crash
Remus Lupin has always done anything he could to make sure that Sirius Black is safe and happy. The latter more than the former, since they haven’t been in many near-death situations together. Anyway, it’s one of the most important things to him – that Sirius is happy. He’d do anything.
One of the main times he remembers is the day they first kiss – and Sirius had been so worried –
“Remus. Remus, wake up.”
“Remus, mate, you alright?”
“Prongs, d’you think he’s alive?”
“Oh, he’s alive, Pads. You only kissed him, y’didn’t kill him.”
“I hope so.”
“Sirius, even your kisses aren’t heart-stopping.”
“Debatable, James,” Sirius snorts, elbowing James, then looks to Remus again, who seems to be waking up, looking rather confused.
“Sirius. James. What–why am I – what happened?”
“Oh, Thank God. Remus, mate, we thought we lost you!”
The memories then come flooding back to Remus, and he’s nothing if not overwhelmed, remembering exactly how he ended up here, on the floor. They’d been playing a rather vigorous round of Jeopardy! and when Remus had gotten some god-awful astronomy question correct, Sirius looked awestruck for a moment, stopped playing the role of Alex Trebek, and kissed Remus full on the mouth. Remus, being the man he is (one who is overwhelmingly in love with Sirius black) had kissed back, until his tendency to overthink kicked in, and he remembered that the two of them were, in fact, not in a relationship. Remus has always felt that he’s not good enough for Sirius, and apparently, during this overthinking episode of his, he forgot to keep breathing. When he became extremely dizzy around a minute later, the two of them uninterrupted by either James or Peter – who apparently thought this was normal - -he just thought he and Sirius were supposedly rather involved and passionate about what they were doing, both pawing at each other’s hair sloppily. But that must not have been it, since he then fell to the floor, unconscious.
“Well,” James snorted, one eyebrow raised. “You never kissed me so well that I fainted.”
“We were together for a week, James,” Sirius groaned, then spied Remus on the floor, and his face was suddenly panic-stricken. “Oh, fuck! Did I – James. James, did I kill him? That simply won’t do, I can’t have killed him! Doesn’t he know that I love h… having him around?” he coughs, apparently changing what he wanted to say halfway through his sentence.
So, apparently, that’s how they’ve gotten here.
Remus’ eyes open rather quickly, and he starts to try to get up, rising from the floor, and backing away from the three other men.
“You kissed me,” he breathes, pointing at Sirius, attempting to fix his hair.
Sirius goes very red, very fast, and pauses, opening and shutting his mouth over and over again.
“Yes,” he raises one eyebrow, staring at the ground. “I did– I did, in fact, do that. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have – I know you don’t – feel the same, that’s just – Fuck,” he sighs, laughing sadly, the euphoria of the moment wearing off. “I’m sorry. You panicked, and it’s my fault, I’m so sorry, lov–Remus.”
Remus laughs. He throws his head back, laughing, now struggling to breathe simply because of how hard he’s giggling, grabbing onto the wall a little for support, and when he opens his eyes, finally calming down a little, but still manically giggling. He opens his eyes to Sirius staring back at him, slack jawed, his eyes wide. James is grinning, and Peter is staring, unamused, supposedly.
“You’re–you’re sorry?” Remus snorts, rubbing at his eyes with his wrists.
“Of course I’m sorry, I kissed you without asking, and you don’t even – it was just a stupid impulse, I like that you know the constellations, I guess, but we don’t have to – Remus, what the fuck is so funny?”
“James,” Remus smiles, still giggling. “Do you know what’s so funny?”
“I’ve got a vague idea,” he murmurs, adjusting his glasses. Sirius’ jaw drops, as he mutters what the fuck, to himself, seriously confused.
“Sirius, how – you really don’t know what’s funny?”
“No?”
“You think I’m angry with you?”
“Yes?”
“Jesus Christ, I– no, I couldn’t possibly be angry with you. Why the fuck else do you think I kissed you back?”
“You– you passed out!” Sirius sputters, looking terrified. “What am I supposed to think?” His eyes are still wide, and he reaches out to Remus, grabbing onto one of his hands, not letting go. Remus is delighted that Sirius Black of all people is holding his hand.
“No, no, it’s – it’s not like that.”
“What is it like?”
Remus doesn’t really know a better way to say ‘ I’d like to snog you until our lips fall off,’ other than attempting to do just that, cupping Sirius’ face and crashing their lips together, smiling into the kiss as Sirius gasps, apparently absolutely oblivious to everything that’s been going on. Really, how many more times would it take for Remus to stare at him a little too long after they laughed at something particularly funny together, or after Remus braided his hair, and Sirius wouldn’t take it out for hours, apparently happy with it – when he wasn’t happy with anyone else braiding his hair, and how Remus would be put out for a moment when Sirius did inevitably take the braid out, saying it got too messy, even though he didn’t want to –
Now that he thinks about it, there were probably signs Remus could have picked up on as well. But, of course, that’s not the point. James laughs, beginning to walk away, muttering something about how ‘ his job here is done’, and he’ll see them later, to which Sirius mumbles something incoherent as Remus begins to kiss at his jaw, apparently unable to form an actual sentence. Peter notices this, and grimaces, exiting the small flat that belongs to Sirius, to which Remus snorts, rolling his eyes as he finally unlatches from Sirius’ neck.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know I’m mental about you.”
“And–” Sirius sputters, beginning to play with the sleeve of his jacket as he avoids eye contact with Remus. “If I were to tell you that?” He raises one eyebrow, hesitantly looking up into Remus’ eyes.
“Well. Forgive me, but that simply will not do.”
“I had a feeling,” Sirius groans, going limp as he leads Remus towards his bedroom.
The two of them sit on his bed, not touching all that much anymore, sitting in comfortable silence, the way it’s always been – Sirius lays down on his back, and Remus smiles, laying sideways, with his head on Sirius’ chest. They can’t count the amount of times they’ve sat like this over the years – it’s just become their natural state. That, or aggressively holding each other’s hands, but telling people they were just friends – since that was what they both thought, before Jeopardy!, and Sirius letting his intrusive thoughts win. That happened often, but this was a special occasion. “I don’t want this to be a one-time thing,” Sirius blurts out, looking a little worried. “I know I’ve never really…settled down, but, er… it’s different, with you.”
“Different with me?”
“I don’t want to be with anyone else other than you.” Of course, for that, Remus has to snog him senseless. They’ll talk about it all later.
He has a feeling Sirius was pretty happy, after that. His work there was done, as James might say.
A year and a half later, their relationship is still going strong. Probably.
The two of them are dancing around Sirius’ – well, now their flat, the record player spilling out an endless stream of David Bowie – the album of choice at this moment, The Man Who Sold The World, delighting both of them to no end.
“Remus,” Sirius smiles, looking into Remus’ dark eyes, and they soften the moment they meet Sirius’ piercing pale blue ones. “D’you want to go out, tonight?”
“Yeah, sweetheart,” he laughs softly. “You don’t have to ask, you know I’m up for anything.” He twirls Sirius, who giggles, blushing, and then returns back into Remus’ arms, one hand on his waist, and the other in his right hand. Sirius forced him to learn how to properly ballroom dance, insisting that if he had to learn it as a child, Remus had to as well. Of course, the circumstances were very different, and Sirius did admit that – Remus wasn’t faced with ‘learn how to ballroom dance or become exiled from the Black family home’ – but he grinned shyly, and followed Sirius’ lead, doing anything he could to bring Sirius joy, doing what he always knew to do. It wasn’t like Remus didn’t have his own fun; they weren’t a toxic couple – he liked making Sirius happy, and the two weren’t polar opposites or anything, so he liked doing what Sirius liked doing. Sirius snorts, rolling his eyes. “No, you know – I should have said no pressure –”
“–Sirius, my love…”
“Remus, darling, I just don’t want you to be pressured into going clubbing, or whatever, when in all actuality, you want to stay home.”
“I’ve been in love with you for the past three years. Do you think I wouldn’t be honest about something as menial as that?”
It’s not the first time Sirius thinks about Remus being unfaithful to him, in all actuality, (he’s had it too many times at this point) it’s just a weird, scary, blink of a thought. It leaves after a moment, and he doesn’t worry about it, shoves it down, and smiles at Remus.
“No, I know you’d never lie to me. I’ll get changed, be back in five minutes.”
“I love you!” Remus calls after him. “I’ll get the car keys.”
“I love you more!” Sirius calls back, smiling to himself.
Unfortunately, that’s the first time that Remus doesn’t respond, ‘Wrong!,’ the end to their usual banter. Sirius doesn’t notice it, too focused on which mesh shirt to wear, but Remus does notice it, and doesn’t bother to correct himself.
It worries him.
Sure enough, Sirius has returned within a few minutes, looking positively edible in his sparkly black fishnet top and skinny jeans. Remus looks up from his phone, swiping out of the text conversation with a guy he’s met at work – who he does spend a lot of time with now, and Sirius has noticed. They enjoy each other. A lot.
“Oh. Who’re you talking to?” Sirius asks absentmindedly, but there’s a hint of something else in his voice.
“Logan. From work, you know.”
“Oh. Cool,” he sighs, sounding like he really couldn’t give a fuck, and it is, in fact, not cool. “Do I wear my jacket?” Sirius asks, when Remus strides across the room, taking his face in his hands and kissing him soundly. He knows which jacket Sirius is referencing, and – don’t get him wrong, he loves that jacket with his whole being, he would most likely take a bullet to get to see Sirius wear the jacket, his famed leather jacket that he’s been wearing since they graduated Year 10, it somehow still fitting him – although, to be fair, he hasn’t really done much growing since then – once the tallest in primary school, now the shortest out of his friend group… But, no that’s not the point. Remus loves the jacket. No matter what Sirius wears, Remus always says yes to the option of keeping the jacket. He loves seeing Sirius in the jacket. But tonight, he only wants to see Sirius like this. “Oh,” Sirius gasps, catapulting Remus out of his thoughts. “You just–” he pants, catching his breath. “You just went right for it. No jacket, yeah? Yeah, that’s – mm, that is exactly what I thought, Remus,” he splutters, stumbling away to don his signature Doc Martens, then rises from the floor, grinning a little at Remus. “Ready?”
“Always, love.”
They dance throughout the night, becoming significantly more drunk as it goes on, neither of them really knowing what’s happening by the end of it – Sirius has started to wax poetic about Remus to a total stranger, before Remus sobers up a little, pulling Sirius away, apologizing at least seven times. Sirius begins batting his eyelashes at the bartender, who automatically begins serving him free drinks, until Remus laughs and pulls him away, kind of rough, muttering, ‘that’s enough for you, baby,’ guiding him outside into the night air, the two of them wobbling on their feet a little, Sirius the most, but Remus is uncertain if he’ll be able to make it home, since he can’t drive – he’s absolutely pissed.
“Remus, love, can you take me home?” Sirius slurs, mouthing at his jaw, smiling. “I’m so tired…”
“I can’t drive us,” Remus hums, shaking his head, still in a bit of a haze.
“Oh, it’s only…it’s a short drive. Besides, no one is – no one’s on the road, no one else is driving home,” he says, just as a car drives by them. He giggles, as soon as he sees it.
“Sweetheart,” Remus sighs.
“Moony,” Sirius raises an eyebrow, wordlessly begging.
That’s how they end up in the car, with a very drunk Sirius and a very worried Remus attempting to start the engine, pressing his foot on the gas pedal hesitantly. “Come off it, love,” Sirius eventually sighs. “We’ll be fine.”
They are, evidently, not fine, when the car slides on the wet road, and Remus doesn’t press the brake fast enough – when the car crashes into a tree on the side of the road. It jolts both of them, as the airbags blow up, and one hits Sirius, but he doesn’t really seem to notice what’s happened, completely passed out.
“Fuck!” Remus shouts, genuinely afraid for his life, waking Sirius up as he gets out of the car, staring at it. Sirius hesitantly stands up, gets out of the car, and walks toward Remus.
“Oh. Oh, my car,” Sirius whispers, something sad in his voice. “What happened? The car is smoking. … Why is it doing that?”
Overtaken with anger, Remus lashes out, too terrified to see straight. “I crashed the fucking car, Sirius! You didn’t want to get a lift, because you were tired, and now we’re here!”
Sirius gapes, sobering up a little. “What– what the fuck is your problem? You’re freaking out on me, Jesus Christ! Can you just—breathe, what the fuck? First of all, is it that hard to drive a fucking car?” Sirius immediately bites back, both of them knowing that this has been building up for a while, as the two of them refuse to talk about any of their problems, thinking that if they shove them down, they won’t exist as much. They love each other so much that it’s unhealthy.
Remus scoffs, enraged. “I’m fucking drunk–”
“–Exactly! You were supposed to be sober, the whole fucking night! Guess who didn’t keep that promise?”
“Well, I’m sorry I hate seeing you flirt with other men, every time we go out! Forgive me for wanting to escape it a little!”
“Flirt with other – Christ, Remus, now you’re saying I’m cheating on you? You know I’d never – what?! And, aren’t you one to talk? Why the fuck have you been coming home late, talking about some work friend you’ve made, constantly, all the fucking time, how do you think that makes me feel?”
“You’re acting crazy, Sirius, I’d never–”
“–If you lie to me right now, I’m going to walk away. I’m not going to continue this conversation. Who’s acting crazy? You crashed the fucking car! What the fuck are we supposed to do now?”
“I don’t – I don’t fucking know!”
“Call your new fucking work friend that you love so much, maybe he’ll drive us home, and then he’ll fuck you, and you can leave me and live with him. Get pissed all you fucking want, and crash as many fucking cars as you want. I won’t be there to annoy you. That’s all I’m doing. Holding you back. Go on, call him!”
Once Sirius has said it, he instantly regrets it, but he can’t tell Remus that, can he?
“I’m not going to fucking call him! Sirius, what the fuck? You’re so–I’m not fucking cheating on you!”
“Don’t you dare lie to me, Remus. Call him. He’ll get us home, since he’s apparently also rather infatuated with you. Right, happy fucking birthday to me,” Sirius scoffs, laughing coldly as he sits back in the car, slamming the door. “Thanks for everything, Remus! This is just what I wanted for my birthday! Turning 22 is the perfect time to crash my car, and scream at me about how it’s my fault. Thanks!”
Remus rolls his eyes, grumbling about how he’s so fucking dramatic, and Sirius only rolls his eyes in return, snorting, outraged.
Remus calls Logan, thinking it’s what Sirius wanted, a part of him still wanting to make him happy. What he doesn’t know is that what Sirius really wanted was for Remus to apologize, to promise, there was nothing going on between him and Logan, to take it all back, and they’d sort it out together – call some sort of towing company, and they’d be alright.
Of course, when he doesn’t do that, they both know it’s the beginning of the end.
They’ve never fought like that before.
It terrifies both of them.
Christmas that year began rough, and it only got worse.
Almost two months since the car crash finds the two of them seated on the sofa, listening to the faint sounds of Christmas songs playing from Sirius’ phone speaker. They’re both exhausted, and they haven’t even done anything all day. They haven’t really fought since the crash, too afraid to look at one another, or really speak to one another. They were able to keep up their routine around their friends, and every now and then, they’d steal glances at each other, and smile, thinking maybe this was when it all turned around, and everything would be like how it was, they’d be okay – but then they’d go home, and one would do something to piss the other off, and they were off to the races, as the saying goes, snapping at each other, making passive aggressive remarks under their breath when they thought the other wasn’t listening. They haven’t left the house in a week. They’ve stopped kissing, having sex, hugging each other, talking, caring, listening, doing mostly anything in general, really, and they’ve only gotten better at wallowing in their sadness. To Sirius, Remus seems perfectly fine. While Sirius has barely used his phone, no doubt worrying James to no end, Remus is constantly on his, smiling at it obnoxiously, obviously texting Logan about how hot he is, or something. At least, that’s what Sirius presumes. It makes him sad to think about, since a deep, dark part of him knows that Remus would never cheat on him.
Right?
They’ve been silent the entire day, only asking what time it was every now and then, or muttering quiet insults about the other, and apparently that’s taken up so much time, that the clock now reads 20:48, which is a little shocking to Sirius.
“Merry Christmas, Remus, love,” Sirius mutters, remembering the date, and hoping to make mild peace between them. It’s the first time he’s actually said the word love since…maybe a month ago, and it’s definitely the first time he’s used it towards Remus in a while. Both of them know this, and Sirius is hoping Remus will notice. He just wants it all back. He’s endlessly sorry for what he said, for what happened between them, after the car crash. It’s sad, really. Now, everything is before, and after.
Before the car crash, things were good. At least they were able to hide their problems, and pretend everything was okay.
After the car crash, neither of them have been able to catch a break, with them both unable to communicate without blowing up at each other.
This is not their normal.
Remus looks up, pink dusting his cheeks, in his really ugly Christmas sweater, and he cracks a faint smile. “Merry Christmas, Sirius.”
He doesn’t say 'love.’ Sirius notices. Remus goes right back to his phone, and Sirius huffs, a little annoyed. Here he is, wanting to get the love of his life back, and apparently, said man in question has found a new boyfriend.
Sirius doesn’t think now is a good time to tell Remus that he was planning to propose to him, on his birthday. Of course, they’d had the car crash, which killed the mood.
Apparently, Sirius must have huffed a little louder than he meant to, since Remus looks up, and he seems annoyed.
“What?”
Sirius raises an eyebrow, confused. “What?”
“What’s your problem? You just huffed at me.”
“I didn’t,” Sirius snorts, not bothering to attempt to tell the truth, since he can see that his efforts have gone unnoticed, and it’s all worthless, probably. “I’m the one trying to be nice to you,” he mumbles, frowning.
“You’re trying to be nice to me?” Remus repeats, scoffing. “You literally just lied to my face.”
“Well then. Tell Logan about it.”
“Oh, really? Stop it, Sirius.” Remus scoffs, enraged. He drops his phone on the couch, breathing heavily. “You always manage to take a perfectly okay moment and make it about something it’s not. I didn’t do anything!”
“You literally crashed the car! That has not been replaced, by the way! I don’t know how the fuck I’ve even gotten anywhere in the last two months! Where the fuck is my car, Remus? Oh, you crashed it into a tree, driving drunk? Yeah, you can’t tell me that I convinced you. I was so fucking sloshed it wasn’t even funny! I wasn’t thinking straight! Of course I said we’d be fine! But you listened, always wanting to make me happy, or whatever fucked up thoughts your savior complex gives you, and you crashed my fucking car! Into a fucking tree,” he snorts. “That’s your problem. What makes me happy isn’t what you always need to do!”
“I–”
“--Okay, no, never mind. I don’t have the energy to fight with you, not today. Not right now. I’m tired of it, Remus. It’s fucking killing me. I’m sorry. Can we…can we just, try?”
“Yeah, fine,” Remus says, seemingly giving up.
They sit in silence for a minute, both exhausted with each other.
“I bought you something, one second,” Sirius sighs, standing up from the sofa, and walking back to their room – now cold and dark, no longer the warm, bright room it once was. He brings the wrapped box back to the living room, a hint of a smile on his face. “Here, er – I didn’t have a big chance to go shopping this year, but I hope you like this.”
Remus takes the box, and inside it there’s a little golden apple, to which he looks up at Sirius hesitantly.
“It’s a paperweight. For the assignments you’ll have to look at, or whatever primary school teachers do,” he laughs softly, looking into Remus’ eyes.
“Thank you,” Remus says, and he means it. Looking deeper into the box, there’s a book, seemingly – when Remus looks closer, it’s an old edition of The Picture of Dorian Gray – one of his favorite books. The cover is a worn, faded red, and it’s positively stunning. “Sirius, I – this is beautiful, oh my God. How–how old is this?”
“Early twentieth century,” Sirius answers, examining his nails, and for a second, everything is like it was – it’s nice. There’s a card in the box, and Remus opens it – realizing that Sirius has made it himself. Oh, he’s – he’s really trying. That makes him feel so much worse.
The card goes on about how they’re in a rough patch, or something, but Sirius wants to work through it, since he loves Remus, and he hopes he likes the gifts, and, and, and…
Every word makes Remus feel like someone’s stabbed him, and is twisting the knife. This makes what he has to do so much harder.
“Thank you, Sirius.”
“It’s nothing. Merry Christmas.”
“I can’t accept this.”
“Don’t be silly–”
“–I can’t accept it, Sirius.”
“What?” Sirius laughs nervously. “What do you mean by that?” he asks warily, raising one eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’d feel guilty, we’re in a relationship, we love each other, it’s not –” Sirius stops talking when Remus stares back at him, his expression going from blank to positively miserable. “Remus. We love each other, don’t we?”
The silence is answer enough. Sirius can feel his throat getting tight, and tears prick at his eyes. “Oh.”
“Sirius, I’m–”
“–No, no, please don’t. Don’t tell me you’re sorry, since I know you aren’t. That’s the last thing I want to hear from you right now.”
“I have to do this,” Remus whispers. “This isn’t good for either of us.”
“But it can be! We just – we have to try again, don’t you see? We could make it good, again! It could be good. We are good. I love you, Remus, I always have, don’t you know that? And you – if you just tell me what I’ve done wrong, I want to fix it, please let me fix it. Don’t leave me, please don’t – just let me fix it, please?”
“I’m sorry, Sirius,” is all Remus can say, standing up from the floor, and walking into their bedroom. When he emerges, he has a suitcase that he’s rolling behind him.
“Oh,” Sirius gasps, now angry through his tears. “You fucking packed ?! Jesus Christ, how long have you been planning to leave me? Tell me, Remus! Tell me when you decided – when you knew that you didn’t love me anymore.”
“You’re just being cruel now, Sirius, I know you’re angry –”
“I’m the one being cruel?! You made a bag of your shit to take, and leave me! That’s fucking cruel. No, you don’t get to talk about that! Fuck you, Remus. Get the fuck out of my flat.”
“Sirius, please. Don’t do this.”
“Get the fuck out! I love you, but you don’t love me, not anymore, and you’ve made that so obvious! You fucking packed!”
“I–”
“--Where are you going, now that you don’t live here, anymore?” Sirius asks, attempting to be cruel, but really, it sounds a little pathetic through his broken voice.
“Sirius, you know I can't call anyone other than L–”
“Oh, Logan, of course!” Sirius sobs quietly, his chest heaving. “It’s always fucking Logan. Speaking of that, how many times did you fuck him instead of me, before you decided that it was over, between us? Do you love him? Is he gonna take better care of you? Does he love you, scars and all, in a way I never could? I really fucking hope so, Remus. I really. Fucking. Hope so. If you leave tonight – when – you leave tonight, you will not come back here. You cannot come back here. Fuck. You.”
“You don’t mean that,” Remus whispers, beginning to cry. He tries to hide it, and it only makes Sirius even angrier, “I know you don’t. I just don’t want to put you through this. I want to make you happy, I want to make you feel better–”
“–And you thought leaving me was the best option?”
“You’ll be better for it!”
“Yeah? Will you be?”
Remus doesn’t respond.
“Answer me,” Sirius grits out, another tear falling from his eyes – now a brilliant grey.
“Yeah,” Remus lies. “It’s better for the both of us.” Sirius looks shocked. He stares at Remus, gaping, and then wipes at his eyes, inhaling deeply, and then snaps his mouth shut for a moment.
“Well. I guess we’re done here, then. Almost two years of this – what’d you say to me on your birthday, last year? ‘I’ll never get tired of you?’ was that it? I think it was,” he smiles, looking deranged as he quotes Remus with terrifying accuracy. “You have gotten tired of me, so that came back to bite you in the ass. Oh, God. If that’s not funny, then I don’t know what is,” he laughs tearfully, a choked sound making its way up through his throat, and he shrinks a little bit. “You told me you wouldn’t leave me,” Sirius whispers. “I believed you.”
Remus doesn’t know what to do, other than stare at Sirius as tears stream down his face. He wants to throw his suitcase, say, ‘Wait, I’m sorry! I don’t mean it. I love you, Sirius. I always will!’ But, of course, he can’t bring himself to. He can’t lie to Sirius. He never has. He never will. Apparently, Sirius must be having the same thought, since this seemed like it might have been Remus’ last chance. Sirius’ face falls more, if that’s even possible, and he stares blankly into the other man’s eyes. “I love you. I hope you remember that. I hope it fucking cuts deep inside of you, and you regret leaving me. For now, though? Fuck off. Goodbye, Remus.”
Remus doesn’t get to tell him goodbye before Sirius slams the door in his face.
“Goodbye, Sirius,” he murmurs, turning on his heel and walking slowly down the hallway, taking the lift down to the lobby, and calls Logan – he hates that Sirius was right. He hates Sirius for it, he hates Logan for it, he hates himself for it, the most.
“Oh, hi, baby,” Logan picks up, and Remus can hear the smile in his voice. “Merry Christmas.”
“Hey,” Remus sobs, unable to compose himself. “Yeah, Merry Christmas, or whatever, I don’t really — just — can you – can you come pick me up? Take me back to your flat?”
“Yeah, of course. Whatever you need," Logan sighs, apparently picking up on what’s happened. It’s not hard for him to guess. He’s suggested this idea to Remus countless times, and in this moment is rather proud of himself. Of course, he attempts to hide that fact, pretending like he’s mildly sad about the whole situation. “Er… you okay, baby?”
Remus hangs up.
Sirius watches the whole thing from the window of the flat, his cheeks stained with eyeliner and tears as he sees an obnoxiously fancy sports car pull up to the front of the complex, skidding on the pavement. Remus loads his suitcase in the trunk, and looks up to the window of the flat, making eye contact with Sirius, when he starts sobbing again, which only makes Sirius grimace, and look away, attempting to pretend he’s alright – but it really hits him when he can hear the tires burning on the road as Logan’s car peels away, and Sirius crumples to the floor, crying all over again. It’s the last time Remus and Sirius look at each other for a while.
Sirius doesn’t think he’s cried this much in a while. It’s overwhelming. He forgot how much he hates crying. He’d usually be hiding from Remus, not wanting to show this part to him, that wonderful man, who he just wants to impress, who he just wants to love –
But, of course, now that Remus isn’t here, he can cry in peace, curled up in a ball on the floor, next to the stupid paperweight and book. He hates that Remus is gone, he hates Remus for it – someone he never thought he had the ability to hate. It’s sad. It makes him feel worse.
After an hour, he calls James.
“Sirius?” James says, sounding a little nervous, when he doesn’t say anything after James picks up. “Are you alright?”
“He left,” Sirius croaks into the phone, sniffling pathetically. There’s silence on the other end.
“I’ll – I’ll be there in ten, don’t – don’t do anything stupid before I get there, please.”
“Yeah, no promises,” Sirius scoffs, hanging up.
James does, in fact, arrive in less than ten minutes, and Sirius can only imagine how many traffic lights he must have driven through to get here in that time.
He opens the door without unlocking it, since apparently Sirius just really doesn’t care anymore, and James walks in, seeing the neatness of the flat contrast with Sirius, who is currently sobbing on the floor. It’s terrifying. Sirius has cried in front of James more than anyone else, but never like this. He’s never laid his entire self out for James like this, laying on the floor, wishing for Remus to come back, but also simultaneously die.
James sits next to Sirius, and rubs his back in soothing circles, waiting for Sirius, since he’ll be there, when he’s ready.
Six months – half a year – has passed since Sirius called James on Christmas, since Remus left him, since it all came crashing down – and he’s doing rather well. He’s started working at a new hair salon, which he is really enjoying, thank you very much, and he hasn’t thought of Remus once.
Of course, that’s what Sirius tells himself. He thinks of Remus every day.
The hair salon kind of sucks. He wants nothing more than to start his own, and become wildly successful. Which, he will. That’s what Remus always told him.
Oh. Fuck.
Whatever. Anyway, there he is in the hair salon, donning his usual little – apron, thing? Is it an apron? He doesn’t know, but it keeps other random people’s hair from getting on his outfits, which is exactly what he needs since, that will simply not do.
Today, he’s seeing Marlene, one of his favorite clients, ever since she came in, that first day, with her long, glowing blonde hair, and leather jacket alike to his. They talked non-stop about their shared love for motorbikes, and being Queer in London, which is – interesting to say the least, according to both of them. Understandably so. They’ve never come out to one another, just automatically knew the other was Queer – so, of course, there then came the topic of relationships. Marlene told Sirius of a girl she was currently so into she couldn’t think straight – ‘But I can’t really ever think straight, can I, eh, Black?’ Sirius had laughed so hard he almost got bleach into her eye, and freaked out.
“Anyway,” she’d said, “God, I really do like her.”
“I’m gonna need a name, babe, otherwise, I’m just gonna call her mystery seduction girl,” Sirius teased, dipping his little brush into the bleach again, lathering it onto Marlene’s scalp. Her hair had started to fall into her face around half an hour ago, and the situation hadn’t improved since then. She looked a bit like you were seeing her from the back, no matter what angle you see her at, now. It was very amusing to Sirius.
“Dorcas,” Marlene had said, barely above a whisper.
“That’s pretty.”
“I know, right? I intend to make her absolutely and totally in love with me. With your help, of course.”
“Oh, yes.”
So, of course, since then they’d been very close, and Sirius was very excited for Dorcas updates when he saw Marlene walk into the salon, her combat boots stomping on the floor, getting dirt on it, but Sirius doesn’t really care.
“Marls, hi! So, today, what are we–”
“– Great to see you, Sirius, and oh, Christ, do I have plans for you!”
“Plans,” Sirius echoed, in a meek voice. Usually, when clients said that, it meant, dye my hair bright green, and then, they came back a week later, asking why they looked like the Joker. It’s not Sirius’ fucking fault, green just doesn’t fade well!
Thank god, Marlene does not ask for Sirius to dye her hair a completely different color, she just throws herself down in the chair, stares at Sirius through the mirror, and exhales sharply.
“Chop it all off. I want it gone.”
“Chop – off – gone,” Sirius splutters, unable to comprehend what is even happening. Marlene loves her hair. “You want me, to, to, chop this,” he gestures vaguely to Marlene’s hair, “all off?”
“Yeah.”
“Right.”
“Is that–that’s okay, right?”
“Oh, it’s brilliant, I love the idea, Marlene, but I really, really, really…I don’t want you to hate it,” he squeaks, feeling very small and shy. He cringes, shrinking away from Marlene a little, who only laughs, shaking her head immediately.
“I’d never hate anything you do to my hair. It always looks good,” she smiles, gesturing to her current very 70s-inspired shag and bangs – then makes a scissors motion with her fingers, “and it’s going to look even better, once it’s gone. So,” she smiles, guiding Sirius’ hand towards the scissors, and lacing his fingers through the loops as she brings it closer and closer to her hair. Sirius seems to be on autopilot, or he’s just – terrified. She presses down on his fingers a little, and they both hear the telltale snip of hair cut by metal, to which Sirius shrieks, almost dropping his scissors. Marlene’s eyes light up; she looks positively delighted.
“Marlene! Oh, no, no, what did I – what the fuck did I do?!”
“Exactly what I wanted! So, Sirius Black, if you don’t start cutting my hair, I’m going to do it myself –”
“–No! No! No, you are not doing that. Oh my god. Okay. I’ll – I’ll cut it. I would ask if you’re sure, but,” he pauses, looking down at the clump of hair on the floor. “It’s apparently too late.”
“No time like the present. Besides, my mum will hate it – which is just what I need, and want, since I’ve been needing a change recently, and it’s like – two things at once, you know? Anyway, I’m letting you do it, since I don’t trust myself,” she giggles.
“Fucker,” Sirius snorts, rolling his eyes, as he begins to slowly cut at Marlene’s hair, through the layers he’s done throughout the months, finally getting to the length of a bob, when he looks at her through the mirror.
“Shorter?” he asks, hesitantly.
“Yes! Think, er, Florence Pugh in that one interview with Timothee Chalamet, after Dune 2 came out.”
“Dune 2? That’s what we’re going with, here? A movie about white saviorism and colonialism?”
“Okay, but the movie’s not the point, just let me have my moment of Florence Pugh sexiness.”
“Yeah, whatever you say, sexy,” Sirius laughs, cutting with a little more feeling now, closer to Marlene’s head, delighting in the way she smiles at her reflection in the mirror. Eventually, it’s loads shorter, a little shaggy, layered, still bleach-blonde, with Marlene’s darker roots only showing a little bit at the top of her head, which Sirius smiles, saying it’s putain de stylé, je suis tellement content que tu aies fait ça, muttering excitedly in French, to which Marlene raises an eyebrow, looking confused.
“Babe, I don’t know what that means.”
“Oh. Er, well, basically, the English translation is me platonically making out with you as I tell you how fucking cool your hair looks.”
“Oh! Good. Well, you’ve done enough of that in the past hour.”
“Funnily enough, that’s a comment I get a lot,” Sirius laughs, rolling his eyes.
Eventually, he dyes the tips of her hair a light pink, and Marlene is beaming by the time Sirius is finished, apparently so excited that she gets up and hugs him tightly, refusing to let go.
“Oh–!”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Sirius! Oh, god, it looks so good, I feel so fucking sexy, like, what?!”
“That’s the goal, Marls.”
“Goal fucking achieved, Sirius, love! Oh, I love it so much, very Florence Pugh vibes. Absolutely.”
“I’m so glad you like it,” he smiles, shaking his head in disbelief, minutely.
“Of course I do,” she grins. “Right, then I’ll go pay, and I’ll see you in, er, a month, or so?”
“Yeah! Alright, great to see you, Marls. Oh,” he smiles. “Dorcas is gonna love this, by the way, you look super fucking hot.” She cackles, throwing her head back, and looks a little pink when she looks Sirius in the eye again.
“My number 1 wingman. D’you have a lot of appointments booked today? Or, like, right now?”
Sirius groans. “Yeah, I’ve got to cover one of Fabian’s clients, in like, five minutes, actually,” he laughs. “His name’s John, or something of the like… And then I’m booked the rest of the day,” he sighs.
“Oh. Bugger.”
“I know, I’m sorry, Marlene,” he murmurs, hugging her goodbye.
“Oh, don’t worry about it! You’re a working man,” she jokes, flexing. “We’ll have to get lunch another time,” Marlene smiles.
“Of course, of course!” Sirius grins. “Alright, love you, Marls!”
“Bye, Sirius, love!”
fabian(hairdresser) [10:46]: hey john! just clarifying what you ought to do today since i’m not in the shop – go in, of course, like you usually do, and then go to the desk and tell them you’re john, like usual, and they’ll give you to your hairdresser – i’m not sure who it is lol, they didn’t tell me, or maybe i didn’t read the email, whatever – but don’t worry!! everyone who works here is very friendly, i’m sure you’ll get along. <3 x (also you’re doing this the next 3 times since my honeymoon ends when i want it to and i’m thinking that will not be for a while. said with love.)
Remus sighs, pocketing his phone as he walks into the hair salon, rubbing at his eyes. He’s introduced himself as John to practically everyone he’s met in the past six months, since he didn’t like being known as the moon anymore.
Moons without stars are practically nothing.
He waves hello to the woman working at the desk today – he thinks her name is Mary, probably – as a woman with bleach-blonde, really short hair accidentally slams into him from the side, to which they both gasp, and apologize around eighteen times, until they’re both laughing a little, and they bid goodbye. Mary stares at them, confused, for the duration of that incident. She tells Remus he can go to the waiting room, and he smiles, thanking her as he walks down the stairs, into the waiting room. He takes a seat on the little bench, and opens his phone, texting Logan that he’s at the hair salon, and he’ll be home in a few hours, probably. Of course, that depends on if he actually wants to see Logan.
Remus does not want to see Logan, to put it bluntly.
Sirius sighs, aggressively rubbing his face with his hands as he attempts to collect himself, next to his spot in the hair salon. He has to go welcome John, or whatever his name is, but he’s worried that this guy will be some sort of prick, and who knows, maybe he’ll ask for bright green hair, and then blame Sirius for everything that ever went wrong in his life. It’s happened before.
He trudges into the waiting room, his boots making a bit of a clunkclunk noise as he walks in, and he sees there’s quite a few people here – one guy with an unfortunate not-quite grown out wolf cut is hunched over his phone, wrapped in an impossibly huge coat. There’s another man with soft blond curls, and he mildly looks like an angel. He also looks Queer, and not that strange. Sirius hopes he’s John.
“Er, John? I’m ready for you now,” he smiles, waiting for someone to look up.
Wolf cut guy looks up, apparently he’s John, and in a split second, he’s no longer wolf cut guy – Remus John Lupin is suddenly staring back at Sirius. Oh, absolutely not.
Remus’ jaw drops. Sirius tries to regain composure, shakily beckoning him to his seat in the salon, just around the corner, but of course, he looks a bit like he’s just choked on something as he stares at Remus.
“Great,” Remus blurts out, a little louder than he meant to, following Sirius’ robotic movements as he hastily sits down. They stare at each other in the mirror for around five minutes.
Sirius exhales, very loudly, attempting to think of anything to say. They sit like this for a while – Remus awkwardly fumbling with his weirdly large jacket zipper, and Sirius scowling at him every now and then, if he feels so moved. (He does. Quite often.) “What’s – what’s with the jacket?” he eventually decides on, pointing to it as if it’s some sort of repulsive item – which, yeah, it is. Remus looks confused for a moment, then points towards his own jacket hesitantly, making eye contact with Sirius in the mirror.
“This jacket?” Remus asks, beginning to take it off, revealing one of the many band t-shirts he owns.
“No, the jacket over there,” Sirius mutters, rolling his eyes. “Yes, of course, yours. It’s June.”
“That’s, ah – that’s true,” Remus clears his throat, looking like he really doesn’t want to keep talking about the jacket. “You see, um, Logan–”
“Oh, that’s enough, I understand,” Sirius grins, looking a little deranged as he wrinkles his face up. “No, no, you don’t need to explain. Actually, I’d prefer that you don’t. At all. I don’t know if I need to explain why, considering we’re talking about the man you left me for, which is, just, honestly–” Sirius cuts himself off with a snort, flailing his hands a little. “I don’t even know why that’s an option,” he scoffs, well and truly amusing himself by this point.
Remus looks horrified.
“Can I put this on the chair?” he asks, now no longer wearing the jacket, putting it on the back of the chair.
“Yeah,” Sirius mutters absentmindedly, the humor in his voice no longer as prominent, making way for a sort of desperate tone. He pulls the sleeves of his oversized sweater up, and the jacket comes falling down off the chair as Sirius bumps into it. “Oops,” he mutters, not even looking at the mound of fabric as it falls to the floor. Not bothering to pick it up, he moves on.
He grabs a cape for Remus, still asking himself why he hasn’t just run out of the salon yet, leaving Remus alone and confused ( like he was, six months ago – not like it matters or anything), considering he told himself they’d never speak again – yet here Sirius is, velcro-ing the cape around his neck, and noticing the length of Remus’ hair with intense focus.
“Your hair’s longer,” Sirius mutters, playing with a few strands of it absentmindedly. He doesn’t notice, and for a minute, Remus feels like he’s back in their – Sirius’ – flat, how things always were, letting Sirius practice on Remus, since didn’t mind having a sort of undercut, or shaving the sides, or having a sort of mullet – he was willing to do whatever to make Sirius happy.
Of course, then it had all blown up in his face, and now he was never going to be able to tell Sirius he was sorry. That he loved him, that he didn’t love Logan, he made the worst mistake possible, and he wanted to marry Sirius. He wants to marry Sirius,
Remus never told him that he had a ring in his pocket the night of the car crash. He’d been so angry that night, directly after crashing the car, since for a split second, his drunk, absolutely sloshed brain had told him that he’d killed Sirius, on the night he was planning to ask him to marry him, on his fucking birthday, for god’s sake – he’d fucked it all up, so when Sirius came out of the car, he was terrified, only wanting to know that Sirius was alive, that he was alright, that he hadn’t completely fucked it up – only for them to get in a screaming match that began the end of their relationship. Oh well. He left the ring in the car, and he's never gotten it back. It sits there, in that little box, to this day.
Sirius had asked him, that night, after Logan drove them home, leaving Sirius’ car on the side of the road. Remus promised to have it towed the next day. This is the end, isn’t it? The beginning of it, at least? Sirius looked over, whispering, something in his eyes that Remus couldn’t quite place. He looked over to Logan suddenly, and scowled. Remus thought Sirius was meaning to piss him off, so he’d scoffed, Yeah, Sirius, not knowing that thing in Sirius’ eyes was hope. All he wanted was for Remus to shake his head, to comfort him in the way that only he knew how, to make him feel better, let him know that they were and would be okay.
Of course, that didn’t happen. So. Here they are.
“Er, yeah,” Remus coughs, thrust back into the present as Sirius yanks particularly hard on a chunk of his hair, making Remus jump. “Listen, I didn’t – I didn’t know that you work here. If I’d have known Fabian gave me you as my hairdresser, I would have asked to change, really–”
“‘S fine,” Sirius shakes his head. “First, we don’t have to be weird, things can be normal between us, if you’re willing to do that.” Remus considers this for a moment, and nods. “Secondly, I kind of have to do your hair, since it’s my job, and my boss told me that if I didn’t take an extra client this week – you, I suppose, since the world hates me – I’d be sacked, and that’s not exactly something I need. Especially not because of you,” he scoffs, outraged. “Anyway. So, ah…your hair. Wh–what do you want me to do with it?”
“Oh, I mean…I’ve been growing it out, and straightening it,” Remus muses, gesturing to his hair currently.
“Right, I can see that,” Sirius snorts. “Personally, I think it looks kind of shitty, and it’s all a little strange to me, since I have many memories of you telling me that you’d never let your hair grow out that long, or straighten it,” he smiles. Remus’ stomach flips a little. “So, I’m gonna cut it, if you’re perfectly alright with that.”
“You never did like it long,” Remus laughs, seemingly finding this amusing. He also doesn’t say no to cutting his hair, which Sirius notices. He raises an eyebrow.
“Me? Christ, must I remind you that you literally hated when your hair was long,” he scoffs, pulling his scissors out of the jar of barbicide and beginning to dry them off. “Fucking loathed it, always telling me, Sirius, this is ugly, look at this piece, it’s almost below my ear! You’d make me cut it, like every month.”
Sirius begins to snip at the ends of Remus’ grown-out hair, grimacing a little at it. He’s never seen it like this, and it’s sad, since it really doesn’t suit Remus. A crueler version of him would leave him like this, straightened long hair and all, but a part of Sirius, deep down, tells him that he’s got to do this.
It doesn’t offer an explanation, because when has life ever been kind to him?
“So, John,” he drawls. “Tell me the reasoning behind the name? How you managed to trick me, not ten minutes ago? Though you really were just some bloke called John. Suppose not.”
“Didn’t feel right to be called Remus anymore,” Remus mumbles, shrugging slightly.
“Your own name,” Sirius repeats, pinning the front of Remus’ hair up as he focuses on the back. “It didn’t feel right to be called by your own name?”
“No,” Remus mumbles, shaking his head.
“Stop, don’t – don’t shake your head,” Sirius scolds him, holding the top of Remus’ head, forcing him to remain still and look at his reflection. “Well, you didn’t ever like being called your own name, by most people, from what I remember. I guess everyone was right when they say that people can change overnight. And not for the better.”
No one has ever said that to Sirius. He just felt like being rude. “Besides, it’s not like Remus is that…odd, it’s normal, and it’s a fine name, you know, I—” Sirius stops himself, wondering why he’s being mildly nice to Remus. “Whatever. People change.”
“Do they?”
“Yeah. You’re here. Living proof of someone changing,” Sirius shakes his head, mildly shocked that Remus would say such a thing. Of course people change. Remus doesn’t love Sirius anymore. A change. “Your name, I mean,” Sirius lies. “That’s what I’m talking about. If you were wondering. Obviously.”
“I don’t… I don’t know if I changed, and that’s what made me want to go by John,” Remus begins, hoping that Sirius at least mildly cares.
Which he like, doesn’t, of course, but he’s still half-heartedly listening, since this is Remus. Or John. Whatever. RJ Lupin, the love of his life.
“What changed?” Sirius asks, not really noticing until the words leave his mouth. He regrets them immediately, since, knowing Remus, the man will start explaining in detail about why, or he’ll say a few words that crush Sirius’ entire world.
Or maybe he won’t say any words. That’s what happened last time.
“I’ve never really liked my name, you know that,” he looks into the eyes of Sirius’ reflection, and notices that the reflection is nothing like the real thing, his mirror eyes don’t have the depth, the beauty, the view that he’d die to see — not like the real ones.
Christ. Maybe he has changed. Remus of six months ago feels very differently — he’d rather be focusing on Logan’s eyes, which in Remus’ opinion as of now, are very boring, the singular shade of green, usually winking at him, or something — which only reminds him of Sirius. It always comes back to him. Maybe that should have occurred to him before he ruined his life single-handedly.
“You won’t like it if I say it,” Remus eventually finishes, struggling to make the words come out.
“Okay, well, that’s a personal problem that you would ever think that,” Sirius huffs, cutting Remus’s hair closer to his neck, then frowns. “I can’t work with it when it’s straight, come upstairs,” he groans, pointing towards the stairs, and guides Remus to sit down in a chair with a sink attached. Remus isn’t surprised — he’s seen Sirius’ eye twitch countless times after slightly glancing at his hair. He isn’t opposed to it either, since he hasn’t seen his hair, naturally, since early February. Sirius turns the shower nozzle-faucet sort of thing on, and the spray is hot — very hot. It almost burns. He doesn’t ask if it’s an okay temperature for Remus.
It’s not.
Sirius begins to comb his fingers through Remus’ hair, and he knows the water is fucking boiling; he wants it to be hot.
“Sirius, the—the water, it’s— fuck— can you—”
“—No,” Sirius blurts out, interrupting Remus. “It’s broken,” he lies.
“Lean back,” Sirius murmurs, squeezing a shampoo bottle, letting the liquid pour into his hands. He begins to lather it in Remus’s hair, seeming to find this rather intimate and being oddly gentle with Remus — a stark contrast to the water currently attacking him. It’s almost nice – Remus would smile if he wasn’t so goddamn sad all the fucking time. Of course, as he’s said, he has no one to blame but himself. How ironic. He leaves Sirius, thinking it’s for the best. He dates Logan. Logan says ‘I love you,’ and when Remus doesn’t say it back; just stares blankly into his eyes, Logan thinks he is saying it back. This causes a lot of problems. No one but himself to blame. Remus kisses Logan, pretending he’s Sirius trying to forget about his problems, but of course, it doesn’t work. The cycle goes on for the next few months, and now, here he is, basically having his scalp burned off by no one other than Sirius Black, the man he’s longed to see for ages.
He deserves whatever’s happening here, quite honestly.
Of course, Sirius is enraged. Remus deserves exactly what is happening right now. He’d managed to mostly get over him, crawling out of the hole that calls itself addiction, after James had found him passed out on his sofa, two weeks after Remus left, hysterically sobbing, drunk out of his mind as he watched the fire in the fireplace burn. Two hours earlier, he’d almost tossed the book he bought for Remus inside of it, but that only made him start to cry, and he felt like he had the energy for nothing.
“Sirius, mate,” James sighed, sitting next to him. “You can’t – this isn’t good for you. I want you to be alright. I want you to be able to live, not sit around here all day…I’m worried, Padfoot.”
Sirius groaned, “I don’t think I can be alright, Prongs. “Don’t you – can’t you see that he was everything to me? He’s – and now he’s gone, for – and for what? Logan ?” He sat up, mildly outraged. “Logan isn’t half as sexy as I am, James.”
“Mm,” James had nodded, raising his eyebrows a little. “Sirius, you’ve got to listen to me. I know you don’t want to, but, honestly, I’m… you aren’t doing well.”
“Why would I be?” Sirius hissed, hands pulling at his hair as tears threatened to spill from his eyes. “He’s gone, James! He’s not coming back!”
“You don’t—”
“—No, I do know that. I won’t see him again.”
Well. Sirius would kick himself if he was able to right now. Remus fucking came back.
Not as Remus, or on his knees, begging for forgiveness … but he’s still here. With Sirius. Right in front of him, wincing and grimacing as Sirius runs the water over his head again.
He turns the temperature down a little. Sue him for being such an empath. Remus’ jaw relaxes a little, and his eyes open again. Sirius almost swears he can see Remus cracking the slightest smile. What a dork.
Soon enough, he’s washed all the bubbles and product out of Remus’ hair, and he tugs once on one of the now curly strands, jerking his head to the left.
“Meet me downstairs,” Sirius murmurs, tying his aggressively long mane of curls back as he trudges down the stairs, back to his chair. Station. Whatever the word is. His workplace. Christ.
Remus follows behind him not long after, looking more like his old self as he approaches the chair, and when he sits down, he looks happier than he has the entire time he’s been here.
“Thank you,” he whispers, touching at his hair a little, unable to take his eyes off himself. Sirius is going to vomit.
“Mm, ‘s nothing,” he sighs, beginning to dry Remus’ hair with the loudest hairdryer he could find, making sure to accidentally get it a little too close to Remus’ ear every now and then. What? He made a mistake!
“So,” Sirius eventually sighs, beginning to cut at Remus’ hair again. “Logan.”
Remus’ face falls. “How’s he?” Sirius drawls, the scissors cutting Remus’ hair the way he always used to do it, making him almost think they’re together again. But they’re not. So.
Remus blinks twice before weakly muttering, “Fine,” staring at the floor. He clears his throat, trying again. “Er, he’s — he’s alright.”
Now, of course, Sirius knows he’s lying. But he’s not going to tell Remus that.
“That’s great.”
“Really?”
“Are you trying to argue with me right now, Lupin?”
“I’m just saying, you really didn’t seem to like him!”
“Oh. Well, that would make sense, actually, considering you left him for me. And then had him pick you up outside of our old flat. As I watched. But, no, of course I don’t mind him at all. Nice bloke, yeah?”
Remus’ world, to put it bluntly, stops.
He hadn’t seen Sirius on Christmas, not after he left. But Sirius had seen him? Oh. Well. That makes everything he’s planning on doing a little bit better but also a little bit worse.
“I didn’t know you saw. Not that night,” he whispers, still staring at the floor.
Sirius doesn’t know what the fuck that means, since it sure as hell sounds like Logan had picked Remus up more than once, and Remus was confident that Sirius hadn’t seen. He chooses to ignore this.
“I did,” Sirius nods. “But I’m actually okay with that,” he shrugs.
“You’re okay with it,” Remus repeats, dumbfounded.
“Completely, actually,” Sirius nods. “See, I’m, ah— I’ve met someone,” he lies, swallowing violently. “So. I’ve moved on. We both have.”
“You’ve met someone,” Remus echoes, now making eye contact with Sirius through the mirror.
“Are you going to repeat everything I say, Remus?”
“I’m not repeating everything you’ve — no,” Remus scoffs, making a sort of pshh noise with his mouth. It’s odd. “I’m happy for you,” Remus grits out. “Overjoyed, actually.”
“Oh.” Sirius frowns. He won’t admit it, but he’d expected more of a response out of Remus “Jealous” Lupin. “Thanks,” he mutters, not sounding that grateful at all. Now he has to trick someone into fake dating him, around Remus only. That fucking sucks.
Remus doesn’t respond, not verbally, at least, he just grunts. Sirius continues cutting at Remus’ hair, snipping closer and closer to his neck, watching his curls lace through the scissor blades. It’s oddly memorizing. For a moment, Sirius forgets about everything, forgets about their fights, forgets about Christmas, forgets that everything is over – and he smiles at Remus in the mirror, all teeth, since, really, some part of him is overjoyed to see Remus – and he has tried his hardest to bury that part of him, refusing to let it surface. Remus looks a little shocked for a second, then hesitantly smiles back. Sirius goes red, and doesn’t look at him for the next twenty minutes.
When Sirius is almost done, he takes Remus' head in his hands, and makes him look at himself in the mirror.
"Does it look alright?"
"Yeah, Sirius, it looks--"
"--Great," Sirius snaps, then stares at the back of Remus' head. He cuts one side a little shorter. They're slightly uneven now. That'll have to do. Remus realizes what's happened, a minute later, the two of them staring at each other in silence.
"Have you just -- what's --" He begins to feel the back of his head, and to him, it feels completely normal, but Sirius knows that it's not, since he fucked it up on purpose. He'll cry laugh about it later. "It feels fine," Remus mumbles. "Why are you making that face?"
"I'm not making a face."
"You're making a face."
"Who knows, Remus?" Sirius sighs, exasperated. "Maybe I've changed. Another thing that's changed is the time, which means that you have to leave. So."
Remus gets up out of the seat, turning around to face Sirius.
"Thank you, Sirius. Really."
Sirius doesn't respond as his eyes fill with tears.
"Logan? Are you home?" Remus calls as he enters their small flat, running a hand through his hair. Logan emerges from the bedroom, some ridiculous plaid and polka-dot combination currently plastered across his body. Remus struggles not to grimace.
"Hi, baby," Logan smiles, prancing over to Remus to hug him. When his hands inevitably float to Remus' hair, he gasps, and pulls back. Remus doesn't know how he's only noticing now. "Your hair, you -- you changed it."
"I like it this way," Remus mumbles defensively. "I wanted to change it."
"Oh, but I thought it looked so good when it was straight," Logan whines, looking very put out. "Oh, well, you can grow it out again, and then we'll straighten it out, yeah?"
"Why?" Remus asks, raising an eyebrow. "Does it matter so much, how my hair looks? It's mine, first of all, and, I like it like this."
Logan looks mildly enraged for a second before looking down at the rest of Remus.
"Where's your jacket?"
Fuck. His fucking jacket. Remus must've forgotten it after Sirius knocked it on the floor, and when he came back downstairs, after washing his hair -- it was gone. Remus must've not cared that much, since he didn't do anything about it. If he thinks about it, he knows he doesn't care that much. He hated that jacket.
"Must've left it at the hairdresser," Remus sighs, trudging back into their bedroom, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I'll be out soon."
One thing that Remus has noticed in the past six months is that he and Logan get annoyed with each other. Not in a healthy way -- when they tell each other, and then try to work it out, like adults -- but where Logan treats him like a child and attempts to gaslight him, shaking his head in this condescending way that makes Remus want to bash his head into a wall. He supposedly hasn't figured out that Remus is, in fact, not one of his nursery school students. Sure, Sirius and Remus would get annoyed with each other, but never in a way that made them want to actually murder each other. Until the end. But that's not the point.
They'd usually just kiss each other until they forgot about it, since it wasn't really that important -- but in Remus and Logan's case, he gets annoyed about actually important things -- like the fact that Logan seems to think they're in an open relationship, when they're really not. But apparently, he's struggling to understand this.
Remus has no problem with open relationships, obviously, since he played matchmaker, attempting to get his closest friend, Lily, to ask out two girls she had crushes on -- Mary (who is coincidentally, the secretary at the hairdresser's) and Pandora. They're supposedly very happy together, and Remus is delighted for them. But it's not what he's looking for.
There's other things, too -- Remus now pays most of the rent for the apartment, since Logan spends his money on alcohol -- which pisses Remus off.
Remus breaks things off with Logan later that night. There are many reasons why -- but the biggest one?
Logan isn't Sirius.
Sirius is back on the goddamn highway where it all started, staring at the stars in the cooler night air. He pulls his motorbike over, screeching to a stop on the side of the road as he takes his helmet off, shaking his curls out of his face. He walks maybe twenty steps, evading death by cars, and is then face to face with his own worst enemy.
His old car is directly in front of him, decaying in front of his own eyes. There's moss and ivy grown over most of it now, making it part of the earth, but you can still open the doors.
He does just that, sighing as he relaxes inside the beat-up passenger seat. He doesn't really know why he's here. Probably the fact that he saw Remus today. That would make sense. Looking over to the center console, something catches his eye. There's a small box inside one of the cupholders -- he knows he's never seen it before. If Remus had placed it there, the night of the crash, Sirius wouldn't have seen it, since, yeah, it was fucking dark. He reaches for it, and hesitantly opens it as his hands shake slightly. It's probably a bad idea that he's in this car, as it's hot as fuck, and it's not like the car works anymore, so he can't do anything about it.
Sirius almost shrieks when he opens the box. Out of joy, sadness, or fear, he'll never know.
Inside the box -- the stupid, fucking box that's been sitting here for the past six months -- is a ring. It's not just any ring. This goddamn ring is encrusted with a small diamond the shape of a star, and on the inside, Remus has apparently engraved it with,
Sirius, the love of my life & future husband. Don't ever let me leave you.
Sirius stops breathing for a moment.
Don't ever let me leave you.
Well.
Sirius almost drops the ring. His heart sinks into his stomach, his jaw dropping as tears prick at his eyes.
This time, he lets them fall, well and truly sobbing in that stupid fucking car, clutching onto an engagement ring that he didn't even know about until now. It's all so fucked, since of course, they got in a car crash and everything fell to shit the night they were both planning to propose, since they can't have nice things, apparently. Love of Remus' life? Christ, he really doesn't feel like that right now, ugly crying as he stares at the goddamn ring, the dusty windshield in the background. It's so fucking nice, too, which only makes him feel worse, since, of course he loves it. He loves everything Remus has ever given him. Turning to his right, Sirius looks out the car window at his bike, eyeing the trash bag currently tied to it. It has Remus' stupid Logan jacket in it. He came here to burn it.
He'll probably still burn it, really, but that's been postponed by a certain fucking engagement ring.
Remus can't still feel this way -- could he? It's impossible. He's dating Logan, now.
Sirius looks up, rubbing his eyes with his wrists and exhaling harshly before kicking the car door open, and emerging from it. He's placed the ring back in the box, and put it back in the center console, like the car is some sort of crime scene, or historical artifact. It makes more sense for it to be the latter, since he doesn't see a universe in which Remus still loves Sirius.
He sticks his middle finger right up at the moon.
Sirius slams the car door shut, turning around to take one last glance at it. Maybe he'll come back in another six months. He's about to turn around, drive away from here on his bike, and get so high tonight to forget this whole mess, but a voice interrupts him.
"Sirius?"
Remus stares back at him, dressed in a jumper and denims -- Sirius' Remus, the one he knew -- he's right in front of him, watching him stare at their old car, his face tear-stained and blotchy as they make eye contact.
"Remus," Sirius exhales, his gaze fixed on the only man he can imagine himself loving -- the man he's sure can't love him back.
"Sirius," Remus repeats. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same question," he scoffs, crossing his arms across his chest. His leather jacket makes a strange squeaky sound as it moves. Remus' eyes are drawn to it.
Remus coughs into his fist, and Sirius almost swears he goes a little pink in the dim light.
"I ended it with Logan," Remus answers. Sirius' world stops. His heart stops beating. His eyes are most likely the size of all the planets combined, and he has to force himself to keep his mouth shut and not jump on Remus like he's a tree. "I didn't -- didn't, er, have anywhere else to go. Took my car, and drove here," he trails off, then points at Sirius. "And saw you. Next to the car. That you were...sitting in, supposedly. Why were you -- why were you sitting in the car?"
"No reason," Sirius answers a little too quickly, suddenly very occupied with his ring finger. "Sorry, er--" he coughs. "Sorry about you and Logan."
"Mm. Thanks. I'll be alright. It hasn't really hit me yet, but I'm sure I'll get sloshed tomorrow, regretting my decisions."
Sirius raises an eyebrow. "If you -- if you're going to regret it, then why'd you do it?"
Remus scoffs, cursing some unintelligible string as he stares up at the moon, shaking his head. He bites his lip, and finally looks back at Sirius. "You know why."
"I don't," Sirius shakes his head, frowning. He takes a cigarette out of his pocket, and sits on the ground, next to the car. Remus hesitantly walks up to him, sitting right next to him. Sirius lights the cigarette, watching it light up. He places it between his lips, inhaling, then exhaling, and watching the smoke float through the air. Remus follows it as it dissolves into the air.
Maybe it's the nicotine. Maybe it's the full moon. Maybe it's the fact that Remus is sitting right next to him. Sirius doesn't know what in the everloving fuck possesses him, but he suddenly looks Remus straight in the eyes, and opens his mouth. He closes it. Opens it again.
"You know, I was going to ask you to marry me, the night of the crash."
Remus' jaw drops.