Fic
Title: Top, Bottom, Sideways
Rating: PG-13
Words: 1100-ish
Disclaimer: Do not own.
Prompt: 8 (St. Keyne)
Previous Days: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
Summary: Remus Lupin is not a virgin.
Well … this one may have gotten a bit off track. The idea of which partner will be the master in marriage turned into a more teenage-boy-ish question.
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Remus Lupin is not a virgin.
His friends all think he is. In fact, most everyone in school thinks he is, if they think about that kind of thing at all (which, Remus suspects, most teenagers do).
Quiet, kind Remus, they probably think. The uptight prefect who hates to take off his shirt to go swimming, who blushes when girls ask him for a date - of course he isn’t having sex.
Well, he isn’t now. But he has. The summer after 5th year, while Peter was vacationing with his family and Sirius was camped out at the Potters’, Remus had a boyfriend.
Not a girlfriend. Not even a girl-you-snog-in-abandoned-classrooms-but-don’t-talk-to-otherwise. A boyfriend. An almost-too-pretty dark-haired Muggle boy he met at the library.
It was a brief, confusing, exhilarating affair. Full of teenage awkwardness and - Remus blushes to admit even to himself - passion.
He blames it on the wolf.
Sometimes he wonders how the hell it happened in the first place. Because as much as he’d like not to be, he really is quiet and kind and shy. What happened that summer was - was, well, it was an anomaly (so Remus tells himself, trying too hard to forget the resemblance that Muggle boy bore to another boy, one he sees each day and thinks about far too much for his own good). For a while, after it happened, he thought maybe now he’d go on and like girls, as all the other boys his age did. Most days he tries to forget it happened at all.
No one else knows.
So when, on a golden-warm autumn afternoon, James asks the dormitory at large “D’you think it’s better to be on top or on the bottom?” - Remus tries to pretend he didn’t hear.
“Top,” Peter answers immediately, and everyone’s heads swivel toward where he is reclining on the window seat, leafing through a pile of Transfiguration notes. He doesn’t seem to notice the stir he’s caused among his roommates.
“Pete,” Sirius says around a mouthful of Cauldron Cakes. Remus winces as crumbs spatter from his mouth. Seeming to notice this, Sirius chomps rapidly and swallows hard a few times before speaking again. “You and Julia?”
“When?” asks Remus, glad for the distraction.
“Where?” asks James, who still hasn’t even kissed Lily (Remus has, so far, won three butterbeers, a handful of chocolate frogs, and a new quill from Sirius by betting against Prongs getting lucky).
“How many times?” prods Sirius. “How was it? Is she a natural blonde?”
“Sirius!” yelps Peter, his round face suddenly going pink.
“Well? I told you lot about Victoria!”
“Yes, thanks, we remember that vividly,” snaps James. Something in Remus’ insides feels like snapping too - he doesn’t want a recap of Sirius’ 4-month affair with the buxom Ravenclaw, though bits of last year’s stories are crowding his mind, unbidden - “consoled her after we beat them at Quidditch, if you know what I mean” … “broom shed’s not a bad place, if you don’t mind doing it standing up” … “had her over a desk in the Potions classroom, what d’you think Slughorn would say to that?”
“Oh, you’re just jealous. Virgin.” Sirius makes an exasperated noise. “Look, Pete, like I was saying - I told you about Victoria. You can tell us about Julia.”
Peter shrugs, and he doesn’t look directly at any of them.
“Wormtail,” James says seriously. “You can’t hold out on your mates like this. You know I’d tell you lot if Lily and I - you know.”
“Which will be never,” Remus interjects, which earns him a laugh from Sirius and a grateful look from Peter.
“You bastard,” says James, glowering at Remus, who just laughs. “Isn’t my fault Lily’s got - ”
“Standards?” Sirius interrupts, wiggling his eyebrows at Remus. Peter snorts with laughter.
“Black!” James hollers, his face growing redder by the moment as the other three dissolve into fits of laughter. “I was going to say old-fashioned values, you stupid wankers.”
“That’s not what Snivellus said about her,” Sirius cackles, and that does it - James is off his bed with a roar, launching himself across the dormitory at Sirius, who is laughing like a madman as he fights off James’ attack.
Remus shakes his head and rolls his eyes and turns back to his Ancient Runes homework. Peter takes the opportunity to gather his things and escape to the common room. His hasty retreat seems to indicate won’t be giving up any more secrets of his sex life with Julia the Hufflepuff.
“My glasses!” James’ voice is muffled by Sirius’ body and the pile of pillows and bedclothes they’ve knocked to the floor as they wrestle. “I should break your nose, Black!”
But they are both laughing by the time they stop rolling and kicking and tackling one another. Somehow it always ends that way. They never really fight. And Remus never really worries - he usually just watches, amused.
“Where’d Wormtail go?” James asks, polishing his glasses on his jumper. They sit slightly crooked when he replaces them on his face. “He never told us about Julia!”
Remus shrugs. “Doesn’t plan to, I think,” he says, scooting over to make room for Sirius, who has come to flop on the bed beside him, face-down, head resting on his forearms.
“Prongs has killed me, Moony,” he says, lifting his head just enough to reveal a lopsided grin and flushed cheeks and bright, wide eyes, and Remus’ chest feels tight (and suddenly, so do his trousers) as he chuckles and makes consoling noises and pats Sirius’ head fondly.
“Poor puppy,” he says, and his voice sounds strange to him, but no one else seems to notice.
“You never told us what you like best, Moony,” says James, settling cross-legged on the window seat.
“Back to that, are we?” Remus tries to sound casual, especially when he sees Sirius look up again, lower lip between his teeth, waiting. “Wouldn’t know, would I?” he lies, although if his face feels this hot it must look spectacularly red.
Sirius rescues him (though he may not realize it) by announcing, “I think it’s fan-fucking-tastic any way. Top, bottom, sideways, upside down, on a broomstick.”
“On a broomstick?” James snorts. “Come off it. Now you’re just making things up.”
“All I’m saying,” Sirius says, sitting up - the whole left side of his body now pressing against the whole right side of Remus’ - “is when you’re with somebody you want to be with, it doesn’t really matter, who’s on top, who’s on bottom, whatever. It’s just … good.”
Remus isn’t sure if he’s imagining it or if Sirius’ elbow is digging into his arm on purpose.
“I agree,” he says - and seeing his roommates’ shocked expressions he hastily adds, “In theory.”