Fic: With Hindsight, Remus/James, NC17
Continuing my habit of posting fics when I'm pretty sure everyone else is busy reading other things…
Title: With Hindsight
Pairing: Remus/James
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Remus has a bit of an obsession with baths, while James has a bit of an obsession with Remus.
Warnings: Voyeurism. Sort-of. And UST.
Notes: It has been said that I have a fetish for writing bath and bathroom-related porn. That may be true, but I think it's more to do with the fact that my flat has only a shower cubicle and no bathtub, and I yearn pathetically for baths in the winter.
For the long-past birthday of cynicalpirate, another true Remus/James lover.
"I'm just having a bath," is the innocuous statement it starts with, bath being one of those bland everyday words that James' quick brain barely listens to. Until he pauses in his progress through Linda Bell - A Life in Quidditch and wonders what the hell Remus needs with their bath, or whether certain persons had failed to pay the bills again ("All those columns of numbers, James") and they had no hot water and no inclination to conjure themselves some.
He gets up and follows Remus, folding his arms across his chest. "And what on God's earth is wrong with your bath?" James asks suspiciously, because Sirius also holds some very childish views about the unnecessary evils of baths in general. The bathtub in the Black-Lupin household (if you could call it a household; 'dump' would have been more accurate, or maybe 'squat') is possibly filled with gravy or lime jelly, or rum and cola, or the dismembered remains of Severus Snape on ice.
"We don't have one," Remus insists, confused, pausing in the hallway with a small, grubby-looking towel slung over his shoulder.
"Really?" James tries to picture the bathroom in Sirius' flat, which is difficult when he usually only sees it at times when the room is spinning and his head is too far down the toilet, but all he can recall is the nasty scum-green colour of the fittings that is even more luridly offensive when he's absolutely smashed.
"I did have a really good look," Remus says dryly.
"Right, yes." James frowns. "Carry on then."
Remus slams the bathroom door in a way that somehow feels sarcastic, and James is left with nothing to do but go back to the biography he's been reading, though he does make a mental note to check for secret baths next time he's round Sirius'.
At least half an hour later, Remus finally reappears, flushed pink all over and with his hair a mass of damp frizzy curls. "I'll have one too," James says pointedly, when Remus rather too naturally reaches into the cupboard and pours himself a glass of wine.
Remus is looking a bit embarrassed, leaning against the kitchen counter, pulling at where his thin shirt sticks to his wet skin, and finally blurts out, "Sirius says baths are for girls", which James understands means 'don't tell him'.
"What do you do then," James says after his first sip, "when Sirius' girlfriend wants a bath? Or yours," he adds hurriedly, because it takes a while to get used to Remus having girlfriends.
Remus grins. "I think if they get familiar enough to want to have a bath round ours, he dumps them. And Sue isn't the bath type."
No, James thinks. Sue has a good ten years on Remus in age, if not more (he's rather reticent about it), and she's more the healthy scrub-down in a bucket of iced water type, and would no doubt follow that up with a six-mile jog and then the sort of loud and violent sex that Sirius insists gives him nightmares.
James shudders and takes a hasty gulp of wine.
#
Sirius has never been good with central heating, magical or Muggle, and it's getting on for November now; constant cold and persistent rain for three days. James is supposed to be reading up on cutting charms for a colleague, but he's already on his second glass of wine (to give him a bit of motivation), and he can feel the wicked smile slide onto his face when he hears a quiet crack and out of the corner of his eye notices Remus creeping down the hallway with an ugly tartan housecoat over his arm.
When Remus emerges from the bathroom -- hot and sweaty again but looking surprisingly fetching in dark red -- James feels a little nostalgic; a tiny ache of longing for times spent living in a dormitory with his three best friends, the camaraderie and casual violence, and falling asleep listening to three very different patterns of snoring. He's strangely reminded of late nights in the common room by the fire, while Remus pays no attention to James' sudden dreamy gaze and sets about making himself a cup of tea, spoon tinkling around the mug.
"C'mere," says James impulsively, and Remus potters obediently over and sets his drink down on the coffee table.
James doesn't pull Remus into his lap as he used to when they were fourteen, but Remus settles close enough for James to reach and run his fingers through the pretty brown curls he always had such a bizarre passion for.
"Moony," James murmurs, and Remus nudges his head in sleepily, happily submitting to being petted, and James can feel the tearing heat of his clammy skin as Remus' head droops down against his shoulder. James loops one arm around Remus' waist, and tilts his head to the side, letting his other hand stroke through the soft hair at the top of Remus' neck, where it spirals into tiny, downy curls.
"Hush, hush," James finds himself whispering gruffly, as if comforting a small child or animal. He remembers this all too well; a stormy dark night lashing outside and Remus soft and gangly and boneless across his lap, their homework spread over the floor and forgotten.
#
"I'm tired," Remus moans, and James, knuckles white either side of his book, refuses to look up because he can smell the warm and wet and clean pouring off Remus.
"James," Remus complains, "come on; I'm bored and I can’t go home."
"Don't see why not."
"He's got that girl over, the awful ginger one. You must know the rumours about redheads. She's fucking mad and fucking loud."
James has to look up then, at Remus' face and bright-pink flushed cheeks. "He's probably just trying to get back at you." Remus manages to blush, somehow going even redder. "Bath too hot?"
"Yeah, made me sleepy." He's looking hopeful and a bit wistful. James knows what he's asking, but there's no way in hell he'll let Remus sleep with his head on his lap because it was embarrassing enough at school. But there's that delicate wet curl thing again, and two seconds after one of James' hands has twitched involuntarily towards them, Remus has pushed him back and started to drift off, head on James' shoulder, the rest of him full-length along James' body and barely a single one of his shirt buttons fastened properly.
Remus may be perfectly relaxed like this, but the pink-blotched skin and shining sleepy eyes make James tense and hard, arousal twisting slowly and painfully through him. Remus' left hand is cupped delicately to James' hip, and he's frighteningly aware of how near it is to his cock, spends several minutes estimating the distance between the tip of Remus' thumb-nail and the tip of his own erection to the nearest eighth of an inch.
Now, James is wondering why no-one ever said anything, when they were fourteen, fifteen; why Sirius never called him a ponce and meant it, and why Remus is just too fucking thick to notice. He's only had two sips of wine this evening (and now there's too much drowsy weight on him to reach the glass), but James really starts to hate himself when he tilts his right hip just to make Remus' fingers shift in a little.
"Jamie," Remus mumbles, and James feels a sharp thrill of fear and love.
"Hush," he says, "just trying to get my wine."
"Mmph," Remus agrees, palm curling frustratingly back to James' hip-bone.
#
"Thought you had a date," James asks with thinly-veiled contempt, because he's already got to that stage, all resentful and bitter, where it's plainly Remus' fault. Remus must know that he shouldn't be standing in James' kitchen smelling like Lily's vanilla bubble-bath and wearing a fluffy towelling housecoat that displays his knees, for god's sake. Even when James was sixteen and wildly in love with Lily he can’t remember ever getting hard just from knees.
"Nah," Remus says blithely, "think it's militant lesbian feminists reading-group night, or something," and for the first time James wonders if what Remus sees in Sue is that strident, hearty, trousers-and-cropped-hair quality, and he's a little thrown.
"She's not…"
"Definitely not," Remus says with too much warmth and James is hovering behind him, frantically and insanely jealous, especially because it's been weeks for him.
And then Remus turns and they're nose to nose, a startled look in Remus' brown eyes before he blinks rather ferociously and his wet eyelashes clump together in enticing new combinations. "Jamie," Remus whispers, and that has to be the beginning of the end. James finds his hands don't know where to put themselves, as they can't reach the sideboard that's a good two feet behind Remus, but anywhere else would actually be touching Remus so instead he leaves them to twitch and curl at his sides.
Their noses touch first, and it's Remus that moved because James hears his bare feet squeak on the linoleum floor tiles. For a bit it's just breathing, Remus' sugared-tea breaths that are warm and heavy and James sighs, an unfortunate little whimper hiccupping out right at the end, and he gives in. They don't open their mouths, just touch their lips together, a press of skin on skin while James inhales Remus' scent, overwhelmed with how thickly his blood is flowing.
"We can't," he mumbles to the corner of Remus' mouth, and an ever-so-slight inclination of Remus' head is an agreement.
James fists a handful of Remus' dressing gown, but merely presses his face into Remus' hair, his mouth full of wet curls, and Remus just hugs him back, holding with one rough arm.
#
James had just started eating; a sandwich containing corned beef, cold baked beans and pickled beetroot, because he had a strange knack for shopping for very useful items that were near impossible to cobble together into meals - a talent that seems to awe Lily even more than it annoys her. When Remus breezes in wearing only a long shirt and a pair of striped socks to cover his shame, half the filling falls out of James' sandwich and onto the plate with an unappetising wet slap, and he's suddenly no longer hungry anyway.
"Just borrowing your bathroom," Remus says, before his interest is taken by the huge slab of Lily's grandmother's Christmas cake that he and Lily are still trying to plough their way through over a month later. "Ooh."
James watches Remus cutting himself a slice, and then taking his time peeling away the marzipan before popping a large piece into his mouth with too much licking of fingers, though it's still better than James' other option: watching the twitching hem of Remus' shirt. "Mmm, good density," Remus mumbles through his mouthful.
"Borrowing a towel too," James says resentfully, "because I notice you haven't brought one."
"Sirius is wearing it," Remus claims, folding more cake into a napkin, presumably to eat in the bath. "We've only had the one for a while now."
James is always shocked at the lethargic, messy squalor that Sirius and Remus live in, even though he knows he'd be joining right in if he didn't have a girl to make him do everything properly. "Disgusting," he says, "I'll give you one of ours to keep."
Remus nods, and James whirls off to fetch it, knowing that if Remus didn't accept the offer of the towel as a gift then he'd find himself doing something repulsive like sniffing it after he'd gone.
When James has finally ferreted out a spare that Lily won't easily miss, the bathroom door is closed, and he can hear the low thundering of running water. He fidgets nervously, confused and jealous of the worn-through beach towel that will soon get to caress Remus in ways he never will. "Remus," he whines rather desperately.
"Door's not locked, just hoy it in." James hesitates. "I'm fully dressed," Remus adds, voice soft with a touch of sympathy. Not true, James thinks angrily; he's quite sure it's extremely bad manners to turn up round anyone's house so scandalously under-clothed.
He opens the door only enough to fit his hand through and drops the towel just inside, but then, in a truly unspeakably pathetic way, James finds himself hovering in the doorway as he hears the tinny squeak of taps being adjusted and a soft shifting of material. And then, too easily, he's sitting himself down on the carpet, hand on the doorframe and one temple pressed to the thin wood of the door.
It's the nearest he'll let himself get to seeing, but he's only just beginning to discover how many neat images his brain has been storing up of every single time he's ever seen Remus naked; crumpled and bleeding in the Hospital Wing, splayed out across his sheets during a sticky July, streaking across the castle courtyard in the midnight snow with a flash of white bottom.
Beginning to stroke his thumb across the varnished wood, in his mind's eye James can see the careful arch of Remus' spine as he finally turns the water off and steps in, even almost hearing the quick gasp of too-hot water as Remus wiggles his toes and gets used to the temperature, his pert arse flexing with his movements. Remus then clambers in, one heavy slop of displaced water, probably lies back, arms rested on the sides and knees crook'd.
There's a tightness in James' chest and he sighs, breath trembling in short shuddery spurts on the exhale. If you're talking full-frontal, he can't remember the last time he actually saw Remus properly naked, though there's a muddled memory of dressing for bed one night, late in seventh year, the very curly and surprisingly dark line of hair trailed down Remus' belly, and the blush staining Remus' cheeks as he caught James looking.
These thoughts shouldn't be erotic, not by any stretch of imagination. Murky bathwater with floating crumbs of fruitcake, probably, the air heavy with steam and the scent of whichever of Lily's bath products Remus has stolen this time. It's just Remus, naked, wet and sticky, licking more crumbs from his fingers as he finishes eating.
James curls protectively around his erection, knees hitched to his chest, scared to move in case he's caught. There's another slurp of water, which has to be Remus reaching for the soap. My soap, James thinks defensively, as if that makes it all alright. It's his property, his soap and water and bathroom, even his friend that he's spying on.
It's just Remus, but there was always a warm flutter, even just dabbing the dirt from cuts and grazes the night after full moon, and this feeling is more like a tearing spark as he imagines the slap and trickley wet noise to be Remus sliding the bar of soap over skin, down the centre of his ribcage and through soft hair. Remus washing himself, splashes of water as his soapy fingers find their way to cleaning every last dip and crease, between toes and behind knees and elbows, along smooth muscled thighs and carefully around his balls and prick.
For all James knows, Remus could be playing childish splashing games with the rubber ducky that Lily insisted it was mandatory to have in every bathroom, but in his head Remus is wrapping one graceful hand around his thickening cock and James fumbles as silently as he can through the tangled layers of clothing covering his own lap so that he can do the same.
He sighs as he finds skin, the thumb of his left hand brushing the tip of his prick where it pushes easily through the opened buttons of his underwear, while inside the bathroom the sloshing of water continues. James' fingernails curl into the doorframe, eyes closing to see Remus splayed out in the bath, lips parted and a sheen of water and sweat covering his skin as he lazily touches himself with one hand that slaps regularly through the bathwater.
James squeezes his palm around the length of his cock, then begins to stroke himself slowly, in time with the gentle splashing. It seems unfair, somehow, that despite sharing a bedroom and bathroom with Remus for seven years he doesn't have any real memories of this. That Remus was always too careful to lock doors and charm his bed-curtains, and that he himself was never forward enough to sneak more than the odd look.
There's a sudden gulping noise. The sound of Remus choking on a lump of dried orange peel most likely, but still James' hand pauses, his whole body freezing due to a kind of shocked lust that pours through him and then he starts up again, curled fingers sliding faster. The rhythmic sloshes of water have stopped now, stopped. Because Remus has finished, surely, that strained, desperate gulp being the soft moan of him coming.
James tilts his head and bites into the paintwork of the doorframe as he comes, a painful, relieved rush of pleasure, wet over his fingers. He shivers, wipes his hand on his robes and hugs his arms around his knees, huddling into himself as the shame pours over him.
#
It's two weeks later, two weeks, but James is hard and blushing five seconds after Remus has shouted "Bath!" hurriedly and dashed down the hallway. James uncurls from the sofa and hobbles through towards the bathroom, then pressing his forehead to the wall next to the door and taking deep breaths.
"James," Remus says, and although his voice is low and hoarse James starts. He looks up and Remus is leaning out of the bathroom door, nails sharp on the doorframe, his eyes wide and a little glossy. "Come in with me."
James hesitates, just for half a second, but he feels terrible guilt for it. "Can't."
Remus nods. "But you'll wait-"
"Yes." James blushes even more fiercely, and Remus nods again. The door closes with a quiet click, and James slides slowly down the wall.
Title: With Hindsight
Pairing: Remus/James
Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Summary: Remus has a bit of an obsession with baths, while James has a bit of an obsession with Remus.
Warnings: Voyeurism. Sort-of. And UST.
Notes: It has been said that I have a fetish for writing bath and bathroom-related porn. That may be true, but I think it's more to do with the fact that my flat has only a shower cubicle and no bathtub, and I yearn pathetically for baths in the winter.
For the long-past birthday of cynicalpirate, another true Remus/James lover.
"I'm just having a bath," is the innocuous statement it starts with, bath being one of those bland everyday words that James' quick brain barely listens to. Until he pauses in his progress through Linda Bell - A Life in Quidditch and wonders what the hell Remus needs with their bath, or whether certain persons had failed to pay the bills again ("All those columns of numbers, James") and they had no hot water and no inclination to conjure themselves some.
He gets up and follows Remus, folding his arms across his chest. "And what on God's earth is wrong with your bath?" James asks suspiciously, because Sirius also holds some very childish views about the unnecessary evils of baths in general. The bathtub in the Black-Lupin household (if you could call it a household; 'dump' would have been more accurate, or maybe 'squat') is possibly filled with gravy or lime jelly, or rum and cola, or the dismembered remains of Severus Snape on ice.
"We don't have one," Remus insists, confused, pausing in the hallway with a small, grubby-looking towel slung over his shoulder.
"Really?" James tries to picture the bathroom in Sirius' flat, which is difficult when he usually only sees it at times when the room is spinning and his head is too far down the toilet, but all he can recall is the nasty scum-green colour of the fittings that is even more luridly offensive when he's absolutely smashed.
"I did have a really good look," Remus says dryly.
"Right, yes." James frowns. "Carry on then."
Remus slams the bathroom door in a way that somehow feels sarcastic, and James is left with nothing to do but go back to the biography he's been reading, though he does make a mental note to check for secret baths next time he's round Sirius'.
At least half an hour later, Remus finally reappears, flushed pink all over and with his hair a mass of damp frizzy curls. "I'll have one too," James says pointedly, when Remus rather too naturally reaches into the cupboard and pours himself a glass of wine.
Remus is looking a bit embarrassed, leaning against the kitchen counter, pulling at where his thin shirt sticks to his wet skin, and finally blurts out, "Sirius says baths are for girls", which James understands means 'don't tell him'.
"What do you do then," James says after his first sip, "when Sirius' girlfriend wants a bath? Or yours," he adds hurriedly, because it takes a while to get used to Remus having girlfriends.
Remus grins. "I think if they get familiar enough to want to have a bath round ours, he dumps them. And Sue isn't the bath type."
No, James thinks. Sue has a good ten years on Remus in age, if not more (he's rather reticent about it), and she's more the healthy scrub-down in a bucket of iced water type, and would no doubt follow that up with a six-mile jog and then the sort of loud and violent sex that Sirius insists gives him nightmares.
James shudders and takes a hasty gulp of wine.
#
Sirius has never been good with central heating, magical or Muggle, and it's getting on for November now; constant cold and persistent rain for three days. James is supposed to be reading up on cutting charms for a colleague, but he's already on his second glass of wine (to give him a bit of motivation), and he can feel the wicked smile slide onto his face when he hears a quiet crack and out of the corner of his eye notices Remus creeping down the hallway with an ugly tartan housecoat over his arm.
When Remus emerges from the bathroom -- hot and sweaty again but looking surprisingly fetching in dark red -- James feels a little nostalgic; a tiny ache of longing for times spent living in a dormitory with his three best friends, the camaraderie and casual violence, and falling asleep listening to three very different patterns of snoring. He's strangely reminded of late nights in the common room by the fire, while Remus pays no attention to James' sudden dreamy gaze and sets about making himself a cup of tea, spoon tinkling around the mug.
"C'mere," says James impulsively, and Remus potters obediently over and sets his drink down on the coffee table.
James doesn't pull Remus into his lap as he used to when they were fourteen, but Remus settles close enough for James to reach and run his fingers through the pretty brown curls he always had such a bizarre passion for.
"Moony," James murmurs, and Remus nudges his head in sleepily, happily submitting to being petted, and James can feel the tearing heat of his clammy skin as Remus' head droops down against his shoulder. James loops one arm around Remus' waist, and tilts his head to the side, letting his other hand stroke through the soft hair at the top of Remus' neck, where it spirals into tiny, downy curls.
"Hush, hush," James finds himself whispering gruffly, as if comforting a small child or animal. He remembers this all too well; a stormy dark night lashing outside and Remus soft and gangly and boneless across his lap, their homework spread over the floor and forgotten.
#
"I'm tired," Remus moans, and James, knuckles white either side of his book, refuses to look up because he can smell the warm and wet and clean pouring off Remus.
"James," Remus complains, "come on; I'm bored and I can’t go home."
"Don't see why not."
"He's got that girl over, the awful ginger one. You must know the rumours about redheads. She's fucking mad and fucking loud."
James has to look up then, at Remus' face and bright-pink flushed cheeks. "He's probably just trying to get back at you." Remus manages to blush, somehow going even redder. "Bath too hot?"
"Yeah, made me sleepy." He's looking hopeful and a bit wistful. James knows what he's asking, but there's no way in hell he'll let Remus sleep with his head on his lap because it was embarrassing enough at school. But there's that delicate wet curl thing again, and two seconds after one of James' hands has twitched involuntarily towards them, Remus has pushed him back and started to drift off, head on James' shoulder, the rest of him full-length along James' body and barely a single one of his shirt buttons fastened properly.
Remus may be perfectly relaxed like this, but the pink-blotched skin and shining sleepy eyes make James tense and hard, arousal twisting slowly and painfully through him. Remus' left hand is cupped delicately to James' hip, and he's frighteningly aware of how near it is to his cock, spends several minutes estimating the distance between the tip of Remus' thumb-nail and the tip of his own erection to the nearest eighth of an inch.
Now, James is wondering why no-one ever said anything, when they were fourteen, fifteen; why Sirius never called him a ponce and meant it, and why Remus is just too fucking thick to notice. He's only had two sips of wine this evening (and now there's too much drowsy weight on him to reach the glass), but James really starts to hate himself when he tilts his right hip just to make Remus' fingers shift in a little.
"Jamie," Remus mumbles, and James feels a sharp thrill of fear and love.
"Hush," he says, "just trying to get my wine."
"Mmph," Remus agrees, palm curling frustratingly back to James' hip-bone.
#
"Thought you had a date," James asks with thinly-veiled contempt, because he's already got to that stage, all resentful and bitter, where it's plainly Remus' fault. Remus must know that he shouldn't be standing in James' kitchen smelling like Lily's vanilla bubble-bath and wearing a fluffy towelling housecoat that displays his knees, for god's sake. Even when James was sixteen and wildly in love with Lily he can’t remember ever getting hard just from knees.
"Nah," Remus says blithely, "think it's militant lesbian feminists reading-group night, or something," and for the first time James wonders if what Remus sees in Sue is that strident, hearty, trousers-and-cropped-hair quality, and he's a little thrown.
"She's not…"
"Definitely not," Remus says with too much warmth and James is hovering behind him, frantically and insanely jealous, especially because it's been weeks for him.
And then Remus turns and they're nose to nose, a startled look in Remus' brown eyes before he blinks rather ferociously and his wet eyelashes clump together in enticing new combinations. "Jamie," Remus whispers, and that has to be the beginning of the end. James finds his hands don't know where to put themselves, as they can't reach the sideboard that's a good two feet behind Remus, but anywhere else would actually be touching Remus so instead he leaves them to twitch and curl at his sides.
Their noses touch first, and it's Remus that moved because James hears his bare feet squeak on the linoleum floor tiles. For a bit it's just breathing, Remus' sugared-tea breaths that are warm and heavy and James sighs, an unfortunate little whimper hiccupping out right at the end, and he gives in. They don't open their mouths, just touch their lips together, a press of skin on skin while James inhales Remus' scent, overwhelmed with how thickly his blood is flowing.
"We can't," he mumbles to the corner of Remus' mouth, and an ever-so-slight inclination of Remus' head is an agreement.
James fists a handful of Remus' dressing gown, but merely presses his face into Remus' hair, his mouth full of wet curls, and Remus just hugs him back, holding with one rough arm.
#
James had just started eating; a sandwich containing corned beef, cold baked beans and pickled beetroot, because he had a strange knack for shopping for very useful items that were near impossible to cobble together into meals - a talent that seems to awe Lily even more than it annoys her. When Remus breezes in wearing only a long shirt and a pair of striped socks to cover his shame, half the filling falls out of James' sandwich and onto the plate with an unappetising wet slap, and he's suddenly no longer hungry anyway.
"Just borrowing your bathroom," Remus says, before his interest is taken by the huge slab of Lily's grandmother's Christmas cake that he and Lily are still trying to plough their way through over a month later. "Ooh."
James watches Remus cutting himself a slice, and then taking his time peeling away the marzipan before popping a large piece into his mouth with too much licking of fingers, though it's still better than James' other option: watching the twitching hem of Remus' shirt. "Mmm, good density," Remus mumbles through his mouthful.
"Borrowing a towel too," James says resentfully, "because I notice you haven't brought one."
"Sirius is wearing it," Remus claims, folding more cake into a napkin, presumably to eat in the bath. "We've only had the one for a while now."
James is always shocked at the lethargic, messy squalor that Sirius and Remus live in, even though he knows he'd be joining right in if he didn't have a girl to make him do everything properly. "Disgusting," he says, "I'll give you one of ours to keep."
Remus nods, and James whirls off to fetch it, knowing that if Remus didn't accept the offer of the towel as a gift then he'd find himself doing something repulsive like sniffing it after he'd gone.
When James has finally ferreted out a spare that Lily won't easily miss, the bathroom door is closed, and he can hear the low thundering of running water. He fidgets nervously, confused and jealous of the worn-through beach towel that will soon get to caress Remus in ways he never will. "Remus," he whines rather desperately.
"Door's not locked, just hoy it in." James hesitates. "I'm fully dressed," Remus adds, voice soft with a touch of sympathy. Not true, James thinks angrily; he's quite sure it's extremely bad manners to turn up round anyone's house so scandalously under-clothed.
He opens the door only enough to fit his hand through and drops the towel just inside, but then, in a truly unspeakably pathetic way, James finds himself hovering in the doorway as he hears the tinny squeak of taps being adjusted and a soft shifting of material. And then, too easily, he's sitting himself down on the carpet, hand on the doorframe and one temple pressed to the thin wood of the door.
It's the nearest he'll let himself get to seeing, but he's only just beginning to discover how many neat images his brain has been storing up of every single time he's ever seen Remus naked; crumpled and bleeding in the Hospital Wing, splayed out across his sheets during a sticky July, streaking across the castle courtyard in the midnight snow with a flash of white bottom.
Beginning to stroke his thumb across the varnished wood, in his mind's eye James can see the careful arch of Remus' spine as he finally turns the water off and steps in, even almost hearing the quick gasp of too-hot water as Remus wiggles his toes and gets used to the temperature, his pert arse flexing with his movements. Remus then clambers in, one heavy slop of displaced water, probably lies back, arms rested on the sides and knees crook'd.
There's a tightness in James' chest and he sighs, breath trembling in short shuddery spurts on the exhale. If you're talking full-frontal, he can't remember the last time he actually saw Remus properly naked, though there's a muddled memory of dressing for bed one night, late in seventh year, the very curly and surprisingly dark line of hair trailed down Remus' belly, and the blush staining Remus' cheeks as he caught James looking.
These thoughts shouldn't be erotic, not by any stretch of imagination. Murky bathwater with floating crumbs of fruitcake, probably, the air heavy with steam and the scent of whichever of Lily's bath products Remus has stolen this time. It's just Remus, naked, wet and sticky, licking more crumbs from his fingers as he finishes eating.
James curls protectively around his erection, knees hitched to his chest, scared to move in case he's caught. There's another slurp of water, which has to be Remus reaching for the soap. My soap, James thinks defensively, as if that makes it all alright. It's his property, his soap and water and bathroom, even his friend that he's spying on.
It's just Remus, but there was always a warm flutter, even just dabbing the dirt from cuts and grazes the night after full moon, and this feeling is more like a tearing spark as he imagines the slap and trickley wet noise to be Remus sliding the bar of soap over skin, down the centre of his ribcage and through soft hair. Remus washing himself, splashes of water as his soapy fingers find their way to cleaning every last dip and crease, between toes and behind knees and elbows, along smooth muscled thighs and carefully around his balls and prick.
For all James knows, Remus could be playing childish splashing games with the rubber ducky that Lily insisted it was mandatory to have in every bathroom, but in his head Remus is wrapping one graceful hand around his thickening cock and James fumbles as silently as he can through the tangled layers of clothing covering his own lap so that he can do the same.
He sighs as he finds skin, the thumb of his left hand brushing the tip of his prick where it pushes easily through the opened buttons of his underwear, while inside the bathroom the sloshing of water continues. James' fingernails curl into the doorframe, eyes closing to see Remus splayed out in the bath, lips parted and a sheen of water and sweat covering his skin as he lazily touches himself with one hand that slaps regularly through the bathwater.
James squeezes his palm around the length of his cock, then begins to stroke himself slowly, in time with the gentle splashing. It seems unfair, somehow, that despite sharing a bedroom and bathroom with Remus for seven years he doesn't have any real memories of this. That Remus was always too careful to lock doors and charm his bed-curtains, and that he himself was never forward enough to sneak more than the odd look.
There's a sudden gulping noise. The sound of Remus choking on a lump of dried orange peel most likely, but still James' hand pauses, his whole body freezing due to a kind of shocked lust that pours through him and then he starts up again, curled fingers sliding faster. The rhythmic sloshes of water have stopped now, stopped. Because Remus has finished, surely, that strained, desperate gulp being the soft moan of him coming.
James tilts his head and bites into the paintwork of the doorframe as he comes, a painful, relieved rush of pleasure, wet over his fingers. He shivers, wipes his hand on his robes and hugs his arms around his knees, huddling into himself as the shame pours over him.
#
It's two weeks later, two weeks, but James is hard and blushing five seconds after Remus has shouted "Bath!" hurriedly and dashed down the hallway. James uncurls from the sofa and hobbles through towards the bathroom, then pressing his forehead to the wall next to the door and taking deep breaths.
"James," Remus says, and although his voice is low and hoarse James starts. He looks up and Remus is leaning out of the bathroom door, nails sharp on the doorframe, his eyes wide and a little glossy. "Come in with me."
James hesitates, just for half a second, but he feels terrible guilt for it. "Can't."
Remus nods. "But you'll wait-"
"Yes." James blushes even more fiercely, and Remus nods again. The door closes with a quiet click, and James slides slowly down the wall.