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That time in early 1981 — when everything had just started to go to shit, but the body count was still under five, maybe under six — that time when Remus came back to London for a few nights, and he and Sirius got drunk on the floor of Sirius’s flat, and they were both exhausted and brittle-boned and bleary-eyed.
And Sirius looks very intently at the scuffed tip of Remus’s boots and wrinkles his nose a little, and says: Did you know I was in love with you?
And Remus blinks very slowly and manages to get his eyes to focus somewhere near Sirius’s right ear, where the dark hair is curling, like a smudge of ink. He says, No. And then, Well. Maybe?
And Sirius grimaces, squints into the mouth of his beer bottle. Yeah, well. His jaw tightens, like he can’t quite get the laugh out from where it’s jammed in his throat. I was.
Oh, says Remus.
You’re a fucking heartbreaker, says Sirius.
Wait, says Remus. Was?
Sirius shrugs. He drops the empty bottle, taps his heel against it, and they both watch it roll across the floor in an unsteady curve. It comes to rest with a dull clink, against a pile of books (all of them dusty and untouched for months).
What changed? says Remus.
Sirius frowns at the ceiling, and then he’s frowning at Remus, who’s still looking as stupidly beautiful and strange and unsettling and familiar as that day when Sirius supposes he might have realized all of it the first time.
Nothing, I guess, he says. He says it and he wants to reach out with his fingers and feel the slow pulse of Remus’s blood below the skin of his wrist. Maybe he does.
I guess I still am.
In the silence between them, in the light of four in the morning, with the rain rolling down the windows and the shuddering instability of dawn crowding in at the edges of the shadows, Sirius reaches out and curls his fingers around Remus’s wrist.
And their backs are to the wall, legs splayed drunk and tired, boots caked with mud and London dirt, knees bruised, skulls tight, limbs aching and hair still damp from the rain, their hands joined between them against the cool wood.
It’s funny, says Remus, and he slowly turns his wrist in the circle of Sirius’s fingers, until they are palm-to-palm, pulse-to-pulse, knuckles tucked in against one another, bone-to-bone. It’s not how I imagined it.
You imagined it? Sirius grins, slowly, a flash of something dark and curling and a little filthy in the pit of his gut.
I don’t know, Remus rolls his eyes skyward for a moment, the snag of a smile, self-deprecating: a little lost, a little brittle, a little terrified around the edges. Flirting, maybe. What even is it people do nowadays?
What a young face, Sirius thinks, to look so old and tired. To look so worn-out and eroded by love.
He shifts, the floorboards protest; he can hear every rustle of clothing, every rasp of damp skin against skin. He shifts and swings one knee over Remus’s thighs; he straddles his lap and ducks his head, so that they are nose-to-nose. He hears when Remus drops his beer bottle, the dull clink of empty glass against the floor; he feels when Remus’s breath hitches, against his own mouth.
What're are you doing, Remus murmurs; his eyes, exhausted and half-drunk, narrow at the edges. His mouth slips from a smile, hesitates on the snag of a frown. There is the shadow of rainwater and London lamplight on his cheeks.
I'm flirting with you, says Sirius, and lifts their tangled fingers into the air between their faces. He kisses Remus’s knuckles; he presses his mouth to the delicate shadows of their joined skin.
That’s not fair, Remus whispers.
Pretend it is, he says, and kisses him.
Pretend we've got tonight, he thinks. And tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, he thinks. Pretend we’ve got forever, and that in the morning I will wake up with your warm body pressed against my ribs, pretend that I will kiss you then, against the edge of your mouth, and pretend we won’t have to be too brave, that we won’t have to forget this is really what we want.