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The Knight Bus spits him out on the main road of the sleepy Welsh village when the lights of the surrounding houses already switched off. The nearby church tower tells him it’s close to 2am already, so it’s no surprise most of the occupants are tucked up warmly in their beds. The conductor had given him such a strange look when he’d requested his stop, jittering awfully, throwing shards of hair over his shoulders and avoiding eye contact entirely, but had dropped him at the side of the road regardless.
Sirius begins the trudge up to the Lupin house—a memory surfaces from between all the fog of the week spent there last summer, roaming the Welsh hills with the idle fancy of teenage boys with nothing better to do. The gravel of the driveway crunches under his feet and he realises he’s still in his socks, after tripping out of the Potter household bleary with lack of sleep. Sirius cuts around the house to Remus’ bedroom, on the ground floor, looking out onto the hills, the curtains half drawn but the window cracked. There’s a soft light issuing from behind the curtains and he thanks Merlin that Remus is awake. Sirius raps smartly on the window, feeling oddly as if his body doesn’t belong to him, as if he’s watching it perform tasks autonomously.
Remus cracks the curtain and the shock flits across his face. “Pads? What’s wrong? What are you doing here?”
Sirius shrugs one shoulder with aristocratic effortlessness. The moon is a shard in the sky casting silver over Remus. He looks beautiful. “Can I come in?”
Remus steps back and holds the curtain open; Sirius watches his bright eyes flicker over him. Sirius knows he looks a little dishevelled—his old Quidditch jersey hanging from one shoulder, in old joggers and the socks Mia had knitted him last Christmas—but Remus still lets him in without question. Sirius climbs in, long limbs, his in-built grace overflowing into the tiny room, and throws himself down on the bed without preamble.
“… It’s 2am, Padfoot. What the hell?”
In the quiet of Remus’ bedroom, the day swarms over him like midges in the summer at the edge of the Black Lake. The memory seems far off, the beginning of summer.
“Alphard’s dead. Got a letter from a lawyer this afternoon.” Sirius picks at the thread of his Quidditch jersey, heedless of the way Remus seems to shrink in on himself, unsure of what to say. At length, he folds himself—ungainly, lanky, lacking every bit of Sirius’ grace—onto the end of the bed.
“Shit, Padfoot… that’s—fuck… I’m sorry.”
Sirius shrugs again, shifting up onto his knees. “It’s fine.”
It wasn’t.
Alphard was the only member of his miserable, awful family that he’d ever felt close to, the only Black who wasn’t a horrific bigot, the only one who hadn’t screamed at him for weeks after his sorting into Gryffindor, hadn’t ignored him for months after he’d come out as a queer in a fit of rage at the dinner table.
But Sirius doesn’t say any of that. Instead he pitches forward and nuzzles into Remus’ neck, the smell of ink and tea and warmth, of Remus washing over him. Remus tips his head back in some semblance of submission and finds grip on Sirius’ waist through his jersey.
They still haven’t talked about them, about what happens at night in the safety of their dormitory, in the safety of their beds, drapes drawn around them. It’s been months, maybe more—Sirius doesn’t really remember—but neither of them has broached it. Sirius knows he should, he sees it in Remus’ eyes occasionally, wondering whether tonight everything will come together, or whether they’ll just scrabble frantically in the dark together.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Sirius knows he’s abusing their friendship, knows that Remus won’t push him away, knows that Remus, who was still so shocked he had friends at all, won’t say anything to Sirius unless it’s yes, please, more, oh, Padfoot. But he can’t bring himself to care, he just needs this, tonight. He needs to get out of his brain, he needs the comfort that being in Remus’ arms brings him, the comfort of having Remus’ limbs entwined with his.
“Sirius…” Remus all-but whimpers, a hand stroking over the line of Sirius’ waist as he bites softly on the tendon of his neck. “Are you okay?” Remus finds it within him to peel himself away from Sirius, a hand on his shoulder. His green eyes are wide, the pupils blown; he’s breathless, and probably more than half-hard.
Sirius chases his mouth and kisses him once, twice, before Remus pitches back again. Sirius rolls his eyes and shucks a wave of hair from his shoulder with a huff of annoyance. “I’m fine, Moons. It’s all fine.”
Remus peers at him, terse worry across his features. The new moon has just passed, and Remus seems to sink back into boyhood with its arrival, every time. Sometimes he’s all wolf, bristling and demanding and Sirius soars with it when they’re in bed together. Other times he’s quiet, blurred like an oil painting, pliant to Sirius, like something he can mark as his own, something he can dig his teeth into. He’s not sure which he needs tonight. He just needs Remus, to know that someone wants him, to know that Remus needs him.
Sirius shakes his head, all effervescent impatience, and leans forward to kiss Remus soundly on the mouth. He knows that Remus sees the flash of vulnerability in his eyes from that close, sees the steely-grey of a mask slipping. Remus smiles softly into the kiss and cups Sirius’ cheek. Remus Lupin, the most selfless boy he knows, the boy who would give Sirius everything if he just asks, eases back onto the bed and Sirius crawls on top of him. He doesn’t ask Remus though, he doesn’t say anything, the words stopping behind his teeth every time. He’s too selfish, just takes what he wants from Remus, and oh, Remus gives it so splendidly every time. Sirius knows he should stop, knows that he and Remus fit together in all the worst ways, in all the ways that hurt them both, but he can’t. Remus can’t stop either, Remus doesn’t want to give this up, he feels their awfulness in his bones like Sirius does.
“Okay, Pads. Okay,” Remus breathes, his fingers carding through Sirius’ hair to push it back from his face. His eyes are so green, so green like the rolling hills behind them, green like the Slytherin robes his brother wears, green like the envy that riots through Sirius when he sees James on the receiving end of motherly affection from Euphemia, green like the Killing Curse. Remus sees him, green eyes like the Killing Curse, and it pulls at Sirius’ stomach in a way he’s unfamiliar with.
Sirius leans back and snags the hem of his jersey before pulling it over his head in one swift motion. The burgundy of it as he pulls it off shudders through him with juxtaposition to Remus’ green eyes. Burgundy red like Gryffindor bravery, red like a split lip, like a bloody nose, red like Remus’ hands after the full moon, red like the Cruciatus Curse.
Remus is leaning up to meet him with kisses, Unforgivable Curse kisses, with a life sentence and a weight that hefts into Sirius’ chest to push him back onto the bed, Remus tipping with him.
After, both sated and spent, Sirius untangles himself from the sheets and lights a cigarette from the pack by Remus’ bed. He pads to the window and peers out at the rolling hills through the smoke. Remus is watching from the bed, blurred like an oil painting, smiling muzzily, and it hurts.
Sirius wonders how long it will last, how long Remus’ Killing Curse eyes will bring him back from the brink of his own awfulness, how long it will be until it’s left too long unsaid between them. Selfishly, Sirius hopes the day will never come, that Remus will always be there just exactly as he needs him. But he knows it’s a false hope, and sooner or later Remus won’t be able to talk him down.