So, I am trying to get back into writing and fate decided to take me here and give us an entry for day 24 of @dailyprongsfoot and day 4 of @prongsfootweekarchive
“Do you ever wonder what would happen if you just walked into the lake and did not stop walking?” The question hand between the friends, uncomfortable and dark in the fresh, late-spring air. It was too heavy for the warm breeze, promising an endless summer and countless adventures, to blow away and cast a long, gloomy shadow over their plans and end of the year promises.
James pushed himself up from where he had been laying in the grass, one elbow crushing a fluffless dandelion, his torso twisting to look at him. “Not particularly,” he snorted, the amiable smile fading into slitted eyes and a thoughtful tightness around his lips. His hazel eyes honed in on him in a way not dissimilar to trying to spot a snitch from across the pitch. When it seemed that he had found what he was looking for, he moved to sit up, legs crossed under him, mismatched socks—one red and gold (his lucky pair), the other shorter and once black before countless washes. “So, what do you think would happen?”
It never failed to make Sirius feel something complicated when James would literally drop whatever he was going to indulge whatever topic he brought up. It didn’t seem to matter how pointless, ridiculous, and esoteric it was. No matter how engrossed James was in the activity before the topic had been presented became virtually irrelevant.
He wondered idly if perhaps they somehow ended up with the wrong Patronus. Perhaps it would have been more fitting for him to get the prideful stag and James the loyal dog.
“Little grim,” Peter remarked as he flopped himself onto his stomach to mingle him into the conversation, which made something ugly stir inside of Sirius. He pushed it down by counting the stray blades of grass which stuck to Peter’s bare back. Which did not go unnoticed by Peter, who wriggled his arse while his poor poker face tried to conceal the grin while he shot him a supposedly sultry wink. “Go on, you can stare while you talk, right?”
Sirius shuddered, more dramatically than he needed to, and tossed a handful of grass into Peter’s face. “Piss off, Wormtail,” he huffed as he pulled a knee up to his chest, chin resting on his folded hands. “Just wondering what would get you first, you know,” he said, trying to sound dismissive despite the genuine curiosity.
The gloom lifted when Remus ‘accidentally’ kicked Peter’s elbow, which made his head slip and nearly crash into the grass. “In this hypothetical situation are we walking along the bottom or swimming?” he asked for clarification and tucked a scrap of parchment into his book in lieu of a bookmark.
Sirius couldn’t help but notice that it had several worn-out creases and somewhere in the back of his mind he made a note of sneaking a glance whose note he was using. Maybe it would peel back another layer of their most private friend. He was also incredibly incurably curious, but that was second to his concern.
What he was concerned about, he wasn’t entirely sure.
“Er, I suppose we’re walking along the bottom.” His eyes locked on the glimmering late just beyond Remus’ meticulously combed hair that was slowly coming undone after a long day of pretending that the impending moon wasn’t making his body ache. He could see it in the stiff, jerky movements after stillness and the way his shoulders curled inward ever so slightly more than normal.
He imagined the sunlight fading into a soft, verdant glow and the peaceful silence under the water, a uncanny serenity that was both something he deeply longed for and something that he knew he ought to fear yet didn’t. It sounded peaceful in a way his restless self couldn’t never be.
It was James’ shoulder bumping into his, sending him swaying sideways for a moment that pulled him from his thoughts before he could let them wander too far into the darkness. Just the slightest nudge had pulled him back to the here and into sunlight and the mock-serious expressions of his friends.
“I think the Kelpies,” Remus answered with a thoughtful hum and a determined nod.
Peter’s face twisted and scrunched up in confusion. “Please, the Giant Squid would get you first,” he countered and pushed at Remus’ ankle as his foot dangled a little too close to his elbow again. “Besides, we don’t even know if there are Kelpies in the lake.”
“Of course there are Kelpies! Merfolk too,” Remus argued in return and folded one leg under the other as he rolled his shoulders back with a strange clicking sound he’d never heard anyone else produce; it was fascinating in a concerned way—a morbid sort of fascination with his friends pathology.
James hummed, and it made him realize just how close they were as he felt the sound vibrate through where they were connected at the elbow, the hand resting casually on his knee. “I reckon she is nice.”
“Who?” Peter asked, and crossed and uncrossed his legs at the ankles, unable to stay still. Sirius was willing to bet that the grass was tickling his torso, and he was trying to not say something weird. He bearely finished the thought when Peter pushed himself up to sit, frantically wiping at his chest. “Fecking grass tickling my nipples.”
None of them managed to hold in their laughter for long. A suppressed snort from Remus broke them all, including Peter who laughed with them.
“You know,” Remus managed to choke out between laughs, holding his ribs tight, “I admire you.”
“You should,” Peter told him proudly, tilting his chin up to look at the slightly taller friend, a challenge.
Remus seemed happy enough to take the challenge and laughed. “Yeah, for telling all of us that you would like to shag the lawn?” he asked dryly with a deadpan expression that no one quite pulled off as well as Remus did.
James leaned closer and he gravitated towards him, their heads leaning against each other as they watched the incredible display of teenage manhood go down and quickly devolve from funny japes to Remus trying to wrestle Peter to the ground, both of them laughing and clumsily pushing and pulling at each other. The highlight definitely being when Remus managed to grab and twist one of Peter’s grass-tickled nipples and James’ laugh tickled his ear.
When their laughs died down, soft words spoken from just behind his ear made Sirius’ stomach do daring flips. “I know what would find you first,” he said, his tone gentle but serious; he really meant these words. Sirius knew that he did not have to say anything, that James would tell him so placed his hand over James’ and squeezed it to let him know he was listening. ”Me. I would be there before you could go under.” The words felt substantial, like magic, a promise that bound them together even further, solidifying their already irreversibly tangled fates.
