FIC: Lovers for Tonight, Chapter Two
Disclaimer: The characters and the world they inhabit all belong to J.K. Rowling.
Lovers for Tonight
Chapter Two: Dancing
“James! Stop that!” Lily whispered fiercely between giggles. “Can’t you wait until we’re alone?”
“We are alone-virtually,” came the muffled reply. “They’re in Sirius’s room.”
Remus grinned broadly as he leaned back beside the open bedroom door and listened to the interchange in the living room of Sirius and James’s flat. He had fled from the bed to the wall several minutes earlier to avoid being groped by Sirius in much the same fashion that James was apparently groping Lily.
“Behave yourself, Prongs! I can hear you,” he called out the door. Sirius turned away from the mirror with his eyebrows raised in an unspoken question. “But don’t worry, the world’s vainest dog just finished his toilette so we should be ready to leave you alone now.”
“What was he doing?” Sirius asked as he crossed the room to the door. Remus shrugged. Sirius raised his voice as he put an arm around Remus’s shoulders and led him out of the room. “We’re coming out, so if you undressed her, Prongs, don’t blame us for ogling your fiancée.”
Lily was blushing just slightly as she smoothed her hair with one hand and straightened her blouse with the other. James lay with his head in her lap and an amused smile on his face. Lily looked up at Sirius and Remus and whistled appreciatively.
“Oh God, what’s he wearing now?” James asked. He lifted his head to look in their direction, but as his glasses were on the coffee table, they were only two blurs who vaguely resembled his friends.
“His ‘too tight to be legal’ leather trousers,” she answered. “Hey Remus, I’ve always wondered how he gets those on. Care to enlighten us?”
The hand that was around Remus’s shoulder suddenly covered his mouth. “Trade secret, Moony. Don’t tell.” Remus’s tongue darted out to lick the warm palm. Sirius grinned and let his hand fall away, but kept his arm draped around Remus’s neck. “Don’t you think Remus should let me get him a pair, Lily?”
She nodded. “But not black.”
“No,” Sirius agreed. “Brown.”
“You really should, Remus. You definitely have the cute ass to pull it off.”
“EXCUSE ME?” James interrupted. “Fiancé in the room, remember?”
“Well he does have a cute ass. Lots of girls at school thought so. Of course it was hard to tell in school robes, but-” Lily giggled at the look of devastation on James’s face. “Yes, James, your ass is cute too-which is why you aren’t allowed to get tight leather trousers.”
James nuzzled closer to her stomach as she ran her fingers through his hair. “I love it when she gets possessive.”
“On that note,” Remus said as he ducked out of Sirius’s grasp and headed for the door, “I think it’s time to get my ‘cute ass’ out of here.”
Sirius laughed as he followed. “Lily, I think you just created a monster.”
Remus grinned as he tossed Sirius his jacket and then put on his own. For a half a second, he had considered pretending to be hurt by Sirius’s inadvertent reference to his “monster” status-just for the look on Sirius’s face when he realized that Remus was joking-but he decided against it. It was the week of the new moon, he felt good, he was spending the evening with Sirius, and if he were very lucky, he would spend the night with him too. He didn’t want to spoil anything by making Sirius self-conscious.
“Good night, Lily. Good night, Prongs. Don’t do anything Sirius wouldn’t do,” Remus said as he headed into the hallway.
“Good night,” they said together.
“Don’t wait up for me, Spikehead-oh, and Lils?” Sirius pulled out his wand and grinned wickedly. “I tighten the trousers after they’re on.” He took a step into the hallway, aimed his wand in the direction that Remus had taken, and flicked his wrist with the words, “Contracto vestis.”
“PADFOOT! What did you do?” Remus shouted in surprise.
“Contracto vestis,” Sirius said with another flick of the wrist. He grinned at Lily. “T-shirt too. He isn’t hiding in baggy clothes tonight. G’night.” He pulled the door shut and set off down the hall to soothe the temper of his annoyed friend.
Remus pulled out his own wand and pointed it at his shirt. “You are such a prat, Padfoot.”
“Leave it, Moony,” Sirius said as he slung his arm around Remus’s shoulders again and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “You’re a sexy beast, and tonight you’re going to show it off.”
Remus paused for a moment and considered. He really, really wanted to go home with Sirius tonight, and if wearing skintight clothing helped keep Sirius’s eyes on him all evening, he was willing to give it a try-at least once.
“All right,” Remus agreed as he put his wand back in his jacket pocket, and they headed for the stairs, “but I have a feeling that these jeans may be uncomfortably tight before the evening is over.”
Sirius laughed and pushed Remus against the wall. “Let’s test them, shall we?” He slid his hands over Remus’s ass and the backs of his thighs, pulling their bodies tightly together. Remus pulled Sirius’s head forward and kissed him deeply, probing deeply with his tongue, claiming the wet heat of Sirius’s mouth as his territory. Although moving in different directions, the slight grinding friction of Sirius’s pelvis and the stroking of his hands melded together in a mind-numbing rhythm. Remus had been at least mildly aroused all evening-watching Sirius strip off his robe and change into a tight silvery-grey t-shirt and even tighter black leather trousers had that effect-but now he was far beyond mild arousal. Only his fear of James and Lily walking down the stairs kept him from begging Sirius to top him off right there.
Suddenly the warm mouth and the glorious stroking were gone. Sirius had stepped back and now stood smiling and stroking his own lower lip with the pad of his thumb.
“Well, are they too tight?” Sirius asked with a wicked grin.
“What?” It took Remus a moment to realize what Sirius was asking, and a moment longer to realize that although his jeans should have felt quite confining, they still felt comfortably snug-just as they did before Sirius’s naughty experiment.
“It’s the spell,” Sirius said as he resumed heading outside. “It makes clothing fit like a second skin. They’ll stay self-adjusting until you take them off or end the spell. It was designed for gloves, but I-”
Remus growled in frustration and followed. “Sirius! Didn’t anyone ever teach you that it’s not nice to tease?”
“Just think of it as ‘building anticipation,’ Moony.”
“It’s ‘building anticipation’ if you come home with me; it was teasing if you go home with someone else,” Remus thought. He chose to refrain from expressing that thought aloud.
Sirius and he danced an intricate dance. Sirius allowed himself only so many steps forward before stepping back again. Too many nights in a row with Remus, and he flew into the arms of the first woman he could find. If they went to a club together, it was rare for Sirius to offer assurances that they would go home together. Plans that included just the two of them were rarely made more than a day or two in advance. Any hint of “couple” status was avoided at all costs. Remus suspected that this was a primary factor in Sirius’s reluctance to tell James about the two of them. James tolerated Sirius’s playboy ways with an endless parade of women, but would he tolerate it if he knew that Remus was involved? One of the many things that James and Sirius had in common, they were both protective of Remus.
“Where are we going tonight?” Remus asked as he fell into step beside Sirius. “And could I possibly talk you into going straight to my flat?”
“Somewhere where we can go dancing-and you are going to dance, by the way.” Sirius smiled and leaned in closer to Remus’s ear although no one else was around. “When you were dancing last month-Peter’s birthday-damn, Moony. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. Maybe we should go back to the same club. You seemed to like that girl you were dancing with. What did she do to loosen you up like that?”
Remus couldn’t stop the happy smile that accompanied the memory of that night. “It had nothing to do with her, Sirius.” As they passed under a streetlight, Sirius took a quick look at Remus’s face.
“You did like her! Why didn’t you ask her out or something, you twit? Don’t tell me you passed up on her because I wanted to go home with you. You know I don’t want to get in the way if you meet someone.”
Remus shook his head. “No, I wasn’t interested in her.”
“You had to be somewhat interested; I saw how you were dancing with her.”
“Yeah, well-” Remus didn’t know if he should admit the truth. “Will Sirius be flattered if he knows I imagined dancing with him, or will he interpret it as ‘getting too close’ and run like a scared rabbit?” “Do you promise not to get angry?”
“Of course.”
“Did you notice that I kept my eyes closed most of the time? I was imagining that I was dancing with you.” Sirius stopped dead in his tracks, and Remus’s steps faltered to a stop. He didn’t dare turn around as he awaited Sirius’s reaction to that little confession. The familiar weight of Sirius’s hand was suddenly on his shoulder, turning him around. Sirius didn’t appear angry; nor did he seem flattered. He was biting his lower lip and looking at Remus as if very curious.
“Do you want to, Moony? Dance with me?”
Remus nodded hesitantly. He still wasn’t sure how Sirius felt about the idea. Sirius considered a moment longer, his eyes searching Remus’s face.
“C’mon.” Sirius jerked his head back over his shoulder and began walking back the way they had come.
Remus barely had time to begin berating himself silently-“I shouldn’t have said anything. He’s upset. We’re going back to his flat. He doesn’t want to go out with me tonight.”-when Sirius passed a street that led back to his flat. “Where are we going, Sirius?”
“Well,” Sirius laughed nervously, “the thing is, a lot of the places I usually go, I think we’d kind of get stared at if we danced together-not to mention that I’d probably never be able to get a date there again-so I thought-” Sirius fell uncharacteristically silent and turned a corner. Half a block ahead, loud music was pouring out of the doorway of a club. The music, the neon signs-all were much like any other club Sirius frequented-but the amorous couple coming out of the door was the giveaway. Two men kissed while walking with their arms around each other’s waists.
Sirius stopped a few yards away from the door and turned to look at Remus with that same curiously searching expression. “If you don’t want to go in, we won’t, but I thought we could go dancing here.”
Remus was amazed that Sirius was considering taking him into a gay bar. Other than Remus, Sirius only dated women. He tried to stay as far on the heterosexual side of bisexual as he could. This was, of course, yet another reason that Sirius was reluctant to tell their friends about his relationship with Remus.
“Please, Remus, I really want to dance with you.”
Remus smiled. He would go anywhere for an opportunity to dance with Sirius, and he foresaw an additional advantage to going here. “Sirius definitely won’t meet any women here. My chances of going home with him just increased astronomically.” “All right, Padfoot, if you want to.”
Other than Sirius’s hand briefly being on his shoulder, they had not touched since setting foot on the street. The pretence of being straight had to be maintained, but such pretences were rather foolish here. Sirius smiled back at Remus and reached out for his hand.
Remus allowed Sirius to take the lead as they entered. Not only was Sirius more at home in clubs than he was, but Sirius’s human senses wouldn’t be as strongly affected by the noise and the scents. Remus paused just inside the doorway to adjust. The dance music was not so loud that conversation was impossible, but loud enough that raised voices were required. Coloured lights flashed on the dance floor, but the surrounding booths and tables were shadowy. The smoke was starting to get thick and would probably get much worse as the evening progressed. The scents of musky colognes were thick in the air and created an interesting mix with the scents of semen and sweat. Remus thought it best not to look too closely into the shadowy corners of the club.
“O.K.?” Sirius asked. Remus wasn’t sure if Sirius was asking if he still wanted to go in, or if he was asking if Remus had adjusted the sensory assault. Either way, the answer was the same; Remus nodded. Sirius led the way to the bar, releasing Remus’s hand to hold up two fingers to the bartender as he ordered bottled beers. Sirius had only been inside the club for a minute, but was already attracting the attention of most of the men near them. He handed a beer to Remus and slipped his free arm around Remus’s waist. At the sight of the possessive gesture, most of the men watching Sirius looked away, no longer interested. Remus felt a bit relieved. After all, increasing the number of Sirius’s potential suitors was not his intention tonight.
“I want to ditch our jackets before we hit the dance floor, Moony. Do you see any tables that are free?”
Remus glanced into the shadowy corners he had avoided looking into before. Every table and booth seemed occupied: men talking, flirting, kissing. Only in one booth, dark enough to afford privacy from most prying eyes, did he see an act intimate enough to make him feel like a voyeur. Compared to some of the clubs to which Sirius had previously taken him, this was quite tame.
“Over there,” Remus said as he nodded in the direction of a couple at a small table. “One guy has his jacket in his hand; I bet they’ll leave soon.” Remus led the way closer. The second man at the table grabbed his jacket and stood to leave just as Remus drew near-a perfectly timed change of occupancy.
“A masterfully executed invasion, Mr. Moony,” Sirius said as he sat at the table. Remus watched appreciatively as Sirius twisted in his chair to hang his leather jacket on the back. He enjoyed the way that Sirius’s tight silvery t-shirt slid over his muscles and revealed a sliver of skin just above his trousers. “Perhaps I should go out with you more often.”
“Perhaps you should, Mr. Padfoot.”
Sirius discretely slipped his wand from his jacket pocket and cast two spells. The first muffled the music just enough to make conversation easier, but not enough that a Muggle would be likely to notice if he drew near. The other charm temporarily attached their jackets to the chairs. This, combined with the anti-pickpocketing charms already on their jackets ensured that they could safely leave their wands behind in their jacket pockets. Then he sat back and took a swig of his beer as he looked around the room.
“This is weird,” Sirius said as he gazed at the dance floor. “I brought you in here because I want to dance with you-and I still do, believe me,” he assured Remus hurriedly, “but now that we’re in here, I guess I’m nervous about it for some reason.”
“Nervous to be in here, or to dance with me?”
“I don’t know-both?”
Remus had to laugh. “The ever-confident Sirius Black?”
“I thought you knew me better than that, Moony.”
Remus nodded. Sirius had every reason to be supremely self-confident. He was highly intelligent, powerfully magical, witty, charming, and incredibly good looking. Combine these with Sirius’s Gryffindor bravado, and it became easy to imagine that Sirius never faced any demons of self-doubt. “But he’s only human, after all,” Remus thought with a slight smile, “which is more than he can say of me.”
“Well, Pads, you came in here to be with me. Therefore, everyone else in here is irrelevant-not worth your being nervous.”
Sirius grinned. “Which leaves me with the more important worry. What if I don’t measure up to your imaginary dance partner of last month?”
“Considering that I’ve watched you dancing hundreds of times, and I know first-hand how well we move together in other ways, I really don’t think you have anything to fear. However, if you need inspiration,” Remus held his beer bottle between his palms and began stroking its neck with his thumbs, “I could pay you back for your little ‘experiment’ in the stairwell, but-”
“But?”
“I don’t think I want to give everyone a show.”
“How else could you inspire me?” Sirius asked just before he took a sip of beer and allowed the mouth of the bottle to linger on his lower lip. His slight smile showed that he was enjoying this little game.
“Perhaps I could tell you how much I wanted to feel your mouth on me when we were in the stairwell, but-”
“But?”
“You were always so much better with words than I.”
“I disagree, and I think th-” Sirius broke off abruptly as a man came up behind Remus and placed a hand on his shoulder. He was well-built, good-looking, and had hair a shade of blond that may have been his natural colour when he was a child.
“Do you want to dance?” the man asked when Remus looked up at him. Sirius put his bottle down forcefully enough that some of the beer splashed out. Remus immediately looked back at him.
“Actually, he was just about to dance with me,” Sirius said to the blond intruder.
Remus smiled and looked up again. “Thanks anyway.”
Even as Sirius took Remus’s hand and went with him to the dance floor, he kept one eye on the blond as he walked to another table and asked someone else to dance. Sirius wasn’t sure what bothered him most: the man’s bleached-blond hair, the fact that he had approached someone who was obviously there with someone else, or, worst of all, his own reaction. “I’m acting possessive again, and I have no right to act that one way. Remus doesn’t belong to me. But I just want to protect him, that’s all. He’s had enough shit to deal with in his life. Remus deserves someone better than an immature, impulsive sod like me, and I’ll be happy for him when he finds someone-but Goldilocks isn’t it.”
Remus chuckled. “Stop scowling; you’ll get wrinkles. You know, that’s the first time I’ve gone out with you and got hit on before you?”
“I find that hard to believe.” And he did. Sirius harboured no false modesty. He knew that a favourable combination of genes had gifted him with good looks and that he attracted more than his share of attention due to that fact. However, he had noticed that much of the attention they had gotten since entering the club had been directed at Remus, and this was not the first time. Remus seemed oblivious to his own good looks: the infinite shades of brown in his hair that made it so fascinating in the light, the warm brown eyes with gold flecks suggestive of the gold eyes of his wolf form, the beautiful smile which had once been a rare sight, and was all the more precious to Sirius for that knowledge, and the lean, wiry body, all muscle and sinew, which just hinted at the true strength he possessed. Remus might be oblivious, but others were not. And tonight, the skintight jeans and t-shirt were drawing many eyes to him.
“This might have been the wrong night to charm his clothing,” Sirius thought, “but then again, I wouldn’t be able to see this.” Remus had begun to lose himself in the music. Sirius watched in fascination as Remus again became that creature he had seen on the dance floor the month before. During the nights of the full moon, every movement of the wolf embodied grace, power, and certainty, but when he was human, Remus was usually too self-controlled, too self-conscious, to move that way. Only occasionally, when he was feeling especially happy and secure, did he seem to relax and become comfortable within his own skin. And now, he seemed very comfortable.
As Remus became one with the music, Sirius watched in wonder, amazed that this beautiful, powerful creature was here with him. When he watched Remus dance last month, he had thought that he couldn’t see anything more tempting and erotic. This time was even better. Instead of closing his eyes, Remus kept his predatory gaze locked on Sirius. The tight clothing revealed hints of the muscular body beneath. Best of all, this time he was close enough to touch. As Remus turned, Sirius caught him with an arm and pulled his lover back tightly against himself. Through their mutually tight trousers, Remus could feel that his lover was just as aroused as himself. Remus reached back to tangle his fingers in Sirius’s hair while he turned his head slightly and nuzzled Sirius’s cheek.
“I have just one question, Remus. Who are you going home with tonight?”
Remus smiled. “You.”
* * * * *
After three songs, Sirius was dying to take Remus home. There was only so much “anticipation building” that a man could take. But Remus was smiling and happy, and Sirius didn’t want to spoil the fun. However, he did need to slow things down. He kept his arm around Remus as he led him back to the table. Remus reached for his bottle of beer, but Sirius grabbed his wrist and stopped the movement.
“Unh-uh,” he said with a shake of his head. “That paranoid old codger’s finally rubbed off on me. ‘Constant vigilance. Never drink something that’s been left unattended.’ I’ll go get new ones.”
“Then I’ll be right back,” Remus said before heading off somewhere behind Sirius. He deliberately brushed his fingertips across Sirius’s stomach as he passed. Sirius turned to watch Remus disappear into a dark corridor, undoubtedly the way to the bathroom.
“Tea followed by beer,” Sirius thought with an amused smile, “almost as effective at sending you to the bog as that potion we gave Snape once.”
Sirius made his way through the crowd to the bar. It was definitely more crowded than when they had first entered. “Goldilocks found someone-no, not Goldilocks, just another bleached blond.” The two bartenders were busy. As he waited to attract the attention of the nearest one, he was bumped and jostled by others in the crowd, and not all of it was accidental. Sirius suspected that, much like the other clubs he frequented, the clientele would get bolder as the hour grew later. The appraising looks they had gotten would be replaced by appraising touches. As if on cue, someone pressed up behind Sirius, snaked an arm around his waist, and slipped the tips of his fingers just inside the top of Sirius’s trousers.
“Do you want to?” a voice asked in his ear. It was not Remus’s voice.
“No,” Sirius said firmly.
“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” and the body pressed against his back moved away.
The bartender looked at Sirius, and he ordered two more beers. He drank a third of his in one large swallow on the way back to the table. Remus was already waiting for him. Judging by the amused smile on Remus’s face, he had seen Sirius’s encounter at the bar.
“You saw?” Sirius asked as he handed Remus his beer and slipped into a chair.
“Mr. ‘You can’t blame a guy for trying?’ Yeah, I saw.”
“Don’t tell me you could hear him over all this noise. I know your hearing is good, but-”
Remus shook his head. “No, he used the same line on me in the loo.”
Sirius choked on his beer. He had just gotten a very vivid mental picture of Remus getting hit on in the bathroom. “A stranger groping Remus like that when he’s only partially dressed-I’ll kill him; I’ll hex him. Damn, I should have looked at his face.” “Which one is he, Remus? A little Impotence Hex might be just what he needs tonight.”
Remus laughed. “Why? He backs off when he’s told to, and I’m sure someone in here will appreciate his advances.” Remus’s eyes were following someone behind Sirius. “In fact, someone does.”
Sirius twisted in his chair to see whom Remus was watching, but he wasn’t sure which of the many amorous couples it was. “I never should’ve brought Remus here. He’s getting hit on left and right by guys who just want to use him.” “Can we get out of here, Moony?”
“Tired of guys hitting on you?”
“Something like that,” he said. “Actually, I’m tired of them hitting on you, but I don’t know how to say that without sounding jealous.”
“Oh.” Remus tipped his head back and finished his beer with one long swallow. Sirius watched appreciatively. Maybe it was just one of those dog/wolf things, but there was something mesmerizing about seeing his lover bare his throat like that. The gesture made him vulnerable, and when he did it, he expressed his trust in the other. Remus lowered the bottle but did not place it on the table. He rolled it between his palms much as he had done when they first arrived, but this time he wasn’t being playful. “Do you still want to come home with me, or-” Remus left the question unfinished. The worried crease on his brow was almost hidden by his bangs.
“Of course I want to go home with you, you silly sod.” Now it was Sirius’s turn to laugh. He gestured around the room. “Did you think I wanted to go home with any of these blokes?”
“No, I thought-never mind.” Remus slid a thumbnail under the bottle’s label and started to peel it up. Sirius had the impression that Remus was avoiding looking in his eyes.
“What did you think?” Sirius asked. He reached across the small table and caressed the hand cupping the bottle. “You might as well tell me. You know I’ll just annoy you until you do.”
“I thought you might rather go home with a girl tonight.” He smiled slightly but did not look up. “You know, reaffirm your masculinity and all that.”
“C’mere,” Sirius said as he leaned forward hoping for a kiss. Remus also leaned forward, and they shared a brief kiss, hampered as they were by the table between them. Sirius looked intently into Remus’s worried eyes. “If I want to ‘reaffirm my masculinity,’ I’ll beat a few Death Eaters into a bloody pulp tomorrow. Besides, it’s the new moon the day after tomorrow, so if I want to be the dominant alpha male tonight, I know you’ll let me.” He grinned as he said it. He enjoyed that he could get away with teasing Remus about being a werewolf. It proved to Remus that Sirius didn’t mind, and it proved to Sirius that Remus was finally accepting himself.
“If I’m ‘letting you,’ you aren’t really the dominant one, now are you?” Remus pointed out.
“Do you want to argue semantics, or do you want to go shag each other senseless?”
* * * * *
Remus knew he should have fallen into an exhausted sleep. He was relaxed and happy and warm in a way he only was when he was with Sirius. But as relaxed as he felt, he knew that he would be awake for a bit longer. “One of drawbacks of being partially nocturnal by nature.” Sirius was drifting off even now. He lay on his side, curved toward Remus, one arm under his pillow to cradle his head, and his other hand rested lightly on Remus’s hip as if he didn’t want to let him go. Remus too wanted to keep the physical connection between them all night. He was just about to spoon back against Sirius when Sirius twitched the way people sometimes do as they cross the threshold into sleep. Remus opened his eyes to watch Sirius. “Is he dreaming yet?” Sirius suddenly pulled his hand away, severing both the physical connection between them and the illusion that Sirius didn’t want to let go of Remus.
Such a small gesture, but to Remus it was a physical blow. For a moment, he had let down his guard and imagined that happiness was possible. He had allowed himself to imagine that the touch of Sirius’s hand betrayed a subconscious desire to hold onto Remus, to stay with him for longer than it took to satisfy their mutual desire. But if Remus was going to read so much into a simple touch, he had to read just as much into the act of taking a hand away. Sirius didn’t want forever. Sirius didn’t even want all night. “We made love-no, we had sex-and now to him, I’m not even here.”
None of this was a surprise. Sirius had never been less than upfront about what Remus could expect. They were friends-friends who occasionally had sex-but no more than friends. And the only reason Sirius had ever started having sex with him was because Remus didn’t dare date anyone who didn’t know that he was a werewolf. “Pity sex.”
Remus slipped out of bed as quietly as he could. It wasn’t easy; the rusty springs of the ancient iron bed squeaked at the slightest movement. It was one of the things Remus hated about the small flat he currently occupied. “I’m surprised we didn’t break the damn bed.” He picked up Sirius’s leather jacket from the floor and slipped it on before sitting on the thin cushion of the seat below the room’s one window. His flat was in the basement, and Remus found himself looking up through the window at a streetlight. It had been raining when they left the club, and now the humidity hung in the air and transformed the fixture into a glowing sulfurous globe. The leather jacket had felt cool against his bare skin but began to warm almost instantly. The touch of warm skin against warm skin and Sirius’s scent all around him. He could almost imagine that he was wrapped in Sirius’s arms.
Remus was not angry with Sirius. Sirius was following their unspoken ground rules. Remus was angry with himself. In that brief moment in which he imagined that Sirius’s touch meant forever, Remus had wanted forever. Somewhere along the way, Remus might have fallen in love.
“Moony? Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, Padfoot. Go to sleep.” Remus continued to watch the glowing ball around the streetlight. He didn’t want to look at Sirius just now. He didn’t want to see the concern that he could hear in Sirius’s voice. “I’ll just misinterpret that too. Read more into it than there is.”
“Are you looking at the moon?”
Remus was already on edge, angry with himself, and this question made him even angrier. Angry at the moon who ruled him and who symbolized the curse that had put him into this difficult situation. Angry with Sirius for assuming he would be looking at it.
“Of course, Sirius,” Remus said angrily, his voice dripping sarcasm. “What else could I possibly be looking at it? Remus the werewolf. It’s the sum total of my existence.” He had said it to be cruel, but he frightened himself as he said it. For the first time in years, he was afraid that it was true.
The bedsprings creaked in protest as Sirius moved off the bed. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He crouched down on the floor beside the windowseat and looked up into Remus’s face. “You were looking up at the sky, and it’s a crescent moon tonight, and-” Remus still wouldn’t look at him, so Sirius reached out to touch his cheek. “And I like looking at the crescent moon. It makes me happy because I know how much you like this week. I see that little smile-shaped moon and I think, ‘I bet Remus is smiling right now.’ And I don’t think that being a werewolf is the sum total of your existence.”
“I know you don’t, but- sometimes I do.” Remus expected Sirius to reassure that he was more “normal” than he was “different,” or to say something such as, “Sometimes I even forget you’re a werewolf,” but he didn’t.
“Make room for me, you’ve got my jacket and it’s cold out here.” Sirius grabbed a blanket off the bed and climbed onto the window seat facing Remus, their legs entangling around each other. “Being a werewolf is an intrinsic part of you. I’ve never known you any other way, and quite frankly, I might not have liked you if you weren’t one. You’d probably have been some swotty little Ravenclaw living in the library. But as much as I like the whole killer mood-swings thing, I don’t think it’s the sum total of your existence. More like eighty-five percent or something.”
Remus dared to look at Sirius again. As long as he had Sirius for a friend, he could handle anything. He could even handle the heartache of loving someone who would never feel the same. “Eighty-six percent.”
“See! You would have been a Ravenclaw, and you would have missed out on being dorm mates with James and Peter and me. Aren’t you glad you’re a werewolf?” Sirius closed his eyes and shook his head laughing. “Don’t answer that. Too far. James is right. I always go too far.”
“It’s O.K., Padfoot; it’s ‘an intrinsic part of you.’ I wouldn’t want you any other way.” Remus gave Sirius a smile to reassure him that his moment of depression had passed, and under the blanket, he held the fingers of Sirius’s right hand. “We’ll always be friends, won’t we?”
“Always.”
Author’s Notes: Will Sirius and Remus ever come out to their friends? Will Sirius ever realize that “the right girl” isn’t a girl at all, or will he let Remus get away? Read Go Back to Being Friends for the answers.
If you’d like to read about the potion that sent Snape flying into the nearest bathroom, read The Bathroom Incident by Hyphen.
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Lovers for Tonight
Chapter Two: Dancing
“James! Stop that!” Lily whispered fiercely between giggles. “Can’t you wait until we’re alone?”
“We are alone-virtually,” came the muffled reply. “They’re in Sirius’s room.”
Remus grinned broadly as he leaned back beside the open bedroom door and listened to the interchange in the living room of Sirius and James’s flat. He had fled from the bed to the wall several minutes earlier to avoid being groped by Sirius in much the same fashion that James was apparently groping Lily.
“Behave yourself, Prongs! I can hear you,” he called out the door. Sirius turned away from the mirror with his eyebrows raised in an unspoken question. “But don’t worry, the world’s vainest dog just finished his toilette so we should be ready to leave you alone now.”
“What was he doing?” Sirius asked as he crossed the room to the door. Remus shrugged. Sirius raised his voice as he put an arm around Remus’s shoulders and led him out of the room. “We’re coming out, so if you undressed her, Prongs, don’t blame us for ogling your fiancée.”
Lily was blushing just slightly as she smoothed her hair with one hand and straightened her blouse with the other. James lay with his head in her lap and an amused smile on his face. Lily looked up at Sirius and Remus and whistled appreciatively.
“Oh God, what’s he wearing now?” James asked. He lifted his head to look in their direction, but as his glasses were on the coffee table, they were only two blurs who vaguely resembled his friends.
“His ‘too tight to be legal’ leather trousers,” she answered. “Hey Remus, I’ve always wondered how he gets those on. Care to enlighten us?”
The hand that was around Remus’s shoulder suddenly covered his mouth. “Trade secret, Moony. Don’t tell.” Remus’s tongue darted out to lick the warm palm. Sirius grinned and let his hand fall away, but kept his arm draped around Remus’s neck. “Don’t you think Remus should let me get him a pair, Lily?”
She nodded. “But not black.”
“No,” Sirius agreed. “Brown.”
“You really should, Remus. You definitely have the cute ass to pull it off.”
“EXCUSE ME?” James interrupted. “Fiancé in the room, remember?”
“Well he does have a cute ass. Lots of girls at school thought so. Of course it was hard to tell in school robes, but-” Lily giggled at the look of devastation on James’s face. “Yes, James, your ass is cute too-which is why you aren’t allowed to get tight leather trousers.”
James nuzzled closer to her stomach as she ran her fingers through his hair. “I love it when she gets possessive.”
“On that note,” Remus said as he ducked out of Sirius’s grasp and headed for the door, “I think it’s time to get my ‘cute ass’ out of here.”
Sirius laughed as he followed. “Lily, I think you just created a monster.”
Remus grinned as he tossed Sirius his jacket and then put on his own. For a half a second, he had considered pretending to be hurt by Sirius’s inadvertent reference to his “monster” status-just for the look on Sirius’s face when he realized that Remus was joking-but he decided against it. It was the week of the new moon, he felt good, he was spending the evening with Sirius, and if he were very lucky, he would spend the night with him too. He didn’t want to spoil anything by making Sirius self-conscious.
“Good night, Lily. Good night, Prongs. Don’t do anything Sirius wouldn’t do,” Remus said as he headed into the hallway.
“Good night,” they said together.
“Don’t wait up for me, Spikehead-oh, and Lils?” Sirius pulled out his wand and grinned wickedly. “I tighten the trousers after they’re on.” He took a step into the hallway, aimed his wand in the direction that Remus had taken, and flicked his wrist with the words, “Contracto vestis.”
“PADFOOT! What did you do?” Remus shouted in surprise.
“Contracto vestis,” Sirius said with another flick of the wrist. He grinned at Lily. “T-shirt too. He isn’t hiding in baggy clothes tonight. G’night.” He pulled the door shut and set off down the hall to soothe the temper of his annoyed friend.
Remus pulled out his own wand and pointed it at his shirt. “You are such a prat, Padfoot.”
“Leave it, Moony,” Sirius said as he slung his arm around Remus’s shoulders again and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “You’re a sexy beast, and tonight you’re going to show it off.”
Remus paused for a moment and considered. He really, really wanted to go home with Sirius tonight, and if wearing skintight clothing helped keep Sirius’s eyes on him all evening, he was willing to give it a try-at least once.
“All right,” Remus agreed as he put his wand back in his jacket pocket, and they headed for the stairs, “but I have a feeling that these jeans may be uncomfortably tight before the evening is over.”
Sirius laughed and pushed Remus against the wall. “Let’s test them, shall we?” He slid his hands over Remus’s ass and the backs of his thighs, pulling their bodies tightly together. Remus pulled Sirius’s head forward and kissed him deeply, probing deeply with his tongue, claiming the wet heat of Sirius’s mouth as his territory. Although moving in different directions, the slight grinding friction of Sirius’s pelvis and the stroking of his hands melded together in a mind-numbing rhythm. Remus had been at least mildly aroused all evening-watching Sirius strip off his robe and change into a tight silvery-grey t-shirt and even tighter black leather trousers had that effect-but now he was far beyond mild arousal. Only his fear of James and Lily walking down the stairs kept him from begging Sirius to top him off right there.
Suddenly the warm mouth and the glorious stroking were gone. Sirius had stepped back and now stood smiling and stroking his own lower lip with the pad of his thumb.
“Well, are they too tight?” Sirius asked with a wicked grin.
“What?” It took Remus a moment to realize what Sirius was asking, and a moment longer to realize that although his jeans should have felt quite confining, they still felt comfortably snug-just as they did before Sirius’s naughty experiment.
“It’s the spell,” Sirius said as he resumed heading outside. “It makes clothing fit like a second skin. They’ll stay self-adjusting until you take them off or end the spell. It was designed for gloves, but I-”
Remus growled in frustration and followed. “Sirius! Didn’t anyone ever teach you that it’s not nice to tease?”
“Just think of it as ‘building anticipation,’ Moony.”
“It’s ‘building anticipation’ if you come home with me; it was teasing if you go home with someone else,” Remus thought. He chose to refrain from expressing that thought aloud.
Sirius and he danced an intricate dance. Sirius allowed himself only so many steps forward before stepping back again. Too many nights in a row with Remus, and he flew into the arms of the first woman he could find. If they went to a club together, it was rare for Sirius to offer assurances that they would go home together. Plans that included just the two of them were rarely made more than a day or two in advance. Any hint of “couple” status was avoided at all costs. Remus suspected that this was a primary factor in Sirius’s reluctance to tell James about the two of them. James tolerated Sirius’s playboy ways with an endless parade of women, but would he tolerate it if he knew that Remus was involved? One of the many things that James and Sirius had in common, they were both protective of Remus.
“Where are we going tonight?” Remus asked as he fell into step beside Sirius. “And could I possibly talk you into going straight to my flat?”
“Somewhere where we can go dancing-and you are going to dance, by the way.” Sirius smiled and leaned in closer to Remus’s ear although no one else was around. “When you were dancing last month-Peter’s birthday-damn, Moony. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. Maybe we should go back to the same club. You seemed to like that girl you were dancing with. What did she do to loosen you up like that?”
Remus couldn’t stop the happy smile that accompanied the memory of that night. “It had nothing to do with her, Sirius.” As they passed under a streetlight, Sirius took a quick look at Remus’s face.
“You did like her! Why didn’t you ask her out or something, you twit? Don’t tell me you passed up on her because I wanted to go home with you. You know I don’t want to get in the way if you meet someone.”
Remus shook his head. “No, I wasn’t interested in her.”
“You had to be somewhat interested; I saw how you were dancing with her.”
“Yeah, well-” Remus didn’t know if he should admit the truth. “Will Sirius be flattered if he knows I imagined dancing with him, or will he interpret it as ‘getting too close’ and run like a scared rabbit?” “Do you promise not to get angry?”
“Of course.”
“Did you notice that I kept my eyes closed most of the time? I was imagining that I was dancing with you.” Sirius stopped dead in his tracks, and Remus’s steps faltered to a stop. He didn’t dare turn around as he awaited Sirius’s reaction to that little confession. The familiar weight of Sirius’s hand was suddenly on his shoulder, turning him around. Sirius didn’t appear angry; nor did he seem flattered. He was biting his lower lip and looking at Remus as if very curious.
“Do you want to, Moony? Dance with me?”
Remus nodded hesitantly. He still wasn’t sure how Sirius felt about the idea. Sirius considered a moment longer, his eyes searching Remus’s face.
“C’mon.” Sirius jerked his head back over his shoulder and began walking back the way they had come.
Remus barely had time to begin berating himself silently-“I shouldn’t have said anything. He’s upset. We’re going back to his flat. He doesn’t want to go out with me tonight.”-when Sirius passed a street that led back to his flat. “Where are we going, Sirius?”
“Well,” Sirius laughed nervously, “the thing is, a lot of the places I usually go, I think we’d kind of get stared at if we danced together-not to mention that I’d probably never be able to get a date there again-so I thought-” Sirius fell uncharacteristically silent and turned a corner. Half a block ahead, loud music was pouring out of the doorway of a club. The music, the neon signs-all were much like any other club Sirius frequented-but the amorous couple coming out of the door was the giveaway. Two men kissed while walking with their arms around each other’s waists.
Sirius stopped a few yards away from the door and turned to look at Remus with that same curiously searching expression. “If you don’t want to go in, we won’t, but I thought we could go dancing here.”
Remus was amazed that Sirius was considering taking him into a gay bar. Other than Remus, Sirius only dated women. He tried to stay as far on the heterosexual side of bisexual as he could. This was, of course, yet another reason that Sirius was reluctant to tell their friends about his relationship with Remus.
“Please, Remus, I really want to dance with you.”
Remus smiled. He would go anywhere for an opportunity to dance with Sirius, and he foresaw an additional advantage to going here. “Sirius definitely won’t meet any women here. My chances of going home with him just increased astronomically.” “All right, Padfoot, if you want to.”
Other than Sirius’s hand briefly being on his shoulder, they had not touched since setting foot on the street. The pretence of being straight had to be maintained, but such pretences were rather foolish here. Sirius smiled back at Remus and reached out for his hand.
Remus allowed Sirius to take the lead as they entered. Not only was Sirius more at home in clubs than he was, but Sirius’s human senses wouldn’t be as strongly affected by the noise and the scents. Remus paused just inside the doorway to adjust. The dance music was not so loud that conversation was impossible, but loud enough that raised voices were required. Coloured lights flashed on the dance floor, but the surrounding booths and tables were shadowy. The smoke was starting to get thick and would probably get much worse as the evening progressed. The scents of musky colognes were thick in the air and created an interesting mix with the scents of semen and sweat. Remus thought it best not to look too closely into the shadowy corners of the club.
“O.K.?” Sirius asked. Remus wasn’t sure if Sirius was asking if he still wanted to go in, or if he was asking if Remus had adjusted the sensory assault. Either way, the answer was the same; Remus nodded. Sirius led the way to the bar, releasing Remus’s hand to hold up two fingers to the bartender as he ordered bottled beers. Sirius had only been inside the club for a minute, but was already attracting the attention of most of the men near them. He handed a beer to Remus and slipped his free arm around Remus’s waist. At the sight of the possessive gesture, most of the men watching Sirius looked away, no longer interested. Remus felt a bit relieved. After all, increasing the number of Sirius’s potential suitors was not his intention tonight.
“I want to ditch our jackets before we hit the dance floor, Moony. Do you see any tables that are free?”
Remus glanced into the shadowy corners he had avoided looking into before. Every table and booth seemed occupied: men talking, flirting, kissing. Only in one booth, dark enough to afford privacy from most prying eyes, did he see an act intimate enough to make him feel like a voyeur. Compared to some of the clubs to which Sirius had previously taken him, this was quite tame.
“Over there,” Remus said as he nodded in the direction of a couple at a small table. “One guy has his jacket in his hand; I bet they’ll leave soon.” Remus led the way closer. The second man at the table grabbed his jacket and stood to leave just as Remus drew near-a perfectly timed change of occupancy.
“A masterfully executed invasion, Mr. Moony,” Sirius said as he sat at the table. Remus watched appreciatively as Sirius twisted in his chair to hang his leather jacket on the back. He enjoyed the way that Sirius’s tight silvery t-shirt slid over his muscles and revealed a sliver of skin just above his trousers. “Perhaps I should go out with you more often.”
“Perhaps you should, Mr. Padfoot.”
Sirius discretely slipped his wand from his jacket pocket and cast two spells. The first muffled the music just enough to make conversation easier, but not enough that a Muggle would be likely to notice if he drew near. The other charm temporarily attached their jackets to the chairs. This, combined with the anti-pickpocketing charms already on their jackets ensured that they could safely leave their wands behind in their jacket pockets. Then he sat back and took a swig of his beer as he looked around the room.
“This is weird,” Sirius said as he gazed at the dance floor. “I brought you in here because I want to dance with you-and I still do, believe me,” he assured Remus hurriedly, “but now that we’re in here, I guess I’m nervous about it for some reason.”
“Nervous to be in here, or to dance with me?”
“I don’t know-both?”
Remus had to laugh. “The ever-confident Sirius Black?”
“I thought you knew me better than that, Moony.”
Remus nodded. Sirius had every reason to be supremely self-confident. He was highly intelligent, powerfully magical, witty, charming, and incredibly good looking. Combine these with Sirius’s Gryffindor bravado, and it became easy to imagine that Sirius never faced any demons of self-doubt. “But he’s only human, after all,” Remus thought with a slight smile, “which is more than he can say of me.”
“Well, Pads, you came in here to be with me. Therefore, everyone else in here is irrelevant-not worth your being nervous.”
Sirius grinned. “Which leaves me with the more important worry. What if I don’t measure up to your imaginary dance partner of last month?”
“Considering that I’ve watched you dancing hundreds of times, and I know first-hand how well we move together in other ways, I really don’t think you have anything to fear. However, if you need inspiration,” Remus held his beer bottle between his palms and began stroking its neck with his thumbs, “I could pay you back for your little ‘experiment’ in the stairwell, but-”
“But?”
“I don’t think I want to give everyone a show.”
“How else could you inspire me?” Sirius asked just before he took a sip of beer and allowed the mouth of the bottle to linger on his lower lip. His slight smile showed that he was enjoying this little game.
“Perhaps I could tell you how much I wanted to feel your mouth on me when we were in the stairwell, but-”
“But?”
“You were always so much better with words than I.”
“I disagree, and I think th-” Sirius broke off abruptly as a man came up behind Remus and placed a hand on his shoulder. He was well-built, good-looking, and had hair a shade of blond that may have been his natural colour when he was a child.
“Do you want to dance?” the man asked when Remus looked up at him. Sirius put his bottle down forcefully enough that some of the beer splashed out. Remus immediately looked back at him.
“Actually, he was just about to dance with me,” Sirius said to the blond intruder.
Remus smiled and looked up again. “Thanks anyway.”
Even as Sirius took Remus’s hand and went with him to the dance floor, he kept one eye on the blond as he walked to another table and asked someone else to dance. Sirius wasn’t sure what bothered him most: the man’s bleached-blond hair, the fact that he had approached someone who was obviously there with someone else, or, worst of all, his own reaction. “I’m acting possessive again, and I have no right to act that one way. Remus doesn’t belong to me. But I just want to protect him, that’s all. He’s had enough shit to deal with in his life. Remus deserves someone better than an immature, impulsive sod like me, and I’ll be happy for him when he finds someone-but Goldilocks isn’t it.”
Remus chuckled. “Stop scowling; you’ll get wrinkles. You know, that’s the first time I’ve gone out with you and got hit on before you?”
“I find that hard to believe.” And he did. Sirius harboured no false modesty. He knew that a favourable combination of genes had gifted him with good looks and that he attracted more than his share of attention due to that fact. However, he had noticed that much of the attention they had gotten since entering the club had been directed at Remus, and this was not the first time. Remus seemed oblivious to his own good looks: the infinite shades of brown in his hair that made it so fascinating in the light, the warm brown eyes with gold flecks suggestive of the gold eyes of his wolf form, the beautiful smile which had once been a rare sight, and was all the more precious to Sirius for that knowledge, and the lean, wiry body, all muscle and sinew, which just hinted at the true strength he possessed. Remus might be oblivious, but others were not. And tonight, the skintight jeans and t-shirt were drawing many eyes to him.
“This might have been the wrong night to charm his clothing,” Sirius thought, “but then again, I wouldn’t be able to see this.” Remus had begun to lose himself in the music. Sirius watched in fascination as Remus again became that creature he had seen on the dance floor the month before. During the nights of the full moon, every movement of the wolf embodied grace, power, and certainty, but when he was human, Remus was usually too self-controlled, too self-conscious, to move that way. Only occasionally, when he was feeling especially happy and secure, did he seem to relax and become comfortable within his own skin. And now, he seemed very comfortable.
As Remus became one with the music, Sirius watched in wonder, amazed that this beautiful, powerful creature was here with him. When he watched Remus dance last month, he had thought that he couldn’t see anything more tempting and erotic. This time was even better. Instead of closing his eyes, Remus kept his predatory gaze locked on Sirius. The tight clothing revealed hints of the muscular body beneath. Best of all, this time he was close enough to touch. As Remus turned, Sirius caught him with an arm and pulled his lover back tightly against himself. Through their mutually tight trousers, Remus could feel that his lover was just as aroused as himself. Remus reached back to tangle his fingers in Sirius’s hair while he turned his head slightly and nuzzled Sirius’s cheek.
“I have just one question, Remus. Who are you going home with tonight?”
Remus smiled. “You.”
* * * * *
After three songs, Sirius was dying to take Remus home. There was only so much “anticipation building” that a man could take. But Remus was smiling and happy, and Sirius didn’t want to spoil the fun. However, he did need to slow things down. He kept his arm around Remus as he led him back to the table. Remus reached for his bottle of beer, but Sirius grabbed his wrist and stopped the movement.
“Unh-uh,” he said with a shake of his head. “That paranoid old codger’s finally rubbed off on me. ‘Constant vigilance. Never drink something that’s been left unattended.’ I’ll go get new ones.”
“Then I’ll be right back,” Remus said before heading off somewhere behind Sirius. He deliberately brushed his fingertips across Sirius’s stomach as he passed. Sirius turned to watch Remus disappear into a dark corridor, undoubtedly the way to the bathroom.
“Tea followed by beer,” Sirius thought with an amused smile, “almost as effective at sending you to the bog as that potion we gave Snape once.”
Sirius made his way through the crowd to the bar. It was definitely more crowded than when they had first entered. “Goldilocks found someone-no, not Goldilocks, just another bleached blond.” The two bartenders were busy. As he waited to attract the attention of the nearest one, he was bumped and jostled by others in the crowd, and not all of it was accidental. Sirius suspected that, much like the other clubs he frequented, the clientele would get bolder as the hour grew later. The appraising looks they had gotten would be replaced by appraising touches. As if on cue, someone pressed up behind Sirius, snaked an arm around his waist, and slipped the tips of his fingers just inside the top of Sirius’s trousers.
“Do you want to?” a voice asked in his ear. It was not Remus’s voice.
“No,” Sirius said firmly.
“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” and the body pressed against his back moved away.
The bartender looked at Sirius, and he ordered two more beers. He drank a third of his in one large swallow on the way back to the table. Remus was already waiting for him. Judging by the amused smile on Remus’s face, he had seen Sirius’s encounter at the bar.
“You saw?” Sirius asked as he handed Remus his beer and slipped into a chair.
“Mr. ‘You can’t blame a guy for trying?’ Yeah, I saw.”
“Don’t tell me you could hear him over all this noise. I know your hearing is good, but-”
Remus shook his head. “No, he used the same line on me in the loo.”
Sirius choked on his beer. He had just gotten a very vivid mental picture of Remus getting hit on in the bathroom. “A stranger groping Remus like that when he’s only partially dressed-I’ll kill him; I’ll hex him. Damn, I should have looked at his face.” “Which one is he, Remus? A little Impotence Hex might be just what he needs tonight.”
Remus laughed. “Why? He backs off when he’s told to, and I’m sure someone in here will appreciate his advances.” Remus’s eyes were following someone behind Sirius. “In fact, someone does.”
Sirius twisted in his chair to see whom Remus was watching, but he wasn’t sure which of the many amorous couples it was. “I never should’ve brought Remus here. He’s getting hit on left and right by guys who just want to use him.” “Can we get out of here, Moony?”
“Tired of guys hitting on you?”
“Something like that,” he said. “Actually, I’m tired of them hitting on you, but I don’t know how to say that without sounding jealous.”
“Oh.” Remus tipped his head back and finished his beer with one long swallow. Sirius watched appreciatively. Maybe it was just one of those dog/wolf things, but there was something mesmerizing about seeing his lover bare his throat like that. The gesture made him vulnerable, and when he did it, he expressed his trust in the other. Remus lowered the bottle but did not place it on the table. He rolled it between his palms much as he had done when they first arrived, but this time he wasn’t being playful. “Do you still want to come home with me, or-” Remus left the question unfinished. The worried crease on his brow was almost hidden by his bangs.
“Of course I want to go home with you, you silly sod.” Now it was Sirius’s turn to laugh. He gestured around the room. “Did you think I wanted to go home with any of these blokes?”
“No, I thought-never mind.” Remus slid a thumbnail under the bottle’s label and started to peel it up. Sirius had the impression that Remus was avoiding looking in his eyes.
“What did you think?” Sirius asked. He reached across the small table and caressed the hand cupping the bottle. “You might as well tell me. You know I’ll just annoy you until you do.”
“I thought you might rather go home with a girl tonight.” He smiled slightly but did not look up. “You know, reaffirm your masculinity and all that.”
“C’mere,” Sirius said as he leaned forward hoping for a kiss. Remus also leaned forward, and they shared a brief kiss, hampered as they were by the table between them. Sirius looked intently into Remus’s worried eyes. “If I want to ‘reaffirm my masculinity,’ I’ll beat a few Death Eaters into a bloody pulp tomorrow. Besides, it’s the new moon the day after tomorrow, so if I want to be the dominant alpha male tonight, I know you’ll let me.” He grinned as he said it. He enjoyed that he could get away with teasing Remus about being a werewolf. It proved to Remus that Sirius didn’t mind, and it proved to Sirius that Remus was finally accepting himself.
“If I’m ‘letting you,’ you aren’t really the dominant one, now are you?” Remus pointed out.
“Do you want to argue semantics, or do you want to go shag each other senseless?”
* * * * *
Remus knew he should have fallen into an exhausted sleep. He was relaxed and happy and warm in a way he only was when he was with Sirius. But as relaxed as he felt, he knew that he would be awake for a bit longer. “One of drawbacks of being partially nocturnal by nature.” Sirius was drifting off even now. He lay on his side, curved toward Remus, one arm under his pillow to cradle his head, and his other hand rested lightly on Remus’s hip as if he didn’t want to let him go. Remus too wanted to keep the physical connection between them all night. He was just about to spoon back against Sirius when Sirius twitched the way people sometimes do as they cross the threshold into sleep. Remus opened his eyes to watch Sirius. “Is he dreaming yet?” Sirius suddenly pulled his hand away, severing both the physical connection between them and the illusion that Sirius didn’t want to let go of Remus.
Such a small gesture, but to Remus it was a physical blow. For a moment, he had let down his guard and imagined that happiness was possible. He had allowed himself to imagine that the touch of Sirius’s hand betrayed a subconscious desire to hold onto Remus, to stay with him for longer than it took to satisfy their mutual desire. But if Remus was going to read so much into a simple touch, he had to read just as much into the act of taking a hand away. Sirius didn’t want forever. Sirius didn’t even want all night. “We made love-no, we had sex-and now to him, I’m not even here.”
None of this was a surprise. Sirius had never been less than upfront about what Remus could expect. They were friends-friends who occasionally had sex-but no more than friends. And the only reason Sirius had ever started having sex with him was because Remus didn’t dare date anyone who didn’t know that he was a werewolf. “Pity sex.”
Remus slipped out of bed as quietly as he could. It wasn’t easy; the rusty springs of the ancient iron bed squeaked at the slightest movement. It was one of the things Remus hated about the small flat he currently occupied. “I’m surprised we didn’t break the damn bed.” He picked up Sirius’s leather jacket from the floor and slipped it on before sitting on the thin cushion of the seat below the room’s one window. His flat was in the basement, and Remus found himself looking up through the window at a streetlight. It had been raining when they left the club, and now the humidity hung in the air and transformed the fixture into a glowing sulfurous globe. The leather jacket had felt cool against his bare skin but began to warm almost instantly. The touch of warm skin against warm skin and Sirius’s scent all around him. He could almost imagine that he was wrapped in Sirius’s arms.
Remus was not angry with Sirius. Sirius was following their unspoken ground rules. Remus was angry with himself. In that brief moment in which he imagined that Sirius’s touch meant forever, Remus had wanted forever. Somewhere along the way, Remus might have fallen in love.
“Moony? Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, Padfoot. Go to sleep.” Remus continued to watch the glowing ball around the streetlight. He didn’t want to look at Sirius just now. He didn’t want to see the concern that he could hear in Sirius’s voice. “I’ll just misinterpret that too. Read more into it than there is.”
“Are you looking at the moon?”
Remus was already on edge, angry with himself, and this question made him even angrier. Angry at the moon who ruled him and who symbolized the curse that had put him into this difficult situation. Angry with Sirius for assuming he would be looking at it.
“Of course, Sirius,” Remus said angrily, his voice dripping sarcasm. “What else could I possibly be looking at it? Remus the werewolf. It’s the sum total of my existence.” He had said it to be cruel, but he frightened himself as he said it. For the first time in years, he was afraid that it was true.
The bedsprings creaked in protest as Sirius moved off the bed. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He crouched down on the floor beside the windowseat and looked up into Remus’s face. “You were looking up at the sky, and it’s a crescent moon tonight, and-” Remus still wouldn’t look at him, so Sirius reached out to touch his cheek. “And I like looking at the crescent moon. It makes me happy because I know how much you like this week. I see that little smile-shaped moon and I think, ‘I bet Remus is smiling right now.’ And I don’t think that being a werewolf is the sum total of your existence.”
“I know you don’t, but- sometimes I do.” Remus expected Sirius to reassure that he was more “normal” than he was “different,” or to say something such as, “Sometimes I even forget you’re a werewolf,” but he didn’t.
“Make room for me, you’ve got my jacket and it’s cold out here.” Sirius grabbed a blanket off the bed and climbed onto the window seat facing Remus, their legs entangling around each other. “Being a werewolf is an intrinsic part of you. I’ve never known you any other way, and quite frankly, I might not have liked you if you weren’t one. You’d probably have been some swotty little Ravenclaw living in the library. But as much as I like the whole killer mood-swings thing, I don’t think it’s the sum total of your existence. More like eighty-five percent or something.”
Remus dared to look at Sirius again. As long as he had Sirius for a friend, he could handle anything. He could even handle the heartache of loving someone who would never feel the same. “Eighty-six percent.”
“See! You would have been a Ravenclaw, and you would have missed out on being dorm mates with James and Peter and me. Aren’t you glad you’re a werewolf?” Sirius closed his eyes and shook his head laughing. “Don’t answer that. Too far. James is right. I always go too far.”
“It’s O.K., Padfoot; it’s ‘an intrinsic part of you.’ I wouldn’t want you any other way.” Remus gave Sirius a smile to reassure him that his moment of depression had passed, and under the blanket, he held the fingers of Sirius’s right hand. “We’ll always be friends, won’t we?”
“Always.”
Author’s Notes: Will Sirius and Remus ever come out to their friends? Will Sirius ever realize that “the right girl” isn’t a girl at all, or will he let Remus get away? Read Go Back to Being Friends for the answers.
If you’d like to read about the potion that sent Snape flying into the nearest bathroom, read The Bathroom Incident by Hyphen.
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