He is watching the other boy with eyes wide open, Sirius black in all of his glory staring down at a blonde, shorter guy with an absolutely terrible costume on. His eyes are widening as he sees Sirius slowly stroke the guy’s face, watches the way the blue-grey becomes more and more consumed by black as Sirius traces his hands through the other man’s hair, watching him like he’s pray and Sirius is a hunter. Remus can feel his dinner climbing up his throat.
***
Getting a cab home by himself, James, Lily and Regulus long gone, he prepares himself to have to hear the sounds of their sex all through the night, and tells himself that he does not care. Gets out of the cab and walks up the stairs to their flat, realises he forgot his keys, kicks the door once in frustration before leaning his back against it, sliding to the floor with his head in his hands. It's been years, years and he still can’t get the same boy out of his fucking system. The only boy who’s ever been in his system in the first place. He supposes there is a sense of profoundness, a meaning behind it all, but perhaps he’s too fucking drunk to figure that out right now, and he’s thrown up for the fifth time in the last two weeks watching sirius fall in love with other people and then fall out of it again all in one night, watches him devour them and let them in only to put them out in the cold again. Because Sirius black is many things, but he will always be a fire and Remus will always be a moth to a flame.
He’s wondering how he let it get this bad again; loving Sirius has always been like an illness to him, chronic, no cure. He let himself be consumed by it or he forced himself to feel nothing at all, but it would always be there, an underlying hum in his thoughts. Sirius black and the way his eyes light up when he’s half asleep on their sofa and he realises Remus has come to carry him to bed, Sirius Black and the ‘hmm’ he lets out when he’s drawing but remus has come up to him to speak to him and he doesn’t want to distract himself (he always says it in a higher pitch than his normal speaking voice that for some reason makes Remus’s cheeks warm), Sirius Black and the way he gently cleans Remus’s cuts up with touches so feather light that it makes him shiver. Relapsing back into obsession and then falling out of it again, getting better, before something happens and he falls right back to where he started. Accepting his fate.
It’s not like Sirius doesn’t know. Remus has told him, so many times, that he’s the only one that he will ever like, and the other boy will flash him a grin, change the subject. Honesty only occurring once in the span of the 10 years they’ve known each other, they’re constantly stuck between friends and something else, a one sided longing that Sirius has chosen to ignore.
Remus can feel his breathing quicken at the thought, remembering all the times he’s embarrassed himself by thinking that Sirius could ever be his, and suddenly he can feel the panic attack. It’s all encompassing, this time, and his hands are shaking and he can’t breathe can’t breathe can’t breathe, heart is pounding in his ears and eyes squeezed shut so he can’t see the empty hallway can’t feel the tears on his cheeks, he’s a charity case, sirius doesn’t love him, he’s keeping him around because he knows he’ll do whatever he wants him to, he doesn’t see the point in leaving him and he doesn’t see the point in staying either, it’s not like he deserves any better-
“Remus? Remus, are you alright? Oh, fuck, you’re having a panic attack,”
and it's the same voice that he hates but he wants to play it on loop all over again anyway. The noise of a pair of thick boots scraping against the floor as the other boy presumably readjusts the way he’s sat down next to Remus, who can picture his concerned expression and the instantaneousness at which he probably sobered up at the sight of Remus on the ground, ruining his night again, he thinks. A hand on his arm and another on the side of his face, he can feel the cool silver ring with the moon engraved on the inside (his but he gave it to Sirius and he never got it back), the metal touching just on his jawline as Sirius slowly lifts Remus’s face up from his knees.
“Breathe in, breathe out,” and Remus likes to think that he loses himself when he’s alone but he really only loses himself when Sirius is watching him, taking care of him like this, butter smooth voice washing over his conscience. His hands are moving forward and suddenly he can feel the other boy wiping over his eyelids with his thumbs, moving the tears away as his breathing becomes more and more steady. His eyes are still closed but he can imagine what he’ll see when he opens them, and he doesn’t want to look at him yet, because his hands are on his face still and Remus wants to savour every single second of the contact, because for once he didn’t initiate it. He’s thinking that he always hugs Sirius first unless the other boy knows that something is wrong, and he’s saying it out loud before he can stop himself, hungover from the anxiety as his heart slows down and his filter has fallen away in the midst of the tears.
“I never know if you want me to touch you.”
“Oh. I do.”
“No, you don’t. You want me to touch you when you’re not pissed at me, and I never know when you’re pissed at me.”
Remus wants to shake his shoulders and say, if you touched me I wouldn’t be pissed at you anymore, but he’s tired and he’s sick of the boy in front of him, making it even more confusing even when Remus just wants to think about himself for once, not himself in relation to Sirius Black, and he can’t be bothered to argue anymore.
“Okay.”
They sit there, Remus's eyes closed and Sirius across from him, eventually moving away to lean against the other wall in their hallway, for a long time.
***
It is Remus's mother’s birthday. It is lovely, he thinks, that Sirius remembers, that Sirius is dressed before he even comes downstairs, that Sirius is holding a bouquet of pink tulips and a box of her favourite chocolates. It is lovelier still that he is holding Remus’s coat, has a takeaway cup of tea, grins at Remus when he walks through into their kitchen, yawning but fully dressed.
They ride on the back of Sirius’s motorcycle, and he cannot help but continue to think that Sirius almost avoids touching him, like a disease. He is affectionate when it comes to James, when it comes to Lily, but he treats Remus like his trauma means that he is about to break into two pieces at the slightest contact. Remus has his arms very gently around Sirius’s waist on the drive there, and the other man turns around wordlessly when they arrive to take Remus’s helmet off for him, knowing that he struggles sometimes with his fingers, the anxiety, the shakiness.
Sirius holds the flowers. Sirius rings the doorbell. Sirius walks inside first, hugs his mother. Remus wants to scream at him; you’re the one who doesn’t want to be my boyfriend, who sleeps with people who look the opposite of me, who refuses to make contact with my skin like it’s infectious. Instead he smiles at his mother, living alone in the house he grew up in. stands far too close to Sirius just to make sure he can smell the coconut shampoo. He can see the glints of his necklace now that his hair is tied back. He can also see the hickey from the man from last night.
When they sit down at the table for lunch, Sirius's knees knock into his, and Remus looks up at him but the boy is holding a full and proper conversation with his mother, one hand under the table twisting the ring of the other violently, over and over. Remus can see his skin turning red, reaching over to stop him. Sirius looks up at him, once, grey eyes questioning. The world goes quiet and his mother seems to be whispering now, eye contact never broken. Sirius touches Remus’s hand so lightly, slips the ring off, a solid black band with stars cut into the sides, slips it onto Remus's fingers. Squeezes his hand once before letting go. Remus can’t hear anything anymore, heart is racing inside his chest. Sirius’s hands are small; the ring only fits on one finger. Fourth finger, left hand.
“We’re married.”
Sirius is grinning amusedly. Remus is bleeding out slowly.
***
It is the evening, they have driven back, Sirius has jumped off of the motorcycle almost immediately when they arrive, as if Remus's arms around his waist are just too much to handle at that moment. They rush onto their sofa, Remus collapsing face first, before turning himself back around to see what Sirius is doing.
He is looking at him, it seems, with an unreadable expression on his face.
“Are you gonna come sit, or what?”
Sirius moves slowly towards him with a smirk, before letting himself collapse directly on top of remus. What a sight they would make, he thought, as his breath was slowly crushed out of his lungs as Sirius puts his entire body weight on him, feeling the other boy's shallow exhales on his ear, not knowing if he should move his hands around his waist or let them be at his side. Remus is touch starved from Sirius and almost at once being fed, as if the other boy has never once felt repulsed by him, as if he can’t live without feeling their skin connected like this.
Maybe Remus is reading too much into it.
***
It is late into monday, he has just forced himself out of bed while being cursed with a world ending headache (although finally no longer a splitting migraine), he pads into the kitchen and it is of course empty. Sirius is not constantly in their flat. He has other friends, other plans, work and school to attend. On the table, however, is a note from the boy himself letting Remus know that although he had the day off, he has gone to all of Remus’s lectures for him in order to make notes. He opens the freezer and finds, at the top of the first drawer, a new tub of his favourite ice cream, the receipt still stuck to the side.
Remus resists the urge to sink to the floor again, wondering what else he needs to do in order to convince Sirius to love him like this but be his, because really, that’s all he’s ever wanted.
***
It is Sirius's birthday. Remus has decked the flat out in the shittiest decorations, a cake has been made and tasted and thrown away and then a replacement purchased at a stupidly high price by everyone’s favourite rich boy, James potter; the alcohol is flowing. The music is loud enough that Sirius could probably hear it down the corridor, but he still pretends to be surprised when he walks in before throwing Remus a wink that makes his heart summersault, makes him want to scream i love you right at him there and then. God. Maybe he’s already had too many.
He watches Sirius. He watches him put his coat down and disappear into his bedroom, reappear a few minutes later in a white cropped top that stretches taut across his skin, revealing the entirety of his abdomen. As Remus zones out, tracing his eyes down the tapered cut of his stomach and imagining biting into the hip bones that jut out from the top of Sirius's jeans, he looks back up to find grey eyes boring into his own. A smirk. Suddenly, Sirius is moving towards him and Lily Evans is standing beside him, laughing.
‘Lily, politely, I think he just caught me staring at his hips.’
‘Oh, I know.’
‘And how is that funny to you?’
‘...’
‘Pray, do tell. I’m waiting. I’m still waiting. Still waitin- Sirius!’
Lily takes this as her queue to slink away before her drunken self exposes remus. Or maybe Lily doesn’t take the queue. Maybe she gets shoved away. It doesn't really matter. Either way, Lily is no longer there and Sirius and Remus are breathing in the same air, gravitating closer towards each other as they normally do and Remus is focusing on his eyebrows in order not to let himself say something he will regret, like your eyes are prettier than anyone else's, you’re my favourite person, why can’t you just touch me so I can pretend you’re in love with me?
‘My lovely Remus Lupin. May I have this dance?’
‘With the birthday boy? He gets whatever he wants.’ did that sound too flirty? Shit. oh well. Drunken words are sober thoughts, and Remus doesn’t honestly think he would want to take it back either way. Sirius’s eyebrows flit up immediately, not expecting Remus to be so brazen. Normally their banter consisted of insults, joke flirting and joke rejection.
‘Whatever I want?’
And Sirius has honed in on Remus's lips, and Remus can feel his breathing hitch when he realises. He moves forward from the table he’s leaning on in order to lean over and whisper into his ear. Sirius smells like the summer that he finally felt like a human being.
‘Whatever you want.’
A hand gingerly placed on Sirius's waist. He puts his hand on top of Remus's, presses hard enough that he can feel the indent of Sirius’s ring. Remus is still wearing the black one on his finger, he hasn’t taken it off since he was given it.
Sirius takes his hand off of his waist, holds it and tugs him forward to the middle of their living room where other people are dancing. There’s music pouring through his ears and he’s focused on the chipped nail polish on Sirius’s nails. The way his hands rest in Remus’s palm. The way his fingers curl.
They’re standing in the middle of the room now, and Sirius is moving from side to side with his eyes closed. The room could be on fire at that moment, Remus thought, and he still wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else.
Well, maybe it was on fire. Remus certainly was, the burning that had pooled at the base of his stomach spreading through his whole body as Sirius turns around and dances against him, grabs his hands and places them just above his exposed hips so that Remus can feel the sweat on his skin from the movement.
‘C’mon, Moony, just copy me.’
Remus lets his waist move slowly, each time coming closer and closer to the other boy, panicking internally with each sway as their jeans rub together. He can feel his face flushing.
Sirius turns back around now, Remus keeping his hands on his waist, letting his fingers spread to his upper back.
‘Your eyeliner is smudged.’
‘Oh?’
and Sirius's face isn’t smirking like Remus expects but fully innocent and sincere as he moves his hands and rubs in order to fix it and squeezes his heart in the process.
‘Better now?’
‘I can’t see.’ he moves closer to the other boy, genuinely trying to see his eye liner, but ends up right where he started this evening. Staring at Sirius's lips seems to be his only pastime.
And Sirius is looking up at him, and his hands are on his waist, and the look that he gives him isn’t sincere anymore but instead he’s smiling like a Cheshire cat when he realises what Remus’s stare is fixed on. He moves his hand, which was resting on Remus’s arm, and gently places it around his neck, rubbing his thumb on the skin near Remus's ear. Remus can feel every single cell in his body, and the anticipation is killing him because even though he’s expecting it he’s also expecting Sirius to pull away, violently, quickly, spin off and grin at him as he continues to dance.
They’ve stopped moving now.
‘Whatever I want?’
And Sirius is looking up at him from beneath his eyelashes, oh so innocently, but his hand is moving up, up, up into Remus’s hair, pulling him closer and closer and closer,
‘Whatever you want.’
When they collide, Sirius leaves a full open mouthed kiss on Remus’s lips. Remus is moving oh so gently against him and his eyes are shut when Sirius pulls away. He’s smiling.
Remus can feel the absence of his hands in his hair, his body against his, suddenly cold and suddenly standing alone in the middle of their living room, where all of their friends are clearly pretending like they didn’t witness whatever the fuck that was before Sirius disappears off into the kitchen.
He licks his lips, once, twice, three times. He can still taste the remnants of Sirius's vodka-coke. Fuck.
***
The next morning, a hangover and Sirius Black curled up next to him in his bed. So close to touching, but not. Suddenly, Remus is angry. Angry that the other boy can act however he wants, take whatever he wants and not even ask Remus if he can deal with it. If he can fuck other people and then kiss Remus like they belong to eachother, open mouthed and innocent, whatever he wants. He shakes him awake before he can even think about it.
‘Why aren’t you in love with me?’
‘Huh?’
‘You know, Sirius, I know you know, and I wake up with you next to me, but jesus, fuck, what do you want? You don’t want me, but you flirt with me, but you don’t care if I go home with someone else. You kiss me but you can fuck other people and you leave me here to just-’
‘When did you decide I wasn’t in love with you?’
Sirius is sitting up now, and the hurt and confusion is so clearly written across his face that Remus wants to eat his own words and throw them back up like he does with every meal he eats after Sirius comes home with someone else.
He tries to keep his tone even, because, politely, what the fuck is he saying,
‘What the fuck are you saying?’
Oops.
‘When did you decide I wasn’t in love with you, Remus? I wake up every morning and check in here to see if you have a migraine that day. I make your tea just the way you like it. Your mother’s birthday is in my phone calendar. I wear your ring every single day. I cook you dinner. I know you hate your hands because they’re always shaking. I know you only eat ice cream on bad days because when you eat it too much, your teeth hurt. I know you had an eyebrow slit that grew back weirdly, so your eyebrows are slightly different from one another. I know you have a freckle on your neck, just below your ear, and when I'm sad I dream about kissing it. Whenever someone else looks at you I choke on my own fucking silence, because I want to be the only person looking at you, but why would I get in the middle of something that could make you happy? You only like me because you can’t find someone else. You used to be obsessed with me and now you just think you can’t like anyone else because you rely on me. You’re not in love with me, Remus.’
Honestly, it’s kind of funny. Funny enough that Remus is trying to hold back his smile. Funny in the sense that he thought this day would never come, and funny in the sense that he did not at all understand how Sirius thought that Remus hadn’t been in love with him from the start.
Clearly, this didn’t show on his face.
To Remus, even the thought that he wasn’t in love with Sirius was silly. It was the way it would always be.
Sirius, however, looked indignant.
‘You don’t believe me?’
He disappears to his room and comes back moments later, it seems like he ran down the corridor, and he brandishes an old doc martens box in Remus’s face. He opens it, starts lifting things up and showing them to him.
‘A ticket from the first time we went to the cinema together. A wrapper from when you used to buy my favourite sweets from the shops on your way to school when you knew I had a shit day. A lid from the time you gave me your water bottle without me asking. All the little notes you left me in the margins of the textbooks you used to borrow back in school. A copy of your favourite book. The polaroid we took at James’s house, which I stole from your dresser because I didn’t want you to realise how infatuated I looked.’
It's all tipped out onto the bed now, and Remus is laughing as he pulls out something else.
‘Remus, politely, I would appreciate a response right now to my extended love confession.’
It’s a clean black box, and as Sirius opens it he finds a leather necklace, the chain long. Underneath is a pendant, the shape of a crescent moon, lined with tiny stars. On the underside is engraved ‘your Moony.’
The silence in the room is stifling. Sirius, who always has something to say, is suddenly quiet. Cut off in the middle of his rant, he looks back up at Remus and down at the necklace like he can’t really believe it's real, like he doesn’t understand that yours means yours.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I thought I could never honestly tell you how I felt because it would freak you out. I never thought I would actually be able to give you this. I’ve been saving it for when I could finally just, we could finally just be us.’ The other boy is staring down at the necklace like it's some sort of foreign entity. ‘Sirius?’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘You don’t know what to say? You?’ and this conversation has been taken far too lightly by Remus, he feels. He’s made too many jokes for a man who’s only wish has actually come to life. He debates pinching himself to check whatever just happened is real. He debates jumping out the window in order to pretend this never happened in the first place, because he really just gave Sirius the necklace, after four years of agonising about whether he even could if Sirius didn’t love him like that. It still hasn’t sunk in yet.
‘You are such a tosser.’ and when he laughs, it's like relief from the agony that Remus felt, the apprehension racing through his bones. Sirius places the necklace gently around his neck, attaches the clasp, jumps back onto the bed and buries Remus into a hug that takes all of the breath out of his lungs (physically and metaphorically).
He is peppering his face with tiny kisses now, and Remus feels like he is going to die. In the best way. This is it for him, everything is finally right, and his arms are pinned by his head as Sirius laughs and kisses his jaw, his face, his eyelids.
‘I love you too, you know.’
‘I know.’
‘Did you, now? Did I or did I not hear you accuse me of not being in love with you less than thirty seconds ago? Was that real insecurity of my deep obsession with you, which pretty much everyone’s known this whole time? Would you like me to phone up Lily in order to verify? What about all my one night stands? Oh wait, I forgot, I literally haven’t slept with anyone else in five years. What about-’
Sirius’s kisses are moving closer and closer to his lips, muffling his words, his hands moving further and further down his torso.
‘Remus, kindly, shut up.’
And he does.