Fandom: Harry Potter
Summary:
“It’s silly,” Sirius said. “You’ll think I’m absurd.”
“I always think you’re absurd,” Remus countered, but with a fondness in his voice that entirely undermined his words.
Characters: Remus/Sirius
Words: 700
Notes:
I've been doing
Flash Fiction February, using it as a chance to focus on original fiction...but a couple of days ago, Remus and Sirius snuck into the day's prompt anyway. :-)
(Also, it's been so long since the days when I used to dash off one-shots easily and at a moment's notice. So doing this now was satisfying and fun!)
Read here below or
on AO3.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“What is it?” Remus asked, not even looking up from his book.
How did he do that?
“What is what?” Sirius tried, in a poor attempt at nonchalance.
Now Remus did look up, lowering his reading glasses down his nose so he could look over their rims at Sirius’ side of the bed and smirk. “You’ve been huffing and sighing all morning. You think I don’t know you? What bee’s got into your bonnet this time?”
“I categorically reject the notion that I am a person prone to getting bees in bonnets,” Sirius said loftily-or in a manner that was trying to be lofty, but mostly failed, given that Sirius was ensconced deep in a pile of blankets so fluffy and luxurious that they threatened to obscure him from view entirely. Even now, Remus’ face was half hidden behind the caldera of fabric that ringed Sirius’ field of view.
With some effort, Sirius shoved himself up to lean on his elbows, and shook the hair out of his face. Remus continued to gaze over at him with one eyebrow lifted, a trace of a smirk still tickling at his lips. Remus, as recent developments had revealed, was unfairly sexy in reading glasses.
“It’s silly,” Sirius said. “You’ll think I’m absurd.”
“I always think you’re absurd,” Remus countered, but with a fondness in his voice that entirely undermined his words.
“Fine,” Sirius said. “Fine. It’s just, we haven’t seen Harry and Ginny and the kids in almost three weeks. What kind of godparents are we, if we haven’t seen them in weeks?”
Remus looked at him a moment longer, then burst out laughing. “Really? That’s what’s got you in a mood?” Remus set his book aside-although not before carefully marking his place with a tattered old bookmark, one that Sirius had bought him on a trip they’d taken to Wales-and motioned Sirius towards him. “Come here.”
Sirius was more than happy to oblige. He extricated himself from the nest of blankets, then pressed against Remus’ side and rubbed his morning stubble against Remus’ neck until Remus yelped.
“Quit it,” Remus complained.
Sirius did quit it, though he grinned up at Remus unrepentantly.
“Oh, honestly,” Remus said. But he wrapped an arm around Sirius and pulled him closer, so Sirius’ head came to rest against Remus’ shoulder. “We’ll Floo Harry and Ginny later, all right? Maybe they’ll want to come over for lunch tomorrow, with the kids. I’ll be sure to make clear that you’re pining away for lack of seeing their faces. Is that an accurate assessment?”
“Very accurate,” said Sirius, putting on his most pitiful face. “I’m pining most terribly. If I don’t get an opportunity to let Harry and his terrifyingly talented wife fly circles around me in a pick-up Quidditch match, whilst you engage the children in charming and secretly educational garden adventures, I may expire.”
“Well,” Remus said, his voice warm. “We certainly wouldn’t want that.” After a moment’s quiet, he added, “Pads, you do know you can Floo them at any time. They’re busy adults now with full-time jobs and three kids, but it’s not as though they ever forget you.”
“I know,” Sirius said. And he did know. But sometimes, still, it helped to hear Remus say it: that they were okay, and Harry was okay, and everything was all right. Impulsively, he turned his face up to Remus and said, “You’re wonderful, did you know that?”
It gratified Sirius to no end, that after all these years he could still make Remus blush.
“Now you really are being absurd,” Remus said, looking delightfully pink about the ears.
“But you love me anyway?” Sirius prompted.
“But I love you anyway,” Remus agreed, his mouth twitching up into a smile. He threaded a hand into Sirius’ hair, carding his fingers through the strands. Sirius nudged his head against Remus’ hand, urging him to do it again; some canine habits were hard to quash no matter what physical form Sirius was in. Remus’ smile widened, unselfconscious and fond. “Is your angst assuaged?” he murmured. “Are you content?”
“Yes,” Sirius said, turning his head so he could breathe the word into Remus’ collarbone. “Yes, utterly.”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
End notes:
You know, I've never really written post-canon Remus/Sirius. I write them younger, or in complete AUs (where I can let everybody live!), but don't really touch the question of canon-and-afterwards.
But February 17's flash fiction prompt was "mood," and my mind immediately leapt to Sirius, and this unfolded. A little glimpse of post-canon happiness for these two.
.
(Crossposted from
this post on Dreamwidth, which is now my primary journal. Comments are fine in either place.)