Madmen At Two O'Clock by Alice For Tea
Sirius bites him, hard. Remus yelps, and suddenly beating Sirius about the head isn't such a bad idea anymore.
There had never been a question of who was to be James' best man. Sirius is his best mate, his brother, therefore, his best man. That was perhaps the only easily decided matter of the wedding.
The month before the wedding passes slowly for the men and far too quickly for the women, who, it seems, have everything to do and simply not enough time in the world to do it. The men, or, in certain cases, half-developed boy, are warned to keep away less they muck up everything.
For the most part, Remus plays observer and mediator to Sirius' efforts to calm James, who has suddenly developed a morning, afternoon, and nighttime affliction of intense and consuming panic, which Sirius then tries to alleviate.
"What am I doing! Getting married now, it's absurd, I'm only nineteen!" James moans, pulling at his hair.
"Nineteen is young," agrees Sirius. "And just think, you'll have to do whatever Evans says…" At Remus' look, he amends, "…not that that's new. But now everyone will expect you to." Sirius simply cannot resist. He cannot ever stop himself. It's a disease, a sickness of the body and mind. Remus has known this for a long time.
James' eyes are wide, bearing resemblance to a deer caught in a bright light. "I will," he breathes in trepidation, his expression one of mingled horror and that of a man approaching death.
"And if you look at any—any—woman walking on the street, you'll likely be banished to sleeping on the floor," Sirius adds helpfully, keeping his back to Remus.
"She'd let him have the sofa," protests Peter.
Sirius wheels around to pin Peter with an intense look. "Would she? Would she, really, Pettigrew?"
Peter falters.
James is frozen.
Sirius is nonchalantly flipping through a magazine: Playwizard. He closes it and casts it aside, papers flapping, with a deep sigh. "And those will all have to go. Pity, you've collected a few special editions."
"Moony!" James, who has just thrown himself forward at Remus, is desperate. "Make him stop, it isn't true—!"
Sirius claps him on the shoulder. "Best get used to the thought, mate, I'm just helping you. You'll know what to expect now."
Remus gives him a dirty look and pries James' fingers loose from the front of his jumper. "Don't be ridiculous, Prongs. Lily—"
Off to the side, Sirius is pantomiming a girlish walk with a sway at the hips, tossing his head this way and that in what Remus can only assume is a mimicry of a girl throwing her hair back over her shoulders. He stops suddenly, eyes narrowed in a glare directed at James, and whips out his wand. The spell he mouths sends a few sparks shooting out. James blanches.
"It astounds me, and I don't know why it still does, really, how much you haven't grown up," Remus tells Sirius without any hard feeling behind his words.
"I know," Sirius says cheerfully, flinging himself into the cushy chair James has just vacated, leg thrown over the arm of the chair, foot swinging.
On the day of the wedding, a joyous occasion to be sure, Remus is preoccupied with two things: finding his tie and keeping Sirius from provoking James into a panic.
It turns out that he has to worry more about his tie; Sirius is surprisingly subdued. He has no idea whether this is because Sirius is still feeling the aftereffects of James' bachelor's party, where he had made a spectacle of himself that defied words, or because Sirius finally understands what life without James Potter as a constant companion means and is in deep thought about how he feels about it. No doubt it will be a healthy experience for both parties.
"This is it." James gives them all a nervous look. "How do I look?"
Peter opens his mouth, but Sirius beats him to it, and anyway, James is looking at Sirius.
"You look as good as you'll ever look," Sirius says, without blinking, without impatience, without the mocking upward curve to his lips that he is so good at. "You look respectable. Once Lily sees you, all thoughts of fleeing will be gone."
James had become to beam, but now he turned purple. "Fleeing? She's thinking about—"
"No, no," Sirius hastens to amend, "It's just, you know, a saying. Christ, Prongs, lighten up! It's your wedding day!"
"The day you've been telling me to dread for the past month," James reminds him.
Sirius waves a hand distractedly. "That is neither here nor there. Come on then, man! Proceed! Onwards! Your destiny is but waiting!"
With that declaration, he flings open the door with a flourish that would have honored a king. James darts a shaky grin around the room, and asks, "Do you think this is—"
Sirius blows out a breath noisily. "Insane? It's you and Evans. Of course it's insane. But Prongs," and Remus can see that Sirius is struggling for the right thing to say, Sirius, who always knows the right things to say, "I believe in you," Sirius says in a low voice, in the voice that says, there isn't anything I wouldn't do for you. Sirius pats James on the shoulder consolingly. "Anyway, if she kicks you out of the flat, you can stay with me. Just think, it'll be like old times!"
That consolation, and perhaps the fact that people are craning their necks around to stare at them, propels James out the door. They troop after him.
The wedding proceeds beautifully. James can't stop looking at Lily.
Next to Remus, Sirius is beaming, and after ten minutes, begins nonstop fidgeting.
"Moony!" Sirius thumps down on the bench beside him, his electric green tie hanging straggly about his neck. Lily almost cursed him when she saw him, and Remus understood that James was going to be "making it up" to her. "Where's your drink?" He swings his leg and snaps his fingers. "I'll order you a firewhiskey to start."
"Don't bother. You know I can't drink."
"I don't know any such thing. You've drunk me under the table any number of times," says Sirius with disgust.
"Well, I have to keep a clear head when you're trying your best to drink yourself into unconsciousness," Remus says diplomatically, wondering warily how long it will be before Sirius forgets his intention to get Remus smashed.
Not any time soon, he sighs resignedly to himself five minutes later. James is nowhere in sight, and Sirius shows no signs of being distracted from his plan that which is to Get Moony Drunk Now.
"Bourbon?"
"No."
"Elm's wine?" Sirius asks hopefully.
"No."
"Not even a small cocktail?"
"No."
"Cocktails are small, you know, hardly anything. Not even 2 alcoholic. Not the one I'll make for you, anyway," he adds as an afterthought, making it obvious that he plans on mixing together a cocktail that will kill a good million of Remus' brain cells.
"Sirius…please believe me, and I know the idea of it is novel to you, but I really am having fun without imbibing alcohol."
"'Course you are, using words like 'imbibing' tonight of all nights. Why don't you give us a few more words, 'engaging in celebration' and 'experiencing sensations of beatitude in astronomical proportions', you tosser?" Sirius is merciless.
The wedding reception took place outdoors. Setting up had spared no wands. There are floating China balls everywhere, casting their pale, white light about and illuminating practically nothing, but, as Lily's mother had said, "puts everyone in a nice light."
A loud noise goes up; apparently, the bride and groom, wife and husband, are ready to set off on their honeymoon and there are flowers to be tossed.
Sirius abandons his plan in favor of vaulting over the bench to start something amongst all the giggling, envious girls fighting to catch Lily's gorgeous bouquet.
They are lying on the down side of a grassy hill, the other side of the wedding reception. It's a nice hill, as hills go, soft ground and only mildly-damp grass, not many rocks hidden in the dirty.
Remus can smell the alcohol on Sirius, it's really reeking, like he just took a bath in a fountain of wine or had it poured down him, and come to think of it, the latter is entirely possible and maybe he had just gone up and changed and that's why he wasn't all wet—
"You're thinking again," says Sirius suddenly, startling them both.
"That's what I do," Remus says patiently, "I can't just turn it off."
"Well, stop it," Sirius says, as if Remus hadn't spoken. "Thinking is bad," he adds decisively, in the tone of one delivering a law of life that is fact.
Remus is at a loss of which example he could pick to prove that, had Sirius exercised just a bit of thinking, tragic events might not have occurred, but he can' t be bothered to and also, the thought of choosing just one example is enough to make his head explode.
"Besides," Sirius continues airily, "I need a good shag and not to think too much about it." He curls around on his side, fumbling with his shoes before kicking them off and hurling them away from him. He eyes Remus before settling back down on the grass. "Mm."
With desperation, Remus considers the consequences of belting Sirius a good one upside the head. The problem with Sirius is, and he has many problems but this is a fundamental one, that he is too charming.
When he was a first year and he had talked James grabbing a tentacle of the Giant Squid when it surfaced, that had been a combination of Sirius Black's charm and James Potter's inclination for being a pushover when it came to a challenge. That is the first thought that comes to Remus' muddy mind of Dastardly And Bastardly Things Sirius Black Does With His Charm. Remus can remember that day well—standing by and watching in a horror akin to people passing a particularly bloody accident, unable to look away or do anything. He can remember James being dragged under water while he and Peter panicked and Sirius swam out to look for James, and then James shrieked as he was jetted out of the air and went flying over their heads to land in a crumpled heap on the grass and with the gravity of the situation over, Sirius laughing so hard he started to choke on the water and Remus had to Wingardium Leviosa him out of the lake.
Sirius is many things—bratty, cocksure, fly-off-the-handle, brilliant, loyal. Remus has never regretted being Sirius Black's friends, not when teachers wondered aloud at their association, not when he was at his worst, despicable, insufferable self.
This, however, this is pushing Remus Lupin's limits. He has had seven years to deal with Sirius Black and build up his patience and tolerance, but this pushing it.
He wants to demand what the bloody fuck Mm means, but when he speaks, it is to say, "You. Are. Incredible." And his tone makes no mistake that he does not mean this in a good way.
Sirius bites him, hard. Remus yelps, and suddenly beating Sirius about the head isn't such a bad idea anymore.
"What are you doing!" he snaps, attempting to roll away from Sirius and rub his shoulder at the same time but afraid to let his fingers slip into the gouges Sirius left.
It's not use; Sirius is clinging to him like an octopus, and all he succeeds in doing is rolling them both over until Sirius lands on top of him, his elbow, pointer than it looks, digging into his stomach.
"Unngh," says Remus. "Get off, Sirius, what are you doing!"
"No," says Sirius happily, and leans down and licks at Remus' throat like a dog.
Only he isn't Padfoot right now, he's a boy, his joy making him look younger than the man he is; he is a boy lying stretched out on top of Remus, elbows in his stomach, athletic, Quidditch-honed thighs trapping Remus' legs, mouth at Remus' neck, tongue licking at Remus' throat.
Remus can feel the silk of Sirius' tie, which is ridiculously still hanging around his neck, he can feel the money of Sirius' impeccable suit, he can smell Sirius' cologne, citrus and sharp, and then he smells like the wine and wet and perhaps even a bit doggy.
Sirius is clearly happy and Remus is on the verge of panicking, and he bucks in a valiant attempt to get away, which turns out to be entirely the wrong thing to do because all he does is shift Sirius, who loses his balance and sinks down even harder on Remus, so the air goes gnnnnnnphhhh out of his lungs as his ribcage compresses on those organs, and Sirius' face is even closer and his eyes are enormous and shining and dark.
In the end, it's almost like Sirius' lips fell on his. It's something that never happens in reality, it's something that doesn't even happen in books, but there it was. For a moment, it really is like Sirius falling on him and crushing his lungs and god knew what other internal organs and then he is trying to suffocate Remus even more because his lips have fallen on Remus' lips: it's lips smashed together, feeling the teeth just behind closed lips, and then Sirius raises himself up slightly, and Remus will never know what happens next, whether it is Sirius just wanting to play or tease or experiment or what, but Sirius does not break away. Sirius just takes the pressure off so their faces aren't smushed together, and then his tongue is running over Remus' mouth.
Remus really has to breathe now, he opens his mouth and wheezes in a great big lungful of air, and Sirius tongue is in his mouth, hot, slick, skilled, and it is such a shock that Remus almost clamped his teeth down.
And it's a good thing he didn't. Sirius' hand is pushing into the ground, holding him up, and the other is in Remus' hair, and one of his legs is between Remus' thighs. He feels warm all over.
It is his first time kissing a boy, and there are differences. With Sirius' tongue moving to his ear, however, Remus shudders and cannot think well enough to name them, much less articulate them.
Sirius is a mystery, Remus decides.
"Touch me," demands Sirius, panting, breath harsh-ragged-loud, and he sounds so needy that Remus just does without thinking.
He places his hands on his best friend's chest and slides his hands around to his back, still unsure of what is right and what to do and if he is doing what he should be doing in the right way. He strokes Sirius' head, smoothing the hair back, and that is vaguely familiar, and Sirius is leaning into his touch.
Sirius is like a code, but Remus feels like he has found the key. All the tumblers are snicking quietly into place.
It could be ten minutes or it could be an hour, but Sirius' trousers are down and his back is arching and his hips are thrusting forward into Remus' hand because he knows what to do and what he's doing right, and Remus lunges up to press his mouth to the hollow at the base of his throat, using teeth, a sort of unconscious retribution to the mark on his shoulder, and with a keening sound, Sirius groans, and comes.
"You are incredible," whispers Remus into the soft, slightly sweaty skin of Sirius' temple.