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"I'm going to do it," Sirius starts decisively, dropping into the empty space beside James on the common room's sofa.
"Sorry?"
"I'm going to tell Remus."
For a moment, James doesn't say anything.
Sirius watches every single thought flit across his face as he processes Sirius' decision. Then, finally, he breaks out into a grin, leaning back against the sofa and flinging his arms into the air triumphantly.
"Thank Merlin! Oh, I never thought this day would come!" He calls out. Sirius shushes him quickly, looking around in a panic.
"Nothing's happened yet!"
"But it's going to? Today?" Sirius nods once, taking a breath and forcing himself to relax a bit. To let James' own enthusiasm calm him down.
Sure, the thought of telling Remus how he feels is terrifying to him. The thought of telling Remus that he's absolutely gone for him, that he's been absolutely gone for him for years, makes Sirius want to throw up. However, he's starting to think that maybe, just maybe, Remus feels the same way.
They've been getting... closer for a while, now. The two of them stay awake and talk for hours while the rest of the castle sleeps. When Sirius landed himself in detention, Remus dyed Slughorn's robes bright pink so he could join him. Not only that, but Sirius is sure that they've almost kissed before. He's felt the atmosphere change, seen Remus' eyes flick down to his lips. The only thing that has been holding him back is the fact that Remus always pulls back first.
Maybe he's come to this conclusion on his own. Maybe Remus has been dropping hints in the same way Sirius has. Maybe James has convinced Sirius of something that isn't true.
No matter what, he needs to get it off his chest. His chest aches every time Remus pulls away. He needs to tell him, even if it's just to set the boundary and keep himself from getting hurt anymore.
"I just need to find the perfect moment."
That's going to be easy, right?
They have plenty of those in a day.
-
The first moment comes much sooner than Sirius expects. A little too soon, really. Before he's gotten a chance to prepare himself.
In all honesty, he may have be trying to avoid Remus a little.
It's not quite a conscious effort! More, just... nervous energy driving him away until he knows exactly what to say. He can't exactly confess his feelings for Remus if he isn't prepared! Remus deserves so much more than a haphazard, stuttering mess of a confession. He deserves for Sirius to have his shit together. To be articulate.
So yeah, maybe he is hiding, but it's for a good cause.
He needs a plan.
"Maybe..." Sirius muses out loud in the empty room of requirement, "Maybe I can lead with not wanting it to get in the way of our friendship." Then, he frowns and shakes his head. "Too undermining. Maybe-"
The door clicks open.
Sirius jumps a mile, whipping his head around.
"Remus?"
"Were you... talking to yourself?" Remus asks, a small smile starting to stretch across his face.
"No," he answers quickly. Too quickly.
Remus' smile evaporates, replaced by a look of gentle concern that makes Sirius weak in the knees. Unfortunately, so weak in the knees that he has to let himself sit on the floor to cover for it.
"You okay?" Remus closes the door behind him, before approaching and sitting beside Sirius, back against the wall. "Thought you were supposed to spend the day in Hogsmeade."
"Yeah... change of plans," Sirius supplies, offering Remus a reassuring smile. "I'm fine, Moony. Really." He looks at the floor, fidgeting with his hands.
His heart may as well stop beating when Remus reaches out and rests his hand on top of Sirius' own.
"You only do that when you're stressed," he points out, arching an eyebrow. "What's going on?"
"I..." Sirius trails off, sigh escaping him before he has the chance to hold it back. "Have you ever really needed to tell someone something, but not known how?" He turns back to Remus. "As in... the thought of trying to string together the right words to encompass... what you need to say, is impossible? That nothing will do it justice, or you might say the wrong thing, or that even the right thing could ruin everything, in the same way the right thing could make everything so much better?"
Sirius expects Remus to shake his head. To furrow his eyebrows together in that way he does when he's processing something. Instead, he nods once.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "I know the feeling."
Something in the air shifts, much in the same way it has been doing recently.
This is it.
This is the perfect moment.
Sirius needs to say something. Anything.
Just say it, Sirius! Just tell him the bloody truth!
"I've just been trying to figure that out," Sirius says and, for the first time, he pulls away first.
"Right." Remus nods, a slightly dazed look on his face. "Well... I hope you find the words."
"Thanks," Sirius says, doing his level best to disguise his frustration at himself.
He's just royally cocked that up.
Great start.
Still, there'll be more opportunities.
He's got time. It can still be perfect.
-
In Sirius' defence, he's even less prepared the second time.
Remus left him to it in the room of requirement, but it hasn't exactly been helpful. He's mostly been kicking himself for fucking up a perfectly intimate moment. Not only does he not know what he's going to say; he doesn't even know if he's going to get the chance to say anything!
Defeated and unbelievably frustrated, Sirius heads to the dorm.
Maybe, if he can force himself to fall asleep, he'll have a dream that'll give him the answers. The perfect thing to say.
It's a fucking long shot, but what else has he got now?
He swings the door open frustratedly, accidentally leading to the door handle slamming against the wall in his fervour.
"Didn't find the words, I'm guessing?" Remus asks, looking up from his parchment.
Fuck.
Sirius looks around the rest of the dorm, but...
They're alone.
Again.
Sirius has to bite back a groan. On any other day, he would be praying to have this much alone time with Remus, but today? The thought of being alone with him, of actually saying what he needs to say, makes his heart pound so quickly that it might give out.
He shakes his head once, forced to commit to walking through the door.
Sirius settles opposite Remus out of habit, glancing down at his parchment.
"Never understood you taking muggle studies," Sirius says quietly, tilting his head to read the title of Remus' essay.
"Easy Outstanding," Remus shoots back. "Isn't that why you like divination so much?"
"Oi!" Sirius nudges Remus. "I'll have you know I have an affinity to divination!"
"Sure you do, Padfoot."
"Really! I know exactly how all of our lives are going to go, thank you very much."
"Oh, yeah? How?"
Sirius considers for a moment, watching Remus carefully. There's a small, amused smile on his face, cheeks slightly pink, looking at Sirius in that way reserved just for him.
In a moment of boldness, he reaches out and pulls Remus' hand up. He flips his palm, looking over the lines. He brushes his thumb over one, watching the way Remus' hand twitches at the contact.
"That's your life line," he explains, tracing down it. "S'long. Good. Mine's a bit shorter." Remus snorts a laugh.
"Rubbish, you're definitely outliving me."
"Not in the cards, Moony mine," Sirius says, faux solemnity dripping in his tone. Then, he turns back to his hand. "That's your head line. I would tell you you're clever, but I think you already know that," he says, gesturing vaguely to Remus' essay. Before Remus has a chance to protest, Sirius moves on. "This is your heart line." He traces it slowly, eyes fixed to Remus' hand. "Just keeps going. Guess you've got a lot of love ahead of you." He looks up, finding Remus' eyes fixed on him. "What?"
"Bunch of nonsense," Remus whispers, but there's no malice in it. If anything, he's watching Sirius with... awe.
"I'm just listening to your hand," Sirius says simply, raising his free hand in surrender. "If fate says so."
A lovely, lovely smile breaks across Remus' face, and Sirius has to fight the urge to press his finger into Remus' cupid's bow, to trace the smile and commit the feeling of Remus' joy to his fingertips.
This is it.
This is the moment.
"Remus, I-"
The door swings open.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
"Has anyone seen my red... jacket?" James falters, looking between the two of them. Sirius turns and shoots him a glare. If he could set someone on fire with his eyes, he'd do that right now. Especially since Remus pulls his hand back, pulling his parchment a little closer and picking up his quill.
"I can find it later," James decides, offering Sirius an apologetic smile as he leaves.
For a moment, the two of them are silent. Sirius' eyes are fixed on the door, where James had just been.
"I should probably..." Remus gestures to his parchment, holding his quill up with a small grimace.
"Yeah. Yeah, 'course. I'll, er... I'll see you later?"
Remus nods, eyes fixed on his parchment. The blush across his cheeks hasn't quite faded, and Sirius could cry he's so frustrated.
As he gets up and leaves the dorm, he tries to find a silver lining.
Maybe it wasn't the perfect moment.
He still didn't have the words. He probably would have cocked it up and ruined it himself.
-
By the end of the day, Sirius has given up.
His new plan - his better plan, if you ask him - is to accept defeat. The stars haven't aligned, the universe is throwing pretty clear signs that the time isn't right. Maybe the time will never be right. Maybe he's never meant to say anything. Maybe he's not supposed to risk ruining his friendship with Remus.
It's probably for the best.
That doesn't stop him from feeling like he's one wrong word away from crying. Or punching a wall.
More for his friends' sake than himself, he decides to stay away from the dorm for as long as possible.
Instead, he finds himself by the Black Lake. He situates himself against a tree trunk, staring at the water surface and trying to figure out if he can spot the bed that the marauders' "accidentally" tossed into the lake as an "experiment" back in third year. James is still certain that the giant squid ate it, but Remus is sure it's still down there.
Remus.
Merlin, Sirius is well and truly a lost cause.
He's doomed to a life of pining. A life of loving Remus from afar, of revelling in the small things. He's going to spend the rest of his days pretending to be completely fine with their friendship as it is. He's going to pretend that staying up for hours on the astronomy tower isn't creating a hole in his chest. He's going to act like holding Remus together after the full moons, only to be called his "best mate" isn't breaking his heart. He's going to put on a smile and love Remus in whatever way preserves the way things are, because if that's all he can get, he's going to appreciate it.
Remus is still in his life, after all.
"I think it's going to rain."
Sirius turns to find Remus standing and watching him, hands in his pockets.
"How'd you know I'd be here? I hid the map."
"Sirius," Remus says with a gentle smile, "you have two sulking spots, and I've already found you in one of them today."
"I'm not sulking."
"You are. You've been weird all day."
Remus sits next to him, drawing one knee up and resting his head on it so he can look at Sirius sideways.
"I'm fine."
"But you've not found the words you're looking for."
"...No. I haven't."
Remus straightens up, his attention pushing Sirius on.
"I think I'm just going to give up. Who needs to get anything off their chest, anyway?"
"Give up? You don't give up, Sirius."
"This is an extreme case. If I can't find the right time, there's no point."
"But what about-"
A crack of thunder pulls their attention away. Sirius jumps at the sound, looking out just in time to see lightning fork across the sky.
Remus turns to Sirius, opening his mouth to speak.
Before he can, the rain starts.
It's not the nice, gentle, get inside just in time before it pick up type of rain. No, it hammers down, hitting them like small boulders.
Fuck.
He expects Remus to recoil. To frown, flinch, pull away and make a break for the castle.
Instead, he laughs.
It starts small, bubbling out of him like he can't help himself. Sirius just watches for a moment, not realising how infectious Remus' happiness is until he's falling into it too.
For a while, they just laugh.
The rain attacks them from all angles, another crack of thunder cutting through it, but none of it matters. Remus is here, and he's laughing, and Sirius gets to see Remus like this. Unguarded, bright, free.
What a fucking miracle.
"Let's- we need to get away from the tree," Remus says quickly, standing, trying to calm his own laughter. He offers Sirius his hand, and Sirius takes it quickly. Remus pulls him away from the tree, starting to drag the both of them back to the castle.
"I'm in love with you."
Sirius doesn't realise the words came from him until Remus freezes.
Oh.
Remus turns back to face him, eyes wide.
They're both drenched, the rain refusing to ease up and give them a chance to talk.
"What?"
Sirius looks at him for a moment, quietly wondering if he can get away with pretending he didn't just say that.
No.
Too late.
It's there, now. Sitting between them.
"...I'm in love with you," he says again, more purposefully. "I have been for... a long time. I- you just mean so much to me, and I don't want to ruin our friendship, not when it means so much to me, but- I just- I love you so much it scares me. I think I needed to tell you."
Sirius knows exactly how this is going to go.
Remus is going to let go of Sirius' hand, turn away, and avoid Sirius for the rest of their life. He's gone and done it, he's ruined their friendship forever. God, he's so stupid, why did he think he could say anything?
He doesn't have a chance to spiral any further, because Remus is kissing him. He wraps an arm firmly around Sirius' waist, connecting their lips so hurriedly that it draws a gasp from Sirius. He's not about to waste a moment, though, throwing himself into the kiss earnestly.
Remus is kissing him.
Remus is kissing him.
He tastes like chocolate and cigarettes and home. Sirius feels like he's on fire, hair standing on edge, alive and alight and waking up for the first time. He may as well have died and gone to heaven, revelling in the feeling of Remus' lips against his.
If this is what heaven is like, Sirius may as well never come back down to earth.
Unfortunately for him, they need to come up for air eventually. They break apart at the same time, eyes meeting.
Remus is drenched from head to toe, the rain having flattened his hair, sticking his jumper to him, raindrops sitting on his eyelashes.
Beautiful.
Sure, this could have happened in the warm, dry comfort of their dorm. It could have been quiet and gentle. Sirius could have rehearsed and re-rehearsed his words, finding the perfect thing to say that walked the line and expressed his feelings properly. That would have been perfect, but...
Well, what the fuck does it matter?
This is perfect. Remus in front of him, not needing the words, the practice, the safety of Sirius' plan to understand how he feels. To understand that he loves Remus so much it hurts.
Any moment with Remus is his perfect moment.