A/N: Written for The 2012 Hogwarts Games (Event: Cycling – BMX) at the HPFC forum.
Thanks to my beta-reader mew-tsubaki.
Dedicated to lunalestrange4 and Amy is Rockin.
Breathe in, breathe out, & kiss him back
Remus wonders.
He wonders why he sometimes feels as though he's from another time, that he's much older and has lived much longer than Sirius, James, and Peter, whom he—at least when they are having a let's-see-who-can-stand-on-our-heads-the-longest competition—thinks know so little that they were born yesterday.
Because Remus is sitting in an armchair with a book in his lap and watching James grow redder and redder in his face, watching Peter's legs wobble dangerously, and watching Sirius laugh so much there are tears running down his cheeks. And even if Remus smiles, the book is there, and he makes no attempt of moving it.
He wonders why he isn't there, next to them, having his hair hanging down in his mouth and having to spit to get rid of it.
::::
Sirius never wonders.
Sirius knows things. He knows everything that's worth knowing. Of course, he also knows that Remus knows a lot of things, but Sirius knows more important things.
Remus is actually rather clueless. At least when it comes to those Important Things. Remus, for one, doesn't know that Sirius actually, deep-down-underneath-it-all, likes him.
Well, at first Sirius didn't know it either. But when he did know, when he all of a sudden knew, then he knew it very well. It had been hard trying to discern it at first, what it was that he knew. But, suddenly, it had hit him. And when it had, there was nothing to question.
Sirius knows that Remus has to figure it out soon, or Sirius will burst and splash boy-limbs and pieces of robes all over the common room, or wherever he's standing in that moment.
::::
Remus wonders.
He wonders why he suddenly has Sirius pressed up against him. He also wonders why he hadn't been prepared for this the slightest, and he also wonders why it feels so good.
And he wonders if this is right, if it's appropriate, what it means, and why he's so scared, and why…
Then he wonders why he pulls Sirius off. Because the way Sirius looks at him is horrible; he's never seen him look like that before, and the absence of Sirius…it's weird. Before, he never felt like this when Sirius' lips aren't there, on his, because he hadn't known he was missing them.
And that makes absolutely no sense, so Remus wonders why he isn't making sense. Logic and him—they were the pair that couldn't be separated. But not anymore. Not when Sirius looks at him like that.
Remus wonders what he should do.
::::
Sirius never wonders.
He doesn't wonder why things went so wrong, he doesn't wonder what he should do to make Remus understand, and he doesn't wonder why he wants to go and drown himself in the Black Lake.
He does not.
Neither does he wonder why Remus' fingers shake, neither does he wonder why he himself speaks in a voice that sounds like someone else's and says "Okay, I was just trying; it doesn't mean something."
And he doesn't wonder why he walks away after that, and he doesn't wonder why Remus doesn't follow him.
And when he arrives at their common room again, he doesn't wonder if everything is destroyed now, because of him.
::::
Suddenly, Remus stops wondering, but he worries.
He worries, so bad. Their eyes don't meet anymore, and they must, because what would happen if they weren't Marauders anymore? They were going to rule the world, or mostly Sirius and James, since Remus never really had understood that and Peter seemed just to go with the flow if they would someday find themselves on top of the world, but they were. And now…now it looks as though everything's destroyed.
So Remus worries.
And maybe he worries so bad that people are beginning to notice. Because James isn't smiling as he usually is when they eat breakfast. And Peter isn't crunching as loudly as he usually is when eating toast, but instead he stares at Remus and Sirius.
When James then asks them—and Remus has taken two seconds to worry over why he gets a pleasant feeling in his stomach from being included in a "them" with Sirius, as if he never has been so before—"What's going on?" Remus worries even more.
Because Sirius smiles heartily at James, and yet it's nowhere close to being Sirius, who's supposed to grin and glare and glint and gaze, and never, ever be heartily or booming or pompous, and then he says "Nothing, pal" and that makes Remus worried.
Remus is worried, apparently, and it feels as though nothing can calm him down anymore.
::::
Sirius regrets that he doesn't know things anymore.
And he regrets a lot of other things, as well. He regrets beginning to regret, because it's only making things (those things he knows nothing about anymore) worse, because then he's thinking about them, and he wants to forget it all.
He also regrets what he's done, but that's something he's regretted so much over these last couple of days that it feels so normal that it's not even worth stating.
But most of all, he regrets that he doesn't know things anymore. Before, everything was so easy; he always had the answer, to everything. He could answer Peter's questions about growing-up-and-separating, with a simple "We won't, Petey," and he could answer James' questions about why-doesn't-she-like-me-oh-why with a slap on his back and a "She's just a girl; she'll come to her senses soon enough," and he could even answer Remus' questions about where-have-you-been-all-night-we-have-a-test-tomorrow with a cheeky grin and a "You really don't want to know, Moony."
Now Remus never asks him anything. And Peter doesn't either; he's mostly quiet and watching him and Remus with huge, worried eyes. James isn't quiet at all, though; he's even louder than usual, but he doesn't ask things anymore. He says nothing of importance; really, he just blabbers on as if he fears the silence will kill him.
And, well, maybe Sirius does know why they're acting like that, but he regrets that he doesn't know how to make things go back to normal.
::::
Remus surprises himself. Which is most worrisome. It makes an alert go off in him, a bell chant in his head "REMUS LUPIN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" whenever it happens, whenever he catches himself staring out into nothing and remembering Sirius' lips against his.
And even that surprises him. How he doesn't freak out—or at least not the few first seconds he reenacts that moment in front of his eyes. It's not until maybe the fifth or sixth second that he freaks out.
The first second the only thought is "Sirius' lips." The second, there is nothing but "They're so soft," and by the third his mind starts to wonder "Or am I imagining that softness?" and by the fourth he wonders "Why am I imagining this again?" and then the freak-out comes. Sometimes it comes directly in the fifth, but sometimes the fifth is filled with emptiness, and his mind is a complete blank.
But the freak-out, the surprise—it all comes, eventually.
And isn't that a surprise in itself? That it sometimes, not always (because this happens more and more frequently, several times a day, the exact same scenario), is the freak-out instead of the imagining-thing that is the surprise.
Because sometimes, like just now when Remus sees Sirius chewing on his quill and looking across the common room at James and Peter who have upturned a sofa for some unknown and apparently very important if-we-want-to-uphold-our-reputation-as-Marauders reason, Remus thinks for approximately one millisecond "Why should I freak out? Why is it such a big deal that I'm thinking of his lips? Why can't that only be a pleasant surprise to me, looking at Sirius' lips and reminiscing?" and surprises himself by thinking this, because it is in such a very calm, composed manner.
But then Sirius surprises him by grabbing his hand and walking out of the common room, and that's so surprising that everything about freak-outs is forgotten.
:::
Sirius is upset. He doesn't know why, and it doesn't feel like him, but he can't help it. He feels as though he's going to start crying, and he doesn't want to do that.
But when he saw Remus' eyes focused on him (and yes, he did look behind himself three times just to make sure it wasn't someone else—but behind him was only the wall and Remus couldn't possibly be staring at a wall that way, could he?), he had to do something to ease the unsettledness that was stirring beneath his heart root.
And so he'd risen, not quite thinking, and brought the still-staring-Remus out with him. And Remus had followed, as though it was completely normal that Sirius did such things.
Which is also quite upsetting, because one time, before all this happened, it would be completely normal for them. It would be as normal as waking up at the foot-end of Peter's bed clutching his socks, or as normal as finishing off James' breakfast cereals because he liked them crunchy and Sirius liked them soft, so they always shared a bowl, or as normal as pulling Remus out with him to the corridor without a warning.
But what is more upsetting is that, when they have walked down the corridor a bit, Remus pulls his hand out of Sirius' grasp as though he's been burned.
That is indeed upsetting.
:::
Remus is cautious. His hands have begun to sweat and Sirius isn't looking at him at all but down at his feet and now Remus rambles even in his thoughts.
He opens his mouth to ask "What is it, Padfoot?" because that would be the standard question to being pulled away like this, but no words come out.
It makes him even more cautious—what if he's become mute? He tries again, this time to ask "Did you want something?" but this time nothing happens either.
He starts to panic now, and so he opens his mouth anew, aiming for saying "Yes, Pads? Wanted to show me something?" but it's hopelessly quiet on his side.
He's desperate now, so when he blurts out, "I didn't mean not to kiss you back that other day; it just happened. I was too surprised," it's with the thought that Merlin-if-I-don't-say-something-soon-I'm-going-to-die.
And then Sirius' lifts his head and Remus realizes what he just said and now he's really, really cautious.
:::
Sirius is in doubt, but not quite. It's more like that "Oh dear, I can't believe my ears" you say when you in fact do believe your ears, but you're so happy you don't know how else to express yourself.
And there's bound to be a huge grin on his lips but he can't stop it either, because well, he's really happy right now and he still can't quite believe Remus said what he said. But judging from the look on Remus' face, he did say it, because Remus looks as though he wants to go die in a hole somewhere.
Of which Sirius is a great adversary, so he quickly says, "Oh dear, I can't believe my ears," because it's the first thing that comes to his mind, and he needs to say something as quickly as possible so Remus doesn't have time to find that hole.
Remus looks confusedly at him, and Sirius realizes what he's said, so he shakes his head and says, "I mean, no, I mean, I'm glad to—"
But Remus stops him and says, "You look like Padfoot when you shake your head like that."
"You used to say that," Sirius says, and now he's doubting again because this isn't the avoiding-Remus in front of him, so he decides to kiss him.
And Remus kisses him back and he can't believe his lips.