Lord of the Guys: The Ninth Installment
"It's all right, Prongs," Sirius said hastily, as James scrambled to his feet, kicking up flurries of sand. Lily was upturned next to his ankles, looking distinctly disgruntled, but Snape and Peter didn't pause in their political bickering long enough to take in the scene. Sirius rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Don't – just – you know. Prongs. It's all right."
James's expression was inscrutable behind his glasses, and he was biting down on his lower lip so hard that the skin there had turned chalk white. Remus stared at the whiteness placidly. The palm wine had made his brain muggy; it was hard to figure out why everyone was acting so agitated…
"Are you… are you two together?" James choked out eventually. He looked rather as if he was dreading the response.
"No," Sirius hastened, at the same time as Remus said 'Yes'. They looked at each other in mutual consternation, and then turned back to James, who put up a hand instinctively and embedded it in his hair for comfort and reassurance.
"Yes," Sirius said this time, as Remus simultaneously said 'No', nodding in agreement. They looked at each other again. James looked as if he was trying to tie his hair into knots with his free hand, while his other clutched at the hem of his blazer as if it were a sturdy rope hanging off the edge of a cliff. It was the only shred of normality James had left to cling to; it belonged to a civilized world of grey rain and muddy boots and the ineffable joy of watching a slab of yellow marge melt into hot toast.
"Yo," Remus supplied helpfully.
"It's all right, Remus is drunk," Sirius explained.
"Moony is pissed," James echoed, still massaging his skull with his right hand and creating a lifelong crease in his blazer with his left. His mouth quirked hopefully. "Is that why – is that why you're – why you were – is it?"
"No," Sirius and Remus chorused together.
"I'm not drunk, anyway," Sirius said quietly.
"Ah," James said in grateful comprehension, beginning to pace back and forth in a small, cramped oblong. "I'm not either. At least not nearly drunk enough to deal with this."
"It's all right, mate," Sirius ventured.
"I would've told you before," Lily interrupted in a hurry, startling James so much that he quickly withdrew his fingers from what now resembled the nest of a schizophrenic hawk, and nearly scalped himself in the process. "Only I didn't know if you already knew and you were prancing about half-naked half the time and it wasn't the sort of thing one brings up…"
"What?" James asked, stopping in his tracks and staring at her with wild eyes. "Is Evans drunk as well?"
"Not quite," Lily replied curtly, at the same time as Sirius said 'Yes'. Lily glared at him, making a face. It didn't look as if it went the way she planned it to – she looked more like a sufferer of acute stomach-ache than a disapproving Prefect.
"You knew?" James hyperventilated in her general direction. Lily looked rather taken aback. "You knew that my two best friends were – are –" James broke off, unable to articulate his bewilderment. Peter was engaged in an impromptu arm-wrestling match with Snape that had originated over a conspiracy theory. He lost the contest spectacularly and looked up at the others, ears pricking up at the words 'best friends'. "You knew that they – and I didn't – and you knew?"
"I saw them a couple of days ago," Lily murmured apologetically. "Sorry."
"How long? How long for?" James spluttered.
"We haven't been – we're just, you know, mate," Sirius said, pushing some long hair out of his eyes earnestly. Snape and Peter were watching open-mouthed now, all tussles forgotten. "We're just messing about. It's all right, honestly."
"Messing about is when you're both stoned up to the eyeballs, or drunk the night after a Quidditch match, or…" James looked around helplessly for someone sane or sober, without success. "It's not… this. It's not… I always thought you were kosher. Mainly. How can you – bugger."
James went silent and looked at his feet for a moment to compose himself, tangling his fingers tightly in the hair at the back of his neck. Lily uncertainly fingered with the cuffs of her blouse. Remus felt a new sensation swelling in the pit of his stomach to replace the euphoria that had been there only moments before; unease. James looked up, his face unreadable once again.
"Do you think I could leave for just few minutes?" James asked the air in front of him in a tight voice. Sirius frowned slightly.
"It's all right Prongs," Sirius enthused. "Seriously, I know you must be feeling-"
"It's fine," James replied stiffly, looking as if he knew nothing of the kind. "I just want a little time to myself, okay?"
"Sure… I guess," Sirius conceded, looking hurt. "But when you come back, we'll talk, right?" James nodded dumbly and walked away, his eyes fixed firmly on the ground in front of him as if he were scared that it might disappear from beneath his feet. Lily gazed at his retreating back, and then turned to look past Sirius, at Remus. She didn't look sympathetic.
"I hope you don't have any more secrets up your sleeve, Lupin," Lily said in a clipped voice, unsmiling. "I wonder who you'll end up hurting next time." Remus watched her in detached confusion as she ran up the sandy incline to the shelter and disappeared behind the curtain of leaves. Sirius put his head in his hands.
"Fuck, Remus," Sirius groaned. "What did we just do?"
'I don't know, but I want to keep doing it,' Remus wanted to say. Out loud he muttered, "I don't know."
"Prongs is freaked out, I know he is," Sirius mused. "I don't know why he's taking it so badly… I didn't expect…"
"Did you notice how she called me Lupin?" Remus asked, keeping his voice low, not for confidentiality, but because he was afraid it might tremble. Lily was acting like she hated him. So was James, in fact. He hadn't addressed Remus at all the whole time; he'd just been talking to Sirius. Who was still talking about something, his mouth was changing shape and his lips were pressing together at intervals, which meant he was still talking…
"…Prongs'll get over it. He has to get over it, he's just being – I don't know what. But still, he has to understand that this thing with you and me isn't – he isn't being – do you think he's is angry? I mean -"
"Did you notice how she called me Lupin?" Remus repeated, a little more loudly.
"What?" Sirius said, startled. He looked at Remus's miserable half-scowl and touched the side of his cheek gently. It was the kind of fleeting contact that hadn't exactly been commonplace before, but which there had been a distinct lack of ever since the first, fumbled kiss on the beach. Remus felt Sirius's slightly rush thumb brush his cheekbone, felt the immediacy of warmth, skin and pulse near him for a second and was instantly comforted and relieved. "Remus, she was just upset."
"Would either of you care to tell me what just happened?" Snape drawled suddenly from where he and Peter were lounging in the sand. Sirius winced at the voice, and ignored him. Snape's tone grew mocking. "Evans didn't find out you two were shirtlifters, did she?"
"What are the odds of you shutting your fat face so I don't have to grind it into the sand?" Sirius retorted, standing up and advancing towards Snape gradually, with all the speed of a particularly menacing tortoise. This approach was extremely intimidating, and usually scared the victim shitless. Snape, however, seemed to be rather bulled up on bravado when drunk, and rose to be on eye-level with Sirius, then didn't budge.
"Highly improbable," Snape sneered, unblinking. "I always suspected, though. Unsurprising, really."
"Oh really?" Sirius asked in a dangerously composed voice.
"Yeah," smirked Snape, brushing down his robes with nonchalance. "Given the way you over-assert your masculinity, you tosser, it's no wonder that you've got disgusting habits. And as for Lupin!"
"What about me?" Remus interjected.
"Yeah, what about him?" Sirius growled. Snape grinned maliciously and pretended to be holding a phantom quill in the air, checking invisible ticky-boxes on a parchment in front of him.
"He fits all the criteria. Slightly effeminate – check. Never really had a proper girlfriend – check, Spends a bit too long ogling you when he thinks you're not looking – check. Obsession with chocolate – every homosexual I have ever known has been completely obsessed with food – check…"
"You must have a death wish," Sirius muttered, "but as much as I would hate to spare your family the cost of a burial, I'm going to disembowel you so brutally that they won't be able to find any of your remains…"
"And of course," finished Snape, smiling a horrible malevolent smile and delivering this last blow with a small, careless shrug of the shoulders, "he doesn't have much choice, does he? I mean – it's not as if he can ever start a family, being what he is – what girl's going to want to get into bed with, much less marry, a savage beast like him?"
Any sympathy Remus might have held for Snape vanished abruptly into thin air. Any commiseration the boy might have felt at Snape being the obvious outcast of the group, the lonely Slytherin in a pride of Lions, the one everyone teased and no-one really liked, the one who they were only civil to because of two of the party's Prefect sensibilities, disappeared in tidal wave of overwhelming emotion. Remus didn't feel angry as such, it was as if an icy hand had gripped him and was freezing him from the inside out. He dimly registered that Sirius was now as tightly coiled as a spring with rage, every muscle taut with fury, and if anyone so much as contemplated breathing in the next five seconds the spring would be tripped and all hell would break loose.
"Hey," Peter mumbled in bemused surprise, "don't talk about Moony like that." Snape looked to his right, where Peter was rolling down his pyjama sleeves and looking put out.
"I beg your pardon, Pettigrew?"
"I said," Peter repeated, gaining confidence with each syllable, "don't talk about Moony like that. It's not his fault, and I bet more girls would want to marry him and his chocolate than you and your… and your…" he faltered. Snape raised an eyebrow. "And your nose," Peter concluded triumphantly. "And your horrible superior…. robes and the way you're mean to everyone and your greasy hair. So leave my friend alone, OK?"
Snape looked at Peter appraisingly, stared into the fair boy's watery blue eyes, which were glimmering with open defiance, then looked at Sirius's naked anger and the huddled form that was Remus on the sand. Snape, very wisely, decided not to bother.
"Oh, I do wish Dumbledore'd hurry up with the paperwork and start organizing getting us home," Snape snarled, suddenly as irritable as a bear with a splinter in its paw. "Then I'd be rid of you lot," he muttered in an undertone, flouncing off, his robes billowing around his ankles. Sirius started after him, but Remus called his name.
"He's not worth it," Remus shrugged, although the sour aftertaste of what Snape had said was hard still to swallow. It seemed to have manifested as a lump in his throat, one that he couldn't quite force down. Remus shook his head and turned to grin weakly at Peter. "Thanks, Pete."
"Yeah, props to you, Wormtail," Sirius approved, rubbing his bare chest. "Slimy old Snivellus had it coming. That's why you're a Gryffindor, mate, you need to do stuff like that more often,"
"It was nothing," Peter beamed, turning rose pink with pride.
"No, it was something," Sirius said, clapping Peter on the back. "You're not a pushover when it comes to sticking up for your friends, and that counts for something."
"Well, I had to do something about Slimy Snivellus," Peter agreed, pleasantly surprised by all the attention. "How dare he say you were gay, anyway?"
"I…" Remus opened his mouth to say something to Peter, but the syllable just drifted out of his mouth and made its solitary way down the beach. There wasn't really anything to say. Remus gazed numbly at the turquoise ocean, suddenly disregarding his total (and what seemed mutual, given his previous attempts to befriend it) abhorrence of all H2O that came in a container too large to drink out of. What he really wanted to do right now was submerge himself in the cool water, let it envelop him entirely, even wade in so far that the waves lapped at his ears, which he hated. Then he'd drift off in a wonderful wash of blue, with the diamond sparkle of the light dancing off the surface and winking at him.
It was a truly brilliant plan. If only he'd had the energy or willpower to excecute it. Remus sat forlornly in the sand while Sirius and Peter stood awkwardly a few metres away, not talking. Peter plucked a blade of grass from the dry ground, and not bothering to brush the dirt away, gripped it between his teeth like a pipe.
The rustle of bare feet over sand alerted them to the fact that James was making his way towards them. His haystack hair was slicked backwards, and rivulets of seawater were running down his neck. The collar of his blazer was getting damp, although he didn't seem to mind that, nor the fact that there was brown seaweed clinging to the side of his glasses. He'd obviously ducked his head in a rock pool to sober up, though how effective the effort had been wasn't clear – he looked at if he was psyching himself up to do something, perhaps throw a punch. At first glance he looked composed enough, except for his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. Remus looked up at James's face, which creased slightly as the boy wrinkled his nose, then split into a wide smile.
"I want you both to know," James said, looking as if he'd been given free tickets to every Quidditch game of the season, plus vouchers for free drinks at the pubs nearest the stadiums, "that I'm actually very happy for both of you."
"Are you all right?" Sirius asked, rushing over.
"I'm great," James said, nodding fervently, so emphatic that his face became a slight blur. Peter chewed contentedly at his blade of grass. "I'm fantastic. I'm better than that. I'm fine."
"Prongs, it's okay if you feel funny about this…"
"Funny!" James barked, grinning manically. "Who's funny. No-one's funny. I'm fine. I think it's great. It's my two best friends… you know… my two best friends…"
"Calm down, okay?" Sirius said, putting out a hand to James, who flinched, and then shook it formally.
"I'm calm. I'm cool and collected. I'm fine. You don't need to feel weird about anything, you understand? You can go back to doing… whatever you were doing. I know I interrupted last time, but-" James took a deep breath. "Whenever you need to do things, just do them. I won't stop you."
"We don't need to do things," Sirius said, sounding stung.
"Well, you didn't need to snog in front of everyone just then, but you did," James replied, his smile vanishing briefly. Peter's mouth fell open so far it grazed his knees.
"They snogged?" Peter said incredulously, choking unattractively on his grass. "Moony and Padfoot snogged? Why? Properly?"
"It's fine, 'Tail," James said, recovering his composure and turning his full-wattage smile back on. "It's fine. They can do whatever they want to do."
"James," Remus said quietly from the ground. He was feeling incredibly tired all of a sudden. Every single fibre in his body quivered with exhaustion.
"It's fine, Moony," James said not unkindly, turning the excruciatingly earnest grin onto him. James blinked, remembering something. "Where'd Evans go?" Remus made a fatigued wave in the direction of the shelter, and James nodded briskly, not meeting his eye. "I wish Dumbledore's owl would hurry up and come, so we can all go home and be normal, though," he commented to Peter as he started to make his way up the incline to the shelter. "I miss that."
Peter turned balefully to look at Sirius and Remus, pleading at them with his eyes.
"Say you're not poofs really," he begged. Neither of them spoke, and a parrot cried shrilly from a nearby bush. "Say it's just a prank, guys. Say –" Peter faltered. He ran up the hill to join James and Lily, not looking back once. Remus flopped backwards onto the sand and looked at the sky, which was turning Gryffindor red and gold with streaks of violet as the sun set in the west.
A long shadow fell over him, blocking out the view of the horizon. It was Sirius, looking sombre. Remus mentally steeled himself for what Sirius was going to say. It would probably be a gloomy rhetoric, along the lines of 'What have we done?'. He might suggest that they go and see what James and Lily were doing, or better, take out their aggression on Snape. He might – unthinkably – say the dreaded 'I don't think this is such a good idea', and Remus felt altogether too wearied for any kind of coherent protest, without which Sirius would just walk away…
"Move over there," Sirius grunted, and lay down next to him. Remus felt warm limbs wrap themselves around him, and the comfort of another body pressing against his back. Remus closed his eyes and relaxed into the contact, only wincing when one of Sirius's jagged nails scratched him through his shirt. The hand was promptly raised to Sirius's mouth and the offending nail bitten off. Sirius's chin was resting uncomfortably on Remus's skull, and his forearm was crossed over the smaller boy's chest. They stayed that way for a long time, while the vibrant reds faded from the sky, and the first pinpricks of distant stars came into view.
Dumbledore's second owl arrived that night.
Shortly after that, it began to rain.
Should Remus have his transformation on the island? Don't worry, I won't make him kill/bite anyone. Er.
Yes. The moon, she waxes.
No.
What should be resolved first?
The Remus-Lily tension.
The Sirius-James tension.
I noticed no tension between Remus and Lily.
I noticed no tension between Sirius and James.
There's a difference between subtlety and 'wtf'. WHAT TENSION? WHERE?
I am going to tick all the boxes just to spite you. Ha.
To settle a score. What is the best old-school Disney film ever?
The Little Mermaid.
Peter Pan.
Beauty and the Beast.
The Lion King.
Aladdin.
Pinnochio.
Cinderella.
Snow White.
Sleeping Beauty.
Robin Hood
The Aristocats
The Sword In The Stone
The Black Cauldron
Snow White
Vat iz thees 'Disney' ov vich yoo speek?