“What are you in for?” Remus heard to his right. He glanced over through his peripherals to see the boy next to him leaning quite far out of his chair, nearly shoulder to shoulder with Remus. It was Sirius Black, a Slytherin. Well, it was unfair to say he was just a Slytherin – he was practically the only Slytherin that Remus knew by name, the only Slytherin who had ever even spoken to Remus directly, even if it was hardly more than asking to borrow a Quill in Charms.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Remus responded sarcastically. It wasn’t that he disliked Sirius – no, it was quite the opposite. They shared many classes and Remus found himself getting distracted by Sirius in every one of them. The swaggering lilt of his voice, the arrogant rise of his sharpened brows, the curious swirl of his mercurial eyes, the intriguing way Sirius increased the attention he devoted to Remus if he ever caught Remus staring. Which he had.
If he were correct about this interaction (and he usually was, Remus was exceptionally good at reading people), he could bait Sirius into conversation. If nothing else, it would make this detention go by a lot more quickly than it had been for the last half hour.
At Remus’ avoidance of the answer, Sirius leaned back, slipping his arm over the back of his chair so he could remain turned in his seat, so he could continue to watch Remus. And Remus refrained from looking back, knowing the need it would incite in someone like Sirius.
After all, this was the boy who brazenly flirted with Professor McGonagall in the middle of her lectures (which had earned him this detention). This was the boy who spat innuendo like he’d memorized a catalogue of comebacks for any given occasion. This was the boy who, if his comments went without response, would increase the weight of his words until something came back to him, even if that something was an insult. In fact, he might prefer the insults.
“I could guess if you like,” Sirius hummed and Remus had to use every ounce of his willpower not to look over at the expression he knew would be on Sirius' face – highly-arched eyebrow, pouted pink lips, challenge in his silver eyes. A look Remus found quite appetizing.
“You could try,” Remus taunted, secretly delighted by how well this was going. In response, Sirius leaned forward, cupping his face in his palm, supported by his elbow on the desk. He hadn’t stopped looking at Remus. Yes, this was going terribly well.
“Well, you’re a Hufflepuff, so I wouldn’t think you’d be capable of getting into that much trouble,” Sirius mused, his words mumbled from the way his lips were squished into his cheek, as his face was pressed together from where it rested in the palm of his hand.
“Huh,” Remus replied, purposefully curious, running his fingers over his lips. Even without looking directly over, he could feel the attention of Sirius’ gaze on the movement.
“I don’t like that response,” Sirius laughed softly.
“Why’s that?” Remus asked, taking a moment to glance up at where Professor Binns was asleep behind his desk in the front of the room. It would’ve seemed lucky to anyone else that Professor Binns was the one charged with overseeing them during their two-hour detention.
“Because now I’m not sure.” From the corner of his vision, Remus watched Sirius narrow his eyes in Remus’ direction, as if analyzing him. “You’re rather hard to read, Lupin.”
Remus laughed, ensuring it was as deep and low as he could make it so he could watch the unsettled way Sirius straightened his back in response. “I can’t say the same about you.”
“Oh?” Sirius huffed. “I’m easy to read?” Finally, Remus allowed himself a look in Sirius’ direction, pulling his bottom lip into his teeth as his eyes traveled across Sirius’ stimulated expression, down the slant of a waist that was sharply defined by a custom-tailored shirt.
“Very,” Remus insisted, slowly working his gaze back up to Sirius’ eyes to find them slightly concealed by the hooding of Sirius’ eyelids and the darkness of his lashes.
Sirius swallowed, leaning back in his seat again and shifting his legs to draw Remus’ attention to the widening of his hips, though it was to no avail. “Then read me.”
“Fine,” Remus agreed, rolling his shoulders as he turned in his seat to face Sirius, who looked absolutely victorious, like this was his plan. Deliberately, Remus worried his bottom lip again as he pretended to concentrate, his eyes surveying the sight in front of him.
And, God, what a sight. With his hand in his long, dark hair, Sirius continued to lean back in his seat so that the cutting slope of his waist was more obvious, so that the sharp bones of his hips were visible from underneath the fabric of his Oxford shirt. His legs jutted out in Remus’ direction and they were spread wide to display anything Remus might find between them.
“What do you see, Lupin?” Sirius asked, sliding his tongue along his back teeth.
Remus smirked. “What I see,” he started, glancing up at Sirius, “is how desperately you want me to make a comment about your body.” Sirius’ expression changed none.
“And why would I want you to do that?” His smile remained, his attention pointed.
“Because you’re insecure and you need constant validation,” Remus shot back, fully expecting Sirius’ debonair mask to come sliding off, but instead, his smile only increased.
“Good one, that. Very accurate,” he nodded, turning the corners of his mouth down.
Remus tilted his head, brows furrowed. “I thought you’d be a little more upset by it.”
“Were you trying to upset me?” Sirius asked, looking a little amused. “I mean, it was true, but it also wasn’t the only truth.” With a roll of his eyes, Remus looked away again.
“The other truth is that you’re trying to get me to admit something incriminating.”
Sirius hummed deeply, moving in again. “Funny that you chose the word admit.” There was a blush attempting to break through the surface of Remus’ skin, but he stuffed it down.
“Oh, sorry,” Remus covered, renewing the sarcasm in his tone. “Falsely admit.”
“Huh,” Sirius repeated, drawing Remus’ attention for an unguarded moment. When Remus looked over, he watched Sirius move his knee to the floor, kneeling next to where Remus sat. The breath in Remus’ throat stuck, dry and immobile. “Let me tell you what I see.”
“Be my guest,” Remus said, but it came out a bit forced from the clenching of his teeth, especially when Sirius’ fingers moved up Remus’ calf, over the leg of his trousers.
“I see your golden eyes trace the curve of my arm when I push my hair back. Sometimes I tense on purpose just to watch the way your pupils dilate,” Sirius purred, the touch of his fingertips caressing the back of Remus’ knee. That blush that he had stifled down earlier had renewed with a vengeance, until his face went hot with it, until he could feel it in his chest.
Though he kept his gaze away from Remus’ face, Sirius continued, watching the path of his fingers on Remus’ (unfortunately covered) skin. “I see the blush in your cheeks when you look away after I catch you watching me.” His touch moved to the front of Remus’ knee, circling.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Remus scoffed, the blush Sirius spoke of still in his cheeks.
A soft laugh pressed through Sirius’ lips. “A moment ago, I saw you baiting me into this conversation, with intrigue and sarcasm, because you know I can’t refuse either one.” With a stolen glance up to Remus’ face, to find Remus watching him with rapt attention over a mouth hanging open in anticipation, Sirius slipped his fingers forward, pressing into Remus’ thigh.
Despite his brain screaming at him to wrest control of the upper hand away from Sirius, Remus couldn’t convince himself to do anything that would make Sirius move his hand in any other direction but ahead. And he did, as slowly as he was able, to ruin Remus by it.
“And now,” Sirius crooned, lowering his voice significantly. “I see you looking at me like you don’t want me to stop. Have I got that right, Lupin?” His expression was so cocky, so proud, so conceited, that Remus wanted to argue, he wanted to pretend that Sirius was wrong.
Instead, he breathed out his reply, “My name is Remus,” as he gripped onto the collar of Sirius’ shirt and pulled him forward, their lips colliding in a frenzy of tongue and teeth, an implosion of the years of Remus’ repression and pining that he always thought went unreturned.
“Remus,” Sirius responded, slipping his hand around Remus’ throat and standing so that he was leaning so far over Remus that Remus was nearly lying in his seat. “Remus.”
“Don’t you want to know why McGonagall gave me detention, Sirius?” Remus asked, automatically using Sirius’ first name now that their tongues had been directly acquainted with one another’s.
“Tell me,” Sirius moaned into Remus’ mouth, kneeling into Remus’ chair so he could press his hips to Remus’ that much heavier. “Because now that I know you’re trouble,” he said, pausing to look into Remus’ flushed face. “I know you’re capable of all kinds of indecent things.”
Remus smirked, and Sirius visibly unsettled at the sight of it, swallowing hard. “I made sure to get caught hexing Severus by catching him in the hall outside of her office.”
“Made sure to get caught?” Sirius rose an eyebrow, moving into kiss Remus again as if it were something he couldn’t keep himself from doing, and Remus moaned at the taste of him.
“You didn’t think this was coincidence, did you?” Remus hummed deeply, driving his fingers into Sirius’ hair. “I knew you had detention tonight, I knew nobody else had detention tonight, I knew Professor Binns would be monitoring you, and I knew he would fall asleep.”
“Remus Lupin,” Sirius groaned excitedly. “Did you set this up, knowing I wouldn’t be able to stop if I got you all to myself?” As Remus flashed a deviant smile, Sirius arched his hips forward against Remus, drawing a whine from Remus’ throat as he let his head fall back.
“It’s going much better than I’d hoped,” Remus laughed as Sirius’ lips moved down his jaw, down his neck, into the collar of his shirt. Sirius loosened Remus’ tie to get at more skin.
“Who would’ve thought,” he mumbled through his kisses against Remus’ throat. “A nice, little Hufflepuff like you creating such an elaborate hoax, just to get me alone.”
A laugh bubbled up from Remus’ throat. “To be fair, I did try the usual way first. You know, silently pining and hoping you would kiss me first.” Sirius mirrored his laugh, and it vibrated out against Remus’ skin. “I thought about a love letter, but I didn’t think a Slytherin like you would respond to that as positively as … something a little more creative.”
“Oh?” Sirius’ voice ticked up. “What does a Slytherin like me respond to, then?”
“Intrigue and sarcasm,” Remus repeated arrogantly, not missing the way Sirius’ grip on Remus’ waist tightened. “It took me a little while to figure out that you respond most to losing something you thought was already yours.” With a purr of curiosity, Sirius looked at Remus.
“And how did you figure this out?” The smile on Remus’ face stung his cheeks.
“I’m the thing you thought was already yours,” Remus said, biting down on his tongue with his sharp canines. “All I had to do was stop staring at you in class and start pretending like I was interested in Evan Rosier instead, and then I had your attention for once.”
Sirius went pink, a growl forming in his throat as he sunk his teeth onto Remus’ collarbone, eliciting a soft hiss from Remus’ teeth. “Are all Hufflepuffs as devious as you are?”
“That goes for all Houses. We’re all pretty devious. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that’s all,” Remus grinned with a secret on his lips, though it was interrupted by a sharp exhale at the work of Sirius’ mouth. “Besides, devious is the wrong word for it,” Remus said, tightening his hold on Sirius’ hair. “I’m just resourceful and I know how to put in the work to get what I want.”
“Am I really what you want, Remus?” Sirius whispered into his skin, all warm breath.
“You’re all I want, Sirius,” Remus confessed. “All I’ve wanted for a long time.” At Remus’ declaration, Sirius’ hands moved with renewed urgency, one of them slipping down between Remus’ legs unexpectedly. A sharp whine pressed from Remus’ throat louder than he intended, resulting in a loud snort from Professor Binns’ desk as he roused from his sleep. The pair of would-be lovers shot back to their places, straightening wrinkled collars and smoothing mussed hair.
After Professor Binns grumbled a bit, his eyes drifted closed again and the soft breathing of his sleep filled the room once more. Keeping his eyes ahead, Sirius leaned over, this time fully shoulder to shoulder with Remus, shifting against him to garner a little friction.
“I’m having a little trouble with my stances in Defense,” Sirius whispered, keeping his voice indifferent, but watching Remus carefully from the corner of his eye. “I just need to practice arching my back and thrusting my hips. Think you’d be interested in helping me with that, Remus?”
“Very,” Remus insisted, slowly working his gaze back over to Sirius’ eyes to find them overwhelmingly darkened by the hooding of Sirius’ eyelids and the widening of his pupils.
“I’m pretty shite at it. I might need a lot of help. For a long time,” Sirius glanced over, and Remus found that arousal wasn’t the only thing in his gaze. There was also sentiment and tenderness and need. “Maybe I could keep you on as a permanent tutor.”
Remus just laughed. “I know you love innuendo, Sirius, but honestly,” he said, feigning exasperation as Sirius looked concerned. “Ask me the question you really want to ask.”
“Go out with me,” Sirius stated immediately. “I want to take you to The Three Broomsticks and share a Butterbeer and hold hands and be disgustingly affectionate with you.”
With a smirk, Remus eyed him up and down. “Is that before or after we have sex?” The impulse in Sirius’ expression amplified until he was leaning all the way across the aisle again.
“Considering I’m going to sneak you to my dorm as soon as this detention is over,” Sirius stated, licking his lips and smiling at the way it drew Remus’ attention. “I’d say after.”