Chapter Text
Remus knew it was time to call it when he came to the startling realization that he had been swaying by himself in the middle of James Potter’s flat. The light from the disco ball that had been a secret Santa gift to James from Lily last Christmas was the one of the few sources of light in the small flat.
Remus took a look around, at least he wasn’t the only one dancing whilst drunk out of their minds. Across the room Dorcas and Marlene were slowly swaying together. One second though, that actually just made Remus feel worse. They had each other to dance with, he was plainly alone.
Next to the small kitchen window looking out over the city stood Mary and Lily, sharing a cigarette between the two of them. He wondered if he could go and bum one off of them, Mary always kept plenty in stock in her purse.
But when he moved to go and swayed yet again, with even more of a risk of falling over, he came to a realization again, that it would probably be best to settle down for the night.
He took a look around James’ flat, empty bottles littered the floor which made sense as his eyes caught the overflowed trashcan next to the front door. This giant mess was a result of yet another last minute get together that turned into a full on rager hours in, something that had been a common occurrence writhing the flat purchased by James just last year.
James who was conspicuously absent, strange. Even stranger, was the absence of the brother of James’ best friend.
Remus decided not to ponder on it. Regulus’ friends, except for Dorcas who had decided to stay with her girlfriend, had left at least thirty minutes ago, Regulus most likely left with them and James, no longer having his crush around to ogle at, had most likely gone to bed. But as Remus looked down the hall that held the master bedroom and the guest bedroom, he saw the obviously locked door to the biggest room.
Interesting , Remus thought but wouldn’t engage with the thought any further. Prying into the lives of others was Sirius’ thing, not Remus’.
He shook his head as he grasped the handle of the guest bedroom door and yanked it open.
Much to his chagrin, but not to his shock, Sirius was sprawled out on the bed. Remus could make him out in the dim light of the room, the blinds weren’t closed so the light from the full moon spilled through the glass and onto the bed, turning Sirius’ dark hair blue.
Remus turned to leave, preparing to shut the room behind him, when Sirius started to stir.
“Prongs?” He croaked into the darkness, his eyes not used to a room that wasn’t his in the dark.
“I’m disappointed, Sirius.” Remus said, “I thought you’d at least noticed by now that I’m way taller than Prongs. We’ve known each other for years, how could you not notice?”
“You’re handsomer than Prongs too,” Sirius muttered. Remus widened his eyes but didn’t dare ask any questions. If the slurring in Sirius’ voice was any indication, he was in no fit state to draw that thought out of him. A silence fell across them and Remus turned to leave once again.
“Where are you going?” Sirius propped himself up on his elbow only to lose his balance doing that and promptly flopped back down on the bed.
“I’ll sleep on the couch, don’t want to disturb you.” Remus looked at Sirius laced out before him. After years of having unrequited feelings for his best and closest friend (don’t tell Lily) made him a skillful master of sneaking glances where he can get them without any consequences. Remus taught himself how to soak up as much of Sirius as he could get without giving anything away of himself. If he risked it he’d lose Sirius and Remus wouldn’t make the mistake of believing that he’d lose this, the friends, the party’s, all the joy and laughter he’d gained over the years with Sirius. It's all or nothing and Remus had contented himself with nothing since they were just teenagers. When Remus realized in twelfth year that he had a crush on Sirius he separated them, a vial came down between the two of them. But a side effect that Remus hadn’t been hoping for was a wall that seemed to have come down between the Remus and Sirius that had come before and the Remus and Sirius that came after. Remus sometimes mourned the friendship that had come before what they had now, with Remus always keeping Sirius at arm's length.
”No, don’t go.” Sirius scooted over on the sizable queen bed.
“Sirius…” Remus let out a breath.
“Come on, Moony. It's hardly that close quarters and we’ve shared a tent on a camping trip before, with both Prongs and Wormtail I might add.” He accentuated this point by grabbing Remus’ wrist.
”Moonyyyyy,” he drew out the old nickname, shaking Remus' arm. “Don’t be difficult.”
Remus rolled his eyes, “I’m hardly the difficult one here.” In fact it wasn’t Sirius or Remus that was difficult, it was this . This sleeping arrangement would be difficult, at least for Remus. But Sirius was looking at him with those eyes, and was grinning at him too.
That stupid Sirius Black grin. Of course Remus would say yes, he never really learned how to say no to Sirius. Shaking his head he slipped under the covers right into the spot Sirius had been laying on seconds before, the sheets still warm from his body heat.
Remus’ head hit the pillow, of course Prongs had equipped the guest room with what are quite possibly the nicest pillows Remus has ever felt. He doesn’t even have pillows these nice in his own flat.
Remus laid on his back, tracing the shadows on the ceiling while he started to drift off.
Next to him, Sirius started to shift his weight. Remus looked over as Sirius rolled from facing the wall to facing Remus. Both eyes open, he looked up at Remus’ face.
“Do you think this is what it would be like?” Sirius slurred either still drunk on the alcohol or on the edge of sleep.
“What, Padfoot?” Remus asked, genuinely confused.
“You know,” Sirius whispered. “ You know .” He said with more emphasis and slipped an arm around Remus’ stomach, moving his head to share Remus’ pillow with him. This left not only their faces centimeters apart but also Remus’ ability to stay still hanging on by an absolute thread.
“No, Padfoot,” Remus whispered back, “I don’t.”
Sirius blew out a breath but didn’t look away from Remus’ face. “If I had actually asked you out when I realized I had a crush on you.”
Remus could feel his eyes blow up wide and his mouth morph into a frown.
“Don’t do that.” Sirius reached up and ran a thumb over Remus’ lips. “I know you knew Remus, why else did you get so distant.” At this Sirius looked not sad exactly, but he had the melancholic air to him that someone who had long ago accepted a fact had whenever it was brought up.
“I-I-“ Remus started, but what could he say? No, Sirius, I didn’t start to distance myself from you because I knew you had feelings for me. Actually quite the opposite.
“Padfoot, you’re drunk.” He landed on.
“Not as much as you are.” Sirius drew his hand down Remus’ neck and onto his chest. “Otherwise you wouldn’t let me touch you like this.”
Remus let out a long breath , screamed internally at his own sense of chivalry, and reached up to grab Sirius’ hand.
“Sirius, you don’t want this.” He said, “You never have before now, so I can’t accept that it’s real.”
This time Sirius frowned, “Yes I do. I always have.” But he didn’t pursue it either, just rolled back over.
Multiple times Remus reached out a hand to lay on Sirius’ shoulder. But Remus didn’t know what he would say to him, exactly, and he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t, if given the change, kiss Sirius.
His last thought before he was grasped by sleep was that they could talk about it in the morning.
~~~
Remus woke up alone and he had at least five seconds of bliss before the conversation that had taken place in the same exact spot he woke up in came back to him in full. Clearly he hadn’t been drunk enough that he was able to forget what happened at the end of the night.
Well, they would have to talk about it today, there was no way around it. The thought wasn’t as happy as it should have been. If Sirius had been telling the truth then they could navigate what that means. Remus would hate it if they ended up in the “we both like each other, what happens now?” standstill that James and Regulus have been trapped in for the past year. Nothing good could come of that except for hookups topping off parties or bar outings.
And if Sirius’ didn’t really have reciprocated feelings for Remus or worse, if he didn’t remember their interaction in the dark bedroom at all, then Remus would pack his bags and leave. It's been time for him to move on for years now and this could possibly be the final push. However, Remus couldn’t keep himself from hoping that it had all been real. Hope was a thing that could kill you.
Brushing off all these thoughts, it didn’t do good to overthink (only the hindsight of age had given him that little nugget of wisdom) Remus got out of bed and ran into the bathroom that was attached to the guest room. There he found, after checking under the sink and inside the medicine cabinet, a pack of unused toothbrushes and mouthwash. Quickly washing his face and wiping down the counter around the sink when he was done, Remus slowly exited the bathroom and made his way to the door.
Cracking it open made him smell what could only be described as a feast that James was probably preparing in the kitchen at that moment, most definitely with Sirius helping him. Probably roped into cooking by James, who Remus had never seen hungover in his life.
Remus would be lying if he said that the thought of eating right then and there didn’t make him feel a bit nauseous. Nevertheless he kept moving, but stopped when he heard what Sirius and James were talking about.
“Mate, if you’ve got feelings you can’t hold them in!” He heard Sirius say.
”That’s a rather dramatic and cliche thing to say about the situation, Padfoot.” Was James’ response.
“I mean how long have you two been doing…this.”
“Sirius, you know I’m having sex with your brother, you can just say it.”
”Ew.” Sirius shrieked. “Yes, I do and I’ve quite literally never disapproved of that until this moment.”
Remus could picture the look that James leveled Sirius with. It wasn’t that Sirius had disapproved of his brother and his best friend hooking up with each other, he’d told Remus enough times that he recognized them as their own people outside of their relationship with him, it was that he knew James had had feelings for Regulus for quite a long time and the fact that they weren’t in an official relationship made him hurt for James.
“Come on, Prongs. How long has this been going on? Since last New Years, right?” Yes it had been going on that long. In a game during the last New Year’s party, Regulus had been dared to kiss James at midnight, a kiss that everyone had been expecting to be a quick peck on the lips that had turned into a full on make out in front of everyone that had progressed to the point of them disappearing into a room together.
New Years was two weeks away from now, so in the past eleven and a half months, neither James nor Regulus had come forward with their clear feelings for each other. Even after James stopped searching for dates, even when Regulus had apparently (according to Barty) stopped meeting up with his old hookups.
Their friends had no choice but to sit back and watch whatever this came to a boiling point until they admitted to themselves, and each other, just how in love they were. Everybody knew but them.
Remus rolled his eyes, at least he knew how to hide his feelings with a million layers of subtlety.
“Oh yeah,” James started, “And how long has it been since you realized you had a crush on M-“ His sentence was cut off by the crash that could only have been of colossal proportions.
“Fucking hell, Sirius. Those were all the eggs I had.” James shouted. Remus took this time to make his entrance into the world for the day.
”What did Sirius do this time?” Remus said as he took a look around the kitchen, his eyes landing on the pile of eggs now sitting on the floor, and the pan that James was currently washing off in the sink while Sirius was gathering a giant pile of paper towels to clean up the floor. “Jesus, Prongs, were you trying to feed an army?”
”No, and you know that wouldn’t have been enough for you and me and Sirius.” Remus could only agree.
“Sorry, James. I’ll go out and buy more than enough eggs for all of us.” Sirius gave the eggs now in the trashcan a sad look.
“It's fine, Sirius,” Remus started, “I should probably start getting on my way now.”
He glanced at the clock. It was past twelve in the afternoon, just as he had guessed.
Sirius looked up at him, “Yeah, I should probably go home too. Do you know if Regulus needs a ride home?” Sirius was genuine, it seemed that everyone knew that Regulus hated riding on the motorcycle but put on a brave and happy face because it made Sirius happy to share his hobbies with his brother.
James’ head snapped up, “No, he was gone before I woke up this morning.”
“Bugger,” Sirius murmured, but continued on his way to the guest room. Remus, who had left his phone, wallet, and keys in the room, had no choice but to follow him inside. He didn’t bother shutting the door behind him, it's not as if James would be eavesdropping.
”Sirius,” Remus started.
Sirius’ head tilted, giving Remus the indication that he was listening, but he didn’t actually look at Remus.
”I-uh I had a question about last night.” Shit, he didn’t know what he was doing, where exactly what he was going to say next.
“Hm?” Sirius said, he was turned sideways now, placing his wallet into his pocket and throwing on his jacket. Remus had a clear view of the side of Sirius’ face and could see one of his eyebrows raise.
“Um, well, you kinda said something last night,” Remus cleared his throat. “and it got me thinking.”
Sirius turned fully to face him now, but he had fixed his gaze on a spot somewhere over Remus’ shoulder. ”Really?”
Remus blew out a breath, “Yeah.”
”Oh well, maybe you can enlighten me. I got a bit too sloshed and I don’t remember anything past when Pandora showed up.”
Oh , Remus thought, Oh no . That meant that Sirius didn’t remember what he had said to Remus in the bed they were currently standing next to at this very moment.
“You just started talking about us moving in together again.” If Remus felt bad for lying he didn’t have time to dwell on it. It wasn’t that bad of a lie, Sirius did broach this topic with Remus and James multiple times a week. Apparently after years of sharing a dorm together, Sirius missed them. Remus did consider whenever Sirius brought it up, but sharing a flat with the person he had been in love with for years would probably be torture, especially without James there as a buffer. If the purchase of the flat they were in now didn’t confirm that James wanted to live alone (or with any future partner he may have) Remus didn’t know what would.
“Oh.” Sirius said, “I’m guessing you just brushed me off like always?”
”Yeah, yeah, I did.” Remus answered.
“I’m not surprised,” Sirius smirked. “See you later, Moony.” With that he patted Remus on the shoulder and walked out. Remus heard him give a quick goodbye to James before the front door opened and closed. Remus didn’t move, he waited until he heard the rumble of Sirius’ motorcycle fade into the distance before he finally made some sort of motion. Sirius didn’t remember, he had been too drunk, and he definitely hadn’t meant what he had said to Remus in the dark, quiet hours after the party the night before.
Well. That was that then.