Chapter Text
Remus had never really enjoyed summer. It always struck him as a nothing time, an in-between, stale and stagnant as a waiting room. He knew there were lots of people that longed for the summer all year round, people who loved the longer days and the warmer temperatures, the lack of responsibilities. While he liked that he was able to sleep later during holidays, Remus had never held any particular affection towards the season.
This changes, of course, with Sirius, the way things always have changed with Sirius, who ends up staying with the Lupins until the start of the new term at Hogwarts. The weather remains, for the most part, at a pleasant 16 or so degrees, and sometimes it seems like the days stretch on forever in an endless haze of syrupy warmth. Besides near-daily trips to the cinema, Remus and Sirius ride bicycles, which Sirius complains aren’t nearly as exciting as motorcycles, and they visit a record store in the town over, where Sirius buys so many albums he can barely carry them all home in one trip, and all the while Mr. and Mrs. Lupin seem not to notice the prolonged hours Remus and Sirius have begun to spend in the bedroom with the door locked.
The truth is that they don’t really do much, though when they do do anything, they play records at a suspiciously high volume in addition to silencing charms just to be safe, because Remus is paranoid and Sirius always wants to listen to Remus' albums. (Sirius is fond of Here Come the Warm Jets, and Remus is positive he’ll never be able to hear the ages-long guitar licks in “Baby’s On Fire” without thinking about over-the-pants handjobs. He decides that on the off-chance he meets Brian Eno, he’ll apologize for the association). There is a part of Remus that wants very badly to do with Sirius what he has been fantasizing about since he figured out how sex between men worked, but there is another part of him that is still desperately fearful of somehow breaking the spell that’s settled over them. That there could still be some moment where Sirius will come to his senses and flee from this, whatever it is. Mostly he just likes to lie in bed with Sirius, especially in the mornings, slipping in and out of sleep until the sunlight across the bed gets too warm to be comfortable. He tells himself that this is good, that Jo was right, that there is no reason for shame. It’s difficult, but he tries.
Sirius isn’t nearly as subtle as he thinks he is, Remus reflects one August morning as they lie in bed. He watches Sirius’s hand as it inches towards the hem of Remus’ T-shirt, moving underneath the worn blue fabric to touch Remus’ belly and the light hair that runs down from his navel. Sirius’ eyes remain closed, as if Remus is really going to believe that he is doing all of this in his sleep.
“You’re not fooling anyone, Padfoot,” he says quietly, hearing the grin in his own voice.
“Hmm?” Sirius feigns waking up, going so far as to yawn into Remus’ side. He glances upwards, smiles, the picture of innocence, before looking back down and pretending to be shocked by the location of his hand. “Hmm, how’d that happen?”
“You’re insatiable,” Remus says.
“I thought I was incorrigible?” Sirius says, pushing his hand further up Remus’ torso. His fingers are impossibly gentle against the scars, but Remus knows that this time it is more than just the sweet, comforting movements that Sirius makes against Remus’ skin when he is actually asleep in the dead of night.
“Maybe just impossible,” Remus replies, trying to keep his voice steady as Sirius pinches his nipple. “Okay, okay, enough,” he says.
Sirius stops, lays his hand flat on Remus’ chest, and scrunches his face up in an appropriately melodramatic expression of disappointment. “Absolutely no fucking fun,” he says with a pout. He begins to remove his hand from underneath Remus’ shirt when he suddenly sits up and starts tickling Remus, jabbing those once-gentle fingers into his armpits. Remus yelps in protest, laughing, but Sirius refuses to relent. He crawls onto Remus’ lap and pins his wrists against the pillow, dangling his hair in Remus’ face so the ends brush infuriatingly against his skin. Remus squirms, gasping out a laugh, and cries, “Uncle! Uncle!”
Sirius stops and sits back, keeping his hands on Remus’ wrists. “Remember how we always used to get into tickle fights in first year?” he says.
“Yeah, for about a month.” Remus says, slightly out of breath. He tries to focus on the memory rather than his own half-hard cock. “Then you and James and Peter moved on to just punching each other.”
“It was the mature thing to do,” Sirius sniffs. He grins down at Remus. “You never wanted to join in, but we always made you.”
“Story of my goddamn life,” Remus replies.
Sirius makes a half-humming, half-growling sound in the back of his throat and leans down so his nose almost touches Remus’. “But you like it, yeah?” he whispers.
Remus hopes that even this close to his face Sirius can see him roll his eyes. “Yes,” he says, resigned.
“Really?” Sirius is practically breathing into Remus’ mouth at this point, which he probably shouldn’t find as hot as he does, especially considering the fact that neither of them have brushed their teeth yet this morning.
“Yes, really,” Remus says. “Almost always. Jesus.”
Sirius smiles against Remus’ lips before he kisses him. Remus inhales sharply. His head still swims slightly at the sound of their breathing together as they kiss, the way Sirius’ breaths get more and more erratic as he approaches orgasm.
“D’you want me to put on a record?” Sirius says into Remus’ neck, which Remus takes to be a question of how long they plan to be in bed. He sits up on his elbows to watch Sirius kneel next to the cardboard box of albums. In just an undershirt and his boxers, head bowed over their ever-growing collection of music, Sirius looks very much like a boy and very much like a man. Remus feels a surge of something beyond lust within him, though he is afraid to call that something by any knowable name. He remembers watching the gymnasium scene in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes when he was younger, where Jane Russell dances through crowds of half-naked men while singing about love, and feeling something similar deep in his gut, fright and fascination. Sirius pauses with Led Zeppelin’s third record in his hand, fiddling with the trick album cover. He glances up.
“What?” he says.
Remus feels his smile go wobbly. “Nothing.” He reaches over to grab his wand off the bedside table and casts the charm with which he has rapidly become most familiar.
Sirius stands and takes the record out of its sleeve. “No, really. You were looking at me all weird.” He carefully places the record on the platter of the turntable, drops the needle onto it, and turns back to look at Remus. He stands slouched, shy, at the foot of Remus’ bed as “Gallows Pole” begins to play.
“I just — ” Remus wants to say the right thing, but the words don’t come. There aren’t any words that could describe Sirius, and Remus knows a lot of words. “Is this the B-side?”
Sirius shrugs. “I like the B-side better. It’s more…” He ducks his head. “Well I like ‘Tangerine’ anyway.”
Remus smiles. “You’ve gone soft,” he says as Sirius climbs back into bed with him.
“You wouldn’t say that if I looked like Jimmy Page.”
“No, he’s soft, too. All the rockstars are, I think, secretly. Movie stars, maybe not so much, but rockstars definitely. Besides, you’re better-looking than Jimmy Page.”
Sirius glances up at him. “If only I could play guitar! We could totally put Zeppelin out of business. You can be Robert Plant. James is John Bonham, obviously. And I guess Peter can be John Paul Jones.”
“You sure you don’t want James to be Robert? He and Jimmy are sort of the face of the band.”
“Nah,” says Sirius, reaching up to tangle his fingers in Remus’ curls. “He’s not pretty enough to be Robert.”
“Oh, thanks,” Remus says sarcastically. “I’m glad I’m prettier than the man who still thinks excessive flatulence is funny.” He closes his eyes to focus on the sensation of Sirius’ fingers against his scalp.
They do a bit of that for a while, kissing and touching each other, and Remus feels like he could probably do it forever: lie under the warm weight of Sirius’ body as he sucks on the underside of Remus’ jaw. He almost feels guilty, because it seems that they always end up with the same position where Sirius is doing everything, though Sirius doesn’t really seem to mind. Remus sits up slowly, holding Sirius flush against him until he is sitting in Remus’ lap, legs stretched out behind him on the pillow. Sirius takes advantage of the new position to rid himself of his undershirt, letting the fabric slide easily off his shoulders with a tug.
He looks down into Remus’ upturned face. In the dusty light of the late-morning sun, Led Zeppelin’s softer side droning comfortingly in the background, Remus thinks that Sirius has never looked more lovely. He catches the thought as it passes through his mind, and stifles a laugh against Sirius’ shoulder.
“What?” Sirius says.
“I was just thinking that you look lovely.”
“Lovely! I’m wounded, Remus Lupin. I have never been lovely a day in my life.”
“So you’re allowed to say I’m pretty, but I can’t call you lovely?”
“I didn’t say you were pretty, I said Robert Plant is pretty. Or prettier than James, I guess.”
“The implication was there,” Remus says. “And why are you always talking about James, anyway?”
“Who else have I got besides him and you? I lead a very boring life,” Sirius says, and Remus knows it’s meant to be a joke, but it doesn’t quite sound like a joke.
“There’s Peter…”
“Not really an aphrodisiac.”
“And James is?”
“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Moony,” Sirius says. He leans in to kiss Remus again, but before he can, Remus shifts out from under him and gently pushes on Sirius’ shoulders to guide him into a lying-down position. Sirius turns his head to the side slightly to look at the hand that Remus has placed there, within inches of his ear, before he glances back up at Remus.
Remus whispers the lyrics as Robert Plant sings them in his unmistakeable high-pitched wail: “You’re the finest dog I knew, so fine.”
Sirius’ eyes squeeze shut as he laughs. When he is very old, Remus predicts, he will only have laugh lines, whereas Remus will have a permanent look of consternation etched into his brow; they will balance each other out. It’s not the first time he has thought of the future like this, as a vision of domesticity with Sirius always just out of frame, mischievous even in middle age. It makes Remus’ chest ache, because he knows that’s what he really wants: more than the sex, more than the knowledge that someone likes him back, he wants Sirius, plain and simple, in any form. He kisses Sirius then, pressing his hips down.
The album eventually reaches its bizarre, bluesy end and Remus pulls back. They stare at each other, listening to the soft click of the needle lifting from the record and the arm returning to its stand, a pleasant sound that Remus associates with the simultaneous satisfaction and disappointment of a good album ending. He presses his palm against the dampt front of Sirius’ boxers.
“Sirius, I — ”
Sirius groans and shifts under Remus’ hand so the pressure against his cock increases. “This is taking too long,” he says, not unkindly.
“Fuck you,” Remus says, laughing, but he slips his hand into Sirius’ underwear anyway. This part is still strange and new, too, touching Sirius proper instead of over fabric.
“This whole thing took too long,” Sirius adds, though the last part of the sentence gets cut off as Remus starts to stroke slowly.
“How do you mean?”
“I mean,” Sirius says through a shuddering breath, “this. You and me.”
Remus removes his hand from Sirius’ pants and Sirius thrashes briefly at the loss, though he continues his train of thought as Remus kisses at his neck. Remus feels the vibration of Sirius’ voice against his lips and tongue and he thinks he might go mad with lust if he weren’t focusing on what Sirius is actually saying.
“Like, ages, Moony,” Sirius mutters as Remus kisses down his chest. “I’ve — it’s been you for ages, I’ve always wanted — ”
Remus stops, chin hovering over Sirius’ groin, to meet his gaze. “You’ve wanted what?” he asks, playing dumb, wanting Sirius to say it because he can’t possibly utter the words himself. Struck by a sudden boldness, he pulls down Sirius’ boxers. His cock springs forth, and Remus thinks about how silly it is, how silly sex is, that weird, sticky slide of skin against skin, and how wonderful. A lot like Sirius.
“I’ve wanted you, gods,” Sirius says, probably louder than he ought to, especially since their background music has long since been over, and Remus prays he cast the charm right. He wriggles out of his underwear, dropping the shorts on the floor, and then he is completely naked on Remus’ bed and Remus’ brain stutters like film caught in the projector, whirring madly, because this is new too and he still can’t quite comprehend it. He climbs off the bed and restarts the record, because if he’s going to take this risk and actually blow Sirius, Remus doesn’t want him to have to be too quiet.
Kneeling back on the bed between Sirius’ legs, Remus watches Sirius’ face for any reservations, but he only sees impatience, which he supposes might be Sirius’ second-most frequent expression besides laughter. He presses a kiss to Sirius’ inner thigh, and he feels the muscles there twitch.
“Please, Remus,” Sirius hisses.
Even stranger than holding Sirius’ cock in his hand is having Sirius’ cock in his mouth, but Remus supposes it’s worth it for the hugely dramatic sigh that Sirius huffs out. Remus isn’t really sure what he ought to be doing, though it probably doesn’t matter to Sirius, who has clamped his own hand over his lips in an effort to remain quiet as Remus begins to move his head. Despite his hand and the whine of Jimmy Page’s guitar across the room, Remus can still hear Sirius muttering to himself under his breath, mostly nonsense, but he catches his own name every so often and Remus has to stop himself from groaning at the sound.
“Moony,” Sirius whispers. Remus looks up at Sirius, and it’s a weird angle but he still looks beautiful because of course he does. His face and chest are flushed beyond belief, sweat beading underneath his hair where it lies across his forehead. Remus speeds up, trying to fit more of Sirius in his mouth, and puts his hand down the front of his own underwear.
“Moony, oh gods, Moony,” Sirius repeats thinly, insistently, and then he comes. Remus coughs as he attempts to swallow. It ends up Remus’ mouth and half across Sirius’ belly and on the sheets and Remus wants to die he is so ashamed, he can’t even do this properly, but then Sirius is pulling him up to kiss him, open-mouthed, as if he actually wants to taste himself on Remus’ tongue.
Sirius keeps mumbling Remus’ name breathlessly as he yanks down Remus’ boxers, licking his hand before curling his fingers around Remus’ aching erection.
“I’ve wanted you for so long, Moony, I thought I would never have you,” Sirius whispers into his ear, and Remus wants to say Me, too, but he finds he cannot speak, only sigh as Sirius strokes him. “I thought I would live my whole fucking life without ever having you like this.”
“Sirius,” Remus says helplessly, because what else is there to say?
“Moony,” Sirius murmurs in reply, and Remus gasps as he comes over Sirius’ fist, panting jerkily. Sirius lifts his hand to the light, watching the viscous material come apart between his fingers. Remus would find it crass, but it’s Sirius studying his come with such a strange fascination that Remus can’t help but feel intrigued. Then Sirius puts his fingers in his mouth.
“Stop that,” Remus says, embarrassed.
“Why? You tasted mine,” Sirius says. He wipes his hand on the bedsheets, and Remus tells himself not to cringe. “S’not bad. I’ll do you next time, yeah?”
Remus breathes in deeply and tries to fathom such a thing. “Fuck. Okay,” he says.
Sirius takes his unsoiled hand and presses it to Remus’ forehead, smoothing out the furrow in his brow. “You always look so worried,” he says.
“One of us has to,” Remus replies.
“Maybe,” Sirius says. There is a lingering redness across his cheeks. “Does a number on a bloke, you know, always seeing his lover look so nervous.”
Remus blinks. Lover? This strikes him as a very sacred word, something you find in poetry rather than real life, something you are allowed to say only when you are old and wise. He has tried it on privately, in the bath, whispering it to himself: Sirius and I are lovers. And he supposes it must be true if they’ve both said it now. He admires the way the words slip out of Sirius’ mouth so easily, how in spite of everything he is not afraid, not of this, not of anything.
“What are we going to do when we go back to Hogwarts?” Remus says, groping for his wand to cast a cleaning spell. He wishes he had a glass of water, but the desire to stay in bed with Sirius wins out over over his other bodily needs, as it often does.
Sirius lies down next to him, never one to be bothered by a mess. “You’ll probably still be worried. You’ll definitely keep making references to films none of us have seen, because you like feeling superior, you bugger. I guess I’ll have to figure out where to go for winter hols, ‘cause I doubt my parents will welcome me back with open arms.”
“You could stay with me,” Remus says.
“You don’t think your parents will think I’ve overstayed my welcome?”
Remus thinks for a moment. “No, I think they rather like it with you here. But they might not like it so much if they knew we were shagging.”
Sirius grins. “We’ll just have to be sneaky, then.”
Remus doesn’t smile back, lost in his thoughts again. “Do you want to have to sneak?”
“Not really. Not around James and Pete,” Sirius says after a moment of contemplation.
“Are we going to tell them, then?”
“James knows,” Sirius says suddenly.
“What?” Remus is flabbergasted.
“Erm, that was part of why I went to see him. You know, after the moon. I, er — I needed advice. I didn’t know what to do.”
“And what did James say?” Despite his shortcomings, James doesn’t strike Remus as a bigot, except maybe when it comes to which Quidditch teams a person supports.
“He said that I should stop being such a twat and just tell you,” he mumbles.
“Ah.” Remus looks down at Sirius, naked and curled up at his side in a post-sex haze of sleepiness and sweat, and thinks, Okay. This is okay. He loops a strand of Sirius’ hair through his fingers and wonders if this was Sirius’ plan all along, if he was drawn to him on some subconscious level, if he was telling the truth when he said that he’d wanted Remus for ages. If Sirius would continue to want him for another age. Remus tries very hard to imagine a world in which he does not want Sirius and finds he cannot.
Sirius stretches an arm around Remus’ waist, snuggling closer despite the heat. This time he actually might be asleep, but Remus isn’t sure. He continues to play with Sirius’ hair, listening to the sounds of him breathing. It seems a long time ago that he showed up on the Lupins’ back stoop, shaking with exhaustion, and an even longer time ago that Remus first looked at Sirius and felt something within him twist.
Remus tries to picture the scene as it would appear in a film, the way he sometimes does: an extreme high angle of the two of them in bed, just from the shoulders up, the coy sort of image that directors always use to imply sex. Sirius would look appropriately glamorous and debauched, he thinks, while he would just look ordinary, which is fine by him. The lighting would be soft, natural, caught in Sirius’ hair and strewn across the soiled bedsheets. The score would swell and the screen might flicker. Perhaps the audience would just think of them as inscrutable, like Antoine at the end of The 400 Blows, staring directly into the camera after running for so long.