Leave Your Mark
Theme #27: Pride

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"Hey Remus."

Sirius waited for only a short moment before he took a sip of the bottle of Butterbeer in his hand. It sunk down into his stomach and stayed there, leaving him with a satisfying warmth. He sighed contentedly and swiveled his head to regard Remus.

"What?" the said boy asked, glancing at his friend.

"For a while now… I've found you attractive," the dark-haired boy said easily and punctuated his remark with another long drink from his bottle. Remus raised an eyebrow and frowned thoughtfully at the boy's face, cheeks pink from opening blood vessels and his grin loopy from an uninhibited tongue.

"What are you bullshitting about now? You're drunk." Remus turned his face away, trying to ignore the boy sitting beside him. He sighed and stared down at his own can—his first can—only half full.

They both sat leaning against the wall, and Sirius' head lolled to the side to regard Remus' profile. The brown-haired boy tried valiantly to ignore the scrutinizing gaze Sirius was fixing him with, but it was proving more and more difficult to pull off without laughing and crying or maybe running away.

"I'm serious. I've thought about you a lot," Sirius admitted, still regarding Remus' profile through hazy silver eyes. "When I'm… you know."

Remus gave him a vaguely horrified expression at a reference to something like that and he jerked his head away, trying to keep his blushing face to a minimum. But, once he seemed to regain control, he thought about what he'd just said again and his face burst into a flame of red heat.

"Sirius, that's not funny at all." Remus was never one to play with feelings, and having Sirius doing it now was more than obnoxious. "You've had way too much to drink. Go to sleep."

As he spoke, Sirius leaned in and grabbed his shoulders. Remus jolted and gave him a bewildered look. Sirius slowly stood up and dragged Remus upwards with him. The werewolf swallowed thickly as he looked up at the boy. Since when had he been this tall? He must have grown over the summer.

"Sirius?" He stared upwards at Sirius towering over him. "You're seriously drunk."

"Maybe," Sirius agreed with a wicked smirk, his silver eyes dancing as it swept over all of Remus' features. Remus swallowed again as Sirius leaned over him, casting a long shadow over the wall behind them.

---

The sun filtered through the curtains and pressed against Remus' eyes irritably. Fuzzily, Remus blinked his eyes open and stared down at the pile of clothes, tangled sheets, and empty Butterbeer bottles. Hesitantly, he sat up and rubbed the back of his neck.

Sirius stared back at him from the other side of the bed, looking just as disoriented and tired as Remus felt. Swallowing again, Remus glanced down at his body and shivered quietly at what he saw there. Remus' body was covered in hickies.

He turned back towards Sirius, who regarded him silently, saying nothing. In turn, Remus said nothing at all. They both just stared. Sirius' body didn't have hickies, and Remus frowned before trying to climb out of bed. A sharp pain in his backside prevented him from leaving the warmth of the bed and he leaned against the headboard crossly.

He glanced over at Sirius again, who was still watching him. He probably had a killer hangover by now. Remus had the common sense to not drink the night before, but he still felt drunk off of something. That, and his body was sore and puckered from Sirius' kisses.

"Don't worry about what happened last night," Remus said at last when staring at one another was starting to get a bit tedious. "You were drunker than I've ever seen you before.

With some difficulty and a jolt of protest from his backside, Remus stood up and managed to pull on his uniform for school. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Sirius dress and knew that Sirius was watching him. He cleared his throat quietly.

When he turned around again Sirius was standing too close, invading his personal space, as he was often known to do.

Sirius touched his shoulder and pulled him close. "Remus…"

"Hey!" Remus protested, not expecting the contact.

"Last night… I was… it felt nicer than any time I've ever been with a girl," Sirius admitted, after some difficulty. He stared at Remus, willing him to understand what he wasn't saying. Remus stared at him and then his face turned bright red.

Remus turned his face away, his cheeks red and his eyebrows knitted together in anger. "Don't compare me to girls."

"I'm sorry!" Sirius said, flustered by Remus' words. "No, I didn't mean it like that."

Sirius couldn't find the words to say what he wanted to say, and Remus was giving him a strange look.

"I… I want to hold you again." Sirius blushed.

Remus looked shocked for a moment before his eyebrows slanted downwards and his cheeks turned an even brighter red color. He turned his face away sharply.

"I'm not a toy," he snapped. "I'm not your fuck-buddy."

"No!" Sirius said, surprised and shocked. "I never said anything about you being a fuck-buddy!"

"What, then?" Remus snapped, wrenching his shoulder out of Sirius' grip. "If a fuck-buddy isn't a friend you have sex with, then what is it, Sirius?"

There was a small, tense silence that followed that question. Sirius stared down at his friend with widened silver eyes and he swallowed thickly. Summoning up his courage, he said the thing he wanted to say.

"If I told you I wasn't drunk last night," Sirius said instead of answering Remus' question, "what would you do?"

"Huh?" Remus' eyes widened in shock. He looked like he was about to answer when, suddenly, the door flew open and James and Peter streamed in.

"Ah, you guys are up early!" James said cheerfully, his hair disheveled just like always, and his glasses slightly crooked. "Did you guys finish the essay for Charms? I had to finish mine last night. It totally sucked, I ended up falling asleep at the table." He glanced at the mirror hanging on the wall and examined his reflection. "Damn, I look like a mess."

"I had to keep waking him up," Peter said, and, despite his lack of sleep and the early hour, looked quite cheered by the fact he'd been able to help James at something. "Did you guys manage to finish it?"

'It was pretty hard," James supplied, his eyes widened. "We were surprised that you guys didn't show up downstairs to work on it, too."

"Well, Moony probably finished it a while ago," Peter supplied, nodding his head wisely.

"Oh, yes, good ol' Moony," James said with a shrug. "But what about you, Padfoot? And my God, how many Butterbeers did you drink last night? This place is a wreck. Drinking without me, what a crime."

"Y-yeah, it was difficult," Sirius said, flustered at being interrupted while on the verge of something incredibly important with Remus. He glanced at Remus. "The charms essay I mean… not the drinking."

Remus wasn't looking at him.

---

That day, while in Transfiguration, the students were practicing turning lizards into newts, and it was long and boring and tedious for anybody who hadn't gotten proper sleep. James kept yawning and turning his lizard into a frog accidentally. While this was still rather cool to see, it wasn't the assigned task and he lost a couple points from Gryffindor.

Peter struggled, but finally managed to make a newt, even if it had two heads. He kept retrying and praying that he wouldn't create a newt with two back ends, because he suspected James and Sirius would never let him live that down.

Remus did fine, having received enough sleep, even if his mind seemed heavy with his thoughts of the night before. That, and he couldn't sit comfortably today after the excursions from the night before.

Sirius was distracted, as usual. He swirled his wand over the lizard distantly and accidentally turned it into a chicken, which caused even more lost house points. Sirius couldn't summon anything within himself to care. Besides, Remus made a successful newt shortly afterwards and regained the lost points Sirius had lost for their house.

"I don't want to go to charms," James decided. "I just want to go back to the tower and sleep. But this essay I wrote is Outstanding material, and this newt is a pain in the ass. Remus, how do you always do this so quickly—hey, what's that?"

"What's what?" Remus asked curiously, turning around to glance at James with a strange expression.

"That. On your neck," James said, pointing to the back of Remus' neck. Besides James, Sirius tensed.

"Well," Remus said, keeping his expression perfectly neutral, "I obviously don't know seeing as how it's on the back of my neck."

"Let me see," James demanded. James brushed aside some hair from Remus' neck and said, "Yeah, there is a hicky here. Damn, Remus, what'd you do last night? That girl must have been wild."

"It's not that, James. Don't be silly," Remus said casually, scribbling away at his notes with his quill, now that his newt was successfully completed. "It's just a bug bite."

"Well, shit, what kind of bug bites like that?" James asked, shocked.

Remus shrugged one shoulder. "The underclassmen must be learning how to enlarge objects. I guess it must have been a jinxed spider or something."

"I guess so," James agreed, still looking uncertain, but had no reason not to trust Remus' words.

And, even though it was a lie to cover up the truth, Sirius' heart still ran cold. He stared at his lizard-chicken, wishing her were back at the tower and he'd managed to tell Remus his feelings before James and Peter had to be their usual interfering selves.

"That's good," Sirius forced himself to say as his heart throbbed. Remus turned to look at him, surprised the silent treatment had been brushed aside so easily. Sirius swallowed and continued, "Bug bites don't stay that long. Once they're gone, you forget they were ever there."

When he said that, Sirius noticed, or perhaps imagined, the quill in Remus' hand begin to tremble ever so slightly. It was barely noticeable, and Remus set down his quill very quickly and refused to look at Sirius again.

After class ended, they streamed to their charms class and spent the day listening to a lecture on charmed birds. Remus didn't look at him again, even though a couple students from Hufflepuff commented on the gross looking bug bite on the back of Remus' neck. Calmly, the prefect explained the situation of the jinxed spider, and the Hufflepuffs accepted this without any grievances and instead offered their best wishes should Remus decide to visit the hospital wing.

There was silence between Sirius and Remus the entire day. The two had no problem speaking with James and Peter—especially when they complained about the new essay they'd been assigned directly after their charms essay was turned in. Remus listened politely, head in hand and nodding at the proper intervals, but Sirius stared off into space, watching the cloudy sky morph and change high above them in the dining hall.

The rest of the day's classes passed by slowly and Sirius couldn't remember what he'd learned about or what his homework was. Usually he relied on Remus for such things, but his mind was heavy with the thoughts of what they'd done the night before.

He could remember every cry, every moan, every whispered word in his ear. It brought him some comfort to remember the warmth he felt when Remus had arched upwards into him. Golden eyes wide open in pleasure as he hissed out Sirius' name discreetly and hands clenched his back or the sheets crumpled up around them.

He shook his head. He shouldn't be thinking about things like that right now. Remus wanted to pretend it never happened, and he was supposed to pretend to be drunk. That was the way it was. That would be the way it would remain. They could both walk away with some of their pride still intact, and at least he'd have a fond memory to call back upon should the need ever arise.

After dinner, which consisted of tasteless food—at least for Sirius—Peter was off to the kitchens to get some more dessert for himself and his three friends. James was off 'wooing'—his word, not Sirius'—Lily Evans in the common room.

Sirius threw his cloak into his trunk with a flick of his wrist and he glared angrily at the window, wishing it would shatter under his intense scowl. Today had been terrible, and now, in the shelter of the night, every memory from the night before came to him in bitter precision, haunting him like a poltergeist and making him long for unconsciousness, and, yet, at the same time, longing for a repeat of those feelings, of those words, of those actions.

And then the door opened and Remus walked in with a pile of books from the library. He froze when his eyes locked on Sirius.

They were alone in the room.

Remus looked about ready to run out of the room, books be damned, but Sirius was too quick with him. He extracted his wand and slammed the door shut behind Remus. The wind the door produced wavered his graying hair, and Remus' eyes were widened in fear as the lock clicked shut behind him.

"You can't run away now," Sirius said, stepping towards Remus.

Remus swallowed and tried to inch his way around Sirius. He managed to get by and deposited his books onto his bed, his back to Sirius. They said nothing for a long moment before Sirius stepped forward and grabbed Remus.

He pressed Remus against the wall. Remus stared at him in shock.

"This will be the last time I do this, so don't worry," he reassured when he felt Remus tense beneath him. He grabbed Remus' cloak and brushed it aside, displaying the young man's skin, marred with his marks.

He leaned over Remus, kissing the side of his neck. He heard Remus' breath hitch and continued to kiss until the skin was red and irritated from his attentions.

"When this mark fades… before it fades, I'll try and just be your friend. I'll forget my feelings." Sirius clenched his eyes shut. If this is what Remus wanted, then so be it. This was the way it was going to be.

"I…" Remus whispered.

Sirius lifted his head at a strange, strangled hiccupping sound rippled past Remus' lips. He was shocked to see Remus didn't look elated or disturbed, as he had expected, but, instead, incredibly upset. His face was flushed and his eyes looked pained. His lips moved, but no words managed to work past.

He bit his lip and dipped his head downwards, trying to maintain control of his emotions and his wavering voice. "I don't want it to fade," he whispered, his voice breaking. "I never want it to fade."

"You… you don't?"

"You said you weren't drunk," Remus muttered, embarrassed. "Aren't you smart enough to remember?"

Sirius gave him a hopelessly confused look.

"That entire night," Remus continued, as if expecting Sirius' ignorance. "Didn't you notice that I didn't once push you away? That I didn't once put up a fight?"

Sirius' eyes widened as the slideshow of the night before flashed by in his mind's eye, accompanied by Remus' soft eyes, blushing cheeks, smiling lips.

"You… didn't…" Sirius admitted, feeling foolish for not realizing it before. He swallowed, wishing he could take back his comment about the fading bug bite. He hadn't imagined Remus' shaking hands.

"I don't want to forget," Remus admitted.

"But… why?" Sirius whispered, his eyes wide.

Remus gave him a withered look, but the sides of his lips threatened a smile. Sirius felt his heart warm at the look and he nodded his head eagerly when Remus hesitated.

The young man rolled his eyes. "Isn't it obvious?"

"No…?" Sirius guessed, his hold on Remus gripping.

"I like you, I really, really like you, Sirius."

Sirius stared at him for a long moment before he started to laugh, a quiet little chuckle rippling in his throat before he hugged Remus close to him. His heart soared when he felt Remus wrap his arms around Sirius in return, holding him close, cradling him against him. He felt Remus rest his head against Sirius' shoulder.

"I really really like you," Remus repeated, his eyes clenched shut. "I thought you knew."

"I like you, too," Sirius said stupidly, for lack of anything intelligent to say. He squeezed Remus tighter, feeling himself drown inside of Remus' warm embrace.

The haunting images in his mind's eye burst to life again and Sirius ducked his head and kissed Remus squarely on the mouth. The prefect did not protest this intrusion and, instead, happily took Sirius' kisses and offered up his own in return.

The next morning Sirius had his own marks from the "jinxed spider" on his neck and shoulders. Students were alarmed that there was a spider rampant in the castle, but Sirius and Remus merely snickered at their distress and shrugged it off.

It took a while for those marks to fade, but they took nothing else with them.