Karma

One of the last things that Remus would have ever expected would be to see Sirius walk out of the Veil exactly five years after he fell in. But according to Sirius, that's exactly what happened.

"Mmmmmm," Sirius said, gorging himself on chicken legs, as he'd said that he hadn't eaten for five years. He swallowed. "Heaven's remarkably inefficient in processing souls, and Hell isn't any better. 'S what Purgatory's for, you know. Boring place. Nothing to do. And long lines stretching upwards and downwards. People would always be trying to sneak out of the down line and into the up line, but they always ended up being caught and poked with pitchforks."

"Pitchforks, Sirius?" Remus asked, irresistibly reminded of Looney Tunes for a moment. Nasty American television--why he let Harry talk him into getting a telly with all the channels, he didn't know. Even if it was faintly entertaining. "You mean that old image of the Devil with horns and pitchforks is true?"

Sirius shook his head. "No, it's not the Devil that has horns and pitchfork, though I haven't seen him. Just got to chatting with this one demon, name of Crowley, who told me that it's only the demons on punishment work who have to wear the horns and pitchfork. Satan seems to think it's funny. Crowley does too--he was down there that one time to laugh at them."

"Oh," Remus said, slightly nonplussed. Somehow, he would have thought that demons were a more...cohesive group than that. Above laughing at each other. Apparently not. "What line were you in, then?"

Sirius pouted, though Remus privately thought it would have been more effective if he hadn't had bits of chicken at the corner of his mouth. "Doubting me, Moony? What line do you think I was in?"

Remus was tempted to say Hell's, just for the fun of seeing Sirius sputter, but he decided against it. "All right, then how'd you get out of there?"

Sirius looked pleased with himself. "I annoyed them so much that they decided to let me go back," he said proudly, and Remus couldn't stop his jaw from dropping.

"You annoyed them in order to make them let you go?" Remus asked incredulously, and Sirius nodded smugly. Remus burst into laughter.

Sirius sniffed. "It's not that funny," he complained, though the corners of his mouth were twitching.

"The hell it isn't!" Remus gasped as soon as he could breathe, his laughter abating for a moment. "I'm surprised they didn't just chuck you immediately downwards! They were angels, weren't they? What were you thinking, or were you even thinking at all?"

Sirius grinned smugly. "Crowley told me to," he said.

Remus raised an eyebrow almost into his hairline. "And you listened to a demon," he said flatly. "All right, now I know you weren't thinking."

Sirius ignored that last statement. "No, Crowley's friends with this one angel. I told him about you and Harry and how bereft you would be without me, and the angel--Aziraphale, I think his name was--told me he'd put in a good word for me."

"Annoying them would hardly corroborate that good word," Remus said dryly.

Sirius shook his head. "Well, it wasn't annoying them, per se," he said. "Crowley just told me to turn on the puppy eyes and mope around and bemoan the fate that separated me from you and Harry just when you needed me the most, and the angels would be moved with pity for my sad and sorry state while at the same time be getting really, really tired of me moping around the place. And being angels, they wouldn't even think of implementing the injustice of throwing me down in Hell for bemoaning my pitiful existence when I've led such a tragic life and circumstances conspired against me to make it absolutely shitty, and yet it was obvious that there was no way I was going to be happy in Heaven which denies the very purpose of the place, therefore the only solution would be to bring me back." Sirius looked altogether too pleased with himself. "Must be my good karma."

Remus blinked. "They called your life shitty? Angels?"

Sirius chuckled. "No, that was Crowley. He finds angels' general benevolence rather funny at times and likes to make fun of them."

"Oh." Remus blinked again. This was most definitely the strangest conversation he'd ever had, and that included the one where James and Sirius got drunk and started telling everyone they met that they were fish who would drown unless they were swimming in firewhisky, and Remus had to convince them that they could live without it. Then he thought of something. "Wait a minute, Sirius. Why was this...Crowley even talking to you and giving you advice about how to get out of Purgatory? I would have thought that demons wanted you to suffer..."

Sirius smirked. "Crowley was rather embarrassed when I asked him that myself," he replied. "But when Aziraphale showed up, he told me that Crowley, over the past six thousand years or so, had actually grown fond of us humans." Sirius chuckled. "And there's also the fact that he managed to cheat Heaven out of another person to enter the Pearly Gates. That was probably part of it too. Along with maybe just plain curiosity."

"But why'd he even start talking to you in the first place?" Remus asked, frowning. There had to be millions, if not more, people down there--why Sirius, out of all of them?

Sirius shrugged. "It was probably that I was wandering around as Padfoot a bit," he said. "Only people have the lovely opportunity to enjoy Purgatory, so animals aren't all that common down there. Took him five years to notice, but Crowley came over to see why a dog was wandering amidst the waiting souls. I think I might have scared him when I changed to my human form." He grinned. Remus felt like burying his head in his arms. He didn't know anyone else who tempted fate half as much as Sirius did, or who had such phenomenal luck in getting out of his scrapes. Scaring demons and annoying angels! And, of course, the fact that he was sitting here now. Not even Harry, Remus thought, would probably be able to come back from the dead, despite the boy's other numerous skills.

"Anyway," Sirius said, finishing up the last of the chicken and wiping his mouth on a napkin. "No one really has any idea of how time passes down there, so it's really been five years? The war's over?"

"Yes," Remus replied. Harry had killed Voldemort in his last year of school, as everyone had expected. Looking back over Harry's years at Hogwarts, people had grown to be rather amazed that they'd ever thought that Voldemort might win. If the old snake couldn't beat a kid at one, eleven, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen, what made him think he could do it when the kid was seventeen? It was only logical that Harry win, after all.

"Good," Sirius said decisively. "That means lots of time for passionate shagging, then."

Remus blinked yet again. "Er--" he said. Sirius wanted them to have sex now?

"What?" Sirius grinned at him lasciviously. "Don't tell me that you've found someone else--I know you haven't. Aziraphale told me. He said he looked in on you and you were still persistently single."

"Oh." He seemed to be saying that a lot, Remus realized. And a lot of blinking. But damn, what else was one supposed to do when faced with Sirius Black back from the dead, bearing the strangest story Remus had ever heard, and being incredibly horny?

"So?" Sirius shifted in his chair. "You do want to, don't you? I do--it's rather odd. I go for fourteen years without sex, and just when I have it back again, I have to do without it for another five, and I want it more at the end of five years than at the end of fourteen. And wanking's no fun in Purgatory--the demons keep winking at you and the angels keep looking at you disapprovingly. And there're too many dead people around. Impossible to keep a hard-on. Anyway, sex?"

Who was he to say no when Sirius wanted sex? Besides that, Remus rather wanted it too. He may not have been in Purgatory, but he still hadn't gotten laid since Sirius fell through the Veil, and now that Sirius was back again... "Why not?" Remus said, shrugging and grinning.

"Right," Sirius said, standing up and banishing everything on the table to the counter. Then he got up on the table and scooted over to where Remus was sitting, grabbing him by the collar and kissing him. The kiss tasted like chicken.

"Sirius," Remus gasped as soon as Sirius pulled back. "We're not having sex on the kitchen table, are we?"

Sirius grinned mischievously. "Why not?" he asked innocently. "We haven't ever before, so why not?"

"Because the table's rather hard," Remus replied, though he wasn't sure he wanted to protest. From the look in Sirius's eye, sex anywhere would be good as long as it came soon.

"Wanna know a secret, Remus?" Sirius asked, raising an eyebrow, a smile playing on his lips. And without waiting for an answer, he leaned forward until his mouth was just beside Remus's ear. "So am I," he breathed, and Remus exhaled sharply at the feeling of the hot air hitting his ear. Sirius reached his arm down and grabbed Remus through his robes, squeezing and grinning at Remus's whimper. "And so are you, apparently."

"Sirius," Remus groaned. "I'm not sure the table can hold us..."

Sirius pouted. "Oh, all right," he sighed, letting go. He slid off the table and onto Remus's lap, rubbing their groins together and grinning again at Remus's whimper. "Can you make it to the bedroom?" he asked.

"I can if you get off me!" Remus said through gritted teeth as he tried to hold still and not grind into Sirius and collapse the chair. Sirius gracefully stood up, his erection obvious in the Muggle jeans he wore. He started towards the stairs, casting a salacious look behind him at Remus, who hastily stood up and followed him.

Once the bedroom door was safely closed and locked, Sirius pounced, sending him and Remus tumbling onto the bed. Remus struggled out of his robes while trying at the same time to undo the buttons on Sirius's jeans as Sirius rid himself of his shirt, tossing it onto the floor. Remus did the same to his robes, once he was out of them, and soon his boxers and the rest of Sirius's clothing followed.

"Even remember how to do it?" Sirius asked teasingly, his hands wandering all over Remus's body. "After all, it has been five whole years..."

Remus snorted. "It's been as long for you!" he retorted. "And besides, you didn't seem to have any problems after fourteen years of enforced celibacy."

"Ah, but that's because it's me," Sirius said smugly, then began trailing his lips down Remus's chest, and Remus hissed. Sirius lifted his mouth just long enough to finish with, "And we all know what a sex god I am. I was getting stares like you wouldn't believe in Purgatory."

Remus snorted again, then gasped as Sirius ran his tongue over a sensitive spot. "Must be because," he said, clenching his hands in Sirius's hair, "you kept changing into a dog."

Sirius chuckled against Remus's skin. "What, you think I'm not sexy?" he asked teasingly, and nipped lightly at the spot where Remus's leg joined the rest of his body, and Remus yelped. "Think I'm ugly, do you? Moony, I'm hurt!"

"Can't be all that hurt," Remus replied, raising an eyebrow slightly and grinning at Sirius. "You're still doing that, aren't you?" He gestured to where Sirius was kneeling between his legs.

"Now I've half a mind not to," Sirius said primly, leaning back. "Why should I get off a man who insults me?"

"Because you haven't gotten any for five years and you're a horny bugger?" Remus suggested, and Sirius pouted.

"You haven't gotten any for five years either, and we're both horny buggers," Sirius corrected, and leaned in to kiss him, apparently abandoning his plan of punishment for insults. Ah well, not like it was a bad thing anyway, especially not when Moony could kiss like that, and touch like that, and bring him to the brink like no one else could...

"Missed you," Remus said after they were done, once Sirius muttered a cleaning charm and pulled the covers over them, taking Remus in his arms.

"Missed you too," Sirius said softly in his ear. "Not letting you go again." He tightened his arms around Remus, who sighed with contentment.

"Never again," Remus agreed, and they slid into sleep together, holding each other tightly. Sirius was back, courtesy of his own charms and a sympathetic demon, and he wasn't going to be leaving again for a good long time. Remus would see to that.