A/N: Oh it has been ever such a long time; i really must find more time to write. Just something small that started as Sirius/Harry until James intruded, again. Title very shamelessly taken from Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Warnings: Slashy goodness and underage badness. Also, Sirius generally being messed up.
Because some nights he can only remeber James, and he can barely look at Harry.
Let Me Count The Ways
1. Here, in this house, it is almost unbearable; the skitter of his fingertips and the violent colour behind your eyes when you touch him; suffocating.
2. The summer heat is heavy and you can taste salt on your tongue; taste the sweat pooled between Harry's collarbones, in the hollows of his hips.
3. It's not like before, before with the tease of sweat-licked fingers and the rasp of wicked words against your ear; now it is prickly nights that taste of the damp and Harry's small hands curled around your neck.
4. The sharp jut of your shoulder blades should remind him that you're broken enough to leave marks where you touch, but he still presses close to your heat-mottled skin and kisses your jaw like it means something.
5. Head tipped back and mouth raw red, the blank light of dawn frames the straight line of his jaw and he looks like his father. Something inside you trembles and breaks.
6. When his damp fingers catch in your hair and his voice cracks, you think it odd how childlike he seems but then you remember, oh.
7. Turn him on his front, thin skin stretched white against his spine, and he could be James. Tell yourself this, once, twice, whisper it to him as you push inside, pushing until something gives and then you're under his skin, so easy.
8. Some nights you can only remember James – the slant of his mouth, the crook of his knees, the taste of his skin – and you can barely look at Harry because the world lurches and tips on its side.
9. But now, now with Harry spread across your sheets with his white limbs and white mouth, every time is like the first, every time is agony.
10. He says I love you because he's young enough to believe it, because he thinks you feel it too, because he trusts you. And that, that hurts more than anything.
Peractio