Predisposition|Remus Lupin

Ineffable

Chapter XLV

Mac DeMarco: Let my baby stay

We're having breakfast together and it feels so oddly familiar, like a memory on the tip of your tongue, you know it so well, the colours, the smells, the tastes. But you can't put your finger on it, so you reminisce, lamenting on the flavour and savouring it as it lingers. Remus volunteered to stay home with me whilst the Order went to work, and if I were an optimist, I'd say we were both feeling that lingering taste on our tongues.

"So, what do you fancy doing today?" He asks whilst pouring a third cup of tea, amongst spoonfuls of honey, I smile. Some things never change.

"What is there to do?" You were like home to me, I don't recognise anything without your hand in mine.

"Well, considering we live in the wizarding world, I find the muggle things the most enjoyable. There's a wood nearby, it's beautiful this time of year, quite secluded." He hesitates on the idea of the woods, he's uncomfortably familiar with it, and I know why. I remember when we laid in bed the night after a transformation and you told me about the woods, bluebell forest you used to call. It's the same forest you attacked Sirius in.

Remus closes his eyes and he's saving himself when he aggressively ignores the memory. Reaching over, I place my hand over his, running a thumb over the thin scar lying at the base of this thumb, I do it without even thinking, because that's my scar, it's the one I used to press my lips to every night before we fell asleep in each other's arms.

I'm a cartographer when it comes to his body. Loving every strange curve for the perfection it really is.

"Sounds perfect." We spend the morning making sandwiches before we're ready to set off, Remus is adamant about taking the bus, he's against apparating for a pregnant woman. I can't argue with him when he flashes that grin, he pays for our bus tickets and offers his seat to an elderly gentleman, wriggling his brows and pulling faces and of course he makes me laugh. He makes me clutch my stomach and my lungs burn for air, but I don't want air.

I don't want to breathe, I don't want to lose this feeling. I don't want to lose him. But I have. In our world, in our time, he's gone. My smile fades and Remus cocks his head, he's hurt, I know his thought process, he'll start blaming himself and then find ways to fix something he didn't break.

And I will find new ways to fall in love with him. Like a stranger, I learn things about him, currently, Remus is enjoying Pink Floyd, but little does he know in a years time it's David Bowie who will steal his heart. So I guide him in the right direction, dropping album names, but I'll keep the memories to myself.

Those are for us, not for you and not for me, but when we become us. We will be an us, and we will create new memories every day, and you'll take my soul and wipe it clean, our love Remus, it'll be made for the pages of a great fantasy novel. We aren't just lovers, we will never just be any one thing, how could two beings like us ever just be one thing?

"Here." Laying down the blanket, you help me sit down and I can't take my eyes off you when you stand with your arms stretched out, soaking up the sun. You look so human, so real, and it sounds stupid because you are real. But you were always like a dream to me Remus, you were too perfect to be real, too loving to be materialised into reality. You were like the memories of a wonderful dream, just slipping through my fingers until you weren't memories, you were vague recollections of something from another lifetime.

Sometimes, for fear of forgetting you entirely, I bottle my memories. Back home, they rattle around an empty draw like an alcoholics stash. My secret confession to how much you ripped me apart.