It takes six and a half years at Hogwarts for Remus Lupin to admit that he just might be a little in love with Sirius Black.

It starts with denial, as these things tend to do, and escalates into a staunch refusal to admit it to himself. Of course, once he's consciously acknowledged that there's something to admit, all is as good as lost.

He lets out a frustrated sigh into his pillow and falls asleep pondering the troublesome nature of epiphanies.

Sirius is just so very…well, Sirius is very lots of things. Most of which Remus wholeheartedly disapproves. Sirius and James are the ultimate Gryffindors, but while James got a heart of gold he tries to hide, Sirius is all scarlet. He's quick to anger and quicker to act, has the best of intentions and all the foresight of their senile Divination professor. Sirius is a good person, but he hides it very well.

And he's incredibly, unfairly, enormously attractive. It's ostentatious is what it is. Annoying. Really, couldn't he just put on a shirt? Merlin's hairy—

"Sirius, would you at least put on a shirt if you're going to do that?" he finally says as the other boy slips past half-closed curtains and climbs into his bed—without asking, of course, because Sirius is apparently entitled to any bed he chooses, no matter who currently occupies it.

He does this sometimes when neither of them can sleep. (Remus doesn't sleep well near the full moon. Sirius doesn't sleep much at all these days.) It is nice, Remus admits, to talk to Sirius without James and Peter to distract them, but mostly it just ends with Sirius falling asleep next to him, on top of the covers, an arm slung lazily across Remus' torso, and Remus telling himself he wants him to move.

Sirius looks at him strangely. "It's hot."

Remus sighs, and, somewhere in the world, a hurricane is jealous. "Hot" by Sirius Black's standards could probably include the dead of winter. "It's…you couldn't just be Padfoot? Or sleep in your own bed? That would probably be cooler, you know. I don't know why you're over here anyway."

He almost deludes himself into thinking he saw something flicker across Sirius's face then. It happens too often lately.

"Okay, I'll just…yeah," Sirius says quietly. He slinks back to his own bed, looking every bit the wounded puppy, and turns into just that on his pillow. He changes back for a sleepy, "'Night, Remus."

"Good night, Sirius."

Remus likes girls, particularly the blonde Ravenclaw he sometimes sees stealthily nibbling a sugar quill while she reads in the library, even if he never acts on any feelings he may have from the simple knowledge that any and all romance, for him, is basically doomed. He's content to admire from afar anyway, seeing the trouble James and Sirius (and sometimes even Peter) get into when it comes to their "conquests."

He hasn't really thought about another boy this way before, not consciously, but he…well, he hasn't exactly not thought about it either, he supposes. Perhaps as a werewolf he's unusually tolerant in general, but he's never really understood why it was such a big deal anyway, and as he intends to stay single at present, he's not really concerned.

So it isn't the fact that Sirius is male that bothers him.

No, it's the fact that Sirius is his best friend that keeps him awake at night, guilty and angry at his own mind, because this cannot end well. Even if there were a chance of reciprocation, they couldn't exactly put the friendships between all the Marauders at risk, could they?

…Could they?

No. No, and there's no chance anyway, so stop being…whatever you're being, Remus, he scolds. Just thinking about it feels like a betrayal, yet somehow he's the only one it hurts. He rolls over, buries his face in the pillow, and quickly rolls back as a distinctly canine scent fills his nose and makes everything fuzzy.

He doesn't sleep well. Each dream is less innocent and more terrifying than the last. Remus wakes in a cold sweat and in desperate need of a wank, and Sirius is changing, which really doesn't help with either.

He looks beautiful, all angles and shadow in the dim light from their window. It's surprising, sometimes, that he doesn't radiate his own. Remus wants to touch his fingertips to the skin of his back, which always looks so much softer than Remus expects from Sirius, all muscles and calluses in his robes or his Quidditch uniform. He runs his knuckles over his own hip under the sheets, letting his hand drift of its own accord.

Sirius's hair could almost be mistaken for James's were it not for the length, but that's easily rectified as he runs a hand through it after pulling on his tie. Remus only gulps a little at the thought of running his own hands through it.

"What is it, Remus? Have I got something on backwards?" He's been staring. Shit. Sirius knows. He must know. How could it be more obvious?

"It's nothing," he mutters, and it is. It's not nothing to Remus, not now, and it does, in fact, feel like everything, but he knows these feelings will pass in time. His crushes never last longer than a few months.

Except this one. He argues with himself, knowing, deep down, that he's losing. This isn't like Emmeline Vance in fourth year or, if he's honest and admits it happened, Fabian Prewett in fifth. Once you give in to Sirius Black and his psychotic charm…well, life is never quite the same.

It's six and a half weeks after everything goes wrong before Remus is ready to talk to him, but Sirius "knows he's really royally fucked it all up this time, hasn't he, Moony," says James, and he's avoiding them all. Peter says Sirius is scared, that he probably just doesn't want to lose Remus, and Remus thinks it's more than a little stupid to go about keeping a friend by turning the corner every time they try to say hello.

He's fed up.

Sirius isn't in his bed, and he hasn't taken the cloak or the map. Remus dares to hope that this means following might be okay.

He finds him walking in a strange little corridor he's never seen before. He wonders how many nights Sirius has spent wandering the castle, how many new secrets he's found.

"Sirius," he whispers. Sirius doesn't turn around. So he did want to be followed.

He wants to grab him by the shoulders there and whisper in his ear everything he hasn't said. "Sirius, stop it," he calls instead. His heart gives a jolt as Sirius spins and stares for a moment, eyes narrowed. Without a word, he stalks into a classroom at his right.

He's levitating the rolls of parchment on the teacher's desk when Remus follows him. He doesn't look up. "Everything's just. Remus. Everything's…fuck. Fuck it."

He knows. He sits on a desk in the front of the room and half-laughs. "Yeah. Fuck."

He doesn't notice when Sirius moves, but suddenly he's perched on the desk next to Remus, and Remus hates his heart for pounding as he moves closer.

"I don't know how to fix it," he confesses. "I've just been hiding because I don't know what I can do except apologize, and that's not enough, and—"

He looks up. Remus is suddenly, blushingly conscious of the lazy, affectionate smile he's been wearing, and he swallows and scratches his neck absently while he waits for Sirius to continue.

Sirius just tilts his head a little and stares at him. Studying. Waiting.

Leaning.

Every cell tells him nononodon't, stop, no, bad plan, bad, and Remus gives in.

It's the gentlest press of lips, fingers curled at Sirius's collar, and everything's ruined and it's perfect. Sirius's skin is rough, his touch soft, and his hands fly up to hold Remus still when the boy tries to pull away. Sirius moves, slight and careful, and Remus feels as though his whole brain is buzzing. It's uncomfortable and wonderful, this feeling that all his skin is being tickled from the inside, and he breaks the kiss's steady build to lean his forehead against Sirius's, to breathe, to watch him and wonder.

Sirius's eyes are closed, his expression almost pained, and he swallows hard before he blinks his gaze upward, level with Remus', and Remus doesn't even realize he's speaking until Sirius smiles a little.

"I'm sorry, that was probably weird, really weird, no it was definitely weird, sorry, it's just I've been trying not to…not to want to do that and it isn't working and I think I had a bit of a lapse in judgme—"

Sirius strokes his cheek ohsolightly; waves crash and Remus cuts off and stares.

"You're a bloody moron."

"Oh," Remus answers, because it really seems the perfect response.

Sirius kisses him thoroughly, hands in hair and hems and every curve where a hand is meant to fit, as well as several they're not. "Moony, Moony, Moony," he sighs, sounding absolutely content. Remus hasn't heard him sound like that in ages.

"Er, hi, Pads." He takes in their position, tangled on a too-small desktop. Probably in considerable danger of falling.

(That little voice in his head that sounds like the narrator of a terrible romance novel tells him he's long past falling.)

"We should probably move."

Sirius shakes his head, sending his hair into his eyes and Remus' hand to brush it out of them. Sirius stills it, holds Remus' fingers in his own. "'M comfortable," he mumbles into Remus' wrist. He gives it a quick kiss that's really more of a bite (Remus' breath catches) and then studies Remus' fingernails as he speaks.

"Thought you were mad for that Ravenclaw—"

"Emily."

"Yeah, her. I hadn't thought—"

"Nor had I. Never even…y'know."

"Hoped."

"Yeah. Yeah, that." He kisses Sirius again, making sure he's not a hallucination, making sure he means what Remus thinks he means. Somewhere in between biting Sirius's lip and Sirius fucking groaning, he decides it's probably real.

Frankly, his imagination's just not that good.