FIC: Brother [R]

[hpraremod]

Title: Brother
Author/Artist: huldrejenta
Prompt: #86 by gracerene
Pairing(s): Sirius Black/James Potter [Implied Lily/James]
Word Count/Art Medium: 2660
Rating: R
Warning(s): Nothing much besides what the rating implies.
Disclaimer:Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: I loved your prompt, gracerene, and while this might not be exactly what you had in mind, I do hope you enjoy! Many thanks to S for the beta work and to the mods for their patience!
Summary: James and Sirius travel through Europe the summer after leaving Hogwarts. It's their final evening in Paris, and Sirius sees as clearly as ever: James is his brother, and that's enough. It has to be.

Sirius has never been accused of being a predictable sort of bloke, nor does he particularly want to be one. He’s being lifted off the ground, surrounded by flimsy-looking metal and excitedly babbling tourists, and when he steps out of the lift to the view of a darkening Paris, he thinks, as he often does, that while he may not be predictable, his love of the man beside him is.

He’s standing atop the Eiffel Tower, feeling James’ arm pressing against his in the crowd, and he knows, he always knows.

Sirius Black loves James Potter.

Like a natural phenomenon the force of it is always there – as certain as snow melting when winter bows down to spring. As indisputable as the night giving life to dawn. And as inescapable as darkness’ stubborn return.

From the moment Sirius first laid eyes on James, he knew there was something special about this boy. That he was like Sirius himself. Only more.

Sirius had been nine. The atmosphere in the extensively decorated ballroom was stiff and uncomfortable, a description that fit remarkably well for more parts of his life than he later cared to think about.

“Remember, boys,” Mother said, “I expect your behaviour to be impeccable. You represent the true pure-bloods.” Her voice was shrill at the best of times, and now it filled with contempt as she prepared to say a particularly nasty word. “You are to show the blood traitors what being a real pure-blood means.”

Regulus nodded nervously before disappearing into the subdued crowd only a group of children on the outskirts of a pure-blood ball could create. Sirius sighed and sought refuge behind the familiar shield of boredom.

The sound of a rustling thud just a few feet away from where he was standing made him turn around. Blue-grey wisps of smoke made a sad attempt at flowing through the air before they dissolved. A boy around his own age was fiddling with a box, apparently a smoke- and thud-producing one. Hazel eyes looked up, followed by the widest grin Sirius had seen since his own reflection in the mirror after the one time he’d tricked Kreacher into letting him out of the cupboard.

“Hi,” the boy said.

Sirius shifted from one foot to another. “How do you do?” He was about to reach out for a handshake like he’d been taught, but he smothered the urge. Somehow he knew it wasn’t the right thing to do now.

The boy grinned even wider. “Well, I’m in desperate need of some action.” He eyed Sirius for a moment before apparently deciding that he was okay. With a flourish, the boy revealed the item he’d been fiddling with.

“What’s that?” Sirius stepped closer.

“Dr Filibuster’s Fireworks. They’re brilliant, but I can’t get them to work.”

An excited tingle spread all the way to Sirius’ toes. “You’re going to set off fireworks at a ball?”

“I’m trying to. I don’t know why they won’t work, I’ve always been able to.... ”

“James Potter!” The woman marching towards them looked very much like Sirius’ new friend, apart from her expression that was anything but pleased. “You’ve got some explaining to do. Come with me, young man.” Before striding off again, she sent the boy a look that would’ve seemed intimidating to Sirius if his mother hadn’t been Walburga Black.

“No more fun tonight, I suppose.” The boy sighed and put away the package while Sirius sent it a longing gaze.

“What do you think, then? Fight or flight?”

“Pardon?”

The boy – James – smiled again. “My mother. Should I convince her I’m only having a little fun or should I hide from her? Fight or flight?”

Sirius grinned. “Fight. Always fight.”

James grinned back before disappearing into the crowd after his mother.

Sirius didn’t see him again that night. But James’ presence, just knowing that he was there, felt like a soothing brook running through the ballroom’s rigid heat, all the way underneath Sirius’ too hot robes and into his heart.

When they met again on the Hogwarts Express, James had no memory of the incident. But Sirius had always treasured the memory. Hid it away and visited it when he was in need of some sanity.

Now, on their last evening in Paris, as he watches the city from nine hundred feet above the ground, he knows he’ll never forget this moment either.

“It’s really something,” James says in a voice that’s low, even, no hint of cockiness. “Maybe someone ought to drag all pure-blood supremacists around the world to look at Muggle landmarks. Who knows, it might change a few minds.” He drags tanned fingers through messy hair, and his hazel eyes are burning, burning, gazing over Parisian rooftops in the short moment when the low sun keeps dusk at bay.

“Imagine building a tower like this tower without magic?”

“Rumour has it this Eiffel guy was a wizard,” says Sirius, “but I doubt it.”

“Don’t think so either. This is real craftsmanship. Look.”

And Sirius looks. He looks at the tower and the skyline, at the sun melting into Paris, at night time climbing towards the sky and daytime sinking towards the earth. Most of all he looks at James. He looks at a young man who spends his life fighting against darkness, just like daylight itself, and right now, at this very moment, Sirius gives James better odds at succeeding than the returning dawn. The urge is sudden and overwhelming; it doesn’t flare up too often, his not-so-secret ache usually knows its place and remains pushed down, but now it’s everywhere, and he really, really wants to kiss James.

James turns towards him with sun in his eyes. “What?”

“I like seeing you like this.” Sirius shrugs. “I get to see you without your usual Potteresque attitude.”

“You get to see me in all situations.”

“Precisely.”

James meets his eyes for a moment before turning back to the view. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t have to. Sirius knows that James knows, the sun is finally caving in, and it’s okay.

Afterwards, when they’ve walked down the 704 steps to the ground and Sirius has complained that James is getting too old for them to take the steps on their way up, then they start running. “Walk or run?” James asks, and there’s no need to answer. Through crowded, dusty, August-hot streets they run, they chase each other and they chase the wind, greedily capturing every second of life before arthritis and old age catch up with them, Sirius says, and James agrees. They laugh wildly, endless energy bubbling through taut muscles, and it’s not exactly Quidditch, but their feet are off the ground more often than not, so it’s hard to feel anything but happiness. Finally they stop, allowing their breathing to return to normal.

They don’t say much on their way back to the hotel. It’s a nice hotel. This post-graduation trip around Europe is supposed to be done the Muggle way (flying motorcycles being the obvious exception), but they’re fine with skipping the cheap hostels frequented by most people their age backpacking their way through Europe. No reason pretending they don’t have the money.

“It’s funny,” James says out of the blue, like he often does, “how people will see reasons why and make things prettier after the fact.”

They turn into the alley where their hotel sits sandwiched between an always crowded bakery and a deceptively gloomy-looking café, and in the quickly darkening but still warm evening, they find their usual table on the pavement. Sirius orders some wine in his fluent French and waits for James to continue.

“Like that memorial we saw from the Great Muggle War. ‘They gave their lives for their country’ it said, and isn’t that the biggest load of crap you’ve ever heard? They didn’t give their lives for anything, their lives were taken away from them. Stolen.”

Sirius is always the talker, always the doer who prefers acting to contemplation, but not now. He wants to listen, to sit here in a hidden alley in Paris and listen to James.

“I’d die for you if I had to, you know that, Padfoot, just like you would for me. We’d do it for Moony and Wormtail too. But refusing to back away from evil, from danger, isn’t the same as willingly giving your life. Life still gets stolen. And in the end, there’s nothing that makes you want to live more than the people you’d be willing to die for.” He rubs his fingers across the chain around his wrist, the one Lily gave him.

Sirius looks away. “I know,” he says and lifts his glass.

The wine is velvety and smooth. It smells of worn leather, and when he takes a sip, the taste of black-cherry and herbs glides across his tongue. He leans his head back and closes his eyes. Cars are driving in the main street at the end of the alley, and Sirius listens to the sounds of a city that’ll still be awake for hours. Paris doesn’t sleep.

“Stay awake or sleep?” James doesn’t need Legilimency to know what’s on Sirius’ mind. James’ real question, Sirius knows, is “stay alert or wither,” so he answers like he always does: “We can sleep when we’re dead.”

James winks and salutes him with his wine, he’s the only person Sirius knows who can pull that off without looking like an utter dork. “And we’ve got so much we want to do before then.”

A motorcycle drives by at a steady pace, and it’s true, Sirius supposes, what James said. There’s so much to do, so many places to see. Their time in Paris is up.

The ride from place to place might just be Sirius’ favourite part of their holiday. He never feels more intensely present – he never feels more – than when he can swing one leg over the motorcycle and kick it into life. “Come fly with me,” he always says to James. Together they hold the whole world in their hands.

But there’s still this one, last night in Paris.

Much later, on their way up the stairs to their hotel room, when James starts talking about how the pretty girl at the reception can’t compete with Evans in any way, Sirius can only think of a few things that could make this night more perfect. It doesn’t matter. It would’ve been nice, but Sirius is still happy.

They’ve only had sex once. Sharing a bed and sleeping in it, now that has happened more times than either of them bothers to count. But not sex.

Before Lily, their friends believed otherwise. They used to think sex was but one of many aspects of life where Jamesandsirius were linked together.

Peter always used to smile and wink whenever there were two black-haired boys peeking out from behind the curtains of James’ four-poster. “Good morning, guys,” he’d say and cheerily continue his morning ritual of sniffing his robes to check for a clean one. Objecting to anything James did would never have occurred to Peter, and if getting off with Sirius was what James wanted, that was tip top as far as Peter was concerned.

Remus always followed them with his eyes, sent them an I’m so happy for you smile before he looked away. Sirius would never have seen the flash of hidden hurt if he hadn’t known Remus so well. If he hadn’t loved Remus so much. Almost as much as James.

But sex is not what the two of them are about, James and Sirius. Best friends. Buddies. Brothers.

One time, though. One evening at the beginning of seventh year, with the air full of late summer, early youth and James Potter. James, who’d never looked more beautiful than he did that night, drunk on September’s first Quidditch practice and Ogden’s finest. James, who’d stumbled backwards into the dormitory while finishing one of his lame jokes. James, who’d looked at Sirius, looked and laughed and looked again, until Sirius’ fragile restraints snapped, because if strength was to shove these feelings down, then fuck strength. If doing the right thing meant never having this, then fuck right.

This isn’t what the two of them are about, Sirius has always known that. He accepts that. As long as Sirius has every other part of James, as long as they’re brothers, it’s okay that James would give one part of himself to someone else. But not that particular night. That night Sirius wanted everything, needed everything, and Sirius caught James’ lips between his own. They were warm and soft, not how he’d imagined at all. The feverish way James kissed back, though, the moan that ran through his body when he pushed Sirius down onto his bed, now that was like something out of his most vivid fantasies. It was a quick, drunken fumble of the type boarding school boys resort to when alcohol and hormones control their actions. It was over a few minutes after they’d torn off their clothes, shortly after sweaty skin met sweaty skin. James thrust wildly, moaning, while Sirius chanted inside his head IloveyouIloveyouIloveIloveloveloveyou.

Afterwards James pecked him on the cheek. “I suppose we needed this,” he said, and then: “Don’t tell Lily.” He hadn’t even started dating her, and Sirius would’ve liked to feel annoyed, but he couldn’t summon the strength for it. He was quiet for a few seconds, released his breath and nodded. “Okay.”

This is what Sirius is thinking about while they lie here, on their last night in Paris, in a comfortable hotel room with twin beds and too warm duvets. He thinks about silvery light from the lamp post outside their window, how it makes a sleeping James look pale and peaceful.

Soon they’ll be going home, whatever home means. Back to life after Hogwarts. They used to daydream about it, about life once their final essay was written and they had pulled an O on their last exam; they could talk for hours and create a world that was theirs for the taking, a web of endless possibility, and the one thing that remained unchanged through all their dreams was that they would face the future together.

James mumbles in his sleep and turns over. Sirius listens to him, reliving their one night together in the darkness behind closed eyelids. Slowly, hardly daring to breathe, he pushes down his pants. James inhales, Sirius slips his fingers around his own erection. James exhales, Sirius moves his hand at an even pace. He might not have a large arsenal of experience to draw upon, but he’s blessed and cursed with a vivid imagination that intertwines neatly with what he remembers of an aroused, naked James, which is quite a lot. As pressure builds up underneath his palm, he no longer cares if the images are real or not. He sees himself kneeling between James’ legs, he can feel James’ fingers through his hair, he can taste the spicy-sweet warmth that is James’ mouth as they sink down onto the bed and find each other’s lips. And oh, oh, the feeling of James’ body covering his own, how Sirius’ legs spread without him telling them to do so. James moves, Sirius arches against him, hissing silently so the real James doesn’t wake up, because James is in the other bed instead of touching him, but Sirius bites his lips and he comes and comes and comes.

He lies still for a while, wrapping his arms around himself in the lonely aftermath. His breathing and his ill-behaved heart slow down to the sounds from outside, sounds of laughter and of late night rain showers meeting quickly cooling asphalt.

“James or.... James or everything?” he mumbles to himself in the seconds before sleep claims him.

James he thinks as the night’s first dream is already pulling him in. I’ll always choose James. Always. That’s what brothers do.