Chapter Text
The light in the studio was soft-
early winter grey bleeding through the tall, dust-fogged windows. The air smelled of coffee, old paper, and fixer chemicals from the darkroom in the back of the studio apartment. Remus stood behind his camera, fiddling with the aperture, the shutter speed, the fragile balance between precision and instinct. His fingers were cold, his back ached, and the model in front of him looked like they’d rather be anywhere else.
“Turn your chin slightly left. No, your left,” he muttered.
The model blinked slowly, then rotated their head.
Awkward, stiff, robotic.
Remus pressed the shutter anyway. Snap. Another frame. Another nothing. Too polished. Too empty. Not it.
He pulled back, exhaled through his nose, and ran a hand through his curls.
“Alright. Take five.”
The model looked relieved. Remus didn’t blame them. Neither of them wanted to be there.
He walked toward the tall corkboard nailed to the studio’s back wall. It was cluttered with old black-and-white prints, notes scribbled in charcoal, scraps of paper with words like ache, blur, intimacy, damage. Somewhere in the middle, a photo of a broken window, sunlight slicing through the dust like truth. Next to it, a portrait of a boy looking away from the camera.
His hands bloody, his smile soft.
James always said Remus took pictures like he was trying to save people.
“Maybe I am,” he’d said once. “Maybe no one else ever tried to.”
“Mate, you look like you’re about to burn your camera,” came James’s voice behind him now, casual and amused.
Remus didn’t turn around. “It’s been a long week.”
He felt the familiar thud of coffee against his palm as James handed him a cup. “And I come bearing solutions.”
Remus raised an eyebrow as he finally looked over. James was grinning, always too proud of himself.
“I brought someone,” he said.
“What?”
“He needs a job. You need a muse. I figured it out on the walk over. You can thank me later.”
Remus opened his mouth to protest, but the words fell apart as someone stepped into the doorway.
For a moment, all he saw was silhouette.
Ttall, lean, dark. And then light shifted, and there he was.
Leaning against the doorframe in a leather jacket several sizes too large and boots scuffed to hell stood a boy.
Oh no, a slow-burning disaster dressed like a rock song. Raven-black curls hung loose around his face, falling just past his cheekbones. His eyes were grey, dull and sharp all at once, like storm clouds trying to remember how to rain.
There was a bruised sort of beauty to him. Not the kind agents liked. Not symmetry, not smooth skin. Something else.
Something feral and restless. Like the boy had run from somewhere and hadn’t know how to stop yet.
“Sirius Black,” James said. “This is Remus. Try not to flirt with him too hard.”
Sirius snorted softly. “No promises.”
Remus stared. “You’ve done modeling before?”
“Not professionally,” Sirius said, shrugging one shoulder. “But I’ve stood in front of cameras before. And I’m pretty. That’s the job description, yeah?”
“You’re arrogant.”
“Just honest.”
Remus was silent for a moment. Then he stepped aside, gesturing toward the light.
“Shirt off.”
Sirius tilted his head. “Bit forward, aren’t you?”
Remus didn’t blink. “Not flirting. Lighting test.”
Sirius gave him a slow, amused smirk but obeyed. He pulled off the jacket and then his shirt in one fluid movement. Tattoos slithered along his ribs.
Black ink, unfinished shapes. A faint scar traced a line near his shoulder, just beneath the collarbone.
“Where’d you get that?” Remus asked, nodding toward the scar.
“Fell off a balcony,” Sirius said, stepping into the light like he belonged there. “Or jumped. Depends who you ask.”
James sighed in the background. “He’s not usually like this.”
“I’m always like this,” Sirius replied, eyes locked on the lens.
Remus lifted the camera.
Snap.
Sirius didn’t pose. He didn’t try. He just stood there, exuding something wild and aching. His eyes burned through the glass.
Snap.
Snap.
He shifted his weight, let his head fall slightly to the side. His mouth parted. Something in Remus’s chest twisted.
The room disappeared. It was just them.
Him and this boy with smoke in his mouth and a storm in his spine.
“Take your hand to your chest,” Remus said quietly.
Sirius obeyed, fingertips brushing his sternum like he was checking to see if his heart was still there.
Snap.
“What do you see when you look at me?” Sirius asked suddenly.
Remus lowered the camera. “What?”
“You’re staring like you’ve already written a poem about me.”
“I don’t write poems.”
“Liar.”
Remus didn’t reply. He looked through the viewfinder again. Focus. Light. Distance.
“You’re angry,” Sirius said softly, not moving.
Remus hesitated. “What?”
“Your photos. They’re angry. Like they want to scream but don’t know how. Like you want to… break people open just to see if they’re real.”
Remus swallowed.
“No one’s ever said that,” he said, voice thin.
Sirius just gave him a strange smile. “You’re not the only one who sees things.”
*
The shoot went on. Two rolls. Then three. Remus lost track of time. The other model had long since left. James eventually gave up and slipped out too, mouthing “You’re welcome” on his way.
When they finally stopped, Sirius threw his shirt back on and sat on the edge of the platform, legs dangling.
“Do you always get this intense?” he asked.
Remus was pulling film from the camera, careful and deliberate. “Only when it matters.”
“And did I matter?” Sirius’s voice was almost a whisper now.
Remus looked up slowly. The studio was dark now, except for the lamp near the wall. It made shadows dance across Sirius’s face.
“I don’t photograph people who don’t,” Remus said. “It’s not worth it.”
Sirius looked at him for a long moment, eyes unreadable.
Then he slid off the platform and picked up his jacket.
“I’ll see you,” he said, already walking toward the door.
“You could come back,” Remus said before he could stop himself.
Sirius paused. “You want me to?”
Remus hesitated. “I think I already expected you to.”
Sirius turned, smirking faintly. “Flirting now?”
Remus almost smiled. “Get out.”
The door shut behind him with a soft click.
*
Remus didn’t sleep that night.
The darkroom hissed with red light as he developed the film. His fingers shook as he moved from tray to tray, heart pounding like he’d been kissed and slapped at once. One by one, the photos came alive.
Sirius. Hair falling into his eyes. A half-smile like defiance. A bruise on his side that wasn’t there earlier in the shoot. Hands shaking in one frame, and perfectly still in the next.
He wasn’t a model.
He was a question.
He was a warning.
He was real.
Remus stared at the last photo. Sirius in profile, leaning forward, eyes closed like he’d whispered something to the camera before it flashed. A kind of grief in the angle of his jaw. A kind of poetry in his silence.
Remus pressed his fingers to the image, just beside the edge of Sirius’s hairline.
“I found you,” he whispered.
And already, he was afraid to lose him.
*
It was well past midnight when Remus finally dragged himself out of the darkroom. The flat he shared with James was mostly dark, except for the kitchen, where the faint glow of the open fridge lit up James’s silhouette.
“You’re still awake?” Remus asked, rubbing his eyes.
James jumped slightly, then shut the fridge door with his hip. “You’ve been in there for five hours. I figured you either fell asleep in the chemicals or finally dissolved into art.”
Remus grunted and slumped into a chair. “Bit of both, probably.”
James set down two mugs of tea and sat across from him. For a moment, there was silence. Just the hum of the fridge and the muted sounds of traffic four stories below.
Then: “So,” James said, dragging the word out. “Sirius.”
Remus didn’t look up. “What about him?”
“He’s… a lot.”
Remus shrugged. “He was good.”
“He was better than good. You haven’t looked at anyone like that since-“
“Don’t.”
James raised his hands in surrender. “Fine. Just saying. He’s… magnetic. In a walking-car-crash kind of way.”
Remus traced his finger around the rim of the mug. “That’s why the camera likes him. He doesn’t know how to hide.”
James studied him for a moment. “You’re already in your own head about him, aren’t you?”
Remus didn’t answer.
“He’s not a project, Moons.”
Remus flinched at the nickname. He hadn’t even realized how tightly he’d been holding his jaw.
“I know.”
James nodded. “I’m just saying- be careful. Sirius doesn’t… stick to things. He runs before anyone can leave him first.”
Remus looked up at that. “Has he told you that?”
“No,” James said softly. “But I’ve known him long enough to see it.”
They sat in silence after that.
The tea went cold.
*
Later that night, after James had gone to bed and the city quieted to a low electrical hum, Remus lay on his back staring at the ceiling.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown Number:
was i shit or are u just intimidating
Remus stared at the screen for a long moment. Then:
Remus:
You were good. Stop fishing.
The typing dots blinked on, then off. On again.
Unknown Number:
ur camera is quiet but it says too much
not sure i like that
Remus hesitated, thumb hovering. Then:
Remus:
Then don’t look at the photos.
No reply for several minutes. He started to drift off.
Buzz.
Unknown Number:
what if i want to see myself the way u did
just once
Remus didn’t respond. He didn’t know how to.
He turned the phone face-down on the pillow and tried to sleep.
But the image of Sirius- the way he’d looked into the lens like he knew more than Remus ever could stayed burned behind his eyelids.
And it would stay there for a long, long time.