some people spend their entire lives wanting to be seen but sirius and remus spend theirs wishing people would just look away. not because they hate attention in the same way no they have very different reasons but because attention has never belonged to them it has always belonged to whatever people decided they represented a pretty face and a tragic story.
sirius has always been beautiful in a way that made people collect around him and he knows it actually he's never been allowed not to know it. his family built beauty into discipline, obedience, and worth. perfect posture, perfect hair, flawless skin a nice smile. there was always another thing to fix, another flaw only they could see, another reason to stand in front of a mirror until his own reflection became unbearable until sirius can't look at himself without seeing another flaw. sirius doesn't stare at himself because he loves what he sees but he stares because he was taught that even the smallest imperfection is not acceptable. he learned to notice every blemish before anyone else could, every strand of hair that refused to behave. looking good was never a privilege it was something he have to.
so yes, he knows exactly how to use it oh he knows knows how to smile just enough to get what he wants, how to lean against a doorway, how to let people underestimate him because they're too distracted by his face to imagine there's anything underneath it that they can't see. he weaponizes beauty because beauty has always been used against him first. but oh god, he despises the people who stop there the ones who laugh a little too hard just because he's pretty or he ones who decide he's shallow before he's spoken, the ones who convince themselves they're in love with him when really they're only fascinated by his face. sirius thinks they're idiots. falling in love with a face is the easiest thing in the world it requires nothing anyone can admire something beautiful but he wants someone who would stay after the beauty changes when it's no longer there when sirius is ugly with rage with jealousy when he shouting when he is stubborn he wants someone to love his "ugly" parts.
meanwhile we have remus who has spent his life wishing people would stop noticing him at all. he isn't beautiful in the devastating, impossible way sirius is. he's just... a guy. average enough if life had been kinder you probably wouldn't remember passing him in the street that's always been enough for him and that's what he wanted always. he has never wanted to be extraordinary he's never wanted admiration or envy or longing but he has wanted someone to glance at him and immediately forget he'd ever been there.
but people never do because before they notice his smile they notice the scars, before they ask his name they ask what happened, before they decide whether they like him they decide whether they pity him.
and remus has become so practiced at answering questions that he barely notices himself doing it anymore, just little polite lies and smiling just enough to reassure strangers that they haven't made him uncomfortable even though they absolutely have, he has perfected making other people feel better about staring at him. what he never understands is why they ask in the first place. curiosity? he can understand that human nature and all buut none of that changes the fact that every pair of eyes lingering on the marks across his skin makes him feel like he's been reduced to a story they think they're entitled to hear. he doesn't want sympathy or pity or anything else. he doesn't even want understanding. he just wants someone to look at him and think, oh, just some guy.
the thing is that both of them have spent years being looked at without ever feeling seen, they're opposites in every obvious way, but somehow they arrive at the exact same loneliness and that's why they understand each other so effortlessly.
sirius never asks about the scars, not because he doesn't notice them he notices everything about remus, but because the scars are probably the least interesting thing about him. he noticed the freckles, laugh lines. sirius doesn't look at them searching for a story he looks at remus and thinks about the way he rolls his sleeves up when he's concentrating, the tiny crease between his eyebrows when he's reading, the way he laughs. the scars exist but they don't make all of remus and his story.
and remus never mistakes sirius's beauty for the most important thing about him. of course he thinks sirius is gorgeous. sometimes painfully so. sometimes distractingly... he thinks the sunlight was invented just to have an excuse to touch sirius's hair and thinks his smile should probably be classified as a public safety hazard but none of those things explain why he loves him they're decorations around the edges of someone infinitely more fascinating. remus loves sirius because he is loud in all the places everyone expected him to be silent, he is endlessly stubborn, he feels just too much all the time. if sirius woke up tomorrow looking completely different remus would probably blink once then kiss him anyway and continue complaining that he stole his shirt again.
that is what makes them work. not because they don't find each other attractive they absolutely do. sirius thinks remus is unfairly, ridiculously and remus thinks sirius is beautiful enough to make his heart ache.
for the first time in their lives they are loved by someone who would recognize them even if the world took away the first thing everyone else notices.
