The air is hot, stuffy in here. When the denim jackets of the dancers aren’t itchy against her skin, it’s there - brushing, teasing, stifling until she can’t take it any more.
Mary’s sigh is exaggerated, her red lips pouting, as she makes her way off the dance floor. Slip. Slide. Step.
So much for that.
Amused, her friends are waiting on her. She pulls herself to sit atop the wooden table they cluster around, the dark cloth beneath her crinkling as she wiggles.
Sirius offers a steady hand to stable her, clammy cold against her hot skin. There’s no calluses from long hours of Quidditch. It’s like a bucket of ice dousing her.
Words are slow to form, syrupy, “Where’s James?”
He doesn’t stand in the group, not shooting that sparkling smile to Sirius, not looming beside Remus, not with an arm around Pete’s shoulders.
Suddenly, she is acutely aware the feeling of his eyes on her back had long since disappeared in the crowded room. The hairs on the back of her neck are settled. She doesn’t want them to be.
Sirius, the gall of that man, offers her a sharp glint of teeth, “Missing your lover-boy already?”
Oh, she could strangle him, if that wouldn’t scratch up the long pale neck of his she’d helped him dress to accentuate for a certain Italian.
She settles for cracking her knuckles anxiously, the pop too loud in her ears, “Jealousy isn’t pretty, Siri. Where is James?”
The bastard leans dramatically on top of Pete, using him as an arm rest. His mouth opens as if to speak something infuriating, before Peter shoves him off with little care.
Squawk.
Sirius is on a pile of gangly limbs on the floor, tugging at Remus’s trouser leg to crouch steadily. Peter pays no mind, an absolute angel, “I think he went to the bathroom, Mare.”
Remus interjects, “Ten, fifteen minutes ago.”
She’s up before he even finishes the sentence. Her heels click clumsily against the floor, and as she sorts herself out, she narrowly avoids impaling one of their’s toes. The shoes all look the same, details blurring - she can’t tell who’s.
Offering a lazy wave, she marches.
”Hey!”
Oh, it was Sirius. When’d he get back on his feet?
Shouldn’t she be doing something? Oh, wait, yeah.
Ehh… She’ll apologise later, since it’s him.
The steps are daunting, and her knees scraped. Absently, her hands tug her pink patterned skirt down, nails digging into her palms when the tight, thin material refuses to budge more than an inch.
Stumbling down a hall, she barges the bathroom door open with her body, taking a minute to blink.
It’s not locked….?
Her eyes had automatically averted to the ceiling, what someone insane as Sirius would call prudish. Taking a breath, she counts the tiles for a moment, working up the courage.
No one had cried out in alarm. Her ears prickle. It doesn’t even sound as if someone is breathing in here. But, the boys said James was here.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Mary freezes. Her head swings to the steamed windows. The movement makes her topple.
She falls sideways, hip banging first against the side of the bath before sending her lurching in.
Shutting her eyes as she waits for the impact, they reluctantly open as she realises she’s fallen onto something soft.
What a strange bath.
It’s warm, but in the way of an autumn breeze that carries the last ray of summer, not oppressive.
Its soft, like the jumpers she steals, fluff against her skin with that wondrously woody scent.
It’s wrapping around her waist in an embrace.
It’s wrapping around what-
“Mare.” A deep voice rumbles, and she’s close enough to feel the vibrations in his chest. He snuggles closer, messy hair flicking her cheek.
”James.” She sighs at first, bewildered, but the more she thinks, the more sideways it seems - a warmth grows in her chest. It branches, tickling all her sensitive spots until she’s curled over giggling, “James.”
It really isn’t that funny. His laugh echoing in her ears, his large frame following the curve of her back with not an inch between them, his callused hands supporting her fluttering stomach, begs to disagree.
“James, what are you doing?” She asks between peals of laughter, punctuated by a snort.
”Sitting in a bath,” is his deadpan response. His glasses have been discarded to the other end of the bath, where his ankles cross over hers. She wants to see those dark eyes of his bare.
Mary turns, blinking slowly as they come face-to-face. Her nose brushes his, with his head tilted down from when it was resting on her shoulder. He doesn’t move it.
The dark brown really is beautiful, too blackish to be called hazel but with those bright flecks that can’t be anything but. She counts fifteen of them, at least.
They could make a game out of it. Out of staring into his eyes…
He mumbles, looking a tad sheepish, his lips stretched wide, “Sorry… for…” James makes a vague gesture on her stomach, tracing a faint circle, fingers barely lifting.
It’s only sensible. They need to consolidate warmth after all. It’s chilly, so chilly a shiver wracks up her spine.
”It’s fine,” she replies softly, gaze flickering across his face. “I quite like it here.”
Thats his cue to grin that dazzling smile, pressed against her neck. Her heart sets a steady thump.
Laughter turns to choking turns to wrestles.
It stays comfortable through the night and into the early hours of the morning, until Sirius stumbles into the bathroom for a leak, dragging a bleary Peter along for moral support to watch the shadows, and the commotion has Remus creeping out his room.
As always, her boy is last to wake. They don’t realise, however, as she hides her soft smirk into his chest whilst he cradles her, fielding Sirius’s dramatic questioning.
”What do you mean you just woke up cuddling in the bath?!”