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„So“, Sirius begins and Remus can see from the glint in his eyes that whatever he is about to say can’t be good. It’s Thursday, and even though it’s winter, they are leaning against the open window of their dorm, each with a cigarette in one hand. Remus takes at Sirius‘ watch, the one he got for his last birthday from Euphemia and Fleamont, and realizes with a sigh that Peter and James won’t be coming back for over an hour, so there really is no escaping this situation. „Yes?“, Remus asks, hoping that Sirius wouldn’t pick up on the slight annoyance in his voice. „When you were with Matt, did you kiss?“ „That was like the whole point, Sirius“, Remus explains, as if he was talking to a kindergardener. Sirius obsession with his not-relationship with Matt, that ended recently, just before Christmas, is starting to annoy him. „What was it like?“, Sirius asks, without really looking at Remus, he never does when they are talking about Matt, which is a lot these days. Remus shrugged. He doesn’t know how to answer this question, how does one explain to their straight best friend what it’s like to kiss another dude? „It’s hard to explain”, Remus says vaguely, and stubs out his cigarette on the windowsill. “You’re always so vague about these things”, Sirius whines and follows his example.
Remus rolls his eyes at him, and shifts his weight to fish another cigarette from the pack. He doesn’t light it yet, just twists it between his fingers. The cold winter sun shines through the window, and if Sirius hadn’t leaned on the windowsill, with his head rested in his hands, and his face turned towards the sun, if he hadn’t looked so ridiciously beautiful in this moment, Remus never would’ve suggested it. “You know”, he says, his eyes darting between Sirius’ face and the moon tattoo on his shoulder, “if you’re so curious, you should just kiss a boy.” Sirius straightens his back, and turns his head to face Remus. He raises his eyebrows, in an almost cocky way. “Oh, and who would I kiss?”, he asks in a tone that is mocking at best and indifferent at worst. “You know”, Remus says, in a tone that he hopes doesn’t give away how nervous he is in this moment, but comes off as light and playgirl, “you have a wizard in front of you who is very much annoyed with you asking way too many questions about how it is to kiss a man, and who is offering you a solution for those, so why don’t you just kiss him?” He regrets his words the moment he says them because now there really is no way back, and no matter how curius Sirius is, he is still straight, very obnoxiously so.
“Okay”, Sirius just says and takes the cigarette Remus still holds to put it back in the package. “Where do we start?” Remus exhales through his nose. “Do you not know how to kiss?”, he asks, mockingly. It’s all it takes for Sirius to take a step foward, stand on his tiptoes and kiss Remus.
The kiss is short, almost still a peck, and it’s Remus pulls away after a few second, even if it is just slightly. Sirius eyes are still closed, and Remus only now, when Sirius is taking up all of his personal space, realizes know much taller he is. Sirius is not per se short, but he only reaches up to Remus upper lip, having to stand on tiptoes to kiss him. Without thinking, Remus raises an arm to softly touch the moon tattoo on Sirius‘ shoulder. It‘ll be a year old soon, Remus notices, more fondly than not. A year, since his friends spent their first full moon with him. They had sneaked out of Hogwarts a few days later and flooed to Diagon Alley, just for Sirius to get this moon tattooed. Remus hadn‘t realized before, that he was in love with Sirius Black, but since that day last year, he cant‘t unsee it, it was everywhere – especially in the way Sirius stand in front of him now, his hands on Remus shoulders and his eyes still closed. But Sirius is still straight, Remus reminds himself. Because Sirius told him, just last week, on Tuesday during their smoking hour. Sirius was once again talking about Remus and Matt because he doesn’t seem to have any other thoughts lately, but vehemently denying any queerness from his side. “I’m not queer, Moony, I’m just very curious.” Remus drops his hand from the moon tattoo and takes a step back. Sirius opens his eyes, which are just grey now. “Curiosities resolved?”, Remus asks, just it say something, in the hopes that Sirius doesn’t realize how thick the air has been seconds ago. “Yes”, Sirius says, and hands Remus another cigarette. “Any feedback?”, Remus questions him, while snatching the lighter from Sirius’ hands. “It was nice”, Sirius says, and takes a drag from his cigarette, “I’m still straight, tho.” Remus just huffs and takes the cigarette from one hand into the other. “You know it’s not gay when you keep your socks on”, he mutters, before resolving to continue smoking in silence.
Sirius arrived in the dorm at ten minutes past six the following Tuesday, when Remus is already halfway through his first cigarette, which is not unusual, as he makes a big deal out of dropping James off at Quidditch practicse. “I was thinking”, he announces to Remus. “That’s unusual.” Remus doesn’t brother looking up, he knows Sirius well enough to know his best friend will share his thoughts no matter who is listening. Sirius walks up next to him and pop himself up on the windowsill. “I’m still curious”, he states, bluntly. “About what?” “About being with guys”, Sirius says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the entire world, “and about the thing with the socks.” Remus stubs out his half smoken cigarette, not really thinking about what he is doing, but with a certain inkling about what is going to happen next. “Is that true?” Remus can’t help but laugh at this, about how dense Sirius can be. “Obviously”, he says, in a tone that should make everyone, even James, clear that it’s absolutely not true. “So”, Sirius starts, trailing of a little, “can we kiss again, with socks, so that it’s absolutely not gay?” Remus wants to say know, he knows it’s stupid and he knows he’ll hurt, but he can’t stop thinking that maybe Sirius’ eyes turn almost blue when they look at him because he is all the light they need, he can’t stop thinking that this might be more than just curiosity, can’t stop thinking that this could lead to something real.
Somehow, they fall into a rhythm, and they smoke less and kiss more. Remus supposes his lungs will thank him, but his heart probably won’t and still he doesn’t put an end to it. He lets himself get addicted to Sirius‘ touch, lets himself pretend that those hours actually mean something, that they are more than just best friends who kiss during their smoking hours.
Still, it doesn’t mean anything. They kiss and then they go back to normal. They kiss and then they go back to sitting across from each other in the Great Hall, they go back to sitting on different couches in the common room, back to pats on the back as gestures of affection.
And Remus is certain that for Sirius it will never be more than that, and he is trying to be okay with it. But, even tough he would never admit it, not even fully to himself, having the knowledge of how actually physically being with Sirius would be, changes everything. His friendship with Sirius has always been a little different than Remus‘ friendship with James and Peter was, always a little deeper, a little more emotional, and Remus can’t figure out if that’s the reason for his attraction to Sirius or if his attraction to Sirius is the reason why their friendship is the way it is. However, it’s still a friendship. They are friends. And it’s not a problem for friends to kiss, sometimes a friend is everything you need.
He knows Marlene and Mary had a phase in fifth year, where they used to kiss regularly, even though they never felt more than friendship for each other, but they enjoyed each other’s presence and kissing. Remus feels like that’s the case for Sirius and him as well. The only major difference is that Marlene and Mary are both queer, each of them has admitted to being attracted to women, even before their arrangement started. And that’s the issue with Sirius.
Sirius, who still is unable to admit that kissing his best friend regularly is not in anyway straight, who is still adamant about the fact that wearing socks prevents their silly little arrangement to be queer, who still is confident in his sexuality, which he doesn’t fail to mention, even though right now he is the one reaching up to kiss Remus again, after the latter has pulled away a little.
Their moment is interrupted by James who storms into the dorm soaking wet, without knocking because according to him, his best friends are having a smoking rather than a make-out session in their dorm. “What are you doing here?”, Sirius mutters, after springing away from Remus in a rather overdramatic way. “Have you looked at the weather outside?”, James answers, gesturing to the window, where the rain is indeed pouring down. “We stopped because Marls was almost knocked off her broom because of the wind.” He doens’t ask what they were doing, even though Remus and Sirius both know that’s he knows, but instead just grabs his towel and walks straight into the shower.
Sirius looks at Remus, and Remus knows that this is over. James will talk to Sirius and Sirius will say he’s straight and James will tell Sirius that he either stops this or admits he’s queer and Sirius will stop because Sirius listens to James and Remus knows Sirius would rather die than admit he’s queer.
Remus doesn’t know it that makes him sad or relieved, he doesn’t know how their smoking breaks and with that their friendship is going to continue from there.
Sirius misses the first smoking break – on Thursday - and Remus isn‘t surprised, he should have been prepared for that, right? But he can’t ignore the way it hurts, he can’t ignore how much he hoped for it all to be real. The following Tuesday Sirius is there again, and apparently they are going for “nothing ever happened”, and Sirius talks about everything and nothing and Remus just smokes silently. But before they can fully fall back into a rhythm, before Remus can accept that he is never going to get what his heart wants, before they are back to the way they were before, James holds Remus back in the dorm before lunch.
“Have you talked to Sirius?”, he asks with a concerned look in his hazel eyes, but his glasses are so crooked that Remus absolutely can’t take him serious. “Of course I haven’t”, he mutters and tries to push past James to flee the dorm, but naturally his friend knows him better and blocks the door. “Remus”, he said, his tone so desperate that Remus cannot not listen to him. “You have to put yourself first just this once.”
Remus doesn’t ask how James knows that he is hurting, let alone knows that Remus has been in love with Sirius for the last three years. He doesn’t try to fight James for trying to help him, he has learned a long time ago that James would do everything for him, and even though sometimes he feels like it is too much, he has learned to accept it, or he at least has stopped fighting it.
“You can’t let Sirius ignore your boundaries and feelings forever.” Somehow, when James says it it means more than when every other person says it. Last winter the girls, especially Lily desperately wanted Remus to set boundaries with Sirius, they desperately wanted Remus to know that what Sirius did will in no universe ever be okay. And yet, it only started to matter when James told him he would only forgive Sirius the second Remus did. Now, it only matters because it’s James telling him, he should set boundaries. It’s probably because James is always Sirius’ person first, Remus thinks, because James is always the first to defend Sirius and because James somehow made it his personal duty to get Sirius as far away from his family as possible, because Sirius is James brother.
He knows it’s a stupid reason, but he knows that when James wants him to set boundaries, then it’s really bad. James hates confrontation and he hates tension in their dorm, and talking to Sirius about this will cause both, something both Remus and James know, so when he says Remus should set boundaries, it somehow means more than when the girls – who most of the time either dislike Sirius or men in general – say it. “Please Remus”, James practically begs him, and Remus can’t help but be amused by the situation. “Yes, James. I will try to set boundaries with Sirius and talk to him about how he makes me feel.” He probably won’t, but he might make a joke about how Sirius hurt him, just to not break his promise. He knows it isn’t what James wants, but should be enough, it has to be.
The very next day, a Thursday, Sirius is already sitting on the windowsill when Remus walks in, five minutes late. He is not looking at Remus, and it‘s unclear whether it’s intentional or not, and the tension in the room is thick enough to cut with a knife and Remus knows it‘s not just him.
James probably tried to get Sirius to admit everything Remus had dreamed of for years, tried to get Sirius to admit he was at least queer. Remus doesn‘t think James‘ attempts were successful though because why else would he have talked to him?
When the door loudly closes behind Remus, Sirius looks up at Remus. The sun that is falling through the window behind Sirius makes Remus’ hair blonde, almost golden, and his eyes green. If he hadn’t looked so perfect in the stupid golden light of the evening sun, Sirius might have ignored James pestering. He might have forever ignored the confession he made to James on the Astronomy tower a few weeks ago, he might have forever pushed down everything. But Remus looks so pretty right now, and Sirius dramatically pulls off his socks and throws them across the room, before he walks up to Remus, so close that they are almost touching. “Can I?”, Sirius asks, barely louder than a whisper. Remus raises his eyebrows, almost mockingly. “You know that that’s gay?”, he asks. “Well, maybe I am.” It’s the second time he’s telling someone, and the joy on Remus’ face makes it so, so easy and so, so right.