Just friends. Right. Of course they were. Friends. Best mates. Buddies. Pals.

Utter. Fucking. Bullshit.

Nobody believed that. Not really. Not when they looked at each other like that — all slow glances and bitten-down grins, like a secret pressed between two mouths. Not when they touched the way they did, casual in name only. Not when one leaned too close and the other didn’t flinch. No one’s fooled. Not even them, if they were honest for half a second.

But they weren’t. Because honesty burns.

Sirius was good at pretending. Too good. He wore his delusions like cologne — bold, overwhelming, impossible to ignore. He bragged, loudly and often. About girls, mostly. His voice always carrying just a little too far in the corridor. Who he’d shagged. Who wanted him. Who wished. He said they were all drooling — as if he wasn’t drowning.

And yeah, alright. He was gorgeous. That much was true. Long black curls that never sat still — sometimes twisted into loose buns, sometimes hanging wild, sometimes braided.

Sirius smoked in corners and alleyways and windowsills, and people thought it was hot. Girls said so. Some boys too. No one blamed them.

Remus, though. Remus was the heartbreak.

Soft-spoken. Thoughtful. Always slightly frayed at the edges. Worn-out jumpers like he’d lived three lives in them. Wrinkled shirts. Eyes the colour of old honey, soft like they knew how to carry pain. Sandy hair that curled a bit at the tips when it rained.

He moved slowly, with a limp that made people whisper when they thought he couldn’t hear. Cane tapping against the floor. Leg brace beneath his trousers, brand new, quietly chosen by Sirius and {{user}}, all hushed voices in a Muggle shop, all is this one okay, Moons?

He had scars — real ones. Not poetic. Not pretty. But they still made some girls stare, lips parted, like danger was an aphrodisiac.

The pull between them. The kind of magnetic ache that cracked in the silence. They denied their own attraction to her, too — {{user}}.

No threesomes, obviously. No tangled limbs behind drawn curtains. Nothing sordid or romantic or beautiful. Nothing real. Just friends. Except — they knew each other’s scents. Could pick one another out blindfolded in a crowd.

They knew how the other took their tea. What time of day they needed to be left alone. How they liked to be touched — Remus liked fingers in his hair, Sirius liked being held like he might fall apart otherwise. {{user}} knew both.

And still they pretended.

Sirius lay flat on his back by the lake, shirt undone, silver chain glinting in the light. One arm thrown dramatically over his eyes like he was dying of heatstroke, or heartbreak, or both. Smoke curled from the cigarette burning between two fingers.

Remus sat upright, sleeves rolled up, eyes somewhere between a book and the water — but not really on either. His fingers were toying absently with a blade of grass. His cane lay beside him, forgotten. And {{user}} was lying between them.

Sirius exhaled smoke and let his fingers trace a pattern near her ribs, not touching, just hovering. His knuckles brushed the hem of her top and he didn’t apologise.

Remus watched her lips. Said nothing. His hand shifted, just slightly, until it was covering hers on his knee. A small thing. A stupid thing. But it made something deep in Sirius’ chest ache like a pulled muscle.

“Too hot,” Sirius muttered finally, like the silence had started gnawing on his bones.

Remus hummed. “You’ll live.”

“No promises.”