Harry Potter - "All Narrow Jealousies" - Part 1 - James/Lily/Sirius/Remus/Peter - NC-17
Title: All Narrow Jealousies
Author: marseverlasting
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: James/Lily/Sirius/Remus/Peter (various permutations of)
Word Count: 13,501 words
Summary: When Lily discovers she's pregnant, a carefully balanced dynamic begins to unravel between the one she loves, the other one she loves, the other one she loves, and the other one she loves. A fractal portrait of five people in one relationship.
Warnings: adultery, Peter being attractive, too much love, Sirius.
Author's notes: Written for a_merry_chase for hp_springsmut. So many thanks to my Dylan Thomas, for inspiration, hand-holding, and general perfection. Title comes from Tennyson's superb Idylls of the King, from the bit where he gets all gay for Prince Albert.
*
Lily sits in the bathtub and cries.
She laughs, and she cries. She wipes at tears with wet hands, a thin foam of bubbles sticking to her cheeks, to her nose; to her shoulders and her breasts and her knees where they break the surface. The water moves as she shakes, trembling with the force of one movement, one beautiful moment. She cries, and she laughs, and she cries with the pure, unholy force of it all. Not happy, nor sad - just full and absorbed and so totally in love.
"Fuck," she says, and, "oh my god" and "oh, James." Saying it out loud doesn't change it, not that she would ever, ever want it to change.
*
Sirius backs up against the fridge and grins.
James pulls off his shirt and drops it on the floor. Skinny lad, and pale. Sirius slides his hands in along James' ribs, fingers lingering in the natural divots between his bones, cupping around under his arm pits and to his back. With a pinching tug, Sirius pulls their chests together, scattering snake-like bites along James' lips, his cheeks and nose, pinching and tugging when it suits him.
"Where's Lil?" Sirius asks in a sharp gasp as James cups his cock through his jeans.
"Bath," James says, leaning in to bite Sirius' earlobe, pulling it and flicking his tongue out along the inside of his ear. Hot breath: "I bet I can make you come first."
Sirius laughs, which turns to a shuddering gasp as James undoes the button of his jeans, half-frantic hands slipping under the band of his boxers and grasping Sirius' cock in a hard grip, haphazardly jerking him once or twice.
"Fuck," Sirius says, closing his eyes, throat heady with sex, "oh my god," as James grabs grips one nipple between thumb and forefinger, twists and pulls, "oh - fuck, oh James."
*
The water goes cold, and Lily's fingers prune, and she shakes, cries in short hiccups, the lingering wash of a wonderful fear that builds and builds, like a growing star right deep in her tummy. She clutches with pale fingers the ceramic lip of the tub, she curls her toes and kneads her feet against the sides of the bath, her stomach tightening, her eyes blurring again, and again, cracking and laughing all at once, flirting beautifully with hysterics.
"James," she says quietly, sullen and blissful, settling back into the hot water. "Oh, god."
Outside, it starts to rain.
*
James gets down on his knees, jeans half-off and stuck around his thighs, belt loose and clanking against the floor. He wraps one hand around the length of his own hard pink cock, pressing it back against the flesh of his stomach and rolling it there as he entertains Sirius with his mouth.
Sirius threads his hands in James' messy hair, forcing him gently forward, seducing him inch by inch until he's wet with James' spit. Teeth scrape against his cock, and Sirius asks for more; flat pink tongue on the underside, slipping quick around the head, flitting back down, slick back around the tip, sharp teeth scraping as James moves gently forward, and back, his own hand moving in time with his mouth.
Outside, it starts to rain.
*
The bathroom goes cold, the beaded sweat on the mirror dripping down into long streaks as night grows old. It smells of boys, of Sirius and James, of Peter and Remus, of over-used cologne and the herbal shampoos Lily bought for them at market, and cigarette smoke, and citron shaving cream, and five people using one tiny bathroom, one tiny house. It smells of the last couple years, and too close, so close.
Lily hiccups, sniffs, rests her head against the back of the tub. She tries to go to sleep but the fear, that same beautiful fear deep in her stomach keeps her awake. She manages a small laugh, and says "oh god" again, and smiles.
*
Sirius feels his muscles tighten involuntarily, his stomach and shoulders and legs, strong calves and thighs. His lips open and he huffs just hot breaths, grunts and bitten-back moans. James touches one warm hand to Sirius' chest and drags it down, fingernails digging parallel paths of red, etching deep welts where he digs them in to Sirius' hips. James knows he likes that.
Sirius half-yelps, strangling it down into a guttural sound, like a growl, and then James slides one hand to grab his arse, and it's all downhill from there.
"I'm gonna come," Sirius says in a hoarse whisper. Fingers slide along the cleft of his arse, forefinger pressing into him gently. It's enough to make him buck forward, sliding full in to James' mouth. James takes it easily, slippery tongue drawing patterns along his shaft.
"No, seriously," Sirius says, arching back as he can, head pressed against a fridge magnet which hurts but not nearly enough to make him stop. "I'm gonna come."
James does that thing and Sirius groans, twisting as much as he can against James' mouth, pinioned as he is by probably the best blowjob mankind has ever delivered, seriously, the pinnacle of creative energy, and oh fuck oh fuck. And then one finger pushes into him, rough and intemperate, painful and euphoric, forcing his hips forward. James mouth slicks and releases from his cock with a smack; Sirius flinches against the cold air, but is soon wrapped again in James' mouth, wet and rough rolling about the head.
"Gonna - oh fuck."
*
Reaching to the bathroom floor, Lily grabs the results again, scanning it carefully as if it might have changed. Still positive. Still wonderfully positive. So much in so little, one single piece of paper. She sits back in the bath again and closes her eyes and listens to the rain fall.
*
Sirius leans back against the fridge and closes his eyes and comes. It rips through him like a twister, a half-painful grip in his guts that resolves itself in the blinding white light of orgasm. He comes, and empties himself in James' mouth, on his pert pink lips and red-flushed cheek. Sirius half-growls his bliss, a near-animal rasp of a noise that trails off into warm pleasure notes, honeyed and warm and golden tongued.
"Oh, fuck," Sirius says a thick half-minute later. Hands still wrapped in James' hair, he gives a gentle tug and summons James to his feet.
James has a flushed kind of smile of his face that would seem almost bashful if Sirius didn't know him so well. In that hazy afterglow, Sirius reaches down to wrap both of his hands around James cock, artfully working them in tandem, sliding up and down in the panicked rhythm of the nearly-there.
With a shift of the body, they pull in for a kiss. Sirius tastes the chlorine tang of his own come on James' lips and mouth. He flicks his small pink tongue to lick the orgasm from James' cheek, kissing with that wet on their lips - and then James comes, desperate and grinding against Sirius' waist, with a mess of four hands wrapped fitfully around his hips and cock and gripping blindly against his stomach. He grunts adorably.
They lean into each other for a moment, reveling in the stench of boys' sex, thick and sweaty, gross and attractive. And then they step apart, Sirius examining James' come on his fingers with childlike interest, tasting it with the careful flick of a tongue. James is sweeter. Unsurprising.
James wipes his hands with his tee-shirt, slinging the rag over his shoulders to do up his jeans. He stretches broadly and open. Sirius watches the curve and twist of his muscles under soft skin, and he places one hand fleetingly over James' heart.
"Genius, mate," James says, tossing him a lazy smile. "Just what I needed." He grabs Sirius' wrist and pulls them together for a quick kiss.
"Wasn't it just," Sirius says, falling back against the suddenly cold fridge, pushing his sweaty hair back and smiling. He lights up a cigarette, puffing out a cloud of smoke and sighing. "I guess I'll go get us some dinner."
James nods. "Chinese?"
"Sure," Sirius says, pulling on his jeans, fag dangling from his lips like Bogart. The boys slap hands lazily and, Sirius pinching his cigarette between thumb and forefinger, bump lips in a final half-kiss. Sirius grabs his keys from the kitchen drawer and tugs his jacket over bare skin, a comfy brown-leather RAF surplus that Remus bought him last year. James watches Sirius pull out of the driveway, giving him a short wave goodbye.
James stretches again and scratches his hips. He still tastes like come. He washes his mouth out with a glass of water. It makes him laugh.
*
Lily stands in the tub, naked Venus rising from the half-shell, drying herself off with a fluffy white towel. Her skin is beautiful and flushed red, freckles standing out like fresh ink on her skin. Satisfied, she slings the towel over her shoulder and makes the short leap to the bath mat, pushing her hair back and examining herself in the mirror, tugging and pulling, running self-conscious hands over the gentle curve of her belly.
A soft knock at the door, a creak as it opens.
"Allo?" James asks tentatively, stepping into the room. She freezes, body going stiff, teeth biting down on red lip. "Hey, babe," he says, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek.
"Heya," she replies with a tremor. James traces lightly a hand along her naked hips, and she to the waist of his jeans. He stands beside her at the mirror. They catch eyes in the reflection; James smiles.
"How do you get more beautiful every day?" James asks coyly, ignorant of her nervousness.
She raises her eyebrows, though her expression softens. "You know, that line doesn't work," she says. "It's an awful line."
"I know it's an awful line." He kisses her once more, on the ear, touches his hands to her shoulders. "You must be cold, love." James grabs another towel from the rack and drapes it over her shoulders, rubbing her vigorously, which makes her laugh.
"Stop it," she says, shrugging him off and smiling. "I can dry myself."
James doesn't listen, just smiles a smile and warms her skin, massaging her shoulders and leaning in once or twice to leave her a kiss.
"I love you," he says, unperturbed by her giggles. "I love you, I love you."
"I know," she says, at first bright, and then a bit miserably, "I love you too much."
James gives a look of cheerful confusion. "You what?"
She pulls James in and kisses him again. And then she can't hold it back anymore, and then she cries, and then laughs at the fact that she's crying. "Oh, James." And she holds him, and he holds her, and it's all very storybook romance, except for the nudity.
His smile hovers, falters, dies. "Lily? What's wrong, babe?"
She wipes at her face again, and manages a smile that crinkles her red-rimmed eyes. "Nothing. Just." She takes a shuddering breath and she's not sure if she can ever speak right. "You know. Things." She lets the breath out, half-laughing and running her hands over her face.
James nods. "I know things." He leans in and kisses her nose smartly. "Is there anything I can do?"
Lily's lip quivers, holding back a warm breath and explanation. "James?"
James nods, tightly. His skin is lined with sweat and worry, his hair greasy and unkempt, his lips wet. He has never been more beautiful. "Yeah?"
"James -" and she doesn't even know where to begin.
"Yeah?" He sounds a bit skittish now, his lips twisted in curiosity.
"I - god this is hard."
His voice cracks. "You're breaking up with me, aren't you?"
"No - no, James, this is good news." She says his name again, and smiles, and says it once more. "James. No, I'm not. Just. Listen, okay? There's. Something specific."
James nods, his body strung as tight as a bow.
"The last couple of weeks. I've kind of." She closes her eyes, lets out a sigh. She opens her eyes and collapses into a smile. "I'm - late."
James blinks a couple of times. "For what?"
Lily manages a short laugh. "I'm late. Late." James stares at her blankly, unknowingly. "Er, for a very important date?"
James just stares.
"James," she says, taking his hand in hers. "I haven't had my period."
His face slackens with the most beautiful comprehension, like Atlas on a smoke break. His shoulders loosen, his mouth opens slowly in shock. "You're late?"
Lily smiles, and nods, and feels tears rush to her eyes again. "Yeah."
"Oh my god," James says blankly. "Oh my god." His eyes are bright and wet. "Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god."
"I know," she says, laughing this time. "I know."
"Are you - like -"
"I don't know," she says, a tremor in her smile. "I haven't taken the test."
"But - you're late!"
"I'm late," she agrees, and feels very much like the March Hare. "I'm significantly late."
He grabs her in a fierce naked hug, kissing her madly on the lips and cheek, not caring what he hits, just wanting to hold her forever in that overly romantic way he has sometimes. "Oh my god, we're late."
She laughs, and she's crying again and she kiss him back and holds him and loves the warmth of their nakedness, right here Adam and Eve in Sirius' flat's bathroom, wet and happy and late.
"I can't wait to tell Sirius," he says brightly. "And Remus and Peter and oh my god you're late."
"It's not for certain," Lily says reasonably, though her smile doesn't shift. "I'm just late."
His giddiness is addictive, his grin and the familiar sports-star gleam in his eyes. "But you're really late! Really, really late! You're so late a baby might sneak in!"
It's the first time anyone has said the word and it hits her like a gale. She slackens in James' arms and just cries, cries with the weight of everything. He's crying too, and they're hugging, and kissing, and the world is glorious and terrifying. She's late. She's late and she has never wanted to be so late in her life.
*
"We're clear-ly soldiers in petti-coats, and daunt-less crusa-ders for women's votes," Sirius sings tunelessly, swinging the plastic bag of Chinese food in one hand. "Though we a-dore men in-di-vi-dually, we agree that as a group they're ra-ther stu-pid… Cast off the shackles of yesterday! Shoulder to shoulder into the hey, hallo Remus."
Remus looks up from the Daily Prophet and manages a weakling smile. "Hallo," he says. "Dinner?"
"Dinner indeed," he says. "Easy peasy Chinesey."
"I'm not really hungry," Remus says, blowing on his cup of coffee and taking a slurpy sip.
"Course you are, I got you spare ribs."
Remus gives a little smile. "You know me too well."
"I know my Remus." He drops the Chinese food on the kitchen counter, turns on his heel and reads the paper over Remus' shoulder.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," Remus says serenely.
"I know." He leans down and kisses Remus on the cheek. "How was the mission?"
"Easy. I was just on watch."
"Nothing to see?"
"No," Remus says, draining his tea. "It's getting eerie, really. We haven't seen them for weeks. They're planning something."
"Maybe they've given up," Sirius says romantically. Remus turns and gives Sirius a very skeptical look indeed. "Okay, whatever, Negative Nancy," Sirius retorts, kissing him once more on the side of his head. "I shall fetch the lovebirds. Where's Peter?"
"Getting petrol for your car."
Sirius gives a sheepish smile. "Good lad." With a final grin, he bounds up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
"James? Jamesy Jamesy James, dinner's ready." Sirius slaps his hands on the walls as he walks down the hallway, unzipping his jacket as he does, bare chest goosepimpling against the cold air. Cold air, cold air, Sirius thinks, this flat is always fucking cold. Turn up the fucking heat.
He pushes their bedroom door open with the tip of his toe, wheedling his way in. James and Lily are lying in bed, naked on top of the covers, curled in towards each other and whispering quietly.
"Girls? Dinner's ready," Sirius says. James leans up and gives Sirius such an unbelievably winning smile, full of joy and teeth like Sirius hadn't seen in months.
"Cheers," James says, extricating himself from his girlfriend, stretching naked and energetic. Sirius leans against the doorframe, smirking.
Lily gets up too, pulling on one of James' tee-shirts, which is actually one of Sirius', which is actually one of Remus'. Pink boyshorts join the ensemble. James pulls on one of Remus' tee-shirts, which is actually one of Peter's, which is actually one of James'; and Sirius' boxers, which actually belong to Sirius, except when they belong James.
Lily laces her fingers with James, and the three of them head off to the kitchen. Remus is spooning the dishes onto big plates, for eating family-style. Peking duck, pork balls with electric red sauce, General Tao, spare ribs that smell of honey and lemongrass, chow mein. The usual Western impression of what the Chinese eat.
They dine and clatter their forks and knives and chatter incessantly about whatever strikes them. The mood is bright and warm despite the cold and rainy spring night, sparkling with coca cola and gold-foil Benson & Hedges and chili and garlic sauce. Peter pops in halfway through dinner and joins them, wet-haired and tired, bringing with him the smell of mud and rain and the iron tang of iodized atmosphere.
"Wanna watch a movie tonight?" Sirius says, scooping up the last of his rice and flinging it at James. It sticks in his hair, which merits a retaliatory flying broccoli that hits Sirius squarely between the eyes.
"Girls," Lily says warningly. "You're cleaning this mess."
"Let's watch a movie," James agrees, picking the rice out of his hair and kicking Sirius squarely in the knee. Sirius winces, then smiles, then kicks James dangerously close to his crotch.
"How was watch?" Lily asks Peter.
"Good," Peter says, shoveling down his food hungrily. "Boring. Nothing happened."
Lily nods. "You okay, though? You look kind of - worried."
Peter nods, and manages a thin smile. "Just really tired. I think I'm gonna head up after dinner."
Lily reaches over and takes his hand momentarily, a quick squeeze and then back to James, leaning in to kiss him happily.
"I just don't get it," Sirius says to Remus at the opposite end of the table. "How do you not listen to music at all?"
"I just don't care for it," Remus says, pushing his soggy celery leaves and bok choy around the plate. "I was just never that interested. Never caught my attention. Not like you."
"But - surely you like something. David Bowie or - or T.Rex or The Beatles or something."
Remus shrugs. "I like Tchaikovsky. The Nutcracker and all that. Oh, and Gilbert and Sullivan."
Sirius' shoulders sag. "But. Like. Heart, maybe? The Carpenters? Iggy and the Stooges? Someone?"
"Sirius," Remus says, waving his fork gently, "I just can't be bothered."
"Sometimes I don't understand you," Sirius says, still baffled, leaning in and knocking heads. "What do you do, then? What do you enjoy?"
"Other things," Remus says simply.
Sirius pulls away and gives James a look of shock and horror. James shrugs with a smile, and turns back to Lily.
They finish up neatly, and Lily gathers their plates and slides them into soapy water. James stretches broadly and pats his tummy, satisfied. Sirius pokes him in the bellybutton. They kick each other back and forth a few more times, like the six-year-old siblings they are.
"Fancy a drop of wine," Sirius asks, fending off another of James' salvos. "Get a little toasty? Warm the cockles a bit?"
James nods agreeably, as does Remus, so Sirius uncorks a liter bottle of inherited Montrachet and pours five glasses.
"None for me," Lily says in a strange voice. "I'm not really in the mood."
James grins, grins and glows and looks generally beautiful and mischievous. "I forgot," he said. "She's. Uh. A teetotaler now."
Sirius raises his eyebrows. "For real?" She nods, so he shrugs and pours her glass evenly into the remaining four. "Your loss." They toast:
"To excess," Sirius says, raising his glass.
"To excess," the rest agree, Lily holding aloft her glass of water. They drink, making appreciative noises. Sirius downs his glass in one and lights a cigarette. James lights one too, sparking his off the tip of Sirius' burning fag, sucking it in and breathing a cloud of blue smoke into the air. Remus and Peter refuse when offered, content to sip on their wine.
"Buttery and ripe," Sirius says, watching Remus drink, leaning back in his chair and letting off slender clouds of smoke. "Hint of vanilla. My Uncle had good taste."
Remus smiles and nods. "I like it."
"Uncle?" Lily asks.
"Alphard. The one who gave me my money - our money - and paid for this flat. He has a great wine collection. Like, hundreds and hundreds. Consider this your education," he says to James as an aside. "I like my friends to know their wine."
The first bottle is drunk quickly, and Sirius fetches more, two very dusty bottles of ruby Charlemagne Grand Cru. He uncorks it and waves one about as he speaks: "And this, this was a present for my first Cotillion from my dear, dear, dear, dear Grandmother Melania who was an enormous cunt." He looks at the bottle appreciatively. "However, it's a 1954 vintage and I have been told it is seriously good shit. The only reasonable exchange for my childhood, good wine."
"Cotillion? Like, the dance?" Peter says with a loud smile. "Poncy bugger." He drains the rest of his first glass and James and Remus follow suit. "What makes it good?"
Sirius shrugs. "Who cares." He pours four healthy glasses of the Charlemagne. "Drink up, my boys."
They touch glasses and drink.
"So, Sirius," Peter says, leaning in to him, "what was it like being - being rich."
"Well," Sirius says thoughtfully, swilling his wine. "You know, I guess we were pretty - aristocratic. Or we liked to think so. Like, I had a cotillion, my cousins had their debs. We did the standard aristocratic shtick. Regulus is a great pianist, and I like to think I'm a good dancer. You know, that kind of parlor-room training. I carried a sword on special occasions. Anyone want to smoke up?"
Peter nods. Sirius takes a chrome Zippo lighter from his pocket; pulling off the outer metal case, he taps out a small white joint hidden inside the hollow interior. He lights it with the tip of his wand, sucking on it and holding it in deep. James leans over expecting a shotgun, so Sirius blows the gentle stream of smoke into his mouth, their lips half-parted and poised for a kiss. Lily smirks slightly. They both cough and withdraw, laughing and pushing their hair back with twin satisfied sighs. Sirius hands the joint to Peter.
"You dance?" Lily asks, leaning in to talk to Sirius. He smells of weed and wine, of shampoo and aftershave.
"Indeed," Sirius says, flicking Lily's hair gently, playing absently with her still-damp bangs. "We were sang bleu, as my father liked to say. French Brahmin. Too much money and not enough sense. Decades and decades of stepping on other people to have our summer homes in Annecy and Windermere and Santorini and a cellar full of wine. Yep. That's the Black family for you." Sirius warms with the attention and the wine, flushing deeply and waving his hands broadly as he speaks. "I've got my signet ring in the bedroom if you want to see it. I don't like to wear it. I have some snuff boxes and cigarette cases too. Crap like that. Family crests."
"No fucking joke," Peter says, punching him jocularly in the shoulder. "So you're a genuine social elite."
"Not anymore." Sirius shrugs. "Being disowned tends to dampen the social agenda. Ah well, we'll all be dead soon anyway. The Blacks will just be a mark in the annals in fifty years. The world will be much better off, trust me."
Peter hands the joint back, and Sirius takes another deep hit, savouring it and pushing it out into the air with a great sigh. He hands it to James. They sit around in silence for a bit. James takes a drag and hands the joint off to Remus.
Sirius rubs his face and shakes back his hair. "The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of other things."
James nods. "We should go away," he says.
"Away?" Peter asks, taking the joint back from Remus.
"Yeah." James runs an impatient hands through his hair, messing it up even more. "Get away from all this. The war. Crap."
Remus shrugs. "We made a commitment." Lily agrees.
James' shoulders sag. "I know, I know."
Sirius shakes his head. "Don't be so fucking boring."
"Greece," James says, "or Italy. Spain. Australia. Somewhere far away. San Francisco. Mexico. Like Trotsky."
Remus leans in to Sirius, close and quiet beside him, "I wanna go away," he says, and rests his chin on Sirius' shoulder. "I'm not boring. I wanna go away too."
Sirius gives a strange kind of smile. "I know. I was just kidding."
Remus pulls back, his eyes half-closed in a pleasant and drunken kind of way. "Okay." He seems satisfied. "I'm not boring."
"No," Sirius says, laughing. "You're not."
The night goes on like that; what ifs, we shoulds, stuff they never intend to fulfill. A constellation of fantasies, watched through the eye of a telescope. Never touched, only observed and admired. They smoke a second joint, drink another two or three bottles of wine. Remus leans in to Sirius, resting occasionally his head on his shoulder, smelling their fabric softener on his shirt and Sirius' private smell of crisp deodorant and faded cologne, kissing the line of his neck lazily, tasting the salt of his skin. James holds Lily's hand under the table, and occasionally James strokes one hand over Peter's cheek, fumbling absently with the buttons of Peter's shirt, bored, touching his hair and creeping bored fingers along the line of his inner thigh which makes Peter flush pink and look at his fidgeting hands.
"So," Sirius says, absorbing the attention with erudite nonsense, "really, if you think about it, Jane Eyre and Rochester's relationship is essentially incestuous. Like, Oedipus."
"What?" Lily says, sober and laughing.
"Okay. Okay. So Jane, she's a governess, right?"
"Right."
"Which mean she's motherly - she taps into motherly… things, right? Feelings."
"Okay."
"And Rochester. He's kind of - he's immature and childish, right?"
"I suppose."
"And then he's, like, blinded, right?"
"Yeah."
Sirius nods, tapping his finger on the table. "So, Oedipus was the same, wasn't he? Relationship with his mother, blinded for his - for going against - you know. Blinded by whosit, Nemesis."
Lily smirks. "So, we're saying Jane has a kind of a Jocasta impulse, yeah?"
"Exactly," Sirius says. "And the way they treat each other - like… like siblings, you know?"
"So, are they siblings or Oedipedal?" Lily smiles, teasing him by inches.
"Well. Like." Sirius pauses. "Doesn't matter. It's incest."
Lily smiles. "I'm not sure if Charlotte really had that in mind."
"Yeah," James interjects loudly, "not everything is incest, Sirius."
"Or phallic," Peter adds.
James laughs. "Sirius is so obsessed he'd think a penis is phallic."
"Whatever," Sirius says, waving them off. "Their relationship was really creepy and I think they were secretly cousins."
They laugh, and the conversation breaks down into pairs again, no longer focused on the pinion of Sirius' opinion, James leaning into Peter, swinging a friendly arm over his shoulder, listening as he drunkenly tells Remus exactly why Tennyson sucked so hard.
"Listen," Lily says, leaning in to Sirius as the other boys go on loudly and drunkenly, "can I talk to you for a second?"
Sirius grins, and nods. "Sure."
"Like, in private?"
Sirius shrugs. "Course."
They both get up, and Lily explains simply: "I've just gotta talk to Sirius in private for a second, okay?" The boys are drunk so they don't mind. Lily leans in and kisses James lightly on the mouth. He gives her a questioning look, but she sates him with a warm smile. "We'll be back in a second."
They head off down the hall. Lily opens their bedroom door and locks it behind Sirius. Immediately he slides into her, kissing her on the mouth, gripping the hem of her shirt and trying to pull it off. She pushes him away, gently at first and then forcefully.
"Sirius, stop it."
"What?" He takes a step back, stripping off his shirt. "C'mon, we can't be long or they - they'll wonder."
Lily leans back against the door. "That's not what I meant. We actually have to talk, Sirius."
Sirius frowns, slings his shirt over his shoulder and crosses his arms over his bare chest. He's beautiful, and it's hard to get over; he has the physique of a cricket player, lean and agile, lithe and long without being awkward. Adult. Masterfully in control. Dusty brown skin, pert pink nipples. The warm, nubile opposite of skinny, gauche James. Boyfriend's evil twin. "About what?" he asks.
"I'm pregnant." She doesn't make no bones about it. Lily crosses her arms over her chest and says: "And I don't know whose it is."
Sirius stares at her blankly. "What?"
"I took the test today. I'm pregnant, and I don't know if it's yours or James'."
"Did you check which of us -"
"Of course I did," she said, waving him off. "Based on timing, it could be either of you."
Sirius stares for a moment longer, lingering on the hope she's kidding. And then: "Fuck." Sirius says, running a hand back through his hair, sitting heavily on the edge of James and Lily's bed. "This isn't a joke?"
She shakes her head, a touch bitterly. "Not a joke."
Sirius stares at her for a long half-minute. "I'm way too drunk to be processing this."
"I know. But you're always drunk."
Sirius shrugs, and shivers. "This is insane."
Lily shrugs in turn.
"What the fuck are we going to do?"
And then Lily starts to cry, and she hates herself for it because she promised herself she wouldn't, but it's okay because it makes Sirius cry too. "I don't know, Sirius. How am I supposed to know?"
"Oh my god." He looks at her, and something strange and warm creeps into his expression, almost guilty, happy. "We're having a kid?" Lily nods soberly. Sirius pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts. "This is so fucking crazy." And then, he gives her the weakest of smiles. "Well - uh, do you think - like, who do you think the dad is?"
Lily shakes her head gently. "I can't possibly know."
"Well. Uh. What feels right?"
Lily shakes her head. "Don't ask me that."
Sirius stands up and steps closer to her, inching forwards until he can slide one warm hand under her shirt, resting it over her stomach. "You think it's mine, don't you." Lily shies away, but he's insistent. "I know it's mine."
"Sirius," Lily says warningly.
"People can sense these things." Sirius nods emphatically. "You feel it, don't you?"
"Sirius, stop it, I'm not kidding."
"Lily," Sirius says so warmly, so close, and it makes her hate him and love him all at once, which makes her hate him more. "We can do this. I've got enough money to last us into retirement. We can do this." Another star for the galaxy of their fantasies. "Does James know?"
She nods. "I told him this afternoon."
"Oh."
"Well, I told him I was late." She shakes her head, looking at the ground. "He doesn't know I took the test."
Sirius cocks an eyebrow. "Why?"
"I don't know!" she yells suddenly. "What was I supposed to do! You're involved in this and I just didn't know how much to tell him without - without fucking everything up."
"Lily," Sirius says firmly. "We can do this. We can have this kid."
"And break James' heart?" Lily gives a derisive laugh. "You're his best friend, you bastard. I'm his girlfriend. We're not leaving him hanging."
"He can be - he can be godfather, he doesn't have to - be excluded. He's just as much a part of my life as you are."
She laughs again. "Yeah, sure."
"I'm not kidding," Sirius replies, the drunken look gone from his face. "He's just as much a part of my - my heart as you are."
"What are you saying?"
Sirius' eyes are heavy lidded, and he blinks rapidly a few times before matching her eyes with his own gaze. "We're fucking."
"Of course you are," she says simply. "I know that, you idiot. I'm not blind. But that doesn't change anything. I'm not leaving him."
Sirius blinks back, looking kind of wounded. "You knew?"
"Yes, I knew. I was just hoping he'd tell me before you did." Lily sighs, and tries to explain herself: "James has his vices - and, well, I guess I can understand that." She pauses, her lips set in a firm line. "But, listen to me Sirius, and I'm only going to say this once. Even - even if this baby is yours. Even if I have conclusive proof that you are without a doubt the father, this baby will always, always belong to James. Okay? James is the father. It's that simple." Sirius stares at her; shocked, pained, relieved, Lily can't tell. "You can be in the baby's life. You can be his Godfather, can take care of him, can look after him when James and I are gone or something. But he is going to be a Potter. James is going to be on the birth certificate, and James is going to be the dad."
"You can't do that," Sirius says quietly. "We can get tests. James will find out."
"And you'd really do that to you best friend? To your," a tremble in her words, a hesitation, "boyfriend?"
Sirius tears his eyes away viciously. "He's not my fucking boyfriend. Don't be ridiculous."
"You'd really do that to James?"
And Sirius is crying tightly, shoulders barely trembling with sobs, wiping away tears and snot with the back of his hand and trying to compose himself. "Of course I fucking wouldn't."
"Well, that's it, Sirius." Lily's posture slackens a bit. "I'm sorry."
Sirius shakes his head. "Doesn't matter."
"I really am sorry." She sits beside him on the edge of the bed, putting one arm over his shoulders. "But I love James."
Sirius doesn't reply.
"And I need you too," she goes on. "He needs you too."
"All right. Can we stop talking now?" Sirius asks, stifling sobs as they bubble in his throat.
Lily nods. "Pull yourself together a bit. I don't want James to know."
Sirius doesn't acknowledge her, and so Lily leaves the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
*
The four boys take their toiletry bags to the bathroom and brush their teeth in front of the long mirror, sharing the sink and nudging with elbows because they're bored. They stagger around drunkenly, very drunkenly, leaning on shoulders or against walls, hazily wiping eyes and tripping on nothing at all.
"Pete," Sirius says, spitting into the sink, "you've made spots again. On the mirror."
Peter shrugs, and speaks through the bristles: "I brush vigorously." ("I bwuth figowifwy.")
"It's foul." Sirius cups his hands under the faucet, drinking and spitting once more. He nearly tips backwards, but Remus' hand at the small of his back keeps him upright.
Peter spits out his toothpaste. Remus follows suit, and begins to floss. Sirius watches them both with apathy, leaning forward on the counter and examining his face for spots. Peter pushes his thick blond hair back with wet hands and decides out loud to have a shower.
"You'll drown," Sirius says. "And I'm not - not gonna save you."
"I'll save you," James says, leaning back against the bathroom counter, eyes near-closed and head rocking gently to and fro.
"Cheers," Peter says and takes off his shirt, throwing it back into the adjoining bedroom he shares with Remus and Sirius. His trousers follow. And his boxers. Sirius observes his nudity in the mirror. Peter isn't an ugly boy. Sirius has always maintained that Peter is the most conventionally handsome of the four Marauders, and certainly he may be right. Peter smiles with dark brown eyes, dusty blond hair, with small, pink lips. In the physique of games, he's a rugby player: stout, muscled, and strong. His skin is near flawless, marred only here and there by little black freckles like spots of ink. Ridged hips; aristocratic calves. Firm, strong belly; wide shoulders. Very much a shining athlete.
Remus, mostly silent, zips up his toiletry case and leaves the bathroom. Sirius follows him out.
"What's wrong with you?" Sirius asks, supporting himself against a wall.
"Nothing," Remus replies. "You know I get moody when I drink."
"I'm sorry," Sirius says with a failed attempt at sobriety.
"What's wrong with you?" Remus fires back, crawling into bed.
"Me?" Sirius asks with a broad gesture. "Nothin'."
"What did Lily say to you? Why were you crying?"
"What?" Sirius says, smacking his head back against the wall.
"You were crying," Remus says, writhing in bed to find a good position. "I could tell."
"Dry eyes," Sirius says, waving him off. A moment passes; as Remus flicks off his bedside lamp, as Sirius looks at Remus with bright hunger in his eyes. And then Sirius crawls into Remus' bed too, crawling over the boy's prone body and leaning over him, thick black hair hanging down, grinning with teeth and menace. "I'm fine. I'm really fine."
Remus regards him blankly. "Are you quite done?"
"No." And Sirius leans down and kisses him. Pulling back, Sirius tugs off his tee-shirt and kisses Remus again.
"You're drunk," Remus says, planting a hand in the middle of Sirius' sweat-slick chest, pushing him back gently.
"I'm always drunk," Sirius replies with a grin. "Aren't you drunk too?"
Remus looks at him blearily in the half-dark. "Yeah."
"Well," Sirius says, drawing in close, so close Remus can smell the booze and weed on his breath, "why not?" He slides one warm hand down Remus' bare front, down smooth skin and firm belly, down under the loose elastic of his boxers. A touch of coarse hair, and Sirius' fingers slide further to feel the base of Remus' cock, warm and soft; Sirius wraps his hand around him and slowly begins to pull. "C'mon," he says, and leans down for another kiss; warmer this time, and less like a drunken teenager.
Surprisingly, for all involved, Remus kisses back. Carefully, and self-consciously, but definitely a kiss. It's so gentle and naïve that, for a moment, Sirius thinks of a kitten licking a popsicle, and it nearly makes him laugh, but Remus' sudden hand at the back of his neck shuts him up. Inspired, Sirius continues his seductions, wrapping a firmer grip around Remus' cock, grinding into him with a growing rhythm, kissing with more heat.
"Hold on," Sirius says in a panicked whisper, rolling off the bed. In a quick motion, Sirius tugs off his boxers, and kicks them across the room. He's tall, and hard, standing shadowed in the room as if from a Coppola movie. Remus watches him with detached interest. Throwing off the covers from the bed, Sirius straddles Remus' thighs, naked and flushed with wine and sex.
"Sirius," Remus begins quietly. "Please, don't."
"It's not a big deal," Sirius replies, pushing his hair back out of his eyes. He wraps a hand easily around Remus' half-hard cock and sets back to work. "Seriously, it's fine." Remus moves to complain again, but Sirius blocks it with a kiss. "I know what I'm doing."
With a quick movement, Sirius slides down Remus' body and levels on his stomach by the end of the bed.
"Just, close your eyes," Sirius says with a winning grin, "and imagine whoever you want."
"Whomever," Remus says, flinching, and then Sirius sucks him off. "Sirius -" Remus tries again, but then Sirius' lips part, slide, and take him all and he can't talk anymore, just manages a hot and wet gasp, thick in his throat. Taking it as a good sign, Sirius puts on the charm; twisting, pulling, flat tongue curving along the underside of his cock, clever hands sliding what the mouth doesn't hit. A well-rehearsed ballet of lips, tongue, and teeth, pulling Remus along, drawing from his chest the kind of gasps and murmurs Sirius likes to hear.
And then, almost shyly, Sirius feels Remus' hands in his hair; not forcing him down, or pulling him up, just touching, stroking, threading in his hair. Loving, almost.
"Sirius," Remus says quietly, gasping as Sirius does something good - lord, something very good. "C-come on. Just - stop."
It almost makes Sirius laugh, the battle between body and brain; the bucks and moans, the whispered complaints - it is too beautiful, the way Remus behaves, both willing and unwilling, complaining and gasping in the same breath. Always towards and away, towards and away.
And then a hand moves from Sirius' hair, down to cup his cheek and compel him to rise. Reluctantly, he does. Remus stares at him dead on and is struck by how beautiful Sirius is just then; pert, wet lips, skin flushed prickly red, mop of disheveled hair, expectant look on his face. It almost makes him lose his resolve. Almost.
"Sirius," he says on a short breath, "can we not?"
Sirius' expression drops. He pulls back and sits cross-legged by Remus' feet. "What? It wasn't good?"
"It's not that," Remus says. "Just - can we not tonight? We're drunk."
Sirius cocks an eyebrow. "You want this, though?"
Remus shakes his head slowly, leaning up against the headboard and drawing the covers around him. "Sirius. Just, please? Stop it."
"Fuck, fine." Sirius steps off the bed with an odd kind of elegance, long-legged and naked, cock stiff and protected by one suddenly self-conscious hand. "Don't be such a fucking wanker about it." He grabs his boxers from across the room and pulls them on.
The shower stops running, and they stare at each other across the room in silence.
"You don't have to go," Remus says quietly, pushing back his sway of schoolboy hair.
"What the fuck is up with you?" Sirius asks quietly, bitterly. "Who the hell refuses a blowjob? Who the hell refuses a blowjob halfway through?" He shakes his head tightly. "I'm just trying to do you a fucking favour."
"Can't we just - forget this and go to sleep?" Remus asks, sounding tired beyond his years, and not for the first time.
"I don't get you," Sirius says, finally defeated. "I thought I knew you. I thought we were - But now, I just don't fucking get you. I'm just trying to get you off, for fuck's sake. What do you want from me?"
And then the bathroom door opens and James emerges, boxer-clad and damp, his hair all in tendrils and his body gleaming with beaded wet. He looks a bit startled, unnerved and self-conscious. "G'night," he says briskly, ignorant of the tension, just striding out the door to the bedroom he shares with Lily.
Sirius hops in his own bed, turning off the rest of the lights and drawing the blanket up to his chin. "Night," he says roughly. No response.
Ten minutes later, Peter leaves the bathroom and gets into his own bed. He settles into the darkness, and the silence. And then they sleep.
*
Remus, mostly silent, zips up his toiletry case and leaves the bathroom. Sirius follows him out.
James closes the door behind them before hoisting himself up on the bathroom counter. He watches Peter apathetically, watches him soap up and shampoo his hair, watches the silver gleam of his body in the water and the light. If it bothers Peter, he doesn't say so, just closes his eyes under the hot water and lets it pour down.
"Pete?" James asks after a bit.
"Yeah?" Peter turns under the water to face James. His eyelashes are wet and slick, parted into thick fins like a dark sunburst around his eyes.
"Can I tell you something?"
Peter nods, runs his hands over his hair to push the water away. "Sure."
James glances to the ground, kicks his legs back and forth like a little kid. "You can't tell anyone this. Not yet."
Peter wipes his face of water and nods. "Of course."
James blushes, still looking at his feet. "Well. Uh. Lily is." And then he looks up with that familiar brightness, the brightness of youth and vigour and Head Boy and everything working out perfectly. "She might be - well, she probably is - well, I think she definitely is… pregnant."
It takes a moment for Peter to process it, standing stock still as he is under the shower steam. "You're fucking kidding me."
"No," James says, gleaming, "I'm definitely not."
"Oh my god," Peter says, mouth opening wide. "You're goddamn kidding me."
"Am not," James says.
And so Peter gets out of the shower, leaves it running but gets out himself, polished with wet, hair all a-tangle, tingling in the cold air but compelled by the singularly drunk desire to hug James. He does, and James yelps and laughs and hugs him back, getting wet and cold himself, but hugging Peter, pressing hands into the smooth wings of his shoulder blades and then down into the scoop of the small of his back, pressing lips into the soapy-bitter curve of his neck, almost crying and holding him tight.
They pull away partially, their arms still wrapped tight around bodies and match gleaming grins.
"It's insane, I know," James says. "I'm just - it's so fucking amazing, isn't it?"
"It is," Peter replies embarrassed by the huskiness of his voice. "I can't believe it."
And then it feels natural to kiss, so Peter leans in and traps James in quick, wet affection. The laughter fades in trailing chuckles, and they don't let go, just exchange curious glances, affectionate questions.
And then Peter leans in again, and his affection is not quick, it's long and has a small pink tongue that flicks teasingly along the line of James' teeth. And his affection has a hand that touches the waist of James' boxers, that teases the hem of his shirt, that slides along smooth skin until it rolls over the curve of James' arse.
"Peter," James says in a half-shocked whisper, pulling away from the kiss. "What's this?"
"I'm drunk," Peter manages in a moment of clarity.
"We're always drunk," comes James' bitten-back reply. "Why now?"
"Why not?" And he pulls his kisses along the line of James' jaw, down to bite viciously at his neck, confidently leaving his mark as he goes.
"Peter, what the -" and James groans as Peter grabs his cock, holding it easily and fumbling it to hardness. He's eyes are hard-set, determined almost, as if fighting against the odds. Who is this boy, James wonders. Not the pudgy eleven-year-old with stars in his eyes. Not the fourteen-year-old suck-up who trailed James whenever he could. Not the growing sixteen-year-old who inexplicably defended James' honour to all comers. Not the stolid seventeen-year-old for whom studying meant coaxing James to skip class and in the fields by the lake to talk abstractly about the nature of the world. Not the sullen nineteen-year-old who was essentially dragged into war. Now, a confident twenty-year-old, muscled and brilliant, forceful and ferocious and fascist. Cowardly lion turned Nemean.
There's a kind of desperation to the way Peter grabs the back of James' neck, grinds their hips together; like it's a matter between death or come, that bad things will happen if they don't orgasm. The urgency winds them up, makes James as taut as a bow-string, pressed back against the cold tile of the bathroom counter. It hurts; the sharp line of the granite counter-top cutting a line into his arse, the bolt of the faucet digging into his back when Peter kisses and bends.
"Pete -" James tries, but too suddenly Peter is on his knees and takes James in his mouth. It's not a half-bad blowjob, even if Peter is rushed and ignorant; lots of teeth and slippery tongue, rough and near-scraping but it makes James groan all the same. He hopes, distantly, that the rushing shower drowns him out, and then Peter licks the underside of his balls and it's all he can do not to scream.
"Stop," he says. And then he laces a hand in Peter's hair and tugs him gently, makes him stand and face him. "Hey, Peter, hey, stop. This isn't going to happen."
Peter stares unknowingly. "What?"
"I don't know - I don't know where this came from, or why, but it's gotta stop." It isn't aggressive, or bitter, or vengeful. Simplicity, almost serenity. "Peter, we just can't do this."
Peter ignores him, but kisses James again, touching a hand to his cheek and pulling them close. "I love you," he pants.
"I love you too," James says. "Of course I do. We just can't do this, all right?"
"No, no," and Peter sighs, pushing back his wet hair again. He looks immediately ashamed, and flushes pink and regards James with the deepest exasperation. "You don't understand."
"Understand what?"
"Nevermind," Peter says. "James, I've looked up to you for years. I was - obsessed with you," Peter says in a kind of surreal monotone. "Couldn't you tell?"
"N-no - I thought you were just -"
"I could think of nothing better than - than being you," Peter says quietly.
"I'm going to go now, okay?" James asks. He turns off the shower and pulls on his boxers. He puts a hand on Peter's shoulder, and Peter just stares at him. "We're just drunk. Sleep this off, and it'll all just be a joke in the morning, all right?"
Peter shakes his head. "Is this it?"
James shrugs. He gives Peter a quick hug.
Peter shakes his head again, but says nothing.
James opens the bathroom door and walks through the dark bedroom, boxer-clad and damp, his hair all in tendrils and his body gleaming with beaded wet. "G'night," he says briskly, not even glancing at Remus or Sirius, just leaving the room to go find Lily.
She's asleep when he finds her. He slides in next to her, curls his arms around her, and kisses the back of her head. Her hair is damp, and she smells of shampoo and fresh clean. It's very simple. And he falls asleep.
Part 2
Author: marseverlasting
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: James/Lily/Sirius/Remus/Peter (various permutations of)
Word Count: 13,501 words
Summary: When Lily discovers she's pregnant, a carefully balanced dynamic begins to unravel between the one she loves, the other one she loves, the other one she loves, and the other one she loves. A fractal portrait of five people in one relationship.
Warnings: adultery, Peter being attractive, too much love, Sirius.
Author's notes: Written for a_merry_chase for hp_springsmut. So many thanks to my Dylan Thomas, for inspiration, hand-holding, and general perfection. Title comes from Tennyson's superb Idylls of the King, from the bit where he gets all gay for Prince Albert.
*
Lily sits in the bathtub and cries.
She laughs, and she cries. She wipes at tears with wet hands, a thin foam of bubbles sticking to her cheeks, to her nose; to her shoulders and her breasts and her knees where they break the surface. The water moves as she shakes, trembling with the force of one movement, one beautiful moment. She cries, and she laughs, and she cries with the pure, unholy force of it all. Not happy, nor sad - just full and absorbed and so totally in love.
"Fuck," she says, and, "oh my god" and "oh, James." Saying it out loud doesn't change it, not that she would ever, ever want it to change.
*
Sirius backs up against the fridge and grins.
James pulls off his shirt and drops it on the floor. Skinny lad, and pale. Sirius slides his hands in along James' ribs, fingers lingering in the natural divots between his bones, cupping around under his arm pits and to his back. With a pinching tug, Sirius pulls their chests together, scattering snake-like bites along James' lips, his cheeks and nose, pinching and tugging when it suits him.
"Where's Lil?" Sirius asks in a sharp gasp as James cups his cock through his jeans.
"Bath," James says, leaning in to bite Sirius' earlobe, pulling it and flicking his tongue out along the inside of his ear. Hot breath: "I bet I can make you come first."
Sirius laughs, which turns to a shuddering gasp as James undoes the button of his jeans, half-frantic hands slipping under the band of his boxers and grasping Sirius' cock in a hard grip, haphazardly jerking him once or twice.
"Fuck," Sirius says, closing his eyes, throat heady with sex, "oh my god," as James grabs grips one nipple between thumb and forefinger, twists and pulls, "oh - fuck, oh James."
*
The water goes cold, and Lily's fingers prune, and she shakes, cries in short hiccups, the lingering wash of a wonderful fear that builds and builds, like a growing star right deep in her tummy. She clutches with pale fingers the ceramic lip of the tub, she curls her toes and kneads her feet against the sides of the bath, her stomach tightening, her eyes blurring again, and again, cracking and laughing all at once, flirting beautifully with hysterics.
"James," she says quietly, sullen and blissful, settling back into the hot water. "Oh, god."
Outside, it starts to rain.
*
James gets down on his knees, jeans half-off and stuck around his thighs, belt loose and clanking against the floor. He wraps one hand around the length of his own hard pink cock, pressing it back against the flesh of his stomach and rolling it there as he entertains Sirius with his mouth.
Sirius threads his hands in James' messy hair, forcing him gently forward, seducing him inch by inch until he's wet with James' spit. Teeth scrape against his cock, and Sirius asks for more; flat pink tongue on the underside, slipping quick around the head, flitting back down, slick back around the tip, sharp teeth scraping as James moves gently forward, and back, his own hand moving in time with his mouth.
Outside, it starts to rain.
*
The bathroom goes cold, the beaded sweat on the mirror dripping down into long streaks as night grows old. It smells of boys, of Sirius and James, of Peter and Remus, of over-used cologne and the herbal shampoos Lily bought for them at market, and cigarette smoke, and citron shaving cream, and five people using one tiny bathroom, one tiny house. It smells of the last couple years, and too close, so close.
Lily hiccups, sniffs, rests her head against the back of the tub. She tries to go to sleep but the fear, that same beautiful fear deep in her stomach keeps her awake. She manages a small laugh, and says "oh god" again, and smiles.
*
Sirius feels his muscles tighten involuntarily, his stomach and shoulders and legs, strong calves and thighs. His lips open and he huffs just hot breaths, grunts and bitten-back moans. James touches one warm hand to Sirius' chest and drags it down, fingernails digging parallel paths of red, etching deep welts where he digs them in to Sirius' hips. James knows he likes that.
Sirius half-yelps, strangling it down into a guttural sound, like a growl, and then James slides one hand to grab his arse, and it's all downhill from there.
"I'm gonna come," Sirius says in a hoarse whisper. Fingers slide along the cleft of his arse, forefinger pressing into him gently. It's enough to make him buck forward, sliding full in to James' mouth. James takes it easily, slippery tongue drawing patterns along his shaft.
"No, seriously," Sirius says, arching back as he can, head pressed against a fridge magnet which hurts but not nearly enough to make him stop. "I'm gonna come."
James does that thing and Sirius groans, twisting as much as he can against James' mouth, pinioned as he is by probably the best blowjob mankind has ever delivered, seriously, the pinnacle of creative energy, and oh fuck oh fuck. And then one finger pushes into him, rough and intemperate, painful and euphoric, forcing his hips forward. James mouth slicks and releases from his cock with a smack; Sirius flinches against the cold air, but is soon wrapped again in James' mouth, wet and rough rolling about the head.
"Gonna - oh fuck."
*
Reaching to the bathroom floor, Lily grabs the results again, scanning it carefully as if it might have changed. Still positive. Still wonderfully positive. So much in so little, one single piece of paper. She sits back in the bath again and closes her eyes and listens to the rain fall.
*
Sirius leans back against the fridge and closes his eyes and comes. It rips through him like a twister, a half-painful grip in his guts that resolves itself in the blinding white light of orgasm. He comes, and empties himself in James' mouth, on his pert pink lips and red-flushed cheek. Sirius half-growls his bliss, a near-animal rasp of a noise that trails off into warm pleasure notes, honeyed and warm and golden tongued.
"Oh, fuck," Sirius says a thick half-minute later. Hands still wrapped in James' hair, he gives a gentle tug and summons James to his feet.
James has a flushed kind of smile of his face that would seem almost bashful if Sirius didn't know him so well. In that hazy afterglow, Sirius reaches down to wrap both of his hands around James cock, artfully working them in tandem, sliding up and down in the panicked rhythm of the nearly-there.
With a shift of the body, they pull in for a kiss. Sirius tastes the chlorine tang of his own come on James' lips and mouth. He flicks his small pink tongue to lick the orgasm from James' cheek, kissing with that wet on their lips - and then James comes, desperate and grinding against Sirius' waist, with a mess of four hands wrapped fitfully around his hips and cock and gripping blindly against his stomach. He grunts adorably.
They lean into each other for a moment, reveling in the stench of boys' sex, thick and sweaty, gross and attractive. And then they step apart, Sirius examining James' come on his fingers with childlike interest, tasting it with the careful flick of a tongue. James is sweeter. Unsurprising.
James wipes his hands with his tee-shirt, slinging the rag over his shoulders to do up his jeans. He stretches broadly and open. Sirius watches the curve and twist of his muscles under soft skin, and he places one hand fleetingly over James' heart.
"Genius, mate," James says, tossing him a lazy smile. "Just what I needed." He grabs Sirius' wrist and pulls them together for a quick kiss.
"Wasn't it just," Sirius says, falling back against the suddenly cold fridge, pushing his sweaty hair back and smiling. He lights up a cigarette, puffing out a cloud of smoke and sighing. "I guess I'll go get us some dinner."
James nods. "Chinese?"
"Sure," Sirius says, pulling on his jeans, fag dangling from his lips like Bogart. The boys slap hands lazily and, Sirius pinching his cigarette between thumb and forefinger, bump lips in a final half-kiss. Sirius grabs his keys from the kitchen drawer and tugs his jacket over bare skin, a comfy brown-leather RAF surplus that Remus bought him last year. James watches Sirius pull out of the driveway, giving him a short wave goodbye.
James stretches again and scratches his hips. He still tastes like come. He washes his mouth out with a glass of water. It makes him laugh.
*
Lily stands in the tub, naked Venus rising from the half-shell, drying herself off with a fluffy white towel. Her skin is beautiful and flushed red, freckles standing out like fresh ink on her skin. Satisfied, she slings the towel over her shoulder and makes the short leap to the bath mat, pushing her hair back and examining herself in the mirror, tugging and pulling, running self-conscious hands over the gentle curve of her belly.
A soft knock at the door, a creak as it opens.
"Allo?" James asks tentatively, stepping into the room. She freezes, body going stiff, teeth biting down on red lip. "Hey, babe," he says, leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek.
"Heya," she replies with a tremor. James traces lightly a hand along her naked hips, and she to the waist of his jeans. He stands beside her at the mirror. They catch eyes in the reflection; James smiles.
"How do you get more beautiful every day?" James asks coyly, ignorant of her nervousness.
She raises her eyebrows, though her expression softens. "You know, that line doesn't work," she says. "It's an awful line."
"I know it's an awful line." He kisses her once more, on the ear, touches his hands to her shoulders. "You must be cold, love." James grabs another towel from the rack and drapes it over her shoulders, rubbing her vigorously, which makes her laugh.
"Stop it," she says, shrugging him off and smiling. "I can dry myself."
James doesn't listen, just smiles a smile and warms her skin, massaging her shoulders and leaning in once or twice to leave her a kiss.
"I love you," he says, unperturbed by her giggles. "I love you, I love you."
"I know," she says, at first bright, and then a bit miserably, "I love you too much."
James gives a look of cheerful confusion. "You what?"
She pulls James in and kisses him again. And then she can't hold it back anymore, and then she cries, and then laughs at the fact that she's crying. "Oh, James." And she holds him, and he holds her, and it's all very storybook romance, except for the nudity.
His smile hovers, falters, dies. "Lily? What's wrong, babe?"
She wipes at her face again, and manages a smile that crinkles her red-rimmed eyes. "Nothing. Just." She takes a shuddering breath and she's not sure if she can ever speak right. "You know. Things." She lets the breath out, half-laughing and running her hands over her face.
James nods. "I know things." He leans in and kisses her nose smartly. "Is there anything I can do?"
Lily's lip quivers, holding back a warm breath and explanation. "James?"
James nods, tightly. His skin is lined with sweat and worry, his hair greasy and unkempt, his lips wet. He has never been more beautiful. "Yeah?"
"James -" and she doesn't even know where to begin.
"Yeah?" He sounds a bit skittish now, his lips twisted in curiosity.
"I - god this is hard."
His voice cracks. "You're breaking up with me, aren't you?"
"No - no, James, this is good news." She says his name again, and smiles, and says it once more. "James. No, I'm not. Just. Listen, okay? There's. Something specific."
James nods, his body strung as tight as a bow.
"The last couple of weeks. I've kind of." She closes her eyes, lets out a sigh. She opens her eyes and collapses into a smile. "I'm - late."
James blinks a couple of times. "For what?"
Lily manages a short laugh. "I'm late. Late." James stares at her blankly, unknowingly. "Er, for a very important date?"
James just stares.
"James," she says, taking his hand in hers. "I haven't had my period."
His face slackens with the most beautiful comprehension, like Atlas on a smoke break. His shoulders loosen, his mouth opens slowly in shock. "You're late?"
Lily smiles, and nods, and feels tears rush to her eyes again. "Yeah."
"Oh my god," James says blankly. "Oh my god." His eyes are bright and wet. "Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god."
"I know," she says, laughing this time. "I know."
"Are you - like -"
"I don't know," she says, a tremor in her smile. "I haven't taken the test."
"But - you're late!"
"I'm late," she agrees, and feels very much like the March Hare. "I'm significantly late."
He grabs her in a fierce naked hug, kissing her madly on the lips and cheek, not caring what he hits, just wanting to hold her forever in that overly romantic way he has sometimes. "Oh my god, we're late."
She laughs, and she's crying again and she kiss him back and holds him and loves the warmth of their nakedness, right here Adam and Eve in Sirius' flat's bathroom, wet and happy and late.
"I can't wait to tell Sirius," he says brightly. "And Remus and Peter and oh my god you're late."
"It's not for certain," Lily says reasonably, though her smile doesn't shift. "I'm just late."
His giddiness is addictive, his grin and the familiar sports-star gleam in his eyes. "But you're really late! Really, really late! You're so late a baby might sneak in!"
It's the first time anyone has said the word and it hits her like a gale. She slackens in James' arms and just cries, cries with the weight of everything. He's crying too, and they're hugging, and kissing, and the world is glorious and terrifying. She's late. She's late and she has never wanted to be so late in her life.
*
"We're clear-ly soldiers in petti-coats, and daunt-less crusa-ders for women's votes," Sirius sings tunelessly, swinging the plastic bag of Chinese food in one hand. "Though we a-dore men in-di-vi-dually, we agree that as a group they're ra-ther stu-pid… Cast off the shackles of yesterday! Shoulder to shoulder into the hey, hallo Remus."
Remus looks up from the Daily Prophet and manages a weakling smile. "Hallo," he says. "Dinner?"
"Dinner indeed," he says. "Easy peasy Chinesey."
"I'm not really hungry," Remus says, blowing on his cup of coffee and taking a slurpy sip.
"Course you are, I got you spare ribs."
Remus gives a little smile. "You know me too well."
"I know my Remus." He drops the Chinese food on the kitchen counter, turns on his heel and reads the paper over Remus' shoulder.
"I wish you wouldn't do that," Remus says serenely.
"I know." He leans down and kisses Remus on the cheek. "How was the mission?"
"Easy. I was just on watch."
"Nothing to see?"
"No," Remus says, draining his tea. "It's getting eerie, really. We haven't seen them for weeks. They're planning something."
"Maybe they've given up," Sirius says romantically. Remus turns and gives Sirius a very skeptical look indeed. "Okay, whatever, Negative Nancy," Sirius retorts, kissing him once more on the side of his head. "I shall fetch the lovebirds. Where's Peter?"
"Getting petrol for your car."
Sirius gives a sheepish smile. "Good lad." With a final grin, he bounds up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
"James? Jamesy Jamesy James, dinner's ready." Sirius slaps his hands on the walls as he walks down the hallway, unzipping his jacket as he does, bare chest goosepimpling against the cold air. Cold air, cold air, Sirius thinks, this flat is always fucking cold. Turn up the fucking heat.
He pushes their bedroom door open with the tip of his toe, wheedling his way in. James and Lily are lying in bed, naked on top of the covers, curled in towards each other and whispering quietly.
"Girls? Dinner's ready," Sirius says. James leans up and gives Sirius such an unbelievably winning smile, full of joy and teeth like Sirius hadn't seen in months.
"Cheers," James says, extricating himself from his girlfriend, stretching naked and energetic. Sirius leans against the doorframe, smirking.
Lily gets up too, pulling on one of James' tee-shirts, which is actually one of Sirius', which is actually one of Remus'. Pink boyshorts join the ensemble. James pulls on one of Remus' tee-shirts, which is actually one of Peter's, which is actually one of James'; and Sirius' boxers, which actually belong to Sirius, except when they belong James.
Lily laces her fingers with James, and the three of them head off to the kitchen. Remus is spooning the dishes onto big plates, for eating family-style. Peking duck, pork balls with electric red sauce, General Tao, spare ribs that smell of honey and lemongrass, chow mein. The usual Western impression of what the Chinese eat.
They dine and clatter their forks and knives and chatter incessantly about whatever strikes them. The mood is bright and warm despite the cold and rainy spring night, sparkling with coca cola and gold-foil Benson & Hedges and chili and garlic sauce. Peter pops in halfway through dinner and joins them, wet-haired and tired, bringing with him the smell of mud and rain and the iron tang of iodized atmosphere.
"Wanna watch a movie tonight?" Sirius says, scooping up the last of his rice and flinging it at James. It sticks in his hair, which merits a retaliatory flying broccoli that hits Sirius squarely between the eyes.
"Girls," Lily says warningly. "You're cleaning this mess."
"Let's watch a movie," James agrees, picking the rice out of his hair and kicking Sirius squarely in the knee. Sirius winces, then smiles, then kicks James dangerously close to his crotch.
"How was watch?" Lily asks Peter.
"Good," Peter says, shoveling down his food hungrily. "Boring. Nothing happened."
Lily nods. "You okay, though? You look kind of - worried."
Peter nods, and manages a thin smile. "Just really tired. I think I'm gonna head up after dinner."
Lily reaches over and takes his hand momentarily, a quick squeeze and then back to James, leaning in to kiss him happily.
"I just don't get it," Sirius says to Remus at the opposite end of the table. "How do you not listen to music at all?"
"I just don't care for it," Remus says, pushing his soggy celery leaves and bok choy around the plate. "I was just never that interested. Never caught my attention. Not like you."
"But - surely you like something. David Bowie or - or T.Rex or The Beatles or something."
Remus shrugs. "I like Tchaikovsky. The Nutcracker and all that. Oh, and Gilbert and Sullivan."
Sirius' shoulders sag. "But. Like. Heart, maybe? The Carpenters? Iggy and the Stooges? Someone?"
"Sirius," Remus says, waving his fork gently, "I just can't be bothered."
"Sometimes I don't understand you," Sirius says, still baffled, leaning in and knocking heads. "What do you do, then? What do you enjoy?"
"Other things," Remus says simply.
Sirius pulls away and gives James a look of shock and horror. James shrugs with a smile, and turns back to Lily.
They finish up neatly, and Lily gathers their plates and slides them into soapy water. James stretches broadly and pats his tummy, satisfied. Sirius pokes him in the bellybutton. They kick each other back and forth a few more times, like the six-year-old siblings they are.
"Fancy a drop of wine," Sirius asks, fending off another of James' salvos. "Get a little toasty? Warm the cockles a bit?"
James nods agreeably, as does Remus, so Sirius uncorks a liter bottle of inherited Montrachet and pours five glasses.
"None for me," Lily says in a strange voice. "I'm not really in the mood."
James grins, grins and glows and looks generally beautiful and mischievous. "I forgot," he said. "She's. Uh. A teetotaler now."
Sirius raises his eyebrows. "For real?" She nods, so he shrugs and pours her glass evenly into the remaining four. "Your loss." They toast:
"To excess," Sirius says, raising his glass.
"To excess," the rest agree, Lily holding aloft her glass of water. They drink, making appreciative noises. Sirius downs his glass in one and lights a cigarette. James lights one too, sparking his off the tip of Sirius' burning fag, sucking it in and breathing a cloud of blue smoke into the air. Remus and Peter refuse when offered, content to sip on their wine.
"Buttery and ripe," Sirius says, watching Remus drink, leaning back in his chair and letting off slender clouds of smoke. "Hint of vanilla. My Uncle had good taste."
Remus smiles and nods. "I like it."
"Uncle?" Lily asks.
"Alphard. The one who gave me my money - our money - and paid for this flat. He has a great wine collection. Like, hundreds and hundreds. Consider this your education," he says to James as an aside. "I like my friends to know their wine."
The first bottle is drunk quickly, and Sirius fetches more, two very dusty bottles of ruby Charlemagne Grand Cru. He uncorks it and waves one about as he speaks: "And this, this was a present for my first Cotillion from my dear, dear, dear, dear Grandmother Melania who was an enormous cunt." He looks at the bottle appreciatively. "However, it's a 1954 vintage and I have been told it is seriously good shit. The only reasonable exchange for my childhood, good wine."
"Cotillion? Like, the dance?" Peter says with a loud smile. "Poncy bugger." He drains the rest of his first glass and James and Remus follow suit. "What makes it good?"
Sirius shrugs. "Who cares." He pours four healthy glasses of the Charlemagne. "Drink up, my boys."
They touch glasses and drink.
"So, Sirius," Peter says, leaning in to him, "what was it like being - being rich."
"Well," Sirius says thoughtfully, swilling his wine. "You know, I guess we were pretty - aristocratic. Or we liked to think so. Like, I had a cotillion, my cousins had their debs. We did the standard aristocratic shtick. Regulus is a great pianist, and I like to think I'm a good dancer. You know, that kind of parlor-room training. I carried a sword on special occasions. Anyone want to smoke up?"
Peter nods. Sirius takes a chrome Zippo lighter from his pocket; pulling off the outer metal case, he taps out a small white joint hidden inside the hollow interior. He lights it with the tip of his wand, sucking on it and holding it in deep. James leans over expecting a shotgun, so Sirius blows the gentle stream of smoke into his mouth, their lips half-parted and poised for a kiss. Lily smirks slightly. They both cough and withdraw, laughing and pushing their hair back with twin satisfied sighs. Sirius hands the joint to Peter.
"You dance?" Lily asks, leaning in to talk to Sirius. He smells of weed and wine, of shampoo and aftershave.
"Indeed," Sirius says, flicking Lily's hair gently, playing absently with her still-damp bangs. "We were sang bleu, as my father liked to say. French Brahmin. Too much money and not enough sense. Decades and decades of stepping on other people to have our summer homes in Annecy and Windermere and Santorini and a cellar full of wine. Yep. That's the Black family for you." Sirius warms with the attention and the wine, flushing deeply and waving his hands broadly as he speaks. "I've got my signet ring in the bedroom if you want to see it. I don't like to wear it. I have some snuff boxes and cigarette cases too. Crap like that. Family crests."
"No fucking joke," Peter says, punching him jocularly in the shoulder. "So you're a genuine social elite."
"Not anymore." Sirius shrugs. "Being disowned tends to dampen the social agenda. Ah well, we'll all be dead soon anyway. The Blacks will just be a mark in the annals in fifty years. The world will be much better off, trust me."
Peter hands the joint back, and Sirius takes another deep hit, savouring it and pushing it out into the air with a great sigh. He hands it to James. They sit around in silence for a bit. James takes a drag and hands the joint off to Remus.
Sirius rubs his face and shakes back his hair. "The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of other things."
James nods. "We should go away," he says.
"Away?" Peter asks, taking the joint back from Remus.
"Yeah." James runs an impatient hands through his hair, messing it up even more. "Get away from all this. The war. Crap."
Remus shrugs. "We made a commitment." Lily agrees.
James' shoulders sag. "I know, I know."
Sirius shakes his head. "Don't be so fucking boring."
"Greece," James says, "or Italy. Spain. Australia. Somewhere far away. San Francisco. Mexico. Like Trotsky."
Remus leans in to Sirius, close and quiet beside him, "I wanna go away," he says, and rests his chin on Sirius' shoulder. "I'm not boring. I wanna go away too."
Sirius gives a strange kind of smile. "I know. I was just kidding."
Remus pulls back, his eyes half-closed in a pleasant and drunken kind of way. "Okay." He seems satisfied. "I'm not boring."
"No," Sirius says, laughing. "You're not."
The night goes on like that; what ifs, we shoulds, stuff they never intend to fulfill. A constellation of fantasies, watched through the eye of a telescope. Never touched, only observed and admired. They smoke a second joint, drink another two or three bottles of wine. Remus leans in to Sirius, resting occasionally his head on his shoulder, smelling their fabric softener on his shirt and Sirius' private smell of crisp deodorant and faded cologne, kissing the line of his neck lazily, tasting the salt of his skin. James holds Lily's hand under the table, and occasionally James strokes one hand over Peter's cheek, fumbling absently with the buttons of Peter's shirt, bored, touching his hair and creeping bored fingers along the line of his inner thigh which makes Peter flush pink and look at his fidgeting hands.
"So," Sirius says, absorbing the attention with erudite nonsense, "really, if you think about it, Jane Eyre and Rochester's relationship is essentially incestuous. Like, Oedipus."
"What?" Lily says, sober and laughing.
"Okay. Okay. So Jane, she's a governess, right?"
"Right."
"Which mean she's motherly - she taps into motherly… things, right? Feelings."
"Okay."
"And Rochester. He's kind of - he's immature and childish, right?"
"I suppose."
"And then he's, like, blinded, right?"
"Yeah."
Sirius nods, tapping his finger on the table. "So, Oedipus was the same, wasn't he? Relationship with his mother, blinded for his - for going against - you know. Blinded by whosit, Nemesis."
Lily smirks. "So, we're saying Jane has a kind of a Jocasta impulse, yeah?"
"Exactly," Sirius says. "And the way they treat each other - like… like siblings, you know?"
"So, are they siblings or Oedipedal?" Lily smiles, teasing him by inches.
"Well. Like." Sirius pauses. "Doesn't matter. It's incest."
Lily smiles. "I'm not sure if Charlotte really had that in mind."
"Yeah," James interjects loudly, "not everything is incest, Sirius."
"Or phallic," Peter adds.
James laughs. "Sirius is so obsessed he'd think a penis is phallic."
"Whatever," Sirius says, waving them off. "Their relationship was really creepy and I think they were secretly cousins."
They laugh, and the conversation breaks down into pairs again, no longer focused on the pinion of Sirius' opinion, James leaning into Peter, swinging a friendly arm over his shoulder, listening as he drunkenly tells Remus exactly why Tennyson sucked so hard.
"Listen," Lily says, leaning in to Sirius as the other boys go on loudly and drunkenly, "can I talk to you for a second?"
Sirius grins, and nods. "Sure."
"Like, in private?"
Sirius shrugs. "Course."
They both get up, and Lily explains simply: "I've just gotta talk to Sirius in private for a second, okay?" The boys are drunk so they don't mind. Lily leans in and kisses James lightly on the mouth. He gives her a questioning look, but she sates him with a warm smile. "We'll be back in a second."
They head off down the hall. Lily opens their bedroom door and locks it behind Sirius. Immediately he slides into her, kissing her on the mouth, gripping the hem of her shirt and trying to pull it off. She pushes him away, gently at first and then forcefully.
"Sirius, stop it."
"What?" He takes a step back, stripping off his shirt. "C'mon, we can't be long or they - they'll wonder."
Lily leans back against the door. "That's not what I meant. We actually have to talk, Sirius."
Sirius frowns, slings his shirt over his shoulder and crosses his arms over his bare chest. He's beautiful, and it's hard to get over; he has the physique of a cricket player, lean and agile, lithe and long without being awkward. Adult. Masterfully in control. Dusty brown skin, pert pink nipples. The warm, nubile opposite of skinny, gauche James. Boyfriend's evil twin. "About what?" he asks.
"I'm pregnant." She doesn't make no bones about it. Lily crosses her arms over her chest and says: "And I don't know whose it is."
Sirius stares at her blankly. "What?"
"I took the test today. I'm pregnant, and I don't know if it's yours or James'."
"Did you check which of us -"
"Of course I did," she said, waving him off. "Based on timing, it could be either of you."
Sirius stares for a moment longer, lingering on the hope she's kidding. And then: "Fuck." Sirius says, running a hand back through his hair, sitting heavily on the edge of James and Lily's bed. "This isn't a joke?"
She shakes her head, a touch bitterly. "Not a joke."
Sirius stares at her for a long half-minute. "I'm way too drunk to be processing this."
"I know. But you're always drunk."
Sirius shrugs, and shivers. "This is insane."
Lily shrugs in turn.
"What the fuck are we going to do?"
And then Lily starts to cry, and she hates herself for it because she promised herself she wouldn't, but it's okay because it makes Sirius cry too. "I don't know, Sirius. How am I supposed to know?"
"Oh my god." He looks at her, and something strange and warm creeps into his expression, almost guilty, happy. "We're having a kid?" Lily nods soberly. Sirius pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts. "This is so fucking crazy." And then, he gives her the weakest of smiles. "Well - uh, do you think - like, who do you think the dad is?"
Lily shakes her head gently. "I can't possibly know."
"Well. Uh. What feels right?"
Lily shakes her head. "Don't ask me that."
Sirius stands up and steps closer to her, inching forwards until he can slide one warm hand under her shirt, resting it over her stomach. "You think it's mine, don't you." Lily shies away, but he's insistent. "I know it's mine."
"Sirius," Lily says warningly.
"People can sense these things." Sirius nods emphatically. "You feel it, don't you?"
"Sirius, stop it, I'm not kidding."
"Lily," Sirius says so warmly, so close, and it makes her hate him and love him all at once, which makes her hate him more. "We can do this. I've got enough money to last us into retirement. We can do this." Another star for the galaxy of their fantasies. "Does James know?"
She nods. "I told him this afternoon."
"Oh."
"Well, I told him I was late." She shakes her head, looking at the ground. "He doesn't know I took the test."
Sirius cocks an eyebrow. "Why?"
"I don't know!" she yells suddenly. "What was I supposed to do! You're involved in this and I just didn't know how much to tell him without - without fucking everything up."
"Lily," Sirius says firmly. "We can do this. We can have this kid."
"And break James' heart?" Lily gives a derisive laugh. "You're his best friend, you bastard. I'm his girlfriend. We're not leaving him hanging."
"He can be - he can be godfather, he doesn't have to - be excluded. He's just as much a part of my life as you are."
She laughs again. "Yeah, sure."
"I'm not kidding," Sirius replies, the drunken look gone from his face. "He's just as much a part of my - my heart as you are."
"What are you saying?"
Sirius' eyes are heavy lidded, and he blinks rapidly a few times before matching her eyes with his own gaze. "We're fucking."
"Of course you are," she says simply. "I know that, you idiot. I'm not blind. But that doesn't change anything. I'm not leaving him."
Sirius blinks back, looking kind of wounded. "You knew?"
"Yes, I knew. I was just hoping he'd tell me before you did." Lily sighs, and tries to explain herself: "James has his vices - and, well, I guess I can understand that." She pauses, her lips set in a firm line. "But, listen to me Sirius, and I'm only going to say this once. Even - even if this baby is yours. Even if I have conclusive proof that you are without a doubt the father, this baby will always, always belong to James. Okay? James is the father. It's that simple." Sirius stares at her; shocked, pained, relieved, Lily can't tell. "You can be in the baby's life. You can be his Godfather, can take care of him, can look after him when James and I are gone or something. But he is going to be a Potter. James is going to be on the birth certificate, and James is going to be the dad."
"You can't do that," Sirius says quietly. "We can get tests. James will find out."
"And you'd really do that to you best friend? To your," a tremble in her words, a hesitation, "boyfriend?"
Sirius tears his eyes away viciously. "He's not my fucking boyfriend. Don't be ridiculous."
"You'd really do that to James?"
And Sirius is crying tightly, shoulders barely trembling with sobs, wiping away tears and snot with the back of his hand and trying to compose himself. "Of course I fucking wouldn't."
"Well, that's it, Sirius." Lily's posture slackens a bit. "I'm sorry."
Sirius shakes his head. "Doesn't matter."
"I really am sorry." She sits beside him on the edge of the bed, putting one arm over his shoulders. "But I love James."
Sirius doesn't reply.
"And I need you too," she goes on. "He needs you too."
"All right. Can we stop talking now?" Sirius asks, stifling sobs as they bubble in his throat.
Lily nods. "Pull yourself together a bit. I don't want James to know."
Sirius doesn't acknowledge her, and so Lily leaves the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
*
The four boys take their toiletry bags to the bathroom and brush their teeth in front of the long mirror, sharing the sink and nudging with elbows because they're bored. They stagger around drunkenly, very drunkenly, leaning on shoulders or against walls, hazily wiping eyes and tripping on nothing at all.
"Pete," Sirius says, spitting into the sink, "you've made spots again. On the mirror."
Peter shrugs, and speaks through the bristles: "I brush vigorously." ("I bwuth figowifwy.")
"It's foul." Sirius cups his hands under the faucet, drinking and spitting once more. He nearly tips backwards, but Remus' hand at the small of his back keeps him upright.
Peter spits out his toothpaste. Remus follows suit, and begins to floss. Sirius watches them both with apathy, leaning forward on the counter and examining his face for spots. Peter pushes his thick blond hair back with wet hands and decides out loud to have a shower.
"You'll drown," Sirius says. "And I'm not - not gonna save you."
"I'll save you," James says, leaning back against the bathroom counter, eyes near-closed and head rocking gently to and fro.
"Cheers," Peter says and takes off his shirt, throwing it back into the adjoining bedroom he shares with Remus and Sirius. His trousers follow. And his boxers. Sirius observes his nudity in the mirror. Peter isn't an ugly boy. Sirius has always maintained that Peter is the most conventionally handsome of the four Marauders, and certainly he may be right. Peter smiles with dark brown eyes, dusty blond hair, with small, pink lips. In the physique of games, he's a rugby player: stout, muscled, and strong. His skin is near flawless, marred only here and there by little black freckles like spots of ink. Ridged hips; aristocratic calves. Firm, strong belly; wide shoulders. Very much a shining athlete.
Remus, mostly silent, zips up his toiletry case and leaves the bathroom. Sirius follows him out.
"What's wrong with you?" Sirius asks, supporting himself against a wall.
"Nothing," Remus replies. "You know I get moody when I drink."
"I'm sorry," Sirius says with a failed attempt at sobriety.
"What's wrong with you?" Remus fires back, crawling into bed.
"Me?" Sirius asks with a broad gesture. "Nothin'."
"What did Lily say to you? Why were you crying?"
"What?" Sirius says, smacking his head back against the wall.
"You were crying," Remus says, writhing in bed to find a good position. "I could tell."
"Dry eyes," Sirius says, waving him off. A moment passes; as Remus flicks off his bedside lamp, as Sirius looks at Remus with bright hunger in his eyes. And then Sirius crawls into Remus' bed too, crawling over the boy's prone body and leaning over him, thick black hair hanging down, grinning with teeth and menace. "I'm fine. I'm really fine."
Remus regards him blankly. "Are you quite done?"
"No." And Sirius leans down and kisses him. Pulling back, Sirius tugs off his tee-shirt and kisses Remus again.
"You're drunk," Remus says, planting a hand in the middle of Sirius' sweat-slick chest, pushing him back gently.
"I'm always drunk," Sirius replies with a grin. "Aren't you drunk too?"
Remus looks at him blearily in the half-dark. "Yeah."
"Well," Sirius says, drawing in close, so close Remus can smell the booze and weed on his breath, "why not?" He slides one warm hand down Remus' bare front, down smooth skin and firm belly, down under the loose elastic of his boxers. A touch of coarse hair, and Sirius' fingers slide further to feel the base of Remus' cock, warm and soft; Sirius wraps his hand around him and slowly begins to pull. "C'mon," he says, and leans down for another kiss; warmer this time, and less like a drunken teenager.
Surprisingly, for all involved, Remus kisses back. Carefully, and self-consciously, but definitely a kiss. It's so gentle and naïve that, for a moment, Sirius thinks of a kitten licking a popsicle, and it nearly makes him laugh, but Remus' sudden hand at the back of his neck shuts him up. Inspired, Sirius continues his seductions, wrapping a firmer grip around Remus' cock, grinding into him with a growing rhythm, kissing with more heat.
"Hold on," Sirius says in a panicked whisper, rolling off the bed. In a quick motion, Sirius tugs off his boxers, and kicks them across the room. He's tall, and hard, standing shadowed in the room as if from a Coppola movie. Remus watches him with detached interest. Throwing off the covers from the bed, Sirius straddles Remus' thighs, naked and flushed with wine and sex.
"Sirius," Remus begins quietly. "Please, don't."
"It's not a big deal," Sirius replies, pushing his hair back out of his eyes. He wraps a hand easily around Remus' half-hard cock and sets back to work. "Seriously, it's fine." Remus moves to complain again, but Sirius blocks it with a kiss. "I know what I'm doing."
With a quick movement, Sirius slides down Remus' body and levels on his stomach by the end of the bed.
"Just, close your eyes," Sirius says with a winning grin, "and imagine whoever you want."
"Whomever," Remus says, flinching, and then Sirius sucks him off. "Sirius -" Remus tries again, but then Sirius' lips part, slide, and take him all and he can't talk anymore, just manages a hot and wet gasp, thick in his throat. Taking it as a good sign, Sirius puts on the charm; twisting, pulling, flat tongue curving along the underside of his cock, clever hands sliding what the mouth doesn't hit. A well-rehearsed ballet of lips, tongue, and teeth, pulling Remus along, drawing from his chest the kind of gasps and murmurs Sirius likes to hear.
And then, almost shyly, Sirius feels Remus' hands in his hair; not forcing him down, or pulling him up, just touching, stroking, threading in his hair. Loving, almost.
"Sirius," Remus says quietly, gasping as Sirius does something good - lord, something very good. "C-come on. Just - stop."
It almost makes Sirius laugh, the battle between body and brain; the bucks and moans, the whispered complaints - it is too beautiful, the way Remus behaves, both willing and unwilling, complaining and gasping in the same breath. Always towards and away, towards and away.
And then a hand moves from Sirius' hair, down to cup his cheek and compel him to rise. Reluctantly, he does. Remus stares at him dead on and is struck by how beautiful Sirius is just then; pert, wet lips, skin flushed prickly red, mop of disheveled hair, expectant look on his face. It almost makes him lose his resolve. Almost.
"Sirius," he says on a short breath, "can we not?"
Sirius' expression drops. He pulls back and sits cross-legged by Remus' feet. "What? It wasn't good?"
"It's not that," Remus says. "Just - can we not tonight? We're drunk."
Sirius cocks an eyebrow. "You want this, though?"
Remus shakes his head slowly, leaning up against the headboard and drawing the covers around him. "Sirius. Just, please? Stop it."
"Fuck, fine." Sirius steps off the bed with an odd kind of elegance, long-legged and naked, cock stiff and protected by one suddenly self-conscious hand. "Don't be such a fucking wanker about it." He grabs his boxers from across the room and pulls them on.
The shower stops running, and they stare at each other across the room in silence.
"You don't have to go," Remus says quietly, pushing back his sway of schoolboy hair.
"What the fuck is up with you?" Sirius asks quietly, bitterly. "Who the hell refuses a blowjob? Who the hell refuses a blowjob halfway through?" He shakes his head tightly. "I'm just trying to do you a fucking favour."
"Can't we just - forget this and go to sleep?" Remus asks, sounding tired beyond his years, and not for the first time.
"I don't get you," Sirius says, finally defeated. "I thought I knew you. I thought we were - But now, I just don't fucking get you. I'm just trying to get you off, for fuck's sake. What do you want from me?"
And then the bathroom door opens and James emerges, boxer-clad and damp, his hair all in tendrils and his body gleaming with beaded wet. He looks a bit startled, unnerved and self-conscious. "G'night," he says briskly, ignorant of the tension, just striding out the door to the bedroom he shares with Lily.
Sirius hops in his own bed, turning off the rest of the lights and drawing the blanket up to his chin. "Night," he says roughly. No response.
Ten minutes later, Peter leaves the bathroom and gets into his own bed. He settles into the darkness, and the silence. And then they sleep.
*
Remus, mostly silent, zips up his toiletry case and leaves the bathroom. Sirius follows him out.
James closes the door behind them before hoisting himself up on the bathroom counter. He watches Peter apathetically, watches him soap up and shampoo his hair, watches the silver gleam of his body in the water and the light. If it bothers Peter, he doesn't say so, just closes his eyes under the hot water and lets it pour down.
"Pete?" James asks after a bit.
"Yeah?" Peter turns under the water to face James. His eyelashes are wet and slick, parted into thick fins like a dark sunburst around his eyes.
"Can I tell you something?"
Peter nods, runs his hands over his hair to push the water away. "Sure."
James glances to the ground, kicks his legs back and forth like a little kid. "You can't tell anyone this. Not yet."
Peter wipes his face of water and nods. "Of course."
James blushes, still looking at his feet. "Well. Uh. Lily is." And then he looks up with that familiar brightness, the brightness of youth and vigour and Head Boy and everything working out perfectly. "She might be - well, she probably is - well, I think she definitely is… pregnant."
It takes a moment for Peter to process it, standing stock still as he is under the shower steam. "You're fucking kidding me."
"No," James says, gleaming, "I'm definitely not."
"Oh my god," Peter says, mouth opening wide. "You're goddamn kidding me."
"Am not," James says.
And so Peter gets out of the shower, leaves it running but gets out himself, polished with wet, hair all a-tangle, tingling in the cold air but compelled by the singularly drunk desire to hug James. He does, and James yelps and laughs and hugs him back, getting wet and cold himself, but hugging Peter, pressing hands into the smooth wings of his shoulder blades and then down into the scoop of the small of his back, pressing lips into the soapy-bitter curve of his neck, almost crying and holding him tight.
They pull away partially, their arms still wrapped tight around bodies and match gleaming grins.
"It's insane, I know," James says. "I'm just - it's so fucking amazing, isn't it?"
"It is," Peter replies embarrassed by the huskiness of his voice. "I can't believe it."
And then it feels natural to kiss, so Peter leans in and traps James in quick, wet affection. The laughter fades in trailing chuckles, and they don't let go, just exchange curious glances, affectionate questions.
And then Peter leans in again, and his affection is not quick, it's long and has a small pink tongue that flicks teasingly along the line of James' teeth. And his affection has a hand that touches the waist of James' boxers, that teases the hem of his shirt, that slides along smooth skin until it rolls over the curve of James' arse.
"Peter," James says in a half-shocked whisper, pulling away from the kiss. "What's this?"
"I'm drunk," Peter manages in a moment of clarity.
"We're always drunk," comes James' bitten-back reply. "Why now?"
"Why not?" And he pulls his kisses along the line of James' jaw, down to bite viciously at his neck, confidently leaving his mark as he goes.
"Peter, what the -" and James groans as Peter grabs his cock, holding it easily and fumbling it to hardness. He's eyes are hard-set, determined almost, as if fighting against the odds. Who is this boy, James wonders. Not the pudgy eleven-year-old with stars in his eyes. Not the fourteen-year-old suck-up who trailed James whenever he could. Not the growing sixteen-year-old who inexplicably defended James' honour to all comers. Not the stolid seventeen-year-old for whom studying meant coaxing James to skip class and in the fields by the lake to talk abstractly about the nature of the world. Not the sullen nineteen-year-old who was essentially dragged into war. Now, a confident twenty-year-old, muscled and brilliant, forceful and ferocious and fascist. Cowardly lion turned Nemean.
There's a kind of desperation to the way Peter grabs the back of James' neck, grinds their hips together; like it's a matter between death or come, that bad things will happen if they don't orgasm. The urgency winds them up, makes James as taut as a bow-string, pressed back against the cold tile of the bathroom counter. It hurts; the sharp line of the granite counter-top cutting a line into his arse, the bolt of the faucet digging into his back when Peter kisses and bends.
"Pete -" James tries, but too suddenly Peter is on his knees and takes James in his mouth. It's not a half-bad blowjob, even if Peter is rushed and ignorant; lots of teeth and slippery tongue, rough and near-scraping but it makes James groan all the same. He hopes, distantly, that the rushing shower drowns him out, and then Peter licks the underside of his balls and it's all he can do not to scream.
"Stop," he says. And then he laces a hand in Peter's hair and tugs him gently, makes him stand and face him. "Hey, Peter, hey, stop. This isn't going to happen."
Peter stares unknowingly. "What?"
"I don't know - I don't know where this came from, or why, but it's gotta stop." It isn't aggressive, or bitter, or vengeful. Simplicity, almost serenity. "Peter, we just can't do this."
Peter ignores him, but kisses James again, touching a hand to his cheek and pulling them close. "I love you," he pants.
"I love you too," James says. "Of course I do. We just can't do this, all right?"
"No, no," and Peter sighs, pushing back his wet hair again. He looks immediately ashamed, and flushes pink and regards James with the deepest exasperation. "You don't understand."
"Understand what?"
"Nevermind," Peter says. "James, I've looked up to you for years. I was - obsessed with you," Peter says in a kind of surreal monotone. "Couldn't you tell?"
"N-no - I thought you were just -"
"I could think of nothing better than - than being you," Peter says quietly.
"I'm going to go now, okay?" James asks. He turns off the shower and pulls on his boxers. He puts a hand on Peter's shoulder, and Peter just stares at him. "We're just drunk. Sleep this off, and it'll all just be a joke in the morning, all right?"
Peter shakes his head. "Is this it?"
James shrugs. He gives Peter a quick hug.
Peter shakes his head again, but says nothing.
James opens the bathroom door and walks through the dark bedroom, boxer-clad and damp, his hair all in tendrils and his body gleaming with beaded wet. "G'night," he says briskly, not even glancing at Remus or Sirius, just leaving the room to go find Lily.
She's asleep when he finds her. He slides in next to her, curls his arms around her, and kisses the back of her head. Her hair is damp, and she smells of shampoo and fresh clean. It's very simple. And he falls asleep.
Part 2