Let Them Eat Cake.
Sirius
Sirius watches Nya’s braids sway as she crosses the room, each movement a measured swing, each faint click a metronome against the syrupy quiet. The sound stitches itself into the lull of low music and distant buzzing from the front—familiar noise, lived-in, almost soothing. He doesn’t mean to fixate, but his focus hooks on the rhythm like a thread caught on a nail, pulling him deeper into the fog. The air here is heavy and slow, thick with smoke and lavender oil, spiced undertones from the incense curling in from the corner. Everything feels low-lit and out of time, like a scene sunk underwater. His limbs aren’t quite his. His breath catches in odd places. Sleep won’t come, but this is the closest thing to peace he’s had all day.
He hadn’t meant to fall apart. Not exactly. But when you burst through a door with your heart clawing at your throat, people tend to look up. He hadn’t said anything—couldn’t, not with his voice buried under whatever had cracked open in his chest—but Remus had glanced up from the stencil he was laying down, and that look alone had undone something sharp and dangerous in him.
“Go on,” Remus had murmured, nodding toward the back. No questions. No second take. Just the kind of quiet instruction that makes a person feel like they’re not a problem. Sirius hadn’t hesitated. He’d walked straight through, dizzy and over-wound, like the act of being allowed to vanish might keep him from splintering in half.
Jodie passed him a joint the size of a wand without missing a beat. Zion had nudged an ashtray toward him with two fingers, already mid-conversation about something vaguely existential. Nya had lifted her chin in greeting, slid a lighter across the table, and turned back to her sketchpad. It’s how they are, all of them—strange and stoned and soft around the edges, like they’ve seen versions of him walk in a thousand times before and never once asked why.
He doesn’t understand how they do it—how the tattoos they turn out are still clean, still crisp, while the room smells like a greenhouse in July and their eyes burn half-lidded with smoke. But the shop has always felt like a contradiction that works. Candles flicker beside antiseptic bottles. A velvet couch sags under the weight of mismatched blankets and a box fan that rattles on low. There’s a bootleg cassette deck playing something warped and beautiful on repeat. No one’s trying to be cool. They just are.
In the corner, the lava lamp pulses gold and red, viscous shapes stretching and folding like they’re trying to become something permanent. Sirius stares at it until the motion nests behind his eyes, until the colors start to slow his pulse. He understands now why they made it like this back here—why the walls are cluttered with art and soft lights and moving pieces. When your insides are scrambled, you need patterns to follow. You need color and motion and texture, something to catch your gaze and hold it steady. Something to give your brain a reason to stay in your body.
Nya drops onto the couch beside him with the quiet thud of lived-in familiarity, a takeaway bag crinkling in her lap, the scent of orange chicken leeching into the air almost immediately. It’s sweet and sharp and sticky—and Sirius is hit with it like a punch to the gut. His stomach flips, slow at first, then harder, queasy. He presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth like it’ll steady him. It doesn’t.
She pops open a Tupperware lid and lets out a satisfied little sigh. “You hungry, babe? We’ve got extra plates—I can serve you some.” She says it kindly, lazily licking the pad of her thumb where sauce caught the skin.
He shakes his head, too fast. “I’m good, but thank you.” It comes out light, smooth, too smooth. He swallows it down like a lie and hopes it doesn’t sour in his throat. The nausea has teeth tonight. He hates it—hates the helplessness of it, the way it coils and pulses, dragging him too close to something he can’t control. He takes a long pull from the joint resting between his fingers, then another. Then another. The smoke curls down his throat like rope and hangs there, heavy and blessedly numbing. Maybe if he keeps smoking, he won’t feel sick. Maybe he’ll float right out of it. Maybe.
“You alright? You look a bit green,” Nya teases, her tone light, unbothered. He hasn’t looked at himself in a mirror in a while—days, maybe more—but he believes her. He feels it in his skin. The waxy tension behind his eyes. The buzz beneath his fingertips.
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t trust what might come out. His thoughts feel like radio static, too loud and skipping. His body hums, but not in a pleasant way. There’s something building beneath his skin—a kind of quiet panic wearing a smile. He tips his head back against the couch, spine loose, eyes slipping to half-mast. The ceiling swims. The lava lamp pulses in the corner, still working overtime to hypnotize him. He could stay like this forever. He should stay like this.
But then he remembers Remus.
Remus, who just a few weeks ago had crossed his arms and almost refused him. With that maddening mix of patience and principle. Like he was some kind of moral compass wrapped in flannel. He sits up now, jaw tightening. He won't get caught slipping again.
He glances at Nya instead. Safer. Easier. She leans forward, balancing her food on her knees, and the light catches her face just so—her piercings shimmering with the movement, a whole constellation mapped across her skin. A delicate chain looping from her septum to the edge of her nostril. Studs like stars at the bridge. Hoops. Shine. Structure. He’s transfixed.
“Those are beautiful,” he says suddenly, eyes tracking every glint.
She glances up, still chewing, curious. “The piercings?”
He nods. She nods back, smile curling. “Thanks. Had ’em for years now. You’d suit piercings, too. You’ve got the face for it. Definitely.”
And that— that lights the match.
His thoughts ignite instantly. He sits bolt upright, almost bouncing, every inch of him suddenly vibrating with momentum. “Oh my god. You’re a genius. I should get a piercing. Yes. That’s exactly what I need.”
Nya giggles, startled by the shift. “Yeah? If you want, I can do it for you.”
“Please,” he says, eyes wide, practically glowing. “Yes. Yes. Please.”
She packs away the rest of her food with calm efficiency, and he trails after her as she leads him down another narrow hallway, deeper into the maze of the shop. He wonders, vaguely, if the building is enchanted. If it grows new rooms when no one’s looking.
The piercing room is smaller, cooler, lined in sterilized steel and glossy posters. Charts of ears, lips, navels, brows. A laminated list of dos and don’ts pinned beside the mirror. The tattoo chair gleams under the low light like a throne. He steps inside and feels his skin prickle. The good kind of prickling. Controlled chaos. Precision. A distraction with bite.
“What were you thinking, love?” Nya asks, voice light but assessing, fingers tipping his chin up as she studies his face. He goes still beneath her touch, lips parted.
“Can I get multiple?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Sure you could. Might be a bitch to heal them all at once, though.”
“I want my eyebrow. And my tongue.” The words leap out like they’ve been waiting all night. His grin won’t go away. She watches him for a moment too long.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
There’s a flicker of concern in her expression, but she doesn’t argue. Just hums low in her throat and moves to collect the supplies. The soft clink of metal tools being arranged on a tray cuts through the fog in his head like a bell.
He picks silver for both. Classic. Clean. He likes the shine. Likes the idea of light hitting his face differently now, of something new to mark the night.
The eyebrow is first. Quick, sharp, a flash of pressure and it’s done. He doesn’t blink. The tongue is worse—slower, stranger—but he holds still through all of it, breathing shallow, eyes glazed. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t make a sound. The pain is nothing. Less than nothing. It feels like triumph.
“You’re a machine,” she laughs, handing him a small round mirror, the kind with the little handle. “Jesus.”
He lifts it and looks. Really looks.
And something in him exhales.
They’re perfect. Clean, balanced. Intentional. The eyebrow already makes him look different—tilted, sharp, like a version of himself that might bite back. The tongue feels swollen, hot and foreign, but in a good way. Like proof. Like a secret.
He thanks her with an ease he doesn’t often manage. It’s real. And he can’t stop looking.
Because for a second, just one—it feels like the storm quieted.
***
It’s quiet when Remus finally comes looking for him.
Nya’s long gone—off to tattoo a walk-in down the hall—and Sirius has been left alone in the haze of the back room, half-stoned and floating just beneath the surface of something dangerous. Time’s gone slippery. He might’ve been sitting here for five minutes or an hour. He doesn’t really know. Doesn’t care. The silence was starting to get loud.
Then—there he is.
Remus appears in the doorway like the light cracking through cloud cover after a long, relentless downpour. No warning. No fanfare. Just there .
Sirius exhales so hard it’s almost a laugh. “Fucking finally,” he groans, letting his head tip back. “That piece took forever.”
Remus snorts, stepping inside. “I know you’re not complaining, Mr. ‘walk-in-whenever-I-want.’ People actually book appointments.”
He grins as he says it, but the expression falters the second he sees Sirius’ face. His eyes land sharp—right on the new glint of silver.
“What the fuck?”
“What the fuck what?” Sirius says innocently, tongue already curling around the fresh ring in his mouth, playing with it. He presses it to his teeth, lets it flash between his lips.
Remus blinks. “Did you just get that done?”
There’s something tight in his tone. Not shock—something closer to annoyance. It wrong-foots Sirius instantly.
“Yeah,” he answers slowly, defensive already. “What’s the problem?”
“You don’t think it’s a bit…” Remus trails off, gesturing vaguely. “I don’t know—impulsive?”
Sirius narrows his eyes. “Nya did it. Why, does it not look good on me?”
“That’s not the point.”
Remus steps in further, arms folded. His voice is calm, but Sirius can feel the friction building.
“How do you just randomly decide you want a piercing?” he continues. “Let alone two. At the same time.”
“I don’t know,” Sirius says, lifting his shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. “People do that, don’t they? It’s not a big deal.”
Remus doesn’t let it go. “You came in here off your head,” Remus presses, stepping forward—and it hits Sirius like static, a beat dropping out of his chest. “Talking about an even bigger piece than the last one when none of your tattoos have even finished healing.”
He pauses, catching his breath.
“I told you to hang out back and wait,” he adds, quieter this time, “and instead you went and got a needle through your tongue. That’s not normal decision-making, Sirius. That’s… something else.”
It makes his whole body vibrate, bones buzzing beneath skin, like he’s been struck by something he can’t name. He hates that it lands. Hates that it feels like anything at all.
“So what?” he spits, too sharp, too quick. “Christ, you sound like bloody James now.”
“He has a right to be worried,” Remus snaps back, frustration bleeding through. “When his best friend goes from never even considering body modifications to treating tattoos and piercings like fucking sweets at the shop—”
“It’s my body , Remus!” Sirius barks, voice climbing fast before he can leash it. “I can do what I want! ”
The shout lingers in the air too long. Pressure builds behind his eyes like something might crack. His vision tilts—edges fraying, ceiling too bright, floor too far away. The room wobbles, slow and nauseous. He might be sick. He doesn’t know where to look.
Remus’ expression shifts. Not annoyed anymore. Just—quiet. Like he’s seen something in Sirius’ face he didn’t expect. That gentling of features Sirius knows too well. The soft kind of attention that starts as concern and curdles fast into something worse.
That look .
The one people gave him after he left home. The one Effie wore when she saw him curled up in James’ childhood bed like a ghost. The one Monty didn’t bother to hide. The expression that says: you poor thing. You must be broken.
Pity.
A million spiders erupt under his skin. Crawling, clawing, writhing. The urge to scratch them all away is nearly unbearable. He needs pain. He needs volume. He needs out . He needs Remus to stop looking at him like that and just get on with it— do the fucking tattoo —because standing here like this feels like standing inside his own burning nerves.
“No…” Remus says, and it’s gentle now. Too gentle. “I can’t tattoo you like this, Sirius. I won’t. It’s clear something’s going on.”
He steps forward. Careful. Cautious. Like Sirius is some wounded animal he’s trying not to scare off. His hands come up, palms open, held low.
“We can talk about it, yeah?” His voice dips again, almost a whisper. “I’d be happy to listen… if you’ll let me.”
And that’s it. The sirens in Sirius’ mind scream to life. Red Alert. Red Alert. Abort mission. Someone is trying to get close.
“N-no,” he stammers, retreating even in stillness. “There’s nothing wrong. I just want another tattoo. It’s your job to tattoo people, not—whatever this is. You don’t get to—”
He swallows the rest. What he meant to say was: Just hold me while I tell you everything. What comes out instead is panic dressed in defiance.
Remus’ brow furrows, something in him visibly pulling back, like he’s been struck. “You’re not just my client anymore, Sirius. I think you know that. I thought we were mates.”
Mates.
It echoes in his head like static. Meaningless and unbearable all at once. Like someone pressing their hand to an open wound and calling it comfort.
“Just forget it,” Sirius mutters, turning on instinct. “If you won’t do it, I’ll see if Jodie or Nya or Zion—”
Remus’ hand closes around his elbow, halting him mid-step. Sirius looks down at the contact like it’s foreign, surreal. Remus lets go a second later, as if burned.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice raw now. “I just—don’t, Sirius. Don’t walk away like that. I know something’s wrong. And it’s okay if you don’t want to talk. But I just… I need you to slow down.”
But that’s the thing, isn’t it? That’s the root of it all. He can’t slow down. Slowing down is when it catches up. When the thing in the dark claws its way back into his lungs. He can’t stop moving. He won’t.
Sirius doesn’t say anything, and Remus must know he’s slipping away, because he starts again, desperate now. “Come with me somewhere.”
Sirius’ eyes narrow. “What?”
“I don’t have any more clients. Just… come with me.” Remus is already backing away, eyes lit with some idea he hasn’t shared yet. “Let me get my coat. Don’t go anywhere, Sirius. Please. Just wait.”
And then Remus is gone—disappearing through the doorway like smoke—and Sirius can finally breathe again, though it feels shallow and borrowed, like it might be taken back at any second. He wrings his hands as if trying to squeeze the panic out, then shaking them loose like the sensation might fall away with the motion.
His tongue is starting to ache now. That slow, pulsing throb blooming heavy across the muscle, dull and constant. It swells in his mouth, foreign and irritating. He presses it hard against the roof of his mouth, chasing the sting, willing it to anchor him, even just for a second.
Because everything else is spinning. Everything else is tilting. He feels like he’s just been thrown off the edge of the helter skelter, still clinging to the railing with numb fingers, windburned and dizzy, eyes watering from the speed of the drop. One wrong move, one more step, and he’ll fall. So he stays still. Moments ago he was spiraling. And now… now he’s dangling off the edge, trying to pretend he’s still holding on.
Time doesn’t register, because in a flash, Remus reappears, his energy is completely different now, like he left and just shed his skin, coming back renewed.
“Well, let’s go,” He nods his head towards the back door, Sirius is grateful he doesn’t have to exit through the front and walk through everyone.
They leave out the back.
Sirius is grateful for it—grateful not to have to walk past the front desk again, past the couple lingering by the flash book, past the girl with the septum piercing flipping through prints like she wasn’t listening. Past anyone who might have noticed him unraveling. The back door sticks slightly when Remus pushes it open, and the sound it makes—wood against frame, the scrape of metal—feels like permission. The alley they step into smells faintly of stale smoke and spilled ink, bins stacked in uneven lines, cigarette butts curled in damp circles near the drain. But it’s quiet here. Unremarkable. Blessedly empty. The kind of exit you take when your nerves are shot and your tongue is sore and the idea of being looked at feels like it might split you down the middle.
Outside, the city exhales. The last sigh of summer clings to the air like steam on skin, soft but fading fast. The sky’s been scraped with violet and grey, bruised at the edges, dusk laying its body down over rooftops like a heavy blanket. There’s a coolness sneaking into the wind—nothing urgent, just a whisper of autumn coming to collect what it’s owed. He rubs the heel of his hand up and down his forearm, like friction alone might distract him. He feels it in his bones, that familiar ache of something slipping through his fingers before he even has the chance to enjoy it. Like every good thing has an expiration date stamped somewhere he can’t read.
They walk.
They’ve done this before—late walks, half-lit, shared in silence—but this time it feels different. Not heavier exactly, just… more aware. Sirius doesn’t talk. Remus doesn’t ask why. His presence is gentle, tuned low, like he’s deliberately refusing to crowd Sirius’ thoughts. He gives him silence like a gift—clean, unwrapped, full of air.
But Sirius knows this is distraction, too. Delicate, deliberate. He can feel it in the way Remus glances at him when he thinks Sirius isn’t looking, in the way his hand hovers near but never touches. Like he’s standing beside a lit fuse and choosing not to move.
“You hungry?” Remus asks eventually, voice quiet and casual, like they’ve been talking this whole time.
Sirius shakes his head. “No.”
A beat.
Remus doesn’t press. Just hums low, the kind of sound you make when you know you’re being lied to but you’re choosing not to say it yet. A few blocks later, he veers left without warning, tugging Sirius gently out of their path, and Sirius lets himself be led without question. It’s only when the burnt-orange glow of Ron’s Chicken & Chips flickers into view that he blinks and realizes where they are.
The sign is half-lit, the inside humming with yellow light and the sharp scent of oil and spice. Teenagers lean against the window outside, and somewhere inside a bell dings. Sirius lifts a brow.
“You brought me to a chicken shop?” he asks, deadpan.
Remus grins like he’s proud of himself. “Best one in London. Don’t argue, you’ll embarrass yourself.”
The smell hits as soon as the door opens—salt, grease, something fried to perfection—and Sirius’ stomach betrays him instantly. A loud, indignant growl that feels like it’s echoing off the tile. He winces. Remus just looks at him, raising a single brow with that infuriating knowingness.
Sirius sighs, defeated. Doesn’t argue when Remus orders two boxes and a side of chips large enough to feed a small army. He trails after him out the door with the bag in his hands, warmth bleeding through the paper and into his palms. It surprises him—how grounding it feels. How heavy and real .
They walk again, this time toward the canal, past the shuttered shops and flickering bus signs. Remus leads him to a nook tucked between a crumbling brick wall and a rusted gate, vines twisting through the iron like veins. There’s a half-broken bench, a buzzing streetlamp overhead, the quiet lap of water nearby. It’s not picturesque. But it’s private. And Sirius likes it.
They sit.
Remus opens the box between them and pulls out a chip, still steaming. Sirius watches it disappear into his mouth, then reaches for his own—just one—and nearly groans when the salt hits his tongue. His body responds like he’s been starving for days. He takes another. Then another. Heat, oil, salt—simple, perfect. The kind of food that tastes like it was made with care even if it wasn’t.
Remus wipes his fingers on a napkin. “This used to be my mum’s way of bribing me,” he says, almost wistful. “If I got through the week without mouthing off to my teachers, she’d take me here. We’d sit in the car and eat it with our fingers.”
Sirius turns to look at him.
“She always ordered the same thing,” Remus goes on. “Two boxes of wings, chips drowning in vinegar, and a grape soda. Always grape. I didn’t even like grape. Still don’t, actually. But I drank it. Because she liked it. Because it made her smile.”
The image makes something tight pull in Sirius’ chest. A mother who knows your order. Who shares food with you in a car. Who smiles at something as small as soda.
“I always asked for extra vinegar on the chips. Used to make my hands sticky,” Remus says, licking salt from his thumb. “Didn’t care. Felt like a treat. Felt like she saw me.”
And god— that . That’s the part that undoes Sirius. Not the food, not the car, not the soda. The seeing . The idea of someone knowing you well enough to get it right, over and over, without you having to ask.
Sirius looks down at his food. The box has gone quiet in his lap, but it’s still warm. He thinks about the kind of person he might have been if he’d had memories like that. If anyone had ever looked at him like he was worth feeding.
His mother had never known what he liked. Had never asked. She didn’t believe in street food or messy hands. The closest thing she came to praise was a nod across a pristine tablecloth if he used the right knife. She fed him perfection. Fed him silence. And expected him to say thank you.
He never did.
He drifts before he knows it. The weight of memory tilting his balance. His eyes fixed on the steam curling out of the chicken box like smoke signals.
And Remus, of course, notices.
“Where did you just go?”
Sirius jerks slightly, like he’s just woken up. “What? I’m right here.”
“I don’t mean here .” Remus gestures vaguely around them. Then, softer, “I mean here .”
He reaches out and taps Sirius gently on the temple, his fingers lingering for just a moment longer than necessary. The touch is light, careful, but Sirius feels it like a strike. A bolt of static heat shoots down his spine. He has to look away, has to swallow around it. His lips part reflexively, tongue pressing against the roof of his mouth where the piercing aches. Metal, salt, want. He licks them without thinking. And then regrets it.
Because Remus is looking at him like he sees more than he should.
And Sirius? Sirius wants something he doesn’t have the courage to name.
So he pushes it down. Deep. Where no one else can reach.
“It’s nothing,” he says.
But he doesn’t look convinced.
But still, Remus doesn’t argue. He just shifts like the road bent with him—like he’s long since learned when to press and when to let people keep their secrets. It’s comforting, in a strange, maddening way. Sirius watches him shake the chip bag a little and flick grease from his fingers before he speaks again, voice quiet enough to blur against the hum of distant traffic.
“You know,” he says, almost offhand, “when I was little and couldn’t explain how I felt—when everything felt too big or too weird or just too much—my mum used to play this game with me. We’d compare our feelings to food.”
For a second, Sirius thinks he must’ve misheard him. A brow lifts. “Food?”
A lopsided smile pulls at Remus’ mouth. “Yeah. Like, ‘what do you feel like today?’ And I’d say something ridiculous like a boiled egg or dry toast or whatever came to mind.” He shrugs, sheepish but unbothered. “It was silly. But it helped.”
The very idea of someone teaching a child how to name their feelings with something as harmless as lunch punches a hole in Sirius’ chest. Of course Remus would have had that. Of course there was someone who met him where he was, who didn’t ask him to translate the pain into something palatable. Just food. Simple, harmless food.
He lets out a half-laugh, more breath than sound. “That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s the point,” Remus grins, reaching into the box for another chip. “Here, I’ll show you. Right now I feel like strawberries. But the dark red ones—when they’re soft and sun-warm and about five seconds from going off. That’s when they taste the best.”
Sirius chews slowly, dragging out the bite longer than necessary, watching Remus from the corner of his eye like he’s waiting for a trap to spring. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t offer. Just lets the silence sit.
“Your turn,” Remus says after a moment, gentle but firm.
Sirius doesn’t look at him. “No thanks.”
A beat passes, and then a small nudge under the box of food—Remus’ knee tapping his like punctuation. It’s soft, grounding, the kind of touch that says I see you without forcing anything.
“C’mon,” Remus says. “You don’t have to be poetic about it. Just say the first thing that comes to mind.”
The silence stretches between them like pulled thread, taut and delicate. Sirius keeps his eyes on the cardboard chip box in his lap, tearing absently at one of the flaps with his thumbnail. The question feels stupid. Childish. But also weirdly intimate, like saying the wrong thing might expose him in a way he’s not ready for.
His voice, when it finally comes, is barely audible. “Fine… mushy peas.”
Remus blinks. Then he laughs—full-bodied and unbothered, like he actually finds it brilliant. “That’s horrible.”
Sirius shrugs, gaze still fixed on the food. “Told you it was stupid.”
“No, no, it’s good,” Remus says, still grinning. “Mushy peas. That tells me everything. Bit bland, bit lumpy, kind of off-putting unless you’re in the mood. Texture’s all wrong. But they still count as food, yeah? They still show up.”
He says it like it means something. Like showing up is enough. Like even mushy peas deserve a place at the table.
Sirius doesn’t know what to do with that.
He looks down at the street instead, where a beetle’s crawling between cracks in the pavement, tiny legs fumbling over the rough concrete. He watches it scurry into a crevice, out of sight. “Glad I could add so much depth to the metaphor.”
Remus chuckles, picking at a chip with his fingers. “Alright then, step two. What do you want to feel like?”
That one sits heavier. Thicker.
Sirius doesn’t answer right away. He shifts on the bench, shoulders curling inward slightly as if trying to hold something in. A breeze rolls through and carries the scent of vinegar, asphalt, and Remus’ soap—bergamot, or something citrusy, layered over ink and skin. It’s dizzying, how present Remus feels. How solid. Like something Sirius could reach for, if only he knew how to let himself want it.
He chews on the inside of his cheek. And then, because Remus is still waiting and somehow hasn’t made this feel humiliating yet, he lets it slip out.
“…Chocolate cake.”
Remus’ grin softens into something warmer. “Now we’re talking.”
He licks his lips, then nods slowly. “Mm. I could go for that right now. I always need a little something sweet after I eat.”
The words go straight to that spot behind Sirius's navel. Lodging deep, sticky, uninvited. He can’t help the flush that climbs his chest, can’t stop his gaze from catching on Remus’ mouth for just a second too long. It’s not even what he said—it’s how he said it. Easy. Honest. Unknowing. Like it wasn’t designed to unspool Sirius from the inside out.
He swallows hard. Shifts again. Looks away.
“What’s the point of this game, anyway?”
Remus doesn’t miss a beat. “It’s for when the words don’t come easy. Or when they don’t even exist yet.” His tone lowers, softer now, like something private. “A way to speak sideways and still be heard.”
The sentence lands with quiet force, like a hand pressed flat over a wound.
Sirius feels it like grit behind his teeth—small, insistent, impossible to ignore. Words never come out right; they snag, fold in on themselves, turn brittle before they land. But this—this is simple. Food. Peas. Cake. This he can manage
“I’m sorry you feel like mushy peas, Sirius.” Remus turns to him, eyes steady. “We’ll get you feeling like chocolate cake eventually,” Remus says, nudging him. “You’ve got strong dessert potential.”
The gentleness in it makes Sirius flinch internally. Like being seen is a bruise, and Remus keeps brushing up against it without meaning to. Or maybe he does mean to. Maybe that’s the point.
***
They sit a while longer. The food dwindles, fingers greasy, the air cooling further as the shadows deepen around them. It’s the kind of evening that feels suspended in amber—still, hushed, just the soft buzz of a streetlamp overhead and the distant hum of London carrying on without them.
Sirius picks at the last of the chips. They’re soggy now, lukewarm and limp, but his hands keep moving. It gives him something to do. Something to fidget with besides the dull throb in his tongue or the thoughts clawing at the edges of his mind like ivy through brick.
Beside him, Remus stretches his legs, his ankle brushing Sirius’ under the box. He doesn’t move it. Neither does Sirius. The warmth of it startles him every time, how grounding it is—how real.
The silence isn’t heavy anymore. Not comfortable exactly, but bearable. A mutual truce. Sirius finds himself watching the way Remus leans back on his palms, fingers splayed against the stone ledge, the faint blue veins visible in the backs of his hands. The slope of his neck. The curve of his mouth when he’s not trying to hold anything back. He’s half-shadow under the glow of the streetlamp, haloed just enough to look unreachable.
Sirius wonders—again, not for the first time—if Remus knows. How visible he’s become lately. How hard he’s been trying not to come undone in front of anyone, especially him. And how, somehow, that makes him want to unravel all the more.
He’s just about to say something—something light, maybe even stupid—when Remus’ phone buzzes against the stone beside them. The sound cuts clean through the moment.
Remus glances down, smiles, and answers with a softened, “Hey.”
Sirius freezes.
A woman’s voice filters through, bright and warm and sure of its place in Remus’ life. Laughing like she’s done it a hundred times before. The way Remus tilts his head slightly, lets out a quiet chuckle, murmurs something low in return—it hits Sirius harder than it should. Something small and brittle inside him threatens to splinter.
He doesn’t move. Just listens, pretending not to.
Remus turns slightly away, and Sirius watches the angle of his shoulders shift. Watches the way his thumb idly taps the seam of his jeans while he speaks in that intimate, half-laughing tone—the one you save for people who know you in the soft places. People who call you late and know you’ll answer.
Of course. Of course there’s someone.
There’s always someone before you realize you wanted to be the one.
By the time Remus hangs up and pockets the phone, Sirius has already tucked the moment into a box in his chest labeled Off Limits.
“My girlfriend,” Remus says, almost offhand. “She was just checking in.”
Sirius nods, quick and cool. “Makes sense.”
The words are brittle in his mouth, stale and metallic. He doesn’t say anything else. Just shoves the last soggy chip between his teeth and chews like it’ll help drown the sudden flood behind his ribs.
They rise together. Remus brushes crumbs from his lap, and Sirius follows suit, dumping the empty box into a nearby bin. He’s buzzing with something he can’t name—jealousy, maybe, or just the ache of wanting what isn’t his. He shoves the toe of his shoe into a crack in the pavement like it might split the earth open beneath him.
They walk in silence for a few blocks, the city blurring past in streaks of sodium light and cigarette smoke. A car honks in the distance, and a couple passes by, laughing drunkenly. The world feels big again. Indifferent.
“Thanks,” Sirius says, once the quiet has settled between them again. “For the food. And the weird metaphor game.”
Remus smiles, bumping their shoulders as they pause at a crossing. “Anytime. You’re not bad at it, you know.”
Sirius lets out a half-laugh, low and sardonic. “Great. Glad I’ve found my calling—emotionally wrecked, but fluent in food metaphors.”
“Hey,” Remus says, nudging him again, gentler this time. “You’re not emotionally wrecked.”
The light changes. Neither of them rushes.
They step off the curb in unison, and the conversation dissolves like steam in the night. The kind of silence that doesn’t press or pull—it just settles. Like their bodies know how to speak in proximity, even when the words fall away.
They continue on the last stretch without talking, just the soft scuff of their shoes against the pavement, the hum of London moving around them like water in a pipe—muffled, distant, always flowing. Every so often, Remus’ shoulder brushes his. It doesn’t feel accidental.
Sirius doesn’t let himself lean in.
They stop at the corner where their paths split. The night hangs heavy between them, city-lit and waiting. Remus tugs his sleeves over his hands. “Well,” he says . “Get home safe, yeah?”
Sirius nods.
“You too.”
Remus hesitates, He opens his mouth like a word wants out, then shuts it again, jaw tight. His look says enough and not nearly everything.
Ultimately, he turns and walks off into the dark, disappearing in slow pieces: first the curls, then the shoulders, then the sound of his steps fading to nothing.
Sirius stays where he is.
Watches the space where Remus used to be. Where the warmth was.
He pulls the crumpled pack of Marlboros from his pocket and opens it with one hand, thumb grazing the familiar cardboard edges. The last cigarette inside is flipped upside down—his so-called lucky one—the soft end exposed, loose tobacco pressed unevenly at the tip. A tiny, pointless superstition, but he still notices it. Still honors it. He lights it with the old brass lighter Remus once called charming—said it looked like something out of a war film. The metal is warm in his palm, well-worn and dependable, a comfort in its own strange way.
He doesn’t even like cigarettes. He’s pretty sure he had asthma as a kid—vaguely remembers a wheezy kind of breathlessness that pissed his mum off more than it scared her, like it was something he did to inconvenience her. Still, he smokes. Out of habit. Out of ritual. It gives his hands something to do. The cold stings a little less that way.
The streets are quieter now, slick with dew. Shop windows gone dark, shutters pulled low. A streetlamp hums overhead, casting a halo over a battered phone booth that still has stickers on the glass—band names, protests, someone’s number scrawled in Sharpie with a heart around it. Across the road, a fox slips between bins, fleet and cautious, its tail a flash of copper in the shadows. It doesn’t look back. Sirius envies that.
He thinks about James and Peter. They’d show up if he needed them. They always have. But their care is loud, frantic, unfiltered. A tidal wave of good intentions. James would say “Mate, you’ve got to stop this shit,” and mean it with his whole chest. Peter would bring snacks and terrible jokes and hover until Sirius snapped at him. And then still hover.
They love him, he knows that. But their love is the kind that throws rope at you when you’re already halfway down the cliff.
Remus is different.
Remus climbs down after you. Sits beside you in the dirt and doesn’t ask why you fell.
That’s what’s new. That’s what’s terrifying.
Because the truth is, he’s been running on fumes. The tattoos. The piercings. But tonight, for the first time in days, he didn’t feel like he had to sprint just to survive.
Remus slowed it all down. With bad chips and that stupid food game. With his voice and his steadiness and the way he touched Sirius’ temple like he meant it.
He flicks ash onto the street and breathes deep. His tongue throbs where the piercing sits, dull and present. His hands still smell like vinegar.
He’s not fixed. Not even close. But maybe he’s not completely unraveling either.
Maybe—if he doesn’t bolt, if he doesn’t blow it, if he lets someone stay—
Maybe one day he’ll feel like chocolate cake after all.