Harry Potter - "Le Tourbillon" - Part 3 - James/Lily/Sirius/Remus - NC-17
Title: Le Tourbillon
Author: marseverlasting
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: James/Lily, Sirius/Lily, Sirius/James, Sirius/Remus, implied Sirius/Regulus
Word Count: 35,260 words
Summary: Who doesn't want to be loved by everyone? A summer away; a time grow and fall apart.
Warnings: voyeurism, fingering, drug use, boys being assholes, femdom, poetry, angst, unrealistic portrayals of achieving orgasm, extensive foreshadowing, exhibitionism, excessive length, wall sex, (constant) alcohol use, incest, occasional breach of the fourth wall, over-indulgent discussion of a car, fluff, the French.
Author's notes: Written for krystal_moon for hp_summersmut. A big, big, big, big thank you to my Dylan Thomas who held my hand through the madness -- you are a total goddess. I've got tons of inspiration for this story, but the principle thre were Truffaut's Jules et Jim, Godard's Pierrot le fou, and Cuarón's Y tu mamá también.
Part 1
Part 2
They're pleasantly drunk by nightfall; the bottles are empty and the joints are done and their bodies are dry. They've got their towels wrapped around their shoulders and such, to ward off the gentle cold of night, still too lazy to make the short walk to the house. They talk about music and why France can't make a good rock band, they discuss their views on God, they see who can deep throat the wine bottle, they explain to Peter what exactly a prostate can do, they tell the story of their first kiss. Most of its rehashed, old material from old conversations, but they run it like a familiar route and it makes them feel a kind of togetherness, strings of conversation woven into a tight fabric. Or, it could be that Sirius just likes describing his orgasms.
It's Peter's rumbling stomach that wakes them from their reverie: they haven't had dinner yet.
"I'll cook," Lily volunteers, as she's probably the least drunk, and the most capable with a wand. This is greeted by over-enthusiastic cheers and hugs because they're actually pretty tipsy and this just seems like such a nice thing for her to do, really. Sirius promises more wine, and this is sounding just too good, so they stumble their way home, staggering and swaying like rain dogs trying to pick up a scent. Peter nearly dies in the fire-pit but Sirius saves him, which makes Peter laugh. Wow, we're still naked, huh. Yeah - look, it is my dick. Sirius, shut up, we know it's your dick. You're just jealous because I'm a half-inch longer than you, James. What, you guys measured? Of course we have, and I'm a half-inch longer. Yeah, maybe, but mine is curved. So what? So, that makes it longer. But you're uncircumsized. So what? So, it's ugly - it has a freaking hood. Boys, seriously, shut up.
They sit about the kitchen naked, so comfortable from the wine and the company that there's no real point or motivation to dress. Lily, more for practicality than modesty, puts on a bra and begins to make a kind of haphazard ratatouille for dinner. Instead of just the standard ingredients, she amuses herself by putting in whatever strikes her fancy; mushrooms, asparagus, capers, hot peppers, potatoes. She makes it in a big pot, and the five of them just eat from that rather than dirty any dishes - a recurring theme when you live with boys. Sirius drags out another couple bottles of wine, this time some 1950s Merlot, saving the more expensive wine for when they can actually remember drinking it.
It's only when it gets darker, and a cold kind of mood settles about them that they put on some clothing (mainly limited to boxers, though Remus slips on a T-shirt, too) and even then it's quite reluctant. Now the weight of the booze is really starting to press into them; James is flushed all red, and he kisses Lily more often as the night wears on. Peter sways where he sits, and more than once Remus has to stop him falling from his stool. Sirius is mostly preoccupied by his own body, flexing his muscles, checking himself for spots or marks or whatever, scratching at the thin hair of his legs, pinching his nipples and twisting them because he's got nothing really better to do than flirt with everyone in a hundred foot radius.
"What should we do?" Peter says lethargically, watching Lily drop the empty pot into the sink.
"Make out with me," Sirius says vaguely, now fiddling with his knee cap, pressing around the edges and trying lamely to lift it up. "Or we can do shots." (Somehow, the two are synonymous.)
This is generally agreed on, because what else are five teenagers in an empty house going to do - get alcohol poisoning and die, of course, so Peter gets the rum.
"Santé!" the five of them say, raising their shot glasses and downing the liquor with expressions ranging from satisfaction (Lily) to utter disgust (Remus.)
And again: "L'chaim!" Sirius proposes, and the others laugh and join in. Down goes another one.
"Cheers!" goes the third, and "Prost!" for the fourth, and it's good they can't think of any other words for a toast because they're already quite amazingly drunk and it's only ten in the evening.
The whole room adopts that warm, orange, sleepy atmosphere that descends after drinking - lamp light becomes golden, and the walls seem to curve inwards, cradling and comforting and blanketed. Every surface seems soft, every contour warm and inviting. It's a melting pot; dissolving and blurring the lines between sleeping and waking, dreaming and reality, and other such divides (gay and straight?) A haze of smoke floats about the ceiling, and it smells strongly of spilled liquor and marijuana and vegetables, their skin like lake-water and tobacco smoke.
"I love you guys," Sirius says, lying on the couch, eyes closed, cigarette dangling from his lips. "You're awesome. I don't - I don't know what I'd do with-without you."
Remus sighs and rolls his eyes (not this again) but James sates his friend: "We love you, too."
"You can't say you love me too," Sirius says, turning to sit on the couch, head in his hands, balanced on his knees. "You have to say you love me first."
"We can't - you did that first."
Sirius frowns and looks at James seriously: "Well, say it now."
James sighs: "We love you, we love you, we love you - come on, Sirius, you know that."
"It's forever," Sirius says with gravity. "It's forever, right? C'est pour toujours?"
James smiles: "Until death do us part, mate." Lily strokes James' hair affectionately as he says it, ruffling it and twisting it around her fingers. "And even after that."
"We can be ghosts together," Sirius says, dreamily. "Remus, would you like to be a ghost with us?"
"Sure," Remus says, mumbling through sleep.
"Let's go on a walk," Peter says suddenly, standing and swaying drunkenly, a half-drunk bottle of Fettercairn single malt in one hand. "I want to go on a walk."
"A walk - okay," James says, withdrawing himself from Lily's arms, stumbling over nothing as he reaches around Peter's shoulders. "A walk, all right?"
Sirius nods and has a tough time of getting up - James tries to help, but that ends in disaster as they both crash to the ground, like a Marx Brothers movie. Steadying themselves against the wall, they beckon to Lily and Remus, who look the least enthusiastic of the bunch.
"C'mon, girls," Sirius says, rolling his head and bouncing on the spot, like Rocky ready for a match. "Let's go already." Sirius' boxers are low on his hips, and he fumbles at the hem like he's just itching to strip. Remus watches his hands blankly, as they skitter to his back, and then cross under his arm pits - it's all his mind can focus on, those tan little spiders, look at them move, and Remus imagines them pulling off his own shirt, he imagines Sirius feeling Remus' body in some drunken craze, those same slender hands pulling off his own boxers - oh God, he feels like he's going to pass out, the whole world is spinning and all he has to keep him steady is Sirius' drunken smile.
"How do you guys even plan on walking? You can't stand -" Lily says, but she's cut short as James drags her to her feet. "Oh, fine," and in exchange she gets a payment of James' sloppy kisses, which is fair compensation, she supposes.
"Remus," Sirius says, demanding. "Come on, Moony." Remus lets himself get dragged out the door, stumbling on words and intentions as he's flung into the great, wet outdoors.
"Fuck me, I thought it was colder," Sirius says, spreading his arms out wide. "It's really nice." The only cold they can feel is the beaded dew on their feet that numbs their toes; the air itself is damp and warm, humid to the point of inviting fog.
They meander to the beach in a more or less forward direction, pausing every now and again to help a fallen comrade (that's Peter, mostly, who apparently brought his bottle of whiskey with him.) The sky is a pointillism picture of stars, and the moon is somewhere far away, hidden behind a mountain maybe. Lily, quick even when she's drunk, has her wand, and lights their path to the beach.
Sirius misjudges the distance and trips on the little grass ledge that leads to the beach - he falls, rolling and sprawling onto the beach, laughing outrageously as he crashes into the surf. James falls in next to him, crashing to his knees in the sand and laughing at Sirius: "God you fucking klutz."
Sirius lies on his back, his laughter subsiding, smiling and staring into the night sky: "La tempête a béni mes éveils maritimes… plus - plus léger qu'un bouchon j'ai dansé sur les flots qu'on appelle rouleurs éternels de victimes, dix nuits, sans regretter l'oeil - something falots, I think. I don't remember." He laughs again, and James has that stupid, full-mouth grin over his face.
"What was that?" Peter says drunkenly, swinging the bottle around before taking a drink. "Sounds French."
"It was - my parents made me memorize poetry when I was young. Thought it would instill - oh, who gives a fuck, I don't know what they wanted. Give the bottle here," he takes the whiskey from Peter and takes a good long draught. "Fuckers bored me to tears, I hate poetry. I memorized all the dirty ones I could find. There just wasn't enough." He takes another drink before James takes it. Sirius leans up and stares out at the ocean, and screams at the top of his lungs: "Je suis esclave de l'époux infernal, celui qui a perdu les vierges folles! C'est bien ce démon-là, ce n'est pas un spectre, ce n'est pas un fantôme! Mais moi qui ai perdu la sagesse, qui suis damnée et morte au monde, on ne me tuera pas!" He falls back against the shore, laughing again, laughing until tears roll down the sides of his face. "The foolish virgin," he explains, "he's talking about fucking virgins. Good ol' Rimbaud. I wish I had cigarettes on me. God, fuck, I'm covered in sand."
He's quickly joined by his friends; James at one side, Remus at the other, Lily to James' other side, and Peter to Lily's; a row of dried sardines, or something; strips of naked meat marinating in liquor and sand, skin up to their thighs lapped by the cold lake water. James and Lily turn to one another and start to kiss, deeply and wetly with sick kind of sucking noises and other horribly teenaged sounds. Peter is asleep, or seems to be, and Sirius turns to Remus.
"You wanna fuck me?" he asks, eyes wide and bright, grinning all devil-like.
"What?"
"You wanna fuck me?"
"What - no! - what?" Remus looks a little panicked, a little scared by this whole thing.
"I'm kidding. Take off your clothes." Sirius grabs the hem of Remus' T-shirt and tugs upwards. "Come on, you're making me feel over-dressed." With a little help, Remus pulls off the shirt and Sirius laughs. "Gonna go swimming with me?"
"We're going to drown."
"Sure. You coming?" With a quick motion, Sirius jerks down his boxers, pulling them from his legs and tossing them aside (into the waves; he'll never see that pair again.)
"I guess" - which really means - 'how high?'
Sirius gets up and stretches, takes another swig at the bottle and scratches his cock impatiently. "Come on, Remus."
Remus slips off his boxers and takes Sirius' proffered hand: they wade into the water, link quickly broken as Sirius dives in and Remus recoils because it's freezing and this really was a pretty shitty idea, to be honest.
"Sirius, I'm freezing," Remus says, when his friend surfaces. Remus has his arms crossed tightly against his chest, and Sirius can see the ripples of goose pimples grow along his arms, even in the dim light of night. He touches his hand to Remus' chest and pinches a hard nipple between his fingers, just for fun.
"We'll get out in a second." Sirius stands to his full height, the water level just below his cock, and he steps near Remus. "Kiss me."
Remus shrugs, and gives a cold peck to Sirius' lips.
"Now, do it like we're lovers," Sirius growls.
"How much have you had to drink?"
"A whole fucking lot." Sirius grabs Remus forcefully by the back of the neck and tugs their heads close together. "Now give me a fucking kiss."
Remus does so, and as he does Sirius grabs him hard around the neck and shoulders, wet arms slicking them together, forcing Remus so near that their cocks are touching (too cold to get a hard on, but they'd both probably have one.) Their chests are wet and cold, and their knocking hips hurt; Sirius steps on Remus' foot under the water, and instead of getting warmer, everything feels a lot like ice. Sirius forces his tongue against Remus' lips, and Remus shyly replies with his own. It's not a very good kiss, Sirius seems like he's trying to swallow Remus' face, it's all speed and no finesse; his stubble burns Remus' skin as Sirius moves his head back and forth manically, and his teeth are sharp and drag against Remus' soft lips.
"I wanna fuck you, Remus," Sirius says, pulling their lips apart and whispering viciously in Remus' ear. "I'm serious. Right now if you want."
"Sirius, you're trashed."
"I know," but he doesn't shy away, "come on. I'll do anything you want."
"You're drunk, don't be an idiot."
Sirius persists: "You want me, don't you? You're in love with me, right?"
"You're hurting me - stop it, Sirius, come on -"
"I love you, you know that?"
Remus just sounds irritated now: "I know. Can we just go? I'm freezing."
"Don't be a pussy," Sirius says, taking Remus by this hips; gently though, only a touch, tilting them closer together. "I mean, if you like me, just tell me."
Remus looks away, startled, almost crying, suddenly hurt more than when Sirius was angry.
"Do you love me?"
"Sirius, you're -"
"I know I'm drunk - do you love me?"
Remus stares at him blankly, vividly aware of his own nakedness, of Sirius cock touching his own, of feeling like he's about to pass out. It's a whisper when he finally speaks: "Yeah -" he closes his eyes, "I love you."
"I know," Sirius says, kissing him again. "I'll suck you off, all right?"
Sirius wraps his hand around Remus' wet cock, jerking him lazily, while leaning in to kiss him again - when suddenly Remus pulls away, stumbling in the water and falling back into it with a splash. Sirius laughs, but stops when Remus surfaces, coughing and spluttering, sweeping back his hair and looking totally shocked - and angry: "What are you playing at, Sirius?"
"I thought - didn't you just -"
"You're drunk," and it's almost like he has a spine, though maybe it's just liquid courage, "I'm not going to deal with you like this." Dripping wet, and more pissed than Sirius has ever seen him, he walks out of the water, and he looks kind of ferocious, kind of like the Wolf.
"Remus -" Sirius says, shell-shocked. "What are you -"
"I think it's time for bed," Remus says, making an unneeded decision because everyone is pretty much already asleep on the beach.
The walk back is awkward, sullen; Sirius is silent, and James, Peter, and Lily are drunk and tired, dragging themselves as Remus leads the way, still soaking wet and irritated at the whole night. Remus doesn't say goodnight, doesn't say anything - just goes straight to bed, closing the door behind him. The rest manage some laughs, some hugs, some hand-slaps before heading their own swaggering ways.
A few minutes pass, and then: "Lily?" Sirius whispers, peeking his head into James' bedroom. James is passed out on the bed, naked and lying on his stomach, snoring gently. "You're awake?"
She's awake and dressing, a new pair of knickers, topless but about to put a T-shirt on. "Sirius?" it's a harsh whisper, "what do you want?"
"Is James out?" he steps in and closes the door behind him. He's wearing a pair of Remus' boxers (red, white hearts, a gift from Sirius) and they're riding down his hips because of his constant fidgeting at the elastic. His hair is still wet.
"Yes," she replies, questioning.
"Asleep or, like, out?"
"He passed out, if that's what you mean." She flips her hair over her shoulder and puts her hands on her hips, not bothering to cover her breasts. "What do you want?"
Sirius steps towards her, taking tentative steps, cocking his head as if poised to ask a question. "Lily -I just thought, since James is asleep - well, you wanna fuck?"
"Oh, Sirius, we can't -" but even as she says it, Sirius gets ever closer and his boxers are low and she can see the dark curl of pubic hair that creeps towards his belly button. Lily sways where she stands; she can't really trust herself, in this room, in this heat, in this drunken swirl of want for this boy, this not-James, dark-haired imposter who came first, who seduced her way back in fifth year, long before any skinny-limbed, glasses-wearing freak swept her off her feet. "Sirius, please, this has to -"
But he takes it the wrong way, and he gets in closer, and finally kisses her, kisses her and she kisses back because, God, the things he does to her, the twisting, changing, exhilarating things. He's everything James isn't and shouldn't be; there's an element of cartoonish danger, sure, but beyond that - he's stupid, he's vibrant, he's ecstatic, he's mercurial, he's fickle, he's selfish, he's creative, he's negligent, he's explosive. It's a horrible excuse - that he's the opposite of James, that he can giver her things James can't - because that's just not true. She's here because she loves Sirius, she fucks him because that's all she can have. Lily doesn't even know how she fell in love with Sirius, how that arrogant little prick managed to seduce her on her fifteenth birthday, with that alcohol breath and bleeding family issues and wrinkled, open-fronted shirt - actually, oddly similar to how he is now (why is it working this time, too?) She wishes she could say it was because of his body (and what a body) but she loves Sirius as deeply as she loves James - for his every flaw, she finds a shred of magic, for his faults, his downfalls, she finds more of him to love. Sure, she gets irritated with him sometimes, but that's because he's Sirius, not because she doesn't love him. It's inexplicably, he's inexplicable, like some Gordian knot she longs to undo but just doesn't have the patience or the time to try - not that she ever would, that would ruin the beauty of him.
When he leans in to kiss her again, she wants to push him away because it's a horrible thing to do; to him, to James, to herself, to their friendship, to her own. But having him, and having James - it's too much. It makes her cheeks red, it makes her moan, and most of all it lets her taste the power of importance, like she's the most important person in the world, the sun to these orbiting planets - James, Sirius. Those two, the good and the bad, like two heads of the same coin - a coin she has all to herself.
God she feels awful and wonderful when he touches her; cautiously at first, his hand slipping down to her waist, cupping her, fingers sliding over the front of her knickers. It's hesitant, and endearing, and she knows it's selfish to have her cake and eat him too, but she slides her hand down the front of his boxers and wraps her hands around Sirius' half-hard cock.
The lights are off and suddenly they're against the wall and it's not even thinking anymore. Sirius kisses her like he's drowning, fighting for breath. He smells of liquor and cigarettes, but then so does she, so she doesn't object. His boxers are on the ground in an instant, and he's already hard in her hands; they press together and she smushes his cock between their bodies as Sirius tries to tug down her knickers, which he eventually loosens and drops to the ground.
"The bed," he whispers coarsely, and they fall onto it, right next to poor sleeping James. Sirius is on the bottom, and Lily climbs on top of him, knees pressing in beside his hip, leaning in to kiss Sirius wetly, drunkenly. Hands at his cock, Sirius slides inside her (she makes a small, half-pained kind of noise, before releasing a hot, sexed breath) and thrusts upwards, slowly, and into the rhythm of her rocking.
"Oh - oh fuck," he pants into the silence, "God, Lily." He says other little sex-blind things, pants and groans and he whispers names ("Lily - uhn -f-fuck - Remus, Lily -") and he barely notices that he's imagining everyone he ever loved ("Lily - oh fuck - Regulus - fuck, Regulus -") - baby murmurs that Lily can't hear and dissolve in the air like little nothings ("James - James - fuck -")
They begin to move faster, rocking and thrusting, shifting and blending into each other viciously, dueling shadows or tom cats in back alleys. Lily's hair falls over his body, a massive floral-and-lake scented paintbrush that strokes him from chin to chest. Throughout it, Sirius can feel the warmth of James beside him, but he doesn't stop, doesn't stop even as James murmurs in his sleep, or when James shifts so he sticks all sweaty against Sirius' shoulder; the one-minded desire keeps guilt away like a dam, and then Lily does that thing with her thighs, all tight and wet against him, and Sirius can barely think of anything but the thunderball of an orgasm building in his stomach.
"I'm - I'm," Sirius says in jagged breath. "Oh, fuck, faster, Lily - Lily, I love you."
Sirius comes, and that face (like a revelation,) that heart-pushing groan he whimpers is enough to make Lily come, which she does in almost complete silence. She swallows her moan with a kiss, pressing her lips against Sirius hard, twisting and turning so their noses get bent and squished, all caught up in his body and the undertow of their orgasm - an undertow that keeps them taut, tense, until finally Lily collapses, falling on top of Sirius a mess of hair and sweat and exhaustion. They rest there, panting, naked chests filling and emptying against each other, anchored painfully by the sound of James' snores. Turning her head, Lily notices that Sirius' arm is draped over James' waist, balled tight in the fabric of his boxers. The sight of it; the tension, the fragility of their friendship personified in that one movement, it almost makes her want to cry (and she knows what she has to do.)
"Go, Sirius," Lily says, nudging his shoulder. "Go to bed. Just, go -"
He ignores her, lingering in their sex, letting the warm waves of fucking and fatigue drift over him. He wants a smoke.
"Please, Sirius." The warm, wanton edge has left her voice and she sounds tired and serious.
"All right, but you have to get off me, first." She does, and Sirius rolls off the bed, stumbling and staggering about the dark bedroom in his stupor, collecting his boxers. "Goodnight, Lily." He leans in and kisses her; she's unreceptive.
"Goodnight, James." Sirius leans in and kisses James on the lips, a little kiss that drifts too long, a little too wet. "Love you, bro."
"Sirius," Lily says, suddenly.
"Yeah?"
"I - we have to end this, right now." She's crying a bit, but doesn't wipe away the tears. "I can't keep doing this, Sirius."
"What?" He stands, almost coldly blank.
"This is driving me insane. You and James and - I can't fucking handle this anymore, Sirius."
"Do you love me?"
"It's not that," she pulls the sheets around her shoulders and gets up from the bed, facing him like it's a showdown. "But I'm with James. I - that's it. I'm with him. And what we have - it just can't."
"Do you love me?"
She speaks tempestuously, like she's looking for every excuse she can think of: "It's serious. Me and James, we're serious. I think he wants to marry me. And," she's trembling, shivering or just frightened Sirius can't tell. "I think I want to marry him and it's amazing and I really don't understand how all this happened so quickly and -"
"But do you love me?"
"Yes! Yes, yes, I love you! You know that, for God's sake. You - you were my first love, Sirius. How could I - we've been together all these years and I can't get you out of my mind, all right? No matter how hard I try. Is that what you want to hear?"
"Why can't we - I mean, if you love me, can't we -"
Lily laughs, bitterly. "Oh, don't kid yourself. You love James far more than you love me. I know you'd choose James over me any day, if it came to that."
"I wouldn't -"
"Shut up, Sirius, you would. You might say you love me, but you love him more." She closes her eyes, and the world spins crazily around her, flashing and bouncing on the backs of her eyelids. "What we're doing is - is nothing. It's the remainder of - of what we had. Whatever that was. It's just lingering feelings. Can't you see that? There's nothing left of us but sex. Sex and James. That's it."
"What are you saying - we end this? That's it, three years down the drain?"
Lily opens her eyes, and her expression is unreadable. "We end this, and we never bring it up again."
"Lily -"
"Just let go, Sirius. Just - go."
It's Sirius crying now, large tears clinging to his eyelashes. "You're a fucking bitch, you know that? A fucking bitch."
There are so many things she could say: What could I do? Why would you hurt James like this? What would you have me do? You think I want this to end? But she just sighs, and turns towards her bed: "I know."
*
Remus wakes up and regrets he does. His head is full of tar and it's as if his bones have been replaced with lead bars. He rolls over in bed, but that's not a good idea - he groans, and tastes bile in the back of his throat - so he flops on his back and stares blankly at the ceiling, a position of least resistance. The sun is a pounding menace on his eyes, but Remus can't be bothered to find the shades, can't be bothered to do anything than count dents in the ceiling tiles and want to die a little bit. He wonders half-heartedly at the time.
It's only after a few minutes that he realizes he's alone in bed: Sirius is already gone. Remus considers vaguely where he is, but the answer is disheartening so he tries not to think about it. Remus groans again, and shifts positions, which brings only new waves of pain and displeasure, so he shifts back - it's no good - he bolts from the room and makes it to the toilet in time for an unpleasant reliving of the previous night.
He throws up until he's empty, he throws up until he hurts, he throws up until he's pretty sure his body is just being spiteful now, dry heaves so wretched that it makes him shiver and sob. He's only distantly aware that he's naked and really very cold. Alcohol is sticky on him, he smells of whiskey and other things, and his feet are dark with caked dirt.
Remus cleans himself up in the mirror; wipes away streaks of dirt from his chest, brushes his teeth, wets back his hair, before he, teetering on nausea, spends another session at the toilet.
Putting on one of Sirius' Pride of Portree T-shirts (complete with garish glowing golden star) and a pair of boxers from the bedside drawers, he makes his slow way downstairs. The steps are vertigo-inducing, and Remus takes them slowly; moving makes him feel disgusting, sticky with sweat in the crooks of his arms and his knees, his joints weak and useless, and he all he really wants to do is go to sleep.
Sirius is he in the kitchen, naked and soaking wet, toweling his hair when Remus comes in. Beside him on the kitchen counter is a bottle of Lagavulin whiskey, half-empty. "Morning, Tallulah," Sirius says cheerfully, swinging his towel around his shoulders, hair damp and wildly tangled.
Remus stares at him, glazed over. "Tallulah?"
"Tallulah Bankhead. Famous alcoholic. I think she acted on the side."
"Whatever." Remus falls into one of the kitchen chairs, sagging and groaning indistinctly. He doesn't have time for Sirius' oh-so-clever Hollywood wit and references now, not when he's just about to off himself.
"Aw, princess," Sirius says, ruffling Remus' hair in that obnoxious way he has. "Not feeling so good?"
"Don't belittle me."
"I was just kidding around," Sirius offers with a shrug. He sits across from Remus. "Can I get you anything? Water? Toast? Rotten meat covered in dog shit?"
"Oh, fuck off," and Remus drops his head into his hands, twisting in his chair to find a comfortable position that doesn't involve vomiting on the table. "How are you even alive? You had the most to drink out of all of us."
"Hair of the dog," he says, taking a quick swig from the whiskey bottle, grimacing as he swallows. "To be honest, I think I'm still drunk." He smells of the lake - he must have had a swim - and also faintly of dog, the residue of a recent transformation. "Here, go have a dip, it'll make you feel loads better. And I'll make you some bacon and coffee. Greasy foods do wonders." He looks sincere, so Remus gives in, dragging himself to standing and dropping his boxers, leaving them over the side of the chair. He is distantly aware of how easy it is undressing in front of his friends - what was once a mortifying and paralyzing experience is now almost automatic, as thoughtless as breathing in front of company.
"Wait," Remus says, memories of the night surfacing in his mind in fragments. "Do you remember last night at all?"
Sirius laughs, hollowly. "Not at all. Not after the fifth shot, at least. Do you?"
Remus sways, and suppresses a shiver. His mind just screams, shut up, shut up, so: "No, me neither."
"Go swim." Sirius waves him off, turning back to the stove and humming a song.
Remus stumbles his way to the beach. The sun has nearly peaked in the sky, and the air is thick and hot, the stone patio scalding his bare feet. Eventually, Remus steps on shore and walks into the surf like an unstoppable machine, marching ever onwards, not even flinching as the cold water reaches his penis. He falls into the water - less of a dive, more as if he had been sucked in, slipping back into the waves. It has an instant effect - nausea evaporates, the sweat and filth of the night washed away. No wonder this is religious, Remus considers, drifting on his back, a Baptism, a rebirth.
Remus enters the kitchen to the smell of bacon and coffee, as promised, and he even feels like he can stomach it this time. Peter is sitting, groaning at the kitchen table, looking wretched with his hair all over the place, dark bags under his eyes, and greasy teashade glasses at the end of his nose. Sirius is nowhere to be seen.
"Morning," Remus says and Peter grunts a response. "Where's Sirius?"
"Out. Getting something."
"Oh, Lord," Remus says, "he shouldn't be driving. He's been drinking."
"He'll be fine," Peter waves off, but Remus remains anxious.
"Coffee?" Remus eventually offers, Peter gladly accepting. They sit across from each other and sip it black, Remus checking his watch every so often. He sits the bacon in the middle of table, but Peter just winces and looks away, so Remus eats the lot.
Peter speaks first: "What happened last night?"
"You can't remember either? Neither can Sirius or I -"
"No, I remember," Peter says, putting his mug down and considering the dark, oily surface, never looking up at Remus. "What were you guys talking about, though?"
Remus considers what to say next. He feels compelled to lie, but the tiredness in Peter's voice, and the sadness makes him reconsider: "Well - um - how much do you know?"
"I know something is going on. You guys haven't been acting normally. I mean, all of you." Peter frowns; this trip is changing everything. Not in wide brushstrokes, but suddenly the way people smile, the way people laugh, the way people touch - it's altered, colder, more distant, a changed thing. He feels like he's standing still in traffic, the world spiraling around him without ever touching it.
"Well. You can't repeat this to anyone." Peter nods, solemnly. "Ah - I don't know how to put this right way."
"Just spit it out?"
"I." Remus pauses, sifting through some shallows breaths. "I'm in love with Sirius." Yeah, it sounds as absurd out loud as it does in his head.
Peter is silent, just staring at his coffee, fingering the ceramic handle. Quietly, he speaks: "Really?"
"Yeah," Remus says, and he feels like Atlas freed from his weight, "I am."
Peter looks up. He's smiling, just a little, and he looks even more tired than before. "Does he love you back?"
"I don't know." Remus drains the rest of his coffee, and pours himself a new mug-full. "Maybe. But, if he does, he's too busy, uh, doing - other people."
"Other people?"
Remus sighs. "Well." He gives Peter a significant look. "He just. He - often seems more interested in, say, affection than me. I mean, affection in general. From everyone. Everyone." He raises his eyebrows, looking kind of wounded.
"But - you - you're kidding, right? - you mean, Sirius and James? -"
"No - him and - Lily - oh, I don't know." Remus scratches the back of his neck nervously. "I - I honestly don't know what's going on with them."
"Well," Peter says, considering his words for a long moment, "he does like being the... center of attention."
"Yes, yes," Remus murmurs. "The sun around which we all spin," Remus taps his chin thoughtfully. "Yes. Yes he does."
"And you - love him?"
Remus laughs, a sweet look on his face. "Yes. I don't know why. But I - sort of do." Peter looks back down at his coffee. "Uh - Pete, you okay with that?"
"I don't know. I mean. It's not - right is it?"
Remus frowns. "What isn't? Being - uh -" gay seems too hard to say, "- different?" he finishes lamely.
"No - no, Sirius not liking you." Peter looks up and manages a smile, which Remus returns.
"It's not right - or wrong - but - well, thanks, Peter." Remus smiles, drains his cup, and feels refreshed. "I really needed to get that off my chest."
"No, no," Peter replies. "Just - thanks for telling me. No one ever tells me anything anymore." He gives that familiar pout, his big lips all pink and wet and he looks like he did in first year. The only innocent left, Remus thinks.
The rest of the day passes slowly, like a syrup. Sirius comes back, safe and sound, and continues on with the whiskey, bright and cheerful as he does, draining the rest of the bottle and starting on some wine. It's not until late afternoon that James and Lily stumble downstairs, hair messy halos of sleep, eyes thick with sleep and hangovers. After another half-meal, the company ends up lounging around the house, silent mostly except for the occasional joke, or small conversation. Sirius and Remus stick together, sitting out on the covered veranda and drinking bottles of wine and exchanging petty quips, smoking Sirius' pungent Woodbines and trying to blow smoke rings. James and Peter play chess on the stone porch, bottles of beer by their feet, and Lily is reading on the beach like an old lady, big sunhat and oversized sunglasses.
The five of them only converge once the sun has set. Darkness settles over them, along with a cool chill, so they plant themselves on the veranda, passing around more alcohol, hangovers forgotten in the wave of new booze. The record player blasts Jimi Hendrix, a wailing, whirling haze of music that pairs magically with the tang of the alcohol and the thickness of cigarette smoke. That isn't to say all is well; Sirius and Lily sit far apart, never daring to look at each other. James, Peter, and Remus are the middle men, pushing the conversation forward, pushing it even when it refuses to move.
"Maybe we should see a movie," Remus suggests, flipping through a French newspaper he can't read. "Look, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I've heard it's really good."
"I'm not in the mood," Sirius says, tipping his chair back on two legs.
"Maybe we could rent a boat, go sailing -"
"None of us know how."
"Well, fine, let's get a drink," James says after a while of pointless talk. "Peter, can you drive?"
Peter shrugs. "Let's go."
The rest of the night crashes around them like a torrent. The café is lake-side, and expensive, as usual. Sirius orders the drinks - a round of perroquet - a strange green drink that he explains is made of pastis and mint syrup. They drink in relative silence, each doing their own thing; James seems curious and cheerful, but Peter is panicked, like a bomb might explode at any moment; Sirius seems pinioned to Remus' every move, like he's deliberately making a show of it, and Lily just stares into her drink passively.
"Another round," Sirius says, flagging down the waiter.
"Pardon, monsieur?"
"Oh, fuck," Sirius says with a snort, "forgot. France. Um, un autre - service, s'il te plait?"
"Out monsieur, la meme?"
"Non - puis, uh, un service de kir royal, s'il te plait."
"What did you order?" James asks, taking out his packet of Benson & Hedges, taking one out and tucking it behind his ear and another at his lips before passing the carton around.
"Kir royal. It's a good drink. Black currant liqueur and champagne."
"Sounds disgusting," Peter says, who still hasn't finished his first drink. "I'd like a nice pint, actually."
"We've got beer at home," Sirius says, waving him off impatiently. "Be a bit more cosmo - a little more cosmopolo - fuck, whatever. Be exciting, for once in your damn life, I mean."
"Sirius, don't be a bitch," Lily says, downing the rest of her perroquet. It's like she's asking for a fight.
"Ah, well, you'd be an expert in that, wouldn't you?" he shoots back.
Her green eyes flash. "And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what I said."
James intervenes: "Guys, guys, calm down. Sirius, I think you need to stop drinking. How much have you had today?"
"Not nearly enough," Sirius says resentfully, taking and draining Peter's remaining liquor. ("He's had a lot," Remus says to James as an aside.)
"Well, maybe you've had enough." His voice is gentle, soothing, but Lily's satisfied smiles undoes it all.
"I'm not drunk - oh, fuck, fine, I am drunk, but you can't fucking stop me." His face is red, and his hair is a mess; he looks like a disheveled aristocrat, with a shirt worth a hundred quid, a crucifix of pure gold, pewter dog tags, and the smell of alcohol and dirt abound. He's pampered and ripped, dignified and ragged, a perfect little Prince and the Pauper all rolled into one. "And you wipe that smirk off your fucking face, Lily."
"Sirius - calm the hell down," James says again. "What's wrong with you guys, everything was going so well until -"
"Until she acted like a fucking bitch."
The drinks come, and Sirius drains his off the bat. Remus and Peter watch him like they're watching a car wreck, James looks ruffled and defensive, and Lily just looks bloodthirsty. The alcohol seems to silence them, but James isn't yet ready to back down, and after a few sips:
"I want you to apologize to Lily."
"No fucking way."
"What's wrong with you, Sirius? You told me you liked her, like, yesterday!" There's a note of desperation in James' voice, which makes sense; what happens if the two people he loves hate each other?
Sirius looks from James, to Lily. "I fucking lied, man."
"But - why? I don't get you, Sirius." James looks about ready to cry, which is maybe the only thing that will shut Sirius up. He turns to his girlfriend: "Lily, what's going on?"
"I -" she pauses, frowns, "- I don't really know."
Sirius looks ready to explode, but Remus' hand on his knee and James' desperate expression, it quiets him. He takes Remus' proffered glass, swallowing it in one.
"I think we should go home," Peter whispers into the silence, and so Sirius leaves a bundle of Francs on the table and they leave, no complaints.
When they get back to the cottage, they split. It's almost totally dark now, half past nine, and the cloudy chill of afternoon has given way to a thick, warm wind and summer smells. Sirius takes off first, James trailing after him, jogging to keep up with Sirius' pace.
"Sirius - where are you going? We need to talk -"
"I'm going swimming." (Which, with this much alcohol, kind of means drowning.) Sirius is in the kitchen now, his shirt flung over one of the chairs, his shorts in a pile by the doorway. "Come if you want."
James tries to strip as he runs, but crashes and smashes into walls, hopping on one foot to kick off his shorts, nearly strangling himself trying to pull off his T-shirt. "Sirius, slow the fuck down." James careens down the hall, but Sirius is nowhere to be found. Finally kicking off his boxers, James goes at full sprint down the lawn, missing the furniture by inches, smashing through underbrush and low-hanging branches to reach the beach. Sirius is already in the water a hundred meters out, only a thrashing blot in the dark of night.
"Sirius!" James yells, hesitating on the shoreline. "Come back! You're drunk, this is stupid! We can work this out - please, come back," When no reply comes, James runs into the water, diving and splashing and kicking his way to Sirius. He catches up quickly; Sirius is drunk and stupid, after all, and he's just floundering about and he seems a bit panicked because he can't touch bottom, so James wraps an arm around Sirius' waist and swims back to shore, Sirius struggling against James' hold, spitting out half-formed words and lake water.
Finally in the shallows, James drops Sirius and the two fall apart panting, heaving, naked and cold and wet and it's far too late and Sirius far too drunk to make any sense of this.
"Fuck, James," Sirius says, leaning back on his palms and shivering, maybe crying but James can't really tell because of the water. "What are you fucking doing?"
"Sirius - fuck -" James says, panting, trying to catch his breath in the ankle-deep water, "can you just tell me what's wrong? I'm tired of - I'm tired."
Sirius is definitely crying now, short of breath between the sobbing and the struggle, "James, just fuck off - oh God," and he has to close his eyes because he can't keep looking at James' concerned, hurt, vibrant expression.
"Just tell me! I'm your friend! I'm your brother, aren't I?" James shuffles over to Sirius and wraps an arm around his shoulder, squeezing the muscle of his shoulder awkwardly. They're naked, wet and slippery and white, shining in the moon, and just because Sirius rarely ever cries, and James is so kind of close that he can't help crying himself. "Please, just tell me?"
It's thick in his chest, pulled tight over his skin, to the point of maybe breaking. Sirius knows he has to tell him, he can't hide this, not something this big, not something that would tear James apart if he found out some other way. "I - me and - I," and he can't manage the words, so he just says it: "I fucked Lily." He speaks to the ground, to the water, head bent and knocked against his knees, trailing off into gasps. "I fucked Lily, I fucked your girlfriend," he repeats quietly, almost like he can't believe it himself.
James' arm lifts, he falls away; it's his eyes that hurt the most, not wide and shocked, not narrowed and angry, just open, wet and soft and blurred. "Oh."
"I -" Sirius looks up and he's not crying anymore, just horribly pale, "James - I -" Sirius closes his eyes, wraps his arms tighter around his knees, drawing them to his chest. "James, I'm sorry. I - I'm really sorry, I just - we were - it was before you two - and, fuck, I'm so sorry."
James doesn't say anything, just gets up, naked as David, and walks away, merging with the darkness in total silence.
"James!" Sirius calls after him, unwinding but not leaving the water. "James! Please, we can talk -" but nothing happens, and Sirius falls back into the water, head cradled in the wet sand, body nudged to and fro in the small waves. "James," he whispers stupidly, "James, James - fuck."
He listens to the water, feels the horrible cold of it on his thighs, his calves, his stomach and chest. He wonders (dramatic as ever) what it would be like to drown; panicked, cold, horrible, he thinks. Sirius isn't crying anymore - actually, a pleasant sort of lightness fills him, because he knows the worst is over (except all the pain that's going to come) and he's ripped off the scab and now the blood can flow.
Sirius is not alone for long; slowly, confidently, Remus walks down the beach. He's naked too, and all warm and brown and dry. He sits in next to Sirius, arms wrapped around his knees, fingers cinched around one wrist like a bracelet. It's a very casual motion, the sag in his muscled shoulders, the limp fingers of his hands, the curve of his calf, and the arch of his bent knees.
"Well, the night does funny things inside a man… these old tom-cat feelings you don't understand. Well - I - uh, turn around to look at you - you, um, light a cigarette - something, something." Remus closes his eyes. "Sorry, that didn't go so well."
"I wish I had the guts to burn one," Sirius says vacantly, finishing the line, "but we've never met - and I hope that I don't fall in love with you." He lingers on the words for a moment. "Tom Waits. He's my favourite."
"I know he is." Remus sighs, his butt is going numb but he doesn't move. "So you told him?"
"You knew?"
"I knew. I think James was the only one who didn't know." Remus looks out to the horizon he can't see, and he looks so odd because he's just the figure of calm composure, he is; varnished cool, warm youth, all the things that Remus never was at school. This isn't the awkward, stumbling, worried Remus that Sirius loved. This here's a man, a man in the body of a boy. "It was pretty easy to connect the dots."
"Oh." Sirius is staring at the sky. "I'm sorry."
Remus shrugs, making a smooth wave of his body, shoulders and back. "It's okay."
"I've really fucked up, haven't I?"
"No. Well, yes. But you can fix it."
"I don't know how."
Remus slides down, submerges his legs in the water, doesn't even complain when a cold wave washes over his chest, hardening his nipples and making his muscles flex with goose-pimples; he curls in next to Sirius, tucking one leg over his friend's, wrapping one arm around his chest. The sand is wet and cold against his ear. "It's okay, Sirius."
"I dunno," Sirius murmurs.
"Do you remember what you told me last night?"
"What I told you?"
"That I should grow a spine."
Sirius nods nearly imperceptibly. "Yeah, I do."
"I'm growing a spine."
"I noticed."
"I love you, Sirius."
"Don't say that." Sirius sounds impossibly tired. "Please, don't say that."
Remus kisses Sirius' shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"You're making everything - way too complicated."
Remus leans up on one arm, he's looking down at Sirius, his wet and sandy hair draping, dripping on Sirius' face. They're covered in shadow, thick between their faces, and then Remus leans down and kisses Sirius; touch and release. "You've got to let go, Sirius." He leans down and kisses him again.
"I already have," Sirius says, sighing, blinking back tears.
"No, not Lily. You have to let go of James." Remus shifts positions, straddling Sirius' waist, hands locked in over his shoulders. He looks uncertain being in such a place, a kind dominance so unlike him - neither intellectual nor physical, this one purely personal, a dominance in their friendship, in their relationship. "You've got to let go."
If he weren't so upset, Sirius might have laughed. "Let go of James? I don't get it."
Remus leans down and kisses Sirius again, this time a little deeper, with less caution. "You weren't really in love with Lily, were you?" Sirius blinks at him, not really understanding. "She was something James wanted. Maybe - maybe, because of that, she was something you wanted to? Maybe - she was close as you could get."
"As close as I could get to what?"
"To James. To," he picks his words carefully, "being with James."
Sirius scans Remus' face carefully, and he feels tears roll down his own cheeks, but he doesn't remember crying. It doesn't make sense, he loves Lily, and yet, at the same time, he realizes that he went after he the same week James said he had a crush. He loves Lily, and sometimes he does it in James' room. He loves Lily, and yet sometimes he does it to feel what James feels. "It's not like that. James is - James is… special."
"I know he is," Remus says, leaning in again to kiss Sirius' cheek. "He's a good guy. I know he is."
"I love him." And not for the first time Sirius feels his drunkenness overtake him.
"I know you do," Remus replies in turn, kissing him on the other cheek.
"He's - he's all I've got left," Sirius says; he speaks distantly, not as if to Remus, but as if to the air and the stars and the lake and the land. "He's my brother. Once Regulus - after I left - he's all I've got. He's the most important thing to me." Sirius is rambling, but Remus listens, leaning down sometimes to kiss his very own Sirius, to stroke his hair and get tangled with the cold surf and thick sand. "I'd die for him, you know? I'd die for him."
"I know, Sirius, I know. But he's got his own life, too. And you've got your own." Remus feels like he should be in a movie or in some horrible romance book - Anna Karina in Vivre sa vie, teary-eyed at the cinema, discussing life lessons, or maybe a wailing virgin consoling her very own Byronic hero. It's all so clichéd, but what can he do? Sometimes life is like that. Remus looks down at Sirius and forgets the betrayal, forgets the hurt, forgets the hundreds of times Sirius has dropped him to see James, to see Lily. All Remus can see is Sirius now, Sirius drunk and desperate and hurting right down to his heart. "And - you've got me."
It's not a moment of revelation; not a, Oh God, why didn't I see it before? or a, This pain I feel shows me how much I really love you. Sirius has always seen it, just hasn't really bothered to act, because Remus is always there - that's what Remus does, he's there; he's there when Sirius needs him, he's there when Sirius doesn't. Like now, all naked and warm and soft on the beach and just the right kind of person, just the right kind of smile, just the right kind of body that Sirius needs so he doesn't throw himself into the lake. Sirius leans up and kisses Remus, stomach muscles flexing as he holds himself up despite gravity, holding it so long that his frame begins to tremble and he has to let himself down.
They're staring at each other a long while, and their minds flip between different things - they're naked, first of all, and their cocks are touching, pressing against each other in a guilty way as Remus shifts his hips. They're cold too, and dulled by alcohol, their minds fuzzy with the things that are wrong and the things that are right. They tempt each other with gentle movements, but it amounts to nothing, and eventually sleep and stars and night wins over.
"I'd like to go to bed," Sirius says as his limbs tighten with cold and exhaustion. "I just don't want to go inside."
"I brought out some blankets and pillows," Remus says gently, crawling off of Sirius and standing and stretching in the cool wind. "We can sleep out here."
"We'll be cold."
"We'll snuggle."
"You're gay."
"You too."
They spread a large blanket over the sand, up away from the surf, and crawl under the remaining three, pressed close and naked together, still wet but drying warmly. The pillows are hard and made of down, but Sirius could have slept on rocks.
"I don't know what to do," Sirius mumbles in that shadow before sleep.
"It's okay, we'll figure something out."
"He hates me," Sirius says, whispering it to himself.
"He doesn't hate you.
"What am I going to do?"
"Sleep, for now."
"All right."
Part 4
Author: marseverlasting
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: James/Lily, Sirius/Lily, Sirius/James, Sirius/Remus, implied Sirius/Regulus
Word Count: 35,260 words
Summary: Who doesn't want to be loved by everyone? A summer away; a time grow and fall apart.
Warnings: voyeurism, fingering, drug use, boys being assholes, femdom, poetry, angst, unrealistic portrayals of achieving orgasm, extensive foreshadowing, exhibitionism, excessive length, wall sex, (constant) alcohol use, incest, occasional breach of the fourth wall, over-indulgent discussion of a car, fluff, the French.
Author's notes: Written for krystal_moon for hp_summersmut. A big, big, big, big thank you to my Dylan Thomas who held my hand through the madness -- you are a total goddess. I've got tons of inspiration for this story, but the principle thre were Truffaut's Jules et Jim, Godard's Pierrot le fou, and Cuarón's Y tu mamá también.
Part 1
Part 2
They're pleasantly drunk by nightfall; the bottles are empty and the joints are done and their bodies are dry. They've got their towels wrapped around their shoulders and such, to ward off the gentle cold of night, still too lazy to make the short walk to the house. They talk about music and why France can't make a good rock band, they discuss their views on God, they see who can deep throat the wine bottle, they explain to Peter what exactly a prostate can do, they tell the story of their first kiss. Most of its rehashed, old material from old conversations, but they run it like a familiar route and it makes them feel a kind of togetherness, strings of conversation woven into a tight fabric. Or, it could be that Sirius just likes describing his orgasms.
It's Peter's rumbling stomach that wakes them from their reverie: they haven't had dinner yet.
"I'll cook," Lily volunteers, as she's probably the least drunk, and the most capable with a wand. This is greeted by over-enthusiastic cheers and hugs because they're actually pretty tipsy and this just seems like such a nice thing for her to do, really. Sirius promises more wine, and this is sounding just too good, so they stumble their way home, staggering and swaying like rain dogs trying to pick up a scent. Peter nearly dies in the fire-pit but Sirius saves him, which makes Peter laugh. Wow, we're still naked, huh. Yeah - look, it is my dick. Sirius, shut up, we know it's your dick. You're just jealous because I'm a half-inch longer than you, James. What, you guys measured? Of course we have, and I'm a half-inch longer. Yeah, maybe, but mine is curved. So what? So, that makes it longer. But you're uncircumsized. So what? So, it's ugly - it has a freaking hood. Boys, seriously, shut up.
They sit about the kitchen naked, so comfortable from the wine and the company that there's no real point or motivation to dress. Lily, more for practicality than modesty, puts on a bra and begins to make a kind of haphazard ratatouille for dinner. Instead of just the standard ingredients, she amuses herself by putting in whatever strikes her fancy; mushrooms, asparagus, capers, hot peppers, potatoes. She makes it in a big pot, and the five of them just eat from that rather than dirty any dishes - a recurring theme when you live with boys. Sirius drags out another couple bottles of wine, this time some 1950s Merlot, saving the more expensive wine for when they can actually remember drinking it.
It's only when it gets darker, and a cold kind of mood settles about them that they put on some clothing (mainly limited to boxers, though Remus slips on a T-shirt, too) and even then it's quite reluctant. Now the weight of the booze is really starting to press into them; James is flushed all red, and he kisses Lily more often as the night wears on. Peter sways where he sits, and more than once Remus has to stop him falling from his stool. Sirius is mostly preoccupied by his own body, flexing his muscles, checking himself for spots or marks or whatever, scratching at the thin hair of his legs, pinching his nipples and twisting them because he's got nothing really better to do than flirt with everyone in a hundred foot radius.
"What should we do?" Peter says lethargically, watching Lily drop the empty pot into the sink.
"Make out with me," Sirius says vaguely, now fiddling with his knee cap, pressing around the edges and trying lamely to lift it up. "Or we can do shots." (Somehow, the two are synonymous.)
This is generally agreed on, because what else are five teenagers in an empty house going to do - get alcohol poisoning and die, of course, so Peter gets the rum.
"Santé!" the five of them say, raising their shot glasses and downing the liquor with expressions ranging from satisfaction (Lily) to utter disgust (Remus.)
And again: "L'chaim!" Sirius proposes, and the others laugh and join in. Down goes another one.
"Cheers!" goes the third, and "Prost!" for the fourth, and it's good they can't think of any other words for a toast because they're already quite amazingly drunk and it's only ten in the evening.
The whole room adopts that warm, orange, sleepy atmosphere that descends after drinking - lamp light becomes golden, and the walls seem to curve inwards, cradling and comforting and blanketed. Every surface seems soft, every contour warm and inviting. It's a melting pot; dissolving and blurring the lines between sleeping and waking, dreaming and reality, and other such divides (gay and straight?) A haze of smoke floats about the ceiling, and it smells strongly of spilled liquor and marijuana and vegetables, their skin like lake-water and tobacco smoke.
"I love you guys," Sirius says, lying on the couch, eyes closed, cigarette dangling from his lips. "You're awesome. I don't - I don't know what I'd do with-without you."
Remus sighs and rolls his eyes (not this again) but James sates his friend: "We love you, too."
"You can't say you love me too," Sirius says, turning to sit on the couch, head in his hands, balanced on his knees. "You have to say you love me first."
"We can't - you did that first."
Sirius frowns and looks at James seriously: "Well, say it now."
James sighs: "We love you, we love you, we love you - come on, Sirius, you know that."
"It's forever," Sirius says with gravity. "It's forever, right? C'est pour toujours?"
James smiles: "Until death do us part, mate." Lily strokes James' hair affectionately as he says it, ruffling it and twisting it around her fingers. "And even after that."
"We can be ghosts together," Sirius says, dreamily. "Remus, would you like to be a ghost with us?"
"Sure," Remus says, mumbling through sleep.
"Let's go on a walk," Peter says suddenly, standing and swaying drunkenly, a half-drunk bottle of Fettercairn single malt in one hand. "I want to go on a walk."
"A walk - okay," James says, withdrawing himself from Lily's arms, stumbling over nothing as he reaches around Peter's shoulders. "A walk, all right?"
Sirius nods and has a tough time of getting up - James tries to help, but that ends in disaster as they both crash to the ground, like a Marx Brothers movie. Steadying themselves against the wall, they beckon to Lily and Remus, who look the least enthusiastic of the bunch.
"C'mon, girls," Sirius says, rolling his head and bouncing on the spot, like Rocky ready for a match. "Let's go already." Sirius' boxers are low on his hips, and he fumbles at the hem like he's just itching to strip. Remus watches his hands blankly, as they skitter to his back, and then cross under his arm pits - it's all his mind can focus on, those tan little spiders, look at them move, and Remus imagines them pulling off his own shirt, he imagines Sirius feeling Remus' body in some drunken craze, those same slender hands pulling off his own boxers - oh God, he feels like he's going to pass out, the whole world is spinning and all he has to keep him steady is Sirius' drunken smile.
"How do you guys even plan on walking? You can't stand -" Lily says, but she's cut short as James drags her to her feet. "Oh, fine," and in exchange she gets a payment of James' sloppy kisses, which is fair compensation, she supposes.
"Remus," Sirius says, demanding. "Come on, Moony." Remus lets himself get dragged out the door, stumbling on words and intentions as he's flung into the great, wet outdoors.
"Fuck me, I thought it was colder," Sirius says, spreading his arms out wide. "It's really nice." The only cold they can feel is the beaded dew on their feet that numbs their toes; the air itself is damp and warm, humid to the point of inviting fog.
They meander to the beach in a more or less forward direction, pausing every now and again to help a fallen comrade (that's Peter, mostly, who apparently brought his bottle of whiskey with him.) The sky is a pointillism picture of stars, and the moon is somewhere far away, hidden behind a mountain maybe. Lily, quick even when she's drunk, has her wand, and lights their path to the beach.
Sirius misjudges the distance and trips on the little grass ledge that leads to the beach - he falls, rolling and sprawling onto the beach, laughing outrageously as he crashes into the surf. James falls in next to him, crashing to his knees in the sand and laughing at Sirius: "God you fucking klutz."
Sirius lies on his back, his laughter subsiding, smiling and staring into the night sky: "La tempête a béni mes éveils maritimes… plus - plus léger qu'un bouchon j'ai dansé sur les flots qu'on appelle rouleurs éternels de victimes, dix nuits, sans regretter l'oeil - something falots, I think. I don't remember." He laughs again, and James has that stupid, full-mouth grin over his face.
"What was that?" Peter says drunkenly, swinging the bottle around before taking a drink. "Sounds French."
"It was - my parents made me memorize poetry when I was young. Thought it would instill - oh, who gives a fuck, I don't know what they wanted. Give the bottle here," he takes the whiskey from Peter and takes a good long draught. "Fuckers bored me to tears, I hate poetry. I memorized all the dirty ones I could find. There just wasn't enough." He takes another drink before James takes it. Sirius leans up and stares out at the ocean, and screams at the top of his lungs: "Je suis esclave de l'époux infernal, celui qui a perdu les vierges folles! C'est bien ce démon-là, ce n'est pas un spectre, ce n'est pas un fantôme! Mais moi qui ai perdu la sagesse, qui suis damnée et morte au monde, on ne me tuera pas!" He falls back against the shore, laughing again, laughing until tears roll down the sides of his face. "The foolish virgin," he explains, "he's talking about fucking virgins. Good ol' Rimbaud. I wish I had cigarettes on me. God, fuck, I'm covered in sand."
He's quickly joined by his friends; James at one side, Remus at the other, Lily to James' other side, and Peter to Lily's; a row of dried sardines, or something; strips of naked meat marinating in liquor and sand, skin up to their thighs lapped by the cold lake water. James and Lily turn to one another and start to kiss, deeply and wetly with sick kind of sucking noises and other horribly teenaged sounds. Peter is asleep, or seems to be, and Sirius turns to Remus.
"You wanna fuck me?" he asks, eyes wide and bright, grinning all devil-like.
"What?"
"You wanna fuck me?"
"What - no! - what?" Remus looks a little panicked, a little scared by this whole thing.
"I'm kidding. Take off your clothes." Sirius grabs the hem of Remus' T-shirt and tugs upwards. "Come on, you're making me feel over-dressed." With a little help, Remus pulls off the shirt and Sirius laughs. "Gonna go swimming with me?"
"We're going to drown."
"Sure. You coming?" With a quick motion, Sirius jerks down his boxers, pulling them from his legs and tossing them aside (into the waves; he'll never see that pair again.)
"I guess" - which really means - 'how high?'
Sirius gets up and stretches, takes another swig at the bottle and scratches his cock impatiently. "Come on, Remus."
Remus slips off his boxers and takes Sirius' proffered hand: they wade into the water, link quickly broken as Sirius dives in and Remus recoils because it's freezing and this really was a pretty shitty idea, to be honest.
"Sirius, I'm freezing," Remus says, when his friend surfaces. Remus has his arms crossed tightly against his chest, and Sirius can see the ripples of goose pimples grow along his arms, even in the dim light of night. He touches his hand to Remus' chest and pinches a hard nipple between his fingers, just for fun.
"We'll get out in a second." Sirius stands to his full height, the water level just below his cock, and he steps near Remus. "Kiss me."
Remus shrugs, and gives a cold peck to Sirius' lips.
"Now, do it like we're lovers," Sirius growls.
"How much have you had to drink?"
"A whole fucking lot." Sirius grabs Remus forcefully by the back of the neck and tugs their heads close together. "Now give me a fucking kiss."
Remus does so, and as he does Sirius grabs him hard around the neck and shoulders, wet arms slicking them together, forcing Remus so near that their cocks are touching (too cold to get a hard on, but they'd both probably have one.) Their chests are wet and cold, and their knocking hips hurt; Sirius steps on Remus' foot under the water, and instead of getting warmer, everything feels a lot like ice. Sirius forces his tongue against Remus' lips, and Remus shyly replies with his own. It's not a very good kiss, Sirius seems like he's trying to swallow Remus' face, it's all speed and no finesse; his stubble burns Remus' skin as Sirius moves his head back and forth manically, and his teeth are sharp and drag against Remus' soft lips.
"I wanna fuck you, Remus," Sirius says, pulling their lips apart and whispering viciously in Remus' ear. "I'm serious. Right now if you want."
"Sirius, you're trashed."
"I know," but he doesn't shy away, "come on. I'll do anything you want."
"You're drunk, don't be an idiot."
Sirius persists: "You want me, don't you? You're in love with me, right?"
"You're hurting me - stop it, Sirius, come on -"
"I love you, you know that?"
Remus just sounds irritated now: "I know. Can we just go? I'm freezing."
"Don't be a pussy," Sirius says, taking Remus by this hips; gently though, only a touch, tilting them closer together. "I mean, if you like me, just tell me."
Remus looks away, startled, almost crying, suddenly hurt more than when Sirius was angry.
"Do you love me?"
"Sirius, you're -"
"I know I'm drunk - do you love me?"
Remus stares at him blankly, vividly aware of his own nakedness, of Sirius cock touching his own, of feeling like he's about to pass out. It's a whisper when he finally speaks: "Yeah -" he closes his eyes, "I love you."
"I know," Sirius says, kissing him again. "I'll suck you off, all right?"
Sirius wraps his hand around Remus' wet cock, jerking him lazily, while leaning in to kiss him again - when suddenly Remus pulls away, stumbling in the water and falling back into it with a splash. Sirius laughs, but stops when Remus surfaces, coughing and spluttering, sweeping back his hair and looking totally shocked - and angry: "What are you playing at, Sirius?"
"I thought - didn't you just -"
"You're drunk," and it's almost like he has a spine, though maybe it's just liquid courage, "I'm not going to deal with you like this." Dripping wet, and more pissed than Sirius has ever seen him, he walks out of the water, and he looks kind of ferocious, kind of like the Wolf.
"Remus -" Sirius says, shell-shocked. "What are you -"
"I think it's time for bed," Remus says, making an unneeded decision because everyone is pretty much already asleep on the beach.
The walk back is awkward, sullen; Sirius is silent, and James, Peter, and Lily are drunk and tired, dragging themselves as Remus leads the way, still soaking wet and irritated at the whole night. Remus doesn't say goodnight, doesn't say anything - just goes straight to bed, closing the door behind him. The rest manage some laughs, some hugs, some hand-slaps before heading their own swaggering ways.
A few minutes pass, and then: "Lily?" Sirius whispers, peeking his head into James' bedroom. James is passed out on the bed, naked and lying on his stomach, snoring gently. "You're awake?"
She's awake and dressing, a new pair of knickers, topless but about to put a T-shirt on. "Sirius?" it's a harsh whisper, "what do you want?"
"Is James out?" he steps in and closes the door behind him. He's wearing a pair of Remus' boxers (red, white hearts, a gift from Sirius) and they're riding down his hips because of his constant fidgeting at the elastic. His hair is still wet.
"Yes," she replies, questioning.
"Asleep or, like, out?"
"He passed out, if that's what you mean." She flips her hair over her shoulder and puts her hands on her hips, not bothering to cover her breasts. "What do you want?"
Sirius steps towards her, taking tentative steps, cocking his head as if poised to ask a question. "Lily -I just thought, since James is asleep - well, you wanna fuck?"
"Oh, Sirius, we can't -" but even as she says it, Sirius gets ever closer and his boxers are low and she can see the dark curl of pubic hair that creeps towards his belly button. Lily sways where she stands; she can't really trust herself, in this room, in this heat, in this drunken swirl of want for this boy, this not-James, dark-haired imposter who came first, who seduced her way back in fifth year, long before any skinny-limbed, glasses-wearing freak swept her off her feet. "Sirius, please, this has to -"
But he takes it the wrong way, and he gets in closer, and finally kisses her, kisses her and she kisses back because, God, the things he does to her, the twisting, changing, exhilarating things. He's everything James isn't and shouldn't be; there's an element of cartoonish danger, sure, but beyond that - he's stupid, he's vibrant, he's ecstatic, he's mercurial, he's fickle, he's selfish, he's creative, he's negligent, he's explosive. It's a horrible excuse - that he's the opposite of James, that he can giver her things James can't - because that's just not true. She's here because she loves Sirius, she fucks him because that's all she can have. Lily doesn't even know how she fell in love with Sirius, how that arrogant little prick managed to seduce her on her fifteenth birthday, with that alcohol breath and bleeding family issues and wrinkled, open-fronted shirt - actually, oddly similar to how he is now (why is it working this time, too?) She wishes she could say it was because of his body (and what a body) but she loves Sirius as deeply as she loves James - for his every flaw, she finds a shred of magic, for his faults, his downfalls, she finds more of him to love. Sure, she gets irritated with him sometimes, but that's because he's Sirius, not because she doesn't love him. It's inexplicably, he's inexplicable, like some Gordian knot she longs to undo but just doesn't have the patience or the time to try - not that she ever would, that would ruin the beauty of him.
When he leans in to kiss her again, she wants to push him away because it's a horrible thing to do; to him, to James, to herself, to their friendship, to her own. But having him, and having James - it's too much. It makes her cheeks red, it makes her moan, and most of all it lets her taste the power of importance, like she's the most important person in the world, the sun to these orbiting planets - James, Sirius. Those two, the good and the bad, like two heads of the same coin - a coin she has all to herself.
God she feels awful and wonderful when he touches her; cautiously at first, his hand slipping down to her waist, cupping her, fingers sliding over the front of her knickers. It's hesitant, and endearing, and she knows it's selfish to have her cake and eat him too, but she slides her hand down the front of his boxers and wraps her hands around Sirius' half-hard cock.
The lights are off and suddenly they're against the wall and it's not even thinking anymore. Sirius kisses her like he's drowning, fighting for breath. He smells of liquor and cigarettes, but then so does she, so she doesn't object. His boxers are on the ground in an instant, and he's already hard in her hands; they press together and she smushes his cock between their bodies as Sirius tries to tug down her knickers, which he eventually loosens and drops to the ground.
"The bed," he whispers coarsely, and they fall onto it, right next to poor sleeping James. Sirius is on the bottom, and Lily climbs on top of him, knees pressing in beside his hip, leaning in to kiss Sirius wetly, drunkenly. Hands at his cock, Sirius slides inside her (she makes a small, half-pained kind of noise, before releasing a hot, sexed breath) and thrusts upwards, slowly, and into the rhythm of her rocking.
"Oh - oh fuck," he pants into the silence, "God, Lily." He says other little sex-blind things, pants and groans and he whispers names ("Lily - uhn -f-fuck - Remus, Lily -") and he barely notices that he's imagining everyone he ever loved ("Lily - oh fuck - Regulus - fuck, Regulus -") - baby murmurs that Lily can't hear and dissolve in the air like little nothings ("James - James - fuck -")
They begin to move faster, rocking and thrusting, shifting and blending into each other viciously, dueling shadows or tom cats in back alleys. Lily's hair falls over his body, a massive floral-and-lake scented paintbrush that strokes him from chin to chest. Throughout it, Sirius can feel the warmth of James beside him, but he doesn't stop, doesn't stop even as James murmurs in his sleep, or when James shifts so he sticks all sweaty against Sirius' shoulder; the one-minded desire keeps guilt away like a dam, and then Lily does that thing with her thighs, all tight and wet against him, and Sirius can barely think of anything but the thunderball of an orgasm building in his stomach.
"I'm - I'm," Sirius says in jagged breath. "Oh, fuck, faster, Lily - Lily, I love you."
Sirius comes, and that face (like a revelation,) that heart-pushing groan he whimpers is enough to make Lily come, which she does in almost complete silence. She swallows her moan with a kiss, pressing her lips against Sirius hard, twisting and turning so their noses get bent and squished, all caught up in his body and the undertow of their orgasm - an undertow that keeps them taut, tense, until finally Lily collapses, falling on top of Sirius a mess of hair and sweat and exhaustion. They rest there, panting, naked chests filling and emptying against each other, anchored painfully by the sound of James' snores. Turning her head, Lily notices that Sirius' arm is draped over James' waist, balled tight in the fabric of his boxers. The sight of it; the tension, the fragility of their friendship personified in that one movement, it almost makes her want to cry (and she knows what she has to do.)
"Go, Sirius," Lily says, nudging his shoulder. "Go to bed. Just, go -"
He ignores her, lingering in their sex, letting the warm waves of fucking and fatigue drift over him. He wants a smoke.
"Please, Sirius." The warm, wanton edge has left her voice and she sounds tired and serious.
"All right, but you have to get off me, first." She does, and Sirius rolls off the bed, stumbling and staggering about the dark bedroom in his stupor, collecting his boxers. "Goodnight, Lily." He leans in and kisses her; she's unreceptive.
"Goodnight, James." Sirius leans in and kisses James on the lips, a little kiss that drifts too long, a little too wet. "Love you, bro."
"Sirius," Lily says, suddenly.
"Yeah?"
"I - we have to end this, right now." She's crying a bit, but doesn't wipe away the tears. "I can't keep doing this, Sirius."
"What?" He stands, almost coldly blank.
"This is driving me insane. You and James and - I can't fucking handle this anymore, Sirius."
"Do you love me?"
"It's not that," she pulls the sheets around her shoulders and gets up from the bed, facing him like it's a showdown. "But I'm with James. I - that's it. I'm with him. And what we have - it just can't."
"Do you love me?"
She speaks tempestuously, like she's looking for every excuse she can think of: "It's serious. Me and James, we're serious. I think he wants to marry me. And," she's trembling, shivering or just frightened Sirius can't tell. "I think I want to marry him and it's amazing and I really don't understand how all this happened so quickly and -"
"But do you love me?"
"Yes! Yes, yes, I love you! You know that, for God's sake. You - you were my first love, Sirius. How could I - we've been together all these years and I can't get you out of my mind, all right? No matter how hard I try. Is that what you want to hear?"
"Why can't we - I mean, if you love me, can't we -"
Lily laughs, bitterly. "Oh, don't kid yourself. You love James far more than you love me. I know you'd choose James over me any day, if it came to that."
"I wouldn't -"
"Shut up, Sirius, you would. You might say you love me, but you love him more." She closes her eyes, and the world spins crazily around her, flashing and bouncing on the backs of her eyelids. "What we're doing is - is nothing. It's the remainder of - of what we had. Whatever that was. It's just lingering feelings. Can't you see that? There's nothing left of us but sex. Sex and James. That's it."
"What are you saying - we end this? That's it, three years down the drain?"
Lily opens her eyes, and her expression is unreadable. "We end this, and we never bring it up again."
"Lily -"
"Just let go, Sirius. Just - go."
It's Sirius crying now, large tears clinging to his eyelashes. "You're a fucking bitch, you know that? A fucking bitch."
There are so many things she could say: What could I do? Why would you hurt James like this? What would you have me do? You think I want this to end? But she just sighs, and turns towards her bed: "I know."
*
Remus wakes up and regrets he does. His head is full of tar and it's as if his bones have been replaced with lead bars. He rolls over in bed, but that's not a good idea - he groans, and tastes bile in the back of his throat - so he flops on his back and stares blankly at the ceiling, a position of least resistance. The sun is a pounding menace on his eyes, but Remus can't be bothered to find the shades, can't be bothered to do anything than count dents in the ceiling tiles and want to die a little bit. He wonders half-heartedly at the time.
It's only after a few minutes that he realizes he's alone in bed: Sirius is already gone. Remus considers vaguely where he is, but the answer is disheartening so he tries not to think about it. Remus groans again, and shifts positions, which brings only new waves of pain and displeasure, so he shifts back - it's no good - he bolts from the room and makes it to the toilet in time for an unpleasant reliving of the previous night.
He throws up until he's empty, he throws up until he hurts, he throws up until he's pretty sure his body is just being spiteful now, dry heaves so wretched that it makes him shiver and sob. He's only distantly aware that he's naked and really very cold. Alcohol is sticky on him, he smells of whiskey and other things, and his feet are dark with caked dirt.
Remus cleans himself up in the mirror; wipes away streaks of dirt from his chest, brushes his teeth, wets back his hair, before he, teetering on nausea, spends another session at the toilet.
Putting on one of Sirius' Pride of Portree T-shirts (complete with garish glowing golden star) and a pair of boxers from the bedside drawers, he makes his slow way downstairs. The steps are vertigo-inducing, and Remus takes them slowly; moving makes him feel disgusting, sticky with sweat in the crooks of his arms and his knees, his joints weak and useless, and he all he really wants to do is go to sleep.
Sirius is he in the kitchen, naked and soaking wet, toweling his hair when Remus comes in. Beside him on the kitchen counter is a bottle of Lagavulin whiskey, half-empty. "Morning, Tallulah," Sirius says cheerfully, swinging his towel around his shoulders, hair damp and wildly tangled.
Remus stares at him, glazed over. "Tallulah?"
"Tallulah Bankhead. Famous alcoholic. I think she acted on the side."
"Whatever." Remus falls into one of the kitchen chairs, sagging and groaning indistinctly. He doesn't have time for Sirius' oh-so-clever Hollywood wit and references now, not when he's just about to off himself.
"Aw, princess," Sirius says, ruffling Remus' hair in that obnoxious way he has. "Not feeling so good?"
"Don't belittle me."
"I was just kidding around," Sirius offers with a shrug. He sits across from Remus. "Can I get you anything? Water? Toast? Rotten meat covered in dog shit?"
"Oh, fuck off," and Remus drops his head into his hands, twisting in his chair to find a comfortable position that doesn't involve vomiting on the table. "How are you even alive? You had the most to drink out of all of us."
"Hair of the dog," he says, taking a quick swig from the whiskey bottle, grimacing as he swallows. "To be honest, I think I'm still drunk." He smells of the lake - he must have had a swim - and also faintly of dog, the residue of a recent transformation. "Here, go have a dip, it'll make you feel loads better. And I'll make you some bacon and coffee. Greasy foods do wonders." He looks sincere, so Remus gives in, dragging himself to standing and dropping his boxers, leaving them over the side of the chair. He is distantly aware of how easy it is undressing in front of his friends - what was once a mortifying and paralyzing experience is now almost automatic, as thoughtless as breathing in front of company.
"Wait," Remus says, memories of the night surfacing in his mind in fragments. "Do you remember last night at all?"
Sirius laughs, hollowly. "Not at all. Not after the fifth shot, at least. Do you?"
Remus sways, and suppresses a shiver. His mind just screams, shut up, shut up, so: "No, me neither."
"Go swim." Sirius waves him off, turning back to the stove and humming a song.
Remus stumbles his way to the beach. The sun has nearly peaked in the sky, and the air is thick and hot, the stone patio scalding his bare feet. Eventually, Remus steps on shore and walks into the surf like an unstoppable machine, marching ever onwards, not even flinching as the cold water reaches his penis. He falls into the water - less of a dive, more as if he had been sucked in, slipping back into the waves. It has an instant effect - nausea evaporates, the sweat and filth of the night washed away. No wonder this is religious, Remus considers, drifting on his back, a Baptism, a rebirth.
Remus enters the kitchen to the smell of bacon and coffee, as promised, and he even feels like he can stomach it this time. Peter is sitting, groaning at the kitchen table, looking wretched with his hair all over the place, dark bags under his eyes, and greasy teashade glasses at the end of his nose. Sirius is nowhere to be seen.
"Morning," Remus says and Peter grunts a response. "Where's Sirius?"
"Out. Getting something."
"Oh, Lord," Remus says, "he shouldn't be driving. He's been drinking."
"He'll be fine," Peter waves off, but Remus remains anxious.
"Coffee?" Remus eventually offers, Peter gladly accepting. They sit across from each other and sip it black, Remus checking his watch every so often. He sits the bacon in the middle of table, but Peter just winces and looks away, so Remus eats the lot.
Peter speaks first: "What happened last night?"
"You can't remember either? Neither can Sirius or I -"
"No, I remember," Peter says, putting his mug down and considering the dark, oily surface, never looking up at Remus. "What were you guys talking about, though?"
Remus considers what to say next. He feels compelled to lie, but the tiredness in Peter's voice, and the sadness makes him reconsider: "Well - um - how much do you know?"
"I know something is going on. You guys haven't been acting normally. I mean, all of you." Peter frowns; this trip is changing everything. Not in wide brushstrokes, but suddenly the way people smile, the way people laugh, the way people touch - it's altered, colder, more distant, a changed thing. He feels like he's standing still in traffic, the world spiraling around him without ever touching it.
"Well. You can't repeat this to anyone." Peter nods, solemnly. "Ah - I don't know how to put this right way."
"Just spit it out?"
"I." Remus pauses, sifting through some shallows breaths. "I'm in love with Sirius." Yeah, it sounds as absurd out loud as it does in his head.
Peter is silent, just staring at his coffee, fingering the ceramic handle. Quietly, he speaks: "Really?"
"Yeah," Remus says, and he feels like Atlas freed from his weight, "I am."
Peter looks up. He's smiling, just a little, and he looks even more tired than before. "Does he love you back?"
"I don't know." Remus drains the rest of his coffee, and pours himself a new mug-full. "Maybe. But, if he does, he's too busy, uh, doing - other people."
"Other people?"
Remus sighs. "Well." He gives Peter a significant look. "He just. He - often seems more interested in, say, affection than me. I mean, affection in general. From everyone. Everyone." He raises his eyebrows, looking kind of wounded.
"But - you - you're kidding, right? - you mean, Sirius and James? -"
"No - him and - Lily - oh, I don't know." Remus scratches the back of his neck nervously. "I - I honestly don't know what's going on with them."
"Well," Peter says, considering his words for a long moment, "he does like being the... center of attention."
"Yes, yes," Remus murmurs. "The sun around which we all spin," Remus taps his chin thoughtfully. "Yes. Yes he does."
"And you - love him?"
Remus laughs, a sweet look on his face. "Yes. I don't know why. But I - sort of do." Peter looks back down at his coffee. "Uh - Pete, you okay with that?"
"I don't know. I mean. It's not - right is it?"
Remus frowns. "What isn't? Being - uh -" gay seems too hard to say, "- different?" he finishes lamely.
"No - no, Sirius not liking you." Peter looks up and manages a smile, which Remus returns.
"It's not right - or wrong - but - well, thanks, Peter." Remus smiles, drains his cup, and feels refreshed. "I really needed to get that off my chest."
"No, no," Peter replies. "Just - thanks for telling me. No one ever tells me anything anymore." He gives that familiar pout, his big lips all pink and wet and he looks like he did in first year. The only innocent left, Remus thinks.
The rest of the day passes slowly, like a syrup. Sirius comes back, safe and sound, and continues on with the whiskey, bright and cheerful as he does, draining the rest of the bottle and starting on some wine. It's not until late afternoon that James and Lily stumble downstairs, hair messy halos of sleep, eyes thick with sleep and hangovers. After another half-meal, the company ends up lounging around the house, silent mostly except for the occasional joke, or small conversation. Sirius and Remus stick together, sitting out on the covered veranda and drinking bottles of wine and exchanging petty quips, smoking Sirius' pungent Woodbines and trying to blow smoke rings. James and Peter play chess on the stone porch, bottles of beer by their feet, and Lily is reading on the beach like an old lady, big sunhat and oversized sunglasses.
The five of them only converge once the sun has set. Darkness settles over them, along with a cool chill, so they plant themselves on the veranda, passing around more alcohol, hangovers forgotten in the wave of new booze. The record player blasts Jimi Hendrix, a wailing, whirling haze of music that pairs magically with the tang of the alcohol and the thickness of cigarette smoke. That isn't to say all is well; Sirius and Lily sit far apart, never daring to look at each other. James, Peter, and Remus are the middle men, pushing the conversation forward, pushing it even when it refuses to move.
"Maybe we should see a movie," Remus suggests, flipping through a French newspaper he can't read. "Look, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I've heard it's really good."
"I'm not in the mood," Sirius says, tipping his chair back on two legs.
"Maybe we could rent a boat, go sailing -"
"None of us know how."
"Well, fine, let's get a drink," James says after a while of pointless talk. "Peter, can you drive?"
Peter shrugs. "Let's go."
The rest of the night crashes around them like a torrent. The café is lake-side, and expensive, as usual. Sirius orders the drinks - a round of perroquet - a strange green drink that he explains is made of pastis and mint syrup. They drink in relative silence, each doing their own thing; James seems curious and cheerful, but Peter is panicked, like a bomb might explode at any moment; Sirius seems pinioned to Remus' every move, like he's deliberately making a show of it, and Lily just stares into her drink passively.
"Another round," Sirius says, flagging down the waiter.
"Pardon, monsieur?"
"Oh, fuck," Sirius says with a snort, "forgot. France. Um, un autre - service, s'il te plait?"
"Out monsieur, la meme?"
"Non - puis, uh, un service de kir royal, s'il te plait."
"What did you order?" James asks, taking out his packet of Benson & Hedges, taking one out and tucking it behind his ear and another at his lips before passing the carton around.
"Kir royal. It's a good drink. Black currant liqueur and champagne."
"Sounds disgusting," Peter says, who still hasn't finished his first drink. "I'd like a nice pint, actually."
"We've got beer at home," Sirius says, waving him off impatiently. "Be a bit more cosmo - a little more cosmopolo - fuck, whatever. Be exciting, for once in your damn life, I mean."
"Sirius, don't be a bitch," Lily says, downing the rest of her perroquet. It's like she's asking for a fight.
"Ah, well, you'd be an expert in that, wouldn't you?" he shoots back.
Her green eyes flash. "And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what I said."
James intervenes: "Guys, guys, calm down. Sirius, I think you need to stop drinking. How much have you had today?"
"Not nearly enough," Sirius says resentfully, taking and draining Peter's remaining liquor. ("He's had a lot," Remus says to James as an aside.)
"Well, maybe you've had enough." His voice is gentle, soothing, but Lily's satisfied smiles undoes it all.
"I'm not drunk - oh, fuck, fine, I am drunk, but you can't fucking stop me." His face is red, and his hair is a mess; he looks like a disheveled aristocrat, with a shirt worth a hundred quid, a crucifix of pure gold, pewter dog tags, and the smell of alcohol and dirt abound. He's pampered and ripped, dignified and ragged, a perfect little Prince and the Pauper all rolled into one. "And you wipe that smirk off your fucking face, Lily."
"Sirius - calm the hell down," James says again. "What's wrong with you guys, everything was going so well until -"
"Until she acted like a fucking bitch."
The drinks come, and Sirius drains his off the bat. Remus and Peter watch him like they're watching a car wreck, James looks ruffled and defensive, and Lily just looks bloodthirsty. The alcohol seems to silence them, but James isn't yet ready to back down, and after a few sips:
"I want you to apologize to Lily."
"No fucking way."
"What's wrong with you, Sirius? You told me you liked her, like, yesterday!" There's a note of desperation in James' voice, which makes sense; what happens if the two people he loves hate each other?
Sirius looks from James, to Lily. "I fucking lied, man."
"But - why? I don't get you, Sirius." James looks about ready to cry, which is maybe the only thing that will shut Sirius up. He turns to his girlfriend: "Lily, what's going on?"
"I -" she pauses, frowns, "- I don't really know."
Sirius looks ready to explode, but Remus' hand on his knee and James' desperate expression, it quiets him. He takes Remus' proffered glass, swallowing it in one.
"I think we should go home," Peter whispers into the silence, and so Sirius leaves a bundle of Francs on the table and they leave, no complaints.
When they get back to the cottage, they split. It's almost totally dark now, half past nine, and the cloudy chill of afternoon has given way to a thick, warm wind and summer smells. Sirius takes off first, James trailing after him, jogging to keep up with Sirius' pace.
"Sirius - where are you going? We need to talk -"
"I'm going swimming." (Which, with this much alcohol, kind of means drowning.) Sirius is in the kitchen now, his shirt flung over one of the chairs, his shorts in a pile by the doorway. "Come if you want."
James tries to strip as he runs, but crashes and smashes into walls, hopping on one foot to kick off his shorts, nearly strangling himself trying to pull off his T-shirt. "Sirius, slow the fuck down." James careens down the hall, but Sirius is nowhere to be found. Finally kicking off his boxers, James goes at full sprint down the lawn, missing the furniture by inches, smashing through underbrush and low-hanging branches to reach the beach. Sirius is already in the water a hundred meters out, only a thrashing blot in the dark of night.
"Sirius!" James yells, hesitating on the shoreline. "Come back! You're drunk, this is stupid! We can work this out - please, come back," When no reply comes, James runs into the water, diving and splashing and kicking his way to Sirius. He catches up quickly; Sirius is drunk and stupid, after all, and he's just floundering about and he seems a bit panicked because he can't touch bottom, so James wraps an arm around Sirius' waist and swims back to shore, Sirius struggling against James' hold, spitting out half-formed words and lake water.
Finally in the shallows, James drops Sirius and the two fall apart panting, heaving, naked and cold and wet and it's far too late and Sirius far too drunk to make any sense of this.
"Fuck, James," Sirius says, leaning back on his palms and shivering, maybe crying but James can't really tell because of the water. "What are you fucking doing?"
"Sirius - fuck -" James says, panting, trying to catch his breath in the ankle-deep water, "can you just tell me what's wrong? I'm tired of - I'm tired."
Sirius is definitely crying now, short of breath between the sobbing and the struggle, "James, just fuck off - oh God," and he has to close his eyes because he can't keep looking at James' concerned, hurt, vibrant expression.
"Just tell me! I'm your friend! I'm your brother, aren't I?" James shuffles over to Sirius and wraps an arm around his shoulder, squeezing the muscle of his shoulder awkwardly. They're naked, wet and slippery and white, shining in the moon, and just because Sirius rarely ever cries, and James is so kind of close that he can't help crying himself. "Please, just tell me?"
It's thick in his chest, pulled tight over his skin, to the point of maybe breaking. Sirius knows he has to tell him, he can't hide this, not something this big, not something that would tear James apart if he found out some other way. "I - me and - I," and he can't manage the words, so he just says it: "I fucked Lily." He speaks to the ground, to the water, head bent and knocked against his knees, trailing off into gasps. "I fucked Lily, I fucked your girlfriend," he repeats quietly, almost like he can't believe it himself.
James' arm lifts, he falls away; it's his eyes that hurt the most, not wide and shocked, not narrowed and angry, just open, wet and soft and blurred. "Oh."
"I -" Sirius looks up and he's not crying anymore, just horribly pale, "James - I -" Sirius closes his eyes, wraps his arms tighter around his knees, drawing them to his chest. "James, I'm sorry. I - I'm really sorry, I just - we were - it was before you two - and, fuck, I'm so sorry."
James doesn't say anything, just gets up, naked as David, and walks away, merging with the darkness in total silence.
"James!" Sirius calls after him, unwinding but not leaving the water. "James! Please, we can talk -" but nothing happens, and Sirius falls back into the water, head cradled in the wet sand, body nudged to and fro in the small waves. "James," he whispers stupidly, "James, James - fuck."
He listens to the water, feels the horrible cold of it on his thighs, his calves, his stomach and chest. He wonders (dramatic as ever) what it would be like to drown; panicked, cold, horrible, he thinks. Sirius isn't crying anymore - actually, a pleasant sort of lightness fills him, because he knows the worst is over (except all the pain that's going to come) and he's ripped off the scab and now the blood can flow.
Sirius is not alone for long; slowly, confidently, Remus walks down the beach. He's naked too, and all warm and brown and dry. He sits in next to Sirius, arms wrapped around his knees, fingers cinched around one wrist like a bracelet. It's a very casual motion, the sag in his muscled shoulders, the limp fingers of his hands, the curve of his calf, and the arch of his bent knees.
"Well, the night does funny things inside a man… these old tom-cat feelings you don't understand. Well - I - uh, turn around to look at you - you, um, light a cigarette - something, something." Remus closes his eyes. "Sorry, that didn't go so well."
"I wish I had the guts to burn one," Sirius says vacantly, finishing the line, "but we've never met - and I hope that I don't fall in love with you." He lingers on the words for a moment. "Tom Waits. He's my favourite."
"I know he is." Remus sighs, his butt is going numb but he doesn't move. "So you told him?"
"You knew?"
"I knew. I think James was the only one who didn't know." Remus looks out to the horizon he can't see, and he looks so odd because he's just the figure of calm composure, he is; varnished cool, warm youth, all the things that Remus never was at school. This isn't the awkward, stumbling, worried Remus that Sirius loved. This here's a man, a man in the body of a boy. "It was pretty easy to connect the dots."
"Oh." Sirius is staring at the sky. "I'm sorry."
Remus shrugs, making a smooth wave of his body, shoulders and back. "It's okay."
"I've really fucked up, haven't I?"
"No. Well, yes. But you can fix it."
"I don't know how."
Remus slides down, submerges his legs in the water, doesn't even complain when a cold wave washes over his chest, hardening his nipples and making his muscles flex with goose-pimples; he curls in next to Sirius, tucking one leg over his friend's, wrapping one arm around his chest. The sand is wet and cold against his ear. "It's okay, Sirius."
"I dunno," Sirius murmurs.
"Do you remember what you told me last night?"
"What I told you?"
"That I should grow a spine."
Sirius nods nearly imperceptibly. "Yeah, I do."
"I'm growing a spine."
"I noticed."
"I love you, Sirius."
"Don't say that." Sirius sounds impossibly tired. "Please, don't say that."
Remus kisses Sirius' shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"You're making everything - way too complicated."
Remus leans up on one arm, he's looking down at Sirius, his wet and sandy hair draping, dripping on Sirius' face. They're covered in shadow, thick between their faces, and then Remus leans down and kisses Sirius; touch and release. "You've got to let go, Sirius." He leans down and kisses him again.
"I already have," Sirius says, sighing, blinking back tears.
"No, not Lily. You have to let go of James." Remus shifts positions, straddling Sirius' waist, hands locked in over his shoulders. He looks uncertain being in such a place, a kind dominance so unlike him - neither intellectual nor physical, this one purely personal, a dominance in their friendship, in their relationship. "You've got to let go."
If he weren't so upset, Sirius might have laughed. "Let go of James? I don't get it."
Remus leans down and kisses Sirius again, this time a little deeper, with less caution. "You weren't really in love with Lily, were you?" Sirius blinks at him, not really understanding. "She was something James wanted. Maybe - maybe, because of that, she was something you wanted to? Maybe - she was close as you could get."
"As close as I could get to what?"
"To James. To," he picks his words carefully, "being with James."
Sirius scans Remus' face carefully, and he feels tears roll down his own cheeks, but he doesn't remember crying. It doesn't make sense, he loves Lily, and yet, at the same time, he realizes that he went after he the same week James said he had a crush. He loves Lily, and sometimes he does it in James' room. He loves Lily, and yet sometimes he does it to feel what James feels. "It's not like that. James is - James is… special."
"I know he is," Remus says, leaning in again to kiss Sirius' cheek. "He's a good guy. I know he is."
"I love him." And not for the first time Sirius feels his drunkenness overtake him.
"I know you do," Remus replies in turn, kissing him on the other cheek.
"He's - he's all I've got left," Sirius says; he speaks distantly, not as if to Remus, but as if to the air and the stars and the lake and the land. "He's my brother. Once Regulus - after I left - he's all I've got. He's the most important thing to me." Sirius is rambling, but Remus listens, leaning down sometimes to kiss his very own Sirius, to stroke his hair and get tangled with the cold surf and thick sand. "I'd die for him, you know? I'd die for him."
"I know, Sirius, I know. But he's got his own life, too. And you've got your own." Remus feels like he should be in a movie or in some horrible romance book - Anna Karina in Vivre sa vie, teary-eyed at the cinema, discussing life lessons, or maybe a wailing virgin consoling her very own Byronic hero. It's all so clichéd, but what can he do? Sometimes life is like that. Remus looks down at Sirius and forgets the betrayal, forgets the hurt, forgets the hundreds of times Sirius has dropped him to see James, to see Lily. All Remus can see is Sirius now, Sirius drunk and desperate and hurting right down to his heart. "And - you've got me."
It's not a moment of revelation; not a, Oh God, why didn't I see it before? or a, This pain I feel shows me how much I really love you. Sirius has always seen it, just hasn't really bothered to act, because Remus is always there - that's what Remus does, he's there; he's there when Sirius needs him, he's there when Sirius doesn't. Like now, all naked and warm and soft on the beach and just the right kind of person, just the right kind of smile, just the right kind of body that Sirius needs so he doesn't throw himself into the lake. Sirius leans up and kisses Remus, stomach muscles flexing as he holds himself up despite gravity, holding it so long that his frame begins to tremble and he has to let himself down.
They're staring at each other a long while, and their minds flip between different things - they're naked, first of all, and their cocks are touching, pressing against each other in a guilty way as Remus shifts his hips. They're cold too, and dulled by alcohol, their minds fuzzy with the things that are wrong and the things that are right. They tempt each other with gentle movements, but it amounts to nothing, and eventually sleep and stars and night wins over.
"I'd like to go to bed," Sirius says as his limbs tighten with cold and exhaustion. "I just don't want to go inside."
"I brought out some blankets and pillows," Remus says gently, crawling off of Sirius and standing and stretching in the cool wind. "We can sleep out here."
"We'll be cold."
"We'll snuggle."
"You're gay."
"You too."
They spread a large blanket over the sand, up away from the surf, and crawl under the remaining three, pressed close and naked together, still wet but drying warmly. The pillows are hard and made of down, but Sirius could have slept on rocks.
"I don't know what to do," Sirius mumbles in that shadow before sleep.
"It's okay, we'll figure something out."
"He hates me," Sirius says, whispering it to himself.
"He doesn't hate you.
"What am I going to do?"
"Sleep, for now."
"All right."
Part 4