It was two in the morning. And thirty-seven minutes. And forty-two seconds. Forty-three. Forty-four…

And he was still doing it.

"I wanna hurt you just to hear you screaming my name; don't wanna touch you but you're under my skin..."

Remus sighed an irritated sigh.

Sirius Black was not all his fans, admirers and let's face it, stalkers, thought he was. Sure, he had the dark good looks, the ever-elegant stance, and wit drier than a desert mirage, but he was also really, very, painfully – annoying.

Among his really-very-painfully-annoying habits were a: sprawling over people without permission, b: getting good marks despite never studying, and c, causing Remus' current predicament: when faced with sleeplessness he sang.

Which not only didn't cure his insomnia, but stopped Remus from sleeping too.

Once it got to forty-three minutes and twenty-two seconds past two he decided to take action, here in the form of a pillow directed at his friend's head.

Unfortunately Remus had never really had a good arm for that sort of thing; and his unwillingness to sit up didn't help matters. He heard a dismal thump as the pillow, instead of connecting with the offender's face and hopefully smothering him, flopped piteously onto the floor between their beds.

Damn.

"Moony?" came a whisper. "You awake?"

"No," he grumbled, "that pillow just doesn't like me anymore."

"M-hm. That was really pathetic, by the way."

"I can still smother you, you know."

"Remus, doing that would require actual upper-body strength. Besides, you'd miss me too much."

Remus just grumbled again. He hated that smug tone, the one he knew came with that self-assured Sirius smirk.

"So, can't sleep?"

He shot Sirius a death-glare, despite the blackness of the room. "Who could sleep with you making those ungodly noises?"

"I happen to be a fine vocalist," Sirius replied, his voice hinting at a smirk again, "and stop death-glaring me."

"I'm not death-glaring you."

"Yeah you are. I can hear it."

"You can hear it. Right."

"Mm. Like you could hear my smirk, right?"

Remus was silent as Sirius' bark-like laughter rang through the dormitory.

Then, a noise.

"Padfoot? What are you doing?"

"Well," Sirius replied, his voice sounding closer now, "Since we both can't sleep –"

"I would be asleep, if you hadn't been bloody singing. Again."

"That as it might be…."

Remus' skin prickled at the cold night air as his blankets were pulled back.

"Budge up, Moonshine."

It was now fifty-six minutes and thirteen seconds past two. Sirius was sprawled over him (without permission, naturally), his mouth right by Remus' ear.

"I wanna kiss you but your lips are venomous poison…"

Maybe it wasn't that (really, very, painfully) annoying after all.


a/n Song is Alice Cooper's "Poison". I was listening to it just after I wrote Silver (which is about Sirius being like a poison to Remus) and I've associated it with SBRL ever since. Also, I always imagined Sirius as a heavy metal guy. Maybe it's the motorbike. Or the hair. Fuck yeah.

And yes, I realise it was released in 1989. Fuck it.