Harry Potter - "Four cigarettes in an ashtray" - Part 1 - Sirius/James/Lily/Remus - NC-17
Title: Four cigarettes in an ashtray
Author: marseverlasting
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sirius/James/Lily/Remus
Word Count: 18,337 words
Summary: Isolated from the war, tensions clash and mount, building and building; a storm in a teacup. Can four people exist in a single relationship?
Warnings: Swearing, violence, bloodplay, comeplay, betrayal, deceit, het, slash, foursome, alcohol use.
Author's notes: Written for anjenue for hp_springsmut.
***
Sirius is running down an empty London street, red and green flashes bursting like dull fireworks behind, glimmering and glowing Christmas-like on the white mirror of new snow.
"Fuck," he says in a whimpering panic. "Where are you? God, James, where are you?" He rounds down a back alley. The lights have dimmed behind him, but Sirius keeps running, and running.
He has a stitch in his side and his breaths come in rounded bursts, heart fluttering like a hummingbird in a shoebox, and he doesn't know if he's going to pass out or throw up.
And then, there, lying on the cobbles and covered in snow and blood, he finds him at last: James, his breath shallow, whimpering and moaning indistinctly where he lies.
Sirius makes up his mind: he throws up.
***
"Is Sirius asleep?"
James touches Sirius' hair softly. "I think so."
Lily sighs, leans back in her chair and rubs a hand to her eyes. "Well, you should wake him, we've work to do."
James yawns. "Oh, just leave him, Lily. He's tired."
"James, we're all tired."
"Am not asleep," Sirius mumbles half-heartedly against the wood of the kitchen table, "am just resting my eyes."
"Come on, Sirius," Lily replies wearily, slouching into the kitchen. "You can't sleep on the job." She taps her wand against the cast iron kettle and it begins to steam obediently. "We're almost done, anyway."
"It's fucking four in the morning and I'm tired," Sirius says, still talking into the table. "I've been up all day and I think I'm losing my mind." He hears the hiss and gurgle of boiling water as Lily pours it into the tea pot. "If I have to copy down another memo I think I'm going to have to kill someone."
"We've got to finish this, Sirius," Lily says, cradling the pot with a cozy and placing it on the table roughly, "it's important; Albus said it was important."
James sighs and drains the dregs of his now-cold tea. He speaks encouragingly, like one might to an infant: "Come on, we're almost done, mate."
Sirius rises from the table, wet spit-stain from where he was dozing shiny in the candlelight and fixes James with a withering stare, half pleading and half accusing. "I thought being a soldier meant more than organizing fucking memos."
"Then do something else," Lily says with the slow-burn anger that accompanies discussions with Sirius, fucking fucking Sirius.
"Remus gets to sleep," Sirius complains with no real conviction.
"It was full moon yesterday, Sirius. Come on, don't be a jerk, just finish this up and we can all sleep," James says dismissively.
"God, what's the point if we're just going to end up waking up at seven to spend all of tomorrow doing this too?" Sirius frowns and grabs another elastic-held bundle of memos, each addressed to various members or potential members of the Order. "Where's Petey when you need him."
"Who knows," James says. "Well, think about it this way: we might get attacked tomorrow. That'll cheer us all up, I'm sure." There's something strangely akin to romance hidden in his words.
"James," Lily says warningly, pleadingly, "don't talk like that."
"Sorry," the boy replies dully. "Was just - musing."
"Here, have some tea."
"God. Fuck." Sirius says, abandoning his memos and crossing his arms against the table, pressing his face in the crook of his elbow.
Lily watches him, eyes flickering from anger to momentary warmth to anger again. She doesn't know if she should berate him or join him.
"Fuck," Sirius mumbles through what sounds like tears. "Fucking fuck."
"What's wrong, Sirius?" James asks, his temperament immediately shifting to concern, dull eyes turning bright with sudden worry. He gives Lily an anxious glance, who replies with a shallow shrug.
"Nothing," Sirius replies. "I'm just - I'm so fucking exhausted." He speaks to the table and barely shifts in his position. "I think I'm hysterical. And not in the funny way. And I'm tired of saying tired. It doesn't even feel like a word anymore, it feels like a punishment. I think I'm losing my mind."
James knows what he means; James knows what to do; James wraps his fingers in the black tangle of Sirius hair, stroking his head gently and messaging his fingers into his scalp. "It's okay, Sirius. It's okay." Like soothing a startled colt; like a movie, James Potter Is: The Sirius Whisperer. "We're almost done, pup." Pup. Pup, pup, puppy. A hidden nickname. Only pup, unless James wants to be punched, in which case he calls his Sirius puppy, half mocking but always loving.
"Jamie," Sirius whimpers appreciatively lulled immediately into sleep. "S'nice, Jamie."
James glances to Lily, who is, strangely, smiling warmly, smiling like she enjoys seeing Sirius slack off and that she enjoys seeing James comfort him. Maybe she does, who the fuck knows with girls, honestly.
Meeting James's sleep-bruised eyes, Lily blows him a kiss and takes a sip of her tea. She is just beautiful there, James thinks, stroking Sirius' hair and watching her. Her bronze hair is kind of oily (they didn't have the daily pleasure of showers, only once every few days now) and caught in strings and tendrils falling from the wand-latched bundle of hair; no make-up, a few pimples of fading childhood touching the corner of her mouth in red spots; freckles like pinpricks sent scattering over her cheeks and nose; legs curled up on the chair, over-large t-shirt (belonging to James) stretched over her knees making a tent over her body. You're beautiful, James mouths silently, and Lily blushes so her freckles blend together. They grin like little kids for a bit until she turns back to her work.
Startled out of his dream, James rubs Sirius' shoulder: "C'mon, pup," James says, "let's finish, yeah?"
Lily shakes her head and gives a little sigh. "Oh, just let him sleep," she whispers like she's at the end of her rope and is waiting for the short drop. "You and I can finish these together."
James cocks his head curiously. "Just let him sleep? But you were saying -"
Lily nods, waving off her hypocrisy. "I know. Well, I don't know. I don't know why I even bother at all anymore. It's Sirius, isn't it?" she offers. "He operates on his own clock. He's done good, he's just not built for - this."
James nods, and feels slightly warmed. "And I am?"
"Shut up, Potter," she says with a guilty smile.
They finish the memos by five, working their wands (copy, copy - sigh - copy, copy) to the slow rhythm of Sirius' breath. The sun bleaches the dark horizon a pasty blue and James begins to nod off where he sits, shadowed eyes drooping, cobwebbed eyelashes seemingly frost-covered in the pale near-dawn. The three go up to their shared bedroom together, James half-hauling Sirius, and Lily leading the way with her lit wand. The halls of the small flat seem to cave inwards, or maybe it was just how they felt - trapped, pushed, crushed under the weight of the unimportance, sequestered in this far-west-end London hovel, quarantined from excitement and left to amuse themselves with memos, memos, memos, memos, tea, memos, alcohol, memos, memos, and only occasionally sleep.
The bedroom the four teenagers share - Sirius, Remus, James, and Lily, and Peter if he'll ever get out of Manchester - is a squat, Spartan chamber pressed up against the slanted roof of the flat so that the ceiling has a definite forty-five degree slope, turning the room into a trapezoid. Two single beds sit flush in opposite corners of the room, each with a small grey mattress (limp and withered in the frame) and layered with a threadbare duvet. Being the gentlemen they are, the boys let Lily have one to herself while they occupy the remaining offices in revolving order. Generally, the other bed would be used by two boys pressed to opposite edges like self-same magnets while the fourth sleeps in the single arm chair reclined in a shadowed corner; it's an irritating system but it works.
Sometimes the rules bend, though:
"Jamie," Sirius speaks through dream, "come sleep with me?" It emerges as: comseep wimee?
Lily looks to James and gives him an agreeable look as she pulls off her t-shirt (black lace bra beneath, white breasts covered in a red-peppering of freckles.) "Let him sleep there, tonight," Lily says, nodding to the empty bed. "I don't mind. He needs it." She means: he needs you - and she won't lie, it hurts her a little and she can't figure out why.
But then, just there, James touches her face; and, God, it seems so gentle in this light, translucent and sweet and even more surprising in her sudden affection for Sirius. "I'll just sleep with Remus." She nods over to the other bed, where Remus is curled up rather sweetly under one of the blankets. "We can sleep together tomorrow." Small smile, purple lips in the dark.
James nods, lowering Sirius to the wrinkled, tired bed. The dark-tangled boy rolls into the sheets with a kind of natural happiness, aching hands and fingers burrowing into the sheets, sighing heavily.
"Okay, Sirius," James says gently, pulling off his own shirt and trousers, tossing them into the clothes hamper. "Now, raise your arms." Sirius does so limply and James manages to strip the dirty shirt from him. Tugging off the almost-sleeping boy's trousers, James crawls obediently in next to him.
"G'night Lily," James says, rolling closer to his gently snoring friend.
"Sleep well, James," comes her muffled reply.
Like an infant to a nipple, Sirius instinctually turns and curls himself against James' chest, burying his face into the curve of the other boy's shoulders, lazy hands coiling around the lean-tone belly and crawling under the hem of the taller boy's boxers, fingers resting nestled against the warm skin of his thigh. "G'night," he mumbles as James tugs their blanket over their goose-pimpled bodies, "luvyou": tired, mumbled, thoughtless phrase.
"Mmhm," James replies, settling into Sirius' weight, the hot breath on his skin and the fingers all flush against his body.
"I can jerk you off if you want," Sirius stutters through the clouds.
"No, thanks," James mumbles, barely thinking.
"Mkay." Sirius rustles close and lets his hand slide absently to the ridge of James' arse.
They sleep.
***
"James, James, Jamie - please, please get up. Come on, they're coming," Sirius says in a rapid-fire panic. "Please, we have to hide."
His hands are freezing, the red and green lights have started again, vomiting sparks and sickly light into the still night. James and Sirius sit in a pool of orange light, gifted to them by the streetlight hovering over their heads.
James rolls and groans. Sirius can feel him shiver and shake as James tries to lean up but can't make it. Through burning cold tears, Sirius bites his lips to blood red and manages to drag his companion to a back alley. He manages to get James to lean back against the wall of a building, groaning and drifting in and out of consciousness as he does.
It's no use. Sirius curses on the cold wind as he sees the dirty trail of swept snow and blood they've left behind.
***
Boredom kills.
Boredom kills.
Sirius traces the words into the spilled sugar: boredom kills. He licks the sugar from his finger and spills another handful onto the wooden table. Boredom kills.
It's cold in the kitchen but Sirius is too lazy to change out of his boxers and t-shirt. He hears the small television in the next room humming indistinctly, a badly tuned radio or distant thunder in a storm. He can hear James playing with his beer, knocking cap against bottle, scratching at it and shredding the paper of the label.
"Can you see anything?" James calls.
Sirius shakes his head even though he knows James can't see it.
"Sirius?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you see anything?"
Sirius sighs. "He's not here yet. I don't think he's going to come. Ever." He hears James put the bottle on the table, hears it roll in thin circles before settling, like a coin spinning on its edge. "We're going to be waiting forever."
James comes into the kitchen. He's only wearing pyjama-bottoms and the necklace Lily gave him. His body is a hard thing, slender and tall, limbs pulling and pushing in motion. It seems forced though, as if there are hooks in his flesh pulling it thin and tight, the illusion of athleticism, when Sirius knows that James is just thin. He watches him blankly as James grabs another amber-bottle beer from the fridge. From the tangle of his hair and his heavy-lidded eyes, he assumes James is slouching towards drunkenness.
"I'm tired of waiting." James unscrews the top and throws it into the sink. "Want a beer?"
"One of us has to stay sober," Sirius murmurs.
"What?"
Sirius sighs. "Sure."
James takes another from the fridge, opens it, and sits next to Sirius at the table. They stay there, drinking, overwhelmed by the fluid buzz of the television and the echoing silence of a heavy British night. The linoleum shines white and hard, like snow blindness, and the lights hold no warmth either. It feels like a public lavatory, artificial and fluorescently lit, uninterested and unfeeling and almost totally unbearable.
Boredom kills. Sirius writes it, and wipes it away.
"When did Dumbledore say he was coming?" James watches as Sirius scratches the word out again.
"Nine."
James looks at the clock on the stove: 1:09, in red digital lines.
"He's late."
Sirius sighs and wipes out the words again. "He's always late."
They sit and sip at their beer, waiting for Godot, purposeless, limp, cold, tired. They sit and listen as the wind blows in against the horrible night-black windows. Time passes like the grinding of stones, each second a tempering of the senses; everything loses its lustre in this sleep-deprived world, everything grows watery and blurry and only hinting at reality.
They have their orders, in hastily written script: 'I will come at nine. You must be there when I arrive. - AD.' But no amount of reading and re-reading will hurry time; time that bends around them, like frost, wrapping about their thin-haired legs and still-boyish faces, and twisting them into these near-alcoholic boy-beings, just aching for comfort or some kind of reprieve. Time bites their lips and sends their lungs into shallow breath; time stretches between them, billowing and collapsing in its own dimension, the same one built, explored, wounded, and sealed by Wells' Traveller.
James kicks out, just gently, and touches his foot to Sirius'. Their legs tangle, warm and cold, and they don't move from it. Sirius watches as James leans forward in his seat, slender stomach rippling and folding as his back curls. Sex clings to James like a thin film, or sweet beads of dew, but it evaporates just as quickly - just there for an instant and gone in a flash. An alcoholic residue that fades in the apathy and disinterest of the night. Sirius swills his beer around and nudges James' feet with his own, knocking knees together and shifting in his seat.
"I want to go kill someone."
James laughs a bit until he realizes it isn't a joke. He bites his lip. "Who?"
"Who do you think? The bad guys. The Dark Lord. Whoever. I just want to - to go out there. To fuck someone up." Sirius presses the palms of his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes hard. "I'm tired of sitting here on my ass. In my boxers. Just. I hate this." No anger in his voice, only memories of passion. "I hate waiting."
"Oh." James drags the bottle over the table, sketching lines in dents. "Me too." He doesn't want to kill someone, not exactly, but it feels like the right thing to say.
"You too what?"
James sighs and fingers his wand, half-bored and half-consciously, like a sheriff handling a gun: not that's he's going to kill, but just to know that he can if he needs to. "I'm tired of just sitting here."
Sirius takes another long draught of his beer, and says: "Why does Lily get to go outside? It's not fair."
"She's responsible." James nods and takes a pull. "And she's better at magic than we are."
"I resent that."
James tucks his hands under his arms and watches as goose-pimples course up and down his skin. "It's true."
"I know, but I still resent it."
The television show in the next room ends, adverts blare, and some softcore pornography begins to play. Neither can see it from their seat, but by the artificial hitched moans of a lady, they know what's going on. The porn, neither wanted nor pleasant, rings in their ears and conjures images of cold pizza, motel rooms, and late night petrol stations; as isolated and alienated as solitary confinement.
"I feel like a fucking muggle," Sirius says. "Just sitting in here, not allowed to do major magic, just - fucking cleaning spells or whatever." Sirius sniffs and James can't bear it. "I can't take much more of this, James." It sounds like a plea.
"We can't draw attention to ourselves," James hears himself repeating, though he too hates the ban, hates it with all his heart. "We just have to sit on the sidelines now."
"I don't want to sit on the sidelines though," Sirius counters, a familiar statement in this house. "I want to fight - and - and if I die, at least it was - worth it."
"You don't want to die," James replies automatically.
"I don't want to, but I - I wouldn't object to it, if I was fighting." Sirius licks his finger for the sugar. "It's part of the deal."
"Sirius, don't be so fucking melodramatic." James punches him in the shoulder, gently. "No one is going to die."
Sirius, tired of the conversation, blows the sugar off the table. "Want some food?"
"Yeah."
So they make food.
James hugs Sirius from behind as he stirs the soup with his wand. James kisses the nape of Sirius' neck and nothing has ever felt so strange. Maybe it's the cold, maybe it's the fact that James did the identical thing to Lily just the night before, maybe it was the flood of orange light from the street lamps outside. Who knows. But it feels; it feels like an illness, the kiss, like dried vomit or the dregs of a vodka bottle. Sirius whimpers almost silently and pretends nothing is real. Maybe it isn't real; in this word of fluorescence and ice, bare feet and metal-tasting water, maybe nothing is real. Because, seriously, nothing can actually be real on one hour of sleep. The heat of James' naked chest against Sirius' back - that's not real. And then - James slides his hands down the back of Sirius' boxers and holds his arse - is that real? James nips gently at the skin of Sirius' shoulder, where the stretched collar of his shirt exposes the flesh. Is that real, a wish? Not dreaming, he can feel the heat and the wet. James rolls his hands around to Sirius' front, fingers digging into the dark web of hair there and probing the soft skin of Sirius' half-hard cock. Is that real? No, can't be. No. It's James.
The soup finishes and Sirius turns off the stove and James' hands are gone. If they were ever really there to begin with.
They eat.
And they go into the living room.
Sirius curls into James' side and plays with his skin, the muscle of his chest and the pink of his nipples; like a child, bored, amusing itself with nothing. Sirius slides his hands in circles, eventually resting along the lip of James' belly button, slipping down under the waistband of the boy's boxers and holding, for a moment, James' warm cock. He withdraws after that and contents himself to snooze against James's side. James barely makes a noise, not when Sirius touches his naked chest, not when he holds his cock - he doesn't even complain that Sirius doesn't finish what he started; but, God, it's not like James has a problem down there, it's just that Sirius barely started anything. Maybe it's the cold.
And sometimes it's not always good. They get drunk on beer; neither grows anything more than morose, languishing on the couch, pulling and pushing against one another in a quiet stupor. They kiss a bit but neither remember it the next day. They wake up together on the couch, freezing and hungover, at six in the morning. They go to their own beds.
They sleep.
***
"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck," Sirius says, pacing terrified before James' body, keeping himself between the opening of the dead-end alley and his best friend's woollen body - corpse? - no, no, body, he's still breathing. God, please, he's still breathing.
Sirius leans down and puts his ear close to James' mouth. Shallow breath, but breath none the less. Sirius leans in and kisses him on the lips, trying to do something, something to help him, maybe; just breathing into James' lungs on the count of the boy's ragged breath and push him along. It works a bit, and James breathes a bit deeper, but it's still terrifying - Sirius pulls away with blood in his mouth (not his own, God, fuck, not his own.)
Where was all his wit now? What use did all his learning, all his work, all his study do now? Nothing, nothing; he's left just here, lonely and cold, worried and hurt, with nothing but his trembling hands and shock-numb mind to find a solution. Nothing comes to him and he knows he's going to die.
And there in the sky, like a lazy firework, Dumbledore's Patronus all silver-soaring through the air, the most welcome sight. Sirius drops to his knees and cries, wracked with sobs, mumbling into his scarf.
Maybe he's not quite an adult yet.
***
Lazy morning in; alarm doesn't go off and no one from the Order comes visiting; no new memos, just sleep, wonderful sleep. The four of them don't know why they're sleeping still, but small pleasures need no analysis.
Remus is the first to wake up, at around ten, and finds himself facing a gently-sleeping Lily, curled against him like a little cat and snuffling just the same. She's only wearing a bra and her jeans, which makes Remus blush. One of her hands is held tight between her own thighs, just pressed between over the jeans she wears, which makes his head spin a little because how could something so static be so - different. More than that, her other hand is resting on Remus' hip, over the dark plaid of his boxers. Just sleep movement, turnings in the night, but it still makes Remus tremble a little, making him suddenly aware of their proximity.
Her bright green eyes open suddenly, like bursting through the silk of a dream; deep breath and sudden shiver.
"Hallo," Remus says quietly, still very aware of the two-fold snores of Sirius and - fuck - James.
"Morning," Lily says with a smile. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," Remus replies in a whisper, "it's just like a hangover now," in reference to his few-nights-old transformation.
"Good," Lily says (not bothering to lift her bra which is resting uncomfortably low on her chest, not bothering to move her hand from Remus' waist.) "We missed you. Sirius missed you."
"Where is he?"
Lily gestures with a nod of her head to the other bed, her back presently turned to it. "Sleeping with James."
He can see, now, James and Sirius sleeping face to face, legs tangled in a boy-limb mess, mouths only inches apart and breathing in turn. Sirius' naked back is to them, and James' hands, coiled around the long-haired boy's waist, pressed along the scoop of the small of his back and down below, pushing the hem of Sirius' black boxer shorts low so that the curve of his arse and the shadow of the cleft can be seen above; an accidental mid-sleep strip tease.
"That's sweet," Remus says, almost automatically, but catches himself noticing who he's speaking to: "I mean, or not. I don't know." He blushes.
Lily smiles and plays one absent finger in patterns over the waist of his boxers. "It's sweet. Sure, hey."
"You're - you're okay with them - with -"
"Of course," Lily says a bit too quickly. "Why wouldn't I be? It's just Sirius." It doesn't seem quite enough. "I mean, I know Sirius. And I know James needs his pup. And his Moony sometimes," she adds an aside. "Why would it bother me? It's kind of -" strange? irritating? sickening? gay? - "beautiful. And God knows Sirius needs the attention." She gives a shallow smile. "We all know Sirius needs his Jamie sometimes, and his Moony."
"And does Sirius need his Lily sometimes?" Remus asks with a touch of a smile.
"No," she says coolly, "he doesn't need a Lily."
Remus breaths out in a warm huff and lets Lily coil into him a bit more. "Everyone needs a Lily sometimes." His voice sounds ludicrous and husky, like he's trying to mimic James Earl Jones or Louis Armstrong or something. He just wants it to be night again, because, God, this morning, and this damn white winter light, feels like it's stripping him, pushing him like a fist into the blankets, shearing his breath and forcing all the heat from his limbs, pushing all that blood into his face just to make him sound stupid and stilted and awkward, and why is it always like this around Lily?
"Even Sirius?"
"Most of all Sirius." Remus nods. "Sirius needs a Lily. Definitely Sirius."
"You think he likes me?"
"He likes anything James touches." Remus gives a little grin. "And James touches you a lot."
"I just don't think he likes me that much." Lily sighs. "I can be hard on him."
"We can all be hard on him. He deserves it." Lily smiles, and Remus feels compelled to continue: "And, sure, he resents you for stealing some of his time with James. But trust me, he likes you. He thinks you're pretty, and smart, and he doesn't mind calling you a - an honorary Marauder." Remus has never heard Sirius say that before, but Lily's grin is addictive. "Sirius knows James needs someone like you, even if he doesn't realize he knows it. Sirius is just being stubborn. He doesn't like change. I mean, he's just being Sirius, isn't he?" Remus hopes he's saying the right thing, and judging by Lily's slow smile, he thinks he's touched something good.
"And - do you need Sirius sometimes?" Her voice drops into the sweet honey places beneath her tongue and temperament.
Remus swallows heavily, suddenly flush. "I - I need him a lot of times."
"Do you need James sometimes?"
"I need him too."
"And Pete?"
Remus bites his lip. "I do." He doesn't like where this is going. Of course he needs Sirius. He needs Sirius like he needs oxygen. He needs Lily and James and Peter like he needs water. He needs people more than he needs every cliché, every stereotype, every Magnificent Sevenism, every all-for-one-one-for-all, every no-one-left-behindism that there has been in any book, any movie, and any religion there has ever existed, ever and ever, amen. He doesn't like that feeling, how dependent he is, how much he needs this, this infinite this, these people, Sirius' mouth and James' mouth and Lily's mouth. Need, want, have, hold, kiss, touch, come, need. He doesn't like it because it just can't last. Remus sighs. Damn rationality, damn realism; just once he'd like to taste that infinite fantasy Sirius has around him like a crystal shell; just once he'd like to think they were all going to survive into their seventies, eighties, nineties, forever.
Lily runs a hand, the one from his waist, over his arm, to the ripple-scar round of his shoulder, down the soft of his chest, the perk of his nipple, the lip of his belly button. "And a Lily? Sometimes? You need her?" God, the round sweetness of that girl, the quirk in her lips, the red of her cheeks, the cold of that skin, the small of her hands, the -
"I - of - course, yeah - you're one of us now."
"Am I?" The shallow lip of his belly button, the muscled fold where his stomach is bent, down the flat of his stomach and edge of his boxers.
"Of - of - course."
"Remus, don't be scared."
"I'm not - scared. I'm - worried."
Lily gives him a reassuring look. "It's not like this is the first time I've -"
"You only kissed me on a dare," Remus says, not sure if he should shift away or give in to the girl's hands, the girl's lips. "This is different."
"We're friends, Remus. Surely you trust me." Her hands test the lip of his boxers, only daring occasionally to slide under and find the warm skin beneath. "We're just teenagers, aren't we?"
"You're just doing this to get back at James." Remus swallows heavily. "At James and Sirius."
"So what." She frowns. "It's just you and me, Remus." She feels bad, but still, her voice is dangerously low, and it breathes into Remus' skin hot and sweet and she knows she's won - she has seen the way Remus looks at Sirius and James, like he's just a caretaker to them, a cook and nothing more - and she knows she's won because he wants this just as much as she does. "Who cares about them. She leans in closer; she smells like strawberry shampoo, and tea, and dust. "Kiss me a little?"
"You're asking?"
"I'm asking." Her hand dips under the band of his boxers and touches the small curl of hair that touches the base of his cock; she can feel the fever-like warmth there, and the boyish smell of soap, sweat, and gentle musk. "Kiss me a bit."
Remus does so, just like Remus would; shy-like, with the warm sweep of sandy-brown schoolboy hair that falls in front of his closed eyes, shivering a little, dry to the wet of her pink tongue, shifting a little, hand pressing over her side just like he's ignoring her breasts: uncomfortable a little, gentle a little, pleasant a lot.
She helps him, or rather directs him to slide the boxers from his legs, pleased with the small, whimpering protests slipping from between kissing lips. His cock is pink and hard, exuding warmth and the wanting smell of a sex. With a hand, Remus plays it, pressing it flat against his stomach and covering it in strokes, like he's hiding or protecting it. His thighs press together and his hips slide back, as if escaping her wandering fingers, afraid of what might just happen if she should touch him. Too late, none can resist the hands of girl; he shivers where Lily wraps a hand around him, and can't help jerk-thrusting a little into the round of her fingers.
"James -" Remus whimpers in final protest, rolling his hips under her hand, "come - c-come on, think about James."
"It's okay," Lily says in a hot breath, "just relax. It's okay. It's no problem." It's just fair, she thinks. Or maybe it's just this damn war. Whatever it is, she can see Sirius' naked back over Remus' shoulder and she can't help but give in.
The curve of Remus' body is delicious, muscle and light-tan skin, dusty with pale freckles and downy hair that slips over the slit of his belly and about the round of his nipples. His chest flushes as red as he does, glowing with heat and hindered noises, caught as they are in his mouth. Lily, falling in love with the shallow whimpers he makes, brings her other hand to his stomach and contents herself to press her chipped-red-polished nails into the flat plane of his belly. Red crescent moons remain, an ironic lunar symbol, before she drags that hand down to the base of his cock, thin little welts like new-shining scars trail in crop-lines behind.
One hand on his cock (fingers plying in twitching circles about the sticky-dry head) and the other now pleading sweetly at the skin of his cheek, Remus comes in thin bursts, pearl sliding up against his stomach and over the now-fading scratches. It's the moan he gives that wakes James and Sirius up.
"Remus?" Sirius asks suddenly bright into the morning light. "You up?"
Frantic and embarrassed, Remus pulls his boxers on as Lily giggles silently, pressing one hand against his chest and rubbing the round of his shoulder, the other grasping at her wand to clean; calming him in inches.
"Hallo," Remus says, trying to sound casual.
Sirius leaps from his bed (James groans in half-sleep) and he crawls over the couple to fall on the boy's other side, his shoulder hitting the bedroom wall with a thump. Sirius squeezes Remus hard, kissing in bites his bare shoulder, strong arms like a coil around the naked of Remus' belly. "I've missed you, Moony."
"Sirius, it's been three days."
"Three agonizing memo-writing days." Sirius nuzzles into the brown-haired boy's skin. "I fucking missed you. Did you miss me?"
Remus smiles and kisses the crown of Sirius's head, bumping his nose stupidly. "Sure."
Sirius can smell the sex on him, the cool scent of come and hot sweat. He loves the smell, and kisses Remus' shoulder again. He doesn't wonder why; why Remus smells of come and spice and girl and human things, he just nuzzles into him, curling thin-like arms and enjoying the solid flesh beneath, just simple like that.
Finishing the image, Lily hugs from the other side, arms reaching over Remus' body to feel Sirius, to slide over his forearms and touch the muscle of Sirius' shoulder, just testing Remus' theory. Sirius tenses up and looks to her, somewhere between worry and irritation, before coiling closer to his sex-raddled and sleep-weary wolfboy, content with the warmth of Remus and nuzzling deeper into sleep.
Languishing only a minute under Sirius' cold, Lily leaves the bed, feeling just that much worse. She joins her nearly-naked James, curling soft against him and pulling up their blanket in comfort,
"Remus," Sirius asks, the two presently face to face, "can I kiss you?"
Remus nearly laughs. "Sure." A pause. "Well, where?"
"Your cheek." Guilty smile, feet kicking gently and crossing with Remus.
Remus smiles and nods.
"And - lips?"
Remus hesitates, coughs, not sure of what to think (Sirius, Lily, Sirius, Lily - am I wrong to do this?) before smiling and nodding and licking his lips.
They kiss; they're soldiers and friends and Sirius kisses Remus on the cheek, rough a bit with stubble, and then kisses him on the lips in small pink tongue and curiosity. It's odd, Remus thinks, just having kissed sweet-mouth and breasts, to be touched by Lily, this girl's girl - girl and girl, right down to her feet, girl in every sense of the word, girl that's strong and girl that's sweet and girl that knows who she is - and now, with Sirius, boy Sirius, so boyish, Tom-Sawyer-boy, James-Dean-boy, boy of match sticks and Benson & Hedges and thrice-daily masturbation, boy of cricket whites and boy of the pot-smoking oh-so-seventies Jimi-Hendrix-loving anti-establishment-but-only-coz-it's-cool school-boy boy boy. Like turning the shower from cold to hot, from warming smiles and soft hands to rambunctious fumbling, chest-scratching, arse-grabbing boys' fun. It makes him sweat, and writhe, and pull down Sirius' boxers, half because it's a stupid fun thing to see him naked and vulnerable, and half because he wants to feel every piece, every part, both sides now.
Sirius is hard and Remus is stroking him with feather-light fingers. They pause, they laugh; as everyone else sleeps into the afternoon, they touch like teenagers, ignore the implications like teenagers, and make out like teenagers.
***
Sirius can barely tell if time is even passing any more. It's night, sure, but how long has it been night and how long will it stay night? It's just this winter feeling, where darkness means it's anywhere between six p.m. to four in the morning; bland, stretching, indistinct, like every single day of the last month.
James is still in the back alley, half-conscious, pressed back against a building as the world swims in blurs, flowing and blending together like watercolours in a storm. Sirius stands at the corner of the building, searching frantically back and forth, wand outstretched, legs shaking out of cold and panic. James only distantly feels the pain in his arm, and only a wetness in his clothes tells him of the blood and the hurt. James pants in silver breath that spirals and disperses into the air like cigarette smoke - it's pretty.
"You fucker," Sirius says to himself in a panicked hush. "You dumb fucking idiot, Sirius. Get James killed. You stupid ignorant fuck." He kicks the wall as he berates himself.
James groans and falls further into his bundle of clothes, a child in swaddling robes.
"Hold on, Jamie. It'll be okay. I promise, I promise, it'll be fine." Sirius says in a panic. "Oh, God, please please be all right."
James gasps and grinds his teeth. The lights start up again: red and green, alternating fire and cold, thumping like World War shells.
"Fuck," Sirius moans. "Where is Dumbledore. Fuck, where is he?!"
***
James is reading memos at the kitchen table when Sirius comes downstairs from his shower, wet hair in tangles, his ears scrubbed red, whole body seemingly aglow with renewed energy.
"What's the good word, chum?" Sirius asks, scratching the stubble yawning across his jaw line.
James mumbles: "The Stoakes have gone in to hiding."
"That's not a good word at all." Sirius sits down across from him and runs a hand through his damp hair. He smells like soap and Lily's shampoo. "That's a very bad word. It say why?"
"No. Just says because of danger."
"Pleasantly vague. Maybe it's just, like, fire ants and not -"
James gives him a look, a tired, empty, hollow look, a look that says more than his mouth ever could. "Just drop it, Sirius. I'm not in the mood for jokes."
"Right." Sirius bites his lower lip and watches as James flips to the next one. "Are you going to read them out loud?"
"Edinburgh; seventeen muggles killed, fourteen injured; clean-up finished. Rochdale; twelve muggles killed, twenty-one injured; clean-up in progress. Chester; four muggles killed -"
"Okay," Sirius says with a dead voice. "I get it."
James closes his mouth in a line and reads on in silence.
"Jamie?"
"Pads?"
Silence, pause. "Never mind."
James softens. "Could you get me some tea?"
"Yeah, sure."
The sounds of making; spoons, clinking, boiling, glugging, the room filled with the hot smell of steam and herb, honey and the dust of the cabinets; an old English smell that makes one think of vicars' robes and the Queen's coronation and plus-fours and James Herriot; a better time, as pub-weary gentlemen like to groan.
"When's Evans coming back from the meeting?" Sirius asks.
"Lily."
"Yes, Lily Evans, that's her name." Sirius gives a little smirk; he doesn't push it too far. "You know, lovely girl, red hair, great breasts, I think you two have met -"
"Why don't you call her Lily?"
"Why should I? It's very English to call people by their last names. Very old-chap, old-sport public school back-thumping, cricket-playing thing to do, I think. Just living the life, old sport, old chum. Potter, old mate, old crocus."
"You have to stop reading Wodehouse." He gives a guilty smile. "You sound like a -"
"Don't even go there, you lesbian."
James sighs. "That was a change of subject on a cosmic scale."
"I don't call her Lily because. It's. I. Am madly in love with her." He frowns. "I don't know why I don't. It's just, it doesn't feel right. I don't think she likes me."
"She likes you."
"She only likes me because you like me."
"That's good enough, isn't it? You can't even do that much."
Sirius sighs heavily. "God you're needy."
"I'm needy?" James thumps him in the shoulder. "Yeah, sure, I'm the one who needs constant support from his friends. I'm the one who demands the time and love of everyone I meet. Definitely me."
"Do you love me?"
"Of course I do. And you love me, but I don't always have to ask."
Sirius grins. "I'm insecure."
"No, you just have an ego with a tapeworm." James puts down his tea and begins to bundle the memos again. "You'd think Wizards would have invented an easier method of communication than stupid memos, wouldn't you?" James says to no one in particular.
And then, in a rush: "Can I kiss you?" Sirius' heart leaps to his throat and his hands grip his knees under the table; the familiar whirl in his chest that comes when he's in proximity to James, his James, his Prongs, his Jamie.
A pause; tick, tock, tick, and then:
"Why do people in this house always fucking ask that question?" James slams the memos on the table and grimaces. "You and fucking Lily. Can I kiss you? It's not a fucking taboo, you know. Why do you always have to take the fun out of being stupid and spontaneously homosexual? Why can't you just leap over the table and tackle me to the ground and pull down my fucking pants instead of asking like a little fucking girl? You did it in our dorms, just crawling in and grabbing my cock. Did I complain then? Am I complaining now? Stop asking me! I'm a person, not a fucking magic-eight-ball."
Sirius blinks, licks his lips awkwardly, and coughs into his fist. "So." He bites his lower lip. "Can I kiss you then?"
"I am surrounded by women. Fucking fuck."
"Yep."
It's only seconds before they clash, mouth to mouth, hands grasping at buttons that won't open, tongues lashing and laughing and smacking against teeth and nose and lip and chin and neck and eyes and ears and only occasionally another tongue. Shirts won't do, but they can't rip them off and zippers are caught and their minds are running into each other (Sirius turns to kiss right as James turns left, nose pressed against nose, hands tangled and pulling at each other, yanking hair and tugging legs and clothes and arms back and forth.) It's like they're mice, desperate, trapped in a maze and they can't escape their clothes, they can't escape the leaden heat that grinds into jean fronts and boxers and hands that fumble like a bad game of rugger.
James is pressing Sirius into the wall and manages, finally, awkwardly, to slip the final button and split the clench of Sirius' shirt, his hands immediately falling to the hot skin of his chest, scratching and sliding around his back, to the curve of his arse, fingers pressing hard, hard.
"Fuck," Sirius says as James leans down to bite his neck, all grinning-vampire-like as he sucks on the spot, sucks on the skin until he leaves his mark. "You're a fucking maniac," he manages to whimper as James' hands rip at his jeans, trousers that get caught around Sirius' hips, just tugging enough to part the zipper so James can tug down Sirius' blue boxers, pulling them over the length of his cock, freeing it from the tangle of clothes. His cock, pink and hard, long and dry in the cold, which James stops with a hand.
It's like touch-memory from then on; dormitory nights, slow and cold desperation; they've done this before.
James wraps one cold hand around the length of Sirius' cock, palming and twirling his fingers around it, like some magic sleight of hand; touching, jerking, making from magic the sweat that curls on Sirius' lip, pulling from thin air those whimpers, drawing them like a conjurer from Sirius' begging mouth.
It's what friends should do, pulling and slurping and jerking and other similar activities. It's meaningless, just the drifting smoke of sexual need, as Lily is up all night on duty and James misses her and Sirius is right there, fucking sex machine, as pretty as an underwear model and twice as fun because he doesn't pad. (It's what James likes to tell himself, because he's certainly not gay, just maybe a little gay for Sirius.) Everyone should have a Sirius, James thinks, to jerk him off when he needs to, to hold him when he needs to, to punch him when he needs to (and sometimes when he doesn't.) Sometimes brother, sometimes lover, always - what was it? Don't think about it now; just think about the fingers, the fingers pulling hard against his skin and cock. That's right - what implications?
"I'm - I'm going to - oh fuck, Jamie, I'm going to come -" Sirius gasps, his hips moving, swaying pressing their cocks close and hard together.
"Oh no you fucking don't." James says, flicking the head of Sirius' cock. Sirius yelps in pain and jerks away. "This isn't a quickie, Sirius and I'm not even close."
"The fuck you do that for?" Sirius says, wrapping a head around his cock protectively. "Christ, that's not how you treat a cock."
James hoists himself up on the counter, boxers around his knees, jeans around his ankles, shirt split open, like a ceramic (muscle and bone) doll, undressed to the fumbling hands of a depraved child. James' cock is hard and he pushes his hips forward, towards his friend, leaning back on his palms grabbing the edge of the counter: "Could you - uh. I mean. I would. Like it."
Sirius looks at him curiously for a moment. "You want me to suck you off?" James nods, perhaps a bit guilty-pleasure. "You fucking faggot," Sirius says with an appreciative smile. James gives a low growl as Sirius lowers his head, just testing him with a kiss to the tip, small tongue slipping out to roll in a circle about the head.
Sirius pulls away for a moment: "Oh, and James?"
"Mm?"
"You owe me one."
James looks down at him, curiously, testing him, questioning if he actually means it. "I owe you a - a - this?" Sirius nods. "I. But." He thinks on it, and he sees Sirius, almost naked except for the careless tangle of clothes around his ankles; hard chest, pink nipples, dark wisp of hair slipping from belly button to cock, warm thighs, dark freckles over burnished skin. A pause, a thought. "Sure."
"Good." And Sirius leans down and takes the cock in his mouth, pushing right down, nearly to the base of it, taking it in as James nearly writhes but keeps his twitchy thighs buckled down so Sirius can - can - fuck, what was he doing? Some kind of ballet of tongue and teeth around the best, sweetest, tenderest parts of his cock, parts James had only discovered after hours in the bath, playing and plying and pressing and testing, and here was Sirius pushing all the buttons all at once like he knew James' cock better than he knew it himself. This was so much more than the jerking off and hand jobs they'd been accustomed too; this was fucking magic.
"Holy fuck what -" teeth, tongue, a little nip and bite at the tip, scratching down and making him whimper, breath almost forced from his lungs by an invisible hand. "You - you are a - a - goddamn liar."
"A what?" Sirius mumbles over James' cock, it sounds like: "Awa?"
"This can't be your first time," he says on a gasp.
Sirius slides away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "What makes you say that?"
"Either you are a homosexual prodigy or you've done this before." James runs a hand through sweaty hair (sweaty? Was he really that worked up?) "You give better head than Lily for fuck's sake. That can't be an innate talent because she is good."
"Well. I." Sirius blushes. "Okay, this isn't my first time."
"You little fuck," James says a bit hotly, but suddenly feels a little worse, a little ill. "Well, who have you done this to before?"
Sirius looks at him awkwardly. "Well. I mean, at first it was only out of curiosity. And. Well. And then Remus. And then Remus a lot. But I think you kind of knew that."
"Well, I know you two are." He gestures vaguely. "I just didn't think you would - I thought you were a bit bent, yeah, but I didn't think you would -"
"Well I'm doing this aren't I? I'm more than a little bent." Sirius frowns. "Why is this such a big deal? A minute ago you were practically burying me in your cock and moaning like a girl. What, you only like chickens of the unplucked variety?"
"No," James says, touching his cock absently. "I just. Why didn't you tell me?" Uh oh, implications.
"Because I thought. Well, I thought this would happen."
"What?"
"I thought as soon as you realized I did this. Often. That you would think I was some kind of shirt-lifter." Sirius bites his lower lip. "That you wouldn't want me anymore because you'd realize this was more than play between straight boys."
"It's - it's more?"
Sirius runs a hand through his own hair. "I don't know about you, but I generally don't kiss people I don't like. I mean, like that. You know. I don't kiss people I play with." Sirius rolls back on his heels and looks beseechingly to James. "You've got to admit, that was kind of gay."
"Listen," James says. "Okay, it was kind of. It was. But I'm." He sighs. "I don't know how to explain it."
"Then don't." Sirius bites at his neck and grasps him in a tight fist. "Who fucking cares."
James blushes again, he can feel Sirius' wet hair against his own skin and he can smell Lily's shampoo on him, but he can smell Sirius too; new-sweat and something impossibly boyish that hints somewhere between sweetness and dirty. And still, James is compelled to explain: "It's like - you're Sirius. You're Sirius and you exist beyond the - the circles of sexuality, I guess. That Kismet fellow, whatshisname with the scale -"
"Kinsey."
"Yeah, Kinsey. You're like. You're a seven or something."
"I'm gayer than gay?"
"No, that's not what I meant. No, you're like, you're a happy face on the scale. You're the letter 'S' or something. You don't have a number. You don't fit on there."
"That's so - I don't know if I should say sweet or ridiculous. Is that a compliment?"
"I don't know, actually. Really, to be honest, I'm just trying to find an excuse so you can finish the damn blowjob."
Sirius laughs. "You'd really suck me off?"
"Yeah, sure," James says off-hand as Sirius stand up to nip at his throat, catch his skin in his teeth and tug, grin a bit, pull. James gasps and pushes forward. "I would, I would, seriously."
"Good."
"Now will you please, please, please finish me off? I've got a stiffy like a milk bottle and I think it's considered cruel and unusual punishment if you leave someone halfway home."
"Yeah, I think I read that in the Geneva Convention," the long-haired boy says with a smirk.
"Okay, good, now go."
Sirius presses his hands into the plane of James' pelvis, hard against the flesh and bone. "Sorry, did you say something?" He plays his fingers into the short web of dark hair around James' cock. "I'm not sure I heard you."
"You fucker."
"Hm." Sirius leans closer to James. "You're going to leave me for Lily, aren't you?"
James wants to moan, wants to tell Sirius to shut up and get blowing, sucking, coming for God's fucking sake. But something in Sirius' eyes stops him, some hidden James-and-Sirius signal that tells him I'm Not Kidding, or maybe I'm Worried. James pauses and leans forward to place a chaste kiss on Sirius' lips. "Well." James puts a hand to Sirius' cheek. "No. I'm not going to leave you. Yes, I love Lily. Yes, I think we might. Be together. Sometime." James pauses. "Maybe. Who the fuck knows with girls, I mean." James smiles sweetly. "It's just - I love Lily - differently." Sirius looks at him curiously as James stumbles through the thorny thicket of his mind. "With you, it's all excitement. I see you, I touch you, I feel alive and wide awake. It's like a big firework going off. I can't get enough of you, but that's - it's just our being friends that makes me love you. But with Lily. It's like. It's Lily. It's slower. It's like coals or embers or something. God, I'm bad at metaphors."
"Similes."
"Shut up." James touches his hand to Sirius mouth, gently, betraying his words. " It's just, with Lily, it's. It's nicer. It's gentle. It's a growing thing. Like a bonfire. It's - permanent." James pauses again to collect his thoughts. "Our lust is a boy thing. It's being friends and being lonely. It's us, isn't it? And one day you'll have a girl. And one day Lily and I will be. You know." He stops - James isn't even sure he knows what he knows. "Well, at least I think so. She's kind of - gone off me lately, I don't know." A hand through his hair, and that familiar action is enough to bring a smile to Sirius' lips, which fades just as quickly. "I thought it was so easy between me and her, and now - I don't know. She doesn't look at me the same way."
Sirius gives him an unreadable look. "Oh."
"What?"
Sirius moves in and kisses hard into James' cheek, sliding to the corner of his mouth, hard thumbs pressing into the divot of his friend's belly button. James feels the tension within him, his tendons and veins pulled taut like a puppets' strings as Sirius' hands find his cock, find his cock like a memory of hidden dorm room masturbation (mutual) and a present memory of desperate war and loneliness and together in a bed, in a kitchen. Sirius wants to tell him - it's not you, she's not gone off you: it's me. Lily hates me, hates us, hates Jamesnsirius. It's me, Lily loathes me, she wants me gone, out of the house, out of the world, out of your life - But Sirius can't say it, because he wants this too much, and he's too damn afraid of what would happen if James figured out it was all Sirius, all his fault, just like every fucking problem in this damn world - all his fault, as per usual.
Sirius sighs, and breathes slowly, and says: "Mm, nevermind."
"I hate when you do that," James says.
"Do what?"
"Say 'nevermind.' You do it a lot, and I never know what you're thinking. It irritates me." James runs a hand through Sirius' hair and holds it loosely. "Just say what you're thinking."
"Okay," Sirius says with a nod.
"Now, what were you thinking?"
"I don't remember."
James groans and gives something, halfway between a grin and a grimace of determination before he puts a hand to Sirius' chest and pushes him down. "Get on the floor, you arse."
Part 2
Author: marseverlasting
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sirius/James/Lily/Remus
Word Count: 18,337 words
Summary: Isolated from the war, tensions clash and mount, building and building; a storm in a teacup. Can four people exist in a single relationship?
Warnings: Swearing, violence, bloodplay, comeplay, betrayal, deceit, het, slash, foursome, alcohol use.
Author's notes: Written for anjenue for hp_springsmut.
***
Sirius is running down an empty London street, red and green flashes bursting like dull fireworks behind, glimmering and glowing Christmas-like on the white mirror of new snow.
"Fuck," he says in a whimpering panic. "Where are you? God, James, where are you?" He rounds down a back alley. The lights have dimmed behind him, but Sirius keeps running, and running.
He has a stitch in his side and his breaths come in rounded bursts, heart fluttering like a hummingbird in a shoebox, and he doesn't know if he's going to pass out or throw up.
And then, there, lying on the cobbles and covered in snow and blood, he finds him at last: James, his breath shallow, whimpering and moaning indistinctly where he lies.
Sirius makes up his mind: he throws up.
***
"Is Sirius asleep?"
James touches Sirius' hair softly. "I think so."
Lily sighs, leans back in her chair and rubs a hand to her eyes. "Well, you should wake him, we've work to do."
James yawns. "Oh, just leave him, Lily. He's tired."
"James, we're all tired."
"Am not asleep," Sirius mumbles half-heartedly against the wood of the kitchen table, "am just resting my eyes."
"Come on, Sirius," Lily replies wearily, slouching into the kitchen. "You can't sleep on the job." She taps her wand against the cast iron kettle and it begins to steam obediently. "We're almost done, anyway."
"It's fucking four in the morning and I'm tired," Sirius says, still talking into the table. "I've been up all day and I think I'm losing my mind." He hears the hiss and gurgle of boiling water as Lily pours it into the tea pot. "If I have to copy down another memo I think I'm going to have to kill someone."
"We've got to finish this, Sirius," Lily says, cradling the pot with a cozy and placing it on the table roughly, "it's important; Albus said it was important."
James sighs and drains the dregs of his now-cold tea. He speaks encouragingly, like one might to an infant: "Come on, we're almost done, mate."
Sirius rises from the table, wet spit-stain from where he was dozing shiny in the candlelight and fixes James with a withering stare, half pleading and half accusing. "I thought being a soldier meant more than organizing fucking memos."
"Then do something else," Lily says with the slow-burn anger that accompanies discussions with Sirius, fucking fucking Sirius.
"Remus gets to sleep," Sirius complains with no real conviction.
"It was full moon yesterday, Sirius. Come on, don't be a jerk, just finish this up and we can all sleep," James says dismissively.
"God, what's the point if we're just going to end up waking up at seven to spend all of tomorrow doing this too?" Sirius frowns and grabs another elastic-held bundle of memos, each addressed to various members or potential members of the Order. "Where's Petey when you need him."
"Who knows," James says. "Well, think about it this way: we might get attacked tomorrow. That'll cheer us all up, I'm sure." There's something strangely akin to romance hidden in his words.
"James," Lily says warningly, pleadingly, "don't talk like that."
"Sorry," the boy replies dully. "Was just - musing."
"Here, have some tea."
"God. Fuck." Sirius says, abandoning his memos and crossing his arms against the table, pressing his face in the crook of his elbow.
Lily watches him, eyes flickering from anger to momentary warmth to anger again. She doesn't know if she should berate him or join him.
"Fuck," Sirius mumbles through what sounds like tears. "Fucking fuck."
"What's wrong, Sirius?" James asks, his temperament immediately shifting to concern, dull eyes turning bright with sudden worry. He gives Lily an anxious glance, who replies with a shallow shrug.
"Nothing," Sirius replies. "I'm just - I'm so fucking exhausted." He speaks to the table and barely shifts in his position. "I think I'm hysterical. And not in the funny way. And I'm tired of saying tired. It doesn't even feel like a word anymore, it feels like a punishment. I think I'm losing my mind."
James knows what he means; James knows what to do; James wraps his fingers in the black tangle of Sirius hair, stroking his head gently and messaging his fingers into his scalp. "It's okay, Sirius. It's okay." Like soothing a startled colt; like a movie, James Potter Is: The Sirius Whisperer. "We're almost done, pup." Pup. Pup, pup, puppy. A hidden nickname. Only pup, unless James wants to be punched, in which case he calls his Sirius puppy, half mocking but always loving.
"Jamie," Sirius whimpers appreciatively lulled immediately into sleep. "S'nice, Jamie."
James glances to Lily, who is, strangely, smiling warmly, smiling like she enjoys seeing Sirius slack off and that she enjoys seeing James comfort him. Maybe she does, who the fuck knows with girls, honestly.
Meeting James's sleep-bruised eyes, Lily blows him a kiss and takes a sip of her tea. She is just beautiful there, James thinks, stroking Sirius' hair and watching her. Her bronze hair is kind of oily (they didn't have the daily pleasure of showers, only once every few days now) and caught in strings and tendrils falling from the wand-latched bundle of hair; no make-up, a few pimples of fading childhood touching the corner of her mouth in red spots; freckles like pinpricks sent scattering over her cheeks and nose; legs curled up on the chair, over-large t-shirt (belonging to James) stretched over her knees making a tent over her body. You're beautiful, James mouths silently, and Lily blushes so her freckles blend together. They grin like little kids for a bit until she turns back to her work.
Startled out of his dream, James rubs Sirius' shoulder: "C'mon, pup," James says, "let's finish, yeah?"
Lily shakes her head and gives a little sigh. "Oh, just let him sleep," she whispers like she's at the end of her rope and is waiting for the short drop. "You and I can finish these together."
James cocks his head curiously. "Just let him sleep? But you were saying -"
Lily nods, waving off her hypocrisy. "I know. Well, I don't know. I don't know why I even bother at all anymore. It's Sirius, isn't it?" she offers. "He operates on his own clock. He's done good, he's just not built for - this."
James nods, and feels slightly warmed. "And I am?"
"Shut up, Potter," she says with a guilty smile.
They finish the memos by five, working their wands (copy, copy - sigh - copy, copy) to the slow rhythm of Sirius' breath. The sun bleaches the dark horizon a pasty blue and James begins to nod off where he sits, shadowed eyes drooping, cobwebbed eyelashes seemingly frost-covered in the pale near-dawn. The three go up to their shared bedroom together, James half-hauling Sirius, and Lily leading the way with her lit wand. The halls of the small flat seem to cave inwards, or maybe it was just how they felt - trapped, pushed, crushed under the weight of the unimportance, sequestered in this far-west-end London hovel, quarantined from excitement and left to amuse themselves with memos, memos, memos, memos, tea, memos, alcohol, memos, memos, and only occasionally sleep.
The bedroom the four teenagers share - Sirius, Remus, James, and Lily, and Peter if he'll ever get out of Manchester - is a squat, Spartan chamber pressed up against the slanted roof of the flat so that the ceiling has a definite forty-five degree slope, turning the room into a trapezoid. Two single beds sit flush in opposite corners of the room, each with a small grey mattress (limp and withered in the frame) and layered with a threadbare duvet. Being the gentlemen they are, the boys let Lily have one to herself while they occupy the remaining offices in revolving order. Generally, the other bed would be used by two boys pressed to opposite edges like self-same magnets while the fourth sleeps in the single arm chair reclined in a shadowed corner; it's an irritating system but it works.
Sometimes the rules bend, though:
"Jamie," Sirius speaks through dream, "come sleep with me?" It emerges as: comseep wimee?
Lily looks to James and gives him an agreeable look as she pulls off her t-shirt (black lace bra beneath, white breasts covered in a red-peppering of freckles.) "Let him sleep there, tonight," Lily says, nodding to the empty bed. "I don't mind. He needs it." She means: he needs you - and she won't lie, it hurts her a little and she can't figure out why.
But then, just there, James touches her face; and, God, it seems so gentle in this light, translucent and sweet and even more surprising in her sudden affection for Sirius. "I'll just sleep with Remus." She nods over to the other bed, where Remus is curled up rather sweetly under one of the blankets. "We can sleep together tomorrow." Small smile, purple lips in the dark.
James nods, lowering Sirius to the wrinkled, tired bed. The dark-tangled boy rolls into the sheets with a kind of natural happiness, aching hands and fingers burrowing into the sheets, sighing heavily.
"Okay, Sirius," James says gently, pulling off his own shirt and trousers, tossing them into the clothes hamper. "Now, raise your arms." Sirius does so limply and James manages to strip the dirty shirt from him. Tugging off the almost-sleeping boy's trousers, James crawls obediently in next to him.
"G'night Lily," James says, rolling closer to his gently snoring friend.
"Sleep well, James," comes her muffled reply.
Like an infant to a nipple, Sirius instinctually turns and curls himself against James' chest, burying his face into the curve of the other boy's shoulders, lazy hands coiling around the lean-tone belly and crawling under the hem of the taller boy's boxers, fingers resting nestled against the warm skin of his thigh. "G'night," he mumbles as James tugs their blanket over their goose-pimpled bodies, "luvyou": tired, mumbled, thoughtless phrase.
"Mmhm," James replies, settling into Sirius' weight, the hot breath on his skin and the fingers all flush against his body.
"I can jerk you off if you want," Sirius stutters through the clouds.
"No, thanks," James mumbles, barely thinking.
"Mkay." Sirius rustles close and lets his hand slide absently to the ridge of James' arse.
They sleep.
***
"James, James, Jamie - please, please get up. Come on, they're coming," Sirius says in a rapid-fire panic. "Please, we have to hide."
His hands are freezing, the red and green lights have started again, vomiting sparks and sickly light into the still night. James and Sirius sit in a pool of orange light, gifted to them by the streetlight hovering over their heads.
James rolls and groans. Sirius can feel him shiver and shake as James tries to lean up but can't make it. Through burning cold tears, Sirius bites his lips to blood red and manages to drag his companion to a back alley. He manages to get James to lean back against the wall of a building, groaning and drifting in and out of consciousness as he does.
It's no use. Sirius curses on the cold wind as he sees the dirty trail of swept snow and blood they've left behind.
***
Boredom kills.
Boredom kills.
Sirius traces the words into the spilled sugar: boredom kills. He licks the sugar from his finger and spills another handful onto the wooden table. Boredom kills.
It's cold in the kitchen but Sirius is too lazy to change out of his boxers and t-shirt. He hears the small television in the next room humming indistinctly, a badly tuned radio or distant thunder in a storm. He can hear James playing with his beer, knocking cap against bottle, scratching at it and shredding the paper of the label.
"Can you see anything?" James calls.
Sirius shakes his head even though he knows James can't see it.
"Sirius?"
"Yeah?"
"Can you see anything?"
Sirius sighs. "He's not here yet. I don't think he's going to come. Ever." He hears James put the bottle on the table, hears it roll in thin circles before settling, like a coin spinning on its edge. "We're going to be waiting forever."
James comes into the kitchen. He's only wearing pyjama-bottoms and the necklace Lily gave him. His body is a hard thing, slender and tall, limbs pulling and pushing in motion. It seems forced though, as if there are hooks in his flesh pulling it thin and tight, the illusion of athleticism, when Sirius knows that James is just thin. He watches him blankly as James grabs another amber-bottle beer from the fridge. From the tangle of his hair and his heavy-lidded eyes, he assumes James is slouching towards drunkenness.
"I'm tired of waiting." James unscrews the top and throws it into the sink. "Want a beer?"
"One of us has to stay sober," Sirius murmurs.
"What?"
Sirius sighs. "Sure."
James takes another from the fridge, opens it, and sits next to Sirius at the table. They stay there, drinking, overwhelmed by the fluid buzz of the television and the echoing silence of a heavy British night. The linoleum shines white and hard, like snow blindness, and the lights hold no warmth either. It feels like a public lavatory, artificial and fluorescently lit, uninterested and unfeeling and almost totally unbearable.
Boredom kills. Sirius writes it, and wipes it away.
"When did Dumbledore say he was coming?" James watches as Sirius scratches the word out again.
"Nine."
James looks at the clock on the stove: 1:09, in red digital lines.
"He's late."
Sirius sighs and wipes out the words again. "He's always late."
They sit and sip at their beer, waiting for Godot, purposeless, limp, cold, tired. They sit and listen as the wind blows in against the horrible night-black windows. Time passes like the grinding of stones, each second a tempering of the senses; everything loses its lustre in this sleep-deprived world, everything grows watery and blurry and only hinting at reality.
They have their orders, in hastily written script: 'I will come at nine. You must be there when I arrive. - AD.' But no amount of reading and re-reading will hurry time; time that bends around them, like frost, wrapping about their thin-haired legs and still-boyish faces, and twisting them into these near-alcoholic boy-beings, just aching for comfort or some kind of reprieve. Time bites their lips and sends their lungs into shallow breath; time stretches between them, billowing and collapsing in its own dimension, the same one built, explored, wounded, and sealed by Wells' Traveller.
James kicks out, just gently, and touches his foot to Sirius'. Their legs tangle, warm and cold, and they don't move from it. Sirius watches as James leans forward in his seat, slender stomach rippling and folding as his back curls. Sex clings to James like a thin film, or sweet beads of dew, but it evaporates just as quickly - just there for an instant and gone in a flash. An alcoholic residue that fades in the apathy and disinterest of the night. Sirius swills his beer around and nudges James' feet with his own, knocking knees together and shifting in his seat.
"I want to go kill someone."
James laughs a bit until he realizes it isn't a joke. He bites his lip. "Who?"
"Who do you think? The bad guys. The Dark Lord. Whoever. I just want to - to go out there. To fuck someone up." Sirius presses the palms of his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes hard. "I'm tired of sitting here on my ass. In my boxers. Just. I hate this." No anger in his voice, only memories of passion. "I hate waiting."
"Oh." James drags the bottle over the table, sketching lines in dents. "Me too." He doesn't want to kill someone, not exactly, but it feels like the right thing to say.
"You too what?"
James sighs and fingers his wand, half-bored and half-consciously, like a sheriff handling a gun: not that's he's going to kill, but just to know that he can if he needs to. "I'm tired of just sitting here."
Sirius takes another long draught of his beer, and says: "Why does Lily get to go outside? It's not fair."
"She's responsible." James nods and takes a pull. "And she's better at magic than we are."
"I resent that."
James tucks his hands under his arms and watches as goose-pimples course up and down his skin. "It's true."
"I know, but I still resent it."
The television show in the next room ends, adverts blare, and some softcore pornography begins to play. Neither can see it from their seat, but by the artificial hitched moans of a lady, they know what's going on. The porn, neither wanted nor pleasant, rings in their ears and conjures images of cold pizza, motel rooms, and late night petrol stations; as isolated and alienated as solitary confinement.
"I feel like a fucking muggle," Sirius says. "Just sitting in here, not allowed to do major magic, just - fucking cleaning spells or whatever." Sirius sniffs and James can't bear it. "I can't take much more of this, James." It sounds like a plea.
"We can't draw attention to ourselves," James hears himself repeating, though he too hates the ban, hates it with all his heart. "We just have to sit on the sidelines now."
"I don't want to sit on the sidelines though," Sirius counters, a familiar statement in this house. "I want to fight - and - and if I die, at least it was - worth it."
"You don't want to die," James replies automatically.
"I don't want to, but I - I wouldn't object to it, if I was fighting." Sirius licks his finger for the sugar. "It's part of the deal."
"Sirius, don't be so fucking melodramatic." James punches him in the shoulder, gently. "No one is going to die."
Sirius, tired of the conversation, blows the sugar off the table. "Want some food?"
"Yeah."
So they make food.
James hugs Sirius from behind as he stirs the soup with his wand. James kisses the nape of Sirius' neck and nothing has ever felt so strange. Maybe it's the cold, maybe it's the fact that James did the identical thing to Lily just the night before, maybe it was the flood of orange light from the street lamps outside. Who knows. But it feels; it feels like an illness, the kiss, like dried vomit or the dregs of a vodka bottle. Sirius whimpers almost silently and pretends nothing is real. Maybe it isn't real; in this word of fluorescence and ice, bare feet and metal-tasting water, maybe nothing is real. Because, seriously, nothing can actually be real on one hour of sleep. The heat of James' naked chest against Sirius' back - that's not real. And then - James slides his hands down the back of Sirius' boxers and holds his arse - is that real? James nips gently at the skin of Sirius' shoulder, where the stretched collar of his shirt exposes the flesh. Is that real, a wish? Not dreaming, he can feel the heat and the wet. James rolls his hands around to Sirius' front, fingers digging into the dark web of hair there and probing the soft skin of Sirius' half-hard cock. Is that real? No, can't be. No. It's James.
The soup finishes and Sirius turns off the stove and James' hands are gone. If they were ever really there to begin with.
They eat.
And they go into the living room.
Sirius curls into James' side and plays with his skin, the muscle of his chest and the pink of his nipples; like a child, bored, amusing itself with nothing. Sirius slides his hands in circles, eventually resting along the lip of James' belly button, slipping down under the waistband of the boy's boxers and holding, for a moment, James' warm cock. He withdraws after that and contents himself to snooze against James's side. James barely makes a noise, not when Sirius touches his naked chest, not when he holds his cock - he doesn't even complain that Sirius doesn't finish what he started; but, God, it's not like James has a problem down there, it's just that Sirius barely started anything. Maybe it's the cold.
And sometimes it's not always good. They get drunk on beer; neither grows anything more than morose, languishing on the couch, pulling and pushing against one another in a quiet stupor. They kiss a bit but neither remember it the next day. They wake up together on the couch, freezing and hungover, at six in the morning. They go to their own beds.
They sleep.
***
"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck," Sirius says, pacing terrified before James' body, keeping himself between the opening of the dead-end alley and his best friend's woollen body - corpse? - no, no, body, he's still breathing. God, please, he's still breathing.
Sirius leans down and puts his ear close to James' mouth. Shallow breath, but breath none the less. Sirius leans in and kisses him on the lips, trying to do something, something to help him, maybe; just breathing into James' lungs on the count of the boy's ragged breath and push him along. It works a bit, and James breathes a bit deeper, but it's still terrifying - Sirius pulls away with blood in his mouth (not his own, God, fuck, not his own.)
Where was all his wit now? What use did all his learning, all his work, all his study do now? Nothing, nothing; he's left just here, lonely and cold, worried and hurt, with nothing but his trembling hands and shock-numb mind to find a solution. Nothing comes to him and he knows he's going to die.
And there in the sky, like a lazy firework, Dumbledore's Patronus all silver-soaring through the air, the most welcome sight. Sirius drops to his knees and cries, wracked with sobs, mumbling into his scarf.
Maybe he's not quite an adult yet.
***
Lazy morning in; alarm doesn't go off and no one from the Order comes visiting; no new memos, just sleep, wonderful sleep. The four of them don't know why they're sleeping still, but small pleasures need no analysis.
Remus is the first to wake up, at around ten, and finds himself facing a gently-sleeping Lily, curled against him like a little cat and snuffling just the same. She's only wearing a bra and her jeans, which makes Remus blush. One of her hands is held tight between her own thighs, just pressed between over the jeans she wears, which makes his head spin a little because how could something so static be so - different. More than that, her other hand is resting on Remus' hip, over the dark plaid of his boxers. Just sleep movement, turnings in the night, but it still makes Remus tremble a little, making him suddenly aware of their proximity.
Her bright green eyes open suddenly, like bursting through the silk of a dream; deep breath and sudden shiver.
"Hallo," Remus says quietly, still very aware of the two-fold snores of Sirius and - fuck - James.
"Morning," Lily says with a smile. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," Remus replies in a whisper, "it's just like a hangover now," in reference to his few-nights-old transformation.
"Good," Lily says (not bothering to lift her bra which is resting uncomfortably low on her chest, not bothering to move her hand from Remus' waist.) "We missed you. Sirius missed you."
"Where is he?"
Lily gestures with a nod of her head to the other bed, her back presently turned to it. "Sleeping with James."
He can see, now, James and Sirius sleeping face to face, legs tangled in a boy-limb mess, mouths only inches apart and breathing in turn. Sirius' naked back is to them, and James' hands, coiled around the long-haired boy's waist, pressed along the scoop of the small of his back and down below, pushing the hem of Sirius' black boxer shorts low so that the curve of his arse and the shadow of the cleft can be seen above; an accidental mid-sleep strip tease.
"That's sweet," Remus says, almost automatically, but catches himself noticing who he's speaking to: "I mean, or not. I don't know." He blushes.
Lily smiles and plays one absent finger in patterns over the waist of his boxers. "It's sweet. Sure, hey."
"You're - you're okay with them - with -"
"Of course," Lily says a bit too quickly. "Why wouldn't I be? It's just Sirius." It doesn't seem quite enough. "I mean, I know Sirius. And I know James needs his pup. And his Moony sometimes," she adds an aside. "Why would it bother me? It's kind of -" strange? irritating? sickening? gay? - "beautiful. And God knows Sirius needs the attention." She gives a shallow smile. "We all know Sirius needs his Jamie sometimes, and his Moony."
"And does Sirius need his Lily sometimes?" Remus asks with a touch of a smile.
"No," she says coolly, "he doesn't need a Lily."
Remus breaths out in a warm huff and lets Lily coil into him a bit more. "Everyone needs a Lily sometimes." His voice sounds ludicrous and husky, like he's trying to mimic James Earl Jones or Louis Armstrong or something. He just wants it to be night again, because, God, this morning, and this damn white winter light, feels like it's stripping him, pushing him like a fist into the blankets, shearing his breath and forcing all the heat from his limbs, pushing all that blood into his face just to make him sound stupid and stilted and awkward, and why is it always like this around Lily?
"Even Sirius?"
"Most of all Sirius." Remus nods. "Sirius needs a Lily. Definitely Sirius."
"You think he likes me?"
"He likes anything James touches." Remus gives a little grin. "And James touches you a lot."
"I just don't think he likes me that much." Lily sighs. "I can be hard on him."
"We can all be hard on him. He deserves it." Lily smiles, and Remus feels compelled to continue: "And, sure, he resents you for stealing some of his time with James. But trust me, he likes you. He thinks you're pretty, and smart, and he doesn't mind calling you a - an honorary Marauder." Remus has never heard Sirius say that before, but Lily's grin is addictive. "Sirius knows James needs someone like you, even if he doesn't realize he knows it. Sirius is just being stubborn. He doesn't like change. I mean, he's just being Sirius, isn't he?" Remus hopes he's saying the right thing, and judging by Lily's slow smile, he thinks he's touched something good.
"And - do you need Sirius sometimes?" Her voice drops into the sweet honey places beneath her tongue and temperament.
Remus swallows heavily, suddenly flush. "I - I need him a lot of times."
"Do you need James sometimes?"
"I need him too."
"And Pete?"
Remus bites his lip. "I do." He doesn't like where this is going. Of course he needs Sirius. He needs Sirius like he needs oxygen. He needs Lily and James and Peter like he needs water. He needs people more than he needs every cliché, every stereotype, every Magnificent Sevenism, every all-for-one-one-for-all, every no-one-left-behindism that there has been in any book, any movie, and any religion there has ever existed, ever and ever, amen. He doesn't like that feeling, how dependent he is, how much he needs this, this infinite this, these people, Sirius' mouth and James' mouth and Lily's mouth. Need, want, have, hold, kiss, touch, come, need. He doesn't like it because it just can't last. Remus sighs. Damn rationality, damn realism; just once he'd like to taste that infinite fantasy Sirius has around him like a crystal shell; just once he'd like to think they were all going to survive into their seventies, eighties, nineties, forever.
Lily runs a hand, the one from his waist, over his arm, to the ripple-scar round of his shoulder, down the soft of his chest, the perk of his nipple, the lip of his belly button. "And a Lily? Sometimes? You need her?" God, the round sweetness of that girl, the quirk in her lips, the red of her cheeks, the cold of that skin, the small of her hands, the -
"I - of - course, yeah - you're one of us now."
"Am I?" The shallow lip of his belly button, the muscled fold where his stomach is bent, down the flat of his stomach and edge of his boxers.
"Of - of - course."
"Remus, don't be scared."
"I'm not - scared. I'm - worried."
Lily gives him a reassuring look. "It's not like this is the first time I've -"
"You only kissed me on a dare," Remus says, not sure if he should shift away or give in to the girl's hands, the girl's lips. "This is different."
"We're friends, Remus. Surely you trust me." Her hands test the lip of his boxers, only daring occasionally to slide under and find the warm skin beneath. "We're just teenagers, aren't we?"
"You're just doing this to get back at James." Remus swallows heavily. "At James and Sirius."
"So what." She frowns. "It's just you and me, Remus." She feels bad, but still, her voice is dangerously low, and it breathes into Remus' skin hot and sweet and she knows she's won - she has seen the way Remus looks at Sirius and James, like he's just a caretaker to them, a cook and nothing more - and she knows she's won because he wants this just as much as she does. "Who cares about them. She leans in closer; she smells like strawberry shampoo, and tea, and dust. "Kiss me a little?"
"You're asking?"
"I'm asking." Her hand dips under the band of his boxers and touches the small curl of hair that touches the base of his cock; she can feel the fever-like warmth there, and the boyish smell of soap, sweat, and gentle musk. "Kiss me a bit."
Remus does so, just like Remus would; shy-like, with the warm sweep of sandy-brown schoolboy hair that falls in front of his closed eyes, shivering a little, dry to the wet of her pink tongue, shifting a little, hand pressing over her side just like he's ignoring her breasts: uncomfortable a little, gentle a little, pleasant a lot.
She helps him, or rather directs him to slide the boxers from his legs, pleased with the small, whimpering protests slipping from between kissing lips. His cock is pink and hard, exuding warmth and the wanting smell of a sex. With a hand, Remus plays it, pressing it flat against his stomach and covering it in strokes, like he's hiding or protecting it. His thighs press together and his hips slide back, as if escaping her wandering fingers, afraid of what might just happen if she should touch him. Too late, none can resist the hands of girl; he shivers where Lily wraps a hand around him, and can't help jerk-thrusting a little into the round of her fingers.
"James -" Remus whimpers in final protest, rolling his hips under her hand, "come - c-come on, think about James."
"It's okay," Lily says in a hot breath, "just relax. It's okay. It's no problem." It's just fair, she thinks. Or maybe it's just this damn war. Whatever it is, she can see Sirius' naked back over Remus' shoulder and she can't help but give in.
The curve of Remus' body is delicious, muscle and light-tan skin, dusty with pale freckles and downy hair that slips over the slit of his belly and about the round of his nipples. His chest flushes as red as he does, glowing with heat and hindered noises, caught as they are in his mouth. Lily, falling in love with the shallow whimpers he makes, brings her other hand to his stomach and contents herself to press her chipped-red-polished nails into the flat plane of his belly. Red crescent moons remain, an ironic lunar symbol, before she drags that hand down to the base of his cock, thin little welts like new-shining scars trail in crop-lines behind.
One hand on his cock (fingers plying in twitching circles about the sticky-dry head) and the other now pleading sweetly at the skin of his cheek, Remus comes in thin bursts, pearl sliding up against his stomach and over the now-fading scratches. It's the moan he gives that wakes James and Sirius up.
"Remus?" Sirius asks suddenly bright into the morning light. "You up?"
Frantic and embarrassed, Remus pulls his boxers on as Lily giggles silently, pressing one hand against his chest and rubbing the round of his shoulder, the other grasping at her wand to clean; calming him in inches.
"Hallo," Remus says, trying to sound casual.
Sirius leaps from his bed (James groans in half-sleep) and he crawls over the couple to fall on the boy's other side, his shoulder hitting the bedroom wall with a thump. Sirius squeezes Remus hard, kissing in bites his bare shoulder, strong arms like a coil around the naked of Remus' belly. "I've missed you, Moony."
"Sirius, it's been three days."
"Three agonizing memo-writing days." Sirius nuzzles into the brown-haired boy's skin. "I fucking missed you. Did you miss me?"
Remus smiles and kisses the crown of Sirius's head, bumping his nose stupidly. "Sure."
Sirius can smell the sex on him, the cool scent of come and hot sweat. He loves the smell, and kisses Remus' shoulder again. He doesn't wonder why; why Remus smells of come and spice and girl and human things, he just nuzzles into him, curling thin-like arms and enjoying the solid flesh beneath, just simple like that.
Finishing the image, Lily hugs from the other side, arms reaching over Remus' body to feel Sirius, to slide over his forearms and touch the muscle of Sirius' shoulder, just testing Remus' theory. Sirius tenses up and looks to her, somewhere between worry and irritation, before coiling closer to his sex-raddled and sleep-weary wolfboy, content with the warmth of Remus and nuzzling deeper into sleep.
Languishing only a minute under Sirius' cold, Lily leaves the bed, feeling just that much worse. She joins her nearly-naked James, curling soft against him and pulling up their blanket in comfort,
"Remus," Sirius asks, the two presently face to face, "can I kiss you?"
Remus nearly laughs. "Sure." A pause. "Well, where?"
"Your cheek." Guilty smile, feet kicking gently and crossing with Remus.
Remus smiles and nods.
"And - lips?"
Remus hesitates, coughs, not sure of what to think (Sirius, Lily, Sirius, Lily - am I wrong to do this?) before smiling and nodding and licking his lips.
They kiss; they're soldiers and friends and Sirius kisses Remus on the cheek, rough a bit with stubble, and then kisses him on the lips in small pink tongue and curiosity. It's odd, Remus thinks, just having kissed sweet-mouth and breasts, to be touched by Lily, this girl's girl - girl and girl, right down to her feet, girl in every sense of the word, girl that's strong and girl that's sweet and girl that knows who she is - and now, with Sirius, boy Sirius, so boyish, Tom-Sawyer-boy, James-Dean-boy, boy of match sticks and Benson & Hedges and thrice-daily masturbation, boy of cricket whites and boy of the pot-smoking oh-so-seventies Jimi-Hendrix-loving anti-establishment-but-only-coz-it's-cool school-boy boy boy. Like turning the shower from cold to hot, from warming smiles and soft hands to rambunctious fumbling, chest-scratching, arse-grabbing boys' fun. It makes him sweat, and writhe, and pull down Sirius' boxers, half because it's a stupid fun thing to see him naked and vulnerable, and half because he wants to feel every piece, every part, both sides now.
Sirius is hard and Remus is stroking him with feather-light fingers. They pause, they laugh; as everyone else sleeps into the afternoon, they touch like teenagers, ignore the implications like teenagers, and make out like teenagers.
***
Sirius can barely tell if time is even passing any more. It's night, sure, but how long has it been night and how long will it stay night? It's just this winter feeling, where darkness means it's anywhere between six p.m. to four in the morning; bland, stretching, indistinct, like every single day of the last month.
James is still in the back alley, half-conscious, pressed back against a building as the world swims in blurs, flowing and blending together like watercolours in a storm. Sirius stands at the corner of the building, searching frantically back and forth, wand outstretched, legs shaking out of cold and panic. James only distantly feels the pain in his arm, and only a wetness in his clothes tells him of the blood and the hurt. James pants in silver breath that spirals and disperses into the air like cigarette smoke - it's pretty.
"You fucker," Sirius says to himself in a panicked hush. "You dumb fucking idiot, Sirius. Get James killed. You stupid ignorant fuck." He kicks the wall as he berates himself.
James groans and falls further into his bundle of clothes, a child in swaddling robes.
"Hold on, Jamie. It'll be okay. I promise, I promise, it'll be fine." Sirius says in a panic. "Oh, God, please please be all right."
James gasps and grinds his teeth. The lights start up again: red and green, alternating fire and cold, thumping like World War shells.
"Fuck," Sirius moans. "Where is Dumbledore. Fuck, where is he?!"
***
James is reading memos at the kitchen table when Sirius comes downstairs from his shower, wet hair in tangles, his ears scrubbed red, whole body seemingly aglow with renewed energy.
"What's the good word, chum?" Sirius asks, scratching the stubble yawning across his jaw line.
James mumbles: "The Stoakes have gone in to hiding."
"That's not a good word at all." Sirius sits down across from him and runs a hand through his damp hair. He smells like soap and Lily's shampoo. "That's a very bad word. It say why?"
"No. Just says because of danger."
"Pleasantly vague. Maybe it's just, like, fire ants and not -"
James gives him a look, a tired, empty, hollow look, a look that says more than his mouth ever could. "Just drop it, Sirius. I'm not in the mood for jokes."
"Right." Sirius bites his lower lip and watches as James flips to the next one. "Are you going to read them out loud?"
"Edinburgh; seventeen muggles killed, fourteen injured; clean-up finished. Rochdale; twelve muggles killed, twenty-one injured; clean-up in progress. Chester; four muggles killed -"
"Okay," Sirius says with a dead voice. "I get it."
James closes his mouth in a line and reads on in silence.
"Jamie?"
"Pads?"
Silence, pause. "Never mind."
James softens. "Could you get me some tea?"
"Yeah, sure."
The sounds of making; spoons, clinking, boiling, glugging, the room filled with the hot smell of steam and herb, honey and the dust of the cabinets; an old English smell that makes one think of vicars' robes and the Queen's coronation and plus-fours and James Herriot; a better time, as pub-weary gentlemen like to groan.
"When's Evans coming back from the meeting?" Sirius asks.
"Lily."
"Yes, Lily Evans, that's her name." Sirius gives a little smirk; he doesn't push it too far. "You know, lovely girl, red hair, great breasts, I think you two have met -"
"Why don't you call her Lily?"
"Why should I? It's very English to call people by their last names. Very old-chap, old-sport public school back-thumping, cricket-playing thing to do, I think. Just living the life, old sport, old chum. Potter, old mate, old crocus."
"You have to stop reading Wodehouse." He gives a guilty smile. "You sound like a -"
"Don't even go there, you lesbian."
James sighs. "That was a change of subject on a cosmic scale."
"I don't call her Lily because. It's. I. Am madly in love with her." He frowns. "I don't know why I don't. It's just, it doesn't feel right. I don't think she likes me."
"She likes you."
"She only likes me because you like me."
"That's good enough, isn't it? You can't even do that much."
Sirius sighs heavily. "God you're needy."
"I'm needy?" James thumps him in the shoulder. "Yeah, sure, I'm the one who needs constant support from his friends. I'm the one who demands the time and love of everyone I meet. Definitely me."
"Do you love me?"
"Of course I do. And you love me, but I don't always have to ask."
Sirius grins. "I'm insecure."
"No, you just have an ego with a tapeworm." James puts down his tea and begins to bundle the memos again. "You'd think Wizards would have invented an easier method of communication than stupid memos, wouldn't you?" James says to no one in particular.
And then, in a rush: "Can I kiss you?" Sirius' heart leaps to his throat and his hands grip his knees under the table; the familiar whirl in his chest that comes when he's in proximity to James, his James, his Prongs, his Jamie.
A pause; tick, tock, tick, and then:
"Why do people in this house always fucking ask that question?" James slams the memos on the table and grimaces. "You and fucking Lily. Can I kiss you? It's not a fucking taboo, you know. Why do you always have to take the fun out of being stupid and spontaneously homosexual? Why can't you just leap over the table and tackle me to the ground and pull down my fucking pants instead of asking like a little fucking girl? You did it in our dorms, just crawling in and grabbing my cock. Did I complain then? Am I complaining now? Stop asking me! I'm a person, not a fucking magic-eight-ball."
Sirius blinks, licks his lips awkwardly, and coughs into his fist. "So." He bites his lower lip. "Can I kiss you then?"
"I am surrounded by women. Fucking fuck."
"Yep."
It's only seconds before they clash, mouth to mouth, hands grasping at buttons that won't open, tongues lashing and laughing and smacking against teeth and nose and lip and chin and neck and eyes and ears and only occasionally another tongue. Shirts won't do, but they can't rip them off and zippers are caught and their minds are running into each other (Sirius turns to kiss right as James turns left, nose pressed against nose, hands tangled and pulling at each other, yanking hair and tugging legs and clothes and arms back and forth.) It's like they're mice, desperate, trapped in a maze and they can't escape their clothes, they can't escape the leaden heat that grinds into jean fronts and boxers and hands that fumble like a bad game of rugger.
James is pressing Sirius into the wall and manages, finally, awkwardly, to slip the final button and split the clench of Sirius' shirt, his hands immediately falling to the hot skin of his chest, scratching and sliding around his back, to the curve of his arse, fingers pressing hard, hard.
"Fuck," Sirius says as James leans down to bite his neck, all grinning-vampire-like as he sucks on the spot, sucks on the skin until he leaves his mark. "You're a fucking maniac," he manages to whimper as James' hands rip at his jeans, trousers that get caught around Sirius' hips, just tugging enough to part the zipper so James can tug down Sirius' blue boxers, pulling them over the length of his cock, freeing it from the tangle of clothes. His cock, pink and hard, long and dry in the cold, which James stops with a hand.
It's like touch-memory from then on; dormitory nights, slow and cold desperation; they've done this before.
James wraps one cold hand around the length of Sirius' cock, palming and twirling his fingers around it, like some magic sleight of hand; touching, jerking, making from magic the sweat that curls on Sirius' lip, pulling from thin air those whimpers, drawing them like a conjurer from Sirius' begging mouth.
It's what friends should do, pulling and slurping and jerking and other similar activities. It's meaningless, just the drifting smoke of sexual need, as Lily is up all night on duty and James misses her and Sirius is right there, fucking sex machine, as pretty as an underwear model and twice as fun because he doesn't pad. (It's what James likes to tell himself, because he's certainly not gay, just maybe a little gay for Sirius.) Everyone should have a Sirius, James thinks, to jerk him off when he needs to, to hold him when he needs to, to punch him when he needs to (and sometimes when he doesn't.) Sometimes brother, sometimes lover, always - what was it? Don't think about it now; just think about the fingers, the fingers pulling hard against his skin and cock. That's right - what implications?
"I'm - I'm going to - oh fuck, Jamie, I'm going to come -" Sirius gasps, his hips moving, swaying pressing their cocks close and hard together.
"Oh no you fucking don't." James says, flicking the head of Sirius' cock. Sirius yelps in pain and jerks away. "This isn't a quickie, Sirius and I'm not even close."
"The fuck you do that for?" Sirius says, wrapping a head around his cock protectively. "Christ, that's not how you treat a cock."
James hoists himself up on the counter, boxers around his knees, jeans around his ankles, shirt split open, like a ceramic (muscle and bone) doll, undressed to the fumbling hands of a depraved child. James' cock is hard and he pushes his hips forward, towards his friend, leaning back on his palms grabbing the edge of the counter: "Could you - uh. I mean. I would. Like it."
Sirius looks at him curiously for a moment. "You want me to suck you off?" James nods, perhaps a bit guilty-pleasure. "You fucking faggot," Sirius says with an appreciative smile. James gives a low growl as Sirius lowers his head, just testing him with a kiss to the tip, small tongue slipping out to roll in a circle about the head.
Sirius pulls away for a moment: "Oh, and James?"
"Mm?"
"You owe me one."
James looks down at him, curiously, testing him, questioning if he actually means it. "I owe you a - a - this?" Sirius nods. "I. But." He thinks on it, and he sees Sirius, almost naked except for the careless tangle of clothes around his ankles; hard chest, pink nipples, dark wisp of hair slipping from belly button to cock, warm thighs, dark freckles over burnished skin. A pause, a thought. "Sure."
"Good." And Sirius leans down and takes the cock in his mouth, pushing right down, nearly to the base of it, taking it in as James nearly writhes but keeps his twitchy thighs buckled down so Sirius can - can - fuck, what was he doing? Some kind of ballet of tongue and teeth around the best, sweetest, tenderest parts of his cock, parts James had only discovered after hours in the bath, playing and plying and pressing and testing, and here was Sirius pushing all the buttons all at once like he knew James' cock better than he knew it himself. This was so much more than the jerking off and hand jobs they'd been accustomed too; this was fucking magic.
"Holy fuck what -" teeth, tongue, a little nip and bite at the tip, scratching down and making him whimper, breath almost forced from his lungs by an invisible hand. "You - you are a - a - goddamn liar."
"A what?" Sirius mumbles over James' cock, it sounds like: "Awa?"
"This can't be your first time," he says on a gasp.
Sirius slides away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "What makes you say that?"
"Either you are a homosexual prodigy or you've done this before." James runs a hand through sweaty hair (sweaty? Was he really that worked up?) "You give better head than Lily for fuck's sake. That can't be an innate talent because she is good."
"Well. I." Sirius blushes. "Okay, this isn't my first time."
"You little fuck," James says a bit hotly, but suddenly feels a little worse, a little ill. "Well, who have you done this to before?"
Sirius looks at him awkwardly. "Well. I mean, at first it was only out of curiosity. And. Well. And then Remus. And then Remus a lot. But I think you kind of knew that."
"Well, I know you two are." He gestures vaguely. "I just didn't think you would - I thought you were a bit bent, yeah, but I didn't think you would -"
"Well I'm doing this aren't I? I'm more than a little bent." Sirius frowns. "Why is this such a big deal? A minute ago you were practically burying me in your cock and moaning like a girl. What, you only like chickens of the unplucked variety?"
"No," James says, touching his cock absently. "I just. Why didn't you tell me?" Uh oh, implications.
"Because I thought. Well, I thought this would happen."
"What?"
"I thought as soon as you realized I did this. Often. That you would think I was some kind of shirt-lifter." Sirius bites his lower lip. "That you wouldn't want me anymore because you'd realize this was more than play between straight boys."
"It's - it's more?"
Sirius runs a hand through his own hair. "I don't know about you, but I generally don't kiss people I don't like. I mean, like that. You know. I don't kiss people I play with." Sirius rolls back on his heels and looks beseechingly to James. "You've got to admit, that was kind of gay."
"Listen," James says. "Okay, it was kind of. It was. But I'm." He sighs. "I don't know how to explain it."
"Then don't." Sirius bites at his neck and grasps him in a tight fist. "Who fucking cares."
James blushes again, he can feel Sirius' wet hair against his own skin and he can smell Lily's shampoo on him, but he can smell Sirius too; new-sweat and something impossibly boyish that hints somewhere between sweetness and dirty. And still, James is compelled to explain: "It's like - you're Sirius. You're Sirius and you exist beyond the - the circles of sexuality, I guess. That Kismet fellow, whatshisname with the scale -"
"Kinsey."
"Yeah, Kinsey. You're like. You're a seven or something."
"I'm gayer than gay?"
"No, that's not what I meant. No, you're like, you're a happy face on the scale. You're the letter 'S' or something. You don't have a number. You don't fit on there."
"That's so - I don't know if I should say sweet or ridiculous. Is that a compliment?"
"I don't know, actually. Really, to be honest, I'm just trying to find an excuse so you can finish the damn blowjob."
Sirius laughs. "You'd really suck me off?"
"Yeah, sure," James says off-hand as Sirius stand up to nip at his throat, catch his skin in his teeth and tug, grin a bit, pull. James gasps and pushes forward. "I would, I would, seriously."
"Good."
"Now will you please, please, please finish me off? I've got a stiffy like a milk bottle and I think it's considered cruel and unusual punishment if you leave someone halfway home."
"Yeah, I think I read that in the Geneva Convention," the long-haired boy says with a smirk.
"Okay, good, now go."
Sirius presses his hands into the plane of James' pelvis, hard against the flesh and bone. "Sorry, did you say something?" He plays his fingers into the short web of dark hair around James' cock. "I'm not sure I heard you."
"You fucker."
"Hm." Sirius leans closer to James. "You're going to leave me for Lily, aren't you?"
James wants to moan, wants to tell Sirius to shut up and get blowing, sucking, coming for God's fucking sake. But something in Sirius' eyes stops him, some hidden James-and-Sirius signal that tells him I'm Not Kidding, or maybe I'm Worried. James pauses and leans forward to place a chaste kiss on Sirius' lips. "Well." James puts a hand to Sirius' cheek. "No. I'm not going to leave you. Yes, I love Lily. Yes, I think we might. Be together. Sometime." James pauses. "Maybe. Who the fuck knows with girls, I mean." James smiles sweetly. "It's just - I love Lily - differently." Sirius looks at him curiously as James stumbles through the thorny thicket of his mind. "With you, it's all excitement. I see you, I touch you, I feel alive and wide awake. It's like a big firework going off. I can't get enough of you, but that's - it's just our being friends that makes me love you. But with Lily. It's like. It's Lily. It's slower. It's like coals or embers or something. God, I'm bad at metaphors."
"Similes."
"Shut up." James touches his hand to Sirius mouth, gently, betraying his words. " It's just, with Lily, it's. It's nicer. It's gentle. It's a growing thing. Like a bonfire. It's - permanent." James pauses again to collect his thoughts. "Our lust is a boy thing. It's being friends and being lonely. It's us, isn't it? And one day you'll have a girl. And one day Lily and I will be. You know." He stops - James isn't even sure he knows what he knows. "Well, at least I think so. She's kind of - gone off me lately, I don't know." A hand through his hair, and that familiar action is enough to bring a smile to Sirius' lips, which fades just as quickly. "I thought it was so easy between me and her, and now - I don't know. She doesn't look at me the same way."
Sirius gives him an unreadable look. "Oh."
"What?"
Sirius moves in and kisses hard into James' cheek, sliding to the corner of his mouth, hard thumbs pressing into the divot of his friend's belly button. James feels the tension within him, his tendons and veins pulled taut like a puppets' strings as Sirius' hands find his cock, find his cock like a memory of hidden dorm room masturbation (mutual) and a present memory of desperate war and loneliness and together in a bed, in a kitchen. Sirius wants to tell him - it's not you, she's not gone off you: it's me. Lily hates me, hates us, hates Jamesnsirius. It's me, Lily loathes me, she wants me gone, out of the house, out of the world, out of your life - But Sirius can't say it, because he wants this too much, and he's too damn afraid of what would happen if James figured out it was all Sirius, all his fault, just like every fucking problem in this damn world - all his fault, as per usual.
Sirius sighs, and breathes slowly, and says: "Mm, nevermind."
"I hate when you do that," James says.
"Do what?"
"Say 'nevermind.' You do it a lot, and I never know what you're thinking. It irritates me." James runs a hand through Sirius' hair and holds it loosely. "Just say what you're thinking."
"Okay," Sirius says with a nod.
"Now, what were you thinking?"
"I don't remember."
James groans and gives something, halfway between a grin and a grimace of determination before he puts a hand to Sirius' chest and pushes him down. "Get on the floor, you arse."
Part 2