Yellow


Author's Note: This is depressing...


Look at the stars,

Look how they shine for you,

And everything you do...

Yellow. Yellow thread.

Dulled grey eyes watched on as numb fingers worried at brightly colored stitching that had just started to come undone on the inside wrist of a solid black hoodie. The young wizard assaulting the contrasting thread, sat on the edge of a king-sized bed covered by a black duvet and situated in the center of a depressingly large and dimly lit bedroom. Black painted walls stood tall around dark furniture and even darker floors, their presence heavy on the wizard's slouched shoulders. Blood-red curtains were pulled tightly over arched windows, blocking out any light that may have made it through the heavy clouds hovering over Twelve Grimmauld and its future heir.

Sirius Black began to work in earnest at pulling the stitching out that didn't look like it belonged or wanted to be there. He hated expensive clothing. If he was wearing a cheaper black hoodie, the stitching would probably be black too, and he'd have never even noticed. It would blend in. But instead, he was sitting on his bed at home and not at school despite it being a school day, wearing a black sweatshirt with yellow threading that was coming loose, and it looked like absolute shit, because it was so damn noticeable, almost glowing it was so fucking bright

A tight exhale escaped tingling lips, and smoke grey eyes refused to look away from the loose thread.

Yes, Sirius Black, the heir to the noble and most acient house hated expensive clothing. But maybe more so, he hated the color yellow... because it was bright and soft and hopeful, and it wasn't anything like black, or red - the only colors surrounding him at that moment and the ones Sirius would probably be if he were a color and not a wizard (Although, black was really just a shade if he had to call it, but he wasn't in the mood to analyze the implications of that). No, yellow was the color of the sun, and flowers, and the hue to the edges of the pages of a certain werewolf's favorite books, that were so old they'd begun to have a different scent, like some of the texts in the library at Hogwarts, the ones in the muggle history section where the author didn't want the preservation spell put on them in some type of 'life mimics art mimics life' bullshit. They smelled sweet.

Eyes fell shut and fingers stilled, his mind drawing so far in, they were no longer noticed, the tangent of his thoughts having brought him somewhere predictably unplanned. Unwanted.

Because yellow was other things too... Like the color Remus had magicked the text on Sirius's favorite magazine when they'd been the only ones in the dorm to stay last Christmas break. Because he had complained for over an hour solid after dinner time as they lay in their respective beds that black was too boring and just utterly depressing and why couldn't font ever be a bloody different color, Remus? when he had been in one of his moods, because the holidays always had that effect on him.

And the magicked yellow font had been too light and a huge eyesore to read, and he hadn't known how to change it back, and that should have pissed him off greatly, but instead it had made Sirius laugh, because he hadn't thought Remus had it in him to charm a written work, even if it was just a magazine on Quidditch.

He had kissed him after that, with his lips and his tongue and hands that had pulled them closer, as close as they could manage, because if Remus could do something to surprise Sirius so completely, then Sirius could surprise him back. It was only fair. And Remus had definitely been surprised. It had been their first kiss.

Slate eyes opened back, even dimmer than before as they stared down at the ruined sleeve. He supposed he could buy a new one, throw this one out, he didn't need it. He had the money. One that had red or grey threading maybe, because blending in was a little depressing if he was being completely honest. He began to wind the piece of thread around his pointer and middle finger slowly, he was in no hurry. Then he began to pull and his eyes hardened, mimicking the object they most resembled, what his heart must be made of. He hadn't know rocks could pulse. And he felt nothing as he watched the too sturdy threads tighten around his fingers, the tips darkening slowly as blood flow ceased to transfer between his hand and the two outermost digits. Suffocating. He had heard it was painful. He wanted to feel something again, it hadn't been long, it had only been two days, but it had been the longest two days he had ever endured.

He pulled harder, but the string held strong, its high thread count besting him as it dug sharply into his skin—

"Sirius, your father wants to see you now."

Sirius stopped, the thread slowly loosening as he looked up to see his mother, Walburga Black. The tall witch stood in the doorway, her expression dark and glazed as she held what was probably not her first drink of the day at only two in the evening, her freshly manicured nails a deep blood red.

"Did you hear me? He's waiting in his study."

He felt himself nod woodenly at the curtly delivered words, and his feet and legs did the hard work and pushed him up off his bed. He wasn't worried this time, like he had been all the times before. Whatever the punishment he was given, he would welcome it with open arms. Because that's what someone did when they truly deserved something, wasn't it? And he definitely deserved whatever he got.


"Do you want to shag?"

Calm hazel eyes slowly shifted up from their focus on the book before them to land on a set of excited grey ones.

A sixteen-year-old Remus remained on his stomach, sprawled on his bed with long legs criss-cross in the air behind him, a book of Eastern shorts lay open before him, the only visible reaction to the blurted words a tensing in his calves and in the muscles around his mouth. He stared back evenly at one widely grinning Sirius Black, standing breathless just inside their dorm and blocking the closed door behind him. "I'm sorry..?"

Sirius held the grin. "Shag, Remus, do you want to shag?" he said, enunciating each word to remove any doubt, because there was definitely no room for it. It had been two months since they'd first kissed. Well, since they had kissed, 'first' would imply there had been another, and there hadn't, much to Sirius's ever growing regret. Because Remus had avoided his private company like the plague after their snog - and it had been a proper snog - because there had been groping, lots of it and on both sides... at least, Sirius had thought at the time. When Remus had pulled back, his lips swollen, chest heaving and eyes wide he'd waited for some type of response. He'd gotten a hoarsely whispered 'I have to go' and a MIA friend until James and Peter had shown up the next morning.

He'd been okay with it at first (as okay as a bloke could be in such a situation), reasoning Remus, ever the careful wizard, was only sorting out how best to proceed with their unexpected-and-admittedly-unconventional-but-still—very much—mutual attraction. But now, now he wasn't so sure anymore, not after so long, and he needed to find out, but there were only two ways he'd figured to do that without running the risk of being reassigned to Slytherin: kiss him again... or ask him. Sirius'd quickly chosen the first option, pretending the latter didn't actually exist, but it had proved impossible to do so in private, what with Remus having become so unnaturally good at avoiding him. He'd even been tempted to be mildly impressed a few times as he'd stood abandoned, Remus's scent still in the whipped up air around him, and he probably would have been too... if it hadn't been so fucking depressing.

So he'd tried for public. But there'd arisen a different problem entirely. Because while Remus wouldn't sprint away from him at a mad dash like he was the scariest fucking thing he'd ever seen in front of their friends, he'd quickly found he could only get so close to the werewolf's lips with his 'playful' kisses in front of James and Peter. That is, before the former would start shooting him odd looks - wary gazes, one might even say - and asking Sirius if he needed to tell him something in that voice he always saved for when Sirius was acting more off than usual. An inch to be exact.

If Sirius approached the one-inch-mark of Remus's soft lips from any direction (he had checked), he would be in the wary-gaze-zone. And to be honest, Sirius wasn't so sure he wanted to see what lay beyond the wary-gaze-zone, especially if Remus wasn't there too. It could prove a very lonely place to be.

So when he'd seen Remus sneak up to their dorm that night alone just minutes after being challenged by McKinnon, Patil and Meadows to a three-against-three game of Exploding Snap (Strip Tease Edition) in the common room, he'd counted to sixty in his head and then promptly ditched his two other friends without explanation, or his shoes, earning him quite a few choice words from an angry James as he'd legged it.

And here he finally was... talking, to Remus... and it had hit him regrettably too late they were alone, and he could've just as easily been... kissing, with Remus... but he'd already said what he'd said now and—And fuck if his mind wasn't working at all. Why had he said that?

Blue and green eyes with little flecks of gold blinked and then blinked again, the expression behind them unreadable. "Are you propositioning me, Padfoot?"

Sirius let out a bark of a laugh. "Moony. You have no faith in me." He shook his head, the expression he was wearing one might think a first-year had just asked him if he were a prefect, except the head movement was off, by about ninety degrees. First-years were surprisingly trusting of prefects—Sirius and James had found that out with no small amount of glee after their seemingly synchronized growth spurts at the beginning of third year—and incredibly thick to boot. One could send them off just about anywhere in the castle or even straight into the Whomping Willow's welcoming branches, and they would march on dutifully because a prefect had told them it was the way to the infirmary. Which it was, in a roundabout way. But enough of that-

Hazel eyes narrowed. "But you are..."

Grey eyes narrowed too, but with much less certainty. "Are what...?" Fuck.

"Propositioning me. You're propositioning me."

Sirius took a step forward and then another, the door behind him officially unguarded. This was his chance; Remus was getting agitated, but he hadn't said no yet or hexed him or ran away screaming like he had thoroughly anticipated, because he'd found two months of a one-sided game of tag not only was as un-fun as it sounded, but it did a lot to a guy's self-esteem.

"What if I was? Would you want to?" he asked, all traces of the winning smile gone suddenly from his expression as he stared a little too intently into eyes, eyes that he'd begun to dream of at night. Most nights as of late, if he wasn't being selective with his memory. Which really bothered him - at least after the novelty had worn off - because he usually only dreamed of things he didn't think possible—"Would you want to shag, Remus?" he asked again, and maybe his voice cracked on the wizard's name, and maybe he should've tried a different (better) angle by that point, but he just waited.

And Remus sat up all of the sudden as if something in his thoughts had just elicited the action, his friend's expression slowly but surely shifting but unfortunately not to anything more clear, and he found himself increasingly certain he'd say no. If he was a witch, he'd say 'yesyesyesofcourse,' assuming Sirius's past experiences were any indicator that is, but he wasn't. No, Remus was not a witch, which he actually quite preferred he'd found, except for in this one specific instance as said non-witch merely stared at him. He really should have come up with an actual plan. Next time he'd ask Peter instead of James for hypothetical relationship advice. Just talk to them, and if they like you, they like you. Hell, the bloody bastard hadn't even gotten Evans to let him speak her name in her presence without hexing him, what had he been thinking? He felt his chest begin to tighten as the silence dragged on, the air around him thick as it filled his lungs but refused to leave. If they like you, they like you.

"You know what. Nevermind," he said with a feigned cheerful laugh as if he had suddenly changed his mind, as if it had been only a passing whim, and it had just coincidentally passed - and not at all a poor and desperate attempt at the words that had gotten stuck somewhere between his throat and tongue for the past two bloody months every time he had been in Remus's presence. Because, if they like you, they like you. Damnit, damnit all to bloody hell.

He turned on his heel then, and walked swiftly out of the room with nowhere to go, and once he'd reached the middle of the spiral staircase only seconds later, not visible from either the common room or dorm, he dropped down and rested his face in his hands, shoeless. That had gone horribly.

"Sirius...?"

Grey eyes popped open, and Sirius turned his head slowly - afraid that his mind was playing tricks on him like it was sometimes ought to do, the sadistic bastard it was. But then he met nervous hazel eyes. "...Yeah Remus?"

Remus nodded. "I would actually." He shifted uncomfortably on the top step. "I mean, you mean more than once though... right?"

Sirius's mouth dropped open, and he let out a laugh.

"I mean. Not a one-night stand, right?"

Sirius stood up, his mood following his body's direction eagerly, and he bounded up the stairs to pull Remus against his chest. "Definitely more than once."

Remus had smiled up at him then almostly shyly, and he'd grinned back down at him, having to bite down on his lower lip to keep it from getting too wide as they'd stood in front of their dorm, their socked-toes almost touching, to the sound of raucous cheering from below for James to take it off!

He had considered that their first day as a couple. And later he'd think that maybe, maybe he hated firsts more than he hated yellow. Because he and Remus had a lot of firsts, but none of them would be lasts.