The Body Keeps The Score

Remus

There’s a kind of beauty that sneaks up on you when you’re not paying attention. Not the kind you seek out—those hilltop views, the curated overlooks people post about. No, Those never quite deliver. 

The sky’s always a little too grey. The light’s never right. The colors fall flat and you stand there, shivering in the wind. You drove all that way just to feel underwhelmed and think, maybe next time .

But then—

You’re standing outside a Tesco, or dragging your feet across a cracked pavement after a long shift, and suddenly the sky splits open above a row of satellite dishes and delivery vans, and it’s breathtaking . Like God mistook the car park for a cathedral.

That’s what it felt like, seeing Sirius Black behind the bar of that dingy little hole-in-the-wall.

Like a miracle in the wrong place.

There are very few people in life who feel larger than it. Most shrink the longer you know them. Sirius never did. Even now—especially now—there’s something about him that bends the rules of gravity. That insists on being noticed. Light sticks to him. Time slows around him. He looks like someone who should only exist in stories, or photographs, or the kind of dreams that wake you aching.

The Wand & Sickle isn’t much. Low ceilings. Flickering neon. A sticky floor that’s seen better decades. The lights are moody—warm golds and electric blues, bouncing off glass bottles and wet countertops. It smells like gin and old wood and burnt sugar. The kind of place that feels like it’s always existed. Like it’s been waiting for someone to notice it.

Remus wraps his fingers around a sweating glass—something citrusy and sharp that James insisted on ordering for him—and tries not to stare. Sirius moves like the music’s wired into his bones, all sharp angles and fluid precision, pouring shots without looking, sliding drinks down the bar with a casual flick of his wrist. He should fit here. Not with that leather jacket, that half-curled grin, the constellation of tattoos snaking down his arms like a secret language, this is the exact kind of place he should belong, But he doesn’t. 

He makes it feel smaller, like the room is curving around him. 

Sirius fills the air.

“You feeling okay, Re?” James asks, nudging Remus’ arm with a grin. He’s already halfway through his beer, gesturing wildly at something Lily just said. Peter’s perched on a barstool, eyes wide as Mary mimics someone dramatically, hands flailing with purpose. Marlene laughs from her seat, the glitter of her rings catching in the dim lighting as she taps a rhythm into the tabletop.

“I think those last two shots are catching up to me,” Remus says, half-smiling as he lifts his beer. It’s an easy enough lie, half-rooted in truth. The drink sits cold and smooth in his palm, sweet in a way that none of the others had been—because Sirius poured it. Somehow, everything Sirius hands him tastes just a little better. Remus pretends not to notice how much that fact affects him.

The round table they are currently sat at is battered in the way certain objects become when they’ve survived long enough to bear witness. Remus lets his fingertips drift across the deep scratches and initials carved into the wood, like Braille for forgotten memories. It steadies him.

“Don’t tell me you can’t hang anymore,” James teases. “We used to sneak the counselors’ liquor all the time back at Camp Horizons.”

That gets the attention of the whole group. They lean in like a wave cresting the table, curiosity piqued. 

“Oh my, you both sound like two troublemakers,” Lily laughs, raising her glass and pointing it accusingly between them.

“Yeah,” Peter adds, shaking his head with mock disbelief. “I don’t know how I would’ve dealt with you both. I’d have come out of that summer completely bald.”

They all laugh, easy and loud. The kind of laughter that pulls people closer without asking questions.

“Oi!” Remus protests. “We weren’t that bad. Everyone loved us, at least.” He grins, indignant, though his voice carries a lightness that wasn’t there a moment ago.

“Of course they loved you,” Marlene says, reaching over to ruffle James’ curls. “You’re both tall, dark, and handsome bad boys. I bet the boys and girls were feral .”

Remus forces a laugh, but it catches in his throat. He dares a glance toward the bar. Sirius is there, lit by the golden-blue hum of a hanging bulb, engaged in a conversation with the girl he works with—Juniper, the one with the sharp eyeliner and sweeter voice. She’s saying something that makes him laugh, and then she reaches out, fingers dragging down the inside of his forearm in a way that feels intimate . Sirius leans into it, just slightly, and Remus looks away like he’s been hit.

He closes his eyes. Breathes slow.

He shouldn’t care. Really. He knows that. He’s done the work, spent years building the scaffolding of restraint, of logic, of calm—constructing a life that makes sense, even when nothing else does. He’s learned how to want without taking, how to ache without moving toward the fire. He’s practiced. Disciplined. Careful in the way you become when you’ve spent most of your life terrified of being the wrong kind of person.

There was a time, back in sixth form, when he used to write everything down. Every stray thought that didn’t sit right. Every selfish feeling. Every flicker of want. He’d catalogue them like sins, then burn the pages one by one in a biscuit tin behind the garage. Not because anyone told him to. No one ever had to. That voice had already rooted deep—biblical in tone, inherited and sharpened and buried. The good boy voice. The do better voice. The one that whispered: you don’t get to want anything that might make you unclean.

And yet here he is. Watching Sirius Black laugh with a girl who touches him like she’s used to it. And it stings in a way that feels beneath him.

He hadn’t asked for this. He hadn’t planned it. He’s not chasing anything. He’s not an idiot. But Sirius makes it hard. Sirius, with his unruly charm and flammable smile. With his hands that move like he’s making a promise and breaking it at once.

Remus doesn’t let himself fall. He’s spent too long learning how not to. He’s good at swallowing the ache before it starts. He’s good at remembering that not everything beautiful is meant for him. But this—this feels like slipping on black ice. Like blinking and suddenly finding yourself halfway down the slope. Because Sirius doesn’t even try , and that’s what undoes him. He just exists, and Remus is left bracing for impact.

It’s not that he wants something he can’t have. It’s that he almost wants to want it anyway. And that’s the danger. That’s the betrayal.

Because being good isn’t about not feeling things. It’s about what you do with the feeling. And right now, all he wants to do is lean closer. Let himself believe, just for a second, that maybe he’s allowed this. That maybe wanting something soft and bright and wild isn’t a moral failure.

But then Sirius smiles at her again. And Remus remembers exactly who he is, and who he’s not. And he hates himself just a little for forgetting, even briefly.

There are so many things wrong in his head, and none of them are the alcohol.

The night spills on, bright with conversation and louder laughter. The others are good company—kind and sharp, full of stories and warmth. Remus knows how rare this is. He tells himself to be present. To be grateful. But there’s a weight in his chest that won’t dissolve, even as he drinks past the edge of comfort.

He’s never really had a group like this. Friends like this. The people in his life have always been transient—coworkers, acquaintances, classmates who fizzled out into phone numbers he never saved. He’s close with his coworkers at the shop, sure, but it’s not the same. It’s easy to be liked when you give people beautiful things to wear on their skin. That kind of affection doesn’t always go beneath the surface.

His real friendships have always lived between pages. In the books he used to steal from the library when his mum picked up night shifts. In the paintings he started and never finished. In the margins of notebooks that became more confession than sketchpad. His first real friend was probably color—red, the shade of blood and sunsets; blue, like quiet grief. He learned early on that people left, but art could stay if you let it.

Outside of that, there’s Naomi.

They met at university. She’d pulled him into her orbit with all the elegance and precision of someone who had always been chosen first. She was wealth and charm and polished certainty, and for a while, Remus convinced himself he was lucky to be seen by someone like her. Her mother curated for the Tate. Her father owned one of the most famous private galleries in London. It had felt poetic—she was the collector, he the art.

At least until she realized what kind of artist he actually was.

She’d imagined oil on canvas. Studio light. Coffee-table books of his work. She hadn’t pictured the tattoo gun, or the long hours hunched over someone’s ribs, ink and antiseptic heavy in the air. She hadn’t known that most of his paintings lived rolled up in a crate under his bed, or unfinished on a wall in a flat she’d only seen twice.

She told him he should put his work out there. Apply to a residency. Enter something in a show. He always nodded. Promised to think about it. But he never followed through. Not because he didn’t want to. He just—couldn’t. Every time he tried, something invisible tightened around his throat. Like he’d be exposed in a way he wouldn’t know how to survive.

And yeah, he should probably dig into that. Talk to someone. Write about it. Unpack the why . But not tonight.

Tonight is for whiskey and background noise. For pretending he belongs in a circle of light and laughter. For pressing his palm to the scarred surface of the table and convincing himself he feels real.

Tonight is for not thinking. Not yet.

“Gonna go have a cigarette,” He says suddenly, when the urge for nicotine comes in heavy. 

The air is muggy and tangible with moisture as soon as He steps into the alley behind the bar, the door swinging shut behind him with a soft click. The brick is still warm from the day, and the hum of traffic is distant, muffled by walls and music. He lights a cigarette, lets the smoke curl between his fingers, then leans back and tips his head toward the sky. 

It’s not much of a view. Just a slice of purple between rooftops, hazy with light pollution. But it stirs something anyway.

He closes his eyes.

And for a second, he’s back in the woods behind the cabins at Camp Horizons. That place where the air was always thick like this, where sweat clung to the back of his neck, and cicadas buzzed too loud, and the nights stretched out forever.

They are some of his favorite memories and they seem to be coming in floods in his mind, now that he’s actually allowing himself to relive them, it’s like they’ve always been there.

He thinks of Sirius and blows smoke rings out in the air, his finger punctuating each one. 

And as though his thoughts summoned him, he steps out the back door head turning like he’s looking for someone and then his eyes land on Remus and he smiles. There’s so many things Remus could discuss when it comes to his smile, but his favorite aspect is that Sirius has sharp canines that make remus think he might’ve been a dog in another life. He wants to feel them drag against his skin and– No stop it! You’re disgusting. 

“Knew I’d find you out here,” Sirius says once he reaches him, the door swinging shut with a muted thud behind him. The breeze shifts with him, bringing that now-familiar scent—peppermint and vanilla, light but lingering. Remus catches it in his throat. He wonders vaguely if it’s Juniper’s perfume, something she left behind on his skin. The thought curls unpleasant in his stomach.

“You stalking me then, Black?” he mutters without looking over, flicking ash off the end of his cigarette.

Sirius snorts. “You kidding? This is my spot. You’re the one trespassing.”

“You work here. That doesn’t count.”

“It does if I say it does.”

He comes to stand beside him—not touching, not crowding, but close enough that Remus can feel the warmth coming off of him, alive and electric in the heavy night air. The light from the alley spills unevenly across his face, catching on the sweat-slick curve of his cheekbone, the glint of his rings. He’s all flushed and wild-eyed, curls damp at the ends from heat or humidity or alcohol—maybe all three. He looks undone in the most deliberate way. Effortless. Like beauty is just something that happens to him, not something he ever has to think about.

“You smell like tequila and sweat,” Remus mutters.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

It’s not. And that’s the fucking problem. Because Remus wants to taste him. And he also wants to throttle him. Sirius talks like he’s never had to think twice about the way his words land. Like he’s never imagined someone might be sitting there, dissecting every syllable for signs. It’s maddening. Every conversation feels like he’s being played with—but not cruelly. Casually. Like Sirius Black is just a flirt, and it’s not personal, and Remus is stupid for hoping it might be.

“How’s your back?” He changes the subject before he can spiral. Speaking to someone like him means playing defense— it means knowing when to pivot. because with Sirius, control is a currency. You have to steer the conversation carefully, keep your hands steady on the wheel. If you don’t—if you so much as blink—he’ll veer off-road and take you with him, smiling all the while.

Sirius stretches a little, then winces. “Sore as fuck,” he admits, grinning through it. “But I’ve had enough shots to numb a horse, so I think I’m coasting now.”

“Good,” Remus says, dragging from his cigarette. “I warned you.”

“Oh, you warned me,” Sirius echoes in a mockingly grave tone. “No, I think you like seeing me in pain.”

Remus shrugs, eyes fixed ahead. “It might keep you humble.”

Then Sirius quiets a little. Shifts his weight. “I’m glad you came tonight.”

And there it is again. That pivot. If Remus had the wheel a second ago, Sirius just grabbed it and yanked. Whiplash. And now they’re headed straight for the sun.

Remus doesn’t respond right away. Watches the ember of his cigarette inch closer to the filter, smoke curling in lazy spirals that disappear into the warm dark. He feels unsteady now, like the ground’s tilted without warning.

“You fit,” Sirius says, softer now. “With us. With them.”

He turns fully toward him then, and Remus leans in without meaning to. Sirius has gravity in his bones, something magnetic threaded through his very presence, and it pulls. It always pulls.

It’s strange—how much weight those words carry. Like Sirius has just handed him something delicate and breakable without even realizing it. And Remus—he doesn’t know how to hold it. He’s always lived in the periphery. The shadow behind the group photo. Even now, even here, with laughter still ringing in his ears and beer still on his tongue, he doesn’t know if this is real. If it’s safe. If it’s his.

Maybe he’s dreaming it. Maybe he’ll wake up tomorrow and it’ll all have slipped through his fingers.

“Your friends are great,” he says instead. It’s the safest thing he can say without exposing himself completely.

“They could be your friends too. They like you enough.” Sirius faces forward again, gaze drifting lazily toward the street. “James would love it if you came around more, of course.”

But would you love it too?

Remus doesn’t ask it out loud. He nods once. “Yeah. I think I will. Cheers.”

They head back inside together. Sirius melts back into the noise, into the glow of the bar. Remus returns to the round table, though it’s emptying now—chairs scraping, voices slurring goodbyes. The girls are gathering bags and coats, Peter’s offering someone gum, James is helping Lily into her jacket, and just like that they’re off, the boys escorting the girls home like the sweet-hearted idiots they are.

Remus should follow. Naomi’s probably home by now. She rarely stays out late—never really has. He hasn’t checked his phone all night. Doesn’t want to. Not while the music’s still playing and the lights are still low and the edges of the world are still soft.

So he doesn’t leave.

He stays.

And when the bar thins out to just a couple of stragglers and Juniper calls last round, Remus finds himself alone again. Nursing the remains of his beer at the bar when Sirius comes back over, wiping down the countertop with a rag in one hand.

“You didn’t leave with the others?” he asks, one brow lifted.

“Mm. Guess not.”

Sirius quirks a grin. “Remus Lupin, are you trying to walk me home?”

“Maybe I was. But since you’re a cheeky bastard, I think I won’t now.”

Sirius laughs. “Look at us. We’re both a couple of skinny tossers. We’re getting knifed.”

“All you’d have to do is give them the ten pounds of jewelry you’re wearing. We’d be fine.”

Sirius gasps in mock offense, clutching his chest. “I’m sorry not all of us can pull off sexy librarian like you.”

He says it without thinking—Remus can tell. And then there’s that moment. The flash of color across his cheeks, too deep to be just from the booze. The falter in his voice. The briefest hitch in his breath.

He clears his throat, eyes flicking away. “Just let me finish closing up and we’re off.”

And before Remus can say anything back, Sirius disappears into the back.

Remus stays put for a beat too long, then stands and heads outside again, needing the air, needing the quiet. He doesn’t want to look like he’s hovering. Doesn’t want to look like he’s… waiting.

What is he even doing?

He lights another cigarette. Leans against the wall again. The buzz in his blood is heavier now, warm and sweet and dangerous. The kind that turns off the part of your brain that tells you when to stop.

But that was the whole point of tonight, wasn’t it?

Eventually, the door swings open, and Sirius steps out. Leather jacket and all, despite the fact that it’s still warm out. He doesn’t look out of place. Of course he doesn’t. He never does.

And Remus, standing in the dark with nicotine in his lungs and something clawing soft and hungry behind his ribs, doesn’t move.

Because he’s not ready for the night to end. Not yet. Not when Sirius is still within reach.

“So what now?” Remus asks, low.

Sirius exhales, dragging a hand through his hair. “Dunno. Bar’s dead. Everything’s shut. Can’t really go home.”

Remus glances sideways. “Because your room’s a disaster?”

Sirius huffs a laugh. “Because I’d wake up the whole fucking house. James has work in the morning. Peter, too. I already got grief for setting off the smoke alarm trying to reheat dumplings last week.”

Remus smiles faintly. “A crime.”

“It was.” Sirius pauses. “What about you?”

It’s a casual question, one anyone might ask. But Remus hears the weight in it, tucked beneath the surface. He looks out over the quiet street. Thinks about the flat. Thinks about Naomi—probably already asleep, hair tied up, phone charging, alarm set. Thinks about how he hasn’t checked his own phone all night. How he hasn’t wanted to. How the very idea of seeing her name light up the screen makes something tight twist low in his gut.

He shrugs. “Don’t feel like going home either.”

“I’ve got keys to the shop,” Remus says after a beat. “If you don’t feel like going home.”

Sirius looks at him. The kind of look that says thank you without saying anything at all.

“You sure?”

Remus nods. “Yeah. It’s quiet there.”

Something in Sirius settles. “Lead the way, then.”

And just like that, they’re walking.

The city has thinned to its bones—puddles of streetlight and the rustle of takeaway wrappers caught in the wind. They walk in silence for a while, no need to fill it. The kind of quiet that feels earned.

The streets blur past—shuttered shops, glowing takeaway signs, bins kicked open by foxes. This part of the city doesn’t sleep. It slumps, sagging like it’s been awake too long and just wants a cigarette.

Remus slows at a narrow door between a vape shop and a dry cleaner that’s never once been open. No sign. No hours. Just a tarnished brass handle under his palm.

Sirius is watching him—loose, unreadable. Like nothing’s urgent, but everything could be.

They step into the shop and Sirius moves without thinking—jacket flung over the armchair, boots kicked aside, sleeves shoved up like he’s been dying to shed the weight of the night. He looks soft around the edges now.

Remus is slower, lagging behind, like he’s afraid to bring the night with him. The street, the bar, the rest of the night—all of it falls away. It’s just the two of them now.

Remus locks the door… out of habit. 

“You’ve got a lighter?” Sirius asks, already pulling the half-crushed joint from his pocket like he was always going to stay.

Remus tosses him the silver Zippo from the tray by the window. Sirius lights up, exhales slow, leans against the counter like it’s second nature. He’s shed his jacket again, left it draped over the arm of the chair he always uses, the one Remus never lets anyone else sit in.

Sirius holds the joint out to him without looking. Remus takes it. Their fingers brush, and it sparks low in his belly, immediate and stupid and maddening. He takes a drag, holds it in too long and coughs a bit.

Sirius watches him through half-lidded eyes. His mouth curved into something that isn’t quite a smirk but definitely isn’t innocent. “Is this a stoned silence, or do I just have that effect on you?”

Remus exhales. “I like silence.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“You talk enough for both of us.” he says on a shrug.

Sirius laughs, low and lovely. “Fair.” He tilts his head, studying him now, like he’s trying to map something out. “You know you’re hard to read, right?”

“Good.”

Sirius takes a step forward. Not threatening—never that. Just deliberate. “And hard to ignore.”

Remus doesn’t look away. “You really are the worst.”

“You keep inviting me back, though.”

Remus snorts, flicks ash into a tray. “You keep getting tattoos.”

“Maybe I just like the way your hands feel on me.”

There’s a beat. Long enough to feel it stretch between them like string, taut and trembling. Sirius smiles again, slower this time. Dangerous.

“Gonna play something?” Remus asks, trying for casual. His voice comes out low and rough.

Sirius is already crouched by the old speaker. “You trust me?”

“No.”

He grins and presses play anyway. The slow crawl of “Wicked Game” fills the room—guitar soft as a sigh, rhythm thick like honey. The lyrics bleed into the air with a kind of lazy inevitability.

“The world was on fire and no one could save me but you…”

Remus exhales hard through his nose. “You’re such a drama queen.”

“You love it.”

“I never said that.”

Sirius doesn’t answer—only turns up the volume, lets it settle into their skin. The song wraps around them like smoke. The kind that doesn’t choke. The kind that makes you lean into the burn.

Remus takes the joint when it’s offered. He’s already drunk, has been since before they left the bar, but the high slips over him like water. Everything slows. Softens. His limbs feel a little floaty, the kind of warm-weighted that makes it hard to tell where his body ends and the night begins. He presses his fingertips to the cool glass of his workstation just to anchor himself.

Sirius stretches. Arms overhead, back arching slightly, and that’s when Remus sees it.

His shirt rides up.

A sliver of skin flashes—the soft dip of his stomach, the curve of his waist, the faint shadow of ink trailing beneath his ribs. A glimpse of the body Remus tattooed earlier that day. One he’s seen up close, touched with gloved fingers, pressed needles into, watched bloom with color under his hands.

And still—still—he feels his pulse stutter.

Because drunk or not, high or not, Remus Lupin is not immune to the sight of Sirius Black with flushed cheeks, tousled hair, and a bit of stomach showing under a wrinkled shirt. It’s stupid. It’s cliché. It’s devastating. He wants to dig his hands into that little flash of skin and never come back out.

“What a wicked game you play… to make me feel this way…”

Sirius turns, eyes low-lidded and glowing. “Dance with me.”

“You’re pissed.”

“I know.” Sirius licks his lips, swaying a bit more “Come on. No one’s watching.”

That’s the problem, isn’t it? No one’s watching. No one to flick the light on, say alright, that’s enough now , like they used to at school discos when the slow songs got too handsy. No one to be good on his behalf. Just the hush between songs and the throb of bass and Sirius standing too near, like it’s nothing. Like this is nothing.

Remus moves anyway. Lets himself sway. The drink dulls the edge of caution, the smoke sands it smooth. He tells himself it’s the music. The haze. The novelty of the moment. Just a song, just a body. Just motion filling a silence before it turns to ache.

But Naomi is still there, flickering like a power outage at the edge of his vision. The memory of her folded into the couch, reading with her legs tucked beneath her. The clean scent of her pillow. Her laugh when she tries to tell a joke she can’t quite remember the punchline to. He should think of her. He should feel something sharper, something heavy. But all he can feel is the heat rolling off Sirius in waves.

They’re moving in orbit. Just shy of touch. Each breath narrower than the last. Sirius dances like the beat lives under his skin—shoulders loose, hips slow, mouth tilted like he’s enjoying a private joke.

Remus doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t trust himself to. There’s static between them. That shimmer of wrongness that doesn’t feel wrong yet, but will. He can already sense the version of himself who’ll wake up tomorrow and want to scrub this from his skin. But that version feels far away. And Sirius is right here.

“What a wicked thing to do… to let me dream of you…”

Sirius smiles, crooked and devastating. “You’ve got moves, Lupin.”

“You’re off beat.”

“I’m drunk remember.”

Remus doesn’t answer. Can’t. His mouth’s gone dry and his heart’s beating like it wants out.

Then Sirius closes the distance. Fingers grazing Remus’ wrist like an accident. Their eyes meet. And for a moment, neither of them breathes.

The music swells behind them, echoing the pulse in Remus’ throat.

“No, I don’t wanna fall in love…”

That’s when it breaks.

Remus steps back and he nearly stumbles into the stool behind him, catching himself with a hand on the counter. The room spins. Not enough to knock him over. Just enough to knock something loose.

“I—I’m a bit dizzy,” he says, voice rough.

Sirius’ eyes linger on him a moment longer, unreadable. Then he nods, slow. Like he knows.

Remus turns away and grabs a bottle of water from the mini fridge they keep in here for clients. Behind him, the song plays on.

Sirius seems to sense the shift the way animals sense a storm. 

And just when Remus thinks he might have to say something, Sirius breaks the tension with the most absurd, perfectly Sirius thing he could possibly say:

“I want another tattoo.”

Remus turns to him slowly, like maybe he’s heard him wrong. “I think you should slow it down a bit, yeah?”

But Sirius just grins, loose-limbed and flushed with drink, eyes gleaming like he’s just come up with the best idea in the universe. “No—just a small one. You do it.”

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Remus mutters, eyeing the half-empty glass in Sirius’ hand.

“Maybe,” Sirius agrees easily. “But I mean it. I want you to give me one. A surprise. I won’t look.”

Remus folds his arms. “You’re drunk.”

“And you’re stunning, but here we are.”

Remus glares at him, heat prickling at the base of his neck. “You’ll be pissing blood if I tattoo you like this.”

Sirius steps forward, more deliberate this time. There’s a shift in his tone, quieter now. “Make it small,” he says, almost whispering. “Something tiny. Something no one else can see.”

Remus feels that sentence like a bruise forming beneath the skin. And then Sirius looks at him—really looks. All the playfulness stills, and what’s left is raw. Vulnerable. Desperate, even. Not for attention. Not for the thrill of ink. But for connection. For sensation. For proof of existence.

“Please,” he says, and it’s a different kind of plea. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just real. “I just want to feel something now.”

And it fucking wrecks him.

Because of course Sirius Black would wear his pain under leather and silver and the sound of his own laughter. Of course he’d carry it like it’s beautiful. Of course he’d ask to be marked because nothing else stays.

So Remus gives in.

He doesn’t say yes. He just walks, and Sirius follows. They return to the heart of the shop—the sterile, glowing center where Remus does the only thing that has ever felt like purpose. But tonight, it feels like trespassing. Like they’ve slipped into the echo of a dream neither of them were meant to catch.

Sirius kicks off his boots with a lazy thud and climbs into the chair like it’s second nature—because it is. But there’s something different tonight. Something unfastened in the way he moves, like he’s been unbuttoned from the inside out. He drags his fingers through his hair, sweeping it away from his ear with a kind of practiced indifference. It should be nothing. Just another gesture. Just another moment.

But Remus watches the strands fall back into place anyway—soft, unruly, catching the light like a halo turned crooked. He feels something shift in his chest. Not break, exactly. More like a slide—like furniture dragged across a quiet room. The kind of shift that leaves marks on the floor, even if no one else hears it happen.

There’s no good reason for this to feel so close. So dangerous. Want pressing in steady and unwelcome.

He reaches for gloves. Sanitizes the machine. His heart is beating like a secret. Fast, fragile, and stupid.

Sirius tilts his head to the side, baring the stretch of pale skin just behind his left ear, neck exposed and jawline catching the low light like it’s been carved from something ancient. There’s a curve there—just beneath the hinge of bone, where pulse meets silence—that makes Remus want to press his mouth to it. Just once. Just long enough to know what Sirius tastes like in the spot where words begin.

But he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t.

He focuses.

He thinks, just for a second, about what to give him. What kind of mark says everything and nothing in one breath.

And then he knows.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to tell you?” Remus asks again for confirmation.

“I don’t want to know. Just want to feel.”

Remus takes him at his word.

So he inks a book.

Small. Soft-edged. Like a moleskine that lives in coat pockets and glove compartments. A thing carried, not flaunted. A story that belongs to one person only.

He tucks it behind Sirius’ ear—hidden beneath dark hair, invisible unless you knew where to look. Unless you were allowed that close. It’s a place for whispers, for memory, for things that live on the skin without ever needing to be seen.

And on the spine, vertically etched in the finest lettering his hand can manage:

R.J.L.

It’s a violation. It’s an indulgence. It’s an apology he doesn’t know how to say.

And he does it anyway.

Sirius doesn’t flinch. He just lies there, head tilted, lashes casting shadows, jaw slack in the soft glow of the worklight. Trusting. Quiet. A breath suspended. Letting Remus write something into him no one else will ever read.

It’s not just ink.

It’s not just art.

It’s possession.

And when it’s done, Remus just stands there.

Frozen.

His breath uneven.

The machine stills. A howl swallowed too fast. It settles like ash on the tongue.

The shop feels altered—like it’s witnessed something too tender to name. It was meant to be harmless. Just a blur in the dark.

What the fuck has he just done?

He feels it in his hands first—the quiver when he peels off his gloves like shedding skin, like stripping away the evidence.

Like a man possessed.

It’s mad. It’s madness. A private mark behind the ear—a place no one looks, no one touches. A book so small it could be a whisper, and yet it shouts in his chest. R.J.L. scrawled like a confession in ink, like Sirius’ skin was paper and Remus couldn’t help but write himself into the margins.

And when he sees it there—tucked beneath the sweep of Sirius’ dark hair, the curve of his skull, the warm slope of skin where jaw meets neck—it does something to him.

Something deep. Something old.

A pull in his gut that feels less like want and more like claiming .

Like instinct. Like blood memory. Like every soft animal part of him rising up, howling: mine.

He is sick with it.

Sick with how much he wants it to stay.

Sick with how right it looks there.

Because it’s beautiful.

Because it’s his.

The shop smells like burnt ozone and citrus cleaner and something that will never come out of the floorboards. Like something sacred just snapped. Like guilt that learned how to bloom.

And Remus can’t stop looking.

Because what he’s done is irreversible.

Because something in him has always been waiting to ruin itself this way.

It's strange what desire will make foolish people do