Work Text:
Ron is sitting on the front steps having a cigarette under the stars. The night is stale and muggy, and the porch light casts a grainy yellow haze that seems to hang in the air like the residue of a charm. The door behind him is standing open, though the house within is dark.
There's a scuffle in the dark shrubbery, and a fat grey rat emerges, dashing towards the house. Ron's stomach lurches, as it always does when he sees the rat — it's Scabbers, screams the part of him that is still a thirteen-year-old who has lost his pet.
Wormtail pauses at the bottom step, and his beady black eyes meet Ron's. Ron nods vaguely in acknowledgement.
The rat jumps up each concrete step with an effort — they're a bit high for him. If Hermione were here, she'd probably pick him up and set him down at the top step; she wouldn't be able to help herself. Ron just sits there flicking his ashes, and lets Wormtail manage it on his own.
The rat makes it inside, and after a moment the man comes back out again, stepping carefully, as if afraid to make a sound.
"All right?" he says. Not a real question, just a nervous, forcedly casual greeting.
"All right," Ron answers curtly, not looking at him.
"You, er... You got an extra fag, by chance?"
Ron slowly twists round to look over his shoulder. Pettigrew is standing awkwardly with his weight all on one foot, and seems unable to meet Ron's gaze — his eyes keep slipping down to look at his feet, and then cautiously, hopefully daring to flick back up again, briefly.
"Yeah," Ron says flatly, digging out the packet and offering it up.
Pettigrew takes a cigarette tentatively with his thumb and forefinger. He holds the rest of his fingers back, as if touching the wrapper could burn him. He cups his hands — one chubby, one waxy-slick — around his mouth and mutters, "Incendio."
And they smoke for a while on the porch. Ron makes his eyes run over the greenblack striped shadows of the overgrown front lawn, and tries to imagine he's alone. But he can feel Pettigrew's anxiety like heat against the back of his neck — if he's so uncomfortable, why doesn't he just go the fuck inside and leave Ron alone? — and it mixes with the muffled red grief in his own stomach, stewing.
Pettigrew saved Harry's life, and that's all very well for Harry, and it's all very well for the cause, but it has left Ron in a rather awkward position. They could use him, Dumbledore said. Dumbledore—
Ron jerks his head around sharply and tries to look at Pettigrew without seeing Scabbers. He tries to see what Dumbledore sees. Pettigrew looks like someone who is trying hard to look presentable despite really being very ill. His hair is lank, and his eyes lustreless as if from too much calming potion. He's got the smouldering fag in one hand and a crumpled handkerchief in the other, which he keeps using to wipe the sweat from his sallow face. He's looking at the green moths flickering around the porch light.
"How'd it go?" Ron asks.
Pettigrew startles. "It— He's dead. I had to—" He clears his throat and looks down.
Ron's eyes widen in spite of himself. The end of Lucius Malfoy, and that's how it comes: at the hands of a stammering wreck barely able to master his fear enough to ask for a cigarette from someone who doesn't like him.
The arrogant git never would have seen it coming.
"Dumbledore should be pleased," Ron says acridly. "Going by what he said last night. You've saved him doing the dirty work."
Pettigrew laughs slightly.
"What?"
"Nothing. You... sounded like Sirius, just then."
Ron stiffens, almost breaking his cigarette between his fingers. The bloody thing's bent now, so he stubs it out on the step, and then grinds it down further after he's already put it out. His knuckles scrape briefly against the rough concrete.
It suddenly seems very quiet. The leaves of the looming pear tree are still in the windless night, and Pettigrew's last words seem to hang in the air, actionless but undeniable.
"I didn't think this was what a war would be like," Ron says. He says it to break the heavy silence, but he thinks about it, and it's true. This isn't what he imagined it would be. Sitting on house steps smoking and talking, as if people aren't dying with every cigarette.
Pettigrew shrugs. "Well, it's— It's not like a... what's-it... toggle switch. Click, war on. Most things don't change just because there's a war."
Ron's chest tightens uncomfortably with a flash of his father, showing him how the eclectic light bulb toggles on and off. For the first time, he thinks to wonder if Pettigrew is Muggle-born. The thought bothers him; he doesn't want to know.
Ron rubs his hand over his face. It smells like smoke. " 'm thirsty," he mumbles.
Pettigrew flicks his half-finished cigarette into the dewy grass. "Going inside?"
Ron nods, pushing himself up with his hands on his knees.
"Nox," Pettigrew says to the porch light — almost apologetically. The light dies, and the moths go circling crazily off into the night like vultures who have lost a kill.
*
The front hallway is close and dark and full of sharp-edged tables, but Ron's been through it so many times that he barely has to slow down. He senses from behind him that Pettigrew transforms — Wormtail is less likely to bang his hip against a table edge, Ron reckons.
When they come to the living room, he suddenly feels the rat standing on his foot, a tiny clawed hand on his ankle — a gesture to wait?
Ron hesitates, waiting for his eyes to adjust. It's Lupin's dim shape, sprawled out on the cracked leather sofa with one arm over his head. He seems to end up sleeping there a lot, as if he's been waiting up for someone and can't quite manage to stay awake long enough. They pass by quietly, and don't wake him.
They come into the kitchen, and as Ron lights the room, Pettigrew appears again. Ron goes to get a cup of water from the tap.
Snape's travelling cloak is thrown over the back of a chair, and there's a half-empty teacup on the table. That means he'll be back tonight, but it's still a little strange — it used to be that Snape would leave no trace of himself when he left headquarters, no matter how promptly he was planning to return. Maybe he's getting lazy.
Pettigrew picks up the teacup and sniffs at it. He pulls back, wrinkling his nose. "You ever wonder if Snape's trying to poison himself slowly?"
A smirk pulls at Ron's mouth; he fights against it. He could let himself laugh at that if Harry had said it.
Pettigrew sits down in the chair, thoughtlessly crushing the hood of Snape's cloak under his arse. He puts his elbows down on the table and takes a sip of the cold tea — if it is indeed tea in the cup.
He looks at the pale yellow wall for a minute, and when he speaks, his voice is quiet and gaunt. "Do you know what he said to me?"
Ron fills his glass and then slowly pours it out into the sink again, for no particular reason. There is a little brown spider there, and it gets caught and washes down the plughole. "Who, Snape? No."
"Yeah. The other day. He told me... He said it was like I was making a point of doing all his killing for him. I don't think he was trying to compliment me." Pettigrew gives a shallow, ragged laugh. "Reckon I've... stolen his thunder." He looks at Ron sidelong, and in the half-light, there is a sort of jaundiced sheen to his face. He gives a sickly nervous smile, as if daring to hope that Ron might smile too.
Something about that makes Ron's stomach go all funny, and he turns away and fills the cup again, and he drinks ravenously. Drains it all and slams the glass down on the counter, breathing hard. He lets his head fall forward against the cabinet above, and closes his eyes.
After a moment, he feels a hand on his lower back.
He jerks around with enraged cat-reflexes he didn't know he had, and suddenly he and Pettigrew are standing facing each other, six inches apart, and Ron has Pettigrew's human wrist gripped hard. The metal hand, which could so easily break any bone of Ron's that Pettigrew might wish, is held up as if in surrender. Pettigrew is a head shorter, and his pleading, watery little eyes— He is Scabbers.
"Don't ever touch me," Ron says.
A hoarse half-whisper: "All right." The fingers of Pettigrew's trapped left hand curl down, and the tips just barely brush against Ron's knuckles, where he scraped them on the concrete step outside.
Ron's grip loosens. Over Pettigrew's shoulder, he can see Snape's cloak still sitting in a now-crumpled heap on the kitchen chair.
"I don't want to be here when he comes back," Ron says.
"No...?" Puzzled, and a little anxious. Their linked hands lower slowly, as if of their own volition, and Pettigrew lets his other hand come to rest on the countertop, with a light bump like a candlestick being set down. "Why not?"
Because he's a bloody bastard, Ron could say, and it would be half-true... But what it is, really, is that he just can't stand the way Snape looks at him now, especially when Pettigrew is there. You see it now? the bottomless eyes say. You see what it is to have to play nice with—
"Ron...?" Not really stuttering, but whispery and tentative. Ron isn't sure, but he thinks it's the first time Pettigrew has ever called him by his name.
"Yeah." Ron is barely holding him now, just loosely cradling his fat, sweaty hand. He raises his other hand and brushes against the inside of Pettigrew's arm.
Pettigrew tenses, trembles, and a crease appears between his brows, and from the way he's sort of pressing forward, Ron thinks he might be about to try to hug him. Even Pettigrew couldn't be that daft, could he?
"I don't want to be here," Ron mumbles again, and rubs his hand over his face. Stale smoke. The house is so quiet.
Pettigrew tugs gently at Ron's light grip — not pulling away, and not demanding, but inviting.
Ron nods. "Yeah. I just..."
"I know."
And somehow now it's like Pettigrew's the one who's got Ron's hand, and he carefully lifts it, and brings it to his face. He sniffs the inside of Ron's wrist, and kisses that soft part of his palm where the thumb joins the hand. Glancing up every second or so, watching Ron's reaction.
Ron puts his hand on Pettigrew's shoulder, and then sort of tries to turn it into brushing off a bit of lint, not quite looking at what he's doing.
Pettigrew swallows. "I— I want... I mean, do you want—" The lines of his face are pained, as if in embarrassment.
But Ron could never be embarrassed around Scabbers. Scabbers was always there. From eleven to thirteen, he was in the room nearly every time Ron dressed, every time he undressed, every time he masturbated. There was no reason to keep him out.
"Yeah," Ron breathes.
And he lets Pettigrew lead him towards the stairs.
*
The stairwell is pitch dark, and on the way up the wrist Ron is holding shrinks away and vanishes, and he stumbles. He can hear Wormtail's claws scuffling on the hardwood, and he follows the sound. Up to one of the bedrooms — the one Pettigrew has been using, Ron reckons — and the man appears again.
Pettigrew doesn't speak to light the room. He carefully sidles up close to Ron, and strokes his forearm, rubbing the hair the wrong way. Ron lets him, even though it pinches. He can see their grey outlines in the darkened mirror on the wall; he has a sense of the mirror's heavy, watchful awareness, but if it has any opinion of what it's seeing, it keeps it to itself.
He sits down on the edge of the bed, and lets out his breath. He can see a little more now. An unopened envelope on the dresser in front of the mirror. A full trash basket, and a few crumpled tissues or bits of parchment that didn't quite make it in.
Pettigrew kneels and sniffs curiously between his legs. Ron imagines, ridiculously, that he can feel the tickle of twitchy whiskers. As Pettigrew works at undoing Ron's trousers — constantly glancing up to gauge the reaction — Ron watches the too-smooth movements of his right hand. The metal seems to ripple and shift as the fingers move, like real muscles and tendons. Ron reaches down and touches it; Pettigrew only pauses briefly. It feels waxy, as if coated with something so that you can't actually touch what's inside.
And Pettigrew sucks his dick. He isn't very good at it — it's obvious from the rather revulsed expression on his face that he doesn't like the taste, and he keeps stopping and swallowing hard before he goes back for more.
"Watch your teeth!" Ron hisses with a jerk, shoving his head away roughly. Pettigrew, still on his knees between Ron's feet, utters a grovelling, abject apology. Glaring down at him, past his own half-hard cock, Ron has a feeling the man's not begging for forgiveness because he wants to be forgiven.
But after that, Pettigrew seems to resolve to do better. He relaxes, loosens his jaw, and doesn't stop periodically anymore — though he does occasionally seem on the point of it, with a slight choke from the back of his throat. What a trooper, Ron thinks as he starts to get into it, tangling his hands in Pettigrew's thin, oily hair. A mouth is a mouth, and all mouths feel like strange wet gliding velvet on your cock, almost as if they're not touching you at all. It doesn't take long for Ron to come, and he holds Pettigrew's head hard as he does.
When he's finished, Pettigrew pulls away roughly, drops to his hands and knees, and spits it all out on the carpet. Stays down there for a moment, drawing gasping breaths and coughing. Ron lies back on the bed. He's afraid Pettigrew is going to be sick, and he doesn't want to see it if he is.
There's a little more gulping and spitting, and then it gets quiet except for ragged breath.
It shouldn't be a surprise, but it is — Pettigrew's weight pushing the mattress down at Ron's knees. He crawls up next to Ron, and he's wearing a hint of a satisfied smile. He starts touching Ron — his stomach and his shoulders -- as if he's not sure where to go to get the reaction he's looking for. He doesn't smell dirty, but he smells like a man, a man's sweat — like laundry, and the locker room after Quidditch, and other things that aren't sex.
Ron wonders if he's had sex one single time in the sixteen years that have passed since he first went underground. Maybe with a pretty girl rat. A fancy one, you know, the kind they breed on purpose at the pet shop — a pureblood. Ron chuckles a bit madly, exhaustedly.
Pettigrew laughs a little, too, nervously, though he doesn't know what the joke is. He picks up Ron's hand and holds it — it's big, compared to his own — and kisses it worshipfully, licking and sucking the fingers. This might be interesting to Ron if he hadn't come already, but as it is, it feels funny, and he isn't sure when he last washed his hands. Ron disentangles himself and reaches down to undo Pettigrew's trousers. Pettigrew's eyes go wide, and then shut tightly when Ron rubs him through his underpants.
"Such a good boy," Pettigrew breathes, clinging to his chest. "Such a good, good boy. Always did take care of me—" He tries to kiss Ron's mouth, but Ron turns his head, so he buries his face in Ron's shoulder instead. "I love you," he says. Almost... automatically. But that doesn't make sense, and Ron pushes the thought away.
He wants to get this over with, so he shoves Pettigrew's trousers and pants down, spits into his palm, and starts jerking him off with a grim determination.
Pettigrew gasps through his teeth and clings tighter, trying to get into a rhythm. He isn't looking at Ron or trying to kiss him anymore. A lot of his weight is on Ron's side, heavy and stifling-hot, his human hand gripping Ron's upper arm, and the metal hand clutching the bedsheets. "Master," he groans. "Please. Please, master—" Drowned so deep in his pleasure that he doesn't know what he's saying — or doesn't care. And now he's rubbing hard against Ron's thigh, pinning Ron's hand in between.
The tension gathers up, and he pushes harder, eyes shut tight.
"Oh— James—!" he gasps, and comes.
Ron holds Pettigrew's dick for a while as it softens, because he's sort of too surprised to do much else. Eventually, Pettigrew gently pulls away.
"S— sorry. Sorry about that."
Ron doesn't know if Pettigrew is sorry about saying the wrong name, or about getting come all over the sheets and Ron's leg, or — just — everything — But it doesn't matter. " 'S all right," Ron says flatly.
Pettigrew grins a little — his teeth are bright greyish-white in the half-darkness, and seeing them makes Ron need to run his tongue over his own teeth. The grin vanishes, and Pettigrew looks grave and frightened again.
There's a hissing rustle of bedsheets, and Pettigrew pulls a blanket up over them, and nuzzles Ron's shoulder. He wants to cuddle. Unbe-fucking-lievable. He kisses Ron's throat lightly, which makes Ron feel exactly as though he is choking.
Ron pushes him away. "Knock it off."
Pettigrew is still for a moment. Ron doesn't look at him.
"You were the only one, you know..." Pettigrew says in a muffled voice. "The only one who'd ever touch me."
"What about Percy?" Ron says without thinking. It comes out sounding hollow: That's not what Pettigrew meant.
Without warning, Pettigrew transforms, and the bedsheets, suddenly in mid-air, billow and fall slowly to the mattress. The rat crawls up beside Ron, sniffing. Its nose nudges against his wrist, and it feels icy-wet contrasting with the heat of his skin.
"Scabbers—" Ron mumbles in automatic annoyance, and then stops himself, suddenly feeling awkward. The rat is crouching, still, black eyes keenly watching, waiting to see what Ron's going to do. Ron hesitates, and then pets the rat's head with one finger, careful not to touch its delicate, ragged ears. As if no time has passed. The rat relaxes and cuddles up to him, burying its head in Ron's chest. It coughs sharply — probably from the cigarette smoke lingering in its lungs, Ron realises.
The rat closes its eyes, and Ron brings his knees up half protectively, just the way he always used to do when they slept that way. He strokes the warm, furry little body for a minute, and then just cups it in his hand, against his chest. Rise and fall of the delicate little rib cage — tiny heart going a mile a minute.
"Love you too," Ron says.