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Sirius picks up the phone without looking as he locks up the record store he works at. Regulus begins talking before he can even say hello, yammering on about someone that pissed him off at work. Sirius “uh-huh”s and “mmhmm”s at appropriate moments, only slightly tuning out his brother as he begins his commute home.
“Okay, anyway, I’m over it,” Regulus finishes after a good few minutes.
“You’re absolutely not over it,” Sirius counters immediately, still only half listening.
“Well, I’m bored of talking about it if you’re clearly not going to listen to what I’m saying.” This gets a laugh out of Sirius. “Tell me I’m wrong.” He cannot tell him that. “How are things with you then? How’s James?”
“Things are good. Work is good. I’m just leaving now. James and I are going out later actually, we’re meeting up for trivia,” Sirius says.
Regulus hums, now the one not listening. “Oh, with everyone? Your boyfriend going too?”
Sirius stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk. “My what? Boyfriend? Who?”
Regulus is the one laughing now. “Remus? Tall, lanky, kind of weird looking?”
Sirius has to side step out of the way for someone coming up behind him. His brain now moving too fast to form coherent thoughts, he splutters, “Remus? Yeah, he’s - we’re not - he’s not - no… what?”
“Did you fall off a ladder today? Hit your head recently?” He hasn’t stopped laughing. The bastard.
“No, I didn’t! And he’s not weird looking!”
“Well, not to you, I suppose,” Sirius can hear the eye roll through the words, but Regulus does sound interested now. “I just assumed you guys were going out. Are you not, like, together?”
“He’s my friend, you know that. We’ve all gone out together multiple times!” Sirius resumes walking, but at a very slow pace to accommodate for the overdrive his brain is running on.
“Yeah, and you two are always hanging off of each other. I just thought… sorry, did you not know?”
“Know what?”
“Nothing.”
“Regulus. Know what?”
“You’re really not together?”
“I think I would know if I had a boyfriend, Regulus.” He hears the defensive tone in his voice, but he doesn't know where it came from.
“Right, yeah. Hey, have fun at trivia. You’ll lose without me, though,” Regulus says, and as quickly as the call began, it ends before Sirius can even say goodbye.
He was having a nice night, a good, peaceful night. Now he’s confused. He lets his thoughts simmer as he walks home.
He and Remus are just friends. Best friends, sure, but friends nonetheless. They met through James, who has a knack for finding people and roping them into friendship, and they hit it off pretty quickly. They had a shared affinity for 70s rock music and classic novels. Remus’ guilty pleasure is mass market romance novels, which Sirius found hilarious, but he had no room to judge given his love for soap operas. They started trading books routinely, having their own mini book clubs over dinner at Sirius’ apartment almost weekly.
For Sirius’ birthday, Remus annotated a copy of Wuthering Heights for him. His annotations ranged from references to their conversations about symbolism and themes to little jokes and asides about the characters like “me when …” and “they’re just like us.” Sirius treasures this book. It makes him feel like he’s holding his friend between the pages of the book. He had given Remus a hug and a kiss on the cheek when he opened it.
It’s not like that was out of the ordinary for the two of them either, though. In fact, Remus had returned his kiss and squeezed him back just as hard. They’re both rather physically affectionate, leaning on each other’s shoulders or holding hands or linking arms as they walk together. Remus’ gentle touch is grounding, and Sirius seeks it out; he almost craves it. They’re just like that though; it’s like a magnetism between the two of them. It doesn’t mean anything other than what it is—just two friends finding comfort in each other.
Sirius and James are similar. They’re practically attached at the hip, and they’re the furthest thing from boyfriends. That’s his best friend, his brother. He’s handsome and funny and charming, but Sirius is certain he has no feelings for James. Even entertaining the idea for half a second has his stomach feeling squiggly. They practically grew up together, attached at the hip, but in a familial way.
Sirius and Remus only met a little over a year ago. They were fast friends, but they’re different from Sirius and James in that they’re still discovering new things about each other. Sometimes James feels like an extension of Sirius himself, like he knows him backwards and forwards and with his eyes closed. He’s still working on picking Remus apart. Like how he absolutely destroys every book he reads and he has reading glasses but he always forgets them so he ends up squinting at the pages and he’s very endearing when he goes on one of his rare rants. And he’s handsome. Gorgeous, really. Not at all weird looking. Sirius likes making him laugh to watch how his nose crinkles.
The first time they hung out without James, they went to Sirius’ favorite restaurant. Their conversation over dinner was easy—he was easier to talk to than anyone else Sirius had ever met. Remus had shared that he moved around constantly growing up, so he never got the chance to settle in anywhere because he found it difficult to connect with people. Sirius hummed at that, sharing how he always lived in the same place, until he moved in with James, and that he also found it hard to connect with people because it felt like they knew too much about him without knowing anything at all. Their ankles linked under the table seamlessly as they formed a connection over their disconnection. They also thanked the stars James Potter was the one who found them, pulling them both into safety of his ever loyal friendship.
Sirius had paid their tab at the end of the night, and he walked Remus home, not ready for their time to be up yet. They lingered in front of Remus’ building, chatting over nothing. When the conversation came to a gentle stop, Sirius stepped forward to envelop Remus in a hug. He hadn’t planned to do it; he just felt pulled in by him. Remus reciprocated, because of course he did. He felt like he could’ve stayed there forever, pressed against Remus’ chest. They separated, eventually, but not before Sirius kissed him on the cheek. With a promise to see each other soon, Sirius departed.
He’d never really considered his feelings for Remus, honestly, because he was always just Remus. They spend time together. They go out. Sometimes they’re alone, sometimes they’re not. Sometimes Remus will come over after work and stay until it’s too late to go home and he’ll just sleep in Sirius’ bed. They’ve never really talked about it because there’s nothing to talk about. Sometimes they wake up tangled in each other, and Remus runs his hands through Sirius’ hair with a gravelly “good morning,” and a kiss on the forehead before he goes to brush his teeth. There’s never been a reason to make a big deal out of it because it’s always just been normal for them.
Sirius has been in relationships before. There’s always a very clear conversation, even if it’s just “Would you like to go out sometime?” He’s never had that conversation with Remus. Nothing has been defined because there’s nothing to define. He’s not seeing anyone right now, but that’s not because he’s with Remus; he’s just not interested. If Remus was seeing someone, that would be fine. Normal, actually. Because they’re really just friends.
Sirius ignores the pang of jealousy at the hypothetical as he unlocks his door.
James is lounged on his couch, feet propped up on the coffee table. Unfazed by his best friend taking up space in his living room as if he lives there, Sirius hangs his bag and jacket on the hook by the door and kicks his shoes off.
“Welcome home!” James calls, glancing up from his phone.
“Am I dating Remus?” Sirius blurts in lieu of a greeting. He hadn’t really meant to say that—it just came out. The tang of jealousy is still coating the back of his throat at the thought of Remus with someone else.
James’ eyebrows shoot up. “Are you?” he asks.
“Not that I’m aware of.” Sirius slumps next to him on the couch and fills James in on the conversation with his brother. “That’s the kind of thing I would know, right?” All of the surety he had on his way home starts to drain out of him as he sits in front of James.
James nods, clearly thinking very hard about his next words. “Yeah, I would say so…” he trails off, still thinking carefully, “but you two are… close. Really close.”
“So are we,” Sirius says. He’s been over this one. It’s different.
“Yeah, but in a different way,” James replies, confirming Sirius’ earlier line of thinking. His stomach turns over again. “We don’t like…” he trails off again here, as if sensing he may be toeing the line of something very sensitive. He turns so he’s facing Sirius. “Me and you are different. We’ve just always been us, yeah? And I love Remus, good guy, great guy, really. But you two are different from me and him, too.”
Sirius furrows his eyebrows which James takes as him asking “What do you mean?”
“I so rarely know the touch of Remus Lupin, and I’m complaining. This is me complaining about it.” Sirius throws a pillow at him, which evokes a shrill, “Hey!” through laughter. “I just mean you two are very affectionate with each other, but he’s not like that with anyone else. I’m not saying anything other than that.”
“I just don’t think it means anything though. We’re just… like that,” Sirius supplies. It doesn’t come off as defensive, but it falls flat anyway.
“Okay, then it doesn’t mean anything.” James shrugs, simple as that. “Can I ask though?” Sirius looks up briefly from the loose piece of thread on the pillow he’s holding to nod his assent. “Do you have feelings for him?”
Sirius drops his gaze again. “No?” He can feel James’ eyes on him. “I don’t think so.” He sighs. “I don’t know. Should I know?”
James shrugs again before throwing his arm around Sirius and fully pulling him forward so he nearly falls into his lap. “You don’t have to know anything,” James assures him, and as if reading his mind, continues, “I’ve never thought anything about you two. Like you said, that’s just how you are. If you’re happy with how things are, there’s no need to overthink it.” Groaning, he pushes Sirius off of him. “Now, we have to go kick ass at some trivia.”
Despite James’ words, Sirius is very much overthinking it. A pit of anxiety grows in his stomach on their way to the bar as he thinks everything over. The thought of Remus thinking they were together isn’t even the one flashing in big, bright lights. Somehow he knows that isn’t the case. What is flashing like a siren, though, are these feelings he didn’t even know existed until an hour ago.
He thinks about how easily he and Remus fit together. How Remus feels magnetic, like he has his own gravitational pull. When they’re together, Sirius can’t help but be drawn to him. He enjoys his company. He likes how Remus sees him, how he listens, even when Sirius goes on (and on and on). He loves when Remus comes over for their unofficial bookclub and Sirius cooks them dinner while Remus keeps him company. Remus keeps all of his notes on their books in a spiral bound notebook that is nearly falling apart, but he refuses to get a new one until it’s full. Sirius’ heart swells at the thought of that notebook, pages filled with smeared ink and scratchy handwriting.
He even likes arguing with Remus, who is one of the only people who can hold his own against Sirius’ temper. It’s not like they ever even argue over anything real; they mostly just bicker. Meaningless things, really. Cherry versus blue raspberry flavored candy, dark chocolate versus milk chocolate (don’t even get Remus started on white chocolate—though that is something they can agree on), vampires versus werewolves, the list goes on. Even when they agree on things, it sounds like they’re arguing to an outsider. James has learned to tune them out.
Sirius lets this newfound feeling settle in his chest. He doesn’t know how long it’s been hiding there, but he feels it now. Oh, he feels it now as he thinks about Remus’ freckled face and his crooked nose and the scar that runs from his eyebrow to his mouth that makes his right eyelid droop a bit. He feels it so strongly that he feels like he might explode.
He’s really just not sure what to do with this newfound knowledge, other than open his chest up and pull this momentous feeling out. Place it in Remus’ hands. Have him hold onto it forever. Suddenly he feels like he’s forgotten how to be normal. He knocks his shoulder against the doorframe as he enters the bar.
He and James are the first to arrive out of their group of six. James sits across from him in the booth as he always does. The sense of routine comforts him as they chat while they get settled. He doesn’t even notice Remus walking to the table until he’s sliding in the booth next to him. He whips his head to the side just as Remus wraps an arm around his shoulders, saying his hellos to James as he does.
Sirius seems to settle back in his body with Remus’ arm resting over his shoulder and his soft voice saying, “Hey,” right to him. “How’s it going?”
The question is posed to him, but James cuts in anyway. “Reg said we’re doomed to last place without him.”
Sirius can feel Remus’ laugh from where he’s pressed against his side. The girls’ arrival covers Remus’ response and saves Sirius from having to answer the question. Marlene kicks Sirius’ leg under the table as a form of greeting, and Lily reaches over Remus to grab his arm and give him a smile.
He loves spending time with his friends. He loves having a set time in the week where he knows he will see everyone he cares about for a few hours. Usually, being in their presence is enough to bring his mood up. It’s not like he’s in a bad mood; he simply needs time to process whatever is going on in his head right now that he doesn’t have the space for in the corner of a booth in a noisy bar.
He returns Lily’s smile, though, and leans into Remus’ side because it’s a comfort, if nothing else. Remus leans back. They both tend to get overwhelmed in situations like these, and Sirius always thinks about how nice it is that they can ground each other with the pressure between their bodies.
“How was your day?” Remus asks him as James begins rallying their team.
“Fine. Long. Boring. Tired,” he lists off. Remus raises an eyebrow, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Yours?”
“Fine, long, boring, tired,” he parrots back. Sirius rolls his eyes. “Good to see you, though. Are you off tomorrow?” The question is a formality — he’s always off on Thursdays — but Sirius nods anyway. They come to trivia every Wednesday, and Remus comes back to his place after each week.
“You can come over after. I found a new movie we can watch,” he extends the offer even though he’s known all day how their night would go.
Remus beams, but before he can respond, a chip flies across the table and hits him square in the face. “Ow?”
“It’s starting, and we’re not proving Regulus right,” Mary says over the host reading the first question aloud. Remus shifts, moving his arm from around Sirius’ shoulders to resting his hand on his knee under the table. It doesn’t even matter that it’s his dominant hand because he was banned from writing their answers months ago because his illegible handwriting cost them 12 points and winning first place.
Sirius settles into himself as the night carries on. The craving ache under his sternum hums at Remus sitting so close to him. He banters with Lily, argues with James about the year that MTV aired the first music video on television, and by the end of the night, they don’t end up in last place, but they’re not in the top three either.
Sirius gives James shit about it, “If you would’ve just put 1979, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now.”
James kicks him under the table. “Yeah, and maybe if you would’ve unscrambled presbyterian into Britney Spears, we wouldn’t have lost the last round!” he shoots back. “You should be ashamed of that one, actually.” Sirius kicks him back, which leads to Remus getting kicked in the shin by an overexcited James.
“Hey, leave me out of it!” he laughs. James winces at him in apology and Sirius squeezes his knee.
Lily breaks up the fight by asserting that they both hold the team back and should just get over themselves, which neither of them can really dispute. With that, they confirm their plan to meet back next week, maybe invite Regulus this time, and go their separate ways.
Remus walks by Sirius’ side. The trip home is quiet, peaceful, as they both decompress from the evening. It was fun, laughs were had, questions were answered, albeit incorrectly and often sillily by James and Marlene, penned by Mary who was deemed after the Remus Incident to have the best penmanship.
Sirius curls up on the couch while Remus puts on the kettle in his kitchen. There was a time that he would fuss over doing it for him, but he had come to learn that Remus was very particular about his tea, so he relented. He still doesn’t understand how tea can be more complicated than pouring hot water over a bag of leaves, but he allows Remus his particularities. It makes him feel warm to know that Remus has a routine in his home, that he feels comfortable here — a favorite mug, the same spoon he always uses to stir in his sugar, an ease in his kitchen that he only has when making tea (really, he can barely be he trusted to boil water).
He comes into the room with his tea in his usual mug—one from the time they went to a place where you can paint your own ceramics, Sirius painted flowers all over it—that he uses because he likes the shape of it, sets it down on the coffee table, and folds his legs under him as he sits facing Sirius. He just looks at him, not saying anything, just looking.
Sirius feels like he ran out of words hours ago, so he doesn’t say anything either. He looks back in that he is considering the way the lamplight bounces off the hair that curls around Remus’ ear and how the scar over his cheek reaches down just to the corner of his mouth and his chest is rising and falling so evenly that Sirius finds himself matching his breath and he feels like he’s seeing Remus for the first time in the lowlight of his living room.
“I think I like you,” Sirius blurts into the quiet.
Remus tilts his head, clearly not having been expecting that. “I… like you too?” he says slowly.
“No, like,” Sirius starts then stops, trying to collect his thoughts. He briefly meets Remus’ eyes, wishing he could just crawl his way into his brain and make him read his thoughts. He looks away. “Regulus called me earlier, and he asked me if you were coming tonight,” he pauses again here. Remus waits patiently. “But he asked if my boyfriend was coming tonight, and I didn’t know what he was talking about.”
“Me?” is Remus’ only response to this. It comforts Sirius to know that he’s just as confused at this.
“Yeah. And I said we weren’t together. But then I was thinking about it, and… I don’t know. I hadn’t considered what my feelings for you are because we’ve always just been the way we are, you know?” Remus nods. “But they’re there. I feel them now. I think I always did.” He didn’t mean to initiate the conversation so soon, but he’s here now. He doesn’t feel the twinge of anxiety that he felt earlier in the evening—just calm in Remus’ presence.
Remus is quiet for a few moments, and Sirius gives him space to think. Until suddenly he’s talking again, saying, “James told me I don’t need to do anything if I’m happy how we are, and I am, but I think I could be happy if we were more, too.”
Remus smiles here, lights up actually, his neutral face brightening from his eyes. “Me too. I think I’d be happy with that, too,” he says finally. He reaches his hand out across the small space between them, and Sirius takes it. “Being with you, just spending time with you, has always just been so easy. Natural. I’ve never really felt that before.” He looks at Sirius. “I think that… I never really thought about it either. Being more. Because I was just so happy to feel at ease with someone.”
“Do you think… I mean, can I kiss you?” Sirius asks, already dropping his hand and leaning forward, as if Remus is his center of gravity.
Remus’ face gets brighter, and his hand is on Sirius’ neck, and he’s saying, “You don’t have to ask,” as he leans down to press their lips together. It’s a gentle seal of fate. Sirius feels warmth spread through him, a smile growing on his face that he can’t stop.
The kiss is natural, as natural as the first time they held hands or the first time Remus fell into his bed after a night out or the first time they curled up in this same spot to watch a movie. They move together like a gentle current of water flows in a stream.
They pull apart but just barely. Faces inches apart. “So,” Sirius starts, “are you spending the night?”
Remus rolls his eyes with a laugh. “You already know the answer,” he says, closing the space between them again.
The movie is long forgotten as they sit there together. Remus ends up leaning back against Sirius’ chest, resting between his legs. He holds Sirius’ hands over his chest. “I feel natural with you, too,” Sirius says after sitting in the quiet. He kisses the side of Remus’ head, nose in his hair. Remus hums. “Like when Regulus said that you were my boyfriend… I just, I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. You know how I am. I think everyone else knows what I feel before I do.”
“Maybe. Not me, though, if that makes you feel any better.” Remus tilts his head up to look at Sirius.
“Well, you’re an exception.” Sirius smiles at him. “I just really mean that I think I’ve always felt this way. You mean a lot to me, you know.” He tightens his hold on Remus, holding him close to his chest.
“Were we really that bad? That Regulus thought we were dating?” Remus deflects Sirius’ compliment, but he knows he heard it because his grip tightened around his hands.
“James too, but he didn’t say it in as many words. Just that he laments not knowing your touch,” Sirius teases, letting Remus get away with the deflection for now.
“Oh, please.” Sirius can feel the vibration of Remus’ laugh. “James is plenty familiar with me touching him.”
“Well, don’t say that,” he replies through a laugh. He can’t shake the possessive itch he feels deep in his chest toward the man in his arms. The thought of him in someone else’s embrace makes him squirm.
“Not like you,” Remus assures him. He starts tracing one of the tattoos on Sirius’ arm, making him shiver. “Not like this; this is just us.”
Contentment washes over Sirius, and he closes his eyes in an attempt to memorize this moment. No sound but the humming of the refrigerator and their quiet breaths. The yellow lamplight illuminating against the warmth of the room and the feeling between the two people in it. Remus’ weight against his chest. How this moment feels so sacred. How it feels new, but so familiar, like learning the definition of a word you’ve read so many times. This is just us, Sirius thinks. Before he drifts off, he wonders which word might be the one that they both always understood through context clues, but just looked up the actual definition for. He thinks it might be love.