Deadline

Remus passed a slender, ink stained hand across his eyes, every line of this body screaming exhaustion. For a moment, he stared down at the page on the desk, and the quill in his hand, then he stood slowly, feeling bones creak and muscles protest. He turned toward the bedroom with longing written on his face — Sirius was sprawled in the bed, sound asleep after a long day of Auror training — and spun on his heel, stumbling into the kitchen. He downed another dose of the only painkilling potion Sirius could find a suitable recipe for; it was runny and foul-tasting, and adhered revoltingly to the inside of his mouth, but at least it didn’t have wolfsbane on the ingredient list. Intending to chase it with a cup of coffee, Remus stared blankly at the empty pot, set it to make more with a wave of his wand, then stared some more. He figured, fuzzily, that he was less likely to fall asleep standing than sitting. The moon, just past full and peeking between the utilitarian brown curtains, caught his eye, and he glared balefully at her. It was all her fault. Her fault he hadn’t finished the article yet, her fault he was so miserably tired, her fault he was on precarious footing with the editors, and her fault jobs he could take were so scarce.

Two nights ago had been full. Peter, for reasons no one had related to Remus, had not been able to be there, but Remus supposed it was just as well; as his human self accumulated more stress, the wolf became more aggressive for an outlet. The combined efforts of Padfoot and Prongs had barely kept him under control. Remus longed for the carefree days of Hogwarts, when a full moon meant a night of adventure and the solicitous care of the Infirmary Matron, and missing a few days’ work meant, at worst, points docked — not jobs lost. Work was hard enough for him to come by as it was.

When the coffee was finished brewing, Remus realised he had forgotten his cup. He Summoned it without thinking — ”Accio!” — CRASH! — and it smashed into the wall. “Oh, fuck.”

Sirius padded in, bleary-eyed. “Re, why are you still up? And making coffee? Don’t tell me you’re still at it. It’s —” he squinted at the clock — “two in the morning.”

“Reparo,” Remus muttered, kneeling next to the broken pieces. They flew together like a tape run backwards. Picking it up, he yawned and stumbled back to the counter to pour himself coffee.

Sirius wrapped his arms around the slighter man from behind. “Come to bed, Re... I’ll make it worth your while.” He kissed the side of Remus’s neck.

Remus tilted his head obediently, to expose more skin. “You know I can’t. We need the money, Sirius.”

“No we don’t,” argued Sirius, between kisses.

Remus turned in his arms. “I do.” He sighed. “Pads, I can’t lose this job.”

Ignoring him, Sirius leaned forward and kissed Remus on the mouth with great abandon — and great amounts of tongue — then released him and spat, grimacing. “Blecch. Disgusting.”

“That’s what the coffee is for, prat. I mean, aside from the caffeine.” Remus threw back the first cup of coffee in two great gulps, and Sirius gazed hungrily at the pale throat that this exposed. Before he could swoop again, however, Remus pulled away and poured himself several more cups in rapid succession.

“That much coffee cannot be healthy, Moony,” Sirius muttered, following Remus to the table. “Neither is not sleeping.” He began to knead Remus’s shoulders with strong, skilled hands.

“Mmm... Stop it. You’re making me drowsy.”

“Exactly. Come to bed.”

“The deadline for this article is noon tomorrow, Sirius. If I don’t finish it, they don’t send me money, they ask me politely not to write for them again, and we are forced to live on whatever’s in the refrigerator — a jar of peanut butter, very old lemonade, and some kelpie specimens, if memory serves. And neither of us wants that, I think.” He tried to shrug off Sirius’s hands and get to work, but Sirius plucked the quill from his fingers, pulled Remus’s chair back, and straddled his hips. Grabbing his collar, Sirius kissed him like there was no tomorrow.

“If you don’t finish it, I don’t really care,” he growled.

Something flared inside of Remus, and in an instant he had Sirius pinned against the table, papers swept to the floor. The inkwell, which Remus had earlier had the presence of mind to close, rolled under the threadbare couch. He ground his hips hard against Sirius’s and fumblingly but methodically began to undo the buttons of his own shirt, as Sirius’s hands were already busy tangling in Remus’s hair. He interrupted Remus with a kiss, which Remus leaned into, pressing Sirius further back. Remus, forgetting about his shirt, peppered tiny bites down his lover’s neck, and growled when he reached the obstructing collar of Sirius’s grey tee-shirt. He slipped his hands beneath the hem of the offending garment and tugged it insistently upwards; Sirius, shivering at the brush of Remus’s fingers against his stomach, was only too happy to oblige him. He divested Remus of his shirt, finishing off the buttons with deft hands. Remus pressed forward and kissed him again, and he moaned at the scrape of Remus’s fingernails down his back.

“God, Re,” Sirius muttered, as they both struggled out of their trousers. He pushed himself up onto the desk, and gaspwhimpergroaned as Remus joined him, pressing him back against the wood with violent, grinding kisses.

***

A long time later, Sirius was still gasping for breath. “God, Re, you’re amazing. Still a bit of the Alpha male, yeah?”

“Mmm.” grunted Remus, nuzzling his lover’s neck and licking his throat. Sirius threw back his head and arched against Remus’s body, and Remus smiled, feeling the other man’s pleasure — until his eyes fell on the scattered papers on the floor. “Gods damn, Sirius, I still have a deadline.”

Sirius made a whimpering, whining sound when Remus sat up and slid off the desk, suddenly bereft. He swiveled to sit, dangling his legs off the side of the table where Remus was gathering rolls of parchment covered in his neat, slanting hand. “You’re not really going to go back to that. Come to bed. Or maybe just back up here.”

Remus silenced his wheedling with a firm glance. “No. Someone has to put food in our cupboards, and I am going to do my part somehow. Not all of us have massive Gringotts vaults and Uncle Alphards.” Though his words were slurring with fatigue, he reordered his papers and pulled his trousers back on. “Besides,” he added, swiping his shirt from the floor by its collar, “I have a deadline to meet.”