Padfoot didn't feel the cold. His enormous paws were protected by thick pads meant to find purchase on whatever ground the oversized dog wished to frolic across. Tufts of long black fur sprouted out from between his toes and they repelled the snow that glittered on the ground he was currently traversing, and helped his claws to find holds with which to launch his body forward bound by bound.
The world was filtered to him through the unique prism of a dog's perspective, transforming it into a collection of scents, thousands of scents, millions. The myriad of aromas were so numerous with so many connotations, he could spend days tracking each and every one of them down. But he didn't have time for that now. He knew Moony was behind him, giving chase. This was their favorite game; Padfoot's friendship with the werewolf had necessitated an ability for incredible speed despite his size, his long legs stretching far out in front of him to devour the world of smells as if none of it mattered, because none of it did. Only their game mattered.
His eyes were unusually sharp, the visual cues around him almost as clear as they would have been in broad daylight. Ice twinkled nearby, reflecting the light of the full moon in hues of yellow and blue and silver. The twinkling grew closer. He didn't register the difference in traction quickly enough - he began to slip, paws curling out from under him. He gave a yelp as he tumbled end over end down a hill that had become more ice than snow, his black fur soon crusted with whiteness that leapt up as if seeking out his warmth. By the time his momentum concluded and he stopped, Sirius found that he was Sirius again. Snow was melting in his human hair and sloughing off his Gryffindor robes. And Moony was still coming.
Shit.
He willed himself to shift back, to allow Padfoot out to play again, but it was no use. The senses of his human ears and nose and eyes seemed pitiful compared to the ones he had enjoyed as a dog - he felt like he was seeing it all through a veil of melted butter. None of it held the clarity that it had when he experienced it through his canine senses, and as such it became foreign. The forest around him had an ominous glow, dark and forbidding. His vulnerable human body wasn't meant to withstand these elements and he could not call Padfoot back and he did not know why.
He could see the werewolf baring down upon him already. It reminded him of the first time he had ever lay eyes on Moony. It was when he was younger, before he had had the ability to change his body into that of an animal that a werewolf would not be so quick to rip to shreds. Rightly he did tremble before the beast who was only that morning one of his best friends. If given half the chance, Moony would have made him into minced meat. The years had not caused the werewolf to shift his prejudices away from humans; he was just as likely now to kill as he was back then.
Change back! Sirius shouted inwardly, and the fates seemed to ignore his plea. He searched within his damp robes for his wand and found nothing, not a single thing with which to protect himself. There was not even a fallen tree branch or a rock jutting up out of the frosted earth around him. His boots scraped against the ground as he attempted to gain footing on the ice, and they could function any better than the dog's paws had done. He could not even stand up to face his death, though it would surely come no matter how he greeted it.
Better to die at the hand of a trusted friend than at the hand of a hated enemy. The name of whoever had originally said those words escaped Sirius' panicked mind. It was a line from some such something that he had happened across over his years of schooling. Of all the things that his often half-crazed consciousness could absorb, it had chosen to take in that bit of useless false condolence.
It is better to live! he thought. And those weren't hands at all coming for him now, they were claws. Above them was a set of jaws dripping with slaver as the wolf scented a change in the type of target it was given the opportunity to advance upon. Not its friend the fellow canine anymore, but a human, weak and fleshy and hated. It was prey. Yellow eyes widened and the terrible jaws fell open in anticipation of the meal.
Sirius wanted to speak, to try and reason with that part of Moony deep down inside that he knew was still his friend. Surely there had to be something that he could do or say in order to tap into some hidden vestige of the bookish young man who meant more to him than did Sirius' own flesh and blood. More than anyone else in the world, in fact. He had never taken the chance to tell Remus just how important he was, how thoughts of him haunted the former heir to the Black family fortune and how he would give anything in exchange for the courage to act upon it, to show him how he felt. There was no time for that now, though - neither shouts of rage nor professions of love. The werewolf pounced and Sirius lifted his arms instinctively to protect himself. What landed on him was not a mindless creature of tawny fur and razor sharp teeth but a familiar weight, the scent of chocolate.
"Remus.." His breathing was already heavy with a fear that any predator would have smelled pouring off him in heady waves. It didn't completely abate from him, that fear, because he could still see the wolf in his friend's eyes and he somehow knew in his heart that the remission into human form for the lycanthrope was only temporary. He would turn back. Sirius didn't know how he knew, but he was certain of it. Not even that uncanny knowledge made him want to shy away or run, though. Not anymore. He looked up into the eyes of a beast, barely concealed in the freckled face of a beloved friend, waiting for he knew not what. He relaxed. He was filled with awe and unconditional trust. This version of Remus was one that Sirius had no urge to push away or fight.
His loyalty was rewarded with a kiss. Remus' lips felt hot enough to banish what little cold had seeped into Black's human body. He was an inferno and it soon ignited Sirius as well. He became its willing victim. What might have been remnants of wolfish claws hooked into the front of Sirius' clothing and began to shred it to ribbons, baring his skin to the cold night air the way a cat will lick the fur off of a recent kill.
"Yesss." Sirius was able to speak into the fervent kiss and he moaned when Remus bit his lip in reply, as if scolding him for it. This was no time for talking. Some semblance of their primal animal selves remained, and animals did not talk. They hungered and they fed and they sated their instinctual needs. He was panting like his canine counterpart as he helped the young man perched atop him push off the layers of robes that stood in the way of those demanding fingers. Whether they caressed his skin or rent it with gashes, he didn't care. He wanted to feel more of that incomparable heat, wanted it all over him and inside of him all at once. He wanted Remus, and he knew that they had to hurry, before the change was made and Moony took his place. There was excitement in not knowing whether he would be given the pleasure he had longed for since he first admitted how he felt about Remus to himself, or torn to pieces by the dark passenger that Remus kept caged within his soul.
The fiery brand of Remus' mouth moved to his throat and Sirius was free to moan and unable to stop the noises from coming. The belt holding up his trousers was yanked open. Already he could feel the winter breeze kissing the bare skin of his chest, teasing pebbles of gooseflesh all over it. The stark contrast between that frigid temperature and the heat of Remus' mouth made him squirm. All else was utterly forgotten when his fly was opened and the same insistent hand from before was slipping inside, underneath every layer of clothing that stood in its way, claiming the part of Sirius that wanted its attention the most...
Then, mercilessly, the fates deigned to wake him up. He found himself alone in his bed covered in sweat and more aroused than he had ever been in his eighteen years on this earth. Everyone else was asleep. The quiet seemed to have a substance of its own, it was so thick, not even Peter's usual snoring giving report to interrupt it. Sirius willed his breaths to come at a more normal pace and his heart to cease its violent thudding in his ears.
Just a dream. Yet it had felt so treacherously real. He could still smell the ice; it was so cold and yet it had felt as though it were burning him, just as Remus' mouth had burned him and left its invisible mark on this willingly bared throat. Sirius inhaled deeply and flung the sweat-soaked covers off of himself. He would need a very long shower to banish this latest in a steadily-growing collection of dreams. Each time, his vivid imaginings left him feeling more perverted, empty and unsatisfied than the time before.
Maybe it was true what they said about he and his family line. Maybe they all were truly mad.