InsaneJournal

Remus was a genius sometimes. He had managed to get his turntable working. He was rather pleased with himself, and was currently drinking a mug of hot chocolate liberally laced with firewhiskey as a celebration of sorts. He found it vaguely amusing that it had taken him five years at Hogwarts before he’d been able to circumvent the whole “electrical thingies don’t work in the castle” part. He wasn’t even sure how his father had ever managed to get the electricity working back at home, although he supposed that his parents were probably a great deal less magical than Hogwarts itself.

He was only able to extricate Are You Experienced? from its jacket after putting down his mug. He gingerly placed it on the rotating part (what was it called? He supposed it was probably called something like rotator). And then put the needle on the edge. He’d managed to put a large scratch in it sometime that summer. He didn’t remember where it was, but he hoped it wasn’t on side B in the middle of “The Wind Cries Mary” because when he’d scratched Beggar’s Banquet, it was, of course, in the middle of “Parachute Woman.” Which was his favourite song on the whole bloody album.

He sighed and leaned back in his bed, sipping his chocolate with pleasure. It wasn’t very often that he got to spend time on his own. He half expected Sirius to barge in and disturb the comfortable atmosphere.

Sirius was disturbing, in many ways. Not in the terrible way that “disturbing” implied, but just that he disturbed things. He turned them upside down, sideways, all wrong-wayed and whatnot. And Remus liked things to be organised. He didn’t like to box things, but somethings were supposed to go in certain places. And Sirius didn’t get that, not at all. He liked to riffle through Remus’ things and put them in the wrong place, un-alphabetise all his records, turn his clothing drawers upside down, drag all his knick knacks from his trunk... That sort of thing.

Which was why Remus was rather glad that the others were off at Hogsmeade. Illegally, of course. It wasn’t a Hogsmeade weekend: there wasn’t another one for at least a few weeks. But the others had needed Fizzing Whizbees for some reason, and had decided that a trip through the secret passageway was in order. And, Remus, being the responsible Prefect that he was, refused to accompany them. They had attempted to drag him, but he had soaked them all with water, which smelled suspiciously like it had been drawn from the lake. They’d let him be after that.

He put his mug down on the bedside table and curled up into a comma under his Gryffindor red coverlet. His mother had sent him a new quilt (it was her hobby) but it was aquamarine, and clashed rather nastily with his sheets. He had tucked it under all the other blankets to the others wouldn’t see it. They’d made fun of the last one he’d received, and he’d given them all a case of the boils for it. That one had a rather large, clumsily cut out lion adorning it, which opened its mouth to roar all the time, but was perturbed when nothing came out. Remus found it rather cute, and he liked to cuddle with it when Sirius wasn’t around to make fun.

He sighed into the quilt and thought about what had been going on over the last month or so. Fall was always a funny season. They’d just come home, to Hogwarts that is, after a whole summer parted. Of course, his parents had been happy to let him see James and Peter, but Sirius had never managed to get away. In fact, they’d found him at Platform 9 and 3/4 looking like a vampire, wan and dark haired. As if he’d been trapped in that enormous, ancient, foul beast of a house all summer. Remus hadn’t pressed it, but James had tried and been snapped at for his trouble.

And now winter was approaching, and Christmas break with it. Remus, James, and Peter would probably go home, if Sirius was going home. But if Sirius wasn’t going home they would all stay for the break and keep him company. He half hoped that Sirius was staying at Hogwarts, if just to spare him the agony of returning to his parents’ house. Remus’ parents understood, in fact, they sympathised. Remus was also sure that they were relieved to not have to worry about his “problem” during the holidays. Not that they would every say anything about it.

He was about to drift off to sleep when the dorm room slammed open and something flounced on the foot of his bed. It was large and had sprawling limbs. Remus peeked up over the edge of his quilt. It was Sirius, looking wind chapped and gleeful.

“Remus, you’re not sick, are you?” Sirius has always been disdainful of Remus’ frequent illness, as if he was not quite sure if his friend was faking it. Remus preferred Sirius’ rude doubt to James and Peter’s pity.

Remus shook his head. “No, not sick. Just...” He looked around and shrugged. “Enjoying my music.”

Sirius had found the turntable and was inspecting it, sniffing it slightly. Remus wondered if he knew how much he resembled a dog even when not in Snuffles’ form. “You got it to work. Took you long enough.” He smirked and picked up the needle.

“Hey!”

“As much as I worship Hendrix, it’s distracting,” Sirius said flippantly, shoving the LP back in its sleeve. “We were supposed to talk when I came back, right?”

Remus remembered all of a sudden, and wanted to avoid it. “Where are the others?”

“James is stalking Lily and Peter is stalking James.” Sirius rolled his eyes, shoving Are You Experienced? in with the other records, out of order, of course. Remus was tempted to rise and fix it, but was too warm and comfortable to do anything. Sirius flopped back down on the bed. “So, are we going to talk?”

“Do you remember what we were supposed to talk about?” Remus asked cautiously. He hadn’t really wanted to talk. Remus wasn’t a talker, as Sirius had pointed out cheerfully many times. But Sirius was a talker, and he was clearly going to bribe, coerce, or generally force Remus into a conversation.

Sirius nodded, solemn. Sirius was rarely very sincere, so Remus figured he’d better pay attention. He sat up, running a hand throug his tufty sandy, hair. Usually it was much calmer, but he’d not washed it yet. So it was resembling James’ right now, which was unfortunate and rather embarrassing, but he didn’t have time to try and flatten it. Besides, Sirius was giving him that look, the one that made him shiver slightly.

“Yes, well...” Remus muttered. “Do we have to talk about it? I’d rather just forget-”

“I know you’d rather ‘just forget,’” Sirius mimicked, not meanly. “But I can’t.”

“And yours is the only opinion that matters,” Remus replied dully.

Sirius gave him a sharp look. “Hypocrite, much?”

Remus scrunched his face a little and looked away. “Let’s compromise.”

“Your version of compromise involves not talking,” Sirius remarked coolly.

“Fine, fine,” Remus snapped finally. “You want to talk? Talk.”

Sirius withdrew slightly, an affronted look on his face. “Excuse me...” He glared for a few moments, and then decided that Remus had given him enough permission to continue, although it was clear that Remus wasn’t going to be happy about it. They had a strange, uneasy version of conversation, and Remus wasn’t much looking forward to it. He thought that perhaps Sirius was meant to be a Muggle psychiatrist, asking people things like And how does that make you feel? Well, Remus just felt and didn’t want to fucking talk about it.

“About last Friday.”

Remus had thought it would be about last Friday. Lots of things had happened on Friday.

“Lots of things happened on Friday,” he said dangerously.

Sirius was scathing. “Don’t even give me that shit, Moony. You know what I’m talking about.”

Remus did in fact know what Sirius was talking about. Again, he was loathe to even acknowledge it. “Yes, well... Do we have-”

“Yes, we do.” Sirius had calmed down considerably. Perhaps because Remus hadn’t denied anything yet. As soon as Remus tried to deny anything Sirius would flip a shit. So, Remus figured that reluctant honesty would probably be the best way to go about things. “Remus... What happened?”

“You don’t remember?” He was too surprised to keep his glare of resentment.

“Yes, well...”

“This is why we shouldn’t talk about it,” Remus said, regaining his sullen tone. “We should just let... Things be. Shit happened. End of story.”

“Remus... You fucking kissed me.”

“Yes, well, I was smashed.” Remus couldn’t prevent the flush from rising to his cheeks. “I didn’t know what I was doing-”

“Don’t even say that. You knew what you were doing.” Sirius sounded so dark that Remus was forced to look away.

Could it be that it had meant something to Sirius? God, no. All Sirius wanted to do was get it behind them. So they could go back to being friends. Didn’t Sirius understand that they were never just friends. They had always been more. Or at least to Remus they had been. Remus had always loved him, always wanted him. From the very first day. His love for James and Peter was so pale in comparison, so pale.

“Sirius... I fucked up, okay?”

“It was a mistake?”

Remus couldn’t read his tone. So he answered as his gut told him. “No... I mean, you didn’t like it, so I guess it was a mistake.” He shrugged, playing with the corner of his quilt. He’d spilled tea on it a couple days before, and there was a funny brown stain. He rubbed it with his fingers, as if trying to mark it out.

“What made you think I didn’t like it?”

Remus couldn’t bear to look up. “I... I don’t know. I just sort of assumed.”

Suddenly Sirius’ fingers were on his jaw, and his hand smells like candy and pot, and he pushed Remus’ chin up so they were looking at each other. “I didn’t pull away.”

“Yes, well, like I said, we were drunk.”

“I wasn’t that drunk.”

Remus finally met his eyes: grey eyes meeting golden. “You weren’t?”

“No, Remus. I wasn’t.”

Remus was silent for a moment, mouth opening and closing like a fish. He felt as if his skin was on fire. His limbs felt like lead. His mouth felt like someone had stuffed it full of cotton balls. “You... You?”

“Me.”

Sirius reached out and put his hand hesitantly on the curve of Remus’ waist. It was awkward, and juvenile, and silly to say the least, but Remus leant into his hand, and it seemed like everything was fine and right in the world.


A/N: I don’t own any of JK Rowling’s people, things, magic, or whatever. Nothing is mine save some of the plot elements.