Chapter Text
The seduction happened in steps. He remembered that.
There had been no one moment when he looked up from an essay parchment or a book, when he woke in the morning and thought Oh -- Sirius. Of course.
Well, it had been even more basic than that. He hadn't ever decided he fancied boys in one moment either. The fact was, the realisation just sort of gently washed over him, that he fancied boys, and Sirius fancied him, and what was he to do about it?
He'd never thought about Sirius that way. Objectively he knew he was handsome, but he was also his best friend. It'd be like wanting to kiss Peter.
He had already become comfortable with the new ways Sirius looked at him in sixth year, the way Sirius began to touch him differently. He was anxious for a while about the way James looked at him too, as though he was stealing something that didn't belong to him, something he wasn't entitled to, by dint of being their lieutenant and not quite their equal. But obviously James and Sirius sorted it out somehow, as the glares -- and the anxiety -- subsided.
It was nice, of course, to know one was admired, to know that Sirius' eyes followed him across the room when he walked to his dresser to get a shirt or across the room to nick some ink off James. It gave him a small pleasurable squirm in his stomach to know that he was someone's focal point. That'd never been a good thing before.
He just wasn't certain what to do about it. He liked Sirius, of course, Sirius was his friend, his good friend -- closer than a brother.
He didn't really want to think about Sirius and brothers in the same sentence. Not when he was also noticing the way Sirius' body moved, the deep blue-black hair, the new shyness in Sirius' smiles.
And he did act differently, now, in surprising ways. He put his hand on Remus' back to guide him out of class, clapped him on the shoulder more than was strictly necessary, refused to wrestle with him like he did with James and Peter. Once, when they'd been up late, Remus studying Charms and Sirius trying to tutor him, he'd leaned across the table and pushed Remus' tufty brown hair up off his forehead.
"You look tired," he'd said, in an extremely rare moment of admitted affection, and then, "Can I help?"
"You are," Remus had replied. Sirius' eyes had glowed. Remus did love his eyes -- objectively, as someone who (being raised poor) appreciated beautiful and unattainable things.
And even when he knew that Sirius was within his reach, if he wanted, even when he understood it, Sirius was always just slightly beyond him. He couldn't picture kissing Sirius and not meaning it as a joke or on a dare. He couldn't imagine touching Sirius' body with the unique possessiveness that comes from love.
But on dark, late nights, lying in bed, when the world seemed unreal anyhow, he felt that perhaps if Sirius...if Sirius admitted that weakness first...he might be convinced.
***
"Do you know, Sirius, I almost suspect you of having depth?"
Sirius looked up from the trunk he was packing, in consternation. "Sorry?"
Remus sat on his own trunk and leaned back, resting his elbows on the bed behind him. A sheet of parchment dangled from one of his fingers. Sirius swallowed. Remus smiled, almost feline in his smugness.
"Depth," he said. "I know you don't like to show it, but I really do think you might have some."
"That's an awful thing to say about a person," Sirius tried lightly, but Remus shook his head. His fingers moved, and two slips of paper slid out from behind the parchment -- train tickets. Sirius dropped onto his own bed.
"You weren't supposed to find that till I was at the station," he said.
"Yes, I didn't think I'd need my Arithmancy book until Monday," Remus mused. "It's low, Sirius, leaving a letter in a chap's book like that."
"I knew you wouldn't agree if I asked you," Sirius said unrepentantly, though he looked vaguely regretful about being caught. Remus brought the parchment around so that he could read it.
"Dear Moony, I know you can't go home for Christmas on account of everything and the moon on the 18th and your parents not being home for Christmas anyway. So I reckon I'd spend about the same money on a present as I'd spend on train tickets to Potter's house and back and his mum and dad say it's okay as long as you don't mind sharing a bed and I didn't figure you would cos it's only me and I bathe more than Potter does anyway. So if you will please come for Christmas the tickets are for the twenty-second and back on the third so you can be back early for Prefecting meetings and all. Please come and have Christmas with us cos I don't fancy wasting train fare and still having to owl you a cake or something, and I'm arse at picking out Christmas presents anyway. From Sirius."
He glanced up. Sirius' face had no colour in it. At all.
"When you get back, I am going to spend quite a long time tutoring you. For a genius like yourself, it's criminal what you do to commas, Sirius," Remus added. "And you didn't even put a bow on the letter."
"It wouldn't have fit in your textbook," said Sirius, almost absently. Remus stood in a swift, clean movement and set the letter and tickets carefully on the bed.
"This shows forethought, Sirius," he said quietly, standing in front of his friend, arms crossed. "Forethought, empathy, and quite ungrammatical sincerity. One could distinctly call it depth, I think, and get away with it."
Sirius looked up at him, and Remus could imagine how he felt; mouth dry, heart hammering, hands cold. It was how he'd felt himself, the first time he'd told someone he fancied them.
He was surprisingly lacking in anxiety, really. But then, when he'd found the letter his heart had leapt into his throat and he'd realised that as much as he might want to mistrust Sirius for what he and James had done in fifth year, Sirius was better than he had been. Sirius deserved forgiveness. For this alone, if not for all the other things he'd done to atone since then.
So he'd decided it was pretty much time to kiss Sirius Black and put him out of their misery. He'd planned ahead of time. He wasn't nervous. He felt somewhat numb, really.
"Well?" he asked. "Don't you agree?"
Sirius was so still, in that way he had when he was either panicking or on the scent of mischief.
"Will you come?" Sirius asked eventually. Remus, in answer, hooked his fingers under the knot in Sirius' school tie and tugged. Sirius moved awkwardly, standing and stumbling forward when Remus shifted his grip to the knot itself, pulling him close -- chest to chest, thigh to thigh, faces a few inches apart.
Remus flipped his fingers around the knot, moving Sirius forward very, very slowly. He had to lift his chin just a little to kiss the taller boy, and Sirius had turned his head so that their lips didn't quite meet evenly -- he found himself pressing a chaste kiss to the side of Sirius' mouth. Not at all what he wanted.
But then Sirius growled in the back of his throat and turned to meet him and Remus sucked just a little on his bottom lip. Sirius responded more eagerly this time, and before he knew it, Remus was standing in Gryffindor Tower, thoroughly kissing and being kissed by Sirius Black, who was clinging to his shoulders as if he might fall down otherwise.
As first kisses went, it wasn't that great, but the second kiss broke all the records.
***
It was not terribly common, even in the "modern times" the boys considered had arrived, that a boy and a girl should live together with the intention of sinful cohabitation outside of wedlock. Even if Lily's parents would have stood for it, and they were accepting enough people that they might have, James' father never would. He and James had only one row over it, and that was a civilised one at the breakfast table which ended in James sullenly eating too much jam on his toast.
James had learned, in seven years at a magical boarding school, to be devious. He had also, if only recently, learned that Sirius and Remus were plotting a similar sinful cohabitation -- and of a slightly more serious nature, "modern" society still being what it was. Sirius didn't seem to give it a thought, but James could see the anxiety about it written on Remus' face every time Sirius mentioned offhandedly that he and Remus were getting a flat.
So after the row with his father and another row with Lily about why it ought to matter (which was really them angrily agreeing with each other, when one got down to it) he went to Remus and suggested something that even the shy and private young man had never considered.
"A...a beard?" Remus asked, drawing his eyebrows together. "I mean, it rather smacks of dishonesty, James. It's one thing simply not to talk about it, but..."
"No, it's not that," James said. "Most of us know...about you, and Lily's parents are fine about that kind of thing, I think she's got an uncle that...well, anyhow, it wouldn't be as if you were actually living with her."
"Shame, really, she's much tidier than Sirius..." Remus mused. "Explain how you propose we make this work, James."
"You and I would just...swap. You could live with Lily and nobody'd care, on account of -- "
" -- me fancying men? -- "
" -- well, if you want to be blunt about it. So you move in with Lily and I'll move in with Sirius, all nice and legal on the leases. For a few weeks we'll just do that. Then, we'll just sort of...shift. Some night we'll move all your things into my room and all my things into your room and Bob's your uncle."
Remus contemplated the top of James' parents' table, the brown contrast of his smooth-coloured hands with the uneven woodgrain.
"Sirius won't like it," he said reluctantly.
"It's just for a few weeks. I'll smooth it over with Sirius. And it's not like we won't be over at each others' flats all the time anyhow, is it?" James asked amiably.
Sirius, true to Remus' predictions, did not take it well. Smoothing was not an easy process. Even after James assured Remus that Sirius was amenable, even after Lily gave them a really nice rug as a housewarming gift, Sirius was still sullen.
He was sullen when they ate out, he was sullen when he came over, he was sullen when Remus -- Remus Lupin! Former Prefect at Hogwarts! -- took an enormous personal risk and pulled him into the shadows of a niche between two stores in Diagon Alley and did outrageously indecent things to him in nearly-broad-daylight.
Remus had thought he was getting better about it as the weeks passed. It was nearly time for them to commit the Stealthy Night-Time Room Swap, after all.
Then he made the mistake of asking Sirius over to have breakfast on a morning Lily was going to be there.
Remus wasn't a terrific cook, but he'd been learning by watching Lily, and he could make eggs and toast and sausage. Though the Bacon Fiasco a few days ago had convinced him that, once this situation was resolved, Sirius would have to be the one to make the bacon, or they'd just go without.
Strange. He'd never thought at eighteen he'd be -- well, settled. Like this. Certainly times were uncertain, but he had a great faith in Sirius, perhaps greater than was merited, and he saw no reason to desire anyone or anything else.
"Oh, blast," Lily said suddenly. Sirius looked up from his effortless completion of the Daily Prophet crossword, and Remus glanced over from where he was poaching the eggs. "I've forgot the orange juice again."
"Yes, I noticed," Remus remarked, turning a sausage with his fork. "I nipped out and bought some, you owe me three sickles."
"You are so well-prepared," Lily said with a grin, and kissed his cheek. She had the habit; she did it often to him and Peter, though less so to Sirius, King of the Macho.
Remus smiled, and looked up to see Sirius, murderous envy in his eyes.
He was ominously silent through breakfast, though Lily was eager enough to chatter away about inconsequentials. He kept his silence as Remus cleared the plates and as Lily prepared to meet James for a morning walk. He was silent as Remus, having bid Lily goodbye, came back into the kitchen and began putting away the dishes that the charmed scrubbing-brush had been cleaning.
Finally, Remus turned to him, and said mildly, "Are you angry with me?"
"No," Sirius replied sullenly.
"Are you angry with Lily?"
"No."
"Is something wrong?"
"When's she going to jilt James, then?"
Remus drew his eyebrows together. "Jilt James? What have you heard?"
"Are you two shagging?" Sirius asked, with the complete calm of a doomed man.
Remus burst out laughing.
"Shagging? Lily and I? Why, should we be?" he asked, through tears of mirth. "Is that what you're angry over?"
"I'm not angry, and you can bloody well stop laughing at me!" Sirius exploded. "If you are, just out and tell me! I see the way she looks at you!"
"You mean when she's looking at me, thinking 'Gosh, there's a handsome chap, too bad he's sleeping with my boyfriend's best friend and has zero interest in the opposite sex'?" Remus demanded. "I realise I'm charming, Sirius, but even I have limits to -- "
"Do you?" Sirius growled, standing up. "Because from what I see, those limits seem to include an awful lot of tolerance for the opposite sex. One of them, anyway. You're so prepared, Remus, you're so much tidier than James, this weekend isn't good for you to move back with Sirius -- "
"Stop it, Sirius, just stop it. Whatever she might be thinking, and I don't deny that Lily can be daft and flighty -- "
" -- ha! -- "
"Goddammit, stop interrupting me!" Remus shouted.
"Then stop lying to me!" Sirius shouted back.
Remus went very still.
"So that's it," he said softly. "Because I lied to you at school about being a werewolf. You don't trust me at all. All those times you picked on the other people I spent time with -- all those times you interrupted my tutoring sessions with Peter -- you thought I couldn't possibly be telling you the truth because I lied to you from the moment we -- "
"Are you shagging Lily?" Sirius asked, ruthlessly.
Remus met his eyes. "What does it matter? You won't believe me if I say no. Do you want me to be, Sirius? Are you scared of me? Scared of the fact that if I do swap rooms with James, if I do live with you, something might go wrong?"
Sirius had opened his mouth to interrupt again, but Remus had put his hand over it. They were standing too close, Remus' palm pressed against Sirius' mouth, Sirius' own hand gripping his wrist.
"You are going to let me speak, Sirius, because I don't ask this very often, and when I do you had bloody well better sit up and take notice," Remus said, voice low and dangerous. "I love you. I love you, Pads. I don't lie to the people I love. I showed you the deepest secret I had, and you used it to try to get someone killed once. When we talk about trust I think you should know you're going into that battle with very little artillery on your side. Either you believe me when I tell you something or this ends here, in Lily and James' kitchen. And that would be a sad end to things. So think very carefully before you introduce the topic of who's trusting whom, Sirius."
He took his hand away, slowly, and Sirius released his wrist. They were both breathing hard, Sirius' eyes flicking over him uncertainly.
In a single, fluid move, Sirius brought his hands up to Remus' face, pinning him in place as he kissed him deeply and thoroughly, fierce and angry in its violence. Remus, stunned, nevertheless leaned forward eagerly into it, as Sirius' hands slid down his neck, one dropping to his waist to pull him close. It was familiar and right and good, and Remus didn't care that they'd left things unresolved, because it didn't matter.
They stumbled backwards until Remus' hips caught on the kitchen counter, Remus buried in the warmth of his embrace -- the stiffness in his spine fading away, righteous indignation melting. Sirius was still fierce, gripping him tightly, teeth latching onto the sensitive skin of his jaw, his neck...
He moaned and pushed Sirius away from the counter, trying to guide him into the living room, where there were fewer sharp edges to dig into his back. They tumbled to the rug on the living room floor, and Sirius straddled him, hands on his shoulders, head bent over his collarbone, nimble teeth undoing the buttons on his shirt.
"You see," Remus gasped, as Sirius slid his thighs down until their erections rubbed together under their trousers, "we fit, Sirius...girls don't fit right -- nobody fits right but you -- "
Sirius growled and arched, hips moving rhythmically, hands now sliding under the half-undone shirt to stroke across Remus' ribcage, fingers as always slipping into the ridges and valleys of his body, finding the tight stretch of his stomach and skating his fingers over it, following with his lips and tongue.
Remus, head thrown back against the soft persian carpet, fingers tangling in Sirius' silky hair, felt that perhaps he ought to encourage Lily's affectionate flirtation, if this was the end result.
Then all thoughts of Lily, James, flats, betrayal, and lies went out of his head, as Sirius nuzzled and bit and kissed his way back into Remus Lupin's heart.
***
Remus wasn't expecting anything particular when he arrived home that night. It was raining, and it was a Thursday. Thursdays were possibly the least special day of the week, he felt, and quite unromantic. Especially after having spent the day waiting tables and tending bar. He felt that, unless one was doing it intentionally, in which case it was very literary, wasting one's potential in menial jobs was also quite unromantic.
Sirius, of course, had enough to support them both, but Remus wasn't quite certain that it was a good idea to live off someone else. In his experience, depending on others led only to trouble. It made Sirius furious, of course, but that was all right. The way their fights usually ended, making Sirius furious had become something of a pleasurable hobby of his.
So he was surprised to open the door and, in the middle of shaking off his coat, notice that the flat was illuminated only by candlelight. There was a thick pillar candle on the hall table, giving him enough light to see by as he shed his soaked shoes and damp socks, undid the top collar of his crisp white shirt, and hung up his jacket.
There was flickering light in the kitchen and he followed it, stepping into the warm embrace of the cosy room, heated by the oven and the presence of Sirius, who was bending over the sink.
"What's all this?" Remus asked, amused. There were orange slices on a plate next to Sirius' elbow, and he picked one up, popping it into his mouth. Sirius turned, bringing them into pleasantly close proximity, and held out a glass of wine. Remus blinked, a little surprised, and took it, sipping slowly.
"I thought you might like dinner," Sirius said, in a low voice. Remus cocked his head. It wasn't like Sirius to be romantic. It wasn't like him to cook. It certainly wasn't like him to cook romantically.
"All right, what did you break?" Remus asked, with a smile. Sirius leaned forward and licked a little of the orange's juice off the corner of his mouth.
"Nothing," he said. "How's the wine?"
"Sweet," Remus replied, taking another sip. "Really, Sirius, what are you on about?"
Sirius wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him close. He used his other hand to feed him another slice of orange. Definitely un-Sirius-like behaviour.
"You are Sirius, aren't you?" Remus asked.
"You act like I didn't even know you liked oranges," Sirius answered. "Come on, I've got a fantastic dinner warming..."
He led Remus into the little dining nook of their shared flat, and waved him into a chair. All of his favourite foods -- orange-glazed chicken, mashed potatoes, yorkshire puddings. Sirius detested potatoes in all forms. Either he'd broken something or shagged someone.
Remus watched him over two short, fat candles, as they ate and discussed their day. An idea dawned on him, and he spent four mouthfuls of mashed potato on it before he felt he ought to bring it up.
"All this," he said, and Sirius looked up from his wine sharply. It was his third glass, and Sirius was not a drinking man. "This wouldn't be because of James and Lily, would it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Sirius said, but his voice cracked and his eyes cut away.
"The fidelius charm. You performed it today, didn't you?"
Sirius stabbed viciously at his chicken. "Might have done," he muttered.
"Bit anxious about it?"
"Maybe," Sirius continued.
"I'm frightened too, you know," Remus said. "I don't like you being a target. And I don't like going into hiding any more than you do, but you know we've got to do it soon. We're too close."
Sirius nodded miserably.
"Reckon we ought to make Peter ours?" Remus continued. "Or maybe Emmeline Vance -- she's nice -- or Alastor Moody'd do it."
"Reckon so," Sirius replied. "Let's not talk about it."
Remus blinked. He sipped his wine -- still the first glass -- mildly. "All right. I'm done, are you? Shall I?"
Sirius waved him off and cleared the table with a flick of his wand, sending the dishes into the kitchen magically. Remus was just standing when Sirius caught him around the waist again, pulled him close, and kissed him, a little more roughly than he normally did.
As if by kissing me he could stop thinking about them, Remus thought, but any excuse to kiss Sirius was a fine one. They'd been so distant lately -- they'd had to be, what with the Order and Sirius' involvement with the fidelius, and him working days and Sirius spending his nights on Order business. Perhaps too distant.
Remus let himself be tugged into the bedroom, glad of whatever whim had put Sirius into this mood. He unbuckled Sirius' belt while the other man kissed his way over his shoulders, pushing his shirt off as he went. Remus pulled him close, preventing Sirius from fully undressing him, and laid his head on his shoulder, feeling the pulse of the black-haired man, the hammer of his heart, the shallow breath. He tasted wine on Sirius' tongue, felt slightly clumsy fingers slide over his hip and thigh, moaned into Sirius when the pleasant pressure on his groin became too much.
He fell backwards onto the bed, Sirius on top of him, writhing, as though he wanted to touch everywhere it was possible to touch. They rolled until Remus ended up on top, removing Sirius' shirt by the simple expedient of sliding his hands up his chest until the shirt slid with them. Sirius watched him with dark, expressionless eyes that held a fear which Remus, unknowing, took for desire.
Their hips ground together, and Remus drew a sudden, hitching breath. He saw Sirius smile, and the next time he tried to breathe, he found himself unable to think coherently in the slightest.
They struggled out of the rest of their clothes in a mess of limbs and gasps and soft caresses, skilled on Remus' part, slightly clumsy and drunken on Sirius'. Still, there was nothing at all the matter with his body, the broad, muscular build the same as always, intimately familiar. Or with his voice, as he called Remus' name, begged him for things that didn't need to be spoken. Remus, head bowed over Sirius' thigh, eyes adoring, still unable to believe his luck even after four years, didn't need to be asked. He lapped gently at Sirius' head, breathed warm air over it, spoke words against the sensitive skin.
He loved Sirius. He wanted Sirius to be happy. Sirius was -- oh, he liked that? Did that please you, Sirius? Then just think about this...
He felt Sirius' pulse again, this time against his tongue, in the desperate thrust and buck of Sirius in his mouth. Sirius clutched at his shoulders, moved helplessly underneath him. He liked the point at which Sirius lost control -- it was a power he rarely exercised, and all the more pleasurable for that.
When Sirius whined high in his throat, Remus leaned back, a satisfied smile on his face. Sirius moaned and reached for him, cupping his head and pulling him up for a kiss.
Remus could have spent his whole life lying atop Sirius' solid, warm body, but Sirius obviously had other ideas, and the subtle shift and press of his body against Remus, his hands holding Remus' thighs, brooked no opposition.
There was something angry in Sirius, Remus had always known that; something irretrievably furious at the world. He kept a tight rein on it, but sometimes it showed, and Remus could see it in the way Sirius was trying to take him over, trying to own him. Remus was safe enough in himself that he could allow it, though he was afraid some day Sirius would go too far.
Perhaps tonight. Sirius was -- desperate. For something. Remus let himself be covered by Sirius' body, let himself open to Sirius, let Sirius do as he needed, because that was what you did when you loved someone...
He woke alone.
And the next afternoon, Sirius was captured and sent to Azkaban.
It was unsurprising, in a way.