At the hushed hiss of his name, Sirius drew his eyes with difficulty from the beautiful sight before him and glanced upwards, quickly catching a pair of hazel eyes that were so familiar to him, he'd know them anywhere. But the expression in them was something far from familiar, and it took a moment for him to register that James was looking at him with real, undiluted anger.
He felt his eyebrows rise involuntarily, his own eyes flicking across to the seat next to James', where Peter sat. He had intended to corroborate with the other Marauder, to share a silent what-was-that look with him, but his surprise only doubled when he found the sandy-haired boy staring at him with a look of horror plastered over his pasty face. Something in his gut twisted, and he turned his attention back to James, who was still glaring at him. He cleared his throat.
'Something wrong, Prongs?' He tried for casual, but the uncharacteristic fury in his best friend's expression was getting harder to ignore. He knew that the boys usually tried to guard these sorts of feelings when they were around him, a habit they'd all adopted in the early days of their acquaintance. So to see his friends so visibly affected was quite a shock to him.
'What. Are. You. Doing?!' James gritted out, his gaze dropping pointedly to Sirius' lap in a way that only added to Sirius' confusion and alarm. He quickly followed the look, and surveyed the scene, his mind racing as at tried to spot the obvious problem. But all he could see was Moony.
It was two days after the moon and, as had become his habit, Remus had forced himself through the school day until his breaking point, finally collapsing onto the biggest sofa in the common room and claiming it for his own. And while it was admittedly a rather new part of this routine for Sirius to be sat waiting for him, for Remus to drop gratefully onto his front, his face smushed against the shorter boy's abdomen, long scarred arms wound around his waist, Sirius still couldn't see why this would be a problem.
They'd told Peter and James as soon as things had escalated from angst-ridden silence to firey arguments to broken apologies and cautious confessions. But even without this change in their relationship, the closeness, the contact, was nothing new. So when he couldn't figure out the puzzle, Sirius looked almost pleadingly up at James, who rolled his eyes before he growled, 'Your rings.'
That didn't help at all. He looked down again, to where his ring-clad fingers were twined through Remus' bronzed curls. And still couldn't see the problem. But he'd barely opened his mouth to ask when a muffled huff sounded against his shirt, and Remus, who they had assumed to be asleep, shifted slightly so that his mouth was free to address the gathering.
'Calm down, James,' the werewolf murmured, amusement hardly concealed in his weary tone. Without opening his eyes, he reached up, grasped Sirius' wrist, and lifted it off his own head, holding the hand up for them to observe as he went on, 'Thumb is platinum, first finger is titanium, ring finger is ... Not really sure, actually, but s'definitely not silver. None of his jewellery is. Been that way since third year.'
With that, he placed Sirius' hand firmly back on his hair, clearly indicating that he was to continue with his previous task. Sirius stared down at the top of his head for a few seconds before daring to look up at the others. Peter looked relieved, and James looked ... Well, embarrassed was maybe the kindest way to put it. But Sirius merely chuckled, leaning forward carefully to drop a kiss on top of Moony's head, and whispered against the soft curls, 'It's palladium, mon couer. Very expensive, I'll have you know, but you're worth every penny.'
was skimming through my other fics and gyatt guys how do you actually put up with my yapping
20k words...wtf...how do y'all read this...
thank you all so much for the continued support, honestly, i'm excited to put out more comment this holiday season. the new "my woman" fic is already about 3.2k words, so i'm getting there!
