Remus wakes suddenly, feeling something wet and infinitely cold pressing against his cheek. He does not move. He couldn’t if he wanted to: there is a tremendous weight over him. God only knows what Sirius or James might have decided to surprise him with this morning. Slowly, his eyes adjust to the darkness, his senses awaken and he attempts to move his hands.
He can’t. They’re both trapped.
He waits a little longer, hardly daring to breathe. He knows that they would not leave something dangerous in his bed and yet he’s not quite sure. Knowing his affinity to the smaller Dark Creatures, they’ve been known to leave...surprises in his bed. But there is nothing small about what’s lying on top of him.
The weight shifts, blowing out a gust of the most disgusting air he has ever had the misfortune to breathe. It is hot and rancid, and smells oddly...familiar. He pulls out his arms quickly, and, rather daringly he thinks, puts them atop the thing that is threatening to crush every one of his ribs and then some.
It is soft.
Confusion now takes precedence over the original fear. Why in the world would James or Sirius put a heavy, soft, furry and smelly thing over him during the night? Where in the world could they have found something that was heavy, soft, furry and smelly and managed to smuggle it into the dormitories and on top of him without anyone realizing? Without his waking up?
Slowly, carefully, his hands skim over the weight that is smashing him into his mattress and nearly through to the floor. The thing is nearly as long as he is. The fur is thick and soft, reminding Remus instantly of a bear, even though he knows that what’s lying on him can’t be a bear. He’d be dead if it was. His fingers follow the body still. Two things that must be legs are half curled on the side of him, two more are stretched out on his right, and Remus imagines that they must be hanging off the bed.
The thing expels another gust of air and this time, Remus knows not to breathe for a few seconds as the body on top of his own stretches.. His hands follow the direction of the breath, and come to rest on a tremendous head between two long pointed ears. His hand recognizes what is lying on top of him before his mind does and unconsciously, absently, he rubs.
Suddenly, his bed begins to shake. He can feel that everything he is touching vibrating and a dull roar is filling the room. He is shocked into stillness and when his hand stops moving, so does the rest of his room.
The realization hits him: there is a dog on top on him.
He tests this theory by rubbing the head again, moving his hand to just between where he imagines its eyes must be. The vibrating is stronger this time and Remus bites down a hysterical urge to laugh as a tail thumps heavily on his bed.
A giant dog is crushing him and he has no idea why.
His mind considers this problem like any other. Of course, there is the added problem that this one is not like any other. Nothing he has faced in life has prepared him for waking up with a giant dog lying on his chest and crushing him.
And Remus J. Lupin does not like dogs. It is irrational, he knows, but there it is. Give him a kappa, a hinkypunk or a boggart any day. He has no problems with Mandrakes“fully grown or not“ghosts, merpeople, centaurs or any of the other creatures that Hogwarts has been host to over the course of his years as a student. But he can’t stand dogs. He has no doubt that is something to do with the four-legged monster he turns into once a month; any canine is too close a reminder to that.
It doesn’t seem to be killing him, though.
He sighs. Not as heavily as the dog did, but a sigh nonetheless. It is quite hard to do with the dog on top of him, but he manages. He has no idea of where to put his hands; the dog is simply everywhere. Lacking anywhere better, he rests them over the dog, realizing at the same moment, that though the dog is crushing him, he is actually quite comfortable.
He feels odd and then, after another flash of recognition, realizes why: he feels safe.
Smiling, he tightens his hold in the dog’s fur and drifts off to sleep.
The next time he comes awake, it is to find an immensely different sort of body on his: Sirius’s.
He has no idea of where the dog has gone, or why Sirius seems to have replaced it. Perhaps he imagined the dog lying on top of him, but no...there are black hairs all over his bedspread and in his hands, too short and too thick to be human, even for Sirius who has the thickest hair Remus has ever seen.
As well as the nicest“
Blushing furiously in the early morning light though no one
has seen him“or them“Remus snaps his eyes towards safer and more familiar territory. He realizes that he is clutching Sirius’s shoulder quite tightly and he releases it at though burned.
Sirius is not wearing any clothes. At all.
Oh bloody sodding wanking hell he thinks. What is he
going to do?
It’s rather a damn good thing that he is in pajamas under his blankets and that the hangings are closed; if they were both naked they’d really be in trouble“
But then, the fact that Remus can feel something quite clearly even through the blankets and his pajamas pressing against his leg is, of course, a much bigger problem. Bigger. Bugger he thinks, groaning. And then, thinking a bit further on that particular word, groans again.
Sirius snorts and Remus nearly jumps through the ceiling of his four-poster. He would if Sirius wasn’t on top of him.
Sirius blinks himself awake, and Remus’s heart, which had stopped beating upon waking, thumps. Once. Sirius, whose head is practically in Remus’s armpit, meets his eye.
He is achingly beautiful when he wakes up, Remus realizes, awake enough to appreciate how devastatingly gorgeous Sirius looks with the veil of sleep still over his eyes, his hair mussed, the muscles in his back moving as he“
Bugger Remus thinks again, unable to help himself and past caring.
“Morning, Remus,” Sirius says slowly with a sleepy smile, obviously only half-awake.
Remus nods, unable to even choke out a reply.
Sirius stretches slightly, and his arms, which were until now tucked beneath him, fling out, one hanging off the bed as the other settles itself across Remus’s waist. Sirius tightens his hold on Remus and closes his eyes again, his cheek now resting on Remus’s chest. Sirius’s thumb is moving back and forth over Remus’s ribs, as though checking to make sure each one is there.
Remus wants to cry.
It is too much to hope for that Sirius has gone back to sleep. His wand is out of reach and it too much to think that he can somehow get Sirius off of himself and into his own bed without Sirius realizing what has happened. Too much to hope that this has happened on purpose. Much too much. There’s no chance that God would perform this miracle for him. He doesn’t deserve it. Of course, he has no idea of what he’s done to deserve this hellish torture either, but“
Sirius’s eyes open slowly and Remus holds his breath, watching as Sirius stares off to side before saying quietly, “Am I on top of you, Remus?”
Remus nods.
“Are we in your bed?” Sirius asks in that hushed voice, still not looking Remus in the eye.
Remus nods his head once more.
“Oh.”
An odd sort of silence forms over them and, if Remus tries very hard, he can pretend that there aren’t two other boys on the other side of his hangings who are going to be as confused as he is when they wake up. Except...that they won’t be. They would make fun; they’d think it was a humongous joke. They would not be wondering why they were unable to breathe with another boy lying on top of them. And Remus can’t not breathe because someone is on top of him, it is because it is Sirius lying on top of him. Sirius who is one of his best friends in the entire world. Sirius who was the first to accept him when they had discovered his secret. Sirius who is as naked as the day he came into the world and sixteen years more beautiful.
He wants to cry again.
Sirius opens his mouth to say something and then stops, his mouth freezing half-opened. A fly could zoom in and Sirius looks as though he wouldn’t notice. He seems to have noticed something else though. “Am I“am I starkers?” he whispers.
Remus would rather be a werewolf for a month rather than answer this question. This, though, does not seem to be an option and, wretched, he nods once more.
“Oh.”
Remus is so thankful that Sirius is not making a joke of this that he wants to kiss Sirius. Of course, Remus always wants to kiss Sirius. However, considering their position and Sirius’s lack of clothes, a kiss might be construed as something more. And while he knows that that construal would be true and welcome on his part, he can not imagine Sirius being very happy about it. So he waits.
His hands are itching. Itching to touch Sirius, to run his hands through Sirius’s hair, over his back and“ He chokes back a groan, but it doesn’t help. He has never wanted to touch anything as badly in his entire life as he now wants to touch Sirius. He has wanted to touch Sirius before, naturally, but never like this. Sirius has, of course, never been naked in Remus’s bed in the early morning. Or ever, for that matter, but Remus wants to touch him so badly, kiss his confused face so badly that his itching hands feel as though they’re going to fall off. They’re shaking as he holds them as far away from Sirius as is physically possible.
There are hairs stuck to his sweaty palms. He pinches them off and flicks them away.
“There was a dog in my bed last night,” he says, his voice wavering as he tries to force a conversational tone out of his throat.
“A what?” Sirius asks, looking more confused.
“A dog,” Remus repeats, thinking suddenly that Sirius looks utterly delicious when he is confused.
The urge to kiss his best friend suddenly becomes unbearable and Remus goes on in a rush, “I woke up in the middle of the night and there was a huge, you know, dog lying on top of me and I have no idea of where it came from but there you go and I thought you and James had left it there and it was crushing me and I was terrified because after all, there was a tremendous dog on top of me“at least I think it was a dog“but it was sleeping and didn’t seem to want to maul me to death so I fell asleep again and then when I woke up it was gone and you...were...here,” he trails off. He seems to have brought them back to the uncomfortable awkwardness. Bugger.
There is a pause and then, quite suddenly, Sirius laughs. It
starts as a low sort of chuckle, rumbling in the part of Sirius’s throat that is touching Remus’s chest and pouring out of his mouth and into the room, growing and growing until Sirius is laughing hilariously, clutching Remus tightly as he shakes.
“Shut up!” James’s voice yells out, annoyed and tetchy.
Sirius buries his face in Remus’s chest, using Remus’s body to muffle the sound of his laughter. He is shaking spectacularly now and it seems to Remus that Sirius is nearly hysterical.
He is now more confused than he feels a living thing ever should have the misfortune to be and for the moment, it overwhelms how wretched he feels about the situation. None of it matters if Sirius has lost his mind and it looks as though that’s what he’s done.
“Sirius?” he asks quietly. “Sirius?”
Sirius doesn’t answer and Remus is at a loss for what to do.
None of their textbooks had ever covered what to do when your best friend turns up in your bed quite naked, neither of you knowing how he got there, before he proceeds to lose his mind. Why didn’t they teach you anything important in school? Like what he should do now? Or what he should do about the fact that he fancies his best friend? A bloody bloke? That he feels warm and fuzzy inside whenever Sirius agrees with him, or laughs at a joke he’s made? That he wants to touch Sirius’s hair so badly it is nearly ripping him apart? That he was so miserable at the end of last year when he thought Sirius was never going to speak to him again? That even now, he is wretched for hours if Sirius, however jokingly, snubs him for an instant? That he wants to kiss Sirius so desperately he thinks he might not make it through the next two and a half years of school and might just jump out of one of the windows of Gryffindor Tower and be done with it? School has not taught him the answers to any of these questions. In fact, he feels as though the system has let him down.
Sirius has finally stopped laughing and is looking up at Remus with the a look so smug he looks like the cat that got the cream and the canary. Quite suddenly, so suddenly that Remus forces himself to believe that Sirius is not truly aware of what he’s doing, Sirius rolls over on top of Remus completely and steeples his fingers, looking down into Remus’s eyes.
“I have something to tell you,” he says.
Remus can not breathe. Sirius is lying on top of him. Sirius is lying on top of him, all of his parts matched up against his, as though the blanket aren’t even there: Sirius’s stomach on top of his own which is filled with butterflies; Sirius’s thighs touching his which have turned to mush; Sirius’s knees against his which would be knocking together if Sirius weren’t on top of him. He’s trembling as it is. Sirius, Sirius, Sirius. Everywhere. Sirius is bloody everywhere. Touching every single part of his body. On top of him. His“
Bloody““Yes?” he manages to croak out. He has never sworn so much mentally in his entire life as he has since he woke up this morning.
“Do you promise not to tell James and Peter that I’ve told you?” Sirius asks.
Remus, beyond comprehensive and civilized speech, nods. He can not imagine that there is anything Sirius could say right now that he would want to repeat to anyone, let alone James and Peter. And he has yet to get his mind around what Sirius is doing. There is no way that Sirius is not aware of what he’s done“of what he’s doing. He’s naked for Merlins’s sake. It’s February and he must be freezing his arse off Remus thinks logically, desperately. But he can’t be, Remus thinks on. He simply can’t. Because if Sirius realized that he was lying in another boy’s bed completely starkers he would hex that person so badly the boy’s great-grandchildren wouldn’t feel it because he’d never have any. And he has yet to hex Remus. Which means he doesn’t know. Except that he must. But he can’t because“
Remus wants to scream.
“Good,” Sirius says, and then, as suddenly as he rolled onto Remus, falls silent.
Remus is going to lose his mind if Sirius doesn’t say something. He can handle secrets, he can handle the never touching, the never knowing. But he is going to lose his mind from the bloody on-going silence“
“We decided,” Sirius says, “that you might be better off every month if you had...company.”
Remus does not understand and he says so.
“We read up on werewolves when we first found out, remember?”
“Yes, but“”
“And one of the books said that if a werewolf is kept locked away from people, it will hurt itself instead.”
Remus blushes royally; he has never realized that they knew about that. But of course they would have wondered why he came back scratched and bleeding every month. Remus is mortally embarrassed and Sirius doesn’t seem to notice.
“So we thought,” he goes on, as if it were nothing. Nothing at all that Remus becomes enough of a monster to hurt himself. Sirius can joke about it being a furry little problem all that he wants, but it doesn’t change things. Still, Sirius pays no attention to Remus’s unhappy state and he continues, “me and James, that if we were there, you might be...less wolfish and more human“”
“But I’d hurt you!” Remus says, horrified and terrified to find out what Sirius is getting at.
“I“we knew that,” Sirius says. “So I had a brilliant idea ”
Remus, having much experience with Sirius’s ideas, is very scared to know what this one is. “What?” he asks, his voice thin. “What did you do?”
“We became Animagi!” Sirius declares in an excited whisper.
Remus has just a moment to absorb the ridiculousness of this. There are only seven registered Animagi in this century; becoming one is incredibly difficult and it takes years. Professor McGonagall had told them. There was no way three fifth years had become Animagi without help. Remus considers laughing until he sees the look in Sirius’s eyes. Sirius is not lying. Sirius never lies...to his friends anyway. To teachers, yes; friends, never. And there is the fact that they are the two most gifted Transfiguration students Hogwarts has seen in some time“
“You did what?” Remus hisses, trying to sit up so he can be properly angry and furious at Sirius for attempting something so utterly stupid without having to think about which of his parts are touching Sirius’s and the other way around.
Before he blinks though, he finds that Sirius has grabbed his wrists and slammed him back down against the mattress. Remus’s arms are somehow bent over his head, pressing against the headboard and trapped. Not painfully, but Sirius definitely has a strong grip on him.
Shocked, Remus stares up at Sirius and their eyes lock. He is amazed by the very basic instinct it took for Sirius to have done what he had, stunned by the animal anger he sees in Sirius’s eyes and feeling things even he can’t put a name to“things that are nearly painful they are so strong”
Remus shivers.
Sirius is breathing a bit heavily as he leans over Remus, his legs pressing against Remus’s, forcing him to stay down. He looks utterly furious for some reason that Remus cannot imagine. He isn’t the one who woke up in bed to find the boy he fancies lying there with him, with no clothes on. His friends hadn’t put their lives in danger and done illegal magic for him. What right does Sirius have to be angry, glaring down at him through his black bangs, his chest collapsing with each deep breath, his teeth bared“
Thinking only of the parts of their bodies that are now touching, Remus licks his dry lips.
“Fuck!” Sirius hisses before releasing Remus’s hands to grab his face in them and kiss him.
Remus becomes a shocked statue. There is no way that Sirius is doing what he thinks Sirius is doing. There is no way. He must still be dreaming. That’s it. He is dreaming that Sirius is naked and on top of him and kissing him and pressing against him in a way that is making parts of him frantic that he never knew could be. Even his toenails are in agony. He hadn’t known they could be before now. Dreaming is the answer. Dreaming. He is dreaming.
But dreams have never been this real before.
Sirius pulls away from him sharply, a stricken look on his paling face.
“I’m“fuck it“I’m sorry“Remus“I“”
He starts to move away, off, and Remus realizes that this isn’t a dream. This is a nightmare. It has actually happened and he is lying there like a board and Sirius just kissed him, just bloody kissed him and he didn’t do anything about it Still isn’t doing anything about it Not doing a blessed thing about this wonderful dream made flesh“
“Don’t move,” he says to Sirius, who freezes, and Remus is amazed at the amount of control he is managing to keep over his voice as well as stunned that Sirius has listened to him. “Just“don’t“Gods“please don’t“”
Sirius stares at him as he sits up and now Sirius is, somehow, on his lap. On his lap!
Remus wants to cry and kiss Sirius and get down on his knees and give his thanks to God for this miracle all at the same time.
“You“” Remus starts, nearly shaking with all of the things that he’s feeling now. Worry. Thanks. Fear. Apprehension. The prospect of the hundreds of different ways this can go. Wanting Sirius to kiss him again. Wanting Sirius to put on some clothes so that he can yell properly. Never wanting Sirius to put on clothes again “You“”
“Yes,” Sirius says and Remus has no idea of whether this is a question or a statement.
Remus has, in his life, never felt so completely out of touch with words. Words used to be his friends. He’d been able to turn to them before for...everything. They seem to have deserted him now. All except for two.
“Oh hell,” he says, and kisses Sirius. His hands, finally allowed freedom, touch every part of Sirius that they can reach. His face, his hair, his shoulders, his arms, his back, his stomach. No part of Sirius’s body is safe from Remus’s hands, although they seem to keep going back to Sirius’s face. For some reason, touch does not seem to be enough. He had thought it would be, all the times he’d thought about it, that finally touching Sirius would make everything...right. But it hasn’t. Everything seems to be on fire now and he can’t stop it, doesn’t want to stop it, hopes and prays that James and Peter don’t wake up because if they do then they’ll really be in trouble.
There is a whimper and Remus is nearly sure that the dog has finally returned except that he’s sure he would have felt it if something that size had joined them on the bed. There is another whimper and this time he realizes that it is coming from him, the sound rising up from his soul and out of his mouth and into Sirius’s where it is, amazing and miraculously enough, echoed.
Remus breaks away suddenly, gasping for breath and Sirius makes a whining noise.
“You!” he manages. “The dog“you“ ”
Sirius nods and Remus falls on top of him again, the blankets twisted uncomfortably around their legs as he is the one forcing Sirius against the mattress. Not that he notices. He is kissing him frantically and Sirius is kissing him back and as they roll around on the bed Remus is so aware of the Sirius’s nakedness and his own pajamas and the heat and friction between them that he is amazed they haven’t been burnt off already. And he realizes, desperately, that the reason touch is not enough is because he isn’t really touching Sirius at all. There is far too much material between them. He wonders, as he clasps his hands around Sirius’s back, why in the world he doesn’t sleep in the nude like James does.
He doesn’t have to try hard at all to get the image from his mind. He is after all, kissing a very naked Sirius who is kissing him back!
From outside the curtains of their five by eight world, there is the sound of blankets being thrown aside, hangings being shoved open and“
Damn Remus thinks, so out of character for himself that he blushes. He wants to go on kissing Sirius. Needs to. He can feel Sirius beginning to draw him away and he lets him go with heavy reluctance.
“Sorry,” Sirius says, his voice a low wail before he kisses Remus once more, quickly, and then he is gone and the dog is back, staring up at him with sorrowful brown eyes.
Feeling shameless for some reason, Remus rubs Sirius between his eyes and then behind the ears. He is rewarded by having his bed vibrate once again as Sirius closes his eyes in obvious pleasure, his tail thumping happily as his now huge head falling into Remus’s lap.
He is shaking as he leans over and hugs Sirius fiercely, so full of gratitude for what he and his friends have done he doesn’t know where to begin thanking them. He wonders what James and Peter’s Animagi forms are and, feeling deliciously evil, realizes that werewolves and dogs are both canines.
Remus wants to laugh.
So he does.
A/N: If you are enjoying the joint fic, please leave a review which is the food upon which our starving authors feed. Honestly, there are eighty of you faithfully reading this, but the story only has twelve combined reviews. This confuses and saddens us. If you're enjoying it enough, eight chapters in, please leave a review, even if it's nothing more than 'Great chapter' or 'I really liked this.'
Slian's Note: Much love to the brilliant and wonderful Vindictus Viridian for the extensive beta on my baby. *love and huggles*