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Sirius shut the door behind him, then locked it with a click. He wasn’t sure if Remus was comfortable with this at all, and if someone else walked into the room while they were doing this- well, he’d probably lose Remus as a friend forever.
“Are you sure you’re alright with doing this?” he asked as he shuffled across his dorm room, where Remus was perched on the edge of his desk chair. “I could always ask James, if you’re not, or Marlene. I’m sure either of them would love it, to be honest.”
Remus rolled his eyes. “I said I’d do it, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but…”
“Look.” Remus stood up, putting his hands on his hips and sighing. “Obviously you’re aware that I’m not too keen on my body. However, I’ve been told by numerous therapists that it’s something I need to get over, because apparently I’m ‘good looking’ or some shit. So, let me do this.”
Yeah, you’re bloody good looking all right, Sirius thought, but held it back. Remus wasn’t straight, he knew that much, but Sirius couldn’t make it seem like he’d only asked Remus to model so he could see him naked (though he definitely wasn’t opposed to that particular part of the project). Sirius was a lot of questionable things, but he certainly wasn’t a predator.
“Sirius?”
Sirius blinked, and then nodded. “Okay, so just, um… stand over there?” He motioned to the wall between his bed and James’s, decorated only with a poster of Awsten Knight from Waterparks which he could easily ignore while drawing. “Or do you want to sit? That’s fine too.”
Shrugging, Remus went to stand in front of the wall, his body awkwardly straight. “I can stand if that’ll make it easier.” Sirius shrugged as well, and went to his closet to pull out his art supplies. A canvas, a large collection of different pencils, charcoals, some graphite powder… He had spent an outrageous amount of money on it all, of course, but he was filthy rich anyways.
“Okay, so,” he began, trying to take on a professional tone, “it’s basically a piece on light and shadows, but also trying to get proportions right while capturing who your model really is. If I don’t do well on this I pretty much fail the class.”
“So no pressure then.”
“Ha ha.”
Sirius placed a chair by the closed door, close enough that he’d be able to see what he needed to see, but not too close. He hesitated, then sat down on the hard plastic chair with the canvas on an easel in front of him. Remus continued standing there, looking adorably attractive as usual. Sirius cleared his throat.
“You, um, gotta take off your clothes now,” he said, fighting off his blush. He had never imagined this would be how he got Remus naked.
“Oh, right.” Remus tugged off his trainers, throwing them towards Sirius’s bed. He followed with his socks, then pulled his sweater over his head.
He stood there, looking awkward in his plain white shirt and dark trousers, and sighed. “Sorry. Just- give me a moment.”
“Remus, you don’t have to-”
Remus shook his head vehemently. “I said I would.” And before Sirius could say something, he took off his shirt and bent to remove his trousers, and then he was standing there in only his pants.
Sirius swallowed fiercely, and was very glad his bottom half was hidden from Remus at that moment. “Great,” he said, like the incredibly smart person that he was. “So, you can just stand there like that if you want, I can, er, imagine everything else. It’s not like they can compare you to it when they grade it.” Remus laughed and nodded.
He took his time in sketching Remus’s body, in filling in his lines and curves, connecting everything just right. It had been hard to pull his eyes away from the man before him and put pencil to paper: Remus was absolutely beautiful, and Sirius had a weakness when it came to beautiful things. Honestly, he hadn’t been at all surprised when he’d realised, a few months ago, that he was falling for him.
Remus’s body wasn’t hard muscle and shiny skin; he was lean, and you could see the bones of his hips and ribs if you squinted, and it was obvious that the only exercise he did was jogging and yoga. But that made it all the more interesting to draw him. And his scars. They twisted and curved around his body, fine white lines like roads on a map, connecting to one another like constellations. Sirius had seen them a few times, when they’d gone in the pool at James’s parent’s house or that time Dorcas spilt red wine down Remus’s shirt and he’d removed it, but he’d never been allowed to just look like this. The largest one was on his side, a jagged mark from shoulder to hip, with smaller ones branching out. Sirius knew they were from a car crash Remus had been in at a young age, which had left his father in a coma and given Remus semi-permanent damage in his hip. The line across the right side of his face was from the same accident, but had healed better than the others. Separate scars littered his arms; Sirius had never asked about those. Remus was always cagey about the marks on his body, which Sirius understood, as he himself had multiple scars from when he had lived with his parents. It was a wonder Remus had agreed to this, as he hated when people looked at him.
The silence stretched on as Sirius sketched. The only sound was pencil against paper, or Remus shifting from leg to leg.
“Can you put music on or something?” asked Remus a while later. “I’m going mad.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.” Sirius reached into his bag and unlocked his phone, scrolling through Apple Music to find some good drawing music.
‘And baby when you sleep, do you dream of me?’ Sirius hesitated as the song came through his speaker, as the lyrics were pretty obvious, but he shrugged it off and went back to his drawing.
“What song is this?” asked Remus softly after the next lyrics came through.
“Please Notice by Christian Leave,” answered Sirius.
“It’s really pretty.”
Sirius nodded. It really was, and it was also very close to how Sirius felt about Remus. ‘Do you know I’m in love with you? I am.’
It was a short song, and ended soon after, switching to that song from Snow Patrol that everyone seemed to know. Sirius squinted at Remus, trying to get the jutt of his chin just right. He hesitated, then stood and moved his easel closer to the other man. “Sorry, I’ve just got to get a better angle on your face.”
Remus snorted. “Haven’t you got it memorised by now, with how often you stare at me?”
Sirius blanched, not having realised that Remus had noticed that. Shit. But he didn’t seem particularly mad about it, so that meant… nothing, probably. He didn’t answer Remus, instead observing the curves of his upper half. His brown curls fell around his face, framing it beautifully despite their slightly messy appearance. His lips were quirked in a smile, his hazel eyes relaxed and carefree. Remus had adapted remarkably quickly to being almost-naked in Sirius’s presence.
Sirius ignored that thought, instead focusing entirely on getting Remus’s eyebrows just right. He now had most of the outline completed, and didn’t really need Remus in the room anymore since he could fill the rest of it in from memory, but, well… When there’s an attractive person standing mostly naked in front of you, you’re inclined to keep them there, aren’t you?
‘We are runnin’ so fast and we never look back…’ Troye Sivan’s “for him” rose from the speaker.
“I love this song,” said Remus quietly. Sirius looked up for a moment, ready to nod, when he saw the expression on Remus’s face.
He was staring at Sirius, head tilted slightly to the side, like he was trying to decipher a particularly difficult math equation.
“What?” asked Sirius.
Remus shrugged. “There’s just a lot of love songs on this playlist,” he stated plainly. “Anything you wanna tell me?”
Yes, actually, I listen to them and pretend we’re dating because I’m in love with you, thought Sirius. “No,” he said. “They’re just good songs.”
“So you aren’t… you’re not dating anyone right now?”
Sirius frowned. “Remus, if I were dating someone, you’d know about it. Remember Miles?” Remus wrinkled his nose.
“How could I forget? You were always hanging off one another like monkeys.”
Sirius rolled his eyes. “What can I say, I like touching.”
“They sucked, though. Never took you out to places you liked, was always complaining about your motorcycle-”
“Remus, you complain about my motorcycle too. Whenever you see it. It’s like a reflex at this point for you to complain about it.”
“But I do it jokingly. I know you’ll never actually get rid of it. Miles actually thought they could convince you to chuck it.”
“Yeah, they weren’t the brightest.”
‘You don’t have to say I love you to say I love you.’
Remus sighed. “Troye Sivan, on the other hand…”
Sirius laughed. “Yeah, I mean, fuck, if he asked me out I’d probably faint.”
“If I even met him I would faint.”
Remus was unfairly distracting like this, his cheeks bright red and his smile wide. Sirius averted his eyes and went back to trying to draw him. He loved his art class, he truly did, but why they made nude art part of the regular college curriculum he would never understand.
“Do you want me to take my pants off?”
Sirius’s head snapped up, and he momentarily forgot where they were. “Uh.”
Remus raised his eyebrows. “Did you want me completely naked, or were gonna just wing it and give me a big dick?”
“Who said I’d give you a big dick?”
“Me, I did. Just now.”
Sirius rolled his eyes, Remus’s question still rolling around in his head. He was sweating slightly; it was surely unrelated.
“Well?”
Swallowing, Sirius’s eyes drifted down Remus’s body without his permission, stopping at the spot between his legs (where, as far as he could tell, Remus probably did have a big dick). It was difficult even now for him to control himself, and if Remus was entirely naked he might jump him right then and there. “No, you can keep them on.” His voice was higher than he would have liked.
“Okay, whatever you want,” shrugged Remus. His eyes shot up—fuck, he’s still been staring at Remus’s crotch. There was no way Remus hadn’t just noticed where his eyes had strayed.
Sure enough, the man was smirking, brows raised. Sirius cleared his throat and bent over his sketch once more.
And right then, because obviously all of his karma was coming back at once, “THAT’S WHAT I WANT” by Lil Nas X started playing.
“If I didn’t already know you were gay, Sirius, I’d be seriously questioning your music choices.”
“Straight, single people can listen to these songs too,” grumbled Sirius, refusing to look up. He’d finally gotten both eyes to look symmetrical, and was starting to work on more intricate shading.
“Sirius.”
“Yes?” He still didn’t look up.
He saw Remus cross his arms from the corner of his vision. “Why did you ask me to do this, and not James? He has a much better body for this.”
Sirius frowned. “You have- I mean, your body- it’s great-” Remus snorted, probably mistaking his stuttering for fake reassurance. “And anyways,” he continued, voice stronger, “he would have gotten super excited, his head probably would have blown up. He’s just my back-up model because of that.”
“At least he isn’t covered in scars,” muttered Remus.
“Hey.” Sirius stood, hesitated a moment, then walked forward until he stood directly in front of Remus (he had to look up a bit to make eye contact with him, the git was infuriatingly tall). “You really do have an amazing body.”
Remus was a good actor when he wanted to be, unlike Sirius who was pretty much an open book. But recently, Remus had begun letting down his walls around him, showing his real feelings more instead of hiding everything behind sarcasm and eye rolling. A year ago, when they had met through James being in Remus’s Popular Literature class, he never would have let himself look this uncomfortable.
He avoided Sirius’s eyes now, looking somewhere over his shoulder. “You don’t have to say shit like that just to make me feel better,” he said.
Sirius sighed. He wanted to hug Remus, but his lack of clothes would have made it too awkward. Instead he settled for placing one hand on his bare shoulder, trying to ignore the sparks he felt. “I’m not just saying it, it’s true. Your scars make you human, not ugly. You’re… you’re beautiful, Remus.”
Remus stared at him, biting his lip. Sirius’s eyes drifted down without his permission, He wondered what it would feel like to kiss those lips.
When he looked up again, Remus had that same expression he’d had on earlier, like he was trying to parse something out.
It was silent other than the sound of the Lil Nas X song ending, being replaced “I GUESS I’M IN LOVE” by Clinton Kane, soft and melodic. The sun had begun to set outside, bathing the dorm room in a soft orange glow that made Remus’s bare skin look angelic. Sirius realised belatedly that his hand was still resting on Remus’s shoulder.
He went to move it, but the look in the man’s eyes made him pause. He jeans felt tighter, suddenly.
Sirius glanced down. Oh. Remus was…
“Sirius…”
“Yeah?” His voice was hoarse, like he’d just come back from a concert.
Remus took a step closer to him. “Tell me I’m not reading this wrong.”
“English majors are very good at reading, or so I’ve been told.”
Remus’s mouth curled into a small smile. Then he was leaning forward slightly, just enough that their lips brushed. “Can I kiss you?” he whispered, warm breath ghosting Sirius’s mouth.
“Please.” Was this happening?
Remus surged forward, cupping Sirius’s jaw with his hands, and yes, it was most definitely happening. His lips were soft and hot, and Sirius melted into him, the hand on his shoulder sliding across to his bare chest. His other hand went to Remus’s waist, thumb fitting perfectly above his hipbone.
Sirius let his mouth fall open more as he felt Remus’s tongue lick across his lips, letting out a soft gasp. Remus smiled against him and kissed him harder.
Almost like a reflex, Sirius started back them up (he was careful to avoid his chair, where the valuable sketch still lay) until the backs of his knees hit the bed. Remus stumbled, his legs tangling with Sirius’s as they both fell back onto the lumpy university-supplied mattress.
Sirius ran his hands across Remus’s chest, down his arms, his legs, everywhere. He couldn't get enough of his bare skin, couldn’t pull their body’s close enough together.
“Fuck, Sirius,” gasped Remus as Sirius jerked his hips up.
“Yes, please,” Sirius responded, half-delirious. Remus’s laugh turned into a moan at the next jerk of his hips.
And then Sirius’s shirt was being pulled over his head, his jeans unbuttoned and removed and thrown somewhere across the room, and he was very glad he’d had the foresight to lock the door as Remus kissed down his chest.
Sirius bit his bottom lip, lost in thought, trying to come up with something else he could add to his sketch of Remus. It had seemed so easy to draw him yesterday, much easier than drawing anyone or anything else had ever been.
“It’s really good, Sirius, stop stressing about it,” said James from where he lounged on his bed scrolling through TikTok.
“It needs to be perfect, though,” responded Sirius heatedly. “If I get even one thing wrong-”
“Then no one will notice, because Remus isn’t about to strip in front of your professor so they can compare him to it. Relax.”
Sirius frowned. “He better not be stripping in front of anyone.”
James snorted. Then there was a knock at the door, and he lurched up to get it. “Hi!” he said excitedly.
Sirius turned around, expecting to see Lily - James and her had recently begun getting along quite well - but was surprised to see Remus standing there.
“I thought you had a class?”
Remus nodded. “Yeah, it got out a bit early. Thought I’d maybe come and say hi?” He looked nervous, eyes moving between James and Sirius.
“Yeah, come here, look at this.” James directed Remus to Sirius, who scowled at his friend but moved aside so Remus could see the sketch.
Apprehensive, Sirius watched Remus’s facial expressions, but he looked nothing but happy about what Sirius had created. “That looks amazing,” he said incredulously. “And ha, you did give me a big dick!”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I had an excuse not to anymore, babe.”
James coughed loudly and awkwardly behind them, and Remus and Sirius both laughed. Remus leaned down and placed a soft kiss on the side of Sirius’s head. “This really is incredible,” he whispered. “You’re gonna be famous one day.”
Sirius turned his head and caught Remus in a searing kiss, ignoring James’s protests. He fucking loved this man; he’d probably love him forever.