REPOST
Who: Rimming. (Just for you, Anna. Actually, Sirius and Remus and no rimming at all.)
Where: Seventh year boys dorm.
When: Immediately following this.
What: Forehead-feeling and accusations of slaggery.
Rating/Status: PG-13 for the cursing that will undoubtedly occur, closed.



Remus had to be sick. He had to be so sick that all of his brain cells were melting into goo under the heat of his fever, because that was absolutely the only explanation for the scowling and the painfully obvious accusations of slaggery (slagitude? slagation?) and the sudden apropos-of-nothing mentions of Stefano. And Sirius was damned if he was going to let one of his best mates die by brain-melt, even if saving his stupid life meant approaching a shrieking git who'd apparently gone rabid at the mention of forehead-feeling.

This was, he reflected, why he was a Gryffindor- excessive courage and heroism.

Unfortunately, it would have been a lot easier to be heroic if he hadn't had such an aversion to stunning spells; Remus and his tiny, ineffectually flailing fists were making checking for fever very difficult. Currently the boys had the width of Remus's bed between them; Sirius considered just lunging across it, then decided he could always resort to that later if babbling didn't work.

"Come on, Remus, slag or not I'm not going to give you dragonpox just by touching your head, all right? Promise. Cor. Especially since you're the one with brain fever!"



Sirius was being ridiculous, and one of the things Remus refused to stand for was ridiculosity. He was being quite obvious about his little fling with that short-skirted little Caitriona MacDougal - oh, sure, he hadn't said her name or anything, but he was sleeping with someone and Remus was quite positive, from the way Sirius had been eyeing her up at football, that it was her.

And then this whole Stefano thing! Which was only annoying because it made Remus laugh and it shouldn't because it was stupid and he wanted to be angry that Sirius was a whore and he couldn't when the stupid berk was being so adorably silly. So he'd decided to take offence to said silliness.

Alright, alright, so he wasn't making much sense, even to himself. But he was mad, that much was clear, and what precisely he was mad about did not matter at the moment.

Finally having it out over his moping was actually probably a good idea - there was a kind of relief in coming right out with things - but he was damned if he was going to let Sirius feel his forehead. He wasn't sick! He was just understandably upset! And feeling people's foreheads was stupid! And Sirius never even did it right!

"I do not have brain fever," he snapped, standing on the balls of his feet, ready to dance out of the way if Sirius tried something stupid like lunging at him. "Would you just quit it?"



"If you don't have brain fever," Sirius asked, very calmly, he thought, given the circumstances, "then why have you suddenly gone completely mental? If it's not brain fever it's something worse," he warned. "That's why I've got to check. I need to have some idea what's going on when I take you to Pomfrey, otherwise she's going to be all day about fixing it and I was going to make you throw sticks for me after supper!"

Clearly, though, Remus was not going reasonable about this; lunging was the only thing for it, Sirius decided with a sigh. He could tell that Remus was preparing himself for just such an eventuality, and so when he did lunge, it was several centimetres to the left of Remus's current position- fifty-fifty shot, either Remus would go that way to avoid him and he'd have him, or he'd go the other way and Sirius would end up on his face. Which would, at least, probably make Remus quit sulking and laugh. Really, there was no down side to this plan.



Remus sighed heavily. "Oh, of course, sticks. Naturally it would be all about you." He knew Sirius was only teasing to try and calm him down, and he wouldn't stand for it. No one ever gave him the chance to be upset around here.

"I'm not sick, dammit," he started when Sirius leapt at him. He dodged to avoid it and somehow ended up getting bowled over anyway, which really wasn't fair. He immediately set to struggling to get away, which was made more difficult by the fact that all the air had been driven out of him and he couldn't breathe and he thought his spine might have snapped or something.



Sirius sighed and sat firmly on Remus's legs. No matter how many times they did this, Remus always struggled. Poor lad never learned.

"It's not about me, it's about whatever your problem is, and if your problem's not that your sick then you're acting like a right berk," he informed the struggling boy beneath him with an air of determined reasonableness. "Acting like a right berk is my thing, Moony, it's my niche, I've spent years cultivating it and it's all worn in like shoes and my feet are a lot bigger than yours so get out of my niche this instant or I will keep sitting here all day, and your legs will go all numb and my arse will get sore because you are bony, and then no one will be happy. So. What's your problem, Remus Lupin?" This last was said slowly and carefully, as if Remus was a small child throwing a tantrum. Which wasn't all that far off from the truth, come to think of it.



Once he had gotten his breath and thanked Merlin in his head that at least Sirius wasn't sitting on his chest this time, Remus pushed himself up on his elbows and glared at his friend. "You are not the only person in the universe who gets to be angry," he said. "I get to be angry sometimes, and it does not mean I am insane and my brain has melted and I'm going to die!"

The chief problem with answering the actual question was that Remus did not have a good answer. So he settled for, as calmly as he could manage, which was surprisingly pretty calmly, "Can you let me up please? My back is killing me. Since you tackled me to the floor and everything."



"No," Sirius said blithely. "No, I can't. Not until you answer the question. Like I said, we're going to sit here all day until you answer the question, and if your back hurts that's just more incentive to speak up." He shook his head slowly. "Okay. Fine. You get to be angry. Only thing is, you don't get to be pissed at me and not tell me why. I always tell you why. And to my knowledge, I haven't done anything lately except put on a fake mustache, and that's nothing unless you're secretly Italian or something, in which case I am sorry if I offended your people, can you please get over it?"



Alright, so his back probably wasn't broken - this time. But Sirius was right for once about it being an incentive. So Remus sighed and gave up. "I'm not secretly Italian and you've been sleeping with Caitriona MacDougal."



"Well spotted," Sirius said, sounding more than a little smug. "Although we're not doing much sleeping, let me tell you. What's that got to do with anythi- oh." His tone changed utterly as he remembered, for honestly the first time since spotting Caitriona in the hall the week before, certain suspicions he'd entertained. "Oh. Shit. You do fancy her, than." He shifted off of Remus's legs and offered a hand to help him up, contrition writ large in every nuance of his expression. "Shit, Moony, I'm sorry, you said you didn't and I just- I forgot," he explained lamely. "And she was all there with her skirt and her- right. Not helping, that. Fuck. Shit. You did say you didn't fancy her, this is why you shouldn't lie about that sort of thing, Merlin's bloody balls."



Oh, God, now he was never going to be able to convince Sirius that he didn't fancy Caitriona MacDougal and something awful was sure to come of it. He accepted the hand up, wincing at the pain and rubbing his back. "I don't fancy her, Sirius," he said as seriously as he could, in the hope of getting through to him.



Sirius rolled his eyes at that. "Right. And that's why you're all bothered that I shagged her," he said, voice heavy with sarcasm. "You always get bothered when I shag people you don't fancy, that makes perfect sense. Come on, Remus, quit it, it's no big deal, everyone fancies someone, I swear I won't shag her again. If I'd known I wouldn't have in the first place, you know."



Remus shook his head wordlessly. He couldn't explain this. Of the two of them, Caitriona was not the one he fancied. He had come to terms with the fact that he fancied Sirius, but it was just that - a fancy, a passing fancy. No need to make a big deal of it.

Except that it bothered him that slutty little Cait MacDougal could shag Sirius and he couldn't do anything. Because they were friends, and it would be wrong. And he didn't want to do anything anyway. Right?

"Yeah," he said gloomily, dropping down on his bed. "Everyone fancies someone. I don't care, Sirius, shag her if you like."



"Stop it," Sirius snapped, the beginnings of real irritation in his voice. "You care. You obviously care. And slag or not, I care that you care, so just quit it and come clean, would you? No more shagging MacDougal. I can put in a good word if you like. Now, will you come off it?" Probably he had no real right to be annoyed, since he was the one who'd gone and shagged Moony's crush like a thoughtless berk. But he was really trying, here, had spent the last two years really trying not to be the thoughtless berk who did unforgivable shit to the people who least deserved it, and if sometimes it still happened, well, at least he was trying to make it right the only way he could imagine, and yet Remus was still sitting there sulking and lying to him over it. It was enough to drive anyone mad, much less the already-mostly-mental Sirius Black.

He flopped down on his own bed but kept a brooding stare fixed on Remus across the distance.



Remus winced. Oh, great, now Sirius was going to be all pissy at him. "Please don't put in a good word," he said desperately. The last thing he needed was Caitriona MacDougal making eyes at him - or perhaps worse, thinking it was hilarious that someone like him would fancy someone like her.

"I really don't care if you shag her," he said. "If you want to then you should."



"Arrrrrrrrrgh," Sirius groaned, flopping onto his back and throwing an arm over his face in melodramatic exasperation. "I give up! I give the fuck up, Remus. If you're not going to sodding man up and say when you're bothered over shit like this, there's nothing I can sodding do. You wanna sulk at me, fine, go ahead, I hope it's just as fun when I'm not trying to make you stop. Merlin, and I'm supposed to be the immature one." Shaking his head, he shoved off the bed and made for the door.



"I'm not sulking!" And he wasn't anymore, though admittedly he had been. Having it out always took the fire out of him; he felt generally morose at the moment, but it wasn't specifically tuned to Sirius at the moment. And so it wasn't fair that Sirius was going to be mad at him now.

With a sigh, Remus sat up. "Don't go." Knowing Sirius, he'd go off and do something stupid in his anger. And that wouldn't be fun. What if the something turned out to be another girl and he got jealous again? That would be pretty damn hard to explain.



Sirius turned around, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the door. "Why the hell not? Going to call me a slag some more? Got any other accusations to make? Or do you just want to glare at me some more? Because honestly, Remus, I've got other things I could be doing, so whatever this is had better be good."



Remus recoiled a bit at the words and then looked away, hair hiding his face, as it often did. God, how did he always screw up so badly with Sirius? It was ridiculous, how they could be best friends one day and hurting each other the next.

"Sorry," he whispered, barely audibly.



Sirius remained tense for a few seconds before dropping his angry stance and walking back across the room to sit down on the bed next to Remus. Of all the people in the entire world, the werewolf was the hardest to stay angry with; in fact, it was nearly impossible, once Remus got that vulnerable, fragile look. And he wasn't really angry to begin with, just infinitely frustrated, and maybe a little hurt that the other boy didn't even trust him enough to admit to a stupid fancy for a stupid girl. Maybe. Not that he'd ever voice that hurt. He was not a girl, here.

"Look. Moony. I can't quit doing stupid shit to you if you won't tell me when I'm doing it or lie about it afterward, ok? You can't just get pissed and shut down. That's all I'm saying."



If Remus had been a girl, he probably would have leaned against Sirius for snuggles just then. But he was not a girl, and in his current fanciful situation, snuggling was a very bad idea anyway. So he just shifted to make more room for Sirius and brushed his fringe out of his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said again. "But I'm not lying. I don't fancy her."



Sirius, on the other hand, wasn't worrying about fanciful situations, and there was no one else here, and Remus just looked so unhappy and uncertain- he couldn't help the naturally affectionate reaction of draping an arm around the other boy's shoulders and offering a reassuring sort of half-hug. "All right. You don't fancy her. But you're pissed that I shagged her anyway, so why's that? Do we need to find you a bit of skirt of your own? That could be arranged."



Smiling a bit at the hug, Remus leaned into it just a bit. Choosing not to answer the question of why he was pissed, because he had no good answer to that, he instead said, "I don't want a skirt, Sirius, especially one you arrange for me."



"Why not? I've got good taste," Sirius protested, turning to look at Remus without dropping his hold on the other boy's shoulders. "C'mon, it'll be fun, you'll get a good snog in and I'll have done my good deed for the year. Who d'you want? Gryffindor? Ravenclaw? No Slytherins, I'm not letting a Slytherin touch you."



"Good taste for you," Remus countered. "Our tastes are not similar. And I don't want a skirt of any kind." This was probably as close as he would come to telling Sirius that he was having a very I-fancy-boys term, here. There just weren't any girls about that he found remotely interesting.



Another sigh from Sirius, who fell back onto his back again and stared up at the curtains above them in frustration. "What'm I supposed to do then, Moony? You're pissed that I'm having it off with MacDougal, but you don't want MacDougal for yourself, but you also don't want anybody else for yourself, but you're also pissed about my fake mustache thing, and I mean, excuse me, but I'm sort of out of ideas. Am I supposed to go celibate? I mean, that's barmy, Remus, but will that make you quit making faces at me?" He didn't particularly like the idea, but he liked the idea of an unhappy Moony even less, and it wouldn't kill him to go a month or two without shagging until whatever weird jealousy thing Remus had going on was over. Besides, that's why God invented the right hand.



With a sigh, Remus ran a hand through his hair. He would just have to get over this weird jealousy thing, that was all. He had absolutely no right to upset Sirius over it or demand anything from him.

"You can have it off with MacDougal if you like. I'd appreciate if you stopped looking so smug about it, but, you know, that's just how you are, so it doesn't really matter. I'm going to quit making faces at you, I promise."



"No, I can't," Sirius said cheerfully, though he didn't sit up again. "How'm I supposed to get it up when I'm thinking about you sulking at me, I'd like to know. Err." That had come out wrong. He definitely didn't think about Remus during intimate moments. That would be weird, very, very weird. "Anyway," he hurried on, "no more MacDougal. That's that. She's not that great a lay anyway," he confided. Which wasn't strictly true, but whatever, Remus didn't need to know that. "And the point, you know, isn't for you to stop making faces. Well, I mean, it is, but not just that. Also for you to stop wanting to make faces. Yeah?"



Ooh, Remus definitely did not need to be thinking about Sirius getting it up. He blushed a bit and glanced away to avoid thinking about how very close they were sitting and how very much he wanted to do something very wrong right now.

"Well, I don't want to make faces," he managed. "I'm perfectly fine now."



Propping himself up on his elbows, Sirius caught the blush and grinned. "You are such a girl," he accused, sounding amused. "I mention getting it up and you get all fidgety. Guess what, Moony, you've got one too. Try not to faint." He shook his head.



"I'm aware of that, Padfoot," he said, rolling his eyes and glancing back at his friend. "Having one, I mean, not being a girl. The two are mutually exclusive, you know."



"Girl as in a state of mind," Sirius said, rolling his eyes right back. "Obviously. Girl as in, most lads are able to handle mentions of boy bits without going red. Well, as long as we're not talking about shirtlifters, which I for once am not."



Oh, Merlin. Remus did his best not to react to that, but he couldn't help that the blush deepened and he flinched a bit at the mention of shirtlifters. Which was silly, because he wasn't one, not really. He liked both sexes. He was...equal opportunity. Nothing wrong with that, now, was there?

Bloody hell, now he was trying to rationalise it?

"Yeah, right," he managed.



Unfortunately for Remus, Sirius saw the flinch, and the blush. Saw them and did not like them.

"So you've got issues with shirtlifters now?" he asked, eyes narrowing a bit. "I mean, I know James pitches a fit at the idea, but I didn't think you cared." He frowned; hadn't Remus just tried to distract him with 'coming out' just a few weeks ago? That was not on- unless- but no, Remus obviously hadn't been serious.



"Of course I don't," Remus said, which was true. "I'm a werewolf, it would be pretty hypocritical of me to have problems with people being anything they can't help." He didn't know much about homosexuality, but he had to believe that it wasn't a choice - after all, he never would have chosen to fancy his best friend, that would just be stupid.



"Right," Sirius said. "Ok. You'd better not, because I'm not going to take the photo of Mick Jagger out of my wallet, not for Prongs and not for you."



"Well, I don't, and I don't care whose pictures you have in your wallet." This conversation had gotten uncomfortable somehow, and Remus wasn't sure how to get it back on track. He felt like Sirius didn't believe him about not having a problem with shirtlifters, which was rather frustrating - nearly as frustrating as it had been for him not to believe Remus when he came out. Although technically he hadn't wanted to be believed then.



Sirius flipped over onto his stomach and propped his chin on his hands to look at Remus. "Ok, so, could you quit blushing at me, then? It's sort of confusing, yeah?"



"It's an automatic response, I can't help it," Remus said defensively, blushing even more at the news that it was confusing Sirius. Why was this so weird?



Another noise of frustration, and Sirius dropped his head forward to rest his forehead on his palms. "Mooooony," he groaned, "What is your problem? First you get all worked up about me shagging people, and then you get all blushy even though you started it, and I'm starting to think you really are a girl and you're on the rag, or something. I can't talk about ninjas with someone who's on the rag. Stop it."



"I don't have a problem!" he said, too quickly. "Let's talk about ninjas. That would be fun."



"I just said, I can't talk about ninjas with a man on the rag!" Sirius protested, looking up again and frowning dramatically. "It would not be right! So get off it and then we'll ninja."



Merlin, this conversation was never going to end. "I'm not on the rag. Nothing wrong with me at all. How about those ninjas, eh?"



Fidgety as always, Sirius flipped onto his back again, folding his arms under his head and shutting his eyes pointedly. "Right. Wake me up once you've found your manly bits again, yeah? Otherwise I have to think up a girl's name for you and that's more effort than I feel like."



Since Sirius wasn't looking at him anymore, Remus allowed himself a brief moment of panic, putting his head in his hands before shaking it off. He could get over this. He could. And then he wouldn't think Sirius so kissable and they could go back to being normal again. Just Moony and Padfoot.

"I'm going to the library," he said abruptly, moving to get up. Maybe if he just got his mind off of it...



Sirius didn't open his eyes, but his hand did dart out to catch Remus's wrist after a bit of blind flailing. "What'm I supposed to do, then?" he asked plaintively, as if he couldn't come up with about five hundred pastimes off the top of his head. "James has Evans, Peter has the house elves, you have libraries...what's left for me, I'd like to know. Also, I'm pretty sure your bits aren't hidden in the stacks."



"I don't know," Remus said frantically, skin tingling where Sirius touched him, and clearly he was quite quite mad because he bent down and pressed his lips to Sirius's without thinking, breath catching in his throat.



Under normal circumstances, Sirius liked to think that he was a pretty damn good kisser. He'd certainly done enough of it, for one thing, and he had plenty of proof in the form of girls who'd wanted to sleep with him after snogging him, which he thought was pretty positive feedback.

Unfortunately, however, all the things he knew about snogging flew entirely out of his head in the face of complete and utter shock. His grey eyes flew open and wide, and his lips actually dropped open, not in encouragement but in pure surprise. What- who- but- for a second he thought maybe Remus was trying to administer CPR, but that didn't make any sense whatsoever, and-

"Whoa. Whoa, Moony," he managed, voice a little high with confusion. "Moony, what, wait, what?"



Oh, God, Remus was clearly losing his mind and very possibly his best friend all in one go. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

He caught himself after only a few seconds and backed away, inhaling sharply and reaching for the nearest support, which happened, in this case, to be James's bed. He sat down on it shakily, not quite wringing his hands but wanting to. "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't know, I'm sorry..."



For once in his life, Sirius let Remus back away from him, letting go of his wrist without protest and watching him with still-wide eyes as he leaned against James's bed.

"Ok, ok, I just- did you just kiss me?" He laughed nervously, sitting up himself and carding a hand through his hair. "I just- sorry, I just need to clear this up because I'm pretty sure you just kissed me but you might have been doing CPR, which, I mean, that's pretty mental since I clearly wasn't choking or dying or already dead or whatever it is you are when they do CPR but you know what, kissing me would be pretty mad too because, I mean, I know I hugged you earlier but it's not the same and you like girls and I know we joke but I'm not a girl, I swear, there are people you can ask about that."

When in doubt, babble.



"Oh, God," Remus said in a low voice, putting his head in his hands. "I don't - I don't - I'm sorry, I'm sorry - it wasn't CPR, it was - " He choked on the word kiss, this was getting to be too big and scary for him, Sirius probably thought he'd gone insane, Remus himself thought he'd gone insane. Normal blokes did not go round kissing their best friends out of the blue, no matter how cute said best friends looked at the time.

Seriously.



Despite everything, Sirius still had to quell the urge to run to Remus's side and hug him, or...or whatever it took to make him look up and smile, because no matter what, the sight of Remus so upset would always, always hurt. But Remus had just kissed him and then run away, and following didn't seem like the smartest idea, even if it was his instinct.

His instincts were, after all, often wrong.

"Remus. I- you- you weren't kidding. About the fancying blokes thing." Very astute, Mssr Black.



The fact that Sirius was staying over there only made Remus more certain that what he had just done was very wrong indeed. He could only nod wordlessly to Sirius's observation.

"I should - I - library," he said vaguely, getting to his feet, looking pale and ill. Maybe he could immerse himself in a book and pretend this hadn't happened. Maybe Sirius would pretend it hadn't happened too. And so they could be normal and talk about ninjas.



"Moony."

Sirius had to look down; the look on Remus's face was killing him. Kissing somebody wasn't supposed to be upsetting, and yet there he was, looking like he'd just made the biggest mistake of his life, looking like he never wanted to be in the same room with Sirius again.

Which meant that it was a fine time for Sirius to realize that, with the shock subsiding, he hadn't minded.

He hadn't minded at all.

Then again, his timing always had left something to be desired. Then again, with Remus looking like that, there probably never could have been a good time for the realization anyway. Fuck.

"Right," he said carefully after a moment, forcing a smile onto his face. "Library. See you for supper."



"Uh-huh," Remus murmured, not even sure he was going to make it to supper. He was decidedly not hungry at the moment. Sirius clearly hadn't wanted to be kissed, and it would probably take him ages to get over this, if he ever managed to, and their friendship would be strained in the meantime. And oh, God, if he told James...but surely he wouldn't. But he told James everything...but...

Without another word or even a backward glance, he snagged his bag and half-sprinted out of the room to lose himself in the stacks.