To my sister.

-Puppy Love-

Sirius couldn't help but stare in disbelief. "I can't believe you actually got the dog."

"Puppy," Remus corrected lightly. Smiling, he picked the animal in question off the floor and held it in front of his face. He made a funny face at it while shaking his head and cooing; the dog yipped with excitement.

Again, all Sirius was able to do was stare. "Why, Remus? I said I didn't want another dog around the flat; we'll have to house-train him and feed him--we don't have that much money- and then there's all of the fur!" Wrong thing to say.

Remus set his puppy back down on the floor (where it sat looking expectantly at Sirius's shoe) and placed his hands on his hips. "Padfoot's fur was already a problem, and I didn't think that you minded it very much. It's one puppy, not a whole litter, we can afford it." Sirius opened his mouth to retort, but Remus continued. "And I thought that I was good at house-training, Padfoot doesn't seem to have any," a pause, "accidents."

Sirius let out an indignant sigh and stamped his foot (to the puppy's great excitement). "You can't just bring puppies home with you! We didn't ever agree on any of it!"

His partner turned to him, eyes darkened, but playfully so. An arm twined its way around his waist, pulling him closer, and those dark eyes ensnared his own. Remus leaned close, his lips brushing Sirius's cleanly shaven jaw. "I'm sorry, Sirius," he mumbled, placing a few more slow kisses around Sirius's face. Slowly he looked up into dark blue eyes looking somewhat apologetic; Sirius gulped.

The apologetic look quickly turned into a wicked grin as Remus spoke. "But we can't do anything about him now, Rex has got to stay with us!" As if to emphasize the statement, the puppy yipped again.

Sirius pulled away with a look of mild disgust. "I can't deal with this," he said shortly, throwing his hands into the air and stomping towards the kitchen.

His tail swaying playfully, the puppy-Rex, as Remus had dubbed him-looked up at his new master, who grinned. "Don't worry, little guy, he'll come around."

The dog had only been in the flat for a few hours and already Sirius couldn't stand it. The place no longer smelled like a strange mix of books, tea, and well, himself, but of dog. You would think that, sometimes being a dog himself, Sirius wouldn't mind that, but he did. It wasn't his smell, it was a little-dog-who-was-taking-all-of Remus's-attention-smell. The dog in him yearned to mark its territory so the little dog would know what was what, but Sirius didn't think Remus would appreciate dog pee all over the flat.

Remus was giggling in the next room, talking to the little beast about the "rules." Sirius knew all of the rules already- no tracking mud in, no chewing shoes (which were very nice to suck on, believe it or not), and, of course, no jumping on people. He was good at following the rules, although he did, occasionally, dismiss the last one when it pertained to Remus.

He stood from his spot at the table and glanced back to look at Remus. The man was grinning and looking altogether more happy than he had in a while. "Ok," Sirius muttered, "this is war. I'm not losing him to a puppy."

He quickly Changed and, as Padfoot, walked back through the living room and to the bedroom, making sure that Remus saw his hanging head and his tail between his legs. Bad idea, very bad idea. Why had he not used his brain? The little dog ran to him yipping as happily as ever and started to herd him, if it was possible to herd one thing. Great job, Pads.

With great effort, it seemed, Padfoot deferred from throttling Rex. Remus tried to hold back his smile, but that smile quickly disappeared as Padfoot sent him an almost human glare and glumly sat down on the floor, Rex continuing to herd him.

"Oh, come off it, Sirius," he started, "He isn't that bad!"

Padfoot growled softly at Rex, who was again fascinated with the other dog's paws. The black dog pulled away from the smaller one in almost-disgust and went to lay down in front of the couch, close to Remus. Rex followed, sitting down next to Padfoot's head and becoming completely absorbed in the movement's of Padfoot's ears.

A smile tugged at Remus' lips as he watched them. They were cute, just as he thought they would be, but Padfoot didn't look happy at all. "At least try to get along," he pleaded.

Padfoot snorted in response.

This was it, Sirius was on his own with the pest for the first time since it had be acquired. Remus had gone out to the store early that morning when he found the cupboards completely lacking tea. Sirius stared at the puppy (who was still enamored with his shoe).

The two of them were getting along ok, better than Sirius had expected at least. Rex stayed out of his way for the most part, and was pretty good at following Remus' rules. He was actually kind of cute, cute in an annoyingly sweet way. Maybe Remus was right, they could get along after all.

Rex sat down on the ground, his tail swishing on the floor beside him. He caught a glimpse of the appendage and immediately started to chase it, running in circles for a few seconds before falling over, exhausted. Sirius couldn't help himself, a deep laugh escaping him.

"You're a good dog, aren't you?" he cooed.

Ok, so the dog was really cute, he couldn't argue with that. Sirius knelt down next to Rex and pat the dog's head lightly, smiling. He could get used to this, it wasn't half as bad as he thought it would be-aside from the smell and loss of territory.

The door opened and Sirius quickly stood up, as not to be caught fraternizing with the enemy. Remus walked in smiling. "I see there wasn't any bloodshed."

"No, we're fine."

"He's cute, no?" Remus asked, dropping his bag on the couch.

Sirius sent him a dark glare, then glanced down at Rex, who was looking at him with those big, glassy eyes. Sirius let out a deep breath. "Only sometimes."

Walking closer to his friend, Remus laughed. "Well, we can't all be perfect." He smirked.

With a small yip, Rex began to run circles around the two, his herding instinct kicking in. Remus let out a yelp of distress as he fell forwards into the Sirius' chest. Sirius let out a small noise of surprise, but then smirked. "He is rather smart," he muttered, hugging Remus closer.

Remus pressed a kiss into his cheek. "See, Sirius? Having a puppy isn't that bad," he said, glancing down at the ball of fluff on the floor beside their feet. Sirius had the decency to drag his eyes off of his partner to the small creature– bad move. Damn those big, dark brown, shimmery puppy-eyes; Remus was the only one who should be able to use them against him.

...end...