Author: Emmie
Title: Foolish
Fandom: Harry Potter
Pairing(s): Sirius/Remus
Rating: PG-13
Continuity: Marauders' 6th year
Author's note: Umm, this was written around Christmas in an attempt to deal with stuff and stuff. Another fic dedicated to Belle.
Disclaimer: They don't belong to me.
Sirius Black was about to do something exceptionally foolish.
This in itself was not altogether unusual; in fact, one could even say that Sirius had more than a bit of a reputation for doing exceptionally foolish things. Sirius himself would be the first to admit to this, as he was actually rather proud of it. No fun, in his opinion, ever came from over-thinking things, and he quite approved of fun, even if his particular brand of it did often bring along its close friend trouble for a bit of company.
What made this particular occasion different, then, were two things. The first was that in this case, Sirius had been over-thinking things. He was, in fact, fairly certain that it was thinking too much that would lead to the doing of the foolish thing in question. Sirius would have thought his quite ironic, if he actually thought such words as "ironic," which he did not. He supposed that it had more to do with the subject of his overactive thoughts than anything else.
The subject in question was currently sitting beside Sirius with his nose stuck in an extremely thick book, utterly oblivious to the fact that Sirius, apparently staring across the common room at one of the fifth-year girls, was in fact thinking about him for approximately the four hundred and nineteenth time that day. Remus J. Lupin, werewolf, bookworm, and best friend to one Sirius Black, was usually oblivious to his mate's thoughts, particularly the ones concerning him. This was a fact that Sirius found simultaneously very lucky and utterly infuriating. Just now he was thinking about the serene look that came over Remus' face when he was reading (he was also stealing glances at it every so often, when he was quite certain that Remus wouldn't look up at the same moment and catch him at it). Earlier he had thought about the rueful smile Remus gave when he had found himself dragged half-unwillingly into one of his friends' pranks, and before that he had thought about the way Remus did think words such as "ironic" – Sirius knew this because he also said them aloud, which Sirius thought was about the sexiest thing ever, even if he did occasionally have to ask Remus what the bloody hell he was talking about.
There were those who would say that Sirius Black had no sense of consequences. Remus was among them, although to his credit, he managed not to say it all that often (usually only when the prank he had been dragged into had resulted in detentions, and even then he said it without any real condescension). This, however, was one of the few things in life that Remus was wrong about. For Sirius did in fact have quite a good sense of consequences – as a calculated risk taker, he simply chose to ignore them most of the time. When he did foolish things, he generally cared little about the outcome – it was the fun of getting there that counted, and detention seemed a small price to pay.
That, then, was the second thing that set this occasion apart – he cared. In fact, he was not sure he had ever cared quite so much about anything in his entire life.
He was now thinking about Remus' lips, which were unbelievably close to his own (at some point in his reverie he had shifted so that he was now slumped over the table, chin propped on his hands, so close to Remus that the slightest shift to the right would have had them pressed together). The werewolf's lips were lovely, full and pink and slightly parted as his eyes roved over pages of ridiculously tiny print and Sirius imagined how it would be to slip his tongue between them, perhaps nibble a bit on the lower one. His gaze had by now slipped from the girl he had been feigning interest in and strayed more predominately to the object of his musings who, skilled though he was at oblivion, could not ignore the weight of desire now focused on him. He looked up from his reading, taking in the glazed look on his friend's face.
"Sirius --" he started, mildly concerned, and was interrupted by the presence of an extra tongue in his mouth which he was quite certain had never been there before. He was a bit shocked to realize that the tongue, which was now moving against his own, belonged to Sirius. By the time his brain had worked this out, his own tongue had already decided it was rather fond of this unexpected intruder and was tangling affectionately with it, when it was suddenly withdrawn.
Blushing was not something Sirius Black often did, but he was doing a great deal of it as he pulled away from Remus, having come quite suddenly to his senses. He was also apologizing profusely, nearly babbling and hardly hearing a word he was saying.
"I can't believe I just did that, in the middle of the common room, everyone's watching," (his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper as he realized how very true this statement was), "Remus, I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking --"
"Are you really that desperate?" Remus asked coolly, despite the way his stomach had dropped at Sirius' words.
Sirius stopped dead in his string of apologies. "What?"
"I expect she'd gladly snog you," Remus said, gesturing toward the girl Sirius who had been pretending to watch, who was now staring at them both with very round eyes. He was unable to keep a note of bitterness out of his voice as he added, "There's no need to resort to the likes of me."
Sirius blinked once. Things weren't any clearer, so he did it again. Then he said, slowly and in a much softer voice, "You think I kissed you because I'm desperate? Just because you're here?"
"Well, why else would you?" Remus asked, disappointment, anger, and the tiniest tendril of hope mixing within him.
Suddenly the whole situation seemed utterly hilarious. Sirius was so relieved he felt like laughing aloud, so he did so. Then, at the look on Remus' face, he stopped abruptly and said, "Has it ever occurred to you, Moony, you great git, that perhaps I snogged you because I wanted to? That just maybe I'd been wanting to do it for ages and finally couldn't stop myself?"
Remus opened his mouth and Sirius could practically see possible responses whizzing around in his brain. He could tell that several of them were quite witty and clever and at least one contained words much bigger than "ironic." He was very glad, however, when the one that came out was a soft, "Really?"
"Yeah, really," he replied, grinning.
Remus looked at him a bit blankly. "Why?"
Sirius took his own turn at debating responses, but really, he had never had Remus' way with words. Besides, he decided, wasting time talking when there was much more snogging to attend to would have been exceptionally foolish indeed.