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This. Is. It.


Remus was sitting on the floor in the common room, his back leaning against the couch by the fire, his History of Magic textbook open across his knees, a bit of parchment by his side, where he was using his left hand to scribble quick notes about what he was reading. He’d been right about the common room being delightfully empty, and his barefeet were being warmed by the scorching hot fire that sizzled and cracked in the floo before him.

The portrait hole opened and Sirius came in, shrugging off his leather jacket as he walked over toward the stairs. Remus looked up. “You’re back early,” he commented.

Sirius stopped at the bottom of the steps, realizing Rey was there, and tossed his jacket down over the banister, turning back to the common room. “Yeah, it was boring down there, just a lot of duffers mingling about. Turns out Prongs knows how to dance. Imagine that!”

Remus laughed, “I don’t know that I can imagine it.”

Sirius stepped over Remus’s stretched-out legs and sat down on the couch, his legs nearly touching Remus’s shoulder. Remus tilted his head back to look up at Sirius. “Sorry it was boring,” he said.

Sirius shook his head, “Nah, no worries. Just a lesson learned, I reckon, in the future, bring a date along… Someone besides Peter Pettigrew.”

“I’ll get some velvet ropes to mark out the queue to be formed for you,” Remus remarked with a murmur.

Sirius chuckled.

The fire flickered orange and gold, a few smoldering bits of ash fell from the log with a crackle and a pop.

Remus was staring down at his textbook, his brow furrowed as he read.

Sirius watched him...

The conversation with Dumbledore was still bouncing about on the inside of his brain, like an itch he wanted to scratch. ”Time ought not be wasted that would’ve been better spent in love.” That’s what Dumbledore had said. Sirius felt a lump rise up in his throat… his heart rate pick up just a bit…

And he watched Remus Lupin...

Rey sniffed, rubbed his nose with the back of his wrist, and turned the page on his book, the front of his hair falling over his forehead so that the horrible scar that stretched across his nose showed from the angle Sirius was looking from. The fire’s glow made the scars stand in high contrast, and Sirius couldn’t draw his eye away from that scar on his nose - the way it stood out against Remus’s skin, all silvery-pink and jagged… It represented everything terrible about Remus’s life in one stroke across his otherwise gentle features. That scar was a constant, painful reminder of the creature that lived deep within the boy, the suffering that Remus Lupin endured every single day of his life…

But it was more than just a scar, Sirius thought. More than a reminder that he was a werewolf...

Remus was more than that. He was more than a boy who turned into a wolf once a month, he was more than everything everyone always made him out to be. He was everything Sirius often wished he could be - the sort of boy who looked first at the soul of every person he met. Nothing was ever black and white to him, everything had shades of grey, and Sirius wished he had the patience to see things like that, wished he ran at a lukewarm temperature instead of intensely hot or frozen solid cold. There was no middle ground for Sirius Black. For Remus Lupin, the middle stretched on and on in either direction.

Remus was the bravest person that Sirius had ever known. The most forgiving. He took the hits that life gave him and he held his chin solid and high, he stayed strong. He kept moving on. Remus still knew how to smile, despite everything that he’d been through, every storm that life had cast his way. An orphan, a werewolf, a boy - soon to be a man - with a heart of gold that could not be tarnished no matter what… Sirius admired him. Sirius adored him. Sirius loved him.

“Fuck it!” Sirius suddenly said aloud.

“What?” Remus started to look up from his book.

But Sirius had already moved - in a roaring moment of deep clarity in which he made his choice once and for all, Sirius had pushed himself forward from the couch cushions, slid his hand into the curls atop Remus’s head, pulling him backward so that Rey was forced to be looking up toward the ceiling and Sirius was looking down into his eyes, “I can’t take it another bloody second, Moony,” he said - and without any further hesitation, he tilted his head to one side and pressed his mouth against Remus’s - hard.

The kiss seemed to last forever. Sirius pressing down against Remus, his fingers in Remus’s hair, and resting against his chin, holding him in place. The stress left Remus’s shoulders and he dropped his textbook to the floor with a thump and his hands shook. He was sure he was dreaming, sure he’d wake up and discover that he’d fallen asleep by the fireplace, and Sirius had never been back to the room yet at all… even as Sirius’s mouth moved against Remus’s, his teeth lightly biting onto Remus’s lower lip, their breaths mixing between their mouths, it still seemed surreal.

It couldn’t possibly be real.

Needing to know that it was truly real, Remus tugged away, breathless, and rushed to stand up before Sirius could catch him again. Remus’s lanky, narrow frame silhouetted against the fire in the hearth that crackled as the fire was slowly dying.

Sirius watched as Remus literally reached for his forearm and pinched it - hard enough to leave a mark on the skin, wincing at the pain of it.

Real, he realized, This… this is bloody real. Sirius Black’s just kissed me. And it’s real.

To say Remus was shocked would have been the greatest understatement in the history of all of time. He stared at Sirius, unable to breathe properly, his mouth still tingling from the touch of Sirius’s wet lips. He stared at his friend for a long moment, his heart thumping in his chest, unsure what to think.

“Sirius --” he said, his voice pleading, “You have no idea what you’re doing to me and I can’t take it if you’re just messing about.”

Sirius stared up at Remus. “I’m not just messing about, Moony…”

Remus didn’t dare to move, not even to blink. He pinched himself again, just in case.

“What do you keep doing that for?” Sirius asked, “Pinching yourself?”

“I’m making sure I’m really awake and this isn’t me just dreaming it up, dreaming you up, dreaming that kiss up...” Remus answered thickly.

“You’re not dreaming, Moony,” Sirius said lowly, his voice rasping from the depth of his chest.

“You’re sure I’m not?” he asked, “I… I feel as though I am.”

Sirius shook his head in disbelief at how… how Moony he was being and a chuckle escaped him, rumbling. “Merlin’s beard, Moony. I fucking love you.”

Remus couldn’t react. He couldn’t feel, couldn’t breathe. How long had he waited for those words? How long had he cried himself to sleep only to dream of this moment? This was the fantasy that had kept him waking up and breathing in and out through all of the rubbish that he’d been through.. through the worst of times, this moment, this one right here - right now - that look in Sirius Black’s eyes - this was what had kept him alive.

He though to himself, burning the moment indelibly into his mind: This. Is. It.

“I’d like to be your boyfriend… your super, super gay boyfriend,” Sirius said with a bit of a laugh to his voice, and then his eyes grew very serious, very anxious, nearly pleading... “Will you have me, Moony?”

Remus couldn’t take anymore.

He threw himself at Sirius just like that, straddling him on the couch so that he was kneeling over him, one knee by either hip, his hands on Sirius’s shoulders and his mouth to his mouth. Sirius’s body was hard with muscle and sinew, just as Remus had always imagined it would be in this fantasy. His white t-shirt was tight to his skin, which flexed with his muscles as he moved his arms up Remus’s back, pulling him closer. Remus ran his hands up the sides of Sirius’s face to his hair - that glorious hair that he’d always wanted to run his hands through like this, but had never thought he’d be allowed to - and he clung on, kissing Sirius’s lips and feeling Sirius’s teeth nipping at his lower lip again, as every ounce of desire he’d suppressed over all this time boil through his veins.

Sirius had never felt a thing like it. It was as though all his life he’d been eating bland, tasteless food and here was a dash of a red-hot spice that consumed him from the inside out. He pulled Remus closer, his hands on his sides, sliding across his back under his school uniform, over the puckering scars that lined his back. Each scar his fingers touched aroused him more. This boy - this wolf was devouring him whole.

Moony - his Moony.

“Oh Merlin, Rey,” whispered Sirius, and he laid to the side, pulling Remus with him, on top of him, feeling the weight of him stretch across his body. Every nerve was on fire. It was everything. - everything - that he’d wanted all this time. “I can’t believe I waited so long for this,” whispered Sirius, closing his eyes.

“I love you,” Remus said. “I think I always have.”

“Always?”

Remus nodded, “I didn’t know it, but looking back you always made me feel welcomed and safe. The first words you said to me, ever, were -- You can sit with me. And you patted the spot next to you in our compartment, the spot by the window, the one I always sit in…”

Sirius stared up at Remus. “I don’t even remember that.”

“I do. I always will. You were the first person on the entire train that didn’t stare at my scar as though I were a pariah. You just accepted me. You’ve always accepted me. You were the first person in my life that made me believe it didn’t matter about my Furry Little Problem… the first one who told me I wasn’t a monster… I feel human when I’m with you.”

“You are human.”

“No. I’m a werewolf.”

“Only once a month.”

“You’re the first person that’s ever looked at it that way.”

“Then I suppose I’m the only one that matters,” Sirius said, his voice deep in his throat.

“I suppose you are,” Remus replied, and stared down at Sirius, his eyes searching his. “You’re sure that I’m not dreaming? I’m not going to wake up and find I’m alone again? And you’re off at the ball doing Merlin knows what with Merlin knows who?”

“You’re not dreaming,” Sirius said thickly, “But I can’t promise that I’m not.”

Remus reached for Sirius’s arm and gave it a little pinch.

“Ouch,” said Sirius, smiling.