Another offering

Remus may have told himself that there is just no point being in love with one of his closest friends, perhaps even told himself that he doesn’t want to be,  but none of that changes the reality that none of these feelings are things he can control. 

Remus hates that. You have no control, things hiss from beneath his skin, little pinpricks of truth that sting whenever he watches the other people admiring Sirius. From afar, from close up, from right next to him at this Gryffindor house party. 

Noise flourishes everywhere, all around him, but the only visual he’s taking in right now is that girl across the common room with her hand sliding up Sirius’s bicep. 

Remus is sitting across from this ungodly spectacle, Peter right beside him. He thinks that James might be running music, but he honestly doesn’t know. 

The alcohol is turning his body to a smudge of blurred limbs, while somehow sharpening his thoughts. Not to the point of coherency, but to the point of pain. get off of him, he’s mine, he’s mine, he’s -

“Have you seen James lately?” Peter asks. Remus shrugs. He doesn’t know and right now he doesn’t care because the girl has moved her hand up from Sirius’s bicep to cup the side of his neck. 

There’s the sound of crunching glass, and something warm trickles down Remus’s knuckles. Apparently he was holding his drink a bit too tight.

“Fuck.” he vanishes the glass, but the sting is still very much there. 

“Okay, that’s quite enough of that,” Peter says matter of factly, as he grabs Remus by the shoulder and pulls him around to face him. 

“What?” is all he can say in reply because is Sirius kissing that girl right now, where he can’t see him? Isn’t that the least the bastard could do, stay in his goddamn line of vision?”

“Don’t think about them. Nothing’s happening,” Peter informs him. Remus, in his drunken haze, has never been so grateful for an update. 

“Say, Moony, have you heard about that little charm that Sirius is wearing?” Peter asks, sounding like he’s giving in to some all powerful force. 

Remus is so confused right now. But also, a little eager. Is he finally going to get those burning questions answered?

“Uh, no? The one on the choker?” he hiccoughs, and Peter pats him on the back, a little too hard. 

“That’s the one mate. Well, word on the street is that it can only be opened with one key.”

Remus peers at him, and curses the alcohol for overcoming his usually sharp skills of perception. His curiosity towards all things Sirius, though,  is still very much intact. They’ll have to pry that from his cold dead hands. “What key?” and then also, because he’s just drunk and not dead, “Isn’t that the case for every lock ever?”

Peter rolls his eyes, but he leans forward, indulging him, looking straight into his eyes, and opens his mouth to tell him this incredibly vital information. For some reason, Remus’s palms are sweating. 

And then, all at once, his attention is harshly refocused by a lap full of the one and only Sirius Black. 

This is such a sudden turn of events that he is rendered quite speechless. Sarcasm and biting wit? Never heard of her.

Sirius is currently preoccupied with yelling greetings to Peter. “Hey Petey boy! Looking good, looking good. Say, you didn’t tell him, did ya?” And then he hears Peter chuckle as Sirius abandons this train of thought to plant his face firmly in Remus’s neck. 

“Sirius, what,” he mumbles ineffectually into a curtain of hair. It’s like his brain has genuinely short circuited. He has no defenses, no excuses. Nothing except the warmth of the line of Sirius’s body against his own. 

“Hi,” comes the breathless greeting into his ear. The soft puff of warm air against Remus’s skin is a physical manifestation of his final inhibition going away to die, and he curls both arms around Sirius’s waist. He just about resists the urge to squeeze.

“Hi,” he says. 

Sirius laughs, for some reason, and pulls back just enough to look him in the eyes with deadly intensity. Merlin, but his eyes are everything. Remus would fight wars just to watch the light rise within them. It’s his favourite kind of sunrise. (The sun is a star, the sun is a star)

He’s very dimly aware of Peter being snatched by James, and they both disappear into the crowd. To dance? To make out wildly on Remus’s bed? He couldn't care less, because Sirius is saying things. 

“Did you hear about the locket yet?” he asks, words a little slurred. 

“Not really, Pads. Tell me some more.” Really, why is he expected to know about this? Is it common knowledge?

Sirius grins that Sirius Black grin, and then he shifts on his lap, and Remus wants simultaneously to scream, out of habit, and pull the boy on his lap impossibly closer, out of reckless drunkenness. Sparks skitter up his spine. He grunts, lowly. Sirius doesn't seem to notice. 

“Well, Moony,” he says in a low voice, just for him, “it’s all got to do with true love.” 

He nods frantically, because Sirius Black, touching him, telling him about true love, feels like it fell out of the sky. Apparently, though,  this isn’t enough of a response. Sirius always gets so needy when he’s drunk. A hand slithers up his back to plunge into his hair. Remus actually shivers. 

“Are you cold?” Sirius enquires next, and God, this is actually getting to be too much. The fist clenches in his hair, and it tugs at the roots of his sandy curls. Remus thinks his eyes may roll back, just a little, but he couldn’t tell you for sure. 

“No,” he tells him, “I’m so warm.”

It’s so true. The party is nothing but a haze, made up of scribbles and vague ideas, when the realest thing Remus has ever known is under his hands. He thinks of that girl, and the memory feels so faded. Did it really matter that much? His right hand slides up Sirius’s arm. 

“Good.” Sirius whispers. “So the lock. Yeah. And only the right person can open it. With a key.”

Remus nods to show he’s listening. His hand slides right across the expanse of Sirius’s collarbone. There are little shivers of delight wrapping down his neck like vines. 

Sirius’s voice is a little strained, for some reason, when he continues. “And, uh, there are charms. And stuff. To make sure that the only person who can open the damn thing,”

Remus’s hand finally slides upwards to cup Sirius’s throat. He thinks of that girl who touched him like this earlier, and it’s hazy, but it feels so weird to think about, now.

“Is, uh, -”

Oh. he knows what this is missing. That girl was doing this wrong. There is a very specific way Sirius should be touched.

 By Remus. 

Remus’s fingers widen across the base of Sirius’s throat. He flexes them slightly. The choker is completely covered by his hand. 

And God. It looks so right.

He can feel Sirius’s breath hitch, feel the cool press of metal digging into his palm, feel the fast tick of Sirius’s pulse as he concludes his sentence in a strained murmur; “is someone that I love.” 

Remus strokes his thumb down the side of Sirius’s throat. He swallows. Hard. Mulls this information over. 

Somehow, the only correct course of action is to tell him, “Sirius,” he murmurs, “you are so beautiful. All the time. Every time.” 

Remus’s heart is beating painfully in his chest, and Sirius’s pretty mouth has fallen open in - surprise? He doesn’t know, but he watches in real time as colour floods his porcelain skin, as he leans an infinitesimal amount forwards, further towards Remus, further -

“Right folks, time to play truth or dare!” yells James Potter, cutting through ‘she’s a killer queeeeeen’  blaring from the record player.  

And Remus knows that he loves James more than life itself, but at that moment he bitterly wishes that he would trip and drown in his eight shot of firewhisky.