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Remus hadn’t realised he was in love with Sirius until it was too late.
When they were at school it should have been obvious, but it never occurred to him that the reason he spent all his time wherever Sirius was could be for anything other than friendship. After all, they had other friends who were around all the time too.
It was only natural that friends should want to spend time together.
But then school ended and they were no longer living just down the hallway from each other, sharing study groups or late nights breaking curfew in each other’s rooms. Instead, Sirius returned to the fancy townhouse owned by his parents, and Remus moved into some more-dodgy-than-not share housing just off-site of the university they both enrolled in.
They weren’t in the same course. They didn’t share classes anymore.
They saw much, much less of each other, and it was only when they came together for drinks at the end of the first week that Remus realised what he should have known all along.
He was desperately, despairingly, devastatingly, in love with his best friend.
The weight of realisation burrowed beneath his breastbone and carved out a hollow space, left him feeling sick and empty and like nothing could ever possibly fill the void.
Sirius was, typically, oblivious, and that was perfectly fine by Remus. It made it easier to pretend.
“I missed you!” Sirius beamed when they met at the bar, falling onto stools at a table in the beer garden. He hooked one arm around Remus’ shoulders and squeezed him tightly. In the space of one breath, Remus knew he never wanted to let go, didn’t want another week to go by without seeing Sirius, without touching him, without smelling the rosemary oil that scented his hair.
“Missed you too,” he murmured, proud of how even his voice held despite the fact that he couldn’t draw a breath in. His heart pounded, thumped like someone was trampling his chest with Doc Martens. Pressing one palm against his sternum, Remus tried to rub the pain away and failed completely.
Sirius sighed and shook his head, hair flicking madly. “I tell you what, I didn’t realise how much we saw each other until we didn’t.”
Forcing a smile, Remus met the sparkling grey gaze that was eagerly trying to catch his eyes. “Tell me about it,” he agreed.
“Well, I will then,” Sirius grinned, and knocked Remus lightly with his elbow. “But lemme buy you a drink first.”
“Oh … you don’t have to,” Remus said. “I can get my own.”
“Bullshit,” Sirius said. “Let me spoil you, I enjoy it.”
Sirius’ grin was infectious. It poisoned Remus’ feelings with it’s perfection and made a responding smile bloom across his face. “You treat me like I’m your pet.”
“I don’t!” Sirius said, laughing. “I just enjoy looking after you, god knows you’re no good at doing it yourself. Look at the state of you after one week apart.”
Relenting, Remus let him go, and watched as Sirius carved a path through the garden towards the door and disappeared inside. His chest twisted, a fist of anxiety squeezing his heart until he thought he was going to pass out, black dots pricking his vision, and he knew. Sirius was his oxygen, and Sirius was gone.
He tried holding his breath until Sirius returned and was disappointed to find he needed actual oxygen as well. Gasping a breath, Remus ignored the curious glance from the people at the next table and tried to hide his flush of embarrassment by fiddling with his collar.
“Why d’you look all weird?” Sirius asked, returning with a tumbler of whiskey and a glass of lemonade. He plunked the liquor on the table and slid it across to Remus, the wood scraping against the sweating glass.
“I don’t,” Remus said. “I always look like this.”
“No,” Sirius asserted. “You look flustered and fluffy, when you normally look like you’re secretly plotting something that I’m gonna get drawn into whether I like it or not.”
Remus snorted, but his mind insisted there was definitely something to the accusation - he was the mastermind behind many of the pranks their group had pulled at school. His mind also floated around something else, another thing that he very much would like to draw Sirius into, and Remus stamped the thought away and refused to dwell on it.
It seemed, while he was distracted by less than pure thoughts, that Sirius was waiting for a reply. His head tipped to one side, hair sliding across his shoulder. “You okay?” he asked, more genuinely.
“Uhm. Yeah. Fine,” Remus said, pushing a smile onto his face. Sirius’ stare told him unequivocally that he did not believe the obvious lie. “So. What’s it like, your course?”
They may not have seen each other, but they texted every day, many times, and Remus already had a pretty good idea what Sirius’ course was like, knew he was enjoying it, knew he found all of his classmates unbearably boring, and knew he had been flirting with a barista at the local cafe.
“Moony, for real. What’s up with you tonight?”
Remus licked his lips and raised his whiskey. “Nothing, mate. Nothing at all.”
l-l
“This is what I’m talking about,” Sirius said, throwing his arms wide as he welcomed Remus in. “You and me, a whole day, back together like we used to be.”
“I’ve missed it,” Remus agreed, smiling at him.
Over the past few weeks, while they saw little of each other and texted more and more frequently - after classes, before classes, during classes - Remus had managed to compartmentalise the hideous realisation that he was in love with someone who would never see him as more than a friend.
Remus refused to think of himself as friend zoned . Friend zone only applied to someone who actively chose to put him there, and Sirius was oblivious to his interest, so Remus was fine.
“I’ve missed it too,” Sirius said, slinging an arm around Remus as he dragged him inside and slammed the front door shut. “Come on, no study today. What d’you wanna do?”
“I just wanna spend time with you,” Remus said, and cringed inwardly as he realised how needy he sounded.
But Sirius’ grin was blinding, so wide and so enthusiastic that Remus was excited by it. “That’s everything that I want as well,” he said. “Let’s just hang out. Tell me anything. Everything.”
They wound up in the lounge room, fitted with expensive leather couches. Despite keeping each other up to date with everything, they still had a thousand things to talk about.
“How’s James going?” Remus asked. “Have you heard from him?”
Remus had heard from him as well, but Sirius and James were like brothers and there was nothing they liked better than to talk about each other.
“He’ll be back from Greece next month,” Sirius said. “But you know that.”
“Yeah, well. What’s he getting up to?”
“I dunno,” Sirius said lazily, sinking into the couch. “I doubt very much, he’s on his gap year, after all. He said something about oranges, and growing sunflowers when he gets back.”
“He’s such a nerd,” Remus said fondly. His breath caught as Sirius swung his feet up, stretched his legs across Remus’ lap. “D’you miss him?”
Sirius gave him a lopsided smile. “Every day. Almost as much as I miss you.”
“But you see me,” Remus said, dropping his gaze even as a soft smile touched his mouth.
“Not enough,” Sirius said. His tone turned earnestly tender. “I fucking mean it, Moony. I miss you.”
Glancing up, Remus wished he could shake the edge of coyness that clung to him as he met Sirius’ eyes. “I miss you too. It’s not the same, is it?”
“No way,” Sirius said. “I never realised when we were together all the time, how good we had it. I took it for granted that you were always there, in almost every class, every night, just down the hallway. I didn’t realise … well, I’m sorry now, that we’re apart. You know, you could move in here with me.”
Remus blinked and looked up properly. His heart fluttered and hope burst through him like fireworks. And then he did something stupid and let his brain catch up, let thought snag him with its thorns. There was no possible way he could live with Sirius again, to be so close to him and not touch him, to be unable to actually be close to him.
It would destroy him. It would eat him alive.
Remus could not do that to himself. He wouldn’t.
But when he stared into Sirius’ beautiful, questioning eyes, he couldn’t deny him either. So Remus smiled, crookedly as the emotions tangled together and twisted his expression with their ambivalence, and said, “Lemme think about it.”
Sirius hoisted one eyebrow, unimpressed. “Is that one of your avoidant ‘lemme think about it’s, or an actual need to think about it?”
“Yes,” Remus said, a teasing smile easing his face into something less incriminatory.
Sirius sighed and bounced his heels against Remus’ thigh, gently. “Moony, you can’t love living in a fucking share house. You can stay here, rent free. It’d be awesome. It always was awesome. We’re a team, you know.”
“You gonna ask James to stay when he gets back, too?” Remus asked. A frown line appeared between Sirius’ brows. “Since we’re a team, I mean.”
“Don’t be like that,” Sirius said, his tone subdued. “Moony … you must know…”
The atmosphere between them shifted very suddenly, so abruptly the air seemed to be vacuumed from the room and Remus swayed in his seat, dizzy. “Know what?” he asked, voice rasping.
Blinking, Sirius gave him a look, and Remus thought he knew every one of Sirius’ looks, but this one was confused and quizzical and hurt and hopeful, and Remus had no fucking clue what it meant.
Sirius raised one hand and reached forward, tucked a curl away from Remus’ forehead. His fingertips brushed Remus’ skin; he was overwhelmed by a need to grab them, press them to his mouth. He resisted, successfully.
With a heavy sigh, Sirius dropped his hand again. “Never mind, Moony. You just think about it. Promise me you actually will.”
“I promise I actually will,” Remus lied, and patted Sirius’ hand when it landed on the seat between them.
Hand turning, Sirius wrapped his fingers around Remus’ for the briefest moment, then pulled away.
l-l
“You don’t have to do this,” Remus said for the umpteenth time as Sirius drove through the night-quiet streets back towards his townhouse. “Honestly.”
“Moony, shut the fuck up. You’ve said that forty-thousand times already and I’ve told you, you are staying at mine and I’m happy to drive you home.”
“You shouldn’t have to. I shouldn’t have had so much to drink,” Remus said, sighing as he sagged against his seatbelt. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Sirius said.
“It’s not. I know you don’t like being around people who’re stinking drunk. I know better. I’m a bad friend.”
“Those people don’t count when it’s you,” Sirius said, throwing him a soft glance. “You’re an adorable drunk, which helps. You’re not mean. You’re sweet and funny and it’s not like you do it that much.”
“I know better,” Remus whispered again. And he did, even intoxicated he knew better than to lose himself in his cups around Sirius, because Sirius didn’t drink for very good reasons - mostly being that his parents had raised him to drink his problems and by the time he was eighteen he was angry and unsober more often than not. He had learned not at all was his safest level of alcohol consumption.
“Moony, it’s honestly fine. Anyway, I like taking care of you. Remember when you got the ‘flu at school?”
“I remember you got the ‘flu from me,” Remus pouted.
“I was happy to,” Sirius said, and he suddenly sounded tired. “Why can’t you just accept that I’m happy to be that person you lean on? And lean on me a little more?”
A beat of heavy silence passed between them, where Remus turned and gaped at Sirius, his mind soupy with whiskey and singularly unclever. He couldn’t think of a reply, but he knew he needed to give Sirius something, that he couldn’t leave him saying something so kind without offering something as a thank you.
So he stretched against his seatbelt and leaned over, rested his head on Sirius’ shoulder. “I’m happy you’re the person I lean on,” he whispered, voice croaky and quiet. “You’re the only person I want to lean on. Ever. Even when I’m being difficult about it.”
Sirius sighed gently, and it sounded to Remus like he was forgiven. Taking one hand from the wheel, Sirius rested it against Remus’ head, held him for a moment. “You’re a difficult man sometimes, Mr Moony,” he said quietly. “But I wouldn’t ever be without you. You know that, right?”
“I know that,” Remus said, but it made his heart ache with longing. He wanted more than just being someone Sirius wouldn’t be without. He wanted to be someone more.
It felt so good to rest against him. Remus turned his face towards the cologne staining Sirius’ natural scent, breathed him in.
“What’re you doing, you mad drunk thing?” Sirius asked, stroking his hand across Remus’ ear before dropping it back to the wheel.
“Sniffing you,” Remus mumbled into Sirius’ collar.
He felt Sirius’ swallow, felt the catch in his breath, and Remus realised he must have sounded creepy as all hell. He went to pull away, an apology on his lips, but Sirius’ hand came up again and held him in place.
For a few minutes they drove in silence, and then Sirius took his hand away as he steered the car into his driveway and killed the engine.
The radio continued to hum gently despite the power being off, but the comforting drone of the motor was gone. Instead, Remus could hear Sirius’ breathing, deep and deliberately steady.
“This is nice,” he whispered, tipping his head towards Remus’. “Really, it is.”
“It is,” Remus echoed, and the corner of his mouth touched Sirius’ neck. Before he knew what he was doing, he turned to follow that touch, fitted his lips to Sirius’ throat, and kissed him gently.
A shaky breath rattled through Sirius and he turned slowly, easing Remus back with gentle touches. “Moony…”
“I’m sorry,” Remus whispered, his lips numb with wanting. He wanted, oh, he so badly fucking wanted to put his lips back against Sirius, to feel him, to taste him, even if he tasted icky with cologne, Remus had to know. He swayed a little in his seat, uncertain about where to go – closer – or backwards, into safety.
Sirius made the decision for him.
He smoothed both palms across Remus’ stubble-ridden cheeks and held him. “Did you just kiss me?”
“Sort of,” Remus mumbled, blinking at him through the gloomy light cast by the headlights reflecting on the garage door. “Yeah.”
Sirius’ breath shook again and he whispered, “Moony…” a word without direction, but with a world of purpose. And then he shifted closer and kissed Remus with aching tenderness, so gently it might have been a dream. Except it wasn’t a dream, it was very, very real, and Sirius’ mouth was on his and Remus was drunk and desperate and he fell into it, his drink-numb fingers scrabbling into Sirius’ hair as he poured every bit of himself into the kiss.
Sirius met him with equal fervour but more finesse than Remus could muster. His lips were gentle, his tongue when it met Remus’ was flavoured with lemonade and the ridiculously sweet cake from the party. Remus tasted him and wanted more. Surging forwards, his seatbelt snagged him back, pulling taut across his chest.
A strange whimper echoed in the back of his throat, but luckily it wasn’t enough to break their kiss and Sirius sighed into his mouth as he lazily turned his head to one side. His hands cradled Remus’ head, held him in place, his kiss deep and slow and something else, something wonderful and amazing and idolatrous that Remus thought he recognised but was not prepared to name. If he named it and he was wrong, he knew he would die.
Pressing his tongue against Sirius’, Remus leaned in as close as he could get, hands sliding aimlessly through Sirius’ hair, down the back of his expensive shirt, towards his waistband. Hooking both thumbs into Sirius’ belt, Remus wished they were almost anywhere other than the front seats of a car. He wanted more, he needed access to Sirius’ body.
Of their own volition, his hands began to tug at Sirius’ shirt, trying to get to the skin underneath.
“Oh my god, Remus,” Sirius breathed, pulling back a fraction. Trying to find him again blindly, Remus opened his eyes when he failed to remake contact. Sirius stared at him with a bright gaze, eyes gleaming through the night.
“More.” Remus heard himself whisper as though he were someone else. “Please.”
Sirius gulped, and then something hideous, horrible, very unwelcome shuttered in his eyes. “Oh my god, what am I doing?” he growled softly, self-loathing coating the words. “You’re fucking drunk, this is the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
“It’s okay,” Remus said, reeling at the sudden change. “I don’t mind, you’re not drunk.”
“So I should fucking know better!” Sirius snapped, his eyes flashing.
Stunned – hurt – Remus reared away. He stared at Sirius, lips parted and still wanting to be kissed, struggling to understand what had just changed between them.
“Moony,” Sirius said, seeing his pain. “Just … lemme explain.”
“O-okay,” Remus stammered. He was shaking, his whole body on edge, the alcohol swerving through his atoms and restructuring them into disappointment.
“I can’t take advantage of you like this. You’ve had a lot to drink, and I’m sober, and I know better than to kiss someone who’s too drunk to know what they’re doing.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Remus said in a hush, not quite meeting Sirius’ eyes. “This … is what I want.”
Sirius’ tongue swept across his lips, and there was an equal amount of pain in his voice when he said, “You want it because you’ve been drinking. In the morning … you’re gonna want something different. I can’t do this to you.”
“Padfoot,” Remus whispered. “I kissed you first.”
Sirius reached out, hooked his fingers under Remus’ chin and raised it so they met each other’s eyes. “I know,” he said. “And I kissed you next, and I wasn’t very fucking shy about it, but I’m not gonna do anything else to you … with you … anything. At all. Not tonight. Okay?”
“No,” Remus said. “I want you to…”
“No, Moony. We can’t. I can’t. Not like this.”
A sob choked in the back of Remus’ throat. He wanted to cry, he wanted Sirius to see how much his rejection hurt, how badly it bruised his soul to have come so close to what he wanted only to have it snatched brutally away.
Sniffing, he wrenched back, collapsing against his seat as he fumbled to get his seatbelt off.
“Moony, don’t be upset,” Sirius said, but his voice sounded very far away. One of his hands settled against Remus’ throat and he batted it away.
“I’m fine,” he said, sniffing again as he finally managed to rip himself free of the seatbelt.
Sirius sighed. “Come on inside. Get some sleep.”
“I should go home,” Remus mumbled, not really meaning it but feeling too embarrassed to stay.
“We agreed that you’d stay here,” Sirius said, and his voice was an equal mix of hurt and impatient. “Let me look after you.”
Sadness began to fill Remus up, starting in his toes and surging upwards. Despite that, despite his embarrassment, he could not bring himself to actually leave. Rolling his eyes towards Sirius, Remus bit his bottom lip and nodded.
Letting his breath out in a whoosh, Sirius flicked the car lights off and jumped out of the car. A moment later, he was at Remus’ door, helping him clamber tipsily from the car. Scooping on arm around him, he steered Remus up the drive and into the house.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” Sirius promised, depositing Remus on the bed in the guest room. “I want to talk about that … the kiss. Okay?”
“Sure,” Remus mumbled, staring up at him miserably.
Sirius gazed back at him, looking equally unhappy. “D’you need anything?”
Remus blinked slowly, then asked quietly, “Will you stay with me awhile?”
“I don’t know if that’s a very good idea.”
“Please?”
It seemed Sirius did not need much convincing. He pressed his lips together and then smiled, moving towards the bed.
“Nothing’s going to happen,” he murmured as he stretched out and pulled Remus down with him, fitting one arm across his chest as Remus flopped onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “Just get some sleep, okay?”
Silently, Remus nodded, but sleep was a long time coming.
l-l
Remus woke with Sirius’ sleeping hand resting on his waist, and for one half-asleep second panic rushed across his brain as he wondered what to do.
A huge chunk of him wanted to roll from the bed and sprint from the house, to get away from the comfort of Sirius’ familiar touch. They’d fallen asleep in the same bed dozens of times, more, back in school.
But this was different, because Sirius had kissed him just the night before, and then told him no, and Remus had no idea what came next. He wanted to avoid what felt like inevitable heartbreak.
The other part of him refused to move, refused to slip away from Sirius’ touch. He needed it for as long as he could have it.
“You’re awake, aren’t you?” Sirius’ hazy voice cracked the morning silence, and his hand slipped away from Remus’ body.
“I’m awake,” Remus agreed. “D’you want me to go?”
“Before breakfast? No way,” Sirius said. He rolled onto his back, warmth retreating as he moved away from Remus.
The sudden space felt unbearable, and impossible to breach.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Remus blurted.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sirius said, clearing his throat. “You drinking doesn’t bother me, Moony.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
There was a long moment of quiet and then Sirius murmured, “You wanna talk about that already, huh?”
“Don’t you think we should?”
Sirius swung his legs over the side of the mattress and sat up. Dropping his head into his palms for a moment, he sighed heavily. “I’m fucking sorry, okay?”
Remus’ heart sank. “Why?”
“Because … jesus, just … Moony. We’re friends and it’s not right. And kissing you when you’d been drinking is just disgustingly low of me.”
“Well, I’m sober now,” Remus whispered, sucking up all of his courage. “And I still want you to kiss me.”
Sirius’ head snapped around. The look on his face was almost laughable. “What?”
“I know you heard me.”
Sirius shuffled around to face him. “You want…?”
“I want you,” Remus murmured. “I want kisses, I want touch, I want you and your body.”
Swallowing hard, Sirius gaped at him. “Since when?”
Remus flushed. “I don’t know. I only realised it when you weren’t there anymore.”
“Oh,” Sirius said, and his tone was unreadable. His face was very serious as he studied Remus. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“And risk losing what we have?” Remus asked, blinking slowly. “By weirding you out with what I feel?”
“I’m not weirded out, Moony,” Sirius said softly. “I’m fucking thrilled. I’ve wanted to touch you since the day we met.”
“What?” Remus’ went hollow with shock.
Sirius gave him a wry smile. “It’s driven me crazy for years, being so close and yet so impossibly far from you. Not that I’m complaining. Our friendship has been one of the greatest things of my life.”
“Same.”
“I didn’t want to … weird you out,” Sirius said, his voice very quiet. “I knew - or I thought I knew, anyway - that it was just me. And I was okay with that, ‘cause just having you in my life was enough.”
“So…” Remus swept his tongue across his lips. “What does that mean for us now?”
“Right now? It means I’m going to kiss you again,” Sirius said, his tone sweet, his smile gentle. “And after that, well. Who knows where a kiss could lead.”
Remus flushed, catching Sirius’ meaning. “Typical impatient you,” he said, a little shyly.
Sirius’ smile widened. “I’ve been impatient to touch you for years. No one else even registers with me. It’s you, Moony. Just you. I want to kiss you, and touch you, and be your boyfriend. I want to share our bodies, share our lives . But only if that’s what you want too.”
“I want,” Remus repeated, wondering just what he did want. He did not need to think for long. He smiled. “I want that too. And I don’t want to wait either.”
Watching him softly, Sirius reached out and tangled his hand in Remus’ hair. Then he leaned in and kissed him.
This time, he did not pull away.