Sweet Thing

by stargazedmoony

Summary:

Leather jacket. Trashed Jeans.

The boy between his legs was the raging fire he had needed to feel alive again. He did not want to lose the fire, but fires had their own way of dying out.

‘Cause hope, boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing.

Notes:

CONTENT WARNING: Sex, smoking and alcohol usage.

The descriptions that I have used to write the sex scenes are, in my opinion, not too graphic, but it is up to you to decide whether you want to continue or not. I would also like to clarify that the boys are adults in this story. It is not my intention to sexualize them nor will this ever be an intention of mine. Please, understand.

This story is based off of the three songs on David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs-album: Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise). I highly recommend listening to it. They’re my favorite part of the album.

Now, I would like to thank my best frieNd for her always honest opinion on what I do and write.
You know who you are. To the art of us.

Lastly, I would like to thank YOU — the reader. I love you.
Please, enjoy.

Chapter 1: Part one: Sweet Thing

Notes:

Emma, this one’s for you. Thank you for your infinite faith in my writing.

It’s safe in the city.

Remus had always liked the twinkling lights of the big buildings that were visible from the balcony of his small and vintage appartement in London. He liked living in the centre of things. Cities were crowded, cities were loud — he had always thought that it would make him feel less alone.

It was a lie.

Cities were nothing but loneliness.

Everywhere he looked, Remus saw something that lit up another corner of his brain with new sets of thoughts — terror, happiness, love, fear. There was too much to see and too much to bear. There was never silence and when there was silence, it was ever too loud. All that there was in between was pain and memories that Remus could not escape from.

It was a pain he’d chosen to leave behind, only it did not leave him. It was the hurting of a past that was no longer worth remembering. It was the aching of a mother who was dying and a father who had pushed him away into oblivion. It was why Remus had decided to leave home.

To love in a doorway — to wrangle some screams from the dawn.

Remus turned around on his balcony to face the glass doors to his room. The cigarette between his fingers was near to burning his fingertips, yet he took another drag. There was a certain calmness that came with the smoke that filled his lungs — as if he was rushing his problems from the inside to the outside. Inhaling them with every breath he took and exhaling them back into the world.

The sleeping beauty in his bed had not yet awoken. Remus could see the boy from just behind the glass doors, laying on his stomach with his mouth hung open a bit — he was the most beautiful boy Remus had ever seen.

And isn’t it me? Putting pain in a stranger?

Remus had chosen him that evening. He had chosen him like he had chosen every other boy the past couple of weeks. It was no ordinary thing anymore. Remus did not like to be on his own.

It had been a nightclub close to home — something that he did not do very often. He chose his nightclubs very carefully, making sure that it was far enough away from his home to never have to encounter one of his one-night stands by accident again.

He had left his appartement to find space. He did not like the cramped walls of his home. He did not like his thoughts crawling and spreading across the wallpaper like extensive mould. They caused an unsettling feeling, these thoughts — Remus often felt like breaking down the room. Tear his own being apart with it.

No, there was only so much one could take and thus, Remus had left his appartement to drink a few beers — maybe have a good smoke too. He had planned to go home again afterwards. 

But Remus knew himself — once his eyes caught onto something sweet, he could not just ignore it. And this sweet thing, he had seen it from afar, liked boys too. There would be no rejection and therefore, Remus was not afraid to approach the boy.

Like a portrait in flesh, who trails on a leash. Will you see that I’m scared and I’m lonely?

He was simply beautiful, this Sirius Black. He had been leaning so casually against the bar in his leather jacket and his trashed jeans, but when Remus went to talk to him, he was not like anything Remus had expected him to be. This boy was a token of preciousness — solid and irresistible. He looked rough, but he spoke with a voice as soothing as one can be. He had hair that looked as dark and soft as the clouds of the sky outside, slightly visibly through the windows of the nightclub.  

Remus had sat down next to him, introduced himself. They had made small talk. Remus had touched him — carefully, under the piercing eyes of the bartender.

Remus had leaned forward. The bartender had watched them closely and Remus had known it was time to leave. His words had sounded seductive when Remus told Sirius about the colours that he was made of and the colours that Remus could make him see. One would call it flirting and one would call it kissing up.

So, I’ll break up my room and yawn and I run to the centre of things, where the knowing one says, “Boys. Boys, it’s a sweet thing”.

Sirius had consented to him. It might have been Remus’ wandering hands that he could not keep to himself; it might have been their mutual craving for intimacy — whatever it had been that had pulled the trigger, Sirius had accepted his invitation. He had obeyed, like a dog obeyed to its owner.

If you want it — boys. Get it here, thing.

They had gone to Remus’ home and they had talked half of the night away. Remus was not used to do doing this at all — no, he liked a quick fuck. But Sirius insisted. He was sweeter than his edgy appearance made you think. He told Remus about himself — about his life and his family. Remus found himself staring at the boy in awe over the blue in his eyes and the curls around his face clawing at his high cheekbones.

Remus had kept nothing to himself that night — he had talked so much, he did not think he would ever talk that much to someone ever again. He had talked about his mother and he had talked about his father. He had talked about the very reason why he’d taken Sirius home tonight. Sirius would not leave because of it, he was sure.

And when he was done talking, Sirius had lifted his hand and caressed his cheek in the loving way that only boys could do this. He had reached up to undress him, slowly — carefully, in the arms of a promise that they would not talk again.

The sex had followed as the natural instinct that belonged to hungry boys. Sweat got caught in the curves of their bodies. Trembling breaths were let out between the covers of Remus’ bed — groans of pleasure and passion and lust.

Remus had thought for a wild second that he had found something that night — the boy between his legs was the raging fire he had needed to feel alive again. He did not want to lose the fire, but fires had their own way of dying out.

‘Cause hope, boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing.

Remus lit up another cigarette on his balcony, turning away from the boy in his bed and ignoring the rewinding memories of that night. The boy would wake up soon enough and leave — like they all did. It did not matter what Remus thought of him or what he thought he’d found that night. All boys were the same. They were forbidden territory.

Then why do they taste so sweet? Remus exhaled a curl of vapour, shooing the thought away.

I’m glad that you’re older than me — makes me feel important and free.

November 1959 — Sirius had told him. It did not happen very often that they were older, but Remus liked it when they were. The older ones lived on a head start. They knew what they were doing — they knew how to care for the boys in their arms and the loneliness that they knew the boys were born from.

And was Remus not lonely? Had he not cried and yelled most of his nights away in the gloominess of his appartement? Had it not been for the older boy in his bed right now, he would have spent this very evening the same way. Would it be so wrong to ask him to stay?

Yes, because one who had never known love could not possibly contain a healthy relationship and certainly — certainly not with a boy. What had happened tonight would remain a secret of the night. Sirius would leave as soon as he woke up. One-night stands never lasted anyway.

“I fell asleep.”

Remus turned around. His eyes met the tired blue ones that he’d kissed to rest. He felt foolish and childish for biting his lip the way he did. It was something college-boys did to get girls to sleep with them. “You did,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

Remus offered him his cigarette and the boy gladly took a drag. “Did I bore you?” Remus asked, watching the boy’s curly hair whirling and dancing around his face as he moved. He was wearing boxers and a plain cardigan only. His cardigan, Remus noticed. The cardigan he’d been wearing to the club.

“You did not,” Sirius answered, handing back the cigarette. Remus could feel the warmth of the boy’s lips again as he took a drag, thinking to himself that sharing a cigarette was sharing the same spit as you did when kissing.

“Are you not cold?” Sirius asked. He looked worriedly at Remus’ bare arms. It was a cool night, but Remus did not care for the cold breeze of air on his skin.

“You’ve left me hot,” he answered.

Sirius smiled lightly. He closed his fingers around the cigarette in Remus’ hand, taking it from him and inhaling a new shot of smoke. “I have never had someone tell me that.”

“It’s a shame.”

He meant it. Remus had never felt such magic as tonight.

Sirius’ touch had been like a soothing vibration on his skin. It was as though the heavens had finally decided to show Remus what pleasure was like, forcing all other experiences with boys in a corner. He had tugged at the bed sheets; he had begged for more. Shame had been on his cheeks, but lust had been on his heart. Never before had he felt what Sirius had made him feel.

“What are you thinking about?” Sirius asked.

“You,” Remus answered truthfully. Sirius’ lips curled upwards.

Does that make you smile? Isn’t that—

“Me.”

It was a simple repetition that he personified — pulled to himself. It was a reply. Yes, you are thinking about me. No arrogant hint of tone in his voice and no crown of pride on his words. It was a simple repetition. 

“You are not like the others,” Remus said.

“Is that so?” Sirius chuckled lightly.

Remus could not help but notice the surprise on his face. That is so, he thought. Not one boy that Remus had ever brought home carried such a delight in presence.

I’m in your way, and I’ll steal every moment.

He was different from the others. He had the face of a young man who was at ease and content with himself and along with it, he carried a certain boyish flair in his aura. His eyes were twinkling in the thousands of city-lights, unaware of Remus’ gaze on him. Remus liked to notice these small things — he liked the simple conversation, too. It did not happen often that the boys would linger and talk with him. Nor did they talk to him before the fucking. No one seemed to care for talking these days.

“Was it as nice for you as it was for me then?” Sirius asked kindly. His hands folded around Remus’ hips as he went to stand behind him, placing his chin in the crook of Remus’ neck. Remus shuddered lightly at his touch. He hummed in reply.

“But still something is bothering you,” Sirius said.

Sirius’ hands were everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They left their previous places, moved onto the next place — seeming to want to know Remus’ every limb. The boy’s hot breath damped his skin. It was wonderful, but Sirius was right. Still something was bothering him.

“My father would not have allowed this,” Remus said truthfully. Sirius slowly bobbed his head against Remus’ jaw. “I know,” he said, understanding. “It’s a good thing you left, then.”

Remus nodded.

“Come inside with me,” Sirius whispered in his ear. He kissed Remus’ earlobes. He kissed his jaw. He kissed the small dimple in Remus’ neck. “Come inside. I’m cold.”

Remus put out the cigarette he was still holding and he threw its filter over the railing of the balcony. He then kissed Sirius deeply on the mouth. “I’ll warm you up then,” he breathed against the boy’s lips. Something blossomed up against his inner thigh.

Sirius led him back into the bedroom and pushed him onto the bed. Remus looked up at the ceiling as the boy gently sucked at his neck. His body was in goosebumps.

“Your father, Remus,” Sirius breathed heavily. “He was wrong.”

If this trade is a curse, then I’ll bless you and turn to crossroads and hamburgers and—

Remus knew Sirius was right. It was his body that told him the answer to his father’s statement. It was the moment before reaching climax that his body burst of guilt and shame and sparks and perfection. It was perfectly good — it was fulfilling of his every desire. The good was not worth the guilt nor the shame.

It was a closed deal and were deals with demons not said to take place at a crossroad? Crossroads led to nowhere, but this — this did not. This was a one-way route. There was Sirius and Sirius only.

—boys. Boys, it’s a sweet thing. If you want it — boys. Get it here, thing. ‘Cause hope, boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing.

 

 

Chapter 2: Part two: Candidate

Notes:

Em J., here’s to you. I love you.

I’ll make you a deal like any other candidate.

Sirius stayed. He had lost his heart to Remus. He did not know how it had come about, but he had decided to stay for as long as Remus let him.

The boy was simply captivating. Sirius had never been so torn by the beauty of boy’s eyes before. Heavy clouds in skies of fine blue and dull grey, dancing around its own storm. There was fear in these eyes, but behind the fear, there were shimmers of hope.

Sirius would have been a fool to have rejected him that evening in the nightclub.

We’ll pretend we’re walking home, ‘cause your future’s at stake.

Their first night felt ages away already, yet it had only been thirteen days. Most of them, they had spent inside of Remus’ appartement. They did not have much of choice. The world was unkind to boys like them and Remus was afraid.

He was afraid of the fearsome men who lurked in the dark alleys of London’s streets. Sirius knew that the slightest suspicion would drive them from their spots and these men were not afraid to attack. They were not even afraid to kill. 

You were to act like a boy and boys did not like boys.

However, it was inevitable that they would have to go out sometime. They needed simple things like groceries, bottles of liquor and new packs of cigarettes. Remus often went alone to do this, but sometimes they went out together — for a walk or a quick cup of coffee.

And they were good at pretending. You would think that they were just two close friends. Sirius respected the space Remus asked of him.

My set is amazing, it even smells like a street. There’s a bar at the end where I can meet you and your friend. Someone’s scrawled on the walls, “I smell the blood of Les Tricoteuses”, who wrote up scandals in other bars.

The mask was taken off as soon as they returned to the familiar walls of Remus’ flat and the fake dissolved into thin air.

Remus’ appartement was nothing that Sirius had not already seen. It smelled of cigarette smoke, whiskey in wooden cupboards and sweat from clothes that needed washing. It smelled of secrecy and private conversations held only late at night. The walls were thin and covered with stains of humiliation and discomfort. They had known self-hatred and they had even known self-destruction. Sirius recognized the sight of it for the walls in his childhood home had been much the same.

I’m having so much fun with the poisonous people — spreading rumours and lies and stories they made up.

They talked a lot. Remus had been withdrawn at first, but he had given in eventually. There seemed to be so many things bothering him that he just wanted to get rid of. 

And Sirius — he had always liked to get to know the person he was sleeping with. Remus was no exception. Sirius had not known many true things in his life and Remus would know the feeling, he was sure. He had read it in the storms in his eyes.

There was no silence that they could not fill — something that surprised Sirius as much as Remus. He had never met a one-night stand who he could talk so freely with. But Remus was no longer just a one-night stand. And so, they talked and they talked — and they talked until they knew each other inside out and there was only ever more to learn.

Some make you scream and some make you sing. Some make you wish that you’d never been seen.

After the talking, there was understanding. Sirius understood the damage that Remus had grown from. He understood why Remus would only hold him at night and why he felt so uncertain in the truthful eye of daylight. Sirius pitied him. He, at some final point, had managed to break free from the world’s opinion on him. Remus had not.

It was because of this that, on the thirteenth day, Sirius lifted his hand to hold Remus’ face and he gave him the one thing that Remus had never quite known.

He kissed him with love and he lost the both of them along the way.

And kissing Remus — it was as easy as life should be.

Sirius had never known anything like it. His family would not have allowed him to ever bring home a boy. Sirius had lived his years under their roof in denial of who he was. It had teared him apart, but Remus — Remus kissed it all away. They fitted each other like the last piece to a broken mug.

But Sirius knew very well that once something was broken, it would not hold in the gripping hand of old glue. It would not last — one would grow tired eventually, of holding the pieces together.

But there’s a shop on the corner that’s selling papier-mâché, making bulletproof faces — Charlie Manson, Cassius Clay.

They had fallen asleep — Sirius against Remus’ body. He knew this because when he woke up, he woke up to a cold and empty bed. There was no light to illuminate the room and there were no silhouettes around him of anything that seemed familiar — only smells of cigarette smoke and perspiration. His body was wet with sweat and something sticky that he did not know was either his or Remus’.

If you want it — boys. Get it here, thing.

Sirius turned his head to find Remus standing outside on his balcony with his back to the room. He had done this every night until now — go outside after Sirius had fallen asleep. The glass doors were open and at once, Sirius knew that it had been the cold spring-air from outside that had woken him up. He put on the first sweater that he found and made his way outside.

“Remus?”

His voice was hoarse from not having spoken for some time. Remus seemed to startle at the sound of it and he turned around. His lips curled around a nearly burnt cigarette. It reminded Sirius of the funny feeling of Remus’ chapped lips on his chest.

“You’re awake.”

“I’m awake.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“I think so. Are you alright?”

Remus did not speak. He lit up another cigarette and handed it to Sirius. Then he lit up another one for himself.

“You’ve been here for a week now,” he said. His voice was like a sharp knife that cut through the cold of the night. Sirius nodded. “I know.”

“It’s time you leave.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“I know.”

So, you scream out of line: “I want you! I need you! Anyone out there? Any time?”.

Sirius took Remus’ hand in his. It was a small gesture, but it was the comfort that Sirius knew he needed. Tough as he looked, one could not go long without a little love.

Trés butch little number whines, “Hey dirty, I want you. When it’s good, it’s really good and when it’s bad, I go to pieces”.

There was a silence in which Remus looked up to the moon that was tucked away behind its cold companions: the clouds. Sirius watched him do so.

He had a peculiar face. It was painted with scars. His arms, too. They were inflicted on him by his father — Remus had told him this just a few days before. His father had disowned him for liking boys. Unfortunately, this was no unknown territory for Sirius.

The scars did not make him any less of a treasure, Sirius found. No, he was still as captivating as he had been at the start of that very first evening. There seemed to be a certain wisdom hidden away in the lines on his forehead and there was a hint of mystery in his crooked smile. He was untypical to one’s eyes, yet he was so beautiful.

If you want it — boys. Get it here, thing.

Remus put out his cigarette and threw it over the railing of the balcony. Suddenly, in a swift motion, he turned to face Sirius and he took both of the boy’s hands in his. “You’re so brave,” he whispered. “I’m sorry that I’m not.”

Sirius smiled sadly. He did not think that he was brave. No, proud would be the better word.

Well, on the street where you live, I could not hold up my head for I put all I have in another bed. On another floor, in the back of a car — in the cellar of a church with the door ajar.

He was proud — and how could he not? His pride had been the only thing that he could fight his parents’ disgust with.

After his mother had disowned him, he had turned to the streets and adjusted himself in ways that fitted what he needed, but the one thing that he had never been able to change was his liking for boys — boys like Remus. Young boys to his older being. The eromenos and the erastes: the passive and receptive youth in transition and the active and loving elder who had recently made the transition.

Despite everything that he had endured in life, Sirius did not consider himself brave. He was proud of who he was, yes — but that did not mean that he was brave.

Well, I guess we must be looking for a different kind, but we cannot stop trying ‘til we break up our minds.

“Let’s not talk about that now,” Sirius said. He stroked Remus’ cheek and kissed him swiftly on the lips. He kissed the boy’s cheeks and the dark circles under his eyes and he kissed the top of his head and the temples to the side of it. He had never met a boy with such fine skin to kiss.

Their lips collided as easy as the sea and her shore on a hot summer day and in the heat of the kiss, Sirius guided Remus back into the bedroom. He used his fingers to trace landslides on Remus’ scarred chest and slowly, he pursued his way up to kiss the boy’s neck.

He lost himself in the Remus’ body — let himself be carried into bursts of light and feelings that intertwined with what was there, could be there and would not ever be there again.

Sirius curved around and in and out of Remus’ body as if the night would not flee from the morning — as if the night would scratch away the claws of dawn to give them longer to relieve their despair. The corners of the room pressed down on them, as if to preserve them, just like one presses a flower between a book to preserve it forever.

But Sirius knew the breakthrough of sunlight when Remus crashed into him for the last time and it felt like the world crashed with him. The magic was over. The spark had fled.

Until the sun drips blood on the seedy young knights, who press you on the ground while shaking in fright.

They had forgotten to close the glass doors and once the heat had left the covers of the bed, Sirius shivered and looked for warmth and shelter under Remus’ armpits. It felt only natural to do so now, like everything else felt natural now too. The room and its corners and the walls and its ceiling. They had marked it as their territory — they had crafted their lives onto the wallpaper.

“D’you want me to go?” Sirius asked politely. The sun had started creaking through the curtains.

“You don’t know how much I don’t want you to go,” Remus answered. It were the truest words he would ever speak.

“Then let me stay.”

“It would only make things difficult.”

“But it would be nice.”

“Nice never does it in the long run.”

“You are quite the pessimist.”

“You are too much of an optimist.”

“You’re scared. It’s only natural.”

And before Remus was given a chance to respond, Sirius curled his arms around Remus’ neck and hid his face in the hollow beneath his ears. Remus did not push him away. Instead, he pulled him closer and held him, stroking him from under the covers.

And in the small ray of sunshine that was gleaming over the bed, they performed the simple act of loving. It was only for their gender that one would call it a mortal sin.

I guess we could cruise down one more time — with you by my side, it should be fine. We’ll buy some drugs and watch a band. Then jump in the river, holding hands.

Chapter 3: Part three: Sweet Thing (Reprise)

Notes:

Here is to every single one of you. Thank you ❥

If you want it — boys. Get it here, thing.

Sirius would have been a fool to have rejected Remus that evening in the nightclub. But he was just as much of a fool to think that he could have fixed him.

They had spent weeks — months even — together before Remus had decided to leave him. He had said that he could no longer bear the burden of secrecy. What was the value of love if you were not allowed to exercise it? Still, it had not been easy to leave — Remus had been very clear about that. “I will find you again,” he had said.

But nine months had passed and Remus had not come back to find him.

Deep down, Sirius had always known that it would happen like this. Remus was scared; he was scarred. He simply did not dare be the person he was born to be — not even with Sirius, who had promised to him that there was nothing wrong with them and that he would keep him safe from the world’s misjudgements.

Despite this promise, Remus had chosen to leave. Some would say it was an act of cowardice and others would say he was brave for it — because Remus did love Sirius. Oh, he loved him very deeply. Sirius was and would always be the first boy he had really committed himself to.

The knowledge of this made it impossible for Sirius’ pounding heart to stop hoping — it did not stop him from looking for Remus. He would see the boy’s face in some of the nightclubs he went to; he would see his face in the moon as he stood out on his own balcony. Remus John Lupin did not leave his body nor his mind nor his heart.

It took a while to pass this stage of denial and eventually Sirius grew sick and tired of asking himself the same question over and over again: when will he come back? Remus was not going to come back.

No, he had left his appartement altogether. The corners had been left empty and the wallpaper torn and when Sirius found out about this, anger set it. Resentment. Bitterness. But above all, hidden away behind the mask of all of these other emotions, there was pain.

Had it all meant nothing? The talking, the secrets and the opening up? Had it all been this massive lie? Had Remus not at all been the person that Sirius had thought he was? The appartement seemed to have become a stranger to them and they had become strangers to the appartement.

Sirius had had to change himself in order to endure this hurt.

‘Cause hope, boys, is a cheap thing, cheap thing.

“Good morning, love.”

The sudden voice jolted him. Of course, Sirius knew the boy was in his room - he had picked him up himself last night. Sirius had only hoped the boy would leave as soon as morning came. He no longer cared about making small-talk with his one-night stands.

“I brought you a jacket.”

Sirius had not noticed the snowflakes falling down on his head. He had not noticed the cold from outside spreading from his fingertips to his chest.

He turned around to look at the boy. Blonde hair, brown eyes. No storms. Sirius had forgotten his name. He’d called him ‘his lover’ between the sheets, he remembered. He only remembered because he had never told someone such a lie before.

“Thanks,” he shivered. He reached out for his leather jacket that the boy was holding.

The boy was one of the things that had happened since Remus left. He was only one of many. Many other things had changed since that day too, actually.

Sirius had found a well-paying job that was much more likeable than his old one. He had found a new appartement that had friendlier neighbours and was cleaner than the one he had lived in before. He had gotten a new piercing in his ear and he was saving money for another one.  

He had it all together and it all seemed so beautiful, but none of these things seemed to be able to fill the void in Sirius’ chest.

No, this was where the boys came in — because in the space between his legs at night, Sirius did not have to pretend to like the faces of these boys. All he cared for was the curing sensation that spread from his stomach to his toes and back to his stomach. He allowed himself to dissolve under their touch and he allowed himself to be freed from his anger and his hurt, even if it was just for a little while.

But it was never quite enough. No one could ever compare to him.

Remus’ touch was unforgettable. Sirius dreamed of it still. It was a touch that reminded him of the sun kissing the drops of water off of his skin after a swim in the ocean. It was a touch comparable to a sunburn that lingered — itching and dying to be touched and filling your insides with pleasure once you rubbed the burning spot. Remus was all those familiar things. Remus had felt like home.

Is it nice in your snowstorm, freezing your brain? 

After the anger that had made Sirius devour these innocent boys, there was bargaining. It was a phase in which Sirius felt like he was losing his mind. He had filled his thoughts of dreams that could not come true and he had emptied his desires of things he could no longer wish for.

His head was filled with endless scenarios of things that were not at all likely to happen and all involved the greatest question in history — what if?

Sirius did not like the question. It was a painful question. It was like the word ‘almost’ in sentences like: “We almost made it”, “I almost had him”. Sirius pondered: “What if we had made it?”, “What if I had still had him?”

This was just one of the phases he had to get through, Sirius knew. He would feel sad and angry and lonely — it would leave him again, too. This was just heartbreak at its finest.

Sirius sighed deeply under his breath. The boy behind him had put his arms around Sirius’ waist. They were the arms of ignorance. They were the arms of a blind fool. He wanted this boy to leave. He was in no mood for sweetness. 

But, he let him be. It would have been a waste of energy to get upset now. He withdrew into the corners of his mind and he wondered if Remus’ hands were tracing someone else’s skin — betraying Sirius like Sirius was betraying him. Was someone else breathing onto the thinking wrinkles on his forehead? Was someone else admiring the scars that stood out so harshly against his pale skin?

Out of control, these questions felt. Unanswerable.

Do you think that your face looks the same?

“That was quite something, no?”

Sirius could feel the boy grinning against his cheek. He did not like the cockiness in his voice. He had stolen from Sirius the one power that he was usually in control of: the boy was older than him. Sirius did not like it when they were older than him.

“D’you want me to leave my number?”

Sirius could no longer contain his exasperation. He wanted this boy out of his home. He should never have got so drunk last night; he should have gone to bed alone. For old times’ sake, he’d told himself. But old times were no longer old times. Old times were only new times and new times sucked.

He turned to face the boy and coldly, he looked into his eyes. “That’s OK,” he said. “You can go. I have to go to work soon.”

This was a lie. The boy knew. His face distorted and he grunted disapprovingly. “You’re one of those then,” he said, lips twitching. “I see.”

Sirius clenched his jaw, fighting his emotions away. One of those.

The hands left him and there followed a rumbling behind him — clothes being put on, things being packed and swearing from the boy’s mouth. Sirius did not turn around. The quiet that followed after the boy’s leaving was as loud as a heavy thunderstorm.

Sirius looked out over the city. It was uglier in the plain view of daylight like this. There was nothing to see, nothing to fall in love with and nothing to distract away the inevitable landing point of loss. He decided to go for a walk, despite the freezing weather.

It was almost Christmas. Spring felt ages away — Remus felt ages away. The little time that they had spent together felt like a dream to Sirius, yet it was the most real thing he knew he would ever experience. Now, seasons had changed, full moons had shed their light and days had become longer and shorter again. Time was passing like the cruel thing it was.

Then let it be — it’s all I ever wanted.

Remus’ old appartement was not a far walk. Fifteen minutes to be precise. Sirius’ feet had subconsciously taken him there — or perhaps his thoughts had not been so unconscious. Maybe he was simply suppressing them, aware of their existence and executing of their wishes, but embarrassed by their outcomes. He knew very well that it would do him no good to return there.  

There were quite a few people on the street, to Sirius’ annoyance. He did not feel much for the happy chattering — families who were going Christmas-shopping, shopkeepers who were leading people into their shops with their fancy and fake talk, children who were being greedy and loud and, worst of all, young boy-and-girl couples who were unabashedly chewing each other’s faces off in public.

There was a pain underneath the jealousy. He did not have anything against these boys and girls. It was the simple fact that he could not be like them. The matter of who he loved did not allow him to walk around so freely. It was the very reason, actually, that he was now alone.

Sirius sat down on a bench at the bus stop across the street from Remus’ old appartement. His trembling breath left his mouth in little puffs of vapour. It seemed only yesterday that a whirl of smoke just like that had curled away from his lips, up there on Remus’ old balcony.

The balcony looked the same as always, only the new couple who now lived there had decorated the rails with merry Christmas-festoons. Sirius had seen them a few times — a kind-looking girl with bright, red locks and a slightly tanned boy with tousled black hair. They looked quite young, around Sirius’ age maybe, but they had a son already.

Sirius could do nothing but stare up at the place. The sounds around him disappeared; the people’s faces became a blur to his vision.

They had replaced the curtains, he noticed. They used to be a boyish blue and grey kind of colour, like Remus’ eyes. Like the skies of the storms that his eyes reminded Sirius of. Now, the curtains were crimson red and gold. There was a chandelier on the ceiling where there had been a simple lightbulb first.

But along with the changes that Sirius now noticed, he remembered the one thing that could not be erased from those walls — Remus. Peculiar, odd and beautiful Remus.  

Remus who did not like it when the bed was made. Remus who wore cardigans on days when it was really too bloody warm for cardigans. Remus who liked books over music, but liked to sit with Sirius and listen to his favorite bands anyway. Remus who saved his laundry for Sundays. Remus who had no other shoes than the big boots of Dr. Martens. Remus who could argue like a king because of his short temper — and Remus who would make up right after such an argument.

There was the memory of laughter and fooling around and then there was the memory of kissing and the skipping of heartbeats at the locking of their lips. There was the memory of the crook in Remus’ neck that Sirius had kissed so tenderly and there was the memory of the scars on his face that Sirius had traced with care. There was the warmth of Remus’ fingertips that had always reminded Sirius of the setting sun on his skin and there were his chapped lips that had scraped across Sirius’ chest.

There was simply too much of it and Sirius could not bear it — not the curtains, not the stupid lightbulb, not the balcony and not the stupid fucking memories.

There was a happy family up in the appartement — one who did not know Sirius nor his heartache. It was no use sitting here and pounding about what could have been. The pavement seemed to insult him and the streetlights pointed him away. This street did not belong to him anymore.

His hands were freezing and his body was now shaking at its worse. Sirius’ feet finally gave way to go home — but what anymore was home?

It’s a street with a deal and a taste. It’s got claws, it’s got me, it’s got you...

But it had neither of them, for home was as lost as he was.

Notes:

And that is that. Thank you for reading this very short fiction. I don’t have anything else to add, really. I am Remus — and it is why this fiction comes from so very close to my heart.

Thank you all so much for your words and your love. I hope you enjoyed :)