Only boy who lives in New York
Blind through the fog and condensed rain on his lenses, Remus glanced over the tops of his glasses as he entered the common living quarters of the old boarding house. As if having been waiting on him all afternoon, his three housemates stood in a row, watching him curiously.
"Unsuccessful," he said with a grimace as the most expressive of those roommates let out a groan, throwing herself back onto the beaten leather sofa that they had bought cheap at a rummage sale down the street. Her wavy blonde hair fanned out against the faded grey.
"Remus, pleeeeease," Marlene whined, bent over backward over the top of the sofa.
"Marlene, pull yourself together," Lily said with a playful roll of her green eyes, though Remus could read the disappointment within them. "I don't see you going out to fetch them."
"That's not very fair," Mary said in her typical half-whisper that Remus struggled so much to hear, he'd learned to read lips rather well over the last year. "Remus knows the guy."
"I don't so much know him," Remus argued, but waggling his head a bit to show that he wasn't really arguing. "My mum used to know his mum. And anyway, he wasn't there."
"You couldn't have talked to anyone else?" Marlene cried, but as soon as she looked over at Remus, there was apology in her gaze. "Nah, it's fine, Rem. Really. We'll try again tomorrow."
"All this for a box of cookies?" Lily asked, glancing over at Remus. He winced again.
"They're not –" he started, but Marlene, enthusiastic as ever, interrupted.
"Cookies?" she shrieked, immediately upright from her position across the sofa.
"Oh, here we go," Lily said, letting out a breath, but smiling despite.
"These are not just cookies, Lily," Marlene said, taking Lily firmly by the shoulders, to which Lily replied by going rather limp in her hands. "These are macarons. At the best shop in London. No – the best shop in Britain!" She shook Lily lightly, and Lily rolled her head back.
"I have been looking forward to trying their new Earl Grey salted caramel flavor," Mary added, her timid voice drowned by Marlene's overly voluminous tone, still ranting.
"And Remus," she said, taking him by the excess fabric at the shoulder of his oversized jumper and shaking him now, too, "Remus is the only one of us that will dare venture into that fancy-arse shop to procure them for the rest of us commoners," she said knowingly.
"I'm not –" he began to argue, but Marlene's voice overtook him.
"Mary is too soft-spoken, normal people cannot hear her," Marlene said, throwing one arm in Mary's direction, and Mary seemed to nod in agreement. "You're too busy with your looming deadlines to ever set foot outside," she said to Lily, and Lily sighed with the knowledge that she was right about this one. For as long as Remus had known Lily – the last year or so, since he'd moved into this strange boarding house with these strange girls – she was never free of her publishing deadlines. Such was the burden of the most popular advice columnist for the most popular internet blog for the most popular women's magazine in the country.
"I don't always have a looming deadline," Lily muttered, and Remus gave her a look.
Marlene moved on without acknowledgement. "And Dorcas …" she paused, her eyebrows furrowed in a look of uncertainty before her resolve seemed to solidify. "Well, no one has ever seen Dorcas, so we're not sure she's real." With a stifled laugh, Remus pulled away from Marlene to lean over the railing at the stairs that led to the rooms upstairs, craning to check the floor for any trademark hand-written messages that Dorcas may have slid under her door, which was the only way they knew there was even a tenant in that room of the hall. That, and the fact that the food they left outside her door always seemed to get eaten on a regular basis.
"And?" Lily huffed. "What about you?" She poked Marlene several times in the shoulder.
"Me?" Marlene said with a scoff. "I'm too fucking weird." That laugh that Remus had tried to stifle came barreling out through his teeth, echoing as he raised his head to the ceiling.
"Don't worry, Marlene," he assured her, patting her condescendingly on the head. "I'll try again just before close. There's bound to be less people then." With a shrug, he moved up the stairs, toward his room. "And you're right. You're too fucking weird for that shop. It's classy."
"Fucking thank you!" she yelled, her voice growing more faint. "He gets it!"
Behind the safety of a closed door, Remus let out a shaky breath. It had been quite an ordeal, visiting that shop. Truth be told, he'd never been good in crowds at all, but it was so much worse when it was the sort of crowds that frequented places like that high-class sweets shop – rich, snobby, eloquent, elegant, fashionable, trendy. He was none of those things.
In times like this, he always questioned his decision to make the move from the quiet of his parents' home in Scotland – well, it was just his father's house now, ever since his mother passed a few years ago – to the bustle of London. But he'd been so lucky to find this little group of weirdos (thanks to an internet friendship he'd formed with Lily), and there was so much here to photograph, so many people here that would hire him for their weddings and their family photos and their graduations. There was just so much more work than in Scotland. More work meant less time to sit in his bedroom and remember all the things he missed about his mum.
And, really, he liked that shop, even if the macarons weren't his favourite (he could blow a whole paycheck on the honey-madeleines and canelés), and even if the girls with the wine-red lipstick looked at his tattered jumpers a little too judgmentally (he'd stopped trying to blend in a long time ago, because it had been so dreadfully unsuccessful). At least the bloke at the front counter had always been nice to him, always remembered his name from the days when their mothers used to be friends, before – well, Remus didn't like to think about before too often.
Was that the catalyst that broke him? Was it losing his mother that turned him into this wreck of a person who couldn't make small talk to save his own life? Had he not had enough time to learn her grace and her equanimity before she was taken from him? Had he always been this way – trembling hands in a crowd and darting eyes in a conversation – or had losing the only person he could really trust to let him be himself made him lose his trust in everyone else?
No, it wasn't just that. Maybe that was the catalyst, but it was a series of misfortune and bad decisions that sculpted him in the mess he'd become. His trust hadn't run out after his mother died – instead, it had too often been shattered by being given to the wrong people.
To distract himself, he put on Simon and Garfunkel and started working on editing a few photos of his last session – an engagement shoot. Being a photographer was different – he could completely disappear behind the camera. The clients didn't look at his clothes or his hair or his shoes. They only looked to him for guidance on where to stand or how to tilt their heads. His photos were about them, after all, and all that mattered was whether he could frame them well.
As the music shuffled through, it landed on I Am A Rock, and Remus smiled. Lily always joked when she heard him playing this song, saying it may as well have been written about their band of misfits, living in this rented out boarding house. I have my books and my poetry to protect me. I am shielded in my armor. Hiding in my room, safe within my womb, I touch no one and no one touches me. That suited him just fine – to never touch and never be touched again.
Before he knew it, when he looked up again, it had grown dark outside. He looked quickly to the clock – there was barely enough time for him to make it, even if he sprinted down the street and, even then, no assurance that the one kid he knew would even be there, much less keep the shop open just for him. The minute changed on the clock as he blinked.
Still, he knew he had to try. The next night would be their weekly dinner in the common dining room downstairs (it was Mary's turn to choose and they were having dumplings) and he wanted to bring something special since he'd missed the last dinner working on this very photoshoot. Besides, Marlene had gone out of her way the day before to bring him some loose-leaf crimson oolong tea from the specialty place near the record shop where she worked.
"Shit," he muttered decisively under his breath, racing out his bedroom door without remembering to throw on his jacket. He was out the front door in six long steps.
As the shop came into view, Remus' face lit up, but his excitement was short-lived as he saw James, the bloke who worked the front counter, standing outside the front door, with the keys in his hand. The pounding of Remus' footsteps skidded to a halt, his shoulders slumped.
"James, darling," Remus heard a soft voice from his right and, before he could turn, a flash of copper skin and dark hair moved across his field of vision. The figure moved to stand next to him, a dark skirt swirling into view with the movement, a claret scarf floating carelessly on the evening breeze. Before Remus could convince himself otherwise, he allowed himself the bravery to look over at his saviour, nearly immediately turned to a pillar of exposed nerves at the exceptionally fashionable, unlawfully stunning person standing beside him, smiling sweetly.
Endless coils of dark, silky hair were piled high, settled loosely behind a pair of red, heart-shaped sunglasses, though several strands tumbled down to purposefully frame a sharp set of cheekbones and piercing, dark eyes. The scarf around the figure's slender throat was so dark red, it was almost black in the dim light, and as the stranger moved further past Remus, it trailed along behind like a veil, accentuating hollow collarbones carved out in tawny skin. Every tap of high heels on the blacktop was in a calculated, invisible line with feet effortlessly following without conscious guidance, hips moving in opposition against them, swaying softly underneath the flouncy, ruffled skirt with a black, sleeveless top, fit snug at the bodice and high at the neck.
And Remus recognized what this odd feeling was, the tightening of the sinew in his chest and the shortening of his breath and the prickling of his skin. Similar to the shaking of his hands in crowds and the darting of his eyes in conversation, but also not like that at all. This feeling was sharper, more pronounced, more dangerous. And when the stranger turned back to smile, Remus felt a spike of that feeling, the danger and affliction moving into his frozen limbs.
"I think you have one last customer," this stylish creature said with a delicate wink in Remus' direction, dark red lipstick matching the shade of the wispy scarf. Remus' face went hot.
Immediately, the smile on James' face grew miles. "Jesus, look at you," he said with a fond wrinkle in the bridge of his nose, moving forward to take this stranger into his arms, an embrace that was well received. "It's been a while, mate. You look good. Stunning, I should say."
"You should say." The hum in this unusual voice bordered on a whisper, with a curious depth that sent a shiver down Remus' spine. "Enough about me, I believe this handsome fellow behind me needed some sweets." Those jet-black eyes were smiling fondly. "Is that right?"
At first, Remus blinked dumbly, his mission forgotten, trapped by a mercurial gaze. "Er, yes! Yes," he said, clearing his throat but nodding enthusiastically as he adjusted his glasses and corrected his gaze all at once, pretending like he didn't feel embarrassed. "If you have time."
That grin on James' face widened significantly as he traded glances between the two of them that Remus couldn't quite interpret. "Oh, I have all the time in the world for the two of you. Come on in," he said, opening the door to the shop again with a little tinkle of the bell that hung over the threshold. As he threw on the lights, he continued, "Remus, this is Si–"
The gorgeous stranger instantly interrupted, throwing a pointed, untranslatable gaze in James' direction. "Siri. You can call me Siri." A smile followed, despite the tension in the air.
"Right, Siri, it's nice to meet you, Siri," Remus fumbled, irritated at himself for being so awestruck by someone so attractive, desperately struggling to suppress the blush in his face.
One of those sharp, well-crafted eyebrows rose high on Siri's face. "Never seen a bloke in a skirt before?" Siri asked bluntly and Remus let out a short cough of surprise. And before he could coach himself on the right thing to say, he blurted out the thing fresh on his tongue.
"I've never seen a bloke look that good in a skirt," he stated plainly before sharply realizing what he'd just admitted to. The blush he'd been holding back stormed in fully as he tried to backpedal. "I mean, it's a lovely skirt, it fits you rather well, and you look quite –"
"Remus, take a breath," James called with a laugh as he started up the register. "He's riling you up on purpose." As Remus looked up to discover the absolutely amused expression on Siri's face, who batted those full, lengthy lashes in Remus' direction, smiling brightly.
"And before you ask, because you look polite enough to ask, it is he. Just in case you still weren't sure," Siri said with a wink, under lashes so long that Remus was sure he felt a breeze.
"Right. And, uh, same," Remus added, new to this sort of conversation, but wanting to make sure he was responding positively to it. He watched a quiet, pleased smile cross over Siri's expression as they stepped toward the glass counter, and when Remus eyes fell on Marlene's favourite blueberry and lemon macarons, Remus felt that same smile move over his own face, wondering how he had gotten so lucky this evening. The fashionable Siri seemed to notice.
"James," he said softly. "Everything he picks out tonight is on me."
"You really didn't have to do this," Remus said, carrying two full bags of sweets, including his precious honey-madeleines and canelés that he didn't think he'd have to money to buy.
Siri smiled. "It's my father's credit card, and we're not really getting on at the moment, so I'm happy to blow his money on frivolous things like this," he said, his tone changing quite a bit as he became a bit more relaxed in Remus' presence. "Besides, you promised me a canelé."
"I did," Remus grinned, glancing over and finding that Siri was already glancing back at him, all full eyelashes and raised brows. "But you can't just eat one out here on the street. You have to have one with black tea and spiced rum. It's the only way to eat them, trust me."
"Are you inviting me in for a drink, Remus?" he asked, a coy smile playing at the corner of his lips as they approached Remus' building. That prickling of his skin returned. Maybe it was reminding him of all the reasons he shouldn't invite this stranger in, but he ignored it.
"Of course," he shrugged. "It's the least I can do after you paid for all this," he said, glancing over to find Siri blinking at him, rather slowly and deliberately, a blissful expression.
"I'm sorry." He laughed bashfully, but he didn't look away. "Ignore me, I'm just totally smitten with your accent. You make everything sound charming and adorable."
This time, Remus was the one to look rather bashful, but unlike Siri, he looked away, unable to hold the steadfast gaze of Siri's blackened irises when it held so much focus and intensity. Luckily, as he adjusted his handfuls of bags to retrieve the keys from the pocket of his trousers, Siri continued, moving the topic of conversation onto something much milder.
"Is this where you live?" Siri asked, his voice turning up again as he looked at Remus in what looked like amusement. "It's suits you. You look like someone who lives in an old building."
"Is that an insult?" Remus said with a laugh, recognizing how strange it was for him to be carrying on a conversation this easily with a stranger, more so with such a stylish stranger.
"It's a compliment," he emphasized. "You look like the type who drinks black tea with spiced rum and favors canelés over macarons and collects first edition novels and lives in a retro boarding house instead of a flat like everyone else. It's kitschy. It's cute."
With a furrow of his brow, Remus laughed, trying to hide the fact that his face was feeling a little bit flushed, trying to hide it even from himself. "I don't think that's what kitschy means."
"Wait, really?" Siri said, his inflection dropping where it should've risen. "Doesn't it mean, like, weird but in a fun and adorable sort of way? Because that's how I meant it."
"I think it means tacky," Remus said, reaching out to take Siri's wrist to guide him through the house so that he didn't have to turn the lights on and alert the girls of his presence. After all, he really wasn't supposed to let Siri into the house, but, well, he had bought all these sweets, and Remus couldn't very well let him leave without trying one. That's all this was. Right?
Only after Siri slipped his fingers into Remus' did he realize what a colossal mistake he'd just made, because his hands were so soft and his touch was so sure that it made Remus remember how unsure he usually was about these sort of endeavors. He'd gotten so caught up with the sweets and the magnetism of Siri's presence that he just ... forgot everything else.
Luckily, they only had to make it to the kitchen before Remus could turn the light on and busy himself with making the tea and finding his secret stash of spiced rum. Meanwhile, Siri sat at the small table in the kitchen (which they almost never used) and crossed his legs (which drew Remus' gaze quite unexpectedly). While the tea was brewing, Remus leaned against the kitchen counter and made a point not to look at his legs, which he found altogether perplexing because he'd never had to tell himself not to do that before, with anyone, but his legs were just so –
With the knuckle of his first finger, Remus adjusted his tortoiseshell glasses as he tried to avoid thinking about Siri's legs, but he failed miserably because maybe it was the dark, sheer stockings or maybe it was the angle of his high heels or maybe it was the smoothness of his copper skin or the cut of his toned calves and oh, God, he was still thinking about Siri's legs.
When the tea kettle began whistling, he breathed a sigh of relief, allowed to busy himself with something else and not think about anyone's legs at all. Until Siri came up behind him, towering above him in those four-inch heels, and he spoke in that everchanging tone.
"I need to know," he said on a soft breath. "Was I right about the first editions?"
Remus smiled, turning to show a roll of his eyes. "I hate that you were."
"This one is my favourite," Siri said, wistfully, as he looked over Remus' shoulder at one of the photos he was still editing on his laptop. After going up to Remus' room to admire his first editions, he'd shown Siri several of his favourite shoots, and somehow, several hours of conversation had gone by without Remus knowing. "Look at her expression as she looks at him."
With a short sigh, Remus let his eyes fall closed. "How incredible it must be to feel that sure about something so uncertain," he said, trying to remember to distance himself from things like this – from engagements and weddings and love – because he knew he wouldn't ever experience something like that. He'd gotten close once, right after he'd moved to London, but it didn't last. Nothing ever did. Eventually, everyone would always leave him. He knew that now.
"I think you must be right," Siri said, his voice dipping lower than Remus had heard it go all night, and Remus turned to see what kind of expression led to it. "I think it must be the most incredible thing in all the world," he said, his eyes cascading over Remus' features, his lips parting as if he wanted to say more, but he talked himself out of it. Instead, he washed the expression from his face and replaced it with a smile. "I also think I've had too much to drink."
"Oh?" Remus said, a furrow in his brow. They'd only had a single cup of tea each, and only a splash of rum in each cup. Before Remus could think on it more, Siri pulled a blanket from Remus' bed and wrapped himself in it, settling onto the floor as Remus looked on, puzzled.
"What's your favourite film, Remus?" Siri diverted the conversation as he leaned forward, blanket and all, toward the small television Remus kept in the corner, on top of a little shelf that held only a few plastic cases – new copies of old movies he used to watch with his mum. With a great furrow in his brow, Siri examined the cases critically, as if looking for something particular.
For a moment, Remus paused, confused by the abrupt change in conversation. "Um … my mum used to watch a lot of musicals when I was a kid, so they're sort of … comforting to watch now," he said, keeping it as superficial as he could, but he could see the question forming in the shape of Siri's mouth. He interrupted the thought. "My Fair Lady was the one she watched the most, so I … it's kind of silly, isn't it?" he laughed at himself pre-emptively, because most people in school had laughed at him after hearing this. Instead, Siri simply opened up the blanket he'd wrapped around himself from where he sat on the floor and nodded for Remus to join him.
"I love that one. Think we have time to watch some of it? I'm not quite ready to go home just yet," he said, with a twinge of something in his voice that was concerning enough to tug uncomfortably at Remus' heart. With surprise in his eyes, but a smile on his face, Remus moved to sit next to Siri on the floor, pulling one side of the blanket around him until it encompassed them both. Carefully, Siri settled his head onto Remus' shoulder as the movie started.
"I'm really glad I met you, Remus," Siri said with a half-yawn. If Siri hadn't been so close and so warm and so wonderful, maybe Remus would've been more worried about the house rule that he was currently breaking. But it would be fine. They'd stop the film at intermission and Remus would send Siri home for the night. Lily and the girls would never know he was here.
"So am I," he replied. For some reason, he didn't use his name. It didn't quite fit.
When Remus blinked in the early morning sunlight, he woke on the floor with an ache in his back and a kink in his neck. His head was so foggy, he could hardly even remember how he'd gotten on the floor, much less how he'd stayed on the floor. He rubbed his eyes and stood, stretching and massaging his stiff shoulders, looking curiously at the pile of blankets on his bed.
Once on his feet, the swimming in his head grew heavier – he steadied himself on the back of his desk chair, finding a fistful of black ruffles underneath his fingers. In his fatigued confusion, he lifted the fabric to discover it was a skirt. The events of the night before began coming back to him – the sweets shop, meeting Siri, inviting him in for tea and canelés, watching My Fair Lady until … oh. Shit. Eyes wide, his whole face winced as he looked at the skirt in his hands, suddenly realizing there was a half-naked man in his bed. And it was already morning.
As Siri started to stir, Remus turned to hunt for his glasses, certainly buried somewhere in the pile of blankets that he'd fallen asleep in on the floor. When he returned them to his nose and turned back toward the bed, he went exceptionally still at the uncanny sight before him.
Dark hair was unpinned, tumbling around down the same sharp collarbones, framing the same aristocratic features and the same obsidian eyes. But there was suddenly so much bare skin, so deep in color and soft in presence. The dark red scarf (that matched lipstick now smeared almost completely off) was tossed onto the head of Remus' bed, its absence displaying a very prominent Adam's apple on that same elegant throat above a broad, naked chest.
"God, I could sleep for six more hours," Siri, the now unclothed man in his bed, groaned, his voice so much deeper than it had been the night before, his Adam's apple bobbing erratically.
"Oh, shit," he breathed out, his gaze still falling on all the wrong places on Siri's bronze skin – to his fitted boxer-briefs to the muscle lines along his hips to the movement of his throat as he craned his head back to lean it against the wall along Remus' bed.
Siri's eyebrow rose a little in curiosity. "Sorry, I couldn't sleep in that dress."
"No, it's … it's fine, I just …" I just didn't know you were so fucking fit. Oh, this was turning out so much worse than Remus had anticipated. That feeling began to multiply.
A sly smile moved over Siri's lips. "You look a little flushed, Remus."
"Well, I didn't think you'd take all your clothes off, so forgive me for being caught off guard," Remus said with a groan, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
"Well, not all," Siri argued, snapping the elastic waist of his boxer-briefs and sending a renewed surge of blood through Remus' cheeks, which Remus knew was quite visible. Before Siri could make anymore innuendo, Remus glanced away, only just noticing the time.
"Shit," he hissed through tightly clenched teeth. "Lily is going to be up in ten minutes … I shouldn't have been so … you're not supposed to be here," Remus said, his voice carrying a shade of regret at the way he'd said it, and Siri's face contorted into a concerned expression.
"Please tell me Lily is not the name of your loving wife," he said with a wince, pulling his lips into his teeth. With a huff, Remus rolled his eyes, gathering Siri's clothes in his arms.
"She's one of my flatmates. That's not the point," Remus rambled, slightly manic, trying to decide if he could shove such a beautiful bloke out the window. "You have to go. Now."
"Alright, alright," Sirius said under a casual yawn, not at all understanding the urgency of the situation. "I'll go, but –" he stopped, and when he didn't continue, Remus turned, finding his dark gaze swirling with something unnamed but looked a lot like promise. "I really enjoyed spending time with you, Remus. I'd like to come back." The red in Remus' cheeks surged.
"You can't. You absolutely cannot come back," Remus emphasized strongly, a desperate sort of whine in his voice as he gathered Siri's clothes in his frantic, shaking hands.
"What, why?" he asked with a pout in his lips, still tinted red from remnants of lipstick.
"Men are not allowed in this building," Remus said, a half-growl. "As a rule."
One of Siri's dark, well-sculpted eyebrows rose sharply. "But you're a man."
"Yes, but I'm –" Remus stopped short, realizing he could not finish that sentence the way he'd started it. "I'm the exception. The only exception." Siri swallowed again, and Remus watched it move the whole way down because his Adam's apple was outstandingly stark.
"Then we can meet at mine, or for coffee, or dinner," Siri offered, eyebrow rising again.
"Please. Get dressed," Remus begged him, shoving the clothes into his bare chest. For a moment, Siri watched him with a curious smile as Remus made a very pointed attempt to not look back at him, because he couldn't afford it, because everything about him was irresistible.
"Not even your number?" he said with a hopeful uptick, moving from the bed. Just once, as he was maneuvering into the tight, fitted top with the ruffled skirt, Remus lost his guard and glanced over before realizing what a mistake it was. Quickly, he corrected, but the damage had already been done. He'd already seen the delicate trail of dark hair underneath this man's navel, he'd seen the muscular thighs that remained unshaven (unlike the rest of his legs), he'd seen the lithe stretch of his abdomen as he twisted into the dress. That feeling returned.
"Shit," Remus repeated again, screwing his eyes closed. He couldn't believably pretend he wasn't attracted to Siri, it was evident in the maroon blush that was constant in his cheeks, it was obvious in the way he kept failing not to admire Siri from across the room as he dressed.
Even worse, it was more than just the sudden, jarring physical ache he felt looking at the sharp edges of Siri's unshaven jaw or the indentations at his sculpted hips above the elastic waistband of his boxers. Worse still was the fluttering of Remus' stomach when Siri looked over with eyes that were somehow both dark and shimmering all at once, or the catch of the breath in his throat when Siri smiled at him, ever in equal parts kindness and mischievousness.
He knew. This could lead to something. And that was the danger of it all. The leading.
But he could never let it. Not again. Far too many times, Remus had gotten involved with someone who had left him empty afterward until he had nearly nothing left. The last in this long line of bad decisions had devastated Remus so thoroughly that he promised himself he would never let it happen again. It was the root cause of all of this – the anxiety, the rule, everything.
Just after moving to London, he'd gotten involved with someone that he never should've let into his life, someone who left him with a self-loathing so strong, it took him months to even leave the safety of the boarding house. The girls practically had to nurse him back into working, back into going to the shop for groceries, back into speaking, back into eating. Back into living.
And it hadn't been the first time. Nor was Remus the only one of them who had ever been scorned – at some point in all their lives, they'd all gotten hurt. So, they came up with a rule. From that point on, dating was not allowed for any resident of the boarding house. Not for anyone, not for any reason. Ultimately, their ties to each other meant much more than their ties to anyone outside. Besides, they'd all done very little of it in the first place.
"There, you can kick me out now," Siri said once he squeezed his way into the skirt and top, the ruffles just above his knee, just before unshaven territory. Remus shook his head.
"You forgot these," he huffed, snatching the scarf from the post of his bed and wrapping it around his throat, fluffing it over his sharply protruding Adam's apple, brushing his fingers over bare collarbone to push the scarf behind his shoulder. The heart-shaped sunglasses were on the bedside table next to Remus, so he quickly slipped them onto the stranger's nose.
Again, Siri swallowed harshly, and Remus watched the movement of his throat unsettle the scarf draped across it. "Better?" he whispered as Remus worked on tousling the curls around a jawline so astute that Remus was sure he could cut his finger on it.
"It's not that I didn't … enjoy your company last night," Remus exhaled as he found himself adjusting the scarf again, running his fingers through the tangled ends of dark hair, straightening the high neckline of the black top, finding reasons to stay close to Siri.
"Enjoy my company," Siri repeated with a laugh that rumbled through his chest. "The way you say that makes it sound unsavory. You should be allowed to have fun, Remus."
"Look, you're wonderful and I had a really nice time last night, but –" Remus paused to take a breath and let it out again, which Siri used to command the dialogue.
"You sound like you're breaking up with me, Remus," he grinned with a laugh that was so soft that Remus had to pause to appreciate the delicate movement it left behind in Siri's lips, lips that suddenly seemed so close, so accessible. And Remus' hand was still right underneath them.
He couldn't help but smile in return, drawn into the comfort of conversation just as he had the night before, firing quips at each other with ease. "This is more like the awkward talk after a one-night stand about how I'm really not ready for a relationship in the first place."
"This could've been a one-night stand?" he smirked, and unless Remus was mistaken, he shifted closer, his dark eyes scattering across Remus' face, his voice lowering. "Damn, I see it now, all the signals I missed. I mean, you did invite me in for drinks and we did end up in your bedroom where I took off all my clothes." He tilted his head, watching Remus carefully.
Without a hitch, Remus teased with a glance toward Siri's hips. "Not all."
"I'll keep that in mind next time I'm here," Siri hummed, his voice lower than it had ever been, and Remus wondered how low he could get it, what Remus could do to get it there.
"There won't be a next time," Remus half-argued, but he still hadn't moved away, held not quite against his will, but against his common sense. "You can't come back."
"That's because I haven't left." The darkness of his eyes made his pupils look blown.
"See, you keep doing that thing where you bait me into an argument to distract me from kicking you out," Remus said, trying hard to stifle a smile because Siri's was so infectious.
"I'm not doing a damn thing that you're not letting me do," he hummed, and again, Remus could hear the natural rumble of his voice in his chest, which he'd gotten the barest glimpse of last night. Now, he was so close to Siri that he could practically feel it in the air.
"No, I'm fairly certain that you're predicting every step of this exchange," Remus observed, his eyes dancing over the amusement in Siri's expression. "To draw me in."
"Oh?" Siri looked rather pleased at that turn of phrase, eyebrow rising sharply. "And what is it about me, exactly, that draws you in, Remus?" His black eyes narrowed and focused.
Headlong, Remus replied with snark, "Your outstanding ego," but he couldn't help himself and added something a little more honest, "and that thing you do with your voice."
"What thing?" he said, almost self-consciously lowering his voice to a whisper.
"I don't think it's intentional," Remus remarked, his fingers still finding reason to be close to skin that looked permanently sun-kissed. "But your natural speaking voice is much deeper when you're not paying attention." There was an ephemeral flicker of Siri's gaze to Remus' lips again. "It's like you try very hard to make it sound more … careless than it should be."
A sudden, tight laugh shot through Siri's teeth. "No, that's … that is intentional."
"I … I like the unrehearsed one better," Remus stated, unthinking, his fingers that were hanging idly underneath Siri's chin moved forward, ghosting over his throat. When he realized what he was doing, what he was admitting out loud, he immediately drew his hands to his chest, a chest that was suddenly heaving with breath, born only from his own awareness.
When Siri widened his eyes in Remus' direction behind the gradient grey lenses of the heart-shaped sunglasses, with those thick, fake eyelashes that were still glued on from last night batting softly, Remus went still. "Curious," Siri said, half a whisper and half a daydream as he stepped in close to diminish the distance Remus had created. "You do the same thing with your proximity. You let yourself get a lot closer to me when you're not paying attention."
This time, Remus was the one who swallowed hard. "Because of the rule," he insisted.
"Which makes me wonder," Siri replied, his eyes flicking down to Remus' lips for a third time that morning. "If that rule is in place to keep the residents from dating. Which means you –"
Remus interrupted quickly before the blushing could return. "Don't read into it," he said as he pushed Siri through his bedroom door and down the stairs, grateful that none of the girls appeared to be awake yet. However, despite how quiet Remus tried to be on the stairs, before they could reach the front door, he heard Lily call his name from somewhere in the kitchen. In a panic, Remus tore open the front door and flung Siri outside onto the front step.
"Oh, Remus, I –" Lily said, emerging with a spatula in hand, coated in half-cooked scrambled eggs, stopping as her eyes darting to the mysterious person at the front door. All Remus could do was hope that he'd succeeded in making it look like Siri just arrived. As her eyebrows furrowed, she continued in a curious tone. "I saw the bags of sweets on the table."
"Lily, this is Siri," Remus said as Siri moved past him to shake Lily's hand, but Remus held him by pinching the hem of his skirt. "He's the reason I was able to get all those sweets."
At once, Lily's expression softened, but it didn't remove the uncertainty from her gaze as her eyes moved back and forth between the strange pair. "Then we should certainly thank you by having you over for dinner tonight. We're having pork dumplings and jasmine rice." Remus' surprise at Lily's immediate invitation left him lacking an argument for why Siri couldn't stay.
"I'd love to," Siri instantly accepted in that bright tone that sounded much more delicate, looking back at Remus with victory in his expression. "I'll just pop home to freshen up a bit first."
"Sounds wonderful," Lily replied with a comically wide grin before her attention was diverted by a loud sizzling coming from the kitchen. "Oh, shit," she hissed, vanishing.
"Oh my God," Remus groaned, nearly burying his face into Siri's bountiful curls, trying to forget the way Lily had eyed them with such a curious expression. It made him wonder what she thought was going on here. Surely Remus' attraction to this man was blatant. Still, maybe she was under a very logical impression that Siri wasn't attracted back. Because, technically, there was no evidence that he was attracted to Remus, just a few furtive glances that could have easily been misinterpreted and a pleasant evening that would have been exactly the same had it been shared between platonic friends. And Remus knew where reading into these things led, he couldn't let himself be that naïve again. Someone like Siri could not really be interested in him. If anything, Siri just enjoyed watching him squirm under the notion of the potential.
Still, that meant Siri was going to return for dinner, which meant Remus would have to continue to pretend that he was not at all attracted to the most gorgeous person he'd ever seen in his goddamn life. If he were lucky, maybe Siri would believe it and stop teasing him with it.
"Maybe you could come fetch me," he said, playing up the drama by running his finger down the spine of Remus' ear. Of course Remus shivered. "I live just down the street. In that garish eyesore in the middle of Grimmauld Place, you know the one?" Remus' mouth dropped open, but he snapped it closed as soon as he saw Siri's delighted attention drawn to it.
"You're kidding. The Black family estate?" he asked incredulously.
"The very same," he said. Remus couldn't help but notice the melancholy in his reply.
"Oh, come off it," Remus laughed skeptically, but it died in his throat. "You're telling me that you're related to Orion Black, the literal Chancellor of the Exchequer?" he scoffed.
"Hand to God, eldest spawn of the Black family," he said, turning up his voice again.
"But you don't look –" he froze, pulling his lips into his teeth. The man in their entryway did favor Orion Black a bit in the sharp angles of his highborn face, but that was where the similarities died. There was a stark contrast in the white-blonde of Orion Black's thin hair and the sharp silver of his eyes to the fullness of Siri's dark curls and the unique onyx of his eyes. Not to mention, his amber skin tone was certainly much richer than the sickly pale that Remus associated with the country's chief financial minister. Siri breezed through the implication.
"Illegitimate," he said without pause, his grin never fading. "The result of an extra-marital affair on one of my father's many trips to India. Never met my birth mother actually."
"Siri, I'm so –" Remus began to say, but was interrupted by a casual wave of his hand.
"Anyway, now you know why I adore spending his vast wealth on ridiculous shit, so please let me spoil you with expensive sweets again sometime." He winked softly, fanning those exaggerated lashes against his golden cheek, and Remus' heart fluttered a bit. "And he's off on another one of those trips, so I won't have to sneak out of the house again to avoid him."
Just then, Lily reappeared from the kitchen with a sudden jolt, looking irritated that she had missed any moment between Remus and this fashionable stranger. With just a quick glance between them, she smiled again. "So, dinner at seven?" It looked like a challenge in her eye.
"I wouldn't miss it," Siri confirmed, with an eerily similar smile.
"What time should I pick you up?" Remus asked, suddenly feeling very much like this was turning into a date, despite how he had intended this to all go some other way.
As he turned, Siri lowered his voice. "If you show up a little early, you can help me get ready," he said with a soft wink, and he held himself just so in order to hide from Lily the fact that he was letting his fingertips drag slowly down Remus' sternum. Remus clenched his jaw.
"Right, so I'll pick you up around six this evening," Remus cleared his throat, shifting his new friend back out the door, who waved his fingers at Lily, who waved her spatula back. As Remus leaned on the door frame, he whispered, "This isn't going to work, you know."
"What, being friends?" he replied with a grin, his voice back to his normal tone.
"You'll be the death of me, Siri," Remus sighed, letting his head fall against the frame, making sure to keep the door half closed, just in case Lily was still hovering behind him.
"It's Sirius, actually," he said, lowering his heart-shaped sunglasses to the tip of his nose so that he could look Remus in the eye. "My name is Sirius," he whispered, leaning in close.
"I'll pick you up at six," Remus said, getting drawn in against his will, "Sirius."
Standing outside of the extortionately enormous Black mansion, hanging on the bars of the wrought iron gate, Remus nearly talked himself out of pushing the call button. If anyone other than Sirius (it suited him so much better than Siri) answered, what would he even say? Before he could garner the courage, a severe buzzing startled him from his anxiety.
"Remus, I'm upstairs, come on in," Sirius' voice crooned over the speaker.
"How did you even know I was here?" Remus asked in surprise.
"I can see you from my window, look up." Once Remus' attention was redirected, that fluttering of his heart returned, seeing Sirius standing at his open window, shirtless, in a full length green plaid skirt with a high waist that fell just below his belly button. He waved Remus in, enthusiastically. Remus adjusted his glasses in an effort to force himself to look away. Working hard to calm his heart (for the blush he knew would be in his cheeks), he pushed open the gate.
The immense house was dark and empty, but Remus could hear the sound of loud music playing from upstairs, so he followed it to Sirius' bedroom. Following a timid knock that was surely drowned by the music, Remus opened the door and was greeted by the driving guitar of God Save the Queen as Sirius stood in front of the mirror, his hair half up, a pin between his lips.
"Give me a hand," he called out, mumbled through clenched teeth and, without even considering any implication, Remus rushed over and took the hair pin from Sirius' teeth, only recognizing afterward the softness of Sirius' lips as they brushed against Remus' fingertips.
"Here?" Remus asked, trying to ignore his own breathlessness as he pushed up the strands of Sirius' hair that had fallen down the back of his neck, securing them with a pin.
"Yes, thank you," Sirius said, sounding like he was breathing a sigh of relief.
"This house is enormous," Remus remarked absently, looking around at Sirius' lavish bedroom with the four-poster bed with the velvet curtains that pooled at the base and the open walk-in closet a mile deep full of a wardrobe more expansive than a small musical theatre production and the plush, white carpet that his feet sunk into practically up to the ankle.
"Thanks, I hate it," Sirius said with a laugh that wasn't nearly as full as the ones Remus had heard earlier in the day. As Sirius directed his fingers to hold various curls in place, Remus found himself following the freckles on the back of Sirius' neck. He kept talking to ignore them.
"I take it you and your father don't get along," he mentioned distractedly.
"He's not …" A short huff pressed from Sirius' clenched teeth and he replaced the lost oxygen with a stuttering breath. "Let's just say I'm happier when he isn't here." When he turned, Remus hadn't quite moved away, and they were closer than either of them expected.
"Sorry," Remus said under his breath, stepping generously away. At first, the expression on Sirius' face was disappointment, but he swept it away quickly, smiling in compensation. "Is that why you told me to call you Siri?" Remus asked cautiously and Sirius nodded in reply.
"Not too many people in Britain named Sirius," he said with an expression that was halfway between a grimace and a smirk. "It just makes my life a little easier. Especially if I'm in a skirt. The old man isn't too fond of that sort of … deviant behavior." He laughed, but it was bitter.
"Then why did you tell me?" Remus asked, leaning on one of the four posters of Sirius' bed as Sirius finished spraying his hair. "Why did you ask me to come here to get you?"
"Because I'm hoping you'll let me stick around for a while," Sirius said, turning from the mirror to flash a wink in Remus' direction. "Can't build a friendship on untruths, Remus." With a soft breath, he turned back again, quite a bit more slowly than the first time. "But, if you don't mind, maybe we could just … keep this between you and me? Call me Siri tonight at dinner?"
Remus made a playful scowl. "But Sirius is such a cute name." The expression that Remus had grown most familiar with on Sirius' face appeared again – sharply raised eyebrow, incendiary gaze, lips half parted. This time, Sirius sucked in a deep breath, like he was savoring that thought.
"I could say the same about Remus," he smirked before nodding his head sharply to his left. "Come help me pick out a top," he said, pulling Remus over to his massive walk-in closet.
"I'm really not …" Remus gestured down to the same jumper he'd been wearing the day before, "the most fashionable person. I doubt I'll be of any help." Sirius just laughed.
"Nonsense. If nothing else, you can tell me if I look ridiculous." His laugh continued and Remus was reminded of the bliss of Sirius' natural speaking voice. Not the soft, airy, high-pitched tone he used to make himself sound more benign, but this – still just as soft, but more robust, deeper, less rehearsed. His laugh was like distant thunder leading in an impending downpour.
"I'll do my best," Remus agreed hesitantly as Sirius vanished into the closet. When he returned, he was holding up a black, sleeveless turtleneck top to his bare chest.
"How's this one, then?" he hummed contemplatively, but Remus was trying exceptionally hard not to let the enamor on his face show, which absolutely couldn't be done if he stared.
With barely a glance upward, Remus answered, "Fine." But Sirius went still, lips pursed.
"Damn, I shouldn't have put this skirt on first," he said, contemplative, fingers to his lips in absent thought, and Remus had to look away again. "I'm going to have to tuck in the hem."
"Do you want me to –" Remus began to ask if he should step out, but Sirius was already unzipping the skirt. It hung loosely at his hips, he held it with one hand to keep it off the floor.
"Hold this for me," Sirius said evenly, nodding down to the bunched skirt fabric in his fist, settled just over his sharply defined hipbone. Not wanting to give Sirius the idea that being so close to Sirius' naked skin made him this nervous, Remus did as he was asked.
"Sure," he replied, steadying the waver in his voice and taking the fabric from Sirius' fingers, desperately trying to nonchalantly keep from touching Sirius' bare waist. But as Sirius wriggled into the top, the contact was inevitable, and Remus' knuckles brushed against him. He tried not to suck in the automatic breath that he wanted to pull into his starved lungs.
As Sirius pulled his head through the narrow collar, his hair became a bit mussed and Remus intuitively reached up to brush it from his face. When Sirius met his gaze, Remus lost himself in it and he brushed some of the fallen strands behind Sirius' pierced ear. A soft breath fell from Sirius' lips and he craned just a bit into Remus' touch before Remus pulled away. And when he did, it was like the spell was broken. They took simultaneous, deep breaths.
"I'd better hurry, it's nearly seven now," Sirius laughed carefully. He pushed the hem of the shirt down into the waist of the skirt that Remus was still holding, and Remus tried very, very hard not to notice Sirius adjusting just beyond the fabric border or the way Sirius arched his back to facilitate the movement or how he let out a warm, heavy breath through his nostrils.
"Don't ask me to zip you in," Remus said, and he laughed to break the tension in his own chest, but it came out sounding a little pathetic to his own ears. Finally, Sirius took the waist of the skirt from Remus' fingers, giving him a careful smile as he zipped the back of the skirt.
"How do I look?" Sirius asked, ruffling the cloth that covered his throat to blunt the sharp peak of his Adam's apple under a messy fabric shroud. Without guise, Remus studied him.
"I believe I've told you this already, but I've never seen a skirt look so good on … anyone before, honestly," Remus grinned, pushing up his glasses so he could get a better view.
"Oh, shit," Sirius mumbled, leaving Remus to furrow his brow and wonder what he said wrong before Sirius added a very solemn, "I haven't done my face." With a loud laugh, Remus settled onto the edge of Sirius' enormous bed as Sirius sat on the plush carpet in front of a floor-length mirror, leaning in to apply lipstick and concealer and powder and false eyelashes.
While Sirius' attention was diverted, Remus let himself look, really look at Sirius – let himself admire the way Sirius' mouth absently hung open as he swept a splash of glittering gold eyeshadow over his eyelids, the way the deep burgundy lipstick seemed to glide effortlessly over his full lips, the way he fluttered his press-on eyelashes to make sure they would stay in place.
"Alright, how about now?" Sirius asked, turning to him. And Remus couldn't see anything but Sirius' eyes underneath shimmer and shade, nothing but Sirius' lips emboldened by a splash of spilled wine, nothing but Sirius' face with a little more color decorating his golden skin.
"You look beautiful," Remus couldn't stop himself from saying. At first, Sirius softened at the reply, leaning in to place his face in his hands and stare fondly at Remus, but not for long.
"Shit, we have to go!" he shouted, jumping up and pulling Remus along with him. In their momentum, Remus lost his balance, and put his hands around Sirius' waist without thought, to keep from knocking him on his arse. As the breath caught in Sirius' throat, he looked up from his half-reclined position in Remus' arms and said, "Or maybe we could just … stay here."
There was a split-second where Remus almost agreed, where he almost said to hell with it all, where Remus almost let himself lose all self-control and kiss Sirius passionately, with absolute abandon. Until he remembered sobbing into Marlene's shoulder on their beat-up, second-hand sofa, until he remembered drinking a fifth of whiskey just to fall asleep, until he remembered how it felt to hear that he wasn't attractive enough for someone to love.
"We should go," Remus said, clearing his throat and lifting Sirius to his feet. He was going to have to end this – whatever this was – with Sirius. If he wasn't attractive enough to deserve the love of a regular person, how the hell would he ever be attractive enough to earn Sirius' affection? Sirius was the most beautiful person he'd ever met – so profanely pretty that he could look glorious in any type of clothing. Sirius would never find someone like Remus attractive.
"Right," Sirius agreed, his tone faltering a little. If Remus thought it sounded like disappointment, he shoved the thought from his mind. Pretending that Sirius was interested in him would only lead to a heartbreak so astronomical that it would eclipse the one before it.
As they moved from Sirius' room, Sirius slipped on a pair of black ballet flats and, despite himself, Remus couldn't help but ask, "Tell me the truth – how bad are heels?"
"Oh, dreadful, absolutely dreadful," Sirius groaned as they made their way down the stairs. "But they give me legs for days and make my arse look fantastic," he grinned, glancing over at Remus with a seditious rise in his brow. Remus bit his tongue to keep from agreeing.
As they moved through the house, toward the front door, Remus fell behind Sirius a bit and began to notice the swagger of his hips was not as exaggerated as it had been the night before, his shoes the only change. Without an ounce of inhibition, he foolishly commented on it.
"Your hips don't sway quite as much in the flats," Remus observed, and Sirius spun, not losing any of his momentum, biting down a bit on his bottom lip, his lipstick not smudging at all.
"Do you miss it?" he asked with a wink before turning again as Remus realized, with a blush that spread all the way down his throat, that, oh God, he did kind of miss it.
While they made their way down the street, Sirius dug through his handbag to fish out a pair of dangly earrings. As Sirius craned his neck to put the first earring in, Remus had to remind himself more than once of his plan to end this, chanting out his resolve. Watching Sirius move that way had Remus fantasizing about Sirius baring his throat (and more) for Remus' lips.
"I think I should pay you back for the sweets from yesterday," Remus said, solidifying his determination. He had to cut all ties. Sirius couldn't be in his life at all. He was too dangerous.
"No, they were a gift," Sirius said, his voice barely even argumentative, like it wasn't even up for debate. "Besides, I told you, it was my father's money and he's annoying the shit out of me lately, so I'm happy to lavish my friends with it," he said and suddenly Remus realized that it wasn't Sirius that was dangerous, but Remus' attraction to him. Sirius was too wonderful to be dangerous. But it didn't really matter whether Sirius was as vain and cruel as the one before him, it would end the same way. So maybe Remus had to be a little cruel to make his point.
"We're not friends," Remus said flatly. Sirius didn't even falter.
"We will be," he replied, matter-of-fact, voice unwavering. "You'll see." For only a moment, Remus lost his composure at the certainty in Sirius' voice, lost the will to fight against the absolution of Sirius' promise. But he knew it would fizzle and Sirius would tire of him.
"I won't see," Remus huffed. "After tonight, you're not coming back." And it was meant to sound like a threat, but it came out sounding more like Remus dreaded Sirius' absence.
In the middle of the street, Sirius stopped, and he took Remus by the shoulders. From underneath his glittering gaze, the determined swirl of his sable eyes overtook his expression.
"I know you think you're scaring me away," he said softly, bunching up the thick fabric of Remus' jumper underneath his fingers. "But believe it or not, I like you, Remus."
With a blank expression, Remus stared up at him, the words echoing out in the void of his subconscious. I like you, Remus. I like you, Remus. But he shook himself out of it, knowing all the ways that could be interpreted. "Someday you won't. Someday you'll get tired of me."
Sirius just shrugged, smiling. "Doubt it." Without leaving another space for argument, Sirius swung wide the front door of the boarding house and proclaimed his arrival. "Yoo-hoo, Lily, we're back!" His voice evolved back to that breezy, treble pitch and Remus instantly missed the notes of bass present in Sirius' natural tone. Lily popped her head out from the dining room.
"We're all in here! Come in!" she called, overly cheery, waving them inside and giving Remus an excited grin. Earlier, Remus had tried to explain to her that this wasn't a romantic endeavor and she'd scoffed, saying, 'Of course not, Remus,' like she understood, but Remus still caught a mischievous glint in her eye, like there was something Lily wasn't saying.
"Girls, this is Siri," Lily said as Remus and Sirius sat down at the table. "He's the one who helped Remus get us the macarons and the crème brûlée tartlets and the eclairs and the –"
"And the whole shop, basically," Remus said, smiling at Sirius, despite every intention.
Sirius smiled back. "Well, I had no choice, really. He came barreling down the street and he just looked so broken-hearted when he saw James locking up for the night."
"James?" Lily asked, tilting her head.
"The bloke at the front counter that I know," Remus added, pushing up his glasses.
"Sort of know," Mary reminded him with a laugh. "I'm Mary, by the way."
"Lovely to meet you," Sirius said, matching the softness of Mary's voice.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm terrible at this," Remus winced. "That's Marlene," he said, glancing over to see that Marlene had on her favourite Sex Pistols t-shirt, the one with a hole at the collar.
"Hi, Siri," Marlene waved casually. "I've already eaten six macarons this afternoon, and I intend to eat a dozen more after dinner, so it was money well spent, I assure you."
"Marlene," Sirius said emphatically, his bright tone slipping a bit. "I can see we're going to get on like a house on fire," he said, leaning over the table to get a better look at her t-shirt.
"God Save the Queen was playing when I arrived," Remus explained.
Marlene went blank for a moment before words began tumbling out of her mouth almost faster than she could order them. "What's your favourite song off Never Mind the Bollocks? How many t-shirts do you have? Who's your favourite member and why is it Johnny Rotten? Have you seen Sid and Nancy? Do you think he really killed her?" She didn't even stop to inhale until the end when she gulped in a massive amount of air before going immediately quiet.
In response, Sirius took a deep breath in preparation, his answer moving through his painted lips in rapid succession. "Pretty Vacant, fourteen, Cookie is my favourite because Johnny Rotten turned out to be a homophobic twat and a Trump supporter, I've seen Sid and Nancy three times because I'm in love with Gary Oldman, and no, I don't think he killed her but I've seen too many documentaries and heard too many conspiracy theories so it's rather muddled."
With her mouth slightly ajar, Marlene looked on in awe. "I think I love you."
"I get that a lot," Sirius grinned with all his teeth and Remus couldn't erase the fondness from his expression even if he tried. Not for all the canelés in the world.
With a soft clear of her throat, Lily spoke. "Remus, be a dear and bring this up to Dorcas' door for me," she said as she arranged a tray of dumplings and rice and green tea onto the tray that they left outside of Dorcas' room (half the reason they knew she even existed).
"Sure," Remus said slowly, looking to Sirius and trying to fill his gaze with warning.
"I promise to be on my best behavior," Sirius smiled knowingly. Still, he winked, so Remus was absolutely convinced something awful would take place in the fifteen seconds it would take him to get up the stairs. Despite that, he took the tray from Lily and rushed toward the stairs, though his socks slipping on the hardwood floor slowed him down significantly.
In a mad dash, he set the tray down and tapped on Dorcas' door a few times to get her attention, but before he could race back to the dining room, a piece of paper slid out from underneath her door. It just read 'Siri sounds nice, by the way,' and Remus smiled softly.
When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he heard them speaking rather softly, so he crept as close to the threshold as he could, trying not to make a single sound. He held his breath as he strained to hear, but Mary was speaking, so it was practically a lost cause. Once Lily broke in, Remus let out the same breath, though she was speaking in an unusually hushed tone.
"Not just yet. It'll add too much pressure," Lily said, her voice muffled like she was holding her face in her hands, like her cheeks were being squished together between her fingers.
"But isn't it already too much pressure?" another voice asked, and Remus physically startled to realize it was Marlene. He wasn't sure he'd heard her speak in such a soft register.
"The right kind," Lily said, a strange sort of calculation in her voice. "Because it's –"
"Because it's a challenge," Sirius' voice chimed in, lower than it should've been.
"Exactly," Lily emphasized. "And a distraction." Suddenly, she paused, as did all conversation in the room. "Remus, bring some more tea on your way back!" she called.
With a groan that he somehow managed to keep in his chest, Remus hurried back to the kitchen to find that there was no more tea prepared, and he would have to put on another kettle. The groan in his chest found its way out as he got to work. And it took so much longer than he expected – he could just imagine all the things being said in that room.
The moment the kettle and sugar and milk were on the tray, he hastily made his way back to the dining room only to find it eerily silent. Oh, God. What had been said?
"What did I miss?" he asked, looking suspiciously at Sirius.
With a smile, Sirius took a sip from his wine glass, responding only with, "Girl talk."
"I genuinely think Marlene is in love with you a little bit," Remus began to say when he returned to his room with two cups of crimson oolong tea (spiked with a little bourbon). After dinner (which had gone surprisingly well as Sirius didn't make a single innuendo), they'd returned to Remus' room, where he had every intention of telling Sirius to leave and never come back, except that was hours ago, since he kept getting drawn into Sirius' effortless conversations.
"Then she's probably disappointed by the fact that I have a cock," Sirius stated bluntly and when Remus looked up in his fluster, an immediate shade of red flooded his cheeks when he found that Sirius had shed all of this clothing, save for his blatantly snug black boxer-briefs.
"Jesus Christ, Sirius," Remus hissed, sloshing tea all over the carpet.
"You're going to have to get used to this Remus, being in a dress gets exhausting," he said with an exasperated sigh, running his fingers through the hair that he had also let down.
"But do you have to be naked?" Remus insisted, attempting to hold the teacups perfectly within his line of sight so that he didn't have to look at Sirius, naked, sitting on his bedroom floor.
"All my vital bits are covered, thank you very much," he retorted, sounding rather offended at Remus' agitation over his state of dress. "Besides, Lily keeps it like a furnace in here," he said, throwing himself back onto the blankets that were still piled on the floor.
"Nobody forced you to wear a dress to dinner, you know," Remus muttered, still trying to avoid letting his eyes fall on Sirius' exposed skin but there was so much of it.
With a quiet smirk, Sirius replied. "Would you have said I looked beautiful in trousers?"
"Maybe," Remus huffed under a pink blush. "If Lily comes in here, she's going to think –"
"That we're fornicating?" Sirius gasped with playful, exaggerated look of shock on his face. "I get that it's a house rule, but why? You're all adults. Date whoever the fuck you want."
"You know what," Remus said, sighing as he often did when he was losing an argument (usually with Lily), while still trying to block the view of naked Sirius with the teacups. "It's not even about the rule. It's about breaking a promise I made to my friends. And besides, maybe I just don't want to date you, have you ever considered that?" For a moment, Sirius straightened his back, as if he hadn't considered it, but he eased back onto the floor, lounging dramatically.
With an arrogant grin, he stated, "Maybe not. But you're attracted to me. I'll take it."
"Is that so?" Remus said, lowering the teacups to see the vanity on Sirius' face.
"Based on the way you said, Jesus Christ, Sirius, when you walked in to find me half-naked on your bedroom floor," he ran his tongue over his teeth for emphasis and Remus was absolutely furious at himself for watching it with such devotion, "Yeah, I'd put money on it."
"If I give you clothes, will you put them on?" Remus practically begged, angrily diverting the argument so that Sirius wouldn't realize he'd won it, but he quickly circled back to an earlier comment nagging him. "Hang on, why did you say that about Marlene? She dates blokes."
With a strange expression that was an equal measure of confusion and hilarity, Sirius pulled his red lips into his teeth. However, before Sirius could answer either question, a loud knock at the door startled Remus so terrifically that he immediately went tense, including both arms, effectively resulting in him tossing two rather hot cups of tea into his own face.
Sucking in a deep breath through teeth clenched in pain, Remus sank to the floor as Sirius crawled over to help. Quickly, he slipped the tea-coated glasses from Remus' nose before taking Remus by the chin to keep him still as he dried the liquid from Remus' face, from his hair.
"Remus, we're putting on a movie!" Lily called from beyond the door. "Do you and Siri want to join us?" As Remus winced at the residual heat on his skin, Sirius answered for him.
"That's alright, love, I should be off soon anyway," Sirius called in his costumed voice as the movement of the blanket in his hand slowed a bit. As Lily's footsteps retreated down the hallway, Sirius leaned in. For a moment, Remus held his breath, but he let it out as Sirius set the blanket aside and reached up toward Remus' forehead. "You have a tea leaf on your face."
"Thank you," Remus said with a soft laugh, leaning his head back against the door, almost relieved with the knowledge that Sirius couldn't possibly be attracted to him in return. But Sirius was still so close, his hand still hovering over Remus' cheek. Before Remus could play it off, Sirius' fingers unexpectedly slipped over Remus' jaw, his thumb ghosting over Remus' lips.
And Sirius leaned in, wetting his parted lips, his gaze flicking down to Remus' waiting mouth, closer, closer. There was nothing in Remus' empty head but a screaming insistence to let Sirius kiss him, so he tilted his head just a bit to give Sirius the room to press forward. And he did.
The taste of rum canelés and red wine was on Sirius' breath, anxious and warm and quick as his lips lingered over Remus', letting the anticipation build to a boil. His fingers circled to the nape of Remus' neck where he coaxed Remus' chin forward, as if knowing the precise position in which he wanted Remus to be, in order to kiss him as deeply as he could possibly want.
It was more than Remus could take. The thought of claiming Sirius' lips for his own vaguely crossed his mind and only because the constant fear that this was all an elaborate hoax was stuffed away where he couldn't reach it, for all the want in the way. He didn't worry about Sirius pulling away, and he didn't worry about sounding desperate as he breathed Sirius' name.
"Sirius," he pleaded into Sirius' open mouth. In reply, an aching whine burrowed up from the depths of Sirius' throat as he finally, but delicately, set his lips upon Remus' own.
But it was nothing more than a brush of wet skin before another knock startled them apart again, their chests heaving as they each watched the other swallow their regret.
"Siri, I forgot to tell you!" Marlene's voice rang out and they both smiled at the sound of it, despite the moment it had interrupted. "The record shop where I work is having a raffle tomorrow to keep from being bought out. Do you have any fashionable friends you can bring?"
With a smirk, Sirius finally tore his gaze away from Remus, frustration present in equal parts to amusement. "I think I could work something out," he said, voice cracking.
"It starts at four in the afternoon! Don't be late!" she called, her voice fading down the hallway. With the renewed distance between them, clarity returned to Remus' dopamine-addled brain as he realized what a monumental mistake he'd nearly just made. He took his glasses and stood, cleaning the lenses with the hem of his jumper before returning them to his face.
"Remus," Sirius said his name with decision, and he stood too, bracing himself against the door to keep Remus from walking away. "Please don't try to pretend this didn't happen."
"It didn't happen. Nothing happened," Remus argued quickly, even against himself, nervously adjusting the frames on the bridge of his nose, though they moved very little.
"Don't shut me out," Sirius pleaded, his voice tight. "I get it, the rule is in place for a reason, but whoever he was, he isn't me." He leaned in again. "Please," he whispered, cautiously pressing in, pressing himself to Remus and letting another kiss dust tenderly across Remus lips.
But Remus pushed him away. "Get out. Get dressed and go." With a deep sigh, Sirius let his head fall forward for only a moment before he pushed his hair to one side and gathered his clothes. As quickly as he could, Sirius put his clothes back on, and Remus moved from the door.
With one last look of determination and one last clench of his jaw, he said, "I'm not ready to give up. I'll see you at the raffle tomorrow." A curious smile appeared. "And I'll be sure to wear heels since I know you miss the sway of my hips." As he shut the door behind him, Remus leaned against it, burying his face into his hands, glasses and all, sinking down into the floor.
"Goddammit," he muttered, irritated at the smile tugging at the corner of his lips – lips that were now ever so slightly tinted with a telltale shade of burgundy.
Most of the next day, Remus stayed tucked into his room, trying not to replay the moment where Sirius had almost kissed him, and failing woefully. He busied himself with editing that engagement shoot (though he had so little left to do that he finished within an hour, including sending them all to the future bride) and when that was done, he tidied his room for the second time (the first having been the night before because all his blankets were still on the floor) and when that was done, he went through his record collection to see which ones he would be willing to donate to Marlene's shop for the raffle that evening.
All the while, the same 70s folk-rock playlist shuffled through his mobile phone, working down through America and James Taylor and John Denver until it got to Simon and Garfunkel again. And again, he found himself irritated, absolutely fuming, that he could listen to the line 'I've got nothing to do today but smile,' and think of nothing but Sirius and his delicate kiss.
If he let this continue, it would end just like the last time. Well, not exactly like the last time, because the last time had never even gotten this far, never even gotten to a brush of lips because the last time had made it very clear that he was never even attracted to Remus to start.
No, if he dwelled on that – the fact that Sirius was interested enough to want to taste Remus with his own lips – if he dwelled on that, there would be no saving him. And he would faceplant at Sirius' feet, worship the very ground upon which he stood. And Sirius would eventually leave. Because everyone eventually left. He couldn't make that gamble this time.
It was a good thing Sirius hadn't come to the realization that they hadn't yet exchanged phone numbers because Remus would never weasel his way out of it if Sirius had that constant of a connection to him. Sure, he knew where Remus lived, but Remus could always be out, and sure, Remus could consider blocking his number, but Sirius always found ways to pull him in.
For longer than he would like to admit, he considered not going to the raffle at all, certainly not going to the party afterward, but he wouldn't do that to Marlene. They needed all the warm bodies they could get at this thing, to draw as much media attention to it as they could. Corporate greed was not going to win over small businesses. Not at this shop.
Maybe, at minimum, he could convince Marlene not to mention the afterparty to Sirius, but then he would have to come up with a plausible lie to make them see the seriousness of the situation. Maybe he could tell them that Sirius had come onto him. Technically not a lie.
By the time Remus finished agonizing over the best way to get out of this situation, Mary was timidly knocking at his bedroom door, reminding him that they had to head to the record shop early to help Marlene set up. In a flash, Remus put on his darkest, most torn jeans and the blackest jumper in his collection (which meant the newest one, run through the wash the least).
There were already plenty of people at the record shop when they arrived, Marlene moving like a flash in and out of the front door as she set up signs and banners and balloons and advertisements for the raffle (and the concert that followed, so the notion that he could get away from Sirius at the afterparty fizzled quickly). As soon as Marlene saw them, she grabbed Lily's hand to pull her inside, and in turn, Lily grabbed Remus' hand, who grabbed Mary's hand.
With so much to do, donated records to sort and runner-up gift-baskets to throw together and radio call-in announcements to make, the hours flew by in a flurry. But there weren't as many people as Remus had hoped there would be. One, in particular.
In the back of the record shop was a bar with a small stage where local talent could be showcased through short gigs, open-mic nights, even karaoke on occasion. After the start of the raffle, Remus found himself standing at the end of the bar, watching the customers and realizing the strangling feeling in his chest was actually disappointment that Sirius hadn't shown.
Not to mention, the raffle wasn't drumming up enough attention. Regular shop patrons were purchasing a ticket or two, but there was no real outside foot traffic, and nowhere near the amount of business they needed to save the shop. They would have to sell a hundred raffle tickets just to cover the advertisements they took out in the local papers and radio airtime.
Just as Remus threw Lily a look of concern, the front door of the shop flew open and an absolute hoard of people streamed into the building, to the point that Remus wondered if the narrow space could accommodate them all. He watched every single one of them line up to buy raffle tickets, some of them buying two or three or five or ten, even. Not only that, but as they were waiting in line to buy the tickets, most of them picked out something else along the way.
"What the hell?" Remus muttered to himself, entirely perplexed, until he saw a disproportionately attractive figure follow in behind them all. And his heart began to hammer.
As Sirius walked into the shop, Remus allowed himself a moment to stare without worry of his intentions being dissected, without having to throttle the affection in his expression. Just like he said, he'd worn heels again – black, thigh-high leather boots with fishnet stocking underneath, and God, did they give his hips movement. The hem of his red plaid miniskirt flounced just above the tops of the boots, and it looked like it had been worn to threads, held together by safety pins and buttons and patches. Surely to impress Marlene again, he wore a black Sex Pistols t-shirt, faded and tattered, the hem tied in a knot just above the high waist of his skirt. With every slight movement, a sliver of his lean waist broke through the midnight of his attire like a gilded sunrise and Remus let himself admire it with just as much reverence.
When Sirius caught Remus' gaze from across the room, a slightly wicked grin crossed over his features – features again painted with color and glitter and contour. As much as Remus pretended not to, he couldn't help but watch Sirius walk over out of the corner of his eye. And maybe it was the comment that Remus had made the day before, or maybe it was the bravado of knowing that Remus was attracted to him, or maybe it was the height of the black heels at the base of those thigh-high boots, but his hips swayed like he was walking on water.
"Just because you didn't let me kiss you doesn't mean we can't still be friends," Sirius said, leaning against the countertop of the bar, crossing his arms and looking victorious. With a smile that Remus kept hidden, he noticed the black choker around Sirius' throat, the thin bands of overlapping velvet numerous enough to soften his unmistakable Adam's apple, but with a design that was delicate enough to showcase his long neck with elegance and glamour.
"I told you already, we're not friends," Remus replied, tight-lipped.
"I guess it would be difficult for me to forget the way you said my name last night," Sirius said with an arrogant hum, and Remus rolled his eyes in response, but blushed just the same.
"You know what, go ahead and keep it for when you're feeling really lonely," Remus retorted with a tilt of his head and a phony smile (or a smile that he tried to make seem phony).
"Nah, the memory will only last for a few months on its own," Sirius said, turning down the corners of his mouth to show that he'd considered it. "I'd rather have the source material."
"Shame then, since it's the only one you'll ever get from the source," Remus hummed, trying to hide (from himself) the fact that he was almost sure that wouldn't hold true.
Sirius just smiled again, glancing over. "We'll see." Before Remus could argue, he was surprised to see James Potter trotting up to them, literal fistfuls of raffle tickets in hand.
"Siri," he said in a cautious tone that made Remus wonder if James had to usually cover up Sirius' identity. If so, Remus wondered how it ever worked because the look on James' face was blatant in his untruth. "And Remus Lupin, hi, good to see you," he spoke hurriedly, nervously shoving tickets into his pockets. "I was hoping you would both be here, but Sir- Siri said you –"
"It's alright, Jamie, I told him the truth," Sirius said with a fond roll of his eyes.
"Oh, thank God," James said, breathing out a heavy breath as he looked over at Remus in despair. "You don't know how often I blow his cover by calling him Sirius in public."
"He can't help it, he's a terrible liar," Sirius explained with a nonchalant shrug.
"Anyway, I wasn't sure you'd be here, Remus," James said. "I know you're friends with Marlene and all, but Sirius said you might be trying to avoid him, though I'm not sure why."
"He's just not looking for a relationship right now," Sirius said bluntly, not masking the depth of his voice the way he did with other people. Other people except Remus.
"Aw, fuck," James said, blowing out a loud breath through closed lips before turning to Remus. "Do you know how long I've been plotting to get you two together? I mean, Sirius was difficult enough to convince, but when he saw you in the shop last week, I thought –"
"Last week?" Remus asked with a hint of arrogance in his risen brow and he was surprised to see a rather bashful smile form under Sirius' lipstick as James continued.
"I'd told him a bit about you, Remus, but he said he didn't want to be set up on some blind date," he said, his words tumbling over one another in his eagerness to get them out. "I wasn't worried, because you're you, but Sirius has dealt with a lot of –" A stern look from Sirius stopped James' line of thought and Remus furrowed his brow, suddenly knowing James' nearly spoken thought and recognizing the heartbreak that swelled in his chest to realize that Sirius dealt with so much persecution over the way he expressed himself. "Anyway, look at you two!"
"Thank you for making me look like a creep, James, I just adore you for that," Sirius sighed with a playful grin as James formed a loose fist to place it against Sirius' shoulder.
"I thought it might help win him over," James said to Sirius, wrapping his arm around Remus' shoulder while Sirius shrugged slightly, as if accepting James' unspoken apology.
"He's got a no-dating rule," Sirius explained, glancing fondly at both of them, though it dimmed slightly when directed at Remus. Out of the corner of his eye, Remus watched James purse his lips to the side as he studied Remus, while Remus pretended not to notice.
"Oh, I've got tonight all planned out, Remus. I'm going to hype Sirius up so much that you'll agree to go out to dinner with him just to get me to stop talking," James beamed.
"Help me," Remus begged desperately as Sirius laughed.
"I was going to see how long it took for you to buckle under the weight of James' persistence, but I had a lovely night last night, so I'm feeling quite benevolent." He cast Remus a glance that Remus couldn't quite interpret. Before replying, James threw a wink at Remus, and Remus could feel the groan burrow its way up his throat. Now there were two of them.
"Considering Remus doesn't look the type to put out on the first date, I think you're exaggerating a touch," James said, smiling wildly, like he did that first night. Unwillingly, Remus blushed again, but toed around that line of conversation without so much as a glance back at it.
"Listen," Remus said, dramatically taking James by the shoulders, which James looked very amused by. "The no-dating rule isn't my rule, it's a rule at the boarding house that I live in with my friends, and if they find out about this, they will most likely make me find somewhere else to live and also maybe murder me and then I will obviously never see Sirius again."
"Which sounds like you care to spend more time with me," Sirius purred, using Remus' proximity (and his attention on shaking James into lying for him) to whisper in Remus' ear.
With just a tad of overreaction, Remus pulled away from them both, resulting in a shared looked between them that Remus couldn't interpret, but wasn't sure he wanted to anyway.
"I think he fancies you," James said with a confident nod.
"Oh, I know he does," Sirius agreed with a nod of his own, but a bit more devilish.
"No, I hate both of you," Remus grumbled rather loudly, pinching the bridge of his nose and unsettling his glasses in the process. "Though … you did bring all these customers with you."
Considering the magnitude of that achievement, Sirius just shrugged, and Remus found himself smiling at the realization that Sirius would've done it even if Remus hadn't been there, that he would've done it just because Marlene needed him to do it. "They're just friends."
"You have a hundred friends?" Remus asked in disbelief.
"From here and there," he said, another shrug. "Before I met you, I wasn't really the type to stay home and drink spiked tea and eat patisserie sweets," he said, eyeing Remus quite closely, "But then again, nobody's ever offered me tea and sweets in their bedroom before."
"So, I'm confused, did you two fuck or no?" James asked bluntly, and Remus (while flustered) was almost positive that he said that just to provoke the laugh that erupted from Sirius' lips, because it was loud and raucous and unrestrained and awfully, terribly bewitching.
"No," Remus said emphatically, though he was surprised when Sirius didn't try to insert more innuendo into the conversation. Instead, he looked down with a quiet smile.
"No," Sirius agreed softly, glancing up through the pink, glittering eyeshadow and the dense, dark lashes with an expression so fragile that it left a furrow in Remus' brow. "I was just happy hanging out in his room and eating canelés and picking tea leaves off his face."
Without intention, Remus let a laugh slip past his lips. He pulled it back in with his bottom teeth. "It was your fault I had tea leaves on my face in the first place," he said, only vaguely aware of the fact that he was leaning in, closer to Sirius, and only because Sirius leaned back.
"You just got flustered because I took my clothes off," Sirius replied with a taunt in his resonant voice, a smirk on the corner of his lips, and a rise in his perfectly penciled brow.
"See, you say you were happy just hanging out, but you seem to make a habit of getting naked in my bedroom. Wonder why that is," Remus teased back, enjoying the way Sirius' dark eyes glowed in the dim light, creating a contrast to his dark hair and his dark lashes.
"You know exactly why that is because I tried to show you last night and you broke my damn heart," he whispered, leaning across the bar just a bit further until he could purposefully brush the tips of his knuckles across the back of Remus' hand, never breaking his gaze.
"No, you're just infatuated with me because I'm a challenge," Remus spoke the word purposefully, trying to invoke the memory of whatever conversation Sirius had been having with Lily the night before in order to read the expression it left on Sirius' face, but there was no such change. At the same time, he tried to rid himself of some of the excess breath accumulating in his lungs, tried to stop himself from moving closer to Sirius, but he kept losing that fight over and over. "Because you can't stand not getting your way. Because I didn't let you kiss me last night."
They were so close now that Remus could smell the perfume on Sirius' neck, could feel the anxious puff of Sirius' breath on his lips, could feel the curls that wouldn't stay in place in that messy bun atop Sirius' head feathering across his cheek. He only had to tilt his head …
"You could let me kiss you now," Sirius offered, without moving forward. A short breath fell from Remus' parted lips as his eager gaze flittered down to watch Sirius worry his bottom lip, that burgundy lipstick he favored not even smudging. "Just once. Just enough for the memory."
"It'll only last for a few months on its own," Remus repeated Sirius' wording with a cautious smile as Sirius raised his hand to let his fingernails trail underneath Remus' jaw.
"Then we'll have to make it count," Sirius bargained, letting his eyes flutter closed as he opened his hand to let it slip around Remus' neck. And Remus couldn't keep up the fight – he gave in to the heaviness of his eyelids, to the warmth of Sirius' hands, to the brush of his lips.
"Remus!" he heard from across the shop, startling he and Sirius away from each other.
"OH, FUCKING WAIT!" James shouted with an angry groan, fists clenched in the air at his sides before they went into his hair. "Whoever that is had better be fucking dying!"
"I'm sorry, who the fuck are you?" Lily's voice pierced through the noise of the crowd and the music playing overhead and the frustrated growling of James Potter.
"I'm –" he began to say, his voice raised, but when he turned, he deflated, "… James, hi," he said on the exhale, his shoulders slacking immensely before he outstretched his hand.
Surprisingly, Lily shook his hand, but narrowed her eyes at him. "What is so important back here that I'm getting reprimanded by a …" She looked him up and down, her jaw suddenly clenching behind tightened lips, "By some bloke I don't even know?" she finished, and Remus was pretty certain that was not the thought that was currently coursing through her brain.
"Well, I've told you my name, so now you know me," James grinned, like he could turn debonair on like a torch. "And Siri and Remus here were just about to –" he turned, arm outstretched in Remus' direction where Remus was desperately pulling his fingers across his throat in a sign to shut up, shut the fuck up immediately. "About to … get us all drinks."
With an enormous (but silent) sigh of relief, Remus turned back to the bar. "Drinks," he said in a defeated tone. "I don't care what, just make a lot of them and make them strong."
When the first one came, he downed the whole thing. He was pretty sure it was whiskey.
Drinks in hand, Remus watched Lily pull James back into the record shop, leaving Remus and Sirius alone, which Remus found altogether troubling for more reason than one.
"What is it about me?" Sirius asked suddenly, his lips mumbling against the rim of a tumbler half-filled with some liquor the same golden color as his skin. "It is me, isn't it?"
For a moment, Remus furrowed his brow. "What's you? What do you mean?"
"The reason you won't let me get close to you. The reason you keep pushing me away when I get too close to being close," Sirius stated plainly, leaving Remus to take a very heavy swallow that burned with the remnants of whiskey on his tongue. "And I mean me specifically, I don't mean me as another human being, because I get that you've been hurt before, but I don't know how to say it more plainly than I like you, Remus, and I don't intend to fuck this up."
"That doesn't –" Remus began, but Sirius interrupted.
"Based on the comments you made about my skirts and my heels, I know you're not embarrassed by the way I dress. I think maybe you like that about me." A slight blush filled Remus' cheeks as he was reminded of his unusually frank remarks. "And you said I looked beautiful with a face full of makeup, so I don't think it's that either." Finally, he looked straight over at Remus, taking a deep breath, not hiding the sorrow in his expression. "Is it just me?"
"Sirius," Remus exhaled heavily, angry at himself for making Sirius feel this way, despite the fact that he'd been working toward this goal for nearly three days. "It's not you."
A tight laugh slipped through Sirius' painted lips. "God, I've never been on the receiving end of the 'it's not you, it's me' speech," he laughed, still a bitter, biting bark of a sound. "I never thought it would hurt this bad." He upended the tumbler in his elegant fingers, downing the rest of his amber liquor with a wince that Remus was sure accompanied the conversation more than the sting of the alcohol. With a sharp nod, Sirius raised his glass, requesting another.
"Sirius," Remus repeated, just as significantly as the first, slipping the tumbler from Sirius' fingers so he could hold his attention. But when Sirius looked over with that expectant gaze, eyes so dark that his pupils looked constantly dilated, under glittering eyelids so hooded with prospect and fluttering lashes, Remus couldn't help but take him by the face. "Listen to me."
Those hooded eyes widened slightly. "I'm listening, Remus."
"It should be obvious," Remus began, swallowing the dryness in his mouth caused by the immense volume of air moving in and out of it, "that this isn't because of you." Absently, Remus recognized that Sirius' fingers were clenched tightly to the waist of Remus' jumper.
"I keep thinking it's obvious, but –" When Sirius swallowed, Remus could see the movement of his Adam's apple through the strips of velvet meant to subtly mask it. After a long period of silence, Sirius let out a breath. It sounded like a laugh in theory, but there was nothing motivating it but frustration. "God, how many times have you told me no? I'm such an arse."
As Sirius went to pull away, the grip Remus had on his face tightened, enough that Sirius' forehead was pressed to Remus' own, their lips a breath apart. "Kiss me, Sirius. Right now."
"Remus," Sirius breathed out, falling from his lips in surprise as his hands wound their way around Remus' waist, pulling his body closer. "I don't want to do anything you don't want."
"You know I want it, I've wanted it all along," Remus admitted softly, pressing in just enough to unsettle Sirius' lips with his own as he spoke. "But I can't … afford more than one."
A sharp breath moved through their lips as Sirius pulled it into his lungs. "Just one?"
"We'll have to make it count," Remus repeated with a sad smile. Just as Sirius' eyes began to flutter closed and Remus began to feel the warmth of his lips drawn near, he stopped.
"Just answer me this," Sirius hummed, his fingers finding the hem of Remus' jumper and moving in just enough to breach the gap to touch Remus' skin. "If you could afford it," he started as Remus' chest began heaving the longer Sirius stretched out the wait, the further up his bare waist Sirius' fingers traveled. "If you could afford it, would you let me have more than one?"
He didn't pause to consider it. "Yes," he answered immediately, his fingers moving up the back of Sirius' neck, slipping into the looseness of the curls tied at the top of his head. "Yes."
Without another moment of hesitation, Sirius pushed forward, moving into Remus' lips and pulling Remus' weight against him. And Remus focused intently on remembering the softness of Sirius' lips against his own, the warmth and the pattern of Sirius' breath as it floated over Remus' cheek, the slip of Sirius' hand into the curve of his waist underneath his jumper.
The glide of Sirius' lipstick as it smudged between their lips, Remus memorized it. The ghosting of the tips of Sirius' extravagantly long lashes as they dusted over his cheekbone, Remus memorized it. His thumb brushing over the banded velvet choker around Sirius' throat, feeling the sharp rise of cartilage underneath it, Remus memorized it.
He wanted to take it all with him when it was over – the faint, aching moans moving up from the caverns of Sirius' chest when Remus clutched at the soft hair at the nape of Sirius' neck, the prick of Sirius' fingernails on the exposed skin of Remus' waist when Remus pulled Sirius' body closer to his own, how Sirius moved his thigh into the space between Remus' legs.
Just as Remus began to forget that this was meant to be a singular event, just as Remus began to increase his efforts to taste Sirius as deeply as he was able, just as Remus began to slip his tongue between Sirius' lips, Sirius pulled away, and he came away panting for breath.
"God," he exhaled, prolonging the vowel, and sucking in a staggering breath afterward, his eyes dancing across Remus' face. "When you said just one, I thought …" he paused to catch his breath, his hand pressed to his chest. "You really wanted to make it obvious it isn't me."
Forgetting to wash the want from his expression, he bit down hard onto his bottom lip, his focus moving from the upturned hem of Sirius' plaid skirt to the disheveled state of his hair from where Remus' fingers had dug into it to the surprisingly slight smudge of his burgundy lipstick. Absently, Remus dragged his fingers across his lips as he studied Sirius in this state of disorder – another thing for him to memorize – and found himself enjoying the way Sirius' eyebrow rose slowly and the way Sirius' eyes glazed over as he watched Remus' fingers sweep over his own mouth, his fingertips coming away with the secondary stain of Sirius' lipstick.
He spoke, partly only to watch the twitch of Sirius' eyebrow and the attention of his gaze drawn to the movement of Remus' lips. "I would've made it more obvious if you'd let me."
As Sirius' lips parted to reply, his initial expression told of surprise, but he quickly replaced it with smug realization, adjusting the risen hem of his cropped shirt, much to Remus' disappointment as his warm, copper skin disappeared from view. "But now you want more, don't you?" he insinuated with a smirk so willfully arrogant that it sent a clench into Remus' jaw.
"I told you there would only be one," Remus reminded Sirius (and himself) as he adjusted the glasses on his face from where that kiss had gotten them rather obviously askew.
"Oh, of course," Sirius smiled innocently, fluttering his lashes. "Except that you already admitted that you'd let me have more than one, if you could afford it."
"Which I can't," Remus insisted, though the intention of his gaze gave him away as it settled again on the rumpled state of Sirius' skirt and he imagined what it would feel like to run his hands along those fishnet stockings with the suppleness of Sirius' thigh underneath his grip.
"Right," Sirius agreed, wetting the corner of a serviette with the watered-down whiskey in his glass, stepping in before Remus could move away, and swiping the wet towel across the corner of Remus' mouth. "Only I don't believe that. So what you've actually done, Remus, is given me incentive. I told you last night I'm not ready to give up and I meant it," he said, cleaning the rogue lipstick from Remus' mouth while Remus tried hard not to convince himself to move in for another kiss. "I'm quite tenacious when it comes to something I really want."
"So you'll pursue me whether I want it or not?" Remus argued for the sake of appearances. And Sirius knew that. Remus had already made his desires abundantly clear.
"If I thought you didn't want it, no. I wouldn't pursue you," Sirius said, completely somber for a moment before the sly grin returned to his reddened lips. "But you made it obvious."
"Goddammit," Remus muttered, but couldn't keep the smile in his teeth.
"You can play hard to get if you want, but after that kiss," he said, pulling in a breath on the last syllable, like taking a long drag on a cigarette after sex, and Remus' face went hot with the fantasy that invoked. "I'm far too invested to stop. And it looks like you might be, too."
"No, I can't, Sirius," Remus said, taking the serviette from Sirius' fingers to return the favor, or to turn the tides on possession of the upper hand. "My last real relationship wasn't even a relationship and it ruined me. I'm not going through that again. Especially not with you."
"Especially not with me?" Sirius repeated as Remus swiped the wine color from beyond the border of Sirius' lips. "What does that mean? Why especially not with me?" As Remus took an unsteady breath into his lungs, trying to pick a lie to tell, Sirius gasped softly. "Oh my God," he said, realizing the thing Remus had been trying to hide. "You actually like me, don't you?"
"I never said that," Remus argued, shaking his head vehemently.
"Oh, this is going to be so easy now!" Sirius laughed loudly. "I thought you were just attracted to me, which would've been easy enough, but you like spending time with me!"
"No, no, you're dreadfully boring, we've nothing in common," Remus blatantly lied, trying to pretend that their long, easy conversations had never happened, trying to pretend that Sirius wasn't the most interesting, funny, caring person he had ever met in his goddamn life.
Before Remus could make up more bullshit, Sirius moved in and wrapped his arms tightly around Remus' neck, burying his face into Remus' messy, auburn curls and whispering, "I'd tell you I like spending time with you too, but I'm pretty sure I've told you a dozen times already."
"Something like that," Remus smiled, not consciously aware of his hands winding their way up Sirius' waist until they collided together at the center of Sirius' spine.
"Then let me spend time with you, Remus Lupin," Sirius said, his voice pleading as his lips brushed over Remus' ear. "And maybe some of that time, you might let me kiss you again."
"If the girls find out …" Remus began to argue again, but Sirius interrupted him.
"About that –" he began with a sigh, but before he could say more, Marlene's strident voice rang out over the crowds and the music and the obliviousness to everything else that Remus felt when Sirius was close to him. Quickly, they separated, and Remus subconsciously wiped at his mouth again, trying to remove any evidence of Sirius' lipstick that remained.
"Si – Siri, we need you!" Marlene stammered over her words in her hurry to get them out, looking with a grimace at Sirius as she did so, and Sirius looked entirely amused by it.
"What can I do?" Sirius asked without pause, taking her by both hands.
"We need someone beautiful and articulate to say something sensational about the raffle for the local news station that suddenly showed up outside," she said, eyes wide and terrified.
With a laugh, Sirius nodded, but there was something underneath, something he was suppressing. Still, he excitedly replied, "Oh, I'm all over that. Where's the camera?" he asked, flashing his brows up as he followed Marlene to the front door. And Remus couldn't help but fall in behind, if only just to enjoy the hedonistic sway of Sirius' hips as he walked in those heels.
"Hang on," Lily said before Sirius could move out the front door. Quickly, she unzipped the wristlet that Sirius had clipped to the waist of his skirt, rummaging around for a moment before emerging with a small, black tube. "Let me fix your face." As she uncapped the tube of Sirius' preferred shade, Sirius craned down, hands on his knees, while Lily held him by the chin and applied the lipstick for him. Remus couldn't ignore the sentimental flutter in his chest.
"You're an angel, Lil," he winked, popping his lips a few times before smoothing out his ruffled skirt and throwing the door open like a celebrity emerging onto a red carpet.
"How is he so good at this?" Remus wondered aloud, not masking the admiration and fondness on his expression, despite the fact that Marlene was standing next to him.
"Must be in his blood," she said with a smile so mischievous that Remus knew there was intent behind it, but he ignored it for the moment as he moved closer to the door to listen.
"We're live outside of Ollivander Records, one of the oldest record shops in the West End where a raffle is being held in order to save the shop from closing its doors," the man with the microphone stated, and Remus vaguely recognized him from the news. "Tell me, what drew you to the event this evening?" With a flick of his wrist, the man shoved the microphone underneath Sirius' chin, but Sirius didn't flinch – his smile stayed in place. He fluttered his lashes for a moment before taking hold of the microphone and launching into a spontaneous speech.
"If we lose Ollivander to big business, we don't just lose a vintage record shop. We lose a pub. We lose live music every Saturday night. We lose karaoke on Thursday nights. We lose a venue to promote local musicians. We lose memories of our childhood spent in this shop. We lose an inimitable, historic business that has been standing for fifty years. We lose records you can't find in any other shop and acts you won't see in any other pub and staff with purple hair who remember your name every time you come inside. And we lose all of those things in favor of cardboard cutouts and plastic wrap and identical uniforms and employees who don't give a shit because they're not paid enough to care." As Sirius spoke, he did so with authority, while maintaining that breathy, delicate quality to his voice that made people feel at ease while paying attention, and Remus couldn't find the air that was supposed to be in chest because it had left him to fog up the glass of the door where he had pressed his forehead, watching Sirius work.
And he wasn't nearly done. "With every raffle ticket, you have a chance to win a crate full of vintage records, vintage t-shirts, stickers, buttons, and a ticket to every live music event at the shop for the rest of the year. That's a chance to win over a hundred quid worth of merchandise for every two quid it costs for the ticket. And everyone who buys even one ticket gets admission into tonight's entertainment free of charge. You'd waste your money by not coming, really," he finished with a rise in his perfectly sculpted brow and a wink of his fanned-out lashes.
As the reporter continued giving the details about the event, and Sirius stood there looking gorgeous on camera, Remus turned back to Marlene with awe in his expression, an expression that she was returning in full, watching Sirius wrap up the interview.
"Did you tell him what to say?" Remus asked, glancing between Sirius and Marlene.
With a tilt of her head, Marlene pulled her lips into her teeth. "Not a thing. When that cameraman came in, I just panicked, and Siri took over. But every detail was spot on."
Under an exhale, Remus turned back to the glass, just as Sirius looked over to give Remus the fondest smile he'd ever seen on Sirius' face. After thanking the reporter (and encouraging him and the cameraman to come in and buy a raffle ticket), Sirius returned to the shop, greeted by thanks and congratulations and admiration by the staff. Bashfully, he shrugged.
"Anytime, really," he smiled, tugging on his earlobe. Before Remus could steal Sirius away from all this attention, he noticed James giving Sirius a rather concerned look from across the room. And Sirius responded with a forced smile and a subtle shake of his head before once again smothering it all underneath a celebrity smile and an alluring gaze, which fell immediately on Remus. With his eyes on Remus, it was almost like that worry really did disappear.
Quickly, Remus moved in and swept Sirius into a secluded corner behind racks of t-shirts, leaning against the wall so he could watch Sirius closely, so he could watch Sirius lie.
"Are you alright?" he asked, specifically knowing that Sirius wouldn't answer with truth.
But there was a hint of the truth in the furrow of Sirius' brow, in the hollowness of his gaze, in the nervous clenching of his jaw and the swallow that followed. "Of course," he said, rearranging his expression to show absurdity, but Remus noticed he didn't ask why.
"How did you know all that?" Remus decided to alter the line of conversation a bit, just to get Sirius to talk, but also absolutely impressed by Sirius' ability to make a speech on the spot.
With confusion in his brow, but a smile on his face, Sirius replied, "Last night after I left your house, I stopped by and posted a few photos to my Instagram to try and drum up some interest. Garrick and I talked about the raffle for a bit. He could talk your ear off, that one."
Remus blinked, dazed. "Garrick Ollivander talked your ear off?" he asked in shock. In all the time that Marlene had worked in this shop (which was as long as Remus had known her) and in all the times Remus had come in to see her (or shop for records), he had never once had his ear talked off by Garrick Ollivander. An occasional recommendation (which was always dead on, no matter what Remus was looking for) and pleasantries, but not much more beyond that.
"I used to come to this shop all the time when I was a kid, right after I moved back from New York," Sirius said with a distant, melancholy smile. "After my Uncle Alphard died."
"Sirius," Remus started to say, but Sirius breezed through it again, just like he had that time he was talking about his father, and Remus began to wonder why that reaction was so reflexive for him, why his first instinct was to smile in the face of discomfort and ignore it.
"My father didn't want to put up with me back then. Still doesn't, actually," he said with a laugh that sounded more pained than anything. "When I was fifteen, he shipped me off to live with his wife's brother as some form of punishment, I guess, but joke was on him, because living with Alphard in New York was the best year of my life. I would've stayed there forever if …" he trailed off, clearing his throat and forcing a smile. Without a thought, Remus moved closer, threading Sirius' fingers through his own, resting his head on Sirius' shoulder. And, for the first time in a very long time, when Remus thought of his mother, it felt less like a weight he'd been carrying around alone for the better part of five years and more like a memory he'd lost.
"Sounds a little like why I left Scotland," Remus said in a hushed tone, burrowing closer.
"You lost someone too?" Sirius asked softly. Remus compulsively adjusted his glasses, pushing them up with his middle finger, and it slid along the bottom of the rounded rim.
"My mum. Ovarian cancer when I was eighteen." Strange, he hadn't even talked about this to Lily or the other girls, but it came out so easily with Sirius. Everything was easy with Sirius.
"I lost Alphard to a heart attack," Sirius sighed as he leaned his head back against the wall behind them. "Widowmaker, they called it. Kinda thing that happens so quickly, you don't see it coming." It was more than Sirius had ever said about himself, about his past, and Remus wouldn't dare stop him. Maybe that was why he breezed through any mention of the heartache in his life – because nobody had ever taken the time to really listen to him talk about it before.
"I couldn't imagine not having any warning at all," he said out loud, but he couldn't think of anything but watching his mother go from hospital visit to hospital visit, a shadow of the vibrant woman she'd always been. But at least he'd been there to hold her hand. One last time.
"I sat with him in the hospital until the end, but I don't think he knew I was there," Sirius said, a slight tremble in his breath. "And without Alphard, my father forced me to move back to London, but I couldn't stand being in that house, being with him, constantly reminded that I'm not …" He stopped to let out a short breath. "Reminded that I wasn't in New York anymore."
"I wish I had been here back then. I wish I had met you sooner," Remus spoke honestly into the dark. If only he'd met Sirius first, if only he'd fallen in love with Sirius instead. Maybe then he wouldn't be a detached island that nobody could ever touch, and maybe then Sirius wouldn't have been alone in that house with a father who forced him to mask his misery.
"No, you would've hated me back then," Sirius said with a loud laugh. "I did everything I could to piss my father off, so I acted like a twat. I was loud and cocky and vulgar and –"
"You're still all of those things," Remus snickered, and Sirius retaliated by pinning Remus to the wall and reaching underneath his jumper to pinch his bare waist until Remus conceded, short of breath and unable to ignore the way Sirius was looking at him, eyes dark and wide with Remus still pinned underneath him. To keep himself from acting on his first instinct, Remus redirected the conversation back on topic. "I guess Ollivander mellowed you out. A bit."
"Oh, without a doubt." This time, the laugh from his lips was genuine and steady and sweet and Remus let out a sigh of relief to hear it. However, Remus couldn't help but notice that while Sirius had moved his hands out from underneath Remus' jumper, he was still holding Remus by the hips, still pressing him to the wall. "I was in this shop every second it was open, anything to stay away from home. Garrick used to let me sit in his office and listen to all the secondhand records that people donated to see which ones he needed to restore."
"Then how have I never met you?" Remus asked in disbelief. "I've lived with Marlene for over a year and she's been working here since I met her. I come in all the time."
At first, the smile on Sirius' face soured again and, while he worked quickly to exchange the expression for another, it was still strikingly clear in that moment, and it still sent a sharp pain into Remus' chest. "I … haven't been back in a long time," Sirius said vaguely, but with a noticeable clench of his jaw. No breezing through with an easy smile to mask his discontent, but the discontent itself. So strong was this expression that Remus wanted nothing more than to change the conversation entirely, and he could think of no better detour.
"Tell me about New York," he prompted. Immediately, Sirius' face softened.
"Oh, we lived in the best apartment building," Sirius gushed, his fingers finding Remus' again as he brought their entwined hands up to his chest, tracing the lines of Remus' knuckles with the forefinger of his other hand. "Across the hall, there was a girl in a punk band who had a bright pink mohawk, covered in tattoos – she snuck me into all her shows. Two doors down was a car salesman who ran an underground drag show every Saturday night. He gave me my first pair of high heels. The ladies upstairs ran a salon, and they bleached my hair that first summer."
"God, you must've had people filling out applications to be your friend in school," Remus laughed, knowing how magnetic Sirius was, how easily he drew people in, how irresistible his charm was. After all, he'd brought a hundred people into the shop with him, just by asking.
That pained smiled moved across his face again. "I didn't have friends my own age," he said with a shrug, but it was far from careless. "That was the condition of my living arrangement with Alphard, that I attend a very prestigious, all-boys school with other English nobility and future successors to American companies. I had to wear a pressed uniform with a school crest, I had to keep my hair at a certain appropriate length, and pledge against unsavory behavior."
"And how did that go?" Remus prodded, eyebrow high, knowing the likely answer.
With his hallmark smirk, Sirius replied. "Sent home on my first day for showing up in a wig, smoking in the boys' room, and putting on pink lipstick just before taking my ID photo." As he laughed, Remus couldn't help but imagine Sirius sitting in a room full of cardboard cutouts all wearing identical uniforms, with Sirius just as he was at that moment, as luminous and as dazzling and as alive as he was in his burgundy lipstick and plaid miniskirt and Sex Pistols t-shirt.
"The only living boy in New York," Remus laughed to himself, and that look returned to Sirius' dark eyes – the look he'd had when Remus had told him he looked beautiful, the same look he'd had when he said he wasn't ready to give up. The one just before he'd kissed Remus.
With a tender smile, Sirius replied in song, his voice curling up into his breath. "Hey, I've got nothing to do today but–" His tune faltered as he noticed Remus pull his lips into his teeth, his attention devoted to the movement of Sirius' lips. "Smile," he whispered, melody forgotten.
"Oh, and here I am," Remus stated with no refrain, no longer a lyric but a confession as his eyes danced across Sirius' face, his fingers slipping away from Sirius' to follow the erratic movement of his intention, holding Sirius by his astute jaw as his thumb made soft impressions in the gloss of Sirius' lipstick. A nervous breath moved from Sirius' parted lips, a chill across Remus' skin that left a shudder in its wake, but Sirius lingered in his place, not making a single movement that Remus didn't deliberately provoke in his skin. It left hesitation in Remus' touch.
Until he realized that Sirius was doing exactly as Remus had asked. After all, Remus had told him, in no uncertain terms, he couldn't afford another kiss. And Sirius had agreed to just one. Which meant this moment – with Sirius' trembling breath and his pleading gaze and the knots his anxious fists were making in Remus' jumper – was an act of obedience. It was Sirius proving that he wouldn't break that contract, that he would wait, that he would follow.
And it only made Remus want to kiss him more. He wet his lips slowly, watching the way Sirius' eyebrows rose in time, how the rate of his breathing spiked. He leaned in, savoring the desperate puff of Sirius' breath against his waiting lips and the absent wondering if Sirius' tongue would taste of whiskey. He subtly brushed his lips to the precipice of Sirius' mouth, just to study the curves and peaks that composed the shape of Sirius' lips and held the warmth within them.
All the control that Remus thought he possessed, all the restraint, all the willpower, it was miniscule in the shadow of his towering ache for this man. In three days, Sirius Black had driven him beyond any measure of madness he'd harbored for the one who came before, the one Remus now knew had surely been nothing more than infatuation, because this feeling, this frenzy, this screaming opposition to resistance so wildly eclipsed any previous passion, any previous desire. There was only Sirius Black, and he was sure he'd never wanted anything else.
So intense was this ravenous insistence to devour Sirius with a kiss so deep he could breathe the air from Sirius's lungs that Remus didn't acknowledge Marlene calling for the start of the raffle. He heard it, recognized it, and resolved to ignore it entirely. As an alternative, he decided to shift his weight with Sirius in his arms, pressing Sirius silently against the same wall.
"Jesus, Remus," Sirius breathed out in surprise, his voice a quivering hum.
"Don't make a sound," Remus instructed him, his breath heavy in Sirius' ear but his tone delicate and breakable. He found his lips behind Sirius' ear before he knew what he was doing, his nimble fingers carefully unsnapping the clasp of Sirius' velvet choker to expose more of Sirius' elegant throat as a canvas for his insatiable kiss. It spread over Sirius' bare skin like floodwaters from a broken dam, and Sirius raised his head to the ceiling to let Remus drown him in it.
"Oh, God," Sirius called out softly in a desperate release of arrested breath, his stark Adam's apple moving erratically over Remus' open lips. With this blatant encouragement, and all rational thought laid to waste, Remus slipped his hands up the back of Sirius' thighs, over fishnet stockings and underneath a plaid miniskirt. And Sirius immediately responded with, "Oh, fuck me," taking Remus by the face and kissing him wildly, sliding his tongue between Remus' teeth.
"What the fuck have you done to me," Remus panted into his mouth, and it wasn't really a question because Remus knew exactly what Sirius was doing to him, but he lacked the will and the want to stop it. And it wasn't just one thing, it was a cascade of events that started with the darkness of Sirius' gaze, moved through Remus' hands on his hips, tumbled over Sirius' tongue in his mouth, and ended with an inevitable swelling that he knew would get him into trouble.
"I could ask you the same damn thing," Sirius replied breathlessly, curling his leg around Remus' hip and pulling him into the space it created by slipping his slender fingers underneath the buckle of Remus' belt. The moment Remus felt a mirror of that swelling between Sirius' legs, underneath his plaid miniskirt, his hands tangled up in fishnet stockings, Remus surrendered.
"Goddammit, Sirius," he groaned as he pressed in, rocked his hips against Sirius to feel him again, to get him harder, to make him feel as alarmingly reckless as Remus felt. He was one very bad, ecstasy-driven decision away from dropping to his knees and burying his face under Sirius' skirt when Marlene's voice became clear again, despite how she'd been speaking all along.
"And the grand prize winner is … Siri!" Immediately, Remus pulled back as he and Sirius stared frantically at each other, though Remus only caught half of Sirius' panic before correcting the crooked frames on his face. With tightly pursed lips, Sirius sucked in a deep breath, quickly trying to come down, smoothing a very ruffled miniskirt over a very obvious erection.
"Why the fuck did you enter the raffle?" Remus hissed as Marlene (and the rest of the crowd) searched for Sirius (who was furiously fanning himself in an effort to cool off).
Sirius hissed back. "I didn't realize you would try to get me off in the corner of the goddamn shop!" he seethed back as Remus tried to refasten the necklace around Sirius' throat, so close that he could still feel Sirius' pulse throbbing. "And I didn't enter the raffle, I told Marlene it was a fucking donation, but she has very selective hearing apparently!" In a panic, Remus thumbed through the racks of clothes around them until he found something useful.
"Here, tie this around your waist," he said, tearing the sweatshirt from the hanger and lashing it around Sirius' waist, tying the arms and fluffing it around Sirius' indiscretion.
"Oh my God, you have to stop touching me," Sirius growled, ripping Remus' hands away and taking another deep breath (still holding Remus' hands, keeping them at a safe distance).
"Cold shower, cold shower, cold shower," Remus chanted, now grinning savagely, his head hanging low from where he was looking at Sirius over the tops of his glasses.
Sirius shot him a murderous glare. "Just you wait, Remus Lupin, I am going to pay you back for this. In full," he threatened as Remus reached out to wipe away a smudge of lipstick tinting the corner of Sirius' mouth, which dissolved the violence in his black eyes to fondness.
"Looking forward to it," Remus smiled cheekily, and Sirius snarled in return as he made his way back to the stage where Marlene was still furiously searching for his alter-ego.
As Marlene spotted him, she let out a victory cry, Sirius threw his arms into the air, and the crowd cheered. Effortlessly in those thigh-high boots, Sirius hopped onto the stage and took a dramatic bow (though Remus noticed him keeping his hands clasped in front of his groin).
"Since I told Marlene I was making a donation," he emphasized into the microphone, giving Marlene a sassy tilt of the head, "I'm donating all the records back to the shop. Though, I'll be happy to add these to my disgustingly large t-shirt collection." He held an oversized purple Prince t-shirt to his torso and got a fox whistle in return, to which he replied by popping his heel up behind him (fluttering the hem of his skirt) and blowing a kiss to the audience (who, again, cheered feverishly). And Remus pretended to roll his eyes but blushed just a bit instead.
"Don't forget to stick around for tonight's cover band, dance your fucking heart out, and buy your crush another t-shirt!" Marlene screamed as the band moved on to prep the stage.
There was a small landing that separated the record shop and the pub, a set of steps that descended into the area in front of stage. From there, Remus had a perfect view of Sirius standing at the side of the stage, and he kept his eyes on him to keep from losing him in the crowd as he made his way over. However, he watched as Sirius pulled his mobile out of that little handbag he kept clipped to his skirt. With his face illuminated by the blue glow of the small screen, Remus watched Sirius' expression immediately grow solemn, bordering terrified.
Before Remus could convince himself to move, he watched that expression change, the way Sirius' expressions always changed, and it morphed into something dangerous, a defiance so clear that Remus could read it from across the room. With fury in the aligned steps of his towering heels, he stormed over to where James stood at the bar, his footsteps so pounding that Remus could hear the devastating snap of every heel press to the concrete below them.
There was an evident snarl in Sirius' lips as he pulled James' ear to them and, while Remus couldn't hear what was being said, he could see the clench of Sirius' teeth, the glint of his angry canines, and the strangely victorious smile that was spreading across James' face.
Finally, as Sirius pulled away, that cocksure glow returned to his polished face, with the arrogant smirk to match, and James let out a ringing, boisterous laugh, one that Remus could hear from across the pub, over mic checks and amp feedback. With a little more sway in his hips, Sirius sauntered into the crowd and Remus lost him as he made his way toward the stage.
As the band tore into the fast, fiery guitar of their first cover, Remus began to push through the crowds in his search for Sirius, but before he could get through, Sirius was already right next to him, his lips to Remus' ear. "Dance with me, Remus," he purred. Remus shuddered.
"Like I can say no to you," Remus replied, trying to grumble, but it came out instead as a satisfied sort of hum. With Sirius' fingers in his, leading him to get lost in the mass of bodies some distance from the stage, Remus wasn't worried about who would see them dance together. He wasn't worried about Lily and the girls finding out the truth about Sirius. In fact, as Sirius pulled him close, he felt like he hadn't been worried about anything in a long time.
Sirius' hips moved to the rhythm the way he walked in heels and Remus let his hands move down to Sirius' waist so he could feel that movement underneath his fingertips – feel the instant his momentum shifted, feel the gathering of his skin with every upward rotation, feel the curve of his waist when Remus' fingers slipped underneath the hem of his knotted t-shirt.
When Sirius sang the words to the song, there were so many voices around that Remus wasn't sure how he could pick Sirius' voice out of them, but it was as clear as if Sirius were singing it with his lips pressed to Remus' ear. The bass of his natural tone vibrated out of his chest and Remus moved his hands up to Sirius' ribcage to feel the weight of it more clearly.
Under that dark gaze, he studied Remus' face as he sang, "But I tell myself that I was doing alright. There's nothing left to do tonight. But go crazy on you." With those inciting words on his stained lips, and that brazen challenge in his brow, Sirius stepped in, the toe of his boot between Remus' feet. With his hipbone pressed tight to the center of Remus' hips, he stood to his full height in those heels, raising his thigh just enough to unsettle Remus very deliberately.
He didn't even have to suppress the moan that moved out of his throat, he didn't have to pretend like he didn't enjoy watching the volatile way Sirius reacted to it, biting down onto his bottom lip so hard that he blanched the skin underneath it. He didn't have to stop himself from pulling Sirius back into his hips or curving into him just to feel Sirius underneath the layers.
With purpose in his reply, Remus sang too, moving in to press Sirius' forehead against his own. "You don't have to wonder, you're doing fine. Love, the pleasure's mine." As Sirius slipped his arms around Remus' neck and let his long lashes flutter closed, Remus craned in for another kiss, finding a boundless desire where once was apprehension, hope in the place of dread.
And Sirius kissed him back, a sensation that Remus hadn't known for a long time. He kissed him affectionately, and Remus wasn't sure he'd ever known what that was like. He kissed him deeply and heedlessly and eagerly and Remus wondered why he'd said no for so long.
When Sirius pulled away, he did so only to recover breath, not allowing himself more than a moment's absence of Remus' lips, freckling Remus with tiny, soft kisses of varying length and depth and location with wonder and amusement in the reflection of his obsidian eyes.
"So afraid of one who's so afraid of you," Sirius sang softly and sincerely, a wrinkle in his perfect brow, confessing a truth that Remus hadn't anticipated. "What you gonna do?" he asked, narrowing his already hooded gaze, as if expecting an answer he didn't want to hear.
Following a hard swallow, Remus clenched his jaw, knowing the decision he was about to make. And knowing he couldn't make the one he knew he should. His heart was in his throat and his stomach was on the floor as he looked at Sirius and sang, "Let me go crazy on you."
A weighted, breathy groan pushed past Sirius lips with force as Remus pressed him heavily against the bedroom door, but it was stifled in the next second as Remus covered Sirius' mouth with his own, moving his tongue into the space from which the breath was expelled.
"Remus," Sirius repeated his name countless times, his voice wavering with anticipation and impatience as he tore Remus' jumper over his head, tossing it onto the opulent staircase along the west wall of Number 12 Grimmauld Place, another article in a long trail of clothes and shoes and velvet chokers that conspicuously led from the front door right up to Sirius' bedroom.
"God, you make it sound so good," Remus growled as he returned his lips to Sirius' while Sirius hopped his way out of one unzipped thigh-high boot, which Remus managed to maneuver through without losing his attachment to Sirius' mouth. In his unbalance, Sirius went toppling back onto his four-poster bed, accidentally dragging Remus with him, but Remus was a step behind, so he fell to his knees at the side of Sirius' bed, right between Sirius' spread legs.
Without losing a beat, Sirius raised his foot, and the boot that still covered it, to set it atop Remus' shoulder. "Take it off," Sirius commanded on a short breath under a daring gaze.
In the only light in the room streaming in from the lamplight outside his window, the black of Sirius' eyes refracted the golden of the weathered light, the white of the scattered moonlight that broke through, the pink of the diluted light moving through faded red curtains.
Once again, his glasses were smudged and fogged and lopsided on his face, but he didn't dare take them off because he couldn't stand the thought of not witnessing every slight change in Sirius' lecherous expression, every automatic fluttering of skin underneath his fingertips, every twitch of Sirius' dark, sculpted brow, every enthusiastic dart of his tongue over his lips.
Slowly, with purpose filling every second he spent, Remus obeyed, slipping his hand into the opening he created to revel in the texture of those fishnet stockings and Sirius' skin underneath them. Before Remus could even pull the heel from Sirius' foot, Sirius was wriggling his way out of the tights and the moment they were gone, Remus buried his face into the soft skin of Sirius' inner thigh just underneath the hem of his skirt, kissing openly, biting tenderly, nosing at the hem of his fitted boxer-briefs, his restless breath seething against Sirius' skin.
As Remus' avid kiss moved closer to the center of Sirius' hips, and Sirius' grip in Remus' hair grew tighter and more cautionary, Remus glanced up to watch Sirius pull the Sex Pistols t-shirt over his head, collar first – so violently that he pulled his hair out of its bun. Immediately, Remus was undone, the movement of his mouth forgotten but the pace of his breathing quickened significantly, staring with absolute abandon at the sight in front of him, at the way Sirius arched his back as he undressed, at the way Sirius tossed his dark hair to one side to move it from his line of sight, at the way he dragged his hand down his bare, heaving chest.
Overcome by the weight of Sirius' magnetism, Remus launched forward, his mouth colliding with Sirius' in a torrent of tongue and teeth. In like passion, Sirius grabbed a fistful of Remus' unkempt hair, just at the nape of his neck, using his hold like a rudder to govern the angle of the kiss, using his tongue like a spade to explore the hollows of Remus' mouth.
With his body making decisions of its own, Remus crawled onto Sirius' bed and straddled Sirius' hips, kneeling over him and craning down to keep their lips together. Impatient as ever, Sirius gripped Remus by the buckle of his trousers and wrenched him down, Remus falling straight down onto Sirius' lap and the lengthening stiffness he felt between Sirius' legs.
His tenuous fingers still tucked underneath the button of Remus' trousers, Sirius let his eyes fall on the placement of his hand and the blatant strain of the fabric underneath it. As Sirius lets his touch stray to Remus' overly responsive skin, just underneath the waist of his jeans, a violent shudder moved through Remus' frame, accompanied by a salacious exhale.
"Oh, God, I –," Sirius called out, his words broken by a harsh swallow, his fingers still tucked underneath the button of Remus' trousers. Without saying more, he suddenly pushed Remus backward, and before Remus could even reach the pillow, Sirius was on top of him, his lips on Remus' chest and his hands unbuckling Remus' belt. "I can't spend another second not touching you, Remus," he said with a low whine. "Jesus, I am in agony without you."
"I'm right here, Sirius," Remus laughed through a surge of blood in his cheeks and in his chest and under Sirius' fingers. As Sirius' kisses grew low, Remus wound his fist in Sirius' hair, and when Sirius slipped his agile fingers into the open waist of Remus' trousers, his fist clenched.
"Yes, you're here, God, you're here," Sirius whispered into Remus' skin, into the tender skin inside his hipbone, and Remus arched as Sirius' open kisses spread further down, moving anything and everything out of his way. "And if I don't make love to you tonight, right now," he said with what sounded like dread in his voice, but he washed it out, the same way he washed worry from his expression, the same way he breezed through discontent. "Remus, I –"
When he didn't continue, Remus spurred him on. "What is it, Sirius? Tell me." But when Sirius looked up again, it was all gone, replaced entirely by that practiced arrogance.
"Remus, I'm going to make sure you call out my name," he stated shamelessly, just before burying his face between Remus' legs, mouthing heavily and devotedly at Remus' cock, still hidden behind a cotton border. When the muscles of Remus' abdomen reflexively tensed at the sudden, unexpected contact, Sirius gripped Remus by the waist and moved with him.
"Oh, God, Sirius," Remus indeed called out, loud and full of breath, writhing underneath Sirius' open mouth and moaning obscenely, all while Sirius burrowed in deeper.
"I need you to remember this, Remus," Sirius muttered senselessly, tearing at the clothes that kept Remus from him, taking in an overly deep, overly trembling breath at the sight of Remus, naked underneath him. He glanced up, to make sure he held Remus in his incendiary gaze before craning down to place a reverent, open kiss to the head of Remus' cock.
Without breaking Sirius' stare, a curse fell from Remus' quivering lips. "Fuck."
"Say it again," Sirius demanded, his voice rough and ragged with breath as his dark eyes flicked down to admire the stimulation he'd wrought, licking his lips before wrapping them around Remus' cock again, looking back up to enjoy the way Remus fell apart underneath him.
"Fuck," Remus repeated, louder, craning back into Sirius' pillow. With a growl, Sirius pulled off, stroking Remus in his fist and seeming to take note of what set Remus off.
"Goddammit, there's so much we haven't gotten to do," he mumbled to himself before moving back up to bury his face in the curve of Remus' throat, kissing and sucking.
"We have all night," Remus reminded him in a rumbling voice as he craned his neck to give Sirius more space, as his fingers slipped up the skirt still on Sirius' hips, ghosting down Sirius' length still tucked away. A breath moved from Sirius' lips. "Tell me what it is you want."
When Sirius pulled back to look Remus in the eye, Remus startled at the broken expression he found in Sirius' face. And Remus expected this to be like every other trace of weakness that Sirius let show on his expression, he expected it to be washed away and replaced by a false bravado and an overcompensating smirk. Instead, Sirius swallowed, and it deepened.
"I want to make love to you, Remus Lupin. And I want you to call out my name as you come, and I want to fall asleep in your arms, and I want you to hold me until the sun comes up," he spoke hurriedly, as if every fleeting moment was being spent against his consent.
"Then make love to me, Sirius," Remus whispered, unzipping the plaid skirt hanging from Sirius' gaunt hips and letting it fall to his knees as Remus gently fondled Sirius. "But not before I get to suck your cock," he said with a playful smirk. "Because I'm in agony without you."
A devilish smile crossed over Sirius' lips. "Fuck you, that was a good line and you know it."
"Is that what it was?" Remus teased as he removed the last remaining article of Sirius' clothes, letting out a soft sigh at the sight of him, slipping him immediately into his fingers and understanding why Sirius enjoyed watching the way Remus reacted to him. "Just a line?"
"No," Sirius said, his breathing growing faint and uneven. "It was the goddamn truth."
"And it still is," Remus admitted. "Get up here." Without pause, Sirius straddled Remus' chest, hanging just before his open mouth. With nothing more than a delicate swirl of Remus' tongue around the head of his cock, Sirius was almost immediately in shambles.
"Oh, Jesus Christ, we should've held back on the foreplay a little, God, fuck," he growled, letting a pathetic laugh slip through as he rose his gaze to the ceiling, apparently to avoid any visual stimulation by looking at Remus with his lips around Sirius' cock. But that need proved too much for Sirius and he looked back, sighing deeply as he slipped his hand down Remus' jaw, around into the back of Remus' hair. "Good God, Remus, I never could've imagined how good you could make this look," he exhaled, pursing his lips to let the breath out slowly. "Fuck."
Remus pulled back, only to whisper, "Say it again."
"Fuck," Sirius repeated, louder, craning back as Remus pulled him in deeper, as he sucked harder, as he reached around to grip the back of Sirius' thighs. "Remus, Remus," he called out, again and again, his voice growing insistent and tight. Just the sound of Sirius approaching climax had Remus bucking his hips in a bid for friction, had him stroking himself to the sounds of Sirius' ecstasy, to the sound of Sirius calling out his name, to the sight of Sirius losing himself to the pull of Remus' mouth, to the feeling of Sirius pulsing between his teeth, primed to spill out.
Breathless, he pulled off. "Fuck me, Sirius," he panted, pumping Sirius and himself in time as Sirius moaned at the insistence in Remus' demand. Pulling out of Remus' grasp, Sirius rummaged for the lube in the top drawer of his bedside table and before Remus could even shift further up on the bed, Sirius had his wet hand around Remus' cock, stroking softly.
"There's one last thing I want from you, Remus," Sirius stated, that worrisome despair returning to his voice, but it took residence in equal measure to the wild hunger in his throat, in his gaze, in his touch. "Pretend that you could've fallen in love with someone like me." There was something unsaid in Sirius' voice, it had been there all night, for days even – since Remus met him on the street that night. It was something hollow and hopeless and Remus wanted to kill it.
"I don't have to pretend," Remus said plainly, not concerned about the consequences of what he was about to admit, not worried about losing it. He just pulled Sirius close, leveled Sirius hips to his own, and took Sirius into his hand, sliding him along his own length. He arched his hips upward only a single time before Sirius found the rhythm, thrusting his cock into the loose fist Remus held around his own. "You know damn well I could fall in love with you so fucking easily."
"Goddammit, Remus," Sirius moaned into the dark before pressing his lips hard to Remus', holding onto that kiss like it would be stolen, breathing Remus in like he was the only thing that kept him alive. And when Remus felt his breathing begin to quicken and his muscles begin to tighten and his cock begin to throb, he kept his promise and called out Sirius' name.
With his jaw slack, Sirius watched him come like he was trying to memorize it – he tilted his head as if to study the way Remus called out Sirius' name in the delirium of ecstasy, widened his eyes as if to take note of all the curves of Remus' skin that suddenly tensed and twitched and throbbed, slipped the residue of Remus' orgasm between his fingertips to learn the texture.
When Sirius came just behind him, with Remus stroking him to completion, it wasn't with a shout or a cry or a howl the way Remus had expected it might be when he'd had Sirius pressed against his bedroom door. It was with a sated whisper and a grateful sigh and an expression so honest, that Remus began to wonder what it is he'd been looking at in Sirius' face all this time, if this was the way he looked in his natural state, unguarded and inattentive and distracted.
In his insistence to see this expression, Remus used the back of his hand to push the glasses further up onto his nose, surveying Sirius from where he was knelt over Remus' hips, his back straight and his chin raised to the ceiling, the cascade of colors from the window highlighting the sharp edges of his throat like a neon sign. Through the smudging on his lenses, it was like looking at an oil painting come to life, the blurry lines and the soft colors and the dim lights only enhancing the expressiveness of his subject, striking and delicate and glorious.
Under a heavily pleasured sigh, Sirius pushed his hair to one side, in that way he did that showcased the prominence of his ribcage and the curve of his waist. With his long hair obscuring what little light shone on his face, he looked at Remus with a dark gaze that was still thrashing and tempestuous, and he looked like something feral and ephemeral – a wild creature that crawled out of the darkness only to make love to him, just to disappear into the same night.
The sigh in Sirius' chest shifted and repeated, and it wasn't pleasure that drove it the second time, but misery. And that honesty that had been in his face was fading, Remus could see it slipping back underneath the mask that Sirius rarely removed from his auspicious face. In his desperation to keep it, Remus reached out, his slick fingers moving across Sirius' stomach.
As Sirius glanced down at the mess across his belly, he glanced up at Remus with an eyebrow raised, amusement present in his eyes and in his smirk, and the sincerity seemed to strengthen with it. Carelessly, Sirius grabbed his t-shirt and took Remus' hand, clearing away the evidence of their satisfaction from between Remus' fingers before moving the sullied garment over the spunk splattered across Remus' abdomen, affectionately and reverently.
"Will you stay? Just until morning?" Sirius asked quietly, voice throaty and rough.
"I thought that was obvious," Remus said with a shrewd grin. A small laugh moved from Sirius' lips, but it weakened. And for what seemed like a long time, Sirius was silent as he settled down next to Remus, his fingers tracing imaginary lines across Remus' stomach with a touch so light that it left a trail of goosebumps in the skin underneath it and a wake of tension in the still-quivering muscle. The longer Sirius went in silence, the more his touch seemed to draw on a purpose, ghosting down the inside of Remus' thigh, leaving breath unreleased in Remus' chest.
Another laugh, and while Remus was sure it was meant to sound breathy and inviting, it came out sounding stinging and bitter. "You think I could talk you into letting me blow you one more time before you fall asleep?" Even though he spoke with bluster and his eyebrow rose with intent, he couldn't hide the heaviness of his eyelids, weighed down by his false lashes.
Remus smiled, his own eyes fighting sleep. "What's your hurry?" he asked, humming as he pulled Sirius onto his chest. "You can blow me senseless in the morning, I promise."
Though Sirius nuzzled into the crook of Remus' arm, and Remus could feel the stubble of Sirius' face scratch against his chest, Sirius still let out muted sigh, brimming with regret. And sleep was weighing Remus so heavily, he couldn't garner enough energy to assure Sirius that he would still be there in the morning, that they both would. They had all the time in the world.
Before he drifted off, he heard Sirius whisper, "If only I had met you in New York."
It was still dark when Remus woke, and Sirius wasn't in his arms. Nor was he in the bed next to him. Blinking through the darkness, Remus put on his glasses to find the spacious room empty. Or at least that was what he thought, until he felt a breeze blow in through the window, that same window from which Sirius had waved to him a day ago. As his attention followed the current, he furrowed his brow as he found Sirius silently sitting on the sill of the open window.
In this moment of vulnerability, Remus allowed himself to look at Sirius – for what felt like the first time. No mask, no arrogance, no costume, no show. Sirius, as he was, with nothing to perform and no audience to entertain and nothing that he had to keep hidden from everyone.
One of his long, half-shaven legs was curled loosely into the window frame, the other hanging from it, his painted toes barely reaching the carpet. His head had fallen back deeply against the window's frame, the jagged curve of his throat more magnified than ever in the pale, pink morning light, though it was blunted by an ashen veil of smoke trickling from his lips, the cigarette dangling forgotten between them, a smudge of merlot lipstick staining the filter.
The pink glitter and concealer that had covered up the severely dark circles around his eyes were gone, leaving Sirius looking exhausted and troubled. Under thick, furrowed brows, he kept his eyes closed, sucking in the nicotine profoundly before letting it slip out reluctantly.
The only thing that was reminiscent of the bright, vivacious, flamboyant style that Remus was used to in Sirius was the black, see-through robe draped around Sirius' shoulders. The faux-fur trim around the collar had slipped off his shoulder, exposing a gaunt collarbone that made him look frighteningly thin in the moonlight. When he raised his hand to rakishly shove the hair from his face, the fur trim of the wide sleeves slipped down his arm, gathering at his elbow and blending with the dramatic excess of the fabric that pooled at the carpet underneath his feet.
Suddenly, Sirius ripped the cigarette from his lips with a flick of his wrist that was so violent, it scattered ashes in an arc across his hips, snowing down to form a pattern across his black boxer-briefs, the ones Remus had seen that first morning. With a snarl in his trembling lips, he leaned forward and buried his face in his hands, cigarette still burning between his fingers.
"Goddammit," he muttered to himself, and when he breathed in, his voice was wet, as if there were tears in his throat. It left Remus feeling alarmed. "Why the fuck am I doing this?"
Before Remus could say anything, a sharp buzzing sound split the silence, and Sirius picked up his vibrating mobile from the window. For a moment, the blue screen illuminated his face again, just like it had at the pub, giving him a skeletal glow with dark, sunken eyes.
"No, James," he whispered, responding to a text message out loud without even sending a reply to the message, tossing his mobile back onto the window. "I have massively fucked up."
With sudden clarity and a crushing pain in his chest, Remus began to realize what was happening here. This was what Sirius had massively fucked up – sleeping with Remus. Once they got past the suffocating haze of the lust and the desperation, Sirius didn't want him. Of course.
And he'd been right. Any heartbreak he'd felt after that first breakup was absolutely trivial compared to the devastating weight of this realization. But even that pain was vacuous compared to the anguish in Remus' chest as Sirius spoke again, his voice shattered, fragmented.
"I knew I couldn't keep him, I just …" He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth looking as if the cigarette between his fingers had been pressed into his skin. "God, I wanted to."
"Sirius," Remus called out immediately, unable to suffer any longer. As soon as he heard Remus' voice, Sirius' head snapped up, looking back with wide eyes. "What do you –"
"Morning, handsome," Sirius purred, shifting back into stage presence without a moment's hesitation. Behind his back, he tossed the cigarette out the open window like he was keeping a secret before gliding across the carpet to take Remus' face into his hands, the elegant robe sweeping in behind him like a scene from a silent film. "No sense in wasting time, you promised to let me suck your glorious cock one last– one more time," he corrected, trying to mask his error by biting down on his lip to draw Remus' attention. It worked just long enough for Sirius to assail Remus in a frantic, chaotic kiss that was so turbulent, it thrust Remus backward onto the bed as Sirius' hand roughly slipped between Remus' legs, only a bedsheet in the way.
"Wait, Sirius, wait," Remus mumbled into Sirius' lips, but Sirius was incited.
"No, no, no, I'm tired of waiting, Remus," Sirius whined, a hint of that wretched distress in his voice that made Remus want to find the cause and obliterate it. "You promised me."
"Sirius," Remus said on an exhale, just as Sirius' fingers skated under the edge of the sheet and wrapped around Remus' length. In confusion, Remus gripped Sirius' wrist from outside the sheet, stalling the movement of his hand for a moment. "Please, just talk to me."
A frustrated smile crossed through Sirius' expression. "No, you're right. We probably wouldn't have time," he said, the smile growing more fake and more garish as he pulled his hands away and moved back to the window. "You'd better get home before the girls realize you didn't go home last night." Staring with his jaw slack and his brow furrowed, Remus didn't move.
"I don't care if they know, honestly," he said softly, wrapping the sheet around his waist so he could move to slide his hand across Sirius' shoulder. "Tell me what's wrong."
With a quiet laugh that sounded dangerously close to breaking, Sirius replied, placing his hand over Remus' fingers. "I got to spend last night with someone I've grown rather fond of, so there isn't a damn thing wrong with me at the moment." When Sirius looked back over his shoulder at Remus, there was no stage presence, no concealer to hide the dark circles under his eyes, no glitter to cover up the redness in tear-drained eyes. He looked utterly broken.
In the moment that Sirius opened his mouth to speak, there was a noise from downstairs that sounded a little bit like a door being opened. When Remus' attention moved back to Sirius' expression, what he found was frightening – jaw clenched tightly, chest not moving with breath, eyes wide and blank. For only a moment, Sirius screwed his eyes closed and took a breath.
When he opened his eyes again, his gaze was darker than Remus had ever seen it. Darker than the natural black of his eyes, darker than they had been in the dimness of the record shop pub, darker than they had been when Remus had pushed him against the wall, darker than they had been when he'd watched Remus wrap his lips around Sirius' cock. His eyes were lightless.
"Remus," he said quickly, pulling away and gathering up a pile of Remus' clothes that Remus was sure had been scattered up the stairway the night before, "I don't have time to explain or apologize," as he spoke, he led Remus into his enormous closet, "but I need you to wait right here and promise me not to come out." With a wince, he placed Remus' clothes into his hands, kicking the trailing edges of the sheet still around Remus' waist past the threshold of the closet door. "Promise me. No matter what," he said emphatically, urgently, desperately.
Before Remus could make such a promise, the doorknob of Sirius' bedroom door turned, and Sirius immediately shut Remus into the dark. Without explanation, just as he'd said.
A strange voice was on the other side of the room – a voice that sounded eerily similar to Sirius' voice but without the depth or the warmth or the sincerity. "He's back."
There was a slight pause before Sirius spoke. "I know."
"Put on something else or he'll –" Sirius interrupted, voice hollow.
"I know."
"Is there anything I can …" The voice trailed off, as if he knew the answer.
Another pause. "It's okay, Reg. I'll be okay," Sirius assured the strange voice, but he sounded the furthest from okay Remus had ever had the displeasure of experiencing in his voice.
"Not even a car for your friend in the closet?" the voice known as Reg asked with what sounded like a smile in his tone. Sirius surprised Remus by letting out a small laugh of his own.
"Shut up," Sirius laughed under his breath.
"I could send him flowers for you, if that's the sort of thing you do after you –"
"Oh my God, Reg, shut up," Sirius groaned playfully.
"I was here all night, you know, I had to go sleep in the guest house, for Christ's sake," the voice known as Reg joked, but his voice faltered for a bit, laughter muffled, and Remus could imagine Sirius attempting to get Reg to be silent through physical means, through soft punches.
"Oh, give me a break," Sirius wheezed with laughter while Remus was struck with the sudden realization that this was Sirius' younger brother, Regulus, the legitimate Black heir. Even more surprising was how well the two brothers got along, considering what little Remus knew of their family dynamics. Sirius continued, "When have I ever brought anyone home before? I just wanted to try it. Just once," Sirius said, a quiet sigh moving through Sirius' lips as their laughter died rather abruptly with things that were left unsaid, hanging in the air between them.
"He saw the news piece. About the record shop," Regulus said solemnly, and Remus winced, tightening his grip on the clothes in his hands. He knew there was something about doing that spot, that Sirius hadn't been right after that uneasy glance he'd shared with James.
"Did my new boots make it in the shot?" he asked, his voice moving around the room, Remus imagined him nervously fidgeting with things as he spoke. "Spent a lot on those."
"Sirius, he's –"
"Reg, I know," Sirius reaffirmed, a tight laugh moving through teeth that sounded like they were clenched. He sucked in an unsteady breath before launching into a tirade. "I knew he would see it and I didn't give a shit because he can't just throw his fucking money around to make people respect him. He knew I would try to stand up to him when he put in his offer for that shop, and that's the only reason he's trying to buy Garrick out. To piss me off."
In the silence, Remus let his head hang low. It was Sirius' father, the one who put in the exorbitant bid for Garrick's shop, the one who threatened to ruin him if he didn't sell. And Sirius knew that when he went on television. That was why James had given him that look of concern, because he knew it would come back to bite Sirius on the arse. Apparently, Regulus knew, too.
But his reply surprised Remus. "Oh, to have seen the look on his face when he saw you on the news in a miniskirt. I can see it now – veins bursting out of his skin, red as the devil. I didn't see it myself, but I'm told it was dreadful, which, to me, translates to fucking delightful."
"Don't let him catch you saying that. He'll murder you, too," Sirius laughed carefully.
"Then he'll have to murder every news outlet in London, because you're on the front page of damn near every publication this morning," Regulus said, and Remus could hear the pleased smile in his voice. "A couple of them call you a slur, but you look fabulous as shit."
The laugh from Sirius' voice was loud and genuine and warm enough to make Remus laugh softly to himself in the solitude of the closet. "Appreciate that, Reg. Now get out so I can watch my lover get dressed before I have to unceremoniously shove him out the front door."
"Invite him for dinner next time," Regulus said, his voice fading with distance. "I want to be present to witness the moment our homophobic father has a rage-stroke when he has to watch you kiss a bloke in front of him. Even better if you wear a glittering evening gown during."
"Thank you for your continued support, Regulus," Sirius laughed, the sound of it followed by Sirius' bedroom door being closed. "You could've come out in the beginning, you know."
Carefully, Remus poked his head out of Sirius' closet, smiling. "It seemed like a touching family moment, I didn't want to interrupt. Plus, I'm still really naked, so …" There was that laugh again, the genuine one that made Remus' heart feel like it swelled three sizes.
"Anyway, you heard that last part. Go ahead and get dressed, so I can watch," Sirius replied with a wink, his real lashes nearly as long and as full as the fake ones had been last night.
"Why, so you can unceremoniously shove me out the front door?" Remus quipped, casting him a glance as he let the sheet fall to the floor, savoring the way Sirius' eyes immediately dropped down to glide over all of the newly available skin. While his attention was held, Remus used this time to bring up the conversation he'd overheard. "It wasn't just the last part I heard, you know. You could've told me it was your father who's trying to buy Ollivander's."
"Why?" Sirius scoffed, his response nearly autonomous as his gaze was heavily preoccupied watching Remus pull on his boxers. "So you and your friends would hate me?"
"If the shop is saved, it's going to be because of you," Remus reminded him as he stretched the jumper over his head. "You brought everyone, you did the interview, even though apparently you knew it was going to get you in deep shit." Sirius half rolled his eyes in reply.
"Let him come at me again," Sirius shrugged, getting in one last ogle of Remus' bare thighs before the trousers went over them while Remus tried not to agonize over his use of the word again. "Obviously, I haven't broken yet. I'm not going to change who I am for him."
"Sirius, what does your –" Before he could ask what kind of shit he was going to be in, what exactly his father had done in the past, he was interrupted by Sirius pulling him into a kiss, which Remus barely had time to lean into before Sirius was pulling him to the bedroom door.
"I'd love to relive my childhood trauma with you, but the source of it will be here at any moment, and it might be sort of embarrassing for me if you have to watch him choke me to death," he said flatly, and when Remus' grip tightened on his hand, he turned to say, "Remus, I'm kidding," but the worry in his brow told Remus that he wasn't exactly kidding.
"Come stay with us for a few days," Remus offered suddenly at the front door.
"Remus," Sirius started with a sardonic laugh.
"We'll tell the girls everything, they'll make an exception," Remus continued to offer, somehow feeling like he might lose Sirius forever if he walked out right then.
With a curious look on his face, Sirius laughed again, but this one was a little bit lighter than the last. "You go home and tell the girls the truth and let me know what they say."
"At least go stay with James," Remus finally insisted, as a last resort.
"Remus, I'm fine!" Sirius smiled. He hadn't stopped laughing, and Remus wasn't sure anymore if this was his genuine laugh, because Sirius was so good at hiding what he wanted to hide. "Everything is fine. Go home and get some real sleep. I'll call you tonight, I promise."
Suddenly, Remus understood why Sirius had been so manic earlier, why he had been so set on kissing Remus again, touching Remus again – because when Sirius leaned in and pressed a delicate kiss to Remus' lips, it tasted like a goodbye. And he'd never tasted anything so bitter.
Before Remus could argue more, the front door was closed, and Remus had no choice but to go home. With leaden steps, it took him much longer than it should have – the sun was burning away the soft pink of the morning and Lily was waiting for him on the stoop.
To Remus' surprise, she smiled, knowing. "You look like shit," she laughed as she handed him her mug of tea. When he didn't take it, she furrowed her brows in concern.
"I never gave Sirius my number," Remus said on a defeated sigh, ultimately knowing what this meant. It meant Sirius never had any intention of calling him. With a mirrored sigh of her own, Lily pulled the mug back to her chest, puffed out her cheeks, and opened the front door.
"I think there are a few things we need to talk about, Remus," she said, nodding toward the open door, only just forcing Remus to realize what he'd said out loud. But it didn't matter anymore. Sirius wouldn't be coming back, he knew that now. The only thing he wasn't entirely sure of was whether that was by Sirius' choice or if Sirius was letting his father choose for him.
"Yeah, I guess there are," he replied, stealing Lily's tea and moving inside.
With all the girls (minus Dorcas, of course, whom Remus had still never actually met) gathered round, Remus took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, lips pursed tightly.
"His name isn't Siri. It's Sirius. Sirius Black. He's the son of Orion Black." He spoke with his face to the floor, not wanting to look any of them in the eye just yet. "And I look like shit because I went home with Sirius last night," he said immediately, watching the shared glances between the girls. "In fact, I slept with Sirius last night because I like him. A lot." His gaze fell on Lily as he waited for the ultimate explosion that he knew would follow. It … didn't.
A curious smile moved over Lily's face, despite how she tried to stifle it. Finally, a sharp laugh burst through Marlene's teeth, while Mary covered her mouth to apparently prevent the same thing from happening. An immediate furrow went into Remus' brow as Lily reached out and patted him condescendingly on the shoulder, a patronizing expression on her face.
"Oh, honey," she said, as Marlene's laughter grew louder. "We know."
"You know?" he nearly shouted. This time, it was Mary's laughter that was audible, and that was a surprise all on its own. He wondered if he should have been feeling this relieved.
"We've known since the beginning, Remus," Marlene said, wiping her eyes.
"Wait, which part?" he asked, confusion written all over his face.
"The whole damn thing," Marlene replied bluntly, as if it were obvious.
"First of all, you are not good at hiding your feelings," Mary smiled. "At all."
"Secondly, Siri is really not that different a name than Sirius," Marlene huffed.
"And third," Lily said with a soft smile, her hand still on Remus' shoulder, squeezing him softly. "Sirius told us everything himself. His name, his intention, everything. Day one."
"He told you?" Remus said, wishing he could stop repeating everything Lily said.
Marlene nodded. "When he came over that night for dinner. He said he knew he wasn't allowed in the building and asked us to make an exception because he really likes you. Didn't you find it weird that none of us stopped you from taking Sirius to your room that night?"
"What the fuck," Remus breathed out, confused and surprised and pleased. For a moment – until he realized that all the girls had been letting him tell this lie for no reason. "Then why didn't you say something? The stress of being found out has been killing me," he whined.
Lily smirked, rolling her eyes slightly. "Oh, please. You enjoyed it." At first, Remus opened his mouth to argue, before gritting his teeth with the realization that Lily was right. There had been a certain thrill about keeping Sirius a secret known only to himself, about stealing a glance at Sirius' bare skin with the knowledge that Lily could find them out, about being able to hear Sirius whisper in his deep, full tone before shifting into that light, airy costume voice.
With a sudden tilt of his head, Remus asked, "You didn't care that I broke the rule?" And before anyone could answer, a heavy set of footsteps descended down the stairs. In surprise at what surely had to be Dorcas emerging from her room for the first time, Remus looked up to find James Potter padding down the stairs, dark hair a wild mess with Lily's pink bathrobe hanging from one shoulder. Looking down at his phone, James was oblivious to the group meeting that was happening at the bottom of the stairs as he moved through them into the kitchen.
"Morning, Remus," he yawned, squeezing Remus by the shoulder as he passed.
Immediately, Remus looked over to Lily with a glare, who smiled sheepishly. "Remus, we've all broken the rule." With a quick glance at Marlene, she added, "Well, sort of."
"I've been sneaking into Dorcas' room every night for the last three weeks," Marlene said with a smug expression, looking longingly up the stairs. "I'm pretty sure we're dating."
"I've never even seen Dorcas! And I thought you were straight! What the fuck is happening!" Remus shouted, an anxious laugh moving through his lips as he pushed his hands through his tousled hair. "Jesus, apparently everyone in my life is lying to me," he growled.
"Which is why we thought it was okay for you to have a secret of your own," Lily said clearly, taking Remus by the shoulders and making sure he was looking her in the face. "We were all keeping secrets from each other! Hell, I just found out about Dorcas and Marlene myself this morning! Which, by the way, nobody in this house has seen Dorcas, except for Marlene."
"She's just shy, it's honestly super adorable," Marlene said, wrinkling her nose.
"And now everything is out in the open, so you can date Sirius, we can have another dinner party and laugh about how all of this –" Lily chattered, but Remus interrupted.
"I'm …" he started, unsure of where it would go, "I don't think I'll ever see Sirius again."
"What?" Lily stated in an outward breath of surprise. At that moment, James emerged from the kitchen, wearing an expression that was very different than the one before.
"Remus, I think maybe you should see this," he said, his voice flat as he moved into the circle. As he held up his phone and the girls gathered around, Remus could see a still from a video on the screen. A quick exhale moved through Remus' lips. It was an image taken from a video posted by Orion Black, evidently making some sort of statement regarding Sirius' indiscretion from the night before, according to the title of the video at the bottom.
Most importantly, standing behind Orion was Sirius, looking straight ahead, his hands behind his back. His hair was pulled back tight and slick, nothing like the typical loose curls in which he usually kept it, and he was wearing a black suit. The most concerning of the image was the fact that it was obvious that Sirius was wearing makeup, but not in the way Remus was used to seeing it. Instead, there was concealer barely hiding a darkening bruise underneath the skin of Sirius' left eye, more of it failing to cover up the blatant gash that was swelling his bottom lip.
"I don't recommend watching the video," James said in a trembling voice, "Because Sirius looks like …" James let out an unsteady breath. "Nobody. He doesn't look like Sirius anymore."
"What does Orion Black say? In the video?" Mary asked softly.
With a pained expression, James replied, "That his son will be sent to deal with his …" he paused to let out a sharp breath through half-clenched teeth, "… mental instability at a resort somewhere out of the country." Outrage immediately and painfully jolted through Remus' chest.
"Are you fucking kidding me," Marlene seethed under her breath.
"He knew," Remus said with a slow breath, trying not to panic. "Orion was the one trying to buy out Ollivander and Sirius knew that when he went on camera. He knew Orion would see him defying him, with a face full of makeup and a miniskirt and a Sex Pistols t-shirt, and he did it anyway, because we asked him to," he said, pushing his fingers up underneath his glasses.
"This is all my fault," Marlene said in a trembling voice. "I never should have –"
"No," James interrupted, quickly and firmly, taking both Marlene and Remus by a shoulder. "Sirius chose to do this. He would've done anything to save that shop. Hell, Orion sent him a threatening text right afterward and it only made Sirius want to piss him off that much more," he laughed fondly, and Remus began to remember Sirius looking at the screen of his phone in the dark, his skeletal complexion lit up above it, with terror in his expression.
"So that was what that look was about," Remus breathed out, but he was puzzled to see the sheer amusement in James' face. Similar to the look on James' face the night before, just after Sirius stomped over in those thigh-high boots to grab James by the shoulder and whisper something into his ear. It was the same expression. Total victory. "What did he say to you after?"
With a clipped laugh, James winced. "I don't think I should say it exactly …"
"Then summarize it," Remus prodded, desperate to know.
"He said …" James said, pulling his lips into his teeth and looking at Remus like he still wasn't sure he should tell him. Remus nodded to show his continued approval. "Since he knew Orion was going to murder him anyway, he was going to take you back to Grimmauld Place and, uh, show you a good time under Orion's roof. Only his terminology may have been a bit more … expressive than that," James smirked, just as triumphantly as the night before, and for a moment, Remus smiled, but it dissipated as he realized what it had meant for Sirius.
"Fuck," Remus said with a defeated sigh.
"Yeah, that was the word he used," James nodded with a sly grin. "And he may have also called you gorgeous, but I was laughing too hard at that point," James continued, still trying to ease Remus' anxiety. It worked for only a moment, until reality began to settle in deeper.
"What do we do?" Lily interjected, glancing between Remus and James.
Just then, the door at the top of the stairs that Remus had only ever seen closed flung open so quickly that it rattled against the wall behind it. In the open space stood the girl that Remus had never laid eyes upon – a petite girl with light-brown hair, cut into a short pixie-style, with round, freckled cheeks that were heavily obscured by a blush so bright that her face was nearly glowing. It looked like it took every ounce of her willpower to open that door.
At first, her intense gaze fell upon Marlene, who looked like she was about to burst with the excitement of everyone meeting her girlfriend for the first time. But Dorcas' gaze quickly shifted over to Remus and she stared at him like she intended to murder him.
Finally, she spoke. "So, are you gonna fucking save him or what?" Dorcas barked, the volume of her voice not at all matching her stature. In his surprise, Remus sucked in a breath, taken aback by the suddenness of the situation. When he composed himself, he replied.
"Yeah," he said under a short breath. "I'm gonna fucking save him."
SIRIUS
It took three weeks to find a shop that sold rum canelés. Decent rum canelés, not quite as good as the one in James' shop, but a close second. Over the last nine days, he visited that shop eighteen times. The first couple times were just trial, to find out if they even had canelés, to find out if the canelés were even edible (the last few shops had been absolutely dreadful).
The first time he bit into one, his eyes watered, and he pretended (to himself only) that he had bitten his tongue. All that was missing was black tea spiked with spiced rum and good conversation. Remembering that night always made the ache in his chest a little bit deeper.
Of course, it would be easy enough to go back. After all, he'd escaped that resort that his father had shipped him off to (because he was an adult and could legally check himself out – he wasn't entirely sure what his father thought was going to be accomplished without consent) and he'd gotten himself to New York with the cash he'd had the foresight to hide in his dress socks.
Alphard's old apartment building had been renovated, but the tenants were mostly the same. The punk rock girl from across the hall had moved to California to record an album with her band, but the ladies who owned the salon were still upstairs and they dyed the underside of his hair burgundy to match his favourite lipstick, and the car salesman from two doors down let Sirius borrow some of his wardrobe until he could save enough to replace his own.
He knew he couldn't go back. Not only would Orion know the moment he landed in England, he also wouldn't be able to see the person he wanted to see the most. He'd left Remus without so much as an explanation, without a goodbye, without even getting his phone number.
The one thing Remus had been afraid of, and Sirius had done it to him. He'd gotten close, he'd let Remus get attached, and then he left. It didn't really matter that it wasn't his choice, it didn't matter that it had broken his own heart. Remus' heart was the one that mattered, and Sirius was fairly certain that after abandoning him, Remus' heart would be closed forever.
He'd only just recently gotten back in touch with James, just to let James know he was alright, but he didn't mention New York. Because he knew James, and James would try to make something miraculous happen. But Sirius didn't deserve a miracle after how he'd left.
With a bag full of rum canelés and a bottle of spiced rum (because he had yet to find good tea in the States), Sirius made his way back to his building, popping another canelé in his mouth as he walked and wiping the sticky residue of the glaze onto his black wool skirt. As he took the stairs, his thick leather boots seemed to pound out a familiar rhythm on each step until he was humming the same tune that had been stuck in his head for months without respite.
When he opened the apartment door, the window still open from the cigarette he'd smoked that morning before he left, the tune seemed to follow him inside, but it was manifesting now, and he could hear it move aloud through the apartment. He paused, waiting.
"Tom, get your plane right on time," he heard, but it wasn't a recording from any album that took his breath away. "I know your part will go fine." Unable to move, Sirius let the bag fall from his hands, blinking absently, breath robbed from his chest. "Fly down to Mexico," the voice sang, vocalizing for a moment. "And here I am. The only living boy in New York."
Finally, Sirius convinced his limbs to move, convinced his lungs to breathe, and he stepped toward the window, looking down to find Remus Lupin, guitar in hand, eyes shimmering behind his glasses, relief and awe in his face the moment he set his sight on Sirius.
His voice rang out again, clearer and with more volume, as he smiled through the next line, his amber gaze not once fading or shifting. "Hey, I've got nothing to do today but smile."
"Remus," Sirius breathed out softly, reverence in his tone.
"It took me a long time to find you," Remus called, his voice bright, his eyes brighter. "You would've saved me a lot of sleepless nights if you'd just given me your phone number."
"You weren't supposed to find me," Sirius said underneath a sigh. "Because I did the thing you knew I would do, because I made you want me and then left you with it."
"Which must be why I still want you," Remus stated simply, smiling softly, and Sirius was so overwhelmed with the honesty of it that it left tears behind, stinging at his eyelids.
"I screwed up, Remus." With the back of his hand, Sirius swiped at the tears escaping down his cheeks. "I never should've let you get close when I knew I couldn't stay."
"I saw the video, Sirius," Remus said, almost sternly. "Hell, everyone in Britain saw the video. You're practically a national treasure now, and your bastard father is about to resign from the public embarrassment of being such a piss-poor excuse for a human being."
A slight smile crossed over Sirius' pale lips. "I'm not ready to go back yet," he said, one last argument, one last attempt to suffer for his sins. But it was obvious Remus wouldn't let him.
"I didn't come here to bring you back," Remus admitted. "I want to know if you still need me to pretend that I could love someone like you, or if you're ready to find that out for yourself."
"I don't have to wait to find that out," Sirius replied with a smile that he bit back into his teeth, drawing Remus' gaze. "We both know damn well you could fall in love with me so easily."
With a deep laugh, Remus smiled back. "Because I make it so obvious."
"Then get up here," Sirius said, cocking his thick brow high on his forehead just to watch the way Remus mirrored it subconsciously. "Because I am in agony without you."
With an anxious skip in his step, Remus bolted to the front door so readily that he nearly left his suitcase on the sidewalk outside the building. And Sirius didn't have to ask Remus to make love to him, didn't have to ask Remus to call out his name. All the same, Sirius fell asleep in his arms, but unlike the last time, Sirius stayed in Remus' arms until the sun came up.
The next morning, when Sirius helped Remus unpack to stay for a while, his fingers fell upon a green plaid kilt, not much unlike the high-waisted skirt that Sirius had worn to their very first dinner together at Remus' kitschy little boarding house. As he asked Remus to put it on, and Remus obliged with a knowing smile, Sirius couldn't help but look on with an adoring smile.
With a mischievous grin and question in his gaze, Sirius held up his blackest eyeliner and a tube of a nude lipstick – a muted, subtle, dusty-pink shade with just a sprinkle of shimmer. To Sirius' surprise, Remus responded with an optimistic shrug. 'Why not?' he grinned.
As they sat across from each other, cross-legged on the floor of Sirius' still mostly unfurnished flat with their knees knocking together, Sirius leaned in and held Remus delicately by the face while Remus allowed his eyes to flutter closed, a smile still present on his lips. With precision, Sirius moved the tapered tip of his liquid eyeliner across Remus' freckled eyelids in a flawlessly straight line, swooping out beyond Remus' lash line to form a perfect cat's eye.
His fingers moved next to Remus' chin and, while Remus' eyes remained closed, his mouth hung heedlessly open, much as it had done the night before while Remus had called out Sirius' name into the dark, empty apartment. The elegant color glided over Remus' soft, full lips effortlessly, and once he couldn't feel Sirius' fingers against his skin any longer, his eyes opened.
After a moment of silence, his honey eyes dancing across Sirius' expression as he tried to interpret the look of awe on Sirius' face, he hesitantly asked, "Well? How do I look?"
Looking at Remus Lupin just then, sitting on the floor of the same New York flat he'd shared with the only family he'd ever known, wearing nothing but a green plaid kilt and the breathtaking color on his face, Sirius could think of nothing to say that would truly express the level of gratitude he felt to be in that moment, with this boy, in a city where he could be free.
"Like I'm not the only living boy in New York anymore," he said under a satisfied sigh. As Remus's face broken into a grin, it looked like he had nothing to do that day but smile.
