5signs:
remus doesn’t move an inch. severus does. then he stops.
everything in the room feels suddenly very close. he doesn’t know where to put his hands. without severus’ grip they seem to dangle listlessly, separate from the rest of him. if he stepped just a little closer his foot would be between severus’. in his mind he imagines himself, just for a moment, pressing his leg between severus’, but like a broken record the image skips, shudders to a halt. he can’t seem to imagine how severus might react. nobody he’s ever met better embodies that old, worn metaphor - a closed book.
he can’t tell - another pinprick of confusion - if he hasn’t moved out of a pervasive sense of shock, or because he doesn’t want to. he doesn’t remember why he’d intended to break that salient, comfortable silence between them, and now he doesn’t know why he’s staying. the skin on the back of his neck prickles. he hates that feeling. no doubt other people, normal people, experience it too; but to him it feels like hackles rising. aggression, not discomfort.
is it cruel? staying, in spite of severus’ offer, just to see what will happen? remus doesn’t know where he stands with severus, where severus stands with him. perhaps he’d just like to know –
he wants to say something. he doesn’t. his stillness is enough.
HE HAS TO TURN HIS HEAD A LITTLE TO MAKE THEM FIT, his nose alongside remus’ nose, a pushing together of mismatched puzzles. he shuts his mind off from himself, too; closed to everything and anyone for just a moment. that’s all he needs, just a moment, to press his lips to lupin’s. he has to tilt his chin up just a little, because lupin has always been a little bit taller than him, but he’s not sure he ever noticed until now; it never mattered before, not for anything.
his mouth opens against lupin’s, unexpectedly hungry for this. is he touch-starved ? debatably, but he’s a lonely man; he has always made do. he’ll make do after this, too, the way he always has after anything brief has inevitably ended. he’s a pessimist, but there’s no negative thinking attached to the idea of this going nowhere, fizzling out. there are worse things. more important things.
the hand that had been clutching lupin’s wrist drops to lay palm-flat against his ribs; it’s all he knows to do, to stop them standing there so awkwardly whilst still touching. just something to bring them closer.