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Definition of adore
1 : to worship or honour as a deity or as divine
2 : to regard with loving admiration and devotion
Sirius stares at February’s pink winter sunset and ignores the hollow twist of hunger in the pit of his stomach.
Outside of the arches, the sky is huge and endless. He supposes it has to be, up here, if they’re to learn anything about the heavens.
He holds an arm out. Slips it through the glassless arch until the effect of his heating charm sloughs off, one inch at a time, from his gloveless fingers, his palms, his wrist. The air outside is frigid. Thin.
A vast, foreign world waits for him beyond the comfortable protections of Hogwarts. All of it, soon to be his, to be theirs. Summer should be about sunshine, about breaks, about release. Looking at the mottled pink sky and dark green hills, Sirius sees none of that for him. For any of them.
“What the fuck are you doing, Pads?”
Sirius yanks his hand back. His fingers buzz with pins and needles, tickling up his arm as the blood rushes back to them. He blows some dark hair out of his face and stretches out one long leg, still somehow not long enough to meet the other side of the arch he’s sitting against.
“Fannying about,” he says helpfully. “What the fuck have you been doing?”
Remus drops his heavy oat-coloured rucksack onto the floor. Dust and dirt from the flagstones float up into the air, the outside dragged inside from hundreds of weary students who trudge up here every week for nighttime lessons.
Tonight, though. Tonight they have it all to themselves.
“Oh, a fair bit of the same I suppose,” Remus says with a long sigh through his nose. “I hate it when you sit too close to the edge like that.”
“What’d you bring?” Sirius asks instead of moving. Outside, the sky is getting darker, redder. It casts a warm glow across Remus’s face when he steps out from under the shadows, highlighting the amber tones in his hair, in his eyes, of his freckles. The white scar that nicks from the corner of his ear to the edge of his nose.
Sirius considers dangling a leg over the edge of the tower and underneath the railing, and his hand comes up to wrap around it, not for balance, but for effect, because the moment he does, Remus’s eyes widen, then quickly narrow.
There it is.
That’s the look Sirius came up here to see.
Visibly pissing Moony off just… does things to him, he supposes.
It’s just another way of picking Remus apart and getting to peek at what’s inside.
Oh, how he wishes Remus would just let him inside. Unfettered, unabashed access. His and only his.
At that moment, Remus does no such thing. He crouches down in front of his bag and works it open with quick, nimble fingers. The same quick, nimble fingers that had made fast work of Sirius’s school tie, shirt, and trousers just last Friday night.
But they’re not talking about that right now, apparently.
Remus scoops out a handful of cans of butterbeer from his bag, lifting them up to show Sirius then setting them down on the stone floor. Next, a big bag of their favourite chocolate brioche from breakfast, a knife and a jar of hazelnut spread, a box of jelly beans, and a fistful of bars of Muggle sweets he obviously took from their dorm instead of the kitchens.
“Dinner of champions,” Sirius says.
“Well, if you’re going to kill yourself, you might as well do it on a sugar rush,” Remus says, shifting from one knee to the other on the floor, wincing a little.
“Come on, Moons! You know they have charms to stop us from hitting the ground or… er…” He peers down. Hears Remus suck in a sharp breath. “The lake. Yeah?”
He looks back up through his lashes. Remus is shaking his head and saying, “It’s a rumour.”
“They definitely do—”
“—it’s a rumour.” Head still shaking.
Sirius stretches over and grabs the box of jelly beans, tearing it open. Pops a green one into his mouth and tosses a pink one at Remus’s head.
It bounces with comical effect against his cheek, skittering onto the floor and rolling off of the edge of the tower.
Sirius grins and arches back against the narrow space of wall behind him, licking his lips, his tongue bright with the taste of green apple. Remus’s ears are pink in the dwindling glow of the evening sky.
“Well?” Remus asks him, still shifting awkwardly on his knees. Sirius stares at them and swallows.
“Well what?”
“What did you bring? This is a two-way deal, remember?”
Sirius hums. “I remember.” He arches back again, stuffing his fingers into the pocket of his tight Muggle jeans, his current weekend uniform du jour, as James likes to call them. The jacket, though - that rarely comes off of his back.
Unless Moony pushes it off for him.
“Aha!” He pulls out a little plastic bag which unravels from the tips of his fingers to reveal three slightly squashed but perfectly serviceable thick white blunts. “Huff’n’puff special. Tested them for quality myself.” Three nights ago, stood behind the greenhouses with Diggory and ignoring the deliberate press of Diggory’s arm alongside his own as they passed a joint back and forth after last lessons, making small talk about weed, about Quidditch, about exams. Anything to draw the attention away from Diggory getting closer and closer as the grass took its full effect.
That evening, after Sirius ambled back up to the castle for dinner on tottering sea legs that somehow managed to get him back over the grassy mounds in one identifiable piece, he wolfed down an entire plate of mash and gravy without pausing for breath, his eyes droopy, his contributions to chatter a mere series of shrugs, grunts, and hums.
The whole time, Remus had let him put his hand on his leg underneath the table.
Small victories.
“It’s really good shit.”
“I remember,” Remus says. He shifts again.
Sirius sets the box of jelly beans down and moves back on his hands, stretching both legs out now. “Would you just get over here already?” He tilts his head. Gestures his lap. “We’re alone, for Merlin’s sake. And,” he braces himself for argument, “you're hurting. I can tell.”
No argument comes, though. Remus leans forward on his hands and crawls toward him just like that, closing the space in a couple of stretches of his arms and legs. He pauses by Sirius’s side, glancing over the edge of the tower beside him.
“It’s fine,” Sirius whispers, holding out an arm. “Come on, the view’s cracking up here.”
Remus shuffles around and finally settles himself against Sirius, leaning backwards between the V of his legs and resting back against him. Sirius’s arm comes up to wrap around him, holding him firmly, feeling the line of Remus's spine against his chest, the press of warm skin beneath the fabric of his bobbly old jumper.
Sirius tilts his head down and presses his nose against Remus’s neck. His long hair slips forward, brushing down against one thin, pointed shoulder. Remus shivers.
“You’ll be the death of me, Black.”
Sirius bends his knee, bracketing Remus in, another solid protection against the drop. “Not on my watch.”
Never on my watch.
Let me watch you, forever.
Sirius lifts his head again when Remus does the thing he always does, the I’m not dignifying that with a response response, and while he aches to press his mouth against the sunny patch of skin on the nape of Remus’s neck again until he does say something Sirius wants to hear, he digs out a joint from the bag and lights it with the tip of his wand instead.
“Look,” he murmurs when he loops his arm around Remus and holds the joint out for him. Remus tilts forward, sucks a draw straight from Sirius’s fingers, and he follows Sirius’s gaze to the sky. It’s darkening already, the red melting into purple and into navy, and soon enough the entire landscape will be bled black, stars poking through the clouds like the freckles that map the entire fabric of Remus’s scarred skin.
“Procyon,” Remus murmurs, closing one eye. “And there’s you. There you are. Sirius.”
“Brightest star in the sky.”
“You would think.”
Sirius wraps his lips around the filtered end of the joint, holding it between his thumb and fingers. It tastes sweet, like Moony’s mouth.
When he moves his arm to pass it back, Remus lifts up a hand and presses it against Sirius’s wrist, pushing it gently out of the way. He turns his head, making his mouth an offer, and when Sirius dips down to kiss him, Remus opens his mouth and lets him in.
How long will this one last, Moony , Sirius thinks, his free hand tightening over the soft, flat expanse of Remus’s belly, slipping up under the scratchy fabric of his jumper, blindly counting freckles he’s determined to learn by heart, one day, to devote himself to, if only Remus will let him.