A/N: This was inspired by my wonderful best friend, Alejandra, who shares my love for this fabulous pairing. It's been more than a year since I've posted Harry Potter fan fiction, so it was incredibly refreshing to write this. Hope you guys like it! :)

It's an odd dream that you can't quite remember in the morning.

Rolling out of bed, muttering the silencing spell to your alarm, you recall snippets of light brown hair and soft hands, murky green eyes that remind you of the dark, wet forest at night. The steady throb of someone's pulse against your own—a heart beat. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. Dashes of pinkish-whitish-peach colored skin, a familiar smile, a glint of laughing white teeth, the smell of ink and old books and herbs.

We've always been right together.

The phrase echoes in your head for hours after you wake up, bouncing around in your skull like a bludger. Someone said it in your strange, surreal dreamscape, but who?

Just me and you, Sirius.

A tangle of sheets, a blur of bodies. Gangly limbs, knobby knees. Everything felt beautiful. Running fingertips down the notches of someone's spin, kissing the back of their neck, center of their palm, inside of their wrist.

That's how it's meant to be.

The half-remembered words parade through your head all day long, but dissipate like fog the moment you try to grab them.

"What are you gonna do when we finally get out of here, Moony?"

It's one in the morning and the two of you are lying on the common room floor, staring at the ceiling as if it's the night sky. Remus's hand rests an inch from yours, his palm open and his fingers curled loosely inward, like a half-bloomed flower beneath the sun.

"I'll invent something," he muses, his voice hushed in the late hour. "Something important."

You roll over to look at him. His pale eyelids are closed, chocolate lashes fluttering against the swell of his cheekbones. The watery light spilling from the window makes him look ethereal, like a marble statue poised in a museum.

"Like what?"

"Dunno." He yawns and opens his eyes, brilliant green pools shattering the illusion of slumber. "A potion to help people, most likely. Perhaps a more effective suppressant for Changings."

Of course Remus would choose to do such a thing. He knows better than anyone what it's like to lose control: to become an animal and do things completely against one's will. He's smart as a whip, so you don't doubt for a minute that he'll create that potion.

"Ask me what I'm going to do," you say. He turns to look at you, his eyes luminous.

"What are you going to do, Sirius?"

The answer is everything; the answer is nothing. The sky is the limit right now because the world is in bloom. These days, the air feels fresher, Quidditch games last longer, blue skies look prettier, and laughter seems to come from somewhere deeper, somewhere that makes the sound resonate in the air like music. The moon and sun and stars are sitting in your palms, waiting to be explored.

You grin, white teeth bright in the dark. "I don't know. I have no bloody idea. Isn't that grand?"

"You're mad," Remus tells you as he hunches over and tries to catch his breath. You're standing together at the peak of a grassy hill right on the edge of school grounds, exhausted after spending the whole afternoon practicing spells and chasing after each other like children.

"You know you love it," you fire back, grinning cheekily. "Besides, you're just jealous I can cast the Colovaria spell better than you." To prove it, you gesture proudly at the rainbow-colored school supplies lying in the grass.

"Is that so?"

"Of course. Do you not see the purple apple?"

Remus sighs. "Well, then it's a shame you won't be able to cast it again anytime soon…"

"And why's that?"

Remus smirks and pulls your wand from behind his back, waving it teasingly. "Missing something?"

"Oi!"

Remus starts to run away, but you lunge forward and grab him around the waist before he gets the chance to flee, tackling him to the ground with a delighted oof!

"Sirius!"

You drink in his surprise, imbibing the gleeful brightness of his eyes and the rosy flush high on his cheekbones. You straddle his hips and press your palms against his shoulders, feeling every point of contact like fire against your skin.

"Sirius," he laughs, batting at your hands. A shock of brown hair falls in front of his eyes and you brush it away with unsteady fingers, though whether that's from the adrenalin or an inexplicable Something Else remains to be seen. The grin on his face fades and becomes unreadable as the seconds tick by and neither of you move.

"Moony." It's a question and a statement, wrapped haphazardly into one. You clear your throat, take a breath, try again. "Remus?"

"Your wand," he says distractedly, staring back at you. "It's on the ground."

"Okay."

Neither of you look away to retrieve it. His eyes drift down your face, then flick guilty back up, dark lashes brushing shyly against his cheek. You don't move your hands from his shoulders and he doesn't try to wriggle from your grasp.

"Sirius—"

"Oi!" a familiar voice calls. You roll off of Remus just in time to see James climbing over the side of the hill, his black hair sticking up like spikes against the bright backdrop of sunshine. "There you are, I've been looking for you two clods for hours!"

"Don't blame Moony and I for your subpar searching skills," you retort without much conviction, running a hand restlessly through your dark hair, disoriented by the interruption.

"We're sorry," Remus cuts in, apologizing for both of you because he knows you won't do it. "You want to discuss our Potions project, right?"

"Yes!" James says exasperatedly. "It's due tomorrow and we haven't done a lick of work."

"You mean you haven't done a lick of work," Remus corrects, smoothing down the last wrinkle in his robes. "I finished my portion last week and Padfoot finished his this morning."

James groans. "You helped him do it, Moony, why can't you help me too?"

"Because Moony likes me best," you chime in, offering James a jaunty smirk. "Besides, I'm smarter than all of you lot anyway."

Aside from Remus himself, of course, but that goes without saying.

"Mum, you're not supposed to have favorites," James complains to Remus, his mouth forming a pout.

Remus rolls his eyes. "Fine. I'll go to the library with you right now and help. But!" he adds, as soon as James starts to grin triumphantly, "you better pay attention to every word because this is the last time I'm explaining the characteristics of wormwood."

"Why do we have to write down our eye color too?" Peter complains during Charms, letting his head fall to the desk with a dramatic clunk. "Haven't we written enough rubbish as is?"

You roll your eyes, bored of his grousing. "Moony, would you please explain the assignment to our dearest Wormtail, yet again?"

Remus looks up at you from the cauldron and offers a secret smile of amusement before turning to Peter and patiently explaining, for the third time, that you are all studying the effects of the Crinus Muto charm and therefore must have all of your facial features carefully recorded.

"But I already know what color my eyes are," Peter whines. "Light blue. Plain and simple."

They're actually more of a sickly, watery blue, really. And in the right light, they look pale and beady, like the eyes of a blind rat.

Peter continues, "Yours are green, Prongs's are brown, and Padfoot's are grey. There, now why can't I just write that? Why must I write all of the little variations of color and all that rubbish?"

"I'll do mine and Moony's then," you grumble, snatching the paper away from Peter. You lower your head and write messily, pretending to be annoyed by the task, even though you really don't mind. You know Remus's eyes probably better than Remus himself.

They are green, yes, but what Peter failed to mention is that they are also flecked with hazel and gold, so when the sun's shining into them, they glow and become as warm as fire whiskey. His eyelashes are incredibly long and dark, like lush black awnings. And when he smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkle up and the apples of his cheeks rise, until his entire face is radiating joy.

The details are important, is what you tell James later on when he asks why you wrote a paragraph for Moony's description. Just trying to get a good grade, Prongs.

It's Valentine's Day and three-fourths of the study body are crammed into the Three Broomsticks, everyone dancing and bumbling about in varying degrees of inebriation. Lucille Vanity, some blonde-haired, giggly Hufflepuff, is perched in your lap. She keeps nipping at your earlobe and dropping sticky lip-gloss kisses all down the side of your neck. You really don't care for it, but she's pretty and warm and rumored to be in love with you, and right now you just like the feeling of being wanted.

Remus nurses a mug of butter beer in the corner by himself, his eyes trained on the book in front of him.

"Be right back," you tell her, pushing her off your knee and downing the rest of your fire whiskey in one gulp.

"Hey, Moony," you slur, tumbling into the booth beside him. You're not sure how much you've had to drink, because the waitress kept grinning and bringing out shots, and you kept winking and taking them, and now everything feels dizzy and slow. "Whatcha' reading?"

"A book."

"About what?"

"Doesn't matter, you're drunk," Remus mumbles. He tries to lean away from you, but there's nowhere for him to go between you and the wall, so he ends up hunching over and turning his head stubbornly to the side.

"Where's your date?" you ask. You're certain he had one when you got here, even if your head is a bit fuzzy from the booze. "Whass'er name? Melly, Mindy, Melon, Mellow…"

"Melinda," Remus says shortly. "She went back to the castle to study for an exam."

Laughter bubbles from your throat like champagne. "You sure do love your book worms, don't you, Moony?"

Remus gives up the pretense of reading and claps his book shut. "Shouldn't you be getting back to Lucille?"

Distantly, you know you probably should go back and join her at the bar, but the thing is, Lucille doesn't smell nearly as good as Remus. And her eyes aren't even half as a pretty.

Remus scrunches his face in a frown. "Whose eyes aren't pretty? You're slurring."

For no particular reason, you start to feel quite sad. Red paper streamers are strung overhead, heart-shaped confetti sticks to the bottom of your boots, and the fruity, sharp smell of liquor hangs in the air like perfume—all of these things should be wonderful, but they're making you sick right now. Lucille catches your eye from the bar and waves, and you notice that her fingernails are painted pearlescent pink. This whole holiday seems so unbearably hollow, all of a sudden.

You don't even like Lucille.

"I'm—hiccup—really drunk, Moony." You're leaning into him now, invading his personal space. You close your eyes because you don't want to look at Lucille's pink nails or the empty mugs on the bar, you want to focus solely on the woolly texture of Remus's sweater on your cheek. "I don't feel so good anymore."

Remus's face softens and he lets you lean against his side. "Would you like me to walk back to the castle with you?"

"Mmhm," you mutter, your face buried in his shoulder.

He puts his hand on top of your head for a moment to comfort you, or to perhaps tell you to move, and his fingers twined in your hair feel like the greatest thing on earth.

…

You date Lucille for six weeks and Remus finds reasons to avoid you for five of them.

Things really go to shit when Remus gets a girlfriend. She's some sweet, plain-faced witch with a forgettable name (Martha, Mary, May?), and Remus doesn't care one bit that you loathe her.

"She's dull," you mutter, beneath the shade of an oak tree one afternoon. Remus doesn't look up from his Herbology textbook, but you notice his jaw clench. This isn't the first time you've had this conversation, but you like making him uncomfortable by constantly bringing it up. You feel justified, almost. Vindicated in your petty, petty punishment.

"Well, you aren't the one dating her, are you?" Remus replies calmly, in his Refusing to Engage voice.

"No, but I have to see her about a hundred times a day," you complain. "She's always clinging to you like a bloody leech."

Remus frowns at his paper and underlines something a bit harder than necessary. "You always have girls clinging to you."

They don't mean anything, you want to say. I don't care about them.

But what you end up saying is: "What's a man to do, Moony? I love women and women love me."

Christmas eve, there's a party in Gryffindor's common room and all the houses are invited. Once again, the universe feels endless. Maybe its the spiked apple cider or the loud music or the bright, twinkling fairy lights wrapped around the Christmas tree, but something about this night feels bloody magical. Remus isn't dating Martha-Mary-May anymore and the world around you is positively bursting with potential.

"Oi! Great party, huh, mate?" James laughs, throwing his arm over your shoulder. His glasses are askew and he smells to high heaven of cheap liquor and Lily Evans's perfume. You chuckle and pat his back.

"Course, Prongs. What are we if not incredible hosts?"

Grinning, James turns to the crowd of students and shouts, "Do the Marauders throw a great bash or what, you lot?" and the room explodes in deafening cheers and whistles.

"Where's Moony?" you ask over the din, even though you know James is only half-listening.

"S'by the punch table."

"Really? Because I was just over there, and—"

But then a flash of red hair darts by and James abandons you, calling, "Oi, Evans! Wait up!"

…

Remus isn't by the punch table when you find him. He's sitting in the big windowsill upstairs, his dark profile framed by the soft glow of moonlight. He has a book in his hands, but it lies half-shut with his thumb wedged between pages, and his eyes are trained pensively on the night sky outside.

"Too cool to join us downstairs?" you ask with a grin. Immediately, you cringe: your voice sounds far too loud now that you've left the bustling party. Something about this setting makes you feel the need to whisper.

Remus doesn't look away from the window, a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. "I suppose," is his absent reply.

You lick your lips nervously. "Mind if I sit with you?"

"That's fine."

You cross the room in a few strides and sit beside him, the window's ledge large enough for two bodies. You can feel the warmth of his skin pressed into your side, even through the layers of robes and uniforms. The silence ticks by, but you don't mind it. Nothing ever feels awkward with Remus.

Finally, without preamble, Remus looks at you says, "I thought she was the one."

Despite the cliche, despite the undeniable weight behind the words, Remus states the phrase very factually. He doesn't look sad, just confused. As if an experiment of his didn't turn out the way he expected it to.

You clear your throat, resentment thickening on your tongue. "Martha, right?"

"Megan," he corrects absently. He's still frowning, clearly lost in thought. Sometimes you wish you could see inside that big brain of his, poke around at all the cogs and coils that comprise his strange, brilliant mind.

"What about her?"

"She's gone. We broke up."

You wet your bottom lip. "I know."

"I don't understand," he murmurs, half to himself.

"Don't understand what?"

Remus looks up at you, his eyes painfully bright and hungry for answers. "Tell me something, Sirius. Why didn't it work out?"

(He always calls you by your real name when you're alone. It's strange that you haven't noticed until right now.)

"Maybe you didn't really love her," you offer, feeling a bit dizzy. Your senses are engulfed in the smell of herbs and warm skin and dusty books. You stare down at the place where your legs are touching, the color of Remus's brick-red robes contrasting sharply with the charcoal-black of your trousers.

"I know I didn't love her," Remus says quietly. You can tell he's looking at you now, can feel his piercing green eyes fixed on the side of your face like a beam of light, but you can't bring yourself to meet his gaze. "I should have, but I didn't. Couldn't."

You're afraid, suddenly. Afraid of what might be happening, of what you want to happen, of the way his hand is crawling up to meet yours. It's ridiculous, though, isn't it? This is what you want and now you're finally going to get it, so why does it feel like your heart is trying to flee from your chest? Why are your palms sweating? Why is the room spinning and twirling like a nightmare?

"Sirius."

It's a question, you think.

"Sirius."

Softer now, looming closer. You can feel the words brush the side of your neck, can feel his breath puffing warmly against the shell of your ear. Still a question, waiting to be answered.

"I…" you turn your head, feel his lips hovering over your own, soft, petal-soft, and so close, so bloody close, that all it would take is an inch more, just two point five centimeters, for your mouths to collide. "M-moony, I…"

I'm scared.

Remus finally closes the distance, bringing his hand up to gently cradle your face, and for a moment it feels so good you want to cry. It's all sweetness and caution and gentle, gentle motions that remind you of waves lapping lazily against the golden shore and—

Terror seizes you like a fist, suddenly. You leap backwards, wild-eyed and panting, fear splashed across every feature. Your mind is moving at a million miles an hour.

I don't want to break you, but I don't know how not to.

I don't know how to love you.

Remus blinks and blinks and doesn't stop blinking, and you'll never forget the way his face crumbles at the rejection. The way his brows draw together and his body curls protectively inward, as if to shield himself from the pain. "Sirius…"

A final plea.

You can't stick around and explain yourself. You don't want to. You can't.

You run away and don't look back.

…

"I get it," he tells you weeks later, pulling his coat tighter around himself on the school's front steps, shivering from the cold. "No need to explain."

Except, he doesn't get it, can't even begin to start bloody getting it, but you still don't have the words, the means to explain, the articulation, so you run from the guilt and run from the sadness, and run from the pain in his eyes, and eventually, running just becomes something that you do.

A lone wolf flees danger, after all.

You all graduate, and for the longest time, you feel nothing. And then more nothing. And then all of the nothingness piles on top of itself until it gets so vast, so large, so incomprehensibly huge, that the only thing to do is self-destruct.

You start smoking a lot—too much, really—and it bothers Remus, but you tell him you don't care because it's not like he's going to have to taste the cigarettes himself.

(You want him to.)

You start drinking a lot at parties, and then a lot after parties, and then with every meal, until one day James finds you unconscious in a pile of old laundry on a Wednesday afternoon and he doesn't pat you on the back and laugh, he drags you into the tub and casts healing spell after healing spell because apparently alcohol poisoning is a thing.

There's a blurry parade of girls that march to and from your bedroom over the years, but their names sound the same and their looks and laughs and bodies might as well be identical, because the moment they're dressed again, you've already forgotten them.

It's sad, Remus tells you one night in his sitting room, how you can't see what you're doing to yourself.

Fuck off, is what you tell him. Mind your own damn business, Moony. Leave me alone.

So he does, and for the next year and a half you step around each other like broken glass.

(Smoke, drink, wander, repeat.)

A month after James and Lily officially announce that they're engaged, Remus bursts into your sitting room at two in the morning, unannounced.

The cigarette you're in the middle of smoking falls out of your mouth in surprise, because all of a sudden, there he is, standing in your doorway, wild-eyed and soaked to the core from the rain. You leap off the couch and grab him by his stupid wet coat and drag him into your stupid shabby house and run off to find him a stupid clean towel to dry off with.

"Moony," you say, when he's bundled up on your couch. "What the hell are you doing here?"

His teeth are still chattering and his lips are faintly blue, but his voice doesn't quiver when he speaks. "I'm sick of this, Sirius."

There it is again. Sirius, not Padfoot.

"Sick of what?" You turn around and add another log to the fireplace, so he can't see your face and know that you're pretending. Playing dumb.

"You know what I'm talking about."

You watch the fire engulf the fresh wood in bright orange flames. "Or maybe I don't know and you should just say whatever's on your mind."

You're not even looking at him, but you can tell Remus is clenching his jaw. "Fine. You'd like me to spell it out for you? I will." He takes a short breath. "I'm angry, Sirius. Very, very angry."

You turn around. "Why?"

He pulls the blanket tighter around his shoulders and stares at you. "Oh, there are a couple of reasons. In school, I was angry because you always had girls hanging off you like leaves. I used to be bitter."

Your force a smirk. "Bit jealous, then, were you?"

Remus ignores you, because you both know it's a stupid question. "Then, I was angry because I was confused." He swallows hard and you watch his Adams apple bob. "I was confused because I thought something was—here, but clearly, it wasn't. I was angry at myself for misreading the situation, and I was angry at you for never explaining."

"Moony…"

"Let me finish. I'm angry because I hate the way you're living right now. Look at you, Sirius! You're chain-smoking on your couch at two A.M.. You do nothing but drink all day and stay up all night doing Merlin knows who."

You pull a new fag out of your back pocket, where you always keep a pack handy. The paper of the filter sticks to your lips and keeps the cigarette firmly in place as you shuffle around the room in search of your lighter. You find it on the floor beneath the love seat, next to a few tarnished sickles.

"Are you even listening to me?" Remus demands.

"Yeah, sure, I'm listening," you mutter, flicking the lighter on and relishing the smoke that billows in your lungs. It tastes like relief. "Something about who I'm fucking, right?"

"Stop it."

Your hand shakes as you take another drag. "Stop what, Remus."

It's really not a question, but Remus answers it anyway.

"Stop ignoring me. You're trying to make light of this, Sirius, and I'm sick of it." His face looks pained and that gives you pause. You stop smoking. "I just want to talk to you and know that you're listening."

You think about walking over and sitting next to him, but the closeness would probably make this conversation even more difficult, so you stay where you are, standing in front of him with your back to the fireplace. The burning cigarette waits between your fingers, poised like a quill.

"I'm listening," you tell him, and for the first time tonight, you mean it.

He takes a shaky breath and looks away. "I just want to fix this."

"Fix what, Remus? What's broken?"

Remus is smiling at you now, but it's the kind of smile he wears when he's on the brink of crying. His eyes look wet and big as the moon and his mouth keeps tilting, like his smile is picture frame hanging by a single nail. "Us, Sirius. We're broken."

"No," you say flatly. "I'm broken. You're fine, Moony. You've always been okay, even when life was absolute shit. I'm not you. I can't deal with things."

Remus wipes his eyes and gives you a stormy look. "Don't lie to yourself, Sirius. It's unbecoming."

"I'm not lying, it's the truth," you snap. "If you're too blindly optimistic to see that, that's not my problem."

"You don't give yourself enough credit," Remus retorts, the anger slipping back into his tone. "You never have. You constantly make excuses for yourself so you can keep doing whatever the hell you want without consequences. That's not how the world works, Sirius. That's not how you should be living."

"You know what, Remus? Don't bother with the pep talk. I'm a lost cause. You can stop waltzing over here with your big interventions, because they're not going to stick. This is just who I am."

"No," Remus says sharply. "It isn't. And it hurts me to know that you hold yourself to such a low standard."

"And why the hell does it hurt you?" you yell. "It doesn't affect you in any fucking way, Remus, so why do you care so much?"

"Because I love you, Sirius!" Remus shouts. He looks angry and wild and there are tears burning in his eyes. "I love you so much that I can't seem to stay away from you, even though I bloody know it's only going to hurt me in the end. I love you so much that I don't even care if you rip out my heart again, because it'll still be worth it. And isn't that sad? Isn't it just pathetic that I'm willing to come back over and over and over like a kicked dog?" He laughs, but it sounds like a sob. "That's why I care, Sirius. That's why I keep bothering you about this. Because I love you and I'm in love with you, and I hate watching you tear yourself apart."

Exhausted, he sinks back into the couch, subdued like a dying flame. "I don't care if you feel the same, I'm not going to make you feel guilty."

You stand in front of him, chest heaving, adrenaline kicking through your body like liquid fire. The entire universe presses onto your shoulders A rock lodges in your throat. Sparks and pins-and-needles shoot through your veins like burning embers.

"What if I do feel the same?" you ask hoarsely, after a long time. Your chest feels too tight to inhale properly, so you just stand there, sustained on a single breath, waiting for his reply to illuminate the darkness and confusion pooling before you.

He frowns, his green eyes colored with tentative hope. "What do you mean?"

You clench your jaw, force yourself to say the words. "You, Remus. It's always been you. I feel the same."

There is an endless moment where you two just look at each other, until, out of nowhere, something switches. Remus's eyes turn bright and warm like fire whiskey and the temperature in the room rises like a flame.

It's funny, because all of those reasons you had to run away suddenly don't make sense any more. He knows you're screwed up and doesn't just like you in spite of it, he likes you because of it. And it's kind of funny, too, that it took until right now for you to realize it. With the stupid, sodding bastard soaking your couch with his wet clothes and dripping hair at two in the morning.

"Sirius," he says lowly, a dark rasp of inquisition. It's a question you know the answer to, now.

"Yes, Remus," you say simply. "Yes."

He lunges forward and kisses you then, his thin hands coming up to cradle the back of you skull, the side of your jaw, the swell of your shoulder. His mouth on yours feels like fire and tastes like tears and you can't stop scrabbling to find purchase in his damp shirt and the loops of his belt and the sharp jut of his hipbone.

"Sirius," he murmurs against your lips. "Sirius."

Your heart feels so full that it aches. It's a steady, heavy throb that pounds in your chest and reverberates in your bones. His hands find your hair and your hands find the hem of his shirt, and everything feels deafening and blinding and fatal, but at the same time, so utterly perfect. So utterly beautiful.

"I love you," you whisper into his ear, as he kisses a trail down your neck. The words fly from your lips like birds, soaring into the darkness of the sitting room and nesting in the messy waves of Remus's hair. "So much, Moony. So much."

….

In the morning, it seems like a dream.

You roll over in bed and admire his light brown hair and elegant hands and murky green eyes that remind you of the dark, wet forest at night. You recall the steady throb of his pulse against your own—a heartbeat. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. Ba-bum. Dashes of pinkish-whitish-peach colored skin, a warm smile, a glint of laughing white teeth, the smell of ink and old books and herbs.

I love you, Sirius, he said.

The phrase echoes in your head for ages after you wake up, bouncing around in your skull like a bludger.

Just me and you, Sirius, he promised.

A tangle of sheets, a blur of bodies. Gangly limbs, knobby knees. Everything felt beautiful. Running fingertips down the notches of his spine, kissing the back of his neck, center of his palm, inside of his wrist.

This is how it's meant to be, he told you, tracing patterns on your chest. This is what we've been waiting for.

And the words parade through your head for the rest of the morning, stuck on repeat like your favorite song.

A/N: Thank you all so much for reading! Please let me know what you think in the comments :)