Remus was finally tired of pretending that he had nothing but platonic feelings for his best friend. He was tired of averting his eyes when Sirius had even a sliver of skin showing; tired of suppressing his jealousy when Sirius would flirt with, in Remus’ opinion, an excessive amount of girls; tired of resisting the urge to kiss his full, pink lips; tired of it all.
Some part of him had assumed that when he came out, Sirius would deduce that Remus was head over heels for him (his feelings were far from subtle), but he did not. Despite the fact that Remus came out while he and Sirius were having a late night discussion just the two of them, in Remus’ bed nonetheless. Sirius had asked him if he often thought about kissing girls, since neither of them had their first kiss at this point, and Remus, in a strange bought of boldness, flicked his gaze down to Sirius’ lips once before looking back into his deep blue eyes to say, “No, but there’s this one guy I’d like to kiss.” Sirius, ever oblivious, had stared straight back at him and asked, “Who, Moony?” and Remus had simply sighed and turned over to go to sleep while Sirius stayed up a bit longer to ponder what bloke his best mate could possibly be interested in.
Now, a full year of dropping heavy hints later, Remus was done waiting. Either Sirius likes him or he doesn’t, but either way, Remus needed to know immediately. No more “subtle” hints, if he wanted Sirius to know, he was going to have to slap the dark haired boy in the face with it. And he knew just how he wanted to do it. He was going to spend the next few days getting bolder and bolder with his hints, and if Sirius didn’t bring it up, Remus was going to finally confess his feelings at the end of the week.
On Monday, he was very touchy. When he rolled out of his bed in the morning, he made sure to run his hand along Sirius’ lower back as he walked into the bathroom. At breakfast, he drew small circles on Sirius’s arm with his index finger, sometimes letting his hand just rest on his arm. On their way to charms, Remus offered to carry Sirius’ books, and even guided him through the crowd with a hand on his shoulder. Each time, he watched Sirius blush and turn away, but he never said a word.
On Tuesday, he teased. At lunch, when Mary asked Remus, in a perfect case scenario, what he would imagine his partner to be and he replied, in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “Oh definitely Sirius. He’s just so perfect.” His voice implied dishonesty, but he meant every word. Marlene then piped up, “Oi Remus, what’s your type then? Black hair and blue eyes?” Immediately he responded, in the same teasing tone, “Exactly, if I had to pick I’d say my exact type would be someone with shoulder length black hair, of course it's gotta be a bit wavy. I also quite like blue eyes, ya know the kind that are so beautiful you almost don’t wanna look into them for too long. I’d say he’d be about 5'7 with a bit of an attitude. Oh, and also some family trauma of course, gotta keep it interesting.” Sirius smiled, but only a fake one, and his blush spread down to his neck, oh the curse of pale skin. To him, it sounded like Remus was making fun of him, but not a single word that Remus uttered wasn’t entirely sincere.
On Wednesday, there was a Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff quidditch match, so unfortunately Remus did not see much of Sirius or James since they spent all day preparing for the match. However, he lucked out when he returned to their dorm to grab a book he had forgotten and found Sirius relaxing on his bed before the match was set to begin.
“Oh, hey Sirius,” Remus started, “I thought you’d still be down at the pitch.”
“Yeah James let us all have about an hour before the match to freshen up and relax a bit. I reckon he’s still down there practicing though.”
“Yeah, that’s Prongs for ya,” Remus chuckled. “Oh, also, I was meaning to ask you,” he hesitated, waiting for Sirius to nod at him curiously before continuing, “I don’t have much gryffindor gear to wear to the game tonight, do you think I could wear your extra jersey?”
Sirius, who had just taken a big gulp of water, promptly choked. “Remus, that’s like a couple’s thing though…” Sirius replied after catching his breath.
Remus smiled at Sirius very innocently and said, “I know. Can I wear it anyway?”
Sirius turned as red as a tomato, actually even tomatoes are not that red, nodded, got the jersey out of his trunk, and quickly tossed it to Remus.
Without any hesitation, Remus reached behind his head and pulled off the oversized sweater he was wearing, all while still staring directly at Sirius– who now looked like he might start drooling any minute– and put Sirius’ jersey on.
Sirius stared at Remus for a few moments without moving, breathing, or closing his jaw which had fallen open the second Remus was shirtless in front of him.
“Alright, Sirius?” Remus questioned, humor in his eyes.
“Yeah, Moons, you look great. I’ll see you after the match.”
“Good luck, Sirius. Not that you need it.”
“Cheers,” Sirius shouted over his shoulder as he fled the room as quickly as possible.
Gryffindor won the match, which not only meant that they would be in the running for the Quidditch cup that year, but much more importantly–at least in Remus’ opinion– there would be a celebratory party in the Gryffindor common room that night. He decided the party would be his last attempt at showing Sirius his feelings before confessing, so he was going to have to go big.
The match ended at 6:30, but the party would not start until eight to give the players time to freshen up and the rest of the house time to decorate the common room. Remus was waiting in their dorm, still wearing the jersey, when Sirius and James stumbled in, still riding the high of their well-earned victory.
“Nice jersey, Moony,” James teased before hopping in the shower.
Once the two were alone, Remus got started on his plans. He kept his voice low and a little gravely as he said to Sirius, “Nice job today. You looked great out there. It was an honor to have been wearing your jersey.”
It was a surprise Sirius was able to remain standing with the way his knees threatened to buckle just from the sultry sound of Remus’ voice.
Since he got no response, Remus continued, “You wouldn’t mind if I wore it for the party right?”
“‘Course not,” Sirius replied, but he quickly took off, in an attempt to hide his growing blush (and slight arousal), as soon as the bathroom door opened signaling that James was out of the shower.
While Sirius was showering off the match, Remus got ready for the party. He put on a pair of baggy muggle jeans and tucked the front of the jersey into them, revealing a bit of his toned stomach, but not enough to be considered indecent. He also put on a bit of eyeliner, since the girls had told him that it helped to bring out the color in his eyes.
When Sirius got out of the shower and saw Remus in his party attire, he genuinely got heart palpitations and his jaw dropped wide open. At this point, Remus felt he had more than enough evidence pointing to the fact that Sirius was also widely attracted to Remus, which gave him the confidence to carry out the last part of his plan.
“Do you like the outfit,” he questioned, spinning slowly to show Sirius all of the angles of his outfit, especially the way the jeans hugged his ass and how the gap between the jersey and his jeans showed a particularly large scar.
“It’s amazing. And I’ve never seen you wear makeup! Where’d you learn how to do that?”
“The girls taught me, well mostly Mary. But they said it brings out the green in my eyes. What do you think?” Remus punctuated his question by batting his eyelashes at Sirius a few times.
“Oh, it definitely does,” Sirius replied, tugging slightly on his lower lip with his teeth.
“I reckon it’d look lovely on you as well, want me to do it for you?”
Sirius seemed to contemplate for a moment before acquiescing and nodding.
“Okay go sit on the edge of the bed. I’ll go grab the eyeliner.”
It is hard to know what Sirius was expecting Remus to do when he came back with the eyeliner, but what he absolutely was not anticipating was Remus sliding right into Sirius’ lap and staring down into his eyes. Sirius was too stunned to speak as Remus gently grabbed the side of his face with his scarred hand and began to apply the eyeliner. Remus was so close to Sirius, as close as they’d ever been, and all Sirius could do was look up into Remus’ beautiful hazel eyes while he did his makeup.
When Remus finished, he didn’t immediately let go of Sirius’ face, nor did he get off his lap. Instead, he rubbed small circles on Sirius’ cheek with his thumb and whispered, “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” as he let his eyes roam around Sirius’ face.
Sirius was silent, mouth open, eyes darting back and forth between Remus’ lined eyes and his plump lips.
“Sirius,” Remus prompted, “Do you want me to get up, or should I stay?” He did not want to throw himself at his best friend to the point of making him uncomfortable, even if he was fairly sure the dark haired boy liked him back.
“No,” Sirius replied, voice quiet, “I want you to stay. I like you right where you are.”
“Sirius, I-” he paused, contemplating for one more second because if he said the next words there was no going back. He decided the possibility of having Sirius in his arms for longer was worth the risk so he blurted out, “I’m in love with you.”
He pulled his hand back from Sirius’ face, quickly using them to cover the blush spreading across his own.
Sirius’ whole face split into a beautiful smile. The kind that wrinkles the corner of his eyes and makes him resemble a playful puppy more than a human teenager with an attitude problem.
“Really,” he questioned. “You mean it? You’re not joking?” Remus could hear the happiness in his voice.
“I would never joke about this, Sirius. I’m so in love with you that most days it’s all I can think about. I can’t tear my eyes off of you, I can’t focus in class. My love for you is so captivating, and it is very, very real.”
Remus had never felt more vulnerable then in the moment it took for Sirius to respond. Instead of words, Sirius grabbed the front of the jersey Remus was wearing and pulled him into a passionate kiss. For that moment, there was no party beginning downstairs, no music flowing through the thin walls, no school, no quidditch, no people, the only thing that existed was the love between Sirius and Remus.
When they eventually pulled away, with swollen lips and wide smiles, Sirius whispered, “I love you too, my Moon. I love you so much. And I love you even more in my quidditch jersey. Merlin, you look fucking edible.”
It’s safe to say that they never did make an appearance at the party.