Moony and Padfoot's Fish-t Christmas

Dedicated To my fabulous fish "John", whom kindly allowed me to use his name in my fan fiction Alias. Thank you John!

Disclaimer- I wish as much as I wish I owned a Vespa that Sirius and Remus were all mine but, unfortunately they're not…and if they were mine I'd be rich so I could afford that Vespa!

Remus rolled over to face his sleeping lover as the Christmas sun began to slowly show its face. His inky-haired partner was still asleep, which was odd as Sirius managed to act like a child the rest of the year so why wasn't he up before the winter sun was ignited to see if "Santa" had visited? But then again, Remus couldn't really be sure that his lover was sleeping as his face was obscured by a tangle of black so Remus reached forward to clear his view only to find a pair of very wide awake smoky blue eyes and smile that didn't look at all sleep-drugged, "It's Christmas, Moony!" a very non-drowsy voice stated. All these symptoms made Remus wonder exactly how long Sirius had been awake…or whether he had even gone to sleep.

"Yes, it is well observed, Padfoot! Did you also notice that it's our first?" he replied in a friendly-mocking tone, grinning, "Merry Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas to you, too!" Sirius grinned before shuffling his body across the small gap between the two bodies to give Remus a very-non-lazy but very festive (because they were both wearing the festive boxers they had brought as a joke pre-Christmas present to each other) kiss.

"Can I give you your present, Moooooooooooony?" Sirius whined with a smug grin on his face. The werewolf was momentarily taken a back, shocked that Sirius was more keen to give than receive gifts but Remus found the grin on his lover's face irresistible so nodded, "Then I'll give you yours."

Sirius' smile grew at this as he hopped out of bed tugging Remus to follow with their hands entwined. He led them across the hall to the lounge area in their flat where beneath their sparkly, glittery and slightly too big tree there were two boxes. Sirius' family had cut him off, Remus' were dead and their friends, who served as all the family the pair needed, were off with their families today but were coming round tomorrow to have another mini Christmas.

The Animagus bounded forward and then, contrastingly, lifted Remus' present onto the coffee table very cautiously. Remus watched, curious as to why, with his sensitive werewolf hearing, he could hear the slosh of water.

"Merry Christmas, Moony!" Sirius beamed, excitedly, "Er…you need to undo the ribbon at the top and the sides will fall down…careful though"

Remus raised an eyebrow, "It's not books then, like I asked for and you usually get me?"

"Nah you must have ever book ever written by wizard or muggle -our bookshelf is full and there's a growing pile next to it that is getting scarily close to the roof. You don't need any more of them!" Sirius cried in frustration as his uncontainable excitement got to record levels-Remus could see it on his face and in his eyes.

"But I need this?" Remus hedged.

"Just open it!"

"Fine"

Remus opened the package as instructed and, sure enough, the sides fell away as described, to reveal what Remus believed was a FISH bowl...

"Er…thank you Padfoot…" Remus said as he stared at the bowl with purple, blue and green plants and a little ceramic shipwreck in the centre.

"He's called John." Sirius proclaimed and then, as if on cue, before Remus could ask who was called "John", a little orange fish with electric blue lightning bolt stripes on his side, emerged from the ship.

"He's a male Gourami." Sirius added obliviously please with his knowledge, "And he's trained."

Remus was too baffled by the oddness of the situation to be any more confused by this so just inquires, "Trained to do what exactly?"

"Come to the top when you out your hand there to feed him."

"Oh…" Sirius obliviously didn't realize that all fish would do that after a while, Remus decided, "Why's he called John?"

"Well I named him after that bassist guy out of that muggle band you like…Entwistle…plus that's your middle name..."

Remus could see that Sirius had put a lot of thought into this so decided to tread carefully, "Oh…he's lovely, really…but, er, why did you buy me a fish for Christmas?" he asked tentatively. That wasn't offensive, at all, he decided, that wouldn't upset anyone.

"Because I thought we could do with a pet and most animals run away from you because they can sense what you are…but John strikes me as a bit of a dipshit who won't give a damn what you are providing you feed regularly." Sirius shrugged.

"Well, thank you very much, you obliviously put a lot more thought into getting me John that you do most things!" Remus joked as he lent across to give his partner a thank you kiss, "And I love him, already…not as much as you though."

"Ahh, you always know just what to say…what did ya get me?" Sirius began to bouncing up and down, unable to wait any longer.

Remus stood up and retrieved Sirius' present from the tree, "Here."

The gift was something that the giver had been working on endlessly while Sirius was at work and as he handed it over he couldn't help but feel a little bit nervous, "There are no opening instructions for this one..." Remus mumbled so Sirius just ripped the festive paper back to reveal a large book.

Sirius didn't say anything, just opened the first page and gasped because there, on the first page, was a picture of their First Kiss. "How did you get this?" Sirius breathed.

"Turned out James had booby trapped the dorm because he was already convinced there was something going on between us!" Remus laughed, quietly as John the Fish bobbed over to peer out his tank to see what was happening. Throughout the pages there was picture of the two of them and their friends throughout their 331 days of being together in chronological order. Then on the last page there was, in Remus' neat and swirly hand writing, "Our First Christmas" but Remus muttered something and the letters transfigured to say, "Our Fish-t Christmas" instead.

They laughed and Remus produced a camera, "Picture?" Sirius nodded and they set up the camera on delay before Remus picked up Johns fish bowls and they held it between them as they smiled wildly for the camera as it flashed.

3 years later, after the Aurors came and stole his Padfoot from him for something he didn't, and never would, do all that was left of that Christmas was John the Fish, the photo album and memories. But pets, unfortunately, die, photos faded and memories become marred by emotions that you have no control over.

A/N- Thank you for reading this- and if you read my "God! Heaven's a Weird Place" too- I've only just worked out how to up load a story so this double as my author's note for that one too! Please review! They make me very happy!