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“We’re never gonna get this done.” Sirius heaves a heavy, defeated sigh. He slips down in his chair until his chin is level with the edge of their table in the back of the library. “I can’t believe McGonagall wants three bloody feet on the differences between Reparifarge and Evanesco. We learned all of that before our fifth year. What use is it now in our seventh?”
Remus glances up from his length of parchment, frowning just enough the two notches between his brows appear. “She said we should know it for our N.E.W.T.s. Weren’t you listening?”
“Probably not.”
“Honestly, Pads,” mutters Remus, shaking his head. He scratches his quill frantically across his parchment. There are ink stains on the tips of his scarred fingers, and the side of his hand is tinged black. “This isn’t that hard. Don’t you remember?”
Sirius makes a noncommittal noise. “Just because I remember doesn’t mean I want to write an essay about it. Where’s Prongs? Did he finish his?”
“Hours ago.”
“Sorry, what?” Sirius barks a laugh. “We’re talking about the same person, right? The one who is chronically up late to finish his essays because he waits until the final hour to start them? The same Prongs who nearly failed Potions last year because he can’t remember a due date to save his life?”
Remus lifts one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug and dips the tip of his quill in an ink pot. “He’s been better since he started dating your brother. Regulus makes him timetables and sends him little notes in the morning to remind him to get things done. I’m fairly certain he threatens to break up with James if he doesn’t get Outstandings in every subject. Didn’t you notice the collection of little notes in his bedside table?”
“Ignored it, if I’m honest,” says Sirius with a grimace. “I try to forget that James snogs my little brother.”
“Often, too.” Remus laughs when Sirius makes a gagging noise. “Don’t be like that about it. Regulus is sixteen. He can do what he wants. Besides, how do you think he’d feel if he saw us snogging? Hm?”
Sirius goes rigid from head to toe, blinking owlishly over the edge of the table. He tries to read Remus’ face—is he having a laugh? Serious? Some combination of both?—but it’s impossible to gauge where his head is truly at. His expression remains closed off, his focus trained on the parchment in front of him.
Unbothered, like he didn’t just sweep the chair out from underneath Sirius’ arse.
“As if we’d ever snog,” he tries to jest, but the words come out all wrong. His tone is too high-pitched, and his voice cracks on every vowel.
Remus notices.
He looks up, one brow arched. “We wouldn’t?”
No.
Yes.
Maybe.
Please.
Sirius fidgets with the stray thread coming loose from his trousers. He adjusts his tie, the bloody thing already useless around his neck. He never tucks it in, never properly puts it on. Remus cocks his head, his Adam’s apple bobbing slightly, and Sirius wants to sink into the floor.
He’s always so good with the men and women he doesn’t really want. As long as the person in front of him isn’t an edge taller with sandy brown hair, amber eyes, and skin decorated with scars whose stories he knows intimately, then he can flirt his way right into someone’s knickers without a problem. And this isn’t ego, either; it’s simply fact. No one else matters enough to trip him up.
But Remus? Well.
Remus matters.
Which makes the sudden shift in their conversation feel heavier than it would with someone like Mary, who Sirius has snogged enough times that it’s never special anymore, or even Lily, who Sirius once found himself stuck in a broom cupboard with for seven minutes thanks to a ridiculous game of Spin the Bottle. Even James, for all of his winning features, wouldn’t make Sirius feel like this, like his stomach is all wound up in knots and his throat might crawl out of his mouth.
Because Mary and Lily and James—they matter. Of course they do. But they don’t matter like Remus matters, and ever since Sirius realised the difference some months ago, every stare and touch and laugh and moment hits different. All of them linger like footprints in sand. Sirius keeps waiting for the tide to wash in, to erase all of these little moments he’s collected, but when he closes his eyes at night, he sees Remus in all of the ways he’s collected memories of his best friend.
He sees Remus laughing at James’ joke, but his eyes are open, and they find Sirius’ across the room. He sees Remus in Potions with one of the Slytherin boys, both of them bent over a cauldron. Their shoulders touch; Sirius can’t stop staring at the point of contact. At least until Remus glances up, glances over, and their eyes meet across a room of bubbling, steaming concoctions. There’s a question, but Sirius doesn’t hold Remus’ gaze long enough to offer an answer. He never does.
Mostly, he sees Remus asleep in a hospital bed with a bandage on his left bicep, or wrapped around his wrist, or plastered over his ribs. Another full moon, a new scar. Sirius rests his cheek on his forearm while his fingertips trace pristine white gauze. James watches from his seat on the other side of the bed, silent with his fingers steepled under his chin, but Sirius doesn’t see him.
He sees Remus.
Remus, who is currently watching him with that curious, questioning gaze.
Maybe it’s because they’re alone for the first time in an age. Perhaps it’s the quiet of a deserted library in the middle of the night. Whatever it is, Sirius doesn’t look away this time. He stares back, swallowing thickly, and hopes the answer is in his eyes so he doesn’t have to say it aloud.
“You know,” says Remus, almost too flippantly, “you’ve almost snogged every Gryffindor in our year.”
“Calling me a slag, are you?”
“Everyone except me.”
Oh. Oh.
Oh, no.
Sirius wants to sink deeper into his chair until he disappears underneath the table. Perhaps he’ll keep sinking and drop right through the floor into some abandoned classroom.
“We’ve—We haven’t—Well, I thought—” Sirius sucks in a sharp breath, cringing at his own lack of finesse. Where’s the Sirius who sweeps everyone off of their feet without trying? Where’s the smooth-talking, easy-going version of himself that would handle this situation without a hiccup? If it was anyone other than Remus, that is. Sirius settles with a rather pathetic, “We just haven’t had the chance, I guess.”
“So if we had the chance, you would?”
Sirius chews on his bottom lip, desperate to look away but caught in Remus’ stare. He doesn’t want to admit this out loud. The point of a secret is that it stays secret. Only James knows. And Peter. And Mary. And Lily. And probably Regulus too, since James can’t keep his mouth shut to save his life. Despite this, it’s still a secret that Sirius covets. If he shares it with Remus, then…
“What are you doing?” asks Sirius, scrambling to sit up in his chair. He watches with trepidation as Remus slowly stands. “We have to—to finish our essays, Moons. Didn’t you—”
“I thought you didn’t even want to do them.”
“I don’t, but you never leave an essay unfinished and they’re due tomorrow so we really should—” Sirius cuts himself off when Remus comes around the table to stand next to his chair, looking down at him with those depthless amber eyes. The question is still there; Sirius hasn’t answered it yet. “What are you doing?” he repeats instead, fingers clinging to the arms of his chair with a white-knuckled grip.
“If you had the chance, would you?” asks Remus quietly. He starts to reach out, but his hand pauses halfway between his body and Sirius’ cheek, his fingertips only inches away.
Sirius makes a soft sound, an almost whimper. “I can’t answer that, Moons.”
“Why not? You snog everyone else.”
“Because they’re everyone else.”
Two shallow grooves form between Remus’ brows. “So what am I?”
Everything.
Sirius tucks the word underneath his tongue. He won’t. He can’t. “You’re Moony,” he says instead, hoping it’s enough. “You’re my best friend.”
“So is James, and you’ve snogged him.”
“That’s different.”
“You keep saying that.” Remus’ hand still hangs suspended between them. Sirius fights the urge to lean into it, to close the gap and press his cheek to Remus’ warm, calloused palm. “I don’t understand why you can’t explain what you mean.”
Sirius grits his teeth. Confessions stack up in his throat, one after the other. He sees Remus in the corridors with a pretty Hufflepuff girl who leans into him. She doesn’t know Remus will never be interested, not like Sirius does, but she still tries, and Remus lets her because he’s too damn nice, and Sirius wants to hex a girl from across a sea of students, but then there’s James gripping his wrist where his hand has slid into his robes, telling him, Let’s not do that, yeah, Pads? C’mon.
They’re always too much, these little moments when Sirius nearly breaks, when the wall he built brick by brick threatens to come tumbling down at the sight of Remus smiling at someone else, anyone else. Sirius always drinks too much firewhisky after these moments. He snogs all of the wrong people. He wakes up in all of the wrong beds.
He can’t confess any of this to Remus.
“I can’t explain it,” he says, running his tongue along his bottom lip.
“You can’t, or you won’t?” asks Remus, ever the pragmatist. His smile is bitter. “It’s okay if you’re not… If I’m not… Everyone has a type. And I’m not exactly—”
“What? No!” Sirius’ chair lands with a bang on the floor when he shoots to his feet, head shaking back and forth hard enough his brain rattles against his skull. “That’s not it, Moons. It’s not. You’re—You aren’t—Well, you are—Oh, Merlin.” Sirius runs a hand down his face, laughing mirthlessly under his breath. He closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Remus when he says, “You’re beautiful, Moony. Always have been. Whether or not you’re an attractive bloke has nothing to do with it, yeah? Don’t—Don’t think that.”
The words fall between them like stones, but the silence that stretches on after the last one drops is so quiet Sirius can hear the books in the Restricted Section shuffling around on their shelves. He wants to open his eyes, to drop his hand from his face. Except he doesn’t want to see the expression Remus surely wears. Shock? Horror? Confusion? A mixture of all three?
Sirius makes a soft noise when familiar fingers encircle his wrist, tugging gently to urge his hand away from his face.
“Pads, will you look at me?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Why?”
“Easier to be honest when I’m not looking at you,” Sirius mutters, squeezing his eyes shut tighter.
Remus chuckles. His breath blows warm across Sirius’ cheek. Did he move closer? “Then if I ask you a question, will you answer it?”
“Maybe.”
“I can live with that.”
Sirius wrinkles his nose. His left hand fists at his side until his fingernails dig into his palm. “Go on, then. Ask your question. Do your worst.” Some part of him knows it’s coming. He knows because he hopes, and that hope is enough to cling to. He’s clung to it for years, after all.
“Why will you snog everyone else but me?” asks Remus, his voice impossibly low.
“Because you’re Moony,” says Sirius, already breathless.
“Why does that matter?”
Sirius fights the urge to bolt. “Because you matter.”
“Doesn’t everyone else matter to you, too?”
“Yes. No. It’s different.”
“How?”
“Because you’re Moony.”
Remus snorts. “You already said that. Am I not like everyone else?”
“No. You’re not.” Sirius sucks in a sharp breath when a strong, sure hand settles on the curve of his waist.
“Then what am I?”
“Don’t make me say it, Moons,” Sirius pleads. The fingers encircling his wrist tighten their grip. “Don’t—Don’t make me say it out loud. Please. We should just go back to working on our essays and forget all about the snogging. It’s stupid anyway.”
Remus swallows audibly. “No, it isn’t. Not to me. Can I ask you one more question?”
Oh, Merlin save him. Sirius nods, his chest heaving. He still won’t open his eyes. He can’t.
Especially not when Remus whispers, “Do you want to kiss me, Sirius?”
Now would be the perfect time for the floor to open up under his feet and swallow him whole. Anything to save him from the heat burning his cheeks. Warmth radiates from where Remus’ fingers encircle his wrist and Remus’ hand grips his waist. It flows all the way to the tips of his toes and the crown of his head, turning him molten.
This is why he doesn’t snog Remus. He doesn’t feel like this when it’s Mary or Emmeline or James or Lily or that one bloke he kissed during last Friday’s party. Those were all such insignificant kisses.
Sirius licks his lips. Warmth breath that isn’t his own ghosts over them. The fingers around his wrist unfurl, and his palm falls against a lean-muscled chest. He fists his hand into the familiar fabric of a Hogwarts uniform, then lifts his other hand to do the same. A calloused palm on his cheek, warm and steadying, and Sirius decides he doesn’t have the energy to keep holding so many confessions at bay.
Brick by bloody brick, the wall crumbles to rubble, and he whispers, “Yes.”
There’s no reason to ask any more questions once the confession’s been made. Remus has his answer, clear as day. The Quaffle is his now; what he chooses to do with it is his choice.
“Pads, look at me.”
Sirius squeaks softly.
“Pads, please.”
No. Nope. Not a chance. If he opens his eyes, there’ll be nowhere to go. Remus is right here.
“Sirius.”
Like a moth to a flame, he can’t resist. His eyes open slowly, taking in their dim corner of the library, the towering stacks of books and shelves around them. All of it is secondary to Remus, whose nose is only a hair’s breadth from his own.
“There you are,” Remus says, his thumb brushing over Sirius’ cheekbone. “It’s easier for me to be honest when I’m looking at you.”
Sirius barely manages a swallow.
“Ask me.”
“Moony, I—”
“Ask me. Please. The last question I asked you. Ask me.”
Sirius’ breath stutters out of him. “Do—Do you want to kiss me, Remus?”
“More than anything, actually.”
His hand slips into Sirius’ hair, long fingers twining through the silky black strands, and before Sirius can properly register what they’ve both just confessed, warm lips press against his own—and nothing else matters but this. His eyelids flutter shut; he tilts his face to slot their mouths together perfectly. Remus makes a soft, pleased little noise; Sirius echoes it, circling his arms around Remus’ neck. His stomach swoops, twists into knots, swoops again. It can’t decide what it wants to do any more than Sirius, who keeps his lips pressed firmly against Remus’. He wants to deepen the kiss, to slip his tongue into Remus’ mouth and find out if he still tastes like the Chocolate Frog he nibbled on earlier.
Sirius is so focused on keeping himself in check that he doesn’t expect Remus’ tongue to swipe over his bottom lip, asking in such a gentle, tender way that Sirius can do nothing except open for him like the petals of a flower. He gasps into Remus’ open mouth; Remus tastes of rich chocolate, of the sharp tang from his Pepper-Up Potion.
He tastes better than anything Sirius has ever had on his tongue.
“Moony,” he moans between kisses, twisting his fingers into soft brown strands. Arms circle his waist, pulling him in close. He gasps when Remus hoists him onto the edge of the table, one hand pressed to the small of his back while the other slips into his hair again.
Remus breaks away to leave kisses along his jaw, down his throat, only stopping at his pulse point to nibble on the thin skin there. He murmurs something unintelligible; Sirius wants to ask him to repeat the words, but there are kiss bruised lips on the hollow of his throat now, and absolutely nothing else matters but this. He hears Remus breathe, “Sirius,” against his clavicle before a tongue swipes across the bone. Remus trails kisses up the other side of his throat, nipping at his jaw until familiar lips find their way to his.
It’s the best kiss Sirius has ever had, and not just because this is Remus. Not just because it means something more than any of the other kisses Sirius has ever experienced. No, this is genuinely good, like this isn’t Remus’ first by far.
“You’re good at this,” quips Sirius when Remus tugs his head back to expose the column of his throat. Remus makes a meal of it, nibbling and sucking from the shadow made by his jaw to the juncture where his neck and shoulder meet. “Practised a lot, have you?”
“Maybe.” Remus laves his tongue over a spot where he just sucked a bruise; Sirius can feel the crooked grin against his skin. “Jealous?”
“Me? Never.”
Remus snorts. His hand slips under the hem of Sirius’ shirt, fingers splaying over the taut stretch of his abdomen. Muscles flutter under Remus’ touch. “I don’t believe you for a second.”
“Think you know me that well?” Sirius’ chest heaves when Remus’ hand slips lower, then lower still, until the heel of his palm presses against the bulge straining the front of Sirius’ trousers. Sirius moans low, his head falling back between his shoulders. “Thought we were just meant to snog, Moons.”
“We can just do that, if you want.”
Sirius squeezes his eyes shut, hips bucking against the pressure of Remus’ hand. The friction is good; he needs more, but he doesn’t know how to ask. Not when he’s only just managed to have the kiss he’s craved for ages. What is he supposed to do with an extra offer like this? Take it? The mental image alone makes him groan; there’s no true memory of this moment, but that doesn’t mean his mind hasn’t conjured pictures of Remus between his thighs late in the night when all he wants is to feel the warmth of Remus on and around and in him.
“Sirius?”
“Yeah, I’m—I’m trying to—That feels good,” he finally says, giving up on anything else. He drops back on his elbows, then slides all the way down until he’s lying across the parchment they spent hours turning into half-decent essays.
Deft fingers work the lower buttons of his shirt open. Stale library air grazes his skin before Remus’ mouth descends on his abdomen, his hip bones, the narrow space between his navel and the waistband of his trousers. Sirius scrambles for purchase, but all he finds are ink pots and quills and more parchment; he knocks over the first, tosses aside the second, and wrinkles the third.
“Oh, gods,” he gasps when Remus tugs on a zipper, pops more buttons free. Fingers hook in the waistband of his trousers and briefs to pull them down, and Sirius can only dig his fingernails into his palms until the skin smarts to remind himself this isn’t a dream.
This is real.
Remus gently eases him higher up on the table; an ink pot clatters when it hits the floor, spilling black all over the cobblestones. Parchment crinkles under him, surely ruined.
“Is this okay?” asks Remus, his mouth hot against the seam where Sirius’ thigh meets his groyne. “Should I stop?”
Sirius sputters a laugh. He glances down, unable to stop himself from memorising Remus exactly as he looks when his pupils are blown, his cheeks are flushed, and his lips are swollen. The sight makes Sirius swear under his breath; he drops his head back onto the table with a dull thud. “If you stop, Moons, I’m going to hex your bollocks off your body.”
“Something all men want to hear,” Remus mutters dryly; there’s a grin in his voice. He presses another chaste kiss to Sirius’ hip bone. “Is that a yes, then?”
“I—Yes. Of course it’s a—yes.” Sirius bites down on his knuckle hard enough to draw blood when the flat of Remus’ tongue runs from the base to the tip of his cock, swirling around the head before he swallows Sirius down to the back of his throat. “Remus,” gasps Sirius, his hips bucking off the table. A hand splays over his abdomen to hold him still, but he writhes underneath it anyway.
Pleasure pools in his spine, flooding the space behind his navel. He twists his fingers in the soft strands of Remus’ hair and bites down on his knuckle to hold in his cries. Remus’ mouth is brilliant, his tongue skilled and used with a delicate finesse that drives Sirius mad. Fingers dig into the inside of his thigh. They curl into his abdomen, dragging blunt nails across his skin. There will be marks there tomorrow that he can trace in the mirror when he’s alone. He’ll relive this moment again and again, though the memory will pale in comparison to the real thing.
To Remus, who says ‘Sirius’ like it’s the only name he was ever meant to say.
Sirius clings to Remus’ hair, to the edge of the table above him, but he’s still thrown into freefall when heat twists behind his navel, tension taut as a rubber band pulled past its limit—until it snaps, quick as a whip, and Sirius only manages a strangled, “I’m co—” before he shudders from head to toe. His orgasm rips through him, pulled to the surface by Remus’ eager mouth. The same mouth that doesn’t move away, choosing instead to take more of Sirius until he spills down Remus’ throat, pleasure zinging up his spine with each twitch of his spent cock.
“Holy—” Sirius groans, the heels of his hands pressed against his eyes. “Shit, Moons.” He shivers when Remus pulls off of him, the sound wet and obscene. “I can’t believe we—Oh, that wasn’t—”
Panic grips Sirius by the throat, sudden and terrible. He wasn’t supposed to do any of this with Remus. Gentle caresses and kisses and sex—all of that is off the table when it comes to Remus, because he isn’t everyone else and he matters. Sirius doesn’t do this stuff with people who matter like this. He’s not supposed to. He’ll mess everything up the way he always does, and Remus will leave and—
“Pads. Hey. Padfoot. C’mon. Look at me.”
Sirius shakes his head violently from side to side, hands still pressed against his eyes. He messed up. Let himself get lost in the heat of the moment, in the need that’s been buried under his skin for so long that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be rid of it. All he’s ever wanted was Remus. But he can’t—
“Sirius. Look at me.” Fingers encircle both of his wrists to pull his hands away from his face. “Please look at me. Did I do something wrong? Was it—Was it bad or…?”
“No. No, it was bloody brilliant,” Sirius says, near laughter at the sheer ludicrousness of calling what just happened bad. “I just—I’m not supposed to—You’re not like everyone else, and I don’t want—I don’t want to mess up—We’re best friends, and—”
Remus’ mouth presses to the underside of Sirius’ jaw. “You’re not like everyone else for me either, Pads,” he murmurs softly. “I hate it when you kiss other girls. I really hate it when you kiss other boys. I think if you only kissed other girls, then I could delude myself into believing you don’t want me because you’re just not wired that way. But when I see you kiss other boys? Then I know it’s nothing to do with what’s between my legs and everything to do with me.”
“That’s not true,” whispers Sirius. “You’re better than all of them. They don’t compare.”
“Then why are you acting like what we just did was a bad thing?”
“I’ll mess it up, Moons. I always mess things up. But it’s okay if I mess it all up with people I don’t care about the way I care about you. That’s… It’s safe.”
Remus nuzzles Sirius’ jaw, humming low. “I don’t think you’ll mess this up, Pads.”
“You can’t be so sure.”
“Yes, I can.” Remus presses a kiss to the corner of Sirius’ mouth, lingering. “I trust you. I know you.”
Sirius looses a shuddering breath. He turns his head just enough to capture Remus’ lips in a soft kiss. “I don’t want to kiss anyone else,” he whispers against Remus’ mouth. “Not if I can kiss you.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Remus grins, kissing Sirius softly. “I don’t want to kiss anyone else, either. Guess that leaves us with only one option, then.”
“It’s not a bad one.” Sirius pulls his lips between his teeth and swallows his laugh; Remus regards him with a raised brow and haughty expression. “What? It’s not. I think it’s a brilliant option. The best one. Though maybe next time…” Sirius wriggles underneath Remus, glancing pointedly at the trousers and briefs still pulled down around his knees. “Maybe next time we do this in a bed.”
“James and Peter will kill us.”
“You’re a talented wizard, Moons. I’m sure you know a few privacy charms or two.”
Remus’ grin broadens. He tongues the inside of his cheek, nodding slowly. “I know a handful. Nothing fancy.”
“Doesn’t have to be fancy.” Sirius kisses the tip of Remus’ nose, smiling so wide his cheeks ache. “Just has to work.”
“Should we go and test them now? Just to be sure.”
“I thought we had essays to finish.”
Remus grabs his wand from where it’s rolled precariously to the edge of the table. He waves it, muttering under his breath, and the ink pots and quills right themselves, then tuck neatly inside his bag. The parchment under Sirius fights to get loose; when he arches his back, it whooshes out from under him, rolling up into a tight, perfect scroll.
“You really are such a show-off,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “And we didn’t finish those.”
“We can finish tomorrow.”
“They’re due tomorrow.”
“Since when do you care about handing an essay in on time?” Remus gathers their things while Sirius rights his trousers. He takes in Remus’ flushed cheeks and swollen lips, the wildness of his hair. When he catches Sirius staring, he pauses. “What? What is it?”
“Nothing. I just like looking at you,” Sirius says simply, holding out his hand.
Not a thing in the world matters except the warmth that spreads from his palm through his body when Remus’ hand slips into his, their fingers slotting together. Sirius lets himself be pulled in for another kiss, unsurprised when this one deepens just as the last did, and Remus’ messenger bag drops to the floor beside their feet.
“What happened to testing out privacy spells?” asks Sirius between kisses, chuckling when Remus makes an affronted noise.
“We’ve got time, don’t we? We can test them tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or this weekend. Right?”
Sirius smiles, then leans in for another kiss. “Yeah, Moons. We’ve got all the time in the world.”