Detention
“When are Padfoot and Moony back from detention?” Peter asked for the hundredth time, “Moony promised me he’d play chess with me when he got back.”
James didn’t look up from his book. “They started at seven o’clock, so they’re bound to be done soon. But they’ve been mucking out the stalls, so they’re going to be filthy. They’ll probably want to wash up first.”
Peter tutted, sounding frustrated.
James laughed internally; Peter was being silly, and it wasn’t like he was above getting detention himself.
Out of nowhere, Lily fell into James’ lap. He hadn’t even heard her come into the common room, but he’d know her scent anywhere and was grateful when it hit him right before she did.
“Hiya, gorgeous,” he said, giving her a kiss.
Lily grinned. “I was just at the library. I saw Sirius and Remus on my way up here, they’re about to come up from their detention. Their clothes were a mess!” She giggled.
Peter perked up immediately. “They’re done!” he squealed, “I can’t wait to play chess finally! None of you have been willing to play all evening.”
Lily looked at him pityingly. “I’ll play with you, Peter.”
He seemed even more excited. “Now?” he prompted.
“Sure,” she said, nodding, sliding off of James’ lap after one more quick peck to the cheek.
“Well what does that leave me to do?” James asked.
Lily put her hands on her hips and looked at him sternly. “Oh, don’t go pulling some prank now out of spite.”
James jumped up. “That’s it! I’ll prank Padfoot and Moony!”
Peter and Lily both looked at him, waiting for more details.
“I’ll go up to the dorm and put on the invisibility cloak and jump out and scare them. Haven’t done a good jump scare in ages.”
Lily smiled, clearly finding it inoffensive, on the grand scale of pranks. “Have fun.”
James ran upstairs, and sat on his bed with a book, waiting.
It wasn’t long before he heard Lupin’s voice on the stairs.
“-absolutely disgusting,” he was saying, “borderline inhumane cruelty making us do that-”
But his voice stopped on the stairs; Sirius must have said something to distract him, but it had been too quiet for James to pick it up.
James raced into the corner and whipped the invisibility cloak over his head, grateful that he’d had just enough warning to hide in time.
Lupin walked through the door, but his eyes remained trained in the stairwell, presumably on Sirius, who was still out of James’ line of sight.
James planned to jump out once they were both in the room, but Sirius wasn’t inside yet, so he waited. But something in Lupin’s gaze had James frozen. It was almost…hungry, carnal, where his eyes looked outside the door. James had never seen that look in Lupin’s eyes before, not even as a werewolf. He wondered briefly if perhaps the second person with him wasn’t actually Sirius.
The room stayed quiet, but Lupin raised his eyebrows without a word. It was certainly suggestive, though James couldn’t imagine why. What was he seeing? He had to be misinterpreting that. But he couldn’t imagine what on earth this moment could mean that wasn’t charged with sexual tension. His mind drew a complete blank.
James felt his feet frozen on the floor where he stood, and the tension in the moment had him silenced.
Lupin reached his hand forward into the stairwell, and in one quick motion he had pulled Sirius into the room and to him, and the door had been closed. The two - and yes, the second person was definitely Sirius - were making out fiercely, hands roaming freely and familiarly. There was no hesitation, only pure carnal need.
And James was wildly uncomfortable with having been witness to it. His eyes were wide, and without even having realized it, he’d bunched up the invisibility cloak in his hand, gripping it tightly just for something to hold onto.
He shook his head to try to shake the discomfort out, and then pulled off the cloak. He tried to clear his throat, but the boys in the middle of the floor were too entangled to notice. Sirius had just pulled Remus’ shirt off, with a murmured “disgusting, this must come off,” and Remus had his hands up under Sirius’ jumper.
James cleared his throat again, but they still didn’t notice or hear him.
James had to stop this at once, but there was just no way to do it subtly.
“Fucking hell,” he finally said loudly, raising his voice enough to cut through the moment and startle the boys apart.
Remus had the good sense to look mortified, and grabbed his t-shirt immediately, grabbing it and yanking it over his head unevenly.
Sirius, on the other hand, just raised his eyebrow.
“Would someone please explain?” James finally asked, gesturing with both hands towards where Remus and Sirius stood.
Remus wiped his mouth with his hand, but said nothing. He was blushing fiercely.
He was gay, at least it made sense that he would want to hook up with another guy in their dorm room. But what the fuck was Sirius doing?
Sirius cocked a half smile, and lazily said, “well, James, when two people like each other very much…”
As he trailed off, Remus kicked him lightly with his shoe, clearly embarrassed to have him respond like that.
“Sirius, for fuck’s sake,” James said, exasperated.
Remus nodded to himself, “I’ll leave you to it.”
He moved to leave the room, but Sirius grabbed him by the waist and pulled him back. Remus didn’t resist, and ended up next to him, their faces very close together as Sirius’ arm stayed around his waist.
“James,” Sirius said quietly, “we were in the middle of something, and I would very much like to continue.”
Sirius leaned forward suddenly and nosed along the column of Remus’s neck sensually, ending at his ear.
Remus’ eyes closed suddenly, and James could tell he was affected. James felt like he was intruding, and knew that Sirius was doing it on purpose to get to him.
“Unless you want to watch, bugger off.”
Sirius turned to face James, and James felt himself spluttering. What the fuck was Sirius doing?
Remus still had his eyes closed, but even in that state James could tell he was embarrassed.
“Get out,” Sirius repeated, leaning towards Remus until his forehead rested against Remus’s face.
“Sirius, what the fuck!” James said. Somehow he held no ill will towards Remus, who seemed to be a pawn in whatever scheme Sirius was playing, and James felt like Sirius was doing wrong by both of them at once.
Sirius moved his hands along Remus’ waistline, and James could see Remus shiver. Remus opened his eyes, and he actually looked bemused, almost entertained by the whole thing.
“We’ll talk later,” Sirius said, looking at Remus, “at the moment I am very preoccupied.” His hand slipped under Remus’ shirt.
Then he stilled - though he didn’t pull away - and turned to James. “I’ll explain later, but at the moment I am too horny for this. Get out.”
“Okay, okay!” James cried out, running for the door, “Stop talking like that, I’m gone, but you will explain later!”
He raced down the stairs, and only when he’d reached the common room did he realize he wasn’t actually moving towards anything, only away from them.
His brain was too fried for talking to Lily, Peter, Mary, and Marlene, who now all sat by the fire, but when they called him over he went obligingly. Lily and Peter were still on the floor playing chess, but even with that as a distraction, everyone still noticed that he was practically bouncing on his toes by the time he sat down.
“What’s with you, Potter?” Marlene asked.
James just looked at her, completely unable to figure out the right words. It would have been wrong for him to say anything at all. For one, it would be outing Sirius against his will, for another, he had no fucking idea what he’d actually witnessed. It hadn’t really looked like the first time they’d hooked up, but James had no idea at all how much history there was, so he couldn’t have explained it even if he wanted to, which he didn’t.
He just shook his head. “Nothing, McKinnon.”
Everyone just stared at him for a moment, even Peter. He must have looked really out of sorts to have so thoroughly distracted even Peter from his chess game.
Mercifully, at that moment, not 60 seconds from when James had entered the room, there were footsteps on the stairs. James turned at once to see who it was.
It was Remus, alone, which immediately disappointed James. Sirius was the one he needed to talk to. Really, he had questions for both of them, but Sirius was definitely first. Sirius was like a brother to him, and James needed answers from him. Remus looked sorted now, with his shirt properly aligned and his hair more orderly, and by all accounts from anyone else’s perspective wouldn’t have looked like he’d just been in the middle of a wild moment of passion.
“Go upstairs, James,” Remus said calmly.
“All of us?” Peter asked hopefully.
James didn’t wait for Remus’ answer, he just headed to the stairs, patting Remus on the shoulder as he went. “Thanks, mate,” he said.
Remus just nodded at him as he answered Peter’s question.
“Nah, he’s gotta talk to Sirius, the rest of us can stay down here.”
James didn’t hear Peter’s response; he was already halfway up the stairs.
When he reached the door to their dorm room, it was open. Sirius was looking at him bashfully.
“Sorry,” he muttered, toeing the floor with his shoes, “shouldn’t have done that.”
James was taken aback. He’d expected anger that he’d been interrupted, or perhaps irritation that James had been in the way, or even a cocky condescension that he’d had a hookup, since that was how he acted with girls, or had last year anyway.
But this, this James didn’t know what to do with. Sirius looked subdued.
James wondered what on Earth Remus had said to him that made him turn reasonable so quickly. It must have been very effective.
“I got caught up in it all,” Sirius said, “I didn’t mean for that to come out like that.”
James shut the door behind him.
“For what to come out?” he asked, “I still don’t even really understand.”
“Me, I guess,” Sirius said with an awkward laugh. “Me and him, we’re, well, you saw.”
Sirius sat down on the edge of his bed, and looked up at James. James was helpless to do anything but follow and sit down next to him. There was a book on the ground next to Sirius’ bed, and James flicked it back and forth between his toes.
“So you’re, ummm,” James hesitated. He still wasn’t sure he understood. “You’re gay?”
Sirius nodded, but he didn’t repeat the word himself.
“We’ve been a thing for a while. Normally I can resist anything in public, you know, but he kind of got me riled up with some of the things he’d been saying, and I was, well, you saw the mood I was in, and I just couldn’t focus on being reasonable. So I’m sorry. I wish it had come out- I mean come to light differently.”
James nodded. “Yeah, I get it.” But he decided not to give Sirius too much leeway to wriggle out of the conversation.
“So you’re…dating?” he asked.
“He’s my boyfriend,” Sirius said quietly, staring at the floor.
“Is that why you haven’t been dating any girls this year?” James asked. “Me and Lily were wondering.”
“Yep,” Sirius said, “went official over the camping trip and haven’t wanted anyone else since.”
“Oh,” James said. Was that why Sirius and Remus had spent a lot of time talking quietly that first night Remus had come out on the beach? He never in a million years would have guessed that. “Cool,” he said lamely.
They sat in silence for a long moment.
“Don’t play with him, Sirius,” James said quietly. “I know you’re you, and you date a lot and play with people’s feelings, but-”
Sirius scoffed. “Oy! I do not!” James leveled him with a look, and Sirius cocked his head, considering. “Okay, I have, maybe,” he admitted. “But I mean this has been going on for months, you know? This is a lot deeper than any of that ever was.”
James didn’t know what he meant by “that.” Other relationships? Or specifically ones with girls? But Sirius looked like he was having a difficult time with the conversation, so James decided to cut him some slack and not ask everything all at once.
“I’m glad to hear it, then,” he said, saving harder details for later, and just starting out with the support that Sirius so clearly needed. “As long as you’re happy, that’s what matters to me.”