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Attempt the First
Remus had never thought that the first time Sirius would try to kiss him would be in the Gryffindor common room. Then again, Remus had never thought that Sirius would try to kiss him at all, so he supposed the common room was as likely a place as any.
It was very late on a Wednesday night, or—Remus rubbed his eyes—possibly very early on a Thursday morning. Shadows cast by the dimmed sconces and low fire fluttered across the half-dozen books and scraps of parchment scattered on the table in front of him. Everyone but Peter and him had gone to sleep, or at least to bed. Peter never gave up hope that he could match James or Sirius' marks with some extra effort; Remus had some catching-up to do after the full moon the previous weekend. With N.E.W.T.s fast approaching, he couldn't afford to let his studies slide.
Remus' concentration on his essay on Babbling Beverages had been disrupted by the sound of quick, soft footsteps on the stairs from the boys' dormitories. He looked up to see who was coming down and discovered in the process that Peter had fallen asleep on his open textbook, head resting in the crook of his arm and quill loose in his hand.
The visitor turned out to be a pyjama-clad, barefoot and tousled-haired Sirius, who crossed the room and dropped down beside him on the sofa, looking alarmingly alert for whatever time of night it was.
"I've been thinking," Sirius said, "and I have come to a few realizations."
He was sitting rather closer than usual—so close that Remus could smell the lingering clean-laundry scent of his bedclothes. Half-turned towards him, Sirius had settled his left arm across the back of the sofa behind Remus' neck.
Remus was accustomed to masking his hypersensitivity to Sirius' presence. Resisting the impulse to close his eyes, take a deep breath and settle into Sirius' casual almost-embrace, he finished the sentence he was writing—Babbling Beverages must contain no more than three drops of Effervescing Fluid or else the potion-maker risks inflicting hiccups on the witch or wizard who drinks it—, then turned and said, "Oh? What about?"
"It's to do with you. And me. And how you've been looking at me and acting around me for a long time now. And how I have cleverly pieced together all your inadvertent signs and deciphered what you're trying not to tell me." He regarded Remus with an intensity that belied his flippant tone.
No. He couldn't possibly—
Remus put down his quill. Kept his breathing steady. Decided that humor (or a feeble attempt at it) might lure Sirius away from this dangerous line of thought. "All right, it's true. You've found me out. I'm a werewolf. I've been trying to keep it a secret, but now that you know I'd appreciate it if you kept quiet about it."
Sirius didn't take the bait. "You like me."
All right, so Sirius had puzzled it out. But there was still a chance to get out of this with his dignity more or less intact. "Of course I like you; you're my friend."
Sirius wasn't having it. He simply sat there waiting and watching him, irises flickering from grey to black in the firelight.
Remus' breath quickened and shallowed without his permission. His pulse throbbed in his throat. He fought the same urge to run away he'd experienced the night everyone had confronted him about the lycanthropy. "Look, Sirius—"
"I'm looking." He shifted closer, bending the arm behind Remus' neck so his fingers brushed Remus' left shoulder. His expression implied that not only was he looking, he liked what he was seeing—quite a bit.
Remus blinked a few times as his brain processed this revelation. "You're—?"
"I'm. Now that that's over with, enough talking. I want to snog you into the cushions."
The low levels of adrenaline priming Remus' body began to transmute into a different sort of tight readiness. Unsure how to handle it, he twisted, his knee digging into Sirius' thigh, craning his neck to check whether anyone had suddenly appeared in the room who could see them. "Here? Now?"
"Yes. Now shush." Sirius turned Remus' head back to him with his free hand.
Without moving against Sirius' warm, moist palm and fingers, Remus glanced at Peter still asleep on his book. "We'll wake Wormtail."
"Only if you keep talking." Sirius tilted his head forward. Their noses were almost touching. Remus could feel his friend's breath on his lips.
His voice dropped to a whisper. "Sirius, I—"
"Shh."
Remus wanted nothing more than to "shh" but found that he couldn't. Instead of leaning forward across the last inch separating them to press their mouths together as he'd fantasized doing for months, he found himself saying, "I've wanted to kiss you for an inordinately long time."
"Then shut up and let's."
And with that, Sirius pushed him flat against the back of the sofa and straddled him. It was so sudden and unexpected that Remus made an indeterminate noise of surprise—a yelp, he supposed, or possibly a "soft cry"—though it must not have been that soft, because Peter murmured something from the table.
He froze and looked up at Sirius, whose narrowed eyes threatened the most drawn-out, unpleasant death a Black could muster if Peter were to wake up. Remus tilted his head to the left to see past the young man on his lap. Unaware of the doom awaiting him, Peter shifted, murmured again, finally dropped his quill, yawned and stretched. Sirius slumped sideways onto his half of the sofa with a muttered curse, one leg over Remus' knees, managing to look as if he'd been lounging there for hours.
Peter sat up and regarded them with bleary eyes. "Mornin'," he said. Then: "Wait... Common room. Time is it?"
"Late," Sirius said. "You should go to bed."
"Mm." He yawned again, shut his book and slid off the chair. "You coming?"
"In a minute."
They waited until Peter disappeared up the stairs and they heard the bedroom door open and close.
Remus looked at Sirius. Sirius looked at him. Remus looked away.
"It's the middle of the night," he said. "We aren't thinking clearly."
"We're not supposed to be thinking at all."
But the moment had passed. Remus stared at his parchment, watching his hand add another sentence while the rest of him tried to decide whether to pound his fist on the table, cry, or tackle Sirius to the floor. The number of anticlockwise stirs following the introduction of Jibberworm eggs is directly proportional to the extent of control lost by the potion-drinker.
Sirius stood, ran a hand through his hair in a gesture he'd picked up from James, watched him, turned to the stairs, stopped and turned again. He blew a breath between his lips and said in a voice that promised he wasn't finished with Remus, "'Night, Moony."
"'Night, Padfoot."
Sirius finally trudged upstairs.
When he was gone, Remus closed his eyes and swore softly. Took a few deep breaths, unclenched his hand around the quill, and set about finishing the damn essay.
By the time he went to bed, the other three boys were sound asleep.
Attempt the Second
Saturday was the last Hogsmeade trip before the winter holidays, and there was gift shopping to be done in addition to the usual stops for sweets, Quidditch accoutrements and prank supplies (the last of which Remus officially never witnessed, as he always made it a point to browse in another shop when his friends scoured Zonko's). Since it would have been difficult to buy one another's gifts with the intended recipient standing right there, Peter wandered off by himself and Sirius was able to toss James a casual "Back in a few minutes, mate" and tug Remus out the door by his coat sleeve.
Remus found himself being pulled up the street and into the alley between the cauldron shop and Dervish & Banges. Sirius was facing him, his back to the alley entrance, his cheeks flushed and the tip of his nose red, his bright knit hat looking both ridiculous and sexy in a way few people could pull off.
Remus could see their breaths mingling in the frosty air. It was strangely comforting. "Odd place to buy a gift," he said.
"You owe me a kiss," Sirius replied, stepping into Remus' personal space.
He did, and despite the fluttering pulse and slightly nauseating nervous twists in his stomach, he was not opposed to paying his debt.
Unfortunately, his voice box had other ideas. As Sirius leaned in to collect the balance (perhaps with interest), gloved fingers gripping his upper arms, Remus said, "I was thinking of buying Peter some new quills. He's always chewing the ends off, and Scrivenshaft's has them on holiday discount."
Sirius gave him an incredulous look.
"Sorry. I can't help it."
Sirius squinted. "What are you so frightened of?"
Remus hesitated. Intimacy. Rejection. Hurting people I care about. Losing my only friends. Being discovered. He glanced over Sirius' shoulder at the townspeople and students strolling by. "People."
"Don't usually peer into alleys."
"Your family."
"What family?"
"Werewolf."
"Don't be stupid."
"Boy."
"Bother you?"
Remus shook his head.
Sirius grinned. "I notice that none of your protests have to do with a lack of desire for my hot body."
"So charming and modest," Remus said, feeling his face redden.
"And horny," Sirius agreed affably. And then he kissed Remus' throat.
Being several inches taller, Sirius had to stoop and tilt his head to the side to accomplish this, his hat in Remus' mouth and his chin in his scarf.
Through a ragged breath in which he may or may not have inhaled several wool fibers, Remus asked, "Is that uncomfortable?"
"Shh," Sirius said, sending a stream of warm air over his Adam's apple. Remus closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again, he saw a figure half-silhouetted in the entrance to the alley and swore he felt his heart stop. "Sirius!" he hissed.
"That's more like it," said his companion, nuzzling his jaw.
"Sirius," he said again with more urgency. "Someone's watching. Or trying to."
"Oi! Padfoot!" called the silhouette. "Come see this!"
Sirius straightened. For one of the few times in Remus' memory, he looked annoyed to see James.
James was still going. "I know it's you back there, I heard Moony. Come on, you'll love this!"
Sirius turned to Remus. Remus shrugged. They couldn't very well stay back there now that half of Hogsmeade had heard James hollering at them.
They walked back to the street, where James declared that any Prefects within earshot might want to make themselves scarce for a while. So Remus watched the unwitting interloper lead Sirius (who swung around and walked backwards without breaking pace to mouth "Later" to Remus and wink at him) down High Street. Then he crossed the road to Scrivenshaft's.
And that was the end of that.
Attempt the Third
Monday night was Map Night. Sirius claimed Remus as his partner in covering more of the east wing of the dungeons. Despite the break in tradition, James didn't seem surprised; on the contrary, the look he gave Sirius suggested that he had been let in on the secret. (Remus may not have cracked the Black-and-Potter code of nonverbal communication yet, but he was getting pretty good at flagging the signals.) His theory was confirmed when James cuffed Peter on the shoulder and said, "Let's try those cobwebby rooms on the fourth floor and leave these two to do a little exploring on their own."
Now he and Sirius were walking through a section of the dungeons they'd already recorded, scanning the walls and floor for any mysterious cracks or odd-looking portraits they may have missed the first time and checking them against the rough draft of the map in Sirius' hands.
When they passed the danger zone of Slughorn's classroom and office, Remus' weakening restraint gave way.
"Did you hatch this plan with James to get me alone down here and molest me?"
"Why, Moony! What kind of friend do you think I am?"
"The kind who drags people into alleys in Hogsmeade to snog?"
"Not people, person. And you were willing. You can't deny it."
"That's not the..."
He trailed off; Sirius had stopped walking, the amusement drained from his expression.
"What is it?"
"Filch!" Sirius whispered.
"Filch?"
"He's getting closer. Come on." He held out his hand.
"I don't hear anyth—"
Sirius put a finger to his lips, grabbed Remus' hand and led him swiftly back down the corridor, glancing at the map before motioning Remus to extinguish his wand.
He'd barely said "Nox" when Sirius opened a door to their left, pulled him inside and shut the door again behind them. He pushed Remus backwards a few steps until his shoulders and bum thumped against stone.
They were in one of the house elves' more sizeable storage closets. It was, Remus thought, as closets often are when one is hiding in them at night without a Lumos charm, dark; the only illumination came from the waning gibbous moon through a small, high window.
They waited.
No footsteps.
His eyes adjusted to the dimness. Sirius was watching him. He didn't look particularly worried as he folded the map and slid it into his robes. In fact, Remus believed the look in his eyes might be better classified as "hungry," and not for more of that night's treacle pudding.
Sirius leaned forward, resting his left hand against the wall beside and above Remus' head. Remus' suspicions about the evening suddenly seemed entirely justified.
"Sirius?"
"Shh."
"I don't think—"
"Shh." Sirius was fighting a losing battle with a smirk, having apparently given up on pretense.
Remus sighed. "I can't believe y—"
"Shh."
"All that just so we could—"
Sirius put a finger on Remus' lips.
"That doesn't actually work, you know," Remus pointed out, proving his statement true, though his lips felt a bit mashed under the pressure. He winced at his next thought. "And I'm fairly certain I don't want to know where your finger has been today. Or any day."
Sirius gave an exaggerated sigh and let his head drop back so he was looking at the ceiling. He took his hand away from Remus' mouth and reached down to fumble with something at groin-level between them. Eyes wide, Remus strained to see what he was up to. He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or more worried when he saw that Sirius was sliding his wand out of his pocket.
"What are you planning to do with that?"
Sirius shook his head at him. "Do you ever stop talking?"
"When I'm sleeping?" he ventured, pressing back against the wall as Sirius brought his wand up to Remus' forehead. "And in class. And during exams. And while eating, unlike certain—"
"Merlin," Sirius said, his breath puffing hot over Remus' nose. "Shut the hell up." He brushed Remus' hair aside with the wand, then trailed it down the side of his face: over his left temple, across his cheekbone and back again, along his jaw, up the middle of his chin, skipping over his mouth to touch the tip of his nose, then rested it in the indentation above his upper lip.
Remus gave a soft, nervous laugh, shifting awkwardly between Sirius and the wall. "Kinky," he whispered.
Sirius bit his earlobe. And then he murmured, "Silencio."
Remus' mouth dropped open in protest, but of course nothing came out but air. Sirius pulled back to give him a lopsided grin, waggled his wand between thumb and forefinger, and then ducked down and sucked Remus' lower lip into his mouth.
Remus leant forward out of reflex, pressing his nose into Sirius' cheek, and, unable to speak, he flailed a little instead. Teeth and suction and then a tongue swiping at him, sucking and soothing, biting and releasing, and when Sirius finally let his lip go it felt twice as big as it should have, in a delicious sort of way. He pulled some much-needed air into his lungs and stared at Sirius' stupid smug face.
Not that he had much of a choice. His whole field of vision consisted of Sirius' eyes with their huge pupils, his dark lashes and the strands of hair hanging so low over his forehead they moved when he blinked. Remus wanted to ask him how he could stand having hair in his eyes, whether it tickled, wanted to know how it was fair that a boy could be so... so... beautiful.
Sirius' mouth twitched. "I can still hear you, Moony," he sing-songed, tapping him on the forehead. His wand had disappeared—back into his pocket, Remus supposed. "James 'n' I'll have to cook something up to take care of that."
In place of a retort, and to keep from thinking about James in a situation like this, and with the hope that acting now would stop one of Hogwarts' most creative spellcasters from following through on that idea, Remus took Sirius' head in both hands and pulled him back in to continue what they'd started.
He tried to repay the pleasant torture to which his lower lip had been subjected, but his friend was having none of it; teeth clacked against teeth and noses bumped, until Sirius pried Remus' hands away and slapped them against the wall on either side of Remus' head—the stone cool under his palms, his elbows out in front of him and Sirius' bare forearms touching his own shirt-sleeved ones—and with that tactical advantage, won the battle to gain entrance into Remus' mouth.
It was a defeat he didn't much mind.
After a few marvelous moments or possibly minutes during which Sirius conducted a thorough exploration of the topography of the roof of his mouth (he would have made a witty map joke in his head, if not aloud, but for that insistent and distracting appendage), Remus, eyes closed, felt Sirius release his left hand. Otherwise occupied with trying to trace the slick contours of the underside of Sirius' tongue while it turned its attention to his back teeth, he let his arm stay in place and didn't wonder at the freedom as his arousal mounted, forgetting for a moment one of the critical rules of their friendship: Keep Sirius' various extremities in sight at all times.
He was reminded of why he'd instituted that policy when Sirius' hand reappeared without warning between his legs, hot and confident and not altogether gentle. He drew in a breath that he conceded to himself might be called a gasp as his cock hardened further and his stomach tightened and his head came away from the wall, forcing Sirius to go with him.
Sirius lifted his mouth from Remus' with a devilish smile and pressed the heel of his hand into Remus' groin and oh, Merlin, that felt good. Sirius pushed his crotch against his hand against Remus against the wall at the same time he pressed a series of wet, open-mouthed kisses to Remus' still-parted lips. Remus pushed back. His free hand cast about for a home, first touching Sirius' hair (no, no good, too girly), then his chest (that risked Sirius thinking he was trying to push him away), then his waist (too dance partner), until finally it came to rest on his shoulder (safe and solid).
Without missing a beat or seeming to notice Remus' loss of control over his limbs, Sirius slid his hand away and replaced it with his thigh, pushing with his knee until Remus' legs parted. Remus was forced to stand on tiptoe to try to even their heights as Sirius continued to drive against him hard and fast.
Remus tugged his right hand free so he could take Sirius' other shoulder and use his friend as leverage. Sirius swatted his hands away and slid his arms under Remus' armpits and behind his shoulders. He leaned in so close that Remus tasted his hair every time he breathed in.
His calves beginning to ache and his cock demanding more pressure, Remus reached out for something to hold on to. Wooden-handled things to his left, probably brooms, several of which he knocked to the floor; no help there. On his right, a shelf that rattled when he grasped it; not sturdy enough. Higher up the wall, scrabbling over his head for purchase—his knuckles smacked into something—hooks. Coat hooks. Yes. He grabbed one in each hand and pulled, lifting himself more easily and thrusting against Sirius with greater force. Sweat broke out on his forehead and at the nape of his neck.
Remus found that it took all his concentration to breathe and keep the rhythm and hold on, balancing on the balls of his feet, his arms rigid and straining, his cock harder than it had been even on the first night he'd locked himself in the toilet and wanked while imagining doing something very similar to this. Robbed of speech and without much to look at, he was acutely aware of the sounds all around him: the huffs of Sirius' moist ragged breaths behind his ear, the swish-thud of robes and trousered groins meeting and his arse hitting the wall, the sticky sound of his fingers each time he re-adjusted them on the hooks, the—
Sirius gave a few particularly well-placed shoves and Remus arched his neck, keening silently. Close—so close—fingers cramped and arms shaking, he gave up on the coat hooks and grabbed Sirius around the shoulders in a desperate embrace, lifting his left leg to Sirius' hip and clamping his teeth into Sirius' shirt over the tender flesh between his neck and shoulder. Sirius picked up the pace, pounding him into the wall so his lower back and shoulders kept thudding against the stone and his breaths were forced out in whooshing stunted gasps and fuck this was going to hurt later, but he was so damn close and—
And that was it: he was coming in his trousers with Sirius sweaty and grunting and hard against him and Remus probably would have embarrassed himself right then with whatever would have come out of his mouth but the spell turned it safely into a breathy sort of haaah, hah, huh, as his orgasm peaked and subsided, and when he had regained a bit of coherence, he wondered why it was that he wasn't embarrassed that he'd just got off with one of his best friends—his best friend who was still shoving him up against the wall in pursuit of his own release while Remus hung on loosely, sated and rather limp and decidedly wet in several places.
It wasn't long before Sirius clutched a handful of Remus' hair, which hurt, and let out a groan so ridiculously sexy (that rare combination again) that Remus forgave him for it.
When Sirius' hips stopped jerking, Remus carefully lowered himself so he was standing on two shaking legs and disengaged his hands from Sirius' shoulder blades, flexing his poor abused fingers. He had to lean on the wall while his muscles recovered and his lungs remembered how to draw in enough air.
"I can't believe you fucking bit me, wolf-boy," Sirius said with more amusement than malice, still catching his breath.
You drooled on my neck, Remus wanted to say, but he had to make do with touching the offending slimy spot and holding his fingers up with an accusing glare.
His faux-indignation dissipated when Sirius leaned down to nuzzle him as he'd begun to do in Hogsmeade. They shifted and stretched and patted and smoothed themselves and each other for a few moments, easing aches and reveling in the small shuddering aftershocks as they came back to Earth.
At last, Remus lifted his head, raised his eyebrows and tapped his throat. Sirius made a face as though he were considering whether to keep the spell in place permanently, then got out his wand and said "Finite Incantatem" with great relish.
Everything Remus had wanted to say, groan, whisper and cry out since Sirius cast the charm crowded forward in his brain—
How dare you!—Does your hair ever poke you in the eye?—I can't believe we're actually doing this—Good thing Filch isn't around to hear those brooms fall—Oh, Merlin, fuck, Sirius—Well, that was nice—
—and lodged. Nothing could get through.
Remus closed his mouth. He looked at Sirius, standing before him in all his flushed and disheveled glory; felt his own body's deep, singing, sleepy satisfaction; listened to the silence around them punctuated only by their breaths as they calmed; and smiled.
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