Work Text:
Remus fell back onto his unmade bed, jagged pieces of the conversation with Sirius skittering around in his mind. He kept returning to the same word. Crush. Crush. Crush.
The softness of the word felt so wrong coming from the mouth of rock-and-roll Sirius Black. Sirius was full of love and loyalty, but it was always platonic. He basked in attention from the girls (and guys) whose eyes were always glued to him, but he never kept them there for long. He played it like a game, and having a crush just wasn’t a part of that game.
Remus knew that, if he were to play the same game, he would certainly lose.
No, “crush” sounded more akin to the sickeningly sweet infatuations of a first year, one too young and inexperienced to know how much safer it is to scribble out the truth with a lie. It sounded like confessions taped to textbooks (as James had done on many occasions), friends sent as little spies to listen in on a conversation and eke out your chances for you (also James, via the other Marauders). It sounded innocent and uncertain and everything that Sirius was not.
It made no sense at all. There was simply no way that “crush” was the word Sirius had intended to use, or that it meant to him what it meant to Remus in that brief moment of dreaming before he settled back into the reality; things like that never happen to people like him.
Maybe it was a prank. He thought ruefully that it wouldn’t be the cruellest one Sirius had played.
But Remus could never stay angry with him for long, especially not after that summer of painful and heartfelt apologies. Any lingering bitterness melted away when the door quivered open to reveal Sirius, backlit in the dark room by the light coming in from the hallway.
“Why’d you leave the party?” Remus asked once the door was closed, muffling the din from the Common Room. There was never a quiet evening with the Marauders, but their Start Of Sixth Year party made this one particularly loud.
“Got a lot to say to you,” Sirius said. He looked strangely small leaning back against the closed door, arms folded. “Alone.”
“Well, we’re alone now.” Sirius gave a tentative look towards the bed, sitting beside Remus only after he nodded his assent. “Is everything okay?”
“You tell me. You’re the one that ran out when I said I had a crush on you.”
“I did not run.” Sirius glowered at him. “Okay,” Remus conceded, “maybe I ran.”
“Look, Moony, I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up again, I swear.”
“Is this a prank?”
He laughed a little too harshly. “Why would it be a prank?”
Remus tried to ignore the feeling of his heart sinking, because of course. He rolled from his back onto his stomach, increasing the distance between them as casually as he could. “‘Crush’ just didn’t seem like a word you would use. That was what tipped me off.”
“Well, I wasn’t gonna come right out and call it love.”
There it was again. That glimmer of hope. “I don’t understand,” Remus said.
“I think you do,” Sirius said, as though it were that simple.
“This isn’t funny, Sirius.”
“You’re overthinking it.” Remus felt him staring, but he kept his own gaze glued to the fitted sheet beneath him until Sirius’s soft voice said, “please, look at me.”
He sat up to face Sirius, who was already standing again. “I don’t expect you to trust me, not after everything that’s happened.” He placed a tentative hand on Remus’s shoulder. Remus didn’t move- he wasn’t even sure if he breathed. “But if there’s any part of that would consider being more than this, more than friends, you should tell me. Whenever you’re ready.”
With the faintest squeeze of Remus’s shoulder, Sirius left the room, closing the door behind him.
'Cause I'd rather waste my life pretending,
Than have to forget you for one whole minute.