If It Makes You Happy"Big place you've got here, Pete," Remus said awkwardly, eyeing his cramped surroundings. There was hardly enough room to swing a Kneazle without causing either you or it grievous bodily harm.
"Thanks," Peter beamed, brushing an imaginary piece of lint off the sofa with all the anxious neediness of a housewife welcoming her absentee husband home. "I tried to make it nice."
"What's with the décor, though?" Sirius asked bluntly, shaking his head. He was still standing in the open doorway with his suitcase, unwilling to cross the threshold. "I never pinned you as a doily man, that's all."
"My mother makes them," Peter boasted proudly, indicating the intricate white patterns with his right hand. It was as if everything in the room lay under a blanket of slightly yellowed, fraying snowflakes. "They're to remind me of – you know - home. My mum told me I had to Floo her every so often, just so that she knows I'm all right." Remus's eyebrows shot up behind his fringe and did not reappear for an unnervingly long time. Sirius snorted.
"And your mother would be…"
"The one in all the photos, yes."
Remus bent down cautiously to peer at one of the nearest picture frames. A scrawny, middle-aged woman with mousy hair glared suspiciously out at him. There was an impromptu staring match for a few seconds. It was rather astonishing how intimidated Remus was by the woman in the photograph, considering she was only two-dimensional. Behind her glass screen, Peter's mum frowned in irritation, then sucked hard at her gums and pretended she couldn't see him anymore. She looked like the kind of woman who paid for everything with coupons cut out of the paper. And kicked up a fuss when the milk couldn't be bought with out-of-date vouchers for free wand polish.
"Well!" Remus said briskly, casting around for a complimentary word to describe the flat. 'Nice' was good and general. He didn't have to be too committal, and with any luck he wouldn't be asked to elaborate on any particular aspect. "This is great, Pete. It's really… really nice."
Peter's flat was disturbing, to put it mildly. Not exactly the kind of environment you usually associated with Hogwarts students who had left home. It looked as if it housed an aging widow rather than a seventeen year-old boy, which, as it seemed to be an outpost of Peter's mother's domain more than anything else, was at least appropriate. There was an embroidered lace tablecloth draped over the wooden coffee table; instead of a charity shop ashtray, overflowing with fag ends, pot pourri adorned the mantelpiece; instead of the universal teenage boy smell of stale sweat, alcohol and goats, the faint scent of Earl Grey hung in the air, and the only pouting girl tacked up on the flowery wallpaper was Mrs Pettigrew, who looked more likely to sprout red-and-gold wings than pose suggestively (thank God). There were twelve black-and-white photographs of her in the sitting room alone, and she managed to look progressively dissatisfied in each one. Remus glanced sideways at Sirius, still lingering in the doorway, and just knew he was longing to make a cryptic comment about apron strings and keeping a firm hold on one's balls. Sirius opened his mouth to talk and Remus cleared his throat, discreetly.
"Wormtail, I have posters of Olivia on my walls, not my mother – but hey, whatever turns you on," Sirius shrugged, rolling his eyes at Remus in an I-won't-taunt-him-if-it-makes-you-happy way as he wheeled his suitcase inside, kicking the door shut behind him. Charmed on the back, just above the peephole, was a wooden placard engraved with the words, 'If you lived here, you'd be home by now'.
"It's a pity I won't be here to enjoy the flat much, what with my summer job and all," Peter said, his watery blue eyes shining brightly. "Still. One day you two will move out of home properly. And then you'll know how great it is to be like me. Completely independent."
It was perhaps a bit unfortunate for his ego that Peter was the first of the Marauders to metaphorically stretch his wings and fly away from the familial nest. Nowadays, whenever he was out of punching range, he treated the rest of them in a slightly condescending and patronising manner, smiling faintly whenever they talked about their parents. This was meant to imply how immature and inexperienced they all were, and how he was practically a veteran in adult matters.
Sirius had run away, of course, but as he had run directly to Mrs Potter, who darned socks and served up apple pies with whipped cream and insisted on helping the boys with their homework – and by leaving the title of a Transfiguration coursework essay and Mrs Potter in the same room, you had to accept that the assignment would be completed for you – it didn't really count. Sirius kept insisting that he didn't want to be a burden on the Potters and would get himself a proper place as soon as he'd scraped up enough gold, but whenever he talked about it Mrs Potter would shush him, and feed him another slice of pie, and say she didn't want him wasting his savings when he was like a brother to James, and he could stay past his seventh year, forever in fact, and when he and James got married their wives and children could come and live with them in their house, Merlin knew it was big enough. Mr Potter always laughed a bit too loudly and proceeded to get even more absorbed in his Prophet whenever she joked about this, but Sirius had a sneaking suspicion that she was actually deadly serious.
Remus, ever since his first-year, had always been given permission to stay at school for all major holidays except the summer, as the Shack was so conveniently placed for his transformations. Still, when each June rolled around, forcing himself to return to the small Wiltshire cottage at the end of the school year was inevitably a struggle. Remus didn't want to go back and face seeing his parents, with their lined faces and their simple clothes and their brave smiles, perfected after twelve years' worth of practise. He didn't want to see the sad, helpless look in his mother's eyes as she kissed his forehead and double-locked the entrance to the basement on full moon. So when Peter had broken the news that he was moving away from home and into a small flat in South London, and did they want to spend their last proper summer holiday helping him settle in, he jumped at the offer. Even if he had to spend a couple of nights of the holiday in solitary confinement, at least he wasn't going to make anyone unnecessarily miserable.
Sirius, surprisingly, agreed to come and stay at the flat too, solely because James was going on an exchange trip to Italy with the Advanced Charms Club, which Sirius wasn't a member of. James said this was because Sirius lacked the subtlety for Advanced Charms, which Sirius naturally laughed off because James was about as subtle as a punch in the face. Sirius just didn't do extra-curriculars. And anyway, Prongs had only started going to Advanced Charms because a certain red-haired, female someone was President of the club.
Nevertheless, James wasn't going to be in the country for a whole three weeks, and since Sirius had every intention of eventually leaving the Potters - and thought it would be a less traumatic departure if he let Mrs Potter get used to the idea gradually - he told Peter to count him in. Without James, her only son, to dote upon, Sirius said, he was scared that Mrs Potter might get a bit too… attached to him. Women tended to do that.
Peter was a bit put out at James 'buggering off' to Italy; after all, he worshipped him almost as much as the boy's mother did. He'd thought that his new flat would be a chance for extra bonding, as Peter felt that James was losing interest in him. Truth be told, James was rapidly losing interest in almost everything apart from Evans – even his fervent enthusiasm for Quidditch had a hollow sound to it – as in their sixth year she seemed to have decided that he had evolved beyond points and grunts after all. She still wouldn't go out with him, but as James repeatedly pointed out, they had occasional conversations. She let him touch her personal belongings (this was limited to him carrying her textbooks from Charms to History of Magic, but still). And she was, as James told himself and those around him regularly, finally coming around.
"What are you going to do when the summer's over, Pete?" Remus asked, trying a door. It turned out to be a dark, windowless cupboard with a stove and empty shelves in it. The kitchen, he assumed. "You still have a year of school to go before you can live here full-time."
"I'll rent it out," Peter answered, looking supremely unconcerned.
"Ah, but then you'll have to take down all the pictures of your mum," Sirius said, eyeing them warily. "You should have waited to put them up, mate."
"I'm not taking them down," Peter said, looking affronted. "They're part of the flat. They've got Sticking Charms on the back. Why would I want to take them down?"
"It's just that some – oddballs - are freaked out by dozens of beady little eyes watching their every – ouch! Moony, did you have to hit me that hard?"
"This is great, Pete," Remus repeated, ignoring Sirius. He leaned over the sofa and opened another closet. This one had a tiled floor, a porcelain loo and shower. "Do the other two doors lead to bedrooms, then?"
"Yes," Peter said, squeezing past the sofa and flinging the doors open. "The guest bedroom…" he pointed to the smaller of the two, "and where I'm sleeping. I hope you don't mind sharing with each other – Prongs'll stay with me when he comes back from stupid Portugal."
"Italy," Remus corrected automatically. Sirius leant over to whisper in his ear, breathing hot air down his neck.
"The guest bedroom is miniscule, Moony, and the window is tiny. We'll run out of oxygen in five minutes flat."
"The other bedroom has at least fifty pictures of his mother in it," Remus muttered back. "And I can hear muttering, so she probably enclosed a portrait." Sirius, looking disgusted, glanced inside Peter's room, and paled visibly. He ducked into the guest bedroom, banging his suitcase behind him, thanking Peter loudly for his gracious hospitality, the spacious room and general niceness. Remus followed a few seconds later, looking quizzical.
"It's not a portrait. It's a fucking collage."
The air in the guest bedroom tasted stale, as if it had been boxed up, left in a dark place and forgotten about for several years. Remus had drawn the curtains over the tiny window – as pleasant as a view of the overflowing bins in the alley below was – to keep the relentless sun out. Though this muffled the glare, the intense, dry heat remained the same. Remus, lying on the bottom bunk, felt small beads of sweat forming on his forehead and trickling down to the centre of his face, where they immediately turned into fragments of ice. Sirius had tried to cast a Cooling Charm – using him as the guinea pig, naturally, but the charm had localised on his nose, which was steadily getting frostbite as the rest of him baked in the oven that was their room. Sirius was lying immobile on the threadbare carpet, smoking. The soft wisps of smoke curled around the metal posts and hung there, like ghostly cobwebs. Peter's clear voice drifted in from underneath the door, answering a Floo from his mum in the sitting room.
"Yes, I'm eating properly. No, I start tomorrow. Tomorrow. Yes, I remembered. And I've washed behind my ears… no Ma, you can't check… oh fine then, see? Clean. And I- no, I haven't been drinking or doing drugs. What? I haven't. Yes, they're here… I don't know. What? You want me to ask them?"
Peter burst through the door, red-faced.
"Are either of you smoking?"
"No," Sirius replied innocently, the cigarette hanging casually from his lips. White ash tumbled onto his shirt, and Peter sighed in exasperation.
"Look – it's just my mum says that she can smell smoke."
"Her head," Sirius pointed out, "is suspended in a fireplace. I'm not surprised."
"Just put it out, alright?" Peter ordered bossily. He slammed the door shut. "No Ma, they're not smoking either."
Sirius laughed, and there was an amiable silence for a few minutes, punctuated only by Peter's insistent promises to his mother. Suddenly Remus spluttered and sat up quickly. Too quickly. It took a while for the room to stop spinning. Focusing on breathing was had been far too strenuous, so he'd just choked on a cloud of Sirius's second-hand smoke.
"Do you have to? It's already hot enough in here without you keeping that little miniature fire burning. And we're his guests, you can't piss Pete off on the very first day." Sirius cocked an eyebrow at Remus. Remus cocked an eyebrow back. Sirius sighed.
"Fine, if it makes you happy." Sirius sat up and stubbed his fag out on the heel of his scuffed army boots. He then proceeded to stretch luxuriously, as if it were vital that he re-adjust every muscle in his body. Sirius began to examine the wooden dresser in boredom, and then pulled out a giant fan from one of the drawers. He unrolled the huge contraption and held it in front of his face, batting his sooty eyelashes coyly. Remus snatched it away, smiling despite himself.
"You can't just manhandle the Pettigrews' possessions like that! It says Made In China on it too; it's probably really expensive."
"It's probably worth about 10p, if they left it alone with Wormtail," Sirius sulked, grasping for it, but Remus dodged too quickly. "And everything in the whole world has Made In China on it. Everything. The fish down at the chippy probably has Made In China stamped on its back."
The fan, wrenching itself out of Remus's hands, floated beyond their reach and balanced itself, ungainly, on the curtain rail. It began to laboriously pump away in their direction, each heavy, half-hearted beat sending recycled hot air whooshing into their faces. It felt about as refreshing as a long-distance run in the Sahara desert.
"Moony, I don't think I can stay here for nearly two months," Sirius whimpered, his head resting on the mattress. He pouted hopefully.
"The time will fly by, don't worry," Remus said, brushing his fringe away from his sticky forehead. As soon as he removed his hand, a tepid gust from the fan plastered the damp hair back onto his skin.
"It's the practically hottest day of the century so far-" Remus made a clucking noise with his tongue- "Fine, hottest day of the year. Month, whatever. What I mean is, I know London like the back of my hand. Even the Muggle bits. I used to live here, remember? So what are we doing, staying inside?"
"We can't just leave Peter," Remus answered, closing his eyes and yawning extravagantly. "Christ – the train ride was awful. All those glass windows… like being in a locomotive greenhouse. I just want to go to sleep."
"Sleep?" Sirius said, horrified. "At five o' clock in the afternoon? Who in their right mind goes to bed at five o' clock in the-" Peter stuck his head round the doorway again.
"Ma's just gone," he told them pompously. "My job starts tomorrow morning, early, so I'm going to shower and go to bed now. I'll see you two in the evening, ok?" He disappeared.
"Wormtail doesn't count," Sirius insisted, tugging at Remus's sleeve as the boy tried to snuggle his head deeper into the pillow. "Ma Pettigrew told her ickle to get some sleep before his first day of work. And he's hardly in his right mind anyhow. Come on, come on, get up!"
"What do you think Peter's job is?" Remus murmured, as the hoarse gurgling of water gushing through pipes started up. "He didn't say."
"Annoying people professionally?" Sirius quipped. "I've always said he could do that for a living. Or maybe he's – Moony, you're not really going to sleep, are you? You're all I have; I'll be bored out of my mind without you."
"To-to-tomorrow," Remus promised, yawning again as waves of sudden exhaustion washed over him and the shores of sleep grew ever closer. "Tomorrow you can take me out and show me around London and get me drunk, whatever you're planning. Just now, I need to – need to – forget all about textbooks and undone homework and my stupid leaky quill and fall…" He didn't finish. Sirius stared hard at Remus, as his friend's breathing became rhythmical, and the flickering of his eyelids settled. The steady beat of the fan rumpled his light brown hair. Sirius sighed heavily, just as Remus's face broke into a small smile.
Very quietly, Sirius stood up, put his hand on the doorknob and tiptoed out of the flat.
"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty."
"Mmmph. Fuck off."
"Hey, I said wake up nicely!"
"And my tone was nothing but courteous when I said –" Sirius peered over the edge of his bunk and saw Remus's placid hazel eyes. "Bloody Merlin – Moony, just give me a few more minutes. I'm really tired."
"Hungover, more like," Remus laughed. He tilted the mattress and Sirius tumbled onto the floor, cursing foully. "Hurry up and have a shower – I want you as fresh as a daisy if you're going to be giving me a guided tour of London." Sirius picked himself up, nursing his banged shoulder grumpily. His black hair was dishevelled. "Do you ever wear pyjamas to bed?" Remus asked conversationally. Sirius glanced blearily at his navy boxers and shook his head.
"I'm giving you a tour of where?" Sirius asked. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "Oh, this is awful. I can hardly see straight."
"Right now you only need to go in one direction," Remus told him, shoving a coarse towel into his chest. "To the shower. Don't slip on anything and knock yourself out because the drain's blocked with something and the water drains out really slowly."
"Thanks," Sirius muttered. He hoped that whatever was blocking the drain wasn't hair. Peter's hair. Eugh. Bad thought.
Now his head hurt twice as hard.
"So where are we going?" Remus asked excitedly, once Sirius had returned from withdrawing a bag of gold from his vault. His voice carried in the marble hall. A passing Gringotts goblin glared at Remus for shouting and put a gnarled finger to its puckered lips.
"Boy! Hush!"
"Sorry," Remus whispered, blushing, but the other boy, seeing his humiliated face, turned on the banker who had issued the reprimand. Sirius had never set much store by rules and regulations anyway.
"Look mate," he said to the goblin, putting a friendly hand on its back. "Maybe you guys need to lighten up a little. I know it's a place of business, but this is a family bank, not a library." The goblin flinched, and re-arranged its gold-lined robes in a superior fashion.
"Perhaps, Mr Black, if you were here from nine a.m. precisely until five p.m. precisely executing highly complex numerical calculations in a matter of seconds and employing the use of several hundred complicated mathematical formulae to instantly deduce the exchange rates of such diverse currencies as we handle here, you would also prefer people to keep their voices down, hmm?"
Just then a smaller goblin hurried past them, counting loudly on its fingers, its small grey tongue sticking out of the corner of its mouth.
"Let's see… Twenty five plus seventeen, right, so you carry the one…"
"Highly complex numerical calculations," Sirius scoffed. "Well, I'm really happy that the basic Arithmancy paid off… come on, Moony." He strutted out of the shop. Remus rushed through the giant bronze doors after him, simultaneously thrilled and horrified, his heart crashing against his ribs.
"You can't be rude to a goblin!" Remus gasped, once they were safely out on the street and out of hearing range. Sirius shrugged carelessly.
"Why can't I?"
"Because – because –" Remus spluttered. It was as if Sirius had asked why he couldn't go down to breakfast in the Great Hall naked and wearing a purple bonnet – and he had asked that, in fifth year. "Because they're scary."
Sirius grinned, baring his devastatingly white teeth. His pointy canines glinted menacingly in the sunlight, and Remus stared at them, transfixed.
"I'm much scarier."
"I don't doubt that," Remus replied, after shaking himself back into reality. Sirius closed his mouth, and smirked. "But you don't have a weird nose or spend frighteningly long amounts of time inside, poring over scales."
"No, that's Snivellus, when he's revising for Potions," Sirius retorted. "Now, do you want the guided tour or what?"
Remus did want the guided tour or what. Sirius took him all over Diagon Alley, insisting on buying him an ice-cream at Fortescue's, then beaming and handing him an olive-and-cod-liver oil flavoured cone, drooling over the new twig trimmer range at Quality Quidditch Supplies, causing havoc at Wendy's Wiggery (by inexplicably purchasing Remus a stripy yellow-and-black afro wig that began to sing whenever placed on one's head), and even dropping in to say hi to Mr Olliviander.
"Mr Remus Lupin, yes, how nice to see you again after so many years," Mr Olliviander murmured softly, his silvery eyes gleaming. They widened in shock when Sirius followed him in. "Mr Sirius Black, if you desire another wand, my shop is closed to you. Much as I enjoy a challenge, I have neither the time nor inclination to sift through hundreds of boxes again."
"Were you difficult to find a wand for?" Remus asked Sirius under his breath, but Mr Olliviander's sharp ears picked up his voice.
"Five hours," he muttered, glaring at Sirius malevolently. "You sampled almost my entire stock. It was a nightmare putting them all back in their boxes. I thought you were a Squib. I would've kicked you out of my shop after the first three hundred wands, if it wasn't for your psychotic mother breathing down my neck."
"He loves me really," Sirius told Remus, grinning.
When Peter returned to the flat that evening, he was too tired from work to talk to anyone, and, after grumpily permitting Remus to make him some dinner and a cup of tea, had staggered off to bed to fall asleep. After Sirius had spent a "glorious" fifteen minutes obstinately smoking in front of the enraged portraits of Mrs Pettigrew –"Look, Moony! I think that one's trying to break the glass! – he'd dragged a reluctant Remus off to the nearest wizarding pub - The Magic Mirror. Amazingly, the bartender had agreed to sell them Firewhiskey without any proof of age at all. This turned out to be a grave mistake. Remus had half-carried Sirius home, but only after Sirius had introduced him to all the friends he'd made the night before, and told them each he loved them at least three times. Sirius told Remus he loved him too, seventeen times, in between athletic vomiting.
The next day, after a considerably later start, due to Sirius's "poor aching head", they visited Knockturn Alley. Remus noticed that the proprietors of shops in this street seemed to think little of the tactics most shop owners used to gain customers; for instance, clean working surroundings, friendly banter, smiling. The items for sale were also a good deal more carnivorous than the ones in the adjacent shops – what looked like an ordinary music box growled at him and tried to maul his hand when he wound it up. Sirius had wanted to buy a talking shrunken head from one of the shops, but Remus had forbidden him, insisting that he couldn't think of anything more aggravating than a shrivelled head that wouldn't shut up, and told his friend that if he brought one back to the flat he would end up strangling it by the end of the week.
"You can't strangle it. It has no neck." Sirius pointed out.
"No."
Thankfully, Sirius hadn't wanted to go to a pub again that night, as the "untold agony" of his hangover was still fresh in his mind – "You're not to try and get me drunk again, Moony. I'm never going to drink again, ever. Drink is a vile thing." They stayed in and played cards with Peter, who refused to play Exploding Snap –"If anything gets singed, Ma's going to murder me!" Sirius suggested that they find some girls and bring them up to the flat to play Strip Poker in a very half-hearted way, but Peter pointed out that if his mother happened to Floo to check up on them unexpectedly, he wouldn't so much be 'murdered' as 'dismembered slowly and painfully'. They ended up playing a few stilted rounds of Blackjack, and as neither Sirius nor Remus could remember how to play, they followed Peter's set of rules, which were unbearably complex and seemed to alter slightly each time Peter was in danger of losing.
On the third day, after visiting what seemed like every single wizarding shop in a two-mile radius, Sirius and Remus sank down onto a wooden bench, after returning to Fortescue's for more ice-cream. Sirius was wearing Remus's newly bought wig, which serenaded them (and unfortunate shoppers) as they ate.
"I'm dancing in the something something you caught me something when I something down the dahbedoobee TRANCE doobetty doo something Mary had a little doooobeedoobeedooo and I love yoouuu tooo," the wig sang cheerfully, despite not seeming to know the words, or even tune of whatever it was singing. It had a low, gravelly voice, and the mad yellow and black curls bobbed slightly in time to the music. It looked like a gigantic musical bumblebee had decided to set up camp on Sirius's head.
"Are you having fun?" Sirius asked suddenly.
"It's fun… in the sun… when you're young – and you run… somethingsomething bun shalalalalala… LAAAAAAA!" The afro crooned at optimum volume. A passing witch set down her shopping bags to shake a fist at it especially. When the afro evoked such a violent reaction, Sirius usually beamed and patted it proudly, but he was staring intently at Remus, biting his lip.
"Yeah, I am. Beats hanging around the village in Wiltshire." Remus gave his ice-cream a wary lick. Sirius usually chose his ice-cream flavours for him, as Remus's favourite, plain vanilla had been deemed too dull for a companion of his to be eating. It was a creamy pink colour, but, knowing Sirius, what looked like strawberry might just as easily be… "Is this thing lobster-flavoured?"
"No, prawn," Sirius said distractedly. He pulled off his wig, which stopped warbling abruptly, and scratched his head. "Are you sure?"
"Er, yes?" Remus replied, perplexed. Some melted prawn ice-cream trickled down the cone and he mopped it up with his tongue. "Why?"
"No reason," Sirius said, fiddling with the afro, which squeaked in protest. "It's just – is there anything you especially want to do?"
"Especially?" Remus asked, wrinkling his face up in confusion.
"Or see," Sirius elaborated. "It's just that I know you're never in London because you can't aff- what I mean is, is there anything you want to do while you're here?"
"I have always wanted to do one thing," Remus began tentatively.
"Sure, we'll do it," Sirius said, jumping to his feet.
"It's in Muggle London," Remus continued, abandoning his dessert with a grimace.
"No problem," Sirius countered. "We'll do it."
"Isn't this great?" Remus asked Sirius, the cool late afternoon breeze ruffling his hair as they glided past the tall city buildings. Sirius raised an eyebrow, half-amused, half-wondering at Remus's constant capacity to surprise and perplex him.
"Even if you're a Muggle, riding public transport for fun is the epitome of naff," he replied, watching as Remus rolled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbow. "I can't believe this is what you've always wanted to do."
"Why not?" Remus enquired, grinning and wriggling in his seat like an excited child. "Double-decker buses are amazing. Especially the ones with no tops."
"This is a tourist bus," Sirius retorted, as the bus whizzed by the leafy green trees of Hyde Park. "It's exclusively for people with cameras who talk in funny accents and wear shorts. And even they're too cool for this – the bus is empty apart from those two." He gestured to the elderly couple sitting at the forefront of the bus. They were the only other couple – well, pair taking a ride, and they seemed to share Remus's enthusiasm for it. Both the geriatrics were wearing identical faded dungarees and pointing excitedly at something. Sirius leaned over the side of the bus hopefully to see what it was.
It was a dead pigeon.
"At least it didn't cost much," Remus pointed out, nudging Sirius sharply in the ribs. "And it's just, you know, nice. Sitting up here, watching everyone else down there being busy, just living their lives…"
"At least it makes you happy," Sirius grinned, looking out over the grey-blue Thames, the water reflecting in his eyes. Remus smiled to himself, then leaned over and kissed Sirius gently on the cheek.
"You don't need to worry so much about making me happy."
Sirius tensed in his seat. Boys didn't kiss other boys on the cheek, especially not when they weren't even French or anything. And Remus wasn't French. And Sirius wasn't French, except he thought that maybe his great-grandmother had married a Frenchman but no-one really discussed her because he'd cheated on her with a Squib barmaid or something like that.
All of a sudden, Sirius's senses all seemed to have heightened, just like when he was Padfoot, except he didn't have the calm, easy-going dog-brain. His thoughts were running around, bouncing off walls, screaming and tripping over one another in a frenzy to be acknowledged. The skin of Sirius's cheek, the spot Remus had just pressed his lips against, was tingling like crazy. Sirius hadn't noticed it before, but his right thigh and Remus's left thigh were touching, and just a few seconds earlier it would have been the easiest thing in the world to simply move, but now it felt glued in place, and his feet were as heavy as lead. Remus's forearms were bare and the sunlight was turning all the little hairs on them golden and Sirius could feel the warm heat radiating from Remus's body. Now for some reason he was painfully aware of his friend's chest rising and falling steadily as he breathed in and out in complete contrast to his own because Sirius was about to hyperventilate…
"Why don't I need to worry?" Sirius croaked. He had meant to sound casual, instead he sounded like a dying frog.
"Because you do," Remus smiled. "Make me happy." He looked over the side of the bus again.
Suddenly the pandemonium of thoughts scrambling around Sirius's head all unified into one very urgent, scary idea: Kiss him back, kiss him back, kiss him back, kiss him back you bloody fool…
Sirius leaned towards Remus to peck Remus on the cheek, and at the exact same moment Remus turned around and opened his mouth to say something. Sirius ended up kissing him full on the mouth, Remus's lips parted in a little 'o' of surprise. Sirius pulled away, feeling awkward.
"Er," Sirius announced eloquently. Remus reached for Sirius's hand and entangled Sirius's smooth brown fingers with his pale, soft ones with the bitten ends.
"That made me happier than singing wigs and seafood-flavoured ice-cream," Remus commented, squeezing Sirius's palm. After a pause, Sirius squeezed back, stroking Remus's cool knuckles with the tip of his thumb.
"I can't imagine why," Sirius said. "Most people I know would kill for a double scoop of prawn with chopped nuts." Remus snuggled into Sirius's chest, resting his head just below his friend's chin.
"You know what I'd really like to do now?" Remus asked eventually. "I'd really like to sit on this bus with you forever. Until they throw us off at least. And I'd just like to sit here, looking out at London and listening to your heartbeat – which has only just returned to normal, by the way. That's what I'd really like."
"All right," Sirius agreed. "If it makes you happy."
Fin. (because I am pretentious, and 'fin' is prettier)