Finding Home

(the sequel to "No Better Mistake")

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, James Potter, or any other related characters from the world of Harry Potter. I also don't own the setting, plot lines, relationships, etc. ANYTHING ASSOCIATED WITH HARRY POTTER BELONGS TO J.K. ROWLING, not me.

NOTES:

I'm so sorry it's been so long! I was out of town, and I forgot to upload this chapter to my document manager. I promise the next chapters will happen sooner!

My goal number of reviews for this story is really aiming big... I was thinking 250? That would be absolutely so, so amazing and we'll just see what happens!

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2

If Remus had hoped only for something new, or something bigger, the home he was now walking into would have left him extremely dissatisfied. It was hard for anything to look "new" when the tiny house looked like it had been built many decades ago, and as far as "bigger" went, the kitchen he'd just entered, which seemed to be scarcely the size of a matchbox, didn't leave much to the imagination. However, as Sirius scuffled in behind him, dropping boxes to the stained, tile floor, brushing his hair back and pulling him into a hug, Remus beamed. It may be old and miniscule, but it was certainly better; it was home.

James stumbled in behind them, nearly knocking them over as he struggled to maneuver his way around the recently placed kitchen table. "What did you put in this box, Sirius?" he gasped, lowering the cardboard down and removing his glasses to wipe them on his t-shirt. His brow, like the two other boys', glistened with perspiration on the stifling late June morning, and he lifted his shirt up, allowing air onto his stomach. Lily, who'd come in directly behind James, carrying a lamp and several bed sheets, also looked a bit disheveled—her red hair was falling out of her long braid, and she sighed, also dropping her things and making her way into the adjoining living room.

As James and Lily sat heavily down on the couch, Lily closing her eyes—Sirius joined them in a nearby chair, pulling off his shirt in the process—Remus continued to stand in the kitchen and look around. As they were nearing the end of their moving, he could now begin to see the way they were filling up the small rooms. Between himself and Sirius, they didn't have much in the way of furniture, but the hand-me-down sofas that their friends had crashed on looked fine, even if they were a little worn. The dishes they'd brought it may have been rather chipped—Sirius had even managed to break two plates on the way inside—but the light issuing in from the thrown-open windows cast the whole floor in a cheery, sunny glow. The entire house consisted of two floors: the first with a kitchen barely big enough for the table they'd squeezed in, the living room with its stone fireplace, and a hall closet; the second floor with stairs leading up to its only bedroom and bath. Sirius hadn't exaggerated the winter before on the size of the place—it was small—but it was obvious that he had gone for the size of land, rather than home, something that made Remus feel simultaneously grateful and guilty. The house was only a few miles away from town (an easy enough bike ride or Apparation) but far enough away that there was not much risk of neighbors encountering a deadly werewolf at the full moon. Sirius, who had seen Remus' face when they first approached the place, had also reminded him, grinning, of another reminder—one that had caused James to hit him about the head—that now, they could make as noise whenever they pleased, without anyone around to be bothered.

"I meant at the full moon," he'd told James, swinging to hit him back, but even Lily had rolled her eyes at the comment.

Leaving his friends downstairs, Remus climbed the creaking set of stairs into the real place he assumed Sirius, uh, "wanted to make noise" from. Although he was alone, he still blushed at this thought, but he couldn't deny that he was looking forward to it. James and Peter were nice enough not to be bothered about their relationship (they operated on a "don't ask, don't tell" policy of their intimate behavior), but to truly live together, to have the ability to be with Sirius whenever he wanted… well, that was power. Remus was a bit embarrassed of the influence Sirius seemed to have over him; his whole persona, his body, and the way he made Remus feel was like some sort of a drug, and he couldn't seem to get enough of it. Sirius was the first, and only person Remus had slept with, but he was far from being bored or tired of him. In contrast, it seemed that every time he was with him, it furthered his desire.

James, Sirius, and Remus had all worked together to maneuver the mattress into the room (Lily following close behind with an ancient wooden dresser), which now sat directly on the floor without the addition of a bed frame, or headboard. The closet, a small, shelved opening, was already crammed with their clothing and shoes; Sirius' black motorcycle helmet glittering on an above shelf. While most of Remus' books were downstairs, a few had snuck their way up into the bedroom—stacks by the bedside table and on top of furniture. The adjoining bathroom wasn't much bigger than anything else, but Remus still looked interestedly at the curtain-drawn claw-foot tub. He couldn't look at a shower anymore without thinking of Sirius. It reminded him of the way Remus, alone, had berated himself after their first intimate (and, in Remus' case, drunken) encounter, and then how the two of them had stood, water running down their backs, together, the morning after they'd first made love, almost six months prior. Remus felt a small thrill of excitement as he remembered—Sirius' hands on his stomach, feeling his hard, soap-covered chest press into his wet back, leaning back to kiss him…

As if by magic, Remus felt, standing in the doorway, Sirius' hands reach around him, so much like his memory, embracing him from behind. As Remus felt the familiar stubble on his cheek, he smiled, closing his eyes and leaning back.

"What do you think of it?" Sirius murmured, finding Remus' hands and entwining his fingers with them.

"The bathroom?" Remus laughed, relishing even the smell of his boyfriend, feeling his still bare chest still damp with sweat. The windows in the room were open, like the one's downstairs, and Remus felt a slight breeze wave in. The combination of sweat, air, and Sirius made his arms prickle with goose bumps. The breeze disappeared within an instant, but his goose bumps remained, feeling Sirius' breath in his ear as he spoke again.

"The whole place," Sirius corrected, "Do you like it?"

"I do," Remus told him. Sirius, with his chin near Remus' shoulder, had hair falling down on Remus' chest, making it look like he was the one with long, black locks. It looked even darker than normal next to the plain, white shirt he wore, and he reached up to twist it absently. "I like it a lot, Padfoot."

"Mm," said Sirius absently, pulling Remus back slightly to fall on the still bare mattress behind them. As they kicked off their shoes, they, despite the heat, pressed closer together, so that Remus could hear Sirius' heartbeat, reverberating though his chest, against his ear. He felt Sirius' hands on the bottom of his t-shirt, and he lifted his arms to allow Sirius to remove it, an act that relieved him slightly of the thick, dense air. His straight, brown hair stuck damply to his forehead, and as Sirius pulled his chin toward his own for a kiss, he brushed it back impatiently; damp tendrils pushed away with the back of his hand.

It seemed that, despite the small room and stifling heat, Sirius' desire to be as close as possible to Remus could not be diminished…although Remus couldn't exactly complain. Remus gasped as Sirius sank his teeth into his neck, closing his eyes as he felt him already begin to kiss the obvious wound he had just made. Although he felt his hands on the front of Sirius belt buckle, pulling their hips closer together, he managed to maintain coherent thought.

"Lily and James," he panted, as Sirius' mouth bypassed his sweating neck and made its way further down his chest, "Sirius, they're downstairs—"

"They went home," Sirius muttered, flicking his tongue across a nipple, causing Remus to groan out loud, dropping his head back. "Done moving in everything, wanted to shower—"

The utterance of the word "shower" from Sirius' lips was all Remus needed to forget that James and Lily had ever been in their house at all, let alone mere minutes ago. He pulled Sirius by his belt on top of himself, crushing their bodies together in sweaty, jean-clad friction. His hands had found their familiar spot on the back of Sirius' head, tangled up his hair, and as Sirius moved up slightly to kiss his face again, his fingers moved from waving black hair to leather belt, struggling to unbuckle it due to his unwillingness to stop kissing. He felt Sirius bite down on his bottom lip, and he groaned again, finally managing to push Sirius' jeans down his hips and off his legs, dropping them to the groan in a pool of dark denim. Once he'd wriggled out of his own pants, he felt Sirius, with both hands, pull his body closer from where he lay, underneath the other, panting boy. Remus couldn't remember ever being this sweaty in his life, but Sirius seemed not to notice as he kissed him even deeper, pushing Remus even further into a hazy, dark oblivion.

His sharp hip bones and pelvis were crushed into Sirius'; the thin layers of undergarments between them doing nothing to disguise how badly they yearned for one another.

"Fuck, Remus—" Sirius moaned, sending Remus even further into his spiral. Somehow, the utterance of his own name, issuing forth from Sirius' full, parted lips in such a delirious moan made him near-crazy, and he ripped through the clothing that separated them to grasp Sirius in his hand, who was still hovering him over, one hand propping his body above Remus', the other now assisting him to pull off their remaining clothes. Sirius groaned even louder.

Between their damp hair, moans, and mergence of two sweaty, panting bodies, the two swam, Sirius' breath catching and falling more rapidly as Remus pushed him further and further into what was clearly ecstasy. They had flipped about so that Remus found himself on top of him, his mouth caught onto Sirius' exposed neck, feeling Sirius' nails on his chest as the older boy continued to groan his name. It had been so long—since the last Easter holidays, really, when everyone had gone home—that they had been really and truly alone, and Remus was not surprised that Sirius, who had been so eager to leave school, didn't last very long in his state. His moans were loud, and unfiltered as his whole body shook, and Remus lowered himself down to clean up the mess Sirius had made. He was nearly delirious himself just from the sounds they'd been making, and the feeling of Sirius' hands all over him, so it was no surprised that, when Sirius began to return Remus' recent favor, their session came to a quick, but intense end.

A few minutes later, as Remus' mind began to clear once again, he found himself breathing heavily beside Sirius. His still-sweating body was crushed into the crevices of Sirius' chest, legs curled like a child. Sirius was smiling slightly, his eyes shut, both hands wrapped around Remus' head and shoulders to curl the hair behind Remus' ears on his fingers. He sighed contentedly, now leaning forward slightly to kiss Remus on the forehead, which was still clammy with sweat.

"Now what?" he asked Remus simply. The light floating in from the opening windows had begun to dim slightly, casting the whole, mostly unfurnished room in a somewhat pinkish glow. Remus felt shaky, and sticky with perspiration and the rest of what connected them. He shivered again, slightly, as Sirius ran a finger down his cheek, tracing the near-invisible scar that was there—the scar he'd received the day before his birthday last year; a mere twenty-four hours before he had kissed Sirius for the first time. The scar was a reminder of how much things had changed, and, to Sirius, a mark of how deep his affection was—he loved every scar, every bruise, and every imperfection on Remus' body. Each slight flaw reminded him of their nights together, transformed as two large dogs, and, prior to their relationship, the only times Sirius had seen Remus lose control.

Remus let his eyes stray across the room, toward the open staircase, the tiny closet, and then, to the open bathroom door where he'd stood just shortly before. The brass, claw-footed tub glittered in the corner of his eye, and he let his gaze fall back onto Sirius' face, who was smiling at him.

"How about a shower?" he asked, grinning once again.

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I hope that made up for my lateness! Please, tell me what you think! : )