Work Text:
I will come back here, bring me back when I'm old
I want to lay here forever in the cold
I might be cold but I'm just skin and bones
And I'll never love England more than when covered in snow
Goodbye old England - Laura Marling
--
When they reach the venue, Sirius laughs out loud. Or he would if he weren’t so car sick from the drive up here, which can best be described as ‘hairy’. It probably would have been hairy regardless, but the way James tackled those bends has Sirius feeling distinctly sub-par.
“We are literally in the middle of nowhere,” he points out, gazing around in disbelief.
“We are literally in the Yorkshire Dales,” Lily corrects as James backs the car into a space with enviable ease. “It’s not exactly the Sahara Desert. Can we get a bit of perspective, please?”
“I’ve read about this place,” Sirius says gravely. “It’s the highest pub in the UK. Good scene for a murder mystery, I should think. It’s so remote that nobody can hear you scream.”
They have been in Yorkshire for a week, now, and Sirius has not acclimatised, as such. He’s itching to get back to London, not least because after five years of friendship, Lily and James have finally seen sense and started hooking up all over the place. But they’d booked the holiday before that particular development, and everyone pretends not to mind that Sirius is very much an interloper on what could have been an intimate getaway for two.
“Why don’t you like it up here?” James asks as he turns off the ignition. He’s frustrated with his oldest friend, and nobody can blame him.
Sirius shivers dramatically. “Because it is cold, James, and everyone thinks I’m some kind of bougie southern snob.” He snorts at James’s expression. “Yes, yes. I am a southern snob. But I’d rather the good people of Yorkshire weren’t able to figure it out quite so easily. I think they can smell my fear.”
“That’s dogs.”
“Dogs and northerners,” he corrects. “Trust me on this.”
Secretly, Sirius is quite pleased to be here, but there’s no way he’ll give James the satisfaction of knowing it.
“I think it’s pretty,” James chips in.
“It sucks balls.”
James doesn't miss a beat. “So do you.”
Sirius huffs a laugh. “Not for a while, actually. I have behaved impeccably as is only fitting now I’ve made Partner.” He beams with pride because all of his hard work has finally paid off. He’s the youngest to make Partner in a century, or something, and he’s got a real commensurate spring in his step.
“Even Partners deserve a little somethin’ somethin’,” James says with a wiggle of the eyebrows.
Sirius rolls his eyes and saunters to the bar. There is a man drying glasses with his back to him. When he turns around, he pauses and looks at Sirius through narrowed, amber eyes, as if he’s irritated by his presence. “What’ll it be?” he asks with a thick Yorkshire accent.
This is, Sirius knows, where he should reel off their drinks order, but he momentarily loses the ability to form words because this man is... well, he’s really fucking beautiful. His hair is curly; long on the top but cut short on the sides, and it’s golden, everything about him is just golden. His eyes and his freckles and the impatient scowl on his face. His lips are full and unimpressed, a little rough from the inclement weather, pursed together as he waits for Sirius to speak.
“Erm,” Sirius mumbles, losing all of his usual swagger. “Three pints of bitter please.”
The man nods, pulls the pints with practised proficiency and hands the card machine to Sirius. “Ten sixty.”
Sirius starts. “For all three drinks?”
The man arches an eyebrow. “Not from round these parts, are you?”
“Err, no. No, I’m from London. What gave me away?”
“The shoes,” the man says flatly. “And the hair.”
“What about them?”
“They’re expensive,” he says. “You look all shiny and new, like you’ve never ridden a tractor or rescued a sheep from a hedge.”
Sirius frowns. “Is that a bad thing?”
The man considers him for a moment, looks him up and down, eyes dragging up the length of his body slowly, deliberately. “Just different,” he confirms eventually.
Sirius feels bare under this guy’s watchful eye. He looks down at the three beers and asks whether he has a tray. The man shoots him a wry smile and disappears for a second, returning with a small, round tray and sliding it wordlessly towards him.
“Thanks very much! I’m Sirius, by the-” he tries, but the man has already walked off.
He slinks back over to the table, careful not to trip as he balances the drinks on the tray. He pops it onto the polished wood and slumps down into his seat. “I don’t mean to be a full stalker weirdo but I think the boy at the bar might be a grumpy, northern angel,” he proclaims.
Lily and James both crane their necks to look. He would be embarrassed but ends up chuckling as they (very unsubtly) check him out.
“Oof,” James agrees. “Call me a randy bisexual, but mother may I!”
“He looks very cerebral,” comes Lily’s more considered response. “I feel like you could have a good chat with him.”
“I haven’t had sex in so long,” Sirius groans. “If anyone were to touch my cock, I think it might just fall off from lack of use. Is that a thing? Abandoned cock syndrome? God he’s lovely. He’s like a mirage in this arid, northern desert. Tell me, can you forget how to do it? Has it changed?”
“No!” James laughs, just as Lily says, “Yes, of course.”
He looks between them and laughs. “It’s good to get away from London, isn’t it? I’m three more big projects away from just setting up a camp bed beneath my desk. Good to blow the cobwebs away and all that.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Although I think this band might be dreadful.”
Sirius steps outside for a cigarette and is surprised to find that it’s started snowing; thick white flakes which fall all around him. He puts his hood up and catches himself admiring the view; the sheer quiet of the place as the snow settles on the ground.
“Alright?” A warm, no-nonsense voice penetrates the thick, cold air, and Sirius does his best not to flap.
“Oh. Hello.”
“Succumbed to frostbite yet?”
“Oh no, I think it’ll take another hour or two.”
The boy hums.
“Your pub is lovely,” Sirius says.
“I don’t usually run the place. I’ve a flat in Leeds but Mum’s recently had her hip replaced so she needs a bit of help over the winter.”
“What’s your name?”
“Remus.”
“I’m-”
“Sirius,” Remus nods. And the revelation that he was listening before, despite his outward hostility, warms Sirius from the inside out.
“You grew up here?” Sirius asks.
Remus hums his affirmation.
“It’s beautiful.”
He isn’t lying. It might not be his cup of tea, but he’s never seen so much sky in one place; white and heavy with snow, even in the darkness.
“It’s fucking dull, is what it is. Imagine being a fifteen year old stranded here. Honestly, I’ve never been so fit as I was back then because I used to cycle up that killer hill all the time. I was the first of all my friends to pass my driving test because I was so desperate to get my arse out of here.”
“Wow, it’s really coming down, isn’t it? It doesn’t do this much in London.”
“Doesn’t do it much here, either.” His face clouds over as he inspects the thick white of the sky that means it hasn’t quite got dark. “But when it does, it usually signals trouble.”
“Beer?” Remus asks gruffly when they get back inside.
“What?”
“D’you want a beer?”
“Oh. Yes, that would be lovely. Thank you.” He grins. “Remus.”
Remus looks at him for a moment and nods, heading off to the bar. He has a conversation with the woman who must be his mother: a stout, robust sort of woman who doesn’t much resemble her son but shares his amused expression when they both glance out of the window at the weather and mutter to themselves.
Remus comes back, slumps down next to him and hands him a pint. “This band’s going to be god awful.”
“That’s what I said to James.”
A huge old labrador ambles over to them and Remus takes his head between two large hands, fussing him enthusiastically. “This is Branwell.”
“After Brontë!”
Remus looks at him curiously. “Err, yes.”
“I love him.” Sirius pats him on the head. “He’s very wise, you can tell.”
“He’s a right softie actually. Nowt but fluff between those big ears.”
Sirius beams at him. Remus’s mouth twitches uncomfortably in return.
The band is, indeed, dreadful. But Lily, for some reason, seems to think that they are the best thing since sliced bread. Sirius suspects she’s been on the gin. It’s the only logical explanation.
“We should leave now,” James says, looking up the forecast on his phone. “Otherwise we’ll get stuck.”
Quite a few people have already opted for caution and made their way back down the hill.
“Oh, let’s just stay for a couple more songs!” Lily enthuses. “How much more snow can there be?”
“Famous last words,” Remus says good-naturedly, and he winks at Sirius.
--
“We’re stuck,” James observes.
The car is covered in half a foot of snow and the road is even worse. Even if James were a good driver, Sirius isn’t sure he’d want to chance it.
“No shit, Sherlock,” he laughs, turning to go back inside. “Come on, let’s break the news.”
Remus and his mother take it all in their stride. This is a frequent occurrence, apparently, owing to the fact that the pub is literally in the middle of nowhere and at a high enough altitude to attract a great deal of snow.
Remus's mum, Hope, puts them all to work, getting them to make up the beds in the guest rooms and allocating a bed to everyone.
“Now John Bon Jovi,” she says as they’re running out of beds, “you’ll be in with our Remus.”
Sirius presumes she’s talking about him, and immediately, he gets completely carried away thinking about all the things he would let Remus do to him in that room if he were that way inclined. The fantasies are delightfully filthy and he’s glad that the poor boy’s mum can’t read his mind as he nods and stares brazenly at her son.
Remus takes it all in good humour. He shows Sirius up to their quarters: a tiny twin room with an even tinier en-suite shower room. He hands over a fresh toothbrush and a glass of water, and they spend the night in relative silence in beds that are too close together. Remus, when he’s asleep, breathes heavily and Sirius is the creep who watches him for just a bit too long.
The next morning, there is a part of Sirius that optimistically feels that the snow might have melted away overnight.
Not so.
In fact, there must have been a huge blizzard overnight, because it isn’t even possible to see the cars now. He knows in his heart that they will be there for a few more days.
He heads outside for a cigarette, conscious that he’ll need to ration the packet.
“Don’t worry,” Remus tells him over coffee, minutes later. “I have a secret stash. I used to do this when I were young and sold them to people who got stuck here. You can have one or two for free, though.”
“You’re a veritable philanthropist.”
“Hmm, you’re not wrong.”
And so, they all settle in. There are croissants and Yorkshire tea and Sirius does his best to pretend he’s not too itchy and uncomfortable in yesterday’s clothes, wonders briefly whether he can wash them with hand soap in the sink.
Remus declares that he ‘can’t be arsed’ with keeping a presence behind the bar for twenty people so he puts an honesty box in place and teaches them all to pull a pint. When it’s Sirius’s turn, Remus stands behind him and touches him lightly on the hip as he shows him how to pull - “firmly, like it doesn’t terrify you, that’s it” - and Sirius honest to god blushes.
In the afternoon, there’s a snowball fight and Remus lends him a t-shirt which is far too big, but clean and soft and Sirius is eternally grateful. He also gives him free rein on his pants drawer; a charitable gesture if ever there were one.
“You’re all very well prepared for this,” Sirius tells him as they warm back up by the fire.
“It happens a couple of times a year,” Remus says. “So we’ve got the formula mastered. Freezer full of food, stash of jumpers and blankets, enough wood for the fire. Just in case.”
Sirius smiles and nods. Everything is very cosy and calm. Remus is quite outrageously attractive in the soft, flickering light of the fire that casts pretty shadows under his eyes, and Sirius invests all of his efforts into being Normal about it all.
There is a spontaneous jamming session, of sorts. The band start things off with a couple of acoustic versions of their songs, but they rope others in too: Hope does the Proclaimers on the Ukelele with Lily murdering a tin whistle solo; James does Rapper’s Delight with real aplomb.
Finally Remus takes to the stage to whoops and whistles. With everyone fed and watered, there is a soft, attentive atmosphere to the pub now; its accidental residents a few drinks in, and in a genial mood, far removed from the lariness of the previous night.
He stands at the mic, hands sitting loosely in his pockets and a leather guitar strap slung around his neck. His guitar is acoustic, covered in stickers from bands Sirius hasn’t heard of. He wonders whether he has a special someone he takes to all those gigs.
“Right,” Remus croaks, accent thick. He scours the room shyly and he twists his cheek in a way that shows a little dimple. “This one’s new, so be kind please.”
He starts plucking at the guitar as if in a trance. Sirius hasn’t heard a sound like it but if he were pushed for a description, he’d say it was like classical Spanish guitar mixed together with catchy indie riffs.
Then Remus opens his mouth, and Sirius wouldn’t be able to describe it if a gun were held to his head.
“I’m frayed at the edges
You stand and you just stare
Don’t claim this was fated
Don’t pretend that you care
“‘Cause darlin’, the love is gone”
Remus’s voice is soft and warm like honey. When he sings, it’s just him and the microphone and Sirius would be surprised if he knew there was an audience before him at all.
Who is the song about? Who had the audacity to break his heart? Sirius doesn’t know. He thinks they’re a fucking idiot but he doesn’t know, and when Remus launches into the second verse, he’s barely listening because he’s thinking so hard about the ghosts of Remus’s past.
“But I’ll remember your sweet kisses
And you’ll remember how he felt
Yeah I’ll remember what it meant then
And you’ll remember someone else.
“Blink and you miss it
a trace of regret
but you smell like his detergent
and we’re hard pressed to reset.
‘Cause darlin’, the love is gone
“But I’ll remember your sweet kisses
And you’ll remember how he felt
Yeah I’ll remember what it meant then
And you’ll remember someone else.
“There’s no going back now
Wouldn’t even if I could
Maybe I want you happy
Or maybe I just think I should
“‘And darlin’, the love is gone
“But I’ll remember your sweet kisses
And you’ll remember how he felt
Yeah I’ll remember what it meant then
And you’ll remember someone else.
“Be better to him
Be better to him
Be better to him
Than you ever were to me
My dream boy, my disease.
Yeah, darlin’, the love is gone.”
Sirius leaps up as everyone else claps, and he rushes over to where Remus is climbing off the stage.
This is where he needs to tell him that he’s one of the most wonderful musicians he’s ever encountered, that when Remus is playing guitar and singing, nothing else seems to matter: not Sirius’s job or the fact that Russell has his balls in a vice, not the fact that his landlord might sell up and leave him having to find a new flat, not even them being trapped, here in the highest pub. Not even that feels like much of a chore, now.
“That song was about a bloke,” he gasps instead.
Remus just chuckles so that his mouth wrinkles at the corners. “Err, yes. I thought that was obvious?”
James, on seeing that Sirius is up at the front, thinks that he intends to take to the stage. He cheers him on and Sirius’s head jerks up.
“Oh, no... I-”
“Do you play?” Remus asks, and there is something in his demeanour. Something curious, hopeful, even.
“Piano,” Sirius confesses, but he really doesn’t want to get up there and play something. He wants Remus to play all night, actually, but his motives are probably selfish, maybe even a little bit perverted (in a strictly tasteful and respectful sort of way).
Remus nods thoughtfully. “Well we don’t have a grand piano, or anything, but there’s one of them electric ones up there. Would that do?” He cocks his eyebrow and Sirius laughs softly, knowing that he will find it impossible to say no to this boy for as long as they are acquaintances, however long that might be. Remus’s smile falters the longer Sirius’s silence lasts. “Oh, I suppose it’s no good, is it?”
Sirius laughs. He hopes it doesn’t come across as derisory. “No,” he assures him. “No, it’ll be perfect.”
He holds Remus’s eye contact for an indulgent moment then steps up to the stage, striding across it and stepping deftly over coloured leads and a warren of gaffa tape. He pulls the piano stool up to the instrument and sits a moment, not looking out to the audience. There’s no sheet music that he can see, but it’s alright because he has a few tunes committed to memory; a little formal for something like this, and he wonders whether he should just play Wonderwall instead and ask Remus to do the singing. He shakes his head, places his hands on the keys, and lets muscle memory take over.
At university in Paris, he’d gone through the phase of watching Amélie once a fortnight. He knows now that he felt incredibly alone in France and he watched the film because it made him feel understood, somehow. But as he plays the opening bars to ‘Comptine d’un autre été’, six years older and probably no wiser at all, it strikes him that he hasn’t felt that same solitude in a long time. Which is nice.
The piece is all nostalgia, all memory. It makes him think of Parisian street corners, of picturesque Metro signs and the cheap red wine he drank alone in impossibly pretty bars. It makes him think of the boys who taught him what to do in their sparse Parisian loft bedrooms, of the long, solitary walk home afterwards.
And he plays the final notes, chances a glance out to the audience and wishes he hadn’t. Remus isn’t indifferent, he’s staring right at him with tears in his eyes.
Sirius steps down so they’re at the same level and Remus looks at him, eyes shining. “Way to show me up,” he mumbles, and nudges their shoulders together. Sirius grins helplessly then catches Remus’s eye. There is a heat behind his gaze, something unspoken and subtle, but unmistakable. Sirius’s stomach flips and he looks away, a small smile lingering on both their faces as he does.
Are you like me? He wonders. Can you understand?
Sirius grins all the way to the bar, pulls himself a beer, and one for Remus too. He’s crippled with doubt as he weaves through tables and takes the seat at Remus’s, but as he hands him the fresh pint, their fingers brush. Sirius does well not to drop it all down Remus’s front, so strong is the zip of electricity that transfers between their skin.
“So you earn a lot of money?” Remus asks him abruptly. Sirius isn’t sure how he’s gleaned this information, but he’s right, of course.
“Yes.”
“But you work such long hours that you’ve no time to spend it?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
Remus takes a sip, unimpressed. “Sounds bloody dire.”
Is it? Oh god, it is. It’s beyond dire. No human contact for days, no daylight. Just projection charts and slideshows and emergency meetings that aren’t really that urgent at all.
Just working till midnight in the office for six days in a row and living on posh sushi from that place on the corner.
He doesn’t even like sushi.
Remus decides it’s time that Sirius learnt how to play dominoes. He grabs an ancient set from the bookcase, takes him meticulously through the rules and laughs uproariously when he continually fails to grasp what he should be doing.
“This game is shite,” he moans when Remus completes a third straight victory.
Remus shrugs. “Or are you just shite at it?” His expression is playful and easy, and Sirius, basking in thirty minutes of his undivided attention, is quite honestly half in love.
“Are you ready for bed?” Remus asks at the tail end of his pint, and the question is so frantically, brilliantly loaded, that all Sirius can do is nod.
He follows Remus up the stairs, lagging a couple of steps behind and trying to look anywhere but at his magnificent bottom, failing completely.
Wordlessly, they reach their room, cross the threshold and walk over to their beds. The door swings shut with a heavy click.
Sirius, limbs long and awkward where they never have been before, folds himself onto his bed and takes his phone out of his pocket, watches out of the corner of one eye as Remus opens his book, folding one hand behind his head. Sirius doesn’t look at the inch of skin laid bare by his ridden-up t-shirt, doesn’t commit it to memory as one of the nicest things he’s seen.
When Remus flicks his eyes over to him, Sirius is mortified that he’s already looking and averts his eyes to stare avidly at an article he has open. What it’s about, he has no clue. He’s busy trying to remember how he normally achieves such routine things as respiration and blinking a normal amount of times.
“It’s so weird being back here,” Remus offers good-naturedly. Somehow, his voice sounds even nicer in the privacy of the room, a little quieter, maybe, but warm and rich. “I feel like a teenager again.”
Sirius smiles at him, grateful to not have to be the one to break the silence. “I’m sure you got up to some things in these rooms, hmm?”
Remus grins at that; full and toothy and so gorgeous that Sirius forgets to breathe for a beat or two. “Might have.”
Sirius presses his eyes closed. He’s so full of longing that beneath his skin, he almost throbs with it. He hasn’t wanted someone like this since he was twenty, and even then, he’s not sure it felt quite so urgent and raw. When he opens his eyes again, expecting Remus to have looked away, curious amber eyes are still fixed on him.
“Do you want to use the bathroom first?” Sirius asks, scrambling about for something, anything, he can say.
“No you’re alright,” Remus nods. “Fill your boots.”
Sirius shuffles into the tiny en-suite with only a hollow wooden door between them. He considers relieving himself right here in the loo to rid himself of some tension, but he decides it’s too high risk. Instead, he brushes his teeth and slaps some water on his face, strips off into boxers and t-shirt and re-emerges.
Remus looks at him for too long through hooded eyes, and Sirius wants so desperately for it to mean something. But then he squirrels himself away in the loo and Sirius climbs beneath the covers, pulling the duvet close to him and trying to still his rampant thoughts.
He realises he’s forgotten to refill his water glass, so when he hears the lock sliding back open to indicate that Remus is done, he casts the duvet aside and stands, ready to slip in after him and refill it.
It’s an error in judgement, though, much like several of the other decisions he’s made since he got here. Because when Remus emerges, he’s wearing a plain black t-shirt and tight boxer shorts with little cactuses printed on them. He’s run a hand through his hair so it stands up on top of his head and he looks sleepy; sleepy and so fucking cute, Sirius could die.
And now Sirius has walked over to Remus, as if there is a reason to move other than the pursuit of hydration, and Remus swallows; adam’s apple moving daintily in his throat. They stop, and they stare, and it would be funny if not for the thick, cloying air that passes between them.
A moment of indecision. Then Remus takes the glass out of Sirius’s hand and slams it onto the bedside table, takes his face in two hands and kisses him; rough and slick and needy, and so urgent that Sirius has to right his posture so he doesn’t stumble. It’s intense and it’s dirty and Sirius is swept up in him, in Yorkshire, in the highest pub and the quiet magic of its tiniest, most spartan room.
“Fucking knew you’d be trouble the moment you walked in here in your ridiculous fucking shoes,” Remus gasps, fingers inching beneath Sirius’s t-shirt and finding hot skin that sparks beneath his touch.
“I’m sorry, but if you have a problem with Italian leather, you have a problem with me, sir-”
“Oh my god, do you ever shut up-”
“Not often, no. Now, take your stupid little pants off.”
Remus does as he’s bid, rids himself of the t-shirt, too, and Sirius has to stop for air because Remus is naked and breathless and he’s so fucking... fanciable. All long-legged and a bit awkward, but somehow strong and assured at the same time. Sirius is greedy; wants to swallow him down in one.
He feels bad that Remus is so naked and he is still clothed, so he strips off the few clothes that cling to his frame and he grins at him, both of them laid bare now.
Remus, calmer now, steps forward, threads long fingers through Sirius’s hair, tugs his head back a little and presses a soothing kiss to his lips. Remus is hard against him and Sirius lets his eyes flutter closed, leans into the dream-like sensation of hands and this and him.
“Do you have-” Sirius starts to ask, but Remus pulls him back in close and kisses him soundly.
“Impatient, aren’t you?” he smirks, peppering hot, open-mouthed kisses down his neck.
I’m worried if we don’t do this soon, I’ll wake up back at home and realise it wasn’t real, is what Sirius manages not to say. Instead, he grins, pushes Remus onto the bed and clambers over him, watches with immense satisfaction as Remus shivers and lets out a helpless groan that spurs him on.
Sirius shimmies down the bed and takes him into his mouth in one. In response, Remus’s hips buck up and he hits the back of Sirius’s throat; an enthusiastic, involuntary reaction. He touches his hand to the curve of Sirius’s head in a silent apology, but Remus fucking his mouth is so magnificent, so dirty and hot, that Sirius moans around his length; an encouragement if ever it were needed.
“Fuck,” Remus pants. “Oh fuuuc-”
He shoves Sirius away, tells him hastily that he is perfect, but he isn’t going to last, flips them over so Sirius is on his back and starts to tend to him so diligently: a drag of lips, a curious tongue, soft, open-mouthed kisses. Sirius’s spirit might leave his body for a minute or two.
After a while, Remus conjures a small plastic bottle and pumps a little of its contents onto his fingers, toys with Sirius’s rim, then slides one finger deftly inside. Sirius feels his eyes on him, like he watches, listens, for every sign that this is okay, that Sirius isn’t in any pain and is, in fact, having a nice time. He must find it because after a few seconds, he slides another finger inside.
Sirius gasps, he feels his eyes rolling backwards, and it’s hard to keep quiet when Remus expertly removes his fingers and replaces them slowly with his cock; hard and sure and unrelenting. There is a careful confidence about everything he does, Sirius comes to realise. It’s everything. The sweet drag of Remus deep inside him and the look in his eye that whispers out to Sirius everything he’s never quite known until now: you’re wanted, you’re wanted, you’re wanted.
No sexual encounter has ever been so... much, surely. Remus is a sure, heavy weight braced on top of him, and the eye contact blazes throughout as he swallows up the noises Sirius makes. Sirius has never been kissed like this during sex, nor has he kissed like this; not like it’s at least as enjoyable and important as the other stuff. Not like if they stop, the world might crumble around them.
Remus does stop kissing him occasionally, but only to moan his name, only to drag his teeth across the taut skin of his collarbone or to manoeuvre him into a better position.
Remus is too good at this and Sirius has needed it. He hopes he’s good at it too, though he’s convinced he’s a little rusty as he clutches onto Remus’s biceps, bites his lip in an attempt to stay quiet as Remus moves inside him with decisive, short movements.
Sirius comes, and when he does, Remus kisses him, keeps going, whispers, “Yes,” and “there,” and, “so good, oh my god.”
He pulls out when Sirius starts to get too sensitive, doesn’t seem to be overly bothered either way about whether or not he’ll come too, but Sirius finds himself gazing up at him, wants him to feel even a fifth of the bliss he’s in right now.
“Come on my chest,” he hears himself saying, and Remus starts to pull himself off with long, deliberate strokes, straddling Sirius and not taking his eyes off his face for a moment. In no time at all, his hips jerk forwards and Sirius feels the heat of it hitting his skin, can feel himself getting hard again just looking at Remus’s gorgeous face, filthy and fair as he comes with a sweet moan.
Remus doesn’t move, not for a minute or two, and when he does, it’s to kiss Sirius, as if the last few minutes haven’t been enough, as if he doesn’t care that he’s sticky and in dire need of a shower. Sirius meets his lips and they kiss lazily, planted firmly against each other, panting as they come down from this high.
“That was nice,” Remus says eventually, rolling off him and mirroring his body language, lying on his back so only their shoulders are touching.
“Remus,” Sirius huffs. “I know we haven’t known each other long, but if we’re going to do this again - and I think we should because that was fucking insane - I’m going to need slightly more emphatic feedback than ‘that was nice’.”
Remus snorts, nuzzles into the hollow of Sirius’s neck. “Let me try again. That was fucking insane,” he hums. “You’re gorgeous.” He sucks hard on the sensitive skin of Sirius’s neck, eliciting a horribly vulnerable moan from Sirius. “And so sexy.” He licks the skin made sore by his mouth. “And without meaning to sound like a creep, I’m glad you’re stuck here for at least another day.”
“Ngghhh!” Sirius responds, because Remus takes his earlobe between his teeth and bites down just the right side of hard. When he finds his voice, he has the presence of mind to mutter: “I’m glad I’m stuck here, too.”
They sleep in separate beds, because they both know what this is and, more importantly, what it’s not, and it isn’t that; isn’t the sort of thing where they share an uncomfortable single bed all night when they don’t have good reason to.
In the morning, Remus glances over to him, slow and pretty with sleep. “I don’t do that,” he mumbles, though Sirius hears him perfectly.
“What don’t you do?”
“You know, hook ups, casual sex. I don’t... I don’t want you to think that’s the kind of thing I do every other weekend with every willing pretty boy who comes up here.”
“Right,” Sirius nods. Quite why Remus doesn’t want him to think that is a mystery, but he’s comforted, regardless.
“Normally, I only do that if it’s the start of... you know, a thing.”
“A thing,” Sirius repeats.
“Like,” Remus sighs, visibly pained. “You know, the start of a relationship.”
“Oh,” Sirius nods. “Right.”
Remus rubs at his eyes, as if he derives no pleasure at all from this discussion but would like to know the answers enough that he should persevere. “What... err... what about you?”
Sirius huffs a laugh. “Hardly ever. Not for a long time.”
Remus laughs too, also comforted, somehow, betrayed by the muscles in his cheeks which visibly relax. “Right,” he says flatly. “Right, okay.”
“So,” Sirius says after a long, strained silence. “You think I’m pretty?” He waggles his eyebrows at Remus who groans and rolls over to face the wall.
“I think you’re something, alright.”
Sirius grins into his pillow.
--
Remus disappears for a good chunk of the morning to make breakfast: fat sausage sandwiches and jugs of good, strong coffee.
To Sirius’s delight, he also serves it to them, and when he reaches him, he leans over quite brazenly with a hand on his shoulder and his eyes flick up to meet Sirius’s, something naughty flashing behind them. “Good morning,” he says in a low voice. “How did you sleep?”
Sirius blusters his way through a polite ‘thank you’ and doesn’t dare touch the question, lest he accidentally wrap himself like a sloth around this sausage-bearing marvel; a beacon of loveliness on this desolate tundra.
“Erm!” James practically squeals when Remus heads back to the kitchen. “What in the name of the gods of sexual tension was that?”
Sirius winks at him. “We worked some things out last night.”
“You shagged him?”
Shagging doesn’t seem to cut it, actually. They- what, made love? No. Fucked until they were a liquid tangle of limbs then fucked again? There aren’t words in this language that do it justice. So he nods. “I shagged him.”
“How was it?”
“I- well, it was unsurpassed, really.”
“Oh, shit, really? Fuck, well... well done, you!”
“Are you actually congratulating me for getting laid?”
“No, I’m congratulating you on finding someone you actually like! Who, by the look on your face, made you leave this mortal plane for a while.”
“I do like him,” Sirius nods, smiling sheepishly. “He’s different, isn’t he?”
“So are you going to do it again?” James asks, but Sirius isn’t really listening because Remus is carrying a basket of logs and showing off his nice biceps.
“Hmm? Oh, I should hope so. There’s not much else to do up here, is there?”
“Well I’m glad you’ve found a hobby,” Lily laughs. “Something to distract you from how much you dislike the north.”
“Yeah,” Sirius grins as Remus bends over and stacks the logs beside the fire. “The ‘north’ might not be so bad after all.”
Hope, the saint, does some washing for all of them and proceeds to hold up each of their garments to reunite them with their owners. She lifts up Sirius’s pants.
“Those are Sirius’s,” Remus says casually as he wipes down the tables.
“Wheyyy,” James mutters under his breath and Sirius slaps him with a beer mat.
Evening approaches and Sirius really could get used to this: good beer, good food, excellent company. Remus sitting next to him, reading his book and smirking.
“What’s that look?” he asks.
“I was thinking about that noise you make,” Remus says in a low voice. “Was thinking about getting you to make it again.”
“Ah!” Sirius laughs. “Well, alright then.” Because it is alright. It’s more than alright. And it sort of feels like they might as well make the most of the few days they have before they run out of time.
They head upstairs and almost make it, but Remus’s mum interrupts as he reaches the top step. “Where are you going? I need you to do the meatballs.”
“We’re just going to play a bit of Playstation,” Remus tells her without even the slightest flicker of an eyelid that would suggest his intentions were anything but nefarious.
“Well you’d best not be long.”
“No,” Remus says with a glint in his eye. “This is just a quicky.”
--
“Stop looking at him like you want to devour him,” James says in a low voice that night.
“I’ve already devoured him,” Sirius says, beaming. “Multiple times. Did I mention that I like Yorkshire now? I’m quite charmed by it, in fact.”
The two of them look at Remus, who is already looking back at Sirius with a soft, heated look in his eye.
“I think Yorkshire might be quite charmed by you, too.”
Sirius is surprised when Remus comes over and kisses him, right out in the open where everyone can see. Surprised and pleased.
“What was that for?” he asks.
Remus shrugs. “Just very kissable.”
And after dinner, the two of them go for a walk in the crunching snow. They don’t hold hands, because they both know what this is and it isn’t that. But they do a fair bit of snogging, and Remus gets him pressed up against a tractor, and the snow just keeps falling. Sirius hopes it will carry on forever.
“This should be romantic,” he tells Remus, “but I have snow in my mouth.”
Remus pulls away and looks at him with smiley eyes.
It strikes Sirius that he’s the happiest he’s been. He wants to stay.
But that’s madness, isn’t it? Even the thought that he would abandon all the progress he’s made for a skinny boy in bad knitwear is absolute madness.
Staying would be madness.
So why does he suspect that if Remus asked him to stay, he would do so in an instant?
Remus, when they head back inside, spends some time in the kitchen and banishes Sirius because he’s a ‘distraction with a top arse’.
James catches him looking thinky by the fire and pats him on the knee.
“You like him,” James points out. “Properly, I mean. Doesn’t that mean something?”
“Not everyone is like you and Lily,” Sirius says gently. “It’s brilliant that you have finally worked things out, but not every relationship is meant to be this big, long-term thing. Sometimes, it’s about enjoying the moment when it happens, those connections we form with people, no matter how unlikely. Remus and I have... you know, connected, and it’s been very lovely. But there’s no point thinking it’s something more than it is.”
“But you’re lonely!” James wails.
“Yeah!” Sirius spits, all venom. He watches James face crease up with concern, and he softens. “I mean, yes, sometimes. But nobody has it all. And I just don’t think this ends with him holding my hand and us walking off into the sunset, okay? I need to be realistic, James.”
“Okay,” James says flatly. “But I’ve also seen the way he looks at you. And there’s not much to compare.”
That night, he and Remus sleep together and Remus holds him close as he comes. Sirius slinks back off to his bed, even though he desperately wants to stay.
Because they both know what this is, and it isn’t that.
--
The walk he takes with Remus the next afternoon feels like it might be the last one. The tractors, towing their ploughs, are making visible progress clearing the snow drift. The sun hangs strongly in the sky, threatening to melt some, if not all of it, away.
Remus holds his hand.
“So what’ll you do after this?” he asks him. “Heading back down south?”
“Yeah,” Sirius nods, feeling no enthusiasm when he considers the prospect. “We’ve got this cottage down in Richmond till the weekend, then back home.” He reaches out to tighten Remus’s scarf. “I suppose.”
Remus looks at him for a good long while.
Tell me to stay.
“We don’t often get boys like you up here.” Remus pauses and stares at him, rubs a thumb over the jut of his hip. “Don’t get boys like you in many places, I shouldn’t think.”
Sirius feels his cheeks heat, but Remus doesn’t say the words he desperately wants to hear. Sirius doesn’t know how to respond to that, and in a moment of childlike insecurity, he shifts forward and buries his nose in Remus’s chest. Remus holds him there and they don’t say a thing.
Eventually, they have to go back in and Remus occupies himself with changing one of the beer barrels.
Hope sits by Sirius while she’s catching her breath. “‘Ow do?”
“Ah, now you can finally tell me how I’m meant to answer that question, because I’m sure I’ve been getting it wrong all week. I am... well, thank you?”
She laughs and twists her head to watch Remus as he pulls the beer through. “So what do you reckon to him, then?”
“I think he’s a grumpy, northern angel.”
She nods wisely. “Ah. You’re not far off. Not sure how his layabout father and I managed to make something special like that, but we got lucky. He’s a good lad.”
Truthfully, he’s the best lad Sirius has ever met. But that’s not what this is. So Sirius just nods. “He’s a good lad.”
It has to end. All good things come to an end. He’s a logical person. He knows this. But his brain feels all fuzzy and he wants the thing he can’t have. Maybe it’s the altitude. Or maybe he just wants Remus quite desperately.
Maybe a little of each.
In bed, Remus kisses the life out of him. “Don’t you,” he hums as he kisses down Sirius’s torso, “forget about me.”
“Don’t, don’t, don’t don’t!” Sirius echoes, though he kind of wants to cry.
“Don’t you-” Remus plays the drums on Sirius’s chest and Sirius smiles sadly. “Forget about me.”
“Couldn’t if I wanted to,” Sirius whispers. He gives way to Remus’s mouth, and when they have sex, it’s a desperate, emotional affair. Sirius feels like his throat is closing up but Remus keeps pulling him close and makes him feel better with those kisses.
And instead of Sirius returning to his bed, they lie together and talk till the early hours, neither of them wanting to surrender any of the hours they have left; Remus’s head on Sirius’s chest, Sirius resisting the urge to hold him too tightly. He wants to kiss his hair, wants to keep him talking all night.
“I don’t want to go,” Sirius whispers into the dark of the room when Remus drifts off.
Never has he wanted sunrise less.
--
There is a final breakfast; a final strong cup of coffee before they decide they should set off.
Sirius wears Remus’s lumpy knitted jumper which Remus insists he should keep because its “too small for him anyway”.
“So,” Sirius laughs helplessly when Remus sees them out. “I guess this is it.”
“Guess so,” Remus says flatly.
Sirius nods and stares at the melting snow. “I suppose you’ll be glad to have the place back to yourse-”
Remus looks up at the now-blue sky, shakes his head with a tiny laugh and kisses him, holds him close with a large hand held to the curve of his head and surrenders to him softly while James and Lily pretend that they aren’t looking on from the car.
When Remus pulls away, he stays close, keeps his hand on Sirius’s head. “Alright?” he asks.
Sirius swallows. “Not sure.”
In the bright light, Remus’s irises are almost yellow. “I’ve been snowed in here a lot. And it’s always been torture. But... erm... this was the opposite.”
“What’s the opposite of torture?”
“I’m not sure.” Remus smiles wonkily. “Delight? It was lovely. You were lovely.”
Neither of them suggests that they trade numbers. Because that’s not what this is. So with one more kiss, Sirius turns and walks to the car. And Remus trudges back inside, shoulders just a little more stooped than they were before.
He wants, quite desperately, to run back.
“Shall we get you a hot chocolate?” James asks limply as they set off down the hill.
“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”
The rest of the holiday drags by. Lily and James insist on going to pretty market towns and cheese factories and waterfalls, and he goes with them, like their heartbroken little dog.
Occasionally, he has a pasty and things look a little brighter, but then it’s back to the monotony.
He thinks about returning back to work. London. Smog and hipsters and pints that cost ten whole pounds.
He thinks of Remus, up on that solitary hill. Cleaning out the ashes from the fire, pulling pints of cheap, foamy beer. Sleeping alone in that room.
Hopefully.
“Try to cheer up, mate,” James tells him, but it feels like quite the feat.
On their final night in Yorkshire, Sirius just wants to sit by the fire in their cottage and daydream about his unlikely little holiday romance, but James and Lily insist that they must mark the end of the trip with one final drink in the pub next door. Sirius sulkily dons Remus’s too-big jumper and a hat and follows them inside.
James stops at the threshold and nudges Sirius, pointing to a table in the corner.
Sirius laughs wetly. “Oh.”
He walks over, blinking a good few times to check that the grumpy, northern angel sitting before him is not, in fact, an apparition.
He takes a seat beside him.
“Ah good.” Remus puts his arm around him and pulls him close. Sirius buries his nose in the hot skin of Remus’s neck. “This is the third pub I’ve tried and I’ll be honest, I’m feeling a bit tipsy.”
Sirius laughs breathlessly. “Why are you here?”
“I didn’t want you to go without you knowing,” Remus tells him.
“Knowing what?”
“That you’re the nicest thing’s ever walked into that pub.” He strokes the hair out of Sirius’s face and tucks it behind his ear. “Probably the nicest thing I’ve ever seen. And I’m not gonna stop thinking about you after you’re gone. It’s been two days and it’s already quite hard.”
“I’ve been thinking of nothing else,” Sirius admits.
Remus’s mouth twitches into a shy smile that is all kinds of adorable. “I’m stuck up here for a bit because of the pub and my mum, but I was wondering whether you... might want to…” He breathes in slowly, embarrassed. “Get to know me a bit. We could chat on the phone, I suppose, and you could come up on weekends when you can. Mum’s hip will be better soon, and then I can move around the country a bit more and return the fav-”
Sirius puts his hand to Remus’s forearm, heart soaring. “Remus.”
Remus shakes his head and stares at his hands. “No, you’re right. The more words I say, the less appealing this prospect sounds. In my head, it were much more romantic, but now I realise that I’m asking too much; asking you to put all the effort into a relationship that hasn’t even started yet. Which isn’t exactly a turn on.”
“I think technically, it started a few days ago,” Sirius points out. “But I can’t do long distance. I’ve tried it before and it was just completely miserable. London is too far and honestly, I’m much too clingy to make that work.”
Remus purses his lips together and nods. “Right. Yeah, right, that’s-”
“But- I hate my job. Honestly, Remus, it’s fucking miserable. And somewhere along the line, I’ve messed up and turned my miserable job into my whole life. My job and those two over there are the only things keeping me in London and I think I’ve been looking for an excuse to do something quite brave for a while now.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Every time I’ve come round that corner, I've half-hoped you’d be there.”
This time, Remus smiles properly.
“And I made a deal with myself that in the improbably wonderful event that you were there, I wouldn’t go back home.” He looks up at him and for the first time, lets the optimism win out. “What do you think, Remus? Will you be my excuse to stay?”
Remus runs his thumb over Sirius’s palm. “A boy like you don’t belong up here.”
“On the tundra? No, I’m acutely aware. It smells like manure just all the time and you have to drive ten miles just to get to a shop. But I’ve heard very good things about Leeds.”
Remus blinks. “Leeds.”
“Yes, Leeds. Where presumably, there’s employment and patisseries and little shops that sell pot plants.”
“You’re gonna move to Leeds.”
“I wouldn’t be moving there for you,” Sirius tells him sternly. “It’d be for me. But hopefully you’d be there too, yes.”
Remus glances at him with eyes that betray how he feels. “How homophobic do you think this pub is?”
Sirius glances around. “The normal amount of homophobic, I’d say.”
Remus kisses him hard and Sirius keeps smiling, and it’s the toothiest, weirdest kiss on record, but without doubt one of the all time best.
Sirius drags Remus up and they pause at James and Lily’s table.
“I’ll... err, be back. If you could stay away from the cottage for half an hour, that would be great. Drinks on me.”
James raises his glass to that, and Sirius tugs Remus back out into the cold before he can change his mind.
“Of all the shit pubs in all the country,” Remus says playfully as Sirius fumbles with the lock, “you had to walk into mine.”
Sirius grins at him. Because they both know what this is and what it isn't. And for the first time, he lets himself believe that it might be that.