Chapter Text
“I love this weather.” Sirius opened his eyes to look up at the sky, which loomed heavy over the back lawns of the castle. It was marbled over with slate grey clouds, mottled and convivial. Well, convivial to Remus. To Sirius, it looked dead.
“Why? It’s about to rain,” the dark-haired boy countered from his position on the ground, his head on his mate’s legs. He wasn’t entirely sure how they had gotten like this- maybe back when he had still been in possession of intent to read his charms book, he’d laid down, and things just happened- but he wasn’t complaining. Lupin’s thighs weren’t entirely uncomfortable (but he’d never in his wildest dreams tell him that).
Remus shook his head, resting back on his forearms in the grass. “That’s what’s good about it. I love the rain, and the weather leading up to it. It’s so…” He craned his neck up to the clouds once more as he searched for the right word. “Alive.”
“This is your idea of alive?” Sirius clucked. “Remind me to never let you become a morgue director.”
The chestnut-haired boy cracked a thin smile. “Oh, there go all my hopes and aspirations.”
“I don’t know what you get out of this,” Sirius continued, squinting up at the spread of clouds and shaking his head slightly. “I prefer the sky after the storm, when it’s just clearing out.”
“That’s a song,” Remus said.
“What?”
“‘After the Storm’. It’s a song my m- it’s a song.”
Sirius raised his eyebrows up at the werewolf. “It’s a song your what?”
Lupin sighed, rolling his eyes. “It’s a song my mum used to sing. To me. When I was sad. As a kid.” He braced himself internally for a snide remark, maybe ‘poor little Remus' or ‘did the baby feel mopey?’ or, better yet still, ‘ickle wolfie’. General response to just the thought of tiny Marauders invariably ended in one party red-faced and telling the others that they could fuck off. It was mutual, though, so what could you do?
Instead, the boy in Remus's lap just closed his eyes again. “How’s it go?” the grey-eyed wizard asked.
“It’s a full song,” he replied. “Like, a long song.”
“Sing the chorus?”
Remus scoffed. “Sirius, I can’t sing alone in the shower, much less- well-” he paused, gesturing emphatically to the students scattered across the greens before realizing that Sirius's eyes were closed. “Much less out here.”
“Bollocks,” the fifth year mumbled. “I’ve heard you from our room.” The taller boy looked daggers down at him. “Don’t give me that glare, you do sing.”
“What- have- your eyes are closed,” Remus spluttered. “You can’t even see me. I’m not giving you any glares!” Sirius opened his eyes and quirked an eyebrow. “What?” Remus pressed.
“Nothing.” The tan boy exhaled deeply, shaking his head. “You’re funny sometimes, Moony, you know that?” The werewolf didn’t reply.
The clouds overhead swirled into themselves as a sharp gust of air blew across the lawns, ruffling the grass and blowing robes every which way. Through the wind, Sirius could hear brief snippets of the usual din of the back of the castle: third years playing catch (probably with a Muggle ball, judging by the sound of it) and shouting at each other, laughter from some gaggle of girls not too far away, incoherent shrieking in the distance. Emptier than normal, he noted, likely due to the weather. It wasn’t too bad of a place to pass a lazy Sunday afternoon. Especially not from his spot. Best seat in the house, he would wager.
The two of them hadn’t really intended to be alone. It was just that Peter had an irresponsibly overdue divination essay to finish, and James had finally gotten up a civil conversation in the common room with that bird he’d been pining after for ages, and they were the only two left. (Not to mention that they couldn’t have lured Prongs away from the ginger girl with all the pumpkin pasties in the world.) Remus had stretched up off the loveseat next to the hearth and cracked his back, groaning about desperately needing some fresh air.
And Sirius- well, what was he supposed to do? It was Moony. A long walk alone with Moony. With Moony, and his dorky jumpers, and his illegally green eyes, and his idiot know-it-all smirks, and his jawline- oh, bloody hell, his jawline. This is not how you’re supposed to think about him, dammit Padfoot. Damn you. A long walk with Moony, alone but for Sirius's charms textbook that the nerd had insisted he bring along because no way was Remus Lupin going to be held responsible for impeding the education of someone who, in his words, ‘very much needed it’. After a number of physical threats made in the werewolf’s general direction, Sirius had lugged himself off the couch and onto his feet, and that was how they had ended up on the lawns.
“It’s supposed to have a guitar in back,” Remus mused, dragging Sirius back to the present.
“Hmm?”
“There’s supposed to be a guitar in the back of the song,” he continued, “but neither of my parents play, so I’ve never heard it.” He paused. “You still want me to sing the chorus?” Sirius nodded.
And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.
“That’s beautiful,” Sirius ventured after he finished. Remus blushed in spite of himself, rubbing the back of his neck. “You know,” the animagus continued in speculation, “I bet I could weave flowers in my hair if I tried.”
“That’s- well, you do have the locks for it,” Lupin admitted. “Although you might be better off with a flower crown.”
“A flower crown?”
“You know, out of a daisy chain? Here,” he said, leaning over to pluck a little white flower out of the grass on his left. “It’s easy.”
“Remus Lupin, daisy chain maker?” Sirius scoffed. “Well, I never.”
“Shut up,” Remus grumbled, cutting a slit in the stem of the flower with his thumbnail. “Not everyone was as stunningly popular and charismatic in second year primary as you.” He picked another flower, purple this time, and threaded it through the hole in the first.
And here was the taunt he had been expecting. “Poor little wolfboy, having to settle with flowers for company.”
“Well,” Remus snorted, working away. “I wasn’t exactly wolfboy back then. At least not until the next summer.”
“Oh.” Sirius gulped. Damn you, he thought to himself, can’t ever have a solid conversation without fucking things up. “I’m sorry.”
“‘S alright.” Remus furrowed his brow at a particularly stubborn daisy. It just didn’t want to go through. “Long time ago. It happens.”
“Still, it- you- you poor thing.” Sirius shuddered at the thought. “You poor, tiny thing.”
“Sirius Black, don’t you dare deign to pity me. If you do so, I fear I shall lose all faith in the natural order of things.” Before the slate-eyed boy could riposte, Remus laid something across his forehead. “Damn it, it’s just short.”
“Feels funny,” Sirius remarked.
“One sec.” Remus plucked another flower and fiddled around with the chain, biting his lip. “One more.” He added one last flower and tied the delicate ends together. “Sit up.”
“Don’t you tell me what to do,” Sirius retorted as he complied. “Here, do you want my hair out of the bun, or--”
“Doesn’t matter,” Remus said, dusting off his elbows. “Wait, if you- I can’t get it on from here. Can you move over?” Sirius scooted towards the boy. “A little more.”
Black raised his eyebrows and paused. “I’d be sitting in your lap.”
“Wherever you sit, I’ll still be putting bloody daisies in your hair,” Remus pointed out. Sirius groaned and threw a leg over the Gryffindor’s legs, settling in on his lap. Delicately, the taller boy placed the crown on his head, situating the daisies in among wavy ebony hair. Pushing back a loose strand, he tucked it in behind Sirius’s ear gently.
Sirius dragged his eyes up away from Remus's collarbone to try and meet that piercing green stare, to try and hold his gaze. He couldn’t do it for long. Dear Merlin, it was too much. His eyes flickered down from eyes to lips again and again. To rosy pink lips, to slightly chapped lips, to lips being licked, lips so close that he would never in a million years get to have pressed to his neck. He’d thought about it so many times, though, so many late nights spent in restless, drowsy fantasy about what it would be like to be held by him.
Those feverish daydreams always ended in the same agonizing sinking feeling. Sirius couldn’t be thinking about Moony like that. He just couldn’t. He just couldn’t, and yet he still could, no matter how hard he wished he wouldn’t. It was so painful, and so dirty, not to mention that Moony would never want to hold him like that. Remus would never be so perverted and twisted and utterly disgusting as him, never look look at blokes like he did, never think about being held down like he did. Remus wasn’t fucked up. Sirius was the fuck-up.That much was clear. Sirius was the one things were wrong with.
So awfully wrong, and yet now, staring down at Remus’s lips (having given up any hope of looking him in the eye) so bloody right. They were lips so mesmerizing that it took Sirius a good 30 seconds to realize that the other boy’s fingertips hadn’t moved from his neck behind his ear. He breathed in sharply. Remus gulped. “I’m so sorry for this,” he muttered under his breath.
And then Remus was kissing him hard, pressing those impossibly perfect lips into his, one hand wrapping tighter around his neck as the other snaked its way up to rest on his waist. Sirius couldn’t move. It had to be a nightmare, it really did. The cruelest sort of nightmare, the type where you woke up safe but alone and aching for something you’d never have. But here they were, in the grass, Sirius pretty much straddling Remus stiffly as the fair-haired boy surged into him. Remus pulled back.
“Shit, I’m so--” The werewolf got cut off.
“Holy fuck,” Sirius breathed.
“I’m so sorry, Padfoot. I’m so, so sorry,” Remus spit out, leaning back on one hand in the grass and covering his mouth with the other. “Shit.”
“No, I…” The grey-eyed boy trailed off. “Fuck. Fucking hell.” Remus’s eyes widened at him in terror.
“Are you okay?”
“I- can you-” Sirius stumbled over his words, heart pounding out of his chest. “Fuck. Again.”
“What?”
Sirius’s tan cheeks flushed crimson, and he tried to pull back together his last shreds of consciousness. “Kiss me again, you dimwit. So much for ‘practically a Ravenclaw’, Christ.”
Remus smirked at him, shaking his head. “And who said I would take orders from you?” Sirius rolled his eyes at the reuse of his own words. Remus reached up and carefully readjusted the chain of daisies, which had gotten a bit lopsided, and sat back on his hands, letting out a low whistle. “You are so damn gorgeous with flowers in your hair.” The raven-haired wizard had a retort ready to go (‘Excuse you, I’m damn gorgeous all of the time’), but it was stolen off the tip of his tongue by Lupin’s mouth.
Sirius could hear once more the faint sounds of students shouting at one another across the greens as he leaned into the kiss heavily, but he couldn’t be bothered to check if anyone was watching. He couldn’t be bothered to care right now, to care about anything other than Remus and Remus and Remus, Remus right here in his arms, Remus right here curling fingers in his hair, Remus right here wanting him. It was just the two of them under the haze of clouds, the grass brushing against them thanks to the gentle wind, and the rest of the world, whether it cared or not, could sod right off. Oh, dear God, this was what happy felt like. Moments like this made the rest worth it. Sure, storm clouds may have been brewing overhead, but Sirius was sure he was ready for any rain they could bring.