you know how it goes
I AM SORRY TO KILL YOUR OTP, KATIE.
Sirius Black wanted to know what was so great about Lily Evans.
James never stopped talking about her. Oh, Evans did this today and how can she be friends with that prick Snape and why didn’t she go out with me and wow, she has really pretty eyes and Sirius didn’t care. He was tired of hearing about Lily Evans when he couldn’t even see what was so great about her.
Freckles were very distracting, he decided, and red hair always looked silly. Besides, she was still one of the flattest girls in the school. It wasn’t only that though.
It was one thing to have one best mate in love with a girl, but quite another to have two. Sirius knew how Remus would watch the back of her head in class or try to start a conversation with her about the moons of Saturn or something equally as boring. At least he didn’t talk about her all the time and had the decency to keep it a little hidden. James didn’t even suspect that he might. And that was probably a good thing. The only thing worse than having two best friends fancy the same girl would be two best friends fighting over the same girl.
“Hey, Sirius!”
“What?” he asked, looking over at his best friend.
James smiled. “Asked Evans out again.”
“Oh, yeah? How’d it go?”
James turned to show a faint bruise starting to form on his cheek. “Girl’s got a punch, mate.” He was still smiling, though.
That was when Remus decided to enter the room, obviously unaware that James was there. “Sirius, I was talking to Lily today and-.” He noticed James and stopped himself. “She says that she’s sorry about the hit, mate.”
James looked in the mirror. “Aw, well. Makes me look tough, doesn’t it?”
“Of course it does,” Remus answered, always there to support James in whatever he was doing.
What was so great about Lily Evans anyway?
--
“Moony!”
Remus groaned and rolled over, burying his head under his pillow on the small bed in the hospital wing. That voice meant that Sirius had decided that he had enough time to recover and could leave the wing now, so he had gone to fetch him.
“Moony, my dear Moony, Moony, Moony,” Sirius said in a sing-song voice as he sat next to the bed.
“Yes?” Remus answered, his voice muffled by the pillow.
Sirius didn’t seem to notice his less-than-enthused tone and continued in his happy voice. “You have had the whole weekend with your chocolate and books and not bothering with us and now it’s time to go, go, go!”
Remus just groaned in response.
Sirius tugged on his arm. “C’mon, Moon!”
Remus made no move.
“Please?”
Since when did Sirius Black say please? Besides, Remus was sure that he had a pile of homework waiting for him back at his dorm and he had to get to it. He sighed, sitting up and throwing the covers aside. Madame Pomfrey had already given him the all right to leave for the time being, so he gathered his things into his bag and started to walk out the door, not waiting for Sirius.
Sirius looked up, noticing that his friend had left and stood, running after him. He caught up without much effort and fell into step with his friend.
Somewhere along the way, a cool hand slipped into Sirius’. He didn’t pull away.
--
Sirius Black had his first kiss when he was eight.
His mother had invited one of her friends over. This friend had a daughter about the same age as Regulus, so the adults let the children go off on their own together with the promise that they wouldn’t leave the yard. Somehow, Sirius had talked her into letting him kiss her and he did. She made a funny facial expression and claimed that she liked Regulus better. He kept to himself and didn’t bother her, so she sat next to him for the rest of the day, or at least until her mother picked her up to take her back home.
Remus Lupin didn’t have his until he was thirteen with Lily Evans.
He remembers that she tasted like butterbeer and reminded him of strawberries. She smiled at him and shrugged when she kissed him, knowing it didn’t mean anything. Remus still thinks of Lily when he smells strawberries, and he is enough like his favorite novels that a first kiss means something. They don’t talk about it, though, and Lily locks the secret away for the two of them to know.
Sirius and Remus can both agree, though, that their first kiss was much, much different than the teasing peck of an eight-year-old heir-to-be or a giggly, butterbeer-influenced Lily Evans.
--
He hears music, familiar music, swell in the background but can’t place it. He shrugs, wondering what familiar-but-not-placeable music is doing in his dream when he feels a sharp pain go through his stomach. He looks down and realizes that never in his life has he ever worn something quite like that, and, Godric, corsets hurt. Remus is very sure, though, that he has never had the urge to or actually worn a hoop skirt. Though he is slightly confused by the skirt, a deep voice catches his attention and makes him look up.
He doesn’t know how he knows, but he does know that the man before him is Sirius, though Sirius would never wear such a nice, expensive looking suit by choice.
“My dear,” Sirius started, “you like me, don’t you?”
Remus thought it was a stupid question. Weren’t they best mates or something like that? But that wasn’t what he said at all. “Of course, when you aren’t being a varmint,” he heard a voice higher than his usual one speaking and he could have sworn it came from him. How did that happen?
Sirius - Rhett, his mind corrected, laughed, a deep, rumbling sound in his throat. Sirius didn’t normally laugh like that. He was sure of that. Sirius usually threw his head back and almost roared, barked, whenever he found anything even slightly humorous. “I think you like me because I’m a varmint.”
Remus shakes his head, not really sure of what he’s doing or saying anymore. “I like nice men.” If that didn’t make him feel like a complete poof, he didn’t know what would.
Sirius shrugged, grinning over at him. “I could be nice.”
Remus woke with a start, racing to his bathroom, slamming the door behind him, and hoping that there was enough hot water to erase all thoughts of having anymore moments that Scarlett and Rhett might have shared with Sirius, even in his subconscious.
--
See, things aren’t supposed to be like this. Because they’re best mates. No, not best best mates like Sirius and James are, but they’re still best mates. They don’t finish each other’s sentences, but it’s because they’re rarely thinking about the same thing without trying to. They still should be able to sling arms over shoulders and eat off each other’s plates and sit around in their boxers because they’re too lazy to get dressed without it meaning a thing. They are best mates, after all, and that is what best mates do.
But it is different and it isn’t the same and it is not not not what best mates are supposed to do.
Sirius kisses James on the cheek all the time to tease him and they’re always talking about their marriage and the children and how their hearts would be broken if they divorced. James knows that it doesn’t mean a think in the whole picture. James has a bloody girlfriend, after all, and Remus is quite sure that he is not thinking about Sirius and the children when he spends the night with Lily and comes back to the dorm in the morning with a silly grin on his face and hair in even worse shape than usual.
But this isn’t about James and what he does with Lily when Remus isn’t around to tell him to be a gentleman. It is about how it should not mean anything, but it does, and they are best mates, but it doesn’t feel like that sometimes. Sometimes, in this case, means most of the time.
Remus almost asked James what it was like when he was around his favorite redhead, but then he realized that it would be admitting defeat and he can’t do that. No, he will not be defeated because there is nothing to be defeated about. Sirius is just a charming sort of fellow and Remus has spent too much time around him. That’s all. It’s nothing to admit. No. Nothing, nothing at all. Nothing nothing nothing.
“Hey, Moony Moonikins,” a familiar voice greets him, a strong arm resting on his shoulders, and his heart ramming very, very hard against his chest. It doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t mean anything.
Remus tries to make it look natural like Sirius does all the time when he puts his head on his friend’s shoulder, and he is sure he is failing hopelessly. He always fails hopelessly at trying to make things look natural. Sirius is good at that, making everything from kissing James’ cheek to dancing around the Great Hall on the table look normal and natural.
“You know, Moonikins, you are looking a lovely shade of pink.”
Remus turns, if anything, even pinker. No, no, no. It doesn’t mean anything, anything, anything. No. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, at all. He just blushes easily because his mother didn’t let him grow up like a normal little boy and learn not to blush when Sirius Black talks to him.
“Or, just lovely,” Sirius continues, in normal Sirius-banter. This is nothing new. That is why it should mean nothing, nothing, nothing and he should not care and this does not matter. Nothing, nothing, nothing!
That is why leaning like this toward him means nothing, nothing, nothing and Sirius knows that. Padfoot knows that it means nothing, nothing, nothing when Remus takes a deep breath and leans toward him. They both know that it means nothing, nothing, nothing when Remus is actually kissing him and they both know that it’s stupid to think it means nothing, nothing, nothing.