Bridges
Disclaimer: Characters are JKR's; plot is mine.
A/N: Here you have it, chapter 8, and without too large a delay. Enjoy.
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"Works out what before we do?" James asked curiously, flopping down into the seat opposite Sirius. Peter sat down next to him, still looking half-asleep.
"Um…" Remus was at a loss for words, not something that happened to him too often.
"Classified information, I'm afraid Prongs," Sirius cut in smoothly, giving Remus a surreptitious nudge under the table. "If we told you, we'd have to kill you."
Remus' previous comment about melodramatics in their group came to life as James pulled a face and said rather loudly: "Tell meeeee…"
"Can't do that. Sorry." Sirius picked up a fork and began nonchalantly eating a small pile of pancakes, ignoring James' continued whining.
"Padfoot! What is it? You tell me everything! Why won't you tell me what it is? Tell me!"
"James, act your age, for god's sake," Remus growled moments later. He didn't usually object too much to the other boy's three-year-old-style antics, but with werewolf hearing, there was only so much he could take of that high-pitched whinging.
But James didn't stop, and it went on all day.
"Prongs, pass me that quill please."
"Only if you tell me what you and Moony were talking about before."
And then:
"Peter, I'm going to try that hex now. Are you ready?"
"Yeah. Then can you tell me what that thing was?"
Not forgetting:
"James, could you stir the potion while I slice these caterpillars?"
"Only if you tell me what you and Pads are trying to keep secret from us."
And on and on, in every single lesson. It was taking quite an effort for Remus and Sirius to keep quiet, as they couldn't afford to even give a hint until they had come up with a fake secret.
When they left the Transfiguration classroom at the end of the day, Sirius didn't even wait around for the inevitable questioning. Instead, he grabbed Remus' hand and they ran for it, sprinting to get away before McGonagall could emerge from the classroom and demand that they stop running in a busy corridor.
"Has James got the map with him?" Remus gasped as they finally took refuge in an empty classroom on the third floor, several minutes and much running later.
Sirius shook his head, dark hair falling in his eyes as he sat down on a desk. "Nah, he said he left it in the dorm, since we hadn't got any pranking planned for today."
Remus was silent, and when Sirius looked at him, his eyes were sparkling, underlined by a growing smile. "…I think I may have an idea for a not-so-fake secret."
"What? Tell."
"Well, James would be pretty hacked off if it turned out to be something trivial, right?"
Sirius nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. He was right; I do tell him pretty much everything. Aside from the stuff about liking you, or being with you."
"Okay. Now think about it: what things does he view as being important enough to break that sort of habit for?"
Swinging his legs up onto the desk to sit with them crossed under himself, Sirius crinkled his nose in thought for a moment. "Evans."
"Apart from Evans. What about one of the main things she hates about him?"
"What, pranking?"
Remus leaned against the wall, arms folded, smiling even more now. "Precisely. We could be planning a prank, just the two of us. And do you know what's even better?"
"We can actually do the prank, and make Snivelly look stupid in the process?"
Ignoring the derogatory nickname for once, Remus shook his head slightly. "Not exactly. I'm thinking that we can make it something related to Mission… Fruitloop."
"How so?" Sirius leaned forward with interest, and nearly fell off the desk.
Remus bit his lip to avoid laughing, as he knew Sirius would take offence at him finding something amusing in the mishap. "We could use this to work out James and Peter's attitude towards what we are."
Sirius rolled his eyes. "Just say it! It's like the way no one says Voldemort's name; it's ridiculous if you can't bring yourself to say it."
"Okay, okay, we can find out what they think about people being gay. And this will be useful since we are gay. Happy now?"
"Delirious. Now how can we do that?"
Remus narrowed his eyes, concentrating. "Just a basic idea, but how about something that'll pair up two guys we don't like?"
Sirius clapped his hands gleefully. "Snapey!"
With a sigh, Remus conceded. "Okay, Snape. Who else?"
Sirius' eyes lit up. "What about that skinny blond git he hangs around with? You know, the one who blew something up in Potions a couple of weeks ago. Starts with R."
"You mean the time the blue stuff hit Peter in the face and cress started growing out of his nose? Evan Rosier." Remus shot him a mildly reproachful look. "I can't believe you still get such a kick out of the idea of attacking Slytherins. We're in the first year of NEWTs; we're supposed to be mature by now."
Sirius shrugged. "My inner child is very persuasive."
"You mean it's your inner child that controls you?" Remus pulled a face of mock disgust. "That's one dirty child!"
Laughing, Sirius extended one arm and swatted at him, missing by several feet but not really caring. "Shush. I was just getting into a good mood with you! Are you sure you want to wreck that?"
Remus smiled back angelically. "Are you sure you want to end up doing this prank by yourself?"
After thinking about it briefly, Sirius shook his head vigorously. "Hell no. I wouldn't even know what to use."
"Good boy, Paddie." Walking over, Remus resisted the urge to ruffle his hair, as that would surely bring on a minor hissy fit, and settled for kissing him on the forehead. Then as he moved back, he was startled to find a huge black dog lying there on the desk, looking at him appealingly and wagging its tail.
He still hadn't quite got used to that. Fortunately, Sirius was the only Marauder with a penchant for transforming at random moments. Waking up to find a dog licking his face was something Remus could just about handle, but finding a stag or a rat doing the same would have been a little too weird. "Sirius, must you do that?"
A split second later, Sirius was back, still wearing the same cute expression. "Sorry. But I can't wag my tail as myself. I needed to be Padfoot to express my tail-wagging feelings."
Remus shook his head fondly. "You're nuts."
"Guilty as charged." Sirius grinned up at him. "But you know you love me."
"Yes, for some strange reason, I do."
"The reason, my darling Moony, is that you're nuts too," Sirius explained with total conviction. "Now, we are alone in an empty room. I'm not entirely sure how we have kept our self-control for the…" – he glanced at his watch – "…ten minutes we've been in here. Since last night I've been thinking about how tempting it'd be to give you a reason to use some of that magical foundation yourself."
"Oh really? So that's why you weren't paying attention in any of our classes today," Remus teased, but over his shoulder he was pointing his wand at the door, wordlessly casting a locking charm.
"Not entirely," Sirius defended, shifting over on the desk so that Remus could sit down next to him. "In Transfiguration I was thinking about how nice your hair looked."
"Really? Well, at least that means there's one thing you won't have to change to make me look hot for Mission Fruitloop."
"Hey!" Sirius reached out and put his hand on Remus' knee, leaning slightly closer. "You look hot anyway. I don't have to change anything about you." He smiled sweetly. "I just have sick fantasies."
Remus shrugged. "I won't argue with that. Now shut up and kiss me."
For once, Sirius did as he was told, sliding an arm around Remus' waist to pull him closer. But their lips had only been touching for seconds when Sirius started laughing.
Remus pulled away indignantly. "What? What is it?" he demanded, just a little offended.
Eyes lowered, Sirius tried to stop, managing successfully to avoid full-blown laughter and tone it down to more of a mirthful snuffling. "I'm sorry… I was just thinking about how funny it'll be when Snivellus and Rosier start acting all romantic in front of everyone…" He took several deep breaths in an attempt to avert hysteria.
"You're such a child sometimes." Remus' voice was colder now, laced with frustration. "Can't you be serious for five minutes?" Before the other boy even had a chance to respond, he held up a hand and added: "And don't you even think about making that joke!" Sighing angrily, he stood up and walked towards the door, stopping when he was almost there and turning to deliver the final words. "This whole secret is meant to be about us, anyway. I can take a joke, but now it's just another one of those pranks that have always made you closest to James in this group."
It took him a moment or two to take his wand from his robes so that he could undo the locking charm, and in that time, Sirius had crossed the space between them. When Remus touched the door handle, he found another hand over his own, and stopped, letting out another sigh. Instead of sounding angry, this one was regretful and weary.
"I'm sorry," Sirius murmured, close to his ear. "This is still about us, you know."
Remus turned to face him, hazel eyes tired and mildly hurt. "But it's not. I've never been that into the whole pranking thing, and you know that. James is your partner in all of that, not me. And now it's making me think – what are you going to do if he hates the idea of us?" He blinked hard, keeping his voice and his eyes steady. "You need him too much to tell him you don't care what he thinks. If you have to choose…"
"Remus…"
"It's okay, I understand. You and he have always been like that." He held up one hand with his fingers crossed, fighting to keep it from shaking. "I can't make you give that up."
"I –"
"Really, it's okay."
"Shit, Remus, will you listen to me already?" Sirius placed one hand under Remus' chin and made the brunet look at him. "Why are you trying to push me off a bridge we haven't even got to yet?" He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. "If James cares about me at all, he'll never make me choose. And I'd never give you up anyway." He moved his hand to gently cradle Remus' face. "I know I'm acting stupid; I just didn't realise it bothered you so much. But you know I hate Snape. He was such a bastard to you when he found out about you being a werewolf, and the stupid side of me still hasn't finished with its revenge."
"You have a lot of sides," Remus said at length, speaking softly and looking away again.
"We can't all be pure good," Sirius answered. "Look at me."
Remus raised his eyes to find a look of apology in Sirius' deep-blue gaze. "I'm sorry I got angry with you."
"I shouldn't have given you reason to." Sirius moved close and hugged him tightly.
Remus gladly returned the gesture, feeling the silky smoothness of Sirius' perfect hair on one side of his face, and smiling when he felt Sirius kiss his ear. "The others are going to want to know where we've been."
"Yeah…" Suddenly, Sirius moved back, putting a few feet of space between himself and Remus. "They could have had time to get the map."
"Damn. We'll have to nick it from James whenever we want time alone."
"We will," Sirius agreed as Remus opened the door and they cautiously stepped out into the empty corridor.
Five minutes later, they were let into Gryffindor Tower by the Fat Lady, and found James and Peter sitting in the Marauders' usual space near the fire. Sure enough, James was holding the map, but his first question gave away how long he had been looking at it for. "Where the hell did you two get to?"
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A/N: I don't know where this ending came from; I think I just couldn't bring myself to write slash. Please review; I've had a lousy day, what with crying over an old friend, then a death in the family, then my sister patronising me… Cheer me up!
Note: If you like non-magic, if you like long stories, if you like Sirius/Remus… send me a message with 'DoI' in it to find out more about the upcoming fic, Degrees Of Involvement!