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Muggles believe in angels. Sirius Black might bear the face of an angel, but he wasn’t anywhere close to being one. Nobody knew this better than Remus Lupin; in fact, it’s exactly what he thought about as the taller lad blew smoke into his face. It was rude, obviously. Sirius seemed to think that lacking manners further separated him from his family. Remus knew that the staggering arrogance actually pushed him into being exactly like them.
There was this strange, silent animosity between the two ‘best friends’ after the ‘shack incident’. That’s what Peter dubbed it, having not much sympathy for Severus and likely only sympathizing with Remus because James does. Remus loves Peter, truly, but he wouldn’t credit his friend with being very good at forming independent opinions.
Oddly, Sirius and Remus routinely ended up abandoned alone together. Perhaps because ‘they are best friends’, but no, it’s likely what made them best friends. Not as close as Sirius and James are, Remus wouldn’t be presumptuous enough to hold that delusion. Remus is practical, realistic and pragmatic.
Saliva makes Remus’s mouth feel all too full; he’s been quiet and staring for an awfully long time. Staring at the boy sitting across from him. The boy who is cockily studying his features. This boy is beautiful and he knows it. Remus used to find that fact charming — he appreciated his friend’s confidence, even found him deserving of it — now it grosses him out.
Everything about Sirius Black disgusts Remus Lupin. That blank look in his grey eyes which assures you that he doesn’t care much for you. It twinkles, sometimes; for the Potters, only, who he views like his ‘saviors’. Remus doesn’t suppose that he can blame him for that, so he blames him for his princely beauty instead. Remus’s eyes finally break away, tired of boring into Sirius’s. The blue irises settle around Sirius’s shoulders, where his black hair cascades a bit further down.
In his heart, he hexes Sirius for his beauty. He tries to push himself into believing it’s because he’s jealous. Remus Lupin is jealous of Sirius Black. He’s jealous of how he is James’s first pick, he’s jealous that he achieves stellar grades without picking up any textbooks, and he’s jealous of how he overcomes every hurdle life places before him with seeming ease.
Or, at least, Remus tries to convince himself that’s true. It’s better than consolidating with the reality of the situation. Remus flinches before looking at a different direction, and straight into the sky. His hearing is more sensitive than the average person’s. The loud bursts he hears as fireworks shoot into the sky startle him. He could hear distant cheering; the clock had struck midnight. It was a new year.
He glanced down, varying groups sat huddled together, the field was in clear view from the astrology tower. As he took in the colorful hues littering the cloud-covered sky, he couldn’t help his mouth stretching into a smile. He managed to spot James up there; sitting on a broomstick, following somebody all-too-familiar. Someone should warn them how dangerous that is, well, they’ll probably get a scolding later.
Remus flinched again as his face was grabbed full-force. “Look at me,” Sirius commanded. Something weird and unfamiliar lay behind his gaze; something restless. Okay, unfamiliar isn’t the right word. He saw this look in his friend’s eyes once before. And, he didn’t like recalling that time. A shiver jumped down Remus’s spine before he pushed Sirius’s grasp off.
“Your hands smell like smoke,” and his voice sounded more casual than he could feel. The restless look didn’t disappear. Remus remembers it lasting for a while the last time he saw it too. He suddenly craved to dig his nails into his own face, and scratch the skin until only flesh remains.
Sirius laughs, but it isn’t really filled with mirth. A short pause hangs in the air; so short that it’s brief really. Remus drops his eyelids down as Sirius shifts closer. Everything in Remus’s body stiffens, and relaxes as Sirius’s fingers lock into his lush, blonde hair. Remus smells the smoke on Sirius’s lips before he feels the softness of them on his own.
“Happy new year, Moony,” he wishes while pulling away. Remus needs a long minute to process what just occurred. His eyes blink open, only momentarily, before he pulls Sirius back into him. Their lips lock again. This kiss is longer than the last. More pained and visceral.
Remus climbs onto Sirius’s lap. Their kiss deepens as if they need to prove that they can be even hungrier, firmer. Sirius is sickly amused by the wet drops that fall into his face from Remus’s eyes. He knows that he’s being cruel; it’s not deliberate, he promises Merlin.
Sirius is perceptive. It’s a skill he was forced to develop from the cruelty of his formative years. Sirius doesn’t believe horrible experiences ought to allow anybody to be a horrible person; he wouldn’t find himself excuses. He knows he’s treacherous to Remus — placing him as a consistent second-choice, using his most vulnerable state against him (that one time with Severus and the shack, at least), and knowing that everything will be forgone — no, neither him nor Remus should forgive him.
Sirius held acute awareness of how Remus’s eyes would linger on him for unnecessarily long, steal towards him constantly in group settings. Remus’s eyes haunted him; they were always bigger and brighter than they should’ve been. And, when he’d look straight into them, he’d see how the dark pupils would dilate.
Remus is breathless when he pulls away, and socks Sirius with a right hook straight into his face. He seems mortified. Sirius smirks, and wonders if the emotion that he reads on Remus’s face is created by him or himself.
Remus is practical, pragmatic and realistic. Except, when his heart races due to a boy who shouldn’t hold such influences. Maybe he could accept the sensations that travel throughout him if it was any other boy. Maybe Peter, or even James. Somebody he could read sensibility and safety in.
Sirius comforted his own bloody nose. “Well, that’s rude,” he mused. He wasn’t particularly deterred; far from his first time being socked in the face. In fact, compared to some of the violence he’s suffered through in the past, this was rather a love tap.
Remus scowled, his eyes squinting directly into Sirius’s. Sirius’s smirk widened; he couldn’t miss those blown out pupils, not on those blue eyes. Remus realized that quite some time must’ve passed, and he couldn’t hear the ruckus that colorful explosions in the sky would create, anymore. Remus made a show of wiping his lips with the back of his hand, as if they’d been dirtied.
“Happy new year, Padfoot,” is all Remus could muster before climbing down from the sill they’d been perched on for too long. He started downstairs, and Sirius idly shadowed him. Sirius was definitely a bit taller than Remus, but leaner.
“I think I introduced good omens into our new year,” Sirius nearly sung. There was too much pride in his voice. Remus wasn’t sure what was there to be so proud of.
“The best. You ought to think that,” Remus instructed, pacing quickly down the steps of the tower. Sirius’s arms easily snaked around Remus’s shoulders, but when he decided that wasn’t quite the position he wanted, he settled for simply hooking their arms.
“New years spent in Hogwarts is rather nice, no?” Sirius suggested. A lot of 6th and 7th years chose to stay on campus over winter break; they were likely to miss this place dearly, or a certain charm of it, once so many graduate.
Remus nodded, reading implications from the question that weren’t necessarily there, but it was rather nice. His face felt too warm and his heart pounded too loud, but that wasn’t unpleasant per se. They stood before the portrait known to guard their common room, and before Sirius could even think of entering, Remus whispered, “Why did we kiss?”
Sirius stares at him for several beats. His expression is hard to read, especially in this lighting, or lack thereof. “I don’t know. I, just, thought it’d be fun if we were the kind of friends that kiss without meaning,” Sirius eventually states. His tone sounded like he hadn’t really thought before speaking.
That was purposeful, Remus knew. Remus wouldn’t comment. Remus really knew better. Somethings are better let go, and it’s better to believe your romantic feelings for your best friend are unrequited. It maintains the status quo. And, Merlin knows that Sirius Black doesn’t need any help in disrupting the peace of everybody blessed enough to meet him.
Muggles believe in ‘angels’; divine creatures often depicted to be protective figures. Sirius couldn’t be an angel. All he’d ever done to Remus lately was break his heart, piece by piece, again and again.