Puppy Love
It's a rainy day in May, and Sirius is sitting in the common room, bored beyond belief and waiting for James and Peter to hurry the fuck up and finish their homework. Remus is lying on the floor beside the sofa Sirius' is slouched over, reading a book and tuning out the rest of the world. He seems so intent and focused, that Sirius is almost curious as to what he's reading.
He nudges the book with his foot, because he knows it will both get Remus to look up and annoy him at the same time. "What?"
"Whatcha reading?"
"The Philosophy of the Mundane: Why Muggles Prefer Not to Know by Professor Mordicus Egg."
Sirius makes a face. Boring. "What's it about?" Not because he wants to know, but because he doesn't want Remus to go back to reading.
"It's a bunch of theories as to why Muggles don't see the magical creatures that seem so obvious to the everyday wizard. He's got a couple good points. But there are a few that are severely flawed." Remus talks with his hands, but not as much as James does. Remus is subtle. Smooth. And there are scratches that go up the back of his wrists and into his robes in various degrees of pale to red.
Grabbing the book, Sirius nods like he might actually be interested, and flips through the pages, deliberately losing Remus' place because he knows it will annoy the other boy, and he likes annoying Remus. "What kind of a name is Mordicus Egg? It's worse than Nymphadora Tonks." Remus thinks Nymphadora is a pretty name, and Sirius is determined to hate it just on principle. How the hell is this bloody book interesting?
Scowling at him, Remus takes the book back, and pointedly turns his back on Sirius, .leaning against the couch and facing the fire. And that annoys Sirius.
First he tries reading over Remus' shoulder, knowing how much Remus hates it. When Remus hunches forward, hiding the book in his chest, Sirius scowls at the back of his head. He tries whistling, because he knows he can't carry a tune. That doesn't work. He tries staring at the back of Remus' head, waiting for Remus to develop some sort of sixth sense or get paranoid. That doesn't work, either.
Remus' hair is kind of haloed in the firelight, and Sirius smirks. Because Remus is far from angelic.
Remus is, however, an annoying prat. And reaching over lazily, Sirius flicks at the brown hair hanging over the edge of Remus' collar with his wand. When Remus doesn't say anything, Sirius then pokes at the back of Remus' ear. Look, look, look! Nothing.
Not to be deterred, he taps at Remus' neck. Tunnels his wand through the pretty hair. Smacks the top of Remus' head. Then he gives up the wand in favor of poking the back of Remus' head with his forefinger until the growl growing in Remus' tense shoulders is finally audible.
And then he laughs like a maniac when Remus finally snaps and turns to tackle him.
aaaaaa
It's a warm, sunny day in September, and Sirius is stuck in the dungeons for a Potions lesson. Remus is sitting next to him, while James and Peter are on the other side of the room. Sirius stinks at Potions, and is proud of the fact because he wouldn't want to be good at anything that might actually make his family want to acknowledge him anyway. He grins madly at Remus who in return groans and slumps his forehead down onto their table.
Remus is good at everything. And Sirius welcomes the challenge that it is to bollocks up something underneath Remus' watchful eye. The professor prattles off a list of instructions before settling in for an afternoon nap, and Sirius snakes a handful of pixie dust. Are you watching? He tries to dump the whole fistful into the cauldron, but Remus smacks his hand away and glares.
"Stop it."
"Why?" He knows why, but he can't seem to help himself. Or maybe it's that he doesn't want to help himself.
"Because we'll get in trouble." But that's half the fun.
"Maybe I want to get into trouble. What's the worst that can happen?"
"Filch. Detention. Until I've got grey hair and walk with a cane." There's a vein throbbing in Remus' forehead, and it makes Sirius smile. Look, look. He reaches to grab the first item on the list, but Remus pushes him back down.
"Sit still. Touch nothing."
"Yes Master," he hisses. "I be good. Please, sirs. I just be needs your sock." He tries diving for Remus' feet, but Remus already has a hand fisted in Sirius' hair. It smarts something fierce, but Sirius has felt worse.
"Quit it."
"Eep! Master is mad. Bad Sirius!" And then Remus casts an immobilizing charm sticking Sirius to his chair. Killjoy.
Remus mixes in the first three ingredients, looking thoughtful as he stirs first clockwise and then counterclockwise. "James wrote to say that you spent the summer with him."
I don't want to talk about it. "Is it just me, or is Snivellus' nose actually bigger this year than it was last year?"
"Why didn't you write me?" Remus looks hurt, and Sirius hates that more than he hates his family. His heart sinks into his stomach.
"It's just temporary. I have to scratch my nose." Remus frowns for a moment and then releases him. Half-heartedly, Sirius scratches his nose, which in fact does not itch at all. "It's not that big of a deal." Please, don't let it be that big of a deal.
"So you can tell James and Peter what's going on, but you can't tell me?" Remus flashes him the hurt look again, and he wants to crawl under the table. He wants to take the thick Potions manual and hit himself with it like the house elf he was impersonating earlier. He wants to plug his ears and hum really loudly until it tunes out Remus, his father, his mother, his brother and all the myriads of voices in his head.
"James and Peter didn't ask," he defends himself weakly, before reaching for another handful of pixie dust and tossing it in the cauldron before Remus can stop him. The potion starts bubbling and burping, and Remus glares at him as he rushes to fix what Sirius is pretty sure is unfixable.
He doesn't know why Remus is getting so worked up about it. It was just a couple of weeks at James'. An extended sleepover. Hanging with a mate while the parents take an extended vacation from parenting.
Because telling you would have made it real.
aaaaaa
It's a cold, nasty day in January and Sirius is behind Hagrid's hut, freezing his balls off. He's got one hand hopelessly tangled in Snape's robes, and he's plowing his fist into Snape's face, hoping the prat will finally get the message. Stay away from my friends.
He knows he shouldn't, but he enjoys the way Snape's head snaps back as Sirius gets in a particularly good hit. He wants to make sure that Snape understands. That no matter what the pecking order might appear to be, no one picks on his friends. And he doesn't think about how much he likes the violence of it, or how much Snape looks like Regulus.
He's come across Peter tangled up in one too many of Snape's hexes. He's seen Snape deliberately sabotage one too many of Remus' projects. If the git wants to fight dirty, Sirius is more than willing to indulge him. It's cowardly to go after two members of the Marauders in order to get at the other two.
He lets up for a second and Snape slumps in his hands, and then the ugly git takes the opportunity to plow back at him, and clout him hard in the nose. And that makes him mad. It makes him think of all the times that Snape has deliberately kicked Remus' papers across the classroom when no one was looking, all the times Snape has tried to make Remus look stupid in Defense of the Dark Arts, and all the times that Snape has set up pranks in which Remus ends up the victim. He reaches back, and punches Snape as hard as he can in the gut while holding his nose gingerly in his hand.
Sirius leans in to hit him again, but hands stop him, and Snape takes the opportunity to turn tail and flee. It's probably the first smart move the bloke's made all day.
"Sirius! What the bloody fuck were you thinking?"
He turns slowly, holding his throbbing nose with both hands, to see Remus glaring at him, furious. "Whath it look like?" Doesn't Remus understand why this had to happen? Sirius did it for him.
"It looks like you aren't exercising the one brain cell you have left." And that hurts more than it should. "He's just going to retaliate now, and be nastier than ever."
"He hexth you!" Sirius snarls, hating that his stupid nose is getting in the way of what he's trying to say. "He'sth dabbling in the Dark Artsth and he'sth got to be sthopped!"
"It's not your job to stop him. Can't you just do us all a favor and quit fighting with him? The whole school is sick of this stupid, childish feud you have going on, and Peter and I are sick of getting caught in the crossfire." Exactly.
"That'sth why we were fighting," he insists, but Remus looks downright murderous in return.
"What makes you think that I can't defend myself? Do I look that pathetic? Am I really that weak?" he asks in a deceptively calm voice, and Sirius freezes, eyes wide as Remus watches him like a cat watches a mouse.
"No, but-" he tries, but Remus cuts him off.
"I don't need you to fight my fights. I don't need you to defend me. I don't need you to protect me from the big, bad world." Remus bites out, angrily.
"It wasthn't like that." But Remus obviously doesn't want to hear it, and he turns his back to Sirius as he starts walking back up to the castle in the same direction that Snape took off in.
"You better go get Madam Pomfrey to look at that. It's probably broken," Remus tosses coldly over his shoulder, never looking back. Sirius waits until Remus is completely out of sight before he slides down to sit on the cold, soggy ground.
His parents don't need him because they have Regulus. Regulus doesn't need him because now he gets to be an only child. James doesn't need him because he has Lily. Peter doesn't need him because he has James.
And Remus doesn't need him because Remus doesn't need anybody.
Sirius gets a mild case of hypothermia pretending that the tears on his face are because his nose is broken.
He hasn't talked to Remus in a month. He knows that Remus has been following him out here to the pitch, though, for the last three days. He's been letting the Bludgers come closer than he's let them ever come on purpose or on accident. He's got a purpling bruise on his cheek to prove it. But it's not until one of the Bludgers bounces off his shoulder that Remus says anything.
"Hey, you feckless idiot, stop doing this."
He knows Remus is still angry at him, and as much as he wants Remus to see him, he wishes Remus would go away at the same time. He's tried being angry at Remus like he's angry at his family. He's tried ignoring Remus like he ignores Regulus.
It's just not working. Because when he looks at Remus, it hurts. It's shame and longing and confusion and hate all churning around until it makes him nauseous.
So he plays Chicken with Bludgers because it takes his mind off things, and it gives him something to brag to James about at the end of the day when the bloke is prattling on about touching boobies. "'S fun. You should try it," he yells down, knowing that Remus would never.
He doesn't see the Bludger coming, and it hurts like a bitch when the bastard nails him in the kidney and knocks him off his broom. It's almost worth it though, as Remus comes racing over to see if he's all right.
Sirius grins in between the winces as he sits up to examine the newest bruise he's added to his growing collection. "You're hopeless," Remus sighs heavily, before poking at Sirius' ribs gently.
Do you see me now? "I thought you weren't talking to me."
"It takes too much effort to not talk to you." Remus offers him a hesitant half-smile, and Sirius feels his heart skip a happy beat. He looks tired, but the setting sun is bouncing off his pretty brown hair and to Sirius, Remus quite possibly could be the only angel of death that Sirius would want to die a thousand times just to see.
"Good," he simply says. Pay attention to me. Grabbing Remus' startled cheeks in his hands, he makes a big show of kissing the bloke on the lips with a big smack. Laughing at the stunned expression on his friend's face, he transforms. And with one hearty yank, he runs pell-mell for the Forbidden Forest, Remus' scarf trapped between his teeth, and trailing after him in the breeze.
He can hear Remus yelling after him, and it makes him happy.
Wake up. He pokes Remus in the arm, and nothing happens. Wake up. He pokes hard and tries nudging Remus' feet off the ottoman. C'mon and wake up. Remus' feet fall to the floor with a hard thud, and Remus jerks awake. He glares at Sirius bleary-eyed, pulls the ottoman up flush against the sofa, and turns his back to Sirius as he curls up over the arm to fall back asleep.
Carefully, Sirius crawls over the two cushions separating them and hunches over Remus. The adrenaline is pumping hard through his veins, and he's almost giddy. Remus hates it when Sirius wakes him up. Remus hates being woken up at all.
If he were a good friend, he'd let Remus sleep off the liquor. But he doesn't want to be Remus' friend.
Wake up. He pokes at Remus' elbow and nothing happens. Wake up. He pokes his way up Remus' arm and across his shoulder. Remus shifts, but does not turn around. He tickles the back of Remus' neck before tugging on the pretty hair he's spent so long admiring. Remus grumbles and bats his hand away before curling in as far from Sirius as possible.
Wake up. I'm lonely. He pokes at Remus' cheek, and then taps at Remus' lips.
Growling, Remus snaps, and before Sirius can do much reacting, Remus has him pinned down on the sofa. He can see from Remus' thunderous expression that the boy is in no mood to discuss Sirius' antics. "What do you want?"
"Nothing," he tries to choke out innocently. Remus stares at him intently, and Sirius can hear the blood thumping in his ears. He's hyper aware of the way Remus' lips are pursed in an angry frown. He's conscious of the way Remus is gripping his biceps and the way that Remus' legs are tangled in his.
And then as quickly as it came, the moment is gone. Remus lets out a tired, ragged sigh and shoves Sirius over a bit. "Go to sleep, Sirius." Remus mumbles in his ear, as his arm slumps over Sirius' chest keeping Sirius' arms and hands from causing anymore mischief. Sighing softly, Sirius turns in towards Remus, closing his eyes as he slumps against the other boy. It's warm and soft and Sirius can hear Remus breathing and it makes him feel better.
He's content, and before he knows it, asleep.
End