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Sirius had thought that things would get better now that he was sleeping with Remus. Having wild, abandoned sex with Remus. Fucking Remus in every insane way possible, whenever, wherever. Remus who never said no, Remus who was flexible and wanton and insatiable and the incarnation of all Sirius' dirty-magazine-inspired fantasies.
But the more they fucked the more Sirius felt that somehow they were not connecting. That Remus was holding himself apart; that although Remus' slow, painful plummet had been halted, he still lacked the power or desire to rise.
He'd had Remus up against the wall back of the pub, trousers pooled around his ankles, shirt pushed up to bare that gorgeous expanse of chest from nipples down. He'd kissed Remus, hard and frantic, and then dropped to his knees to take Remus' cock into his mouth. Remus' hands knotted in his hair and his hips trembled with restraint. Remus came biting the back of his own hand so as not to scream, and Sirius had him turned around before he'd stopped shaking, spat Remus' come into his hand to slick his cock, and breached him in one swift thrust. Remus moaned into his arms, braced against the rough brick. Sirius shoved his legs open further and grabbed his hipbones, pulled Remus into each thrust.
It was done in minutes, and then they dressed hastily, wrinkled and smelling of sweat and come. Sirius had kissed him, held him close, but Remus' reserve had gone up. Afterwards, Sirius recognized where he'd gone wrong. "Stay with me tonight," he'd said into Remus' hair. "Easy enough for you to leave from my place in the morning."
Remus looked at him with shuttered eyes. "No, thank you," he said, fucking polite bastard, and then he summoned his carry-all and Apparated away.
Sirius had wanted to hit something. In the beginning, they had abused his bed so much that the frame had snapped, and Sirius left the mattress on the floor. But over the months (Merlin, not months, almost a year, now), Remus had made excuses not to go to the flat, and now he didn't even bother lying. "No," he always said, and there would be walls upon walls between the two of them.
Remus was to be gone for two weeks, off into some dark and dangerous territory that Dumbledore felt Remus should chart. Sirius hadn't realised how many holes Remus' absence would leave in his routine, how he had come to rely on Remus' counterpoint for balance. Hadn't considered that he'd be counting the days until Remus returned.
On the seventeenth day Sirius crumpled Dumbledore's latest bland know-nothing response to Sirius' plea for information and threw it with force into the fire. For the first time he allowed himself to wonder what his life would be if Remus were gone forever. It hit him with a force that left him breathless, stunned, and feeling particularly stupid. It all made sense, the mad owling to Dumbledore (twice already today), the restlessness that was wearing his carpet thin, the resounding desolation of his flat.
Sirius wondered when he had fallen in love with Remus. Close on the heels of that thought came horror: if even he hadn't realised it, he doubted that Remus knew, either. Remus didn't simply avoid Sirius' flat. Sirius had as good as said that Remus had no place in his heart or his home. He'd chosen to translate Remus' love into the basest currency possible, and now Remus was gone.
Sirius was not given naturally to despair. Instead, he plotted.
Sirius was a little put out that he had to be grateful to Dumbledore just when he'd gone and worked up some really good dislike of the man. He nursed his lager and watched the pub door impatiently. After reporting to me, Mr Lupin will be staying the night at the Leaky Cauldron, Dumbledore's note had read, and Sirius had dropped everything, grabbed his coat, and Apparated straight to Diagon Alley. He'd expected to see Remus straight away and not to have to cool his heels for an hour. Surely, anything Remus had to say could wait until morning. Surely, Dumbledore'd not keep him too much longer. Surely after twenty-one godsdamned days Remus deserved his freedom.
The fireplace flared up with green flames, and Remus walked through casually just as Sirius turned. He didn't bother beating off the ash: his coat and trousers were torn and filthy. The dusting of ash was actually an improvement. Sirius got up, suddenly feeling very drunk, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach as Remus glanced his way. He crossed to the fireplace, ridiculously nervous.
"Welcome back," Sirius said, and Remus' mouth twisted. He ran one hand through his unwashed and tangled hair, looking at Sirius with frustration and something that might have been amusement or anger.
"Sirius," he said finally. "Bizarre coincidence?"
"Waiting for you," Sirius said. "You don't want to spend your first night back in a rented room, do you? Come to the flat," he added, as Remus' chin went up behind at least a week's worth of stubble, or possibly a beard. "I made you dinner."
Remus blinked, clearly exhausted. "Some other time."
"Okay." It hurt to see the relieved sag of Remus' shoulders, but Sirius knew he deserved it. He took a step forward and kissed Remus' cheek gently, even as he picked up one of Remus' hands and wrapped it around the key.
"What's this?" Remus asked, staring at the key as if at a puzzle.
"It's your key," Sirius said. "Your key to our flat. I'm sorry it took me so long to realise that you'd already moved in months ago."
Remus bowed his head over his clenched hand. "What are you saying?" he asked quietly, as if he knew his voice would shatter if he raised it above a whisper.
"I'm saying that even though I love fucking you blind in exotic back alleys, I think I'd prefer making love to you in our own bed, behind our own locked door. Come home with me." Remus was still staring down. "I really did make dinner. Are you crying? Look, don't. Fuck. That's me all over, always making you--no, here, not on your shirt, you idiot, that's disgusting, here's a handkerchief. Let me do it."
"I'm just tired," Remus said, muffled by the handkerchief. "It's just--I just--"
"Will you please shut the fuck up and let me take care of you?" Sirius said.
Remus snorted. Thank god for conveniently-located handkerchiefs, Sirius thought. "When did you get to be such a romantic?" Remus asked, shoving the defiled handkerchief into his pocket and letting his hair take over the job of hiding his face.
"When I realised I was in love with you," Sirius said impatiently. "Look, I've hot soup and a hot bath and pyjamas and towels and things. I realise there's a lot I ought to have done, to have been doing, but I can't change the past, can I? So if you'll let me, I'll start now."
"You're proposing to me," Remus said. "In the Leaky Cauldron. When I look and feel like the floor of a public restroom. And you're bribing me with towels."
Sirius grinned and tugged Remus back towards the fireplace. "I am, aren't I? So--will you come back with me?" Remus looked up finally, eyes unreadable. "You can say no," Sirius added, gently. "I know I'm no great catch without the towels. But I do love you. I didn't know it until you were gone, and then you kept on being gone, and I thought--"
"Yes," Remus interrupted. "Yes, I'll go home with you."
"Oh. Oh!" Sirius grinned and grabbed a generous handful of Floo powder from the biscuit tin on the mantelpiece. When the flames shot up green, they stepped through together, hand in hand.
Remus fell asleep over his soup, and again in the bath, and finally sprawled insensate across the middle of the bed. Sirius curled up against him, pulling a blanket over them both. He buried his face in the damp wisps of Remus' ragged hair and ran one hand over the sharp plane of one well-shaven cheek, sighed, and lay there in half-sleep so long that he was surprised, in the morning, to actually wake up. He was even more surprised to find himself woven together with Remus, arms and legs enmeshed, but he took full advantage of the proximity.
The expanse of Remus' skin was quite enough to keep his hands and mouth busy, and Remus made the most uninhibited noises in his sleep, Sirius discovered. He raised his head to trace his tongue over Remus' lips at the same time as his other hand--all on its own, he swore--wrapped itself around his cock and Remus' and began stroking lazily. Remus' lips parted, which Sirius took as an invitation, and somewhere in the middle of the kiss Remus began kissing back.
"What are you doing?" Remus murmured, his mouth brushing against Sirius'.
"Do you mind?" Sirius whispered back, and the huff of Remus' laughter was warm against his face. "If you don't, I could use a hand."
The mid-morning sun lit the disarray of Remus' hair like a whiskey halo, and his eyes shone with a promise of wickedness. Remus' hand folded around his, quickening the pace, and Sirius arched into the pleasure. He tried to tell Remus everything that he'd been thinking, but the words unravelled and dissolved and finally all he was left with was a certain wildness in his eyes. Remus was close, he could see it, but he reached up his free hand and put a finger over Sirius' lips.
"I know. I love you, too," he said, and then his eyes shut as orgasm shook him head to toe. He's beautiful, Sirius thought, when he's free, and then he was washed under, coming undone, all his senses deserting him, and then pulled back to where he lay encircled in Remus' arms, home.