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I. SIRIUS
Sirius wakes up on a scratchy beige carpet he doesn’t recognize on the floor of a bedroom he’s never seen. It’s small, neat, cozy, and eerily familiar in an itch-in-the-back-of-his-head type of way.
Well at least he’s not naked. Or in the bed.
A knock on the door startles him, followed by a voice he very much knows. A crisp parchment voice with a slight Welsh lilt that never fails to launch a flurry of warmth through his chest. “Sirius?”
“Moons?” If Remus is here, he can’t have gotten himself in too much trouble… right? The door creaks open. “What the hell is—”
He cuts off at the sight of his boyfriend, who seems to have aged twenty years since he last saw him. Literally. His sandy waves are streaked with grey, his skin crinkles around his eyes, and the signature crease in his forehead has deepened significantly.
But it’s more than that. While each mission to the werewolf packs has chiseled away at some of Remus’s boyish softness, leaving his jaw sharp and tense and his long limbs wiry, there’s now a weary ruggedness about him that makes Sirius’s belly clench.
“Moony? What happened to you?” And by that he means, ‘why do you look so jaded, and why does it make me want to attack you with my tongue?’
It’s the sort of thing he might have voiced without a second thought a few months ago, but things are different now.
They’re different now.
Which probably explains why the grizzled man before him is just gaping helplessly.
All doubt that this man is not actually Remus disappears when he furrows his brow and shoves his hands in the pockets of his oversized cardigan in an all too familiar way. . “I… erm…”
“Did you take an aging potion?” he offers, as it’s the only reasonable explanation.
“Y-yes?”
“Blimey! How much did you take?” Sirius exclaims, coming closer to examine him. “You look at least forty!”
“Forty?”
“A hot forty,” he quickly clarifies, reaching up and tracing the grey hairs at Remus’s temples. He grins deviously. “I like the grey.”
“You do?” Remus subtly shrinks away from his touch, an increasingly common move that never fails to lodge a knot in Sirius’s throat.
“What’s wrong?” he blurts, then afraid of the answer, follows with a barrage of other questions, “What’s happening? Where are we? Why are you old? Is this an Order mission? Did I get Obliviated?”
Remus’s eyes flit around the room, carefully avoiding his glance. “Er… must have been, yeah…” He suddenly brushes past him, scouring the room without explanation.
“What are we looking for?” If this is an Order mission, he can’t imagine what it would be. Not to mention that he and Remus haven’t been on a mission together in ages.
They haven’t done much of anything together in ages.
“I’m not sure…” Remus mutters, dropping into a crouch at the sight of a cauldron on the floor.
“Am I old too?” Sirius asks suddenly, searching in vain for a mirror. He runs his fingers through his thick, dark curls and inspects his hands. Neither seem changed.
“No, no you look…” Remus’s voice falls into an incoherent mumble as he scrapes some of the residual orange goo from the cauldron. It’s probably something passive-aggressive about Sirius’s overgrown hair or the crazed look in his inherited slate grey eyes, or the ever-increasing prevalence of ink staining his porcelain skin.
“Moons?”
Remus ignores him.
No it’s fine, don’t worry about me. I’ve just had my memory erased and haven’t the slightest clue what’s happening, he thinks bitterly.
“What do you think I’ll look like, when I’m old?” he muses after what feels like an hour of excruciating silence. “Spit of my bloody father I s’pose.” He’s always strongly resembled his father. And his mother, thanks to centuries of incest. And while he can’t exactly complain about his bone structure, there’s nothing more terrifying than the thought of looking in the mirror and seeing his parents’ cold glares reflected back.
But Remus doesn’t take the bait, still laser-focused on the stupid cauldron.
“Moony,” he groans, grabbing his shoulder. “Look at me. Talk to me.” It comes out whinier than he means it to. He knows he’s being needy and annoying and that it’s probably why Remus has been pulling away from him in the first place, but he can’t just let it go. Can’t let Remus go. Even if…
But Remus doesn’t even turn, speaking instead with a calm formality that heats Sirius’s blood to a simmer, “I’m sorry; I know this must be confusing for you—”
“That’s one word for it—”
“I’m just trying to determine what caused your… memory loss, so I can reverse it.” Back still turned, Remus stands and continues to scour the room.
“I don’t care about my memory!” he cries, reaching for Remus’s arm. He grasps a fistful of wool and tugs, feeling like a small child as he forces the ‘older,’ taller man to look at him.
Remus sucks in a breath as their eyes lock onto each other like magnets. He softens, lips parting, quivering in anticipation of words that never come.
“What?” Sirius presses.
“You…” he sighs with genuine world-weariness that is distinctly and heart-wrenchingly different from his usual, sarcastically put-upon ‘I’m surrounded by idiots’ sigh. “You really loved me, didn’t you?”
“Loved?” he emphasizes with genuine incredulousness that is achingly different from his usual feigned melodrama. “What do you mean loved? I love you! Present tense. I—do you not love me?” The words only build momentum as they tumble from his lips. “Oh Merlin, you don’t love me anymore, I knew it, I—”
“…convinced myself you didn’t—that you never—that you couldn’t have…” Remus mutters, running a hand through his hair, clutching it at the crown. “Fuck, Sirius, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”
“It’s okay,” he hears himself say through the pounding in his ears. He thinks he might be sick and wonders if vomit would be preferable to the words that just keep coming, “I mean it’s not, it’s not at all okay because you’re everything to me, and I’ll never ever get over you, especially not if this is what you’re going to look like in—”
“You will,” he cuts him off, eyes shifting off to the side. “Trust me you will.” There’s a gravelly edge to his voice. It’s unnervingly foreign and frustratingly sexy. But the air of resigned bitterness is not even remotely new.
“Remus Lupin, if this is more of that ‘I’m an unlovable monster bullshit’—”
“It’s not bullshit if it’s true. If you think it’s true.”
“Me?” he chokes. “How could you even—you know I—”
“You think I’m the spy!” he roars, the amber ring around his dilated pupils swelling.
Sirius staggers back, speechless. He wishes he could say it’s because the accusation is so ridiculously off-base. That it’s never once crossed his mind. That sudden outbursts like this don’t make him cower and worst of all, question.
Remus stares at his raised arms and lowers them carefully to his sides, pulling his sleeves over his hands. “Or you will. Soon enough,” he murmurs, his voice catching. “All because I’m a werewolf—”
“Because you’ve been distant! Because you avoid me like I’m the pox! Because I think maybe it’s easier to accept that you’ve been working for Voldemort than you falling out of love with me!”
“W-what?”
“Because if you were the spy…” Sirius’s gaze falls to the floor. “I… look the world has been horrible to you, the Ministry and… and even some of the Order members, and… and it’s not an excuse—in fact, it’s wrong and disgusting and possibly unforgivable, but… but you’re Moony. You’re my Moony, and if…” He looks up, vision blurred by a rising wall of tears. His lips go numb, his voice as thick as treacle. “If you love me… if there’s any part of you that still cares for me…”
It’s not a feeling he’s ever given words to, not even in his mind. It’s a twisted, repulsive, pathetic part of himself that he’s never wanted to reveal to anyone, not even Remus, especially not Remus.
By the time he blinks away the tears, Remus has already turned away from him. “I… I have to… please stay here. Just… just stay. I’ll be back.”
Sirius does not stay. He gives it approximately four seconds before he marches to the bedroom door and flings it open.
“What the fuck?”
He finds himself in the parlor of a cozy, cramped cottage that he doesn’t recognize, but there’s no doubt in his mind who it belongs to. From the minimalist, earth-toned décor to the organized mess of books and artifacts and loose pieces of parchment, every inch of it screams Remus John Lupin.
“I told you to stay.”
“I’m not a—” Remus raises a pointed brow before he can say "dog." He glares at him, then notices the coating of black fur on the sofa. Padfoot’s fur. How much has he forgotten? “What is this place? What are we doing here?”
Remus ignores him, again, now rifling through a pile of books.
In the silence, Sirius’s mind spirals through several scenarios of the secret double life of the traitor Remus Lupin until he realizes something: this is the home of an adult. A real adult, not a twenty-year-old masquerading as one. The Remus he knows may be considered the most responsible Marauder—an incredibly low bar—but he’s hardly mature enough to have canvas paintings instead of posters on his walls, or furniture that clearly came as a set, or actual, living, well-tended-to plants.
And Remus—he doesn’t just look older. There's something eerily different about him. While his mannerisms are uncannily familiar, it's almost as if the reasons behind them have changed. He slouches not out of an awkward awareness of his height but a weighted tension in his shoulders. His slow, measured movements come not from hesitation but a decreased energy level. Though this man is undeniably Moony, he's not quite his Moony.
Fuck.
"Did I—is this the future? Did I travel through time?”
Remus pauses and looks up from the book in his hands. He sighs. “That’s what I thought at first, but—”
“So… so this is really you then, you’re really…”
“Thirty-five,” he grumbles, tossing the book aside and grabbing the next in the pile. “Just poorly aged.”
“No! No, I meant it when I said you were hot! You’re honestly so—”
“It’s fine, Sirius. I don’t actually care.”
“Yes you do.” For reasons Sirius simply cannot fathom, Remus has always been ridiculously self-conscious about his appearance.
“Not as much as you, apparently,” he snaps, thumping the book closed and moving to the bookshelf.
Sirius tiptoes closer, slipping his arms around Remus’s waist and resting his chin on his shoulder. It doesn’t matter if this Remus finds him needy and annoying. What’s he going to do—blame his present self for being a cheeky idiot at twenty?
“It’s important to me that you know how insanely attractive I find you, yes,” he murmurs into Remus’s neck, breathing in musk and cedar and cloves.
Remus flinches and shrugs him off. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you—what are you even doing?” he demands.
“I’m trying to figure out which de-aging potion you botched so I can reverse it.”
His voice cuts through Sirius like an icy wind.
“You… I… what?”
II. REMUS
Remus sits at the kitchen table, hunched over, eyes scrolling through tables of contents, then quickly darting to the next book in the pile. In truth, he’s not sure he’s even taking in any of the words at this point, but he needs to keep his eyes occupied so they don’t wander to Sirius.
Young, charming, baby-faced Sirius. Maybe it’s that the harsh angles of his face were so coarsely chiseled in Azkaban, but his features aren’t as sharp as he remembers. Maybe it’s that his Sirius is now so completely covered in tattoos or that his eyes have darkened to a glinting, metallic grey instead of the soft, watery gaze he’s been avoiding. But the man—boy, really—before him is hardly the edgy bad-boy of his memory; he’s just a boy. A literal puppy. A pretty, vulnerable, chaotic puppy who is clearly too young to be so consumed by war.
It’s infuriating.
Especially as he sits across from him, fidgeting in his chair, childishly barraging him with questions. “Do I age poorly then?”
“You’ve had a rough go of things.”
“Am I hideous?”
He rolls his eyes, caught off guard by the slight twitch at the corner of his lips. “You’re you, Sirius. You’re fucking gorgeous as always.” Annoyingly so. Especially now that he’s eating and has taken an interest in grooming himself again. And oddly enough, seeing this younger version has only made Remus more aware of how helplessly attracted he is to the older one. “You just… like I said, you had a rough go of things.”
He grazes his fingertips along the uneven edges of the book and flips to a random page just to do something.
Sirius drums his nails on the table rhythmically.
“So we… are we still…”
“No.” It comes out harsher than he intends. He doesn’t want to hurt this Sirius. In fact, he wants to hold him close and shield him from all pain forever. But this Sirius isn’t real; he’s just a cruel reminder of everything they lost. Of all the regrets they can’t take back, the mistakes they can’t change.
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” This Sirius already suspects him; even if it was real, it’s already too late. It’s all too late.
“But… but we live together…”
“Well… at the moment, yes.”
“What does that mean?”
It means Dumbledore, in classic Dumbledore fashion, sent you here without consulting me. It means I’m a pushover who’s never been able to say ‘no’ to either of you. It means we’re pretending to be friends even though we don’t know how to be anymore, and I can’t stop wishing we were more.
“It’s a long story.”
“I have nowhere to be.”
He makes the mistake of looking up and spotting the crooked grin that he hasn’t seen in over a decade, the one that still, apparently, sets him off-kilter.
“Sirius—”
“Do you still love me?”
He presses his lips together, squeezes his eyes shut, and inhales sharply, searching for the most appropriate way to phrase, yes, as a matter of fact, I am that pathetic.
“Because I still love you. Future me, I mean.”
His eyes fly open and latch onto those young, yearning puppy eyes. “You can’t know that.”
“I can and I do because I’ll never stop.”
Remus shakes his head, clenching and unclenching his fists. This is torture, these words that would’ve changed everything for twenty-year-old Remus, words that would mean everything from thirty-five-year-old Sirius. “You’re, what, twenty? You think—”
“I’m not naïve, Remus,” he scoffs. “I’ve seen some shit. We’ve seen some shit. And I don’t know much of anything anymore, but I know that I love you.”
“But…” He drags his hands down along his face. “But you don’t trust me,” he hisses into his palms.
Individually, the facts that Sirius both loved him and didn’t trust him are not news. But the combination, the idea that the two occurred at the same time very much is. He’s always assumed that Sirius first fell out of love with him and then began to suspect him, or at the very least, stopped loving him the second the thought that he might be a traitor crossed his mind.
It makes him question everything he remembers of those last few months—the suspicious glares, the rough sex, the explosive shouting matches over things that didn’t matter and the tense silences festering with everything that did. Without the cold, grey filter of apathy cast over them, they feel desperate, pleading, passionate.
If anything, he was the apathetic one, the impenetrable wall of ice and stone, the one hiding behind dry, caustic jabs, the one flinching at every gentle touch and shrugging off every cautious attempt at a peace offering.
“You didn’t trust me,” he repeats. “And I… when it came down to it, I didn’t trust you… at least, not enough to—and… and even if you do still love me, which you don’t, I don’t know how we come back from that.”
Sirius crosses his arms and leans back in his chair. “So just to clarify, you’re not the spy.”
“No.”
“Who is then?” Sensing Remus’s hesitation, he adds, “If I’m not actually from the past, you can tell me.”
“It’s Peter.”
“Peter… As in… as in Wormtail Peter?” Remus nods. “No… no, he… but he… Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
He returns to the pile of books while Sirius processes that information, nodding idly as he cycles from “that rat bastard!” to “but we all ruled him out because he wasn’t there when… unless he was…” back to “that rat bastard!” to “fuck’s sake he’s literally a rat how are we all this stupid” to “no he’s not even a rat, he’s just a worm, a spineless, pathetic wormy worm! I’m going to kill him!”
“Trust me, that won’t go well,” Remus mutters with an unwarranted level of superiority.
“So… so why were you so distant then?”
Because apparently Sybil Trelawney was right to call me a neurotic, moody, self-sabotaging Pisces?
He clasps his hands on the table, pulling at his fingers nervously. “Being with the packs was… I lost my sense of self. At Hogwarts I always felt different, and I made my peace with that—”
“Did you?”
It’s the kind of incisive dig that would’ve made a younger Remus shut down, but he just presses on. He’s not sure if that means he’s grown or if he’s just doesn’t have the energy for conflict anymore. “But with the packs, I… I felt inhuman. Completely other. I wasn’t the person you fell in love with, never mind the kind of person you deserved.”
“So it was more unlovable monster bullshit.”
“That’s not—”
“It was! It is—you’re still doing it!” Sirius cries, rising from his chair. “Future me is probably bald and toothless and covered in scales or something, and you’re still convinced I can’t possibly love you!”
Remus gapes at him. He tries to tell Sirius that he’s wrong, that it has nothing to do with that, that it’s more complicated than that, that the mountain of unspoken resentment between them is much bigger than the question of romantic affection.
Instead, he cracks a wry smile and says, “You still have some hair. And a few teeth.”
Sirius instinctively raises a hand to his hair. “What?”
“And you’re covered in warts, not scales.”
For one glorious second, Sirius’s face contorts in pure horror before his eyes narrow. “Well I see old age hasn’t made you any nicer.”
Remus chuckles to himself, but the laugh sticks in his throat as he realizes how much he misses being able to tease Sirius. This Sirius is sturdy yet excitable; he isn’t afraid to break him, nor does he have to fight to wring the slightest reaction out of him. This Sirius loves him. This is the Sirius he drove into paranoia with his aloofness, the Sirius he let rot in Azkaban.
How could his Sirius ever forgive him for that?
“Moons?”
He looks up through misty eyes to find Sirius standing over him. It sends a choking shudder through him.
“Hey. Love.” Sirius rests a hand along his jawline, brushing a tear away with his thumb. “Oh, Moony, baby.”
“I’m fine,” he sniffs, turning away from Sirius’s hand.
“You’re not.” Gentle, graceful fingers brush his hair back from his face. It’s so tender he could vomit. “It’s not because I called you mean, is it? I don’t actually think you’re mean.”
“No. No it’s… I’m fine, really.” He reaches for the last book in the pile.
Sirius puts a hand on his arm. “Don’t undo the potion.”
“What?”
“Whatever happens to us in the future—I don’t want it. Just keep me like this.” With a mischievous grin, he adds, “I’ll be your hot young boytoy.”
“Sirius—”
“Padfoot,” Sirius corrects with a pout that shifts from sullen to seductive as he moves to straddle his lap. “I’m Padfoot,” he says, cupping Remus’s face. “Your Padfoot.”
Well his memories got one thing right: this boy is a menace.
Was this Sirius’s plan all along—to erase his memories of Azkaban and the darkest moments of the war? Would it be cruel to force him to remember all that pain, to return to that haunted shell of a man? Or is that just an excuse because he prefers this brighter, more vital Sirius? Does he prefer this Sirius? Or does he selfishly want them both to be worn down and broken?
“Stop that,” Sirius frowns, poking the crease in his forehead. “You’ll give yourself wrinkles.”
“Little late for that.”
Sirius throws his head back and lets out a melodic, full-voiced, nostalgic-high-inducing laugh. As he calms, he lets his molten silver gaze roll down Remus’s face, pausing pointedly on his lips.
Bad dog, he groans internally. Whether it’s more ethical to undo the potion or let it run its potentially permanent course, he knows one thing: he can’t be with this Sirius. It’s weird and creepy and wrong and why on earth is he so attracted to this objectively awful wet dog in a distillery inside of a chimney scent?
He’s a child, a fetus, and you’d be taking advantage of his ignorance. You didn’t deserve him the first time around, and you definitely don’t deserve him now.
His hands have found their way to Sirius’s slender waist, and their lips are dangerously close when Sirius suddenly jumps back, ramming into the table and crumpling on the kitchen floor. He whimpers and cradles his face in his hands.
“Sirius!” Remus drops to his knees and tries to guide the boy into a sitting position.
That’s when he notices the inked runes appearing on his hands. His fingers change from delicate to bony as his skin pales from ivory to waxy.
Maybe it’s the relief of not having to make a decision, maybe it’s the bitter, vindictive wolf seeking the Sirius who understands his pain, maybe it’s the man who desperately wants to make things right with the real Sirius—his Sirius—but he feels the knot in his chest loosen ever so slightly.
III. SIRIUS
Everything hurts. His muscles his bones his brain.
He wonders if this is what Remus feels like after his transformations.
Remus.
He can feel him there, the warmth radiating off his skin. A human furnace that one. Even when he could barely remember Remus’s name, he’d remember his warmth as he shivered in his cell.
“Sirius?” His voice is like cotton. So gentle. Too gentle.
He’d started to wonder if Remus was just soft now. All cardigans and tea and chocolate and none of that caustic wit or blazing temper.
He likes soft Remus, has always liked soft Remus, all freckles and fluffy hair wrapped up in an oversized jumper.
But if he’s being honest, it’s not soft Remus he fell in love with.
It’s the clever, wry, passionate, neurotic, chaotic Remus—the Remus he feared was gone.
Not that Sirius is one to talk; he used to be charming, promiscuous, impulsive, vibrant, intense, and now he’s… well…
But he was all those things for a moment. And Remus, Remus was different too. And Remus didn’t get bored and try to engineer an anti-aging potion from scratch, so that means the problem is him. Remus has been sanding down his edges for him. Because he’s too fragile to be trusted around sharp objects.
“Padfoot?”
He slowly lowers his hands, feeling like a child with an old man’s face.
Remus smiles a calm, close-mouthed smile. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he rasps. He’d forgotten how full and dynamic his voice used to be.
“Do you… do you remember…?”
He nods. It’s unnerving, remembering feeling so alive, so vital, so… anything. He knew, theoretically, who he used to be, but it was so completely dissociated from himself, like the memory of a character he once read in a book.
So to feel it, the passion, the drive, the sense of urgency… To have that constant ache in his chest, that faint tug in his belly heightened to a sharp, pulsing need. For attention. For answers. For affection. For Remus.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“For what?” It's a genuine question.
For forcing the ghost of my former self on you? For being an annoying, cheeky little shit? For not being that boy anymore?
He shrugs.
Remus sighs and drags a hand down the side of his face. “Why did you… what was your…”
“Was bored,” he mumbles.
"You were bored,” he echoes, crossing his arms. But before, where Sirius has only seen the stern, weary professor, he now recognizes the ever-so-subtle hint of playfulness in the twitch of his lips and the crinkle around his eyes.
He nods. It’s not a lie, not really. Sure, a part of him is bothered by the gaunt, waxy, hollow face in the mirror. But mostly he just wanted to do something impulsive and wild and reckless for the hell of it.
Suddenly, Remus bursts out laughing, that breathy chuckle that’d been repeatedly twisted into a cold snicker in Azkaban. It unlocks something in Sirius’s chest.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he laughs, wiping at the corner of his eyes. “It’s just… so very… you. I missed… I miss—”
“I still love you,” Sirius blurts.
The laughter cuts off with a sharp gasp. “What?”
He gulps. “I… I thought you knew… I thought you just didn’t…” Feel the same. “I should’ve known you were still…” An insecure catastrophizer. “You just seemed so… together. So… okay.”
“I did?”
“But you’re not,” he realizes aloud, remembering the way Remus’s eyes turned a bright bottle green as they glassed over with tears. “You’re sad. You’re so sad. I didn’t know… I should’ve known I should’ve—”
“Hey, no…” His hands hover over Sirius’s bony shoulders, as if he’s afraid to apply even the slightest pressure. Sirius wishes he would squeeze them until they bruised.
“I thought you were… I thought I was the only one… but you were just being strong for me.”
“Oh Sirius." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "How are we always so bad at this?”
Sirius coughs out a laugh. Nearly three years to figure out they were in love with each other at school, almost two years of doubting those feelings, over a decade of convincing themselves it was all a lie, and now another year of mourning what they could’ve been instead of just…
Remus puts a hand on his cheek, gently caressing his jawline.
He feels his cheekbones raise under Remus’s hand. It takes him a moment to identify it as a grin. “Are you sure you want to touch my wart-covered face?” he teases.
“Good point." Not missing a beat, he draws his hand back dramatically, then pointedly combs his fingers through the rough, greying hair at Sirius’s temples instead.
“Careful—I hardly have any left!”
Remus rolls his eyes. A sight once so common it had gone sour is now fucking magical. “Were you really worried you’d be hideous?”
“Do you really think I’m gorgeous?” Sirius counters, trying to mask the tremble in his voice.
“I’m old, not blind. Older than I thought, apparently…”
“I’m sorry!” he winces. “I was—am—an idiot. You don’t look forty.”
“I do.”
“Thirty-eight at most.”
Remus lets out a put-upon sigh. Sirius reaches for him, tugging at nothing but loose fabric as he pulls him closer. The slight curve of a belly he’d felt when embracing him in the Shack has completely vanished; he’s as skinny, if not skinnier than him now. The realization drills a hole in his breastbone that only expands as Remus pulls away.
“Sirius—”
“You haven’t said it back,” he pouts through the chilling absence of Remus’s touch.
“Said what?”
“That you still love me. And I know there’s not much left of me to love, but—”
“Of course I still love you, Pads,” Remus interrupts, shaking his head. “Fuck, I haven’t for one moment been able to stop. But… but it doesn’t change the fact that we… in the past, whatever our reasons, we didn’t trust each other.”
Sirius bobs his head in understanding, eyes falling to his lap, teeth—all of which he still has, for the record—worrying his lower lip. He recognizes the dilemma for what it is: a choice.
He could choose to be angry at his past self for doubting Remus, for ruining at least five lives with his paranoia and poor communication skills. He could choose to be angry at Remus for doubting him, for not demanding a trial, for leaving him to rot in Azkaban. He could choose to believe that the pair of them are hopeless, completely at the mercy of an unnecessarily cruel god and doomed to make ridiculously out of character mistakes for the sake of a poorly plotted fate…
Or, he could choose to let all of that go and grasp instead at the possibility of happiness, or something closely resembling it. He could choose to be better this time around and trust that Remus might be willing to do the same.
He looks up at Remus through thick, dark lashes. His voice is barely more than a whisper, “But I trust you now.”
Remus’s lips part, the bullet-pointed, color-coded list of objections plainly knitted in his brow.
Before he can speak, Sirius seizes his hands—rescuing them from their owner’s intense wringing—and holds them close to his chest. “I trust you now, and I’ll never doubt you again, Remus. Moony. Do you trust me?”
“I…” Sirius watches with bated breath as the same choice play out in the forest that is Remus’s eyes.
“Yes,” he breathes, finally. Sirius exhales, a relieved laugh escaping as he does. “I do. Completely.”
“Right… so… where were we?” With the shadow of confidence, Sirius cups Remus’s face and pointedly eyes the small, soft, lovely smile forming on his lips.
Heart palpitating, he starts to feel that blurry, wavery, not-quite-here feeling. But then, strong hands grip his waist, grounding him in his body.
Muscle memory takes over as they meld together. In some ways, it's like when they were seventeen--all bones and harsh angles and nerves. In some ways, they're twenty--rough and instinctive and starving. And in some ways, it's something entirely new; they're attentive, they check in, they pause. It's alien and adult and so fucking hot.