I Love You

James hated not being 100% happy 100% of the time. It was especially cruel in his mind to not be 100% happy when Lily Evans was in his bed, straddling his lap, and wearing nothing but pretty lace knickers and his t-shirt.  He traced along the outside of her thighs with his fingers, enjoying the softness of her skin there and hoping that his mood would approve. He really hated not being able to appreciate how she looked in this moment because of his sour mood.

Lily ran a soft hand through his messy hair, smiling down at him and savoring the feeling of his hands on her. She would never get used to being able to have him like this. James was such a people person, always with people, always showing everything of himself and his reckless happiness to those around him. But this part of him, this vulnerable, soft part of him was just for her. She loved knowing that no one else would ever see him like this, would ever have him like this…it was an honor to be the person James let himself be sad around.

“Why are you upset?”

“Everything just seems off. It seems like everything can only be okay for a second before it gets all messed up again.”

Lily moved her hands to cup the sides of his face, using her fingers to play with the pieces of hair that fell against the sides of his face.

“Sirius and Remus are a pretty messy and miserable pair, aren’t they?”

James let out a frustrated sigh and sunk deeper into his pillow, wishing to feel nothing but Lily’s hands on him.

“I understand how you feel, love.” She hunched over and gave him a soft kiss, lingering, but endearing. She moved away from his lips quickly and placed a sensual kiss on the left side of his neck, causing him to let out a soft groan. “You know what might be able to fix this?” She moved to the other side of neck, placing a kiss on the part of his neck just below his ear. “Pub night.” her whisper sent chills through his entire body and she continued to kiss his neck and jaw.

James slipped his hands into the back of her knickers, pulling her closer by her arse. She pulled away from his neck to meet his gaze. “Saturday.” Despite them currently making plans for a pub night, they weren’t concerned about it any longer. Lily nodded and crashed her lips into his, James reciprocated with burning intensity.

James wasn’t sad much longer.

It was surprisingly easy to get Remus to agree to a pub night, turns out he was over the stupid feud between him and Sirius as much as everyone else. He even said that he wouldn’t bring Henry along in hopes of keeping the negative tension to a minimum.

Sirius however, was harder to convince, even after James said Henry wouldn’t be there. “I don’t give a damn about whether or not Henry is there. I don't enjoy spending my nights with people who hate me, and Remus told me himself that he hates me.” James argued with him back and forth for hours doing his best to convince him that Remus does NOT actually hate him but rather he was just angry and said things that he knew would hurt him in the moment and that Sirius should know about doing that all too well. Sirius couldn't exactly argue with that point and agreed to joining his friends at the pub on Saturday…under one condition.

The entire gang was there when Sirius showed up. James, Lily, Alice, and Remus chatting about who knows what, while Marlene and Peter were already having a chugging competition and obviously already tipsy.

Marlene cheered loudly when she sees him, making the rest of the table laugh as Sirius sits down.

Casual conversation bubbled between the group easily and James was happy to report that there was no negative energy between the two feuding exes. Sensing his joy, Lily placed her hand on his thigh and kissed his cheek softly. When the food came to the table, they all dove in while they continued their drinking and conversing.

“So Sirius, when is Alex coming?” James asked with a mouth full of chips.

Remus glanced up from his phone, where Henry was actually checking in on him. He had not heard of Sirius inviting or even knowing anyone named Alex, and his face showed it.

Sirius, completely oblivious to the complex look on Remus' face, answered between sips of his beer, “He should be here soon. He just had to finish up some art projects.”

“Sirius Black!” Marlene shouts trying her best to sound sober, “Are you shagging an artist? That’s sexy.”

Remus looks at Sirius awaiting his answer, hoping for a certain response. He scolded himself for it. He shouldn't care if Sirius is shagging an artist, he shouldn't care about what Sirius does at all…yet he still held back a sigh of relief when Sirius laughed and responded, “As sexy as shagging an artist would be, Alex and I are just friends.”

Even though Remus was secretly relieved to hear that, he found himself getting more and more annoyed as the night went on.

It started when Alex walked in, with paint on his hands, shirt, and bottoms, which annoyed Remus because he was sexy, especially covered in paint like that. It didn’t help when Sirius commented that nearly exactly the same and Alex responded in an equally sexy voice, “Keep your pants on, Black. There’s people present.” His voice was annoyingly charming enough for Remus to roll his eyes when no one was looking.

And then because Peter and Marlene were both drunk they flat out asked Alex why he hadn’t shagged Sirius yet to which Sirius said, “He won’t put out.” At the same time Alex said, “He keeps rejecting me.” Everyone at the table let out a loud laugh (except for Remus) having caught on to the joking banter that Alex and Sirius have. 

But the thing that made Remus go from being silently annoyed, to voicing his irritation was when Alex placed his hand on the back of Sirius’ neck and said “Do you want to shag me, Black? Because I have no problem with getting on my knees in the men’s toilet.” no one but Remus seemed to hear it. But then Sirius had the nerve to laugh and say, “I’ll have my way with you later.” and send him a wink.

Remus scoffed loudly, making everyone at the table glance over at him, including Sirius and Alex, who then shifted a few inches away from each other.

Lily elbowed Remus and looked at him with a questioning glance. Remus took a long drink of his beer and talked only for her to hear, “Just friends my arse.”

“Don’t you start.” Lily scolded him quietly.

“Start what?”

“Shit with Sirius. If you start an argument with him tonight James will probably cry himself to sleep so don't you dare.”

“But-”

“You didn’t like it when he said rubbish about you and Henry so don’t do the same to him and Alex.”

Remus dropped it then and promised to stay civil…he was still annoyed though.

Remus kept his promise to Lily to stay gracious and bit his tongue the rest of the night. Eventually, Marlene and Peter were nearly to drunk to walk let alone drive home…so James and Lily went over to the bartender and promised to be back for the two cars in the morning and each took one of their drunk mates by the elbow, leading them out to their car, Alice trailing along behind carrying their nearly forgotten items.

Remus had gone to the loo when James and Lily began the trek with their drunk friends and when he came out he saw Sirius and Alex talking. He was only able to hear Alex say, “I’ll go bring the car around.” to which Sirius nodded in agreement, but that was enough to make Remus roll his eyes once again.

He was planning on just walking right past Sirius and out to his car, to hell with being polite, but then Sirius turned around and smiled at him and he remembered what Lily said about James crying himself to sleep…if he yelled at Sirius, James would surely found out and making James Potter cry was a very serious crime. So he put on a fake smile and walked over to his ex.

“Have a nice night then?”

Remus nodded, not quite looking at him, ‘Yeah. It was nice.”

“Shame Henry couldn’t make it.”

“Yeah.”

“I think I owe the poor bloke an apology.”

Remus let out a small laugh, “I’ll pass on the message.”

It was quite a moment, it was awkward and neither of them quite knew what to say, so Remus threw caution to the wind and decided he could be potentially problematic for a small moment.

“Heading to Alex’s place then.”

“Uh- huh.”

“Going to have your way with him?”

Sirius glanced over at Remus with a curious glance, had he really made Remus jealous? He seemed jealous. He was almost proud of himself before he remembered how flirty that conversation was and how to outsiders, despite them just joking around the way they always did, it really would have sounded like something more than it was. He glanced down at his feet feeling slightly embarrassed.

“You heard that then?”

Remus scoffed and nodded, “You weren’t exactly keeping it quiet.”

Sirius continued to stare down at the ground, “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

Remus held back another scoff. Uncomfortable. He wishes those comments had made him uncomfortable. But no, he had heard them flirting and he felt a pang of jealousy in his gut. But he wouldn't admit to that, couldn't, so instead he would ignore that feeling and wait for it to pass.

“I’m really not though, shagging Alex, I mean.”

“It'd Be fine if you were.”

“I know. But I’m not. We just joke around like that.” Remus silently nodded and Sirius shoved him lightly with his elbow, “We used to joke around like that before we were together.”

“Yeah, but we desperately wanted to be so I guess there’s a bit of a difference there.” He said amusingly.

Sirius looked back down at the floor, wishing he hadn't said that, especially because of how true what Remus had responded with was. But he didn’t feel like that with Alex. He didn’t feel like that with anyone, except Remus…

“We’re good, right?”

“What?”

Sirius looked up at Remus with sad, almost desperate eyes. He didn’t want to fight with him anymore, and if Remus was okay with everything, he was too and he would stop being such a prick, “We’re friends, right? Like everything is alright? We’re done fighting?”

Remus laughed, he didn’t know why he did, but he did, “I’m done fighting if you are. Since you tend to start fights anyway.”

Sirius cringed, “Yeah, you’re right about that one. I’m sorry for all of it by the way, and I’m done fighting.”

“I’m sorry too. We’re alright.”

They shared a small, apologetic and knowing smile. “Alex is probably waiting,” Sirius said, “So I should probably go.”

Remus nodded, his smile fading slightly, “Yeah. And uh- tell him I’m sorry would ya? I was a bit of a jackass to him tonight.”

“Yeah, same to Henry from me?”

“Yeah. See you, Sirius.”

“See you, mate.”

Remus watched Sirius walk out of the pub and get into Alex’s car.

He tried to bury the jealousy he felt at the sight but he wasn't quite victorious in doing so. In fact, he thought about it the rest of the night.