You Cured My January Blues
“Alright?” Remus muttered, rolling a cig with shaking hands, unable to look Sirius in the face.
“Yeah, I mean. You know.” Sirius responded, and the two fell into step together, painfully reminiscent of the autumn, which glowed golden in Remus’ memory, celestial in the face of the cold and grey February he found himself in, where Sirius was close enough to touch but no touching was occurring. Where he had admitted his feelings to himself, and found them painfully unreciprocated.
“Can we go to yours?” Sirius murmured as they neared the street they shared. Remus shrugged, he was on his third cigarette and the trembling in his fingers had begun to ease. He led Sirius up the stairs and into his house, heading straight through to the kitchen. Belatedly, he realises he should have offered to help Sirius with his bags. He watches as Sirius struggles to heave them onto the counter.
“Right. I am-” Sirius huffs a breath, running his hand over his face. “I am notoriously bad with words. Like really, really shite, so I am going to be an audacious bastard and ask you a favour, even though I have no right to. I am going to ask you to sit there and let me talk, until I tell you I am finished. And whilst I talk, I am going to cook for you. You eat meat, right?”
“Aye.” Remus responded, not sure how to feel. He didn’t think Sirius would be cooking for him if he was about to have his heart trampled all over, but he also hadn’t expected the rejection last time, so he was still wary. His poor, battered heart couldn’t handle any more hope dashed against the flagstone floor of this house, full of sadness.
“Right. Okay. duck. I’m making you duck. It was James’ favourite. He made me make it for him and Lily’s first date. We were seventeen. She came over for dinner, and I cooked them this whole meal, and then had to hide upstairs. He was so nervous.” Sirius smiled at the memory, roaming around Remus’ kitchen, opening cupboards and peering in, taking out pans and pots and dishes, laying them all on the bare countertops. Remus sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “So this is my lucky duck, get it? And I’m making it for you.” Sirius filled the kettle and set it to boil, extracting from the shopping bags containers of meat, bags of new potatoes, and green beans, and a large lurpak. He pulled out bottles of white wine that he tucked away in the fridge, and bottles of red wine that he lined up by the toaster.
“I am also practising optimism, so I am also going to attempt to make you dessert, but I rarely foray into sweet food, so please grant me patience on that front, if we get that far, which I hope we do.” Sirius said, pulling out more ingredients from the bags- a bag of apples, sugar, a bottle of brandy that Remus knew from the pub to be very expensive. “Not so optimistic that I am attempting to make my own pastry, though.” Sirius said wryly, shooting a smile at Remus- the first time he’d looked at him since he’d started talking- and pulling out a roll of pre-made puff pastry.
“Right, where to begin, with all of it?” Sirius asked himself, biting his lip and surveying his ingredients. He muttered a bit, lining up a pan on each of the six gas circles of Remus’ stovetop, and grouping the ingredients together. Then he stopped, and pulled his hair back into a bun, and Remus was mesmerised by the way the elegant, pale fingers deftly combed his hair back from his face and up off his neck. He tried to look away but found he couldn’t.
“Okay. okay. Remus. Right.” Sirius took some deep breaths, filling the largest saucepan with the boiled kettle water, and turning the stove on. “With the exception of Harry, I have never been able to keep anyone I’ve ever loved in my life. And no- this isn’t a pity party, this is an explanation. My parents were abusive, my brother sided with them and turned on me, and then I was kicked out. At school, I met my soulmate, and he and his parents took me in, and all three of them died before I was twenty two, as well as Lily, who was like a sister to me, by the end.” Sirius’ voice was remarkably even, but Remus noticed his hands shaking as he began to gently score the skin of the duck breasts.
“Because of my upbringing, and the deaths of the four most important people in the world in such a short amount of time, happiness is something I have come to be scared of. Love, too. All those nice positive emotions. I avoid them like the plague.” Sirius huffed, using the back of his hand to push away a curl of hair that hadn't made it into the bun and had fallen over his eyes.
“I have never had a proper boyfriend.” Here, Sirius looked Remus dead in the eye. He was blushing, flushed a deep red. Remus gazed back at him steadily. Sirius turned back after a beat of silence. “I have never had a proper boyfriend because I am convinced that I will get maybe two good years with them before they also up and die on me. I mean- it’s a pattern at this point. Even Reggie, even my- even he-” Sirius did get choked up here, bracing his palms on the countertop and hanging his head down for a minute. When he had recovered a bit, he shot a look at Remus, and Remus could see the tears in his eyes.
“I nearly lost him too. It’s like the universe has it out for me. So I always run away from every boy I have ever been interested in. I never let them get close. Did you know, I am twenty five and what we had is the longest thing I’ve ever had with anyone?” Sirius lays the duck skin-side down in a pan and the sizzle fills the room, alongside a delicious smell. He pours half a bag of potatoes into the boiling water, and then moves on to peeling and coring the apples. “I have run away from every boy I have ever been interested in, apart from you.”
Remus snorted.
“Yes, I know, I ran away from you too, but that was after. I got closer with you than I have ever been to anyone. I did more with you, than I have ever done with anyone. God- this is embarrassing, but before you the most sexual experience I’d ever had was exchanging blowjobs in club bathrooms or boarding school dorm rooms.” Sirius stops talking for a second, as if he knows Remus needs time to absorb all the information, the twists and turns of his monologue, how they jumped from dead relatives to bathroom fellatio. What it means. What Remus now knew was coming.
Sirius halved the apples and put them in a frying pan, sprinkling them with sugar and pouring a generous amount of brandy in with them. The smells emanating from the stove were heady. Remus had never cooked such an elaborate meal in his life.
“I couldn’t run away from you. You live next door, and you were so new and mysterious with your accent and your general slightly terrifying demeanour and I was immediately so intimidated by you and so attracted to you. And Harry- I mean, he adores you. You’re his new favourite person, up there with Ron, and you were so good with him. You went from this… scary, towering tall man with a glower that could kill to this gentle giant, all smiles and soft words with the boy that is my whole life. How could I not want you? How could I not fall for that?”
Sirius flips the duck.
Remus takes a deep breath.
“And then I just can’t keep away from you. I give away my only free afternoon to sit in a pub and watch you work. I organise Molly looking after Harry more so I can see you more. And that night- I hadn’t been that drunk in years, Remus, and all I could think about was you. And then we kissed-” Sirius turns around for a brief moment, offering Remus a half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “No one has ever kissed me like that in my life. Like I was important.”
You are important, Remus’ heart protests, but he promised not to speak, so he just nodded. Sirius nods back and returns to his cooking.
“You kissed me like you wanted to kiss me, which sounds stupid, but most boys I’ve kissed have done so because I’m there and willing and that's what you do in a club, not because they actually know anything about me and choose to kiss me anyway. You kissed me despite myself.” Sirius turns and smiles properly at Remus, face soft at the memory.
“Not despite.” Remus’ voice is hoarse and he knows he promised not to speak and he knows Sirius might still tear his heart to shreds but it had never once occurred to him that the man before him, as beautiful as he was, would ever feel this insecure, and he has to say something. “Not despite. Because of. I kissed you because of yourself.”
Sirius stared at him for a few seconds, before nodding, clearing his throat and turning back around. “Thank you, Remus. You kissed me because of myself, then, and I was gone. God, touching you was- a religious experience. I had been thinking about it since I met you, really, and it had been so long since I had touched anyone, and it was you. You who I knew, and already cared for, perhaps more deeply than I should have. And in the next few days it was all I could think about.”
Sirius turned the duck again, and added the green beans into another saucepan. He flipped the apples over in their brandy concoction.
“Working up the courage to ask you to do it again is one of the scariest things I’ve ever done. Half the time I was bracing myself for rejection, and the other half I was convincing myself I could do casual when I knew there was nothing casual about what I felt for you.”
That hit Remus like a fist. He exhaled slowly, scrubbing roughly at his face.
“But I asked for casual anyway, partly because, like I said, I run away from good things, and I thought if I angled for anymore, the universe would take you away from me, and I would much rather have you at arms distance, than not have you at all.” Sirius smiled at Remus, a wide, sure thing, like he wasn’t carving out a hole in Remus’ left ventricle and making a home there.
“And then you said yes, and led me up to my own bedroom, where I’ve only ever slept alone, and you were so confident, like casual sex was something you did all the time. I felt safe with you, and scared that I wasn’t going to be good enough, and you wouldn’t want me anymore. But you did want me, and it kept going.”
Remus felt a low ache in his chest. He felt like the fucking grinch- like his heart was physically growing to make space for Sirius.
“And it kept going. What I felt for you grew even more. I couldn’t walk past a smoker on the street without thinking about your mouth on mine. Seeing you was the highlight of my week, and it felt like my brain had to actually wrestle with my heart not to try and find a way to turn up every single night. I was already pawning Harry off on Molly far too much. And Harry! The guilt of giving up time spent with him to have time spent with you started to gnaw at me, and I pushed it down, not thinking about it, but it just got worse. Seeing you began to feel illicit, not allowed. The guilt made it more exciting- and how fucked is that? I’m basically his dad, for fucks sake, I shouldn’t be giving him extra sleepovers just so I can get a leg over, but there I was, doing it anyway.” Sirius started getting plates out, setting one in front of Remus and one on the opposite side of the circular table.
“And then I fucking comissioned a bracelet for your present, and invited you into my family for christmas, all whilst telling myself that I could do casual, that I wasn’t in too deep, that I could maintain the charade that seeing you leave didn’t feel like you were taking my heart with you. And you just- you were so good at casual. You seemed so impersonal. You were friendly without ever bordering on romance. You wouldn’t let me into your bedroom when I felt like I’d let you into my whole life and I convinced myself you could never feel the same.”
Sirius took the duck from where it had been resting and expertly sliced it, before plating it up, alongside potatoes and beans and generous lashings of soft melty butter.
“And then, seeing you with the Weasley’s at christmas. You fit in so well, like you were one of us. I could almost convince myself that you were there as my boyfriend, and we were going to go back home to the life we shared, instead of two separate houses and so much space between us. I couldn’t bear it. And your gift for me was perfect- it wasn’t overly sentimental, it was the sort of present shared between friends, and I had gotten you something that just screamed ‘I like you’. And then, when I- when I touched your face, and you looked- terrified and all I wanted to do was hold you and make stupid promises about taking all your pain away- I knew I had to end it. I realised that maybe nothing was better than the unending, purgatorial pain of the in-between. We weren’t friends, and we weren’t lovers, and I was in agony everyday having you close enough to touch but not close enough to hold, you know?”
Remus did know. He knew.
“So I ended it, and you looked so sad and I hated myself for causing it, and I was lying earlier because I run away from all my feelings, bad ones too, so I just couldn’t face you, afterwards. It felt like losing you anyway, I realised. Like there was a gaping, six foot three hole in my life that should have been filled with your sullen silences and your sarcastic jokes and your laughter. I couldn’t bear to feel like I was losing someone else so I just- ran. I avoided you as much as possible, pretended to myself that I was fine, that I didn’t need you, that it had all been so fucking casual and it was easy for me to return to my life before. But Harry wouldn’t stop talking about you, and I felt like a bastard for always putting off his requests to invite you over again.”
The food was in front of them, steaming and smelling divine but neither of them made a move to eat.
“And I wanted to talk to you, and I’m sure you’ll remember I was skulking around the pub, but I always chickened out, and you clearly wanted nothing to do with me, which I can’t blame you for. Then Reg happened, and you dropped everything to help me anyway, even though I had been beyond cruel to you. You were so calm in the face of my panic, and the way that you held me- I couldn’t bear it. I hated how good you are, how you willingly slept on my sofa and took Harry to school and made me the best pasta bake I’ve ever eaten, all without demanding anything in return. No asking questions, just calm support. You are an amazing man, Remus.”
Remus could feel himself blushing. He wasn’t all that. He was just doing what anyone would do, surely. Sirius had needed help, so he had helped. Simple as.
“The food is getting cold, I’m sorry, but I’m nearly done. Anyway, Reg happened, and you saved my life, and stopped me from completely falling apart, and then I saw you that day, on the doorstep, and you sat and smoked with me like before and I didn’t know what to do with the tentative peace between us because I knew it was temporary so I fucked it up on purpose by being an obnoxious little shit like I always am, and I immediately regretted it, because when you looked at me, with that anger- it hurt, Remus.” Sirius brought a hand up to his heart and rubbed at his chest with the heel of his hand.
“I felt it in my chest. And I knew I needed to fix it, even if you never spoke to me again afterwards.” Sirius took a deep breath, then another, then another, looking at Remus the whole time. He picked up his fork, but made no move to eat.
“Okay, well. That's it. I’ve said my piece. Or actually, wait.” he put his fork down again. Sat up properly, pulled his shoulders back. Bracing himself again, Remus remembered. “Remus. I like you. Like, a lot. And I’ve been a twat and I’m sorry, but you are the last thing I think of when I go to sleep and the first thing I think of when I wake up and I dream about you kissing me again, and I promise that if you decide to give me a second chance I will use every weapon in my arsenal not to fuck it up. I will lie and cheat and steal to keep you happy. I will woo you within an inch of your life. I want you, and you don’t have to say anything now, but I need you to know. All cards on the table. Okay, you can eat now.”
Sirius immediately ducked his head down and started shovelling food into his mouth, so fast Remus doubted he was even tasting it. Not sure what else he could do right now, feeling overwhelmed and overloaded, Remus gingerly picked up his fork and began to eat. The food was incredible. He forced himself to eat slowly, savouring every mouthful. Eventually, both their plates were empty, and Remus knew he had to say something. He racked his brain for something- anything- that could match the heartfelt intensity of Sirius’ confession, but in the end he settled on-
“What's for dessert?” Sirius would know what he meant.