how scared i am of elevators
Sirius couldn’t feel his fingers, or maybe he felt them too much. It was one or the other. Really, this whole show of confidence that he had ended at his exterior. Was his heart supposed to be beating that fast? He was almost sure that he didn’t feel this lightheaded usually. Sirius couldn’t recall if he typically felt more nervous for his shows than this. He had to have. Performing in front of a hundred thousand people, more if it was at a festival, was nerve-wracking. Surely, it didn’t compare to going to the apartment of a guy he wasn’t even dating. A guy he hadn’t even kissed. There was no pressure. Nothing would happen. Sirius knew this.
Still, his pulse was hammering so loudly that he wondered if Remus could hear it in the elevator from a few feet away. The elevator doors opened with a ding, and Sirius observed as Remus stepped out easily. He looked so composed. Sirius was insane. He was going crazy because, to Remus, this was nothing. They were hiding from the paparazzi. That was it.
“You coming?” Remus asked, pulling Sirius from his trance and reminding him to exit the elevator.
He had never liked them. As a child, Sirius had imagined that he would be crushed if he was caught between the two doors closing. It would have been a brutal death, which was why he had been afraid of them until late into his teen years. Sirius had mostly grown from that fear. He had learned that if the doors sensed something between them, they would stop. Though, at some point, elevators had become a symbol for everything that left and ended. They sunk, and people left.
Stepping out of that elevator, Sirius realized they rose, too. They brought people up, and perhaps they became a symbol for everything that started. It was the start of something new when Sirius walked down that hallway, following Remus’ habitual footsteps. Sirius would probably write a song about it, about how scared he was of elevators.
Before he knew it, Remus had stopped at a door. He pushed it open, dropping keys in a bowl that Sirius hadn’t even seen him use. He was absolutely pathetic.
A few minutes had passed by the time they had shed all of their winter clothing and were in the living room. There was a large stack of books in the corner that Sirius naturally levitated toward. The cover looked familiar, and Sirius instinctively read the cover. It looked different, and it was in picking one of the books up that Sirius realized it was in French. As an attempt to do something with his hands, he flipped through the book aimlessly.
“You can have it if you’d like,” Remus offered from behind Sirius.
“I wouldn’t have a use for it,” Sirius replied, the well-rehearsed lie of his lack of knowledge in the French language coming to his side. “I can’t understand it.”
The look on Remus’ face made Sirius almost think he saw through the lie, but there wasn’t a way he could have. No one knew that Sirius was French. He had a British accent and everything. “You can have it anyway.”
Without responding, Sirius set the book down then turned to the bookshelves in the room. There weren’t many of Remus’ books, Sirius learned, but rather a collection that spanned many genres and authors. His eye caught on the only romance books on the selves, which were Lily Evan’s novels. He had forgotten that Remus knew Lily. Sirius recalled that he had never seen Lily at the concert to which he had given her the tickets.
He reached up to take one of Lily’s books off the shelf. “Did Lily ever come to the concert?” he asked, feeling Remus’ eyes on him.
“She couldn’t make it,” Remus said vaguely, but Sirius decided not to push.
“How’d you like it?” he asked, placing the book back on the table and turning toward Remus.
“It was wonderful,” Remus replied as Sirius moved across the room to another bookshelf. “You were amazing.”
Sirius abandoned his pointless search through Remus’ books because he couldn’t concentrate on it. He resorted to watching as Remus leaned on one of the bookshelves, focusing solely on Sirius. “You think?”
Remus rolled his eyes in amusement. “You don’t need me to tell you how amazing you are. You have the rest of the world to do that.”
Slowly, Sirius walked to where Remus was against the bookshelf filled with what he could see was historical fiction. “I have a feeling it would sound best coming from you.” He stopped only a foot from Remus, who was looking down at him in a way that would have made Sirius’ knees buckle if he had let them.
“I won’t stoop down to your obvious fishing for compliments,” Remus called him out, and it made the knots in Sirius’ stomach tighten.
“Oh, Remus Lupin, beloved by all, all-knowing,” Sirius mocked, “won’t you please tell me how bright I shine? Won’t you feed my ego and erase my insecurities? Tell me how I light up the world and how children chant my name in the streets.”
Rolling his eyes yet again at Sirius’ dramatics, Remus left out a light chuckle. “Shut up already, will you?” He cocked his head to the side when Sirius took yet another step forward.
“Make me,” he challenged, staring through his lashes.
Sirius didn’t miss the moment when Remus’ gaze flickered down at the speed of light. He didn’t miss the way he suddenly seemed slightly flustered.
“I just might,” he breathed.
Sirius pressed closer. “I don’t have all week,” he rasped, making to check an invisible wristwatch, though the moment Sirius’ face moved down to look at it, Remus grabbed it between his hands. Within the second, he had Sirius in between his body and the bookshelf.
“God, so impatient,” he muttered before finally crashing his lips against Sirius’.
It didn’t even take a heartbeat before Sirius kissed Remus back more passionately than he had ever kissed anyone. It was addicting the way Remus absolutely devoured him. It was addicting the way Remus tasted, the way his hands moved to crane Sirius’ face even higher to reach him.
Sirius might have died when Remus’ lips moved to trailing his jaw, which let Sirius drop his head against the bookshelf. It took a few desperate gasps of air before Sirius pulled Remus’ mouth to his once more, and he felt Remus begin to pull them away from the shelf until they were at the couch. Remus dragged Sirius down with him. It was a few moments before they ended up with Remus sitting against the cushions, Sirius straddling him.
Remus’ hands tightened on Sirius’s waist, which would surely leave imprints, as Sirius began kissing his way down the column of Remus’ throat. It made him groan, the way he could feel Remus’ pulse. It was erratic the way Sirius’ was.
He was drunk. He was high. He was absolutely delirious and had to have been dreaming because in no real life was Sirius making out with Remus Lupin.
Reality seemed to take an unnecessary sign then and there, sending it as a ringing phone. Remus didn’t even seem to notice it until Sirius regrettably pulled away, breathing deeply. “Is your phone going off?”
“What?” Remus breathed, looking up at Sirius, his lips swollen.
“Your phone,” Sirius repeated at the insistent ringing coming from somewhere.
Remus had to shift slightly to pull his phone from his pocket. He looked like he had half a mind to throw it to the other side of the room, but the color drained from his face when he read the caller ID. He picked up the call without another second of hesitation.
“Are you okay?” he asked, then nodded at a voice Sirius could faintly hear. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Twenty minutes max.” Remus turned off the phone and threw it to the other side of the couch.
“You need to go?” Sirius already knew the answer.
“I wish I didn’t,” Remus replied. “God, I wish I didn’t. But I–”
Sirius shook his head. “You don’t have to explain.” He started climbing off Remus, somewhat awkwardly, he felt.
“Peter called about Lily. I can’t tell you everything, but come with me.” Remus reached for Sirius again. “Please.”
He must have gone crazy because he said, “Okay.”