Almost Close Enough to Touch
~*~
"Where's the beer?" Sirius called from the kitchen.
Remus was amused that it took Sirius a solid five minutes to realize he couldn't find it. Even with the kitchen door blocking his view, he could picture Sirius standing in font of the refrigerator staring at it, just waiting for a six-pack to materialize or start waving at him. When intoxicated, Sirius's brain slowed in the most remarkable fashion. He could still converse about almost anything, at least anything he could when sober, but he couldn't tie his shoes or find his wallet if his life depended on it. "Bottom drawer, behind the celery."
Sirius returned almost two minutes later, six-pack in hand and a look of triumph on his face. "Why do you own celery?"
"Man can not live on take out alone," Remus said, pitching a piece of tempura into his mouth.
"Bullshit, when was the last time you cooked more than canned soup? There is nothing in your house that I couldn't make for myself, and that says a lot about your culinary ability, my friend." Sirius finally managed to make it back to the sofa and, without dropping the beer or the half-empty whiskey bottle that had somehow found its way onto his seat, he planted himself with only a minor sway on the way down.
"I made homemade soup last week. Teresa was here giving me shit about how thin I was. The celery is just left over. They should sell it in single stalks. I only needed two but you still have to buy two dozen. It's a scam." Sirius handed him a beer, and the conversation moved with the natural flow of old friendship.
This was their Tuesday night ritual. Pick up dinner; drink whiskey seriously following the meal; and once drunk, settle in for a long night of beer and conversation. They had done this every week since leaving school over a year earlier. Peter and James had normal jobs, jobs that gave them weekends off and shifts that were over before eight at night but didn't allow them to stay up drinking with their friends when they had to work in the morning. They also had girlfriends, or in Peter's case a wife, and therefore better ways to spend their evenings. Not that Remus could think of a better way than drinking with Sirius. Well, there was one he could think of, but that wasn't for thinking about in the well-lit living room, and certainly not in Sirius's company.
Remus worked for a research firm out of Hogsmeade. Professor Dumbledore had arranged the job for him as soon as he finished Hogwarts, and the job was horrible. No, the job was easy, the environment was horrible. Everyone knew he was a werewolf; that was unavoidable. Remus knew that he was the only person who had been there more than three months and was still working on stage one development. He knew that he would be there until the day Mr. Henderson got to fire him, but since Dumbledore had gotten him the job, he wouldn't be fired unless he fucked up. And he had no intention of letting that happen. He worked too hard, harder than anyone else there, but it was what he had to do. He wasn't happy about it, but like so many things in his life, he was accepting of it.
Sirius was an Auror trainee, which means long hours, hard work, and only one day off a week. His was Wednesday. Asked for, not assigned. There was no way to get out of Moody's office on a weekend when Jim and Peter were free, and Remus liked to think that having a day off that coincided with his, allowing them to hang out, was part of Sirius's intention. It had certainly worked out that way since the beginning.
Once Sirius was back on the sofa, beer in hand and opened--with no spillage, he was slightly amazed to note--Sirius started in on one of his favorite subjects: the incompetence of the newest trainees. Remus had been hearing about this group for over a month now. If what Sirius said about them was true, then the Ministry was in trouble.
"Remus, you should see it there. I swear half the trainees haven't got a bloody clue what they're doing. Today, one of them set an anti-Apparation ward that landed all of us flat on the ground, unable to move at all. Fortunately, she wasn't even good at that and it only lasted about three minutes. Damn, the Ministry must have been desperate to have let this lot in. Fucking fools." He laughed in the lighthearted manner of the drunk and amused before becoming serious. "You *should* see it. You should fucking be there! You would know what the fuck you were doing." Sirius launched into one of his favorite rants. One of Remus's as well, truth be told. "That they won't hire you, won't even let you apply, it kills me. We need people who can stand up to a fucking curse, Aurors who know what the hell they're doing. Yeah, you would be out for two days a month, but these fucking idiots aren't worth a damn all the other 26 days."
Remus decided to end the endearing, but old tirade before Sirius, who was already up and starting to pace, became too impassioned and ruined the night. Sirius was a fun drunk until he let something like the Ministry's prejudice spoil his mood, then it would become a night of listening to him bitch and swear for hours.
"Sirius, they aren't going to change the rules about Beasts working for them, especially not now." Seeing that his rational defense was just making Sirius pace faster, boots thumping louder, Remus changed tactics. "And sorry, mate, but I will take my crap job over yours. It may suck, but I don't have to worry about anyone trying to kill me, and I don't have to do twelve-hour shifts. Henderson may be an arse, but at least he's sane. No one has ever said that about Moody... all in all, shame your not a werewolf. The work is better." Remus laughed off his shit job, and Sirius relaxed back on to the sofa. Mission accomplished.
Remus was touched by Sirius's passion. He knew his friend genuinely meant every shouted word against the Ministry's werewolf policy. He knew that Sirius would defend him to anyone. It was comforting.
But it was hollow. Sirius stood up for him because he was one of the few wizards who didn't share the general prejudice against werewolves. But Sirius did share the community's hatred of faggots, queers, poofs, pansies, gays, and Remus fit into that category as surely as he did beasts or part- humans. If Sirius knew that, he would look at Remus with every bit as much disgust as Mr. Henderson did.
Remus couldn't help but cringe at of the irony of it. He was a werewolf, a creature who was dangerous, deadly. Granted, it was only one night of the month, but it was still a real threat. Yet, even with that fact a matter of public record, he managed to find a job and friends and a home. The fact that he was gay, which was no danger to anyone, would cause him to lose all of those things he treasured if it were known.
There were few wizards who were, as Muggles phrased it 'out,' and they were cut off from everyone around them. They had no jobs, no friends, most of them didn't even have their families anymore. Almost every one who had been found out was gone. They vanished into the Muggle world where things were much better for them. Remus always hoped they were happy there, but he would never be joining them. He couldn't. Even if he were to slip up, which would never happen, and people found out, he couldn't live among Muggles. There were Muggle protection laws that forbade it. He was stuck in the wizarding world and had to make the best of it that he could.
He wouldn't have left anyway, or at least he always told himself that. Here he had friends who shocked and delighted him with their acceptance of his lycanthropy. He wouldn't leave them. They were his family, his life. But he knew that they would not look at his sexuality the same way they had his curse. Sirius may grow indignant at society's treatment of werewolves, but that was just because it was a prejudice he did not share. He did share their intolerance of homosexuality. Everyone Remus knew and cared about did. He heard the way they talked about men who were that way. He knew all of the names, the jokes, and the jibes that would be pointed at him if his friends found out what he was.
He liked to think that he could have changed this if he had known earlier. Their view on werewolves was changed because of him; knowing him personally before they knew about his curse had forced them to see beyond it. They were all still so young and so innocent then. But his sexuality, well he didn't even figure that out until he was sixteen, and by then his friends already shared the societal bigotry. It was too late for him to change their views, too late to accomplish anything. If he tried, he would just end up losing them, and that he wouldn't allow. He may not have been able to change the way he was, but he could make sure that it didn't ruin his life.
So he would hide, he would lie, he would do what he had to. He was good at it, much better than he had been at twelve when they found out he was a werewolf. And this he could control. They would never guess, he would see to that.
Remus was good at hiding. He had never dated anyone. Never even owned any pornography. Never told a soul. The only men who knew were Muggles in London. When he was too lonely, too alone, too desperate, he would find a man in one of the London clubs- never one in Scotland and never even the same one twice - or he would hire someone. He would fuck a stranger in a toilet cubical or a cheap hotel room and leave without ever giving his name or removing the glamour that hid his real face. None of them would know him if they met him again, and he doubted he would recognize any of them. They were just bodies he turned to out of weakness. The disgust it left him with was enough to ensure that it didn't happen often.
It didn't have to happen often. His imagination was much better than any of those boys. In his mind he got to fuck Sirius.
Watching Sirius talk, the way he moved, the way his lips pressed against the rim of the beer bottle, all of it reminded Remus of what he would never have. All of it reminded of him what he had seen a thousand times in his fantasies. Sometimes he couldn't watch Sirius talk without seeing those lips wrapped around his cock, couldn't watch his hands move as he talked without thinking of how he knew they would feel on his skin. Even the most mundane interaction with Sirius could leave Remus with fantasy material for weeks. He didn't need the boys in London or any cheap anonymous pornography, he had Sirius. And he wasn't about to fuck that up.
Sirius was going on about something that happened at Peter's job the week before, and Remus couldn't concentrate. He knew he had been quiet too long and that even in Sirius's talkative state of inebriation, he would realize it eventually. Remus put his half empty beer on the table, deciding that any more would just make things more difficult for him. He laughed at the appropriate times in the story and made more of an effort to keep his mind on the conversation and save his fantasies for later.
"I talked to Lily yesterday, there was some problem with the flowers. Apparently one of the ones she chose for her bouquet isn't likely to be available, something about hurricane season in the islands. She threw a fit, yelling 'what the hell is the point of being a witch if we can't even make the god forsaken flowers for a fucking wedding!' I was like eating lunch with a mad woman." Remus couldn't help but laugh, recalling the absolute rage on Lily's face over the bouquet scandal.
"Lily? Our sweet little Lily said That? Oh hell! I don't envy Prongs the next three weeks. I knew she was going insane with the plans, but I didn't know she had started swearing." Remus laughed when Sirius's drunken, dismayed head shake didn't seem to stop. He just kept moving it back and forth like a pendulum and finally ended up with it cocked on an angle destined to leave him with a crick if held for too long. Remus tried not to think of the silly position as cute or endearing. He failed.
"She not only said that, but she said it in public, and trust me, you don't want to hear about the problems with the caterers. That was so bad I thought we were going to be asked to leave the restaurant. Prongs must be about to lose his mind. I can't wait for this to just be over so they can talk about something else again."
"I know what you mean. They have been so damn boring the last few months. Can't they see that the rest of us don't give a shit about dress alterations? Why didn't they just run off to Paris for a week and have done with it, like Peter and Teresa?" Sirius said with all exasperation and no real meaning.
"If I recall correctly, and I believe I do, you were disappointed that you didn't get to see Peter's wedding. I seem to remember you going on for weeks that it was undignified to get married without telling anyone."
"I was young and foolish. I should really buy them another gift just for sparing us all the torment of a big wedding."
"Yeah, I think we owe them something grand. A new house maybe?"
Sirius opened another beer, chucking. "I was thinking flowers." Remus winced. "Okay, maybe not flowers, sorry to bring them back up, but at least something cheap. I bought the damn robes for the damn wedding yesterday. Almost a whole week's fucking pay for robes I hate. Between that and the cost of the bachelor party, you can count on me eating here for the next few weeks. How did I get lucky enough to be the best man?" His long suffering sigh would have been more effective without the grin, but not quite as *Sirius.*
"Again, my memory may be a little shaky, but I think you were the one who came up with that idea. Something to do with not trusting anyone else with the stag party."
"Again, young and foolish."
"Always young and foolish."
"Oh, great wise and aged Remus, please enlighten me in the future and prevent such juvenile mistakes." He almost managed it with a straight face and not nearly as much slurring as Remus would have anticipated, but his valiant effort was ruined when his laugh ended in an undignified snort. "But the one good thing about the fucking wedding..."
"Other than the fact that two of our dearest friends are pledging their undying love to one another, you mean."
"Yeah, other than that, is that I finally asked Michelle out. You remember Michelle, the blond from Golding's office. She's been smiling at me for weeks, but I never have any fucking time off. I hardly have time to sleep. I don't see how they expect Aurors in training to have personal lives. Haven't had a date since May, and I can't remember the last time I got laid. If this keeps up too much longer, I could permanently damage my wand hand. No healthy nineteen year old man can be expected..." Sirius's eyes regained some focus, and his tirade stopped mid sentence. "Sorry."
The look on Remus's face made it clear that this was not a conversation he wanted to hold. Not a conversation he could sit through, not tonight. He had had a few too many drinks himself, and though he wasn't close to being as pissed as Sirius, he was too far gone to listen to Sirius talk about sex. And he didn't have to. He never had to.
Remus's friends were always careful not to talk about their sexual exploits or frustrations with him. They thought they were bring sensitive. They had no idea what was really going on, he had made sure of that.
In their seventh year, when it had become obvious that he not only hadn't had a girlfriend, but wasn't looking for one, Remus told the most spectacular lie of his life. It was a stroke of genius, a moment of pride that turned his stomach to ash whenever he thought of it.
Remus told his friends that werewolves mated for life. That once he took a woman to bed, he would be bound to her, need her for the rest of his life. That he would die without her. It was bullshit. His friends knew he would never have a girlfriend, they just didn't know the real reason for it. He told them that he refused to mate, to give anyone that much power over him.
He could recall the looks on their faces perfectly. The three people he loved most wore expressions of hurt and pity like he had never seen before. He hated it, hated lying to them. Hated their pitying him, their caring so much when it was all bullshit. But it worked. It kept them from ever asking questions whose answers would leave him abandoned, friendless and alone. His lie and their compassion kept them with him. Kept Sirius coming over on Tuesday nights and Lily cooking him dinner after the moons. It was his lie that made his life bearable.
A few hours and a few more beers on Sirius's part later, the conversation slowed and Sirius's eyes began to drift closed. This was the end of almost every Tuesday night. Sirius's eyes reopened, blinking slowly and sleepily. "Mind if I stay?"
Remus smiled at the question. Sirius asked every week, and every week Remus was happy to have him. Sirius was asleep without waiting for the answer.
As Sirius noded off, Remus gathered the empties and cleared away the ashtrays and the left over bits of food. He untied and gently pulled off Sirius's boots for him, taking in the smell of fresh leather and sweaty feet - just another image of Sirius to hold on to. He took the blanket off his bed and laid it over Sirius, but not too close to his face - he hated the feel of being confined, cocooned in his bedding.
Remus stood for a moment and watched Sirius, enjoying the way his mouth was not quite closed, the way his eyelashes fluttered against his cheek and his fingers moved just a little. Remus knew his life wasn't a good one, not a life anyone would covet. He wasn't happy, not even really content, but he never had been and never expected to be. No, he wasn't happy, but he was accepting and he had his moments of joy. Watching Sirius sleep, even if it was on the sofa and only for a few minutes, would be enough. Remus knew it had to be. It was all he would get.
~*~
"Where's the beer?" Sirius called from the kitchen.
Remus was amused that it took Sirius a solid five minutes to realize he couldn't find it. Even with the kitchen door blocking his view, he could picture Sirius standing in font of the refrigerator staring at it, just waiting for a six-pack to materialize or start waving at him. When intoxicated, Sirius's brain slowed in the most remarkable fashion. He could still converse about almost anything, at least anything he could when sober, but he couldn't tie his shoes or find his wallet if his life depended on it. "Bottom drawer, behind the celery."
Sirius returned almost two minutes later, six-pack in hand and a look of triumph on his face. "Why do you own celery?"
"Man can not live on take out alone," Remus said, pitching a piece of tempura into his mouth.
"Bullshit, when was the last time you cooked more than canned soup? There is nothing in your house that I couldn't make for myself, and that says a lot about your culinary ability, my friend." Sirius finally managed to make it back to the sofa and, without dropping the beer or the half-empty whiskey bottle that had somehow found its way onto his seat, he planted himself with only a minor sway on the way down.
"I made homemade soup last week. Teresa was here giving me shit about how thin I was. The celery is just left over. They should sell it in single stalks. I only needed two but you still have to buy two dozen. It's a scam." Sirius handed him a beer, and the conversation moved with the natural flow of old friendship.
This was their Tuesday night ritual. Pick up dinner; drink whiskey seriously following the meal; and once drunk, settle in for a long night of beer and conversation. They had done this every week since leaving school over a year earlier. Peter and James had normal jobs, jobs that gave them weekends off and shifts that were over before eight at night but didn't allow them to stay up drinking with their friends when they had to work in the morning. They also had girlfriends, or in Peter's case a wife, and therefore better ways to spend their evenings. Not that Remus could think of a better way than drinking with Sirius. Well, there was one he could think of, but that wasn't for thinking about in the well-lit living room, and certainly not in Sirius's company.
Remus worked for a research firm out of Hogsmeade. Professor Dumbledore had arranged the job for him as soon as he finished Hogwarts, and the job was horrible. No, the job was easy, the environment was horrible. Everyone knew he was a werewolf; that was unavoidable. Remus knew that he was the only person who had been there more than three months and was still working on stage one development. He knew that he would be there until the day Mr. Henderson got to fire him, but since Dumbledore had gotten him the job, he wouldn't be fired unless he fucked up. And he had no intention of letting that happen. He worked too hard, harder than anyone else there, but it was what he had to do. He wasn't happy about it, but like so many things in his life, he was accepting of it.
Sirius was an Auror trainee, which means long hours, hard work, and only one day off a week. His was Wednesday. Asked for, not assigned. There was no way to get out of Moody's office on a weekend when Jim and Peter were free, and Remus liked to think that having a day off that coincided with his, allowing them to hang out, was part of Sirius's intention. It had certainly worked out that way since the beginning.
Once Sirius was back on the sofa, beer in hand and opened--with no spillage, he was slightly amazed to note--Sirius started in on one of his favorite subjects: the incompetence of the newest trainees. Remus had been hearing about this group for over a month now. If what Sirius said about them was true, then the Ministry was in trouble.
"Remus, you should see it there. I swear half the trainees haven't got a bloody clue what they're doing. Today, one of them set an anti-Apparation ward that landed all of us flat on the ground, unable to move at all. Fortunately, she wasn't even good at that and it only lasted about three minutes. Damn, the Ministry must have been desperate to have let this lot in. Fucking fools." He laughed in the lighthearted manner of the drunk and amused before becoming serious. "You *should* see it. You should fucking be there! You would know what the fuck you were doing." Sirius launched into one of his favorite rants. One of Remus's as well, truth be told. "That they won't hire you, won't even let you apply, it kills me. We need people who can stand up to a fucking curse, Aurors who know what the hell they're doing. Yeah, you would be out for two days a month, but these fucking idiots aren't worth a damn all the other 26 days."
Remus decided to end the endearing, but old tirade before Sirius, who was already up and starting to pace, became too impassioned and ruined the night. Sirius was a fun drunk until he let something like the Ministry's prejudice spoil his mood, then it would become a night of listening to him bitch and swear for hours.
"Sirius, they aren't going to change the rules about Beasts working for them, especially not now." Seeing that his rational defense was just making Sirius pace faster, boots thumping louder, Remus changed tactics. "And sorry, mate, but I will take my crap job over yours. It may suck, but I don't have to worry about anyone trying to kill me, and I don't have to do twelve-hour shifts. Henderson may be an arse, but at least he's sane. No one has ever said that about Moody... all in all, shame your not a werewolf. The work is better." Remus laughed off his shit job, and Sirius relaxed back on to the sofa. Mission accomplished.
Remus was touched by Sirius's passion. He knew his friend genuinely meant every shouted word against the Ministry's werewolf policy. He knew that Sirius would defend him to anyone. It was comforting.
But it was hollow. Sirius stood up for him because he was one of the few wizards who didn't share the general prejudice against werewolves. But Sirius did share the community's hatred of faggots, queers, poofs, pansies, gays, and Remus fit into that category as surely as he did beasts or part- humans. If Sirius knew that, he would look at Remus with every bit as much disgust as Mr. Henderson did.
Remus couldn't help but cringe at of the irony of it. He was a werewolf, a creature who was dangerous, deadly. Granted, it was only one night of the month, but it was still a real threat. Yet, even with that fact a matter of public record, he managed to find a job and friends and a home. The fact that he was gay, which was no danger to anyone, would cause him to lose all of those things he treasured if it were known.
There were few wizards who were, as Muggles phrased it 'out,' and they were cut off from everyone around them. They had no jobs, no friends, most of them didn't even have their families anymore. Almost every one who had been found out was gone. They vanished into the Muggle world where things were much better for them. Remus always hoped they were happy there, but he would never be joining them. He couldn't. Even if he were to slip up, which would never happen, and people found out, he couldn't live among Muggles. There were Muggle protection laws that forbade it. He was stuck in the wizarding world and had to make the best of it that he could.
He wouldn't have left anyway, or at least he always told himself that. Here he had friends who shocked and delighted him with their acceptance of his lycanthropy. He wouldn't leave them. They were his family, his life. But he knew that they would not look at his sexuality the same way they had his curse. Sirius may grow indignant at society's treatment of werewolves, but that was just because it was a prejudice he did not share. He did share their intolerance of homosexuality. Everyone Remus knew and cared about did. He heard the way they talked about men who were that way. He knew all of the names, the jokes, and the jibes that would be pointed at him if his friends found out what he was.
He liked to think that he could have changed this if he had known earlier. Their view on werewolves was changed because of him; knowing him personally before they knew about his curse had forced them to see beyond it. They were all still so young and so innocent then. But his sexuality, well he didn't even figure that out until he was sixteen, and by then his friends already shared the societal bigotry. It was too late for him to change their views, too late to accomplish anything. If he tried, he would just end up losing them, and that he wouldn't allow. He may not have been able to change the way he was, but he could make sure that it didn't ruin his life.
So he would hide, he would lie, he would do what he had to. He was good at it, much better than he had been at twelve when they found out he was a werewolf. And this he could control. They would never guess, he would see to that.
Remus was good at hiding. He had never dated anyone. Never even owned any pornography. Never told a soul. The only men who knew were Muggles in London. When he was too lonely, too alone, too desperate, he would find a man in one of the London clubs- never one in Scotland and never even the same one twice - or he would hire someone. He would fuck a stranger in a toilet cubical or a cheap hotel room and leave without ever giving his name or removing the glamour that hid his real face. None of them would know him if they met him again, and he doubted he would recognize any of them. They were just bodies he turned to out of weakness. The disgust it left him with was enough to ensure that it didn't happen often.
It didn't have to happen often. His imagination was much better than any of those boys. In his mind he got to fuck Sirius.
Watching Sirius talk, the way he moved, the way his lips pressed against the rim of the beer bottle, all of it reminded Remus of what he would never have. All of it reminded of him what he had seen a thousand times in his fantasies. Sometimes he couldn't watch Sirius talk without seeing those lips wrapped around his cock, couldn't watch his hands move as he talked without thinking of how he knew they would feel on his skin. Even the most mundane interaction with Sirius could leave Remus with fantasy material for weeks. He didn't need the boys in London or any cheap anonymous pornography, he had Sirius. And he wasn't about to fuck that up.
Sirius was going on about something that happened at Peter's job the week before, and Remus couldn't concentrate. He knew he had been quiet too long and that even in Sirius's talkative state of inebriation, he would realize it eventually. Remus put his half empty beer on the table, deciding that any more would just make things more difficult for him. He laughed at the appropriate times in the story and made more of an effort to keep his mind on the conversation and save his fantasies for later.
"I talked to Lily yesterday, there was some problem with the flowers. Apparently one of the ones she chose for her bouquet isn't likely to be available, something about hurricane season in the islands. She threw a fit, yelling 'what the hell is the point of being a witch if we can't even make the god forsaken flowers for a fucking wedding!' I was like eating lunch with a mad woman." Remus couldn't help but laugh, recalling the absolute rage on Lily's face over the bouquet scandal.
"Lily? Our sweet little Lily said That? Oh hell! I don't envy Prongs the next three weeks. I knew she was going insane with the plans, but I didn't know she had started swearing." Remus laughed when Sirius's drunken, dismayed head shake didn't seem to stop. He just kept moving it back and forth like a pendulum and finally ended up with it cocked on an angle destined to leave him with a crick if held for too long. Remus tried not to think of the silly position as cute or endearing. He failed.
"She not only said that, but she said it in public, and trust me, you don't want to hear about the problems with the caterers. That was so bad I thought we were going to be asked to leave the restaurant. Prongs must be about to lose his mind. I can't wait for this to just be over so they can talk about something else again."
"I know what you mean. They have been so damn boring the last few months. Can't they see that the rest of us don't give a shit about dress alterations? Why didn't they just run off to Paris for a week and have done with it, like Peter and Teresa?" Sirius said with all exasperation and no real meaning.
"If I recall correctly, and I believe I do, you were disappointed that you didn't get to see Peter's wedding. I seem to remember you going on for weeks that it was undignified to get married without telling anyone."
"I was young and foolish. I should really buy them another gift just for sparing us all the torment of a big wedding."
"Yeah, I think we owe them something grand. A new house maybe?"
Sirius opened another beer, chucking. "I was thinking flowers." Remus winced. "Okay, maybe not flowers, sorry to bring them back up, but at least something cheap. I bought the damn robes for the damn wedding yesterday. Almost a whole week's fucking pay for robes I hate. Between that and the cost of the bachelor party, you can count on me eating here for the next few weeks. How did I get lucky enough to be the best man?" His long suffering sigh would have been more effective without the grin, but not quite as *Sirius.*
"Again, my memory may be a little shaky, but I think you were the one who came up with that idea. Something to do with not trusting anyone else with the stag party."
"Again, young and foolish."
"Always young and foolish."
"Oh, great wise and aged Remus, please enlighten me in the future and prevent such juvenile mistakes." He almost managed it with a straight face and not nearly as much slurring as Remus would have anticipated, but his valiant effort was ruined when his laugh ended in an undignified snort. "But the one good thing about the fucking wedding..."
"Other than the fact that two of our dearest friends are pledging their undying love to one another, you mean."
"Yeah, other than that, is that I finally asked Michelle out. You remember Michelle, the blond from Golding's office. She's been smiling at me for weeks, but I never have any fucking time off. I hardly have time to sleep. I don't see how they expect Aurors in training to have personal lives. Haven't had a date since May, and I can't remember the last time I got laid. If this keeps up too much longer, I could permanently damage my wand hand. No healthy nineteen year old man can be expected..." Sirius's eyes regained some focus, and his tirade stopped mid sentence. "Sorry."
The look on Remus's face made it clear that this was not a conversation he wanted to hold. Not a conversation he could sit through, not tonight. He had had a few too many drinks himself, and though he wasn't close to being as pissed as Sirius, he was too far gone to listen to Sirius talk about sex. And he didn't have to. He never had to.
Remus's friends were always careful not to talk about their sexual exploits or frustrations with him. They thought they were bring sensitive. They had no idea what was really going on, he had made sure of that.
In their seventh year, when it had become obvious that he not only hadn't had a girlfriend, but wasn't looking for one, Remus told the most spectacular lie of his life. It was a stroke of genius, a moment of pride that turned his stomach to ash whenever he thought of it.
Remus told his friends that werewolves mated for life. That once he took a woman to bed, he would be bound to her, need her for the rest of his life. That he would die without her. It was bullshit. His friends knew he would never have a girlfriend, they just didn't know the real reason for it. He told them that he refused to mate, to give anyone that much power over him.
He could recall the looks on their faces perfectly. The three people he loved most wore expressions of hurt and pity like he had never seen before. He hated it, hated lying to them. Hated their pitying him, their caring so much when it was all bullshit. But it worked. It kept them from ever asking questions whose answers would leave him abandoned, friendless and alone. His lie and their compassion kept them with him. Kept Sirius coming over on Tuesday nights and Lily cooking him dinner after the moons. It was his lie that made his life bearable.
A few hours and a few more beers on Sirius's part later, the conversation slowed and Sirius's eyes began to drift closed. This was the end of almost every Tuesday night. Sirius's eyes reopened, blinking slowly and sleepily. "Mind if I stay?"
Remus smiled at the question. Sirius asked every week, and every week Remus was happy to have him. Sirius was asleep without waiting for the answer.
As Sirius noded off, Remus gathered the empties and cleared away the ashtrays and the left over bits of food. He untied and gently pulled off Sirius's boots for him, taking in the smell of fresh leather and sweaty feet - just another image of Sirius to hold on to. He took the blanket off his bed and laid it over Sirius, but not too close to his face - he hated the feel of being confined, cocooned in his bedding.
Remus stood for a moment and watched Sirius, enjoying the way his mouth was not quite closed, the way his eyelashes fluttered against his cheek and his fingers moved just a little. Remus knew his life wasn't a good one, not a life anyone would covet. He wasn't happy, not even really content, but he never had been and never expected to be. No, he wasn't happy, but he was accepting and he had his moments of joy. Watching Sirius sleep, even if it was on the sofa and only for a few minutes, would be enough. Remus knew it had to be. It was all he would get.