AN: hehehe took me long enough didn't it? ::looks guilty:: Sorry about that, my muses are being uncooperative. A bit of a warning for this chapter; it is the biggest piece of fluff in the universe, but hopefully you'll like it. ^_^ and the next chapter shouldn't take quite as long as this one did (I hope).
"But I fear I have nothing to give
I have so much to lose
Here in this lonely place
Tangled up in your embrace
There's nothing I'd like better than to fall"
~ Fear, Sarah McLachlan
As Remus woke slowly the next morning, he could tell that something wasn't right. Or at least wasn't normal. He hadn't had a nightmare, couldn't even remember dreaming at all in fact, that in itself was unusual. But it was also really hot and his duvet felt like it weighed a ton.
He shifted uncomfortably, eyes still closed, and frowned sleepily when something that felt suspiciously like a lock of hair fell across his face. He swatted at the offending strands as they started tickling his cheek and nose and his hand connected not only with hair but with the side of the head it was attached to. Remus' eyes shot open.
'No wonder I was so hot,' he thought, blinking sleepily at the position he and his impromptu sleeping companion were in. The other boy was lying almost completely on top of him, one arm trapped under Remus' back and his head face down on the pillow Remus' head was on. Another lock of hair fell across the bridged of Remus' nose and he sighed.
"Sirius?" he whispered, trying to wake him. Nothing happened. "Sirius, wake up," still no response. Remus shifted, trying to get his arm out from where it was trapped between his own side and Sirius' biceps. This finally prompted a response from the still sleeping boy above him. Sirius shifted, unconsciously trying to make himself more comfortable and nuzzled into Remus' hair, his breath tickling Remus' cheek as he settled back down.
"Siiiiiriuuuus…" Remus whined softly. This finally seemed to get the other boy's attention. And with a gigantic yawn Sirius levered himself up on his elbows and blinked down at Remus sleepily. He smiled down at him eyes still bleary and sleep fogged as he brought a hand up to trace against Remus' cheek.
"Love you Moony," Sirius whispered leaning down to gently brush his lips against Remus'. '…he...love?… he can't…' Remus' thoughts stuttered in his mind. Sirius didn't love him, he couldn't. He had nothing to offer the other boy. Being with him could only cause him pain. Didn't Sirius see that? Sirius couldn't love him, he just couldn't!
"…no…" he murmured against Sirius' lips before shaking his head violently. Sirius suddenly pushed himself to sit on his heels next to Remus, blinking owlishly down at the smaller boy as if he'd just realized he was awake.
"Sorry." he muttered, looking at Remus like he expected him to hit him. They both stared at each other for a long moment. "I...I'll be going now," Sirius finally stuttered out before retreating off the bed so quickly that he misjudged the distance and fell to the floor.
The curtains around Remus' bed flapped violently as the other boy passed through them and a rather long string of cursing could be heard soon after. But Remus made no move to help him, in fact he didn't move at all, just stared out into space, his mind trying to fit the last few minutes into the way he thought the world worked. Sirius' sleep-slurred words kept echoing in his head even as he heard him rummage through his trunk before making a hasty retreat from their dorm. After a while, when all Remus' thinking had given him was a headache, he turned over and hid his head under his pillow.
He was able to stay blissfully unconscious for a good hour before he was rudely awakened by the door to their dorm bursting open and some very inconsiderate person yelling at the top of their lungs.
"Do you four know what you've done?! Two hundred bloody points!" Remus frowned, his sleepy mind trying to figure out who the voice belonged to. It sounded like it might be one of the prefects.
"Go away Frank, it's too early in the morning to be told off," James replied sleepily.
"I will not go away! You had better hope you win the Quidditch cup and make up those points Potter, because I will not have us lose the House Cup for the first time in ten year because you lot couldn't stay in after curfew." Remus groaned and tried to hide even farther under his pillow. They just had to piss off Frank Longbottom. The sixth year prefect was really nice most of the time, but he tended to take his job as role model and disciplinarian a bit too seriously. Frank ranted for a few more minutes before leaving them in peace to get ready for their execution once they went down to the common room.
But when Remus, James and Peter made it down from their dorm, nobody said anything. In fact nobody seemed to notice they were there. Remus thought this was odd until he caught several people glaring at them and then turning away in disgust when he caught their eye. But Remus really didn't mind, he was used to being ignored, it was safer that way.
He saw Sirius in their first class but for some reason, maybe the slump of the other boy's shoulders or the way his head hung over his desk, made Remus sit at the back of the room away from his...friend. He wasn't able to pay much attention in class, his thoughts kept slipping back to what Sirius had said. It was driving Remus crazy, why hadn't Sirius just gotten over his crush on him and moved on? The more he tried not to think about it, the harder it got to pay attention to anything else.
And it didn't help when Sirius disappeared at lunch and then again at dinner. Not that Remus blamed him, it had taken him ten minutes to get up the courage to enter the Great Hall for lunch. But for some reason he was a bit disappointed. They were going to have to talk at some point, avoiding each other was just prolonging the amount of time they had to sit around and worry about it.
Remus had been so distracted by the fact that Sirius hadn't shown up for dinner either that he hadn't noticed that another member of their group was missing as well until Peter had asked him if he knew where Sirius and James had gone to. He had shrugged at the other boy's question and went back to picking at his food. 'They're probably off playing some prank,' he though morosely. For some reason the thought that he didn't know what Sirius was up to made him lose his appetite and he quickly excused himself and retreated back to Gryffindor Tower.
He collapsed onto his bed, sighing in annoyance at the whole situation. He and Sirius had been circling each other since the start of the term and all that worrying and beating himself up over things he couldn't have was starting to drive him crazy. He needed to talk to Sirius and work things out once and for all, and soon, or he was going to snap.
Remus spent almost three hours thinking up ways to tell Sirius that they had to stop being friends, because otherwise he was going to have a nervous breakdown. He had just thought of an argument that actually sounded reasonable instead of petty when his thoughts were interrupted by the door slamming open.
Startled, he looked up and saw Sirius stalk across the room and flop onto his bed, pulling the curtains shut after him. He was quickly followed by James who sighed as he entered the room and closed the door before walking over to Sirius' bed.
"Sirius?" James asked quietly. For a while there wasn't an answer, then Sirius sighed but didn't come out from the confines of his bed.
"Go away James. My life sucks, just leave me alone," Remus bit his lip at how tired Sirius' voice sounded and tried, in vain, not to feel guilty.
"Sirius, whatever's wrong there's no need to throw a temper tantrum about it," James snapped in annoyance.
"Temper tantrum! Excuse me for having my life fall down around my ears!" Sirius shouted, and then started ticking things off from behind his curtains. "The whole school's out for my blood. Remus isn't speaking to me. I got another lecture from McGonagall when she found me eating lunch in the kitchens instead of the great hall. Remus is avoiding me. I am officially the worst Quidditch player Hogwarts has ever seen and got told off just for trying out. Oh and did I mention Remus hates me?"
"That's what all this is about, you two had another fight?" James asked in exasperation.
"No, we didn't fight, I told him I loved him and he flipped out," that seemed to shut James up. He just stood there with an unreadable expression on his face. It finally dawned on Remus that they didn't know that he was there and he figured he should say something before either of them said anything incriminating.
"Umm…" that was all he managed to get out before both James and Sirius, who had stuck his head out from behind his curtains, were staring at him in shock.
"Wow...I forgot to...um...I was going to...help Peter with his homework! See you later," James said frantically before making a hasty retreat to the common room.
"How long have you been sitting there?" Sirius asked, after an extremely acquired silence.
"I've been here since dinner," he replied quietly. "Where have you been?"
"Quidditch tryouts. As you heard, I didn't do too well." Remus nodded. They needed to talk and now was as good a time as any. He was just getting up the courage to say something when Sirius beat him to it.
"We need to talk," the other boy said, pulling back the curtains on his bed so that they could actually see each other. Remus nodded and tried to find something to say, but again Sirius interrupted him. "If I thought that you were doing this because you didn't like me or something like that, then I would just get over it and move on. But half the time you act like you like me too and the other half you act like you're afraid of me. Could you possibly tell me what's going on?" Sirius asked imploringly. Remus turned away from his searching gaze.
"I'm not afraid of you, I'm afraid for you. The boggart last night...my worst fear is that I'll hurt you," he said quietly.
"That was supposed to be you?" Sirius asked in shock. "But you don't look anything like that!" Remus blinked at him in surprise, he'd thought it was pretty accurate, if a bit big.
"I don't?" Remus asked. Sirius got up and sat down next to Remus on his bed, smiling at him slightly.
"Of course not, you're only about a fourth as big and your claws and teeth weren't nearly that ferocious looking," Sirius said, trying to sound comforting but it wasn't really working. "You really just look like an overgrown wolf pup. You're actually kind of...cute."
"Cute!" Remus sputtered. How could anyone think that that thing he turned into was cute? "Maybe I don't look like that, but I'm still dangerous. How on earth can you call something that would gladly rip you to shreds cute?"
"You would never hurt me," Sirius said it with such conviction that Remus wanted to hit him. "Not intentionally." He amended quickly at the look Remus was giving him.
"But I still have to make sure that I don't hurt you unintentionally," Remus said, trying to sound a lot more confidant than he felt. "Which means I have to keep my distance." he said finally. Sirius stared at him for a long moment and Remus couldn't help but feel guilty at the look of hurt in the other boy's eyes.
"But what if you keeping your distance hurts worse than having you near ever could?" Sirius asked quietly, no longer able to meet his gaze.
"Sirius?" Remus said, he really couldn't let this go on, he had to stop this, what ever it was, between the two of them. It was too dangerous, Sirius didn't know what he was getting himself into.
"I...I meant what I said this morning, Remus. I wasn't really awake, but I did mean it. I know you just want us to be friends, but..." Remus cut him off.
"I don't want to just be friends, we have to be! You read the passage the same as I did. For all I know if I kiss you the wrong way it'll kill us both!"
"Remus, you're being paranoid." Sirius said, starting to get angry.
"I have a right to be paranoid Sirius! If..." but he never got a chance to finish his sentence because Sirius kissed him. At first he stood stock still, thinking that he should push Sirius away, they couldn't do this, could they? But his body moved without his consent, snaking his arms around Sirius' back and pulling him closer.
It just felt so good. Before Sirius no one had touched him, a hug, a pat on the back, nothing, since he'd been bitten. And part of him selfishly didn't want to let this go. And for that moment he let himself get lost in the feeling of Sirius' tongue running across his lips and his hands pressed flat against his back, pulling them impossibly close.
It was a kiss of desperation. This was what they both wanted, to just lose themselves in this and just forget about curses and werewolves and all the other myriad of reasons that they shouldn't be doing this. When they finally pulled back for air Remus buried his face in Sirius' shoulder, trying in vain to convince himself again that he didn't need this, that it was better for both of them if they could only stop this.
"I don't want to hurt you Sirius, not ever," he said quietly.
"You won't." Remus wanted so desperately to believe him. He lay there, listening to Sirius' heartbeat still trying to convince himself that this was a bad idea but not being very successful. "So?" Sirius started, but then didn't continue. "Never mind."
"No, what?" Remus asked.
"Are we…" Sirius sighed, cleared his throat and tried again. "Are we still just friends? Cause that's fine," he added hurriedly. "But I'd just like to know. To know whether or not to go jump off the astronomy tower or not cause this is driving me crazy," Sirius' voice was teasing, but Remus could hear the strain the situation was putting on him.
"What would you rather we be?" Remus asked, pulling back enough to be able to look at him.
"I...I'd like you to be my boyfriend," Sirius said finally. The words sat between them as Remus searched the other boy's face. 'I shouldn't even be considering this. This is crazy, what am I doing?' But despite himself, Remus found that he was smiling.
"Okay." Sirius' eyes went wide and a grin slowly spread across his face and the next thing Remus knew, he was being very enthusiastically kissed.
"Have you two killed each other yet?" a voice yelled from outside in the hall.
"Go away James! We're busy!" Sirius yelled in mock irritation.
"I'm not going to try and figure out what you mean by that but me and Peter are going to be coming in there in about thirty seconds so please don't be doing anything scandalous." Remus extracted himself from Sirius' embrace and attempted to straighten his shirt, Sirius just crossed his arms and pretended to look disgruntled.
"Ah, you're both in once piece, wonderful," James exclaimed as he entered their room. "So, how did things go?"
"Wonderfully, he's finally come round and seen things my way," Sirius said, grinning broadly.
"Excuse me?" Remus said, pretending to be offended, but it didn't work too well, considering he was grinning too. "Go to bed, you," he said, pushing Sirius off of his bed and onto the floor.
Sirius hopped up and turned back to look at him, mouthing 'goodnight, love' before returning to his own bed.
"Goodnight."
