It’s post-war, post-Azkaban, post-everything. Grimmauld Place is a wreck, but they’re rebuilding.
Sirius is alive. Remus is alive and out. No longer half-living inside someone else’s image of who he should be.
Remus has been out to himself for years.
But this is the first time he’s touched someone since beginning his slow, jagged transition.
His body’s been shaped by years of potion access when he could afford it, transformations that rebuilt bone, quiet spells done in locked bathrooms.
He doesn’t look like he did when Sirius last kissed him.
But Sirius wants him.
Not in spite of it. Because of it.
—————-
It happens in the narrow bed of a spare room, quiet and hot and desperate.
Sirius is beneath him — mouth bitten red, eyes blown wide, legs splayed without shame.
He touches Remus with reverence. Follows old scars with his tongue, new ones with his fingertips.
Remus asks, rough-voiced: “Are you sure?”
Sirius just pulls him down and kisses him like it’s a vow. Gripping his hair in his fist Sirius whispers “If you top me, Azkaban will have been worth it all.”
Later, Sirius lights a cigarette with shaking fingers. Hands it to Remus, who leans back against the headboard, bare chest slick with sweat and stubble-shadowed. The blanket low on his hips. The scent of them still thick in the air.
“I always liked you like this,” Sirius says quietly. “All sharp. All intention.”
Remus exhales smoke through his nose, amused and tired.
“I finally like me like this too.”
