and still we sleep

The blood was crusty, caked beneath Remus’s fingernails like dried mud, jammed so deep that he couldn’t pick it all out. Blood always lingered, along with the sweat and fur and raw scars. That was what happened, Remus supposed, when you tried to claw your own face off.

But something felt off about it this time.

His body, of course, was in awful shape, sweaty and sore and overheated, but that was to be expected. He always ran a fever the mornings after. He was bothered more by the feeling in his mind, and his chest, that something out of the ordinary had happened. That the blood under his fingernails belonged to something other than himself.

His mind went to Sirius, as it always did the mornings after full moons. He wondered just how disgusted Sirius would be if he could have seen Remus a few hours ago, or even Remus right now, fresh scratches, sticky skin, some innocent creature's blood stuck under his fingernails.

He was, unfortunately, not the only person in the hospital wing thinking of Sirius that morning. A group of girls, who apparently had no idea how to cast silencing charms, were lingering about, probably with some ill or injured friend, chattering loudly a few beds down from him. They kept him from sleeping, forcing him to linger with the pain in his limbs and stinging of his fresh scratches. Even with all the curtains drawn, he heard them loud and clear.

At first, it was just typical, giggly gossip about the students in their year, assigning labels to each of them, and Remus was beyond relieved that his own name never came up. Sirius’s, however, did, in perhaps the most humiliating way possible.

“Alright,” one of the girls said. “Best lay in the school.”

There was a brief moment of silence before the group burst into muffled laughter, delighted by the forbiddenness of the topic.

“Come on, we all know,” one girl said, through giggles.

“We all know who?”

“Sirius Black,” she hissed, to another round of laughter.

Of course.

Remus had expected the answer, but still, it felt strange to hear someone else talking about him. He should really stop listening, he thought, feeling like it was almost an invasion of Sirius’s privacy.

He didn’t.

“Ugh, him?” a girl groaned.

“Oh, come on. Have you even seen him?”

“Okay, sure, he’s hot…”

This statement incited a wave of overlapping protests.

“Hot?”

“Hot doesn’t even do him justice.”

“He’s better than hot…”

“Okay, fine, better than hot, whatever!” the girl said. “My roommate has been hooking up with him for the past, like, 3 years, and-”

“Lucky.”

“-and he’s so obnoxious. They always used to kick me out so they could have sex.”

“Is your roommate that weird blonde girl?”

“Marlene, yeah.”

“Ugh, she is so lucky.”

“Guys!” the girl said. “Come on, he’s awful. Y’know, every time he comes around to the room he acts like he’s never even met me before. He asks me my name, as if we haven’t known each other since we were eleven.”

“Can’t take it personally,” another girl chimed in. “I mean, I slept with him and he didn’t even remember my name the next morning.”

“See, exactly my point. He doesn’t give a shit about anybody, especially not the people he sleeps with. He’s a slut .”

Remus frowned. The word felt dirty, all wrong, not at all the sort of word that should be used to describe someone like Sirius. He was relieved by the chorus of protests the statement seemed to elicit, though another agreement rose up over the crowd.

“I mean, she does have a point, though. I slept with him once when we were drunk and then we never spoke again.”

“Yeah, exactly,” the girl said. “Can you imagine if a girl acted the way he did? They’d all be calling her a tramp or fucking… Gryffinwhore or something.”

The group exploded into giggles.

“Really, though,” the girl said, her voice growing stronger and more vindicated with each statement. “He just gets away with it because he’s a boy, and he’s hot, and rich. It’s bullshit. He treats Gryffindor tower like his own personal whorehouse, it’s just plain disgusting.”

Remus had had enough. He threw himself back onto the bed and shoved his head under the pillow, clamping it down on his ears so he didn’t need to hear any more of it. He wished he hadn’t listened at all.

He knew that Sirius had had a lot of sexual partners. Everyone did. He’d always had a certain reputation for it, even in their earlier years, and he bragged about it incessantly. But still, to hear that he was really this careless about it, that had sex with people he barely even knew and then forgot their names…

It frightened Remus, sometimes, to think about how different the two of them were. How could someone else be so comfortable in their own body that they would just throw it around carelessly, let anyone who was interested have a piece of it? Just the thought of people looking at Remus made his skin prickle. He hated having a body. The only good thing he ever did with it was kiss Sirius, and even then, he’d spend half the time worrying about the stupid animal and wondering if one day he’d accidentally hurt him or something. Existing as a physical being was near torture. There was always something hurting, always some sort of discomfort he was stuck with. Remus often wished he could crawl out of his skin and exist as some other thing, separate from his body and whatever else was living inside of it.

Sirius, however- his love for his own body practically radiated off of him, in his sauntering confidence, in his carefully curated wardrobe, in the way he was so quick to drape an arm around someone’s shoulders or nudge an elbow into their ribs. The way he was always the one to brush his fingers against Remus’s in the hallway, the first to press his lips against Remus’s the moment they were somewhere alone together.

Remus still didn’t quite understand how it was that he and Sirius got on so well, and overhearing the conversation had dragged up old insecurities.

It was impossible, knowing Sirius’s reputation, not to wonder if Remus really meant any more to Sirius than any one of those girls he’d been with before. Perhaps he only wanted to sleep with Remus- maybe get some experience with a boy because he was feeling experimental- and whenever he grew bored of Remus, he’d chuck him out the door and forget his name like he did with all these other girls. The secret smiles, poetry obsession, all of it was just a way of getting Remus close so he could get what he wanted. Marlene seemed to have tried to warn Remus about this possibility months ago when she told him that Sirius was likely to hurt him.

Admittedly, a few months ago, Remus had suspected Sirius of this. But now, perhaps naively, he doubted it. Sirius had trusted him. Sirius had told him things, whispered his deepest thoughts on the roof of the astronomy tower through cigarette smoke and alcohol-loosened lips. He’d let Remus see him at his most vulnerable, falling asleep on his chest, whispering apologies as if they were near impossible to say. There were some things he still kept a tight lid on, but Remus felt they were making progress, chipping away another layer with every conversation, every offhand story about his parents or his childhood. Remus couldn’t imagine he’d let any of those girls he’d slept with in on that side of him.

And, if it was sex he was after, why Remus? He wasn’t even attractive.

The other possibility, of course, was that Remus was actually special to Sirius. That, somehow, Sirius Black, who could have any person in the school that he wanted, had become so utterly besotted with Remus that he didn’t even care if Remus slept with him, didn’t even care if Remus would take his shirt off around him, just wanted to spend time with him because he thought he liked him. Maybe he even thought that he loved him. Remus didn’t understand it, but it certainly seemed to make more sense than the first one, despite the complete absurdity of it.

Still, he didn’t want to believe this option either. Mostly because it meant that when Sirius found out what Remus really was, it was only going to hurt more.

Both options were horrifying. Both options had Remus dreading the end, scrambling to put a timeline on the relationship. How long before they were supposed to have sex? How long until Sirius started to catch on that something was off? How long until cracked under the pressure and let the secret slip? Remus didn’t want this to end. He was determined to drag it out for as long as possible, because as torturous as it was to hold onto the secret, it would seem an even worse torture to lose Sirius altogether.

At breakfast the next morning, Sirius arrived with a handful of their books for poetry class and plopped them onto the table rather abruptly. Remus flinched at the sudden movement, head pounding, limbs creaky and sore like rusted hinges. One day off wasn’t nearly enough.

Sirius’s mood seemed to contrast against Remus’s almost comically. Bright, smiling, an almost twitchy energy to his limbs as he squeezed in between James and Remus. His skin had a nice, healthy glow to it, dark eye bags gone, and he seemed fully alert, a stark contrast to his constant exhaustion and disorientation over the past few weeks. It made Remus rather embarrassed to look as terrible as he assumed he did at the moment.

“Where were you yesterday?” Peter asked.

Remus glanced over at Sirius in confusion. Sirius had been gone yesterday, too?

“Sleeping,” Sirius said. “I slept till, like, 4PM. And then I slept for like, 8 more hours last night, too.”

“You get your hands on some dreamless sleep or something?” Peter asked.

“Nope,” Sirius chirped, reaching for the pumpkin juice. “Just got tired enough, I guess.” He turned to nudge Remus’s side and Remus tried to suppress a wince. “Keating said you weren’t in class yesterday, either.”

“Er, no,” Remus said, wondering where Sirius had gotten the time and energy to pay a visit to the professor before even going to breakfast. “I… felt sick.”

“Well, he told me which poems we read in class, so we oughta go over them today,” he turned to address James and Peter. “You guys can come too, if you wanna hang out.”

Peter swallowed a mouthful of pumpkin juice. “Like, at the shrieking shack?”

“No!” Sirius blurted.

The table fell silent, three wide-eyed gazes settling on him.

Sirius cleared his throat awkwardly, dropping the sudden urgency as quickly as it had come. “I just mean, er- we can’t go out there in daylight,” he stammered.

Remus, James, and Peter exchanged bewildered looks across the table.

“Er… alright then,” James said.

“Well…” Peter shrugged. “Is there anywhere else where we can read poetry without anybody hearing?”

There were four practice rooms, a strangely small amount for such a large school, but hardly anyone here had any reason to touch a piano, Remus supposed. It would be a tight squeeze with all four of them in one, especially with a piano taking up all that space, but it was the most private place they could come up with in the middle of the school day. As they entered the hallway, James gravitated toward the only other occupied room, pressing his ear against the door to hear the music that trickled out.

Remus was rather impressed, actually. He knew it was Lily, because she’d been playing this song for ages now; the first one she’d ever learned. He remembered her calling him and playing it for him over the phone when they were younger. James, however, had no way of knowing. Perhaps he was just so obsessed with her, he’d grown able to sense her presence.

He also knew that she’d probably be horrified to know that James was listening in to her playing, so he pushed past James to open the door a crack and peer through.

Lily’s fingers stopped at the sound of the hinges. “Hey, Remus,” she said, turning on the piano bench to face him. Her eyes fell on the clump of figures clustered behind him. “Oh,” she said, her tone losing some of its lightness. “Wow. Gang’s all here.”

“That sounded really nice,” James said.

“Gee, thanks,” Lily said flatly.

“What song was it?”

Lily smirked. “I thought you would’ve recognized it.”

James frowned, tilting his head in confusion.

“‘Hey Jude?’ Y’know, your supposed favorite Beatles song?”

“Oh,” James said weakly. “Yeah, no, er- I totally recognized it.”

Lily sighed in exasperation, though a slight smile tugged at her lips. “What are you guys doing here, anyway?”

“We’re looking for somewhere to read poetry,” Peter informed her.

Lily’s amused gaze flickered over to Remus, who simply shrugged.

“Read poetry?” she said. “What is this, like, some poetry club or something?”

“Yes, actually,” James said proudly.

“We’re called the Dead Poets Society,” Peter added.

Lily raised her eyebrows, lips twitching.  “Er. Why?”

“What do you mean, why?”

“I mean, none of you are dead. And none of you are poets. So, it’s sort of a confusing name.”

“Sirius is a poet!” James offered.

“Prongs,” Sirius hissed, shoving James’s shoulder.

‘Well, he will be when he finishes his assignment,” James added quickly.

“So, you have a club where you just read poetry?” Lily asked.

“It’s not a club,” Sirius said. “It's a society .”

“Oh, sorry,” Lily said sarcastically. She stiffened her shoulders and put on a posh accent that sounded nothing like how Sirius spoke but was bound to piss him off anyway. “ Society .”

James and Peter snickered at the impression while Remus simply clapped a hand over his mouth, not wanting to betray his best friend or his- well, whatever Sirius was to him.

“Ugh, girls,” Sirius huffed. “You could never understand.” With that, he turned dramatically and waved the group into the closest practice room. They filed after their leader, Remus sending Lily a little shrug and a smile.

“Have fun with your club!” Lily’s muffled chirp came just as they were walking out.

“It’s a society!” Sirius shouted over his shoulder as the door slammed shut.

In the next room over, Sirius hopped up onto the top of the piano, cross-legged with his notebook balancing on his knee, while James sat on the carpet, leaning his head against the shared wall between theirs and Lily’s practice room. The sounds of Lily’s playing seeped through the walls.

“She’s really good,” James said dreamily.

“Hey, you play piano, don’t you, Sirius?” Peter said. “Can you play any of this stuff?”

“Learning piano in the Black house is very different from learning piano in a fun way,” Sirius scoffed. “Besides, I haven’t played in forever. I doubt I even-”

A sharp, delighted gasp from James cut him off mid-sentence as the chords of a new song began seeping through the walls. “Pete!” he breathed, leaping to his feet and grabbing Peter’s hand. “I love this song!” He yanked Peter across the room and threw the door open. Peter stumbled out the door with James, casting a helpless look back at Remus.

Remus looked over to Sirius, who shrugged lightly and hopped off the edge of the piano. They followed Peter and James to crowd in the doorway of Lily's practice room. The piano lick was vaguely familiar to Remus, though he couldn’t place it.

James took a step into the room, turning back to face Peter dramatically, as if directing the song’s lyrics right at him. “ I don’t wanna talk, ” he began, in a singing voice that was equal parts atrocious and charming in its carelessness. “About things we’ve gone through. Though it’s hurting me, now it’s history.”

Lily turned briefly, fingers still moving across the keys, to smile wryly at James, who seemed to take this as an encouragement, grabbing Peter’s hand and yanking him into the room with him. “I’ve played all my cards, and that’s what you’ve done too. Nothing more to say, no more ace to play.”

He thrust his fist out in front of Peter’s face, as if he were holding a microphone to his mouth. “The winner takes it all,” Peter cried. “The loser standing small.”

“Beside her victory,” James took over. “That’s her destinyyyyyy!”

Lily laughed at the piano, shaking her head as James and Peter continued their overdramatic duet.

Sirius nudged an elbow into Remus’s side. “Hey,” he said. “Is this some fucking ABBA song?”

Remus nodded silently, biting his lip to hold back a smile.

“Prongs!” Sirius exploded. “ No ABBA! It’s a rule, remember?”

James whirled around to face Sirius, grinning, and fell to one knee, stretching his arms out before him toward Sirius as if imploring him. “The gods may throw the dice, their minds as cold as ice!”

“No!” Sirius shrieked, throwing his hands over his ears and hunching over as if being tortured. Laughing, Remus put a comforting hand on his back.

Peter joined James, stretching his hands out. “And someone way down heeeere…”

“I said no ABBA!”

“Loses someone deeeeaarrrrrrrr!”

Sirius straightened up quickly, clamping a hand around Remus’s arm. “Fine, then!” he shouted over the singing.

“The winner takes it all!”

He yanked Remus over to the door, throwing it open and dragging him to their practice room, excited scream-singing still seeping through the walls.

“The loser has to fall!”

“Abba is so stupid,” Sirius complained, slamming the door behind him. The moment they were both inside, Sirius whirled around, grabbed the front of Remus’s sweater, and pulled him down for a kiss. Remus sank into it, fingers sliding into Sirius’s curls as one of Sirius’s hands rose up to cup his cheek, running a thumb over the fresh scratches.

Shit . It stung. Remus’s hand flew up to clamp around Sirius’s forearm and pry it away, but the moment he made contact, Sirius hissed and yanked it from his grip.

Remus broke free from the kiss. “Shit, are you-”

“‘S’fine, Remus,” Sirius whispered against his lips, his other hand still tight in his jumper, trying to tug him back in.

Remus’s eyes travelled down to Sirius’s arm, in the sleeve of his leather jacket, now hanging limply by his side. How had he even hurt it? He’d only grabbed it lightly.

“Did you hurt your arm or something?”

“Remus, shut the fuck up about my arm,” Sirius hissed, then, as if to show him it was fine, threw it around his neck and pushed himself up to kiss him again. Remus shut his eyes, focusing on Sirius’s lips, allowing his concern to fade into background noise along with the terrible singing.

There were a few blissful, perfect moments until a particularly loud scream from James broke them apart.

“THE JUDGES WILL DECIDE!”

Sirius pulled away, his eyes focused in the direction of the singing, brows furrowed in annoyance.

“THE LIKES OF ME ABIDE!”

Sirius’s expression was so irritated, and the singing so terrible, that Remus couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up in his chest. Sirius simply groaned in response, thumping his head against Remus’s chest.

“This has gotta be the least sexy song I’ve ever snogged to,” he grumbled, shaking his head. After a moment or two, he pulled away, running a hand through his hair, and headed across the room to hop back up on the piano. Remus followed and sat down on the bench.

“Hey, Remus?” Sirius asked, swinging his legs absently where they hung off the edge.

Remus placed his elbow on the top of the piano and rested his chin in his palm. “Hm?”

“What’s your middle name?”

Remus raised an eyebrow. “Er- John. Why?”

Sirius wrinkled his nose. “John?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing’s wrong, I just expected something… weirder,” Sirius said. He hummed thoughtfully. “So… R.J.L.”

“Yes, that is how initials work.”

“Shut up.”

“What’s yours, then?” Remus asked. “Some constellation or something?”

“Orion,” Sirius said bitterly. “My father’s name. It is a constellation, though.”

“So…” Remus smiled. “Your initials are S.O.B? Like, son of a bitch?”

Sirius shrugged, smirking. “Well, it’s pretty fitting, if you know my family.”

“I think I’d prefer not to know your family, from what I’ve heard,” Remus said.

Sirius laughed. “Good call, Remus,” he said. “If only everyone were as smart as you.” He opened his mouth as if to say something else, then paused, eyes darting about, plunging the room into silence.

“Er- you okay?”

Sirius looked at him, smiling. “They finally stopped,” he breathed with relief.

As if on cue, Peter and James burst back through the door in a flurry of energy.

“Lily smiled at James,” Peter declared, slamming the door behind him.

“No, really?” Remus asked, feigning that he was impressed.

Sirius shot him a little smirk.

“Yup,” James said brightly. “And she laughed, too.”

“Are you sure she was laughing with you, not at you?” Remus asked.

James made a face, deflating.

“Hey, a laugh is a laugh,” Peter added, nudging James’s side.

“Exactly,” James chirped. He and Peter high-fived. “I need to find some romantic poetry, guys,” he said, settling on the floor in front of them with his legs stretched out in front of him. Peter followed suit.

“Please do not try to read Lily poetry to win her over,” Remus said. “Because she will slap you. Again .”

James glanced over at Peter as if to confirm Remus’s words. Peter gave a little nod, wincing.

“Don’t you think we could become more romantic just by reading romantic stuff, though?” James asked. “Like, what’s that Shakespeare thing everyone’s always talking about? Romeo and Juliet, right?”

Sirius scoffed. “Come on. What’s so romantic about knowing someone for three days and then killing yourself?”

“Wait, that’s what happens in that play?”

“Yup,” Sirius nodded vigorously. “ Othello ’s way more romantic.”

“Othello?” Remus cut in. “He kills his wife. You find that romantic?”

“Pads!” James cried. “You think I’m gonna kill Lily or something?”

“No, I’m just saying. If you read it, you’d see how it’s romantic.”

“I’ve read it, and I don’t see how it’s romantic,” Remus said.

“Okay, shut up, Remus.”

“I mean, maybe we should be listening to him,” Peter said. “He’s the only one of us who gets girls.”

“Don’t need much charm when you look like that,” Remus grumbled, the sentence tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop it. Sirius sent him a secret little smile, cheeks turning pink, and his posture seemed to stiffen a bit, chest puffing out at the compliment.

“Really, though, Sirius,” Peter said. “How can you tell if a girl likes you?”

“Ooh, Pete,” James teased, nudging Peter in the side. “You have a crush, too?”

“Maybe,” Peter grumbled, blushing.

James grinned, whacking Peter on the back in delight. “Now it’s real important,” he said. “Alright, Pads, share your secrets. How can you tell if a girl likes you?”

“Well, with me, they usually do,” Sirius said.

The statement was met with a chorus of exasperated groans.

“Okay, okay, sorry!” Sirius blurted. “Okay, listen, girls… they’re like, super complicated. They won’t just tell you if they like you. You have to learn to read their expressions.”

Remus raised his eyebrows, bemused. Peter and James were watching Sirius intently, as if he held some sort of secret wisdom.

“Like, when a girl likes you, she’ll, like… twirl her hair around on her finger while she’s talking to you. And she’ll look into your eyes, but she’ll like, blink a lot, and sort of look you up and down a bunch of times. And she’ll laugh at everything you say. Even if it’s not funny.”

Peter frowned. “That sounds complicated. How are you supposed to tell all of that stuff?”

“Er… I dunno,” Sirius said. “It’s a complicated business. What, did you think she would just swoon into your arms like some Shakespeare character?”

“ Do girls swoon?” asked Peter.

“I’ve never seen one do it. Maybe, though. If you did something real romantic.”

“Like read them poetry!”

“Or, maybe if you’re just that good of a kisser-”

“Guys, guys,” Remus said quickly, shaking his head. This was getting out of hand. “Guys, come on. Girls don’t swoon, okay? That’s like, made up shit. If you like them, just ask them out. It’s not that complicated.”

The statement was met with three blank stares and a bewildered silence.

A few moments passed before James said, “Er- so, what poetry did you guys have to read again?”

“Right,” Sirius said, reaching behind him for his bookbag while Remus shook his head, scoffing. Had he really killed the mood that hard?

Sirius pulled out a stack of books and flipped through one of them before opening to a certain page and tossing the book down at Remus. Remus flinched back and scrambled to grab it, sending Sirius a bewildered look.

“You’ll like this one, Prongs,” Sirius said. “It’s romantic. And it’s Shakespeare.”

Remus glanced down at the page. Sonnet 147. “What are you giving it to me for?” Remus asked.

“I want you to read it,” Sirius said lightly.

“Well, I don’t want to,” Remus said, shoving the book back up towards Sirius.

Sirius inched away, throwing his hands behind his back so he couldn’t take it. “Too bad,” he said.

“Can’t you read it?”

“No.”

“Can’t we all just read it in our heads?”

“No,” Sirius said, as if the mere suggestion affronted him. “Then what’s the point of the society? You wanna be in the society, you gotta read the poetry.”

Remus huffed, shaking his head. “Fine, then,” he said. He glanced back down at the page. He could already feel heat rising into his cheeks.

“My love is as a fever, longing still…”

He proceeded to read the poem in the most monotonous, boring, unromantic tone he could possibly muster, a small act of resistance that sent James and Peter rolling on the carpet with laughter. Sirius watched him, leaned in, face forced into a flat, unimpressed expression, though his eyes glimmered and lips twitched as if he was holding back a smile.

When Remus was finished, he slammed the book shut dramatically and settled his gaze on Sirius, who had inched over to the edge of the piano so he sat right in front of him. “How was that?” he asked, struggling to maintain a straight face with James and Peter draped over each other, giggling in front of him.

At first, Sirius said nothing. Then, suddenly, he threw himself off the edge of the piano down to the bench where Remus sat. Startled, Remus jerked backwards and stuck his arms out so Sirius landed right in them.

“Oh, Remus,” he cried, brushing the back of his hand against his forehead. “I’m swooning .”

Peter and James burst into another round of hysterics as blood rushed into Remus’s cheeks at having Sirius essentially draped across his lap in front of their friends.

“Ugh,” he groaned, feigning disgust, though he could feel a grin practically splitting his face in half. He dropped Sirius, in what was admittedly quite a careful and unjarring movement to ensure that he didn’t whack his head against the floor.

Sirius sprawled out on the carpet dramatically. “Please, my love,” he cried. “Serenade me with more of your lovely poet-”

Remus picked up the book and hurled it at Sirius, who burst into another round of laughter when it hit him in the face. “Serenade yourself,” he grumbled. “I’m never reading poetry again.”

Sirius’s good mood lingered throughout the rest of the day, both an annoyance and a relief to Remus. A relief, because it meant Sirius was finally feeling better after the past miserable weeks, and an annoyance because Remus was still feeling the aches and pain and general discomfort of the full moon and all he really wanted to do was go back to his bed. Nonetheless, Sirius was full of energy and wanted to “do stuff”- his words, of course-  so Remus found himself following Sirius after class to go sit outside.

The grounds by the lake were scattered with the occasional group of students, but far less crowded than they had been on the first day of Spring. The novelty of the beautiful days began to wear off as they became more frequent, Remus supposed.

He usually preferred to stay indoors after full moons, always trying to feel as human as possible, but if ever there were a day to spend outside, it would be this one. April had just begun, the sky was a cloudless expanse of blue, light breeze rippling through the grass and the lake, sunlight reflecting off the surface. The air was abnormally hot for April, Remus thought, though it may have just been leftover fever from his transformation. Sirius hadn’t even taken his jacket off.

Sirius dragged him to a spot right in the sun and flopped down onto the grass, staring up at the sky with a strange, dreamy sort of smile on his face. Remus couldn’t resist smiling as well as he sat down beside him.

“What’s got you in such a good mood, anyway?” he asked.

Sirius shrugged, glancing over at him. “Life,” he said lightly.

“Life?”

“Just, y’know,” Sirius said. “Being alive.”

Remus stared at him, bemused. What the hell had he missed?

“Well, that’s good, I suppose,” he said. “I-”

A familiar, girlish giggle cut him off as two figures rushed past where Sirius and Remus sat. The one at the front was a girl, pale haired, and seemed to be dragging the other, black-haired figure along with a hand clamped around his arm. He stumbled past them with a bit more reluctance in his steps, though he seemed to be smiling as well.

Sirius pushed himself up on his elbows to stare after them, and it wasn’t until they settled down in a patch of wildflowers a few meters away that Remus was able to identify them as Regulus and Pandora. Pandora began sifting through the wildflowers, picking them, examining them, sniffing at them, as if looking for one specific type. Regulus had a pocket notebook out, and Pandora was glancing over at it every few seconds. Regulus’s eyes were glued solely to her.

Remus thought they looked sort of like a painting, sitting there in the tall, rippling grass, surrounded by splashes of colorful flowers, their starkly contrasted hair dancing lightly in the breeze.

“What are they doing?” he asked.

“Who fucking knows,” Sirius sighed, though his tone was tinged with fondness. “Maybe for a spell or something?”

Remus glanced down at him. He was smiling at the pair of them. There was a certain wistfulness to it, but it was certainly an improvement from his usual sad, longing stares toward Regulus. Perhaps something had happened between the two of them?

After a few minutes of picking at flowers, Regulus and Pandora stood up again, Pandora clutching a handful of wildflowers she must have deemed acceptable for her use, talking and smiling animatedly at each other. As they passed by Siruis and Remus again, they seemed to notice their presence for the first time, slowing their pace a bit when their gazes landed on the two of them.

Sirius smiled softly at Regulus and gave him a tiny, nonthreatening, barely-there wave.

Pandora paused and glanced at Regulus, her eyes swimming with anticipation while Regulus’s gaze fell down to the grass briefly, his expression schooled back into its typical neutrality. Remus tensed. If Regulus ruined Sirius’s good mood by ignoring him yet again, Merlin help him, Remus was going to be thrown in Azkaban for child murder.

Then, Regulus’s eyes flickered back up to meet Sirius’s, and his lips quirked up into a tiny smile of acknowledgement. Pandora and Remus’s eyes met, simultaneously relieved that neither of their partners were going to come to blows today. Regulus and Pandora resumed their walk and Remus turned back to face Sirius.

Regulus hadn’t said a word, or even waved back, but that tiny quirk of his lips seemed to have made a world of a difference to Sirius. He grinned at Remus.

Remus had to smile back. He wished Sirius was like this all the time. It was almost impossible to be in a bad mood when Sirius Black was smiling at you like that.

“See?” Sirius sang. “It’s good to be alive.”

He flopped backwards, folding his arms into a pillow behind his head and tipping his face up towards the sky, soaking in the sunlight like a cat. He closed his eyes and sighed, a slight, serene smile still gracing his features. Maybe he expected Remus to lay down beside him, the way they did on the astronomy tower, but Remus didn’t- partly because he was already overheated and didn’t need any more sun beating down on him, and partly because he’d rather be looking at Sirius’s face than the sky, anyway. He remained sitting up, staring down at Sirius absently for a few minutes as the world went by around them.

At one point, a group of girls around their age, perhaps a little younger, passed by, giggling and whispering to each other. They seemed to slow down as they neared Sirius and Remus’s spot, casting unsubtle little glances in their direction.

Heat rushed into Remus’s cheeks. He felt around himself awkwardly, patting at his jumper, scanning the grass around him. Were they staring at him? Or…

His gaze fell on Sirius. Duh, he thought. They weren’t staring at Remus. They were staring at Sirius, because he was ridiculously fit.

He scowled, bitterness flaring up inside him. He knew, of course, that other people found Sirius attractive. It’d be impossible not to. But still, Remus couldn’t help but feel, rather embarrassingly, that they didn’t know a thing about his beauty, anyway. They hadn’t seen him in the early morning, squinty-eyed and messy-haired and half asleep. They hadn’t felt his fingers through their hair, his limbs intertwined with theirs, his hand brushing against theirs in the hallway. When they discussed Sirius’s loveliness, he bet they didn’t think about the one little crooked tooth in his grin, or the special, knowing glint in his eye when he caught Remus’s gaze across the room. They didn’t think about silver eyes or constellations of freckles on alabaster skin or slight French accents or crunchy black waves that smelled or hairspray and cheap cologne. Sirius’s beauty felt like a concept that no one but him could truly understand.

Merlin’s sake , Remus thought suddenly with a jolt, as if coming back to his senses. This was the most popular boy in the school he was thinking about. Hell, half the school had slept with him. Maybe one of those girls had slept with him. He cringed, shaking his head. Embarrassed by his own goddamn mind.

He glanced down at Sirius, who hadn’t moved in minutes. His eyes were shut, but Remus could tell from his breathing that he was awake.

“Aren’t you gonna get sunburnt?” Remus asked.

Sirius cracked an eye open, his gaze sliding over to Remus. “Hm?”

“Your- your skin,” Remus said. “I just- don’t you burn easily?”

“Oh, come on, I’m not that pale,” Sirius said.

Remus gave him a flat look.

Sirius ripped a few blades of grass up and threw them at Remus’s face. “Shut up.”

He let out a heavy, dramatic sigh, and then pushed himself up onto one elbow, turned on his side. He faced Remus, temple resting against his palm, staring at him with a dreamy smile. Remus sat there, waiting for him to speak, but he didn’t. Just stared, playing absently with the star charm on his necklace.

“What are you doing?” Remus asked finally.

“Looking at you.”

Remus blushed, ducking his head. He could practically feel how terrible he looked at the moment, fresh scratches still raw and stinging against his skin, sweat gathering on his forehead. “You have got to stop with that,” he grumbled.

“With what?” Sirius asked, blinking innocently.

“You know, all the staring-” Remus cut himself off suddenly, throwing his gaze about the lawn. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to them. “And flirting, and- swooning ,” he added, lowering his voice. “In public.”

Sirius raised his eyebrows, leaning in closer to Remus with a smirk, gaze unbroken. The wind whipped through his hair, pushing loose black curls across his pale skin.

Hit with the overwhelming urge to do something stupid like tuck Sirius’s hair behind his ear, Remus squared his shoulders and sighed, trying to give Sirius a stern look. It seemed to only have the opposite effect. Sirius squirmed beneath his gaze, his cheeks flushing, lips parting as he blinked rapidly. His gaze didn’t leave Remus’s.

“Really, Sirius,” Remus said, and his voice was nowhere near as stern as he’d intended it to come out. “People are going to catch on. You can’t be doing all this in front of everybody.”

Sirius stiffened slightly and threw a glance over his shoulder. He slipped his wand out of his jacket sleeve and waved it around, casting a quick silencing charm, and then, his eyes were back on Remus’s, as intense as before.

“You think too much about other people, Remus,” he said lightly. “Nobody suspects. I could take off this silencing charm right now and yell about how I’d like to have sex with you and everybody would just think I’m joking.” He smirked. “I would like to, by the way. In case I never made that clear.”

If possible, Remus’s cheeks heated up even more. Somehow, after all this time, Sirius’s bluntness still managed to fluster him. It took a certain amount of confidence, confidence like no one Remus had ever met, to say I’d like to have sex with you, as if it were a perfectly normal, shameless desire.

Remus was jealous. He knew he shouldn’t be, but he could hardly help the envy that burned within him when he saw Sirius sitting there with his sweet easy smiles, seemingly so unbothered by absolutely anything. Walking around with all the confidence in the world while girls followed him with their eyes and giggled and whispered behind their hands, so absolutely sure of himself that he loved to be looked at, revelled in attention. Actively sought it out, even.

He knew Sirius well enough now to understand that there was some horrible shit in his past, and his mind, the extent to which Remus still wasn’t quite sure of. But still, his confidence, his pure comfort with himself- what Remus wouldn’t give to know what that felt like, just for one day.

Sirius was still staring at him, his gaze a little more anticipatory. Terrible as it sounded, Remus relished it for a moment. He let Sirius’s words hang in the air, slightly empowered by the fact that he was one of the few people who could make Sirius Black nervous.

Finally, Remus allowed himself a slight smirk. “It was pretty clear,” he teased coyly.

Sirius cracked a relieved little smile, though some anticipation lingered in his eyes. “And… what about you?”

Remus shrugged. He avoided looking into Sirius’s eyes, afraid that silver gaze would have him blurting out an enthusiastic yes. “I’d like to, Sirius,” he sighed. “It’s just- it’s more complicated than that.”

“What, because we’re both boys?” Sirius asked. “Because I’ve never been with a boy before, either. I imagine it’s very different.”

If only it were just that, Remus found himself thinking for what felt like the millionth time.

“It- sort of,” he stammered.

“Okay, wait,” Sirius said, shifting his head slightly. “Can I say something?”

Remus raised his eyebrows. “Er. I suppose?”

“I just think-” Sirius said, fidgeting awkwardly with a piece of his hair. “I just want to make sure, I guess, that you’re not holding back on my account.”

“I- what? Why would I-”

“I just mean, like, you’re always asking if I’m okay and everything,” Sirius said. “And, like- that’s nice, obviously, but I just- I wanna make sure you know that I’m fine. I mean, I’ve done this a thousand times before, I should probably be asking if you’re okay.”

“You don’t have to,” Remus said quickly. “I’m always okay.”

“Yeah, I know, and it’s the same for me,” Sirius said. “Don’t worry about me, okay? I can handle anything. And there’s nothing to worry about anyway. You could never hurt me.” He frowned, peering at Remus under quizzical brows. “You really couldn’t. You know that, don’t you?”

Sirius was right, Remus thought. He was probably one of the toughest people Remus knew, and it was wrong- insulting, almost- to keep treating him like some sort of fragile glass. Remus knew, deep down, that Sirius was fully capable of handling himself.

It was Remus who was the real problem, who couldn’t handle him self.

Remus was a virgin, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew everything that sex entailed- giving into instincts, seeking physical pleasure, stripping naked- all things that animals did. And that was what sex was, wasn’t it? It was animalistic. Primitive. Men were closer to animals than they’d ever be when they had sex.

Remus wore jumpers that he never took off and he stayed inside and he derived pleasure from books and words and conversations because he was a human. Or at least, he needed to feel like one. He never, ever wanted to feel like an animal any more than he already did.

He picked at his fingernails, the crusts of dried blood still caked underneath.

“ Desire is death ,” he said blankly.

Sirius blinked, tilting his head. It took a moment before his eyes lit up with recognition, connecting Remus’s statement to the sonnet earlier. “What, that’s why you don’t wanna do anything?”

Remus shrugged wordlessly.

“Don’t listen to Shakespeare, Remus,” Sirius said. “He’s a proper idiot.”

Remus scoffed in disbelief. “Only you would call Shakespeare a proper idiot,” he said, and it came out fonder than he intended.

“Well, he is,” Sirius said. “If desire is death, I’m a dead man fucking walking.” He leaned in closer, looking up at Remus through thick, dark lashes. “And I think you are, too.”

Remus flushed. He was right, of course. Watching Sirius lounge in front of him- lips parted, sun reflecting in his silver eyes, highlighting every bit of pure, unfettered lust swimming beneath their surface- some part of him wanted to take him into his arms right here and give himself over to him fully. But it was the part of Remus that scared him the most- the one that ran on instinct and emotion, rather than thoughts and logic. The part that he couldn’t trust.

“If you don’t want to, that’s fine,” Sirius said. “I’m not trying to pressure you. I just- I thought you were holding back for me, and I didn’t want you to. If there’s some other reason or something, that’s fine. I just- I guess I don’t really understand.”

“I-” Remus began, struggling to express himself, wishing so badly that he could just explain it to Sirius. “I just- I- I don’t know anything, I guess,” he sighed in defeat.

Sirius blinked, brows drawing together in confusion. “Sure you do,” he said. “You know everything. You’re like, the smartest person I’ve ever met. Way smarter than stupid Shakespeare.”

“About books and poetry, maybe,” Remus said. “But I don’t know anything about the real thing. I don’t have all this- experience. I mean, I’m seventeen, Sirius. I’m seventeen, and I’ve never even… shit, I’ve hardly done anything. I hadn’t ever done anything until you came along. Isn’t that… don’t you find that weird?”

“Er… I dunno,” Sirius said, looking flustered by the question.

“But don’t you-” the thoughts were spilling out now, faster than Remus could stop them. “I mean, you’ve never even seen me without my shirt on. Don’t you- wouldn’t you rather have someone you could… do all that with?”

“I’d rather have you,” Sirius said. “Look, Remus, if you have any doubts, we won’t do it. It’s that simple. I thought you were holding back on my account, but if it’s really just about you, that’s fine. We won’t do it.”

“But you-” Remus stammered. “You always do that stuff, you must miss it. I mean, there’s no way that kissing me sometimes is good enough for you. With everyone that you’ve been with- I mean, you’ve been doing this for so long- when did you even lose your virginity, huh?”

“Thirteen,” Sirius said.

“Exactly, so you’ve probably-” Remus paused, the words catching up with him. “Wait. Thirteen?”

Sirius didn’t seem phased by his shock. “Yeah.”

“That’s- Isn’t that-” Remus shook his head, floundering. “Isn’t that really young? That feels young.”

“I dunno,” Sirius said, shrugging. “Not that young. I mean… I dunno.”

“Merlin, the person you were with- please, please tell me it was another thirteen-year-old-”

“It was fucking Marlene, relax,” Sirius said.

Marlene, of course. Always Marlene. So pretty, and so similar to Sirius in all the ways that Remus wasn’t. She understood him in all the ways Remus never would.

“Thirteen,” Remus repeated weakly. “Keeping up the family tradition, huh?”

Sirius threw his head back and barked out a laugh, hitting the side of Remus’s arm. Remus really didn’t find it that funny at all, but he smiled anyway. Mostly just at Sirius’s reaction.

“But I guess my point was…” Remus continued. “You’ve been doing this for so long, and now, all of a sudden, you don’t care about it? You’re fine with just kissing me and talking, you don’t need- y’know, the real thing?”

“Who says what we have isn’t the real thing?” Sirius hesitated, gaze flickering down towards the grass. “Besides, sex isn’t that important, anyway,” he mumbled. “I thought I knew everything, but since I’ve met you… well, I feel like maybe I’ve just been stupid this whole time.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sirius sighed. “Just that- what I feel for you is different from what I’ve felt for anyone else. Like, I’ve done it before, and it felt good, but it didn’t, like, feel like anything. It wasn’t special. Y’know?”

“No,” Remus said bluntly.

“It was like,” Sirius stammered, struggling to explain. “Like- like a temporary solution, y’know? Like, okay, we fucked, feels great, yay. And then it’s over, and it’s just… now what?” He sighed. “I guess I just mean to say, don’t ever do it unless you’re absolutely sure you want to. Thirteen, seventeen, what does it matter? Do it when you want to. I mean-” He ran a hand through his hair, glancing up at Remus hesitantly. “It’s kind of embarrassing to admit, but… the first time, I sort of did it- and this wasn’t like, the only reason- but I kind of just did it to stick it to my mother.”

“What?” Remus blurted.

“Alright, alright, sorry,” Sirius groaned, blushing. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. Let me start again.”

Remus nodded curiously.

“So, obviously you remember my grandparents, how they married at thirteen?”

Remus nodded again.

“Well, that’s how the family mostly goes. They sort of broke the tradition cause they let my mother choose her own husband and marry when she wanted to, but that was, like… out of the norm. Usually, it’s arranged. And usually it’s young. My mother always complained about how soft her parents were so I always figured Reggie and I would end up arranged and be married once we finished school. But after I got sorted into Gryffindor, I was all… y’know, rebellious and stuff, and mother hated it and she kept on trying to scare me back in line, y’know. Especially when she found out that Marlene and I were kind of into each other. So she kept telling me she was gonna set me up with some girl, find me a wife, whatever. I don’t think she actually had anyone to set me up with, she was just trying to freak me out.” He paused, sighing. “And my dad, he was kind of his own thing. He always said women were like dementors. He said if I attached myself to the wrong one she’d suck my soul out and leave me as this empty shell, like my mom did to him, I guess. He told me to find some pretty little thing to stick my dick in and get it over with.”

“Merlin’s sake, Sirius.”

“His words, not mine! He just wanted me with some submissive girl, y’know, the sort who never puts up any fight and just lets you do whatever you want.” He smiled fondly. “And Marlene, you know her, she’s like, the total opposite of that. So it’d piss my dad off, and since my mom was all wanting me to be this little pureblood virgin to be married off, I figured it was a good way to get them both to lose their shit. So, I fucked Marlene.”

“But why did Marlene do it?”

Sirius smiled. “Her parents are like the opposite of mine. Totally overprotective, they spoiled her and everything. Her dad said she wasn’t allowed to date until she was seventeen, and she was all frustrated. She just wanted to prove to herself that she was grown up enough, I think. Me too, honestly. We both wanted to be grown up.”

“And… did you feel grown up?”

“No,” Sirius’s answer came instantly. “Not at all. See, you think it’s gonna be this, like, amazing thing, but it’s not. Like, when it’s your first time it doesn’t come naturally. It’s not, like, this fantasy thing. You have to figure it out as you go and it’s really awkward. We both cummed and stuff so that was great, but then when it was all over I guess I thought I would feel different, like I was finally a man or something but I really didn’t. I was just like… a kid who had sex. Like, alright, cool, but… is that it?”

They sat in that silence for a few moments.

“Do you regret it?” Remus asked softly.

Sirius took a long while to respond. “Regret’s a strong word,” he said finally, selecting his words with care. “I think…” he sighed. “I think if I could go back in time I wouldn’t do it. Not that it was bad, but… I just don’t think that’s how it should’ve been. Like, this was supposed to be something for me but the only reason I did it was to piss off my parents. And that felt- I just felt… ashamed, I guess. I wish I’d done it for me.” He paused and glanced over, his demeanor shifting slightly when he met Remus’s eyes. “Hm,” he said, sounding almost surprised. “I’ve never told anyone about that before.

Another secret then, Remus thought. Another layer chipped away.

“I- er- I won’t tell anyone else,” Remus stuttered.

“Of course you won’t,” Sirius shrugged. “That’s why I told you.” He flopped back onto the grass, on his back so he was facing the sky, sunlight beating down on his skin. “I really don’t miss it though, Remus,” he said. “I’d rather spend time talking with you than fucking some person I don’t even know. You’re worth a million of them. I’ll wait however long you need. Or- if you never want to, I’m okay with that, too. Really, I am.”

“But you’re not- you don’t feel like I’m holding you back at all?”

Sirius’s gaze shot over to Remus, wide-eyed. “No,” he said, as if this were unfathomable. “Definitely not. Honestly, maybe I’m sort of jealous of you, Remus.”

The statement was so ridiculous that Remus had to let out a laugh of disbelief. “You?” he said, incredulous. “You’re jealous of me?”

“Yeah,” Sirius said, shrugging, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“But- why?”

“Well, maybe because… when you get around to doing it- and I’m not saying it has to be with me- but, like, when you do… it’ll mean something. You’re special. Me, I’m not really special anymore. I’ve done it so many times, I suppose the thrill has sort of worn off. If it was ever there in the first place.”

Sirius held his gaze. He meant it, every word. Remus felt silly, suddenly, for doubting that Sirius liked him. Maybe he’d been with a lot of girls before, but Sirius Black, for some inexplicable reason, was utterly besotted with him.

He wished he could feel good about that realization. Instead, it just made him feel guilty. He didn’t even know who Remus really was.

Remus flopped back onto the grass, sighing heavily, trying not to think about the jolts of pain the movement sent through his spine. The sun beat down on his face, warm and feverish, sweat beading on his brow. Regardless, it was a beautiful day. He turned his head to face Sirius; inky curls thrown across pure-white skin, cheeks tinged with pink, silver eyes glimmering in the sunlight.

Remus found it impossible to fully enjoy the beauty. It only highlighted all of the ugliness festering deep inside him, in every aching limb and withered bone, every crust of dried blood still clinging to his fingernails.

“You’re killing me, Sirius,” he said.