Marauders - Always - Part One

I'll Give It Up

Remus was home before Sirius was up. He sank onto the mattress beside his husband and brushed the hair off Sirius's forehead gently, making Sirius's eyelids flutter as he woke up.

Sirius stared up at Remus, haloed by morning light from the window, staring down at him with an unreadable expression.

"You're not usually the one who wants it in the morning, Moonshine, but if you just gimme a second to wake up --"

"Shhh," Remus rolled his eyes. "Everything's gotta be dirty with you. When did you get to be so bloody foul?"

"Sometime during fourth year," Sirius shrugged.

Remus bent down and kissed the bridge of Sirius's nose.

"You're really sending me mixed signals here," Sirius complained mildly.

Remus sat up. "I need to talk to you."

"You are talking to me," Sirius said through a yawn.

"I mean about something in particular."

Sirius raised a brow and pushed himself up from the mattress, "What? What's the matter, Moony?" he asked.

"Well nothing is the matter, it's just I've got this thing which I need to do and I want to tell you about it a bit before it --"

There was a bang on the wall in the hallway and they both looked at one another with question, then got up and went to the bedroom door, sticking their heads out to see what the noise was.

Peter stood in the hall with his desk wedged between the door frame and the opposite wall, a look of frustration on his face.

"What's going on, Wormtail?" Remus asked.

Peter flushed, crammed between the desk and the wall at the end of the hall.

Ever since the moment his stupid mouth had spouted off and proposed to Oni, he had been positively mortified at the thought of seeing her again - a possibility made so much more likely to happen by his living directly above her curry shop. This panic had led him to take action and he had inquired after a room to rent in Diagon Alley. He found one in the stuffy attic over Florish and Blott's that be could afford, and had rented it out and started quietly moving his smaller things there over the past couple of days, never saying a word to the lads about it.

He had bitterly wondered if they'd notice he was gone.

Now, both Remus and Sirius were staring at him with confused looks; and the damned desk was stuck.

"Pete?" Remus pressed.

"I'm moving out," Peter announced.

Sirius asked, "What?"

"To James's?" Remus asked.

"Downtown. Diagon Alley, actually," Peter corrected.

Remus and Sirius exchanged glances. "Really?" Remus asked.

"Why?" asked Sirius.

Peter shrugged. He didn't really want to tell them about how stupid he'd been proposing to Oni. He also didn't want to outright accuse them of having wanted him to leave. Anytime he accused them of things like that, they got defensive - Sirius especially, who always made a big production about what a grand friend he was when, in Peter's opinion, he really wasn't that good of one. He really didn't feel like arguing with them - with Sirius. And Sirius was already looking at him with eyes that said he was concerned.

He's good at fake caring, Peter thought. Sirius Black never gave a damn about me before - all seven years at Hogwarts he'd been the one Sirius didn't mind forgetting about or mocking or outright bullying. Why would he care now? Because of some stupid love-magic? The love magic made Sirius gooey and sticky sweet, even more fake than ever before, because now Sirius was pretending he could make up for the past by being "better" now. Well it wasn't making up for anything.