginger head bend over the figures in your stock report, tension so strong that you could almost feel it, palpable in your hands.
It was there when you finished your business and were invited upstairs.
It's there now.
"Come up for a drink," said George, but you know it's not about a drink. You know that you should make some excuse -- you should say you need to fetch Teddy or you need your wolfsbane or something -- but you don't.
You know it's a mistake.
You go anyway.
You hardly recognise yourself as the Remus Lupin of a year ago.
You're still a widower, a father. A werewolf. But the old Remus was reserved, restrained, cautious.
Not like you, the reckless man going giddily up the staircase behind George.
~~~~~
A year ago, the old Remus had sat demurely on the sofa in the headmistress's cosy study, watching Minerva's thin hands move deftly from teapot to milk jug to sugar tongs and wondering idly how many times in her professional life she'd been called upon to serve tea -- to anxious parents or Ministry officials or prospective staff or visiting dignitaries. . .
. . .or to single-parent former students -- like you -- who were facing penury in a post-war, post-Voldemort world, where attitudes and prejudices had changed a lot less than most people wanted to think.
"Of course, you can still choose to leave the wizarding community if that's what you really want, Remus," Minerva had said as she poured, "but I make no secret of the fact that I think such a move would be a mistake."
She dropped a sugar cube into the tea and Levitated the cup over to him. Old Remus had found the ritual both soothing and a little surreal.
"You've no support network among the Muggles," she continued, following the tea with the obligatory plate of biscuits. "Plus, it won't be easy to find a job that will allow you to take care of Teddy and have several days off every month when the full moon comes round. Far better for you to stay among us and let us help you."
"I won't take charity, Minerva," the old Remus had replied. You remember how mildly he spoke but how strongly he felt. He -- and you -- have had enough of feeling tattered and pitied.
"Charity? Nonsense, no one is talking about charity, although what is wrong with those who have plenty giving to those in need, I have no idea. In any case, I'm talking about gainful employment."
"Which I would love to have. . .except that you know no one will employ a werewolf -- no, not even a war hero werewolf," old Remus had said, forestalling her before she could utter the dreaded H-word herself.
You understand and agree. There are no heroes in war, just the lucky and the unlucky. And the lucky are not always those who survive.
But Minerva would not be put off. "That's where you're wrong," she'd said sharply, setting down her own teacup with a clink of finality. "You forget that I have taught at Hogwarts for over forty years and know virtually every witch and wizard in the British Isles. I have been making inquiries, and I have found you the perfect position."
"Where?" Old Remus was wary, as well he should have been.
"Working with George Weasley."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
You didn't recognise the tension with George for what it was, not at first. You thought it was stress and awkwardness left over from the Battle and from all those deaths. What could you say to the brother who had lost the other half of himself? And what could that brother say to you, a man who'd lost the wife he never should have married?
But when the sound of George and the musk of him began to trigger an erection every time you saw him, you finally understood what was happening. And from the way George's respiration and scent increase when you are together, you know he is having the same reaction to you.
He's eighteen years your junior, damaged by grief and war, and you want to fuck him more than you've ever wanted almost anything.
You can't really explain it, not even to yourself. There's just something about George that draws you. Maybe it's his occasional moments of tentativeness, of vulnerability. He seems so lost without Fred, like a blind thing groping. He reminds you of yourself as you were for so many years after being bitten. Not until Sirius claimed you and fucked you and loved you did you find your way.
But you aren't Sirius, and George isn't you. He's little more than a kid, and you're a grown man, so much older than your years. You have no business thinking of him the way you do as you lie awake at night. No business at all.
But you do it anyway. Every night.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
George opens the door to his flat and wands candles alight.
"Here, sit down," he says, pushing a stack of papers and plates off the settee.
His rooms are a bit of a mess -- well, quite a mess, actually. He doesn’t apologise or explain, and you wouldn't dream of commenting, but you know this is no mere late-adolescent untidiness. This is the mess of a man who is just barely coping, who has to save all his energy just to make it through each day.
You understand. You aren't coping all that well, either.
"Ogden's?" asks George, brandishing a bottle. It's half-empty. "Or I may have a lager somewhere?" He looks around vaguely, as if expecting one to float over to him.
"Ogden's is good," you say.
Soon you have a glass in your hand, and George is sitting opposite you, holding his own glass, perched on the edge of an armchair piled high with dirty robes and socks.
The air is thick with pheromones; your wolf senses can almost see them; your cock is straining. You close your eyes against the desire and cast about for something innocuous to say.
"So how are -- " you begin, but George stops you.
"Don't, Remus," he says.
"Don't what?"
"Don't try to act like this isn't about what we both know it's about."
You sigh and open your eyes. He's right. Yes, you owe him this much.
"All right, George," you agree. "I think we've both felt . . . a connection these last months, and -- "
George half-snorts, half-laughs. "A 'connection'? Is that what you want to call it? Well, fine, I mean, you are the professor. I'm just a lowly shopkeeper, though, so I won't be posh about it. I'll just tell it like it is: we both want to bugger each other's brains out."
"But we won't," you say firmly.
"Why not?"
"Oh, George." You feel infinitely old. "So many reasons it's a bad idea. We can't --"
George's eyes are glittering. Tears? Rage? You don't know.
"Are you going to go all sanctimonious on me?" he demands. "'Think of the child' and 'it's just not right' and that sort of rot?"
You refuse to be baited. "It's not right. I'm not talking about any absolute moral sense, I don't mean that. But neither of us is in a very good place just now, emotionally speaking; we're not thinking clearly. And I'm eighteen years -- "
"No!" George is on his feet, anger and disappointment now warring on his face. "Don't you dare, Remus! Don't you dare say you're too old or I'm too young. No one's young after a war."
"We can't ignore -- "
"Yes, we can! We can ignore anything we bloody well please."
"I wouldn't be good for you," you try, wincing inwardly at the cliché.
"'Good for me?' What, lovers are supposed to be like a green vegetable or something? We don't need to be each other's saviour, you know. I don't want an eternal bonding. I just want to spend time with you. And fuck you, of course."
"Why?" you ask. It's a genuine question and a good one. You're surprised you haven't really thought about it before. "Why are you even interested in me, George?"
"I could ask the same of you," he retorts, sitting down again slowly. "As for me. . .well, what do you want me to say? That I like you? That I like being around you, and it's the first thing I have liked since Fred. . .well, since. That I like the goofy half-smile you give when you're pleased? The way you always look a little worried, which for some reason I find ridiculously hot? Is that what you want to hear? Because it's all true. "
You watch him as he talks, leaning forward with a seriousness he never had as a student. . .or maybe he just hid it well. Maybe it was always there under the class clown performance. War and death do tend to strip away the need for pretence.
"It's all true, but none of it really explains anything," George goes on. "Bottom line, Remus, I don't know. I don't know why I'm interested. I just am."
He flashes you that vulnerable look, a sidelong glance from lowered eyes. Then suddenly he is next to you on the settee, his breath hot in your ear, his arms and legs close and warm against yours. "And you feel the same about me. I know you do. "
He's right; you do. As you feel your body turn into his, feel your mouths meet, taste the heady softness of his lips, you remind yourself that this is a mistake.
Except that for the life of you, you can't think why.
You kiss George back.
