Work Text:
Title: Runaways (The Follow-the-Leader Remix)
Author: Imochan
Summary: In which a lot of important things happen, but nobody does anything at all.
Rating: R
Pairing: James/Remus, Sirius/Remus
Warnings: slash in the form of closeted boy-rubbing, bad language
Wordcount: 5, 958
Author you were assigned: Inyron
Original Drabble:
Remus can’t really blame James; when it comes down to it, your loyalty has to be
to your best friend. That’s how it works.
Remus doesn’t have a best friend. He has Peter, forever toddling after his heroes. He has Sirius, who lets him know that Remus is welcome to join back in just as soon as he gets OVER it; it’s not as if Snape died or anything, right? And he has James. James, who totally agrees with him. James who sneaks him sorrowful glances before sneaking out with Sirius. But who sneaks out anyway.
It doesn’t take long until it sinks in on him, really sinks in. It doesn’t matter how right he is, how much his anger’s justified.
The next time the three of them go off together, he grabs his cloak and follows.
---
The Remix:
James supposes the worst part was when Sirius punched him back.
The corridor is long, dark and hollow, empty like the thud you hear when the world drops out from under you, James thinks, like the way it feels when he punches you back, because he doesn't know.
He used to feel safer under the cloak, where it felt like you could know everything, and never be discovered. It was a heady sort of thrill, always, but now it feels cold, realizes James. It feels cowardly. He shakes it off and balls it up between his hands and feels his cheek sting in the cool air, where Sirius's fist with the scraped knuckles and his lip split, bleeding, clocked him across the face.
He punched back, thinks James, and it makes him dizzy, with how much it doesn’t make sense. It was supposed to have been a reprimand, a bad dog, he thinks, a bad, bad, bad Sirius, he thinks, but Sirius. But Sirius. Sirius never took well to being told what to do, he supposes, even when it was him, really, and James feels his head spin, even when it was me?
The clock above the corridor gives a dull clang, another, another, and three more, and James turns back to the Tower, dawn at his feet, Sirius's blood on his knuckles, and Remus, his head quakes with it, what now?
---
There's no one in the common room. James stands at the foot of the stairs with the cloak in his hands and waits for the right moment, waits for the indication that this second, that second might have been the better one to try and step the next foot forward. It never comes, but the sun creeps past his toes and pushes him past hesitation.
"It's me," he says, when he opens the door, louder than needed, really, at all, because he was expecting Sirius and Peter to be shouting, fighting, speaking even, at least. But Peter is standing by the window, looking pale and shaken, half-awake and scared silhouette, and Sirius is sitting on his bed, back to the headboard, face swollen and purple and eyes angry, so angry, still. Sirius glares at him, almost feral in the way James can see the emptying echo behind it, and the way that Sirius is ignoring it.
"Hope it hurts," Sirius spits, and his shoulders hunch.
"Don't ask me," James says, after the twinge. "I'm not the one you-"
And Sirius makes a movement with his body, like a charged half-lunge, a growl rising in his throat. It looks gruesome, with the mottled bruise on his cheek and eye and the drying blood on his mouth and chin. "Potter," he hisses, and Peter, pressed against the window, makes a faint, throttled sound.
"Don't ask me," James snaps right back, feeling a stinging heat hold his head erect, like the way the world feels before he changes; pride, control.
"Fuck you," Sirius spits.
"Remus," says James, and the word crackles, catches their ribs by the base and tugs hard until their chests are too tight to breathe.
"So – so, Snape's fine," Sirius cracks through, finally. "You saved the little shite from a nasty scare, all right? Least he can do is thank you for saving his trousers from a good wetting; you're still all wrapped up in what didn't happen!"
"What didn't happen," James says flatly, challenge tight in his throat.
"Whose side are you on?" Sirius shoots back, dangerous. "Want to punch me again, eh, don't you?"
"Yeah," says James, and stares at Sirius's shoulder, because looking at his face means looking at the scabbed lip and the shiner. "Right, that's exactly what I want."
"You – "
"I stopped you – " James snaps, bracing his hands on either bedpost. "That's what mates do, when it's -- God-dammit, Sirius!"
"Fuck off," mutters Sirius, and the dawn feels dark around them. "Don't fucking talk to me."
"Sirius –" says James, and knows what that means, what Sirius says, that means I'm sorry, it means talk to me, it means I swear, I'm good, I swear, I swear, because he's heard it before.
"Forget it –" Sirius snaps, and James's heart pounds at the plea inside it. "It's done with. It's done."
There is a silence where James stares at Sirius's turned head and knows that Sirius is waiting for him to say that yes, it is, because it is, really, isn't it? And even if it isn't, he knows, he's told Sirius he knows that Sirius is not Regulus, is not his father, is not his mother, he's a brother to James, after all, hadn't he said that to him?
It's done, but you did it.
"It's done," says James. "You did it, but it's done."
---
Remus is at breakfast, suddenly. Like a shock when you're not paying attention, or paying too much, attention, even, because you didn't realize it could happen, James thinks. Remus is alone, and bruised looking, blue-black spider-webbed cheeks, puffy eyes, with an eerie-white bandage on his neck, where the collar of his shirt is unbuttoned, almost clumsily, and James sees why because Remus's fingers are wrapped in gauze. There is blood on his shirtsleeve, behind his ear; something in James hones in on the clay-earth colour, the sour-bright, evil-looking, flight-response he gets in his spine. He can almost taste it in the back of his throat when Remus moves, brushes numb-looking fingers against a wrist, smudging it.
"Shite," hisses Peter, like a ghost at his ear. "Holy –"
"Oh, look," says Sirius, and steps on Peter's foot with the heel of his boot as he pushes forward. "Sausages."
Remus looks up, stiffly, when they sit. Sirius braces his elbows on the table and spears a flapjack with a fork and doesn't say anything except, "pa' th' s'rup" which is a brief, gruff approximation of "Pass the syrup", which Peter does, looking as if the pitcher might explode.
"I - " says Remus, and his voice is shredded, on the edges.
"You're," James says, and flinches when Remus's elbow brushes his. "Not in bed. Bad idea."
"- would like the juice, please," continues Remus, and nudges his glass with a lumpy thin wrist. James can almost feel the way the bones must creak.
"Hospital wing," says James, and holds the pumpkin juice prisoner while Peter tries to choke down a sausage, and Sirius lets his hair fall into the syrup because James knows he is Not Paying Attention too hard to care.
"Juice," says Remus.
"Hospital wing," repeats James.
"Deaf?" asks Remus.
"Stubborn."
"Oh, this'll be fun."
Sirius smears a sausage with syrup and chews loudly with his mouth open, and glares at James.
"You should really be in – " says Peter, from across the table.
"No, I really don't – " says Remus.
"Augh -- for – just – just get over it!" snaps Sirius, and shoves his plate at the center of the table, so that the fork clatters like a broken bell, and James can't tell, for once, who he's talking to.
Remus ignores all of it, and gets the juice himself.
---
OI STICKHEAD, writes Sirius, in Transfiguration, three days later, in a note that James crams unread into his pocket irritably until it bites his thigh hard enough that he has to open it, for the safety of his Important Parts. WE ARE DUE FOR SOME MISCHIEF-WITH-A-CAPITAL-M. THE SCHOOL GROWS SLEEPY WITH SECURITY. IT IS OUR CIVIC DUTY.
James stuffs the note in Sirius's ear.
---
"Sirius is going out tonight," says Peter, in Herbology, the day after, holding his fingers up absurdly, because they're stained with gooseberry juice and lots of mud.
"Sirius is full of piss," says James, and watches while Remus quietly pots his plant with bandaged hands.
"I'm going with him," says Peter. "He said I should go with him. He said – "
"Peter," says Remus. "You're dripping berry goo on your trousers."
Peter makes a sound like a half-dead sigh and stumbles off the stool to the line for the garden hose at the back of the greenhouse, trailing purple juice.
"You're going, too, aren't you?" asks Remus, and James finds himself watching the way Remus keeps his hair out of his eyes with a sweep of his bony-knobble wrist; the way Remus's neck curves when he's pointedly not looking at whoever he happens to be talking to.
"No," says James. "Yes. It's a possibility. But possibly not."
"You should go," says Remus. "If you don't, Sirius won't talk to you for three days again, and then you'll both start throwing things, or punching each other, and we'll just lose points, because Lily will catch you, and she hates you and wants you to die."
"That's not fair," says James, and shoves his berry bush into the pot with a grimace. "Die is a very strong word. You should come too."
"Strong, but appropriate. I can't," says Remus and scratches his cheek, squinting at James's lopsided plant. "I have to get over it, remember."
"Remus – "
"You have dirt on your nose," says Remus, and goes to wash up.
---
In the end, they go out, and end up trapped in the broom cupboard on the sixth floor somewhere near the Divination tower, because Sirius says it used to be a storage for the Slytherins' racing brooms, last year. But it's empty and warm and cramped, with a door that doesn't seem to want to unlock from the inside, and Sirius starts sneezing convulsively because James knocks something over that lets out a smell horribly like pepper and rancid roses, and Peter lets them all know in a high-pitched voice that something is biting his elbow. Sirius tells him not to be a huge sagging pile of pansy-arse, until it turns out to be a nest of baby Doxies, which are just as bad as regular ones, they discover, because while dying is not so much a factor, vicious red welts very much are.
"Had a good time?" Remus asks - looking far better than they do, which is saying something - at breakfast.
"Fuck you," says Sirius, and James says, "Augh."
"I am the pimple monster," says Peter, miserably, and Remus gives him the last strawberry scone, which James thinks is absurdly nice of him, really, considering they actually did deserve a vicious red welting, in one form or another.
---
James finds Remus in the Library, at the table in front of the west window, where the sun stains everything like burnt butter and it's too dusty to get anything done without sneezing a great deal; Remus is chewing distractedly on the curling edge of the bandages on his wrist, book spread in his lap.
"Don't do that," James says, feeling very long and gangly. "You'll pull it off, and it'll get infected, and you'll die. Or you'll choke on it, and you'll die, again."
"That would be overkill," says Remus, and turns the page. "You're in my light."
"Sorry," says James.
"Never mind," Remus makes a dismissive noise. "You're the good one, after all."
"Aren't you – " asks James and sits on the windowsill, watching Lily Evans where she stands at the Charms stacks, pressing long, white fingers over the curl of a page, smoothing it flat, chewing absently on a few strands of her hair until it falls damp and dark red, limp, over her sweater, and James wants to -- " - the good one?"
Remus rocks back in his chair, a little, and briefly follows James's line of sight. "Hm?" he murmurs, and drops his eyes again; James can see the dip of his head.
"Aren’t you?"
"Suspend disbelief, James," says Remus, scratching his wrist, under the bandage. "Contrary to popular opinion, you are not, really, a great smelly arsenut."
"Hey," frowns James.
"Popular opinion," says Remus, and shrugs.
James runs a hand through his hair, rubbing at a tight knot at the base of his neck that he thinks has been there forever but really only probably since last week. He looks up and sees Lily chewing on a fingernail, and her lipstick is a little smeared in the corner of her mouth.
"Augh," says James.
"Well put," says Remus, and turns the page.
"Not really?"
"Really, a little."
"Really, huh."
"Basically," says Remus, and his shoulder bumps James's knee when he moves, so that James looks down and sees the thin, white fingers, and the rust-stained bandages and the way the dust makes Remus's face look sweater-warm, skin like milk-vellum page and oh fuck, thinks James, I really, really am, and I should not be thinking like this.
"Listen – " he tries.
"It's all right," Remus says, and stands, the dust sweeping from his dull leather shoes in little clouds. "Popular opinion says I'm a slavering, baby-eating, beast of darkness."
James thinks maybe arsenut is worse.
---
"Hahaha -- fuck!" Sirius has to grab the railing, he's laughing so hard, and a crowd of passing Ravenclaws look at him like he's a tad deranged. James wants to give them an empathetic look, but he thinks he's too busy being pissed-off at Sirius looking like a lunatic. "Ah- hahaha – you think you're a what?!"
"Arsen-"
"I heard the fucking – ahaha – word!" Sirius rubs his eyes with the heels of his hand, grin dirty and exultant. "- the hell gave you that idea?"
"Remus, you –"
"Ha - Well, fuck that," says Sirius, and sobers, eyes narrowing after the retreating backs of the Ravenclaws. "Want to go out tonight?"
James sighs.
---
"It's just," says James, at dinner. "I'm not."
"Context, please," says Remus, and then glares. "Ow – Sirius, that was my shin."
"Well, no one's listening to me," Sirius glares. "Shin-kicking is the obvious next step."
"I'm listening," says Peter, though he's not, really, because he's trying to finish the Potions essay before Rookwood follows through with the threat to experiment on Peter's owl.
"I'm not, though," says James. "Popular opinion can suck my – "
"Well, you're not the one near the potatoes, not passing them, are you?"
"You could just ask, you know," says Remus.
"I am," Sirius spits, pressing himself into Remus's personal space, and oh, god, thinks James, here it comes. "I. Am. Speaking. There are words coming out of my mouth. Stop fucking ignoring me and suck it up, because you're not proving anything except that you're a twotty son of a bitch entitled to do whatever the fuck he likes because he's different!"
There is a clatter and a dribble when Peter drops his inkbottle, but Remus doesn't say anything; his face has gone blank.
"Now pass the fucking potatoes," says Sirius, grinning disgustedly. "Never get between a man and his food."
"Funny. You know. You used to say that same sort of thing about your friends," says Remus, and dumps the entire bowl of potatoes onto Sirius's plate, one-handed, so that they bounce off the table, overflowing, and leave potato-sized grease stains on Sirius's trousers.
James doesn't know whether to laugh or scream, because Sirius looks so furious, but James does know he's never seen anything more glorious and beautiful in his life, he thinks, than Remus Lupin right then, flushed with an eerie-quiet repression, eating an indignantly-spilled potato off of Sirius's plate.
"Oh god," says Peter, looking up, clutching his essay to his chest. "Are you going to fight?"
"Good question," murmurs Remus, and Sirius throws a vicious roast potato at Peter's head.
James forgets to think about being an arsenut, and instead thinks just how fucked they might actually be, after all.
----
HEY SHITHEADS, writes Sirius, the next morning in Charms, and James rolls his eyes. IN THE NAME OF FUCKING SOLIDARITY ONE OF YOU HAD BETTER SHOW UP TONIGHT OR YOU'RE GOING TO WISH YOU'D NEVER HEARD OF A POTATO. GREENHOUSE 4 - MIDNIGHT. SO GLAD WE AGREE.
Remus ignores the note, and Sirius ignores him, to the point where Remus is staring out the window with a scholarly-set frown on his face and he, thinks James, looks – like – well – and – and then when he chews on an ink-stained thumb, the sun rubs his mouth red, and the shadows make his lashes look long and dark and smoke-smudged.
James resists the urge to gnaw at his fist.
Bugger, he thinks. Fuck fuck fuck.
----
Peter follows Sirius's heels down the stairs, after Charms, piece of Sirius-scrawled paper clenched in his fist, whispering in his excitement-teetering voice, that kind that tends to wobble on the edges, and Sirius tilts his neck, finger nonchalantly hooked under the collar of his tie, loosening, haughty, his elegance carefully distributed among the peons, thinks James, when Sirius flicks a wrist in some kind of dismissal, and wants to laugh, or maybe hide his head, he's not sure: ha-ha-ha, we're so droll.
James is acutely aware, or just aware at least, he grins, of Remus, beside him, smelling vaguely like impetuous magic, the hum around his body he always has after Charms; Lily gets it too, he thinks, and steadfastly avoids letting his eyes wander for slightly limp, red hair.
And when Remus grabs his sleeve, just above the elbow, and asks, "Have you got a smoke? I'm not feeling very hungry," and looks that way he does, eyes averted to the point of eerie politeness, the strange, white-scar curve of his wrist against the uniform, James feels his stomach tumble out from underneath him, and follows him outside to the steps by the courtyard, fumbling rather stupidly in his book bag; backward glance at the way Sirius is oblivious.
"If you don't - " says Remus, glancing at him, rolling his sleeves up, bare elbows braced on the stone ledge.
"Shut up," says James, eyes snapping back. "I do, so - "
"Right," says Remus, when James manages to shake two out, handing him one, and James ignores the way it shouldn't feel when Remus's fingers brush the dip in his palm. "Ta."
James manages to dig his father's old lighter from his pocket; he scrambles up onto the ledge and lights his own cigarette, the sun spearing the back of his bare neck and making his eyes hurt with the way he can see it burrow and flirt with Remus's hair, shining there.
He exhales, watches Remus tap his cigarette against the ledge through the vague hazing in the air, trying not to focus on the shift-curl of the white fingers, on the way the cigarette looks inches from Remus's pale mouth, the pomegranate-red sliver of Remus's tongue when he wets his lips, touches the cigarette to them. James tries harder, instead, to breathe, when he has to lean forward to light it for Remus, and the air between them isn't like smoke, anymore: it's thick, and drowning, thinks James, fuck.
"Thank god," Remus says. "A real bloody smoke, for finally. Have you tried those awful things that Peter has?" He smiles vaguely, thumb pressed to his bottom lip, eyes smudged in shadow.
"Gnhg," says James.
"What?"
"Rng. Yes?" James swallows, and hates his life.
"All right?" asks Remus, skeptic, exhaling, dark eyes pinning James to the ledge.
"Oh, yeah," lies James.
"Sirius's note, when - "
"Sirius is full - "
"Full of piss, I know," says Remus, and his brows draw together. "You say that all the time."
"Mean it, s'why," James says, frowning. "He's the ruddy president of the Piss-makers."
"You don't."
"Do!"
"Don't," Remus counters, palm flat on the stone, sun making him squint. "Least not in the way most people mean. Most people mean it when the person isn't their - " Remus pauses, like the word is too thick for his throat, flicks his cigarette, doesn't speak again.
"So he's my," James glares. "So he's my, who's full of piss! It happens."
Remus laughs and exhales. "Right. Guess so."
"Piss-maker and the arsenut," James mutters. "See, wonderful pair."
"Wonderful," parrots Remus.
"Look – are you okay?"
"Coming tonight?" asks Remus, and flicks his cigarette as far as he can. "I am."
"What?" James stares. "You are?"
"I think I'm hungry now," says Remus. "Want to go in?"
---
"Don't touch that!" Peter warns, in a choked whisper, and snatches James's hand back from the flower.
"What?" James raises an eyebrow, bewildered. "The bloody daisy?"
"The bloody man-eating daisy," says Remus, crouching to read the species tag, scrawled out in Professor Sprout's writing. "It's native to Africa and lives off mammal blood. Says here."
"What, and they just leave it out, just like that?"
"Clearly a trap for wayward Prefects and companions," Sirius pinches James's cheek and James resists the urge to dump the man-eating daisy on Sirius's head.
"Rather pretty, for a blood-sucking flora, don't you think?" Remus stands, rocking back on his heels, brushes his hair from his face with his wrist. James is sure he's doomed.
"No," says Sirius, and waggles his fingers at it. "Fucking ugly, it is. Only wants you to think it's the best thing since the rose. And yet, we resist the urge – and plow on! Prefect and Co., victorious!"
"Oh – don't touch it," Peter rubs his temple, and squeezes his eyes shut.
"Pansy," glares Sirius, and then blinks. "Ooh, that was hellishly witty."
"Hellishly," James gets his revenge and pinches Sirius's cheek. "Hellish."
"You looking for plant food as a career choice, then?"
"Augh," says Peter, and Remus takes a step back. "It's got tentacles."
"Brilliant!" cries Sirius. "Grab it, Petey! That's a Slytherin bed-warmer if I've ever seen one."
"I'm not touching it!"
"I thought you were the gardener."
"I don't want any more welts, thanks!"
"Oh, come on – Oi, Remus, for Merlin's sake, don't light that up in here. You'll upset the plants, or something."
"Even condemned men get one last cigarette, you know. And I'm fairly certain I'm going to die tonight."
"What? – you –"
"That's a daisy with tentacles, Sirius."
"Bloody pessimist. Oi, Pete, do we have something to keep those beautiful suckers off of us?"
Remus props himself up on the counter farthest away from the prettily writhing daisy and offers James his smoke.
"Hey – " Sirius waves a hand in James's direction. "Stop condoning that kind of behaviour. Aren't you a prefect?"
"Not going to answer that," James grins, and exhales, because Remus's knee is brushing the back of his leg. "You could try Immobilus? Grab the cloak to transport?"
"I love you," says Sirius, rolling up his sleeve and drawing his wand. "You're brilliant. Condone anything you want."
"Aw, you're so queer."
Sirius is grinning so hard the rude gesture that follows only makes James laugh, until James sees the frown on Remus's face when he hands the smoke back. James blinks; James knows, suddenly, and oh, right, fuck, he thinks.
"No Slytherins," he says, looking back, and Sirius stops mid-wave.
"Drop it in Flich's office or something," James clarifies. "We need our stupid parchment back, anyway. He took it when -- and it's only half-done, so – just, no Slytherins."
Peter breaks the silence with a sharp exhale. "Sirus --?"
"Vicious, you are," Sirius cackles, and it's flat, like ice, but Sirius is already turning and freezing the daisy, and James supposes it's all right, at least, if only for the way the tension bleeds out of Remus's skin; he can feel it through the old school jumper, against his bare elbow.
"You're the one with the bloodlust," he says.
"Am not," Sirius snaps, but he's grinning. "Get the fuck out of here, already. We'll meet at the corridor left of Filch's, eh? I left the cloak in the four-lock trunk."
"I'm coming with," says Remus. "I know which one."
"I do, too," says James, but he's holding the door open.
"I'm coming with," says Remus again, and James ignores the way he sees Sirius snap off a frozen daisy tentacle.
---
He catches up to Remus in the little archway before the courtyard. Remus is standing against the stone wall, with one hand shoved in his trouser pocket, and the other sort of hooked on his belt, cigarette lazy, half-forgotten between two fingers, until Remus blinks, and seems to see him there again, at the bottom of the steps to the archway.
"Sorry," says Remus, and inhales. He offers the cigarette to James again, and James has to reach up to get it. When he takes it, Remus pushes off from the wall, and slips into the courtyard, and the shadows eat him up.
"For?" asks James, finally, catching up again, ducking his head to keep the glare from the torchlight off his glasses. Remus's hands are white, thin -- a little too, thinks James, but just so -- when he sees them open the heavy door to the school, two fingers catching the lock to keep it from making that sound that it does. James ignores a surge of pride. Ew, he thinks, that was way too paternal.
"Nothing," says Remus.
"You're full of shit," laughs James, half a whisper, and he throws the cigarette into the courtyard before he closes the door behind them.
"Very apologetic shit," says Remus, fully a whisper, both hands in his pockets now, and his teeth flash a little, eerie slip of a smile. "I've been a bit of a - "
"Oh, shut up," says James. "Save it, or something."
"But – "
"You haven't been an anything," says James, and forgets to whisper. "Sirius has been a whole lot of a, and I've been a bit of a. Really, you should just hang around with Pete. But no Slytherins, all right?"
"That was obvious," Remus brushes his hair out of his eyes with his wrist, again. "Are we witnessing the reformation?"
"Blasphemer," says James, just to see Remus smile, but he's not. "Are you – " he starts.
"Cat," says Remus, and freezes.
"What?"
"Mrs. Norris," whispers Remus, and there's two green-lamplight gleams at the end of the corridor, a low yowl. "Cat."
"Oh, fuck," hisses James, and grabs Remus's wrist, drags him into the next room, and fuck, thinks James, all right, cupboard, brilliant, and locks the door shut with a click. "Did she see?" he pants, and turns and then stops, because fuck, he thinks, cupboard, right, oh, and tries to ignore the fact that he and Remus are sharing every inch of personal space that they own.
"Don't know," whispers Remus, and his hair is in his face, and James swallows, and shifts, and tries to find a grip on one of the mops crowded against the corner, but instead finds a grip on --
"James," says Remus. "Your hand –"
This is mortifying, thinks James, and actually, rather cliché, really. Especially with the heavy breathing, he thinks. That is really, really, very cliché, really.
"Well. Um," he says, and kisses Remus.
Wet, is his first thought, very wet, and then, fuck, James you idiot less tongue, maybe, you think? But then he's thinking not much at all, because Remus's white, thin fingers are clenching at his arm, twisting in the sleeves of his shirt and he's leaning Remus back against the wall, and their knees and stomachs and noses are bumping together, and there's dust in his nose and in his hair but it doesn't matter because it smells like Remus.
"Is this," whispers Remus, and swallows, and his tongue wets his mouth and touches James's lips, and James has to pull back to breathe, because the world is going watery with the taste of him.
"Is this," asks Remus, again, face flushed in the shadow, mouth shining-red, and he's smiling, sort of, "where you fuck me in the broom cupboard and we stay great friends even though we avoid ever talking about it again because it would make you a fag?"
"You'd be okay with that?" asks James, because his brain is already fully on the way to yes, yes, yes and his body's a lost cause.
"Yeah," says Remus, and James bends his head so he can lick the side of Remus's neck, and Remus's breath hitches, and it's the second-best sound James has ever heard. "Okay. I guess so."
"Guess so," whispers James, because he feels he needs to, because everything has gone so sublimely quiet, stilled, hot, stifling, and he can feel the way Remus's pulse is racing under his mouth and tongue, and fuck, he wants to sigh, because Remus's fingers are in his hair, curling, tugging like -- oh, when James presses him back against the wall again, and their hips push together.
Oh, thinks James, oh my god what am I doing I don't care.
"... James," Remus is whispering, sunset-rubbed mouth on James's cheek; James can feel the white fingers on his neck – shaking, he thinks – and he catches Remus's wrist, draws Remus's fingers, mindlessly, to his own mouth, runs his tongue over them, grazes them with his teeth, sucks them into -- and god, he thinks, it's almost better than kissing Remus, the way this feels. He's tasting the salt and ink, and can feel Remus laugh, breathless, against his cheek, the surge of Remus's tight, warm hips when he bites, because he can't help himself, because of those beautiful, throat-tight hitches Remus makes, when he does.
Remus's hips push forward again, and James has to drop his hand from Remus's wrist - one elbow already braced beside Remus's head on the stone wall – to grip at the back of Remus's thigh, at his -- fuck fuck fuck this is -- and the crisp trousers crinkle when he flexes his hand and Remus kisses him, sloppily, around the fingers, wet, pink tongues and wet, red mouths driving James into him, again, and again, and Remus is so tight against him, until he can't – he's almost --
"... oh," whispers Remus, after, and he's shaking.
And James kisses him, again, as soft as he can manage to, thinking, you are so beautiful.
"We're really. Really late," he says, instead.
"I know," says Remus.
"I –" James tries.
"I know, all right?" says Remus, and he smiles when he tucks his shirt back in, so James supposes it must be.
---
He and Peter find them the next morning, at the very end of the Gryffindor table, before breakfast, when the light filtered through the ceiling is cold and blue with the shuddering spring and Remus is sitting with his back to the fire to keep warm, with Sirius's jacket over his shoulders, and James's scarf looped around his neck, and Peter's fingerless gloves on his hands. The map is spread out between them, reclaimed, glorious, and a little more than half finished, more than what they'd thought, apparently. Sirius is eating an apple, and smiling, and really smiling as he talks, and Remus is a little flushed from the cold, but his back is curved in comfort, and he brushes his hair from his face with his fingers, slowly. There's something so fragile about the moment, hushed and strange and still frighteningly solid after the haze and stifling disorientation of the night before.
James wonders what they've been talking about.
"Up early," he says, while Peter, groggy-eyed, reaches for the coffee.
"Sirius couldn't sleep," says Remus, eyebrow raised lazily.
"Can you believe it?" asks Sirius, dramatic gesturing with his apple core, over the parchment. "We'd never got around to the third-corridor after the giraffe painting? I love that corridor! Let's do it tonight!"
"Nervous energy," says Remus, and brushes his hair from his eyes again, and James's hand twitches against his lap, and he thinks maybe Remus isn't talking about Sirius at all.
---
"You didn't mean it," says James.
Remus is sitting on the ledge in the courtyard, wearing Sirius's jacket again. His legs are dangling over the edge, gangly, white-knobble skin peeking through a tear in the knees; he has his pale wrists braced on his thighs, cigarette half-finished, smoking lazily in the chill.
"Didn't mean what?" asks Remus, and doesn't look at him; the line of his neck is thin and cold-looking. James wonders if he should give him his scarf again.
"All right, you said," says James. "You didn –"
"I did," says Remus, shrugs, scratches his nose. "It's not like you were going to make fun of me about it. I mean, you - "
"Wanted i- "
"Started it," says Remus, quiet, scrapes his heel against the stone. "You started it. Didn't you?"
"Did I?"
"Must've." Remus tucks the cigarette between his lips again, exhales. "I’m not that brave."
"Bullshit," says James; he wishes he could come closer than three steps away.
Remus shrugs.
"Cold?" asks James, because he can smell Remus in the wool in his scarf.
"She's pretty," says Remus.
"What?"
"Not that you'd want to trust my judgment – you know, but," Remus smiles, and James lets his stomach twist, just a little. This is that thing, he thinks, that thing that I said we'd never do, I guess.
"She is," says Remus. "And. And smart, and rather good enough to keep you in line, and all. And. You're different, now, anyway. She knows, I mean, she can tell. She probably thinks you're brilliant."
"She does?" whispers James, and wants to say, who are we talking about? And, does she taste like you do?
"She does," Remus flicks the cigarette away, rubs his fingers together in his lap. "Probably, I mean."
"Are you – "
"Stop asking," says Remus, and slides down from the ledge, slips his hands into the pockets of Sirius's coat. "Stop. It's all right."
James hates the way that sounds know, because he'll never know, he thinks, what it means, or if it means anything at all. "I never," he tries, and fails. "It wasn't like I – "
"I'm not going anywhere," says Remus, suddenly, quietly. "It doesn't matter."
His face is tilted up, to the way the sun is slipping through the sky, his hands loose in his pockets, his face soft and red with the wind and James knows, if he, and just, if he would only –
So he takes Remus's wrist, and pulls Remus to him, cold and thin and full of everything so beautiful and white and shaking, strange and strong, and there is a space where they are simply breathing against each other's mouths, and James feels like maybe he should say something brilliant, or funny, or maybe just say something, but Remus is so beautiful, he thinks, and his mouth is pale and almost against his own.
When he moves, Remus turns his head, a little, so it is lips to corner of mouth, and it is a kiss. But, thinks James, it's the way that leaving feels: awkward, disbelieving sometimes, some things, that James thinks you never thought you'd have to understand. Some things: how this person can be like this and not say anything about how much it hurts, sometimes, how a person can love and love from so far away, how we can muddle through this, he thinks, and come out alive and breathing and full of the world.
"James?" whispers Remus, breath against his temple.
"Right," says James. "Right. Here we go, then. Here we go."