Chapter Text
Remus looked in the mirror for at least thirty seconds before he left. It was an unusual instance, so unusual that he laughed to himself when he turned away.
He didn’t look in the mirror much. In fact, sometimes he’d even forget what he was wearing halfway through the day. Once, after a troublesome month, he gave himself a scare, looking in the mirror for the first time in a while and remembering he had that one particularly angry scar on his left temple.
Another time, his eyes didn’t seem like his own, for he had spent such a long while feeling them as tired and lazy, dazed and heavy. It startled him to look in the mirror and see a twinkle of something in them, something sort of bright and sparkling despite it all. It made him scoff - as if someone else was there to be embarrassed in front of.
So, of course he giggled as he scanned his outfit a couple of times. Of course he couldn’t quite believe it when he ruffled his hand through his messy brown hair to make it fall on top of his head nicely.
Sirius had only messaged him about two minutes ago. Two minutes and he was already walking out the door, checking how he looked on the way. It was distinctly different from how he usually exited, head down and tripping over his own feet. He shook his head as he shuffled down the corridor.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a crush like this one, so utterly ridiculous and impossible. So all-encompassing and butterfly-inducing that he’d started checking his own appearance before leaving the house. So exciting that the great old darkness in his chest had started to feel sunny again. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt a warmth like this one.
Sirius had told him, a month or so in, that he was the best dealer he’d ever had; that he didn’t even know it was possible to buy weed from someone who was never late and always available. Remus had smiled, shrugged his shoulders and neglected to mention that all of his other customers usually hung around an hour or so before they gave up on the idea of him meeting them at all, that he’d lost four in the last three months because of it.
He’d never actually wanted to be a good dealer; he only started it when he was seventeen and wanted extra cash to pay for booze and the luxuries of being unemployed and dumb. He only continued it now because he was employed, full-time and two night shifts a week, and still couldn’t afford to put food on his own table. He couldn’t afford to live, really. Survive, maybe. Grumble along in this half-aliveness that he’d found himself in, just about.
It was unfair; he’d never been reckless, never overspent or gambled his life away. He’d never really done anything wrong at all. He was just unlucky enough to have been born poor, to not have any of what it takes to get away from all of that - to pull himself out of the bog he’d been stuck in his whole life.
So he was never really excited, at twenty-three, to go and pick up from some seedy guy’s thirteenth-floor flat and weigh it all into little plastic bags, getting disgruntled looks from his customers when he arrived late and miserable. It all felt very childish, but in a way, so did he.
It was only when he met Sirius that he started to care about this silly side business he partook in.
It was a perfectly normal Monday afternoon when Sirius first messaged, saying he’d been referred by someone that Remus had no recollection of ever meeting. He was sprawled out on his sofa, watching a Hell’s Kitchen highlights video on YouTube and sort of unsure if he was even awake or not. He hadn’t looked in the mirror in days. He had grumbled and started to dread what kind of twat went by the name of ‘Sirius’, but he had replied nonetheless because Sirius wanted half an ounce and he’d never say no to an easy hundred.
He was only fifteen minutes late when he went to meet Sirius for the first time. He had his plaid pyjama bottoms on, even though it wasn’t quite evening yet, and the same hoodie he’d been wearing for a couple of days.
He hadn’t felt the need to look in the mirror that day, not until he rounded the corner to the quiet alley behind the supermarket and saw who was waiting for him there.
Remus had never been a romantic man, but he swore he could see the entire universe inside his eyes.
There he waited. Sirius. With an expectant little smile on his lips and a face pulled straight out of Remus’ wildest, wildest dreams.
He was a kind of beauty that Remus didn’t realise was possible in real life, as if he should be locked away on a TV screen or a magazine page, to be looked at but never met. As if he shouldn’t even exist at all, only to be imagined and dreamt up, never to be touched or stained or hurt. Never to see all of this ugliness that surrounds him.
He was perfect. Porcelain skin and pink lips. Long black hair that tumbled over his shoulders like silk. Sharp features, strong and tall and somehow softer than anything he’d ever seen. Slim waist. Flushed cheeks. Eyes that held the stars and the moon and every last precious thing that this dreary world had to offer. Lazy spring mornings. Peaceful nights. A heart beating back to life after so long in the nothingness.
Remus had stumbled, genuinely lost his balance for a second, when he saw him. Knocked almost unconscious by the blinding light in front of him. Reminded, suddenly and harshly, of how he looked, subconsciously moving his hand to his hip to hide the coffee stain there. He’d coughed to clear his throat, unable to hear the world around him properly, feeling a lot like he was drowning.
“Sirius, is it?” He’d said, somewhere in some unreal time and place.
“Yeah. Hi.” Sirius had responded, voice deep and proper and too fresh for right now. “My mate James bought from you a couple ‘a weeks ago and said it was nice, so he gave me your number.”
Remus struggled to remember a James, each face blending into one. No one had ever stood out to Remus. No one had ever really caught his attention. Not until Sirius on that perfectly normal Monday afternoon.
“Hope that’s alright,” Sirius said next with an odd look in his eye and a furrow in his brow. Remus realised then that he’d been thinking too much, too perplexed by all of this impossibleness, that he hadn’t answered in a reasonable time.
He laughed a little and cringed about it almost immediately.
“Yeah. Course.” When he shuffled over to the devastating stranger, each step felt like a lifetime. He pulled the bag out of his pocket and thrust his arm robotically toward him, suddenly forgetting how to act normally. “I put a good mix of stuff in there. Each different strain is labelled so you can try ‘em all out and choose your favourite next time. I like the Canadian the best.”
He spoke, nice and rehearsed, trying to ignore the way his words felt like acid on his tongue, the way he could hardly hear himself over the booming in his chest.
“Thanks.” Sirius said with a grin that might have actually killed him, were he not too focused on taking the money from his long, slender fingers. It took all that was left alive in him to remain upright when their hands touched and electricity, real and painful, shot through each of his nerves in turn.
He had nodded and turned away. Quick. Professional. Too much to stay a second longer. And, since then, every two weeks or so, he had found himself jumping from his spot on the sofa whenever he got the notification and checking how he looked on the way out.
He’d known him nearly a year by now, seen him at least every two weeks, sometimes more - especially in the winter months when everything goes dark, and people start needing a little something more.
The first few meetings lasted no more than a minute each. Then, they started creeping up to two, sometimes three, Remus feeling every passing second as though they were tickling up his spine.
Sirius was the first one to say something different. Remus was turning to leave, stuffing the cash into the pocket of his best jeans, when he heard a scoff behind him.
“You should get a wallet, you know.”
He turned back around, shuddering at the sound of his voice.
“Your pockets are so big the cash’ll come flying out.”
Remus breathed out, watching the grin on Sirius’ pretty face spread wider.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He looked down at his feet and kicked a pebble, trying to hide the blush on his cheeks. Ridiculous. “Guess I’m not very organised or sommet.”
“Nah,” Sirius replied immediately. “You’re good. Best dealer I’ve ever had anyway.”
Remus bit back a fierce grin. Crinkled his nose.
“I’m nothin’ special.”
Sirius’ eyes met his, and his face relaxed, and his grin shone even brighter, and Remus had never ever felt like this before, like he’d been pulled straight out of himself and tossed into the sun; burning preciously warm from the inside out.
“Well, you’re very special to me, Moony. A lifesaver, really.”
And maybe he hadn’t really been talked to like that since he was a little kid, when everything lived fuzzy and golden in his mind, and maybe his heart had leapt a bit, and he felt, unmistakably, like he had fallen in love.
His mind reeled. All he could come up with was a pfft.
“Your name isn’t really Moony, right?” Sirius drew his nickname out like a purr.
“No, of course not.”
“Can I know what it is?”
Remus looked down again, terribly nervous all of a sudden.
“It’s not much better, actually.” He grumbled.
“Oh, well.”
“Remus.” He blurted it out. Never done that before. Not to any of the others. “It’s Remus.”
Sirius didn’t miss a beat.
“I like it. Remus. It goes nicely with mine.”
He couldn’t help the hitch in his breath.
“I suppose it does.”
There had been two times when the conversation had almost reached ten minutes, and in both cases, it felt like the most he’d spoken in weeks. Sirius had this peculiar way of drawing words out of him, of conjuring up some version of himself that was foreign and well-adjusted. Sometimes they’d talk, and it would feel easy; it would feel normal. Sometimes he’d find himself revealing things that he hadn’t even thought about in years. For the first time in a very long time, it felt an awful lot like someone was listening to him.
And, even better, it was in these rare, longer meetings that he was able to learn a little about his beautiful stranger. Only small things, only offered flippantly and carelessly, but important enough that Remus kept each one, stored in the brand-new library, acquiescing in his heart. He gripped onto every detail, every new name and anecdote and clue to who he really was and where he really came from. And it didn’t take long before he’d formed a clear picture of the boy in his head.
His name was Sirius. His best friend was James. He was gorgeous, and he knew it. He loved the sun and mumbled under his hood whenever there was a chill in the air. He would always go to the shop before heading to their meeting spot - there was always a packet of biscuits and some fruit juice in the pockets of his big jacket. He was smart, witty and charming. He was the only person who had made Remus smile widely in ages. He laughed at the kind of things only people like them laughed at, the kind of things that took an over-fried brain and not enough tolerance breaks to seem funny, like the spaces between words and cars honking on the road over.
He was bright and dazzling and felt strong enough to lean on like the flickering streetlight at the end of the road, the one that cut through all of the darkness and never went fully out.
But, on the other hand, there were days when he wasn’t that person at all and everything was different.
More often than he cared to see, Remus would round the corner and find Sirius frowning there with bags under his eyes and some sinister colours on his skin. Sometimes there were bruises, big and splotchy and angry, and sometimes there were scrapes. They were usually on his arms, visible should he be wearing a t-shirt, but sometimes they were on his neck and his collar, and at the worst times, they were ruining his perfect face - a black eye or two to take away from his ocean ones.
On these days, the meetings were the shortest ever. Sirius would be somehow smaller and entirely reserved, eyes flickering down to his boots like he never ever did before.
Remus had asked, once in a helpless attempt to keep Sirius from fleeing too fast, if he had “gotten into a fight or sommet?” to which Sirius only winced, wrinkled his brow and replied with a humourless laugh, “I fuckin’ wish, mate,” before handing him the money and scuttling away.
So, maybe he wasn’t actually as perfect as he seemed. It was clear that something or someone was haunting him, hurting him time and time again. Maybe it was selfish, or just a projection of how pathetic he really was, but it made Remus like him more. In fact, it made him quite a bit obsessed.
It was because he knew, deep down, that he was unworthy of this boy he barely knew.
Remus was broken down and hollowed out, more like a husk than a person, or at least that’s the way he knew himself; that’s the way it had always felt. He was a dropout virtuoso - college and two universities. He smoked more than a steam train and had honestly forgotten how it felt not to be at least a little bit buzzed. He didn’t leave the house unless he was going to his job, his other job or conducting his other kind of work. He didn’t have anyone. He’d never really had any ambitions, always thought it was strange that he didn’t know how to answer when the teacher would ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up.
He was destined to be a shrug of the shoulders. He’d never really felt real at all.
He sucked, and he knew he sucked, and he was pretty sure he was gonna suck for the rest of his life.
So, yeah, even being in the same vicinity as Sirius was enough to make him think he was dreaming, or cheating, as if he’d somehow slipped through a crack and ended up in a world he didn’t belong in.
For the first few times, when Sirius was shining like a star in front of him, Remus struggled to cope at all, burning up and almost too dizzy to stand, so it came as a sick kind of satisfaction when he realised that the boy was damaged, in a seemingly cyclical sort of way. It was an extra layer of protection to know that Sirius was actually a real person and that Remus didn’t have to feel so bad about standing next to him in the dirty alleyway behind the supermarket.
He never asked what was wrong or who was doing all of that damage to Sirius. He definitely should’ve asked, definitely should’ve tried to help, but he was afraid that asking would scare him off. He was afraid that he’d overstep and lose the only thing that was making his life even remotely interesting. He barely knew him at all, but he knew he never wanted to live without him again.
It wasn’t like he didn’t want to know; he actually wanted to know everything there was to know about him. He just didn’t think it was any of his business. He never ignored the way his anger flared up whenever he saw the bruises and the bashes. He didn’t know Sirius, but he knew that he couldn’t possibly deserve any of that. He felt quietly awful for the boy and painfully angry at himself for not doing anything about it.
At least, that was until a Thursday in May, when the Spring breeze was blowing in a different direction over his head, and he finally decided to stop listening to himself.
He’d only just stepped through his door after eight hours of standing behind a counter in the petrol station down the road.
It had been an intolerable day, boring to the point of exhaustion, with nothing at all to do but scoff at the occasional rude customer. One guy had come up and looked at him like he was terrified. Remus had never really understood that. Sure, maybe all of his scars and the permanent scowl on his face were a little bit off-putting, but he was certain that the rest of him looked unthreatening enough to balance it out.
He was tall and he was strong and he had scars all over his face and yet, on the rare occasion that he did look in the mirror, he still couldn’t see anything more than a half-person, with half-person shoulders and half-person skin and only half of the kind of life that one is supposed to hold in their smile.
He really wasn’t anything to be scared of. Sometimes he missed meeting other people's eyes.
The man had gulped unsubtly and looked over Remus’ shoulders.
“You get into a fight or sommet?” He asked with a short laugh, and Remus remembered asking the exact same thing to Sirius back when he, too, couldn’t think of anything else to say. Awkwardness is universal, it seems.
Remus had ignored him and shoved the card reader into his face.
It had been a long day, and he couldn’t wait to jump onto his sofa, stick Family Guy on and completely forget the rest of the night with his papers and his grinder and the empty can of beans that he’d been using as an ashtray since he dropped his.
He had been sitting down for thirty seconds when Sirius messaged him.
“Hey, Moons. Need some more tonight. Gram or two would do, whatever you’ve got. Can u swing it?”
Remus hadn’t even formed a proper thought before he started typing.
“Sure. Just bring a tenner. When?”
“Soon as possible, Moony.”
“I can come right now if you want.”
So, not even ten minutes later, Remus had parked in front of the shop and was skulking around the back of it. It often crossed his mind that he couldn’t be more obvious if he tried, that the shop owners must be able to recognise his shitty old beamer by now, must’ve seen him trudging towards the alley on the cameras, but he was at the point, at a young twenty-four, that he couldn’t care less if he tried.
It’s not like he would ever actually go to prison for shifting little bags of weed a few times a week, but honestly, even if he did, he couldn’t imagine it being much different from how his life already was. Every day occurred to him like a gentle breeze, maybe strong enough to ruffle a strand of hair but not to knock him off his feet. His eyes were always heavy. His brain was always quiet. Sometimes the world moved around him, and he didn’t even notice. Sometimes he felt like he’d been picked up and placed in certain spots and at certain times, like he didn’t get there himself at all.
Nothing ever happened to him. More nothing happening to him in a prison cell couldn’t be that much worse. But, then again, something was certainly happening to him now and had been for the last year. Someone was happening to him. Someone who had, silently and unknowingly, changed his entire godforsaken life.
Rounding the corner to the alley, his body started to tingle with excited nerves again, just like it did whenever he met Sirius.
It was just like a high-school crush, just as silly and just as paramount. He liked this feeling, though; he enjoyed feeling like something was bubbling through him, happy and fresh and careless. It was like all of his aches and exhaustion had been removed for a minute, replaced with something entirely wonderful. It sort of felt like being high, back when being high was exciting and new. It felt like being young again. Though, of course, he still was young, he just felt entirely void of the benefits most of the time.
Biting his lip, he picked up his pace, relishing the way he could hear his own heart. He hated the silence of going home, of walking away from Sirius.
“Hey.” He said when he saw him.
Sirius was turned away, facing the wall.
He was wearing his nice jeans - the ones Remus thought about literally all of the time. They were ridiculously tight at the top and then baggier at the bottom, sitting awfully low on his hips and hugging his ass. The first time Remus had seen them, he forgot how to speak mid-sentence and Sirius had laughed at him, smirked as if he knew. He had his big headphones on too, staring at the wall, and Remus guessed he hadn’t heard him coming, so he waited a second, audaciously looking at his ass, before he approached.
A gentle tap on the shoulder, closer to Sirius than he may have ever been, and the boy jumped. He turned around.
The smirk that had coyly formed on Remus’ face fell right off and he took a step back, heart dropping to the floor.
Sirius was crying. Real, big tears were falling down his face and his eyes were bloodshot, his brow wrinkled and his lips trembling. Remus had never seen him cry before.
They both looked at each other in momentary shock, and Sirius stumbled backwards a little, immediately scrubbing at his face with his sweater sleeve and pulling his headphones down.
“Shit, Remus.” He squeaked, words getting caught by the sadness welling up in his throat. He sniffled rather dramatically, trying to get the errant tears to stop. “How the fuck did you get here so fast? I - I,” He shook his head, blushing fiercely and looking away. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”
Remus stood, silent, for an awful second before he noticed Sirius deflate even more and shook his own head into action.
“I only live up the road.” Was the first thing that he said. Idiot. And then, because he realised he was trying to be nice, “Are you okay?”
Sirius nodded quickly, too many times to count and then looked at the ground once more. Remus didn’t miss the way his lip trembled even more, even as he nodded his affirmations. He didn’t miss the way he swayed on his feet and pinched his brow. He saw how he was plainly trying to stop crying, no doubt with a stinging in his head and a burn in his chest.
Remus remembered how it felt to try to stop crying, though he hadn’t cried in years. He used to cry a lot, back when he still had some wild dream of getting out and doing things, back before he had come to terms with his hopelessness. He guessed it would probably feel good to cry now, though it always hurt him like a heart attack when he was younger. It’s funny how things change like that.
Sirius coughed, wiping his eyes on his sleeve once more. Remus didn’t push, just kept a reasonable distance and tried not to look quite so uncomfortable. He felt terrible for Sirius, really felt like someone had punched him in the gut just from looking at him. He almost had to stop himself from reaching out and pulling him into a hug or something - anything to take some of the sadness away.
He probably should’ve. He didn’t.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Sirius finally said. “Just had a tough day. Listened to a sad song, you know.”
He looked up at Remus again, and his eyes were swimming, sparkling, red. Remus couldn’t believe how beautiful he still looked, even with tragedy all over his face.
“Yeah, it’s cool. I get it.”
He didn’t, not really.
“Thanks for coming, anyway. Sorry it was such short notice.” Sirius smiled sadly and pulled the money out of his pocket.
Remus shook his head.
“It’s alright. This one’s on me.”
“Don’t be silly.” He laughed. It was nice to hear him laugh. Remus wasn’t prepared for how utterly devastating it had been to watch him cry.
“It’s fine, Sirius. Really. Only a couple ‘a grams anyway.”
He held the bag out to Sirius, but the other boy refused to open his hand. Remus moved with a gulp, with a lingering pang of anxiety, but he was glad that he moved, nevertheless, and he gently peeled Sirius’ fingers open and placed the bag into his palm.
Sirius watched as he moved, eyes trained firmly on Remus’ hands. There was a tension in the air that hadn’t existed moments ago. Remus could feel it, hot and heavy all around. He gulped and hoped it wasn’t loud, focused on the tingling in his fingers as Sirius clasped his hand around the bag.
He pulled his hand away, and Sirius looked up at him as though he were looking into the face of kindness itself. Remus was staggered by it - sure he’d never, at any moment in his entire life, been looked at like that before.
“Thank you.” Sirius whispered, almost imperceptibly, and looked right into Remus’ eyes. It was enough to wind him completely. He inhaled a sharp gasp, unable to breathe.
It was the coward in Remus that made him start to walk away, turning and moving forward with a nod of his head and a small smile. He thought that if he stayed a moment longer, he might pass out. But, in the end, there was something stronger growing inside of him - a feeling that he could barely recognise, having not felt it in so long. Something like bravery, something like compassion.
He stopped just before the corner wall and turned back around.
“Are you sure you’re gonna be alright?”
It might’ve just been a few words that held no weight whatsoever, but Remus reckoned it was the best thing he’d said in a very long while. And, really, it only worked for something because Sirius was a better person than he, who knew how to talk and be real and not be quite so imprisoned in his own mind.
“Yeah.” Sirius lied once again before looking at Remus for a second, something turning in his mind. He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head decisively. “I’m fine, honestly; I’m just a bit turned around at the minute.”
Remus nodded his head expectantly, taking two brave steps toward him.
“I’m usually staying with James, but he’s on holiday, and he forgot to leave me a fuckin’ spare key, the twat.” Sirius’ pale face turned red and he closed his eyes again, embarrassed. “So I was staying with this other guy, but it turns out he’s fuckin’ evil, so I told him to fuck off.”
Remus listened intently, finding all of the nasty words coming out of pretty boy’s mouth a little bit amusing.
“And so I have to go home - uh - home to my parents’,” His frown deepened. Something struck a nerve. “And, honestly,” The next part came out in a whisper, quiet and quietly terrified. “I just don’t wanna go home, right now.”
Remus had never been fed his line quite so easily.
“Come back to mine then, if you’d like.” He spoke quickly before he had the chance to regret it. “We could smoke, chill out. Go home whenever ya want.”
He shrugged his shoulders then, trying to act nonchalant about the whole thing, as if his heart wasn’t lodged like a rock in his throat, as if his feet hadn’t gone numb where he stood.
Sirius smiled gently. Remus couldn’t hide his blush if he tried.
“Yeah, I will. If that’s alright.”