Tables Turned

Tables Turned

"Oh, we turn and we turn our little blue world upside down.

I said, don't we love to turn our little blue world baby upside down?"

-- Tori Amos, "Upside Down"

Remus sank onto the sofa, pointed a long finger at Sirius, and scowled. "This is your fault."

Sirius – who was actually several lengths away from where Remus was pointing – blinked. "Ermm . . . Remus. Bit busy." He threw a glance toward the girl who had managed to shrink into the corner of the sofa to put as much distance between Moony and herself as possible. He scowled a bit at her for that – ignoring the fact that it was likely less because of Moony's habitually threadbare appearance and more because he was sopping wet from having walked home in the pouring rain. (And sodding Moony, anyway, he'd told the prat to take a cab.)

Remus gave him a slightly fuzzy glare. "Your fault," he repeated grimly.

Sirius took in Remus' slouch, his fuzzy glare, the fact that he was now starting a conversation with the Hufflepuff Girl (Sirius couldn't remember her name) by telling her that she had a spot on her cheek, and the distinct smell of whiskey Moony carried with him; and decided that his own plans for the evening were not likely to happen.

The Hufflepuff, whose pout had taken on an angry edge, looked expectantly at him. Sirius shrugged and grinned. "Sorry love, another time?"

She looked incredulously at him, which wasn't surprising, considering how many buttons she'd had to hurriedly do back up and where, exactly, Sirius' hand had been when Remus had slammed through the door. "You want me to go?"

Sirius shrugged. "Friends come first, ermm . . ." he searched for her name and she stared at him, so he made a guess. "Stacy?"

"Rebecca," she snapped, gathering herself, her purse, her wand, and leaving. Sirius dismissed her from his mind as soon as the door slammed shut behind her. Wasn't sure why he'd picked her up the other night anyway – could tell straight off she'd be clingy and hard to get rid of. Moony'd probably done him a favor.

Moony, who was currently having some difficulty opening the bottle of Firewhiskey Sirius and Rebecca/Stacy had put on the table, looked up in time to see Sirius watching him. "What? Prat. Hate you."

"What are you on about, Moony?" Sirius took the whiskey and then handed it back as Remus took a swig, not noticing that the reason the top hadn't come off was because there hadn't been a top on it at all.

It was a novel sort of situation. It wasn't so much that Sirius had never seen Remus drunk – he had. Numerous times. The difference was he'd always been pissed beyond belief too. Moony was the grown-up when the four – five, if Evans had invited herself along – of them when out. However drunk the rest of them were, Moony was less so, so that he could pour them all into bed – or a sofa, or the floor.

Sirius would rather be hung upside down naked in front of Snivellus than admit it – given the fact that years of experience proved nothing would come of noting it – but Remus was rather attractive drunk. In an angry, surly sort of way.

Moony squinted a bit and managed to focus on Sirius. "You set me up. She had BRACES and there were always things stuck in them, and she nattered on about Quidditch and you and she kept shoving her foot up my leg and making me buy her bloody expensive Pimms."

"I can pay-"

"NOT THE POINT! You set me up with one of your castoffs. Again. Damnit Padfoot, you could as least find one that can string a sentence together."

"Remember she strung loads of sentences together Moony. Hundreds of them. Long winded sentences marching out of her mouth when I really wasn't interested in her mouth aside from – oh and the braces bit is new." Sirius distinctly remembered wanting to have his eardrums removed after his lone date with her, actually.

Remus glared at him. "Not an interesting sentence. Just . . . bloody gibberish about her friends and you and if I have to listen to one more bird go on about your skills in the sack, I'm going to go mad. Just loopy. Kill everyone I know. Mostly you though."

Sirius, who was always interested in hearing about his skills in the sack, didn't really consider this to be a huge imposition. "You're useless Moony. Not like I sent you out with her to have a drink and a chat. You're about the only bloke she hasn't had a roll with you know-"

"Only reason she went out with me was because you asked. Same's all the others. And all it ends up as is me letting them down gently about you and your philandering ne'er-do-well ways.

"Ne'er-do-well? Moony, that is not a word for bachelors living the life of free love and not-as-free drinks. It's a stodgy professor word."

"I am a stodgy professor. I just haven't gotten around to the professoring bit."

Moony's voice was muffled by his coat. He'd attempted to take it off, but had gotten it stuck. His efforts at removing it had managed somehow managed to make it look as if his head was being consumed by a wrinkly wet pea coat with torn pockets.

Sirius sighed and went to his rescue. "It smells like bloody dog," he complained as he removed the sopping wet outerwear.

Moony-eyes gave him the sort of glare Sirius hadn't had since he'd walked in on Narcissa in the shower. (Twice.) "Wonder whose fault THAT is."

"You know, you don't stutter or slur or any sort of thing when you're drunk. It's a bit wrong. Could give the impression that you're sober."

"I AM NOT DRUNK." Remus punctuated this statement by moving to kick off his shoes and managing to kick himself in the foot. He gave a creative curse that Sirius, with grudging admiration, filed away for later use around Evans.

"Fine. Not drunk. Just sopping wet, drooping all over the sofa and yelling at me for trying to get you laid."

"I don't need help getting laid. I could get laid if I wanted to. I could have sex crawling out of my EARS." Remus pulled at his earlobe emphatically and then leaned back against the sofa, apparently made dizzy by this act.

"Maybe that's where it's all going wrong then. Sex isn't supposed to involve ears much, don'tchaknow. 'Less there's a fetish I haven't heard of. And unless you've gotten loads better at silencing charms since school, your most loving relationship is with your hand."

Remus shut his eyes and then opened them and stared upward. 'Doesn't work the same way, Padfoot."

"Sure it does. Hand on piece and up and down," Sirius commented blithely, demonstrating by way of obscene gesture and earning a brief glare for his efforts. Sirius had heard the "I'm a werewolf" speech before. He didn't buy it anymore than he had the last three hundred times. You didn't have to confess all your secrets to a bird just to get into her knickers and have a bit of fun. He loathed Moony's standard routine of self-effacement. "Moony I-"

"Just let it go, all right Padfoot?"

Moony sounded tired and still drunk and Sirius had liked him better angry and pouting, really. "Yeah, all right. Sorry I set you up with . . ."

"Amber."

"Right. Amber. Useless sort of girl anyway. Next time I'll get Evans to pick a bird. Someone bookish and-"

Remus groaned. "Sirius, if you want to kill me, just do it. Please. I'll get you something sharp. Just . . . sod it, I'm going to sleep."

Remus kicked his feet out and flopped over, keeping his back to Sirius and grumbling beneath his breath. Sirius would have left him there to pout, but he was shivering like a great wet git, and would likely fall asleep before he changed and then he'd get sick and lose his job – again – and be miserable for it.

"Moony – get up. Gonna catch sodding pneumonia sleeping like that."

"Groa frumk yurnelf," Moony grumbled into the sofa cushion.

Sirius was rapidly deciding that being the grownup was bloody obnoxious. "Moony – up. Change." He fetched Remus a kick in the arse, earning him another death glare and a sulky and extremely clumsy rise to his feet.

Sirius left him, swaying dangerously and wrestling with his shirt, to find a towel and pajamas – neither of which were easy to find since Moony might be a grown-up but they were still blokes and they didn't do laundry until it started moving of its own accord.

He returned to see Remus sitting on the sofa, fumbling with buttons still. He looked up in time to catch Sirius' smirk of amusement and scowled. "They're SLIPPERY because they're WET."

"Right." Sirius plopped onto the coffee table and began undoing the buttons, ignoring Remus' hand swatting at his fingers and outraged protests of "I can bloody undress myself!" and "Sod off Sirius, you're not my mum!"

He finished and sat back, holding out the towel as Remus shed the wet shirt, throwing it vehemently into a corner that had never done anything to Remus to deserve wet laundry thrown at it. "Trust you can get your own trousers off, Moony?"

Remus ignored him, drying his hair vigorously enough to send droplets purposely scattering onto Sirius. Sirius grinned and shook like a dog, earning a grudging laugh from Moony.

Sirius was absently studying the network of scars on Remus' chest when Remus spoke. "Bit weird on this side of things. You feel this way all the time I bet? Git."

Sirius quirked a brow pointedly. "Like what?"

"Like it doesn't matter what I do, it'll just all work out tomorrow when I'm hung-over and sick."

"Admit you're drunk now?"

"Shut up, Padfoot. Don't know why I put up with you."

"I pay half the rent and make sure you get a tumble at least once a year."

Moony's fingers paused where they'd been trying – unsuccessfully, Sirius noted with a grin – to open his trousers. He looked up to mock him when he met Remus' eyes.

Sirius was used to being wanted. He accepted it as his due. Evans called the girls – and boys, though Sirius paid them less attention – who fawned over him his "groupies", her freckled nose always wrinkling in disgust at the term. Sirius was a Black to the tip of his fingers, whatever his protests his protests to the contrary, and he lived for an audience. Being wanted was just part of the scenery, to him.

But Moony was suddenly staring at him like he wanted to devour him, and Sirius didn't have more than a second to register that before Moony's voice – low and throaty with too much whiskey – murmured. "Guess I'm due then."

And then Remus was pressed up against him, skin chilled from the wet but warming rapidly beneath the hand Sirius had automatically wrapped an arm around him, barely managing now to growl out "About bloody time."

Remus – shy, witty, self-effacing Moony – had apparently been taking a few lessons somewhere because the mouth against his knew exactly what it was doing. (Which brought a strange and not entirely welcome pang of jealousy when he thought about it.) Arms too strong for the skinny body they hung on wrapped around Sirius and a tongue parted his lips and Remus' chest – hard and thin and smelling of boy and rain and Moony was pressed against his.

Sirius was used to being the aggressor in these sorts of things, but he wasn't given much chance to try as Remus pulled him to his feet and stepped in and – God where the fuck had Moony learned how to snog – then he was pressed up against him and hot and hard and he realized, dimly, that Moony's hands were on his back and that his were in Remus' hair but it didn't really matter because he wanted to feel this closer and harder and he felt like he was falling . . .

"FUCK!" They both yelled it as once as they crashed over – Sirius back first and Remus on top of him – onto the coffee table, which shattered into mournful little splinters at the impact.

Both of them were panting and their limbs were tangled and Remus reacted first, looking guilty and scrambling up. "Hell . . . Padfoot, I'm sorry." He ran a hand through his hair, flustered, and offered Sirius a hand.

Sirius took it and let Remus pull him up, ignoring the fact that Moony was still swaying slightly on his feet. (Also ignoring the fact that there was probably at least one splinter stuck in his back and that the entire area in general hurt like hell.)

Remus looked like someone had just hit his puppy. Which was true, in a sense, if you looked at it oddly. "Sirius . . . I . . . too much to drink."

Sirius grinned. 'Hey – Mooooony?" He drew the "O" out long and irritating, earning an exasperated look on top of the one of abject guilt. "Shut up." He leaned forward and kissed Remus – slow and leisurely and with a smirk curving his lips.

When he pulled away Remus stared at him in befuddled, drunken shock. "What the . . . you . . . you have a bloody woman in here every night!"

Sirius shrugged. "Friends come first, Moony. Just have to know which way their wand sparks first. Should have said something." He grinned. "Need to get you drunk more often. Next time I go with you though. Being you isn't fun, up until the snogging part."

Remus seemed to be having some sort of internal struggle that was turning his face different shades of red. Sirius, for whom very few battles were raged internally – he preferred to take them out on the world at large – watched until he judged Remus was close to some sort of explosion.

Then he grinned. "Moony . . . . think you need help with your trousers after all."

Remus considered that a moment and then a slow, warm grin spread across his features, sending an equally warm glow to lower parts of Sirius' anatomy. "Think I might."

"Aren't you glad I set you up?"

"I still hate you."

Sirius smiled. "Liar."

~~