Work Text:
“I don’t want to dance.”
Sirius grasped his hand and pulled him forward towards the couples dancing, to James and Lily in the centre of it all, tucked so fiercely against each other they didn’t end or begin outside the embrace.
Remus wrinkled his nose, following Sirius as he tugged him into his arms, one hand on his waist and the other holding Remus’ hand between their chests. Sirius stepped closer, breath brushing his cheek.
“I know you want to, just a bit,” he grinned.
Remus rolled his eyes and moved closer. “Shut up.”
They swayed, Sirius leading in a not-quite dance, warm palm at Remus’ waist, holding. It was like that for several songs, slow and quiet, just for them. His flushed face faded and he turned his head into the curve of Sirius’ ear, into the scruff of hair that smelled like sandalwood and cedar, something deep and inexplicably Sirius.
It came to end, as it would have to. Remus adjusted his suit jacket, folded arms around his torso. He smiled. “That was nice.”
Sirius looked at him, dark hair brushing his shoulders, tailored lines of his suit clinging to the shape of him. He tucked a strand of hair curling at his eyes behind his ear. Breathed out and said, “Yeah, it was.”
///
They kissed that night, in the entryway of their flat, shedding ties and jackets, hands frantic and pleading. They woke in the morning wound in Sirius’ bed, his sheets, in the chaos of his room. Remus was immersed, embedded, torn to shreds as the morning light – curtains hastily tugged closed the night previous, a gap spilling sunlight – curved across the bare expanse of Sirius’ torso. The dip at his hips leading to his strong thighs, dark hair scattered across the pale skin. His leg was hooked up and covering the length Remus took in his mouth hours ago, worshipped at the altar, prayed at the feet of his best friend with his hands wound in Remus’ hair, urging him on. His head had thrown back as he finished, taut throat and a soft, oh, Remus, oh, tumbling from his lips.
Remus shifted, brushed fingertips across his shoulder. His skin was so smooth, a marble carved sculpture, an artist’s impression of male beauty.
Sirius’ eyes fluttered open, soft and warm as he caught Remus’ gaze. “Morning,” he murmured and leaned forward, brushing against Remus’ lips.
And Remus closed his eyes, moved into him, pulled in to the magnetic force of Sirius. It had been leading here since they were fourteen years old, boyish and soft with their youth.
It was a fool’s errand, a hiccupping breath before heaving sobs, the first entrenched shudder of an earthquake before everything became dust, cracked paths and blood. To start something that began in the secret corners of his own mind, a fantasy – in love with his best friend. Even more of a fantasy to believe it would ever be anything more than this.
///
“How was your fuckfest?” Sirius shouted, all loose grins and flushed cheeks, several drinks into the night.
James groaned and Lily smacked his shoulder as they took their seats. Remus covered his face with his hands and laughed.
“What?” Sirius exclaimed. “It was a honeymoon! I can’t imagine you did much else.”
Lily took a long drink of her beer. “Well,” she cleared her throat, “No.”
James gasped. “We went to the beach!”
“I feel like sex on the beach would get sand in all kinds of awful places,” Peter chimed in, draining half his beer in one go.
Remus nodded, wrinkling his nose. “It does.”
Peter winced and James cackled. Sirius stared at him from across the table. Then, with a calculated smile, toed his shoe up Remus’ calf until he reached his thigh. Remus grasped Sirius’ ankle and squeezed around the knobbly bone. Perhaps the only awkward part of Sirius’ body, jutting out too far from a bad break in sixth form. Peter was asking James and Lily about a hike from their honeymoon and Remus’ focus was narrowed in on the delicate place where his and Sirius’ skin met. He brushed his fingers lightly across the fine hairs near the sharp dip of his tendon. Sirius let hair fall across his cheeks, bottom lip tucked beneath his teeth. Remus remembered the vivid red they had been that morning, shiny and –
Sirius pushed further up and pressed the sole lightly against Remus’ cock. The muscles in Remus’ thigh tensed and an aching puff of air escaped his mouth. He narrowed his eyes at Sirius. Sirius flicked out his tongue and licked his bottom lip where his teeth had dug into moments before.
“Another round?” James asked, leaning forward and peering at them both.
Remus drained the rest of his beer and shoved the glass to the middle of the table. It toppled over and clattered against the sticky wood. “Please,” he breathed.
Lily frowned at him but stood with a careless brush through James’ mess of dark curls. The music, eighties rock, cranked higher and James clapped his hands. The glasses vibrated against the table. Remus clenched his teeth; Sirius adjusted his foot.
“Sirius, where the fuck are your legs?” Peter grumbled, kicking his own feet at the end of the table and moving to duck below its obscuring view.
Sirius yanked his foot off Remus, cracking against both Peter and Remus’ shins in the process. “Sorry,” he said. Winced as Remus leaned down to rub his shin. “Sorry, I was taking up too much room.”
“Keep your legs to yourself, mate,” sighed Peter.
Lily returned at that moment, tumble of red curls falling over her shoulder, freckles deepened from their honeymoon in Italy. She was glowing in the afternoon sun streaming through the large pub windows, the door open to the tentative breeze.
“Yeah, Sirius,” Remus teased, taking a long drink of the beer Lily set in front of him. “Keep your legs to yourself.”
Sirius glared, tossed his hair, and wrangled James into a game of pool. Remus adjusted himself below the table when his back was turned.
Three pints later, Remus stood in the dim hall leading to the bathrooms, wiping damp hands on his jeans. It was another breath, and Sirius was on him, pressing him against the wall and mouthing hotly at his neck, wandering hands and steady pressure grinding their hips together.
“Fuck,” Remus choked out. He wound his fingers into Sirius’ hair and pulled him in for a long kiss, open mouthed and dirty. He pulled back. “Sirius.”
Sirius skimmed his lips along Remus’ cheekbone, hand trailing beneath his shirt and up his abdomen, fingers rasping against the sensitive skin.
Remus groaned and pushed him into the opposite wall, hands dragging down his body as he kissed Sirius again.
He was panting as he said, “Someone will see us.”
It had been two weeks. Most things unspoken; except the whispered exaltations into each other’s mouths.
Sirius pulled back, head resting against the wall. His eyelids were heavy, mouth open and wanting. “No they won’t.”
Remus licked the hinge of Sirius’ jaw. “Yeah,” he breathed against the skin, “They will.”
“Well, Remus, you’ve already had sex on the beach. Ever done it in a public bathroom?” he asked with a cocky smile. It was a smile that convinced Remus of all manner of things when they were young, and worked even better with Sirius pressed against him, hair tangled from his hands, already looking well-fucked.
“Sirius.”
His hands drifted down, beneath the waistband of Sirius’ jeans and grasping his ass over the thin fabric of his briefs, dragging their hips together. They both moaned. Sirius’ eyes fluttered, long lashes some dangerous fucking mechanism of seduction. He was too pretty for words.
Sirius rocked against Remus. “Baby,” he breathed, “C’mon.”
Remus groaned into a whimper at the base of Sirius’ neck, tongue making a path along the sweat slicking his skin. That fucking pet name, uttered one morning into his ear as Sirius’ fingers delved deep inside him, sleep still clinging to their mouths as they kissed, wet and desperate, knowing this was going to end, all the more frantic in their want because of it. He said it and Remus melted and he fucking knew it. Knew the way Remus loved it and hated it in equal measure, ached for it - for him.
“Fuck,” Remus said, prayed, against Sirius’ mouth. “Okay.”
Sirius sucked him off in the single stall bathroom, hands traversing their own path against his body – his thighs, his hips, his stomach – and carving out each trail for himself, marking ownership of Remus’ body, invisible ley lines that would forever yearn for him, just him.
They wound their way back to the table separately, the hickey on Sirius’ neck unable to be covered. James spent the remainder of the night trying to guess which person in the pub gave it to him. He didn’t once bother with Remus, nor the twin bruise hidden on his thigh.
///
Everything ached, just a bit. It lived in him, this constant waiting, the tension cracking up his spine. It was the anxiety that choked out his lungs and prevented him from sleeping. He was waiting.
Last night: up until two in the morning listening for his heavy footsteps across the creaking wood floors, the squeal of the front door on its hinges. It was some work party, they always ran late. Him and James were the best at talking in their department, the best at hooking in investors for their law firm they worked at, the one that helped the wrongly convicted.
And Remus knew, he knew that Sirius casually hooked up with one of his co-workers, without fail, after these parties. Remus had listened to it through their shared bedroom wall on more than one occasion, head shoved under his pillow, anger and embarrassment and yearning tangled up in his chest. And Derek was always fucking loud.
But Sirius had knocked into the hallstand at two in the morning, rattling the umbrella and hats off their perch. He swore under his breath, in that raspy timbre he got after midnight. His footsteps wound down the hall. Remus had held his breath until Sirius passed his door.
Sirius was alone. But he hadn’t come to Remus.
It wasn’t like they shared beds, or had sex, every night. They were friends still, careful and always a little wanting in their interactions, in the brush of knuckles across forearms reaching for the teapot over breakfast. But it left him hollow, to be alone that night.
Remus was tired.
But he had dragged himself to Marlene’s birthday, gathered her in a tight hug and gotten drunk with his friends before midnight.
He leaned against the bar, the lip of it digging into his lower back. It was dark and loud and sweaty. They were all adults but something about summer made them think they were eighteen again, that they could do whatever they wanted; skip lectures in the morning and sleep all day, or dance until three in the morning despite the exhaustion that lingered after a full work week. After a half sleepless night waiting for the man you’re in love with to return home, waiting for it to be with someone that wasn’t you.
Cool glass pressed against the back of his bicep. Remus startled and turned to a man holding out an unopened bottle of beer with a sweet grin and golden hair.
“Drink?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.
Remus hesitated, breath halting in his lungs. The man was already holding his own beer.
Remus nodded, tried a smile. “Sure.”
The man grinned, settling closer, thigh against Remus’. “I’m Xavier.”
Remus opened the offered beer with his forearm and took a long pull. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, ignored the way Xavier tracked the movement. “Remus,” he replied.
“Remus?” He tilted his head again. “That’s a strange name.”
He shrugged. He had been to university and done freshers week. He’d had this interaction a thousand times over. “Yep,” he said. Took another drink. “My mum liked mythology stuff.”
Xavier grinned and shrugged. “It’s cool. I like it.”
Remus laughed a bit at that. “Thanks, I guess.”
“Sorry,” Xavier began, wrinkling his nose. “You probably –“
Remus’ attention was diverted as he tracked Sirius stalking from their booth, passed the bar, the quickest flash of his eyes to Remus before Sirius pushed out the bar and onto the street.
“Oh,” Remus muttered. He glanced at Xavier who was watching him with a small frown. “I’m sorry,” he said, wincing and putting down his beer. “I’ve just – my friend- I’ve got to go.”
Remus strode into the night, finding Sirius leaning against the glass window of the next store. He paused in front of Sirius, kicked his shoe with his own.
“Hey,” he said.
Sirius cocked a brow and inhaled a long drag from his cigarette. Remus raised both of his in return and held out a hand for the cigarette. Sirius passed it over, their fingers brushing, and watched as Remus placed it between his lips, sucking slowly, burning red ember glowing in the dark street between them.
“Nice bloke you were talking to,” Sirius commented as he took the cigarette back.
Remus shrugged, searched for eye contact Sirius wouldn’t give. “He already bought the beer. Felt rude to not take it.”
Sirius sneered and tried to cover it by inhaling again. “Always so fucking nice,” he muttered while smoke streamed from his mouth.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “You’re never one to say no.”
“Aren’t I?” Remus snapped, tired irritation clawing up his throat, clattering behind his teeth.
Sirius stared at him; moonlight catching silver across his pale skin. Remus hated how fucking pretty he was. He said, “The kid looked about nineteen.”
Remus sighed, quick and short. “Well I wasn’t blowing him at the bar, Sirius. I let him give me a drink.”
Sirius looked away. His leather jacket skewed off his shoulder, exposing the harsh line of his collarbone. He was all harsh lines then, taut arms and legs stretched long in front of him. Quietly, “Maybe you should go fuck him then.”
“Why the fuck would I do that?” Remus spat.
Sirius threw down his cigarette and ground his boot into it. “I don’t know,” he gritted out. “Aren’t you?” His back was pressed against the wall, legs pushing him into the glass, like he was straining away from Remus.
“Are you?” challenged Remus. His cheeks felt burning hot.
Sirius ran his tongue over his teeth. “No,” he said, cracked and warm. “No, of course not.”
Remus blew out a breath, letting his body sink. He stepped forward, hands cupping Sirius’ neck, crowding into his space. Ran his nose and lips along his jaw, placed several soft kisses to the bone and one against his lips, whispered into the rough stubble in the hollow of his cheek, “Why would I? With anyone else.”
Sirius caught his lips and held him there, in the suspension of their tenuous and unspeakable thing, helpless in his breath.
///
The thin metal was cool in his grasp, fingers between the fence’s links. The fence wall swayed as Sirius climbed onto it, testing if it would hold by bouncing several times. His head was turned up to the top. Remus let himself stare.
“This is fine!” Sirius assured, glancing back at Remus with a smile. “We can climb this.”
Remus ran a hand over his face and blinked up at Sirius. “I’m not sure my body is up for the task.”
Sirius scoffed and jumped down, pulling Remus into his arms, both swaying on their feet, and nipped at his cheek. “I happen to have firsthand knowledge with your body. It’s more than up for it.”
“Well you would say that,” Remus muttered, pressing lips against a smile. “I’m comforted by a bed usually.”
Sirius grinned, wicked. “Last week we were very flexible in the back of your car.”
Remus huffed and kissed him quickly before shoving him away. He made it halfway up the fence and said, “We aren’t fourteen anymore.”
Sirius was next to him in one move, hanging off the fence with one hand, the other squeezing Remus’ ass. “Thank god for that,” he hummed. “Couldn’t manhandle you back then.”
Remus snorted and clumsily manoeuvred over the fence, dropping down with a jolt to his knees on the other side. Sirius followed and started stripping.
The pool glimmered with white lights beneath the surface of the water. A tall lifeguards chair stood on the opposite side, a squat building with toilets and a canteen, where you were supposed to enter during daylight, was to their left. Sirius was down to his briefs, goose bumps pimpled along his arms. Remus wanted to swipe his hands across the flesh, warm Sirius in his arms.
He removed his jacket.
Sirius’ phone rang. He dug it out of his jacket pocket and Remus caught James’ name before Sirius cancelled the call.
Remus frowned. “You can answer that, you know.”
Sirius ducked his head and moved to the edge of the pool. “I told him I was working.” He slid into the water.
Remus clenched his jaw, teeth scraping raw against each other. He removed the rest of his clothes, not looking at Sirius. Despicably wanting to look at Sirius.
“Remus,” he sighed. There was a fragile pause. “Baby,” he murmured. Remus kept his body strung tight. “If I said I was with you he would’ve wanted to come.”
And we can’t be this in front of anyone else.
Remus wasn’t even sure why, but it felt like everything would crumble if they admitted it outside the confines of them. This was fragile, sacred. It couldn’t be shared because then it could be destroyed.
Walking to the edge of the pool, Remus nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course.”
Sirius wrapped fingers around Remus’ ankle and tugged lightly. “C’mon.”
Remus looked at him, unwilling smile at Sirius by his feet, slick hair and water droplets cascading across his skin. Sirius’ expression softened and he breathed out, “You’re just the prettiest thing.”
Remus wrinkled his nose and joined Sirius in the water. Sirius wrapped arms around his neck, legs around his waist, and Remus responded with arms enfolded tight against his waist.
They kissed then.
Remus recalled it, even in the moment, as dangerously sweet.
///
Lily slapped his hand. “Stop pulling at it.”
“It’s so short,” Remus huffed.
Lily reached up, adjusting the gold halo settled above his curls with a thin headband and smoothed out the white dress that fell halfway down his thighs. “Well you wouldn’t have had to borrow my dress if you’d come shopping with me last weekend.”
Remus pouted, just a bit. Lily returned it with an unimpressed look. That look only ever seemed to work with Sirius over the years.
James joined them then, dressed in tight, yellow pants and a white singlet. He was carrying a drill in one hand and two beers in the other. He handed a bottle to Remus and ducked around Lily, kissing her cheek.
“You make a dashing Romeo,” he complemented. Lily winked and Remus smoothed his dress, looking pointedly at James. James laughed. “And a positively radiant Juliet, Remus.”
Remus batted his eyelashes. “Thank you, James.”
“Although those sandals are a choice,” he said.
“They’re Birkenstocks!”
“Interesting,” James hummed. Lily snorted.
There was a loud shout from across the crowded living room. Remus, neck prickling, turned his head as Sirius walked in. His lips parted.
Marlene cackled and said, “Oh Remus, your lover boy matched you.”
His heart jolted, flush creeping down his chest at the words, at Sirius with his tumble of dark hair pinned with two red devil horns. He was wearing an open white button down and tight, black jeans. Sirius looked directly at Remus over the heads of their friends. A liminal moment, the moment before the world flashed into existence in flickering light, and oh, Remus couldn’t breathe.
Remus sank into their greeting hug, brief, having seen each other hours before when Remus left to get ready with Lily. His touch was light against Remus’ bare back. Sirius traced a fingertip in a gentle circle before pulling away and greeting Lily and James.
Once he was settled with a drink and everyone had cluttered around him to say hello, Sirius fixed Remus with a heated look. “Romeo and Juliet,” he said.
Remus smiled, ducked his head. “Thought it would be cute.”
Sirius exhaled through parted lips and didn’t move his gaze as he took a long sip of beer. In a shorn voice, “Bit more than cute.”
Lily laughed, bustling against the river rapid tension of their held gaze. “I think I may have been born to dress as knight Romeo.” She nudged Remus’ side. “But Remus is kind of a perfect Juliet, isn’t he?”
Sirius smiled, glancing to Remus then back to Lily. “I think so,” he murmured.
The night dissolved into: Remus across the room and Sirius throwing back a shot, vodka dribbling from the corner of his mouth and catching Remus’ eyes as he swiped at the liquid, sucking his thumb; Remus brushing against Sirius in the kitchen, whole body against his back as he reached for another beer, the electric jolt down his spine at Sirius’ startled sigh; their friends insisting they take a photo together, and Sirius, seconds before the flash, leaning up to kiss his cheek with gentle lips; the brief brush of Sirius’ hand against his backside as he slid back down, fingers skirting the edge of his dress.
They were slouched on the couch late into the night, music loud, balcony doors cracked wide for the air and smokers outside. Sirius had just returned, smoke clinging to his hair and skin. Remus leaned in, searching for his sandalwood and cedar scent, as he sat close.
Lily leaned forward between James’ legs on the armchair. Her hair had fallen from its bun, tangled at her shoulders, while pink flushed her cheeks. “I almost forgot,” she gasped.
James adjusted to peer around her. “What – oh! Yeah, Sirius!”
Sirius let his hand drift from Remus’ thigh where it had been fiddling with his dress. Remus exhaled slowly.
“Mmm?” He tilted his head towards them.
Lily grinned. “There’s this girl at work,” Sirius stiffened, “and I think you’d really like her.”
James agreed, “I’ve met her and she’s so funny. Really quick.”
“She’s stunning too!” Lily exclaimed, clapping her hands together.
Remus fisted his hands, the nails digging into his palms. He pressed tighter. Finding release in the pricks of pain, he dug teeth into his bottom lip. Sirius shifted beside him.
“Oh – uh- I’m not sure,” he tried.
Lily shook her head. “No! Don’t do that. You’ve been complaining about being single this whole year and I’ve found literally the perfect girl. Oh- unless,” she glanced at James, “are you more into blokes at the moment? Because I’m sure we can think of someone else.”
Sirius let out a long breath. When he spoke his voice was tight and deep. “No, it’s – That’s not it. I’ll think about it.”
Remus drained his beer and grabbed the vodka from the coffee table. He took a burning sip, wiping at the excess with his wrist. Sirius caught his eye for an aching second, all wide eyes and pleading mouth. Remus looked away.
“Mate, I swear she’s nice,” James tried, running a hand through his hair.
Sirius shifted again, leg bouncing as his heel hit the floor. “I don’t know – just - not sure about being set up.”
Lily groaned. “You use Tinder and that’s definitely worse!”
“I haven’t used that in ages,” he said quickly.
Remus stood with the vodka, taking another slug and mumbled, “Just going to find Mary…about… uh, that bachelor episode.”
James made a confused sound but let him go. Remus never found Mary, but half an hour later he was pulled into the spare bathroom at the back of the house away from the cloying noise of the party.
The door shut and Remus sighed. “Sirius.” Sirius looked up at him from beneath his lashes with wide eyes, so innocent it bordered lewd in that costume. Remus smiled despite himself. “What?”
Sirius grinned, stepping closer until Remus was against the door, dress riding up with Sirius’ wandering hands. “You know,” he murmured, “this costume.” He mouthed at Remus’ neck. “Fucking obscene.”
Remus gasped and ducked down to kiss Sirius. He widened his legs, Sirius slotting between them. There was barely anything between them. They were hot breath and Sirius’ tiny groans and Remus yanking the open shirt off Sirius’ shoulders.
“What’s obscene,” Remus growled, pushing them away from the door and against the counter, “Is you wearing eyeliner.”
Sirius laughed, hands working to peel angel wings and the loose dress straps from Remus’ shoulders, palming at him through his pants. “You’re wearing gold eye shadow.” He gasped as Remus worked his thigh between Sirius, rubbing against his hard cock. “Fuck. Yeah. Fuck.”
They kissed again, frantic and yanking at each other’s clothes until Remus’ soaking pants were on the floor and Sirius’ jeans, no underwear, were halfway down his thighs. Sirius flipped them, panting, mouth red and slick, pushing Remus against the counter. He spit on his palm and fingers and worked over Remus’ rim, pressing in until Remus was whimpering and desperate and trying to fuck himself back on his fingers.
“Sirius, please,” he cried. “Please.”
Sirius leaned in, lips against his ear, bare cock nudging his thigh. “What do you want?” he breathed.
“You,” he pleaded. Sirius slid two fingers in deep and Remus swore, hands bracing on the counter.
“God, I love when you’re loud.”
Remus, half-lidded eyes, red marks littering his neck, looked at Sirius through the mirror. It was searing, entrapping, to be in Sirius’ gaze as he worked Remus over, prepared him and worshipped him. Remus had never felt more owned, more beautiful, than seeing Sirius wrapped around him, pleading out Remus’ pleasure for his own. On another thrust, with three fingers deep inside him, Remus let out a choking moan.
Sirius fell forward, hand pausing, the other digging into Remus’ curls and unsettling his halo. “Love, fuck, that was loud.”
Remus let out a laugh and they met each other’s eyes again, smiling. Sirius kissed his ear and shook his head. “Quieter. Or someone will hear us.” Then with little forewarning, removed his fingers and slid into Remus, who fell onto the counter, shoulders hunched and hands splayed.
Remus bit into his lip, muffling the cry that scraped his throat. He watched, instead, as Sirius threw his head back and groaned. They moved against each other, Remus watching through the mirror as Sirius gazed down in rapture at the place they met, mouth parted, red flush flaring at his cheeks. Meeting eyes through the mirror, Sirius’ mouth did something feral, and he pulled Remus up against him, one leg balancing on a low shelf as he hit against Remus’ prostate. Slapping sounds and heavy breaths, Remus’ soft moans and Sirius’ heady grunts, filled the bathroom, but as the angle changed, they both grew frantic in their movements and noises. Sirius wrapped his arms around Remus’ chest, holding him as he mouthed at any scrap of skin he could reach, all along his neck and shoulders.
Remus gripped one of Sirius’ hands, linking their fingers against his pounding heart for a breathless, intimate moment. He moved it down, trailing across his abdomen, guiding his hand to wrap around Remus’ cock. Sirius moaned as his fingers glided across the hot skin.
“Remus,” he whimpered. “Look at you, fuck, you’re perfect.” Remus leaned his head against Sirius’ shoulder, letting him hold his weight. “Yeah, like that baby. You’re beautiful.” Sirius flicked his wrist over Remus’ head and he jolted in pleasure, crying out. Sirius groaned, speeding his thrusts. “You’re made for me, looking like this,” his heavy breaths sounded in his ear, “the noises you make. You’re mine.”
Remus closed his eyes and moaned, “Yes, yeah. Fuck, yours.”
Sirius gripped him tighter across the chest, hand fumbling to keep pace on Remus’ cock. But Remus was so, desperately, close, that a soft whimper from Sirius as Remus met one thrust shuddered a long flooding orgasm through him.
In the wondrous haze of after, Remus heard Sirius pleading, “Again. Say it again.”
Remus’ fluttered his eyes open and met Sirius’ gaze. “I’m yours,” he whispered. He dragged Sirius’ hand into the mess on his stomach, Sirius’ eyes impossibly dark. “You’re mine,” Remus breathed and Sirius pushed in one final time, orgasm pulling his body heavy across Remus.
Remus braced against the counter with his free hand and held Sirius, took his weight with a hazy reverence.
Sirius let out a soft sound as he pulled out. Remus shuddered. Wincing, Sirius pulled his jeans back up then stroked a hand across Remus’ raw opening. Remus whimpered.
Sirius kissed his shoulder, stroking impossibly lightly into his own mess. “Sorry, love. Hold on,” he said and grasped a washcloth, wetting it and wiping him clean at all needed areas.
Remus found his pants tucked over a bath tap, adjusted the dress and halo, and pulled on the angel wings. In the mirror he looked like the most devilish angel to exist, glitter smeared across his eyes to his cheeks, flushed and bitten and fucked.
It didn’t take long for Sirius to gather himself. He leaned against the counter as he appraised Remus. “I feel like there was some kind of messed up symbolism here.”
Remus licked his lower lip and pressed his side to the wall in support. Blinking slowly, he said, “I mean I’m fairly sure I saw God when I came, so.
Sirius’ eyes widened. “Remus!”
Remus grinned and they both laughed, tugging the other until they were embraced, arms and elbows and mouths brushing softly together. And the whole word was in this moment, quiet and tender in the places just for them.
///
There was Halloween, and the bathroom, and Remus would probably never recover. It had been two weeks.
It had been four months of this.
He was in so deep. Sirius was etched in his veins, in his skin, beneath his nails.
They hadn’t spoken properly since that night. Remus had woken up with his head on Sirius’ stomach, something terribly intimate and private about listening to his food digest, to the stomach acid gurgle, masticated food pushed through the large intestine. Remus rubbed his cheek at the spot and kissed just above his belly button. He left Sirius’ room for the kitchen.
Sirius joined after he’d made their tea. Remus: one sugar, no milk. Sirius: too much milk, too much sugar.
He couldn’t look at Sirius, at the sleepy eyes and mussed hair. The bruise he knew he sucked into his chest last night, drunk and in Sirius’ bed. He couldn’t look at him after that, after the splayed vulnerability of the bathroom - and the bed where he had begged and begged for Sirius late into the night - showing how much he wanted him, how much he would give to Sirius if he asked.
So he handed Sirius his tea and mumbled something about work and went to his room. And he stayed there. And they avoided each other through the week with work. And when it came to the weekend, and they were at their favourite bar with most of their friends, and Sirius was talking to a tall man covered in tattoos, so opposite to Remus he wanted to crawl beneath the table amongst the shoes and sticky spilled drinks, it became so obvious that what was said between them was Remus’ truthful desire to Sirius’ deceitful passion.
It had been two weeks and Remus missed his best friend so much there was a constant ache in his stomach, nausea embroiled with misery.
He walked into the living room where Sirius was slouched across the couch, eyes glazed as he watched the TV.
“Drive?” Remus said into the knotted air.
Sirius glanced his way, frozen in the TV’s blue light. He nodded. “Sure.”
Remus drove them out of town, to a parking lot they used to frequent in high school. Everyone would get drunk on warm beer and cheap spirits and hook up in the cars as if Benjy Fenwick’s floodlights didn’t illuminate everything. Sometimes, it was just James and Remus and Sirius and Peter that would come out here. They would play their favourite songs and kick rocks and do absolutely nothing. A few times it had been just Remus and Sirius in the parking lot, laughing, sweet smoke from their shared joint curling between them.
There was one night that Remus held in his mind as something, even years later, even as they both acquired (and lost) long-term partners.
It was just the two of them, a little drunk and waiting for the buzz to recede so Remus could drive them home. They were sitting on the hood of Lyall Lupin’s Ford Falcon, battered and from the early 2000s, when Sirius rested his on Remus’ shoulder. Seventeen and impossibly in love with him, Remus had tentatively wrapped an arm around his shoulders, let his fingers brush through the ends of his hair.
“Remus,” Sirius whispered, head shifting.
Remus brushed his lips across the fine hairs right near the parting. He told himself Sirius wouldn’t feel it. “Yeah?”
Sirius looked up at him. It was dark and Remus could only just make out the curves and dips of his face, the sharp jut of his chin, a strong nose he was just growing into. They stared at each other and Remus had gotten hard because Sirius’ breath was brushing his lips. It was warm and smelled like beer. Remus begged Sirius to kiss him.
He said nothing.
Sirius opened his mouth (please) but shook his head and hopped off the hood, began rambling about school.
Now, Remus parked the car. Sirius inhaled, fiddling once again with the volume dial.
“Sirius,” he said.
Sirius stiffened, fingers curling into a fist as he lowered the hand to his lap.
“Don’t,” he whispered.
Remus turned to him, tucked his hands between his legs. “You know we can’t do this anymore.”
Head whipping up, a scowl on his pretty mouth. “Really? That’s all I get?”
“What do you want me to say?”
Sirius flinched, looked out the window. “Nothing. I want you to drive back home and you don’t break up with me or whatever the fuck you’re doing now.”
Remus ran a hand down his face and dug thumb and forefinger into the hollow dip below his cheekbones, pressed until he could feel teeth. “Our friendship is already fucked. I don’t want to ruin it any more.”
Sirius seethed. He was silent and Remus could taste the anger.
He tried, “Please, Sirius. I don’t – We haven’t talked in two weeks.”
“That’s your fault!” he shouted, cracked voice and incredulous stare.
Remus flinched and Sirius groaned and got out of the car, kicking the door then the ground. It was so dramatic and so very Sirius. Remus joined him at his side of the car. Waited.
Sirius halted his staccato movements, tugging a hand through his hair. Looked at Remus and said, strangely broken, “You’re my best friend.”
He frowned. “James is your best friend.”
“Oh my god,” Sirius grumbled. “We aren’t in high school. We’re twenty-five! I can have two best friends.”
A few years ago Remus had dated a guy, Alexander, for two years. They had been in love probably. When they’d broken up, it had been by Alexander. And he had said, earnest like always, “We’re together and I think you love me. But we aren’t…friends. It’s like Sirius has that position and no one is ever allowed to get as close as he is.”
Remus told Lily and no one else about that.
He really wanted to cry. It was searing behind his eyes and tearing at his throat. He swallowed and tried again, “Sirius. Please.”
Sirius stepped closer, close enough that he could curl his hands into Remus’ hair and press their foreheads together. “I want – “ he swallowed.
Remus removed Sirius’ hands and stepped back. Sirius sucked in a breath. “People are starting to notice,” Remus said.
Sirius laughed, grating and bitter. “Yeah, Marlene’s said a few things.”
“Exactly.”
Sirius looked out to the street. “Maybe you should just take me home,” he said quietly.
Remus nodded. Everything about Sirius was crumpled, paper bag crushed at the bottom of a bin.
There was pain in Remus’ fingertips. He wanted. He thought, just one final piece of him.
Remus stepped forward, used one hand to cup Sirius’ face, and brushed lips against his forehead. There was a halting moment. Sirius sucked in a delicate breath, shaking, and then he was pulling at Remus’ t-shirt and Remus was dragging his lips down his face. They met with open mouths, frantic. Sirius dug his fingertips into Remus’ hips, his neck. He had never been kissed, never kissed, like this before. It was heartbreak in an exchange of breath. It was desperation.
Remus had one hand at the nape of Sirius’ neck, the other wrapped entirely around his torso, holding. Their lips gradually slowed against each other until it was just close-mouthed brushes.
Sirius was the one to step back.
His cheeks were flushed, mouth wet.
They were silent the whole way home.
///
They could hardly look at each other.
They sat at opposite ends of the table when they were out with friends. Sirius left early in the morning for work, Remus came home late from the university after sitting in the dim lamplight of his windowless office grading papers on Greek mythology by uninterested first years.
Remus was breaking apart at the seams, spilling bloody on the floor everything that Sirius wove himself into – in the lines of his palm, his stomach acid, his marrow, the infinitesimal space between joints. He was everywhere; he was in him. Remus could peel back his skin, dig into the muscle, the gristle of himself, to excavate Sirius like a tiny, piercing glass shard, but he would never get close.
Three weeks into the purgatory of living with the man he was in love with and not being able to fucking touch him, look at him, Remus woke up burning.
The bed sheets were kicked to the floor, the fabric beneath him damp with his sweat. Remus ripped off his shirt as soon as he woke and a broken groan escaped from his dry throat when his muscles flared with pain.
He drank a whole glass of water by his bed and curled up delicately on the sheets, tumbling back to sleep.
Later he woke to Sirius standing in his room, looking down with concern. He crouched and stroked the sweat-soaked hair from Remus’ forehead. Remus flinched at the contact; too warm, too close, too much that he wanted.
“Hey, Rem,” Sirius uttered. “Are you okay?”
Remus tried to focus eyes. It was too dark. He closed them and reached out a hand, shaking, and clasped it on Sirius’ neck. He whimpered.
“Oh baby,” Sirius whispered. “I think you have the flu. Have you taken anything?”
Remus cleared his throat and kept his eyes closed. “No.”
“Okay, I’m going to get you some medicine. Just a second.”
Remus made a tiny noise when Sirius pulled away and there was brief sweep against his forehead again. Everything warped around whether Remus could hear Sirius’ footsteps. Then Sirius was back and he was gently sat up so he could swallow two pills and drink from a water bottle, Sirius next to him on the bed. Remus leaned into him.
He blinked and Sirius shifted him down, crouching by the bed again. A cool flannel graced his forehead and Remus moaned a little, a sweet relief in its temperature.
Sirius chuckled. “There you go.”
The flannel warmed quickly, in between laboured breaths, and Sirius discarded it. He heard shifting and Remus reached out, fumbling for his hand. “No,” he mumbled. He was slipping into a feverish unconsciousness. “Sirius, stay.”
A pause. “Okay.”
Remus tucked Sirius’ hand against his cheek, kissed the palm once, and fell asleep.
When Remus woke again it was dark and Sirius was gone. There were two pills on the bedside table that he downed with another glass of water. His body ached less, movement creaking shards of bearable pain down his limbs. He stumbled out of his room and was met with Sirius’ chest and Sirius’ arms at his waist holding him up.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
Remus smiled, cracking tiny splits into his dry lips. “I felt a little better.”
Sirius frowned. “The only thing you’re allowed to do is shower and go back to bed.”
Remus raised his eyebrows. “Alright,” he croaked. Sirius looked surprised that Remus listened.
The hot shower eased his aches and pains more but exhaustion still tangled behind his eyes.
Sirius was tugging a fresh pillowcase on Remus’ pillow when he entered his room.
“Sorry,” he sighed, glancing at Remus in his towel. “I was just changing your sheets.”
“Thank you.”
Sirius nodded. “I’ll just –“ he hesitated, “I’ll leave you to get dressed.”
Remus stared at the ground and waited until the door shut to slide on pyjamas. The fresh sheets were crisp and cool against his aching skin. Sirius knocked and Remus had to press a smile into his shoulder.
“Come in.”
Sirius was carrying a blue sports drink and another bottle of water. Remus laughed.
“Shut up,” mumbled Sirius, looking down as he passed Remus the sports drink. It was too sweet, but it was bliss on his throat.
Sirius sat on the edge of the bed and Remus set the bottle down, sliding onto his pillow and curling his knees around Sirius. His head still throbbed and the dark edges of the room swelled and faded out each time he blinked.
“You have a date,” Remus remembered, stomach twisting.
Sirius tucked his fingers into Remus’ matted curls. “Cancelled it.”
“Sorry,” Remus said, a flicker of a smile on his lips.
“Don’t be.” He held Remus’ gaze. “You’re more important.”
Remus wanted too much, so he said, “Good,” and tugged Sirius down onto the bed. “Stay.”
Sirius wriggled beneath the thin sheet and curled around Remus, two halves, knees and foreheads touching. Remus was fading again, losing himself beneath the wave of exhaustion and fever and drugs. He made a noise, maybe a whine.
Sirius kissed his forehead. “You’re okay, love.”
Remus sniffed and tilted his chin up. Brushed his lips against Sirius’ and held. They made a tiny wet sound as they parted. Remus had obsessed over that sound for months. Like he could hold it up, that tender sound, as proof of what they were.
Sirius’ exhale fanned across Remus’ nose and lips. Remus, almost asleep, knew that he was not supposed to do that anymore. But he was tired and aching and wanting.
Sirius pulled him closer and Remus slept.
///
Sirius had been on three dates with that girl from Lily’s work. Remus had been on two with different men.
He wanted to scream.
Instead, he ate a piece of chicken scraped through the white sauce on his plate.
The restaurant was dimly lit, somewhere newish and trendyish they had all decided to try. Marlene had sworn loudly three times and dropped her fork in the first fifteen minutes. James had spilled his water across the table, and when Sirius flicked his hair from his eyes the waiter had stumbled over their words and forgotten what they were saying.
They shouldn’t be let out of the house, is what Remus said once they’d settled and ordered drinks.
Sirius smiled at him when he said that. Remus tucked it away in his pocket, along with the day he was sick and all the moments where Sirius had called him baby and love and touched him.
Remus dropped his napkin onto his plate, eyes flickering to the door when Marlene tugged his sleeve. “Oi, you should come with me to yoga tomorrow.”
Remus startled. “What?”
James laughed. “Remus doesn’t exercise.”
Marlene rolled her eyes and settled him with a strange look. “The instructor is very hot and very gay.”
Sirius’ knee knocked against Remus’ beneath the table and he coughed out an apology. He was staring across the room at the bar.
“Oh,” Remus said.
Lily leaned forward. “I went with Marlene last week and he is so your type.”
Marlene nodded vigorously. “Yeah. He’s got a few tattoos and dark hair. Exudes this confidence.”
Remus rubbed the back of his neck, inhaled slowly. Opened his mouth to speak when Sirius interrupted, “I doubt that’s Remus’ type.”
Sirius’ expression was hard, set jaw and narrowed eyes. He was leaning forward with restless feet on the floor below.
Marlene rolled her eyes. “It so is, c’mon.”
Sirius sat back and folded his arms. “Whatever.”
Marlene watched him for a beat before turning back to Remus. “Listen, just come and you can decide for yourself.” She cast a glance at Sirius then back to Remus.
Remus swallowed and said, “Um, I don’t think that will work because, you see,” he shifted in his seat, inhaled, “the thing is,” oh god, his voice was shaking, “I’m quite in love with Sirius. So, I don’t think I should date this other guy.”
Everything was silent. Remus pulled a thread on his jeans until it snapped.
“What?” Sirius murmured. Remus turned and his whole face was split open, raw, a crack in the sidewalk with timid sprouts reaching towards the sun, the wanting opening of a mouth waiting for its kiss.
“You know,” he said.
Sirius leaned forward, frowning. “Remus, how the fuck would I know?”
“I was obvious.”
Sirius’ mouth parted, so terribly incredulous that Remus smiled, just a bit. “You broke up with me,” he countered.
“They were dating?” was James’ whispered interjection.
“Because if you knew I was in love with you it would ruin our friendship even more. Because you just wanted sex.”
“What is going on?” hissed James.
Sirius stared, three inhales before he huffed and pulled Remus in by the neck. “Remus, shut up. Just shut the fuck up. Oh my god.” He kissed the corner of Remus’ mouth. “You utter fucking idiot. I’ve been in love with you since we were fourteen and you stole cigarettes from that teacher.”
“That was the second day we knew each other,” Remus remembered.
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Remus blushed fiercely and Sirius laughed. They were breathing the same air. “I did that to impress you.”
“Oh my god,” Sirius groaned and then it was all lost in Sirius kissing him. It was an honest kiss, gently parted lips and Remus’ bottom lip between both of his. It was soft and tender and unspoken wonder.
They pulled away and Remus did not want to stop looking at Sirius, that expression he’d seen a hundred times after they’d kissed. It was Sirius, in love, he realised.
“I missed you,” Remus said.
“Me too,” Sirius murmured.
Marlene cackled, expelling that binding moment, reminding them they were in public. “I knew you two were fucking. I knew it!”
Remus held onto the nape of Sirius’ neck as he turned to Marlene. Lily was beaming and James was thoughtful. Peter looked completely lost.
Marlene flicked James’ ear. “I told you,” she goaded.
James batted her hand. “I never said I didn’t believe you.” He flicked his gaze to the both of them and smiled. “I just said they wouldn’t only be hooking up.”
Remus tugged at the neck of his sweater and pushed his plate further away with finicky hands. Sirius folded it within both his own.
Peter sighed, “I’m a bit lost.” He nodded to himself. “But yes. This makes a lot of sense. Much more than anyone else.”
Sirius tugged Remus closer by the hand. “I think so.” Remus let his free hand fall to Sirius’ thigh. Sirius cleared his throat and quickly said, “Anyway, we’ve got to go.”
Remus grinned, standing up as Sirius waved at James telling him he would pay him back. Lily called out and Marlene whistled and Remus flushed deeply again.
At home, with clothes discarded on the floor, they breathed confessions into each other’s skin. They mouthed I love you into damp corners of necks and stroked I can never dream of leaving you at the fleshy place on their hips. They held eye contact as they finished, mouths parted and brushing, and Remus could not contain his excoriation, his breaking apart housed in trembling thighs and frantic moans. He lay afterwards, tender and worn. Sirius kept kissing his ear and his cheek and Remus tilted his head to accommodate the worship. He applied his own veneration to the creases of Sirius’ thighs, every mole and nick and scar on his pale body.
He said, “I love you.”
And Sirius replied, “I love you,” held them together – toes and knees and cocks and stomachs, chins and noses and foreheads – and whispered, breathless, “This is ours.”