It's Arithmancy and while Meredith Humphreys is staring at Sirius, James is staring at Lily. Again. Lily's pretending to be staring at her notes but really she's spying on Remus. Remus isn't staring at Sirius too because he's more subtle than both Meredith and James, although then again that's no great feat, as would be demonstrated if you included a herd of stampeding elephants into the scale of Subtlety, for comparison (although why would you).
Sirius and Remus sit next to each other anyway of course, and Remus is just staring at Sirius's hands on the desk. Lily observes this with mild amusement. Bloody pervert that Moony, you never do think it of the polite ones with meek brown eyes and charming smiles.
James, for his part, pretty much assumes by now that Remus is asexual and so has no questions to ask him about why he's staring at the desk. Plus, he's much more concerned with trying to get Lily's attention by flinging bits of parchment into her hair. Sirius, he thinks glumly, is being particularly unhelpful today; he's scribbling something on a suspicious piece of parchment that James does not like the look of at all, and he's being generally disobliging and uncooperative. Refusing even to assist in the parchment-throwing.
Arithmancy begrudgingly ends. Peter and Sirius troop conspiratorially off to God Knows Bloody Where. James grimly packs his things.
"Buck up, mate" sighs Remus. James just groans in response, and trails to the door. Remus goes through it, and waits for James to do whatever buggering stupid thing he has planned this time. Lily and her little blonde friend make their way to the door.
Remus rolls his eyes when James whips round.
"Wait here" he hisses.
"I'm not-" and Remus sighs, more to himself as Prongs is of course, wondering what Fresh Hell the world is about to unleash at his poor unsuspecting feet.
"Lily?" calls James confidently, striding into the classroom. Remus does not like this one bit. Poor James.
"Yeah?" she says, and he's practically ripping his scalp off.
"You're Ursula, aren't you?"
"Er. Yeah" says Blondie, confused. James smiles very unnervingly. Lily's eyebrows look like they are about to disappear into her hairline.
"Sirius wanted to know if you'd be interested in meeting him for a butterbeer next weekend?" he says, flashing her a winning smile.
Remus knows Ursula: she's funny and lively and petite with straight blonde hair and pearly teeth. His jaw unconsciously clenches. Ursula's fancied Sirius pretty much since she first laid eyes on him, and he's never paid her much attention, just smiled confusedly like the vain peacock he is, and all of this James knows. Tricky fucker.
"Double date, I was thinking?" he says bravely. Yep, tricky bloody fucker, that was quite clever actually. Lily raises an eyebrow again, and takes a deep and meaningful breath, but Ursula's eyes have lit up and she quickly agrees for them both.
"Right. We'll pick you up" gabbles James very quickly before Lily can open her mouth, pretty much flying out of the room and dragging Remus along with him. Lily gets out of the door and can only open her mouth and offer him the palms of her hands and say nothing as Remus stares helplessly at her.
James has a tight hold of his arm and he barrels down the horrible corridor with its horrible mobs of people.
"What have you done?" he demands, breathless.
"I'll persuade him! I can do it!" cries James, mid-leap over someone's bag.
"Moony" yells Lily, but they've disappeared from sight.
Back to the street, back to the place, back to the room where it all began.
Gentle footsteps toward Moony's bed. Gentle prod in the shoulder, and gentle voices.
"I'm freezing my arse off, Moony, budge over."
"Mmnn g'way" he mumbles, brow furrowing. "G'nnoy Prongs."
"He sleeps bloody sideways. Budge, Moony, go on" he whines, nudging Moony's shoulder repetitively.
"Nmm" he snuffles, moving over. Sirius smiles innocently at him, clambering into bed, snuggling a little closer to the warmth of his body. It's warm and heavy in Moony's bed. "Moony. You awake? I can't sleep."
A pause, and Sirius goes to pinch his friend in the side.
He starts and flips onto his back, panicked, sleepy-eyed and messy-haired. He's rumpled and helpless and beautiful. "Sirius... 's middl'a night." He cuddles up to Sirius, offering an arm placed soothingly around him, like he always used to do when they were younger and Sirius would wake in the middle of the night with his mind racing, and Moony's comforting arm would be there around him, snug and warm and comfortable and safe.
Sirius cuddles closer and digs his face into Remus's neck, not an uncommon occurrence, and slips his arm across the other boy's stomach under the covers. Moony only squirms a little, and says nothing. Sirius reaches up to kiss him sloppily on the chin. Again not a first. Sirius is very excitable and affectionate. And Moony only flushes and squirms the tiniest bit.
"I'm bored" murmurs Sirius as soon as Moony's managing to drop off back to sleep again. Sirius withdraws his arm slightly and begins to beat a rhythm with his fingers on Moony's belly.
"Stop it!" he squeaks almost immediately, trying clumsily to bat away Sirius's hands. But it's dark, and Sirius is quick. "Geroff!"
Sirius laughs, pushing him over and straddling him. This too, isn't a surprise. This is the kind of affection Sirius understands: physical, basic love. Remus lies back, too bleary to fight it, hoping Sirius will just shut down or go away, whichever is sooner. But he grabs Moony playfully and starts to tickle him behind the ears and on his neck, and he's so surprised and sleepily confused he can't help just giggle, actually giggle, just a little bit, and when Sirius doesn't let him he for some reason proceeds to wriggle violently and try pathetically to grab Sirius's hands.
Sirius is feeling good, but maybe he should stop before Moony realises, too, because that has the potential to blossom into something fairly awkward. He slides off his friend and Remus bristles, so Sirius grins apologetically, and Remus humphs drowsily that he'll get him tomorrow. Sirius pulls him close and for some reason, he accepts, murmuring half-hearted death threats. Maybe he was half-asleep the whole time.
He cuddles up to Sirius's chest and falls asleep in his arms, but Sirius lies awake for a while longer, just running his fingers desperately through Moony's hair, feeling vaguely scared of this thing he's only just realising he's unleashed on himself.
Bugger and disaster.
And then Sirius awoke on the edge of Moony's bed with a serious problem. And no one was up yet. He snuck out into the cold and crept into the bathroom. Oh dear.
He slid his hand down the front of his pajama bottoms automatically. Oh deardeardear. This was really unplanned.
His dream had been of Moony. And it was intensely disturbing. And he could remember it so clearly. Oh, shit. Bugger and disaster. Monkeyfuck.
Actually, it was quite intense. They were wresting, or something- or together- and he could remember Moony's blushing face, the sexiest thing he could imagine, flushed with the stuggle with dark, glittering eyes and a huge grin. It's not often Sirius sees that grin. Often, Moony's face is knitted into worry or carefully veiled from the world by a bland, non-threatening smile.
And now Sirius has woken up in bed with him and he's stiff and throbbing and it's too far. He creeps to the bathroom and sits against the door. It had been the clearest, most enticing, terrifying dream he'd ever had, and he began to seriously worry about whom he'd never really considered allowing anyone else to have. Bugger. Bugger, bugger, bugger and disaster.
Sirius slipped his hand inside his pants and the dream came flooding back, every detail, every hair on the nape of Moony's neck and every jerk of his body as Sirius found a particularly sensitive spot-
Oh, yes; the dreams were worst. Every night since, horrible, wonderful, shivering things happening, playing out in his mind until he woke up. Chest banging, and face pillar-box red. And he really couldn't help it. He'd wake up all in a state and Moony would be there, staring at him vaguely concerned from across the room.
"Bad dream?" he'd ask sympathetically, knotting his tie.
"Actually no" Sirius would mumble, confusedly.
And every time he saw Moony, which was a lot, he would immediately feel huge and clumsy, so unlike himself that Moony even asked him several times (absent-mindedly tucking a strand of his black hair behind his ear which just didn't help anything) what was up.
Sirius Black was definitely not having any of this bullshit. Bugger and disaster.
Before you ask: no, I have no idea why this chapter changed to being in present tense and then switched back to past. Things just come to you in tenses and then you can't change it, you know?
Maybe the third chapter is the last one, depending on the state of my angst:joy ratio when I write it. If I'm miz, characters tend to stay sadder for longer. Please gimme a review to let me know if anyone's actually reading, plus they're amazingly treasured. Suggestions on what might happen next also may be valuable at this point.
;)
