fic: One Good Turn (The Fair Play Fandango) [HP; Remus/Sirius; adult]
One Good Turn (The Fair Play Fandango)
Harry Potter; Remus/Sirius; adult; 2,035 words
Remus is drunk and it's all Sirius's fault.
Remix of Tables Turned by
lorax. Thanks so much to
snacky for looking it over.
~*~
One Good Turn (The Fair Play Fandango)
"And then he took me to a Muggle pub! Can you imagine? And then he kissed me. He's an amazing kisser. It was brilliant!"
Remus signals the waiter to refill his drink again (it's only his fifth, or possibly sixth), and nods when the waiter tips his head at Amber's. It's not like he's not going to make Sirius pay him back for this disaster of a date.
"Listen," he says when she finally lets him get a word in edgewise. He stopped listening to her twenty minutes ago, but the silence as she drains her glass yet again is too tempting. He speaks slowly, not because he's drunk, but because he wants to make sure she understands. "Listen."
"You said that already."
"Listen," he repeats a third time, stubborn now, "you're a nice girl, but Sirius is not going to go out with you again. He's already got what he wanted, yeah? He only sets me up with the ones he's done with."
"Why you--you--"
"Don't even fancy girls, myself," he says, more to himself than her, which is funny, because it's not like he doesn't know that already. Maybe he is drunk.
"Poncy berk," Amber says and tosses what's left of her Pimms cup in his face.
"Hey now, there's no call for that. Waste of good--well, waste of liquor, anyway." It's stinging his eyes, but he licks his lips before he uses his napkin to wipe the rest of it off his face.
"Hmph." Amber gets up and flounces out and good riddance, Remus thinks darkly.
The waiter shares a commiserating look with him when he drops off the bill, and Remus thinks about asking him out for a drink, but that's probably bad form. Sirius would do it, though. It's Sirius's fault he's here in the first place.
Remus pays the bill and then realizes he's going to have to walk back to the flat because he hasn't any money left. Yet another thing that's Sirius's fault, because if he hadn't been there (clearly Sirius's fault), he wouldn't have had to pay for Amber's damn drinks, as well as her dinner, and the girl must have a hollow leg because she managed to drink him under the table. Which, if he's being honest, is not all that hard to do, because he always used to be the (relatively) sober one, because if James and Sirius were bad sober, they were absolutely terrifying drunk, and someone had to get them home in one piece and remind them that hexing the giant squid never ended well for anyone.
It's pouring when he gets outside. Of course it is, and it wouldn't surprise him at all if Sirius cooked up this storm just to be annoying. He looks up to see if there's just one small raincloud following him around--it'd be just like Sirius to think that was funny, and it's not like he's not capable of it (he and James learned how to work the charmed ceiling in the Great Hall in fifth year)--but he just gets rain in his eyes for his troubles.
"Wouldn't be surprised if I go blind now," he mutters, ignoring the respectable people who are giving him a wide berth as he makes his way home.
He's worked himself into a raging temper by the time he gets to the flat, and it takes him a few seconds to get the door unlocked because Sirius insists on living in a Muggle flat and locking the door with keys in addition to spells (not that his alohamora is slurred or anything), and his hands are unsteady (he's not drunk, he's just furious and chilled to the bone and also, furious), and of course, Sirius has his hand up a girl's skirt when Remus gets the door open.
"If I go blind, it's all your fault," he says, pointing dramatically at Sirius.
Sirius blinks at him. "Wanking doesn't cause blindness."
"Also, if I die of the flu. All your fault." Remus continues to point and adds a glare, first directed at Sirius, then at the half-naked girl on the couch. "If he tries to set you up with me after this, just say no. It won't end well."
The girl--she looks vaguely familiar; Remus thinks she might have been in the year behind them, in Hufflepuff, but he can't recall her name--glares back and starts buttoning her shirt. "Sirius?"
"You better go, love," he says, though his gaze never wavers from Remus.
"Sirius?" The girl sounds incredulous.
Sirius nods and doesn't even have the decency to look embarrassed. "Friends come first," he says.
"He doesn't even remember your name," Remus offers helpfully as the Hufflepuff pulls herself together and stalks out.
"Yes, I do," Sirius calls after her. "It's Stacy, right?"
The girl flips him off and then apparates away.
Sirius turns to Remus. "So how was your date?"
"Sod off, Sirius. You set me up with another one of your cast-offs and all she did was talk about what a great lay you are."
Sirius preens. Conceited bugger. "Well, I am."
Remus tries not to think about it. Remus can't stop thinking about it. Remus can't let Sirius know he thinks about it. "Not the point."
"You're useless, Moony. Not like I sent you out with her to have a drink and a chat. You're about the only bloke she hasn't had a roll with, you know."
Remus steamrolls right over him. "Only reason she went out with me was because you asked. Same as all the others. And it always ends up as me letting them down gently about you and your philandering, ne'er-do-well ways." He doesn't mention that tonight's letdown was less than gentle. Sirius deserves the Howler Amber is no doubt planning to send him.
"Ne'er-do-well? That is not a word for bachelors living the life of free love and not-as-free drinks. It's a stodgy professor word."
"I am a stodgy professor. I just haven't got round to the professoring bit yet."
He's tired all of a sudden, and sad, and he can't seem to get his coat off. He tries pulling it over his head because he can't get the buttons to work right. He gets stuck halfway and makes a low growling noise to show his annoyance.
"Here, let me." Sirius unbuttons the coat and helps him out of it. He wrinkles his nose. "Smells like wet dog."
"I wonder whose fault that is."
"Aw, Moony, don't be like that."
"Sod off."
"You know, you don't stutter or slur or any sort of thing when you're drunk. It's a bit wrong. Could give the impression that you're sober."
"I am not drunk." Remus punctuates this statement by trying to kick off his shoes, but he only manages to kick himself in the ankle. "Merlin's wrinkly ball-sac!"
Sirius laughs, the bastard. "Fine. You're not drunk. Just sopping wet, stumbling around, and yelling at me for trying to get you laid."
"I don't need help getting laid. I could get laid if I wanted to. I could have sex crawling out of my ears." Remus pulls at his earlobe for emphasis and then drops down onto the sofa. He wishes the floor would stop wobbling beneath him.
"Maybe that's where it's all going wrong, then. Sex isn't supposed to involve ears much. Unless there's something you know that I don't." He laughs, as if that's impossible. Remus wants to sink down into the sofa and disappear, because it is impossible. Fucking Sirius and his ability to pull anyone he fancies while totally ignoring one of his best friends. "And unless you've gotten loads better at silencing charms since school, your most loving relationship is with your hand."
Remus shuts his eyes and then opens them. There's a series of small water stains on the ceiling that look like the Pleiades. "It's not the same thing."
"It really is. A little of the old up-and-down, in-and-out, rumpy-pumpy." Sirius makes an obscene gesture. "You don't have to confess all your secrets to someone just for a roll in the hay."
Remus sighs.
"Don't be like that," Sirius says. "I'm sorry I set you up with wossname--"
"Amber."
"Amber. Next time, I'll let Evans pick someone out--someone you could actually fancy."
"Lily knows who I fancy," he says, tipping over so he can curl up on the couch.
"Then it should all work out," Sirius says. He's quiet for long enough that Remus starts to drift off to sleep, and then, "I didn't know you fancied anyone."
Remus buries his face in the cushion and groans.
"Fine, keep your secrets," Sirius says. "Come on, let's get you to bed."
"'M fine right here."
"Catch your death of pneumonia like that," Sirius answers, nudging at him with his foot. "What kind of friend would I be if I let you die of pneumonia?"
"The worst. All your fault."
"Come on, Moony." Sirius hauls him up and starts unbuttoning his shirt.
Remus slaps at his hands in irritation and embarrassment. "I can do it," he says. "You're not my mum." His fingers fumble over the tiny buttons of his shirt and he wonders why there are so fucking many of them. He tries to ignore the way Sirius's long fingers get them open without any trouble. He can feel the heat of Sirius's body even as he shivers when Sirius pushes his shirt off his shoulders.
"You can get your trousers off yourself, yeah?"
"Yeah." Remus's prick, half-hard from Sirius's closeness, twitches at the thought of Sirius unbuttoning his trousers, slipping a hand into his y-fronts.
He presses the heel of his hand to it when Sirius disappears into the bathroom, giving him a moment to breathe.
Sirius comes back with a towel. "Dry yourself off, there's a good lad."
"Sod off. Don't know why I put up with you, bloody plonker."
"I pay half the rent and make sure you get a tumble at least once a year."
Remus drops the towel and stands, angry again and still drunk enough to do something about it. "Is that so?"
He doesn't give Sirius a chance to answer. He curls his fingers in Sirius's shirt and hauls him in for a kiss. He pushes his tongue into Sirius's mouth and licks along his palate, the backside of his front teeth. Sirius shivers against him, and grabs his arse. Remus tries to get closer, shifting his hips and his feet and managing to tangle them with Sirius's.
They stumble and fall, crashing into the coffee table, which splinters beneath their weight.
"Buggering fuck!" Sirius says, but he doesn't let go when Remus tries to disentangle himself.
"I'm so sorry," Remus says, burying his face in Sirius's shoulder. "I think I'm drunk."
He can feel Sirius's laughter vibrating through his body. "You think?" When he looks up, Sirius is grinning at him. "It was a rubbish coffee table anyway."
"I didn't mean--I meant--" Remus tries again to pull away, but Sirius won't let him go.
"I know," Sirius says, kissing him again--his mouth, his cheek, his hair. "I mean, I didn't know, because obviously, we would have been doing this a lot sooner." He thrusts up and Remus can feel the hard line of his cock. It makes his whole body heat up. "I know you don't care about the coffee table."
"Well, it was a bit rubbish," Remus manages, rolling his hips and clinging to Sirius for dear life.
Sirius cups him through his trousers. "Guess you need a hand with this after all."
Remus can only hum into his mouth as Sirius unbuttons his flies and curls his fingers around Remus's cock. It's even better than Remus imagined, all those nights he touched himself and pretended it was Sirius's hands, Sirius's mouth, on his body.
He's still drunk and he's been in love with his best friend for longer than he will ever admit, so after two or three strokes, he comes, pleasure burning through him like starlight.
Sirius uses his other hand to pet Remus's hair gently. "Okay there, Moony?"
"All your fault," Remus answers, and sets about trying to even things up.
end
~*~
This was the next story I wrote. I've known
lorax a long time, and we have many fandoms in common, but I've never remixed her. So when she came up as a pinch hit, I snagged her right away. I was originally going to remix one of her Lucifer stories, but I find his voice really difficult to capture and those stories are woven really tightly, without the gaps or loose threads other stories provide, or, maybe, with less obvious ones that would have taken a lot more time than I had to tease out. Then I tried out the Dark Angel remix (which I did end up finishing also), but couldn't quite figure out how to make it work, so
alittlefaith and angelgazing convinced me that my recent nostalgia for Sirius/Remus was a sign that I should remix one of
lorax's Remus/Sirius stories instead.
This is a very basic POV shift that also expands a little on the original by showing Remus's bad date. I kept a lot of the dialogue the same, even. The title is a play on the original title, but also on the idea that Sirius keeps setting Remus up and Remus repays him here - but I couldn't decide between "one good turn [deserves another]" and "turnabout is fair play" so I kind of combined them. And "fandango" is just a great word.
Anyway,
lorax seemed happy with this remix, and it amuses me, as well. Pining, drunk, cranky Remus and finally catching a clue Sirius. What's not to like? *g*
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/323169.html.
people have commented there.
Harry Potter; Remus/Sirius; adult; 2,035 words
Remus is drunk and it's all Sirius's fault.
Remix of Tables Turned by
lorax. Thanks so much to
snacky for looking it over.
~*~
One Good Turn (The Fair Play Fandango)
"And then he took me to a Muggle pub! Can you imagine? And then he kissed me. He's an amazing kisser. It was brilliant!"
Remus signals the waiter to refill his drink again (it's only his fifth, or possibly sixth), and nods when the waiter tips his head at Amber's. It's not like he's not going to make Sirius pay him back for this disaster of a date.
"Listen," he says when she finally lets him get a word in edgewise. He stopped listening to her twenty minutes ago, but the silence as she drains her glass yet again is too tempting. He speaks slowly, not because he's drunk, but because he wants to make sure she understands. "Listen."
"You said that already."
"Listen," he repeats a third time, stubborn now, "you're a nice girl, but Sirius is not going to go out with you again. He's already got what he wanted, yeah? He only sets me up with the ones he's done with."
"Why you--you--"
"Don't even fancy girls, myself," he says, more to himself than her, which is funny, because it's not like he doesn't know that already. Maybe he is drunk.
"Poncy berk," Amber says and tosses what's left of her Pimms cup in his face.
"Hey now, there's no call for that. Waste of good--well, waste of liquor, anyway." It's stinging his eyes, but he licks his lips before he uses his napkin to wipe the rest of it off his face.
"Hmph." Amber gets up and flounces out and good riddance, Remus thinks darkly.
The waiter shares a commiserating look with him when he drops off the bill, and Remus thinks about asking him out for a drink, but that's probably bad form. Sirius would do it, though. It's Sirius's fault he's here in the first place.
Remus pays the bill and then realizes he's going to have to walk back to the flat because he hasn't any money left. Yet another thing that's Sirius's fault, because if he hadn't been there (clearly Sirius's fault), he wouldn't have had to pay for Amber's damn drinks, as well as her dinner, and the girl must have a hollow leg because she managed to drink him under the table. Which, if he's being honest, is not all that hard to do, because he always used to be the (relatively) sober one, because if James and Sirius were bad sober, they were absolutely terrifying drunk, and someone had to get them home in one piece and remind them that hexing the giant squid never ended well for anyone.
It's pouring when he gets outside. Of course it is, and it wouldn't surprise him at all if Sirius cooked up this storm just to be annoying. He looks up to see if there's just one small raincloud following him around--it'd be just like Sirius to think that was funny, and it's not like he's not capable of it (he and James learned how to work the charmed ceiling in the Great Hall in fifth year)--but he just gets rain in his eyes for his troubles.
"Wouldn't be surprised if I go blind now," he mutters, ignoring the respectable people who are giving him a wide berth as he makes his way home.
He's worked himself into a raging temper by the time he gets to the flat, and it takes him a few seconds to get the door unlocked because Sirius insists on living in a Muggle flat and locking the door with keys in addition to spells (not that his alohamora is slurred or anything), and his hands are unsteady (he's not drunk, he's just furious and chilled to the bone and also, furious), and of course, Sirius has his hand up a girl's skirt when Remus gets the door open.
"If I go blind, it's all your fault," he says, pointing dramatically at Sirius.
Sirius blinks at him. "Wanking doesn't cause blindness."
"Also, if I die of the flu. All your fault." Remus continues to point and adds a glare, first directed at Sirius, then at the half-naked girl on the couch. "If he tries to set you up with me after this, just say no. It won't end well."
The girl--she looks vaguely familiar; Remus thinks she might have been in the year behind them, in Hufflepuff, but he can't recall her name--glares back and starts buttoning her shirt. "Sirius?"
"You better go, love," he says, though his gaze never wavers from Remus.
"Sirius?" The girl sounds incredulous.
Sirius nods and doesn't even have the decency to look embarrassed. "Friends come first," he says.
"He doesn't even remember your name," Remus offers helpfully as the Hufflepuff pulls herself together and stalks out.
"Yes, I do," Sirius calls after her. "It's Stacy, right?"
The girl flips him off and then apparates away.
Sirius turns to Remus. "So how was your date?"
"Sod off, Sirius. You set me up with another one of your cast-offs and all she did was talk about what a great lay you are."
Sirius preens. Conceited bugger. "Well, I am."
Remus tries not to think about it. Remus can't stop thinking about it. Remus can't let Sirius know he thinks about it. "Not the point."
"You're useless, Moony. Not like I sent you out with her to have a drink and a chat. You're about the only bloke she hasn't had a roll with, you know."
Remus steamrolls right over him. "Only reason she went out with me was because you asked. Same as all the others. And it always ends up as me letting them down gently about you and your philandering, ne'er-do-well ways." He doesn't mention that tonight's letdown was less than gentle. Sirius deserves the Howler Amber is no doubt planning to send him.
"Ne'er-do-well? That is not a word for bachelors living the life of free love and not-as-free drinks. It's a stodgy professor word."
"I am a stodgy professor. I just haven't got round to the professoring bit yet."
He's tired all of a sudden, and sad, and he can't seem to get his coat off. He tries pulling it over his head because he can't get the buttons to work right. He gets stuck halfway and makes a low growling noise to show his annoyance.
"Here, let me." Sirius unbuttons the coat and helps him out of it. He wrinkles his nose. "Smells like wet dog."
"I wonder whose fault that is."
"Aw, Moony, don't be like that."
"Sod off."
"You know, you don't stutter or slur or any sort of thing when you're drunk. It's a bit wrong. Could give the impression that you're sober."
"I am not drunk." Remus punctuates this statement by trying to kick off his shoes, but he only manages to kick himself in the ankle. "Merlin's wrinkly ball-sac!"
Sirius laughs, the bastard. "Fine. You're not drunk. Just sopping wet, stumbling around, and yelling at me for trying to get you laid."
"I don't need help getting laid. I could get laid if I wanted to. I could have sex crawling out of my ears." Remus pulls at his earlobe for emphasis and then drops down onto the sofa. He wishes the floor would stop wobbling beneath him.
"Maybe that's where it's all going wrong, then. Sex isn't supposed to involve ears much. Unless there's something you know that I don't." He laughs, as if that's impossible. Remus wants to sink down into the sofa and disappear, because it is impossible. Fucking Sirius and his ability to pull anyone he fancies while totally ignoring one of his best friends. "And unless you've gotten loads better at silencing charms since school, your most loving relationship is with your hand."
Remus shuts his eyes and then opens them. There's a series of small water stains on the ceiling that look like the Pleiades. "It's not the same thing."
"It really is. A little of the old up-and-down, in-and-out, rumpy-pumpy." Sirius makes an obscene gesture. "You don't have to confess all your secrets to someone just for a roll in the hay."
Remus sighs.
"Don't be like that," Sirius says. "I'm sorry I set you up with wossname--"
"Amber."
"Amber. Next time, I'll let Evans pick someone out--someone you could actually fancy."
"Lily knows who I fancy," he says, tipping over so he can curl up on the couch.
"Then it should all work out," Sirius says. He's quiet for long enough that Remus starts to drift off to sleep, and then, "I didn't know you fancied anyone."
Remus buries his face in the cushion and groans.
"Fine, keep your secrets," Sirius says. "Come on, let's get you to bed."
"'M fine right here."
"Catch your death of pneumonia like that," Sirius answers, nudging at him with his foot. "What kind of friend would I be if I let you die of pneumonia?"
"The worst. All your fault."
"Come on, Moony." Sirius hauls him up and starts unbuttoning his shirt.
Remus slaps at his hands in irritation and embarrassment. "I can do it," he says. "You're not my mum." His fingers fumble over the tiny buttons of his shirt and he wonders why there are so fucking many of them. He tries to ignore the way Sirius's long fingers get them open without any trouble. He can feel the heat of Sirius's body even as he shivers when Sirius pushes his shirt off his shoulders.
"You can get your trousers off yourself, yeah?"
"Yeah." Remus's prick, half-hard from Sirius's closeness, twitches at the thought of Sirius unbuttoning his trousers, slipping a hand into his y-fronts.
He presses the heel of his hand to it when Sirius disappears into the bathroom, giving him a moment to breathe.
Sirius comes back with a towel. "Dry yourself off, there's a good lad."
"Sod off. Don't know why I put up with you, bloody plonker."
"I pay half the rent and make sure you get a tumble at least once a year."
Remus drops the towel and stands, angry again and still drunk enough to do something about it. "Is that so?"
He doesn't give Sirius a chance to answer. He curls his fingers in Sirius's shirt and hauls him in for a kiss. He pushes his tongue into Sirius's mouth and licks along his palate, the backside of his front teeth. Sirius shivers against him, and grabs his arse. Remus tries to get closer, shifting his hips and his feet and managing to tangle them with Sirius's.
They stumble and fall, crashing into the coffee table, which splinters beneath their weight.
"Buggering fuck!" Sirius says, but he doesn't let go when Remus tries to disentangle himself.
"I'm so sorry," Remus says, burying his face in Sirius's shoulder. "I think I'm drunk."
He can feel Sirius's laughter vibrating through his body. "You think?" When he looks up, Sirius is grinning at him. "It was a rubbish coffee table anyway."
"I didn't mean--I meant--" Remus tries again to pull away, but Sirius won't let him go.
"I know," Sirius says, kissing him again--his mouth, his cheek, his hair. "I mean, I didn't know, because obviously, we would have been doing this a lot sooner." He thrusts up and Remus can feel the hard line of his cock. It makes his whole body heat up. "I know you don't care about the coffee table."
"Well, it was a bit rubbish," Remus manages, rolling his hips and clinging to Sirius for dear life.
Sirius cups him through his trousers. "Guess you need a hand with this after all."
Remus can only hum into his mouth as Sirius unbuttons his flies and curls his fingers around Remus's cock. It's even better than Remus imagined, all those nights he touched himself and pretended it was Sirius's hands, Sirius's mouth, on his body.
He's still drunk and he's been in love with his best friend for longer than he will ever admit, so after two or three strokes, he comes, pleasure burning through him like starlight.
Sirius uses his other hand to pet Remus's hair gently. "Okay there, Moony?"
"All your fault," Remus answers, and sets about trying to even things up.
end
~*~
This was the next story I wrote. I've known
lorax a long time, and we have many fandoms in common, but I've never remixed her. So when she came up as a pinch hit, I snagged her right away. I was originally going to remix one of her Lucifer stories, but I find his voice really difficult to capture and those stories are woven really tightly, without the gaps or loose threads other stories provide, or, maybe, with less obvious ones that would have taken a lot more time than I had to tease out. Then I tried out the Dark Angel remix (which I did end up finishing also), but couldn't quite figure out how to make it work, so
alittlefaith and angelgazing convinced me that my recent nostalgia for Sirius/Remus was a sign that I should remix one of
lorax's Remus/Sirius stories instead.
This is a very basic POV shift that also expands a little on the original by showing Remus's bad date. I kept a lot of the dialogue the same, even. The title is a play on the original title, but also on the idea that Sirius keeps setting Remus up and Remus repays him here - but I couldn't decide between "one good turn [deserves another]" and "turnabout is fair play" so I kind of combined them. And "fandango" is just a great word.
Anyway,
lorax seemed happy with this remix, and it amuses me, as well. Pining, drunk, cranky Remus and finally catching a clue Sirius. What's not to like? *g*
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/323169.html.
people have commented there.