The Bet
It was a regular Tuesday night at Hogwarts. The four boys were in their shared dorm yapping about pretty nothings. James went on about Lily to Sirius, while Sirius seemed to be having an entirely separate conversation about their next prank to a love struck James. Peter lay between Sirius and James, bouncing a ball off the wall, adding random noises of agreement to the two simultaneous conversations. Remus lay on his bed reading the book his boyfriend, Sirius, bought him last week. He enjoyed annotating the pages for a future Sirius to read, if he ever cared to picked up a book that is.
Whilst reading, Remus found himself drawing many mental similarities between a character in his book and Sirius. He marveled at his boyfriend's complexities in his thoughts.
"That his beauty is such that art cannot express it"
At that line, Remus's eyes looked up from his book. He tried to move ever so subtly so it wasn't obvious how much he was ogling at Sirius, his Sirius. Sirius was wearing Remus' brown sweater, which hung so loose on his petit frame that you could barely see the outline of his grey boxers underneath. His hair was fell elegantly over his shoulders in cascading waves of black. He moved energetically, his hands flying in the air as he talked with unadulterated passion. He laughed, Remus internally swooned at that laugh. Sirius' smile could light up the deepest of canyons. And the ways Sirius's grey eyes were so full of kindness and mischief at the same time made Remus weak.
Sirius glanced back at Remus, catching his eyes for a brief moment before Remus looked away - a little embarrassed by how long he'd been staring. Sirius's lips went up in a devilish curl. Without skipping a beat in his conversation, he got up and moved across the room towards his boyfriend. Sirius's hands slid down Remus's back as he grabbed Remus' face for a quick peck on the cheek. Remus melted into it, turning his face towards Sirius to kiss him back on the lips.
"Merlin, aren't you two ever not horny!" James interrupted, jokingly. Peter turned to see what was going on, unsurprised that Sirius had made his way onto Remus's lap.
"Oh please, Sirius came on to me. I was just sat here reading my book." Remus replied, defensively.
"Bollocks! As if you weren't eye fucking me from across the room. Reading he says!" Sirius throws his hands up in exasperation.
"Eye fucking, oh that's rich. A man can't look up from his book without being accused of being a harlot. Besides even if I was eye fucking you, I wasn't planning on actually fucking you. Not that you'd be familiar by any such act of abstinence!"
"Oh abstinence is a rich word coming from you Mr.`you awake for a quickie?` at 3 in the morning" Sirius sputtered. They stared at each other with such intensity, the air was thick with secual tension.
"Ewww is this some sort of sick sexual foreplay," James joked again, clearly wanting to disrupt their longing gazes.
"Abstinence," Peter laughed at the word, "You two and abstinence can't even belong in the same universe."
"Got them there, Pete" James chortled. Sirius and Remus looked dumbfounded.
"Honestly you two probably couldn't even go a day without fucking each other" Peter accused.
"Well I don't know about my sex crazed boyfriend, here," Sirius proclaimed, receiving a fowl look from Remus, "But I for one could last days without Remus. I mean how do you think I survived the summer, I'm not a deviant! I have self control." Remus had a feeling he knew where this was headed. He was ready to retort back that he had also to spend the summer without Sirius so logically that wouldn't make him any more sex crazed that his boyfriend.
"Gee that sounds like a challenge," James egged on.
No. Remus thought to himself, knowing his boyfriend's ego all too well.
"A challenge of who's hornier between you and Remus!" Peter guffawed pointing at Sirius, "I would love to see that, I bet Sirius caves within the first hours." Remus prided himself at the fact his friends seemed to perceive him as someone with much more self control than he actually had.
"Nuh uh!" Sirius retorted, defensively removing his hand which was rubbing Remus's back. "Moony will definitely cave first. Do you really think he'll be able to sleep next to this total babe," Sirius paused gesturing to his own body, "and be able to keep his hands off? Admit it Moony," Sirius turned seductively towards Remus, caressing his chest, "You wouldn't last ten minutes without wanting to rip my clothes off. Isn't that right... Moony?" Sirius looked up at Remus, with big puppy eye and a slight pout.
"Oh you're on." Remus deadpanned back, as much as his brain was yelling at him not to give into to this challenge, his ego spoke for him. "First person to make a move on the other loses."
Sirius looked taken aback, only then realizing the severity of the deal they had made. No sex.
"Alright lads, we'll need some ground rules," Peter imitated an old radio announcer, "I'd say first person to kiss the other loses. Touching is allowed to entice the other person. Absolutely no sexual acts, and absolutely no touching the no no zone unclothed." Peter gestured at James's crotch to give a visual for the 'no no zone'. They all laughed. "Oh and I will be taking bets, so place them while ya can," Peter ended.
At that moment, Lily walked through the door. "Bets for what?" she asked. James quickly filled her in, while also doting on how beautiful she was and how lucky he was to have been graced by her presence at this hour.
"Oh my money's on Remus for sure," Lily said matter of factly, "How much are we betting?"
"As moderator, I'll let you and James decide that," Peter announced.
"Please Peter, you just want out because I called dibs on Remus. Obviously he's the winning horse in the race!" Lily replied. Sirius stood baffled and angry that no one believed in him to have an ounce of self control. Or worse, that idea that no one believed he could break Remus's resolve. This was personal. He looked at James expectantly.
As the loyal best friend James is, he jumped to Sirius defense. "You know what, Lily you're on." He swung his arm around Sirius, "If you think my beautiful, hot, sexy, man right here can't break Remus prepare to be dead wrong. When I win, you have to help me prepare a prank." James stated to Lily, knowing exactly what prank he had in mind - which he had brought up to Lily before to be met with an firm absolutely not. With a moment of thought continued, "and on the impossible chance that I lose, I'll go with you to your muggle ball at your sister's school." Lily had been trying to get James and Petunia to get along, so when Petunia loosely offered an invite to her school's prom Lily begged James to go with her. But James did not want to waste hours of small talk with strangers on the night of the full moon when he could be prancing the woods with his best friends. Especially with their uncertain futures after Hogwarts looming so close ahead, he began to savor every full moon knowing this monthly ritual would soon end.
Lily's eyes lit up at James's bet. "You're going down." Lily's eyes twinkled with determination. They shook on it. Remus and Sirius shared a look of uncertainty, now James and Lily were involved this became more of a matter of pride and loyalty to their friends. "Well I'm off to bed, I trust Peter to be a fair moderator if anything goes down tonight." Lily yawned, placed a soft peck on James' cheek, and left the dorm.
James held his hand to his face where Lily's fleeting warmth had left. "I'm off to bed too. Sirius you better last the night. Sleep in separate beds if you have to, I'm not losing tonight. And I have a great plan to make Remus cave in the morning." James winked at Sirius. Sirius also had a similar plan.
Remus and Sirius had a brief quip about whether the other could survive sleeping in the same bed. In the end, they decided to sleep in Remus' bed because as they put it they were both "mature enough" to sleep together without any perversions.
At an odd hour in the night, Peter heard angry whispers from Remus's bed. It ended with a week soundly "Fuck off Moony!" as Sirius got up and stormed to sleep in his own bed. Peter grinned at the thought of how entertaining this whole bet would be for him.