Cede

It had been a bit strange, adjusting to their flat being short two residents. It had always had four residents. First, it was the Marauders, ready to start at university. Then Peter took a position in Canada after graduation leaving Remus in the second room on his own. Then Remus took a position two hours away, and despite how much Sirius insisted the commute was fine, Remus moved closer to his work.

James and Sirius probably would have been able to make the rent on their own, but it definitely would have made things tight back then. So Remus offered to help find someone to take the spare room. His friend Lily happened to be looking and her friend Marlene had needed a new place as well. So when Remus moved out, Lily and Marlene moved in.

But now, James and Lily moved out as they continued to plan their upcoming wedding. And that left Sirius and Marlene to finish out the last four months of the rental agreement.

Sirius sat at the kitchen table, eating a sandwich as he scrolled through flat listings on his phone. He heard the lock turn and sighed, McKinnon was home.

Don't get him wrong, Sirius liked Marlene, a lot, and you'd have to be blind to not see how drop dead gorgeous she was. Marlene was brilliant and sexy and clever and could sling insults better than anyone. But since Lily and James moved out, Marlene had been a nightmare.

She was sharp-tongued with him in ways she'd never been in the nearly three years they'd all lived together. The ways they had joked and laughed when Lily and James had locked them out of one or the other's room seemed to be gone now, and Sirius was confused as hell as to why. They had been mates - at least he thought they had. Now she couldn't seem to stand being in the same room as him.

"McKinnon," he didn't look up from his phone as she went straight for the room she used to share with Lily. She didn't respond, she never did anymore. Sirius wished he knew what was going on. He realized he'd need to talk to James about it at some point. He was James' best man and Marlene was Lily's maid of honor. How were they going to function at their best mates' wedding if she couldn't even bother to look at him, let alone say hello?

Sirius tried to put it out of his mind. Obviously, she wanted to be difficult and he'd best let her be for now. If she really loved Lily, she'd put on a good face at the wedding and then be done with it. He went back to scrolling through flat listings, saving the ones that he wanted to email about and finishing off his dinner.

He'd just about decided to go for a ride on his bike when Marlene came out of her room. Her eyes met his and Sirius saw ice in her stare. But rather than the c'est la vie attitude he'd been choosing to take, Sirius felt a fire of anger light in his chest. What right had she to make him feel unwelcome in his own fucking flat? He paid both his half and James' half of the rent, just as she paid her's and Lily's. He had just as much right to sit at this table as she did.

He met her stare and let his anger seep into his expression. Either she didn't notice or she wasn't intimidated. He liked that about her, Marlene didn't let anyone push her around. She walked purposefully to the kitchen and opened the fridge, which pinned her against the wall. Sirius wasn't sure what he was doing, but he was tired of her treating him like a problem. So he walked right up against the open fridge door.

"You know, adults usually don't take their problems out on their friends."

Marlene didn't look at him, instead, she kept staring straight ahead into the fridge. "I don't have a problem."

"Bull shit," Sirius spat back at her. "James and Lily move out and all of a sudden you don't look at me, you don't talk to me, you even try to avoid being in the same room as me. If you don't have a problem then tell me what the hell is going on, because if I wanted to be treated like fucking scum I'd go back to my dear mother."

It flashed in her eyes then, sympathy. Normally he'd hate that, but right now he took it as a hope. If she still could feel something for how he grew up maybe she didn't think of him as the scum of the earth after all.

"Sirius..."

"What did I do, Marls?"

Marlene laughed, a sardonic sound as it fell from her lips. "What did you not do, Sirius?"

"Fuck, Marlene, you can't just tell me everything I do is wrong!" Sirius wanted to shove the fridge door shut but Marlene beat him to the punch. The old machine rattled as the door slammed into it.

"That's just it," she shot back, "you don't do anything wrong! You do everything right!"

Sirius' confusion only fueled his anger and he stepped into her space. "Then why treat me like I'm some sort of pest? Why are you acting like we haven't been friends for the last three years?"

He put his hand against the wall behind her to steady himself. She was staring up at him with wide eyes and Sirius couldn't stop himself from dropping his eyes to her lips. He almost forgot why he was angry. How had he ended up this close to her?

Sirius had been attracted to Marlene from the moment he laid eyes on her, but she'd been in the middle of a relationship then, and when she'd called it off with what's his face he had just started dating someone; and while they'd both been single for the last year or so, they were friends rather than strangers sharing a flat, and Sirius wasn't sure he wanted to risk their friendship by bringing feelings into it. Now, though, looking down at her with their bodies a breath's distance apart, he felt like he had nothing to lose.

"You aren't a pest," Marlene's voice had gone quiet and she couldn't seem to look away from him.

"Then why," Sirius closed the distance between them, causing Marlene to press up against the wall, "are you pushing me away?"

She was so close to him their breathing caused their chests to touch and Sirius refused to stop staring her down. She had made him feel like trash the last month or so, but right now she was making his skin burn. The feelings he'd buried when she first moved in had sprung to the surface and he was almost ready to give into them and kiss her.

"I, I'm sorry," Marlene's voice was quieter still but she continued to hold his eyes. "I didn't mean to, I was only trying to get myself to not ruin everything."

"To ruin what?"

She didn't answer; just pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. But for the first time since he pinned her to the wall her eyes left his just long enough to drop to his lips before snapping back up to look at him.

Sirius was losing his grip on the situation. He officially couldn't remember what happened to get them to this point. They were entirely too close. Sirius couldn't help himself. His free hand came up to her face, tucking her hair behind her ear and running his fingers down her curls. Her breath caught as he did and that was probably what did him in.

Sirius lost control.

He brought his lips to hers and his hand came down to grip her waist. She tasted better than every dream he'd had of her, and his body moved of its own accord as he pressed her back into the wall so that his body was flush against hers. But what spurred him on more than anything was how she responded to his kiss. Marlene gripped the front of his shirt, pulling him closer as she pressed on her toes to kiss him further. She parted her lips with a moan as her hands moved over his chest. Her touch was electric and it short-circuited Sirius' logical brain. Everything revolved around this woman, feeling her body against his, kissing every inch of her skin, hearing her sigh his name as he moved against her. He wasn't thinking about after this moment, he was hoping to be consumed in this moment.

The rush he felt when she started pushing them back towards the bedrooms pushed him over the edge. He picked her up, wrapping her legs around his waist, and carried her back into his room.

"I've wanted to do this for fucking ever," Marlene sighed as she pushed her hands under his shirt.

"Well, then we're both idiots," Sirius pressed kisses down her neck and the deep collar of her shirt, "because I have too."

Marlene arched into him and brought her black nails to his scalp. "Wait," she panted, "swear we don't tell James or Lily that part."

"No shit Sherlock," Sirius laughed, "I quite prefer taking the Mickey to being roasted, especially when it concerns James."

Marlene laughed, a breathless sound, that quickly became a moan as Sirius deliberately turned her mind back to him and away from their former flatmates.

Much later, Marlene's curls splayed out on one of his pillows, Sirius ran his hand lazily over her curves.

"When?" Sirius asked. "When did you know you wanted me?"

Marlene's soft smile was relaxed in a way he'd never seen before. "The day Lils and I moved in."

Sirius couldn't keep the smirk off his face. "You wasted a lot of time. I was going to ask you for a pint that night before Lily mentioned your boyfriend."

"Fabian wasn't a bad guy," Marlene sighed, but her smile, soft, sexy, and sated, was all for him as it stayed planted on her face. "But he wasn't you."

"I should have dumped what's her name the moment you dumped Fabian." Sirius scooted forward to kiss her, pulling her body flush against his.

"Her name was..."

"She wasn't you, Marls," Sirius cut her off, "she doesn't matter."

He chuckled at the way Marlene's expression shifted from shocked to pleased to that earlier soft smile that was all for him, because of him.

"Find a flat with me," her voice was strong and it lacked the inflection of a request.

While Sirius would normally tease her, he found the feeling in his chest left him incapable of doing anything but grinning like an idiot before nodding once and kissing the fucking daylights out of her. Because he never thought he'd have more than dreams when it came to Marlene. Yet here she was, in his bed, telling him she wanted to keep living together, while she kissed him like he was the last remaining source of oxygen and she was suffocating.

And if Sirius could find more excuses to keep that soft smile on her lips, he was going to exploit every single one of them.