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Remus had a funny taste in his mouth, somewhere between vaseline and vodka. It had lingered since the drive up, constantly irritating him. He kept swiping his tongue over his lips, but that only resulted in getting severely chapped.
Was Remus a fan of the altitude? Simply, no.
James and Sirius clearly were, as the two were joyfully failing at pitching a tent, swathed in warm jackets. Remus and the rest of his friends looked on in distaste, not offering a hand.
It was an odd group, Remus had to admit. That was the larger reason for his discomfort, if you looked past the vaseline/vodka taste. There were his friends, of course: Peter, Lily, Mary, Marlene, James and Sirius. Then Dorcas came because Marlene did, and Regulus came because James did, and two boys called Evan and Barty followed after Regulus. Those two had stayed in the car, because Evan was dead asleep on Barty’s lap and Lily had received a glare full of death for suggesting they wake him up.
Remus had decided to stick with Peter. Yes, that was right. Pete was safe, Pete was easy, Pete always had an extra pair of mittens when Remus’s hands got cold. Otherwise, Remus didn’t feel like thinking about the implications of this camping trip.
“I promise it won’t be all couple-y,” James had sworn, when Remus expressed his concern a week before.
“But you’re all in love!” Remus had groaned. “It’s gross, and I don’t fancy watching you all make out with each other for three days straight!”
“Well, you and Sirius are too, you just won’t bloody admit-”
“James.”
“Right, sorry, fine. Just come. It won’t be couple-y! Cross my heart!”
Remus already had trouble believing this. With Barty and Evan in the car, Dorcas’s arms wrapped around Marlene’s stomach, Mary blowing on Lily’s nose (which was a bright shade of red)
for warmth, and Regulus lugging James’s pack out of the car with a screwed-up expression, James was already being proven very wrong.
Regulus dropped the pack at Remus’s feet, grunting. He looked up, rolling his eyes at Sirius and James’s attempt at a tent.
“This is the gayest camping trip I’ve ever seen.” Regulus sighed.
“I know.” Said Remus, in dismay. Peter nodded solemnly.
“Oi, you got the poles fucked up!” Dorcas yelled, letting go of Marlene to assist James and Sirius. Marlene giggled after her, hopelessly fond.
The girls had been significantly smarter than the boys when it came to packing, which wasn’t unusual—Lily was always better at packing for school—and they had thought to bring just one big tent, that the four of them would share.
The boys, having not communicated whatsoever before that very morning, brought three two-person tents, and Peter, being more adjusted to backpacking, brought a hammock that he insisted was a hundred times more comfortable than sleeping on the ground. Remus almost believed him.
By the time the sun was lowering itself below the skyline in a brilliant array of colour, all four tents had been pitched (mostly by Dorcas) and Pete was swinging merrily in his hammock.
James had taken the liberty of starting a fire, and was now bundling Regulus in an onslaught of unnecessary jackets like his very life depended on it. Remus rolled his eyes from where he sat across from Lily, playing cards. Mary was roasting vegetables on their little camping stove, cheering whenever Lily beat him in a round.
Remus was already sick of this.
“Moony, do you think my baby brother is going to have sex in my best friend’s tent tonight?” Sirius plopped himself next to Remus on the bench, looking utterly miserable.
(Good, Remus thought, let the bastard suffer for not bringing a bigger bloody tent.)
“Undoubtedly.” Remus replied, placing an eight of spades on the table, calmly.
Sirius made a drawn-out ‘ugh’ noise, and Lily laughed at him. “Let the man have his fun,” she smiled, “lord knows James worked hard for it.”
“Yes, yes, he put a lot of effort into seducing my little brother, well done him,” Sirius said bitterly. “Don’t get me wrong, Moony, I’m thrilled to be sharing a tent with you.” (He grinned at Remus, who threw a nervous glance at Lily.) “I just hope we don’t have to listen to horrible sex noises all night.”
“Have something to say, Sirius?” Regulus snapped from his chair by the fire.
“Nothing at all.” Sirius narrowed his eyes.
“Don’t worry, mate,” Remus reasoned. “James practically cock-blocked himself by putting all those coats on your brother. Fun time getting those off.”
“I’ll find a way!” James yelped around a mouthful of marshmallow. “Mark my words!”
“Watch yourself, Potter!” Sirius growled, and Remus had to grab his wrist to prevent a fight breaking out. He slumped back down, leaning against Remus’s shoulder petulantly.
“You’ll have to sing to me or something, Moony. Otherwise I’ll never be able to rest.”
Remus set down an ace, and Lily swore. Mary came swiftly over to pop a carrot in her mouth and kiss the top of her head. “I’ll do nothing of the sort,” Remus snipped. “Get over it.”
“Get over it,” Sirius quoted back angrily, sitting up straight. “It’s my little brother!”
“It has two fists and free will.” Regulus warned.
“Precisely.” Remus nodded. “If you’re so angry about them you should have brought your own bloody date.”
Sirius glared at him, but said nothing.
***
As the last shreds of sunlight disappeared in a wink of yellow, the full moon rose amongst the blinking stars, round and as bright as any lantern.
They gathered around the campfire, huddling together for warmth and sticking their stiff hands over the flames. Marlene was on Dorcas’s lap, face stuck in the crook of her neck, and Barty and Evan had (unhappily) emerged from the car, Barty nuzzling Evan’s hair in a way that made Remus feel as though he needed to look anywhere else.
Remus was fucking surrounded by love.
He was miserable.
He was sat next to Peter, who was objectively the best at roasting marshmallows, and therefore kept busy making them for their friends. Remus only took his burnt to the very centre, which Sirius found disgusting and was quite vocal about.
Sirius, the heathen, was sitting on Remus’s other side, knees touching in a way that made Remus want to die, with a blanket thrown over the both of them. He was speaking, but Remus had long since learnt to tune him out.
“-just despicable, think of the poor marshmallow, all charred and fucked-up on the inside, reduced to ashes and goo! That can’t possibly taste good, Remus, it’s completely b-”
He was cut off as Remus stuffed his own marshmallow in Sirius’s mouth, unamused. The other boy looked enraged, at first, then contemplatively chewed it for a moment before nodding slowly.
“Why is that good?” He complained, sticky white sugar stuck to the edges of his mouth. (Remus wanted to lick it). “I hate you, Moony, I just hate you.”
“Mhm,” said Remus, “and why is that?”
“Because you’re always right.” Sirius said, with a long-suffering sigh.
Remus grinned. “That’s right, folks.” He leaned back in his chair. “Let it sink in.”
“You’re such a git,” Sirius mumbled around another marshmallow that Peter had charred for him.
“Children, enough bickering,” Mary scolded.
“Thank you,” Regulus groaned.
“Why, you’re welcome, Reggie.” Mary said with a smirk. “Just because of your graciousness, I’ll let you pick our very first campfire game!”
Regulus looked up to the sky. “God, what did I do to deserve this life? This torture of decisiveness ?”
James looked at him fondly, kissing the side of his head. “You have such a hard life.”
“I know !” Regulus agreed, making wild motions with his hands as he leaned into James’s touch.
“Mary, let’s give him options,” Lily meditated.
“Spin the bottle?” Sirius suggested.
Marlene made a face. “Seeing as half of us are in committed relationships, and you’re in a circle with your brother, consider that idea vetoed. Unless you want to continue your family’s legacy, that is.”
Sirius glared at her. “You’ll pay, Mckinnon.”
“ You just suggested it because you want an excuse to kiss L-”
“Truth or dare?!” James interjected frantically.
“Basic,” Evan frowned. “And Regulus lies for fun when he plays truth or dare.”
“That's true,” Barty nodded solemnly.
“Two truths and a lie,” Regulus smirked.
“No, he’s so good at that…” James complained. Regulus whispered something in his ear that made him instantly shut up, and Sirius went stiff trying to listen. Remus patted his shoulder.
“The gods have spoken, it’s been decided!” Mary threw her hands up. “And- if your lie gets found out, you drink.”
“Fine,” Peter said, “But if I wake up tomorrow morning passed out under a tree, you are nursing me back to health.”
Mary shook his hand cordially. Lily chuckled, and sunk deeper into her side.
“Bartimus. You start.”
“Me start?” Barty blanched. “I didn’t have time to prepare my lies!”
“Ooh!” Lily interjected. “To make it interesting, the category for the first round should be things you and your partner have done. For you three single lads, free range, I suppose.”
“Excellent, that narrows it down.” Barty smirked. Evan’s face went slightly pale, but he didn’t object. “Alright…once, Evan and I snuck into Filch’s office at school, stole a confiscated sex toy, and used it later that night. So there’s one.”
Remus could see Evan’s ears getting redder by the moment.
“Another time, before we got together, I got into Evan’s bed in the middle of the night and pressed our noses together for fifteen minutes straight, and the bastard still didn’t get that I liked him…”
“And… last winter hols, my mum caught us on the couch at like, five in the morning. Never doing that again.”
The group burst out in a clamor of “it was absolutely the sex toy one, are you thick?” And “no, the winter hols story was too underdeveloped!” Barty had a satisfied smirk on his face through the whole thing.
“Sex toy.” Mary declared with finality.
“Wrong, Macdonald!” Barty said with glee. “It was the second one. Technically, I did do that, but he got fed up with it after like, three minutes and snogged me. Evan is quite the impatient lover.”
“I can’t believe you did that with me in the dorm.” Regulus shuddered.
Barty’s face twisted into a smirk. “Don’t worry, darling, we’ve done much worse in your presence.”
“I hate you.” Regulus said flatly.
“My turn!” Lily raised her hand. “I have some good ones lined up. Mary, my love, don’t give me away.”
“I’m offended. I have the best poker face.”
Lily kissed her, rolling her eyes. “On the way to pick Remus up this morning, we hit a fuckload of traffic and Mary took the opportunity to go down on me in the SUV.” (Collective gasps were heard. Remus gagged.)
“Literally since we were twelve, we used to scissor each other in bed or in the bathroom and shit, and neither of us thought it was strange, we just did it because it felt nice and we were kids who didn’t know better.”
“Fuck, theirs are so much better than ours.” Evan groaned. “Twelve?!”
Mary tucked a smile under her chin.
“And… well, this one is just sweet, really, but Mary used to sneak into the library at night to get me books and read them aloud to me when I got those awful autumn colds.”
Immediately everyone burst out in protests against the prepubescent scissoring, but Remus was sceptical.
“There’s no way you went down on her in the SUV.” He narrowed his eyes at Mary.
“Fuck!” Lily laughed, taking a shot out of their stolen bottle of Smirnoff. “How did you know?”
Remus shrugged. “It was Sunday morning. Why would there be traffic on Sunday morning?”
Sirius burst into stitches, cackling. “That was the issue you took with the lie? Christ, Moony, I love you.”
Remus’s cheeks went hot, and thankfully this went unnoticed in the roar of laughter that was brought on by his comment about the traffic. Regulus was looking at him a bit funny, though.
“Right,” Regulus said, and immediately the group went quiet. “I’d best get ours out of the way.”
“Oh no,” James sighed. “Remus, get a hold of Sirius first, please.” Remus grabbed Sirius’s hand dutifully, pressing it firmly. Sirius narrowed his eyes in preparation for a fight.
“Well,” Regulus started out smugly. “The first time we fucked- or, rather, the first time James fucked me , he laid on top of me after and recited a poem that he had memorized the day before.”
“That’s very in-character.” Peter nodded.
“Quite,” Remus agreed amicably. Sirius fumed next to him.
“Consistently, after every single rugby game, I find James in the changing rooms and congratulate him on his win. It’s very efficient. Gryffindor hasn’t lost a game this season.” Regulus claimed proudly.
“You bitch!” Evan exclaimed. “Way to fuck over your own house! Is that why Potter is especially good this season?!”
“Quiet, children,” Dorcas shushed. “Let the man speak.”
“Finally…” Regulus mulled. “I loved James since I first met him, when he came off the train with Sirius their first year, and I wasn’t at Hogwarts yet. He smiled at me, ten-year-old me, and I thought that my head was going to explode from how pretty he was. He had dangly little arms and the best smile you’ve ever seen, and I spent the whole summer pestering Sirius about when his new friend was going to come over so I could meet him and he would smile at me more. So, there’s that.”
James’s mouth was hanging open, jaw visibly tightening. His eyes were soft, so soft that Remus feared they might melt into the fire.
“Was that- was that the lie?” James asked quietly. No one else dared speak.
Regulus grinned. “Oh, none of those were lies. The lie was the fact that you thought there was one in the first place.” He stated, as if that should have been obvious.
James didn’t waste a second before flinging himself into Regulus’s lap, kissing him ferociously. Sirius groaned, but said nothing.
“You might have loved me since you were eleven,” James whispered, “but I loved you since the beginning of time. Since I was an embryo. Before the stars had names.”
“Sap.” Is all Regulus could muster before they’re snogging again.
Remus looked away on principal, muttering under his breath. “No couple-y stuff, he says, I promise, Remus, the camping trip won’t be nauseatingly love-filled! Cross my heart and hope to die, Remus! ”
Sirius let out a soft snort; the only person who could properly distinguish Remus’s whinging.
“Here, me and Moony will go next.” Sirius said, in an obvious attempt to console him. “We’ll pretend to be a couple for the game’s sake.”
“”Pretend,”” Marlene rolled her eyes. Remus shot her a look.
“Yes, pretend, you twat, Moony would never be stupid enough to date me.” Sirius explained, as if talking to a child. (Oh, if only he knew). By this point he had grabbed the attention of even James and Regulus, who were looking at them curiously.
Remus folded his arms around himself, sure that this was going in a direction that he was going to:
a) think about for the rest of his life with embarrassment and burning hatred, or
b) think about for the rest of his life, in a large house that belonged to the both of them, with a tomato garden and three children running around.
“And you can’t just make stuff up,” Regulus added sternly. “What have you and Remus done?”
“Nothing!” Remus interjected. “There’s nothing to lie about!”
“I’m wounded, Moony,” Sirius said, and he did actually sound a bit hurt. “We’ve had a long and beautiful relationship.”
Remus thinks he might just throw himself into the nearest lake.
You see, Remus and Sirius have been roommates since they were eleven. And, back when Remus was eleven, he had no way to explain away the feeling he got around Sirius—like he constantly wanted to touch the other boy’s face—and, unlike Mary and Lily, they couldn’t just jerk each other off and blame it on naivety. Even little Remus knew that was a boundary you didn’t cross.
This only became a real issue when Remus went home for a summer, and did garden work for two older men in one of the neighboring houses (whom he had previously believed were just good friends), watched them share a passing kiss at the dinner table one evening, and was forever (unfortunatley) awakened to the fact that queer people exist. More accurately, the fact that he was one.
The feeling he got around Sirius never went away. It shifted through the years, fluctuating like a wandering jellyfish in Remus’s stomach, then augmented completely in their fifth year. Since then, seemingly everyone but Sirius seems aware of the fact that Remus bears a simply annoying amount of undying love for him.
This isn’t Sirius’s fault, of course. Any other good friend would smile and laugh at a good-hearted game of two truths and a lie, play along, even. Remus just isn’t a very good friend.
“Go on,” he relented. “Tell us what you’ve cooked up.”
“Well,” Sirius said happily, “Remus has stayed up late with me on multiple occasions studying, and on these nights, his hair gets all fussed up because he runs his fingers through it, and he writes notes on my arm if there’s a test, and let me tell you, Remus touching your arm is the most erotic thing anyone in this circle would ever be lucky enough to experiance. Truly, beautiful.”
Remus’s cheeks are pink, and it isn’t from the cold. This isn’t the lie, he knows that because he indeed has helped Sirius study for exams, and he indeed did write notes on his arm. Maybe he’s partially lying, like Barty. Or maybe this is all a joke, and he doesn’t mean a word he says.
“Once,” (and this is said quieter), “I was moaning Remus’s name in bed, when I thought the three of them were out doing some prank, and he heard me calling him and walked in the room and asked if I needed something.” Sirius won’t meet his eye anymore. “The bastard.”
Remus’s mind is now going a hundred miles per minute, racking his brain. Because this had to be the lie—didn’t it? Obviously Remus wouldn’t know if it was, but there was a lingering memory, hanging over him like a bait on a fishhook.
He remembers standing at the top of the stairs, about to turn the doorknob. He remembers his name said in a bit of an unusual way. The syllables were drawn out and stretched like taught muscles, like a question and a request, a push and a pull. Remus hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. He had walked in, and Sirius’s curtains were drawn.
“Did you need me for something?”
Remus’s head snapped back up. Sirius was still avoiding his eye. The horrible taste now infiltrated his throat, burning and digging through his taste buds. His mouth was dangerously dry—Remus swallowed air.
“And…” His friend considered, “last summer, I wandered around a lot, you know, to get out of the house, and I would walk around London and pick out flats that I thought Moony would like. If no one was there, I would even look through the window to see if they had a bookshelf. I went to every open house—Reg can vouch for me on that one—and I would close my eyes and imagine you, Moony. Doing the dishes, or folding laundry on the couch, or smoking out the window, or dancing to a record in the living room, or eating cereal in the breakfast nook.”
Remus was silent. Tears stung his eyes, and he wasn’t sure when or how they had formed. Sirius was leaning back in his chair, tilting his head towards the moon. He was smiling—the moron was smiling —but it wavered when he noticed that everyone around him had gone silent.
“Well,” Dorcas said softly, “which was the lie?”
Remus squeezed his eyes shut. None of them, none of them, please let it be none of them…
Sirius looked up in alarm, like he had forgotten they had all been listening. He laughed nervously, a bark-like thing, and scratched the back of his head. “All of them, of course.”
“Sorry?” Lily said, a touch of anger rippling in her voice. Remus watched Mary touch a soft hand to her arm, rubbing it soothingly up and down.
“All of them.” Sirius said, sitting up, nodding with more conviction. “I obviously appreciated Remus staying up for me, but his arm-notes were far from erotic, and clearly the second one never happened, and- well, I went house shopping for Moony, yes, but it was also for Pete, James, and Reg.”
Remus gritted his teeth together, chasing the tears out of his eyes. He was fine. He should have expected this.
“Wow,” Regulus whistled. “That was low, Sirius, even for you.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it-” Sirius started, but Remus was already up and standing, walking blankly away from the campsite.
He stepped forward like a machine, into the thick brush of Bulrush plants, towards the lake. It was pretty this time of night: thousands of stars out, the moon reflecting like silver arrows on the rippling water.
Remus doesn’t find it beautiful. The stars are taunting him, there are seeds in his hair, the moon is laughing, and his best friend clearly thinks of him not only as a friend, but as less than that. The butt of a practical joke.
Remus kicked the dirt angrily, embarrassed because of Sirius, and embarrassed for being embarrassed in the first place. He sat himself down at the edge of the water, letting the tears fall down his face before rapidly wiping them away.
Pathetic. Just pathetic.
A rustling noise came from the brush, and Remus prayed to whatever powers that reside in the universe that it isn’t Sirius.
He doesn’t want to see Sirius right now. In fact, Remus doesn’t actually fancy talking to Sirius ever again, but that’s a matter that he’ll deal with in the morning.
It wasn’t Sirius, luckily, though for a split second Remus thought it might be. A mop of black hair popped out of the shrub, and Regulus Black sat promptly next to him.
Remus gave him a side-eye. “Shouldn’t you be with your brother and your boyfriend?”
“I’m not going to quip with you, Remus.” Regulus said shortly. “I won’t, because I like you. I think you’re just about as good as it’s going to get for Sirius.”
“Gee, thanks,” said Remus, flatly.
“He’s an idiot. Who else would put up with him if you left? Who?” Regulus questioned.
“There are plenty of birds-”
“Sirius doesn’t fancy birds. I know that because he told me when he was like, seven.”
“He was probably having you on. Sirius likes to do that.” Remus said bitterly.
“He wasn’t having you on just then.” Said Regulus, firmly.
“Reg, you’re really not helping, would you just-”
“Love makes you stupid.” Regulus announced. “Do you know how many stupid things James said to me before he said ‘I love you’ ? How many stupid things I said?”
“Sirius’s problem,” he continued, “was that he was stupid before he was in love with you, so he’s doubly as stupid as the average citizen.
“Look- him and me? You know our parents. You know our childhood. Sirius and I are about as fucked up as you can get, and the fact that we both made it out with the ability to love is impressive in itself.
“You know what gave me the courage to let myself love James? Seeing how much Sirius loved you—don’t argue, he does , he loves you, Remus. He just doesn't know how to do it properly. He needs you to show him, like James showed me.”
“I’m not James,” Remus spat.
“No one is,” Regulus shook his head fondly. “But at least you know you love him. That’s more than I did.”
“You’re making a whole lot of assumptions, baby Black.”
“I see things.” Regulus shrugged. “And I know my brother. When he loves someone, he loves them. It’s all he does. Do you know the amount of times Sirius nearly died because he loves me ? That’s the way that Sirius loves. So to love you ? That’s risking everything. He did risk everything, just then, to tell you.”
“He didn’t tell me anything.” Remus tutted. “He took all of it back.”
“Yeah,” Regulus allowed, “in front of everyone else. He didn’t take it back to you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“He said that the second one was all a lie. But you remember it, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Remus whispered.
“There you have it. And I can tell you for sure: he spent all summer mooning over you. Sometimes he brought me to the open houses. It was all “do you think Remus would want green cabinets?” And “hm, this living room is way too small to fit Remus’s bookshelves and the record player.” He’s mental about you.” Regulus concluded.
Remus chewed on his lip. “Do you think?”
“I know.”
“I’m mental about him, too.”
Regulus scoffed. “I don’t care. Why are you telling me that?”
***
Sirius was slumped in his sleeping bag when Remus finally opened the tent, wincing as the zipper made a loud noise.
He looked fragile. Breakable. Sad.
Sirius was curled into a fetal position, his eyes squeezed shut like if he closed them long enough he would disappear with a quiet “pop!”
“Sirius.” Remus whispered, crawling inside and sitting hesitantly on his own sleeping mat. It already had an indent in it, signalling that James had already been there—likely giving Sirius the same talk that Reg had given Remus.
Sirius opened his eyes, hesitated, and closed them again.
“You hate me, don’t you?” He said, in the most pitiful tone Remus had ever heard.
“No, Padfoot, I don’t hate you." Remus sighed. "I don’t understand why you did what you did, but I don’t hate you.”
Sirius opened his eyes for a moment to look up at him. Even like this: bundled in coats, balled-up and small-looking, hair sticking in all angles, he was beautiful. He was always so beautiful.
“No?”
“No,” Remus confirmed.
“I don’t know why I did it, either. Well, yes, I do, but I don’t know why I took it back.” Sirius whispered.
“You saw a way out, and you took it.” Remus’s lips formed a line. “If I had a way out of my reaction, I would take that, too.”
“No- you shouldn’t have to, though.” Sirius frowned. “I know I made you uncomfortable, I should have never suggested it in the first place. I just thought-”
Remus waited, silently, lying down so his face was right across from Sirius’s.
“I thought that I had a way, finally, of telling you without- telling you, y’know?” Sirius finished, gulping.
“Can you-” Remus furrowed his brow. “I’m worried I’ve been a bit stupid, so can you lay things out very simply for me? Just, you know, so I don’t miss any of it.”
“Love makes people stupid.” Sirius whispered.
Regulus and James really were conspiring, Remus thought. “Yeah,” he chuckled. “It does.”
“So you love me?”
Remus swallowed, realising briefly that the ugly taste that had been there since the morning had gone away—perhaps because of Peter’s marshmallows.
He smiled. “I’m mental about you, Padfoot.”
Sirius looked at him with hopeful eyes. “I meant what I said, every word of it. I thought that you drawing on my arm was the most beautiful you’ve ever looked, which is saying something because you get more beautiful every single day, and I really did call out your name, I just never wanted to admit it, and I’ve called your name for years, silently, because it’s only ever been you, Remus, and I love you, I love you, I love you.” Sirius finished, breathless, and Remus took his face in his hands, giving into the sensation that had afflicted him since he was a child.
He ran his fingers along Sirius’s jaw, along his nose, along his eyebrows and the aristocratic bow of his lips. “I love you. I’ve loved you since I knew what love was.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Sirius said horsley. “I’ve always been yours.”
“Scared.” Is all Remus can force out.
“I was, I was too.” Sirius nodded desperately. “I thought I would ruin you.”
Remus laughed, running his fingers through the knots in Sirius’s hair. “You already did. Consider me ruined. Now you can do anything you’d like to me.”
Sirius made a choking noise at that, and dove forward to catch Remus in a kiss. He tasted like firewood and sugar; something spicy and addictive.
The two boys curled together, wrapped in each other like their bones belonged to the same body, biting crescent moons and hiking trails into each other’s skin.
Sirius pulled away, gasping, hiding his head in the crook of Remus’s shoulder. “I don’t know if I’ll be good at it.” He stammered. “Loving you, I mean. Not sex- I’m very good at sex.”
Remus pulled his face back to the surface, laughing quietly. “Sirius, love is something you choose to do. Not something you conquer. I’ve chosen to love you every day since we were eleven. I’ve never been particularly good at it, but I’ve always done it, haven’t I?”
“I choose you,” Sirius whispered against his lips.
Remus kissed him, and even the moon and stars stopped their laughing for a moment to watch.