Previously in the Darklyverse: Remus and Sirius made tentative steps toward reconciling as Sirius moved in unofficially with Remus and Alice after Dumbledore returned to Hogwarts and McGonagall took back over her usual Transfiguration professor post. Remus found a job in Canada, where his werewolf status didn't need to be disclosed to employers.

xx

May 7th, 1982: Remus Lupin

Well, at least it's not like they had sex last night or anything, Remus thinks when he wakes up the next morning to a very human Sirius Black sharing his bed. They didn't even kiss. All their clothes are still on, but Sirius's arm is slung over the bare skin of his stomach where his nightshirt has hiked up, and Remus's hair is plastered to both Sirius's neck and Remus's sweaty forehead. Sirius isn't snoring, which makes sense—it's probably about three o'clock in the afternoon here in Britain, as Remus's Canadian work schedule makes him keep odd hours—but Remus thinks Sirius might just have been listening to him sleep. It honestly surprises him a little that Sirius bothered getting back into bed at this time of day; normally Sirius is long gone from the bedroom by the time Remus wakes.

Sirius has got to know that Remus has woken up—his breathing will have shifted—but he doesn't dare pull his head off of Sirius's chest or look up at him or speak. If he does, he'll have to face the fact that last night—the last couple days—the last six months—were real, and he's not ready for that, not yet. If he stays here, tucked under Sirius's chin, then he won't have to confront all the reasons that getting back together with Sirius would be a terrible idea.

Can anyone ever really leave the old baggage in a relationship behind? Will the years of crap they've put each other through make it impossible for them to get to a place where they can truly be happy, trust each other, treat one another with respect? Or would it be a waste to give up on the person he once loved most in this world just because things got messy? Remus doesn't know if it's even possible to have a long-term close relationship that's always wholesome, always whole.

"What are you thinking about so loudly?" says Sirius. His words are teasing, but his tone is somber.

Remus sighs—he knew he couldn't avoid this moment for long. "Do you think we're doomed?" he asks quietly.

Sirius presses his nose into Remus's hair. "I don't think we have any way of knowing that ahead of time. I think we have to just—either we don't try at all, or we do, but there's only a chance if we try."

"How can you think it might be worth it? After what happened between you and Marlene… I mean, you tried to work things out, and we both ended up losing her. If you'd just broken up in sixth year instead of giving it a shot, then maybe—"

"I don't regret what I did with Marlene," says Sirius firmly.

"But she got so hurt, and it wasn't exactly easy on you, either. She died before she got over it. If—"

"I don't know if she would wish we'd never been together if she were here right now," Sirius interrupts, "but I don't wish that. Marlene was… it was complicated, and I had a lot of anger for a long time, but I wouldn't be the person I am today if it weren't for the ways she pushed me. I learned a lot. It hurt when she died, and it sucked when things ended—hell, it sucked for years before it ended—but even if I had known how it it was going to end up, I wouldn't have taken it back. I would have done a lot of things differently, but I wouldn't have made it so that she'd never been that big a part of my life. Moony—even if what we're doing here doesn't last, it isn't a waste of effort to try to make it work. I screwed a lot of things up, but I will never regret being with you."

It's the exact right thing for Sirius to say, and it's just going to make it harder for Remus to push Sirius away. He should push Sirius away, shouldn't he? Sirius thought he was a Death Eater, for god's sake, and it hurts. Sirius isn't gay or even bi, necessarily—they established long ago that his attraction to Remus isn't exactly sexual, even if he does have his own reasons for liking the sex. But it's getting easier to slip back into a routine of spending time with him, remembering how it feels to be someone Sirius trusts.

He unsticks himself from Sirius's chest and scoots up in bed a little so that their eyes are level. He doesn't have to do this, Remus reminds himself. He could get up and leave right now—keep Sirius away from his bed and out of his life from now on.

He closes his eyes and tilts forward.

Kissing Sirius again, after all this time, feels strange. The way Sirius's lips move is familiar, but Remus's memory of the details have grown fuzzy, and he's startled by the reminder of the exact thinness of Sirius's lips, the nuances of his taste. It would feel so natural to just kiss him back, but Remus can't quite bring himself to do it. Maybe it's because he knows this is a terrible idea—or maybe he's just feeling shy, after all the time that's passed and all the women that Sirius could have been kissing over the last couple of years, for all he knows.

Sirius obviously senses Remus's hesitation because he pulls away after what feels like only a few short seconds, though Remus's sense of the passage of time is probably a little warped. "Let's slow down," says Sirius. He sounds perfectly patient, which Remus doesn't fully understand—Sirius has been waiting for this for months, probably. "Let's just lie here for a while, okay?"

"We should get up," says Remus, shaking his head. He can't help but bite his lip, which still tastes like Sirius. He can't even. "I've got to get ready for work."

"Want me to make you breakfast before you go?"

Remus wriggles until the arm trapped between his body and Sirius's comes loose. He pulls his wrist towards himself and checks his wristwatch. "I guess. Thanks."

"Go on and grab a shower; I'll have drop scones waiting for you when you get out."

In the shower, Remus spends far longer than necessary soaping up and shaving the stubble on his face. For a moment, he wishes he could just allow himself to be happy with Sirius—but the problem isn't really that he's forcing himself to stay miserable, is it? Maybe Sirius just doesn't make him happy anymore. If there's enough shit in the way, maybe loving somebody, even being in love with them, isn't enough to make you feel good when you're around them.

Not for the first time, he asks himself seriously what it is that he wants from Sirius. Does he really want to see if they have a future together? Or is he just hanging around him because it hurts less when he's around him than it does when he's not?

But Remus doesn't know if he has the heart to restrain himself any longer. If he wants to be close to Sirius, and Sirius wants to be close to him, then what the hell is holding him back?

Maybe he needs to just—either go all in or leave for good. He's been doing this halfway thing for so long—keeping Sirius in his life, but putting barriers up and never really trying to trust him—and it clearly isn't working. What he decides now doesn't have to be permanent, either. The problem is, Remus doesn't know whether he should cut Sirius out of his life and move on and try to let him back in later—or go all in right now and only make a clean break if that doesn't work.

He knows what would be the cautious choice, the sensible choice. But there's a war going on out there. If he doesn't dive in with Sirius now, who's to say that they'll both live through this and have the chance to try later? Does Remus really want to risk losing what might be his only chance to make things right between them?

By the time he turns off the hot water, he's made up his mind. He towels dry, slips into his robes, and heads straight for the kitchen.

Sirius is just pulling his drop scones out of the oven when Remus pads barefoot into the room. Sirius is singing loudly and off-key to himself, but cuts himself off mid-lyric and starts to say, "Just in time! I'm just Summoning plates and—Moony, what are you doing?"

Because Remus is pushing Sirius backwards, resting one hand on Sirius's hip and winding the other into his hair. "I don't want to slow down. We've gone slow long enough."

Sirius splays his hands out on the countertop behind him, edging backward, away from Remus. "I thought you said you don't trust me."

"I said it wasn't a good idea not to trust you, not that I don't. Look, I can spend the rest of the time we have left together doubting whether we should do this—and for all we know, with us being in the Order, that might not be very much time—or I can be with the person I want to be with."

"You… want to be with me?"

"I don't know," Remus admits. He's short of breath, and the hands gently grasping Sirius's body are shaking. "But I don't want to lose my chance to find out."

"With Marlene…" Sirius says gruffly. He clears his throat and tries again, his gaze flicking rapidly between Remus's eyes. "When I was sleeping with Marlene for all those years, there are a lot of conversations and negotiations we should have had that we didn't. We didn't have them while we were having sex, and we didn't even have them when we were dating and it seemed like things were going fine. Even when we fought about those things, we weren't really talking—we weren't listening or trying to work things through. I don't want to do that with you, Moony. I mean, I thought you were a Death Eater. I can't just pretend like I didn't, and I can't pretend like that isn't affecting us."

"But we've talked about it," Remus sighs.

"Not recently."

"Well, what else is there to say about it that we haven't already said? You've apologized."

"And you've told me that my apologies aren't enough. If we're still not on good footing—"

"It is what it is. We aren't resolving anything when we talk in circles. At a certain point, we have to move on if we want to—you know—grow together."

It sounds corny as hell, but Sirius looks like he's feeling too scared to mind or even to notice. "I don't want to screw this up worse than I already have."

Remus tips his forehead against Sirius's and closes his eyes. "Stop trying to talk me out of this, and kiss me."

"Moony—"

"Enough talking. Seriously, we've done enough of it."

"But—with the way things have been going, this is kind of coming out of nowhere."

That's fair. Even half an hour ago, Remus wasn't sure that he wanted to do this. But—Marlene died before Remus could really make things right with her. He doesn't want the same to happen to Sirius.

He doesn't admit any of this to Sirius, though. Instead, he says, "Is it? We've been sleeping in the same bed together, Padfoot. We've spent full moons together. Every time our hands brush, every time I look you in the eye, I feel like I'm going to burn up."

"That's why you haven't been looking at me?" Sirius mutters.

Remus still has him crowded up against the countertop, but he shifts his hands so that his arms are draped around Sirius's neck. He can feel Sirius's uneven breath on his face. "Padfoot, this is starting to get embarrassing. Kiss me already."

"Remus…"

It's a little jarring to hear Sirius call him by his given name without the rest of the world around to hear it. "Sirius, seriously—"

"Ha."

"Shut up," Remus rebukes. "I won't kiss you until you say I can, all right? So just put me out of my misery here and—"

Sirius puts him out of his misery. It's nothing like the tentative press of lips they shared in bed this morning—the movement of his lips is rough and frenzied, and Remus kisses back eagerly, nudging one knee in between both of Sirius's. With the hands still spread out behind him, Sirius propels himself up to sit back on the counter a little, and Remus strains his neck upward to meet him, dropping his hands from behind Sirius's neck to his chest.

Sirius brushes Remus's bottom lip with a wet flick of his tongue, and Remus readily opens his mouth and licks into Sirius's. He wedges his leg tighter between Sirius's knees. Sirius's own legs are shaking—with nerves or arousal, Remus can't tell. He's just starting to worm Sirius's thigh in between his own when Sirius ducks his head and breaks the kiss, panting.

"Sirius—"

"Not that far," Sirius insists. "Not yet."

"But—"

"You have work," Sirius reminds him. "Your breakfast is getting cold. Tonight is a full moon, and you're not at your full strength. Besides, we haven't even figured out—I mean, we can't bang when I'm not even your boyfriend."

"Why not? You weren't Marlene's boyfriend, either, when you two started sleeping together, and you're not telling me you've been celibate ever since we broke up."

Sirius bows his head.

"Seriously? You haven't slept with anyone?"

"Marlene and I shouldn't have done what we did," says Sirius, shrugging. "I didn't want to repeat the same mistakes, and I still don't. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with meaningless hookups, but that's not what this would be if we were to do this."

"Okay—okay—but if there's nothing wrong with meaningless hookups, then why didn't you have any while you thought I was the Death Eater spy?"

Sirius actually, honest-to-god blushes. "I just… I wasn't exactly doing great while we weren't together. It's kind of like I said before—I didn't want to screw anybody else up, and anyway, I needed some time to be single and work things out on my own."

Remus pauses. "Do you want to be my boyfriend?"

"Of course I do. Of course. I just don't know if I should."

He mulls this over for a moment. "Not boyfriends," he concludes finally, "but if we're going to do this, we should do it exclusively. I don't think it would be very smart of us otherwise."

"Done," says Sirius immediately. "Come here."

He spreads his legs wide, and Remus steps inside them and wraps his arms around his waist. "I don't have to introduce Harry to Moony tonight," he mumbles into Sirius's chest.

Sirius chuckles. "We have all weekend to make out in bed, okay? And we couldn't tonight even if we wanted to."

"Tell James I'll go straight there when I get off work, all right?"

"All right."

"And you'll come, too?"

"Absolutely. I'll ask Frank if he wants to leave Neville with us overnight, too, so that he can meet Padfoot and Moony."

Reluctantly, Remus pecks him on the cheek and then steps backward out of his arms. "I, uh… I guess I'll see you tonight, then."

"Moony?"

"Yeah?"

Sirius smiles fondly. "I love you."

He doesn't say it back, but he thinks Sirius knows that he's thinking it.