Sirius held a quill between his lips. Two fingers, the tips calloused already, propped it up as he used a thumb to stroke its onyx plumage. He allowed himself to close his drooping eyelids and calm his breathing, even if only for a second.
His hand let go of the quill but he kept it steady with his teeth.
On the table, discarded in front of him, lay stacks of unrolled parchment. He had thrown them all down in frustration earlier in the night, hoping distance would grant him clarity. Focus, he told himself. Write something.
His mind felt hazy, as if it were covered in oily film or surrounded by fog. He hadn't touched a shot of Firewhisky in weeks, too afraid to do something foolish, but he still couldn't wash himself of this cloudiness.
He couldn't sleep.
At best, he was able to rest fitfully for three hours a night before waking up in a cold sweat, one name ("Remus") reverberating in his head and sticking to the tip of his tongue. Sirius was tired, and it showed. Even Prongs, who daily noticed little other than the fiery swing of Lily's hair, asked him about his restlessness the other week, eyes swimming with concern.
He had muttered something about anxiety and ignored James's scoff of disbelief. Sirius had never been anxious of anything. His life, in so many ways, was like a daydream; his coffers overflowed with Galleons, the blood coursing through his veins ran pure and deep, and his physique rivaled that of the stars. There was little to worry about. But still he stayed up at night, ruminating over his passions: his passion. There was only one thing that kept him up at night, one thought that swirled in his mind throughout the day.
Fluttering his milky eyelids open, Sirius kicked himself off the chair he sat in and moved to the armchairs by the fireplace. He was content to stay, watch the crackling embers of the fire ignite and burst and fall to ashes in a pile near the wood.
Several quiet moments had passed until he noticed a figure, its shadow lean and fluid, approach him slowly.
The light caught it then: its torso draped with blue cotton, its legs long, its arms slowly turning to cradle the back of Sirius's own chair. Its fingers close enough to wrap themselves in his dark hair.
Sirius looked back and into the face of Remus Lupin.
Sirius's gaze ran over his eyes, clear brown but illuminated golden by the flames; his thin, crooked nose; his mouth wide and framed by chapped pink lips. Remus leaned in and sighed.
"You should sleep," he rasped.
"So should you," Sirius returned, smiling faintly.
Remus pouted, his bottom lip sticking down and out, and ran a hand through his ruffled brown hair before shrugging and plopping his wiry body down on the chair next to his. "Yeah. But I can't sleep."
"Why?"
They knew why.
"Nightmares," Remus explained awkwardly, rubbing his temples with a bony hand. Sirius looked into the fire again. "But you haven't been sleeping at all lately."
Glancing at him, Sirius nodded. "Nightmares."
"I know," replied Remus simply. His voice was quiet, almost inaudible, but his pitch had only become lower and more rumbly. Sirius could hear the vibrations in his chest, could see the bobbing in his Adam's apple as he spoke.
Sirius swallowed.
They sat like this, intermittently staring at the fire and then at one another, for a long while. Neither spoke a word until, finally, Sirius broke the silence with a whimper.
"Moony," he said, plaintive, pleading. He was begging, he realized, looking at Remus with hooded eyes, for something. For him.
Remus walked a few steps towards him and knelt down, his head near Sirius's knees, before taking the other's hands in his own.
"How long are we going to avoid this?" asked Remus softly, rubbing his own skinny thumb along the outline of Sirius's fingers.
Sirius closed his eyes again and inhaled deep. "I don't know."
"Let's stop."
Sirius opened his eyes, staring straight at Remus's own, who glared at him in challenge.
Without saying a word, he removed his hands from Remus's grasp before grabbing Remus by the collar of his night clothes and pulling him up so their faces almost touched. And then they did.
He wet his lips with his tongue before gently taking Remus's sharp jaw in his hands and crashing their lips together.
At some point, Sirius's eyes shut and he thought of nothing but the taste of him, the feel of Remus's mouth and tongue moving against his own. They kissed with urgency.
Sirius eventually let go of Remus's jaw and began clawing at his shirt, rubbing his hands across his muscled shoulders and down his firm back then back again, fingers roaming exploratory. He heard Remus moan in the back of his throat and kissed him stronger, and faster, and eventually they stood and somehow he was backed against a wall and gasping for air.
"Sirius," Remus groaned after a minute of them standing next to one another, panting. "Why did we wait so long to do this?"
"I don't know," Sirius replied, smiling wide before kissing Remus once more.
They might still have trouble sleeping, he thought, but there would be no more nightmares.