A/N: I have not been procrastinating, I swear. Chapter four of Quiet Summer is written and ready, I'm just waiting for my lovely beta, Zayz, to get back to me. It should be up tomorrow! (Sorry, Viv!) But Marauder inspiration strikes at random, and I'm here to please :)

As always!
Mina

Sirius looks like he's been smashed in the face with a brick.

"Really, Padfoot," Lily says, starting to get nervous. He's been standing at the foot of the stairs for a few minutes now, staring alternately between James and her hand. She'd laugh if she weren't so worried. James isn't letting go of her right hand and Sirius is hardly breathing, so she figures they'll just have to wait it out, whatever it is that's got his jaw stuck like that.

"You're getting married?" he finally manages to ask.

Lily nods, and she can feel the ring there, second finger from the left. She glances over at James, but he and Sirius are watching one another now, this weird energy springing up between them. It's… God, they're just staring, and it's strange, and Lily doesn't know what to do. A joke about the two of them getting married stalls on her tongue when she looks at Sirius harder – just a little squint, a tilt of her head – and sees that, yes, right there, on the bottom lids of his eyes, are tears.

Sirius Black is crying. He's crying, and Lily can't catch her breath fast enough to tell him it's okay, they can still have that threesome they were planning on, because James' hand disappears from hers and he and Sirius kind of run into each other in a mess of elbows and black hair and bandages. She pulls her own arms in to hold herself because they're making her teary, standing there in the middle of her living room, embracing. She can't catch their whispers. She doesn't want to. She just watches. They've always been affectionate men and have never shied away from hugging one another when the time called for it, but this is different and she can't pinpoint exactly why. It's one of those things she'll never understand, something deep and distant, so very much brotherhood in every way imaginable.

And then Sirius lets go and comes for her.

"Lil." He wraps an arm around her little waist and buries a hand in her hair, pressing her face into his chest, and it's only when she squeezes him tight that she notices that he's shaking. He's shaking. It catches her off-guard; she needs to see James, needs to know where he is, so Sirius' ever-overwhelming emotions don't pull her under. She can barely see him over Sirius' shoulder, but when she watches him pull off his glasses and wipe his face on his sleeve, she has to turn away. Sirius' neck is right there, so she plants her forehead against the scar she gave him in their third year, and she breathes.

"You know you're my sister," Sirius grumbles.

She can feel his hand, big and warm, against her back. His heart, big and warm, is beatbeatbeating in his chest, thrumming alive through the pulse in his neck and tapping softly against her forehead. Her heart slows to offset his; his reaction is good, this is good, he's happy, she's happy, she's calm. He's her brother in every way imaginable, only the boulder lodged in her throat won't let her say it, so she grips him tighter, silently bids him to stop shaking, stop crying, because she's the woman, dammit, and he's not supposed to cry.

She manages to murmur an "I love you" into his ear, and he murmurs a rough "I love you" into hers, so it's okay, he gets it. She pulls back. He kisses her on the forehead and starts to laugh. It's soft, at first, then grows into one of those maniacal cackles that he gets thrown into sometimes, the kind that, truth to be told, makes her fear for his sanity. And when James starts in, doubling over to grab his knees, she can't help but chuckle.

Sirius shakes his head, wiping tears of laughter, tears of happiness, from his face. "You're getting married."

She nods. There aren't words. They're getting married. She and James are getting married.

"I told you so," James sing-songs when he stops laughing. He walks – skips, really – across the room and takes Lily in his arms. His smirk is straight from the devil. "I told you so."

"Whatever," Sirius says, flopping down onto the couch. She glances down, deliriously happy and content and so, so blessed, to see his face. He looks dazed, as if he can't believe it. He probably can't. She can't. James seems to be the only one grounded, but just barely, about ready to transfigure himself into a golden snitch and flit right up through the ceiling. She's embarrassed to claim a high-pitched squeal as hers when James suddenly flings her into a rapid, frenzied dance, their socks sliding on their wooden floors, singing "We're getting mar-ried! We're getting mar-ried!"

"Moony kicked me out, so I'm sleeping here tonight," Sirius interrupts, and before she can start to wonder if real brothers ever invite themselves over, she reminds herself that it doesn't even matter, because Sirius definitely would. James stops spinning and she leans against the wall, waiting for it to stop spinning, too. Sirius continues, "It'd be lovely if you two would mind keeping your shagging to a dull roar."

"I'll see what I can do," James says, winking lewdly.

Lily pretends to gag. But she accidentally forgets to put up a silencing charm on their room that night, and when they come downstairs the next morning and Sirius is nowhere to be found, it takes her and James quite a while to stop giggling.