Wolves in the Mountains
Pairing: Oz/Remus Lupin
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: For Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix.
Setting: Sometime in the summer post-OotP.
Summary: Quiet, and the pack.
Author's notes: For gloss, with much love. Hope the sexasswerewolves live up to their press. Betaed by Lani. This started as a drabble for sunday 100, for the challenge crossover.
In Tibet, in the mountains, at the monastery: time does not matter. These mountains, this culture, is older than any human mind can grasp. Oz likes this. He enjoys letting seconds pass without counting the minutes, and minutes without the hours, and hours without the days. He tells seasons apart by the air - in the summer, the air is too thick to move, and in the winter, it is so cold that drawing breath is painful. He sleeps and wakes by the sun and the wolf, not clocks or appointments.
The man with sad eyes came back in the summer. When he walked slowly up the stone steps to the door of the monastery, Oz was sitting outside, trying to stay cool by not moving. Oz recognized him as someone who had been there before and left again, in the fall, but the monks had not encouraged them to speak to their fellow students. He could smell loss on this man, heavy and recent. The sad man looked up at him. Oz could only see another wolf who had lost his pack. The sad man met his eyes, and smiled a trace of a smile that said he understood.
His smile was pained, though, and it shot suddenly and unexpectedly through the core of Oz's soul. He closed his eyes against the rush of feeling, and as the sad man crossed beside him through the door, his motions stirred a breeze around Oz's still body. Oz could smell the air moving, and the scent of loss and power and wolf on this man nearly overwhelmed him. He flashed to Veruca, and to having a pack, to having Willow and all that entailed, even though the pack he had were never wolves. Then his mind moved to losing his pack. He opened his eyes and broke the memories off before they started.
The man with the sad eyes had disappeared.
Oz stirred himself from his watchful post by the stairs and uncurled sluggishly into the heat. Opening the main doors of the monastery, he blinked several times as his eyes adjusted and sought out the man who had passed him. The entryway was empty and still and hot as the air outside but shadowed near the edges, and a little cooler.
Oz didn't like to search people out by smell; it wigged most everyone in the world out. But he knew that another wolf would understand and he crossed the room, breathing the incense and the sunlight in deeply. The smell of the sad man cut between those, foreign to the nose of someone who had spent years here. Wolf and sorrow violent scents, things that you can follow. So Oz followed. Down a hallway, past closed doors, just like in some picture perfect romance film.
The door the sadness was behind was open, slightly. Oz peered around the edge and nudged the door open. Leaning on the frame, he looked at the man in front of him. "Hey. I'm Oz."
The man had been considering his hands carefully, and he glanced up slowly. "Remus Lupin." He gave Oz and appraising look and extended a hand in a brief welcome. "Come in."
Oz did. He perched on the end of the bed and tried not to stare at the other man. "You're British."
Remus looked at him oddly, but with a fair amount of curiosity coloring his eyes. "Yes. And you're observant." There was a wry note in his voice as he said this, as though making a joke was something he hadn't planned to do but was pleased with all the same.
"You're a werewolf." Oz had always been taciturn, but he was never shy. Use your words sparingly but wisely, he'd always thought.
The odd look increased. "Yes."
"So am I."
"I hear the monks shelter a lot of wolves. Can you control it?"
"Mostly. You've lost someone."
Remus gaped in shock. Summoning up his best scolding-the-Slytherins voice, he chastised the young man and turned away. "In addition to being an observant werewolf, you are also a presumptuous, rather rude young man."
There was a difference between anger and disguised mourning, and Oz knew it. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be. There was nothing you could have done." Remus remained turned away from Oz, so he edged across the bed until he could feel Remus's shallow, restless breathing.
"But you're sad."
Remus heaved a great sigh and turned back towards Oz. He was surprised to find the other werewolf so close. Oz hovered just outside Remus's personal space. Remus found that it was more comforting than he'd thought it would be. "Yes."
Oz's great blue eyes clouded and he frowned not at Remus, but in general. When he peered back up at Remus's face, his eyes were dark with some undisclosed emotion. Oz opened his mouth to speak and then shook his head. Instead of speaking, he closed the gap between himself and Remus and kissed the older man. Remus startled and pulled back, but Oz's hands had crept up to cradle his face and he couldn't move. Suddenly didn't really want to move. After his initial hesitation, Remus kissed him back, fiercely, as if kissing could undo the loss. Oz tasted like summer and dust and wild things, and his mouth was strangely intoxicating.
When Oz was certain that Remus wasn't going to bolt from the kiss, Oz let his hands slide from the older man's face to the back of his neck. He ran his hands through Remus's hair and was rewarded with a tiny moan. Remus's hands had wandered to rest on Oz's waist, tugging slightly at the hem of his t-shirt. Oz squirmed, breaking the kiss, and began to lick a path up Remus's neck. He traced the curves of Remus's collarbone with his tongue and Remus gasped. As Oz fastened his mouth on the pulse point in the other man's neck, Remus pulled again at Oz's shirt and slid his hands underneath it.
Remus ran his hands over the bumps of the younger man's spine. Oz continued to lick and nip along his jaw line and Remus found his mouth pressed against Oz's ear. He traced a quick swipe of the tongue around the whorls of the ear before him, and decided to ask the question that was on his mind. He whispered carefully. "Why?"
Oz pulled away from his neck with a great slurping sound. He didn't remove his hands from Remus's neck, though, and he looked at him through heavy lidded eyes, dark from desire. "Why what?"
"Why this? Why me?"
It was Oz's turn to look at someone oddly. He shrugged. "Wolf's wolf. Pack is pack. Comfort's comfort."
"Where did you get that notion?"
"Another wolf I met once." Oz shrugged again. "She said that pack is the most important thing."
"Is it?"
Oz turned his head into the side of Remus's neck. "Yeah."
"Where is she now?" Oz pressed a kiss against the other man's neck and nipped gently at his pulse point. He was silent.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low and still. "She's dead."
"Oh," Remus said. Without thinking, he dropped a kiss on the thin freckled neck by his face. "Was she killed?"
Oz pulled away suddenly and stared at Remus curiously. "I killed her. She threatened my pack. Then I came here."
"But I thought ..."
"I grew up on an active Hellmouth. My pack was a witch, a Slayer, a vengeance demon, a carpenter and a lead singer."
"I thought the Slayer was just a myth."
"Nope. There are two. One wears leather pants." A tiny, uncharacteristic smirk played across Oz's face.
Remus raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to reply, but Oz stopped the conversation with a kiss. The sort of kiss that's so deep that you think the other person is trying to find your soul. He was insistent, and Remus found himself falling into the scent of another wolf and kissed back, hard. Oz's hands scrambled down the hem of Remus's shirt and tugged, fiercely. Remus let the young man tug it up to his shoulders and pull his arms through, and broke the kiss only to toss the shirt to the side. He was rewarded with a lap of 20-something werewolf, who tumbled him backwards onto the bed.
Oz straddled his hips and peered down through long eyelashes. "Alright?"
Remus was out of breath. He nodded. Oz smiled, shyly, and lowered his head to run his tongue along Remus's shoulder. Remus reached up and tangled his hands in Oz's hair and rubbed his face against his scalp. Oz licked slowly across Remus's chest, catching a nipple between his teeth and causing a catch in Remus's breath. Oz released it and ran his tongue over it several times, which drove all thoughts from Remus's mind.
Oz paused in his motions and pulled his own shirt over his head, before he continued to lick down and across the chest beneath him. Remus looked at the back curved before him and ran his hands over it appreciatively. Oz made a small happy noise and pushed up at Remus's hands, so Remus let his hands dip lower as Oz's mouth did the same. He rested his hands on Oz's waist, trailing fingers just beneath the tops of his jeans. Oz was carefully counting Remus's ribs with his tongue, and Remus was suddenly, painfully aware of Oz's stomach pressing against his very hard cock. When Oz swiped his tongue in Remus's belly button, Remus bucked his hips, against his own will.
When Oz looked up at that, the shyness in his eyes had dissipated. He appeared amused, and almost desperate. His fingers tugged at the buttons on Remus's pants and as he undid them, Remus slipped one hand down to grab his ass, and the other slid carefully between them, to cup Oz's own erection. When Remus's warm palm wrapped around his cock, Oz's eyes went slightly crossed and his fingers faltered for a moment. Remus reassured him by catching his open, panting mouth with his own.
Oz broke the kiss and the touch when he rolled to his side. He tugged Remus's pants down and shrugged out of his own, rolling back to Remus's side. Oz met Remus's eyes and ran a cautious hand over Remus's hip. Remus thrust his hips again, and Oz's hand drifted across the jutting bone. Slowly it brushed its way to the base of Remus's cock, where Oz lost suddenly his shyness and wrapped his hand tightly around it. Remus twitched and returned his own hand to Oz, stroking gently when the younger man froze.
"Is everything okay?" Remus's voice was low.
"Yeah." Oz's eyes were still dark. Desire wasn't the issue. "It's been a while."
"The monks don't encourage it?"
Oz laughed a short bark. "Exactly." Remus tugged gently and Oz sucked in his breath. "Keep going." Oz's hand began to move and his other reached up to frame Remus's face, pulling the man into a kiss. Remus matched Oz's pace and kissed back, tracing the inside of the mouth pressed against his. He trailed his own free hand across Oz's nipples, running his thumb across them until they hardened appealingly. He dropped the hand down further, twisting it between their bodies to stroke Oz's stomach, and Oz twisted his leg in between Remus's, pulling him closer.
The strokes got longer and the kisses deeper. Remus could feel the familiar heat building in his belly, and the way that Oz was pushing against his palm and pulling on his erection, Remus was certain that the younger man was close as well. He twisted his hand even further between them and cradled Oz's balls in his palm, reaching fingers back to stroke the edges of his ass. Oz's body tensed against Remus and Remus continued to match Oz's pace, which was increasing rapidly. Oz tensed again, once, and spilled his release over Remus's hand. Two more strokes, gently and tiredly, of Oz's own hand and Remus, too, was coming in a rush. Oz collapsed against his chest and Remus extracted his arms from between their bodies and wrapped them around the young man.
With Oz slumped bonelessly against his chest, Remus rested his chin on the other werewolf's head and stared out at the stars. He was unsettled. Not that this had been against his will, not that he felt his had been disloyal to any parties, past or present, and certainly not that it hadn't been fun simply that he had always assumed, had he ever found another werewolf who shared his homosexual proclivities, that it would have been ... well, rougher. As he mulled this thought over in his mind, Oz shifted in his arms and spoke without opening his eyes.
"It can be." Remus was startled. It was as the young man had read his mind.
"Can be what?"
"Rougher. That's what you were thinking. And it can be."
"Can be. When?"
"Closer to the full moon. On the full moon. Or whenever, really. But not yet."
Remus considered this. "Why?"
Oz was silent for so long against his chest that Remus thought he had fallen asleep. Just as he was trying to settle Oz more comfortably, Oz spoke again. "Because I like you. Rushing into it Š confuses things. Who was he?"
Remus admired the boy already. He was straightforward. This time, Remus answered. "An old friend. An old lover. Both. More." Remus paused. Orion was bright in the sky and if he concentrated hard enough, staring out the window, he could almost believe that the Dog Star was smiling at him. "He was Pack. It is what's important, isn't it?" When he glanced down to see how Oz had reacted to this news, he found Oz truly asleep now, breathing deeply.
Remus pressed a kiss against the spiky hair tickling his nose and turned his eyes back to the stars. Even a long way from home, some things didn't change. Oz snored gently against his chest. Remus ran his fingers through the young man's hair, and whispered. "Who was she?" There was no answer. He didn't expect one.
There were questions left to be asked.