29th October, 1980
Remus feels the blush rising to his cheeks, burning just like the way Sirius' kisses do, just like the way his lips leave a trail of flames dancing on his skin. He's being burnt alive, he knows all too well; he's buried beneath the earth and he's drowning in an open sea, but it all feels too good to recoil from, so he lets himself be held there, lets himself have long fingers trace circles across his body, lets his lips open to welcome a new kind of touch.
He's moaning. Oh God, is he moaning. He craves this feeling, these fleeted moments when they're not Padfoot or Moony, or part of the Order, where they're just Sirius and Remus and they're two boys that need this closeness, that need this fire and security. Two boys forced too grow up much too fast, forced to adapt too young.
But it doesn't last, because Sirius pulls away, just like he always does, and his face wears that mask that hides all emotions - that conceals what Remus wants to know that he feels, too. They pause, Sirius' arms still propped up against the wall and holding the other in check, though it's a futile and unnecessary precaution because Remus would never leave the sacred place, would never voluntarily move from in between this heat.
Then Sirius sighs and Remus doesn't ask about it, because he already knows and that's why they're there and not hidden away beneath bedsheets; why they're standing in an empty alley, pressed against sandstone walls and trying and failing to imagine that they're elsewhere. That's what anyone ever does now, he supposes.
"I'm sorry," Sirius mutters, his lips close - so close - to Remus' ear, his breaths like taunts for what cannot be attained. Now now, Remus thinks. Maybe some day, but not now. "I shouldn't have done that."
But Remus' fingers snake their way around Sirius' shirt, pulling him in for one last kiss, for one last try at what he's always wanted. Infernos blaze beneath his skin, lava coursing through his veins and to his face where he turns the same colour. Sirius' hand falls to rest against Remus' cheek, almost reluctant as it always is, and they break away and can only stare.
Remus breaks the silence, because he can't stand it any longer. "It's fine." He can't find it within him to say things in more than a whisper, not since everything happened; not since the first massacre and the beginning of their end. He presses his lips to a scar across Sirius' cheek, knowing that it was him that had given it to him so many years prior, and then shakes his head.
"We can't keep doing this," says Sirius, hands falling to his side. "I can't - I've got to stop."
"Don't stop," Remus mumbles, and Sirius doesn't, because it's always been a routine of theirs. Because they always find each other and they always seek this warmth, this comfort. Because they always find refuge in one another's embrace. "Don't ever stop."
"I've got to."
"But I don't want that."
"This is above you. Above us."
"Sirius..."
"I'm sorry."
There's a faint pop and he's gone, but Remus knows he'll be back.
He always comes back.