It was early in the term and Remus was outside reading. He sat on a bench in one of the courtyards with a book he hadn't managed to get to the end of during the summer break. There was as little left of the book as of the summer, and Remus was enjoying the ending of both.
He hadn't seen his friends since noon, as they had been to different classes. Remus has chosen to continue History of Magic and – after professor Slughorn expressing concerns that he might not be able to keep up – had dropped Potions. He knew that James and Sirius had been in Potions class, but Peter had dropped both History of Magic and Potions, so Remus honestly didn't know what he could be doing. It was a good thing though; being away from his friends for a bit meant he would finally have time to finish his book.
"Sup faggot," Sirius said with a wry smile and slid down next to Remus just as he was turning a page.
Remus sighed, closed the book and gave Sirius a dirty look.
"What?" Sirius said with an indignant look. "I'm allowed to say that."
"Yes," Remus agreed. "That doesn't mean you have to, though."
Sirius shrugged and looked away from Remus. Sirius had been out to his friends for years but had only come out to the general populace of Hogwarts at one of Slughorn's parties a couple of weeks earlier. Remus hadn't been present when it happened, as out of the four of them only James and Sirius had been invited. He still wasn't entirely sure what had happened, but he did know that it was an accident – probably caused by drunkenness, if he knew Sirius and Slughorn's parties right – and now the whole school was whispering about it. Remus knew that really bothered Sirius; he'd never liked people talking about him behind his back.
"Do you think they'd talk as much if it'd been you?" He asked after a long silence.
Remus had told his friends long ago that he was bisexual – not with that word though, as he hadn't know it then – but he had never bothered to share it with anyone else. He considered Sirius' question for a bit, then shook his head.
"You're more popular and well-known than me…" He paused. "And you're a Black. The 'Heir to the Black Family'. That's probably what's getting the purebloods going."
Sirius harrumphed.
"Not anymore. I'm a blood traitor now, remember? You'd think they'd expect something like this. "
"They rarely do," Remus merely said, looking down at his book.
Remus could feel Sirius' eyes on him and he looked up in time to see a lifted eyebrow.
"What do you mean?"
Remus looked away again.
"They rarely expect anyone to be gay, bi or… anything but exactly like themselves, really," He finally said. "And they think they can tell when people are."
Sirius sighed and slumped down on the bench.
"It's a mess, isn't it?"
Remus didn't answer; he didn't think he had to. Sirius didn't bug him for an answer either, he stayed silent and a contemplative look came over him. Remus went back to his book. He had to go back a couple of sentences to remember where he was, and leaned forward in his seat to get the book out of the shadow that had emerged, but he got a good way further into the book before Sirius said anything.
"Why does it bother you when I say it?" Sirius asked.
It took Remus a minute to understand what Sirius was talking about.
"It reminds me of bad things," he said without looking at Sirius. "When you live in a small muggle town it seems to be the vilest insult the boys can call each other; I've seen fights start by one guy calling another that."
They were both silent for a bit. They were almost alone in the courtyard as the weather had gotten worse and dinner neared.
"You know, this summer, I went to a bigger town near ours and I tried to find out where people like us would be a Friday night."
"Don't call it 'people like us'" Sirius interrupted and pulled a face. "It makes it sound so… secretive and… like that's all we are."
"It is secretive though, don't you understand? While I was in that town, I saw a guy being beaten for it."
Sirius' eyes went wide and he looked almost stunned. He reached for Remus' hand and Remus let him take it.
"They kept shouting that word and…" Remus bit his lip and shook his head. "It's not that you can't use it, I'd just rather you didn't call me that. Use it about yourself if you want to but…"
Remus was interrupted when Sirius drew him into a tight hug.
"I'll stop." He simply said, still holding Remus close.
Remus put his arms around Sirius too. Sirius was bigger than him, both by nature and from being one of Gryffindor's beaters for the last 3 years. Remus didn't feel intimidated by Sirius' bigger figure though; he felt safe. His friends had always protected and accepted him, and he could even begin to describe how much that meant to him. A poor, half-blood, bisexual werewolf was probably not the most desirable of friends, and yet here they were. On the other hand, a gay blood traitor was probably not that coveted either. They were a fine pair, the two of them.
They stayed like that for a long while. Remus had no idea how long. He had simply been enjoying Sirius' arms around him until he heard a voice he knew very well.
"Have you two finally admitted your latent homosexual feelings for each other?"
They both looked up. And there he was, James Potter, standing right beside them, beaming at them like the twat he was.
Remus blushed and was about to protest but only got some spluttering out.
"Shut up, James," Sirius said and buried his head in Remus' shoulder, which only increased both Remus' blushing and James' beaming.
Remus shook his head and took some time to get a hold of himself, until he couldn't feel warmth on his cheeks anymore.
"Where've you been, anyway?" Remus demanded.
"He's been running around after Evans, of course," Sirius mumble against his shoulder. Right, there was the blushing back.
"She said I was less of a twat than usual!" He said with far greater excitement than Remus thought was justifiable.
"Wooow," Remus said dryly. "Truly, you are on your path to matrimony already."
"I know right!" James said and did something Remus could only describe as giggle.
"Did you lose your ability to detect sarcasm the same time you lost the rest of your senses, or have you secretly always been like this?"
"You can say whatever you want; I don't care!" James said, still beaming. "Lily said something positive about me!"
A dreamy look came over him and it was obvious no amount of biting comments would get through to him. Remus therefore choose not to question how positive what Lily had said had actually been.
"So, do any of you actually know where Peter is?" Remus asked in hope that the conversation could get away from romantic entanglements.
"Sleeping, probably," Sirius said still leaning on Remus and still with his head on Remus' shoulder.
"Right." Remus said. "Would you get off my shoulder before it falls off?"
"Nah," Sirius said and Remus sighed again.
They continued to sit like that while James danced about reciting love poems about Lily or something to that effect. Remus had chosen to believe that was what he was doing and he honestly didn't believe it could be that far off. None of them talked to each other until Remus got an idea.
"You know, dinner has started, we should go wake Peter and get in there before the tables are cleared."
Sirius still didn't move, but suddenly James had a weird look in his eyes.
"I'll go wake Pete! You two just stay right here. In the courtyard. Alone."
James waggled his eyebrows, then ran off and Remus shook his head at him.
"He's really laying it on thick, isn't he? I mean just because we both…"
He trailed of as Sirius had finally lifted his head from Remus' shoulder and had lifted his left hand to Remus' cheek. Remus began blushing again. He wanted to say something but he didn't know what. Sirius didn't say anything; he just looked at him clearly considering something. He moved closer, but gave Remus time to back away if he wanted, but Remus didn't do anything until Sirius' lips was almost on his own. He had been too surprised to act but with Sirius so close, he wasn't in doubt of what he should do. He moved into the kiss, nervously, keenly aware that he didn't have any experience, but when Sirius began kissing him it didn't matter. It wasn't long or even, in retrospect, especially good, but it was their first kiss and Remus cherished it. When it was done, Sirius gave him a simple, happy smile, without any of the edges that could usually be found in it.
"Come on, dorks, want some food or what?" James yelled from the gate.
Sirius got up and yelled:
"Who's a dork? Weren't you giggling about Evans just five minutes ago?"
"Well at least I didn't wait years to snog a person who clearly liked me back!" He yelled back.
"Dorks!" He exclaimed again and gave them a curt nod to confirm that that was indeed what they were, before running back into the castle.
"We should probably eat," Sirius said while scratching his neck.
"Yes," Remus said and took Sirius' hand. "We should."