It’s a friday night at the leaky, the bar that Remus runs. It’s busy there. Probably because it’s Friday night and everyone wants to wash the work week off of them, but Remus got the question ‘When does Supernova Black arrive?’ a lot of times. It’s the singer he hired to perform for tonight. Well, he didn’t hire him, Mary did. She said that he was a rising rockstar and that many people liked him, with the result that lots of customers will come. To be honest, Remus didn’t even look up his profile on instagram or search him up on google, he couldn’t care less. He trusts Mary with this, she always has good taste. There isn’t a single time that Mary fucked up with choosing things, not with picking artists for entertain night, or for picking the color of the wallpaper of the bar.
“Remus?”
Remus was setting up some glasses when Mary calls his name. “Yeah?”
“I just got a text from Supernova Black, he says he’s almost here.”
“Alright,” he stops rearranging the glasses. “Everything is ready for open time, so I’m gonna change into some nicer clothes really fast, and then I’m ready.”
Remus goes to the back of the little building and up the stairs, where he lives. He picks his favorite shirt, his David Bowie t-shirt. When he has changed his pants into something nicer, he hears voices downstairs.
“My friend will be here any moment,” Remus can hear Mary tell someone when he is walking down the stairs.
When Remus is going towards the voices and catches a glimpse of dark black hair the person talks. “I would love to meet him, you described him as a very kind guy.”
Remus stops his tracks when he realizes who the familiar voice and shining black hair belongs to.
“Ah, there he is,” Mary pats Remus on the shoulder. “I would love you to meet-”
“Sirius Black.”
“Uhm yes” Mary says confused. “But he likes to be called-”
“I know what he likes to be called. I gave him the fucking nickname name myself.”
Mary looks shocked over to Sirius, who is staring with wide eyes at Remus with his mouth slightly open.
“You two know each other? As in…?”
Sirius clears his throat, “As in we were together.”
“Oh!” Her eyebrows shoot to her hairline. “Well, goodluck with that!” Mary squeezes Remus’ hand as a form of comfort before leaving the room at an impressive speed.
“You are a singer now? Your big dream came true?” Remus asks bitterly.
“Yeah, uhm it’s really working out.” Sirius looks around the room a bit awkwardly, “And you, bartender? Never really saw you as a bartender type of guy.”
“Well, I didn’t really see you as a flight type of guy, but here we are.”
Sirius groans very loudly. “Oh my god Remus, I knew you were gonna mention it! I didn’t just run away for no reason?!”
“Oh yeah no sorry, you explained it very well in the letter that you left me a week after I bought your engagement ring!”
Sirius scoffs, “How the fuck was I supposed to know that you bought it that week?!”
“Maybe if you didn’t plan your getaway trip to the other side of the continent, you would have noticed!”
“I didn’t need to plan it if you didn’t-”
Sirius gets cut off by a woman yelling at him. “Sirius?! Did you steal my lipstick again? I can’t find it!”
The woman walks into the bar. She has a dirty blond short wolf cut, has big eyeliner on, wearing revealing clothes that she seems to really be comfortable in, and she has lots of jewelry on.
“I- Yes it’s in my bag, and if it’s not in there look in James’ pocket of his jacket.”
“Thanks!” And just like that she leaves again.
“So, James is still there?” Remus asks. His voice is not bitter but definitely not nice either. He was friends with James. I mean how could he not? Anyone who meets James can hardly say no to friendship with someone as caring and understanding as he is. They weren’t exactly very close friends, but still they talked when Sirius wasn’t around. Of course that all changed when Remus and Sirius broke up, because James is Sirius’ best friend, not Remus’. James took Sirius’ side of the break up and they didn’t talk ever again.
“Of course he is still here, he is my best friend. He still doesn’t really play at our concerts but he likes to join for fun sometimes, he likes the bass.”
“And the blond girl?”
“That’s my friend Marlene, she is the guitarist. In love with her electric guitar and any girl she lays eyes on.”
“Anyone else?”
“Peter would be here too to support if he didn’t have to work.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
Sirius lets out a little sigh, “No drummer.”
“No drummer? And why is that?” Remus sounds smug, like he already knows the answer.
“Because no one fitted in the band well enough.”
“Correction: because you couldn’t find someone better than me. You couldn’t get it over your little pathetic heart to replace me.”
“That is not true,” Sirius immediately gets defensive. “I could easily find someone who could play better than you. Plus if you didn’t fucking cheat on me, your ghost wouldn’t be hanging over me for so long that I was unable to find someone better than you. I couldn’t find anyone else because the only person I was really looking for was you!”
Remus blinks. Cheating? When the fuck did he cheat on Sirius? “I didn’t cheat, what are you saying?”
Sirius laughs with a cruel understone. “No, no of course. Mister Remus ‘I’m Perfect’ Lupin who is better than everyone else, why would you do something wrong for once?”
“I really have no idea what you are talking about, I don’t even know with who I possibly could have-”
“Pads?! Pads, get your lazy ass up and help us with setting up the stage…” James had walked in the bar, but when he saw the scenario in front of him he slowly stopped talking.
Sirius takes the opportunity to get away with ease, “I will,” now he looks with piercing eyes at Remus, “but atleast my ass will be doing something usefull and not being fucked by one of my best friends.” Sirius turns around and walks to James and disappears outside.
Remus is very confused, to say the least. ‘being fucked by my best friend’, when did Lily and Remus ever do something romantically together? He is a gay man and she is a lesbian, whatever Sirius is saying makes no sense at all. And why is he even mad at Remus, Sirius was the one that left without any warning at all. Remus just woke up one day without him by his side and all of Sirius’ stuff being gone. On the kitchen table there was a letter with only one sentence on it. ‘Im leaving.’
Needless to say Remus was and still is, fucking furious.
~~~
Sirius is setting up the mic on the tiny stage when James approaches him. “You didn’t know this was Remus’ bar did you?” James asks gently.
Sirius signs, “No I didn’t. But it’s too late to cancel.”
“3 minutes until we can start, Sirius,” Marlene tells him. Sirius nods and sits down on the ground, James following.
“I- James he said he didn’t know what I was talking about. When I told him about the cheating.”
James looks very confused. “How is that possible? Even I saw it, and I wasn’t even wearing my glasses at that moment.”
“I know!” Sirius groans, “I wish this night would just end already.”
James pulls him into a hug and they stay like that until it’s time to perform.
Marlene whispers into his ear when walking by. “Whatever is wrong with you, don’t dwell on it. Sing it, okay?”
And so they start the performance of a lifetime. Sirius had always been the man with the emotions, and you can see it in his music. It’s either very happy, or downright depressing. His emotions are always jumping around, he can’t really control them. That’s why he loves writing music so much. He can put his feelings on paper and then sing his heart out to deal with it all.
He sings with his whole body, with all his feelings and thoughts and emotions. The sounds of Marlene’s guitar boil through his bones, and it’s like the words he is singing are coming out of the house of his cells.
He is playing his song ‘I love you, I’m sorry.’ when Remus catches his eyes. He was just bartending, but Mary took over his shift, and he is now talking to someone else on his break, although his eyes didn’t leave Sirius.
Sirius doesn’t just write lyrics, he always makes it personal. All his songs are about a person in his life or moments that he went through. This song for example is about Remus, just like almost all the depressing songs he wrote.
He was angry and hurt. He was deeply in love and in the aftermath heartbroken.
But now he is singing the song while staring at the person who made him feel this way. Sirius doesn’t break eye contact or stops acting very dramatic (like he always is, doesn’t matter if he is on stage or not). He actually turns the whole act up, and not a little bit.
“Thankful you don’t send someone to kill me,” Sirius sings. He takes a deep breath and lets himself feel it. The anger, the hurt, the heartbreak. How fucking useless he felt, like he didn’t mean shit to Remus.
“I love you, I’m sorry. You were the best but you were the worst, as sick as it sounds I loved you first!” Sirius’ eyes are burning from every negative emotion that exists, and he is gonna make sure that Remus knows that he did this.
“I was a dick it is what it is, a habit to kick the age-old curse,” Sirius spat out to him. Remus’ facial expressions change immediately. He knows what Sirius means. He knows what he did. Sirius wrote that sentence because Remus once said that he must have gotten that biting tone from his mother. He knows how hard it would hurt Sirius if he said it, but still he did. Sirius never fully forgave Remus for it, but Remus apparently also never forgot it.
Sirius sings like he never did before. It’s like all he had bottled up about Remus is spilling out of him.“I tend to laugh whenever I’m sad. I stare at the crash, it actually works. Making amends, this shit never ends. I’m wrong again, wrong again!”
Because Sirius never broke the eye contact he and Remus had (Remus didn’t break it either and he wasn’t gonna be the one doing it first) (Call him pathetic all you want but he did win though), he sees that he is walking away from where he was standing and is now heading to the back of the building. The song ends and Sirius speedwalks after him. No, if anyone deserves to run away, it’s Sirius. Remus has no right to just leave after facing what he did.
And so, he storms after Remus. “Hey! No, you don’t get to run away,” he calls after him.
“Just leave me alone, Sirius.” Remus keeps walking and is now heading up the stairs, not that that stops Sirius.
“No see, this is what I mean! You just keep pushing me to the side and act like I meant nothing to you!”
Remus is now inside his room, so he naturally follows. “Fucking looks at me! Face what you did!” Sirius screams.
Remus turns around and his eyes are spitting fire, “What do I need to look at Sirius?! You left me, and you still got the nerve to write a sad song about how bad a boyfriend I was!”
“I left you because you were kissing that boy you told me not to worry about!” he screams back.
“Sirius, what fucking boy?!”
He is losing his shit. How can Remus not remember the thing that hurt Sirius so deeply. “You really don’t know? That night from Prongs’ birthday party. I was getting us drinks and when I came back you were kissing Grant fucking Chapman.”
Remus is speechless. “Sirius, I didn’t.”
He scoffs, “Yeah, of course you didn’t. I must be crazy then?!”
“No you’re not crazy. He did kissed me.”
“See, I was right! I knew-”
“But I didn’t kiss him.”
Sirius’ brain is blank for a moment.
Was he wrong all the time? Grant kissed Remus, but Remus didn’t kiss him back. Did he leave Remus, who he thought was the love of his life, for a simple mistake that Remus didn’t even make? Was he really the problem to all of this?
“No but you, I saw you! Your mouth was on his,” Sirius starts to say, needing some clarification.
“Did you see I pulled away the moment his lips were on mine?” Remus asks.
Sirius looks down. “No. I went to find James and then cried until I fell asleep in his apartment.”
Remus looks annoyed. “Sirius for fucks sake, why didn’t you talk to me?! We could have had a wonderful time together if you just opened your mouth instead of fleeing! You still could have been an amazing singer, but this time you could write songs about how you would love me instead of writing thousands of heartbreak songs and a billion soppy love songs you had with the lovers you fucked in the meantime!”
Sirius’ head snaps up. “Remus, every single song about love and heartbreak are about you. I didn’t have any other partener in the last 5 years that I left you!”
“What- what do you mean?” Remus asks confused all of the sudden, his throat closing up with massive guilt.
“Every single song is about you!” Sirius says almost frustrated as he steps closer to him.
Remus walks in the opposite direction of Sirius. “No, do- don’t.”
Sirius starts talking again fast, ‘Moon tell me if I could, send out my heart to you’, ‘Don’t leave me hanging alone again. Oh, where’d you go go, Alley Rose?’, ‘Take a long ride on my motorbike. Until I’m ready. Crazy little thing called love.’?”
“What are you saying?! And don’t come closer!” Remus says a bit panicky as Sirius keeps trying to close the distance between them.
“Those are lyrics I wrote about you, Remus! ‘My Love, Mine All Mine’? It references the fact that you are- were, my moon. I called you Moony, remember? ‘Alley Rose’ is about the time we were visiting London and in Abbey Road you told me you loved me for the first time. ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ are literally your words! You said that you always found love annoying before you met me, but then it became a ‘crazy little thing’ for you. Or that’s what you whispered to me when you thought I already fell asleep.” Sirius walks towards Remus. “I never forgot you. The first few months after I left I talked to the moon for hours. A year after that Peter tried to get me dating again, but I literally couldn’t. I did meet a nice man, but I let Prongs 'emergency’ call me during the first date that only lasted 20 minutes because I couldn’t stand the fact that his freckles looked wrong. His freckles looked wrong because they weren’t on the same spots that you had them. The way he said my name didn’t give me butterflies. His hair didn’t become gold in the sun. His smile didn’t make me light up. His touch didn’t make me melt. Yours did.”
Remus’ back is against the wall from walking away, he can’t back up from Sirius anymore. He can’t walk away from whatever the fuck is happening infront of him. He can’t walk away from whatever he is feeling.
“Remus, I’m so sorry that I left,” guilt dripping off of Sirius’ voice.
“Yeah you-” Remus clears his throat, “You could have at least given me a heads up. I know you don’t like talking about feelings and all that shit, me neither as you know, but we could have totally fixed this with a few words.”
“I should have given you the benefit of the doubt. I should have asked you about the Grant thing,” Sirius says his name as if it is something dirty on his shoe, “and not immediately assume you were gonna replace me for him.”
“Pads, I would never trade you, not for anyone. I pulled away the moment I knew what was going on, and I talked to Grant. I told him that I like him, but as a friend and nothing more. He respected that but told me he needed a minute, so I let him. I went looking for you but Peter said you were already gone with James. I thought you guys were just having your weekly sleepover, but then earlier than planned, so I didn’t think anything of it. The next day you were back and nothing indicated that you were deeply hurt the night before. I didn’t even think you saw it. You were just like you always were.”
Sirius chuckles softly, “Yeah, I’m the king of masking, I thought you would know that by now.”
Remus’ voice becomes more gentle, “I wanted to tell you. I was gonna tell you. But that week you were constantly off to work, or at band practise, or having sleepovers with James and Peter, I hardly got to see you, let alone talk to you. That’s why I took the day off that saturday, I knew you never had to work on that day which means I had time to talk to you and tell you that nothing changed between us. Instead I woke up with an empty bed and a one sentence letter on the kitchen island.”
“I’m really so sorry-”
“I’m sorry too. I should have just told you immediately. I don’t know why I didn’t see through you that week. Normally I would have seen what was wrong in a heartbeat, but now I didn’t even notice something was wrong.”
Sirius looks sheepishly at his shoes, “I think we both kinda fucked up 5 years ago.”
“And not a little bit,” Remus adds lightly.
They let that sit between them for a minute. All the missed opportunities, all the adventures and love and beautiful memories they could have had together were all wasted. All because of ‘waiting for the right time’.
Sirius waited for the right time to tell Remus what he saw, he wanted to say how betrayed he felt. Remus waited for the right time to tell Sirius what happened that night.
They both waited too long and now 5 years had passed between them.
In 5 years Sirius could have found the love of his life and got married. In 5 years Remus could have adopted a child and become a father. In 5 years Sirius could have become a famous singer. In 5 years Remus could have followed his dream of becoming a writer, and be selling bestselling books.
Instead they spend 5 years pinning after each other.
They didn’t let their love lifes spread out. They had 1 826.21099 days to go on dating apps, or to stumble into the most handsome guy and ask him out for a drink.
But they didn’t.
Sirius laughs, “I feel pretty stupid now.”
Remus softly shoves him, “I would too if I wrote ‘Im leaving’ without an apostrophe on my abandonment note.”
Sirius puts jokingly his hands up for surender, “Hey, I was in a crisis okay.”
Remus drops his head and laughs. It’s the laugh that only Sirius got out of him. He never thought he would feel it again, the ray of sunshine that invades him, but here it is. He wants to lock it in forever. “Are we okay?” He asks.
Sirius blinks slowly at him in a very adorable way. “Yeah, we are more than okay.”
And there it is again. There is something in Sirius’ eyes. Remus has seen it a billion times, so many times that after 5 years of not seeing it, it feels nostalgic.
It’s happiness in its purest form. Love.
A small smile covers Remus’ mouth. “What other songs did you write about me?”
The Sirius Black grin comes out of hiding again. “Ever hear of ‘R U Mine’?”
“Mhn no,” Remus straight up lies. “Tell me about it,” He says while closing the distance between them.
Sirius puts his hand on the curve of Remus’ neck. “Well, it’s about how I want you to be mine. Not just for the night. Not just for tomorrow. But always. I wish you are mine always.”
“‘Are’? As in present tense?” Remus asks, acting all innocent.
“You know damn well what I mean, Lupin. Don’t play dumb with me,” Sirius says as he leans in.
Remus follows his lead. “I wouldn’t dare.”
Their lips collide and it feels like a constellation falling into place. Their hearts sync up again. Their hands link together like they never let go. Love that was forced to hide deep down comes back up and claims its place again.
“I love you,” Sirius says fast after breaking the kiss for a few seconds.
“I never stopped,” Remus adds.
It’s just that simple. Sirius is a complicated person, and Remus isn’t the easiest person to get either. But together they fit.
‘I love you.’ and ‘I never stopped.’
Sirius and Remus.
The Stars and the Moon.
They all make sense. Just like it makes sense that Remus is now mentally promising himself that he will never let go of Sirius ever again. Just like it makes sense that Sirius is now kissing Remus with all the love he has in him to try making up for all the time he couldn’t love him like that.
5 years have passed. And even though time changed, their love for each other never did.