FicWad

"I'm scared, you know," I tell him, one hand finding its way into his. "Someone will find us."

"What if they do?" he asks defensively, the possibility of a fight setting his dark eyes aflame.

"I don't know," I confess in a pathetic whisper.

"I urge them to come down the stairs," he says, voice ringing out dangerously loud in the deserted common room.

"Shh!" I hiss, glancing over my shoulder.

"Are you ashamed of us? Of this?" he accuses, yanking out a shirttail to reveal a thin half-moon scar at his hip.

"Of course not!" I respond, my voice still low as compared to his, which steadily rises in a crescendo with every word.

"Prove it," he challenges, chin raising. I sigh, knowing that I now have to proclaim my devotion to him to make him relent. Instead, I am uncharacteristically bold, leaning in to kiss him.

It's quick after that. His body leaps, arching to meet mine. His arm slides around my shoulder as his other hand works at the buttons of my shirt. Soon the cool air hits the pale exposed skin of my chest, and my shirt crumples to my elbows. I feel my breath leave me as his fingertips graze my stomach, and compensate by stealing some of his through our kiss. He smiles, noticing what I have done and not bothering to care.

My fears have dissipated by now, as my mind is lost in his touch, his gaze, his kiss. But then I feel my waist cinch, and I glance down -- he has unbuckled my belt and nudged it unceremoniously to the side. The fear returns, a heavy weight in my chest. We've never done this before.

"I don't -- " I begin, grabbing his tie to get his attention.

"Remus. Wait." His words stop my objections, and he gives me a quick kiss as if to compensate for interrupting me. Two deft fingers unclasp the buttons at my waist, and I swear my stomach drops into the dungeons, forever locked there by his touch.

He grins wolfishly, sliding an arm around my shoulders again. A cool finger slides between the heavy fabric of my pants and the smooth skin at my waist, tugging at the wool. My chest feels as if it is about to burst from expectation; I want him to stop, I want him to keep going, I want him to never leave.

"Sirius," I gasp, for it is all I can manage.

His face is blissful, but filled with a sense of purpose, as the tip, middle, base of his finger disappear. The line of my chest feels like it's exploding, my stomach gone, my heart accelerating.

"Sirius," I repeat, forcefully. I tighten my grip on his tie and yank on it, bringing his attention back to me. He meets my gaze, eyes filled with hunger. "You can't."

"Why?" he asks, his voice just as raw as how I feel.

"We're in the middle of the common room!" I whisper fiercely, gesturing around with my free hand. His arm still rests around my shoulders, but I cannot help a shiver from rattling my frame. My chest is bare, my hips are exposed; the dying fire in the hearth does little to raise the temperature of the room.

"Is it ever the proper time?" Sirius groans, regarding me with guarded sorrow.

"I don't know. I love you, Sirius," I assure him, putting all of my emotion into the words, "but I just am not ready to... to... have sex in the middle of the common room." My words are blunt; exactly what Sirius needs to get the point across.

"It's not sex," Sirius mutters, all shifty eyes and fidgeting. He begins to withdraw his arms, but I catch them by the hands. I lean in for one last kiss, and he displays remarkable self-control, even keeping his tongue in his own mouth.

"C'mon, Moony. I know where to go."

*

Thank you, thank you, O Great Hogwarts Architects! I send out a mental cry of appreciation as we stride down an offshoot of the main seventh-floor corridor. My arm sneaks its way around Remus's waist, because the trusty Map shows that nobody is on the entire floor. We could do it in the hallway, and nobody would ever see.

Do it ... I think, exhilarated and nervous all at once. This is why I brought Remus up here, and it's why Remus is following. We are both reckless and giddy; even the usually idiotic-looking tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy attempting to teach ballet to trolls seems wonderful tonight. It's nearly midnight, but no matter -- time and rules matter little now.

Remus and I stride back and forth three times, our eyes on each other the whole time. I'm not concentrating properly, and I don't know if Remus is either, but the door appears like it should.

"Sirius." Remus's voice is quiet and urgent, and I pause to look at him.

"Yes?"

"Are you sure?" he asks, hand hovering above the doorknob.

"I've never have been more sure of anything," I tell him in the most serious of tones.

"Good." He smiles, widely and hungrily, and opens the door.

The room is large and beautiful, decorated in a scheme of reds and golds to match the fiery autumnal leaves outside the castle walls. A small, bitter part of me cringes at the sight of Gryffindor House colors. Gryffindor ruined my family. It ruined my inheritance, ruined my family relations, and ruined my life as the man of the Most Noble House of Black.

But no matter. They're just colors, and that hardly matters any more. The couches, chairs, rugs, drapes, and one bed -- just one, I realize, my stomach leaping -- are plush and comfortable-looking. A fire crackles in a stone fireplace with a large couch and two chairs in front of it, while a wide bed lurks on the other side of the room. There is a door, probably leading to a bathroom, opposite the bed.

I find my gaze locked on the bed.

"Stop staring," Remus says, grinning lopsidedly as he shoves the door closed. His hands grip me at the shoulders as he kisses me -- hard. No more dainty girl-kissing. Desire flares in my chest, and I shove Remus, then catch him at the waist and bring our mouths together again, where they belong. Then I get restless and walk over to the bed; Remus follows helplessly, like a puppy that's lost its mum.

We are locked together, at the mouth and the hands and the hips. My hand is twirled around his tie; his is lost in my hair. We are a mess of limbs, and uncoordinated to boot. Luckily, the bed is there when I lose balance and tip over. Remus laughs, and I sense the rumble of his chest on top of me through the layers of fabric separating us. I need to feel his skin on mine -- everywhere.

His shirt is gone, my shirt is gone. Remus pauses as my hand hovers over his belt buckle, and I pause as well.

"You good?" I ask, just to be sure. I love him too much to hurt him.

"I love you."

That's good enough for me.

*

I awake slowly. I find myself in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed, facing the wall. Sheets are twisted around my ankles, and I realize with a jolt that I am naked.

Naked?

Oh.

Oh, oh, oh.

"Remus." I turn my head at the sound of my name, and smile at Sirius. He is lying beside me with one arm behind his head, the other trailing figure-eights on the inch of mattress between us. I am suddenly aware of everywhere we're touching; feet, knees, elbows, even hair. It's wonderful.

He regards me with apprehensive eyes, those of a child that's done something new and doesn't know if it's acceptable or not. I smile, roll onto my side, and kiss him. I can practically hear his fear dissipate, and he is blissful again. After what could have been half a minute, or could have been half a year, we come to our senses again and fall back to the pillows. The sheets are damp, which is extremely disgusting, and as I run my hand over my head, black hairs fall out.

Sirius's hairs.

"That," he says suddenly, all of the breath coming out of him with the word. "That, that, that."

"That was..." I try to finish it, but cannot. The air shifts, and it feels like something must be said. Sirius can't articulate for his life, so I suppose I am the one who will have to save us from this uneasy silence of things unsaid.

"That was great," I say, and Sirius smiles. Good, this is going well. So far. "I had no idea that... I mean, it was only in November that I... you... we..." Now I'm the inarticulate one. "It's a month after I even told you that, you know." He nods. "Yeah. And here we are, you know, here... but I'm not sorry... no regrets, I feel... fantastic... argh. This is hopeless."

"I understand," Sirius says softly in a rare moment of genuine comprehension. "Me neither."

I smile and lay my head on his chest, content to be still in the silence.

*

"So, what are we?" Remus asks as I exit the bathroom, a towel wrapped around my waist. It's stupid, really, that I even wear the towel at all -- after all, we have...

"What the hell do you mean?" I ask, scrunching my nose up. The haze of comfort still surrounds the both of us, but we're thinking clearer now. It's good, I suppose, but before it was rather nice to be so content. Sort of like being high, only on happiness instead of gillyweed. I rather like the happiness thing better, and it's less expensive -- I should have sex with Remus more often.

Good God! A blush rises to my cheeks, and I busy myself with selecting clothes from the wardrobe opposite the bed to hide it.

"I mean, the two of us. You and me and being... us." The poor thing stumbles over the words, embarrassed as he is.

"You're saying what to call me? Honey pumpkin?" I cackle, and Remus throws a pillow at me.

"Just forget it," he mumbles. I grab a pair of pants that look like my size out of the wardrobe and turn, sliding my arm around Remus's shoulders, sitting beside him on the bed -- which he has cleaned, I realize with an internal chuckle.

"'Boyfriend' does seem kind of schoolgirl, doesn't it?" I observe. Color rises to his cheeks, but he laughs with me.

"I suppose it'll do for now," he says as he stands. Remus showers as I get dressed, then he tries to get dressed as I continue to steal his socks. Finally he just slips his shoes on wearing one sock. I smile, and he hits me.

I love this boy.

*

"Where the hell were you two?" James yells, practically throwing himself on top of us as we climb through the portrait hole. He stands entirely too close for Sirius's and my tastes; after sharing... everything... with each other, we don't want anyone else that close.

"Snuck to Hogsmeade, used the Invisibility Cloak, and drank ourselves silly at the Three Broomsticks." Sirius lies nonchalantly. The way the lie rolls off his tongue with no hesitation, and so convincingly, scares me.

"What?" James screeches, eyes growing wide and sad. "Without me? With my very own cloak ?"

"It was important," Sirius tells him, then prods me discreetly towards the dormitories. "We have to go shower -- we smell like firewhiskey and dirt, I'm sure, after passing out in the Honeydukes basement."

"I can't believe you two!" James calls after them, sounding angry now. I feel terribly guilty, and tell Sirius so as we ascend the spiral stair.

"Don't," he assures me, pushing open the door to our dormitory room. It is vacant, which makes my stomach leap -- for what reason, I'm not entirely sure.

Then I understand my body's foreshadowing as Sirius spins around and pins me to the wall, powerful hands gripping my shoulders as he presses his lips to mine. My body feels like a marionette, rising up into his touch. But it is cut entirely too short when the door begins to open. We are entwined by one another's arms, ties, and hands -- there's no way to separate without fully untangling our limbs, which we cannot do fast enough. James walks in and stares.

"Uhm." He is frozen to the spot and completely terrified.

"Hey, Jamesie. Want in?" Sirius asks, his smile completely innocent.

With a pained sort of squeak, James flees.

*

After tracking James down, we find him cowering in the Prefect Bathroom. Remus shoos out a few third-years while I evil-eye James to make sure he doesn't run.

"James." Remus puts on his Reasonable Voice, which I find quite endearing, because it never works on me. Ever. He glances at me with his Say Something Look, and I gulp.

"Erm," I add helpfully.

"Guys, I'm... gnahh." James is so flustered, he's incoherent. We say nothing, as if in silent agreement to allow James to speak.

"How long?" he finally asks, sounding tired.

"Five weeks," Remus tells him. My eyebrows raise -- over a month of this has seemed to fly by. I never really stopped to think about it, just did what felt right. This feels better than anything else -- so I like it.

"But... how? Who?" The poor thing can't speak.

"I told Sirius," Remus says quietly. "I sort of told him, then he sort of kissed me, and then we sort of never stopped." I grin -- sounds accurate to me.

James is silent, staring at our linked hands.

"We didn't really go to Hogsmeade, James," I clarify.

"Do I want to know what you did?"

"I don't think so," Remus says quickly. James groans.

"So are you two... What are you two?" he asks.

"We, us, Remus and me, we're a we," Sirius says, thinking with complete sincerity that everyone can understand him.

"Sirius and I are a..." I try futilely to translate.

"A we. An us. A pair. And last night we had a lotta fun." Sirius's arm snakes around my waist, and James twitches.

"I have no idea what to say," he says in a voice hoarse from surprise. "I'm not angry." I nod -- the last thing we need is to be rejected by the rest of the Marauders. At least people like... like us... are more readily accepted in the Wizarding world than in the Muggle world.

"That's good," he says in a lazy sort of voice, "because we're here to stay."

"What?" I ask, turning my head to face Sirius. We have been... an 'us'... for upwards of a month now, and every time I see him I fear that he will pretend nothing has ever happened and just leave.

"We're going to be a we for a long time," Sirius repeats slowly, as if to a small child.

"Oh. Well. All right." James nods once, nervously, and begins to back out the door. "Um," he adds, just before he leaves, "do warn me if you're going to... yeah... anywhere in this room. Just, uh, hang a tie on the doorknob or something, 'kay? Yeahthanksbye." Then he is gone.

Sirius and I look at each other, then burst out in laughter. Sirius probably finds it genuinely funny, but I am laughing out of nervousness and fear. Would James run downstairs and tell anyone he meets? Will he never speak to them again? Will he go find himself a boy to snog to see if it's any good?

That last image makes me smile a little, which makes Sirius grin. "That was easier than expected," he says with a shrug. I collapse on my bed, drained from the run-in with James.

Sirius walks over to my bed and leans over me, kissing me ever so softly, one hand resting beside my head, the other on my belly. I shiver from anticipation, feeling he brush of his fingers in the half-inch between my belt and sweater. I lean up to kiss him with more force, but Sirius steps away, tantalizingly drawing out his touch as he moves away. He holds up a slender finger to signal me to wait, and I do, though my patience is running thin.

Sirius walks to the door, and for a moment I am seized with panic that he will leave. But he opens the door slightly as a hand fumbles at his neck. He slides his tie from around his neck, hangs it over the doorknob, and kicks the door shut.

He grins, and asks, "Ready?"

"Always."