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“I think I might be broken,” Sirius whispers the words like sending a basket down river. A baby inside. No letter. No name. Remus wouldn't hear him if he were normal, if the full moon's light could ever reflect in his own eyes. But it doesn't. Some wolf whose life Remus can never seem to remember is the only one who sees such brightness. And he is the only one who catches such confessions spoken softly by Sirius at three in the morning.
This night-alive version of Sirius has burrowed underneath Remus's covers, as he is wont to do in the early-morning hours when nothing seems to really matter. When they can tangle their legs and pretend its platonic. When Sirius decides it might be fun to count the freckles on Remus's stomach or check whose legs are longer (whose hands and arms and in order to really know for sure I'll have to lay on top of you). In the day time they are careful. In the day time they keep at least an inch of space between them and Remus often wonders if Sirius is just as aware of that inch as he is, always feeling it sizzle and crackle like a tangible force. An electric-charged high voltage zone.
“Why are you broken?” Remus asks, the words tender like blankets and cradles. Remus reaches down and curves his fingers around Sirius's wrist, pulling the other boy's hand up and over his chest for no other reason than how good it feels. With his other hand he is still holding the book he brought to bed. But he is not reading. He never reads when Sirius buries himself under the sheets. He just pretends to because otherwise Sirius gets shy about whatever he's doing (how they are touching).
“It's embarrassing,” Sirius says with a dramatic sigh, “You'd make fun of me if I told you.”
“Bollocks. I'm the last person who would ever make fun of you,” Remus says. He speaks casually but feels the words like they are his own confession. Something he only speaks now at three when Peter and James are deep asleep. James and Peter: two boys who are crazy about witches and who might blush if they saw the way Sirius and Remus languidly writhe against each other in these hours which are too old to be part of yesterday but still too young to begin tomorrow. Lost hours in which hidden things can happen.
“Idon'tlikekissing,” Sirius says fast. His hair tickles Remus's stomach. He is still under the covers and his face is almost pressed against Remus's stomach, unfortunate inches away. The closeness is making Remus bite his lip. Warm. Too warm. The words Sirius just said have to fight their way through the tangle of rapidly-growing pleasure to make themselves understood by Remus who is oh-so-busy wishing that Sirius would move lower or press harder or randomly decide to take off all of their clothes.
“Hmm?” Remus asks, as if he didn't hear, even though he did.
“I just don't like kissing. I haven't liked it so far.” Sirius is moving upwards as he speaks and Remus, with eyes averted, can feel more than see him peeking out of the edge of the blanket.
“Maybe you just haven't tried hard enough," Remus mumbles, suddenly very aware of something else that is hard enough...and pressing against his trousers. Aching. Just hearing the word kiss come out of Sirius's mouth was like a spell and the effect was instant and embarrassing.
“I have though! I've kissed about a dozen witches so far this year. Five Gryffindors, three Hufflepuffs, three Ravenclaws, and even one Slytherin. Two years older, one year older, same age, and one year younger. Dark, light, petit, large. What the fuck, Remus? A fucking Slytherin! I kissed a fucking Slytherin.”
“Why?” Remus asks, wrinkling his nose in distaste. He already knew about two of the witches, one Gryffindor and one Ravenclaw (if now kisses are to be sorted by houses). The idea that Sirius has been secretly so prolific is not helping the hardness in his pants to soften.
“Because something was supposed to work! I was supposed to like it. I've tried everything. So, I think I'm broken.”
Sirius has been shifting around this whole time and now he is sitting up in bed. He took the sheets with him, they hang over his shoulders like a cape or a cave and Remus shifts because his pyjama pants are thin-spun cotton and do nothing to hide his engorged desires. He almost wishes Sirius would see it. Comment on it. Compliment him on it. Decide he'd like to taste it. Fuck. Remus shifts again, uncomfortable by his own hardness. But Sirius is not looking there. He is sitting cross-legged and staring instead at Remus's face. His brow is furrowed and his silver eyes are dark and dangerous, stormy even. Remus fingers the spine of his book as if he were tempted to continue reading, as if he were not hanging onto Sirius's every word. It is just a hollow show of disinterest, his own peacock feathers carefully arranged to catch the eye of the proud Heir who never wants to be too carefully scrutinized when he gets vulnerable like this.
“Maybe you haven't tried enough,” Remus says with a shrug. More engineered indifference. A masterpiece really.
“No!” Sirius whimpers, reaching out and pushing Remus's legs in annoyance, “Haven't you been listening? I've tried everything,” he whines.
Remus fucking loves it when Sirius whines. He has given up trying to control the way he fantasizes about his friend. It's useless. In first and second year they were just close friends and it wasn't an issue. In third and fourth year he was horrified to find his own feelings towards Sirius were, perhaps, more. In fifth year it became apparent those feelings were very much more and he pushed it all down with superhuman-werewolf strength. Now, since the middle of sixth year, since Sirius has started sliding into his bed late at night and letting his hands wander aimlessly along Remus's arms and legs and sometimes falling asleep pressed beside him, Remus has just accepted that this is it for him. He respectfully maintains boundaries with his wanton witch-kissing friend, but he no longer tries to control his own fantasies. There's no point. It's impossible. Besides he lives off of those fantasies. It's a paltry single-source diet like a panda with bamboo but it is keeping him alive somehow.
He holds the flavour of those whining sounds Sirius makes like sugar on his tongue. Sometimes he will memorize particular words or phrases Sirius says and shamelessly let them play on repeat while he touches himself in the shower. In those secret moments he likes to imagine how Sirius might whine if he (either one of them, really) were to slide his hand down the other’s pants. He tries to imagine the feeling with as much realism as possible, the look of shock, the shuddering of surrender. The tightened grip against which every twitch and throb could be better appreciated. Fuck. It gets him every time.
“You obviously haven't tried everything, your sample size was much too small. Logically, it was only fifty percent of the school.” Remus tries to sound annoyed. Like this should be obvious. A right answer given in class. Something they should have learned last year (Remus certainly did, he's known this for years).
“What do you mean?” Sirius asks, reaching out and closing Remus's book. Trying to make eye contact. A smile curving the edge of his mouth which Remus pretends not to notice.
“Witches! You've only kissed witches, Sirius. That's only half of the kissable population.” Still pointedly avoiding eye contact.
“So you think I should kiss a wizard?” Sirius asks, barely audibly. It's really just a breath forming phantom words. Maybe Remus is only hearing his own wish. Maybe he's already fallen asleep. Maybe this isn't even happening.
“Yeah. Sure. Why not?”
“But who?”
“Really, Sirius? There's like a hundred eligible guys in this school and you could probably get any one of them to kiss you. So you should do that before settling for some daft idea like being broken. You're not broken you're just inexperienced,” Remus holds his breath when he's done talking. Breathing is for living beings, after all, and he won't yet know if he's survived until Sirius replies.
The last line was a gamble: it could either wind Sirius up in a productive way or it could tip him over into a fight. He could push back at the irony of Remus saying that when Remus himself is far less experienced than Sirius (spin the bottle last year, a single dry kiss which would have been utterly forgettable if it hadn't also been the exact moment Remus realized with certainty that he is as gay as he could possible be). Remus opens his book back up with finality while Sirius contemplates his next move.
Sirius's next move is yanking the book from Remus's hand and tossing it to the foot of the bed. Sirius is being rough and Remus tries to hide his excitement. He fucking loves when Sirius gets all rough and demanding like this.
“Fine. If you're so experienced and know so much about this then why don't you volunteer, Moony!” Sirius says, pushing his finger into Remus's chest.
“Fine,” Remus says (too) quickly. He can feel the heat in his cheeks and narrows his eyes trying to look annoyed and not simply aroused. Not tragically stupidly in love.
“Alright, so fucking kiss me then,” Sirius dares and he looks adorably delicious sitting there cross-legged with his arms folded across his chest. All hard angles and edges and Remus wants to unfold him and smooth out every crease. Remus doesn't know how to bake, but he wants to learn how to just so he can make Sirius a cake. Not even on his birthday. Just a random because-you're-so-fucking-cute-when-you-cross-your-arms-like-that kind of cake.
“Alright, then come here,” Remus whispers. And now he's the one calling Sirius's bluff.
Sirius widens his eyes and looks confused but Remus, who is still leaning back against the head board, is not about to do this like the spin-the-bottle-kind-of-kiss. He doesn't want to sit up across from Sirius and lean forward so that only their lips touch. Uninspired! Instead, he stays laying down and just opens his arms. It is a gesture of generosity, Santa Claus-esque. Remus repeats, “Come here." He uses his Command Voice. The wolf voice. The one he only pulls out when Sirius is being particularly difficult and even James is unable to rein him in.
Sirius doesn't answer with words (he never does when Remus uses that voice), he just hangs his head a little and crawls forward so that he's beside Remus.
Remus then wraps his arms around Sirius and holds him against his chest. It is like breathing fresh air after escaping a house fire. Blue sky after coughing on smoke. Sirius is shaking. Just a little. Fresh air will do that to a person. Remus again pretends not to notice, he just gazes at his caught quarry tenderly.
“Moony,” Sirius whimpers when Remus readjusts himself so that they are laying chest to chest on their sides facing each other. Those moments in the shower when his pleasure is peaking hot and fast and the scene of his fantasy drops away because he has run out of imagination, this is that loose end in real time; this is the time and place where those scenes, tender and unexplored, continue. Sirius's eyes are so dilated they look like ink drops on parchment. He isn't looking away. Remus doesn't expect him to. He imagines rabbits make eye contact when the wolf has found them.
“Sirius,” Remus breathes. As if they need their names in this moment. So they won't forget. So they can go into this space labelled. Things which have been found.
Remus is all fingertips to temples now and the slow movement of brushing black hair off a pink cheek, reverential and ceremonial. He licks his lips and breathes slowly to settle himself. Remus tells himself this has to be perfect. He lets himself believe he has one shot to convince Sirius that he, too, might be bent and they could, perhaps, discover paradise together. He sends a small prayer out into the space of dreams and wishes and weighs it against everything that has ever gone wrong for him. Maybe all of that bought me this, he considers/insists. His hope is that he has not misread the signals and that the way Sirius moves around him in these middle of the night moments on the bed they share has made this natural and not awkward. It's not awkward for him. It's everything.
What if Sirius pushes him away at the last moment? What if he was actually only ever bored and it was all only ever coincidental proximity? Remus moves slow, just in case. Waiting for the rejection which has stalked the periphery of every such imagined scene.
Then, since Sirius hasn't stopped him, he leans forward while pulling Sirius's waist closer. They both slowly close their eyes just as their mouths connect and there's a moment where Remus loses awareness of everything. Overload. Max capacity of sensation. Death? Then it all hits him at once: the moan that Sirius is making, the give of Sirius's soft lips, the way his breath is catching and his stomach muscles can be felt quivering against Remus's own, the tentative way Sirius touches Remus's neck. But Remus doesn't know that's what anything is. Because those descriptions are words and for Remus it all just reads like the darting of a rabbit caught in the wolf's claws and jaws. A successful hunt. A guaranteed meal. Triumph. Elation.
Remus is master of the moment. A monarch now. The kiss is a coronation and Sirius is the sceptre being lifted.
His hand reaches on instinct to frame Sirius's cheek and tilt his face sideways so when he slips his tongue into Sirius's mouth he can press more comfortably against him. It's so fucking natural and yet profoundly transcendent. A paradox. Remus grips Sirius's hair, all soft and silky in his fingers. He wants to eat every meal and breathe every breath out of Sirius's willing mouth. It is exquisite. It eclipses every pale imitation he was able to imagine for himself until now. He wants each of the twelve disappointing witches to come bear witness and offer gifts to this superior kiss.
Sirius is a mess: kissing back with uncoordinated fervour, trying to grab every inch of Remus's skin all at once, and making sloppy murmur sounds that might be words if words were just spaces for a tongue to explore. Tastes instead of sounds.
Sirius is pressing himself tight up against Remus like a castle begging to be breached.
Remus pulls away enough to whisper, “Do you want more?” Because this might be the last possible moment he could stop. Past this point he will find every treasure in Sirius's fortress and claim them all for himself. He will plunder and loot and ransack.
Sirius doesn't respond with words, he just climbs above Remus, straddling him, and makes little begging sounds that manage to still somehow sound bossy. The sounds of a drawbridge being lowered. So Remus continues kissing him back, giving himself freely to Sirius's enthusiastic appetite because he is a wise monarch who knows the best way to rule is through submission to the will of one's subjects. He grips Sirius's hips and drags him against the stiffness which has been present since Sirius first whispered the word kiss. Remus purrs into Sirius's mouth when he discovers that his is not the only hardness. They are already grinding against each other before Remus is even consciously aware of what is feeling so good or why.
Soon they are panting and their breathing synchronizes. The kiss is haphazard and delicious in its sloppiness but really it is the twin erections pressed between them that are all they can pay attention to, like blinding light demanding to be seen, red behind closed eyelids.
The deleted scenes. The end of dreams you wake up from too soon. The fall of a leaf suspended be an errant wind. The moment of a sand castle's collapse. Each push forward and pull back is better than the one that came before and he knows without knowing that it is the same for Sirius. They are moving in parallel, it's motion in a mirror. Chasing the same sensations and feeling it come within reach of them both at the same time. Sirius is gripping Remus's shoulders, squeezing and releasing in concert with the way he rocks back and forth. Remus is still holding Sirius by the waist, guiding him in the rhythm they both crave. He wants less fabric and more skin, he wants to hold Sirius in his hand and feel the crescendo building against his fingers and palm but there is no space. They are tight together and it is enough.
“Yes! Fuck! I need. Oh. Like that. Now. Now,” Sirius hisses against Remus's mouth insistently, a panicked note of urgency twisting the last word into a strangled plea which Remus gently licks off of Sirius's lips at the exact moment they both let go and shiver against the pulsing friction. They come undone together the way magic happens: inevitably. Unspeakable ecstasy, split in half and shared between them like a ripe fruit which, in the sharing, releases juices. Dripping. Sticky. Wet and wonderful.
They hold each other and breath through the after-aches of the pleasure receding. It's the spinning of perfectly balanced things, the stacking of atoms against which all of creation rests on. An order arranging the chaos of scattered grains into cyphers of secret languages.
A moment of silence; one part respect for the presence of the divine and one part the simple inability to form words.
And then. “You're not broken,” Remus says, barely above a whisper.
“No, I'm not,” Sirius agrees.
“But I'm pretty sure you're mine now,” Remus says. It would be a question if he didn't already know the answer. If he hadn't already felt the certainty of it move through his body like a sword, bleeding out every possible future without Sirius. This is the only reality left to him now, the one where Sirius is pressed to his chest breathing against his neck and moving his hand over the scars Remus has always tried to hide but now forgets exist.
“Yes. I am,” Sirius agrees solemnly. Then playfully, “And you're mine.”
“Yes. I've always been yours.”
“You could have told me that.”
“You never asked.”
More silence. More settling. Breaths slowing down.
“Is it really this easy?” Sirius asks in a tone of wonder, "Us coming together, I mean."
Remus knows what he means (of course he knows), but he smirks anyway and laughs lightly as he says, “Well, apparently it took kissing a dozen witches. Even a Slytherin.”
Now Sirius is the one laughing, “I lied about all of that. I've only ever kissed two witches. But you fell into my trap perfectly." At those words, Remus tilts Sirius's chin and kisses him softly to reward the cleverness, demonstrate his adoration, and declare a lifetime of intended kisses.
Then they fall asleep together. Sirius is still above Remus, arms draped over shoulders, the warm wet mess left between them like a souvenir, and the sweetness of his breath against Remus's neck. In the moment before the undertow of sleep pulls Remus's mind below the surface, he smiles and feels like Sirius gifted him the world by so skillfully capturing the wolf.
He was set free by being seized because love, like all true magic, is paradoxical in nature.