Disclaimer: Yep somehow too much caffiene and not enough sleep turned me into J.K. Rowling, ha, don't I wish. Nope this all belongs to her, though I wonder after some of us authors get done if she wants to claim them.

A/N: So close, so very close to having all the chapters ready to post for you all. Hope you have liked them, and hope you will continue to like them. Oh, and this is the chapter that you can blame for me not posting for weeks. I was stuck on the first three sentences.

Chapter 28

October 1978

"Lupin," I shouted one day about a week before practice was due to start. I had woken up before Remus, and went to watch something on the television while he rested. During a commercial break my eyes drifted over to the corner where he kept his art supplies, and I decided to try and organize his station. I didn't know what had happened to him, but sometime after school he had lost the organization that he had used to propel him through his studies. I had been moving a few of his paints around when I found a black velvet box hiding under a scrapped piece of canvas. "Lupin," I shouted again as I walked towards our bedroom.

He was sprawled out on our large bed, one arm draped across Sirius' spot and the other over my own. The comforter had been kicked to the end of the bed, and only the thin sheet was twisted around him. His entire back was bare, and one of his legs was kicked out from under the sheet. The clothe twisted its way up his other leg, showing some of his strong calf and hip, and hiding other parts. The corner of the sheet was spread over the slight curve of his ass, making sure that the part of his leg and his backside were the only thing covered. The sight eased some of my anger, and gave me a new idea on how to deal with this situation.

Carefully I crawled onto the bed, swinging my leg so that I straddled his hips. Leaning forward I put the black box in front of him on the headboard, careful not to touch him or let the box make enough noise to wake him. With the box in front of him, and thus out of my hands, I pressed them onto the pillow his head was resting on, one on either side of him. Moving down even more, still sure to not touch him, I hovered my lips just above the shell of his ear. "Remus," I growled, making sure the agitation I felt from finding that thing in his supplies and my need were coating my lover, my husband's name.

"Go 'way, sleeping," He mumbled, before twisting just his head so that his other ear was revealed to me, and the first one I had whispered into was pressed against the pillow.

"Would you like to explain, what the fuck that thing is?" I growled again. His eye opened minutely, and I motioned with my chin towards the box. He twisted again so that he could see the box, and made sure I heard his sharp exhale as he did so.

"I'm already married to you James, so can I go back to sleep now?" Remus said as he returned his head to it's second to original position, and allowed his eyes to slip close again.

"Oh no," I scolded, "you don't get to be funny. That is an engagement ring." I stated it, but he confirmed with a sloppy, sleepy nod. "What the fuck is an engagement ring doing in my house? I will not, will not get married to her Remus John Lupin...King." His eyes went wide at the use of his parents name, and he tried to flip over to face me better. I just moved my hands from the pillow to his arms and moved my legs closer to hold him in place.

"James," Remus growled himself as he tried to get out of my hold. We both knew he could easily throw me off if he wanted, so I figured he liked our position as much as I did. "If you ever want Bradshaw out of our life, then you will do what you must."

"Remus, if I marry her..." I trailed off, not being able to even force the words out. He looked at me questioningly through the corner of his eye, he knew what I had left off. If I marry her, then this will have to end. I won't be able to build my life with the men I love, because I'll be having to fake one with her. I shook my head, and got back to the subject at hand. "I'm going to show you why you really don't want me to marry her." I said with a smirk, I knew must have looked purely evil, as one of my hands let go of him. I ripped the sheet off of him completely, and pulled the index finger into my mouth, slowly making sure that it was soaking before I went to trace the line between his now revealed cheeks.

He moaned, and then said, "You can't show me why I don't want you too, James, because you have to. It's the only way." His words had come out short and breathy, as my finger continued to trace him back and forth. The fact that he was still able to talk in such a setting showed that I had more work to do, so with a quick suck and bite on his pulse point, I moved my mouth down to the crack of his ass. "Oh shit," He moaned again as he felt my tongue this time tracing him. I was just about to slip my tongue into him, when we heard the door open and shut.

"Hello loves of my life, ones that I breathe for, and my beating heart longs for." I laughed at Sirius' greeting, the sound reverberating against the soft flesh of Remus' crack.

"We're in the bedroom Pads," I called, and my breathe fluttered over the soft skin that I had been teasing.

"Lazy bums," Sirius scolded, but he couldn't hide the laughter in his voice. "Still in bed, it's noon." I checked the clock on the nightstand beside his bed and saw that he was right. I had to laugh at the face Remus made when he realized he was planning on sleeping a lot later then that. "Now this is a sight I could get used to coming home to," Sirius said as he came into the room, and automatically started taking his shirt off.

"We're not playing here Siri," I explained with a growl as I looked at Remus, he had twisted enough that he could stare right back at me. "I was cleaning up Mr. Artist's station, and I ran across that little darling." I pointed at the box, and turned to see what my other lover's reaction would be. "I didn't buy it, and I'm pretty sure you didn't buy it, so that only leaves one other possibility."

"Remus John Lupin," Sirius growled, and Remus turned so he faced him. "What the fuck is that thing doing in my home?" He stared at the box like it was a vile piece of trash that had the power to destroy life as we knew it. "He's ours, not hers. I don't give a rats ass what the rest of the world thinks, he's mine and I will not be giving him up as easily as you think we will be." As Sirius ranted, he too lost his pants and climbed onto the bed.

"I think I know what you were planning on doing James, but I don't think that's going to get our point across." I eyed him questioningly as he pushed me so that he was in between Remus and I. "Flip over Lupin," he growled, and Remus did as he was told. "I want you to watch us while we get you there, remember why you only have ever let us touch you, remember that you're ours." He said before tapping his wand against Remus and then his self with the spell we had long ago memorized.

"Why do you both want me to remember things that I have not forgotten?" Remus asked as he lifted his legs so that Sirius could slid into him. Once Sirius was in, I pushed us in deeper.

"Go slow James, I want him whimpering for us." Sirius ordered, and I did as he said. Slowly, slowly pulling out of him, and softly, softly pushing back in. He echoed my movements, and since Remus was by now well used to feeling us moving into him, he moved himself trying hard to get us to move faster. Sirius grabbed Remus' hips, and held them so that he could set the pace, and Remus couldn't entice Sirius with his body to move faster.

Remus let us move a little bit longer, watching us as we showed him why he didn't want to lose this. This was everything, not the sex, though that was amazing, always had been. No, he didn't want to lose our bond. He didn't want to share our bond, he didn't want to share me anymore. That was what I was trying to convince him of. We were grown men, adults that had the right to make our own decisions. No one could tell the Law of Magic it was wrong, it was the most powerful force in the universe. Once we turned nineteen we had the right to do as we wanted.

When his body couldn't take it any longer, Remus' hand started to move away from where it was gripping into Sirius' hip. My hand was just above it, and our fingers had locked as we moved our lover in between us, or maybe that should be as our lover moved in between us. He had almost made it to his goal, when Sirius' head, that had been resting against my shoulder, raised to see why Remus had let him go. Sirius' hand darted out even quicker, and pulled Remus' back to it's original position. Sirius threw me a dark look, and together we moved to tease Remus to that place of sweet oblivion. I could tell by the pace that Sirius was insisting not only our bodies, but also our hands, set out on, Remus would be the first to come. This was our goal, to show him how well he had done in choosing his mates long before they had ever chosen him back.

"You two don't understand," Remus said after a while. Sirius was going to be late getting back to work, I could just tell without looking at the clock. We had just had a very slow round of sex, but now was when the true fight was going to start. "You have no idea what it's like to know that you have to do a job that doesn't involve a lot of people just so you can keep it. You don't know what it's like to have to move to house after house, or to have parents that locked you away like you were a contagious disease." Sirius seemed to be about to protest. "You're parents sucked Padfoot, but you were still free to roam your own house. You weren't treated like a slave." Sirius relented at that, and slumped into the bed again.

"I wish things were different, and that the Ministry didn't care that we are three men in a relationship together. I wish I wasn't a werewolf so I didn't have to worry about ruining your guys' reputation if we fought this. I have been wishing for twelve years many things, that my parents would love me again, that I wasn't a werewolf, that I was as beautiful as you two are. None of my wishes have ever come true, except for the one that allowed me to be with you two. That in itself is too good to be true, and it is going to be taken from me as well. I would just rather know that you are going to be happy when this has to end." He said twisting so that his eyes locked with mine. I frowned, didn't he understand that I was only going to be happy if this never ended? It couldn't end anyways, we were bonded, the chains around our necks proved that.

"Do you know what would happen if you were to become famous during this coming season, and we tried to fight it?" He asked, still looking at me. Sirius sat up behind him so that he could look down at both of us. "The tabloids would have a heyday James. "James Potter and his Werewolf Lover," they would say, and that would just be the beginning. Eventually they would come up with stories of you being a werewolf yourself. It's just better this way, if you have a fiance hanging off your arm that eventually turns into a wife. You show the world that you are a family man, and we figure out how to have our times together. I don't know if anyone would buy my pieces if they were to find out about me. Sirius might not have any problems, but at the same time he might. You've taken up with a werewolf James, and in this world, outside of the walls of Hogwarts, no one is going to take kindly to that."

There was no denying it, he was right of course, he was Remus John Fucking Lupin, he was always right. I had started down this road with Lily to keep him out of the public eye, and here I was trying to fight going any farther with her. Maybe I was being selfish, maybe Remus was being selfish, it really didn't matter. I had promised to protect him from this world, and sometimes I had to sacrifice my happiness in order to provide him with his. I could have stayed in that bed with them forever, never thinking about Bradshaw, Lily, the Ministry, or full moons. It wouldn't change anything, I couldn't get the world to stop turning, and one family was not going to change a world's fear and hatred for werewolves. Even if the law said that it was alright for us, the tabloids would still dig into my love's personal life, and his secret would be out. Sirius and I would be shunned along with our lover.

If Sirius was shunned he would never get published, and Remus' happiness wasn't the only one that I was concerned for. Where Remus had wishes that he believed were unattainable, Sirius had dreams that he knew with the proper amount of work could be. His novel about the adventurers Sam, Ray, and Jim was finished, and he had told me that he had ran into a publisher that wanted to read the story. He thought it might not be wise to get that one published with all of the legal drama going on in our lives, but he could always get published under a pen name, and that might help. A pen name would also separate him from his family more, proving that he didn't need their blood, riches, or name in order to make it in this world.

I had to do, what I had to do, to give the men I loved the world they wanted. I had achieved my dreams, as would be proven the next week. Sirius was close to achieving his own, as would be seen when he signed a contract or however things were done in his career path. Remus wanted to be an artist, he wanted to sell his pieces, but that wasn't his dream His dream was to be happy, and I had given him this, but now I was putting him in danger of loosing that by being selfish. I was putting him at risk of getting exposed. I had worked too damn hard to make sure that never happened, so I would do as he was asking me.

I reached behind Remus and grabbed the black box, and opening it to see a very small, yet elegant ring of white gold and diamonds. Sirius looked at it as well, though while I was trying to imagine it on Lily's hand and could feel a slight happiness from the image, Sirius was not having the same joy in the idea. I didn't even have to look at him to know that while I contemplated doing as Remus was asking of me, I was breaking my other lover's heart. There had been times, very few, but still there, when I had wondered if I could have chosen just one of them to be with.

Where Sirius was playful, Remus was serious, both elements that were important in a person's live. Where Sirius was ready for action, Remus needed to think things through before coming up with a game plan. Where Sirius crafted stories, Remus painted pictures, each adding to the beauty of our world in their own way. Where Sirius needed me to fill him, Remus filled me. I could never have decided on just one or the other, because we were three pieces of a whole. We had always been three pieces of one whole. Needing each other, bouncing off of each other, using each other to become better people ourselves.

"We have to protect him," Sirius said after I had stared at the ring for a few minutes. I nodded, and they both knew I was agreeing with more than just Sirius' statement. Checking the time, and groaning, a sound that barely masked his heartbreak at my decision, he rolled off of the bed. Remus and I sat up, our own heartbreak at my decision evident in our faces, though maybe not as badly as Sirius'. Sirius didn't have any say in the matter, at least not enough to stop it. Remus and I had the power, and poor Sirius always had to just go where we showed him to go. I had wondered many times why Lily didn't just walk away, I had never done that with Sirius until that moment. Did he really love us that much to refuse to leave. "Do it in September," he suggested. "Get married when you have a long enough break from Quidditch to have a nice honeymoon." I was amazed his voice didn't crack on the word, my own heart was twisting.

"Why?" I asked, the sound somewhere between a gasp and a sob. "We got together in September, I wouldn't want to mess up our month with that."

"I know, but that's why you should." Sirius said as he pulled on his shirt, and started for the door. He was just about to walk out when he turned back to look at us and said, "the best things come in three."

A/N: As I reread this I figure out why this chapter was so damn hard for me to write, I'm too emotionally attached to these three, and I'm sad. If they were real, they would hate me. You are real, do you hate me?