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The fire cracked and popped with an irregularity that was almost rhythmic. Its heat engulfed Remus’s front half like a blanket. Heat seemed to be the theme of the evening. It was not a chilly night in the end of August at the Potters’ lake house, where the boys were staying for the final week of the summer. His front would have been well warmed even without the blazing campfire. Then there was the heat of Sirius’s cheek against the top of his thigh. That too would have been enough on its own.
The four boys had begun the evening seated on logs around a modest pit, but over the course of several hours of laughter interspersed with deep conversation – or what seemed like deep conversation to their youth – they had ended up sprawled haphazardly around it instead. Remus was sitting with his back pressed against one of the logs with Sirius using his lap as a pillow and shield from the dirty ground; James was on his back, limbs thrown over the sides of his log in a fairly dramatic fashion; and Peter was stretched out with his feet dangerously close to flames, kicking stray rocks into the pit.
“This year’s going to be rough, innit?” James heaved a sigh.
“Can’t be worse than last year,” Sirius corrected him. “After the hellish wonder that was O.W.Ls this year should be pudding.” Remus didn’t add that last year had probably been the least stressful year of his Hogwarts career. Examinations aside, that is.
“Think Slughorn will let me take Potions with an ‘Acceptable’?” Peter mused aloud.
“Based on the mark, probably. Based on you having been in his class the last five years, definitely not.” Pete kicked the next stone at Sirius, who chucked it back with as much animosity – which was to say, none.
James continued on, staring at the stars as far as Remus could tell. “I wasn’t even talking about classes. I think I’ve rightly screwed up with Evans so far.”
“WHAT? No,” Sirius was on a roll, “How can you possibly say that just because she actively doesn’t want anything to do with you? I think she’s ready to fall at your feet any day now.”
“But I’ve just… done so much growing. I’m all mature now. I think I’m emotionally ready to be on her level.” James wasn’t even hearing him.
“The fact that you think you’re emotionally mature enough for Lily Evans means you’re nowhere near mature enough for Lily Evans,” Remus assured him. Though he couldn’t say he entirely disagreed with James’s pronouncement. He had, at least, stopped writing her initials whenever he had a quill. And had begun speaking about her as more of a person than an ideal. Most of the time. It was a start.
“Well what about you, then, eh?” James turned his head to look at them for the first time in the last hour. “How come you don’t date?
There was heat again, this time burning in Remus’s cheeks. “I don’t-”
“Not you, Moony, we know why you don’t,” that only stung a bit. He’d explained too many times to his friends that dating was well outside of his comfort zone. Anything that might involve a person getting close enough to learn secrets was more anxiety than it was worth. “But what about Padfoot? In all of the time I’ve been in love-” a collective snort, “with Evans, you’ve never once expressed an opinion of any member of the fairer sex in anything more than a passing comment.”
Remus felt Sirius’s shoulders shrug in his lap. He also felt his heart sink at the turn the conversation had taken. “Dunno. Been busy is all. Fourth year all of my spare time was taken up with animagus stuff. Then last year it was The Map, and learning how to be a dog. Just not a lot of spare time for fawning over females.”
“So I’m just better at multitasking than you?” James sounded as disbelieving as Remus felt.
“Maybe this year,” Sirius granted. “It’s possible. Can’t think of anything else taking up my precious time anymore besides perfecting The Map. And plotting whatever else comes along.”
Remus thought he probably kept talking but he couldn’t hear him anymore. Maybe this year. Maybe this year Sirius would get a girlfriend. Maybe this year, now that he was done going well out of his way for Remus’s sake, he’d notice that he’d recently started getting more female attention than any other person at Hogwarts. Maybe this year he’d date lots of girls. Maybe this year Remus would walk in on them coming up to the dorm one night, lying on Sirius’s bed with him situated over her, her arms around him while his mouth – while his mouth –
Remus nudged Sirius’s head off of his leg. “I’m turning in,” He announced and there was no heat in his voice. Sirius brought himself to a seated position and looked up at Remus with confused eyes. Big, gray, confused eyes.
He couldn’t even respond, he just turned away and started walking back to the area where their tent was pitched. It looked small and singular from the outside, but the inside had been charmed big enough to fit four teenage boys in comfortably. It was nothing of the luxurious wizard tents he knew James and Sirius were used to. This one belonged to Remus. It was plain and shabby like him. Worn and patched like him. Not worthy of Sirius like him.
He threw he canvas aside and didn’t bother removing anything but his shoes before he collapsed onto the heaped pile of sleeping bags. His eyes stung, still burning with the image of a random faceless girl in Sirius’s bed. For some reason he couldn’t get the thought out of his head ‘but where will I sleep?’ Which was absurd, because of course he had his own bed. It was just that he and Sirius wound up bunking together so frequently he forgot they technically had two between them. But maybe sleeping in the dorm wouldn’t be an option for Remus in this scenario anyway.
The worst part was that it wasn’t implausible. Peter had brought a girl back to the dorm after a date one time last term. It had been more amusing than anything at the time. But if it were Sirius. Remus didn’t think anything would ever be less amusing.
His eyes weren’t stinging anymore, they were leaking. Soundless tears of frustration and anger and envy. He was as disgusted with them as he was with every other part of the moment.
Then the canvas was pulled open and a body smaller than his own tucked itself uncomfortably close. The tent was wide and did not warrant this. Remus didn’t need to open his eyes to know who it was. Didn’t need to feel the soft hair against his arm; didn’t need to smell him. It would only have been Sirius.
“The hell was that, Moony?” He asked, but his tone was much more soothing than his words.
“Nothing, I’m tired.” For someone who lied on a regular basis, Remus was alarmingly bad at it.
“Talk to me, you’re not talking to me, what aren’t you saying?” A hand slid over Remus’s side, warm. Everything was too warm. Too suffocating and yet too far away.
“There isn’t anything to say,” He said, and again there was no warm in this. “I don’t need to talk, I need to sleep.”
- Then, “I wish you trusted me enough. After everything-”
“I don’t owe you for anything.” Remus practically spat. He was snapping and still Sirius’s hand was warm on his rib cage, body warm along his chest, breath warm on his neck.
“No.” Sirius was suddenly adamant. “That’s not what I meant. Of course you don’t owe me your trust. I just wish I had it. I always tell you when something’s eating me and you always make it better, no matter how… no matter what it is I’m upset about. I just want to do that for you but I can’t when you shut me out like this.”
Remus had options. Probably. But he couldn’t think of them. It was too dark to see Sirius’s eyes, but he knew they’d be as honest as his voice sounded.
“I don’t want you to maybe date girls this year.” He said it without so much as a hitch in his voice. He said it like he said everything else he ever said to Sirius.
“You don’t.” The statement was a question – a request for elaboration that Remus didn’t know how to fulfill.
“No.”
“Why don’t you want that?” Sirius’s hand never moved from his side, never twitched in discontent, never felt like anything but a central point of comfort.
“Because it would hurt me.” Remus’s voice was queit and shaking and the tears, which had hitherto ceased, were stinging again.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Sirius didn’t seem confused about this information. Nor angry nor disgusted.
“Don’t date girls.” He blinked one stupid, hot tear out of the eye on the side of his face that rested against the pillow beneath him.
The hand on Remus’s side moved, but only a few inches further around him. No less soothing. More, in fact. “Who should I date, Moony?”
“I- I don’t-”
“Say it, Moony. Who should I date this year, if not girls?” Breath still hot on his neck.
Remu swallowed and struggled to breathe through all of the heat. “Me-”
It was too dark, Remus didn’t see him, and too quick, he didn’t feel him, but before he could utter more than that syllable, there was a pair of soft lips on his. Much softer than he’d ever imagined them. But. Merlin, he wasn’t imagining this. This moment was real. It had to be. Remus could never, in the countless times he dreamed of Sirius’s lips, dreamed them quite so intense, quite so soft, quite so insistent.
Like hell was he going to let this moment just slip by. He tucked an arm over Sirius’s side and used it to pull him closer – an unfathomable notion in the first place as their bodies were touching in every way that respectably could.
Then Sirius’s mouth opened. Not a lot. Not obscenely. But enough to catch Remus’s lips between his own. And then no other heat mattered – not the dull warmth of the evening, or the sharp hotness of Sirius’s breath on his skin – but the heat in him.
He turned and propped himself up on an elbow, Sirius shifted so that he was lying closer to on his back than on his side.
Remus had never kissed another person before. Not like this. Small affectionate pecks with relatives or with each of the Marauders didn’t seem to count. Not when Sirius’s tongue was so close he could…
He did. Sirius inhaled so quickly it made a small noise. He responded immediately. Positively.
It was messy. It was uncoordinated; it was awkward; it was strange. Also, it was perfect. Sirius’s hands were around Remus’s neck, Remus’s were desperately trying to keep him upright above the other boy.
It ended when Sirius apparently forgot to breathe and had to break away to gasp in air and pant it out. He was technically not alone in this.
Remus wanted to kiss his face all over while he let him regain his breath. He wanted to let him breathe a moment and get right back to it. He could get used to this kissing thing, it was a bit intoxicating. But instead he rolled back onto his side.
“Why didn’t we do that,” Sirius asked, breathing still a bit labored, “Ages ago?”
Remus had no good excuse. “Stupidity.” Sirius nodded, he could feel it against his shoulder. “Me, Padfoot. You should maybe date me this year. In lieu of girls. Sod girls. Date me, Sirius.”
Sirius let out a breathy laugh and buried his face in Remus’s shirt. “Yes, I think I should do that. But only if you’ll date me, too.”
Remus snorted, “Sure. It’s a deal.” He kissed Sirius’s forehead like he was closing a contract.
“Now, where were we?”
James and Peter joined them in the tent a bit less than an hour later. By that time, however, both other boys were well asleep, tucked into each other’s arms, looking peaceful as ever. As they always slept.