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I'm drunk in the back of the car
And I cried like a baby coming home from the bar
Said, "I'm fine,” but it wasn't true
I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you. And I –
Snuck in through the garden gate
Every night that summer just to seal my fate
And I screamed, "For whatever it's worth,
"I love you – ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?"
“One more,” he slurred into the empty whiskey glass underneath his chin, his glassy eyes fluttering closed, his head bobbing under its own weight as dark hair slipped over his gaze.
“You said one more six drinks ago, Sirius,” James said with a sigh, throwing the towel in his hands over one shoulder as he settled his forearms onto the bar, leaning in to try to get a better look at Sirius’ face. “Try not to sick up all over my bar and I’ll give you a lift when I get off.”
“It’s fine,” he said, his words blurring the lines between one another. “I’m fine.” Another, more exasperated sigh tumbled from James’ lips as he reached over to the phone behind the bar, the one that Sirius had been eyeing all night because it was right there, right within the reach of his fingertips and because hard liquor rarely left him with anything but bad decisions.
“I’m calling Remus,” James said. Just as his hand cradled the receiver, Sirius’ hand shot out and gripped him tightly by the wrist, looking up with dread and fury in his dark gaze.
“Don’t,” Sirius seethed through clenched teeth. With surprise in his expression, James raised his hands in surrender and backed away from the phone, leaning against the bar again.
“You guys get into a tiff or something?” James fished for information, but Sirius just replied with an unintelligible grunt, trying and failing to prop his heavy head in one hand.
“Just … call me a taxi,” he grumbled, ignoring the concerned furrow in James’ brow as he did as he was asked. The moment James ended the call, Sirius flung himself from the barstool, nearly toppling into several other patrons as he stumbled toward the front door.
No sooner had he leaned against the brick wall of the pub than the soft honk of the cab startled him back into alertness. He wasn’t sure if the taxi service was exceptionally quick that evening or if he had momentarily lost consciousness and the time that accompanied it. No matter, he thought. Nothing mattered, he thought. Had it ever mattered, he thought.
“Number 12 Grimmauld Place,” he muttered under his breath, even the sound of his own voice pounding in his head already. The taxi lurched forward onto the street and it took considerable will for Sirius not to empty the liquor in his belly into the welcoming floor.
One swift turn taken too sharply threw Sirius down along the bench seat in the back of the car, but he didn’t bother to right himself. Instead, he pressed his face further into the scratchy cloth seat of the cab as the weight of that evening found him again, bringing along the tears that he’d been staving off all night. Now he was alone, it was so much harder to fight them.
All of this had started much like that very evening had started – with copious amounts of alcohol and arguably bad decisions – but with one significant difference. Sirius hadn’t been alone then. And maybe it could be blamed on Sirius’ natural lack of restraint amplified by the blunting of his inhibitions that whiskey promoted in him, but he’d kissed Remus that night. He’d kissed Remus and Remus had kissed him back until they were panting each other’s names, their clothes forming a conspicuous trail to the bedroom where they lay together, satisfied and spent.
It was meant to be a summer fling, they had decided that in the beginning. Experimentation. A secret affair between the two of them that none of their friends would ever find out about, because it was never supposed to happen in the first place, and because it was never meant to lead to anything other than this. They were sleeping together and that was it.
Except, of course, that wasn’t it. And when Remus told him earlier that week that they should call the whole thing off before the next term started, Sirius realized how deep he’d gotten himself. The sum of their time was too great to disregard. Every smile he tucked into his teeth at hearing the soft tap of Remus’ fingers at his window of the street-level flat Sirius shared with James and every wince at the rusted screech of the garden gate at the Lupin’s that Sirius crept through so Remus could sneak him into the house through the back door and every satisfied sigh filled with the smoke of the cigarette they shared at two in the morning after getting each other off in imaginative ways – they culminated in something that couldn’t be shrugged off that easily.
But that was exactly what Remus wanted to do, apparently – move on and forget this had ever happened. Forget he had ever called out Sirius’ name in the dark, forget the feeling of Sirius’ fingers running through his hair or ghosting down over exposed skin, forget the way he liked to curl into Sirius after every orgasm, his quiet smile pressed to Sirius’ chest.
At first, Sirius tried to adapt to this new normal, having to keep Remus at arm’s length, having to remember not to expect him to sneak over in the middle of the night, having to remind himself that the smile on Remus’ face wasn’t for him. It was painful, this distance, but it was livable. All Sirius could do was convince himself that he would adjust, that he would forget.
That plan had lasted all of ten minutes. Behind it swept in a realization that he wasn’t going to get over it, that he wasn’t going to forget. Because he was in love with Remus. He may have been in love with Remus before they ever started sleeping together, he may have been in love with Remus before he’d ever even kissed him. And, if nothing else, maybe he could convince Remus to let him stay, to keep up this lie for a little longer. Even if it led to nothing else.
In fact, he had been on his way to Remus’ house to tell him just that, to ask him to give Sirius a real chance at this, when he saw a strange person standing at the same gate that Sirius had once stolen through so many times in the dark. For a moment, Sirius paused, confused.
When Remus appeared, there was a smile on his face unlike any Sirius had ever seen there and it was mirrored on the stranger’s face. With a twist in his gut, Sirius watched Remus lean over the gate and place a delicate kiss against the strange man’s cheek. Together, they walked down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of where Sirius stood, forcing Sirius to watch this new man quietly link his pinky finger into Remus’, who then looked over with a smile.
It was then that Sirius understood. He’d just been practice. An understudy, rehearsal for the main curtain. He worked just fine for a good lay, but he wasn’t good enough to bring home to the family. This new bloke fit an image that Sirius didn’t – well-dressed, clean-cut, respectable.
After feeling his heart liquefy within his ribcage, he’d gone straight to the bar where James worked, drinking as much as James would allow him, sometimes convincing the other bartenders (mostly Pete) to slip him an extra drink when James wasn’t paying attention. It wasn’t enough. No volume of alcohol could drown that depth of sorrow. The hurt festered and spread.
“Get out, ya drunk,” the cabbie grumbled. With a strong clearing of his throat, Sirius ran the back of his hand over his eyes and stuffed a few bills into the palm of the driver before opening the door. But this was the wrong street. This wasn’t his flat on Grimmauld Place.
“No, no, no,” he panicked, gripping onto the edge of the door. “I told you –”
The driver interrupted gruffly. “Oh, no you don’t. This is the address you gave me, I’m not driving your pitiful arse anywhere else tonight,” he said as Sirius’ hand slipped from the door, giving the driver an opportunity to peel away quickly, the door slamming shut in the process.
And Sirius found himself standing in front of Remus Lupin’s house. Every light in the house was out, but Sirius could see a soft glow coming from the back garden from where the light in Remus’ bedroom was shining through the window onto the dewy grass of the lawn.
With bitterness in his chest and alcohol dulling his sense, Sirius stormed through the squeaky garden gate, letting it batter on the hinges as it fell closed. Underneath Remus’ second-floor window, Sirius stood, tears streaming down his face, knowing that Remus and his new lover were probably in the same bed he had shared with Sirius only a week before, when Sirius had been the one in Remus’ arms and under his lips and between his legs. He took a deep breath.
And he screamed. “Whatever he is to you, I could’ve been that, if you had let me!” In seconds, Remus was at the open window, his face clouded with confusion and concern.
“Sirius, what are you –” Before he could finish, Sirius interrupted.
“I know it doesn’t matter anymore, but for whatever it’s worth –” he paused through the narrowing of his throat as it filled with swallowed tears before whispering, “I’m in love with you.”
Remus went still. “What,” he said on a hollow sounding breath. It wasn’t a question.
“I love you!” Sirius shouted, tears that he’d been holding back now flowing unrestricted down his reddened cheeks. A jaded, empty laugh echoed out from the depths of his lungs as he looked up at Remus. “I love you. As if that isn’t the worst goddamn thing you’ve ever heard.”
In the midst of one long blink to banish the tears from his gaze, Remus disappeared from sight and Sirius found himself staring at the vacant space he left behind. With a curt nod and a quivering lip, Sirius turned to go, knowing this had been the worst mistake of his life.
After no more than a single step, his path was diverted as Remus gripped him strongly by the open zipper of his leather jacket to pull Sirius’ lips to his own. The kiss was bitter with the strong tea on Remus’ tongue, sweet with the whiskey on Sirius’ breath, and warm with the heat and fury and desperation of things unsaid that never should have been kept in the dark.
As Remus continued to kiss him, he cast countless apologies down the chasm of Sirius’ throat – one apology for believing that Sirius couldn’t possibly love him, another for a miserably failed attempt to forget Sirius through the companionship of someone who could never even compare to him, and a final apology for not telling Sirius how he truly felt ages ago.
All Sirius could do was shush him as he led Remus up to the same bedroom where they had spent nearly every night that summer, the same bedroom where he had kissed Remus for the very first time, the same bedroom where he would ask Remus to stay with him forever.