think about us as I'm coming home
January
As part and parcel of his ‘coming of age’ (as Monty has taken to calling James turning seventeen, fleeing the nest, leaving his parents wondering what on earth they bought such a huge house for when their boisterous baby boy will soon no longer be there to fill it), James parents allowed him to throw a New Year’s party.
Like Halloween, he told them excitedly at the Christmas party, legs vibrating with the speed of his bouncing knees, only better. Like a nineteen eighties salesman with a dream and a steep mortgage. All he’s missing is the nylon suit and garish tie.
Sirius doesn’t think it’ll be better at all, really. Christmas was an excruciating exercise of once again being completely ignored by Remus, which is the opposite of what he needed when grappling with surviving the festive period as a legal orphan, and each day finding it harder and harder and harder not to use his bare hands to rip all his skin off.
The group chat was busy as normal; ostensibly, on the outside, everything was normal, but in the private message thread between him and Remus, there was only silence, mirrored by the silence in Sirius’ heart and contrasted steeply by the mess in his head.
*
James insisted on a theme, again, for new years, and a frisson of pure excitement glimmered through Sirius’ soul, so at odds to his recent sombreness, at the idea of an opportunity to wear a dress or skirt in a socially acceptable fashion again.
Again, next to James on the sofa both of them staring into his laptop camera with the other two on FaceTime. James is shifting about in excitement, but Sirius is too busy staring at the tiny screen of Remus, the way he’s only momentarily glancing at the screen as he hand-rolls joints with veiny hands topped with chipped black nails. He shows such care, such an affinity for gentleness with the way he handles the fragile papers, rolling without ripping. The darting pink of his tongue as he licks and folds. The knowledge that whoever is bestowed with the privilege and intimacy if smoking with him is also gifted the privilege and intimacy of his saliva.
Like a kiss. Like being pressed against a wooden office door. Fuck, the memories of that second kiss have been keeping Sirius up at night, haunting his dreams, leaving him hard and aching and so fucking sad.
“Okay, boys,” James announces after a needless dramatic pause that has Peter snorting and rolling his eyes. “We’re doing Men in Black”
Sirius feels like a bucket of ice water has been poured down his back, like his soul flash-freezes. It’s so… masculine. It's so not what he hoped for. It’s so typical of his luck; never long lived.
He’s upset enough that he doesn’t witness the soft and pure smile Remus sends James with dazzling affection. He’s upset enough not to realise what a gift this is for a boy who has to prove it to the world every day. Upset enough that once again he burrows into himself and forgets the importance of his supporting characters. Selfish.
*
James strides into his room with confidence, already dressed in his suit, his broad shoulders highlighted by the cut of the jacket, lending him a power that flows off him in waves.
His head is held high and his back is ram-rod straight with a confidence Sirius is starting to think he might kill for. He has been so curled inwards these days his shoulders have followed, always sitting slouched and achy.
James comes right up to Sirius, ignoring as he always does the way Sirius is standing in pants and little else, facing determinedly away from the mirror. He places large, warm hands on Sirius’ shoulders, and looks into his eyes with a worrying intensity.
“Right, I’m telling you this now and I'm trusting you not to do something stupid with it,” he starts and Sirius wonders if he should be panicking. “Remus and Charlie broke up.”
Just like that Thursday however many months ago, that mild and mournful September morning that started all of this, that Sirius can blame for his recent woes, he feels like the world around him is rearranging. Shifting, changing and rebuilding itself before his very eyes.
Remus is single.
He doesn’t even get a word in before James is flexing and squeezing his fingers in Sirius' shoulders and maintaining eye contact in a way he rarely ever does, usually claiming it makes him itchy.
“And I know you. And I know him, and I love you both, and I won’t let you do anything stupid, okay?”
“Okay, yeah, James- it’s fine. I won’t- is he upset? Is he like-“
“Are you asking because you care about him?” James asks with a raised eyebrow that’s awfully parental and makes Sirius bristle instinctively. He shoves James back, even though his strength is nothing compared to James’. The two steps James takes backwards were his own choice, not the power of Sirius biceps. It makes Sirius feel worse.
“What kind of a question is that?” He snaps, beaten dog with hackles raised and lip curling. “Of course I care about him. I don’t want him to be upset.”
James raises his hands, paler brown-pink palms facing Sirius; a supplication gesture. It just feels patronising, and Sirius can’t think of something scathing to say fast enough before James has gone again, leaving Sirius alone with his costume and his thoughts. Stuck between a rock and a hard place with no way out.
There is one weak ray of sunlight on his soul, though.
Remus is single.
*
The party is less busy than Halloween but somehow feels like it’s heaving. The colder temperatures means fewer people are dotted around James’ expansive patio to cop off in the shadows and smoke badly-rolled cigs, instead forced to stay inside.
Everyone seems drunker, too. It’s the first real New Year’s party most of them have been to, and the Potters don’t scrimp on booze. Every brush of a hand or elbow against him, every puff of breath against his neck that indicates someone up in his personal space (of which there are many) sends him slightly further down his spiral. He’s so aware of the clothes, the way they sit against his skin.
He’s so aware that to everyone else he looks like Sirius, the irreverent boy always chasing James through the halls, when all he wants right now is to go back to being sweetheart, body gently hugged by a dress and Remus’ arms, crying on a bathroom floor, safe, not-boy.
He wants not to be seen as a boy.
As he stands on the threshold (of life, of love, of James Potter’s living room) he realises he maybe has not ever been a boy, not once, not even a little bit.
Just given a boy's body in a cosmic stroke of bad luck the way he was given abusive parents and only five feet and seven inches of height and raynaud's syndrome and that one crooked canine and black hair and blue eyes.
Black hair and blue eyes in the wrong body.
He should talk to Remus, but a glance shows Remus busy with Marlene in the corner, a grinder held between those lovely fingers, so Sirius finds his own way to cope. Not his own, really; tried and tested for generations before him. He drinks.
*
The music is loud, and Sirius is a bit lost.
There’s a whole heap a mandem running gyal down true stories
It’s James, playlist, of course.
You can’t introduce ridim-dim like me
And it is loud. It’s drowning out any last vestiges of his ability to think as the room gets hotter and the walls start to waver a bit at the corners.
Suddenly, a hand grabs his and yanks, pulling him into the makeshift dance floor in the middle of the room.
Leng it down, leng it down
The huge speaker James had cajoled his parents into buying for him screams from its corner, and Marlene’s face swims into Sirius’ vision.
“Dance with me!” They scream over the music and a yell is heard from James in response and the music cuts out momentarily to a communal groan, before a new song comes on. The room erupts into cheers.
What’s up darlin, I’ve been keeping my eye on your movements
Marlene has Sirius’ hands in a death-grip and starts to hop about with no rhythm, the black tie dangling from their white button down jumping with them.
So why you all over there on your jack jones? You need to let me behind your backbone.
From the corner of his eye, Sirius sees Remus slide into the middle of the room, taking up a spot in the writhing mass of bodies, followed quickly by Mary Macdonald. She’s once again in a skintight black dress, the curves of her figure flaunted with well-deserved pride.
Instead of facing each other though, Mary presses her back up against Remus’ front.
One hundred percent I’ll make it worth it, you got a body to die for let me merk it
Remus places his veiny hands on her hips and grips, rolling his hips into a sinful grind against Mary and Sirius feels sick to his stomach with a viscous, oozing jealousy that drips down the back of his throat.
Marlene doesn’t seem to notice that he’s barely dancing, just swaying in place as they leap around him, his eyes stuck on where Remus and Mary are dancing like there’s no one in the room.
The music changes to a beat Sirius recognises from the precious few times Remus has allowed his friends to partake in his culture, a misleading piano beat before the lyrics start, and he watches with tunnel vision as his face lights up like a star.
Hey gyal
He slides his hands even further onto Mary’s hips, letting his hips roll up to meet hers, the action viscerally visible despite how loosely his suit hangs off him.
Wha dis make you feel like though
Their dancing is already starting to attract more attention, drunk teenagers' brains seeing the implicit implications of their actions and stopping to watch.
Gyal bend over
And Mary does, one of Remus’ hands in the centre of her back, pushing her down whilst the other holds her hip where he needs her and its sensual, hedonistic.
It makes Sirius seethe.
Come whine till you bruk off yuh back
And he knows that it doesn’t mean anything. Remus has explained time and time again that dancing is part of his culture, not a mating ritual, not the sexualised activity western cultures see and misinterpret. He knows that.
Doesn’t make it any easier to remember when people are cheering and Remus is grinning up at the ceiling, eyes closed and earring glinting like a forbidden pot of gold as Sirius watches Remus place his hands all over someone who isn’t him.
*
The countdown to midnight, despite the cold, happens outside so everyone can see the fireworks set up by James and his dad in a display of masculine father-son bonding that Sirius had found himself irrationally jealous of when they had set them up earlier, when he had been left tidying with Effie.
Irrational jealousy seems to be the theme of the night, really, which bodes terribly for the new year but only gets worse as the countdown reaches its zenith;
“Three…two…one…happy new year!” Called out by everyone, as Sirius watches with his ice blue eyes as James dips Remus dramatically and kisses him.
Kisses him. Lips and teeth and tongue together.
His Remus and his James, tongues entangled in the jubilant atmosphere of the new year rung in by teenagers who will likely get to uni in the next few years and never speak again.
Sirius finally understands the pain he inflicted on Charlie- that mysterious, spectral barrier between him and his want like a spoiled toddler forced to confront the empty, needless weeks before Christmas- because oh god it hurts, somewhere deep within, to see them.
To see James, who already has so much of what Sirius wants; the love, the family, the childhood free of fear, kissing the boy Sirius had constructed into a god and laid all his woes at the feet of, only to remain ignored like every acolyte through history, just another pilgrim in an endless line of lost wanderers searching for purpose.
And whilst Sirius is all of these things; a lost child, a pilgrim, a worshipper, he is also just seventeen.
So when the two of them straighten up, cheeks flushed and giggling, as the crowd disperses back inside and their audience has thinned until it is negligent, he places two palms in the centre of James’ chest and shoves. This time, his force is what causes the stumbled steps.
“What the fuck was that?”
And it’s past midnight now; fucking Thursdays.
“Woah, mate-“ James slurs, holds his hands up again. Behind him, Peter sneaks back into the house, never one for conflict. “I told you I wasn’t going to let you do anything stupid,” he continues, his words thick and some barely audible due to his drunken state.
“James-“ Sirius spits and James shakes his head.
“No, S’rus, you keep kissing Remmy ‘n makin’ him saaaad,” James draws out the vowel of sad like Remus being sad is the worst thing he can think of- which, to be fair, Sirius agrees with- and then points at Sirius. “No more making remmy sad, got it?” And then he’s stumbling back into the house, leaving Sirius standing in the wet grass.
He spins round to find Remus, but he’s gone. He’s quite alone in the garden (bar the couple copping off on the garden furniture, but they don’t count) and he’s dangerously close to crying. Tonight has been a whole lot of too much, and he just sits down where he is, letting the cold water seep through the fabric of his trousers, chilling him, grounding him.
*
He’s still there, the last of his tears drying, when Marlene finds him. They’ve clearly sobered up from earlier, their face solemn as they find him and hold a ring-encrusted hand out to him, wiggling their fingers.
“Come on, you grumpy git, with me.”
And Sirius takes their hand and follows because, what else is he going to do?
The two of them avoid the party entirely, taking the back stairs up to Sirius’ bedroom, where Remus’ rollmat is prepared on the floor, his overstuffed duffel bag dumped hastily atop it. Looking at it makes Sirius think of his lips locked with James’, which makes Sirius sad, so he keeps looking at it, like pressing insistent fingers into a fresh bruise. Good pain. Satisfying pain. You-deserve-this pain.
“Wipe that miserable look off your face, dickhead,” Marlene says a tad unkindly, shoulder checking him as they make their way over to the huge sash window and heave it open, leaning against it and turning to him.
“Take that shit off, then come and sit up here with me.”
“Huh?”
“Come on, Black, there’s enough wrong with you without willful ignorance,” they say, rolling their eyes. “Take. Your. Clothes. Off,” they enunciate each word slowly, pulling something silver out of their pocket and fiddling with it.
“Put some pyjamas on, then come sit up here with me.” They pat the windowsill next to them then jump up into it, spinning round to dangle their legs out of the window. Effie would throw a fit if she saw it but something about it- and the joint Sirius can see hanging between Marlene’s pale fingers- feels illicit and teenager in a way that is so exciting, so he momentarily forgets his adamant self-pitying and instead trips over himself in his haste to rid himself of the clothes that have been suffocating him all evening, and swaps them for huge boxers, big enough he has to roll the waistband to make them fit and only his shins stick out from the bottom, and a huge t-shirt.
The windowsill is a bit damp but the cold air is refreshing and with the gargantuan burden of his outfit off his shoulders he feels lighter, less like the world is ending.
He also realises, as he takes the lit joint from Marlene and takes a puff that fills his lungs to the point of pain, that he may have gotten dangerously close to burning very important bridges, and that so much of his foul mood came down to the chasm that lies between what he looks like and what he feels. What he’s called by friends and what he fundamentally is.
“How did you figure it out?” He asks, twisting slightly to look at Marlene’s profile, illuminated by the light from inside the room. They’re beautiful like this, not performing for anyone, not loud or boisterous, just Marlene. Sharp jawline and piercings that threaten school regulations and the acne scars that give their cheeks an enticing texture that Sirius sort of wants to brush his fingers over. It makes them feel so real, like this.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” they say, stealing the joint back and blowing a column of smoke up to the heavens. Sirius looks up and follows it. This far from the nearest city, he can see the stars.
“That’s a complicated question,” they say after a few minutes of contemplative silence. “It’s not… like I didn’t wake up one day and know. For me, it started with hating church clothes. Those pink and yellow frilly dresses. Then it became wanting shorter hair. Preferring time with my brothers over my girl cousins. Watching the footie with my dad. Like, even as a kid just this rejection of everything feminine. Not because I hated femininity, but because I hated what it meant for me.”
“Being a girl?” Sirius asks uncertainly. The music from the party is a buzz in the background but he pays it no mind, too desperate to finally get some answers to worry about fomo.
“Yeah, exactly.” Marlene glances at them. “Being a girl. Because I’m just not. I’m a lesbian, sure. I identify with many facets of womanhood, sure. I was raised as a girl, and that’s something that I won’t ever be able to outrun. But I’m not a girl.”
“Yeah.” And it feels like coming home. It feels like sweetheart and cool bathroom tiles.
“I’m not a boy.” Said with confidence. Conviction. No tears this time. An arm is wrapped around his (their? God, this is all so confusing) shoulder and Sirius is pulled into a warm body.
“Proud of you, love.” And it’s the softest, most gentle thing Sirius has ever heard Marlene say. “It’s a big deal, it’s not fucking easy.”
“I think I’m still him, though.” And this time it is uncertain, and it doesn’t feel right in the way his Halloween dress did, but it doesn’t feel wrong the way a suit does. It’ll do, for now.
“Okay, love.”
Sirius sinks into their softness, and closes his eyes. He’s really fucking high.
Marlene fiddles with their phone and soon enough the slightly tinny sound of music coming out of water damaged iPhone speakers fills the space between them. Accurate enough that it feels intentional; almost mean.
Marlene, unable to be too earnest for too long, hides behind this affectionate teasing; a barrier against the vulnerability that claws down their throat.
I gotta stay high, all the time, to keep you off my mind
The door cracks open, and Remus’ body slips through before closing it silently behind him. Sirius tenses momentarily before relaxing again, the weed making it too difficult to be stressed.
Spending my days locked in a haze, tryna forget you babe, I fall back down.
Marlene puts out the end of the smoked joint and drops it down into the garden somewhere. “Hello, you gorgeous man,” they say to Remus, sliding down off the windowsill and to the floor, crossing their legs and tugging Sirius down with them, before motioning at Remus to do the same.
He sits, gingerly, placing Marlene between them like a sarcastic human shield. The song changes, a more upbeat fall out boy song that has Marlene humming along, already setting about rolling the next joint.
“So, James, huh?” Sirius has never been able to help himself. Marlene shoots him a sharp look but Remus just snorts, shaking his head.
“I’ll do Pete next, collect the whole lot”
Fall to your knees, bring on the rapture
It’s a bad joke, an olive branch, an extended hand, and Sirius is so sick of pushing everyone away without knowing why, so sick of being so bloody alone all the time that, even though he doesn’t want to, even though his inner child screams and cries and kicks its feet to keep going, keep destructing, Sirius takes it.
Reaches out with two hands and grabs hold for dear life.
Blessed be the boys time can’t capture
“Not sure Pete would be into that mate, you’re not Megan Fox enough for him.” Said with a thin, watery smile and gritted teeth.
Remus huffs a laugh and it’s not a lot, but it’s something. It’s a crack in the ice that has grown over the bond between them, a hairline break in the tension that threatens to overwhelm.
And in the end, I’d do it all again, I think you're my best friend.
Marlene presents the rolled joint with a flourish and a raised eyebrow and the three of them move to hang out of the window, Marlene slotting in next to the wall in a premeditated move that forces the two of them to stand shoulder to shoulder, and the warmth that leaks into Sirius from Remus’ torso far eclipses the glacial January air that washes over his cheeks as he waits for his turn.
Small droplets begin to fall from the sky, splattering his elbows as they hang outside, all their faces protected by the overhang of the window above them.
The house may be full but right now it feels like just the three of them in the whole world, huddled together as the rain gets stronger and the smoke no longer has the freedom to snake up to the clouds.
And I'm yours, when it rains it pours.
*
Eventually, Marlene leaves with half-lidded eyes pink and bloodshot, a dopey smile on their face as they set off to search for Dorcas.
Sirius waits for Remus to follow, a nail biting few seconds where he clambers onto the bed and tucks his bare knees up to his chest, hugging them with rain-damp arms, but Remus just falls backwards onto the floor, arms and legs splayed out like a star.
At some point, the music had transitioned from Marlene’s phone to his and so it doesn’t stop with their departure, still playing softly in the background as Sirius studies the curve of Remus’ jaw, the rise and fall of his chest with scientific precision.
And I’m still dumb when no one’s watching
Maybe it’s a conspiracy between Remus and Marlene to play songs that wind their way around Sirius’ heart and squeeze like a fist.
I bet your cool when no one’s watching you
Or maybe Sirius is just seventeen and life is hard and love is harder and that’s what people write songs about.
Oh, when everyone starts calling for me I’ll only pick up for you
His cheek is warm and soft against the skin of his knee as he watches Remus mouth the words up to the ceiling, fingers tapping out the soft rhythm. It’s like being drawn into the orbit of the sun, being this close to him and yet still so far away.
Months ago, this would have been inconceivable, they would have both been lying on their backs in Sirius’ huge bed, the weed making them feel like they're sinking through the mattress, fingers linked to stave off the paranoia. Now, the space between them stretches like a canyon, unbridgeable.
And I get dumb when you start talking, and one more night and I might fall for you
Sirius poor heart a battered little thing, a bird confined to a cage; wings clipped and songless. Desolate.
“How’s the gender crisis going?” Remus eventually asks, head rolling to the side as he looks up at Sirius through one blood-shot eye.
“Uh- I told Marlene.”
Remus looks at him like there’s something about Sirius he fundamentally doesn’t understand.
At least he’s looking at him again. Sirius is a beggar for affection, able to exist off the barest scraps like a stray dog, ribs hollow.
“Oh?” Remus pushes up until he’s resting on his forearms. He licks his lips and maybe it’s the weed but it feels like Sirius is watching it in slow motion, the sweep of the tongue, the glistening of the plush lower lip that Sirius has tasted before.
Like a ghost, the memory of that taste surges across Sirius’ mouth and he bites down hard on his tongue.
“They were nice about it. I know I’m not— I know I’m not a boy. I don’t know what else I am though.”
Remus waves a lazy hand. “That’s okay, Sirius. It’s all a process of elimination. Gender is a dressing room, you keep going until you find your size.”
It’s a flippant metaphor, but it’s apt, and Sirius finds himself nodding. Finds his shoulders losing some of the weight they’ve been bearing.
“Yeah, I like that.”
“Of course you do,” Remus nods imperiously, eyes rolling closed. God, they’re high. “I know what I’m talking about.”
It’s so Remus that it startles a laugh out of Sirius, and a confession.
“I’ve missed you.”
The song changes before Remus says anything, just regarding Sirius with those dark eyes that Sirius wants to swim in.
I’m so bad with attention, so my good intentions get bad when you hold me.
“I’ve missed you too, you daft sod.” Remus’ smile is betrayed by the sincerity in those eyes, and Sirius is on the floor before he even realises what he’s doing, crawling over to hover above Remus, who stares back with wide eyes. Those eyes. They could be the death of Sirius, if he let them.
I was thinking you and I could get together
“Remus.” Sirius whispers, and it’s a confession and an apology. A prayer and a promise.
This time, its Remus who closes that gap, straining up so he can press those soft lips against Sirius’ chapped ones. They both taste of weed and it’s soft, heartbreakingly so.
I was thinking maybe you could do me better
Remus is exploratory, gentle, all the angry passion from before burnt out by time, and this time the kiss is all feeling.
Sirius shifts, trying to find a better angle and a hand reaches up, fists into the front of his t-shirt and tugs him until his elbows give out and he’s falling down onto Remus’ soft chest. That same hand smooths up Sirius’ chest and over his shoulder to his neck, where fingers tangle in the curls that sit at his nape, knotted and hidden by the hair now cascading over his shoulder.
Every time, Sirius forgets how good of a kisser Remus is, the way he moves his mouth melting Sirius’ mind until everything fades into the background (forgive him for being cliche, he’s waited his whole fucking life for this).