Sirius laid across Remus's bed, his feet dangling off the side. He wasn't doing anything, but his mere presence was enough to bug Remus. Remus sat cross legged on the bed, trying his best to study for his OWLs, but it wasn't working very well. Not when you had Sirius Black as one of your dorm mates.

Remus adjusted his glasses and looked over the top of his spell book. Sirius was so still that Remus almost thought he was sleeping. "Do you want to study with me," he offered, feeling a bit awkward in the silence.

"Sush, Remus. I'm thinking."

"Oh, you're thinking. Does it hurt?"

Sirius leaned over and glared at him. "I'm the one who makes snide remarks. You should know this. James makes the plans, you fix the plans and be smart, I make snide remarks, and Peter, well, Peter draws pictures of my Cousin Cissy. I don't know why."

"Peter likes to draw." Remus shrugged. Actually, Peter was a fairly good artist. Although, why he drew pictures of Narcissa Black he would never know. Still, he was the one who actually drew the Marauder's map.

Sirius laid back down. "Go back to reading, I'm still thinking."

This was a rare moment. When Sirius thought it was never good. Sirius thinking generally ended in them getting detention, or getting hexed, or making a mess. Sometimes all three. "Alright, Sirius. What're you thinking about?" Remus closed his book and sat it down on his lap.

"Nothin'."

"I doubt that."

Sirius sat up. "Do you really want to know?"

"Probably not, but I'm asking anyway."

For a moment, Sirius hesitated. He looked down and thought his words out carefully. This was either something really bad or really good or really dangerous. "I was making a list in my head," Sirius finally said. "You know, a list of all the girls I've slept with and then a separate list for all the girls I've kissed. Oh, and a list for all the second base girls." He shrugged his shoulders and put his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. The jacket he thought made him look cooler than anyone else in the entire world. Which, granted, it was a cool jacket.

Remus raised an eyebrow and stared at him. "And why are you doing this?"

"I'm trying to figure out if I liked any of them." He leaned against the bed post and stared up at the canopy over his head. "Thus far the answer is no."

"I don't understand why you do that."

"Make lists?"

"No." Remus shook his head disapprovingly. It seemed inappropriate to make a list of such things. It seemed like it somehow dehumanized the girls. As though they were nothing more than a number to him. Just another girl. That's all they really were. "I don't see why you go around with so many girls."

To be honest, Sirius didn't know either. It could have just been his teenage hormones acting up and making him crazy. Or, it could have been something more. Maybe he needed to prove something. Blacks were Pure-Bloods and were, therefore, supposed to be pure. Then again, Narcissa hadn't been 'pure' since her fifth year. So, what was he really proving here?

"I don't know," he finally said and closed his eyes. "I don't guess there is a reason. It was just something to do at the time."

"Can't you find something better to do with your time?"

Again, Sirius fell silent. He bit the inside of his cheek and, again, thought very carefully about what he was going to say. He had considered this for a while, let the idea spin around in his mind. Of course, he never really expected it to work out. There was never a chance for him to say these types of things. He had thought before that maybe if he could just get Remus drunk then it would be easier to explain. But, getting Remus drunk was easier said than done. He was quick and stronger than he looked. There was no holding him down.

"What about you," Sirius asked, opening one eye.

Remus laughed and shook his head. "My time is well spent with studying and keeping you lot from getting yourselves kicked out. We're talking about you, Sirius and what you could be doing with your time."

"You," Sirius repeated, a bit clearer this time.

"Me," Remus said and raised an eyebrow. "What you could be doing with your time is…" He trailed off, putting the words together and making them form an actual sentences in his head.

'Wait a second,' he thought. 'Sirius is talking about all the girls he's been with. He's making lists for Christ sake. Let me get this straight here before I actually say anything. Sirius has done a lot of girls, and now he's saying that he wants to…no, he's not being serious. This is some kind of joke. He's trying to lure me into something just so he can laugh at me. Just laugh, Remus. Beat him to the punch.'

So, Remus let out an awkward chuckle. "You're not serious."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "I'm always—

"Don't say it." That joke had gotten old after the first time Remus had heard it. "Look, Sirius, whatever joke you're trying to pull, it's not funny. Toying with other people's emotions isn't a game. You can't do that. Why don't you just go?"

Sirius looked up at him, obviously hurt. This wasn't going according to his plan at all. In fact, this was going very, very badly. "Remus, this isn't a joke. Do you see me laughing? If I was trying to mess with you then I'd say I wanted to shag you silly under a full moon." He took a deep breath. "I'm going to try something."

"Sirius…"

"Just hold still for a second, alright?" Sirius took another breath. Alright, this was the moment. He was just going to try it and if it didn't work then it would be time to find some firewhiskey and make Remus somehow forget that it ever happened. There were charms that erased people's memories, weren't there? Yeah, he would just have to get Remus to help him…wait…that wouldn't work. He would have to find the memory charm by himself.

He could do that. He could study for a couple days to find it. That thought gave him some confidence. It was a short kiss. Not like with the girls. It was gentler, less animalistic. With all those girls…he just didn't care. They weren't what he wanted. This, right here, this was what he wanted. This was Remus, Remus was the sensitive one. He was the one they had to look out for. Sirius didn't forget that. Remus wasn't the type to sleep around, he wasn't the type of guy who went around kissing everything that moved. He was…he was just Remus.

Sirius pulled back and resumed his position, leaning against the post and trying to get his look of carelessly cool back. It didn't work. He felt awkward now and his stomach turned with fear. Why had he done that? Yes, it was what he wanted. But…was it what Remus wanted?

Remus blinked several times before he took off his glassed and cleaned them on his shirt. He didn't look overjoyed and his cheeks and ears were both pink. Clearing his throat, Remus slid his glasses back on. He narrowed is and pursed his lips. "Am I just another game, Sirius? Another mountain to conquer? Is that what happens when you run out of girls? You move onto leading someone else on?"

That hadn't been his plan at all. Sirius slumped down, giving up on his cool-guy look because it just wasn't working. Remus didn't care about cool, he didn't care about suave, or smooth. Remus cared about the truth and being calm and easy. He just wasn't like the others.

"Not a game," Sirius muttered, looking down at his lap.

"What?"

Sirius at up straighter and forced himself to look Remus directly in the eye. "It's not a game, Moony. It's a feeling and it's not one that I can just get rid of because, believe you me, I've tried." There was a touch of shame in his voice mixed with guilt and frustration. He reached up and brushed his hair back several times. "I tried, Remus, I did. I said to myself I said 'Self, you can't kiss Remus, he's your friend. You know how you get. You find someone, like 'em, shag 'em, and leave 'em.' But then I couldn't shake it off, okay? I saw you and it's not like…it's not…" He couldn't find the words. There were no words to describe it. Besides that, Sirius was better with actions. "Ugh! Words are hard!"

Remus looked down, taken back by Sirius's words. This was…this was the most honest and open he had ever seen the boy. What was he supposed to do now? He wasn't just going to let Sirius sit there and tear his hair out. No, he couldn't do that, not when….

Reaching forward, Remus puts his hand on Sirius's shoulder. "Is this really the way you feel, Sirius? Is this really what's in your heart?"

Sirius nodded. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"If it's in your heart and it's in mine, then shouldn't it be right? If we're both capable of these feelings and we both want them, then shouldn't we act on them?"

"Remus, I don't know anymore. I don't even have an answer."

Remus smiled very slightly. "A famous author once said 'The shortest answer is doing the thing'."

Sirius tilted his head slightly. "Remus, what does that even mean?"

"I have no idea. But I think it's something along the lines of this."

Remus leaned into Sirius, kissing him much more than Sirius had kissed him. Still, it was soft, gentle, but in the same respect it was passionate and full of life. As though everything a person could ever possibly want was falling into place. Every single piece of the puzzle was finally there.

Suddenly, Sirius pulled away. "That…" He paused. "I gotta go!" He jumped up off the bed and tore out of the room.

Well, that was unexpected. Remus blinked several times and tried to figure out what in the hell had just happened. Then, it hit him. Remus fell backwards and covered his face with his hands. He had been tricked! Why hadn't he realized this? This was probably some kind of bet that Sirius had going on.

He wasn't like the girls that Sirius used. It was worse than that. They, at least, hadn't been a part of some terrible prank. At least they wouldn't have to deal with this horrible feeling of betrayal. Sirius was his best friend! They had been friends since first year.

Remus always knew that he was walking a tightrope. He really didn't belong with The Marauders. They all had something that he just didn't have. After all, he was the only half-blood in the lot of them. Granted, they would always rant and rave about how blood purity didn't matter and it was stupid to think that it did. However, Remus had always felt that it did count for something. All of them had grown up around magic. It was something that they just knew. He, on the other hand, spent all his time studying. Not growing up with magic all around him had left him feeling, well, excluded. His mother hadn't used magic, despite her being a witch. She had kept it from him.

Not to mention, he was the only one who couldn't stop his transformation. The others thought that they knew what he went through. They had worked to be able to change, yes, but it wasn't quite the same as being forced and having no control. At any given moment they could change into the animal they had worked to become. And then there was him. He couldn't make himself be a werewolf, nor could he stop himself from being a werewolf. He just was. It wasn't as though he could talk to them about it. It wasn't something that could be explained.

Yes, he knew that he was just on the outside of the group. He wasn't a prankster. All he was was Remus. Silly little Remus with his nose in a book. Sensitive Remus who couldn't take a joke. Little Remus, too fragile to play Quidditch and too dim to understand it. Sheltered Remus, who didn't understand how boys had fun. Stupid, naïve, and gullible Remus who would actually believe that Sirius Black would ever want to kiss him.

Remus adjusted his glasses again and sunk down against his pillows. He needed to distract himself. He would read, just like he always did. He would study his stupid little books while the boys had their fun. He would be the one studying while everything else came naturally to the others. James was a natural born Quidditch player, Peter was a brilliant artist, and Sirius was charming and a ladies man. There was no room for Remus here. There never had been.

He had to earn his worthiness by knowing things and being good at spells and potions. He had to work to become someone that deserved to be kept around and he did. Remus loved his friends and he always wanted to be worthy of them. It was like when he had stopped sleeping so he could figure out animagus transformations; not for his own sake but for his friends. Werewolves couldn't be animagi anyway. James and Sirius and Peter could afford to spend time screwing around because they had been born good enough. Stuffy swotty Remus had to study at it but all that work gave him something they didn't have. That ferocious intelligence and drive had made him valuable. They wouldn't last a single prank without him to fine tune the detail. They needed him, damnit, and he made sure that he could always perform anything they demanded of him.

And why would he want Sirius to kiss him anyway? It wasn't as if he didn't have an eye for girls; he just didn't have the confidence to chase after them or even talk to most of them really. He barely spoke to anyone outside of the Marauders. But why Sirius Black, of all people? Sirius was barely even nice to him, not like Peter and James were. Sirius was always the first one to pick on him, the first one to, well, notice him actually. James only ever really seemed to care about what Sirius had to say, never really worrying about any else's approval. Peter was nice but he didn't seem to care about what Remus said either, often joking that if he listened to what he said he might have to learn something. Sirius was clever and better at class than he liked to let on. He had a quiet brilliance that was forever obscured by his flair for the dramatic. There was always more going on inside his head than he let on and some of the things he thought were nothing short of marvellous. When Remus spoke Sirius caught his non-Muggle references and his subtle sarcastic jokes. They could go toe to toe bickering about potions or dark arts, though Remus had a leg up on him at charms no question. The two of them got along very well, even when James and Peter weren't there. When it was just Remus and James or Peter conversations always felt forced and like they were missing two familiar voices. Still, those words echoed in his head.

'It's a feeling and it's not one that I can just get rid of because, believe you me, I've tried.'

It was something that, if you had it, you were supposed to get rid of it. It was something to be ashamed of and Remus was. There had been jokes, of course, there were always jokes and he had accepted it as being part of the gang of boys. James was gay because he was a prissy little deer instead of a manly dog or wicked cool rat. Sirius was gay because he spent so much time on his hair. Peter was gay because he liked drawing girls in dresses. It was what boys said to each other and it was the worst possible thing you could be. That was why it was used as such a dire insult. What would they think of him?

Unwillingly his mind flickered again to Sirius Black; handsome, clever, charming. Even if he did like boys it would never ever be Remus. It would be someone different, not someone fragile who had to be watched to make sure he didn't tucker himself out overstudying or break an arm falling off his broom. Sirius didn't like the awkward nervous types. He went after rare beauties and party girls. The only remotely 'rare' thing about Remus's looks was the multitude of moon-induced scars that latticed his pale scrawny body. For a moment it had felt real, like that secret little happiness inside of him was free and massive. Just for an instant, and the pun was beneath him, it had felt like there was something serious between them. For the first time in, well, ever, Remus wanted to get roaringly drunk. James could arrange it and, for Remus and for such a rare occasion, he almost certainly would.

Sirius shed his jacket as he ducked into a bathroom. He discarded his coat on the ground and gripped the side of the basin. His breathing was heavy and sweat had gathered on his brow. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. That was all that went through his brain. For several minutes, his brain couldn't even form a functioning thought. It was just exclusively swearing. At this point, Sirius didn't even know who he was swearing at. Himself, Remus, his family? Hell, he could be cursing Severus at this point. He didn't know. He just didn't know. This wasn't like him. He never…fuck!

Why did he kiss Remus in the first place? What was he trying to prove? Actually, he had a lot to prove. He was the one from the oh-so perfect and Noble and Ancient House of Black. His entire life he had been taught to follow the rules. Walk upright, hold your head up, learn the difference between a salad fork and a bloody dinner fork! If his family had it their way then, one day, he would marry a perfect Pure-Blood girl and have proper Pure-Blood children.

Then again, he was the odd-man out. He was the Black in Gryffindor. He was the one that broke tradition. He was the one who had gotten himself into this mess in the first place. It wasn't like James could understand that. Yeah, he was a Pure-Blood, but it wasn't the same. His family really didn't care. Blood purity meant nothing to them. They wouldn't care if James loved a house elf, just as long as he was happy. Peter's parents barely noticed him, but he didn't have the pressure weighing down on his to constantly act in a manner that was deemed proper. And then there was Remus.

Everything came so easy to Remus! He was a Half-Blood and he was always ahead of them in class. There was no charm, potion, or spell that Remus couldn't master. He knew the history of Hogwarts by heart, he was able to recite the timeline for the Goblin Wars of 1487. Merlin, he was able to make any potion someone put in front of him! There was nothing he couldn't do! There was nothing he had to live up to! All he had to do was read his little books and all of a sudden he was like a master. He was the favourite of every teacher, he was the one who could get them out of trouble, and he always knew how to fix their plans.

Where did Sirius fit into all of this? He was just the boy who smiled and was always having fun. He was the one lounging outside, trying to look effortlessly cool. Nothing. He was nothing at all. Just that one kid that, eventually, everyone would forget about. James was the Quidditch star, no one could match his talent. Sirius had tried to draw once, but the best he could do was stick figures. He wasn't smart. He just wasn't. When it came to books and studying it was like nothing stuck with him.

What had he been thinking? Sirius Black had always known he wasn't especially bright and that he would almost certainly lead himself into ruin, everyone said as much. There was nothing good that could have come of kissing Remus or telling him that he loved him. The only thing worse than getting laughed or shoved away was being accepted. He hadn't planned for that eventuality and there was no way to recover from it aside from pretending it hadn't happened.

Sirius was not a good person and everyone knew it. That was part of his charm, being so obviously wicked and cool. When it came to love, though, actual love and not teenage lust, he was a useless sack of nothing. He broke everything he touched aside from the Marauders and that was just because their entire job was breaking things. Remus had strength in his taut invisible muscles but he was so very small and fragile. Even if he tried with everything he had he was sure to do nothing but destroy that intelligent, self-sacrificing, gentle boy.

A dry humourless laugh was born in his throat. Even if he could, by some miracle, have a relationship with Remus it didn't matter. His mother would kill them both if she found out and she always seemed to. It wasn't just his family, for once. James and Peter would be just as horrible as anyone else. Simpering little Peter could finally be more of a man than Sirius Black and James, well, he had a reputation and having two of his best friend go batty boy on him wasn't going to make him happy. He could already hear the taunts burning in his ears. They wouldn't even be welcome in their own home. Remus would have to be alone and that, even Sirius knew, was the only thing Remus feared more than his inner wolf. It was pure Black selfishness, wanting Remus for his own. He was destined to burn hot and fast like a wildfire and to eventually burn out, his life ending dramatically and darkly. All he would do to Remus was make absolutely certain he would share that ugly brutal end.

Still, he couldn't entirely banish the persistent memories of that warm mouth with its lithe ever gifted tongue. The thin beautiful boy with the honey-gold hair haunted his mind in a way that was both entirely unwelcome and completely magnificent. That delicate face, finer boned than seemed possible on a boy, ever curved into some microscopic expression that it took an expert to find, hung in his vision. They made pensives for this and that was one thing not even Mother would refuse to buy him. Plenty of wizards pulled their worst memories out to make them sharper and better able to focus. God, did he ever want to pull every thought of his werewolf out of his traitorous brain.

He had to take several deep shuddering breaths before he could still himself. As soon as he did, though, he was as calm as he had ever been. It was a product of his upbringing. Getting upset happened to everyone but you had to at least pretend to be unflappably calm. Never let them see your weakness. No one would ever see the pathetic centre that huddled inside of the devil-may-care exterior. His friends had glimpsed it in seconds but he could mostly trust them. Mostly.

It was time to laugh it off. If Remus brought it up again then he would have to be cruel to be kind. There was no sense in pursuing that madness and dragging them both down into oblivion. Tell Remus what a funny game it had been and how badly they could scare James with it. Tell Remus it was just to see if he could turn even someone with no attraction to him into a wibbleing pile of jelly. And, of course, he could. If he wanted, he would explain, he could even make James forsake Lily in pursuit of Sirius Black, the ultimate prize. Tell Remus that it was just a game and, when he got so into it, he had gotten disgusted and left. Let him know it wasn't ever going to happen. But only if Remus was enough of an idiot to ask.