FIC: Wartime Marriage (1/1)

[leashy_bebes]

Title: Wartime Marriage (1/1)
Pairing: Remus/Sirius, James/Lily
Rating: PG-13
Words: Pushing 3000
Notes: I wrote this ages ago (in fact, it may well have been the first r/s I ever wrote) but at the time, I was thinking of it as the first part in a series so I left off posting, but now I think it'll be better as a one off, so here goes. No beta, so mistakes are all my own.



This sudden friendship with Sirius was strange. Not that they hadn't always been close, it was just that until recently, it had always been James and Sirius, with Remus and Peter as kind of second-class marauders. But now all of James' free time was spent with Lily and there was a definite feeling among their little group, as well as within the seventh years as a whole, that something was changing. It wasn't that James and Sirius weren't friends anymore. When they were together, they were just a close as ever, heads bent over some scheme that Remus knew he would have to either turn a blind eye to or, if it was just too much, have a quiet word with one of them. James just wasn't around as much, that was all.

It was sort of like a wartime marriage, Remus reflected. He knew that before wars in the Muggle world, there were often marriages, a whole spate of them, joining together people who wouldn't usually have actually settled down with each other. And now, well the world was definitely fairly unstable. At least their own little world was. As well as the James and Lily situation, there was the fact that in only three weeks, they would no longer be Hogwarts students. They would have sat their NEWTs and be moving on. Sirius had told Remus that he wasn't going to keep living with the Potters, he wanted a place of his own, partly for all the usual reasons that a seventeen year old boy wants to live alone, but partly because he felt that he couldn't keep sponging off of his friends' parents, no matter how willing they were and no matter how many times they assured him it wasn't sponging.

As Remus was thinking all this, his History of Magic notes were spread across the table in front of him, going largely unattended for the first time he could remember. Soon, though, Sirius came and joined him, looking troubled. Immediately, all thoughts of wartime marriages were forgotten. Whatever this friendship's source, it was intense and Remus felt a protective flare upon looking at Sirius' face.

"What's wrong?" Remus asked at once. Wordlessly, Sirius handed him an unopened letter. On the back was the Black family crest. "Ah. Are you going to open it?"

"Don't know yet," Sirius sighed. "Bastards. I never know, you know? Because I hate them. I hate them so much, Moony. But what if it's something I need to know? What if the old cow's died?"

"Do you want me to look at it first?"

"Would you?"

"Of course."

Remus slit the envelope neatly, pulling out a single sheet of thick, creamy paper. He scanned through it.

"'Final offering...rejoin family...all will be forgotten...welcomed back...most noble and ancient blah blah blah...influence of such...such mudbloods and traitors.' Um. Should I go on?"

As an answer, Sirius took the letter and the envelope from Remus' hands and incendio'd them in mid air, watching the edges of the paper crinkle and smoulder before bursting into flame, oblivious to the attention it drew. He didn't look overly concerned, but then he never usually did.

"You okay, Padfoot?"

"Yep," Sirius said tightly. "Just wondering how I ended up related to those hideous, twisted freaks."

"I've wondered that too," Remus admitted. "Sirius, I wish there was something even vaguely meaningful I could say. And I'm sure you already know this, but you're worth more than all of your family put together and it doesn't matter what they think of you, because you're right and they're wrong and that's all there is to it."

"Yeah," Sirius said, a grateful smile on his face. "Yeah, I do know that, it's just...it's nice to have someone else say it from time to time."

"I'll say it every hour on the hour if it'll make you feel better," Remus promised.

"And no doubt you'll take into account that thing you were telling me about the tilt of the earth's thingy that makes an hour not an hour."

"Of course I will," Remus laughed. He looked around the common room at the younger pupils who were all relaxing. Here and there, pupils in their final year could be seen, recognisable by the slightly frantic looks on their faces, and the mountains of work stacked up in front of them. "Let's get out of here," Remus suggested. "Have you got the map?"

"Yeah. James didn't think his lady love would be too impressed."

"Hogsmeade?" Remus suggested.

"I'm a bad, bad influence on you," Sirius shouted over his shoulder, looking pleased, as he bounded up the stairs to the dormitory. Remus packed away his notes and waited for Sirius to come back.

***

Outside the castle, darkness was just beginning to take over from dusk as they snuck along, checking the map as they went. They made it outside the castle grounds without any difficulty and were soon hurrying along the lane towards Hogsmeade.

"This is not at all like you, Mr. Lupin. What's going on?" Sirius asked.

"Nothing's 'going on'," Remus insisted. "I just needed to get out of the common room and so did you, and there's nowhere to go in school."

"Typical," Sirius sighed, rolling his eyes. "You wait until the last year of school to get a sense of adventure."

"Well someone has to be the sensible one," Remus pointed out.

"Why?" Sirius demanded. "Why does there have to be a sensible one?"

"Because," Remus said patiently, "if there wasn't a sensible one, you and James would have gone through with that ridiculous idea to put whatever those suspect looking leaves were in McGonagall's tea."

"She would have appreciated it," Sirius said with a long-suffering sigh. "And it was an aphrodis--"

"Lalalala! Can't hear you. Prefect. Sensible one. Don't tell me about contraband substances being smuggled into the school, because my conscience would eat me until I told someone, you know that."

"Ah, conscience," Sirius sighed wistfully. "What's it like having one of those, then?"

"Socially stunting," Remus shot back. "Especially with friends like you."

"Huh. This friend like me is going to buy you a drink, so be nice."

"A drink? Oh, Sirius, no. I am not getting hopelessly drunk with you. I remember what happened last time you and James got wrecked."

"Remus. One Firewhiskey does not lead to naked debauchery and a life of insanity. More's the pity."

"I don't..."

"One drink, Remus. One itty bitty drink. Come on, Moony. Cave to the peer pressure."

"Alright, alright. One, though."

"Yes, yes, fine, one. You are old before your time, Moony, my dear."

"And you're a drunk before your time, Padfoot."

"Melodrama," Sirius said loftily. "You exaggerate. I am no drunk. I occasionally slur my words in an endearing, loveable way."

***

"Remus Lupin, you are drunk," Sirius said in a scandalised tone.

"I am not drunk!" Remus protested. "I'm slurring my words in an endearing, loveable way, remember?"

"You are so drunk. On one whiskey, no less. Lightweight. Liiightweight."

"At least I'm a cheap date."

"You have that in your favour," Sirius admitted. "However, you lose points for telling the barmaid I fancy her. Anyone would think you didn't want anything to happen between you and I, darling."

"On the contrary," Remus countered. "I was merely trying to test your faithfulness."

"Woof woof," Sirius said dryly. "That's about as faithful as they come, mate."

"Well, faithfully go and get me another drink."

"The responsible friend in me is escorting you from the premises, drivelling about how you've had enough already. However, the much larger perverse side of me wants to see a Remus get really drunk. Await my return."

So Remus did. And within minutes, Sirius was back, a slight red tinge colouring his cheeks. He set two glasses down on the table and then slumped dejectedly into his seat.

"Not only did you tell the barmaid I fancied her, you told the ugly barmaid I fancied her. You are a bad, bad person, Moony."

"She's not ugly as such," Remus said, fighting for fair lady's honour. "Anyway, she seems like a really nice person."

"Yes, but you don't look at women the way the rest of us do."

"Yeah, that's true. I like to actually talk to them."

"Pah," Sirius scoffed. "An idle dalliance that breaks into snog time."

"Snogs are nice too," Remus agreed happily.

"How would you know, oh pure one?" Sirius asked grinning at Remus. Oh, this was great. For once, he was the sober one watching someone (Moony, no less) make a complete arse of themselves.

"Because I had a girlfriend," Remus said, knocking back half of his whiskey.

"What?" Sirius spluttered. "Who, what, when, how many times, why did I not know?"

"What?" Remus protested. "You thought I'd got to seventeen without a girl ever touching me?"

"I can't believe I'm hearing this! Who was she?"

"A girl I met in the holidays. Emma. Lovely."

"Did you meet at the library?"

"No, idiot," Remus said with as much dignity as he could muster. "At a party."

"A party? An actual party with music and people and dancing and no books?"

"Yes, that kind of party. Well, actually, my mum worked with her mum for a little while and we went to a party there one night. Me and Emma were the only people there under twenty five. We sort of...gravitated towards each other."

"Are you a force of nature, Moony?" Sirius asked. Cliche and terrible, he knew, but he really couldn't help himself.

"I am!" Remus declared happily. "Our love defied physics."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this! When did this happen then, you sly devil?"

"Year before last. Holiday."

"Why didn't you say?"

"No need."

"But...but...me and James always say!"

"Yeah, but you're in love with a different person every week and James is going for a pathetic record of some sort with Lily. How many years has he been pining now?"

"Too many. But look, why didn't you... What did you two get up to anyway?"

"Just...boyfriend girlfriend stuff. Went out and held hands and kissed and listened to music and saw films. You know."

"Hello Sirius' world view, consider yourself skewed. Now readjusting the world with Moony as a stud."

"Oh, come on," Remus protested. "Although I appreciate the thought, one girlfriend is not stud status."

"I suppose you'll never compete with the one true stud."

"Really, who's that?"

"Me, you idiot." Sirius preened vainly for a moment. "I am beautiful."

"You are, actually. Only just this side of...delicate, I think is the nice word for it."

"Um," Sirius said blankly. Casually, Remus drank the rest of his whiskey. "Ah."

"What?" Remus asked.

"Nothing. Erm. You. I. What?"

"You know what this is like?"

"It's like a very confusing thing is what it's like," Sirius told him firmly.

"No, no. This...thing. This us thing. All so friendly all of a sudden."

"Go on, enlighten me."

"It's a wartime marriage. Except without the sex and babies."

"And the war? And the marriage? But yes, other than that, water tight analogy, Moony."

"No, no, no," Remus insisted. And that seemed to be it. He fell silent, spinning his empty glass between his hands.

"Sex is nice too," Sirius grinned, echoing Remus' comments.

"Ah, there I would have to bow to your superior practical knowledge," Remus admitted, letting his head roll back on his shoulders. "This is very strange, Padfoot."

"What is?"

"Drink. Very strange."

***

They drank three more whiskeys each before they left and while Sirius was still able to walk in a relatively straight line and possibly even to act like a sober person if the need arose, Remus was another matter. He was stumbling a little and his steps were meandering. Not at random, though, this was no half hearted drunken shuffle, he was simply being constantly distracted by things that were much more interesting than getting out of the suddenly freezing cold night.

"Oh, no, no, no," Remus moaned suddenly. "This is terrible, Sirius. I can see myself doing all these stupid things, but I can't make myself not do them anymore."

"That's because you're pissed, mate."

"Yes. Possibly. Argh. I admit it. Help me, Padfoot."

"How?"

"Make me talk. Make me use long words. Don't let my brain get stupid."

"Okay then," Sirius chuckled. "Tell me more about the wartime marriage theory."

"Oh! Okay!" Remus agreed, suddenly animated. "Well, this is, in terms of our little world, an unstable time, no? We're reaching the end of Hogwarts and the whole din...dinamo...dynamic..."

"Well done, Moony."

"Thanks. The whole dynamic of the Marauders is changing. Not only will we be going forth separately into the world as fully developed adults, James is very Lily-centric at the moment and that kind of thing throws people together into these mad, intense relationships because...unstable. So you look for some kind of stability or at the very least, some emotional...thing...investment. There."

"Wow. You've thought about this far too much," Sirius pointed out. "Although I'm duly impressed by the levels of thought. And a fair few big words. You'll pass muster, lad."

"It's true, though. If James was around more, you'd be with James."

"Oh, hey..."

"No, no, I'm not complaining. But you would be. Circumstances have forced us together, my darling."

"Then Merlin charm those circumstances," Sirius smirked before grabbing Remus around the waist and leaning forward, bending him backwards in a spectacularly inelegant dip. Remus shrieked and then laughed.

"And, okay, ow, my head."

Laughing, Sirius pulled Remus upright again, pressing their chests close together.

"Um..." Sirius said.

"Well," Remus grinned, his hair falling in his eyes. "Hello there."

"Hi," Sirius said hurriedly. "You know what you said about being drunk and seeing yourself doing silly things and not being able to stop them?"

"Yeees?" Remus asked slowly, stretching the word out.

"This is one of those times."

"What do you...mmpf, oh God, okay," Remus muttered agreeably.

Without warning, Sirius had leaned in and kissed him fully on the lips. What the hell... Remus kissed back, one arm wrapping around Sirius' waist, more for balance than contact. Sirius' tongue darted at his lips. Whiskey and those strange looking 'bar snacks' that Remus had avoided determinedly. Not exactly number one on Remus' top ten tastes list, if such an entity ever existed, but still. Kissing was good. Kissing Sirius was good. Or maybe, actually, rephrase that into something less worrying, Sirius was good at kissing. Yes, that was much safer. Oh god. Sirius was really good at kissing. Sirius' tongue was inside Remus' mouth now, dancing around and taking little swipes at everything it could reach.

And then Sirius moved back a little, tugging on Remus' lower lip with his teeth as he moved.

"Well," Remus said.

"Yes. Um."

"Yes."

"Well!"

And they walked on.

"Do you hate me, Moony?"

"Why would I hate you? Kissing is good, remember?"

"Yes. Yes, kissing is good," Sirius agreed. "Um. I'm a boy."

"You...what? Yes, I had noticed that in the last seven years, Sirius."

"Don't you dare sober up now."

"Trust me, I am far from sober," Remus promised.

"Good. So, um. That's okay then? That I'm a boy. And you're a boy. And we kissed. That's alright?"

"Erm. I think so. Er. Probably, yeah. Why, does it matter?"

"I can't believe you're being so calm about this. Where's the caveman instinct to hit me with a club?"

"Practically non-existent and what there is is only caused by the stupid questions."

"Oh. Well, that's good, then."

They walked on in silence and Remus had just become fascinated by a tree in the distance, which was moving very artistically against the dark sky.

"Um."

"Sirius, are you biting your nails?"

"More nibbling. Sampling. Teasing. Um. Yes. Yes, I am."

"For God's sake," Remus sighed and without another word, leaned in close and kissed Sirius fully and firmly on the mouth. A few long, heated moments later, Sirius moved back, muttering something that sounded like "...need to stop..."

"No," Remus refused, pulling him back in. "Going to keep," kiss "on," kiss "doing it," kiss "until you," kiss "calm," kiss "down."

Sirius moaned and breathed out shakily.

"I don't know how you're wired, Moony, my friend," he said, shifting uncomfortably, "but this is not having a - ah - calming effect."

"Wha...?" Remus started and then glanced down, realising what he could feel against his hip. "Oh. Argh. Erm. Sorry?" he suggested.

"Quite alright," Sirius assured him, moving back a step. "Just, um, give me a moment."

"Right, right, okay."

They walked on again and Remus still found plenty of things to look at. This time, though, it wasn't the comfortable, buzzy 'I'm drunk and things are a lot more interesting than they have any real right to be' of around ten minutes ago. This was more of an`'I'd quite like to look at you but I don't know whether I'm allowed to or not' type of arrangement. As they walked, they found themselves drifting apart until they were walking about a metre away from each other; with absolutely zero chance of accidental touching.

"God, I'm so embarrassed," Remus muttered.

"You're embarrassed?" Sirius spluttered. "You're not the one who got a...who got...well, who got hard, are you?"

"Still," Remus protested. "God. Let us never speak of this again until we are much, much drunker."

"It's your fault anyway," Sirius grumbled.

"You kissed me first," Remus pointed out.

"You kissed me second. Which caused the current situation. Your fault."

"I wouldn't have done it if you hadn't got me drunk."

"Well if you weren't such a good kisser."

They had drifted closer again, the backs of their hands brushing together.

Comments

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