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Sirius watched a bead of sweat trickle down Remus’ spine and fought the urge to trace it with his finger. The heat in their room was sweltering, worsened by the complete lack of breeze. The smoke from Sirius’ cigarette wafted lazily up and out the window, dissipating into the cloudless sky. A tiny pool of sweat gathered at the small of Remus’ back, glinting in the light of the afternoon sun, and Sirius found himself unable to do anything but stare.
Remus huffed and turned over on the bed, settling onto his back. The lines of crumpled sheets were imprinted across his abdomen. The pages of his book crinkled as he turned one, unrelenting in their grasp on Remus’ attention.
That book had enough-- Sirius wanted some. He flicked his cigarette out the window, then turned and threw his legs over the side of the sill he’d been sitting on. The drop down to the floor was significant, but not enough to be scary. Still, it made for a decent excuse to interrupt.
“Moony,” Sirius half-whined, “help me down.”
Remus’ attention was not so easily stolen. “You get yourself up there,” he said, not looking up from his page, “you can get yourself down.”
Sirius rolled his eyes and jumped, landing harsh on his bare feet. He padded over to the bed opposite Remus’ and crashed onto it, grateful that the sheets were a bit cold from lack of body warmth. He stared at the ceiling, willing someone to come knocking at their door. Marlene had declared she needed an afternoon nap, to which Mary had agreed, Peter wanted to go out looking for gifts for his mother, and James and Lily were doing... whatever they got up to, when it was just the two of them. They still had hours until dinner, and it seemed everyone was content to just wait around until then. It was Sirius’ worst nightmare.
He turned onto his side and inspected the cover of the book Remus was reading. His first attempt at distracting him had been a failure, but maybe he’d be more successful if he talked about what Remus knew.
“What are you reading?”
Remus lifted his index finger, resting on the book’s spine, and tapped it to the title on the front cover, easily in Sirius’ view. “Says on the tin.”
Sirius tilted his head to match the angle of the book and feigned reading the title for the first time. “The Marble Faun... what’s it about?”
“A group of friends in Rome.”
Sirius snorted. “Sounds familiar.”
Remus hummed in response, then flipped a page. For a brief moment, Sirius believed that his second attempt was also a failure. After another beat of silence, Remus spoke again. “It’s about original sin, sort of. Temptation, and all that.”
Temptation .
Sirius took advantage of Remus’ distracted gaze and raked his eyes up and down his bare abdomen, lingering where a trail of hair dropped into his underwear. It had been out of necessity that they’d stripped to their boxers, but after baking in the summer heat, Sirius’ mind had been overtaken with want .
It was horrible, this wanting. Completely undesirable and utterly inconvenient. Sirius had survived seven years of school thinking nothing but normal and pure thoughts about his best friend, only to turn into a horny monster the moment they’d absconded to James’ villa in the Italian countryside for the summer. Suddenly, he couldn’t look at Remus in a bathing suit without his cheeks turning pink. He’d fostered an obsession with Remus’ hands, watching hungrily as his fingers brought a piece of fruit or a cigarette to his lips. His thighs were downright heavenly, aptly displayed now that he’d taken to borrowing James too-short shorts.
It wasn’t that he was queer . It was just... well, Moony was exceptionally attractive, and Sirius was naturally attentive to this. Couldn’t a friend recognise that their friend was good-looking? It was a bodily reaction, really, nothing more.
“Temptation?” he repeated, desperate to get Remus talking again.
“Mhm.” Sirius watched his throat bob as Remus hummed. Again, he wanted to reach out, to trace his finger over Remus’ Adam’s apple, or better yet, his tongue--
There was a knock at the door.
“It’s me, let me in!” Peter called from the hallway. Sirius rolled his eyes, distraught to be interrupted from his yearning.
Sirius opened the door and Peter barrelled through, slightly pale. “Looking a bit peaky, Petey,” Sirius remarked, noticing Peter’s suitcase left in the hall. “Everything alright?”
“ Marlene and Mary ,” Peter said, exacerbated. He paced back and forth in front of the two beds, hands in his hair. “They were--”
“They were what?” Remus sat up onto his elbows, and Sirius tried very hard not to notice the way the muscles of his abdomen flexed, or the slight glisten of sweat on his throat. He ultimately failed and opted for pulling Peter’s suitcase into their room.
James’ villa back in Umbria was big enough for them all to have their own rooms, but they’d chosen to be cheap for their excursion to Rome. They’d gotten three rooms-- one for James and Lily, one for Mary and Marlene, and one for Remus, Sirius, and Peter. When they got to the hotel, however, they were all out of cots, and two of the rooms only had two beds. Mary and Marlene, volunteered to share one of their beds and let Peter have the extra. Sirius had chalked this up to the natural physical intimacy of female friendships, but it appeared that Mary and Marlene’s eagerness to share was something... slightly different.
“What were they doing, mate?” Sirius probed, delighting in Peter’s frantic state.
Peter turned to him with a misplaced accusatory finger. “They were not napping!”
Remus let out a delighted laugh. “You mean they were fucking?”
Peter turned his desperate gaze back to Remus. “I don’t know what they were doing, but I saw...” he paused for a shudder. Sirius thought this to be a bit of an overreaction, but he wasn’t in a place to judge another’s dramatics. “So much skin, Moony. Too much.”
Sirius snorted. It was a ridiculous image: poor little Peter clutching the gift he’d bought for his mother and interrupting Mary and Marlene mid-coitus.
“I can’t room with them,” Peter pleaded. “Let me stay in here, please .”
“Sure,” Remus said, at the same moment that Sirius said, “No.”
Peter whipped his head to look at Sirius and let out a distressed whine. “Why not? I can’t very well go room with James and Lily, they’re even worse!”
Sirius recalled each of the times Peter’s blankets and pillows ended up launched across their dorm in the morning. “I’m not bunking with you, Wormy, you kick like a mule!”
Remus waved his book dismissively. “Sleep with me, then, Pads.”
Sirius’ cheeks felt warm, from more than just the unbearable heat of the room. There was no way he could share that tiny bed with Remus, not with how traitorous his body had been recently. The thought of Remus sweat-slicked back pressed up against his was enough to make his mouth go dry. How was he ever going to get a moment of sleep when every fibre of his being would be focused on not touching Remus? It couldn’t happen. There was no way. Sirius would rather sleep in the bathtub.
Remus mistook Sirius’ internal panic for hesitation. “What, don’t you like me enough?” he challenged.
Sirius’ mind scrambled for an easy excuse, which was incredibly difficult considering the way Remus was currently looking at him, smirk playing on his lips. Remus found his hesitancy funny-- endearing, even-- which simply would not do.
“W-we can’t share a bed, we’re both boys!”
Remus rolled his eyes. “We’ve been friends for years, Sirius. I think we can share a bed and have it not be queer.”
Sirius pursed his lips. Remus’ expression had shifted to something much easier to withstand-- disappointment-- though Peter’s eyes were still begging. He huffed and waved a hand at Peter. “Yeah, alright, Wormy. Take my bed.”
“Thank you, thank you!” Peter enveloped Sirius in a hug, which he reluctantly returned. “You’re saving my life, really, Pads.”
“Whatever,” Sirius extricated himself from Peter’s grip, then went to sit on Remus’ bed. Remus shuffled closer to the wall, allowing more space, though Sirius half-wished he hadn’t. He chose to ignore that feeling, as well as every other Remus-related feeling that would crop up over the next few days. As he watched Peter unpack, he searched desperately for a topic of conversation that would get his mind off of every point where his and Remus’ body were making contact. “So, Pete, tell me exactly what you caught Mary and Marlene doing.”
Remus hit him with The Marble Faun .