Collision
Not one relevant person crossed Sirius’s path as he went back to his dorm. It wasn’t until he entered the sleeping quarters that he encountered a living soul for the first time since he had awakened.
He had come across ghosts but the sixteen-year-old boy was not interested in impressing dead people with his looks. He felt uncomfortable when he caught a portrait stealing a glance at his body.
Sirius promised himself this would be the last time he’d ever walk around Hogwarts so nearly completely disrobed. (even if it should be considered a crime to forever withdraw his art piece of a torso from the potential field of vision of the female students. How distraught felt Sirius from having to leave his adoring fans to their imagination…)
And about leaving things to the imagination of others; his towel was loosening as a result of the consistent walking. He decided to move a bit faster to avoid any potential inappropriate outcome of his poor decision to leave the showers unclothed. He could have accioed his clothes, but there was a limit to his wandless magic skills.
When he finally arrived, Sirius went straight for his clothes. They were neatly folded, laying on his bedside table.
“Oi! Pads!” James’s hoarse voice indicated that he had woken up not long ago. Without ceasing his fast steps, Sirius turned his head to look at Prongs, who stood near the door that Sirius had just passed through “Do you reckon they’ll cancel the quid-”
James’s voice stopped short as Sirius felt his body collide with something. The abrupt contact undid the twisted towel.
The impact made him stumble back. At the same time, lightning struck, which caused him to jump in a startled state. His legs somehow got intertwined with one another. He lost his balance and felt himself fall. He tried to grip whatever the thing in front of him was, in hope of some leverage. But that only made the person fall with him.
The nerve endings in Sirius’s right hand and fingers informed his brain that he was definitely touching human skin.
His crash with the ground was unpleasant. Sirius’s head was turned to the right. The side of his head absorbed the shock. He didn’t like the hardness of the floor and the hurt radiating through his body. But he didn’t really mind the pressure that quickly came from the body now laying on top of him. That was, until he saw Peter meters away from him.
If the person wasn’t Peter (and it couldn’t be James either) it meant that the skin he had been touching wasn’t really a human’s… Fuck.
As Sirius subconsciously took a breath, he damned his olfactory memory.
Old books, chocolate and bergamot; a soft smell that made him spiral in nostalgia.
No, he was not doing this. Sirius hated Remus and Remus hated him even more. They were not friends. They hadn’t shared a conversation in (at least) the last 300 days. The last time that they did speak, Remus had insulted him in the worst ways imaginable.
But why was Remus’s skin so comfortable against his own? Why was this comforting? Why did Sirius feel at peace?
NOT DOING THIS. They weren’t friends.
But Remus was hot against him and Sirius had missed that sensation that almost resembled a hug. Rather hurriedly, the weight of the body became less and less imposing.
Remus groaned as he got up. Fuck Remus! Fuck him for hating Sirius and fuck him for ruining their friendship!
When they parted, it felt like a candle being blown out, no flame anymore, no combustion. But there wouldn’t be smoke, because there wasn’t an actual fire.
Once Remus was back on his feet, Sirius fixed his gaze onto him. Remus didn’t reciprocate the stare. He looked away and seemed to concentrate on his breathing. What an infuriatingly annoying loud way to breathe it was.
Sirius's eyes instantly noticed that the boy in front of him was wearing nothing but undies. Sirius hadn’t seen Remus’s naked upper body in ages. Where the scars had always been the worst; his torso and arms. He observed as said arms then wrapped around said torso…
Sirius cringed. He felt embarrassed to have looked somewhere so private.
He changed the aim of his gaze and directed it to his own body. That’s when he realized he was naked. Fully naked.
This wasn’t a big deal. At least that was what Sirius told himself. Remus was the only male-attracted person in their year that wasn’t attracted to Sirius himself.
Sirius sat and reached for the towel, on the floor just next to him. The second he moved, a wave of nausea hit him. His mouth was quickly filled with bitter saliva. He knew what this would lead to.
He got up and ran to the toilet. Luckily, there was one in every dorm. He threw up, a bit confused as to why, out of the blue, sickness had overcome him. He heard a conversation start. Once he was done he flushed it and approached his bunk.
After putting on a t-shirt and pants, he laid down. The guys had stopped talking.
He looked at the three boys. “Uhm, I don’t know what happened but I don’t feel uhm…” He swallowed.
During his little escapade to the loo, Remus had had the time to put on his shirt and trousers. He looked at James with big eyes, that bore a message. Sirius assumed he was asking James to speak, because that’s what James proceeded to do. “You might have a conclusion, it's a thing muggles get…” James seemed quite confused by the words leaving his own mouth.
“Merlin’s sake” Remus quietly whispered under his breath, but Sirius heard him. “A concussion.” Remus was still facing James. He wasn’t talking to Sirius, but only to James. His voice was now loud, clear and spiritless. “It’s a thing anyone can get.” Still looking only at James. “It’s just that muggles are the ones studying it. When you hit your head hard, it’s dangerous for your brain, and if you throw up it means you’re maybe hemorrhaging”
“what does that mean?” Peter asked.
Remus sighed. “It means bleeding. a lot.”
James and Peter looked at Sirius, searching for crimson liquid. “I’m not bleeding.” He confirmed, unknowingly hoping his affirmation would draw Remus’s eyes. Remus glanced at Sirius for a millisecond, tearing his gaze away when a momentary eye contact had been involuntarily established.
“You might be bleeding inside.” That didn’t make sense (wasn’t blood supposed to be inside?) but Remus was a smart person graced with absolute knowledge so Sirius didn’t question him. “Prongs, You should take him to the infirmary.”
Remus grabbed his tie and robe and headed towards the common room, but as he stood under the door frame, he turned around and burned his eyes into Sirius’s. “‘ ‘should watch where you’re going”
Watch where you’re going.
The last person who had ordered Sirius the same thing was his mother.
“Fuck off will ya?” Sirius’s voice sounded extremely harsh and that was all that Remus needed, to leave and not look back.
There was definitely smoke coming from the unlit candle.