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“Good Morning London, today we’re here with the critically acclaimed, Oscar winning star of the Prewett Twins’ ‘Maurice’, Remus Lupin!” He heard the clear tones of Mary Macdonald ringing through the studio, as he emerged through the set doors, shooting a friendly wave at the audience and camera, adjusting his blazer as he took his seat on one of Mary's velour armchairs.
“We’re so happy to have you here, Remus, on this lovely spring day.” Mary joked, gesturing a bangled chestnut arm to the rectangular panes encasing drizzle, wet concrete and overcast skies. Remus chuckled obligingly.
“Hmm yes well it’s a pleasure to be here as always Mary.” He was only half lying, Mary was lovely, talk shows however…
Mary clapped her hands together. “Now, in the wake of your new film Maurice, you’ve kicked up quite the buzz online for your stellar audition track record, and fans have even dubbed you the ‘terminator’ of casting calls. We have to know, is it really true, have you never lost a role?”
Remus shook his head. Lily had briefed him of his ‘trending’ status, but he still found it completely ridiculous. He ran a hand through his tawny curls. “Look Mary, I think it’s quite the misconception. You see, I have a lot of directors who I’m very close friends with, so honestly it’s been almost eight years since I've been in an actual audition process. But yes- I have an almost perfect streak, just the one exception!”
Mary’s face creased into a disbelieving smile, she shook her head slowly, making her black locs sway in front of her face. “Incredible! So, what is that one role you didn’t end up getting?”
Remus laughed. It was so long ago, when he was just starting out on the scene and it really wasn’t his typecast anyhow. “Oh gosh yeah, well it certainly stung at the time, but uh-” He barked another laugh at the memory. “I really wanted, I really wanted to be cast in the Narnia movie.”
At that, Mary gave a genuine giggle, the one Remus heard at afterparties when she stood in corners with him judging the burnouts and industry plants. “Oh wow, now that is really outside your typical genre.”
Remus cocked an eyebrow. “You’re telling me. But no, I really wanted to play Prince Caspian.”
“Wait, Really? The Prince?” Mary shook her head again.
“Oh yeah, I loved Narnia. But uh, Sirius Black ultimately got it.” Remus waved a non-committal hand.“Bloody Sirius Black.” He chuckled. “Nah nah, I’m joking. But I just really wanted that part, I think the feedback was, ‘Oh he’s not handsome enough.’” He raised his hands in a resigned gesture.
Mary gave an over-exaggerated expression of offence into the camera, before turning back to him. “About you?”
Remus shrugged. “Yeahhh, what can you do?” He drawled.
After the obligatory trivial questions to feed the press, Remus, with a spark in his eyes, finally got to divulge the joys of literary adaptation, queer representation and violently depressing cinema.
-
“Hiii Vogue!” Sirius greeted the camera crew excitedly as he opened the door theatrically for the seventh time. “Come get ready with us for the Critic’s Choice Awards!”.
Tightening his black silk robe, he led the Vogue crew through his hotel room, taking a seat at the desk chair his MUA, Pandora Lovegood had set up with an array of metallic shadows and fluffed up brushes.
“Look up.” Pandora requested. Sirius obliged, feeling the soft swipe of a makeup brush coated in black pigment drag over his lower lash line.
“So we hear you stole a role from Remus Lupin back in the day, and blemished his perfect audition streak?” The interviewer asked levelly.
Sirius quelled his beating heart and gave a convincing chuckle. “Yeah, well Narnia was a big one for me, wasn’t gonna give that up was I?”
As Pandora worked some powder into his under-eyes and the sound crew fiddled with a faulty microphone, Sirius fought a smile, remembering his reaction to Remus’ interview a few days ago.
Sirius had clicked off the youtube app on his phone and muttered incredulously to himself, “Bloody Sirius Black.” And it was, incredulous. He had been absolutely giddy, like some teenage fangirl. Remus Lupin had been Sirius’ top industry crush for about four years now, and James had had to physically restrain him from jumping on the man at several red carpets when he’d been a little too enthusiastic with the open bar. He had that soft-spoken allure, all unassuming at first, swaddled in woollen jumpers and reading glasses, but rippling with taut muscles, sporting a sharp jawline and a roman nose. The first time Sirius had seen those inviting amber eyes, the head of golden curls, and the hardly-there scar on his upper lip, on the big screen, he was fucking drooling. And apparently, the man knew Sirius’ name, and had said it on national television no less, in his rumbling baritone voice.
And not only was he sex on legs, but he was fucking talented, and intelligent, well-read, sarcastic, and from what he’d heard, a genuine person. While Sirius was often seen flirting with reporters or doing coke in bathrooms at award shows, Remus would be sitting there in his sinful fucking turtleneck, exchanging pleasantries with Willam DeFoe and Christopher Nolan.
Now, Sirius cleared his throat, flashing a brilliant grin to the camera in time to give vaguely flirtatious answers to the vaguely promiscuous questions asked by the vaguely attractive interviewer. Ah the joys of being a national sex symbol. Riveting stuff.
The actual award show itself wasn't too bad. Well of course it was stifling and slightly exhausting answering repetitive questions and having cameras flash in your face at any given moment, but Sirius couldn’t pretend that part of him didn’t love it. Honestly, he was a theatre major after all, of course he thrived off attention. If there was anything he enjoyed, it was the gossip, and boy did Dorcas Meadowes give it good. And of course, his focus was strayed, repetitively, to a figure with perfectly shaped, softer than heaven, curls, wearing a dark red button up which became increasingly loose throughout the night. By the time Remus had hopped up on stage to accept Best Supporting Actor, the sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and Sirius may or may not have been staring, slack-jawed at the monitor, too busy ogling to bother about losing the nomination himself for his role in the Breakfast Club remake.
In fact, Sirius hardly thought of anything but Remus, embarrassingly so, as James ushered him out of the venue, evading paparazzi and changing into his afterparty look. And if he spent a little longer adjusting his pants, or chose a slightly tighter shirt than usual, in hopes of Remus making an appearance, well, so be it.
-
Remus was mesmerised, watching him saunter into the room, sheer shirt exposing a tapestry of ink, and flared leather pants hugging all the right places. He was purely magnetic, milky face glowing in the blue LEDs, the artfully tousled half up-half down man bun catching the light. His ears were dripping with stars, a cuff encasing the lobe from the base to the helix, with dangling chains adorned with stainless steel constellations. Remus’ eyes were trained on him as he weaved through the throngs of grovelling, fame-obsessed pushovers towards the bar. Bloody Sirius Black indeed. He had one hell of a reputation, a good time, never a long time, and as enthralled as Remus was by the man’s appearance and bitingly bright personality, he was rarely interested in a spontaneous, no strings-attached hook-up.
Remus turned back to Mary and Marlene McKinnon - a model and Mary’s girlfriend - who he had been ‘dancing’ with, and by dancing he meant swaying awkwardly while nursing a craft beer. They both shot him meaningful looks, clearly following his eyeline, which Remus returned with an eyeroll.
Once the buzz of his drinks had set in, Remus found himself loosening up, dancing animatedly to ABBA with Marlene and some of her model friends Emmeline, and Caradoc. Caradoc was attractive, objectively. He had a bleached buzzed head and one of those intense, sculpted faces with prominent cheekbones. He had a dog tag necklace which sat, glistening over a white singlet stretched over a lean chest. As they danced with indulgently roaming hands, Remus’ eyes hazily scanned the crowd and his gaze met a pair of kohl-lined mercury eyes, looking intensely, almost hungrily back at him. Remus swallowed, feeling hot, and tugged at his maroon oxford shirt, unbuttoning it another notch.
“I’m getting another drink.” He spoke with a forced casualty, half yelling over the music.
He was in the middle of ordering a gin and tonic, when he felt a brush of limbs behind him, and turned to find Sirius Black, leaning with his back against the bar, looking up at him with an assessing eye.
“So I hear I ruined your lovely little audition streak?” He purred. Remus felt his breath hitch, he was no stranger to the other man’s view of him, he’d noticed the lingering glances and sly touches at other events, but Remus wasn’t typically one for casual sex. But fuck, here he was, on a silver fucking platter. Remus schooled himself down to an unaffected expression, with considerable effort.
“Hmm that you did.” He sipped his drink.
Sirius smirked. “Well I’d say I’m sorry but Prince Caspian was rather the big break for me.”
Remus chuckled, raking his eyes up Sirius’ body. God. “Oh I’m sure you can pay penance in some other way.”
Sirius raised his eyebrows in coy innocence. “Oh? What might that be?”
Remus leaned in towards the other man, lips ghosting silver points of the stars at his ear as he murmured lowly. “I can think of some ideas.”
Remus felt Sirius shudder and he set his drink, hardly touched, down on the bar, sweeping past the man with a quick brush of his leg, towards a bathroom. A few moments later, the door to the marble clad room opened, revealing a considerably flushed looking Sirius Black, slipping inside elegantly.
The door clicked shut. The pair held eye contact, unmoving across a chasm of desire and static silence. With the slightest tug of a smirk of Sirius’ mouth, they crashed into one another in fervour, drinking each other dry. Mouths moved in tandem, hands careened across planes and peaks of skin, grasping blindly at clothing. As Sirius wound a slim hand into his curls, tugging lightly, a moan escaped his lips which was presently swallowed by teeth biting lightly on his lower lip. Remus was hooked on the taste of bitters and alcohol playing upon Sirius’ tongue. He gripped the other man’s hips, pushing him up against the vanity, which earned a moan as Sirius threw his head back, exposing the pale column of his throat.
“Fuck, Sirius, you’re magnificent.” Remus murmured, as he made the most of this new real estate. Biting and sucking a trail down his skin.
With Sirius’ hands clutching at his shirt and pulling him in, their eyes met again, both blown wide with want, and there wasn’t much left to say after that.
-
After an extremely inappropriate amount of time, Sirius finally slipped out of the gauche bathroom, looking, well, fucked. His hair was messy, strands all over his face, which was glistening with sweat and flushed a violent shade of pink. His makeup had rubbed off, which gave him a sort-of eighties rocker eyeliner. And to top it all off, his sheer shirt did an abysmal job at hiding the fresh hickeys. As he approached James, the publicist was giving him an unimpressed look, bushy eyebrows raised comically. However, as James’ eyes caught on the figure now just emerging from the bathroom across the room, his expression dropped into shock.
“Did you just shag Remus Lupin ??” James whispered frantically. Sirius just winked in response, earning a disbelieving scoff. “Mate, he’s like, notoriously ‘hard-to-get’. Bloody good job.” James punched him lightly on the arm, Sirius gave him a shit eating grin.
“Alright, let’s get out of here, I'm knackered.” Sirius quipped, already making his way to the door.
In the car back to his house, Sirius felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him, as he fought to keep his eyes open. “Wore you out did he?” James snickered. Sirius felt his cheeks heat and jostled James’ shoulder. “Fuck off, some publicist you are mate.”
A month later, Sirius was not over it. Part of him thought that maybe his infatuation would disappear post-fuck, but, no. His mind kept drifting to strong hands, sly smiles and turtlenecks. There was only one thing for it, find the man, lock him down.
So that was what he was doing as he covertly slid through the back door of a vintage New York cinema, where an independent film festival was being held. Practically the Remus Lupin native habitat. Low and behold, as Sirius slipped into the baroque screening room, all velvet drapes, leather chairs and layered ceiling arches, he spotted a head of dirty blonde curls, flattened by a brown knit beanie. Despite the surgical mask covering the lower half of his face, he was unmistakable. Sirius sauntered up and sank into the chair next to him, tapping a ringed finger on the red leather arm.
The movement caught the other man’s attention, who turned towards him, eyes widening comically. “Sirius?” He whispered, pulling his mask down. “What are you doing here?”
Sirius flashed him a grin, wasting no time. “Go out with me?” He asked brazenly.
Remus’ face flushed. ‘What?” He stammered. “I don’t- what? If this is some ploy for casual sex, I’m flattered, but it’s really not my thing.. Er, other than,, yeah.”
Sirius couldn’t help the fond smile breaking out on his face, god this man was adorable. “Nope.” He popped the ‘p’. “I am soliciting you for some very ‘un-casual’ dating. Wine and dine and such and such.” Sirius’ heart was threatening to break out of his chest; it was beating so hard. Remus just stared at him, amber eyes scanning over his face incredulously.
“Well, what do you say?” Sirius tried.
Remus huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “I think that can be arranged.” He broke out into a lopsided smile, all dimples and twinkling eyes. Sirius matched the expression, feeling positively elated.
And if Sirius spent the whole film distracted by the body heat radiating off the man next to him, or occasionally brushing their pinkies together, well, no one had to know.