Sirius was fumbling for the key to his dorm. His bag felt ten times heavier than it had that morning. He honestly just wanted to fall asleep in this bed and never wake up. School had started a month and a half ago, and he was in the thick of it. The routine was nice, however by the end of the day he was exhausted. He found the key and clicked it into the lock, and then opened the door.
He stepped in the room to find his roommate and her boyfriend together. They were making out on her bed. He stopped in the doorway, surprised.
“Ohhhh hey Sirius….!” His roommate chided when she noticed him in the doorway. “I know my boyfriend is here but it’s okay, come on in!!” She clamored. She and her boyfriend separated from each other and sat staring at Sirius as he made his way over to his bed to set his bag down. He looked to the two of them and then to his own bed.
“Do you mind if I sleep here?” His roommate's boyfriend chimed. “I can leave if you want…” he told him.
“Nooooo it’s okay babe, Sirius doesn’t mind, do you Sirius?” His roommate responded.
Sirius sighed. “No I don’t mind, do whatever you want. I can sleep through anything.” He offered. Fuck, why did he say that? He grabbed his pajamas and stepped out to go to the bathroom and change. No way in hell he was gonna change in the room with that guy in there.
He finished changing and walked back into the room to see his roomate passionately kissing her boyfriend. Fuck. He hurried over and tossed his clothes on his bed, grabbed his phone, and hurried out. He slammed the door behind him and crouched against the wall.
“Fuck.” He opened his phone and went through his messages. His roommate was the person he most recently texted. Everyone else was from back home, his ex, his best friend, a couple other friends, some extended family asking him how uni was going. He leaned his head back against the wall, still scrolling through his recently messaged. He stopped, staring at a contact from his psychology class. They had only really spoken to complement each others outfits and exchange numbers in case they neeed to share notes, but after he got his number they hadn’t spoken. That was during the first week of school, it’d been over a month since then.
“Might as well give a call…” he mumbled, and pressed the call button and listened to the line ring.
“Hello?” Remus answered. “Sorry, i dont have this contact labeled in my phone so i dont know who this is.” He explained.
“Hi, um, this is Sirius, we met on one of the first days of class.” Sirius paused. Fuck, this sounded like a better idea in his head. “What dorm are you in?”
“East dorms, room 206, why?” Remus answered.
“My roommate has her boyfriend over and they’re-“
“Oh shit, do you wanna crash over here?” He offered, interrupting Sirius before he revealed what his roommate was up to.
“Yeah, yeah that’d be awesome.” Sirius told him.
“Yeah just knock, I’m up working.”
Sirius trudged down the hallway. He was wearing his pajama sweats, a baggy t-shirt, and some random socks. It wasn’t exactly the ideal outfit to see someone, but it’d do. He figured it’s not like Remus was dressed to the nines at ten pm anyways. Sirius also happened to be staying at the east dorms, a couple floors above the two-hundreds, which were on the second floor. He hit the button for the elevator and pressed the button for the second floor, and let the doors close in front of him.
When he got to the second floor, he made his way down the hallway and found room 206. It was one of the first few in the hall. He gave three knocks, and then waited. He wished, regretfully, that he had his laptop so he could at least do work. Nonetheless, he was glad to be somewhere that wasn’t his dorm.
Remus opened the door abruptly, looking surprised as if he wasn’t sure that Sirius was being serious about his situation. His light brown hair was messy and unkempt, and he was wearing baggy shorts and a shirt with a couple holes in it, thank god.
“Hi.” He breathed. “I’m sorry about your roommate, mines off doing the same I’m afraid. Or partying, which, god I hope not.” He trailed. “But nonetheless, come in!” He stepped back and Sirius walked in. It looked like the inside of every other dorm, basically. A bed on the right side and a bed on the left side, two desks, two closets. One of them had put a rug in the middle of the floor, the beds had sheets and blankets and pillows. One side had music posters all over the wall and up onto the ceiling. The other side had sports posters up onto the walls.
Remus pointed to the side with the music posters. “That’s my side of the room, which I think might be obvious, but you can hop up onto the bed with me.” He said. Sirius walked over to his bed with him and hopped up onto it, crossing his legs and leaning onto the wall, looking up at the posters.
“Have you got any homework?” Remus asked, hopping up onto the bed and sitting next to him.
“No, thankfully. I don’t have my laptop anyways.” Sirius told him. “Thanks for letting me crash though, I can sleep on the floor if you want, I’ll stay out of the way.”
“Oh. No, it’s okay, you can sleep up here if you want..” he paused. “If you’re comfortable with that. But the floor isn’t a good idea. If my roommate is out right now, which,” he sighed, tapping his phone screen to check for a notification. “he likely is. you don’t want to be on the floor when he gets back.” he sighed.
“oh. yeah. Okay, sure. if you’re okay with that, it’s fine with me." sirius responded, sensing some resentment between Remus and his roommate. He didn’t want to pry, but of course he was curious. Maybe he’d figure it out once Remus’s roommate came back.
“How’re your classes going?” sirius decided on asking. “I haven’t seen you since the first week.”
“Yeah, it’s been fine. I mean, no parties. But I think that’s a good thing. I dunno though, I’ve seen a lotta college movies.” He responded, laughing to himself. “Do you like shitty comedy? It might just be me in that boat, honestly. You look like you watch actually good movies.” He laughed again. “Oh, how’s school been for you? Sorry I should’ve led with that.” He interrupted himself, embarrassed.
Sirius laughed. “It’s okay, it’s been going alright. Not exactly zero parties but I’m not really an every-night-party type of guy. And yeah I enjoy shitty comedy. Not as much as I enjoy incredibly intellectual films about uh” they were both giggling. “Math formulas and sir issac newton?” He said, giggling. Remus thought this was the most hilarious thing ever.
“But I watch a lot of artsy films. My favorite is “girl, interrupted”.” Sirius said plainly.
“Oh yeah, I’ve seen it! I fucking love that film.” Remus smiled. “Do you mind if I put on a movie on my laptop? I usually fall asleep with something on.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Sirius was feeling a bit tired. He usually listened to music to fall asleep himself, but that wasn’t really an option since he didn’t have his headphones.
He and Remus scooted closer in the middle of the bed, both leaning up against the wall. Remus pulled a file folder up on his computer titled “films” and started scrolling through it.
“I’m gonna put on Fantastic Mr. Fox, are you alright with that? Have you seen that one?” Remus asked, clicking on the file.
“Oh yeah! I love that film! It’s one of my favorites!!” Sirius answered.
Remus pressed play and the movie began. He pushed the laptop off his lap and next to him, jumping onto the floor and turning off the light. He hopped back up onto the bed, grabbing the laptop and sitting back down next to Sirius. The movie played just loud enough for them to hear.
“Do you play this on volume when your roommate is here as well?” Sirius asked, genuinely curious.
Remus smiled. “He’s not here when I fall asleep, so far this works, but I have headphones if I ever needed to use them. Usually when he gets home he just changes and falls right asleep.” He said.
“Nice” Sirius smiled. They both focused back on the movie, drifting off to sleep.
Sirius woke abruptly to someone banging around outside the dorm room, he checked his phone and noted the time was just after one am. Remus had fallen asleep and his head was leaning on Sirius’s shoulder, so he didn’t bother to get up and move and simply closed his eyes again. The sound, however, persisted, and he felt Remus stir and then lift his head. He didn’t want to make things awkward for Remus so he kept his eyes closed and pretended to be asleep. He heard Remus begrudgingly walk to the door and open it.
“Did you forget your key again, Luke?” Remus croaked, his voice sounding sleepy and raspy. Luke must be his roommate.
“Yeah. I’m sorrrryyy Remus I’m sorryyyyy” Luke chimed to him. “Who's on your bed Remus?” He asked. His voice sounded terrible, and Sirius could immediately smell that he was drunk.
“Where the fuck have you been, dude?” Remus asked him, ignoring the question. Sirius heard him pulling Luke into the room and walking him over to the bed.
“Party. Just a party.” Luke said. It sounded like Remus had him sitting up on the bed now.
“You’ve been drinking. Again.” Remus murmured. Then Sirius heard Remus exclaim, and it sounded like he got pushed onto the dorm floor. “Why’d you fuckin kick me, dude. If you’re going to be out drinking and doing lines then stay with some other drunk fuck.”
“I have not been doing lines.” Luke retorted.
“Fine, you haven’t been doing lines. But I bet you won’t show me your arm.” Remus said.
“What the fuck man. That’s fucking uncalled for. It’s not that big a deal.” Luke yelled.
“Hey dude. Okay, fine I’m sorry. But stop yelling, it’s late as shit and there’s someone else trying to sleep, not even mentioning everyone else on the dorm floor.” Remus sounded like he was up on his feet again, assumedly in front of the bed assessing luke.
“Awww Remus…. I know you love me.” Luke sing-songed. Sirius heard Remus mumble again but couldn’t make out what he had said. “Aww Remus… don’t be a bitch.. c’mon..”
He heard Remus move away from Luke and then yell. “Luke, I said fucking leave me alone. Don’t touch me.”
“Remus please,” Sirius heard someone get pulled onto the bed; Remus. He didn’t know what to do. Should he pretend to wake up from the noise? Should he step in? He didn’t know what the right thing was, and didn’t want to make Remus uncomfortable. “Just once man…” Luke said. Sirius heard Remus groan in protest.
Sirius didn’t know what was going on after that. He heard Remus mumble in protest, but then they were both moving around. He didn’t know what to do. Then all the sound stopped, and one of them, Remus probably, hopped onto the dorm floor.
“Go to the bathroom, wash up, pull yourself together.” Remus rasped at him. He sounded tired and like he’d been crying.
“Yeah, fuckin whatever Remus.” He heard Luke hop out of bed and walk out of the room.
Remus jumped back up onto the bed and sat back down next to him. Sirius didn’t move, but remus just got cosy next to him like before, laying his head down on his shoulder and tucking his knees to his chest. God knows what Sirius should do when they had to wake up in the morning.
sirius felt his phone going off in his pocket and woke up slowly. He blinked and then remembered everything. remus was still asleep next to him. He checked his phone clock, which told him it was 9:00 am. He gently nudged remus to wake him up.
“Remus.” He whispered, prodding his shoulder.
remus groaned and started to stir violently, kicking his legs about and moving his arms wildly.
“Luke, fucking back off,” he yelled. “I told you to stop.” Then remus blinked and looked up at Sirius. “Oh. Oh. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay,” sirius assured him. “Must’ve been a bad dream, huh?”
“Yeah.. it happens I guess.” remus moved to make room for sirius to get up, and hopped out of bed.
sirius sat up and looked over to Remus, a bit uneasy.
“Um.. remus. I wanted to talk to you about something.” He said. remus started to look worried. “Your roommate, um-“
“Oh my god I’m sorry, did he wake you?” remus asked, laughing nervously. “Im so sorry he can be such a drunken ass..” he laughed, trying to sound nonchalant.
“Um. Yeah about that, I woke up when I heard him come in.” sirius said, now feeling guilty that he hadn’t done something.
“Oh.” remus whispered.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do!! I figured I’d just pretend to be asleep and Luke would come in and go to bed as well but..”
“Yeah. No, I’m sorry. He’s not- he has some issues is all. It’s okay, though. I mean, how much did you hear?” Remus stumbled over his words, sounding panicked.
“The whole thing, but I couldn’t see anything.” sirius added. “When you were up on the bed with him, and you guys stopped talking..,” he trailed off, then looked at Remus, mortified.
“No, it’s. I mean, it’s not what you think. It’s okay, I promise, it’s okay.” remus rambled. sirius jumped off the bed and hugged him.
“You don’t have to tell me anything at all” sirius said