These Inconvenient Desires

S

'Rod Stewart,' Remus says. Sirius stares blankly at the contents of his refrigerator, phone wedged against his ear. Just moments ago he was standing here wondering how long ago he bought that feta cheese, and then Remus called and effectively commandeered all of his attention.

'What?'

'Rod Stewart,' Remus says again. 'I was right. It was totally Rod Stewart, not Barry Manilow.'
Sirius leans against the door of the fridge, trying to pin down the sudden smile inching up his face. 'Christ, that was like two weeks ago, Rem.'

'Yeah, but I just remembered to google it,' Remus tells him. Sirius can almost see his shrug, the smug set of his mouth, and he's thankful Remus can't see the way his own smile keeps spreading.

'Well, I hope you're pleased with yourself,' Sirius says. He snags a jar of cherries off of the shelf and closes the door with his hip, twisting the lid off as he pads over to the kitchen counter.

'I am,' Remus says, and then he drops his voice and rasps down the line, 'If you want my booody, and you think I'm seeexy, come on sugar let me knooow.'

Sirius squeezes his eyes shut for a moment but doesn't miss a beat. 'Did you only call to serenade me with the smooth, sultry sounds of Not Barry Manilow?'

'Pretty much, yeah,' Remus says. 'And there are a lot of songs by Not Barry Manilow, so you should settle in. It's going to be a long show.'

Sirius sets the jar down on the counter and leans against it. 'Is that so?' Ziggy leaps up to the counter, and Sirius pets her absentmindedly.

'Mhmm,' Remus hums. Sirius can't help himself. 'So you're going to keep me up all night,
then?' he purrs. He hears a sharp intake of breath down the line that could be the start of a laugh, but before he gets to find out, Ziggy swipes out a paw and bats the jar of cherries off the counter. It hits the floor with a crash and shatters into a puddle of glass, cherries, and syrup that starts spreading alarmingly fast. 'Shit, shit, shit,' Sirius says, jumping across the kitchen to grab a dishtowel off the side of the sink. Ziggy just watches him, her tail swishing angrily.

'Sir?' Remus's tinny voice reminds him he still has his phone between his ear and shoulder. 'You all right? What happened?'

God, should he try to soak up the syrup or sweep up the glass first? 'Jesus! Rem, I've got to let you go, my cat's just broken a jar all over the floor, there's shit everywhere.'

'Have you got shoes on?'

'No.' Does he need a mop for this? Does he even own a mop?

'Are you at least wearing socks?' Remus's voice cuts into his thoughts again.

Sirius makes a face, half at the sticky morass on his floor and half at the question. 'When have you ever known me to wear socks?'

Remus sighs on the other end of the line. 'See, this is why you should wear socks!'

'Really? This is why?' He pauses with his head in the cabinet under his sink, looking for a sponge. 'Does this sort of thing happen to you often?'

'Just be careful,' Remus says, laughing a little.

He pulls a sponge and some rubber gloves out from under the sink. 'Remus, if I manage to be seriously injured by a broken jar tonight, I will deserve what I get.' He slides on the rubber gloves and starts picking up the biggest pieces of glass, dropping them in the rubbish
bin. 'But I might actually cut myself if I get distracted, so I'm going to go now.'

'G'bye,' Remus says cheerfully, and Sirius takes the phone from his shoulder and hangs up.

As he finishes with the glass and starts sopping up the syrup, he glances up to the counter to see Ziggy watching him, her ears lying back and her tail still thrashing.

'What?' he says, narrowing his eyes. 'What's that look supposed to mean?'

Ziggy just lifts her chin haughtily and squints at him.

'Oh, don't you start,' Sirius says. 'Look, just because I like him as a person, and just because he's extremely fit, and just because he makes me laugh and also sometimes makes me want to drown myself in a ditch, does not mean I fancy him.'

She tilts her head slightly to one side, a mixture of condescension and pity that Sirius frankly finds insulting coming from someone who shits in a box.

Sirius points accusingly at her with one rubber gloved hand. 'Stop looking at me like that!'

Ziggy lifts a paw and grooms it daintily. I have resigned myself to the fact that my owner is a pathetic idiot, her face seems to say.

'What do you know, hmm?' Sirius says, glaring. 'What do you know about human emotions? You're a fucking cat, you don't even have feelings.'

She lowers her paw slowly, looking wounded, and Sirius feels guilty
immediately.

'Okay, I shouldn't have said that, I'm sorry,' Sirius says, hopping over the mess and reaching out a hand to pet her. She recoils from his hand with a glare. 'I'm sorry! Don't give me the eyes, oh God. Here.' He plucks up a cat toy from nearby and shakes it in front of her impassive face. 'You want the little jingly feather ball on a stick? Look, it's your favorite!'

Ziggy just keeps staring at him as if he is something she threw up on the carpet.

'Oh for God's sake, don't pout,' Sirius says, dropping the toy. 'Okay, fine. Maybe I fancy him. Just a little.'

The look on her smushed cat face remains deeply unimpressed, and Sirius moans in exasperation. His cat is an arsehole, but she's not wrong.

The thing is, he knows how he feels about Remus. He's known for weeks, really, maybe even longer. He's not an idiot, as much as his cat seems to think otherwise. He knows that giddy, restless feeling in his fingers and that electric warmth in his chest and what it means when his head fills up with noise every time Remus says his name. But it's one thing to know something about yourself and another thing to really accept it and deal with the consequences, and Sirius doesn't have any interest in the latter at all. He's twenty-five years old, and he told himself long ago he can't afford to have feelings like this anymore. It always ends the same.

As long as he doesn't deal with it, doesn't put a name on it or make it real, it doesn't matter. It can just stay in the places between his bones, this unspoken thing that doesn't change anything or make him forget the reasons he shored up all these defenses in the first place. And if sometimes when he thinks about Remus he catches himself smiling for no reason, that's nobody's damn business but his own.

But Ziggy is still looking at him like that and, God, he's never forgiving himself for the one time he let his mum keep her while he was out of town, because he's sure Ziggy picked this up this from her.

'Okay, I fancy him a lot!' he half-shouts. 'I have a big dumb crush on Remus. Are you happy now? Is this what you want from me?' He slumps over the counter, head in his rubber gloves and feet sticking to the floor and guilted into emotional honesty by his cat. Ziggy makes a satisfied sound and leaps down onto the floor, leaving a trail of sticky pink paw prints out of the kitchen.

- -

They all ribbed James for days after the car wash, teasing him about his performance and Regulus's sizable donation and suggesting he pursue a career as an exotic dancer since he seems to have such a high profit margin. In the weeks since, though, Regulus hasn't so much as popped by for a visit, and they've given up, chalking the contribution up to Regulus's ridiculously good nature. James has once again returned to looking consumptive and tragic all the time. Business as usual, really.

As is traditional when James sinks into a particularly deep funk, Sirius takes it upon himself to stage Sad Movie Night. Maybe it's something about James's penchant for high drama and tragic romance, but it seems that lying on the couch with a bottle of wine and crying his eyes out over a couple of star-crossed morons always makes him feel better immediately. Whatever. Sirius hates watching this kind of shit on a normal day, but he'll take one for the team. Besides, if it gets James to stop haunting the halls like he's in a damn Bronte novel and tweeting
things like 'loving you is painful x all i want is you :(' it'll be worth it.

Remus has been missing in action for a few days, too busy working on a big project for school to come around in the afternoons, but he's up for it as soon as Sirius texts him about it. He claims that Titanic is his second favorite movie and offers to bring his own DVD, which, really, Sirius should have seen that one coming. As usual, Peter only agrees to sit through it when promised that free beer and nachos will be provided for him, and the four of them set a time on a Friday night to meet at James's flat.

Sirius is halfway down James's hall when he hears footsteps coming up fast behind him, and he has just enough time to think oh shit I am about to be mugged before he drops his bag and turns around and finds himself with his arms full of Remus Lupin.

The collision knocks him back a few steps and his arms come up around Remus's waist on reflex, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt. Oh, God. Perhaps a mugging would have been kinder.

'Hi!' Remus says. Sirius is pretty sure some of Remus's hair is in his mouth. He is focusing on this because if he thinks too hard about the feeling of Remus's arms around him and Remus's body pressed up against his he might not make it out of this hallway.

'Hello,' he manages.

Remus lets him go, moving back a step or two as Sirius regains his balance. 'Sorry,' he says, grinning. 'Haven't seen you in a while.'

Sirius ignores the flush threatening to spread across his face. 'How'd your project go?'

'Brilliant!' Remus says. 'Got my critiques today, my professor loved it.'

'A man of taste, then,' Sirius says, and the way Remus smiles at that makes Sirius stupidly proud of himself. They fall into step with each other, Remus with a couple of shopping bags hanging off his arms and Sirius shouldering his own bag. It's nice just to have Remus next to him again chattering on about his project, and all the positive energy radiating off of him has Sirius starting to feel a bit giddy himself.

When James opens the door, he's wearing his oldest hoodie over his slouchiest tank top, looking like the droopiest, most pitiful version of himself.

'Awww,' Sirius says, 'look at my favorite sad laundry pile.'

'Did you bring the wine?' James says in lieu of greeting.

Sirius leads the way inside, Remus following close behind. 'Yes. Three bottles. Tell me you love me.'

'I hate you less than I hate everything else right now,' James says. He takes one of the bottles and makes his way into the kitchen where Peter is already at the counter, sprinkling a mountain of cheese over his nachos.

'Thank God you're here,' Peter says. 'Another five minutes alone with this one and I may have offed myself.'

'I'm in an emotional state,' James says hotly. Sirius reaches over and gently takes the corkscrew out of his hand, deciding that James should perhaps not be allowed to touch any potential murder weapons tonight.

'I brought the movie, and also popcorn,' Remus says as he starts dumping his bags out on the counter. 'And chocolates, which we can mix in the popcorn.'

'I love you,' Peter says, abandoning his cheese momentarily to snatch up a bag of chocolates. Remus beams at him.

'How come you never talk to me like that?' Sirius says, pouting at James.

'Because you're a twat,' James says. Sirius winks at him as he takes the bottle back and starts uncorking it himself, and James turns to glower across the kitchen at Remus. 'You're in an offensively good mood.'

'Sorry,' Remus says, still smiling. 'Just one of those days where you feel like you can do anything, you know?'

'No,' James replies flatly.

Sirius gets the bottle open while Remus and Peter fight over who gets to use the microwave first, and James snatches it out of his hands, foregoing the glasses on the counter to drink directly from the bottle. He slumps over to the sofa with it, and Sirius sighs. Rule number one of Sad Movie Night: make sure to bring James his own bottle.

He pops into the bathroom for a minute and returns to discover that everyone's shifted to the living room and the DVD menu is open on the television, playing a loop of 'My Heart Will Go On.' Sirius loves Celine Dion as much as the next theatre-worshipping gay man, but the sound is already making him grit his teeth. The things he does for his friends, Jesus.

Peter's already staked out the only armchair and made himself at home with a beer between his knees and a plate of nachos balanced on one of the armrests, and Sirius wonders how greasy his phone will be by the end of the night after playing Bejeweled with nacho-fingers all the way through the movie. On one end of the sofa, James has curled up into the fetal position around his personal merlot, and on the other, Remus's sprawled out with his feet up on the coffee table. The only seat left is a narrow strip of space between Remus and James, and Sirius feels his stomach go funny when he realises he's going to spend the next three hours in the dark crammed up against Remus.

'Saved your spot,' Remus says, patting the empty half a cushion next to
him.

Sirius steps over Remus's legs, eyeing the so-called spot skeptically. 'You two are seriously underestimating the amount of bum space I require.'

'No one's underestimating your bum,' Remus says. He slings one leg over Sirius as soon as Sirius sits down next to him, and, wow, Sirius' life would probably be a lot easier without the knowledge of what it feels like to have the muscles of Remus's thigh stretched across his lap.

Sirius swallows, keeping his eyes on the television, and prods James's arse with the remote control. 'Ready?' James makes an incoherent sort of moaning noise in response, which Sirius will take as a yes.

The opening chords of the movie's score fill the room, mingled with the sounds of Peter crunching noisily from his chair.

Sirius liked Titanic well enough the first time he saw it, but three years as James Potter's best friend has beaten any lingering affection into the ground. At this point, the next three hours are going to be more of an endurance test than anything else.

Normally he could entertain himself by making scathing commentary throughout, but if he tries that now James will have his head, or at least be incredibly whiny about it. He does his best to focus on barely-legal Leonardo DiCaprio. At least that never gets old.

Remus must have seen this movie even more times than Sirius has, but he wasn't kidding when he said it was one of his favorites. Bored, Sirius finds himself watching Remus as much as the movie, marveling at the way Remus mouths along with half the lines. When they get to the sex scene, Remus stage-whispers, 'Put your hands on me, Jack!' along with Kate Winslet, lurching sideways and throwing his arms around Sirius' neck like he's having a swooning fit. Sirius has to grab onto his thigh to keep them from falling over, and Remus breaks off giggling and falls back into his side of the couch, but one of his arms stays around Sirius' shoulders.

Sirius looks down at his lap, at Remus's leg thrown over it, at his own hand resting on Remus's thigh. They've always been a bit physical with each other, but it's usually just pokes and slaps and elbows, never anything quite like this. It must just be Remus's good mood, Sirius thinks, because that's the only option that doesn't make his nervous system go into crisis. Sirius wants to lean back into his touch, wants to knock him backwards and climb on top of him, wants to jump up and run away as fast as he can, but he can't do any of that. He doesn't know what Remus wants from him, and even if he did, he can't even decide which option would be the most terrifying.

Instead, he settles for leaving his hand where it is and shifting his eyes back to the movie, and he feels Remus's fingers twitch a little on his shoulder. They sit there like that, watching Jack and Rose have sex, Remus's arm around him and Sirius' hand on his thigh, and Sirius tries very, very hard not to dig his fingers in when Rose's hand slides down the glass.

When the damned boat finally starts sinking, Sirius distracts himself from Remus by assigning diving scores to the people jumping into the ocean, giving a silent 10 to the one who hits the propellor. His sadistic enjoyment, however, is interrupted by Kate Winslet being a self- sacrificing fool, and he can keep quiet no longer.

'Ugh, come on!' Sirius shouts at the screen. 'He's pretty, babe, but he's not that pretty.'

'Are you kidding?' Remus says, turning to gape at him. 'That's, like, practically the best part of the movie!'

Sirius gestures at the couple embracing onscreen. ''You jump, I jump?' That's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard. She had a chance to live!'

'She did live!' Remus argues.

'Yeah, barely,' Sirius sneers. 'She was nice and safe and warm on a lifeboat, and then she jumped back on the sinking ship and wound up almost freezing to death on a door. She's an idiot.'

'It was for love!' Remus says, hands flapping so hard through the air that he almost upsets his popcorn.

'Fat lot of good love did her,' Sirius says. 'He died anyway, didn't he?'

'That's not the point, though,' Remus says. 'All they had was each other. She couldn't just leave him. It didn't matter if they lived or died as long as they were together.'

Sirius rolls his eyes. 'That's rubbish. You always save yourself.'

'Would you two shut up?' James snaps from his corner of the couch where he's still cuddling his bottle of wine. 'I can't hear.'

Sirius chucks a pillow at him but settles back into the cushions, returning his attention to Leo DiCaprio.

It's obviously not an argument that he and Remus are ever going to agree on, anyway. Remus is the posterboy for flowerchild optimism, and Sirius is Sirius, and, well. It's stupid, but there's this low, restless, creeping feeling in his gut, and it feels almost like jealousy. He tries to put it to the back of his mind, but it keeps coming back up, bitter on the back of his tongue. He keeps hearing it in his head, 'as long as they were together,' and it's like a splinter under his skin that he can't quite pull out. How can Remus think that? Sirius can't imagine a life that would allow him to be someone ruled by anything other than survival instinct. It must be nice, Sirius thinks, to have the luxury of thinking like that. To be able to afford the risk of letting himself believe in the possibility of a world where things really do work like that and everything turns out for the best. To have days where you feel like you can do anything instead of an endless string of days where you feel like you've never done anything worth that kind of happiness.

Remus doesn't get it. He wears his heart on his sleeve because he hasn't any idea what the world is really like. Things don't always happen for a reason. Sometimes life is mean and pointless and people hurt you just because they can. Sometimes you fall in love with a person or a fantasy of the person you're going to be someday, and all it ever does for you is make you into something you hate, brittle bones and stone walls.

He's pulled out of his thoughts by the motion out of the corner of his eye of Remus lifting up his phone. Sirius gets a hand in front of his face just before he hears the fake shutter sound of the camera going off.

'Missed me,' he says, peeking out from behind his fingers.

'I don't get why you won't let me take your picture,' Remus says, pouting a bit, and Sirius just laughs.

'Well, we can't have you finding out I'm a vampire, can we?' he says, patting Remus's thigh consolingly. He turns back to the film, and tries not to worry about what Remus might see in his eyes if he ever managed to catch him off-guard.

- -

When Sirius first moved to Manchester, autumn was the hardest time of year. Back home in the city when he was younger, he used to spend every autumn outside, racing his best mate Will through backyards with pensioners shouting at them from their windows and wrestling in piles of leaves. He remembers the smell of firewood and cinnamon, getting used to the itchy wool of the jumpers his mum bought him for the first cold snap, the tree on the corner of the street he used to live on and how it turned the brightest, deepest red. Summers were fun, but autumn was home.

Even now, a few years in, sometimes it's hard to shake the homesickness when the temperature drops and the leaves start to change, but Manchester is home now too. Manchester is James ringing him from the nail salon to ask about a movie title he can't remember and Peter tripping him in the hallway and a bunch of teenagers who look at him like he's got the answers. Manchester is a flat that smells like him and Ziggy curled up in the gap between the dryer and the wall. Manchester is a boy with wispy hair and a camera slung around his neck.

So October rolls into November and November keeps moving. Much Ado rehearsals have taken off in earnest now, three nights a week and sometimes once on the weekend. His students seem to be taking to the material well, and he's pleased that nobody seems to be completely clueless about Shakespeare. He's never gotten along with the art teacher since that incident with the kiln two years back, so he always enlists James to help him with painting the set, and Peter is on call for when he starts working with lights and microphones. Remus comes by regularly as well, as always eager to help out however he can. Sirius watches with pride as they all plow on together, and he's got high hopes for when they open right before Christmas holidays.

Most people at the school aren't thinking so far in advance, though. Right now most of the students and faculty are focused on the end of the month. There's a school fair coming up the first weekend of November, put together by the student council in conjunction with two other nearby schools to raise money. It's the first time they've ever done anything like it, and the whole school is buzzing. The fair's going to take over the car park for half a week, setting up rides and games and booths, and it's all anyone in any of Sirius' classes is talking about. It's the kind of thing Sirius can easily imagine himself loving in his teens and also the kind of thing that he's sure he has long outgrown the ability to enjoy.

'Are you going?' Remus says one day, sitting on a desk in Sirius' classroom and thumbing through a folder of his own prints.

Sirius looks at him, trying not to be distracted by the way his fingers move. 'Wasn't really planning on it.'

Remus pulls a face. 'Come on, it'll be fun!' he says. 'I'm going.'

'I don't know,' Sirius says, wondering how he feels outnumbered when it's only Remus. 'I've got a lot of marking to do this weekend.'

'You've always got a lot of marking to do,' Remus argues. 'You can blow it off for one night. Please? I want you to come.' He looks so serious about it, so earnest, and Sirius can't say no. Not when Remus wants him there so much.

'All right, fine,' Sirius relents, 'I'll go.'

Remus pumps his fist in victory, and two days later, Sirius is standing in front of the ticket booth wondering how on earth he let himself get dragged into this.

He gives the student council member staffing the entrance the requisite five pounds, and pockets the tape of tickets she hands him. He walks slowly into the fair, slightly overwhelmed by the sheer variety of sounds and sights around him. He may be here under duress, but he has to admit that the school's done an impressive job. There are game booths as far as the eye can see, smells of dozens of fried foods wafting through the air, and even a few rides. The Ferris wheel looks a bit rickety in the late afternoon sun, though, so Sirius files it firmly under Do Not Partake.

He pulls out his phone and shoots Remus a text.

i'm here. where r u?

He pockets the phone and starts wandering vaguely toward the assortment of food trucks and tents while he waits for a response. He's sure that none of the things they've got to offer could possibly be good for the state of his hips, or his arteries for that matter, but it can't hurt to
look.

He's just approaching a toffee apple stand when something collides heavily with his back, almost knocking him flat on his face. He lets out an undignified squawk, wrestling out of the alarmingly strong grasp of a smallish set of arms, and when he manages to turn around, there is
one Peter Pettigrew grinning at him like a lunatic.

'Sirius, mate. This is the best thing this school has ever done,' Peter says manically, apparently impervious to the rays of pure disdain shooting from Sirius' eyes. He reaches up and cups Sirius' face roughly in both hands, as if about to impart the great secret of life. 'They have fried butter, mate. Fried. Butter.' He laughs a short, terrifying laugh, and then he's gone, rushing off into
the crowd.

Sirius lifts a hand to his face in shock. There are smears of grease on his face where Peter's hands were on it. Oh, he will pay for this. A boundless supply of crap food may have given him some kind of lard-fueled invincibility, but nobody jeopardizes Sirius Black's complexion and lives to tell the tale.

He's pulled out of his vengeful reverie by the buzz of his phone.

ring toss!!!!!!

Remus's message reads. Christ. How has he managed to surround himself with so many people that are so genuinely enthusiastic about these things?

He sighs and weaves his way through the crowds until he finds Remus at the ring toss, as promised. He's got a red scarf tucked into his pea coat and his camera bag strapped across his chest, looking every inch a respectable twenty-something artistic-type if it weren't for the studied seriousness of his ring toss stance. Sirius holds back a snort of laughter at the way he's chewing on his lower lip, contemplating his next throw. 'Ring toss champion Remus Lupin lines up his final toss,' Sirius says in his best announcer voice. Remus looks up, surprised, but then grins when he sees who it is. He looks back at the game with a furrowed brow, playing along. 'He's going for the gold here,' Sirius continues. 'It's all riding on this, the last toss of a legend…'

Remus throws the ring, which goes clattering off the tops of the bottles.

'No!' Sirius shouts loudly, throwing up his hands and startling several nearby students. 'What a blunder! You can only imagine the shock of the fans, of the people watching at home! What a colossal mistake! Oh, the humanity—' but then Remus's up in his space, putting a hand over his mouth even as he laughs.

'All right, all right, you've made your point,' he says, smiling. 'Stop making me feel worse about it.'

He slides his hand off Sirius' mouth, and Sirius ignores the fact that he can still feel his face flushing a bit from the sudden contact. Not for the first time in his life (or today, even), he thanks God for his ability to maintain a tan. He recovers quickly, sticking his tongue out at Remus.

'I am,' Remus says, leaning in conspiratorially, 'surprisingly bad at this game. Been trying to win for a solid ten minutes, wasted half my tickets.'

Sirius raises his eyebrows. 'Surely there are better things you could be doing. Peter seems very adamant about the virtues of the fried butter.'

Remus grins and shrugs. 'It's fun. And when I win, which I will,' he says, pointing a finger at Sirius' doubtful look, 'my victory will be all the sweeter.'

He tears off another ticket and hands it to the female student at the booth for another round. The girl hands him three more rings with a studied air of weariness that Sirius can't help but admire.

'I suppose there is a certain tragic romantic appeal in continuing to play a game you know is rigged,' Sirius says, leaning against the booth. He winks at the girl, who stares back at him blankly for a second before returning to her phone.

Snorting, Remus lines up another shot. 'You know it's possible to enjoy things non-ironically, right?' He tosses the ring and curses under his breath when it goes skittering off the bottles. He looks up at Sirius with a mix of humor and concern in his eyes. 'Healthy, even.'

'Ah, yes, non-ironic enjoyment,' Sirius says, gazing off into the distance. 'I knew it once, in the halcyon days of my youth.'

Remus points at him, ring in hand. 'I will break you of your cynicism yet. I will win one of these prizes for you, and you will be forced to admit that good things do happen in this world.'

Sirius barks a laugh. 'If you actually manage to win me a prize, I swear on my mother's uninhabited grave that I will attempt to sincerely enjoy this fair.'

'Challenge accepted,' Remus says, striking an athletic pose before tossing the second ring. Another miss. 'God damn it,' he says, and then nods a quick 'sorry' to the booth attendant. 'How is this game actually this difficult? Am I defective?'

'I told you already, young Remus. This game is rigged, and you are wasting your time. More importantly, you are wasting my time,' Sirius says archly.

'A rigged game can still be won, Black,' Remus says. Then he catches the last ring between his fingers and holds it up to Sirius' mouth. 'Blow.'

Sirius stares at him. 'You can't be serious.'

Remus just taps the ring lightly against Sirius' lips, his stare expectant and unwavering. 'Blow.'

Sirius needs to pretend that the insistent way Remus's looking at him isn't making his brain chemistry run riot, so he makes a show of rolling his eyes and huffs out a breath through pursed lips.

Grinning like he's already won, Remus turns back to the game, takes a deep breath, and tosses the ring. Sirius watches as it bounces, bounces, and lands with a tinny clink around the neck of one of the bottles.

'Yes!' Remus yells, throwing up his arms in pure joy. 'Victory is mine!'

'What,' Sirius says lamely.

'I believe I have earned a prize, have I not?' Remus says to the booth girl. She nods and snaps her gum. 'What d'you want?' she asks, jerking her head towards the shelf behind her.

'I think I shall take that magnificent stuffed bear, thank you,' Remus says. When she hands it to him, he immediately turns to Sirius, who still hasn't quite been able to stop staring at the ring around the bottle. It worked. Remus won. There is a God, and he is a dick.

Remus pushes the rather sizeable bear into Sirius' arms. 'Sorry, Sirius,' he says with a smirk that says he is definitely not sorry at all. 'Looks like you're going to have to be happy tonight, whether you want to or not.'

Sirius gapes at him, helpless and clutching a comically large bear to his chest, and tries to pull himself together. Remus wants happy, sincere Sirius? Fine. Fine. 'I suppose a deal's a deal,' he says. 'What wonders shall we enjoy next, oh fearless leader?'

'Oh, no you don't,' Remus says, shaking a finger at Sirius. 'That's still making fun of it, and that wasn't the deal. I don't want you to be ridiculous, or to fake anything.' He smiles softly. 'Just relax and enjoy yourself. You think you can manage that?' he asks, poking Sirius in the
side. 'You think that's in the realm of possibility?' Sirius sighs and hugs the bear closer. At least the bear doesn't try to make him do things. Or feel things. 'Yes,' he mutters into the soft fur petulantly.

Remus smiles like all his birthdays have come at once. 'Brilliant.' He grabs Sirius by the upper arm and starts walking toward the food area. 'Now what were you saying about fried butter?'

They wander between the various booths offering refreshment, admiring what's on offer, and Remus ends up trading two tickets for a bag of deep-fried Oreos. He doesn't make Sirius try that particular horrific concoction, but he smiles when Sirius bites into a sausage with relish.

'I know I shouldn't,' Sirius says, wiping grease off his bottom lip with his thumb, 'And I know they're full of, like, pig anuses and whatnot, but they're just too good to turn down.'

'I know precisely what you mean,' Remus says, grinning at him. Sirius feels a white-hot bolt of wishful thinking run through him, imagining what exactly Remus could be talking about. He has just enough time to think, 'wait, would he be implying I was full of pig anuses' before that
train of thought is derailed by the sight of Peter sprawled across a bench.

'Whatcha doin', Pete?' he calls out in a sing-song tone. Peter opens his eyes and fixes Sirius with a gaze. His face is the face of a man at peace.

'Digesting,' he says. He squints. 'Where'd the bear come from?'

'I won it for Sirius at ring toss,' Remus says proudly, and hearing it in the presence of someone else makes Sirius hyperaware of how it sounds, of what it could mean to objective ears. He freezes, hanging on Peter's reaction.

'Cute,' Peter says, closing his eyes. And maybe he doesn't read anything into it, or is too sated to care, but Sirius knows someone else would ask questions, would look at Sirius for answers and read the truth that's written even in the way he walks, swaying closer to Remus with every step. He's a pathetic bastard, even his cat knows it, and the only thing that's keeping it under wraps is Peter's codependent relationship with food.

'I try,' Remus says, turning to smile at Sirius, and it's almost too much. 'You could return the favor, you know,' he points out.

'What, win you something?' Sirius asks, incredulous.

'Unless you don't think you've got the skills.' Remus looks at Sirius, all wide-eyed innocence, and Sirius is going to interpret the heat that pools in his stomach as healthy competitiveness and nothing else.

'Please, Lupin, as if you're any match for me. Let's head back to the games, I'll win so many plush toys you'll choke on them.'

'Is that a promise?' Remus asks, quirking an eyebrow, and honestly, fuck him.

'It's a threat,' Sirius intones, trying to look as scary as one can while holding a giant teddy bear.

Remus bursts out laughing at that. 'Fair enough. You head over and pick a game, I'll meet you there,' he says. 'I've got to use the toilet, and I figure you'll need plenty of time to get in the zone.'

'I live in the zone, Lupin!' Sirius shouts at Remus's retreating back. He sighs as soon as he's out of sight.

'You two make me want to vomit,' Peter says sleepily from the bench, his eyes still closed.

'That's probably just all the kebabs you've just shoved into your gob,' Sirius says. He throws the remains of his sausage at him.

Five minutes later he finds himself in front of the balloons and darts booth, struggling to pop a single one.

'Suddenly I feel much better about my ring toss skills,' says a voice behind him, and by now Sirius knows that voice well enough that he doesn't even have to turn around.

'Not now, Remeus, I'm concentrating,' Sirius tells him. He holds the tip of his tongue between his teeth and tries very hard to keep his eyes on the balloons in front of him and not Remus sauntering up beside him, smiling as he props one hip up against the edge of the booth. He's got a
cloud of cotton candy in each hand. One for himself and one for Sirius. Damn it all.

'One dart left,' Remus observes. 'Pressure's on.'

'You mock my ambitions,' Sirius says. 'Some people take the sport of balloon popping very seriously.'

'I am being serious,' Remus says. 'How else am I going to get my hands on one of those bears?'

'By winning your own, you lazy arse,' Sirius says. He lines up his shot, adjusts his glasses, aims—

And misses completely, dart landing wide left, because Remus chooses that moment to casually lick the crystallized sugar off of one long, slender finger.

'Guess I'll have to, then,' Remus says. He's smirking when Sirius turns to look at him properly, and Sirius could almost swear the whole thing was on purpose.

'Nobody likes a smartarse,' Sirius says. He snatches his cotton candy out of Remus's hand.

'Cheers,' Remus says, taking an enormous bite of his own. When he speaks again, little bits of pink fluff fly everywhere. 'Well, we found Peter. Where's James?'

'Over there, hidden behind the horny masses,' Sirius says, pointing across the carpark to the crowd that's queued up.

'Ah, he's still on his shift?' Remus asks, picking bits of cotton candy from his fringe.

'So it would seem, the poor lad,' Sirius says with a theatrical sigh. 'You know, I think he only suggested the kissing booth as a joke, like in that movie he likes so much? The one that's the Shakespeare retelling? But people were remarkably enthusiastic about the idea.'

Remus snorts. 'Wonder why.' The line is immense, full of female students, teachers, and what appear to be a few of the students' mothers. 'Do you think we still have a chance? Line's moving
quickly.'

'Have a chance? I'll throw elbows if I have to,' Sirius says, and strides across the carpark, Remus close behind.

In line, Sirius looks around, observing. Remus is right, the line is moving quickly, aided in part by the strictly-enforced cheek-kiss-only rule. Sirius sees about half of his actresses in line, giggling to each other over their own nerve, and he makes a mental note to remind James to come looking as frumpy as possible next time he comes to help paint the set during rehearsal.

Remus nods his head over to a cluster of boys off to the side. 'Some of my lads over there, watching the show. Think they're jealous?'

Sirius gives them a once-over, noticing that not all of them are watching the girls. 'Jealous of who?' he says wryly.

Eyes bugging, Remus looks back at his players. 'You don't think—interesting,' he says. Sirius just hopes the redheaded one learns to keep his eyes to himself if he wants to be anywhere near subtle.

Before Remus can say anything else, it's their turn. James looks only moderately homicidal, both his cheeks colored by several layers of lipgloss and lipstick, until he looks up to see who his next customer is. The absolute despair that comes over his face when he sees them makes Sirius extremely proud of himself.

'Get it over quick, would you,' he says, with the air of a man condemned.

'My love!' Sirius cries, setting the bear on the ground. 'So long we have been parted, but no longer! At last, I have found you again, and from this day forth we shall never be separated.' He drapes himself across James's booth, and James's hands fly into the air like someone's just spilled something unpleasant on him. 'Swear you shall set these, these pretenders aside and remain with me forevermore,' Sirius continues, gesturing expansively to the bemused members of the line behind him. Remus, for his part, is laughing uproariously. 'Swear to me, my one and only. Light of my life, fire of my loins, my Jameslita.'

James looks down at him with an impassive face that would be frightening if Sirius weren't congenitally immune to threats from men with lip imprints on their face. 'I will dedicate my life to making sure that the remains of your body are as small as possible,' he says.

'Good enough for me,' Sirius says. He stands up, tears a ticket off, and holds it between his teeth. He raises his eyebrows at James and looks down at the ticket suggestively. God, he is hilarious.

'Not a fucking chance,' James says, and snatches the ticket with his hands. He grabs Sirius by the cheeks and kisses him roughly on the forehead before shoving him away. 'Next!'

Sirius stands aside as Remus walks up, sedately hands James his ticket, and then leaps over the booth to tackle him to the ground. Watching them wrestle in the dirt as scandalized fair-goers look on, Sirius commends himself on his choice in friends and retrieves the bear.

When James finally breaks free, he's roughed up but smiling. He shoves Remus out from behind the booth and into Sirius, who catches him by the shoulders with the arm that isn't holding the bear. His fingers curl into the collar of Remus's coat, and Remus looks him right in the eye as
they both try not to fall over laughing. Yeah, Sirius maybe likes these people a little bit.

James goes to sit back behind the booth but is stopped by one of the maths teachers from the second floor corridor in Sirius' building. His name begins with a B, but Sirius can't quite remember it with Remus ducking under his arm. Bradley? Bennett? Benjamin? Whoever he is,
James looks thrilled to see him.

'Your shift's up, Potter,' he says, clapping James on the shoulder. There is an audible groan from the gathered crowd, and Sirius sees one girl violently throw an ice cream cone to the ground as James stands and the maths teacher takes his place. Bernard? Barry?

'Thanks, George,' James says, and okay, you can't win them all. 'Good luck.' George gives a salute as James walks past Remus and Sirius.

'Oi, where are you going?' Sirius calls after him. James turns but keeps walking backwards.

'I'm going to, uh, check out the rides. Make sure they're up to safety code, you know,' he says, coloring. 'Just in case.'

'You're no fun anymore!' Sirius yells at his back. Remus, still under Sirius' arm, just blows a raspberry. Sirius, for reasons he can't explain, lightly headbutts Remus in the temple. 'Where to next, then?' he asks, and Remus shrugs.

'You haven't won me a prize yet,' he points out idly, and Sirius tips his head back and groans.

They wander back towards the games, and Sirius spends about half an hour and most of his tickets discovering that he is, apparently, not good at any of them. Remus is supremely unhelpful, whispering into Sirius' ear while he tries to shoot ducks and standing in his way during pin the tail on the donkey. Blindfolded, Sirius walks right into him, and Remus just laughs.

Sirius sighs and pulls the blindfold up. 'You know, you might actually get something if you stop messing with me. You're working against your own interests, here.'

Remus grins and pulls the blindfold back down. 'I'm a complicated man,' he says, spinning Sirius around again.

'You're a complicated dick,' Sirius mutters, but he flails around for the donkey anyway.

Finally, several failures later, Sirius is on his final ticket. He holds it up to Remus. 'Last shot at a prize. How shall I waste it?' Remus looks thoughtfully at the ticket, but then shakes his head.

'No prize. Come on, let's find the others, I want to get a photo of everyone.'

Remus texts Peter and Sirius texts James, and five minutes later they're assembled in front of the Ferris wheel. It's lit up now, lights blinking against the darkening evening sky. Sirius remembers how shoddy it looked a few hours ago and wonders when exactly it started to seem appealing. He turns to James to remark on it, but is distracted by the morose expression on his face.

'Christ, what pissed in your cotton candy?' he asks, poking James in the stomach.

James sighs. 'Nothing, it's just—I checked this whole place over and everything's up to code. These guys, they really know their stuff.' He glowers up at the Ferris wheel. 'Not even a fucking rusty bolt, much less a fire hazard.'

'Sorry, mate,' Remus says, 'On the bright side, Sirius is absolute rubbish at fair games.'

Sirius nods. 'I truly am.'

He swears he can see James's quiff perk up. 'Really?'

'It's an embarrassment to the human race,' he admits.

'That does cheer me up,' James says. Remus claps him on the shoulder.

'Good, can't have you crying in the pictures.' Peter says. Remus flags down a passing student and hands her his camera. The four of them line up, James next to Sirius next to Remus next to Peter, arms around each others' shoulders, though one of Sirius' is occupied by the bear. 'Three, two, one…' the girl says, and as the flash goes off, Sirius hoists the bear up in front of his face.

Remus cuffs the back of his head. 'Tosser,' he says affectionately, and goes to retrieve his camera, thanking the girl. He looks at the digital display and laughs. 'Oh, this one's going on the wall.' When the other three try to sneak a look at the screen he hides it, batting them away. 'You'll see it when I give you prints, get off.'

Peter stretches and lets out a small burp. 'All right, lads, I'm headed home.' He goes down the line and pats all of them on the head, even the bear. 'I am going to sleep for a very long time, and it's going to be fucking amazing. See you on Monday!' He waves and walks toward the carpark as the others chorus their goodbyes after him.

'I think that's it for me, too,' James says, shuffling his feet.

'Aw, James,' Remus wheedles. 'I'll let you beat me at the test-your-strength thing if you stay.'

'Appreciate the offer, but nah.' James pulls a packet of cigarettes out of his jacket and puts one between his lips. 'I've had enough excitement for one night, I think.' He lights up and takes a weary drag that Sirius knows for a fact he's practiced in front of a mirror.

'If you say so,' Sirius says. 'Just know that if you burn your flat down in a melancholic fury I'm not letting you sleep on my couch.'

'Cheers,' James says, and heads off.

They watch him slouch off. 'A hundred people queued up to kiss him today and he's still miserable,' Sirius says. 'Not sure if I should be annoyed or impressed.'

'Nah, I get it. Doesn't really count unless it's the right one.' Remus says, a smile at the corner of his lips. 'You ready to spend your last ticket?'

'I was born ready, Lupin,' Sirius says, bumping Remus's shoulder with his. 'What's the plan?'

Remus just points up at the Ferris wheel, and Sirius' stomach twists like a balloon animal. 'Seems like a fitting end to the night, yeah?' Sirius just nods.

The queue moves quickly enough that he doesn't have time to try to remember the last time he was actually excited to ride a Ferris wheel. When they reach the ticket-taker, she stops them. 'It's three to a car.' Remus grabs the bear from Sirius' arms. 'He's our third.' He hands the girl two tickets from his tape and walks briskly by, holding Sirius' arm, and Sirius has just enough time to hand her his last ticket before he's dragged past and into a car. Remus puts the bear in the far seat and claims the middle for himself, leaving Sirius the seat on the end.

'Cozy,' Sirius jokes, settling himself in, and the ride operator locks the bar over their laps.

The wheel starts turning, lifting them up, and Sirius is once again thrown into a moment of extreme, acute awareness. This time, though, he's not worried about what any else thinks. Every part of him focuses instead on this narrow bench on a Ferris wheel and Remus's solid weight pressed up against his side and the fact that there's nowhere for him to run, not even a spare inch of space between his body and the side of the car. Just himself and Remus and a giant bear and all of the things he's afraid he can't keep quiet.

'You're not afraid of heights or anything, right?' Sirius looks over to find Remus looking back at him with concern, and he's confused until he realises his hands are clenched in his lap, knuckles white.

He forces himself to relax. 'No worries,' he says brightly, and the slow spread of Remus's smile has him in pieces. He's not afraid of heights, but he's been in too many shows not to know nerves when he has them.

They sit quietly, looking out at the view as their car climbs higher and higher and the sounds and colors of the fair grow fainter below. Sirius places his hands on his knees and keeps them still, eyes fixed on the loose way Remus's hands hang over the bar spanning their laps. They're so close, and it would be so easy to just reach out and tangle their fingers together. He can imagine Remus's palm broad and warm against his, his fingers sugar-sticky on the back of his hand, and, God, when was the last time he wanted to hold somebody's hand? Suspended in this tiny, contained space, he can't keep ignoring what he's been feeling all night. Sirius is sitting on a carnival ride with a boy who makes him nervous, and he has not felt like this since he was seventeen.

When they reach the top, the wheel creaks to a halt, and they're alone with the stars and the lights of Manchester. Sirius looks out to the city skyline and soaks in the warmth of the person next to him and thinks of how strange it feels to not want to be anywhere else, or with anyone else. He doesn't know how to handle it. Maybe he used to, but he doesn't anymore.

He clears his throat loudly, and Remus looks over at him. 'Penny for your thoughts?'

'Why?' Remus asks, as if Sirius has an answer for why anything anymore, especially with him.

'Bit boring, sitting here in silence,' Sirius says, trying to keep his tone light. He should have known better than to trust his voice, as weak and wavering as the rest of him.

Remus just shakes his head softly, eye contact like a tether. 'I'm not bored,' he says, and looks back out across the city, a smile playing across his lips. 'You aren't bored.'

Sirius stares at a point on the horizon and tries to ignore the uneven drag of his own lungs. 'I suppose not.'

He braves another look at Remus, and it almost knocks the breath out of him. He's in profile next to Sirius, looking out into the distance, immediate and warm and so fucking beautiful. The lights from the Ferris wheel hit him just right, touching the ends of his lashes and the dip of his lower lip and the place where his hair falls across his temple and curls against his cheekbone, casting a halo around his head in bright pink and yellow. Sirius wants to kiss him more than he's ever
wanted to kiss anyone in his life.

The ride shudders back into motion and Sirius pulls his eyes away.

They don't speak for the rest of the ride. Every nerve ending in Sirius' body is right up against the surface, spine to fingertips, straining to the very borders of him in an attempt to get to Remus. It feels like the last moment before a static shock, before the bolt arches across a gap, and Sirius can't let that happen. So he keeps his hands on his knees.

By the time Sirius gets out of the car his legs are weak like he's run a marathon. Remus climbs out after him, tugging the bear along by the arm, and Sirius can't help but grin at the sight of him.

'Sadly, I'm afraid that's the end of the night for me,' Sirius says, making a try for casual now that the ground's back under his feet.

'All good things,' Remus says. He heaves the bear back up into his arms, and they start wandering in the direction of the parking area.

Sirius stares at his shoes and matches Remus's slow pace, pretending for the sake of his own sanity that this was just a fun night with a good friend and nothing more, that he doesn't want anything else. And it was fun, really. Remus had been right.

'This was nice,' Sirius says suddenly. He doesn't remember making the decision to speak, but it's too late to go back now. 'I'm, um. I'm glad I came.' He elbows Remus, knocking him sideways a bit. 'Even if it was only because you forced me to.'

Remus laughs and gives him a light shove back. 'You're welcome. For the bear, too.'

He holds it out to Sirius, shaking it a little so the stuffed legs flop around, and Sirius takes it from him haughtily. 'No more than I deserve.'

Remus laughs again. 'Too right.'

They walk in silence for another moment before Remus looks over and says, 'I'm glad I met you.'

It hangs in the air between them, and Sirius wants to grab onto that too, wants to shove it inside his coat and keep it there. One day he will stop being surprised by the things Remus is willing to say out loud.

'Yeah?' he says.

'Yeah,' Remus confirms, looking pleased with himself.

Sirius can't do anything about the smile that creeps across his face as they keep walking. 'Good.' He notices then that they're reaching the edge of the car park, and he pauses. 'Where'd you park, Rem?'

Remus stops in his tracks. 'Back there,' he says, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb. 'I was following you.'

Sirius lets out a weak little laugh. 'I'm that way.' He points in another direction. 'Thought I was following you.'

'Oh,' Remus says, laughing a little too, one hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. 'I guess this is where we part ways, then.' He kicks at the gravel on the ground.

'Well, I'll, uh—' Sirius searches for words that aren't going to give him away. 'I'll see you on Monday, I suppose.'

Remus nods. 'Yeah, Monday.' He's looking at Sirius with his brow furrowed, like he's trying to sort something out in his own head.

'Well,' Sirius says. 'Bye.'

'Bye,' Remus says back, but doesn't move, still watching Sirius.

The lights of the car park cast long shadows on Remus's face, and from this close Sirius can count every one. He thinks of autumn and home and being seventeen and believing in things that he hardly even mentions by name in his own head anymore. He thinks of colored lights and Remus's hands, and he feels like he's back up on the Ferris wheel alone, something tiny hanging over something so much bigger than himself. There's an edge, and there's him, and he can't seem to stop himself from moving closer and closer. He takes a deep breath, opens his mouth, closes it again, and then turns on his heel and walks away.

He hurries to his car, afraid to look back, and the gravel crunches 'idiot
idiot idiot' underfoot.