All Kidding Aside

Sirius stared. He couldn't help it. He wouldn't have been surprised if Remus later told him that he had gaped and stammered and drooled a bit in the few brief seconds of silence that passed between them. Sirius thought that his reaction was only natural after Remus, the incredibly careful Remus, who always, always thought about what he was going to say before he said it, had accidentally admitted something Sirius had never expected to hear.

"You..." Sirius began slowly, trying to wrap his head around it. "You had... sex."

"I believe we've exhausted that point beyond ad nauseum," Remus muttered, his voice very tight.

Sirius nodded dumbly, his brain unable to comprehend enough to make a smart comeback. He merely blinked very slowly and added, "With a bloke."

"Yes," Remus answered, waving his hands sharply. "Yes, I had sex with a bloke."

Sirius blinked again at the same time, three times, ensuring that almost a full minute of silence weighed in one them. He was trying very, very hard to understand all of this. He shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"

Remus clearly looked like he wanted to break something in half. "You know exactly what I said, Sirius! You just mumbled it a moment ago."

"You know very well that my mouth has a tendency to... do things without my brain's permission," Sirius responded, his mind slowly catching up with everything else that was going on.

Remus exhaled quickly. "Here I thought you were showing restraint."

Sirius shook his head, laughing quietly as though he might become hysterical. "No. Actually, I think I might be in shock."

Remus nodded. Well, he didn't so much as nod as allow his head to convulse uncontrollably so that it looked like he was nodding. In all actuality, he was probably just trying to prevent from exploding. "Wonderful," he hissed. "I have discovered the one thing that renders Sirius Black speechless. Isn't that just.
fan-fucking-tastic."

He would have very much liked to have protested the idea that he was speechless, but he found that Remus's bringing it up had actually made the turn of phrase literal. Sirius knew he should probably say something supportive, or at least say something amusing to lighten the mood, but he found that any time he tried to do so, his tongue rebelled. He could not so much as create a syllable that sounded remotely like something coming from the English language, much less come up with something witty enough to heal all wounds.

Remus hung his head, his jaw clenching enough so that Sirius saw several veins making themselves visible on his temple. "You hate me now," Remus said with such certainty that Sirius almost responded in an affirmative out of habit. "Don't you?"

Sirius pondered this for a moment, opening his mouth and letting it hang. Then he cleared his throat and said, "I wouldn't say that... exactly."

"Once the shock wears off then," Remus muttered miserably. "Then you're going to hate me."

Sirius just laughed again, infuriating himself with his own silence.

"Well, there's your wonderful detail, Sirius," Remus ranted, his voice sounding as though it couldn't decide between controlled anger or slightly insane raving. "You wanted to know, and now you know, and now you are going to hate me just as soon as you regain cognitive ability." He turned his head and looked Sirius directly in the eye, the suddenness of the movement making Sirius jump slightly. "Well, we might as well have this all out then. If you're going to hate me, you may as well hate me thoroughly."

"O...kay?" Sirius said, wondering if perhaps his brain had seeped out of his ears at some point during the conversation.

Remus took a deep breath and began. "I am an idiot." His voice was now very controlled, apparently preferring that to raving like a madman. This choice did nothing but assure Sirius that at some point during the conversation, Remus Lupin would completely lose his mind. "I am a great, thumping idiot, and I am also a huge poufter. Yes. I said it. It's true. I said it out loud and now I can't take it back, but we might as well make my humiliation complete, right?"

"Umm..." Sirius stammered, wanting to hit himself or ask Remus to hit him so that he could snap out of it. "Right?"

"I was so stupid!" Remus repeated, genuinely upset with himself. His hands were clenched so tightly that Sirius was beginning to think that his fingers might push through the flesh and come out on the other side of his palm. "And so I vowed that I was never going to be that stupid ever again. I wasn't even going to acknowledge my former stupidity."

Sirius was about to ask just what Remus was going on about, when Remus started talking again. "You know, it's amazing what you can avoid thinking about," Remus said quickly. "The human mind can compartmentalize so thoroughly that you can almost force yourself to forget the moments in your life when you were a roaring idiot. Like Fifth Year. Most of that year is a complete blur to me because I completely ignore that it ever happened. I have repressed most of it, although now talking it is bringing it back in slightly horrifying clarity."

"Sorry," Sirius said, doubting that he sounded at all sympathetic.

Remus looked at him again, showing no reaction to what Sirius had just said. It was probably just as well. "Do you know why I was so upset when you nearly murdered Snape in Fifth Year?"

Sirius shrugged stupidly. "Because if you'd actually eaten him you would have been executed and possibly tortured and any hope for werewolves ever being considered free citizens would have been smashed as thoroughly as Snape's greasy skull?"

"Yes!" Remus said. "But that wasn't the only reason."

"Oh," Sirius said neutrally. He had always assumed that imminent death had been more than enough reason for the five or so months of silence and hatred. Apparently, he hadn't been nearly as clever as he thought.

Remus then started to pace, but Sirius noticed that his legs weren't quite bending the right way. The result was that he looked a bit like a very wimpy Nazi, and Sirius would have found it hilarious if it hadn't been so very disturbing. "The other reason was because that was when I was thinking that... you were... and I was..." Remus squeezed his eyes shut and apparently decided to move on with the monologue.

"When I came back from that... bloody horrible summer, I told myself that I was not going to beat you senseless nor I was I going to... do... anything else that could have possibly left you senseless." He looked over at Sirius, perhaps looking for comprehension and, finding none, he moved on. "I would merely force things to be normal. I would tell you that everything was fine, that I was going to forget about that little incident, and we were going to move on with our lives." Remus glared and spoke with a surprising amount of bitterness. "Of course, then you had to give me that absolutely endless hug. The first day of my new resolve, and I have Sirius Black draped over me like a curtain or something. I have never been so relieved to have James tackle me in my life, but don't tell him that. He'll likely take it the wrong way."

Sirius knew that he was fixating on the wrong points of that speech, but he couldn't help it. "Draped over you like a curtain?"

Remus started to turn a very light shade of pink. "Admittedly, I have come up with better similes, but could you please focus on what I'm trying to tell you?"

Sirius nodded. "As soon as I figure out what that is."

As soon as he said that, Sirius realized that this was the moment of explosion.

"I have been trying to tell you that I was ignoring the fact that I liked you quite a bit more than I think I'm supposed to!" Remus said loudly, making both of them very glad that the tower was empty. "I am a boy-loving, limp-wristed poufter, and I am ridiculously attracted to you!"

Sirius was very sure that he either wanted to start laughing or commit suicide. Being the one to always advise against the latter, he choose the former and began to giggle uncontrollably.

Remus didn't seem to notice. "And you have not been helping with your jokes and your your hanging all over me and moaning while writhing on top of me and this bloody prank!" Remus shook his head tragically. "I don't know where my brain decided to vacation that morning. It seemed like such a good idea until last night when I was in the middle of wondering why you were so upset about the thing that happened in the library and I suddenly realized what I had done. Aren't I supposed to be the smart one? When did I stop being the smart one? And why are you laughing? This isn't something you should be laughing about. You need to either hate me or... not laugh."

Sirius quickly realized that Remus had started babbling at some point in the middle of that tirade, and he decided that he couldn't allow that to go on any longer. Without putting any more of that pesky thought into what he was doing, he hooked an arm around Remus's neck and yanked him forward mid-ramble. He effectively cut him off by kissing him full on the mouth, something he'd been wanting to do for at least the past two years.

At first, Remus seemed frozen. Then his lips sort of wobbled like he might be thinking about kissing Sirius back, but in the end, he didn't. He finally decided that the best course of action was to pull away and try to sort everything out.

"Well, at least you stopped talking," Sirius decided, wiping his mouth indelicately and feeling relieved that he was coherent again.

"Oh," Remus said, his voice somewhat high. He stared at Sirius, now wearing the exact expression Sirius had been expressing for the past ten minutes or so. "Did you... I mean was that... Are you...?"

"I'm pretty sure it's a resounding 'yes' to all of the above," Sirius said, hoping that he at least appeared suave and not as awkward as he actually felt.

Remus continued gaping. "But... But this doesn't make sense."

Sirius grinned. "Moony, since when does anything I do make sense?"

Remus had to concede that point. "But this makes... less sense than usual. This doesn't even seem like it's in the realm of possibility."

"I exist in all realms of possibility," Sirius said sagely, belatedly realizing that this sentence really did nothing but bolster Remus's idea that Sirius Black had lost his mind.

Thankfully, he didn't dwell on that. "So... that thing," he started.

"The kiss?" Sirius asked, shifting a bit.

"Yes," Remus said. "That... actually happened."

Sirius nodded. "I would say so."

"And you're not... I don't know, planning to push me out the window or perform some prank that is decidedly less painful physically but will likely destroy me emotionally?" Remus asked.

Sirius blinked. "Why would I do that?"

"Why do you do anything, Sirius?" Remus asked.

"I have reasons," Sirius said defensively. "On occasion. Sometimes." He shook his head. "But the point is, why do you think that I'm going to do something like that?"

"Because I have very low self-esteem," Remus admitted somewhat pathetically. "An unfortunate consequence of being a werewolf. And also because... Well, I never thought you'd ever try to bash James's skull in either, but you tried it."

Normally, Sirius probably would have gotten slightly offended by what Remus was telling him even if he was aware that he had a point. However, Sirius had no interest in having another argument with Remus. There were a vast number of things he would rather be doing with Remus at that moment, and fighting was definitely not among them.

"I am not going to scar you physically or emotionally," Sirius said. Then he paused. "At least not on purpose."

Remus still looked utterly befuddled. "And why not?"

"Actions really don't speak louder than words with you, do they?" Sirius asked. "All right, we'll do this your way." Sirius stopped, trying to figure out exactly how to put this. He had rather been hoping not to appear unsure of himself, because Sirius had never been in a situation when he hadn't known what to do. This was uncharted territory, and he absolutely hated it. Finally, he breathed and said, "I do not hate you. In fact, I do the exact opposite. I... like you. Quite a bit. More than I think I'm supposed to." He paused. "Actually, that's probably part of the appeal. Boys don't kiss other boys. I'm amazed that I haven't always been doing this."

Sirius belatedly realized that this was probably the wrong thing to say as he saw Remus's surprised face fading into one a bit closer to despair. He panicked slightly and said, "I was kidding! I was kidding about that! I didn't just do it to piss other people off!"

Remus looked at him, still uncertain. "But you weren't kidding about... liking me."

"No," Sirius insisted. He laughed a bit, wondering if hearts were meant to beat as fast as his was or if this was it felt like to have a heart attack. "I wasn't."

Remus looked like he might almost be tempted to smile. "Oh," he said in a tone of voice that Sirius could not read into, which he found maddening.

Sirius found that he was twitching - not just one body part, but his entire body was twitching - in the silence that followed. His hands jerked and he said, "Well, is that a good 'oh?' A bad 'oh?' Are you going to repress this too? Should I throw myself out the window--"

Sirius was abruptly cut off when Remus practically tackled him, pushing him down on the bed, and kissing him so suddenly and so thoroughly that their teeth were almost knocked out. Sirius then felt quite contented that it had been a good 'oh' and that there would possibly be many good 'ohs' to follow. This made Sirius very happy (as well as another 'h' word) and so he was more than willing to comply with Remus's non-verbal request.

Several minutes later, Sirius pulled away in a manner that Remus seemed rather annoyed about and panted, "You do realize of course that we can never get married."

Remus merely stared, almost giving Sirius the opportunity to clarify, but Remus seemed to regain his senses in time to prevent that from happening. "Sirius there is something I have been wanting to say to you for some time now, and I finally have the nerve now that your saliva is in my mouth."

Sirius wrinkled his nose at Remus's crudeness. "Must you speak of it so clinically? It's kissing, Moony, something that is very pleasant, and you are making it unpleasant. I find this very off-putting, and demand that you--"

Before Sirius could go on (and on and on and on), Remus leaned in and all but growled, "Shut the fuck up."

And Sirius did finally stop talking and began doing something much more pleasant, wondering why he didn't listen to Remus more often.

-----

"James, if you don't hurry up, I'm going to levitate you the rest of the way."

Lily was very annoyed with her boyfriend as well as with her boyfriend's current best and only mate. Neither one of them was making their way towards Gryffindor Tower with any kind of anticipation or urgency, and it was beginning to irritate her. She found herself wishing that she was strong enough to physically drag them up the stairs as that would have been rightfully painful, but levitating would do if it came to that.

"I do not understand why you're not more excited about this, James," Lily said. "Sirius is actually offering you an olive branch."

"I know," James said sourly, his arms folded across his chest. "I don't trust him."

Lily rolled her eyes. "James, not everything Sirius does is a conspiracy against you."

James stared at her as if she had just announced that a second head was about to grow out of her backside. "Have you even met the man?"

Peter nodded frantically beside him. "James is right. Sirius has to be planning something."

Lily put her hand on her hip. "If you thought that, then why did you practically come skipping back after seeing him, shouting about how everything was going to be all right again?"

Peter shifted uncomfortably, looking down. "That was before James told me that Sirius must be trying to trick us."

"Have you ever considered that James might be wrong?" Lily asked.

Peter went absolutely ashen and James had to reach out to steady him. He looked over at Lily, frowning. "You should know better than to say such things in front of the boy. He's in a very fragile state of mind right now."

Peter nodded pathetically. "I'm allowed of course. Seeing as Sirius is going to kill me."

"And humiliate me," James added tragically. "Actually, he might kill Peter by humiliating me. Watching my seemingly endless fall from grace may just do him in."

Lily wondered if throttling him really would have been considered a crime once she explained it to the proper authorities. "Peter would not die from seeing you get knocked off your broomstick."

Peter was unconvinced. "Actually, I was pretty close to it the other day at Quidditch practice, though I don't know what you're on about Lily. James isn't on a--"

"It was a metaphor," Lily interrupted, amazed at her composure.

Peter looked confused for a moment and then nodded, comprehending.

"Metaphor or no, we are doomed," James said darkly. "Doomed to death and humiliation. Not necessarily in that order."

Peter's lower lip trembled. "I was so hoping that I wouldn't die until after I had my growth spurt."

James looked at Peter sadly and clapped him on the back. "Sorry, mate. Looks like you'll be short and lumpy for all eternity."

"They'll mistake me for the Fat Friar," Peter muttered despondently. "I just know it."

"No one is going to mistake you for the Fat Anything because you are not going to die," Lily insisted.

"But Lily, why else would Sirius set up an assigned meeting time for these peace talks or whatever it is he's calling them?" James asked, shaking his head. "I'm telling you, he has something planned."

"He's going to kill us all," Peter whimpered. He looked up at Lily, glaring and sniffling, making his expression highly ineffectual. "This is all your fault. You're the one who had to ask them about it in the first place."

James nodded and took Lily's hand earnestly, making her think that he was being the slightest bit sincere about all of this. "They'll probably go for you first. But don't worry, Lily. I'll protect you."

Lily couldn't help but smile a it at that, even if was a bit morbid. "I'd thank you if you weren't being so stupid."

"You're welcome," James answered, bowing his head.

"You won't go quickly," Peter muttered, perhaps thinking that James and Lily couldn't hear him even though he was standing no more than a meter away from them. "They'll make sure of that. At least that's comforting."

Lily stared at him in disbelief. "Peter, that's--"

"Probably true," James interrupted. When Lily gave him a completely shocked look, he shrugged and said, "I'm sorry, Lily, but it is. Once I valiantly lay my life down for you, they'll probably tie Peter up and make him watch while they torture you to death. There's nothing to be done about it."

Lily pulled her hand away, deciding that James was cut off from all physical contact with her for the rest of the day. "Remus wouldn't torture me. He likes me."

"Until you accused him and his boyfriend of being fairies," Peter pointed out.

"According to you, they are... that way, so why would they want to kill me for bringing it up?" Lily asked, failing to see Peter's incredibly flawed logic as usual.

And as usual, Peter could not understand why Lily couldn't understand. "Because they were in the closet, Lily, and they didn't want anyone to know."

Lily wondered if banging her head against a wall would make the pain stop. "If they were in the closet, why would they constantly make jokes about sleeping together?"

"To throw us off the track!" Peter insisted.

"But I never would have suspected anything if they hadn't been making those jokes," Lily said, her the volume of her voice increasing at the same rate that she felt her brain decreasing in size.

Peter shook his head and said, "But they never would have needed to make the jokes if they weren't together in the first place."

Lily did not know how she kept from murdering Peter on the spot. She shut her eyes and flung her arms about a bit, causing both the boys to jump back in case she was making a move to punch them. The memories and the scars of youth were still fresh. "You are both being idiotic," Lily snapped, her voice sounding a bit shrill. "Peter, Sirius is not going to kill you, me, James, or anyone else. James, this might just be some terrible trap, but if it is a terrible trap that will somehow result in all of you getting back together, then I don't really care if you're humiliated."

James looked like he was about to pout. "But Lily--"

"I don't care, James!" she repeated. "I feel guilty enough about this whole mess as it is, and I am tired of just sitting around and watching it get worse and watching you mope and watching Peter slowly teeter between delightfully mad and certifiably insane." She stepped forward and cupped her hands around James's face and said, I just want you to play horrible, disgusting pranks and turn Severus upside down and wreak havoc on other people again."

James leaned back and said, "Who are you and what have you done with my Lily?"

"James, I'm serious!" Lily shouted, pushed to her limit.

Peter leapt behind James, his face white. "It's Sirius! He's murdered Lily already and used her hair from her corpse to make Polyjuice Potion and now he's going to kill us both!" Lily could have sworn she saw tears gather in eyes as he wailed, "Sirius, I don't want to die! James is a horrible person for saying that to you, and I'll hate him if you want me to! I'll hold him down while you stab him! I'll laugh as he takes his last breath! I'll do anything you ask! Please, please just don't kill me!"

James glared over his shoulder and said, "You know, if you were going to offer to take part in my murder, perhaps you should have waited until I wasn't shielding you from certain doom."

Peter looked between James and Lily(/Sirius), perspiration appearing on his forehead. He gulped loudly and squeaked, "You're both pretty?"

Lily decided it was best to intervene before another argument would ensue. "I am not Sirius, Peter! I'm Lily! I just meant that I was being... Well, I mean that I wasn't... Oh, for pity's sake. I don't care anymore! You four are going to make up and possibly kiss if you have to, but I am through with this!"

With that, Lily finished the climb and stomped down the hallway like a holy terror. She heard James and Peter coming after her, though it sounded like Peter was being dragged as he wasn't convinced that Lily was not in fact Sirius come to murder them in a terrible and painful fashion. Once satisfied that Peter's whimpering was close enough for he and James to be near, she turned the doorknob and opened the door to the boys' dormitory room.

-----

It was at that moment that they heard a shriek entirely too high-pitched to be male.

Remus pulled away sharply and said, "We didn't lock the door."

Sirius would have liked to argue that it was not in the original plan to lock the door, but there were far more pressing issues at hand. Like the fact that James and Lily were staring at them and that Peter had passed out at their feet.

"My God," Lily forced out, absolutely oogling.

Remus rolled off from on top of Sirius, muttering, "Oh, peachy."

Sirius looked over at the door, thinking that this was probably the sort of thing most people got embarrassed about. Remus seemed to be more than a little mortified, but it didn't take much to get him to that state. Sirius, on the other hand, was really just very annoyed because he did not appreciate being interrupted in the midst of snogging. "Don't you people knock?"

"My God," Lily repeated.

Sirius reached over and poked Remus in the arm. "I think she thinks we're a heavenly vision or something."

"I think I would like to throw myself out the window," Remus said.

"I don't believe this," James said, still not noticing that one of his friends had fainted dead away. He had a very strange look on his face, like he was trying to scowl at them. However, Sirius could also see that his shoulders were shaking slightly. "You... You were... There were tongues and... Your lips were--EVERYWHERE--"

"Does he always kill the mood like this, Lily?" Sirius asked suddenly.

"You are shagging!" James accused, trying to decide whether to fall down laughing or be outraged.

"Well, not now," Sirius muttered irritably, tossing his bangs with dignity.

"And not at the time," Remus insisted hurriedly, not wanting to get caught in any more feuds.

Sirius shook his head. "No, then Remus was secretly pining for me--"

"I am going to hurt you once this is over," Remus assured Sirius.

Sirius pondered this statement for a minute. "You know, there are a great many jokes I can make out of you saying that, but it's almost too easy."

"You're almost too easy," Remus muttered.

"Oh, Peter!" Lily shouted, just noticing the fallen boy. She knelt down to ensure that he wasn't dead and possibly to try and bring him back around.

"I don't believe this," James repeated, the corners of his mouth twitching violently. "You were snogging! I saw it!"

"Have we given you nightmares?" Remus asked loudly, still lying down so that he did not actually have to look at James and Lily.

James straightened, taken off guard. "You heard that?"

Sirius sighed dramatically. "Yes. My big stupid head with my big stupid ears heard every stupid word."

James seemed to have the good grace to be slightly embarrassed, but he was more concerned with other things. "But... that means you must have had the cloak. Why were you using it?"

"Well," Sirius lamented sadly, looking up at the ceiling. "Moony had come up with this bloody brilliant prank in which we would be pretending to do what you so rudely interrupted only to have you burst in and see that we were doing no such thing. At which point we would laugh in your faces and fun would be had by us."

James whistled in admiration. "That is brilliant, Moony."

"Thank you," Remus called politely from where he was still hiding his face. "Could the lot of you drop dead now? Please?"

James wisely chose to ignore him. "But then you... actually wound up..."

Sirius shrugged. "My charm, it seems, is limitless."

"I am going to hurt you, and you are not going to find a single moment of it enjoyable," Remus ground out.

Sirius reached over and patted him. "Of course not, Lover."

"Oh, shut up!"

Now James did burst out laughing, bending over and clutching at his sides as if he had just been told the funniest joke ever constructed by man. Sirius could tell that he was having difficulty breathing, and he couldn't help but be proud that he'd been the cause of it. "You found love through the prank! That's... I can't... Hilarious! Absolutely bloody hilarious!"

"I hate you both immensely right now," Remus called out. "Just so you're all aware."

"It was all very moving," Sirius agreed, nodding sagely. "I shall share it with the children I'm never going to have someday. Including the bit about him making me write a script."

James wrinkled his nose, his laughing fit subsiding. He looked in Remus's direction and said, "You turned it into homework?"

Sirius practically leapt up from the bed with joy. "That's what I said!"

James shook his head. "Your boyfriend is very cruel to you, Padfoot. I say you quit while you're ahead."

Sirius raised his eyebrow. "Oh, yeah? Well, I think Lily's about to give Peter mouth to mouth. He'd consider it an overture of affection, you know. And I hear that his arse is rather hypnotic."

"I do think you might have killed him," Lily said, waving at Peter's face in an attempt to wake him up.

"Your love is like poison!" James shouted, pointing a finger at Sirius.

"And yours often makes me gag," Sirius said genially. "So, I'd say we're even."

James looked up, obviously wondering if he was reading too much into that sentence. He lifted his eyebrows and said, "Are we?"

Sirius considered it for a minute. He had rather enjoyed torturing James of course. And he couldn't say that he was entirely happy with their situation. But on the other hand, if James hadn't behaved like a complete prat, he might never have gotten around to kissing Remus. At least not while he was sober.

"Yeah," Sirius decided, nodding. "We are."

And that, as they say, was that.