Wolfstar Microfic

@wolfstarmicrofic July 13, word count 393

Previous part First part

The blush that spilt out across Remus’s cheeks was almost too much for him. He wanted to lick and kiss the burning colour, but with an immense amount of willpower, Sirius managed to control himself: just. 

“Erm, yes, it was,” Remus managed to choke out, slowly sinking onto the sofa beside Sirius. 

“Read stuff like this often?” Sirius asked, curiosity getting the best of him. Remus’s face blushed an even deeper shade of red, and it took everything Sirius had not to reach over and stroke Remus’s cheek. 

Remus bobbed his head, staring at the wall opposite them. 

“Which ones?” Sirius asked, leaning in. Remus jumped to his feet and walked away. Sirius’s face fell. He’d pushed him too hard. Why couldn’t he keep his fat mouth closed?

“Erm, it’s easier if I just show you,” Remus said quietly, staring at his mismatched socks. Sirius didn’t need a second invitation and followed Remus into his bedroom. 

The first thing he noticed was the neatly made bed and the soothing smell of lavender. 

“Wow, it’s nice in here,” Sirius told Remus before he spotted the bookcases on the wall beside the door. 

He whistled as he took in all the books. “Damn, you’ve got your own smut library,” he said, impressed. 

“It’s not,” Remus blurted out. “What I mean is, it’s not all smut; there’s a bit of everything in there.”

Sirius looked again and saw that Remus was telling the truth. 

“Oooo,” he said, reaching out and grabbing one of the books. “I’ve been wanting to read this. Is it any good?” He turned to Remus and saw the horror on his face. 

“Oops, sorry,” Sirius said, hastily putting the book back from where he’d taken it from. Remus shook his head and relaxed his face. 

@wolfstarmicrofic - 318 words

“Come on, it can't be that bad!” James pointed to the door of the locker-room, trying to be louder than the female fans outside. It was pointless. One particular girls voice pierced through everything, as she shouted how she “wanted a baby” from Sirius.

“I should have stayed a nobody,” Sirius replied glumly. “Family money would have provided.” But at what price? James knew that he had to make it on his own, so they would lose hold over him. Neither of them had anticipated the insane fans.

“I'll... go and check for a way out.” Since he had proposed to Lily publicly, he was off the hook a little, at least for now. Much of a help he was not.

But just then the new manager appeared, the one Sirius had claimed would make things right, if they trusted him. It was about time he showed his skill, in James' opinion. As if he had heard that thought, he looked them both up and down and then asked Sirius: “What do you think about going public?”

James had Sirius never seen stop so hard. “Scared, honestly.” But he had never backed down from a challenge, as long as James knew him, that first fateful day as 5-year old soccer-boys. “But what the fuck.”

The manager, Lupin, smiled, and together they went to the door, opened it, he let Sirius plant the most outrageous kiss right at his cheek, as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Silence spread, and though the fans didn't go away, they were too startled even for that, Sirius could pass through just fine, and James with him.

At the hotel he finally got to ask, glad that he wasn't as shocked as to disappoint his best friend. “So... are you together?”

There is this one bench hidden by the edge of the schoolgrounds. The wood is old and silvered over with age, its surface is scratched and marked with countless initials which have been softened by rain over time.

Luna often passes it on her walks.

It's always empty.

And yet, it never quite looks that way.

The seat has been worn smooth in two places, side by side, as if the wood remembers the people better than people do each other. Sometimes the bench looks lonely. Other times, simply waiting.

She wonders from time to time, who left all those marks behind. But never enough to ask, some questions seem happier unanswered.

Curfew has long since passed, but the castle was too restless and so Luna wanders the grounds, covered by the pale light of the waxing crescent moon.

Nearing the bench, she slows down.

Professor Lupin is sitting there.

He doesn't notice her, his eyes not fixed on the forest itself but rather a narrow path crawling its way out of a small gap between the dark trees. He sits there waiting in a way that makes him look like part of the landscape.

Luna considers turning back, but before she can something moves by the treeline.

A large black dog. It steps out of the shadows and makes its way across the grass. It's stride confident, no hesitation. It moves as if returning to the place it belongs, and professor Lupin smiles.

It is small, but changes his whole face.

The dog settles by the professor's side. Its head resting on his knee.

Neither of them speak.

They don't seem to need to.

They just sit there – together – looking out across the lake as the water reflects the occasional moonlight.

Luna watches them long enough to know she has wandered into something private. Not necessarily secret, just private.

@wolfstarmicrofic July 12, word count 339

Previous part First part

Sirius was glad that they’d seemed to work things out. He couldn’t wait to get Remus back in the gym and put his training plan into motion. He looked around the living area of the flat again. It really was a nice place. He’d seen another one in this particular block, and it looked exactly how Remus had described this one having been. It was amazing what a lick of paint and a new carpet could do. 

The kettle started making bubbling noises, and Sirius realised there were no coasters on the table and, judging by the shiny, non-ring-marked surface, Remus used them. His eyes found the little wooden knobs sticking out from the side of the table and realised that the table had drawers. The kettle had clicked off, and the sound of hot water hitting a teabag filled the quiet room. Quickly, so that he was ready for when Remus came over, he opened the nearest drawer and found nothing but a book. A book he was rather familiar with. He picked it up and flicked to the worn leather bookmark two-thirds of the way through and started reading. 

“Here we go. I’ve got some biscuits as well, but I couldn’t carry them. Oh, damn, forgot the coasters. Do you think…” Remus froze. His eyes bugged out of his head as he saw what Sirius had found. 

“Sorry, I was trying to find the coasters,” he said, the book still in his hands. 

“Other drawer,” Remus said hoarsely. 

Sirius dutifully leaned over and pulled the other drawer open, its weight far heavier than the one that had contained the book and took out two coasters and a larger one for the plate of biscuits Remus hurried off to get. Sirius took pity on him and put the book away after carefully replacing the bookmark first, and closed the drawer. 

Remus sat beside him and didn’t say a word, his face still flushed with embarrassment. 

@wolfstarmicrofic - 268 words

“We train and train, and we never see action.” The words still clung to Remus' mind, the impatient way Sirius had said them, the harsh tilt of his lips, angry, furious even. Back then it seemed that it wasn't about winning the war or saving people, but his personal path to glory. It had worried Remus. For Sirius and for himself – for what did it say about him, if he clung to such a man.

Now, that Sirius came home, head low, dirt and blood clinging to him, dead on his feet and nearly dead from whatever the Death Eaters had thrown at him, he didn't look all that eager.

“You should stop.” Remus wanted that, didn't want him to go out again.

“And if I did? Who would go then? Who would save James and Frank and Gid, when they get into trouble? Who?” Sirius looked up and the fire in his eyes was different from once, just as fiery, yes, but sharper, warmer.

“What about me?” Remus felt ashamed for asking it, Sirius was right. Someone had to.

“I do it for you too.” Sirius sighed, rose if with difficulties, and stopped just short of an embrace, mostly because he reeked. “A world where Greyback rules the wolves is no world for you.”

More shame piled, enough to make Remus forget about all the dirt. He closed the distance. “I know. I just wish...”

The fever comes on fast, the way it always does after a bad one.

Remus knows it’s bad before he’s fully himself again, knows it the way he knows everything in those first grey hours, dimly and from a distance, through a body that feels borrowed and poorly fitted. He’s hot. He’s so hot he’s cold with it, shivering uncontrollably, and Sirius is there, has always been there, crouched beside him on the bathroom floor, saying his name in a low, even voice.

“Moons. Hey. Look at me.”

Remus looks at him; it takes a moment to make his eyes cooperate.

“There you are,” Sirius says, and something in his face does a complicated thing. “We need to get your temperature down, love. Okay?”

🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊🧊

He really doesn’t want to get in.

He says so, several times, with great conviction and very little coherence. The water is already running and he can hear it and he’s so cold, he tells Sirius so; he’s absolutely freezing, which he knows is the fever talking but knowing doesn’t help, and his muscles are screaming in that extremely specific way they do after a transformation, the kind of ache that lives in the bone rather than the flesh, and the last thing he wants is—

“I know,” Sirius says. “I know. Come on.”

He helps Remus up, and Remus leans on him more than he means to.

As soon as the cold of the icy water hits, Remus makes a sound he’d be embarrassed about if he had the capacity for embarrassment right now, and tries to get out, and Sirius holds him gently and says I know, I know, just a minute, just stay—and then takes his clothes off and swings his legs over the side and gets in too, and settles behind Remus so his back is against Sirius’s chest, Sirius’s arms coming around him, and Remus goes still.

“There,” Sirius says, quietly.

The water is awful. Remus is shaking. Sirius presses his lips to the top of his head and keeps them there for a long moment, and Remus closes his eyes.

It helps, is the thing. It always helps, having Sirius’s arms around him—it has helped for longer than either of them was willing to admit, back when they were still pretending they were just friends. Now Sirius rubs slow circles into his arm and says nothing, and the shaking starts to ease, increment by increment, almost imperceptibly.

“You’re going to be alright,” Sirius tells the top of his head.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“I am.”

“But you didn’t have to, just because of me...”

“Remus.”

“You’ll catch a cold.”

“I genuinely couldn’t care less about catching a cold right now.” A pause. Another kiss, pressed carefully to his hair. “Just let me have this.”

Remus doesn’t know how long they stay like that.

Long enough that the worst of it starts to lift; the delirium thinning out, the edges of things coming back into focus. Sirius’s heartbeat is steady against his back. The water is still cold, but he’s stopped fighting it, gone heavy and loose in Sirius’s arms, and Sirius keeps kissing his hair, his temple, the side of his head, soft and unhurried, like he has nowhere else to be and nothing else to do.

He probably does. He always does, after a full moon—there are things to clean up, things to sort out, he must be exhausted. He always is. He never says so.

“Sirius,” Remus says.

“Mm.”

“You really don’t have to stay in here with me.”

Sirius’s arms tighten, fractionally. “I know.”

Remus looks down at the water. “I hate when it’s bad.”

“I know,” Sirius says, and his voice is steady, and Remus has learned, over time, to hear what lives underneath the steadiness: the thing Sirius tucks away so Remus doesn’t have to carry that too. “I know you do.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be silly. Don’t do that.”

Remus is quiet for a moment.

“I love you,” he says. It comes out plainly, the way true things do when you’re too tired to arrange them into anything more.

Sirius is quiet for a beat, then he presses his mouth to Remus’s hair again and holds it there for a long moment.

“I love you,” he says, into the crown of his head. “So much. You have no idea.”

The water is cold. Sirius is warm at his back.

“D’you remember when we were kids? That promise that we made?”

Sirius’s voice, gravelly but clear in Remus’s shabby sitting room, still sounds like a fucking miracle. Twelve years of anguish, over. Twelve years of grief, dulled just slightly. Twelve years of separation…now what?

He looks at Sirius, the man who still shows echoes of the boy who was his best friend, and offers a tired smile. “We made a lot of promises,” Remus says lightly, trying not to cry. “Which one are you talking about?”

Sirius chuckles, looking even more handsome now that he’s showered and cut his hair a bit and eaten and slept. “When we turned seventeen. Remember? We’d said, if we got to thirty and were both single, we’d…”

Yes, Remus remembers. Remembers the day they’d both admitted they liked men, joked about the fact that Hogwarts had nobody gay, attractive, and decently nice. The day they’d made a pact to marry at thirty if they were both still pathetically single.

They’re well over thirty now.

“Yeah,” he mumbles, avoiding eye contact. “I remember.” Because the truth is, that promise’d held a lot more weight for him. He’d been hopelessly gone for Sirius for years, even then, and time hadn’t helped. Not even with the confusion of the last twelve years.

But now…

“I don’t hold you to it,” Remus continues lightly, letting out a little laugh that sounds horribly dull. “Extenuating circumstances and all.”

Sirius seems more at-ease, sitting back into the cushions and chuckling. “I figured. But…ah. I should’ve…”

And now Remus is confused. “Should’ve?” he repeats, eyes glued to his best friend, heart hammering. 

Sheepishly, the other man shrugs, smiling in a way that would be described as ‘shy’ for anyone else, but just looks pretty on him. “Should’ve asked you then, I guess. Before life went to shit. I was a coward then, I think. Now, I just have a lot of regrets.”

Remus wants to shake him. To scream. To beg for more details. But instead, eyes wide and blood racing through his veins, he mumbles through numb lips. “What about now?”

“Now?”

“Now. Would you…now? Ask me out?” he replies incoherently, because he feels like he’s dreaming.

Sirius breaks into a smile. “To Hogsmeade? Probably not the best idea, Moons.” But he’s blushing, and Remus recognizes the deflection.

So he decides to be brave for once in his damn life. To have one moment in his history with Sirius that isn’t a huge, heart-wrenching regret. “Marry me,” he whispers, grabbing the other man’s tattooed hand.

“What?” Sirius looks utterly dumbfounded. “Moons, did you hit your head, or someth–”

“We’re past thirty. We–Sirius, I’ve loved you since I was fourteen. We have so many fucking regrets. Let’s not have another,” Remus murmurs fiercely, squeezing his hand, more sure of this than he’s ever been of anything in his entire life.

Remus tries not to fidget too hard, not with Lily right next to him shooting concerned looks, but he keeps his head turned attentively to the head boy, though his mind is far away, longing to be with with his friends and boyfriend.

Finally, the meeting ends and he's free.

Remus does not run, though one might say it's close, and when he reaches their usual compartment, he manages to not quite throw open the door.

His vision snaps right to dark hair, pale skin, and his breath catches in his throat.

They never hear from Sirius over summer, not when he's locked up in his home; normally, Remus dreads to see his pale skin, shallow cheeks, and the way his robes hang on his slim form.

This year though— Sirius nearly glows; still pale, still a bit haunted around the eyes, but where his robes would hang a soft belly now fills them out. When he sits back from where he'd been leaning over Peter's chess table, Remus gets a look at fleshed out, lovely thighs in his uniform slacks too.

Remus' goes hot all over, staring and speechless. When he finally meets Sirius' gaze there's a steel in his eyes and a tension in his smile.

"Why're you leaving the door open, Moons?" James asks, jerking his head with a broad grin. Remus gives himself a shake, stumbling in and taking a seat. His thigh brushes Sirius', and the contact shoots heat through him. Merlin, Jesus Christ, and Morgana, how is he supposed to survive this year?

"Sirius," Remus breathes, incapable of looking away, cataloguing the face he missed so much. "You look…"

Sirius flushes, a flash of shame flitting over his face. He looks down, nervously digging his fingers into his lower belly, where it settles nicely in a sloping curve. "I know," Sirius murmurs, hushed. "Drove mum mad. Well, madder. Should've thought about doing it years ago."

"You…gained weight on purpose?" Remus asks, pulling Sirius' hand away and twining their fingers together.

"Kinda. No. A little?" Sirius shrugs, with a self-deprecating laugh. "Not at first, but apparently if your meals are inconsistent your body gets confused and hoards it or something."

Remus nods, a distant sort of thing, unable to look away. Nervously, Sirius meets his gaze, then looks back down with a rueful sort of grin. "Then it was easy enough to do, all I had to do was be proper at the table and no one noticed how much I ate. Best summer ever; she told me to stay out of her sight so I hardly saw her."

Remus can't help himself, he gets a hand on Sirius' thigh and gives it a squeeze, marveling at how warm and soft it feels. "God, Padfoot. You're radiant."

Sirius perks up, a broad smile splitting his face. His eyes sparkle as he leans against Remus, shooting glances at his mouth. "Yeah? Bit of a chubby chaser, are you, Moons?"

Remus' cheeks heat up, but he can't help it: he surges forward and seals their lips together, cutting off Sirius' laugh. They settle, Sirius with an arm tossed around Remus' shoulders, and at the welcome feast Sirius is steady, all manners and personality as he packs away a triple serving so deftly that Remus only knows because he was watching.

@wolfstarmicrofic July 11, word count 523

Previous part First part

Sirius was even more beautiful than he remembered, and he immediately felt his cheeks flushing. 

“I need to make an apology,” Sirius said, standing awkwardly in the doorway. “I knew I’d done something to upset you, but I couldn’t figure out what. Lily was the one who pointed out that I’d been a total idiot. I treated you differently as soon as I found out you’d been ill. I’m sorry, and I swear I won’t do it again. Just please come back to the gym. I really enjoyed training you that first time. I’ve come up with a whole training plan that, judging by how well you were doing, should help strengthen your body and get those muscles you’ve always wanted.” Sirius waved a folder in Remus’s face, and then his face changed. “Please come back,” he pleaded. Remus nearly hugged him; he looked so upset. 

“I only didn’t come back because my anxiety took over, and I physically couldn’t.”

Sirius’s eyes turned kind and understanding. 

“Yeah, anxiety gets the best of us,” Sirius said, as though he were well acquainted with the feeling. 

“Would you like a cup of tea?” Remus asked and was rewarded with the sweetest smile from Sirius. 

“Yeah, I’d like that.” 

Remus stood aside and let him enter his flat. 

“Wow, it’s really nice in here,” Sirius said, looking around the living area. 

“You should have seen it when I moved in. I had to basically force the landlord to replace the carpets, and even then, it was only when I threatened to report him. They were filthy, infested with fleas and had weird damp patches that wouldn’t dry. The rest of the flat wasn’t too bad, but I got him to hire proper cleaners to scrub the years of gunge off the kitchen and whatever was in the bathroom.” Remus clamped his mouth shut; he was sharing too much again. “Sorry, you didn’t need to know all that.”

“No, I was totally invested,” Sirius assured him. “How long have you been here?”

“About six years, and the amount I’ve paid in regular rent has more than paid for him making the flat habitable.”

“I’m glad. My first flat wasn’t much better. There was this weird pole in the middle of the bedroom door. It was really thick and made it impossible to get anything into the room. I had to pass my bed through the gap piece by piece. Turned out they’d turned a one-bed into a three-bed, and it was a support pole that ran through the entire building. It would have been fine if they’d put the door literally anywhere else. We didn’t stay there long. James’s mum came over and went ballistic. She berated our landlord until he let us out of our contract and gave us our deposit and first month’s rent back. He wasn’t happy, but he did it.”

Remus was glad that it wasn’t just him who’d had a bad time with landlords. 

“Sit down, and I’ll make us some tea,” Remus told Sirius and walked into the kitchen area to fill the kettle while Sirius sank onto his squashy sofa. 

@wolfstarmicrofic - 210 words

Sirius looks sadly at the mirror, his body emaciated by grief and darkness, starvation and self-hatred. “I used to workout, you know?” He sighs. “In the beginning, when food was still regular, and I didn't try to escape.” He frowns at the sallow skin where muscle used to be. “I don't get how you can still look at me.”

Remus smiles and gives a wolf-whistle. “I don't know what you see, but all I see is opportunity.” He has grown comfortable with himself and his needs, ever since he got Sirius back. There is no better boost for confidence than a man who still loves you despite your misdoings and faults. “I know a workout we can start right away. And it works just fine.”

@wolfstarmicrofic July 10, word count 286

Previous part First part

Remus was tired after a long day of work. His eyes itched from staring at a computer screen far longer than he should have, but he wanted to rack up a few extra hours so he could fill his quota for the week and maybe get a three-day weekend. He was just contemplating a hot bath and a cheeky takeaway from his favourite Persian restaurant when the doorbell rang for his flat. He frowned at the receiver. He wasn’t expecting anyone. Tentatively, he pressed the intercom, waited for the crackle to subside, then said, “Hello?”

“Erm, hi, is that Remus?” The visitor answered, their voice tinny through the cheap speaker. Remus wasn’t even sure of the person’s gender; the speaker distorted it so much. 

“Might be. Who’s asking?”

“It’s Sirius, from the gym. Er, Lily came in today.”

Remus pressed the other buzzer, opening the door and letting him in. If he’d had to deal with an irate Lily, the least he deserved was to come up. 

It’s a thing Sirius does, apparently.

Has always done, presumably, though Remus only has data from the eight months they’ve shared the flat. He showers and then he just…exists, afterwards, drifting through the kitchen or the hallway or the sitting room with a towel around his hips and his hair dripping onto his shoulders, looking for his phone or the remote or something to eat or drink, completely unbothered. Like it doesn’t occur to him that this might be difficult for anyone.

Remus has gotten very good at looking at other things.

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

There’s a Tuesday where Sirius leans across him to reach the coffee, and Remus stares at the wall behind the kettle and tries to think of awful things for as long as it takes Sirius to find a mug and leave. He can’t very well risk getting a stiffy near his best friend!

Then there’s a Thursday where Remus is halfway through a chapter of a book, and Sirius wanders in to ask something about the gas bill, and Remus answers without looking up, which he’s proud of, and then ruins it by glancing over the moment Sirius turns to go.

Sirius catches him that time. He doesn’t say anything, just smirks, and goes back to his room.

Remus reads the same paragraph until the letters blur together, forming something completely unreadable.

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

It becomes a sort of game, though Remus would never call it that. He gets better at the looking-away. Sirius, he suspects, gets better at engineering reasons to be in whatever room Remus is in after he’s had a shower. It’s hard to prove, but Remus suspects Sirius might be doing it on purpose. He’s not going to bring it up, though. So he makes his tea and keeps his eyes on the mugs, keeps his eyes on his book, keeps his eyes on the middle distance while Sirius stands in the hallway going through the post, water still tracking down his spine, taking up more space than one person strictly needs to. Not just physically, but in Remus’s mind, too.

It’s fine.

It’s completely fine.

🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧🫧

It’s a Sunday evening when it stops being fine.

Sirius has been to the gym. He showers; he emerges. He drops onto the other end of the sofa with the towel still on and picks up the remote, scrolling through channels with total serenity while Remus sits very still beside him and looks at his book. The words are shapes; the shapes mean nothing. There’s a drop of water moving down the side of Sirius’s neck, and Remus watches it without noticing, and then Sirius turns his head and catches him, and this time Remus doesn’t look away fast enough, and the smile starts at the corner of Sirius’s mouth—

Remus puts the book down.

He stands up, crosses the small, stupid distance between them, takes Sirius’s face in both hands, and kisses him. Sirius goes still for one second—and after one long, suspended second, makes a sound low in his throat and kisses back, his hands coming up to grip Remus’s shirt, pulling him closer down with a desperation. His mouth is warm, and his lips are soft, and he kisses the way he does everything, completely committed to the bit, like there’s nothing else in the world worth doing.

When they pull apart, Sirius is staring up at him with wide eyes. The infuriating smirk is finally gone, replaced with something much more meaningful.

Remus holds his gaze.

@wolfstarmicrofic - 450 words

Harry never thought this would be the first time his investigation skills would be truly challenged... after he quit the job for the Auror Department of the Ministry, because they started slandering certain people. He could. Even with the bang he made, when he very publically refused to become Head of the Aurors because of... disagreements, no one could touch him. His name is still in too many minds, his pockets too deep, to get rid of him.

It left him without a job, but with enough time to take a deep dive into the rabbit hole and uncover more, all of it, preferably. He wasn't prepared for some revelations. That his mum was so close to Alice Longbottom that if circumstances had been different, he and Neville would have grown up like brothers. That his dad didn't have girls before Lily, but not exactly no one. That Alastor Moody could smile.

But one thing, in hindsight didn't surprise him at all – that Sirius, his beloved godfather and Remus J. Lupin, best DADA teacher in a long row of bad ones, had been deeply, thoroughly in love. The first photo of them kissing didn't fill him with surprise, but a deep, clear satisfaction, as if he had known it all the time, only refused to acknowledge it.

He... ditched the more explicit pictures he found, but collected and curated the rest, the photos, the stories, the things only he knew and the things only those who trusted him could tell, into a book. He couldn't print it in Wixen facilities, which turned it into the first Muggle book that first silently, then with power infiltrated Wixen society – belying all the propaganda the Ministry sprouted these days to blame heroes gone by and unable to defend themselves for governmental shortcomings.

Harry didn't claim authorship. Those whose stories he told knew of course. But the rest? He didn't want his story to overshadow these others. He wanted them to stand for themselves. Sirius who sacrificed everything, Remus who, after he died, was so desperate for connection that he went into a lavender marriage. Alice and Frank who were stuck in a darkness that never really ended... Mum and Dad.

Many didn't like his book. Some, because they believed the Ministry. Many more, because these weren't saints, he showed. These were human beings, with flaws, making mistakes, being desperate, unhappy or angry sometimes. Many read it anyway.

The nearly-stifling heat of summer drifted around them, cooled by the night. Remus and Sirius sat atop a grassy hill, smiles decorating their faces and sweat beading along their hairlines.

Sirius leaned back into the ground, resting on his elbows and looking up into the starry sky. Remus copied him so they were side-by-side once more. They spent a few moments in silence, pondering the vast expanse of space before them.

Sirius broke the silence first. “Do you ever think, Moony,” he nearly whispered. “Maybe there’s something connecting you and I? An invisible string, perhaps, or a sort of… gravity pulling us together?”

“Why do you ask?” Remus tilted his head inquisitively.

“I can’t think of any universe in which I don’t have you.”

Remus sat up, reaching for Sirius, leaning in for a feather-soft press of lips. 

@wolfstarmicrofic July 9, word count 317

Previous part First part

It had been two weeks since Remus had joined their gym. Sirius had taken on extra shifts in the hope of being there when he came in again, but he never did. He’d done something to upset him, but whatever it was had to have been after he’d come out of the changing rooms after they’d worked out together. He’d spent days trying to figure it out; his hair had been ripped out over this puzzle, but finally Lily Evans figured it out for him. 

“Idiot!” She snapped, whacking him around the back of the head when he saw her next. “You lot are utter morons. I’m looking at you, Peter Pettigrew!”

“Hey, I never even spoke to the guy!” James protested. Lily narrowed her eyes at him. 

“Stupid by association.”

James tilted his head while he thought over her words, but finally shrugged and nodded in agreement. Sap would agree with anything Lily said. “Do you have any idea how long Remus has been treated like a medical file?” 

Sirius shook his head. 

“Years! Nearly his entire life. He was passed around doctors and hospitals, given a different diagnosis each time, but never the right one. He’s only just now starting to get a life, and you start treating him like a list of medical words that I’ve never been able to pronounce. Do better. Go and apologise to him. I can drag him down here, but it won’t mean the same as if you go to him.” She flicked her long, red plait over her shoulder and headed for the pool. “I need to wash the stupid off me,” she grumbled, and Sirius had never been more terrified of her than at that moment. 

“Isn’t she amazing?” James sighed dreamily, but Sirius ignored it. She’d been right. He needed to go apologise. 

Sirius nearly dropped his curling iron as Remus wrapped his arms around him from behind and let out a very loud sigh. 

“Blimey, Moony, you scared me. What’s wrong?” He set the curling iron on the countertop and looked up in the mirror, gazing at Remus through its surface. 

“My physical therapist wants me to try this new workout routine,” Remus set his chin on Sirius’s head and pouted, “but I really don’t feel like it today.”

Sirius snorted at that and leaned into Remus’s chest. “Sandra is being strict on you again, aye?”

“Aye.” Remus nodded.

“Well, is she wanting you to do specific exercises or just work out more regularly?” Sirius bit the corner of his lip, tapping his foot.

“A little bit of both.” Remus shrugged.

“Hmm,” Sirius rubbed his chin, “well, why don’t we find some exercises you do like? It’s just about keeping your heart rate up, right?”

“Right.” Remus hugged him a little tighter.

Sirius kept rubbing his chin as he brainstormed. Then he paused, a smirk spreading across his lips. 

“I can think of one exercise you really enjoy.” Sirius winked, his smirk shifting into a cheeky smile.

“Oh,” Remus paused for a moment, then his cheeks turned bright red. “Sirius!”

“What?” he shrugged. “Am I wrong?”

Remus swatted Sirius’s arm before pulling away. Sirius then watched as he threw on some workout clothes. “Alright, I’m taking a walk. You’re absolutely no help.” 

“Oh come on, Remus.” He protested, but Remus was already out the door.