"I want spätzle."
Remus glances over the top of his book at Sirius's fretful face. He's been listing increasingly bizarre foods for the better part of an hour in an attempt to identify exactly what he is in the mood for. All manner of dishes that could be easily managed by the House Elves have been suggested by Remus and quickly dismissed by Sirius, and over the last few minutes suggestions have strayed firmly into the territory of the exotic bordering on the imaginary. Sirius mentioned something about a chicken stuffed with strudel when Remus was last paying attention.
"Do you know what that is?" Remus asks mildly.
"It's... It's like a sausage, right?"
"It's egg noodles."
"I said like a sausage, didn't I?"
"And it is. Like a sausage. In the way the Orion Nebula is like an old shoe."
"I've never seen such cynicism in one so young."
"I'm not cynical, I'm busy. And you're hungry. Why don't you go and discuss the finer points of spätzle as it relates to the world of sausage with the kitchen staff. I'm sure your small elven friends would be happy to hike to Germany, if the need should arise."
Sirius sighs and looks disgustingly satisfied. "They do love me, the little food machines."
Remus tucks his legs beneath himself and is just settling in to a really good study when Sirius plops down beside and throws his arm around Remus's shoulder. It's not that Remus minds exactly. Actually, if he's being humiliatingly honest, he does the opposite of mind, if there is such a thing. He un-minds, which is, coincidentally, a fairly accurate description of what happens to his brain when Sirius is near. It's just that he has work that needs to be done, but of course he can't say this to Sirius because Sirius will say something like "well I have a few things that need to be done, as well," and a few ridiculous eyebrow raises later, Remus will kiss him just to shut him up.
"It is a Thursday, Remus, a Thursday. Why are you doing homework?"
"Because there are, actually, lessons on Friday, whether you show up for them or not, and some of us are not going to pass on our dashing good looks and impeccable hair alone."
"Yes, but you're doing your Potions essay, and you don't have Potions until Monday. What is wrong with your head, Moony?"
"Yes, I—but..." But Sirius has his nose in Remus's ear, which the Remus of six months ago would have found completely inappropriate, making it fortunate that the Remus of six months ago legged it for the exit when words like "canoodling" were first brought into the conversation (and not entirely without merit.) He keeps waiting for the day that this will no longer be interesting, or at the very least, no longer be simultaneously heart-stopping and pulse pounding, as though that makes any sense. But Remus's body obviously isn't concerned with what does or does not make sense, since it continuously explodes every damn time Sirius does that weird thing with his tongue.
Ah, yes, the thing that he is doing now. It's not as though they don't do other things, things which are no less interesting and make Remus feel significantly more like he is going to die of over-stimulation. In fact, the primary reason they have not done the thing that Sirius would most like to do in the entire world (besides enslaving the whole of Slytherin House) is not because Remus doesn't want to (badly. And frequently. At inconvenient times), but because he is afraid that he might literally die. Besides, this, just this, is quite enough, apparently, to leave Remus the consistency of undercooked spätzle.
The inappropriateness continues for several long and not entirely unpleasant moments, with Sirius's nose and lips trailing across the side of Remus's head sort of sloppily. Some small portion of Remus's brain, the part that does not give in to incapacitation of any kind, no matter how the rest of his body begs, lights up in outrage.
"Wait, Sirius, I—"
Sirius groans and flings himself onto his back on the couch, dramatically.
"You are so difficult."
"I don't mean to be," Remus says apologetically.
Sirius smiles, small and sly.
"Yes, I know. And that is the only reason I tolerate you." He sits back up and summons a tin of biscuits from across the Common Room. "And, also, because on the rare occasion that you do part company with your other lover, the excessively long essay, you are quite the little harlot." Remus watches from the corner of his eye as Sirius crams sugar-coated confections into his mouth rather indelicately, unconsciously tucking his feet beneath Remus's thigh. A warm quiet descends over them, thick and heavy, disturbed only by the sounds of Sirius crunching and the fire doing its crackling best to defend against the chill of a crisp February night.
"You remember Angela, yeah?" Sirius says, out of what some might call "the blue" and others might refer to as "a general lack of conversational skills." It is only at this disturbance that Remus realizes how close he had been to dozing off.
"Was she the one that had the, you know, the teeth?"
Sirius rolls his eyes and says, "Yes, that was Tiny Teeth, as Prongs so lovingly referred to her. No matter how many times I pointed out the potential advantages of small teeth... Not that I would know first hand," he adds hastily, noting the way Remus's eyebrow attempts to unite with his hairline at the mention of "advantages."
"Alright, what about old Tiny Teeth? Didn't she move to Prague or something?"
"No, no, that was Jennifer—err, Slow Talker, as you might know her. No, Tiny Tee—Angela was the one that ran off with Richard wossasname after I wouldn't take her to," he crosses himself, "Madame Puddifoot's for Valentine's Day our Third Year. I was but a lad! How could I have been expected to endure such unending and gruesome torments?"
"Such gruesome torments. Violations of the Geneva Conventions, no doubt."
"You realize I only understand about two-thirds of the things that come out of your brain?"
"Is it up to two-thirds now?" Remus asks, dodging a well aimed pillow as it whizzes past his head.
"The point is, Angela asked me to... accompany her to the party we're throwing Saturday."
"Does she even go to this school anymore?"
"Yes, she—you are not listening properly, Moony. She wants me to take her to the party. In what I'd imagine to be a date-like fashion."
Remus considers this a moment. The thought of Sirius being date-like with anyone, and Remus includes himself in this group, is not a particularly pleasant one. Dates are, in Remus's admittedly limited understanding, exercises in civility and polite conversation, where food and anecdotes are shared, and hopefully the quality of one of these two things makes it worth the effort. Sirius is not polite, civil, or particularly good to eat with in a public setting. And when feminine whiles and girl-bits are brought into it, Remus shudders to imagine the mayhem that might ensue. He fears the whole thing would be a complete disaster.
But he fears more deeply that it would not be a disaster.
"Yes. Well. I suppose you'd better decide what you are to do then. Responding to invitations the day of is a bit gauche, I believe. But then I'm sure you'd know, being the resident aristocrat."
Sirius stares at him, eyes narrow and mouth slightly open.
"That's all?"
"That's all what?"
"That's all you have to say on the matter? An etiquette lesson? Which I don't even need, by the by." Sirius's back has gone very straight and his feet, still buried beneath Remus's leg, twitch and arch like angry, burrowing rodents.
"Sirius, I, well, I'm not sure if it's my place—actually, I'm not sure what my place is in the first, uhm, place. In all of this. With you." The words fall from Remus's mouth, clumsy and unmanageable, like bricks tumbling from the back of a truck. Not at all the sort of nimble speech he'd been trying to evoke. It's just that everything about them feels so incredibly fragile, possibly because he wants so desperately for it to not be ruined. It's the reason he hadn't wanted to have The Conversation Sirius expected him to want. It hadn't mattered. He's been secure enough in the belief that Sirius was just as alarmed and confused as he was, and that they were, in essence, together in their confusion.
And that was enough! But now, suddenly, some bird is in it with them, and Remus feels claustrophobic; however, he will not, absolutely will not turn in to some clingy, desperate charity case, because to do so would be completely unattractive, and would make Remus feel like he is showing his hand, so to speak. Not just showing his hand actually, but rendering it in neon and having it mounted to his head.
Sirius stares at him, eyes searching frantically for comprehension.
"Not your place?"
"Not... I'm not saying this very well. Listen, I... I just think that I don't know if what I think counts, right? I mean, does it? We aren't—you and I are not, well, we're not exactly anything, really, are we? I mean, as far as Tiny Teeth, and everyone else, is concerned, we're just... friends," Remus says, a little pathetically.
It has long troubled Remus that there is not a word for what they are, what they do. The English language has been Remus's faithful friend and companion since his near-mastery of it at the age of four, so this betrayal strikes him quite deeply. There are descriptions, obviously: pleasant, fascinating, scary, insane, wonderful. There are also verbs, like kiss, touch, hold, and canoodle. But there isn't a term, really, not in any practical sense.
What does one call a mutual enthusiasm for being melded together as much and as frequently as possible? And what about the fact that they are, above all else (or at least Remus thinks it is above all else) best mates and Marauders, who are sworn in blood and sweat and manful-tears to remain as such until they are killed, preferably in some glorious and exploding fashion at the age of twelve million? There isn't a word for this sort of insanity, which makes Remus wonder sometimes if perhaps they are doing something they ought not be. Perhaps the reason there is not a word for it is because it is so wrong as to literally be unspeakable.
Except it doesn't feel unspeakable.
Sirius extracts himself, feet first, from the couch and stands. His hair, which has been recently trimmed at Remus's behest, flops indignantly into his eyes as he looks down at Remus.
"No, you're exactly right. We aren't anything. Exactly. Angela will be thrilled. I, I'll see you later then, yeah?"
Remus feels his heart fall into his lower intestine. Before he can construct a detailed thesis on the subtle yet mind-bogglingly, insanely, earth-shatteringly crucial differences between not being "Anything exactly," and not being "Anything. Exactly," Sirius has been swallowed by the black mouth of the stairwell. He makes a note to peruse a thesaurus before Sirius gets up in the morning.
"Bugger," Remus says quietly.
The fire offers its crackly sympathy.
Sirius tiptoes to the toilet, minding the creaky floorboard by the doorway. There are few feelings so frustrating as tiptoeing around when all one really wants to do is bang things violently together. Peter is making odd, whimpery noises in his sleep, his left leg trembling wildly in the epic and eternal battle of Boy vs. Tangled Bedsheet. James snores on like a rock, or like he has been hit in the head with one. While he cleans his teeth, Sirius listens intently for the sounds of someone, of Remus, on the stairs, and prepares to launch himself into bed and pretend to be asleep, if necessary. But there is no sound, and his teeth are thankful for the thorough, if somewhat aggressive, cleaning they receive, and Sirius climbs into bed without launching.
What's irritating is that he's not even certain of what he'd been expecting. A little indignation on Remus's part, perhaps? A token resistance, to which he, Sirius, would immediately yield? It's not as though he wants to take out Angela bloody Suthers. He doesn't even want to take out Remus, for Christ's sake. He wants to take Remus, certainly, but not out. It seems to Sirius a bit absurd that he has just sworn to spend Saturday evening on a date he does not want to be on in order to spite someone he does not want to spite.
But what's more irritating, and indeed disturbing, is what he'd wanted to happen. Some desperate, vulnerable part of him had hoped for screaming objections and possibly violence, followed by passionate and intimate apologies, right there, in the middle of the Common Room.
Perhaps, Sirius tries to convince himself, it is for the best. He wonders if this is the universe's way of warning him not to be such a complete nancy and to maybe enact a little self-preservation every now and again. He decides that this is as good a theory as any, and thinks that the best way to abide by it would probably be to just go on the aforementioned date and have a smashing time and prove that he does indeed still possess a pair of fully functional bollocks.
What's unfortunate is that he already turned Angela down (a knee-jerk reaction that he refuses to analyze), which means he will just have to make up for it by having a smashing time being the free-swinging, unfettered bachelor that he is. The gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach is probably just hunger. Probably.