"Stealing Kisses"

Not quite the merry, cheerful oneshot I like to post around this time of year and I apologize. This is likely just one in a series of Lily/Sirius oneshots coming your way and I hope to make them less..moody and dark but sometimes it's okay to write this stuff. I hope you have good holidays and a Happier New Year's Eve than I'm having. Snow and other more serious things tend to ruin plans. I love hearing from you all but I just hope you read and maybe appreciate this when you read it.

abc.

Mother, don't worry, I killed the last snake that lived in the creek bed
Mother, don't worry, I've got some money saved for the weekend
Mother, remember being so stern with that girl who was with me
Mother, remember the blink of an eye when I breathed through your body

So, may the sunrise bring hope where it was once was forgotten
Sons are like birds flying upwards over the mountain

Mother, I made it up from the bruise on the floor of this prison
Mother, I lost it, all of the fear of the Lord I was given
Mother, forget me now that the creek drank the cradle you sang to
Mother, forgive me I sold your car for the shoes that I gave you

So, may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
Sons can be birds, taken broken up to the mountain

Mother, don't worry I've got a coat and some friends on the corner
Mother, don't worry she's got a garden we're planting together
Mother, remember the night that the dog had her pups in the pantry
Blood on the floor, fleas on their paws
And you cried 'til the morning

So, may the sunrise bring hope where it once was forgotten
Sons are like birds flying always over the mountain.

"Upward Over the Mountain", by Iron & Wine.

Abc.

Sirius's Mum was never a good one. She never took him to her side and held him dearly and said how much she loved him. She was not the sort of woman who was supposed to be a Mum. Accidental sort of Mum who did have good intentions, who really wanted the best for her son. Unfortunately the sort of thing she considered 'best' was pure blood and dead muggles and it was a horrible thing. It was a horrible thing and Sirius deserved a good Mum. If Sirius had a good Mum maybe things would have gone better for him, maybe he would not have been so damned.

People figured that because he never had a good Mum, he was not a good person. He was not a good boy and was not proud or smart or anything a young man was supposed to be. People figured he would follow in those notorious Black footsteps and be angry and bitter and judgmental.

They were wrong, though, because Sirius was one of the good Black's. Unlike his Mum, Sirius turned out fine and smart and Gryffindor. Sirius was a Gryffindor and his family was Slytherin and it was a clear picture of what opposites they were. Some would wonder how a poor little boy could grow up strong and intelligent when he was basically abandoned by his Mum as a young child. Children need their Mum's and she was not a Mum, she was not good to him.

James Potter's Mum sort of became Sirius's Mum when he ran away from home at sixteen. Some people wondered how it had not happened sooner, how he had managed to stick around – during the summer months, at least – and emerge so normal and smart and well-mannered. Sirius always had a family within the Potter's and credit was given to them, certainly, for accepting him for the pure blood runaway he was.

Sometimes Sirius hoped for a good Mum. Sometimes he hoped his Mum would open her bloody eyes and see how stupid and close-minded she was. But then, that would be fighting many generations of pure blood nobility bred right into her. His Mum was not a Mum – she was a woman with a son and had no capability of being a Mum to him. She was a lost cause of sorts.

Lily Evans had never paid much attention to Sirius's lack of a Mum. It was never something she thought about and she never really became concerned with the Marauders until seventh year and it was long after graduation that she began thinking about Sirius and his Mum and his whole life.

It was funny that she began paying such specific attention to him, while offering James little. They had married a month out of Hogwarts and she was pregnant now. Not quite pregnant enough that she wanted to tell anybody but pregnant enough that she could feel it, that she was aware of it. It was still winter and cold and she was still a newlywed in her mind and to think she was going to be a Mum made her sick – usually in the mornings when James had gone off to some meeting and this was something she would grow to know as morning sickness.

She did not want to be a Mum and then thought about Sirius's Mum, who obviously did not want to be a Mum. She was not a Mum and had lost her child to another family and Lily would not do that to her child, no matter how unwanted and no matter how inconvenient it was. She did not want to give birth during a war. Lily did not want to have this baby for the simple reason that she did not want to lose it.

Maybe she began thinking about Sirius more because he had been around more. It seemed that he was not as preoccupied with the Order of the Phoenix as James was and she was not sure why he wasn't. When it first began he was gun-hoe for it and dedicated and reliable. He was as good as any other member of the Order and he was a Black and this was what he considered accomplishment, to be a part of something so good.

Then he started drinking. People started dying and Sirius started drinking and James got disgusted and Dumbledore impatient and Remus was detached and Peter was stranger than ever and Sirius did not know what to do. Because when you do not have a good Mum to be by your side and explain the ups and downs of life to you, you get rather lost when you're faced with something like death and estrangement. Sirius felt overwhelmed and lame and he drank a lot.

He drank a lot and Lily was, she thought, a bit depressed. She was depressed and useless and cried when people died and the strength and brilliance she had at seventeen was slowly waning, leaving her when she needed it most. She needed it and the Order needed people who were sane and stable and willing to fight. She was no longer willing to fight for a lost cause. Lost cause, lost Mums, lost friends. And James hated her for it. James absolutely hated her for it and he did not often come home, usually bunked with Remus when the meetings ran late and she never spoke to him, really, anymore. He was brave and she loved him for it but did not understand how he could be so horrible to her because she was scared.

Because she was scared. Scared to lose James and scared to lose herself and everything she knew. She was scared for this baby – they knew if they wanted a family before one of them died, they were under pressure to start it soon and one night they just argued and fought and had sex and whatever, she thought. Whatever, I'll be a Mum and he a Dad and what hope can there be for any of us. And then she was pregnant and married and never felt more alone in her whole entire life.

It was not as if James had ever been horrible to her. It was not as if he had ever said he hated her or hit her or anything but he could not really look at her anymore. She had said to him, and it was entirely honest of her, "I'm very tired of this" and he was angry about that. He figured if he was risking his life – she should be, too. If he and every other member of the Order were terrified and had no idea what was coming next – she, Lily, should be along with them. He felt – and perhaps rightfully so – abandoned and belittled by his wife and it made him feel very old, quite beyond his years.

He was meant to love her and care for her and she knew that he did not for a time. She knew that she became a bit attention-seeking when he got really preoccupied with the Order and saving other lives. He was out on tasks and errands and God only knows what for Dumbledore and she was supposed to be understanding and supportive but she basically missed him and missed being in love and then she started to miss other things, other people.

When Sirius began drinking he stopped going to the meetings and he stopped shaving and maybe bathing and he stopped seeing James or, apparently, anyone but her. He started coming around looking like some kind of great mess. If there was ever a way for a mess, a disaster to look good it was on Sirius Black. In his downward spiral, he became a sort of figment of what people expected him to become. He became angry and he became bitter and he became judgmental. Not in the ways that his family was but he, for the first time in his life, began to resemble the upbringing he had left behind.

There were so many things wrong with them and lost loves and bad Mum's were hardly the surface of what was wrong. What was wrong was what they did. What was wrong was the pureblood Black and mudblood Evans – no, Potter, she would often recall and become completely uncertain – were bonding over miserable things. They were in that misery loves company situation and it was sudden and intense and they sat alone during the day watching her television.

She was going to be a Mum and he had a bad Mum and it was the stupidest bond she had ever formed.

"Can I tell you something?" She asked in her quiet sad voice and sometimes it sent chills through him to hear her speak so differently from the way he was familiar with.

"Always," he said and sometimes he slurred but his alcoholic ways had become endearing and affectionate to her and he smoked near her and she wished he would quit – for his health and hers and the baby's – but also enjoyed the hazy smoky foggy company.

"Oh shit," she felt the tears in her eyes and it was warm in the house and she sat with a cardigan on and a blanket folded over her lap but she still shook and her teeth chattered and it was nerves, she knew. "You know, you're good, Sirius. You've always been good and damn your Mum, you know? Damn your family."

It was not what she was meaning to tell but what she was meaning to tell was meant for another man, a different man but she did not care for James nearly as much as she cared for Sirius now. It was naive of her, it was risky of her.

"S'that what you had to say? I don't like to hear about how good I could be, Lily or how damned my Mum is. Bullocks, I say, I'm not near who I'd like to be." He drank from a glass – he never sank to the point of swigging straight from the bottle when he was around her. When he was around her he was as much of a gentleman as he could be and lately, well – that left a lot to be desired.

"No, that's not what I wanted to say. It's funny, isn't it, you and I," He offered a nod, drank from his glass and laid his head back against the back of the sofa as his brain buzzed and lights popped in front of his eyes and he never really felt drunk anymore, just clumsily calm.

"I'm scared. I had a good Mum. She was a good Mum. There should be an ode to my Mum," Voice thick with tears and she was the last girl you'd figure to be sad. She was young and had a husband and a sister but they were two people who mattered very little just then.

"Why're you scared 'cause you had a good Mum? I don't...Lily, I love you, you know that? Shut up and get to it." He had said it before and it still did something to her heart to hear her husband's best friend say that he loved her. He only loved her because she sat with him and introduced him to daytime television – because it was the sort of empty illusions she took comfort in these days – and sometimes baked for him and felt sorry for his bad Mum and only because she was about to become one herself.

She turned to him, crossed her legs and only being about eight weeks pregnant she was not showing and the only way you could tell was if you paid her growing breasts extra attention. He kept his head leaning back against the sofa and if you looked at him he was handsome, but you had to look past the becoming-beard and crumpled features because he was always frowning, always so lost.

Lily took his hand and he was at this point, Sirius was, where he felt very little. He was a numb, strange scared person and he was more of a boy than a man, she realized, as she stroked the back of his hand and wished for each of them to feel better, happier, stronger.

"You can't say a word," she breathed and he may not even remember the next day because he smelled of booze and cigars and that notion made her press on. "to anyone, not ever, not until I have. You can't even tell James."

This seemed to catch his attention, for he sat up a bit straighter and met her green eyes and they shared something in that moment, silent but stirring. His eyes were some blue-grey and fathomless and rather haunting, she felt.

"What can't I tell James?" Sirius spoke in a deep rough voice and it was quiet but steady and the spark of interest in those eyes of his almost had him back to his old self.

"I'm pregnant." Her voice broke and his heart broke for her and he squeezed her hand back with his own and turned to face her and she looked very pretty with her red hair a curly mess and her cheeks flushed as his were and she was sober as could be.

For a man who had consumed a decent amount of liqour he was quite honest and coherent when he told her that she would be a good Mum.

"The best, likely," he went on and he admired the gleaming diamond on her finger before letting her hand fall. "Luckiest kid ever, I'd say."

She felt an overwhelming something build up inside of her and for a moment it might've been guilt, as she realized she had told Sirius but not James about the impending bundle of joy and what kind of person did that? The best friend should not know over the husband and he was not even her best friend. It was reality at it's most powerful when Lily realized that – oh, maybe Sirius was her best friend now, too.

"Thank you," and she really meant it – in a scary serious way that made her eyes well up but not because she was about to cry, more because she was not blinking and could not blink because it was hard for her to tear herself away from him because he was comfort at its best. "I hope so."

And sometimes Lily would want to kiss him because a lot of girls wanted to kiss Sirius Black. A lot of girls had kissed Sirius Black and he had grown out of his immature, pranking state – something she missed from time to time – and she did not much want to kiss Sirius Black the alcoholic but rather Sirius Black the charmer, the boy who stood there with a cigarette in his mouth at her wedding and who had been the best man and who would, more than likely, be the godfather to her unborn baby. Sometimes she wanted to kiss him and she had not thought about it for a very long time because it was surprising what a good bloke, husband James was to her. She had been a satisfied, happy, fairy-tale young bride for a few months and she supposed having it last a lifetime was more than she could ask for.

They sat together on that cold afternoon – it seemed the sky had quit turning blue during the day and the sun never really shone anymore, just sort of rose and fell and had no impact on the weather – and she remembered Sirius Black the rugged, carefree boy and he remembered the Lily who had chased her dreams.

It was easy – easier than it should have been, with liar, cheat, wrong written all over it – to look her in those green eyes and remember how bright they were and just lean in and kiss her. Nothing sort of the way he normally kissed girls with pretty eyes but really softly and bottom-lip-focused and it probably could not even be considered a kiss, Lily thought, as her eyes did that flutter thing and her stomach turned – unpleasantly but she ignored it – and she felt really very warm, feverish.

If Sirius' Mum had been a good one, which they had long since accepted she would not be, she probably would have said something like, well – once you get a best friend like James Potter you really should look out for him and his girl (wife) but never fancy her that way, never kiss her that way. That's betrayal – a good Mum would have said – that's betrayal, that is.

And somewhere someone was dying and somewhere someone was being born and Voldemort was gaining supporters and the world was getting scarier and they were both very strong people underneath everything – Both strong enough to go there and come back from it, come back from it better and prepared and without a trace of guilt. They knew what they needed when they needed it, even if no one else could possibly understand.

Abc.