Moonage Daydream
The first time it happened they had been sprawled on the carpeted floor in one of the rooms from the Potter mansion, barely wearing clothes, with the suffocating intensity of the humid Scottish summer pressing onto their skins, coating them with the lazy fatigue and the feeling of never-ending freedom proper of the season.
The Who blasted through the volume charm-altered record player singing of buoyant people and granted liberty. And Sirius and Remus where in a liminal sort of space, yet to be touched by the spindly and crooked fingers of responsibility incoming from their sixth year at Hogwarts, and leaving well behind the rather awkward miscellanea of unfortunate events that had woven together into their pre adolescent years.
It was all fine, except it wasn’t.
See, harbouring a secret crush for someone you’re rather close to was, Sirius had decided, a bit like trying to keep in a fart by only wearing a thick pair of pants, sometimes, the stinky shit just seeped through accidentally. And with Remus, the fart cloud was too fucking big and too fucking stinky (his analogy needed some polishing).
Every bitten pencil butt while hunched over an essay on his bed, every small fall of cigarette ash over the sill of their dorm window or the balcony of the astronomy tower- always an Embassy Regal and always tapped twice absentmindedly. Every press of cold fingers to the back of his neck whenever Remus subtly warned him to pay attention at a History of Magic lesson , not knowing that him getting all of his attention was keeping Sirius from actually listening to whatever had happen in fifteen-hundred-fucking-something between some witches and a muggle king, and every single convoluted parallelism Remus had somehow drawn up between a character from some novel and Bowie’s Starman, which Sirius asked him about after a particularly rowdy full moon to distract him from the pain. Every small, seemingly insignificant fraction of a part that made up his best friend was one shove closer to the looming, hand tremblingly, terrifying abyss of loving that threatened to make him fall for all eternity of this universe and whichever one came next.
It was disgustingly cheesy, chillingly frightening, and frankly, all-around stupid.
“I like Bowie better”, Sirius said, staring at the ceiling, needing to break the silence lest he be shoved a little further by the way Remus bobbed his head to the beat of the song. The movement was making him twitchy, his jittery foot wasn’t releasing much nervous energy, and a single drop of sweat was running slowly and disgustingly down his back, he figured something had to be done- that is, other than stopping Remus’ movements with both of his hands and making the goo of smitten patheticness that was his brain melt inside of his skull for the close contact.
“’s not bad, though”, Remus replied-right, they were having a conversation- letting his right cheek squish into the carpet to look directly at Sirius.
“’suppose not, but it’s too catchy and, I dunno, poppy , Bowie is more soulful, it hits more”.
“ Poppy ? What does that even mean?”
“Yeah y’know, it relies a lot on the beats and the drums and like the umm rhythms an- oh come on don’t fucking laugh at me Remus ’m not a fucking music specialist, I don’t fucking know what I’m talking about ” .
“Well you had me fooled there what with your poppy rhythms and all” Remus spluttered sarcastically through fits of chuckles.
“Sod off, wanker”, Sirius said, already joining in on the laughter, shoving Remus’ arm playfully and being pushed further down the chasm by a playful smirk and a rolling of hazel eyes.
“I’d thought you would have liked it more, especially ‘ Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’ it’s got your whole devil-may-care thing going on”, Remus commented.
“Oh yeah , that one was a good one, very rebellious-anthem but the whole album just isn’t Bowie’s Ziggy, y’know? Besides, ‘ Moonage Daydream’ reminds me of you so please be so kind to let me and David be, Lupin”, he could feel Remus’ gaze on him, even if he couldn’t meet it, and he just knew one of his eyebrows was raised in that ‘your mouth is spilling all sorts of bullshit right now but I’m more intrigued and amused than actually annoyed’ way of his, “What?” Sirius turned his face to the left, met the eyes staring back at him and, with an undeniable truth so wrapped up in playful and dramatic haughtiness it could hopefully pass for a quirky little joke, he said, “ I’d be a rock ‘n’ rollin’ bitch for you , Moony”
Remus snapped his eyes shut, sighed, and turned his face towards the ceiling, cringing but visibly amused, “That was terrible Sirius, my god”
“Oh, come on! You liked it, no shame in admitting it”
“No, I meant it that was a shitty line, you’re losing your game, Padfoot, whatever happened to the gallant man you once were”
“Oi! I’m still a Perfectly Gallant Man, Remus, thank you very much” he replied, unable to hide his amusement but still aiming for faux indignation, “’sides, you make me nervous, what can I say?”
He didn’t really know how that had slipped out of his mouth, a truth so very bare that he felt everyone could see the way his heart was galloping a mile a second (a thing that happened every time he bantered with one Remus John Lupin), as if someone had suddenly opened his ribcage and put him on a glass display to signal educationally ‘ This is what happens when you are hopelessly in love kids, beware!’ . He hadn’t even had the time to wink a bit too suggestively or sound a little less like a lovesick twat before his tongue and teeth had hung the words above them, in a sudden burst of rebellion against the rest of his body. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
But Remus, blessedly oblivious and too used to Sirius’ unabashed flirtatiousness Remus, simply shook his head and let out a small laugh, “Shut up”, he said.
Thank fuck.
The conversation died down then, Sirius allowed himself to relax, and a blanket of humid heat and companionable silence settled upon them, allowing for the crooning of drum hits and guitar strings to fully take over the air around them. The whole atmosphere seemed unreal, a proper mirage, and he was getting swept up onto the on-going dreamlike state of laying in only his pants (35ºC aren’t to be taken lightly) next to the boy that held the starring role of his dreams.
His eyes inevitably stuck on a rising bony wrist attached to a big hand that sailed across the ceiling and begun abruptly falling close- too close- to his own body. He wasn’t going to pretend there was much more to look at, or else his eyes would be roped in by jutting collarbones peppered in freckles, or long silvery scars that mapped their way through barely poking ribs and got lost in their route towards protruding hipbones and- Sirius was looking at Remus’ hand, and Remus’ hand was now peeking out from underneath Remus’ sea of sweat dampened curls, and knobbly fingers were reaching towards a strand of long black hair- his hair - tugging at it and tangling it with little infinity symbol-shaped movements, like it was nothing, like Sirius wasn’t silently wishing eternity would take over them and drew out that moment forever.
Sirius gave up some of his left ear hearing in favour of pressing his face to the floor, cheekbone aching where bone prodded at skin and blood vessels, as if trying to crawl its way out. His whole body facing that of the man next to him, fulfilling the need to look at him properly. Remus’ head moved barely an inch to the right, eyebrows pinched in his very distinct thinking face to scan at Sirius’ face, but now their noses were millimetres apart from one another. Sirius almost flinched backwards in fear of letting out too much, for it seemed every miniscule bone that made up his skull was jabbing at his skin to force him to move closer or else tear through his skin.
He sighed, tracing with his eyes the riverbed of a scar that jumped in a lump in a nose, and found its end at the prickly blond hairs that dusted Remus’ lips. He was staring, fuck. He dragged his eyes back up again, his vision suddenly weighing a million pounds, only to find a pair of hazel eyes fixated south from his own, on his lips. How hot was hot enough to provoke hallucinations? He might have to research that later. Whatever figment of his imagination had been flickered on by the heat was strong enough to begin procuring the image of Remus’ entire body rearranging itself mirror Sirius’ own. The sudden loss of fingers tangled on his hair so real, he began to wish for the whole situation to be a mirage. He knew from experience that daydreams didn’t brand his brain matter in the scalding way that possible flirting, lingering touches and countless what-ifs did. The moment wormed through the ridges of his Temporal Lobe and etched itself there, and as soon as he became aware of that, did the realisation dawn on him that it all was unnervingly real. This exact scene wouldn’t be leaving his mind any time soon, Remus haunting his brain had become a very recurring scenario, even before he’d been able to actually place the label of ‘ BIG FAT CRUSH’ on the box of small and too detailed memories he’d been keeping of his best mate for the better part of the past two years.
The stylus scratched itself towards the centre of the vinyl at the record player, washing out the last notes that comprised Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy with static-like splutters of needle over empty, dusty plastic. The heat seemed to get more pressing, as each second that ticked by slaughtered silently and slowly the mere inches of palpable space that now drew the boys’ faces together almost gravitationally. Remus sighed; a barely-there tense set of his face evacuating his body through his lips, Sirius realised then that the other boy might’ve been nervous, up until the moment he himself moved his face to interrupt the static between them too- as if he ever could’ve moved away. The sigh was a breeze on Sirius’ lips, and his eyes flickered upwards to hazel ones right in front of him, staring expectantly at his, glinting in a dare to step in or back, even if the rest of Remus’ face remained schooled in a stoic expression. They were both very well aware of what was about to happen, Sirius realised. And none of them were pulling away.
Breaths mixed together, eyes never wavered, a brave- albeit a bit shaky -hand cupped a scared cheek…
And James Fucking Potter slammed the door open in a cacophony of excited screams urging them to stand up and “Do something for Merlin’s sake you lazy fuckers, whatever the hell do I invite you to spend the summer with me for, damn it! Also mum made lemonade!”
Sirius and Remus sprung apart, burned by the heat now scalding between them and the latter pulled himself swiftly to a standing position to retrieve a shirt without missing a beat. The former however, became impuissant to take action as he stared at a black spot on the ceiling wood beams, chest heaving, trying to pull in air that wouldn’t stay the fuck put in his lungs, head reduced to a broken record that only played ‘ what in the bloody buggering hell has just fucking happen’ in an endless loop.
Remus’s head popped into his field of vision, smiling faintly in a way that was so rare Sirius wasn’t really sure what it meant, another thing to do some research on then. Sirius didn’t even have the time to panic over The Fuck That Had Just Happened before the infamous hand got extended towards him in an open invite to a rain check ( Maybe? Hopefully? Oh Merlin) . Remus hauled him to his feet in a too-quick movement, making Sirius’ brain bob idiotically in his head for a second or too that left him light-headed due to a list of reasons that might’ve begun with the heat, definitely followed up with the sudden movement, and possibly finished with THE FUCK that has JUST HAPPENED, HOLY SHIT.
And just like that, after a few minutes of regaining their bearings, they treaded behind a black hair mess of pent up energy that was strutting down the hallway before them, leaving the record-player, the touches, and the almost-kiss behind.
For the time being at least.