Warnings: None
Sirius knows he's a bad person. A churlish, spiteful scut. A cowardly little wart. A heartless scumbag. In short, a wanker.
However, knowing all of this does nothing to stop him from taking one look at Fabian's peaceful, sleeping face, untangling himself from the long limbs and bolting.
He remembers to pick up his clothes on the way out of course, each item hidden somewhere around the small dorm - jeans and jacket folded neatly on the chair, t-shirt atop the bookshelf, and boxers, after some rooting, down the back of the bed - but it's only when he's halfway down the corridor that he's finally pulling the last of them on.
There have been times in Sirius's life where he's been so drunk it takes him the whole day to remember he got off with someone the night before. This is not one of those times. Waking up naked in an unfamiliar bed with a pair of arms wrapped around him and an arse that doesn't feel as though it's in particularly tip top shape is already indicative of a night of drunken shagging, but even now, hungover, he can remember it happening anyway. Which is a bit of a ballache, really, considering Sirius only has two friends here and Fabian is one of them. Was. Perhaps still is. Who knows?
As luck would have it, the state of Sirius's friendship with Fabian is quickly shoved to the back of his mind as he bursts through the door to his dorm, fully intent on dropping back into bed and sleeping the rest of the morning away and ignoring any hurt redheads who may come looking for him.
He gets halfway to his bed, realises something isn't quite right, turns around and screams. Peter has gone. In his place lies the resurrected corpse of Janis Joplin. She screams when he does, and then Peter comes waddling out of the bathroom naked and screams too.
"Oh Christ, my eyes," Sirius moans, turning away as Peter hurriedly covers his arse - which could well be some sort of alien life form - with an abandoned pair of Y-fronts.
"Sirius - "
"No, no! That's fine, just stay there. Please. I'm going to go and bleach my brain now."
Hurriedly, Sirius side steps out of the room, head down, closing the door behind him. A few seconds pass before a shudder snakes its way through his body, and he makes for the stairs instead, two questions battling for dominance in his mind:
1) At what point did I think going home with Fabian instead of Remus was a good idea?
and 2) How the fuck did Peter grab a shag at a queer bash?
Sirius fails to find the answer to either of these questions even as he wanders into town and the cool autumn air begins to soothe his throbbing head. He resolves to find some greasy spoon for a bit of comfort-cum-brain food when distraction smacks him in the face in the form of an obnoxiously coloured flyer.
LET'S SEND PLASTIC WATER BOTTLES DOWN THE DRAIN flashes up at him in startlingly blue Comic Sans.
Suddenly some spotty swot is in his face, barking, "Did you know that over one billion barrels of oil were used to make the plastic bottles consumed in the United Kingdom last year?!"
"Oh wow, er - "
"And that doesn't include the petroleum used to transport them!"
His spit sprays revoltingly, and Sirius finds himself suddenly furious. "Calm down!" he splutters. "Fuck me, I'm just going for a fry up, mate."
This is one of the things he truly hates about university. Every week there's something new being protested about; global warming and Natwest and shark fin soup and whether or not it's politically correct to refer to the bloody grass as bloody green, as though any of them can actually do anything about it, pretending they're these tough working class kids and stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that the majority of them are middle class yuppies studying Classics and History and Medicine at Durham.
It would annoy Sirius anyway, but now he's sort of trying to remember why he hopped into bed with Fabian and he's sort of got a massive headache and he sort of really wants some fucking bacon, so he literally shoves the spotty twat aside, sending his poncy flyers up in the air, and battles his way through the rest of the crowd, making a mental note to nip into Tesco after breakfast to arm himself with a massive bottle of Evian.
The cafe he hurriedly escapes to is one he's ventured in only once before. He'd wrinkled his nose up at it then, with its greasy lino and net curtains, but now the smell of sizzling meat is tantalising, the sweetest he's ever smelt.
It's made sweeter still when he spots Remus Lupin slouched behind one of the red-checked tables, book in hand.
Sirius isn't exactly surprised by the sight - attending a campus university means he tends to bump into the same people a lot - but he is surprised by how Remus doesn't even bother looking up. Perhaps he's ignoring him.
The thought does little to stop Sirius from sliding into the chair opposite without waiting for an invitation.
"Hello, cuckoo bud," he croons.
Remus spares him only the tiniest upward flicker of his eyes. "Well, if it isn't Amy Winehouse."
"What you reading?"
He can see the cover anyway - John Betjeman's Trains and Buttered Toast - but Remus is kind enough to shift it ever so slightly towards himself so that Sirius can get an ever so slightly better look.
"Wouldn't have thought that would be your cup of tea," he says, leaning back in his seat.
"Oh?"
"Well, you know. Betjeman. Prep school, Oxford, bit of a rebel at that. Not the most progressive bloke either."
It takes a moment or two but eventually, the tiniest of tiny smiles begins to grace Remus's gorgeous, sun-dappled features.
"I maintain his conservatism was purely aesthetic," he says quietly, "and even if it wasn't, I don't have to agree with him to appreciate his brilliance."
"Well. No. I suppose not."
Silence passes between them for a few moments, during which time Sirius turns to gaze out the window, slightly steamy with condensation, at the steadily increasing crowd of water bottle protestors across the road.
"Don't bail on me now, Black," Remus murmurs after a while, pulling Sirius's attention back towards him. "Here's me thinking you were about to say something of substance."
Sirius scoffs, forgetting the protesters in favour of making patterns with his finger in grains of spilled salt. "Yeah well, I'm concerned if I say something of substance you'll get horny again and try to dropkick me this time."
"Only if you choose once more to follow it with something completely thoughtless and wanky."
"I'll remember that for next time."
"Next time, eh?"
"Oh yeah. Sorry. Assuming things again." Sitting up straight in his chair, Sirius glances round. "Where's that dowdy waitress? I'm famished here."
"And hungover by the looks of it. Then again, I'm not surprised. You were still hanging off your fella with a pint sloshing over your wrist when I left."
Sirius practically shudders. He doesn't want to be reminded of anything Remus may have witnessed of him last night. He must be grimacing because Remus adds, "Cheer up. Might never happen."
His tone isn't exactly light - just the usual, gravelly deadpan - but Sirius suspects the lack of insult means Remus is in a Good Mood. Just his luck, really, to come across Remus Lupin in a Good Mood when he himself is in a rather regretful one.
"I'm just really hungry," he says eventually, managing a tight smile.
"Yes, you said that."
"Sorry."
"So you should be," says Remus, but it's clear he's joking. Sirius wonders at what point did Remus Lupin think it acceptable for them to be on speaking terms again.
Not that he's complaining. He just wishes he were in a better mood so that he could fully appreciate the pleasant turn of events. Then again, if he were in his usual buoyant and exuberant mood he'd probably get up on the table and start singing Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' upon realising that Remus doesn't want to punch him in the face after all, so it's probably best Sirius is feeling slightly more subdued than usual.
"I don't know where I am with you," he says after a while.
"I believe it's called Dahlia's Kitchen," Remus replies, not looking up from Betjeman. He licks the tip of his finger and turns a page.
"You know what I mean."
"You're assuming I know what you mean."
"No, I know you know what I mean."
"I didn't realise you'd be so affected by all this."
Sirius snorts. "If by 'all this' you mean sexually accosting me, then saying some really hurtful things, and then making a complete idiot out of me last night then yes, I am rather affected by 'all this'."
Remus finally has the good grace to look at him. "I can't believe you just referred to a blowjob as the act of being 'sexually accosted'." Raising a brow he adds, "Was I really that bad?"
"You're mental," Sirius huffs.
"No, I'm a normal human being who stopped being angry about something that happened a month ago," Remus says primly, placing his book down at last. "Now if you really want me to still be upset then by all means continue to stare at me like I'm some kind of deranged circus act. But when you think about the facts, Sirius, you're the one who stopped coming to the LGBT socials, and as far as I could tell you were avoiding me. What was the point in me staying angry at you if it looked as though I was never going to speak to you again? I didn't think you'd turn up last night, so what did you expect from me? Raging fires and fury? And you needn't look at me like that."
Sirius promptly closes his gob.
"Anyway, I wasn't even that angry," Remus goes on. "Just more... I dunno. Embarrassed."
"I embarrassed you?" Sirius says weakly, horrified. Thinking he'd made Remus angry was bad enough, but it's not like Sirius hasn't pissed people off in bed before. Embarrassed on the other hand? That just makes him feel like some kind of leering old pervert!
"Too much awareness. I'm pretty dreadful at sex with a sound mind. I think I was too impatient, not getting sufficiently pissed before making a pass at you." Remus looks down and opens his book again. "I'm going to change the subject now. Is that alright?"
Bewildered, Sirius holds his hands out. "Go for it."
"So. Betjeman. Do you actually like him or are you merely a fountain of related facts?"
Sirius can't pretend he wasn't a bit put out by the way he was treated last night by Remus, gorgeous and sexy and subtly confident and delectable as he is, especially when memories begin returning to his fuzzy brain with the assistance of gloriously fried food and black coffee.
Memories of rather intense feelings of determination and annoyance at Remus's lack of interest in him. Memories of weirdo Craig, dressed as Twiggy, throwing up noisily in the gents. Memories of drunken dancing (grinding, perhaps grinding would be more appropriate), and memories - awful, embarrassing memories - of telling Fabian Prewett that he could "make this really good".
He still doesn't know what possessed him to do it - except perhaps similar amounts of rejection and tequila - but now that he's pieced everything together he can conclude that sleeping with Fabian hadn't been pre-planned in any sense, and happened only at the very last hurdle.
They'd got back from the party around three and Sirius, for reasons unknown, had insisted on sleeping in Fabian's room. He vaguely remembers Fabian arguing with him over it, only half-joking, saying that he was drunk, they both were, and it wasn't a good idea, and Sirius had whined that he was just so tired and he was here now and couldn't he just kip on the floor?
And of course Fabian hadn't let him sleep on the floor, and had let Sirius into his bed, and for a while they'd curled up together and really had tried to sleep. But they'd both fidgeted and one of them had turned and someone's dick or arse or something got brushed, or maybe their faces got too close together, and it was all downhill from there. Or uphill, depending on which way you look at it. Because sleeping with Fabian wasn't ideal, but from what Sirius can remember the sex was perfectly adequate.
He forces himself to put it aside altogether now as he and Remus walk together along the riverbank like young, harmonious lovers. All of last night's irritation seems to seep into the Wear to be washed away to the North Sea, the space this leaves in Sirius soon filled by Remus's sweet, honeyed words.
God, but he's lovely.
"I think he was just a pessimist rather than some last-ditch Tory," he's saying, head down, gesturing with his gorgeous, long-fingered hands. They're talking about Larkin now. "I mean yeah, he demonstrates this apparent hatred of progress - or the modern world's idea of progress - but I think he'd just become disillusioned by these newfangled ideas about what it means to have quality of life. That's why he's so much more of an idealist than say, R.S. Thomas. I mean, Thomas knew the countryside, Larkin was just lamenting for this Golden Age he'd never actually experienced."
Remus is so intelligent. It's really rather astonishingly sexy.
"And I think maybe he even knew that himself, and you're not listening to a word I'm saying, are you?"
"Of course I am! And I think, erm..." He pauses, casting his eyes over the fresh, dazzling blue of the afternoon autumn sky as though hoping for inspiration, something that might actually challenge Remus's already boundless mind. "I think it can also come down to how much of a dick someone is. I mean, R.S. Thomas was most definitely a dick."
It's alright. He did R.S. Thomas at A Level. He knows R.S. Thomas was a dick. It should be fine. And indeed it is, because Remus smiles, albeit a bit crookedly, and nods.
"I s'pose."
"I mean, there's luddite and then there's just lunatic."
Finally, Remus laughs. "Right."
Sirius has cracked Remus Lupin. He knows what makes him laugh. Poets. Jokes about poets make him laugh. So alright, Sirius will have to do a bit of homework on this. Of course, a few will be off limits. Like Keats. Can't exactly go making jokes about Keats, since they'd mostly have to concern loss of love and terminal illness. Coleridge? Coleridge could be funny, opium and that. Are drugs funny though? Not really.
He'll have to think about this.
Biting his lip, he says, "You're really big on poetry, aren't you?"
Remus looks at him, surprised. "Me? Not really. I mean, I can't pretend to know much about it."
Shit. If Remus is someone who doesn't know much about poetry, what on earth does that make Sirius?
"Really? Could've fooled me," he says. "I keep forgetting you're doing History, not English."
"That some sly way of telling me I talk too much?"
"No! Not at all, I - sorry."
Remus's hard glare relaxes, giving way to another low chuckle. "I don't remember you being this jumpy."
"I think university's done something funny to me," Sirius confesses.
"University does that. Couple months in you suddenly become the complete antithesis of what you were in high school."
"Ah, so what were you? Cheery straight fascist?"
"Funny."
"Sorry." Best stick to the poet jokes, Sirius.
They're descending a little slope now, cold breaths huffing from between their lips as they bounce, and Remus is digging in his pocket for something. By the time they're on flat ground, just beside a little bench overlooking the icy river, he's produced a packet of cigarettes.
"I definitely didn't smoke, for one thing," he says when he's lit up. He doesn't offer the pack to Sirius. Maybe he wants to share the one cigarette, like some chic couple in a '50s French film?
But no, Remus plonks himself down on the bench and keeps the cigarette solely to himself.
"So why did you start?" Sirius asks, sitting down beside him. "To attract gentlemen with your smokey, Hepburn-esque allure?"
Remus sniffs. "No. To deal with the stress of being constantly surrounded by complete twats."
"Do you hate everyone or just most people?"
"Something between the two."
Sirius laughs.
"What about you?" Remus says after a moment.
"Hm?"
"Do you love everyone or just most people?" he mimics in a guff imitation of Sirius's voice.
"I'd say I like a lot of people. But love? I tend to reserve my love for special cases."
He winks. Remus sighs.
"How's the boyfriend?" he asks, but he says it with an emphasis on 'boy' to underline their mutual awareness that Sirius is an idiot.
"Didn't work at all that, did it?"
"Oh, I don't know. You started out as your usual idiotic self with the jealousy garb, but as the night wore on I started to realise you were possibly the best of a bad bunch."
Sirius realises this is most likely supposed to be a compliment, and yet surprisingly it's more like a kick to the balls than a stomachful of butterflies.
"Don't fuck with me like that, Remus," he says tiredly.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Making me think I had a chance at going home with you instead of Fabian."
"Oh. Ouch." Remus takes a long drag on the cigarette, eyes set on the river, glittering prettily in the cold sun. "Poor bloke."
"Me or him?"
"Him, obviously. Hopped into bed with you even though you didn't pay him any attention all night?"
"Watching, were you?"
"Only when I didn't have my eye on Bettie Page pole-dancing." He examines his nails, almost thoughtfully, a rare expression on the usually stony face. "And anyway, you didn't have a chance."
"Yeah, yeah," Sirius says gruffly. "Kick me when I'm down. Ta."
But then Remus is saying, "No, I left early. Or didn't you notice? There was this documentary on about Neolithic medicine and I knew everyone would be out at some sort of Halloween do and I'd have the lounge to myself..."
It takes a moment or two for Sirius to realise that Remus is actually being serious, and then he's laughing, to such an extent he barely registers the hard way in which Remus is now staring at him.
"Think that's funny, do you?" he deadpans, glancing down at his cigarette.
"I actually really do," Sirius snorts, unsure if the tears he can feel forming in his eyes are from much-needed laughter or mere cold.
Remus stares at him for a little while longer.
"Fuck off," he says eventually, the last drag on his cigarette an obvious attempt at hiding a laugh of his own.
Janis Joplin has gone when Sirius gets back, thank God. It's the first thing he notices when he goes in the dorm in fact, three hours later, after parting ways with the truly perfect, only occasionally unnecessarily cruel Remus Lupin.
"Alright, Bobby McGee, I've had time to recover now so you can start explaining why - "
What Sirius wants Peter to explain remains unsaid when his eyes land on Fabian and he trails off mid-sentence. Fabian looks the same as always, but the gaze he fixes Sirius with is less than savoury.
"Oh, hi." Sirius stands awkwardly, unsure if he's allowed to leave again or not. It's not that he's forgotten about his not-particularly-ideal night with Fabian, or the fact that he'll have to deal with it at some point, but Remus has sort of put him in a good mood and, at the risk of seeming horribly twatty, Sirius doesn't really want to discuss drunken one night stands with Fabian at the moment.
"Where were you today?" Peter asks.
Sirius shrugs, toeing at the carpet. "Just around town."
"All day?"
"Well, I sort of bumped into Remus, so..."
His astonishing lack of tact - the thing which, funnily enough, Fabian pointed out to him only last week - only occurs to him after he's said it, but slightly before Fabian shoves past him and out of the room.
In the awkward silence that follows, Sirius just about manages to get out a strange, twisted scoffing noise.
"What've you been saying to him?" he jokes limply, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.
Peter stares back at him. There's this strange mixture of anger and bewilderment set in his chubby face, but it's understandable really; he and Fabian are sort of soul mates.
After a while, when Peter's mouth still remains stubbornly closed, Sirius claps his hands together, rubbing them hard as though trying to conjure up some kind of comfortable atmosphere.
"So go on then," he says as brightly as he can manage, "tell me all about last night, you sly dog."
Peter leaves then, too.
