l'osservatore della bellezza | wolfstar

and seem to lose with the break of sleep

It was colder than Sirius expected.

He shivered, eyes still shut, a thin breeze crawling through the ajar window and over his bare skin.

A faint panic clutched him at the sudden loneliness. "R-Remus?"

"Yeah?"

Opening his eyes, Sirius saw that Remus was sat in the bed, book in hand. The panic passed somewhat and he reached out a hand, feeling weirdly timid.

"Are you alright?" Remus asked, eyes worried.

"I... yes. I just thought you'd gone."

Remus put aside his book and took his hand, fingers twining between fingers. "Sorry, I'm here. I've been awake for a while."

"That's alright, sorry, just... a bad dream, you know?"

A light smile. "I do know."

They stayed like that for a while, bathing in the spun-silver light of late autumn mornings. Sounds of life moved below them, loud and yet muffled, unable to push into the room and disturb the quiet.

Remus let his eyes drift to Sirius, worry curling slowly in his stomach. Worry that Sirius would take what he was obliged to say next badly, and that he'd be hurt or would leave.

The thing about Remus was that he tended to pretend his past didn't exist. He would not talk of it to anyone, and muses were generally left in the dark as to why Remus was so keen not to love or be loved.

Not that any of those muses seemed to care enough to ask. They were more focused on sex, and instead would blame Remus if they happened to fall in love, even if Remus tried to make it as clear as possible to them he felt no such feelings.

Each angry word that he'd been made to listen to had only made him ever more eager to stay away from the concept of loving. He knew he would only feel more guilty if he felt the same way they did.

But it was different with Sirius. Because Sirius was honest, Sirius was kind, and Sirius was too emotional to not fall in love with someone who would not dare to love anyone.

"Remus?"

He blinked. "Yes?"

"Why... what are you thinking about?"

There was a long moment of quiet. Remus ran his fingers over Sirius' knuckles, brow furrowed, words jumbled in his mouth.

"Re...?"

"Sorry. It's... difficult to figure out how to phrase this."

"Phrase what?"

Remus smiled again, then lay down beside him, so that they were facing each other instead of frantically letting their eyes wander wherever else they could.

"Whenever I've had... relations with a man before, I have tried to keep it purely... physical."

Sirius squinted. "Possibly not the best way to start this."

A huff of laughter. "No, perhaps not." Remus turned to lie on his back, staring at the ceiling. "But even though that has only ever been my goal, I have always found that the other man would misunderstand that."

"Misunderstand... that you didn't love them?"

"Yes. And usually I don't explain to them that I simply do not love, and instead hope they will figure that out on their own."

"Which they don't."

"Which they don't," Remus agreed. "And it hurts to see them hurt because of it."

"Having your heart broken isn't the best feeling, as far as I've heard."

"Never had your heart broken?"

"Never fallen in love, not like that at least."

"I see."

Sirius let out a breath, then shifted so his head rested on Remus' shoulder. Remus wrapped his arm around the small man, breathing in the smell of his hair.

"Having your heart broken is like... you've forgotten how to breathe. It's as though the one person who kept you standing pulled the rug from under your feet, and you lie there in the dust of what you used to have and wonder why you ever bothered to love at all."

"God..."

"Yes, it isn't exactly pleasant." Remus stroked Sirius' arm, huddling closer against the cold. "And in a way, every time I break a heart, I break mine, too. It seems that I ruin everything I touch."

"But you create, Remus. You create the most beautiful of things."

"I create destruction. And this is my warning to you, to not fall in love with me."

"A warning?"

"Beautiful souls should not pass through these hands. You do not deserve the pain I could and will give you, should you love me."

Sirius turned his face up, catching Remus' gaze with his own. "Re..."

He kissed the side of Sirius' forehead, the weight of his heart heavy in his chest. "It needed to be said. I cannot love. And you cannot love me, either."

They watched each other, cold, close, yet with a chasm between them.

Sirius swallowed. He did not love Remus. He was infatuated, but love seemed far out of reach. And if any love was not to be returned, then what was the point in loving?

"I won't."

"You won't...?"

"I won't fall in love with you. I don't think I should do that to either of us."

The calmness of Remus' face seemed to falter briefly, a rush of some secret emotion running through his eyes and in the shiver of his mouth.

And then he joined their mouths in the sweetest of kisses, one devoid of heat and filled with the tenderness that Sirius had seen earlier that morning in those waking amber eyes.

Knuckles brushed against Sirius' jaw, soft and safe, lips merely pressed against his own without movement or fire.

They pulled apart, cold air between them again, yet mildly warmer all the same.

It was strange for them both, lying there and simply talking, passing words like precious gifts in the numbness of a lost day.

"Are we still going to fuck?"

Remus snorted in surprise. "You absolute shit of a man."

Sirius grinned, face pink. "It needed to be said, too. I don't think I'd manage without that."

"Oh, you wouldn't?"

"Never."

Remus leaned in again, pressing his own grin into Sirius' forehead, then moving to his mouth once more to bruise his lips as punishment. "You're a terrible human."

"I'm a beautiful soul, R-Remus."

"Shut up."

And Sirius shut up.

(For a while, at least).