It is not down in any map; true places never are. ~ Herman Melville

Remus sighs. He's almost ready to go—his bed is made, books lined up on the shelf, parchment in neat stacks on the desk. All that's left to put in his rucksack is an extra jumper and a toothbrush. There's no other way to justify his procrastination. Yet, he stalls, looking around his room for something—anything—to use an excuse for not leaving.

Remus knows he's acting a bit daft. He should want to go to James' summer home in Cornwall, not dread it. It is, after all, their last summer to be proper teenagers—stupid and free from responsibility. In less than a year, they will graduate and leave Hogwarts to join the adult wizarding world—a world that, as of late, has no place for careless pranks.

This whole summer was supposed to be brilliant. They were all of age, all had passed their Apparition exams. Sirius and James had proclaimed at the end of sixth year that the following months would be full of "drunken debauchery and mischief making". And Remus, despite all his protests at the time, had been looking forward to it.

But the summer hadn't turned out that way at all. Barely two weeks after term ended, Peter's father had unexpectedly died, leaving him responsible for his grieving mother and two younger sisters. This had abruptly put an end to all Marauder related plans. Peter was required at home, and his mother refused to have any visitors outside of the family. He'd written, yes, but it wasn't the same. And, from the tone of the letters, Remus could tell that Peter was just as dejected and lonely as he himself was.

Sure, Remus had been to Potter Manor a few times, but neither time had lived up to previous years. The first time, Sirius had been distant and moody to the point where even James was frustrated, and the second time Sirius hadn't even been there. After an awkward two hours where James claimed to have no idea where his best mate had disappeared to, Remus had left. James had written several times after that, inviting Remus back to the Manor, but Remus had refused each time.

And it'd only been the fact that Peter was able to escape his house to go to Cornwall that persuaded Remus to accept that invitation. He didn't think he could handle Sirius' cold, surly attitude—or worse, deliberate absence—again.

Because, really, it always comes back to Sirius, Remus thinks. Sirius, who has only written Remus once in the past six weeks. Sirius, who thinks of himself first, and others second. Sirius, whose haughty good looks and easy confidence attracts all the witches at Hogwarts. Sirius, who, somehow, inexplicably, has managed to capture Remus' heart as well.

Anger and frustration rise within Remus' chest as these thoughts flow through his mind. And, as much as he wants to direct it solely towards Sirius, he can't. Because Remus is the one whose gone and fallen for exactly the wrong bloke.

Remus is almost ready to empty the contents of his rucksack onto the floor and owl James an apologetic letter when he hears a loud noise coming from outside.

"What in Merlin's name..." Remus mutters to himself as the noise grows louder. There's a screech of something and the sound dampens slightly. Utterly perplexed, he rushes from his room to the front door to see if something outside is the cause of the ruckus. Perhaps it's his father having difficulty with the Muggle lawn mower or...

"Impossible," Remus breathes. He must be hallucinating, must have finally lost it. He closes his eyes, squeezing them tight before opening them again. And he really has to be going mad because there's absolutely no way that it's... It isn't.

"Oi, Moony!"

It is. It's Sirius. Sirius sodding Black. In Remus' front yard. On a motorbike.
Remus doesn't know what to say, doesn't know what to think. Six weeks of nothing, and then a surprise visit the day they're all supposed to Floo to Cornwall. It's so typically Sirius that Remus finds himself torn between fury and uncontrollable laughter.

"W-What?" he chokes out, settling on utter disbelief.

"Like it?" Sirius shouts over the rumbling of the engine.

Remus stares. "Tell me you didn't."

"I did," Sirius answers, a wicked smile on his face. He turns off the engine and leans back, supporting himself with one arm on the back of the seat. "Bought it from a Muggle dealer just yesterday. I'm going to enchant it to fly, soon."

"You're mad," Remus mutters, shaking his head. Sirius is mad, the motorbike is mad. Everything about this situation is mad, not to mention surreal. Remus can hardly even begin to wrap his mind around it.

"Always have been. Come on, grab your rucksack. It's time to go."

"Go where?" But, Remus has an idea of where Sirius means. And, as reluctant as he is to admit it, the idea doesn't completely put him off.

"The Potters, of course. Cornwall."

Remus sighs. He can't ride all the way from Bristol to Cornwall holding onto Sirius. He just can't. The flip-flopping of his stomach at the mere thought of it tells him that much. Instead, he summons up his most disapproving expression and directs it towards the bike and the boy.

"On that? With you? I'm not suicidal, Sirius. I'll Floo, thank you very much."

"Can't," Sirius replies easily before Remus can even turn around. "Floo's broken at the house."

"I'll Apparate, then. I've been there before."

"No," insists Sirius, hopping off the bike and glaring at Remus, "you won't. The full is in a week. You can't Apparate now; you're too weak."

"Sod off, I'm fine," Remus snaps. He hates it when his friends—especially Sirius—tell him what he can and cannot do. And at this point in the cycle, he is fine to Apparate.

"You look peaky."

"I do not."

Sirius fixes Remus with a look that clearly says don't argue with me. His grey eyes are piercing, and if Remus didn't know Sirius so well, he'd be afraid. As it is, however, he is merely frustrated. Frustrated, because he can feel his conviction wavering, because Sirius has this power over him. Frustrated because he should be exceedingly angry with the dark-haired boy, but as always he is quick to forgive.

"Fine," Remus replies, rolling his eyes. "Do you know how to get there?"

Sirius nods.

"Do you have a map?"

"Oh, come on Moony, don't you trust me?" Sirius asks with an exaggerated pout.

"Sirius!"

"Okay, okay. I have a map. I know how to get there. It's all taken care of, Moony. It will be fun, exhilarating. I promise. All you have to do is get on the bike."

"Fine," Remus says again. And, with a resigned sigh, "You'd just better not get us killed."

***

Four hours later, Remus is wishing he hadn't been persuaded. Rather than exhilarated, he is tired, cold, bored, and hungry.

While at first he'd relished having an excuse to hold himself against Sirius, his arms have long since grown tired. He's stiff from sitting in the same position for so long and his shirt, damp from the afternoon's heat, is sticking to him uncomfortably, chilling him in the cooler night air. It's too loud, what with the engine and the wind, for them to carry on any sort of conversation. Not to mention, it's been hours since lunch.

"We should be almost there," Sirius shouts.

"That's the third time you've said that," Remus shouts back. His irritation—both with himself and Sirius—has been mounting and is now rapidly approaching anger.

"Well, it shouldn't have taken more than three hours from Bristol."

"So you've said. Twice. Just pull over!"

There's no response, and Remus thinks that Sirius is going to ignore him again. This is the fourth time Remus has suggested that they pull over and look at a map. He fully expects Sirius to claim—as he did before—that he knows where they're going, that he looked at the map before they left, that Remus should just trust him. Before Remus can voice his concerns again, however, he feels the bike begin to slow.

"Okay," Remus says, once Sirius has turned off the bike. "I think we just passed through a town called Otterbourne. Let's try to find that on the map, shall we?"

"Fine," Sirius snaps, dismounting the bike and pulling his shrunken rucksack from his pocket.

"There's no need to be surly," Remus retorts, struggling to remove himself from the seat. His legs feel as though they'd been hit with some variant of the leg-locking curse. "I just want to know where we are, for Merlin's sake."

"You don't think I can get us there."

"That's not what I said, Sirius. Quit acting like a child and give me the map."

Remus rolls his eyes as Sirius returns his bag to its normal size and begins looking through it with much more force than is strictly necessary. He doesn't understand what's gotten into Sirius. While his quick-to-change moods aren't unusual, per se, Remus still feels as though his friend has been acting rather peculiarly. Showing up, unannounced, as if there hadn't been weeks of silence. Being his best, charming self, and now, for no apparent reason, snapping at Remus.

"Moony?" Sirius' voice pulls Remus from his thoughts. "We may have a problem."

"What?" Remus asks, wariness overcoming him. Sirius sounds unsure of himself, almost abashed.
It's this, more than the actual words, that leave Remus with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"There's no map."

Remus blinks. "No map? You said you'd brought a map."

"I thought I did! Come off it, Moony; we'll manage. Next town we're in, we can get a new map."
"Get a new map? And, how do you suppose we do that? Have you got any Muggle money? I don't. Not to mention it's late and shops are likely closed."

"I said we'll manage," Sirius repeats, and Remus is irritated to hear anger in his voice. He takes a deep breath, willing himself to stay calm. But they were lost—dreadfully lost—and without even a map. And Sirius has the audacity to be angry with Remus. So typical of him.

"We'll have to Apparate," Remus says with a sigh.

"What about my bike?" Sirius asks, placing a hand defensively on the seat.

"Leave it." Sirius glared. "Fine, if you're so attached, shrink it."

"Shrink my bike? Do you know how much I spent on this. And, it's Muggle. What if doing magic makes it break? I can't shrink it."

"Then how did you get to my house?' Remus demands, trying to keep his voice accusatory even though he's actually interested.

"I rode, of course!"

"Without a map? You managed to find your way halfway across the country just fine, but you can't get us to Cornwall from Bristol?"

"Come on, Moon—"

"Don't 'come on, Moony' me. This is serious. It's dark, we're lost, we have no food, and you're prat enough to refuse to Apparate."

"So, this is all my fault?" Sirius demands. "Can't I do anything right? Fuck, Moony, I just wanted to have some fun, drag you out of your cloister for a bit."

"Well, this is not fun. This is the opposite of fun. I'm tired, sore, hungry, cold, and lost. And now we've got to figure out some way to become unlost."

"We—" Sirius starts, but Remus cuts him off.

"Think, don't talk," Remus says, turning away from Sirius and sitting himself on the ground. "I'm thinking, and you can think, too. But I'm not talking to you."

"Moony..." Sirius tries again, but Remus ignores him. Part of him knows that he's being ridiculous, that he's overreacting. But it's all been too much, the inconsistency from Sirius. And it's infuriating. It wouldn't be, he's sure, if he didn't feel anything beyond friendship for the boy. And how he wishes he didn't, how he wished that he wasn't such a girl when it came to emotions and feelings and... love? How much easier it would make all of this.

Remus sighs and tries to come up with a plan, a way out of this mess, anything other than his confusing and frustrating feelings. The only noises are the crickets and Sirius' pacing footsteps. In comparison to the recent argu, the current quiet is deafening.

"This is my bloody fault," Sirius says after a while.

"Yes, it is," Remus agrees, still refusing to look at his friend. "Your idea. Your bike. Your lack of a map. Of course it's your fault."

"I mean more than that," Sirius continues in a much quieter and - Remus is slightly shocked to hear - ashamed voice. "The floo at the summer home isn't broken. And I know you're fine to Apparate. We didn't have to take my motorbike."

"You lied to me?" Remus asks.

"Kind of. Well, yes. I suppose so. But, I just wanted to spend time with you. Just the two of us, y'know?"

He wants to glare at Sirius, but he isn't sure he trusts himself to look at him. If he was angry before, it's nothing compared to how he feels now. Livid doesn't even begin to describe it. How can Sirius say that he wanted to spend time together? He's been ignoring—hell, avoiding—Remus for weeks. Even if he can't possibly know how Remus feels about him, he has to have realised that it'd affect him on some level.

"You're a prat," Remus finally says, fighting to keep his voice even.

"I know."

"Do you actually think that after weeks of silence, getting us lost in the middle of the UK without a map was the way to make it up to me? I know you don't think things through, Sirius, but are you a daft idiot, too?"

"Oi, I didn't mean for us to get lost!" Sirius exclaims. "I swear, I thought I knew the way. Besides, I could've sworn I'd put a map in my rucksack."

"Whatever, Sirius." Remus stands up and walks a bit away, trying to decide what to do. He's half tempted to just Apparate home and forget the whole bloody trip to Cornwall. What does it matter, anyhow? Sirius will figure out how to get there somehow, on his own. And Remus, well, he isn't really in the mood at this point to deal with accusatory comments from James and Peter. "I'm going home."

Remus mentally steels himself for the discomfort of Apparation and begins to focus on the three Ds. But, before he's even able to completely concentrate ondestination—his family's living room—Sirius interrupts him.

"Moony, wait. Just, listen to me, look at me!. I—"

"What?" Remus interrupts, whirling to face him.

"I fancy you, alright?"

Remus starts, positive that he didn't hear what he thinks he just heard. He gapes at Sirius.

"You're joking, right?"

"I wish," Sirius says forlornly, slumping against his bike and hanging his head. Remus feels like he should be offended, but instead his anger diminishes a bit, replaced by confusion and— though he hardly dares to believe it—hope.

"Then why... Weeks Sirius!"

"Because I was scared." Sirius' voice is barely louder than a whisper. "And I've been confused."

Remus scoffs. He doesn't mean to, but he can't help himself. Sirius, scared? Remus can count on one hand the amount of times he's seen Sirius truly afraid. As for confused, well, Remus can believe that a bit more easily. But, still, he's never seen Sirius anything less than confident when it came to romantic—or sexual, rather—interests.

"Don't mock me, Moony. I was. And I still am."

"But why?"

"I've never liked a bloke before. Actually, I reckon I don't like blokes; I like you, Moony."

"You- you should've said... something," Remus says. He can't quite comprehend what's going on, and his brain is struggling to keep up. It feels so sudden, so incredibly unbelievable. And, yet... Maybe it's just the part of Remus that has yearned for and wanked over Sirius for months, but something about it feels so right. All of his anger has dissipated, leaving him with only that small flicker of hope.

"Just because you're bent doesn't mean you fancy me," Sirius points out, tearing Remus from his thoughts. "And, besides, I didn't want to hurt you. I thought that, maybe, if I stayed away, I'd get rid of whatever this is. But I haven't. Because you're all I bloody think about, all I talk about. And it's been driving Prongs mad."

"Giving him a taste of his own medicine?" Remus attempts to joke.

"Yeah, a bit," Sirius agrees, a sad sort of chuckle escaping his throat. "Serves him right for all those years prattling on about Evans, I guess... "

"But that's not the point," Remus forces out.

"No, it's not..." Sirius raises his head, and Remus is shocked to see the emotion in his eyes.

"I'm sorry that I've bollocksed this all up. Merlin, I should've listened to Prongs, I shouldn't have-"

"Shut up," Remus interrupts, holding up a hand. "Just let me..." He takes a deep breath. "You really fancy me?"

"Yes," Sirius replies.

"And—tell me, honestly—this isn't some elaborate prank?" Remus swallows, almost afraid of the answer.

"Of course not!" Sirius stands up, his forlorn features morphed to indignation.

"Good, and I just have one last thing to say," Remus says. He takes a step towards Sirius, and then another, and another until he's just an arm's length away. "You are completely daft, Padfoot, if you could possibly miss that I've been wanking over you for months."

The look of relief and pure joy on Sirius' face nearly undoes Remus. And he's sure that the expression is mirrored on his own face. Slowly, he raises his hand and places it on Sirius' shoulder.

Apparently, that's all the encouragement Sirius needs, for he's reaching his own hand towards Remus, grabbing the collar of his shirt, and yanking him towards him. Their lips meet in a crash that is nowhere near romantic or elegant or anything like how Remus had always imagined it. But it's so much better, the feel of Sirius' mouth moving against his, the way Sirius' arm is snaking around Remus' waist, pulling him closer.

And Remus doesn't care that they're completely lost, that it's been hours since the sun set, that James and Peter are probably wondering where they are. None of that exists, not now when he can feel Sirius' growing hard through his trousers, not when his own trousers are feeling so uncomfortably tight. They'll get to Cornwall sometime, he's sure. For now, Remus is content just to be here—wherever here may be—with Sirius.