Loving Me Takes Patience

December 

Something Sirius learns, in his first month of being seventeen, is that Hogwarts is a big school. Big enough that it’s quite easy to avoid someone, if you want to. 

Something else he learns is that Remus is a good actor. When it’s the four of them, everything is sort of fine; a facsimile of fine sufficient enough to fool Peter, to make James laugh like normal. Not good enough to ease the growing pit of despair and jealousy and twisty-turny bad in Sirius's stomach, but good enough overall. 

A month passes. A whole month in which Remus ensures the two of them are never alone. In fact, they’re never even in a group of three. Remus keeps a minimum of two people between them at all times. It’s agonising. No telly time, no muted affection conveyed in heads-on-shoulders and shared interests. No sitting next to each other at mealtimes, no walking to class close enough for a tantalising brush of rough knuckle. 

In fact, it’s pretty much been a month of no Remus, and Sirius wonders if this is what it feels like to go insane

. 

He tries to apologise, really, he does. Pages and pages of his homework planner and his workbook are filled with half-written, half-planned apologies, but they all feel either too insincere or too exposing. He can’t apologise fully without giving a reason why, and he also can’t really tell Remus he’s in love with him- or thinks he is, at least. There’s not a whole lot Sirius understands about love- especially not now, when there’s no guarantee he’d even get his best friend back. 

Without Remus, the rest of his life also seems to feel like it’s spinning out of control. Showering gets harder and harder to the point where Sirius has to drape his towel over the spare mirror just to feel calm enough to strip out of his pyjamas. Wanking becomes a nonexistent activity after too many failed attempts in which his fingers around his cock feel like an exercise in mental torture. 

And he needs Remus back for this, too. Needs that boy who held him on the bathroom floor and called him sweetheart (‘oh, sweetheart’ runs like a loop around Sirius’ crowded mind over and over and over), that boy who understood him. 

Sometimes he thinks about telling James, but they’ve also only just started feeling okay again and Sirius cannot bear the idea of shattering the peace between them with even more of his complications. James puts up with enough from him already. 

*

His unlikely saviour comes in the form of shorn, spiky blond hair and a lean, lithe body that drops almost into his lap in the library on dreary, dark Thursday afternoon. 

“Marlene?” Marlene’s never really bothered with him before; any of the boys, really, apart from Remus. 

“You and I,” she says, her posh accent so at odds with her hair cut, her eyebrow piercing (that she consistently gets into trouble over), the way she wears the boy’s uniform, terrorising the halls in pressed grey slacks instead of sensible pleated skirts. “Are going to go for a little walk.” 

“Marlene, I have to finish my project for Sprout, please, I can’t-” Sirius isn’t in the mood for her antics, just wants to be left alone, but then a hand is closing around his wrist and yanking him up with a staggering amount of strength, and Sirius finds himself left with no choice as he is dragged through the school halls and out into the grounds, across the football field to the greenhouses that demarcate the western edge of Hogwarts premises. 

“Marlene, what the fuck are we doing here?” Sirius asks again, trying to wriggle out of her grip-to no avail- as she pulls him into greenhouse five; old, abandoned, only used for storage. She leads him through the towering, teetering piles of gardening equipment right to the back. It’s dark, because the backmost wall of the greenhouse is pressed up against the red-brick wall of the abandoned gamekeeper’s cottage that’s missing half a roof, and the ceiling is splattered in bird shit and tree bits, letting in little light. 

When his eyes adjust, Sirius sees that it’s a living room of sorts. An old sofa and an armchair, as well as a coffee table with only three legs, propped up on a pile of old gardening magazines. 

“What the fuck is this?” he asks as she finally lets go and throws her arms out, going as far to crow “ta da!” before spinning around and dropping onto the sagging, broken leather sofa hidden from outside view by a stack of terracotta plant pots. 

“This is my little paradise, babe.” she says, reaching under the sofa for a small metal box, battered and dented, and opens it to reveal a whole host of drug paraphernalia. “Well, me and the gals share it, right? But it’s our little place. And now it’s yours.” 

“But- why?” Almost all of Marlene and Sirius’ previous interactions have been characterised by a biting, affectionate teasing that more often than not crosses the line into cruel territory, but is so mutual it is always forgiven. 

“Becauuuse,” she draws out, pulling a pre-rolled joint and a lighter out from the box, and sticking the joint in the corner of her mouth, where it bobs up and down as she talks. “You’ve been a right moody git recently, and I want to know why. Sit down.” 

“Marlene-” 

“Sirius. Sit down.” Sirius sits. He knows when not to argue with Marlene McKinnon. He notices that at some point she got an industrial piercing. It suits her. There is a speck of dried hairgel on it. 

Marlene twists and throws her legs over Sirius’ ones, socks with penguins on poking out between the hem of her trousers and her brothel creepers. It’s a comical juxtaposition to the rest of her image, and a comforting reminder of the Marlene he first met, a tiny, loud-mouthed thing in year seven who wore strawberry pins in her waist-length blond hair. 

“Smoke?'' She lights the joint, inhales deeply, then passes it to him. Her nails are painted black. 

“Uh-” 

“Look. I’m going to force you to talk to me, so you can do it high and make it easier, or you can do it sober. I don’t care.” She looks at him, smiling like a crocodile, like a predator, and Sirius feels trapped. 

“Sober, please.” honestly? Weed reminds him too much of Remus, and if he’s going to be forced to talk about Remus, he’d rather start at a slightly less pathetic point than high and emotional. 

Marlene shrugs and takes another long toke, tilting her head back and blowing a column of hazy smoke up to the dirty ceiling. It’s cold in the greenhouse, and Sirius is grateful for the warm weight of her legs over his. 

“I’ll start then, shall I?” she says after five minutes of silence, and Sirius nods, stomach already tying itself up in knots. 

“Firstly,” she looks at him directly here, gaze defiantly. “My name is Marlene McKinnon. I am a nonbinary lesbian, and I use they/them pronouns.” 

“Oh, uh- sorry.” Sirius stammers out. Marlene huffs a weak laugh. 

“Why are you sorry?” they ask, tilting their head in a move reminiscent of a puppy. 

“Because I haven't, uh, been using those for you. I haven’t seen you, the, uhm, the way you are.” Sirius trips over the words, struggling because the overwhelming feeling rising up within him is a gnarled, green-eyed creature of pure jealousy and he doesn’t know why. 

Is it their self-assurance? The confidence with which they can proclaim to the world who they are? The fact that they have something Sirius wants with a need so pathetic in its urgency? That ability to shed ? (sex?) like a cloak, to dress and look and be something that exists outside of the cage that closes in on him a little more each day? 

“Don’t be sorry. I didn’t tell you.” 

“I’m glad you’ve told me now.” Sirius says and this bit is true because alongside the jealousy there is good, both for Marlene but also for himself, for the knowledge that he is now part of an in-group. That he has been accepted, that a secret has been shared. 

“The second thing,” Marlene croaks out around an inhale. “Is that I love five people in this life.” they shove a hand in his face. “My mum, my sister, Mary, Dorcas,” they count them off their fingers until there is one left. “And Remus Lupin.” 

Sirius realises with a jolt that Marlene probably already knows. He wonders how quickly they’ll catch him if he runs. Given that they used to train with the boys rugby team, he doesn’t fancy his chances. 

“So when I come back to school after the half term to find my baby boy-” Sirius can’t help but snort at the idea of Remus being Marlene’s baby boy but then they glare at him so fiercely he shrinks back into the cold leather of the sofa. Distantly he realises he is shivering. 

“-my baby boy is all in a tizz and upset because of some inbred dickhead that can’t keep his hands to himself,” Marlene looks at him meaningfully again, and the guilt that had somewhat lessened to a manageable amount over the last month re-rears its ugly head, forcing its way up his gullet until he thinks he’ll choke on it. “I wasn’t best pleased.” 

Marlene flips around and leans over the arm of the sofa, reappearing with a chipped ashtray, and puts the joint out, even though they’ve barely smoked a quarter of it. 

“Why, Sirius. Why did you do it?” they ask, studying him, crystalline blue eyes roving over his face, bright amid the thick black eyeliner smudged on their eyelids. Sirius doesn’t have a good answer to this one, other than the truth, really. 

He thinks for a moment, biting his nails as he debates whether Marlene will let him get away with anything less than the truth, in all its ugly, vulnerable glory. The greenhouse is private, empty apart from them, and a secret has been shared already. It’s only fair he repays the favour. 

He can’t look at them, and instead focuses intently on their socks, picking at a loose bit of thread that’s poking out. 

“What would you do, Marlene,” he begins, tremulous, feeling like a baby foal taking those first steps. Like maybe his whole world is about to change, once the words are said out loud. “If you were in love with your best friend, and now everyone sort of hates you, and actually, you also sort of hate yourself.” 

Marlene visibly softens, sinking down into the sofa, those eyes gentling, and they reach a hand out, placing it atop his trembling one, still tugging at that loose piece of thread. They open their mouth to speak but a noise from outside has them both freezing, gazes turned towards the door as it opens, and Remus steps inside. 

Fucking thursdays. 

“Marls, what the fuck?” Remus doesn’t sound angry, just resigned, and he doesn’t leave either, just shuts the door quietly behind him and collapses into the armchair opposite the sofa that looks a bit like it’s rotting and creaks worryingly. 

“I can leave,” Sirius says quietly, sitting up. “I’ll leave.” 

“Sit the fuck down, twat.” Marlene commands, kicking him in the thigh a tiny bit harder than they needed to, but he figures they have a right to take some revenge. He sinks back into the sofa, looking everywhere but Remus. He’s shivering, Remus’ entry having let in another gust of wind, and he’s only in his shirt, having been forced out of the warm, cosy library. 

“You’re a snakey bastard, McKinnon,” Remus sighs, holding his hand out for the joint, which Marlene picks out of the ashtray and passes to him. Remus reaches deep into the recesses of his pockets and digs out an old bic lighter, garish orange plastic, and lights up. 

He’s so beautiful when he smokes, Sirius has always thought so. The way his eyes flutter shut on the first inhale, the way weed makes his whole body melt, the tension he carries around everywhere like a second skin bleeding out of him. 

“Come on maestro, you’ve forgotten the way this works.” Marlene says to him, holding her hand out for the joint. Sirius watches them together, the ease with which they act in each other's presence. How had he not realised how close they were before? 

“What do you want then? Not that you deserve to choose.” Remus is gentler here. His words are similar to those he’d say to James or Peter or even Sirius but the edge that’s usually there, that tiny bit of sharpness, has disappeared completely. 

“Amy. Or Corrinne. Or…. I don’t know. Those two.” Marlene says on an exhale, smoke billowing from her mouth. The greenhouse smells heavily of weed, and Sirius can tell that his second-hand inhales are starting to have some sort of effect, a low level buzzing at the base of his spine. 

Remus fiddles with his phone then heaves himself up from the chair and ambles over to the coffee table. A chipped plant pot sits to one side and he slides his phone in and taps the screen, and the sultry opening of rehab fills the space, Amy Winehouse’s deep voice creeping down Sirius’ bones. The plant pot acts as a shitty makeshift speaker and the sound fills the little space carved out around them. 

“Christ, Sirius you must be freezing.” Remus comments as he stands up from the coffee table again, his knees audibly cracking. Sirius is; he’s shivering, jaw clenched to keep his chattering teeth from being audible. He nods, unable to look Remus in the eye. 

“Fucks sake, it’s like having a kid with you sometimes,” Remus mutters, shrugging out of his oversized suede  hoodie and holds it out to Sirius. “Put that on.” 

Sirius reaches for it hesitantly. It feels like more than just a hoodie- it feels like forgiveness. Redemption. Love. It’s warm, when he puts it on, a mechanism for the transference of Remus’ body heat into Sirius. It smells like remus too. Like Sirius bed used to. Lynx Africa and eczema cream. 

Sirius buries himself in it, drawing the strings to tighten the hood around his face, marvelling at the way the arms are so long his hands get swallowed in the fleecy warmth. 

“Are we talking about it, then?” Marlene asks, looking between them. Sirius opens his mouth, a barrage of ‘sorry’s’ hiding behind his teeth, ready to finally spill to the world, but Remus shakes his head, lips clamped around the joint. 

“No, Marls,” he says in an exhale. Sirius’ stomach drops. “We’re not. 

*

The two weeks before the Christmas holidays are a blur of progress exams, paper after paper written in cold, draughty classrooms. The days pass in a haze punctuated by hand cramps and ink stains and the desperate reading of hastily made cue cards. There is not another excursion to the greenhouse, (or at least, not another one Sirius is invited to) and though Sirius only got to go once, he feels strangely bereft of it. Like reaching heaven and being turned away at the gates. 

Marlene has started grinning at him in the corridors, though, something feral and canine, a surfacing of a wilderness Sirius feels like he has but has always kept tightly under lock and key. The jealousy comes back. 

Marlene has also started to accost him when he’s alone, swinging an arm tight around his neck and whispering ‘lover boy’ in his ear; low, sultry and mocking, before skipping down the corridor cackling. 

Sirius wonders if Remus cares about this, if he’s angry that someone on his side has defected, but then Sirius realises that Remus would never be so childish as to see this rift between them as any kind of conflict. Sirius is in the wrong, and still has yet to offer any kind of apology. That’s all there is to it. 

Marlene is just being Marlene. Remus’ best friend, and Sirius’ (somewhat) affectionate tormentor. Nothing has actually changed. 

*

It’s Monty who’s waiting in the land rover when James and Sirius emerge on the last day of term, dragging duffel bags and backpacks and wrapped up tightly against the bitter cold that had settled over England in the last few days. 

The car is warm and Monty is playing old Bollywood hits and James is bouncing next to him in the seat, telling his dad all about the last two months, and Sirius feels his soul sag at the idea of leaving school again. 

*

Despite how difficult it is to endure the Christmas holidays as someone entirely divorced from his family, the bright spot is always the Potter’s Christmas party. 

Unlike the Halloween party, this one is primarily for James’ parents and their friends, and he’s only ever invited Peter, Sirius and Remus round to experience the fun (read: catered food and unlimited champagne and Prosecco) and Sirius always has the time of his life. 

It’s a formal affair, with James always in a Kurta of his mother’s choosing, and Sirius in the suit he had been bought for Alphard’s funeral, and had subsequently taken with him when he ran away. This year is no different, except the smart trousers with the sharp seam down the front feel like an utterly foreign entity as Sirius slides his legs into them, and the shirt- buttoned to the very top- feels like a noose around his neck. 

This year, James’ Kurta is salmon pink, and he looks like a real proper grown up. Just a few months shy of seventeen, he’s started to lose the baby fat in his face, and the emergent jaw and cheekbones speak to the handsome profile that awaits him on full maturity. Next to him, Sirius looks waif-like, a creepy victorian portrait brought to life with his dark hair and pale skin and funeral suit. The purple smudges under his eyes don’t help him look more lively, and he feels like shit as he makes his way downstairs before the party starts. 

“Sirius, mate, I love you, but you look like shit.” James says, from where he’s sat next to his mother, resplendent in a turquoise salwar kameez, golden jewellery bringing out the glow in her skin. 

“Language, Jamie,” Effie scolds gently, tutting at her son, before turning a smile on Sirius. “I agree though. You don’t look good my love. It’s the suit, it’s too… sombre. Have you anything else?” 

Sirius glances down at himself. “I always wear this suit.” 

Effie ignores him, and shakes her head. “Let's find you something else.” She rises and takes his hand in hers; the skin soft with the perfumed oils she rubs into it each morning, and pulls him out of the kitchen and back upstairs. 

“I keep all of James’ old things,” she says to him as she pulls him into one of the many spare bedrooms, with a huge wardrobe pressed against the wall. “Monty tells me I’m too sentimental, but I knew I did it for a reason.” 

She opens the wardrobe and starts rifling through the coloured clothes, the embroidery glinting in the low light. “Here, this one is perfect. Go on, change.” She hands him a bundle of thick, navy fabric with navy beading along the hem. It’s a kurta, and it fits nearly-perfectly as he puts it on hastily, with Effie facing the wall with her henna-d hands over her eyes. 

“Ready.” he says, voice croaky. It feels weird, for many reasons. That their generosity has extended to James' old clothes chafes a bit at the remnants of the Black pride of which he has not yet scraped himself clean. Wearing cultural clothes feels improper, and the responsibility to wear it with respect weighs heavy. 

“Oh, my boy” Effie crows, eyes glowing. “You look perfect.” She takes him by the shoulders and reaches up to place a smacking kiss on his forehead before the doorbell rings and she sweeps out of the room to meet the arriving guests. 

*

“Twat.” James hisses to him when he finally comes down stairs, handing Sirius a glass of prosecco that looks suspiciously half-drunk. 

“Your mother’s idea, dickhead.” Sirius shoots back, self conscious. 

“Our mother now, mate. She’s got us dressed as twins.” James grins and pats him on the shoulder, and Sirius feels better. “The other’s should be here…” the doorbell rings, loud and obnoxiously long like someone (likely Peter) is leaning on it. “... right now.” 

Peter looks uncomfortable in beige slacks and a blue button down, his hair gelled and combed away from his face. 

“You look like a cartoon of young trump, mate.” James says in greeting, slapping him on the back. Peter scowls something fierce and Sirius can see that it’s wounded his ego more than James intended. He should say something, really. He should step in and be a better friend, the friend that Peter deserves, maybe, but he doesn’t. 

He doesn’t, because Remus is standing in the doorway and Sirius is like a dog with a bone, so damn distractible whenever Remus is anywhere near him. 

He’s eschewed the dress code since he transitioned, and he’s the only one effie accepts anything less than smart casual from, and Sirius strongly suspects it’s because Remus doubles as her dealer. He’s dressed (smartly, for Remus) in a black knit jumper that hangs loose and long over faded red stripe jeans and his school docs. His cornrows are back, this time with small wooden beads at the bottom, and he is breathtaking. 

“Alright, Sirius? Isn’t this what the kids call cultural appropriation these days?” he says, but it’s not scathing or mean, it’s gently teasing, like normal, like the last two months haven't happened. Sirius sags in relief and grins back. 

“I’m being appreciative! And besides, no one can say no to effie.” 

“And isn’t that the truth,” James agrees, rolling his eyes like having a mum as lovely as his is some sort of burden. “Come on boys, champers awaits.” 

“Fucking posh prick.” Remus mutters under his breath as they all make their way to the kitchen for the new yearly ritual of stealing a few bottles of the good stuff and escaping to an empty parlour room. 

Sirius lets James and Peter race ahead and hangs back, taking a good five minutes to work up the bravery to tap Remus on the shoulder. 

“Hm?” Remus turns back to look at him, and he doesn’t look openly hostile, which is a good start. 

“Could we- do you think we could, uh-” fuck, this wasn’t going well. Sirius rubs his sweaty palms against the fabric of his kurta. “I need to apologise. I want to apologise. I want to talk to you, please?” 

It’s likely he’s just so pathetic that Remus can’t bring himself to say no, but as Sirius leads Remus up to the upper levels of the huge country home and into Monty’s home office (neutral ground, with no beds to give the wrong impression) he fools himself into thinking that maybe Remus has missed him too. 

Remus slumps into Monty’s fancy lumbar-supporting office chair as Sirius closes the door and then lingers uncomfortably next to it. 

It suddenly hits Sirius that they are completely, utterly, alone. Sure, the house is full of people, but they’re at least two flights of stairs away, and for the first time since that fateful night in the bathroom, the two of them are alone. 

Sirius tries not to think of the memory of Remus kissing him, as he works up the courage to say the words that have been lining the pages of his workbooks for weeks now. 

“Remus,” he starts. Remus grins at him; something cold, animalistic. Sirius suddenly feels a bit like small prey in front of a big predator. 

“Sirius.” Remus challenges back. 

“I, uh, want to start by apologising for not apologising. I left it way too long without saying anything, but,” 

Remus is staring at him and Sirius realises that for all they’ve sort-of been going back to normal recently, he has most decidedly not been forgiven, and that Remus is not going to make this easy on him at all. It’s genuinely a shock, that the time that has passed hasn’t been enough for Remus to want things to go back to normal. That those cold, dark months of the weakest approximation of friendship possible weren’t enough to absolve Sirius of his responsibility. 

Sirius has to look away, training his eyes on the wall tapestry Monty had bought on their last trip to goa, and hung right behind his desk. 

“Well, I didn’t know how to cope with you being so angry,” Remus snorts, and Sirius clenches his fists. “Nor did I know how to cope with the fact that I fully deserved it. I thought that if I could make the perfect apology, find the perfect words, that everything would be okay again. Honestly, if you don’t believe me, my workbook is full of half-written scripts. I didn’t realise that no apology was worse than an imperfect one, so I’m sorry.” 

They should be easy words to say but they’re not. 

It’s been drilled into him since his debut into the world that Blacks do not apologise. Being in the wrong has no bearing on how foreign it feels to be in this position, a cowering gazelle before a lion, vulnerable. It chafes, and the guilt twists and roils and starts to turn into something altogether more ugly. 

Sirius finally feels brave enough to drop his eyes back to Remus’ face. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but it isn’t the sort of bored indifference lining Remus’ handsome features. 

“Remus?” 

“And the rest of it? So far you’ve just apologised for saying shit all to me after kissing me when I had a boyfriend.” Remus crosses his arms and leans back, and for some reason, it sets Sirius off the wrong way. 

Suddenly, the remaining guilt undergoes a transition into defensiveness, and contrition is washed away in a blinding blood-red wave of self-righteous anger. His face heats and his stomach roils.  Suddenly, sorry becomes- 

“You kissed me back!” 

An accusation flung like a knife. A shield around his soft, unarmoured centre. An inability to look at himself in a mirror. A desperate, clawing need to always defend himself because he’s the only one who ever has; the coupled blindness to whether he’s right or wrong. 

 Remus blinks, taken aback. 

“Are you joking?” he asks, tone low and flat, dangerous. He leans forward a little, legs wide, feet firmly planted on the floor. A small part of Sirius starts to feel scared. The rest of him just wants to fight. 

“You kissed me back, and you fucking know you did.” he stands his ground, even as Remus rises up to greet him.  “Fine, whatever, maybe I fucked up, but you technically cheated! You kissed me back!” It’s the only weapon Sirius has in this duel, and sure maybe it’s a bit like bringing a knife to a gun fight but he’s going to wield it with all he’s worth. He’s so fucking sick of always being the bad guy, of being made to feel shit over some stupid little kiss. 

And fine, maybe it meant more than that, maybe it meant everything to Sirius, but it was never supposed to bring him this much fucking strife, and it’s that, that he’s fighting against, really. The inconvenience of facing the consequences of his own actions. 

“Okay, first off,” Remus growls, and Sirius unwittingly takes a step back, “you didn’t even ask me first, so how about we start there. Did the Potter’s never teach you about consent?” it’s said with a cruel, mocking tone, but it also makes Sirius deflate partly because it’s just another reminder that Remus is so unfailingly good; always so much better than him. That easily could have been a quip about his birth family, and Sirius knows that if the roles were reversed, he likely wouldn’t have held it back. 

“Remus-” 

“Or maybe,” Remus continues and he’s not taller than Sirius right now, not with his boots lying downstairs by the Potter’s front door, but he certainly feels it. “Maybe we should start with the fact that you’ve been a shit about me and Charlie since the beginning? Hm?” 

Sirius realises he’s firmly on the back foot. He’s not used to losing fights. Hell, he’s barely used to fighting, his friends always too careful around him, treading on verbal eggshells, and often quick to relent and defer when he starts getting snappy. This side of Remus is new, and exhilarating.

 “You’re my mate,” Remus says, eyes fierce. “You were supposed to be happy for me.” something in Remus’ voice wavers, like a wave that’s reached its peak and is about to crest; ready to shatter. 

“Remus, I don’t-” suddenly the path ahead is clear and on it lies the destruction of whatever they have left. 

he tries to backtrack, too late, always too fucking late. 

Remus shakes his head. 

“No. You don’t get to start an argument with me and then back out of it when you realise you’re still in the wrong. You want to have it out, so let's have it out, okay? Why did you hate me in a relationship so much, huh? Mad you weren’t the centre of attention anymore? Little lord Black always has to be the star of the show?” It’s said with a sneer, a condescension that makes Sirius stomach burn. 

God, Remus can be mean, and it hurts, to know that’s what his friends think of him. James word’s from the day after halloween come hurtling back to the forefront of his mind. His face gets hotter, skin heating as tears start to gather at his lash line. 

Remus is right in front of him now, and Sirius shrinks back instinctively, that burning feeling in his stomach freezing into fear, but Remus’ hands are safely by his side, and it’s Remus, not his father, he tries to remind himself, even as he backs up enough to feel the door handle dig into his back. Not his father. 

“Remus, wait-” Sirius tries to say, but the fear of Remus’ anger and his slow, advancing steps have wiped his mind clean. He wants to put a hand up between them, mark that boundary, but he can’t move. 

Remus shakes his head again. “Save it,” he growls, thrusting a hand out. Sirius ducks, cringing, and it always stops here, his friends always stop here, all too painfully aware of what it means to him, why his tail slides firmly between his legs; a beaten dog, but Remus just plants his hand flat against the door behind Sirius’ face. 

Sirius rears back, his head jerking painfully on his neck, on a collision course with the hardwood door that would leave him with a concussion for days but- 

Remus’ hand is there, smooth and soft and warm, cupping that back of his head, keeping him safe. Cradling him. 

Suddenly, their faces are right in front of each other again, and Remus is breathing heavily and his brown eyes are glowing and his lips are pink and damp and Sirius doesn’t know what is happening anymore, and he scrambles to think of something- anything- to say but he can’t, and then Remus is leaning in, closer, closer, and Sirius can smell him and feel the heat rolling off his body and the space between their lips is negligible, barely even an inch and Sirius does it again, god help him. 

he closes that gap and then they’re kissing again and it’s better this time, because Sirius is sober, because the way Remus is pressing back into him means he can’t be angry anymore, surely. Means he must want this too, even if it’s only an infinitesimal percentage of how much Sirius wants it. 

And then none of that matters, because Remus’ tongue licks against his bottom lip and Sirius gasps, opening his mouth and then his mind goes quiet. The pain of the door handle in his back fades into the background even as Remus presses him more insistently into the unyielding wood behind him. The hand against the door behind him stays but Remus’ other slides down and grips Sirius’ hip with surprising strength and Sirius’ knees lose all their strength, until he’s only kept upright by the door and Remus’ warm, solid body against his. 

Then all of a sudden, it’s gone. Remus has pulled back, and he’s licking his lips as he stares, wide-eyed at Sirius, then mutters a quiet, but charged ‘fuck’.

He takes a step back again, and then, louder; “fuck. We shouldn’t have done that. I should not have done that.” 

Sirius opens his mouth but there’s nothing to say. Remus just sighs, and it’s like all his anger has left him in one big gust. He gently nudges Sirius out of the way, and then leaves. Sirius stays staring at the tapestry for a long while, willing his pulse to stop roaring in his ears. 

Its whiplash, and he’s confused, and it isnt fucking fair. 

It’s not fair that Remus can kiss him like that and then leave him alone, again. It’s not fair that the overwhelming feeling leftover is guilt and not the euphoria it should be, the euphoria he’s only ever experienced those two brief, soaring moments Remus’ lips where pressed so lovelily against his. 

A hot wave of anger, the beaten dog’s default, washes over him hot on the heels of the confusion. It isn’t fucking fair that Remus can kiss him so gently after being so agressive. It’s not fair that Remus ignored all his warning signs, barrelling through the carefully demarcated boundaries marked out by the sour scent of his fear.

*

When he returns back down stairs, he finds the other three with five stolen bottles of champagne lying on the floor between them, having a conversation that suspiciously stops the minute Sirius walks into the room. There’s a moment of tense silence, until James’ face breaks out into a grin. 

“Sirius! Fucking finally, now we can start drinking!” he crows, reaching for the nearest bottle. Sirius musters up a weak smile and lowers himself onto the sofa, holding a hand out for his glass. 

Soon enough, three bottles of champagne have been finished between the four of them and Sirius’ lips feel slightly numb. He keeps smacking them together, scared he’ll lose the memories of remus lips against them too. 

He’s sprawled on a sofa next to Peter, who’s not stopped burping painfully from the bubbles. James is in an armchair opposite, eyes half-lidded and words starting to slur. Remus is lying flat on his back on the floor, with his eyes closed, feet and fingers tapping along to a beat only he can hear. He’s maintained a level of distance away from Sirius the whole time, measured and purposeful. He’s painfully aloof and removed, like what happened in the room had simply been a figment of Sirius’ vivid imagination. But it hadn’t been, Remus had kissed him, and then not said a word to him for the rest of the evening.