A/N: I wrote this one-shot a few months ago. I think it's about time I started letting people read it. It's one-sided Sirius/Remus slash. It's also an unintentional demonstration of my inability to write action. Feedback would be greatly appreciated.
The light of the sunset was painfully bright, tinted red, and slanted just so that it played across Sirius's face, casting shadows into the dips and curves of his brow and cheekbones, and making his pitch black hair take on a glossy sheen. His eyebrows bunched together, and he frowned in concentration. It was one of the rare moments in which his studies claimed all of his attention.
It was an essay on dementors for Defense Against the Dark Arts that absorbed Sirius so. Remus was working on an essay of the same subject, and normally he would have been every bit as interested in it as Sirius was. In fact, he had started the essay with all the ardor he usually gave his Defense Against the Dark Arts assignments. For those reasons, it was particularly odd that he had, after the completion of the introduction and halfway through the second paragraph, suddenly called his work to a silent halt.
He hadn't meant to. This was a very important, not to mention very long, paper, and Remus knew, somewhere in the depths of his mind, that he really should be getting a move on. Just like he hadn't meant to stop working in the first place, though, he also hadn't meant to stay at such a standstill for so long. Somehow he'd allowed himself to become distracted, though, and somehow he'd also allowed himself to stay distracted for a full five minutes. Two more things he hadn't meant to let happen.
Why had he even looked up in the first place? Maybe he'd been stuck on a particular bit of wording in the essay, or perhaps the sunlight that was now illuminating Sirius's face so hypnotically had struck his eye, distracting him enough to make him look up. Remus didn't know, and it wasn't all that important, anyway. The only important thing, right now, was that he was looking at one of his best mates in a way he'd never be able to satisfactorily explain, even to himself.
"Hey -- Padfoot, Moony!" Sirius and Remus were jerked out of their respective occupations, and Remus hadn't even had time to be thankful that his strange reverie had been ended before anybody noticed it by the time the Madam Pince had angrily shooed them all out of her library.
The obnoxious, speccy boy, known to some as James Potter, who had summoned them so exuberantly was laughing, and so was Sirius. They got a kick out of making teachers angry, and Remus could almost understand why, at times like now: troubles, complications, life's basic sticky and unpleasant consistency – for a few moments, none of it had to matter, because they had forced an enemy, a figure of authority, to admit defeat, however indirectly. Sure, they would forget it soon, but the present was all they cared about.
Remus didn't care only about the present; he'd learned at a young age to both contemplate the past and plan for the future. Sure, he'd love to take the pleasures his friends did. He'd love to have their freedom of mind, their ability to be so careless, but he knew that such an indulgence could only lead to trouble later on. Which was why he couldn't join in on the jubilation.
"Come on, that's enough. You lot make a bloody awful racket, you know that?"
"Aw, Moony, why've you always got to have a stick up your arse?"
"I have not, Sirius!"
"Don't be such a sodding pansy." Remus tried hard not to wince in recognition. Sirius was wrong. He was as far from right as left.
Wrong. Really, he must be. Remus never meant to look at him the way he did. He didn't mean to stay up late at night, listening to him talking to James and Peter, but never really hearing the other two. Surely, he had to have meant it all along if it were to be true.
Remus chose to ignore the logic that contradicted that last thought. It wasn't something he wanted to think about, if he could help it.
But help it, he couldn't. Remus did think about Sirius. He thought about him all the time – when he went to sleep, while he dreamed, when he woke, while he brushed his teeth, through classes, during pranks, during the detentions that ensued, and, once a month, when he underwent his terrible and unthinkable transformation. It hurt to look at Sirius, sometimes, but he couldn't help it.
He couldn't help it. He'd never meant it, not for a minute. He hadn't chosen this.
He hadn't. Really. Remus reminded himself of that, and it was comforting. If he didn't mean it, might it not eventually pass? He'd find a nice girl. Girls could like Remus, he knew; he saw them looking. Once he got over this, he'd find one he liked, and then Sirius could really be just what he thought he was to Remus: his friend, and nothing more.
Which was, of course, what Remus really wanted.
Of course, if that were true, why was it that every time he thought his desire for Sirius might be fading, he found himself struggling to recover it? Remus would stay up all night, staring at the draperies of his bed, silently listing everything he knew about Sirius.
Sirius was bright and wild, insensitive, clingy, and secretly very clever. His rugged good looks and charisma had won the obsession of many an unwary girl. He was insanely loyal, and loyal to his own insanity. He had given up his family to embrace what he believed was truly right. He fought for what he decided was worth fighting for.
He was Remus's wayward best friend, his unrequited, undesired love. Sirius was his everyday torture. Remus was an everyday tragedy, and he knew it. The more he tried to suppress what he wanted, the more it tempted him. Remus wanted to die.
Remus did not die, and wasn't it just his luck that he wouldn't acknowledge what he'd always known until it was too late? He tried his best to deal with it. He found a nice girl. He found Tonks, and he really did like her. She was bright and wild, insensitive, clingy, and secretly very clever.
And Tonks loved him, and he could tell from more than just the way she looked at him. Remus tried to love her, too, but he never really meant it.