"Oi, stop hovering around like a headless chicken. She'd hex you in a millisecond if you kept pestering her all the bloody time." Sirius stated from where he was sprawled across the couch by the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room, head hanging upside down on the armrest, his wand held haphazardly on one hand, just loosely hanging above, the other hand making random half-hearted gestures.
The marauders always occupied the space by the fireplace and the couch was mostly the proud property of Sirius and Remus, but the latter was currently off on prefect duties along with James' *red headed angel.*
The ever-bustling common room was unusually, awfully empty, except for James and Sirius. It would have probably been due to the fact that the OWLS were coming up the next week and that the students of Hogwarts were no longer fooling around.
Of course, absolutely nothing - not even the life-altering OWLS or NEWTS or whatever ridiculous acronyms the brilliant minds of Hogwarts were yet to come up with - could really faze the great Padfoot and Prongs, who decided to laze around aimlessly anyway, like a pair of idiots.
"Shut up, you tosser! She wouldn't bloody hex me. We're not still in the first year, remember? She's my girlfriend now." James put his hands up and looked aghast as if Sirius had said something completely implausible.
"She said she'd be back by this time, ya know? We were supposed to be planning for our hogsmeade trip this weekend and I'm getting utterly bored here."
"Oh, you don't say! Because I'm fucking ecstatic right now! Arrogant git! At least you have a girlfriend to fuss about." Sirius mumbled.
He was beginning to get frustrated with James' lovesick behaviour day by day. Especially when he was getting nowhere with his longtime crush, fellow marauder, Remus John Lupin.
"Uh? What are you on about?! Since when did you start giving a shit about stuff like this? What's gotten into you, Pads?" James asked, quietly moving towards him, his expression now soft, scraping the wooden rocking chair along, placing it beside the couch, much closer to the armrest, before flopping down on it, facing him. Sirius' head still hung upside down, and it seemed to James as if he was purposefully trying to avoid eye contact with him.
"It's nothing, Jamie. Just, leave it. I'm, I'm... Just really tired." He fiddled with his wand, distractedly.
"C'mon now, you can tell me anything. Pads, what's wrong?"
Sirius could just sense the concern on his best friend's face and he was thoroughly grateful for the presence of James in his life. He realized how the latter had immediately dropped his usual playful demeanor to actually listen to him. How he'd forgotten about Lily still being held up with perfect duties because Sirius had sounded a little troubled.
"No, it's nothing. Don't worry. I'll be okay. I always do, don't I?" Sirius smiled a little at him without shifting his upside down position and tried his best to sound reassuring, which only came out as a blatant lie, even to his own ears.
He won't be alright.
Not really.
Not with this.
Not with pining after his best friend for the last 4 years.
He was positive that he'd tried almost everything in the world to get over Moony, but nothing, absolutely nothing seemed to work in his favour - which was funny, because when Sirius Orion Black put his heart and soul into something, it was bound to happen in his favour, the world be damned!
Huh!
Maybe, he hadn't really put everything he had into getting over Moony.
Maybe, just maybe, he didn't really want to get over him, after all.
And maybe, he was just utterly, thoroughly fucked.
Stupid Moony, with his awfully long jumpers and old-ass beanies and ridiculously soft curls and wolfish smile and warm eyes and offensively attractive pale pinkish lips that deserved to be righteously devoured, thoroughly licked and sucked at -
"Okay.." James let out a heavy sigh, bracing himself before uttering the next few words carefully. "On the off chance that I might be wrong and overreaching here, which I highly, highly doubt is the case, I'm apologising in advance for asking you this but, does this… does this have anything to do with Moony?" James looked at him pointedly, as if challenging him to deny it.
Sirius' head snapped up immediately and he rose up and turned around on the couch, quick as a flash, his wand now forgotten on the floor as it slipped away between his loose grip, which only made James almost immediately laugh out loud.
"What.. how.. How'd you know?! I mean, how'd you... You know! You fucking know!" Sirius pointed his finger accusingly at his smirking friend, which only made James laugh even more.
"The whole fucking school knows, Sirius. Maybe the whole world at this point, what with your constant pining around and the puppy eyes that you make, always following Moony around everywhere, it's sickening! It's absolutely pathetic to the point where even I can't stand it anymore! And the only idiot that doesn't know it yet is Remus himself and can you really blame him, though? I mean, you could bloody shout it out to the entire universe and beyond, and he'd still look thoroughly perplexed, that oblivious bugger. For all that bookish smartness and the sarcastic appeal, our Moony can be pretty thick sometimes."
Sirius sighed, flopping back on the couch. He rested his head on the armchair, looking at the ceiling.
"I can't fucking believe this. You all knew this the whole time! And here I was waiting for someone to talk to about this."
"Marlene and Lily have had bets going around since last year you know... shit! I wasn't supposed to tell you that! Just forget I said anything like that! Lily would hex me if she knew!"
"What happened to the 'she's my girlfriend, she wouldn't hex me, blah blah' and all that bollocks, you arse? " Sirius grinned up at the ceiling quietly.
"It's Lily we're talking about, Pads." James matched his grin heartily and spoke with an adoration. "She'd never change, whether I'm her boyfriend or the arrogant piece of shit she met in the first year."
"Who said those two were mutually exclusive, prick?" Sirius hung back upside down, pointedly stuck his tongue out and was met with a soft kick across his hip from James.
"Maybe you should just talk to him, you know? He deserves to know. Obviously, he wouldn't believe it even a little because he's our Moony, the biggest self loathing idiot in the World."
Sirius leaned back, head still upside down to catch James' eyes once more and readjusted his head back comfortably against the armrest and sighed, before speaking.
"If only he knew what he does to me everytime he so much as smiles at me, Jamie. I'm done for, you know? Since the third year, I've had these strange feelings anytime I was around him and they just wouldn't go away no matter what! I felt all these little things, things I hadn't even thought I was capable of feeling in my life… I … I wanted to just look at him, all the time. I wanted to make him smile as often as possible. I wanted to just kiss him and never stop for anything or anyone in the world, you know? I wanted to hold him in my arms and I wanted to settle between his and never let him go ever… I.. at first I thought it was just a harmless crush and would go away with time, but I just... I.. I don't know why... My heart still races everytime I'm around him and it's been four fucking years and.. and it aches, it physically aches me from keeping myself at bay because I'm so fucking scared that I'd muck things up with him. He's my best mate! Oh, don't give me that look!"
"What?! You're not even looking at me! How could you say?!" James shouted back.
"You know what I mean…" Sirius rolled his eyes but continued, now looking up at the ceiling.
"And things have become really, really difficult lately. Especially since this term because he's gotten all tall and utterly fucking beautiful, with his adorable golden curls hanging down his face, his precious fucking Amber eyes piercing through mine everytime we meet each other's gaze and I just can't stand it anymore, Jamie! I just can't! Sometimes I.. I think he likes me back too, you know… and.. and I get my hopes up all high but he never brings up anything like that ever. Well, of course, he wouldn't. He just wouldn't. We all know that. If I'm scared, he'd be absolutely terrified even if he does like me back and it's just… it's so unfair how this whole werewolf thing has really crushed him from the inside because he's fucking adorable! He's literally the most beautiful thing to ever have been made in this entire fucking world and he just doesn't realize it! He's the best of us and you can't even convince me otherwise. I just, I I... Fucking fuckity fuck, Prongs! I love him. I fucking love him so much it breaks my heart!"
Sirius practically whined and whispered the last part, and closed his eyes, sighing in defeat.
There was a soft gasp from behind them right near the portrait hole and James quickly turned around to see where, or rather who it came from. But Sirius had missed the sound completely and was still wallowing in his feelings, head resting on the armrest, eyes shut tight.
James' eyebrows almost shot up to his hairline. He clamped a hand over his mouth. The silence that lingered around them at that minute was quite deafening to his own ears.
How ironic!
From behind the object that let out that soft noise, Lily waved her hands violently at James and signalled for him to just get the hell out of there along with her. James just looked at the object that stood before her and the object that was just laying still on the couch back and forth. The object that was before Lily seemed to be completely stunned and the object on the couch too made no effort to move.
"Isn't this way past the moment where you'd say something absolutely mental and grin at me like an idiot, Jamie... because I'm telling you, even that's way, way better than the silence that's slowly killing me right now." Sirius spoke with such uncertainty that it nearly broke James' heart. It seemed to him that his best friend was still blissfully unaware of the presence of two more entities in the room, barely inside but nevertheless, entirely too present.
James wanted nothing more than to hug the hell out of Sirius and reassure him like always, but he trusted Lily on this and with a heavy heart, strode quickly and entirely too quietly all the way to the portrait hole to stand right beside them. He placed a hand firmly on Remus' shoulder and looked at him with assurance, despite being unsure himself, and smiled fondly.
He whispered, "Moony, I just… I just hope you do the right thing, you know… He's... He's my.."
Lily immediately cut off what was gonna be an elaborate speech on James' best friend, practically his brother. She grabbed him by the arm and rushed out along with him, not before pulling Remus in for a warm hug, a kiss on the cheek and a quiet, "Told you!" with such a soft smile, that James almost definitely missed.
Remus' legs automatically sped towards the boy on the couch, who looked like he was gonna crumble and disappear any minute. He had his hands clamped over his face completely and looked like he was still waiting for a reply from Prongs, his brother. Remus strode all the way next to the couch, and leaned over, hands trying to reach the other boy carefully.
Sirius suddenly sensed the warmth of a person next to him and snapped open his eyes, only to be completely shattered by the presence of the one person he thought he shouldn't be seeing in this state.
In utter shock, tears immediately welled in his eyes even before he could quickly rise to his feet in front of Remus. He opened and closed his mouth like a fish gaping out of water and it didn't help that Remus almost mirrored his expression.
Sirius' mind wandered around a million little thoughts before one particularly heartbreaking thought brought him right back to the present. He thought that he'd horrified Remus for life. Sirius thought that his Moony would now hate him for the rest of his life. And that last thought made him spill out words on their own accord. But being the idiot in love that he was, he stuttered awkwardly, nevertheless.
"Moon... Moony, when… when did you come in? Where's… where's James? I... I was... I was just talking to him.." He tried articulating every word properly by blinking back his tears, his eyes frantically searching for James. The grey pair of orbs wandered left and right and everywhere, before landing on Remus'.
"I don't know when he left... I just.. I don't know... When.. When did you come in, Moony? Please... Please just tell me everything's okay... You just came in, right? You... You didn't hear anything, right? You didn't… I... I'm .. I'm so sor-"
He was abruptly cut off from his rambling by Remus surging forward and swiftly capturing his tired, ever-talking, ever-expressive, ever-beautiful, ever-kissable lips. The book satchel that hung loosely around the prefect's shoulder fell heavily on the ground and he just couldn't care any less.
Remus held his face carefully with one hand the second their lips met, while Sirius gasped audibly, and wrapped the other hand around his waist and suddenly, this felt like the easiest fucking thing in the entire world for him.
This felt so natural.
He imagined doing this everyday for the next 30 years (Poor idiot only expected 30 years in his condition) and realized that he wouldn't want anything else at all.
Especially when Sirius in turn, placed one of his hands on the nape of his neck and pulled him in, and with the other hand, delicately brushed aside his curls, slowly moving down around his neck and down and down, to finally wrap itself around his waist. Remus decided that he definitely wouldn't want to do anything else besides kissing Sirius like his heart, soul and the functioning of every fibre in his body depended on it.
And after what felt like only mere seconds but was definitely a looooooong long time - they were both just gasping for air from the sheer intensity of it - Remus released Sirius slowly and placed his forehead against his. He saw tears falling down from the other boy's eyes, grazing his cheek, and brushed them away rapidly with one hand, the other hand steadily holding Sirius against him. Neither of them could really contain their smiles. Sirius' knees, no, actually his entire body needed support because he felt like he was just gonna float away. But Remus just held him in place and he didn't seem like going anywhere in the World.
"I… I love you too, Pads. I should have said this out loud a long time ago. And since we're being completely honest with each other now... Aren't we?" Sirius nodded his head vigorously and smiled widely.
"For me, it's always been you. And it's been longer than it has for you. 2nd year? The morning after, you know? In the infirmary. When I found you right next to me, hugging me tightly like I was gonna just disappear. Honestly, your lanky limbs were poking me all over and it was quite painful..." Sirius nudged him on the cheek lightly and chuckled.
"But, I realized I could never love anyone the way I loved you in that moment because... it just simply wasn't possible. I just knew it… I knew my simple crush was no longer just as simple anymore when I started eagerly anticipating the full moons just because you'd be there all wrapped around me the next day and all I wanted was for us to just stay like that forever… And ever since, I've always known... It was gonna be you. It was always gonna be you… but.. but how could you not know, you idiot? How could you not see? How could you think anyone in the world could resist you, Pads!" He squished Sirius' face in between his hands, nuzzling his cheek, warm breath ghosting over his entire face, and inhaled deeply.
"How could anyone not love you?" Remus whispered.
This time, Sirius surged forward, almost knocking Remus over in the process. They both clung on to each other, their lips entwined together like they were meant to be, and it felt like too much and not nearly enough at the same time.
"You know, as a prefect, you're all about saving time and shit Moony. Imagine how much time we could've saved if you'd said something sooner..." Sirius broke apart, chuckling softly and Remus wanted to swallow that sound whole as and when it left his mouth. So he did just that.
*I can do this anytime I want* - he thought sheepishly.
Yes, he could kiss Sirius whenever, wherever, however he wanted and that thought alone was enough to drive him off the edge and make him go weak in the knees, and he lost his balance and pushed Sirius backwards onto the couch and toppled over him clumsily, all without breaking the kiss. "Ow!"
They both broke into fits of laughter and ended up stealing a million kisses in between.
___
Meanwhile, in the astronomy tower...
James was pacing back and forth in an unimaginable pace, with Lily looking at him in amusement.
"Oh Merlin, Lily. You should've seen him! He looked so heartbroken when he confessed it to me. He would be thoroughly shattered if Remus rejects him. I hope... I hope things are okay between them Do you think things would be okay between them I think Pads will need me there with him Don't you think so I should probably go down there and check on them Oh Merlin he might be wandering around somewhere dangerous at this hour if things hadn't gone well really -"
Lily once again cut off his rambling abruptly but this time, by holding his face tightly between her hands and kissing him fiercely. She broke apart after a few seconds and grinned up at him. He looked thoroughly confused.
"So, everyone in the school knows that Sirius has been not-so-secretly pining after Remus, right?"
James nodded quietly.
"Well, obviously the whole school except Remus, of course, because that idiot has been pining after him for the last four and a half years. He confessed it to me one day, of course, only after I promised him I wouldn't tell a soul about it. And... And you told me just how broken Sirius seemed a few minutes ago, right? Believe me, I have seen Remus in the same state for all these years and I've been waiting for these two pillocks to just confess their love to one another every single day ever since. Do you know how many days I've pestered Remus to just talk to the other idiot? I kept trying to tell him subtly every now and then, about how Sirius would probably, most definitely, reciprocate his feelings. They just had to know it from one another. And here they have, finally! Thank Merlin! So, there's absolutely nothing to worry about, love. In fact, you'd actually be doing them a huge favour by giving them the privacy that they much, much deserve after all these years of constant pining. They'd probably be off snogging each other's faces right now, and Merlin knows what more! So .... "
James let out a breath he'd been holding and laughed out loud, ecstatic! He looked at his girlfriend happily and imagined how it would've been like, for his two best mates to realize their feelings for one another. It was undeniably the most beautiful feeling in the World that cannot ever be replaced and James would know all about it. He threw his hands up in the air and began practically jumping up and down, pulling Lily along with him, who also jumped along in joy. He pulled her in for another kiss and rejoiced, for if anyone deserved all the love and happiness in the world, it was Sirius and Remus and James would see to it that they absolutely get it all, in every way there was possible. Moreover, he had Lily with him on this, and that was everything he could ever ask for.
__