The Marauders: Year Four

Under the Influence

Under the Influence

Sirius stumbled and fell against James, laughing, his fist 'round the neck of the second bottle of Firewhiskey they'd opened that night. He brought it to his mouth and poured the last of it down his throat, groaning as it burned down the length of him all the way to his belly. He tossed the bottle aside and it shattered against a tree. "Blimey I din' think it'd do that," he slurred.

"What'd you think it was goin' to bounce off like a bloody rubber ball?" James hooted.

Sirius didn't answer, he just laughed harder than he ought to and started singing, his voice carrying through the woods. A weasel stopped sniffing along a few feet away to look, craning its neck over to see the two boys as Sirius tripped again and his arm went over James's shoulder.

Peter and Remus had fallen asleep by the fire ages ago, wrapped up in blankets that Remus had gone inside to collect. They'd made a ring of make shift beds 'round the fire and it was there that they'd sat, cross-legged, passing about the bottles of firewhiskey and taking it in turns to tell far fetched stories and make up legends - or else tell real ones. James did an excellent rendition of the Tale of the Three Brothers, and Sirius told them some of the mermish legends he knew. They'd laughed talking about Filch and Peter had done an excellent impression of the old Caretaker. They'd slowly lost their inhibition and their talk had gotten louder and lost its sense in stages so that they went from making Peter do his impression of Filch to saying how much they missed him.

Remus had been the first to fall asleep and Sirius had put a blanket over him carefully and tucked his hair off his forehead. James had watched as Sirius ran his fingers across Remus's forehead. He took a pull from the bottle, then tried handing it off to Peter, only to find that he'd fallen asleep, too.

"Let's go for a walk," James had suggested.

Sirius hadn't realized how much of the whiskey he'd drank until he stood up and the world had seemed to whirl about as he did so. His eyes went a bit crossed, but he could walk and that was all that he really needed to go on with James. Sirius had started off singing but had quieted the more whiskey he'd drank out of the bottle. James had started refusing his turns so that Sirius had drank a good deal more than he had by the time the bottle had emptied and his words were sort of running together, like colored paint in the rain.

"You were going to tell me something before," James said suddenly, "Before. When the lads were gone to the lake."

"OH THAT." Sirius said, and he laughed, his feet hitting the ground at funny angles as he lumbered along, his hips moving the way they did when he was a dog. "Stupid really, what I was goingter say you see I wasn't real sure I wanted to say it anyway but it was sort of something on my mind a mite - a bit, just lately. But it's stupid."

"I'm sure it wasn't stupid," James replied, "You don't say stupid things."

"While I'd like to believe -- you're wrong, I do... I say a great many of the stupidest things that I think... my brain... says... it says stupid things inside me sometimes," Sirius laughed, "Should hear it in my head, my brain's a bit of a git... says stupid things..." Sirius muttered. He tripped again, this time stumbling down a squat mound in the ground and catching himself against a tree. He laughed and hugged it, "Why thank you fer catchering me, you bugger tree. You wonderful stupid tree." He kissed he bark.

"You're kissing a tree, you arse," snickered James.

"YOU KNOW WHO I WANT TO KISS?" Sirius asked, his voice roaring loudly as he turned, letting go of his tree. He patted it a moment, "Bye mate. Thanks fer saving me." Then turned back to James, and, much quiete, his words running together, "Yknowho I wanter kiss?"