Wolfstar Interlude
Sirius raised his head slightly when he heard the door open and close, mildly arisen from his sleep. His mind is foggy and loopy, still half tucked away in his dream. He peeks through the small crack of his curtains to see the dark figure of James shuffling around his bed. He watches him sneakily tip-toe around and slide quietly into his bed.
What? Is all Sirius really thinks. James has never been particularly sneaky or really quiet in any way. He’s like Sirius in that way, it’s probably why they got along so well in the beginning. James had always been willing to dance on tables and speak a little too loudly at dinner, something Sirius reveled in when he could. He couldn't ever even speak at home, and Regulus never would have indulged in his antics.
So this quiet sly James, quite literally sneaking into the room, is very weird. Very weird.
But Sirius is tired, and only wonders where he might have been for about half a minute before promptly falling back into his warm dream. HIs dreams have always been very warm, when he had to sleep to escape the cold of his childhood bedroom, to hide from the dark shadows in the bright colors of his subconscious.
He wakes up with the sun, his curtains not closed enough to keep it out. He tries to roll over and return to the orange glow behind his eyes, seeking out the tall scarred boy he’d been with before he woke up, the shape of his dream singed figure lingering on the backs of Sirius’ eyelids.
“Remus?” He asks, out loud on accident, fighting valiantly to return to him in his sleep.
“Padfoot?” Oh, shit. “Is that you? Are you actually awake right now?” Remus’ voice gets closer to the left side of his bed as he speaks, and Sirius can make out his soft footsteps he assumes are slightly muffled by those wool socks he always wears around the dorm.
Sirius attempts to weigh his options in his still oddly heavy feeling brain. You could pretend to be asleep, he thinks to himself, staring at the crack in his curtains, no, then he’ll know you were dreaming about him. He turns over, removing the hair stuck to his face and attempting to fix his appearance before Remus sees him.
Remus must hear him shuffling because just as he’s stuck his hand in his mouth to detach drool-stuck strands of hair, the curtains open. Not a lot, Remus has always been very respectful about waking people up. Sirius freezes, fingers in his mouth, staring at the top of Remus’ peeking head.
All he’s showing of himself is the sideways top of his face, holding the curtain open with his hand and leaning over slightly to look in. Sirius can see the sun in his eyes, and how it warms the freckles on the bridge of his scarred nose. The scar across his face runs across the sun kissed skin, glowing a silvery white in the early morning haze.
You’re staring, his brain comments, somehow sounding irritated. Leave me alone, will you? I mean, look at him, he rebuttals the inner commentary. I am looking at him, idiot, I’m literally you.
Right, well shut up.
“Uhm, goodmorning?” He blurts, rushing his hand from his face as he brushes hair away, quickly attempting to organize himself as Remus opens the curtains wider to reveal more of himself.
Oh, Merlin.
Remus is wearing a soft baggy sweater, the kind that has half a zipper on top, which he has, much to Sirius’ bewilderment, unzipped. His long legs are covered by soft linen pants, dangling loosely on his sharp hips, sitting nicely beneath the cut off of the sweater. There’s a thin patch of tanned skin beneath his navel, exposed, dusted in a trail of dark blonde hair Sirius would very much like to explore.
He is wearing those socks, these ones are a pale tan color and are adorned with small shapes of flowers and leaves. Sirius is pretty sure Lily knits them for him, but nobody really comments on the inner workings of Remus and Lily’s friendship. The socks make his feet look much smaller than they are; they’ve always made fun of Remus’ abnormally long feet. He’s got abnormally long everything, actually.
Everything? Sirius' mind starts thinking, very absurdly for 7 in the morning. He shakes that thought away quickly, forcing his eyes to return to Remus' soft sleep-addled face.
There’s something about a sleepy Moony. His eyes only open halfway, and his eyebrows are a little messy, the hair all brushed in different directions from his shifting sleep. His face is always flushed with the pink of dreams, and everything about him just seems soft.
Sirius is helpless.
“Goodmorning, Pads,” Remus responds, and oh, his voice. It’s deep and gravelly as his body wakes up, and it catches slightly on Pads’ name. It drips slowly through Sirius’ ears like honey, drenching his insides in sweet orange sugar.
Remus blinks at Sirius as he stares at him. Sirius is quite helpless to do anything but stare at him. At his soft soft soft face. His soft lips. His soft skin. His soft eyes and the soft way his hair curls above his eyes.
“Hello,” Sirius says, rather stupidly, still unmoving from his rather scrunched up position, half under his blankets with one leg twisted on top of them. He can feel his silk pajama shirt slip slowly off his left shoulder, the cold air blowing through the window beyond his curtain and chilling his exposed collarbone. He watches Moony’s gaze flick down to it, deepening the pink on his freckled cheeks.
Ah, Sirius thinks, I saw that.
Remus is stuck momentarily, staring, and Sirius knows how to be looked at. He knows how to make himself pretty and seductive for the watcher. So he does.
He untwists his legs and starts to lay slowly back down, legs on top of his rustled blankets as he extends his lithe figure. The small breeze blows open his single buttoned shirt, exposing the pale expanse of his skin.
Moony is looking now, much less shy. Good.
“Are you,” Remus starts, pausing to clear his clogged throat, “uhm,” he stutters, it’s working, “are you going back to sleep?”
Sirius flashes smile number three his way, the half crescent one showing off his left canines, making the dimple in his cheek pop and poking the top of his tongue between his teeth.
“No, but I don’t particularly plan on getting out of bed yet,” he responds, motioning with his hand around his curtained bed, “what time is it, Moony?”
Remus watches his wrists twist as he moves his hands, momentarily silent before blinking harshly and responding, “about 7:10 I think.”
“Perfect,” Sirius smiles, smile number one, the real one, “care to join me then?”
Remus chokes on air as Sirius scoots slightly over, turning on his side to allocate a space beside him. He watches Remus’ face change colors quickly darkening from his sleepy pink to a deep gryffindor red.
What do we do if he just doesn’t get in? Sirius’ brain worries, quickly jumping from cocky to exceptionally embarrassed the longer Moony takes to respond. Well, he did last time, he responds to himself, reminiscing on last Sunday.
Last Sunday when Remus had shooed Sirius’ adoring audience right out the door, much to Sirius’ disappointment. He really does love putting on a show. Last Sunday when Remus had quite literally snogged all the thoughts right out of Sirius’ brain as soon as the room was empty. Sirius quickly abandoned his disappointment, euphoric at the feeling of Moony against him.
They hadn’t done much other than snogging, though he’s sure everyone else assumes the worst. Well, not the worst, they assume the best.
Moony had made quick work of getting Sirius on his bed, sheets crisp from his cleaning charm that morning. The sheets were very messy, very quickly. They got as far as discarding their shirts, Sirius mapping the constellations of Moony’s scars on his shockingly muscular chest.
The thing is, as much as he can put on a show, Sirius isn’t quite sure what to do when he’s actually being touched. He’s great at being looked at, admired, but like any work of art, he cannot be so much as brushed against.
Sirius knows Remus isn’t going to hurt him, he never could. Sirius also knows, though, that he’s just not quite sure what he’s doing.
People make rumors and whisper in the halls about the pretty boy and his overused mouth. They concoct stories of him, of the teeth made bruises presumably beneath his collar, and the amount of people that have made them.
Remus was quite literally the first person Sirius had so much as taken his shirt off for. The first person he’d ever kissed sober, ever chosen to kiss.
When Sirius drinks, people assume he’s open for business. They find him in corners of parties, in the hidden places nobody looks at. They dance with him in the shadows and breath into his mouth with liquor laced venom.
Sirius tries to spend most parties, now, glued to James’ side. James has kicked out quite a few shadow dwellers for Sirius, and he never utters word of it to anyone else. Just shares gentle glances with Sirius and holds him until he falls asleep. James is quite literally the best person Sirius knows.
Or at least he was until Remus John Lupin put his perfect soft pink lips on Sirius’. That was the kindest thing anyone had ever done to Sirius. So maybe Remus is the best now, or at least he’s several points closer just for that beautiful mouth of his. Merlin, Sirius thinks, what a boy.
But, as good as Moony’s mouth may be, and it is good, Sirius rather abruptly froze as soon as his broad warm hands dipped to the skin beneath Sirius’ neck.
It hadn’t been awkward, not at all. In fact, Remus quickly just put his hand back up in Sirius’ hair when he froze and continued to snog him senseless. He only paused briefly when Sirius stilled, watching his eyes as he moved his hand back up and looking for permission. He’d been so gentle after that, moving slower, touching lighter.
Sirius was so mad at himself, he wanted nothing more than for Moony to tear him apart and never put him back together. He wanted his hands, those warm strong hands, all over. He wanted them on his chest and his thinly scarred back. He wanted, wanted, wanted. He didn’t know why he couldn’t let himself have.
When they’d remembered they needed to breathe, Remus pulled away first. Their legs were pretzled together atop the ruffled sheets, and his hand was playing softly with Sirius’ freshly tangled hair. Sirius was quite content to never move again.
He hadn’t even realized, is the stupid thing. He hadn’t even realized this was what he wanted. When he’d broken Moony’s heart just to get his attention, and when he’d yelled and begged and screamed to keep it. He’d just wanted this. He’d wanted soft, he’d wanted gentle. But he’d never known it before, James always reminded him of that, so he had to learn how to have it.
He’d had to learn with James too, what it meant to have a brother. He’d always love Regulus, deep in his twisted scarred heart, but he’s not sure he’d ever be loved back. James loves unconditionally. So much bigger than he can even handle. Sirius didn’t get that at first. Didn't understand why James wanted to talk while they were at dinner, and why he’d always hug him when they said goodbye.
He had to learn with Effie. When she hugged him. When she let him help her cook and taught him how to set the table. When she read him stories to keep the nightmares at bay every night. Effie, who was more a mother to him than the woman who had given him life. Effie, really, was the woman who gave him life. Walpurga just pushed him out, and Effie raised him.
He used to flinch, everytime she tried to touch him, and every time she’d draw her wand when he was in the room. When James and him had accidentally broken the glass jar of spices she keeps on the kitchen counter in a rather intense game of chase, he’d immediately told James to hide in his room and let Sirius deal with it.
Effie just fixed it with a wave of her wand and reassured them it was all okay. Sirius let her hug him for the first time, then, when he broke down in soggy sobs and felt like he had a mother for the first time.
He’s learning, now, with Remus. With his best friend who ignored him for half a year. With the tall quiet boy he’d sat next to on that train 6 years ago. That boy who kissed him so hard Sirius thought he might have been flying.
He knows better, now that he’s older, how he can accept affection. He learned his limits through the harshest of ways, and knows when he needs to stop or start or ask.
But this is Remus. This is more than a drunken kiss. This is so much more than shadows and firewhiskey. More, more, more. More than Sirius knows how to handle.
They hadn’t talked that day. They had kissed and then stared at each other, and then Sirius had been stuck to Remus’ side for about the rest of the week. But they hadn’t talked.
“You want me to, uhm,” Remus speaks, finally, interrupting Sirius’ constantly wandering mind, “get in bed with you?”
“Obviously,” Sirius replies, attempting to maintain the confidence he’d harnessed a minute ago.
“What if Peter sees?” Remus asks, looking at the other boy’s beds with wide auburn eyes.
“Well,” Sirius starts, before realizing Remus had only expressed concern about one of their roommates, “wait. What about James, too then? Or are you just worried about ruining Petey’s sweet innocent brain?”
Remus falters, his face working through the thoughts clearly rattling around his head, “well,” he starts, “uhm, James kind of already knows, about, uhm, Sunday.”
Sirius blinks. Shit, his brain scolds him, you should have told him, now he’s gonna think you’ve started keeping secrets. He keeps blinking, well, haven't you? He shakes his head.
“You told him?”
“No,” Remus responds quickly, “he kind of told me.”
Sirius feels the confusion cover his face, “Uhm, what?”
“I mean, he’s the one who told me to do… well, what I did.”
“Are you serious? He really…” Sirius sits up now, staring straight past Remus towards James’ tight shut curtains. He watches a small shy smile tug at the sealed corners of Moony’s perfect lips, and sees a almost embarrassed flush over his slightly bent nose, “He told me to, and I quote, ‘open the door for his next outfit and then kick us all out so you can take it off of him’ when he saw me looking at you in that god forsaken skirt.” The flush is full force again, dipping down his neck and on the tips of his ears, barely visible through the mess of brown hair atop them.
“Get in my bed, Moony,” Sirius demands, pulling Remus in by the unzipped dip in his jumper and causing him to spill all over him. Sirius is not complaining. “I guess he just knew before we did, then,” Sirius says as Remus straightens himself out and closes the curtains, casting a silencing spell around them. He smiles at Sirius, this one letting his perfect teeth show through, and highlighting the way his slightly crooked canine hooks on his bottom lip.
Sirius wants to eat him, he thinks. Or crawl into the exposed part of his toned chest, burrowing under his skin and harboring himself in his ribcage. He’d be quite cozy there, he thinks.
“I guess he did,” Remus says, so so soft. Always so soft.
Except when he’s snogging you so hard you think your jaw might be unhinged, Sirius’ chatty mind reacts. Sirius feels the blush that rises with that memory, ducking his head and hoping his long hair will cover it.
Unfortunate for his hidden blush, but rather fortunate for him, Remus lifts his chin up with a single long finger, brushing his thumb along Sirius’ sleep swollen lip. Sirius doesn’t think anything now, not even a murmur or a hum or a thought as Remus’ thumb traces the shape of his bottom lip. It pushes on the edge of his mouth, causing Sirius to, naturally, open his lips in a gentle O.
Remus stares at his lips for a moment. A slow motion moment where Sirius forgets everything, even his own name, before Remus is kissing him. And, oh, it’s so much better than his dreams. He never wants to sleep again if he can have this when he’s awake. He’d spend all his life just doing this, if Moony would let him.
That perfect jagged tooth snags on Sirius’ bottom lip, tugging on the pink skin and causing a genuinely embarrassing noise to tumble from his parted lips. It cascades down Remus’ open throat as he immediately kisses him impossibly harder. His hands are in Sirius’ hair and Sirius is so glad he grew it out. His legs spread as he twists to lay on his side, hovering above Sirius' flat body. His knee rides up between Sirius thighs, and he looks at Sirius for permission before running his soft hands down to his hips.
And- “Oh,” Sirius feels it leave his mouth, completely out of control of his own basic motor functions. Oh.
So that solves that problem. Remus’ hands should always be touching him. Always. They should always be tugging at his skin and squeezing his stomach at his exposed sides. They never ever be contained to just his hair.
Then there’s something hard, something sliding into his mouth from Remus’ own. Their tongues slide sloppily against each other, messy and starving as if they’re both digging to reach the remnants of pudding at the bottom of the cup.
Remus pulls away, suddenly, when a noise similar to the one Sirius had made earlier leaves his own mouth. Sirius had been eager to swallow it whole, to digest it and taste it in his own throat. He chased after Remus when he leaned back down, lying side by side with him. This leaves Sirius hovering slightly above Remus as he flushes and attempts to catch his breath.
Sirius watches as breath fills Remus’ lungs. His chest expands widely to account for it, and deflates slowly when it’s released again. Sirius suddenly envies air.
Suddenly there’s a thud beyond their curtain, a sort of hard thunk followed by a rather loud groan. Sirius briefly exchanges an arched eyebrow with the beautiful boy beneath him, struggling to look away and inspect the commotion.
Sirius climbs over Remus deftly, posturing himself on his knees and peeking out a small crack. He watches as a very disoriented Peter rolls over on the ground beside his bed, face red and creased from what Sirisu presumes was a waking fall from his bed.
“It’s Wormy,” he whispers back at Remus, who is now sitting against his head board, exposed chest on display when Sirius turns, “he fell out of bed again.”
Remus stifles a laugh, face breaking grin caged behind his long fingers, trapping Sirius’ wanting gaze. “We need to get him guardrails,” Remus snickers out. Sirius just laughs back and nods, lost in the soft crescendo of Remus’ laughter.
As soon as Sirius crawls back towards Remus, beginning to settle on his crossed lap the familiar noises of James waking up drift through the curtains.
“Of fucking course,” Sirius curses, scowling at the sounds of their waking mates.
Remus ducks in quickly to press a chaste peck against his downturned lips, curing his frown and causing a small smile to play at his lips. This is a new smile, Sirius realizes, he decides to call it his Moony smile (number 5).
“Let’s wait for them to go into the bathroom and then I’ll sneak out, okay?” Remus suggests, pulling Sirius back to his open lap. Sirius goes without question, nodding and letting Remus kiss him and kiss him and kiss him until they hear the shower start and the faucet run.
Remus moves gracefully, his long limbs somehow unwinding and moving like a ballet performance as he starts to duck out the side of Sirius curtains not facing the bathroom. Sirius grabs his sleeve, unthinkingly, as he starts to push out.
“Later,” he starts, before realizing he has no idea what he’s about to say, “can we do this again, later?”
And that’d be it. Sirius Black always desperate for more attention, for more, more, more. But Remus just smiles, that signature Moony smile, and nods before freeing his wrist from Sirius and using it to brush a stray black hair behind his ear. Sirius positively melts, he can feel it. He feels himself boil and spill, draining through the cracks in the floorboards and pooling at Moony’s sock clad feet.
“Later.”
–
Remus needs to talk to Sirius. He knows he needs to talk to Sirius, but everytime he sees him he has to fight the urge to literally just bite him.
Because Remus can kiss Sirius, he’s allowed to now, so why would he spend any of their time together doing anything other than kissing? Sirius Black is addicting. He’s adrenaline and smoke and all the heady feelings that twist in your blood when you get a taste. Remus has been helpless to him since he sat next to him on that train, Sirius Black grin plastered on his cherub face.
Remus figured it out in fourth year, what it was that tickled his stomach everytime Sirius laughed at one of his jokes or complimented one of his schemes. He was 14 and he was watching Sirius Black dance with a slightly older girl, a girl that had her hands on his shoulders while she swayed against him in the dimly lit corner of James’ birthday party.
Remus had never been a violent person, not when he was himself. He had wanted to rip the hands off her arms so she couldn’t ever touch him again. He even stood up to go do just that when James had beaten him to it, grabbing a far-too-young-to-be-that-drunk Sirius and taking him up to their room. Remus had wanted to stop James, rather stupidly since nobody could ever replace James by Sirius’ side, he had wanted to shove his warm hands off Sirius. He had wanted to carry him, to dance with him, and to kiss him when they were alone upstairs.
He assumed James didn't want those things. Maybe that’s why Sirius let him hold him like that.
Now, two years older and much the wiser, he knows he really needs to talk to Sirius. They’ve only recently gotten over their inability to even speak. Yelling or screaming or pushing for about 6 months left their voices tired and throats sore. So now they can kiss, and they can joke in whispers and shyness, but Remus knows they need to talk.
So Remus spends the rest of the day preparing himself for a serious conversation with Sirius. He lets himself soak up all their secret smiles and glances while he can, rather convinced he’ll be living the rest of his days without them after tonight. Remus hasn’t spoken to Sirius since the beginning of 5th year. Not even when he forgave him.
The only person Remus ever talked to about what happened was Minerva McGonagall over a steaming cup of refilling tea and warmed a flickering fireplace. She had been the one to interview them all, after. Remus went last that day, and was in there the longest. When he got back to the dorm Sirius was the only one still awake. He was a shell the days following, the months following. Like someone had gone in and taken all the things that made him Sirius and shoved them away in a closet somewhere.
When he’d forgiven Sirius it had been with nothing more than a smile. The first smile he’d offered him in 4 months. It was the week before they had started this year, all staying the last week of summer at James’ as always. Remus had not had it in him to punish James for what his best mate did, and it wasn’t James’ fault Sirius happened to live in the room next to him.
Sirius had laughed. That’s all he’d done. He’d laughed at some stupid chess joke Peter made, and he forgot, Remus thinks, for a moment that he wasn’t supposed to be looking at Moony. That he maybe wasn't supposed to be happy. But when Sirius grinned so widely, and that chiming musical laugh tumbled from his lips for the first time in so long, Remus forgot too. Remus forgot he was mad, the pain stopped with that laugh, and Remus smiled.
And so they smiled at each other. Step one, Remus titled it.
Remus didn’t want to hate Sirius. He hated hating Sirius. He’d known he was in love with the boy for over a year, it broke his heart more to hate him than it did to find out what Sirius had done.
But Remus was good at being angry. He was good at yelling, and pushing, and always getting the last word. Sirius was good at that too, it would seem, but not as good as Remus. Remus isn’t proud of it, he doesn’t like it, but it’s the only time he’d see any emotion in Sirius. Until the smile, of course.
So for months they’d been yelling and Remus wouldn’t ever stop if it meant he got to see the fire in Sirius’ eyes and feel the heat from his loud breaths. Remus would fight him for the rest of his life. He’d push him if it meant he could feel the firmness of his chest under his fingers, the heat of his skin through the thin fabric of those buttoned shirts he likes to wear. He’d yell and fight if he got Sirius that close to him, so close that James could hardly get between them when he had to.
But then there was the smile, and the laugh, and then the trying to be okay.
Remus was really trying, really, to be his friend, but the fire from the fighting hadn’t burned out. Remus is starting to think it never will. That same spark was in Sirius’ bright eyes last week, when Remus had finally let himself kiss him. Merlin bless James Potter.
Sirius grinned everytime he pulled away to look at him, Sirius mouthed at his scars and tangled his perfect pale hands in his hair. Sirius’ mouth formed those perfect little gasps and his lips tasted so, so sweet. Remus has now decided to never fight with him again, to only raise his voice to beg or plead, and to kiss him, kiss him, and kiss him until they’re a pile of bones tangled together under the dirt.
Now, though, Remus absolutely has to talk to him. He’s afraid he’s forgotten how, and Merlin he is so afraid of fighting again.
The day is slow, “later” feels like it may never come as the 4 boys toss about the room through a restless Sunday. There's several chess tournaments, all of which Peter wins and several victory laps as they levitate him around the room in honor. There’s an hour or two of exploding snaps, which Remus thinks should only ever be played outside.
Remus spends any time not competing against Peter in chess, sitting in his window reading a book Sirius had snagged for him last week between classes. Remus isn’t quite sure where he got it, but it’s a muggle book by a woman with the last name of Woolf. Remus quite likes her. He thinks Lily would really love it, and puts a small note on a piece of paper for her which he tucks into the pages after he finishes and vows to give it to her the next time he sees her.
It’s nightfall now, and Remus is watching James leave, as he’s been doing almost every night, as soon as the short hand meets 11. He never seems to say exactly where he’s going, or at least not why for so long. He never returns until after 2, and he always takes the map and the cloak with him. Remus watches Sirius, though, more than James. He figures, himself, that even the glorious extrovert James Potter needs some secrets too. Or at least deserves a little unquestioned time alone.
Though Remus is always awake when he returns, typically still reading behind closed curtains, and always peeks to see a wide smile and deep flush when James sneaks through the door. So Remus is quite sure whatever he’s doing, he is not doing alone. Maybe he’s not doing anything, maybe he should be allowed some other friends though.
Remus has the girls. He has Lily. He disappears sometimes with her, because as much as he loves these boys he lives with, well, he sleeps in the same room as them and shits in the same toilet as them. So sometimes he needs to get away. Lily and him always go to the library, to the small table in the back right corner where nobody ever goes.
So James can disappear, and he can have his secrets. He can have whoever is making him smile like that, he deserves it. Remus is quite sure Sirius does not see things that way. This will be one of the things Remus avoids talking to Sirius about.
Everytime James mutters his flimsy excuses and rushes out the door, Sirius looks irrationally betrayed. He looks like an abandoned puppy, getting all quiet and mopey for the first half an hour James doesn’t come back. After a bit he loosens up, he smiles and laughs and chats animatedly with Peter about quidditch and watches Remus read. Sometimes he even does his classwork.
Tonight as James tucks out the door Remus watches Sirius’ face lift. Odd, he thinks, continuing to track Sirius’ movements over the cover of his book. He stands from his position on the floor, he’d been sprawled across the entire communal walking space for the past hour debating playfully with James and Peter about some famous quidditch player and his new haircut. Remus had dutifully tuned out after Sirius’ first groan about how the new haircut “limits his kissability.”
Sirius is slow and deliberate as he moves, dropping the pillow he’d had under his head off on Peter's empty bed.
Oh.
Peter is gone. James is gone. They’re alone.
“When did Peter leave?” Remus asks, unfolding his legs and climbing out of his perch. He drops the book on top of his school bag so he can stuff it in the morning and hopefully give it to Lily at breakfast. Sirius steps towards him as he responds, leaning against Remus’ bedpost and crossing his legs.
“Just about fifteen before James did, said he had planned to write the history paper with some ravenclaw from our class,” Sirius says as he crosses and uncrosses his arms in front of his chest.
Those button up shirts. Merlin. Remus’ eyes wander down the expanse of exposed skin on his chest, as Sirius refuses to button more than 2-3 buttons at a time. His pale skin is bright in the soft moonlight from the window, and Remus has always hated moonlight, until now. Sirius glows with it, absolutely beautiful and glistening with all the things people write novels about. The sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and the small tattoo he’d gotten done over the summer peeks out from under the dark fabric.
It’s the tail of a snake. Remus doesn’t ask about it. Nobody asks about it.
The shirt is black though, and it makes the ink look like a part of it winding into Sirius’ skin. It’s a stark contrast against his porcelain skin and it makes the veins along his perfect wrists look even darker. Remus can hear his pulse, if he tunes in, he can almost see it on his wrist. It picks up when Remus steps toward him, leaning on the bedpost across from him and matching his body language.
“So, we’re alone,” he says, hearing Sirius’ heart rate increase again, a fast erratic beat now dancing on his thin neck.
“We would appear to be alone,” Sirius responds, smiling that crooked dimple smile he does when he wants something. Remus is currently grappling with the idea that he's the something Sirius’ wants right now.
They need to talk. Remus, you need to talk.
“Sirius,” he starts, and he sees the smile falter at his tone, he hesitates when Sirius does, his breath stutters when Sirius steps ever so slightly back, “no, it’s okay, I’m not going to yell. We just, well, we really should talk about this don’t you think?”
Sirius relaxes ever so slightly, stepping back in and looking up at Remus through those beautiful black eyelashes. His eyes are so stunningly bright, like the reflected moonlight on the ocean, or the brightest star in the sky. Fitting.
“Talk,” Sirius says, rolling the word around in his mouth with his perfect tongue, Remus suddenly envies the word ‘talk’, “okay. About this?” He raises his pitch at the last word, a little wary and a little curious like a kid. He is a kid, they both are. Oh, Remus, Remus sighs to himself, little young to be in love.
“Yeah, uhm, about us. About kissing and all that,” Remus responds, oddly nervous and a little sweaty under Sirius’ upturned gaze.
“Well, what do you want to talk about about the kissing and all that,” and, oh, Sirius is flirting. He is absolutely flirting. His eyebrow is arched minutely above his left eye, and he’s got that cocky sideway smirk back on his face. He’s leaning slightly forward now, too, slowly invading Remus’ space and uncrossing his arms to lean one down onto the bed.
He should look stupid and lopsided, but he’s somehow tall (short) enough to make it work.
“Uhm,” great start Remus, “well,” just tell him, “I like you.”
Close enough.
“Oh, you do?” Sirius is so cocky. He’s got the tip of his perfectly pink tongue swiping across his lip as he spreads his smile evenly to both cheeks. His eyes twinkle with something playful and tempting, something so very Sirius that Remus wants to dive in and drown in it.
Remus is blushing so much it may be a world record, and his face only heats up even more when Sirius steps forward, crowding against Remus and his bedpost to whisper in his ear, “I like you too.”
Y’know what? Two can play at this game.
Remus stands to his full height at that, looming over Sirius and causing him to step back against his bedpost as Remus steps impossibly closer to him. As soon as Sirius is backed up against the post he has to fully look up to make eye contact with Remus again, and the pale skin of his neck stretches so beautifully Remus has to shift ever so slightly to stop being able to see it.
“You do?” Remus starts, low and directed right at Sirius slightly open mouth, “I could tell that, you know, after you asked me to get in your bed to wake you up. If you’d like, you can just fall asleep in mine and save the middleman.”
Sirius is always a good flirt, always has been, good at getting what he wants and good with a little harmless manipulation when needed. But he has met his match in Remus. Remus isn’t public with it, and he doesn’t talk about it, but he’s had his fair share of fun. So he knows how to make Sirius crumble, how to weaken his knees and make those perfect cherub cheeks turn rose petal pink.
“Is this that talking you wanted?” Sirius asks, eyes wide and pupils dilating as he visibly takes Remus in.
“Well, I wanted to make sure you liked me too, as elementary as that sounds, and I wanted to ask you something,” Remus responds, allowing a little space between them to break the heady tension and hopefully get himself back on track.
He is not supposed to be seducing Sirius right now. They need to talk.
“What did you want to ask?” Sirius inquires, blinking rapidly now as he also tries to snap out of the inappropriate headspace they had entered.
“We like each other, right,” Remus is getting oddly embarrassed now, and a little extra sweaty, “so maybe, we agree to just like each other?”
Sirius melts. Warm gooey smile heating up his face and causing pink to cascade down his chest, warm and sweet and sappy.
“You know my answer,” he whispers through his smile, “always anything for our Moony.”
“Your Moony, now,” Remus corrects.
“Even better. Anything for my Moony.”
They kiss then. Softer than the others, starting with cupped faces and closed eyes. Remus dips down to trace Sirius back with his hands as he gently pulls him closer, feeling the fabric of their shirts brush and listening to Sirius’ heartbeat.
They kiss for a while, just like that. Just standing there, soft and slow and nothing more than what it needs to be. The tension is there, blowing out their pupils and gravelling their voices, but they leave it for now.
When they make it onto Remus’ bed they do so in their pajamas, cozy and sated and weirdly high. They don’t even close the curtains.
“I want them to know,” Sirius says, when he stops Remus from flicking the curtains closed, “I want them to see and know.” Remus looks down at Sirius’ shy face, tucked into his shoulder and kisses him lightly on the forehead.
“Okay,” he whispers, laying back down and cuddling himself around Sirius, “let’s go to sleep then, we can talk to them in the morning.”
Remus is not awake this time, when James comes in. He sleeps peacefully through Peter’s quiet entry as well. He snores into Sirius hair as the two sneaky revelers exchange quiet smiles and nods in his direction, and dreams as they silently high five and file off to bed. It’s the best sleep he’s had in years, and he even snoozes well past sunrise come morning.
When he does wake up, Sirius is drooling on his chest and somehow has an arm twisted up and under Remus’ own. He smiles and kisses his forehead lightly, muttering a quiet “g’morning,” as he shifts ever so slightly to look around the rest of the room.
“Good Morning, lovebird,” James whispers, leaning over from the trunk at the foot of his bed to toss Remus a wide smile and a showy wink. Remus offers him a thumbs up in return, stuck flat on his back as Sirius is quite literally crawling on top of him in his sleep.
“Congrats,” Peter mutters, as he moves from the now open bathroom and towards their door, making to leave as he says, “fucking finally.”
Sirius shakes slightly with Remus’ muffled laughter, but somehow sleeps through both that and James’ unrestricted guffaw.
I love you, Remus thinks, good morning.
–
When Sirius wakes up he finally has time to wonder after James.
He’d been more than happy to be distracted last night, but now in the gloomy morning light, surrounded by empty beds, he wonders.
James has been disappearing with that mischievous look in his eye he’s supposed to share with Sirius. He always comes back well after Sirius has fallen asleep, and the few times Sirius has managed to wait up he’s seen James return flushed and alarmingly peppy for 3am. It’s weird.
Sirius is James’ best friend. He’s his confidante. Well, when he thinks about it, James is more his confidante, Sirius was never the best at keeping secrets. He’s quite sure James doesn’t have any, anyway. So Sirius always goes to James, and James always listens and gives shockingly good advice for a boy with little to no experience in the things that plague Sirius Black.
James is so good, so happy and bright. Sirius is not like that. But James can talk to Sirius too, he can cry if he needs to, he can scream and punch pillows and shit his pants in Sirius’ lap if he needs to. So where is he sneaking off to?
Who, Sirius thinks, who is he sneaking off to? Sirius is standing face first under the stream of the shower, feeling his thoughts float around in the water. He thinks, thinks, thinks about James.
Does he have a new best friend? Why is it secret?
Probably because he knows it would make you try and drown yourself in the shower if you knew, his brain supplies. Oh piss off this is how i process things, he responds, stepping away from the stream momentarily to shampoo his hair.
He rubs it into his scalp, feeling it foam up around his fingers. Who? Who is he sneaking off too?
He starts to think it might not be a person, maybe he’s running off to fly laps around the pitch like they used to do when Sirius was still on the team. Even then, though, Sirius wouldn;t mind an invitation.
That would explain the red face, he thinks, yeah or he’s sneaking off to snog some secret lady, his brain rebuttals. Oh piss off, seriously, Sirius shouts in his mind, and it could be a bloke, too. His brain, ever present, has a response, oh so you agree it’s a someone, not a something? Sirius scrubs much harder, responding, maybe, but it’s probably quidditch.
Whatever you say.
He rinses his hair and starts to wash his body with Moony’s soap, it smells like all things warm and christmassy. He lathers himself up and stands under the steaming hot stream to let the scorching water rinse it back off.
“Hey, Pads?” He hears Remus’ voice drift through the cracked open door, “you almost done? Breakfast is over in forty.”
“Yeah,” he responds, quickly lathering his hair slick with conditioner and letting it sit as he says, “can you grab me something to wear? Preferably something of yours?”
He can hear Remus’ smile through his response, hear how it curves them happily and lilts them with his little Welsh accent, “Of course, Pads. One sweater coming up, it’s cold out today.”
Sirius is rinsing the conditioner from his hair when Remus knocks and enters. He’s never knocked before. Cute, Sirius thinks, he’s so sweet.
Sirius makes out the shape of Remus’ back from behind the steamed warped curtain, seeing his tall figure as it leans and bends through brushing his teeth and setting a pile of folded clothes on top of the toilet.
Sirius twists off the water as he grabs a towel from over the curtain, ruffling his hair in it and then wrapping it lazily around his waist. He opens the curtain to find Moony’s perfect face reflected at him in the mirror, toothbrush half in his open mouth and gaze locked directly on Sirius’.
“Uhm,” he chokes out, eyes skirting back and forth from Sirius’ water falling chest to his messy hair, “clothes are on the toilet.” He then points, uselessly, at the toilet as if Sirius hasn’t lived here 6 years and does not know where the toilet is.
“Thanks, Moons,” Sirius says, smiling that small smile only Remus can get out of him at Remus’ hazy reflection. He steps out of the shower now, and steps around Remus to stand by the toilet.
He pats himself dry and slides the large sweater over his small body. Remus perches himself up on the counter, shamelessly watching, seemingly recovered from his initial shyness at Sirius’ exposure.
“It looks good on you,” he says, reaching to straighten the neck of the sweater, which hangs widely around Sirius thin neck, and hangs off his left shoulder. Sirius feels himself warm at that, and lets himself kiss Moony, lets himself step between his legs and kiss him right on the mouth. He can do that now. He can kiss Moony.
And Moony is kissing back. All soft lips on his own and gentle hands on his cheeks. Sirius does not want to go to breakfast, he may very well never need to eat again, appetite only for Remus. More Remus, all the time, for every meal.
Remus, after about two minutes of real proper kissing, shoves lightly on Sirius’ sweater covered chest. “Get dressed,” he says, a fond smile glinting in his hazel eyes, “we need to meet James and Peter for transfiguration.”
Sirius rolls his eyes, effectively earning a small swat from Remus, groaning out, “do we need to? I think we need to keep doing what we were just doing.”
“Get dressed,” Remus simply responds, pressing a kiss to Sirius’ forehead as he hops down from the counter. He moves as Sirius begrudgingly slides his trousers on, thin black slacks over what he’s quite sure is Moony’s underwear. He’ll take it.
“Fine,” he says when he’s done, “let’s go eat, love.”
Remus beams at the name, pink and soft and all things lovely. Love, Sirius thinks, very fitting.
They race to the great hall, hopping down stairs and shoving at each other playfully. When they reach the doors Sirius does the bravest thing he thinks he’s ever done.
He holds Remus Lupin’s hand. He grabs it, steals it up right from his cloak pocket and takes it as his own. He laces their fingers and looks up at Remus, who is currently trying to keep his very obvious smile to himself. Selfish, Sirius thinks, let me see it, I wanna see the smile.
When Remus looks down at their hands the smile breaks, wide and brimming with something Sirius hasn’t really seen in him before, something so sugar sweet.
“Let’s go get our stupid friends,” Sirius says, stepping through the doors with a very sated Remus in his hand.