The Body Keeps The Score

Sirius had no fucking clue what he was doing standing outside a tattoo shop at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night.

Let alone this tattoo shop.

Let alone Remus Lupin’s tattoo shop.

The neon sign above the door buzzed faintly, casting a strange glow across the pavement like a half-hearted halo. He stared up at it like it might suddenly flash bad idea in Morse code, but no such luck. Just theh stylized logo — a line-drawn wolf curled into a crescent moon — mocking him in the dark.

He could leave. Turn around. Walk home, climb into bed, and chalk this up to a momentary lapse in sanity, like most of his decisions.

But his boots didn’t move. His spine didn’t listen. His brain was too busy screaming What the hell are you doing, you absolute tosser?

Let’s rewind for a second.

Three days ago, James Potter — full-time idiot, part-time romantic, and Sirius’ personal source of secondhand embarrassment — had strutted into their flat with a brand-new tattoo inked boldly over his upper bicep: Lily Evans, nestled inside a heart so crisp it looked printed. After the mandatory roast session from the entire flat (Peter nearly pissed himself, and Marlene had to lie down from laughing too hard), they’d had no choice but to admit the truth: the tattoo was fucking gorgeous.

Elegant, clean, like it had been sketched out on parchment by some romantic ghost of the 1920s.

Of course, because James lives in a state of constant narrative climax, it turned out his tattoo artist was none other than Remus bloody Lupin — an old summer camp friend who, according to James, had once helped him steal a canoe, dismantle a fire alarm, and fake a snake sighting in the girl’s cabin just to impress a hot counselor.

London, it seemed, was smaller than Sirius’ attention span.

James had invited him over for drinks. Remus had shown up wearing black from head to toe, smelling like clean cotton and cedarwood, tattoos peeking out from under rolled sleeves, voice like smoke laced with honey. Quiet. Polite. Not indifferent, exactly, just… reserved. The kind of man who didn’t offer up more than he had to — who watched the room before stepping into it.

Sirius had been hooked in under five seconds.

Remus hadn’t so much as batted an eye at him. Which was new. Unsettling, even. Sirius was used to being noticed. Used to the stares. The once-overs. The predictable flirtation, the quiet invitations.

But Remus? He’d shaken Sirius’ hand and turned away just as fast, like he hadn’t even registered the human storm cloud in front of him.

So here Sirius was. Three nights later. Standing in front of the man’s place of work like a stalker with too much hair product.

It wasn’t obsession, per se.

It was… curiosity.

Artistic inspiration, if you wanted to get pretentious about it.

“You gonna stand there all night or what?” someone muttered, brushing past him.

Sirius jolted. “Sorry,” he mumbled, already reaching for the handle. The bell above the door chimed as he stepped inside, and just like that, he was committed.

The shop was warm, dimly lit, and unapologetically alternative — one wall covered in flash designs, another decked out in band posters and mismatched Polaroids. A girl with bubblegum pink hair and a septum ring was tattooing a guy with a sleeve of skulls, her concentration so intense it was almost meditative. The girl behind the counter looked like she’d just wandered off the set of a punk fashion editorial — fishnets, black lipstick, and a general air of I-don’t-get-paid-enough-for-this.

Sirius made his way over, suddenly very aware of how stupid this was.

“Oi, sweetheart,” he said, leaning on the desk like he wasn’t internally combusting. “Is Remus Lupin in?”

She looked up, rolled her eyes instinctively — and then stopped, blinking. He watched the change flicker across her face: from irritation to intrigue to the unmistakable pink of attraction.

Sirius smirked. Still got it.

“He’s in the back,” she said, straightening slightly. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Not exactly. I know him.”

Her brow quirked. “Right. Hang on.”

She slipped through a curtain, and Sirius shifted awkwardly to the side, suddenly too hot in his leather jacket. He attempted to make eye contact with the only other bloke in the waiting area.

“Shit weather, huh?” he tried, grasping for small talk like it was a lifeline.

The guy didn’t even look up.

“Jesus,” Sirius muttered. “Tough crowd.”

And then — that voice.

“Sirius?”

It hit him like a low chord — smooth, rich, and resonant. The kind of voice that stuck in your ribs.

He turned, and there he was.

Remus Lupin, in all his tall, tanned, soft-curl, cardigan-wearing glory. Black latex gloves on. Sleeves rolled up. Tattoos wrapping up both arms like poetry written in ink. He looked like the world’s most devastating librarian.

Sirius forgot how to inhale.

“Hey,” he managed, voice higher than intended. “Hope this is alright. I know I didn’t call — I just… I was walking by and thought… maybe you could fit in a walk-in?”

Remus blinked, then — thank GOD — smiled. The real kind. The kind that tugged at one side of his mouth and made Sirius’ knees feel like they were debating mutiny.

“You’re in luck,” Remus said. “I just finished my last one. What’re you thinking?”

“Music notes. On my forearm.”

Remus raised a brow. “Funny. I remember you saying you’d never get a tattoo.”

Sirius shrugged, trying to look nonchalant and failing miserably. “Had a change of heart. Got inspired, I guess.”

Remus chuckled under his breath, the sound doing unspeakable things to Sirius’ nervous system. “Can’t argue with that.”

He led him into the back, gestured for him to take a seat, then snapped on a new pair of gloves and began prepping supplies. Sirius sat, fidgeting with his rings, watching the way Remus moved — smooth, deliberate, almost reverent.

“So,” Remus said, not looking up, “did James give you the rundown, or should I walk you through it?”

“He gave me the basics.”

Remus nodded, already cleaning the area. The cool swipe of antiseptic hit Sirius’ skin, followed by the gentle scrape of a razor. The air between them buzzed — tense, unspoken. Sirius could feel every second stretch into hours.

And then Remus looked up, brown eyes steady, calm, and suddenly serious.

“You’re sure about this?”

It wasn’t just the tattoo he was asking about. Sirius felt it in his bones. The question wrapped around his ribs and squeezed.

He nodded, voice low. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

No, he fucking wasn’t.

Not even a little bit.

But this would be just another box ticked on the long, ever-growing list of stupid, reckless decisions Sirius Black had made in his short and glittering life. Get drunk and crash your bike into a mailbox? Check. Sleep with your ex’s brother? Double check. Get a tattoo from the man currently starring in every single fantasy Sirius hadn’t let himself acknowledge until now? Triple check, baby.

It had been ages since he’d felt like this. That fizzy, fluttery, totally deranged sensation in his chest like something was building and about to burst. And of course, it had to be for a walking, talking poster boy of heterosexual calm. A cardigan-wearing enigma with arms covered in ink and a voice like slow jazz. Sirius was a goner.

His heart was thudding like it had a personal vendetta against his ribcage. He tried to ignore it, but then Remus leaned in — close enough to touch — and that hope went straight out the window. He was sketching the outline directly onto Sirius’ forearm with a felt marker, brows furrowed in quiet concentration. Sirius barely heard the sound of the rock music that had been playing, deftones probably; all he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears and the increasingly unhinged monologue in his head: Abort mission. This was a terrible idea. You’re being tattooed by a man who doesn’t even look at you like that.

And yet. From this distance, Sirius could see everything. The strands of pale gold woven into Remus’ dark curls, like honey threads caught in twilight. The freckles — sweet fuck, the freckles — scattered over the bridge of his nose like stars spilled from a too-full sky. There were so many of them. Sirius had never wanted to count something so badly in his life.

He dug his fingers into the edge of the seat, willing himself to breathe evenly. Don’t make a scene. Don’t get weird. Don’t make some desperate comment about how Remus smells like woodsmoke and lavender and Jesus Christ, focus. He watched the way Remus’ lips pressed together as he worked, the faint crease between his brows, the gentle flick of his wrist — and Sirius had to look away before he did something truly embarrassing, like sigh dreamily or ask what kind of shampoo he used.

Instead, he swallowed hard and stared at the ceiling, trying to remember how to be a person. How to be cool. Because right now? He was three seconds away from falling in love with a man drawing on him with a Sharpie.

“Alright?” Remus asked, finally leaning back in his rolling chair, giving Sirius a full view of the stencil. His voice was soft—like it always was—measured and even, but not detached. Somehow, it still curled around Sirius’ ribcage like smoke.

Sirius looked down at his forearm, at the delicate scatter of music notes now traced in clean black lines across the skin near the dip of his elbow. It wasn’t anything elaborate—just a handful of notes, varied and balanced, like a melody paused midair—but it struck him hard. Harder than he’d expected.

“S’beautiful,” he murmured, fingertips brushing lightly over the ink as if it might vanish if he pressed too hard.

Remus let out a quiet chuckle, distracted as he began setting up the ink and tattoo gun. “They’re just music notes, mate.”

Just music notes. As if they weren’t the only language Sirius had ever truly understood.

Remus moved with a sort of absentminded grace, like his hands already knew what to do without asking his brain’s permission. He snapped on gloves with a fluid flick of the wrist, prepped the machine, arranged his supplies like clockwork. Sirius didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until Remus disappeared for a moment, returning with a clipboard and a consent form.

Sirius signed it without reading. Honestly, he’d have signed away his liver at that point if Remus had asked nicely.

By the time he comes back, Sirius’ nerves have circled back into something electric. Not fear, not quite excitement—something deeper. The sense of standing on the edge of something irreversible. 

He slides into his chair again, rolling forward until the space between them all but vanished. He’s close now—closer than anyone had been all week. Sirius can feel the heat radiating off his body, slow and constant like sunlight after rain. Remus’ thigh brushes his, barely, and it takes everything in Sirius not to react.

Remus reached for his arm, repositioning it carefully. His fingers were warm through the latex, his touch gentle but confident, like he’d handled a hundred strangers before but this one mattered more than most. Sirius watched the curve of his lashes as he glanced up, watched them catch the fluorescent light in a way that felt unfairly poetic.

“Now,” Remus said, gaze sharp but not unkind, “I need you to be very still. Can you do that for me?”

Sirius nearly combusted. Fucking hell. Did he even know how obscene he sounded? Could he not hear the way that landed?

“Yeah,” Sirius said, voice pitched lower than usual. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Remus smiled then—real and unguarded—and Sirius had to stop himself from making a noise about it. It was a little crooked, favoring one side of his face, revealing a hint of dimple, and Sirius could’ve written a novel about it.

Remus dipped the gun into the ink, paused for a breath, and hovered just above Sirius’ skin.

Sirius held steady, his chest rising slow and deep. “It’s okay,” he said, this time surer. “I’m ready.”

Remus nodded. And with a hum, the machine buzzed to life.

The first touch of needle to skin was electric. Not pain exactly, but pressure—constant and deliberate, more jarring in anticipation than in sensation. Sirius sucked in a breath, then let it go slowly as the needle carved the ink into him like it had always belonged there.

And God, it felt… good. Grounding. Hypnotic. He understood, suddenly, why people got addicted to this.

“Wow,” he exhaled, almost laughing.

“What?” Remus asked, glancing up but not stopping.

“I just can’t believe this is going to be on my skin until they bury me… and after.”

He lets out a real laugh then—warm and full—and Sirius swore something cracked open in his chest.

“You’re just now thinking of this?”

“Well…” Sirius shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t pinned down. “I might’ve fibbed to you earlier. Didn’t actually plan this at all. Got the idea during my shift at the bar, and then—poof—here I am.”

Remus hummed knowingly, lifting the gun momentarily to refill the ink. “Oh, I hadn’t actually believed you gave it much thought. Most people’s first tattoo happens the exact same way. If you think about it too long, you’ll never do it.”

He glanced up then, eyes glinting beneath the fringe of his fringe, and said, completely unbothered: “That’s a metaphor for life, by the way. Hope you caught it.”

And the fucker winks.

Winks.

Sirius, caught somewhere between arousal and religious epiphany, nearly forgets to breathe. “Thanks for the TED talk, professor,” he quips weakly, which only earns him a low chuckle as Remus dips back down and gets back to work.

It should be unbearable, really—this intimacy. This quiet, charged thing happening between them while the buzz of the gun fills the air. But Sirius doesn’t want to move. Doesn’t want to leave. Doesn’t want this version of closeness to end. Not yet.

And as Remus carefully presses ink into his skin, as the music notes take shape like they were always meant to live there, Sirius finds himself thinking—for once, honestly, stupidly, completely—maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

Sirius returns home that night with a second skin and a heart full of confused emotions.

The flat is dark, hushed. Someone’s left the hallway light on—a soft amber glow that spills across the floor like a welcome mat, though it feels more like a spotlight as he closes the door gently behind him. No voices, no music, no clinking glasses or half-laughed sentences hanging in the air. Just the creak of the old floorboards under his boots and the low hum of the city filtering in through the windows.

Everyone’s asleep. James’ trainers are still by the door, Lily’s mug is on the coffee table, Peter’s hoodie is flung over the back of the couch. Their world, paused. And for the first time all day, Sirius is alone with himself.

He slips off his jacket, throws it over a chair, and makes his way down the narrow hallway to his room. The moment the door clicks shut behind him, he exhales—long, slow, tired. Like he’s been holding his breath ever since he stepped foot in that tattoo shop.

The light from the streetlamp outside his window casts long silver shadows across his walls, but it’s enough to see by. He toes off his boots and shrugs out of his shirt, moving on autopilot until he catches sight of himself in the mirror.

He stops. And just… stares.

There it is.

His first tattoo.

Sitting bold and black across his pale skin, scattered notes inked neatly into the curve of his forearm. Clean lines, elegant angles, like a melody frozen in time. His fingers twitch at his sides. Then, hesitantly, he lifts his arm and traces around the edges—careful not to touch the tender skin, still raised slightly, warm and new.

It’s strange. The permanence of it. It feels like a secret he’s carrying just beneath the surface. Like if someone were to ask him what it meant, he wouldn’t know what to say—not really. It’s not about the music. Not entirely. It’s about the hands that created it. The way they moved. The way Remus looked at him—quiet, unreadable, polite to the point of cruelty.

It’s the care Remus took. The patience. The steadiness. As if the ink wasn’t just art but intention. Something that mattered.

Sirius swallows.

He knows better than this. Knows the rules of his own game, the boundaries of his own heart. This isn’t how it works. Crushes don’t happen in one sitting, not for him. He doesn’t go soft over someone because they smile a certain way or smell like cloves and ink and calm. He doesn’t fall into bed with the idea of someone—not unless he plans to leave just as quickly.

But this doesn’t feel like lust.

Not entirely.

It feels like something has cracked open inside of him. Something old and curious and dangerously hopeful.

And that’s worse.

He doesn’t know anything about Remus Lupin. Not really. Not beyond the stories James told, the brief glimpses he got that night at the flat—he’s Welsh, he’s quiet, he doesn’t drink much, he listens more than he speaks, and when he does speak, it’s with this gentle confidence that makes Sirius feel like his lungs are too small for his own body.

It’s ridiculous. Sirius knows it’s ridiculous.

But still—he wants to know more.

He wants to know what Remus listens to when he’s alone in his studio. What book he’s got dog-eared on his nightstand. If he sings in the shower, if he laughs when no one’s watching, if he’s always this composed or if he ever lets the chaos in.

Sirius presses the flat of his hand to his chest, right where the hum of his heartbeat won’t stop.

“Get a grip,” he mutters to himself, but it doesn’t stick.

Which means this—whatever it is—has already settled into his skin, deeper than the ink.

And he’s terrified that he’s already too late.

It’s annoying, really. Infuriating, if he’s honest. The way Sirius does this. How it hits without warning, like a trapdoor swinging open in the middle of an otherwise normal night. No pattern. No sense. He can go weeks—months even—without a flutter, a pull, a glance.

And then someone walks in and upends the axis of his fucking world.

It’s always sudden. It’s always too much. His chest goes tight, his thoughts tangle into knots, and his mouth goes dry from watching someone else exist too beautifully. Like breathing should be illegal around them. Like Sirius is being punished just for looking.

Of course it would be someone like Remus. Quiet. Well-dressed. Brilliant hands and a mouth that doesn’t move unless it matters. Soft brown curls and sharp, sharp eyes. A dimple you have to earn. A voice like late-night jazz and dog-eared books read beneath the covers.

He’s not even Sirius’ type. Which is precisely the problem.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not with him. Not when Sirius knows fuck-all about him—just the stories James spilled over pints, and the few careful things Remus let slip the night he came over for drinks. But it’s done. The damage is done.

It always is.

Now Sirius is home, standing in the blue hush of his bedroom, streetlight leaking through the blinds in fractured lines, unwrapping the bandage on his forearm like it’s some sacred relic. And when the ink catches the light—those delicate music notes, scattered just below the crook of his elbow—it feels like something’s bitten him. Something old. Something soft and dangerous and already too deep.

It’s beautiful. Not just the tattoo, though it is—it’s clean, intentional, haunting in its simplicity—but the memory of how it got there. The way Remus leaned in. The way his voice dropped when he asked, “Can you be very still for me?” The way Sirius said yes and fucking meant it. Like he could be still, for him. Like he wanted to be.

And that’s the sick part. That’s what makes Sirius want to crawl out of his skin. Because this isn’t new. This is a pattern. It’s carved into his bones. He falls hard, fast, and without sense—and he always pretends he’s surprised when it leaves him wrecked.

Maybe it’s love. Maybe it isn’t. But it feels like it. And whatever it is—it’s addicting.

It feels like stepping off a plane into air you’ve never breathed before. Like the sun hitting differently in a place you don’t yet have history. Like the climb of a roller coaster before the drop, when your body whispers yes while your brain screams no. Like the first drag of a spliff, the second-hand high of wanting something you absolutely shouldn’t. Like the burn of whiskey when you haven’t earned it yet.

It feels like the moment before a song begins—hushed, golden, infinite.

And Sirius wants it again. Wants more. Wants to mainline it.

But he’ll be damned before he tells anyone. Especially James.

James would kill him. Murder him dead with Lily as a witness and Peter holding his feet. And maybe he’d deserve it. Because the last time Sirius let himself spiral over a straight boy, it ended with a shattered week of blackout nights and waking up in someone’s bathtub with a cracked rib and zero memory. It wasn’t even tragic—it was just pathetic.

So. No. Sirius absolutely cannot fall for Remus Lupin.

Which means he has to pace himself.

Like an alcoholic calculating the exact sip that’ll let him ride the edge of the high without tipping over. Just enough to feel it. Not enough to drown.

A glance. A word. The feel of Remus’ fingers steadying his arm. The sound of his voice saying “mate” like it meant something more.

Sirius knows how quickly admiration turns to hunger, and how quickly hunger becomes ruin. 

A breath here. A flicker of memory there. A quiet moment in a tattoo shop no one else will remember—but one Sirius will play on repeat, like a favorite track with no chorus. He’ll take his little hits. Just enough to stay warm without burning.

He’ll sip it slow, ration it like medicine.

Because any more than that, and he’s gone.

And he absolutely, cannot afford that.