Flights of Fancy for buckle_berry
Dec. 19th, 2006 11:19 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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small_giftsTitle: Flights of Fancy
Author/Artist:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rosemaryandrue
Written for:buckle_berry
Rating: R for a wee bit of fantasising and Sirius Black's potty mouth.
Summary and/or Prompt: Wingfic!
Any other random notes, warnings, etc.: Thanks to the lovelysuch_heights for reading this through, and to buckle_berry for requesting one of my pet writing indulgences. This was a joy to write :)
Overall, Sirius decided, this particular skirmish could be counted as a victory for the Order. They'd saved the kids and there was a minor Bulstrode cousin in custody. On the other hand, Emmy had taken a nasty hex which would leave her out of action for a few weeks and Marlene was still hiccuping up slugs.
And, in the chaos of overlapping curses, Lily, Alastor, Frank and Remus had all sprouted wings.
“-and I'd thank you all to stop laughing and do something to get rid of these bloody things!” Lily was screeching, blazing red wings beating the air behind her.
“Keep your feathers on, Evans,” Sirius said, smirking at her from where he leant against the wall. “No need to lay an egg over it.”
James grabbed her as she leapt forward, and Peter said hurriedly, “Steady on, Lils. Don't kill him.”
“Give me one good reason why not!”
“It would spoil the carpet,” suggested Peter.
“Len's already puked up slugs all over it,” Frank pointed out, studying his own wings with interest.
“Good point,” James muttered. “Leave me your bike, yeah?”
Sirius judged the distance between them and drawled, “As if you could handle her, Potter. Get that, heh, bird of yours to calm down, will you?”
“I'm warning you, Black-”
“Enough!” Moody growled, bringing his fist down on the table. His black wings were hunched behind his shoulders, ragged-edged. “We've established that the standard reversals don't work. So go home, the lot of you, and you'll be contacted when we have a counterspell.”
“Fantastic,” Lily muttered. James slipped an arm around her waist, patting her hip awkwardly. Sirius shook his head at them, unable to hold back his smile. Daft, the pair of them.
“What about work?” Remus said quietly. Sirius frowned, hearing the suppressed note of panic in his voice.
“I'm expecting you in the office as usual, Lupin.” Moody growled. “You'll be provided with a cover story. Same goes for you, Longbottom. Potter, we can provide you with a story as well, if you need.”
She shrugged quickly, eyes still stormy. “I can work from home.”
“Right. Piss off then, the lot of you.”
“Always a pleasure to work with you, Alastor,” Sirius said lazily and pushed off the wall. He crossed over to brush a kiss over Lily's cheek. “Chin up, Evans. They look good on you.”
“I'm married, Sirius,” she snapped, but gave him a quick smile.
“So paws off, Black,” James said, grinning at him. “See you tomorrow, yeah.”
Sirius turned back to speak to Peter and frowned. Remus had pulled Moody aside and was talking to him quietly, face tight and worried. Sirius, who loathed few non war-related things as intensely as he loathed a worried Moony, slid closer to eavesdrop.
“My Dad's a Muggle,” Remus was saying, tugging at the torn edge of his shirt. His wings were the same dusty owl brown as his hair, arching up behind him to cast soft shadows across his face. “And he keeps a hotel. There's no way I can-”
“Come home with me,” Sirius broke in promptly. “Come on, mate. My home is yours and all that.”
Remus looked alarmed. “Sirius-”
“Good man, Black. Now will you all please piss off. Some of us have to reset the wards in here before we can get home to our beds.”
*
Half an hour later, Sirius retreated reluctantly from the phonebox outside his flat. Oh, how he loved Muggle technology, even when it stank of piss. It was almost a good thing that Remus couldn't leave the flat, if it meant he got a chance to practise his technological skills.
Mr Lupin had been fairly relaxed about the whole thing, considering. Good man, Remus' Dad – always ready to help a bloke with a bit of motorbike tinkering or advice on how things worked in a world without house elves. Had some fabulous ideas, too.
Sirius tried his hardest not to bounce as he let himself back in. All the same, Mr Lupin's idea was so lovely he couldn't quite help himself.
Remus was making up a bed on the sofa, completely hidden behind trailing wings.
“Your Dad,” Sirius announced, grinning, “wants to know whether you can fly?”
“Whether I can...” Remus echoed. “So he took it well?”
“Fly!” Sirius repeated, hopefully.
Remus hunched his shoulders, wings flaring out with a soft rustle. “From my limited knowledge of aerodynamics-”
“Moony!” Sirius exclaimed. “You are going to try, aren't you?”
“Not at three am,” Remus snapped, trying to sit down. His wings scrunched up against the back of the sofa and he winced.
“You're not sleeping there,” Sirius said, deciding to leave the important argument until morning.
Remus blinked at him, startled and sleepy, and Sirius suddenly felt like he was back at school, trying to orchestrate chaos despite the hopeless hindrance of partners in crime who could only cope with life on eight hours sleep a night.
“Honestly, Moony,” he said, tugging on Remus' wrist to get him off the sofa. “What sort of a host do you think I am? You get the bed. I get the sofa.”
“Oh,” Remus said. “Right. Okay. Are your sheets clean?”
“Moony! That's a terribly rude question. Private matter, the state of a man's sheets.”
“But-”
“Can't just go round interrogating people about their bedding.” Remus was still blinking at him, which meant he wasn't arguing, which meant that if Sirius kept blathering, Moony might not realise that he was on the receiving end of a favour, which meant he might not be awkward about it. Sirius took a breath and continued as he steered Remus further into the bedroom, “Symbolic stuff, sheets are, being all white and, er, intimate and, er, drapey. Talk about a man's sheets and you might as well-”
“Sirius,” Remus said wearily. “It's the middle of the night, my head is pounding and my back hurts. Will you please shut the fuck up?”
“Charming,” Sirius said, and pushed at his shoulders enough that he folded up onto the bed in a tangle of feathers and skinny limbs. Sirius grinned down at him. “Want a bedtime story as well?”
Remus shook his head slowly, and smiled, for the first time since they'd left Order Headquarters. “Good night, Sirius.”
Sirius grinned and retreated. By the time he got to the door, Remus had burrowed into the pillows, all but invisible under the blanket of his wings.
*
By the next afternoon, Sirius was beginning to realise that flight was the very least of the complications associated with Remus' wings. There was the problem of getting to work, for a start – Auror Headquarters had hefty Apparition blocks, and the lifts down from the Atrium had not been designed with winged creatures in mind. He'd ended up having to blag a Portkey off some old git in the Dragon bureau.
Then there had been the constant flow of gawkers. It seemed that every inbred, underworked paper pusher in the Ministry had found an excuse to pass through the office today. None of them were stupid enough to bother Moody in his den, and Frank had made his lack of patience loudly and messily clear long before the morning tea break, but Remus, damn his mild-mannered soul, seemed to feel obliged to be polite. Sirius, who had been brought up to consider politeness a precisely honed weapon rather than a general human right, had taken to sitting across the opening to their cubicle, glowering and practising his hexes on the wanted posters pinned to the wall opposite.
Even so, a foolhardy few got past him, though none retreated unscathed. Sirius could see how Remus' shoulders hunched up further with every curse he fired, but he couldn't bring himself to stop. Bloody gawkers were not only making Moony miserable and embarrassed, but every single one of them who got within arm's reach was stroking his wings.
And that, Sirius thought, levelling his wand at Dirk Cresswell, was most definitely not on.
“Sirius!” Remus snapped, as Cresswell's over-pretty face sprouted orange boils and he went waltzing away towards the Improper Use of Magic Office. “Stop that!”
“He was touching you,” Sirius said.
Remus' face suddenly flushed red, and he swung away, muttering, “I'd noticed.”
Sirius stared at him, incredulous. “But you don't want him to!”
Remus' wings lifted, ruffling out in a slow sigh, and he said, primly, “We don't all have half the Wizarding World throwing themselves at our feet. Now, if we could focus on the work we are supposed to be doing-”
“You don't fancy Cresswell,” Sirius said weakly.
Remus shrugged. “It wouldn't hurt to find out. Now, work, Padfoot, remember that?”
“No point,” Sirius said cheerfully. “Nobody's going to waste time actually reading our reports. Might as well take up origami. Do you want me to get Cresswell back here?”
“I rather think that opportunity has passed,” Remus said, and bent over his desk again. Then he hesitated and added, with a wry note in his voice, “And, please, Padfoot, no matchmaking.”
Sirius snorted and went back to firing drawing pins at Antonin Dolohov's wanted poster. All the same, he found himself stealing glances at Remus. It wasn't that he didn't know what the bloke looked like – known him since he was eleven, after all. It was just that the wings made everything, well, different. Remus was still Remus, in the old shabby robes they'd cut wing holes in this morning. His mousy hair still curled up untidily at the ends, although now it brushed against feathers as well as faded robes. His eyes were still the same brown, but the addition of wings somehow made it startlingly obvious that they were the exact same hue as his hair. There was nothing dazzling about him but Sirius was finding it hard to look away. When had Moony stopped being all gawky and bewildered and started being all unobtrusively coordinated?
Were those wings as soft as they looked? Would the feathers spring back under his hand if he stroked up them? What would they feel like in bed, against his bare skin? How did you shag somebody with-
Oh, fuck.
“Is something wrong?” Remus asked, frowning slightly.
“No,” Sirius croaked, desperately chanting to himself, Thou shalt not have sexual fantasies about thy best friends, thou almighty plonker. Thou shalt not.
He didn't fancy Moony. No, not at all. Not his type. He chased after the sort of aesthetically dissolute Muggleborns his mother would have hexed on sight. Not quiet, dependable blokes with sly senses of humour and exceedingly long eyelashes.
Oh, fuck.
It was just temporary insanity, that was all. Wing-induced insanity, not the gibbering in the attic traditional family kind. Just a short term sort of thing, like the effects of a bludger in the head. Yeah.
Unfortunately, as the days went by, it did not fade. Nothing, it seemed, could dampen Sirius' sudden and inconvenient fit of lust – not the faint miasma of wet feathers which now scented his flat, nor the way Remus kept clogging up the kitchen sink with tea leaves nor the ridiculously messy business of preening nor the ludicrous amount of broken china Remus left in his wake every time he swished through the kitchen. Even wanking didn't help, not when he spent every shower he took braced against the wall, imagining how he would slide his mouth over Remus' cock whilst those vast wings beat the air around him.
It had to be the wings. It was some weird side effect of the charm.
However, when he consulted James and Alice they both denied noticing any extra attraction to their newly-winged spouses. Alice seemed puzzled by his careful questioning, but James started honking with laughter every time he walked past their cubicle at work. Remus rolled his eyes and threatened to tell Lily her husband had finally lost his mind. Sirius merely glowered at his back. Wanker.
Unfortunately James wasn't the only one Remus was giving puzzled stares. It wasn't exactly Sirius' fault that he kept staring at those bloody wings. They did take up a lot of space, after all. The only problem was that he couldn't explain why he was staring.
Which was why he tried to persuade Remus to take up flying.
Remus steadfastly refused to consider the idea, adamant that his bone mass was too dense for the wings to support him. Sirius, given an excuse to get close, found himself running his fingertips along the ridge of Remus' wings, murmuring about levitation charms.
The feathers were soft around his fingers, enveloping his hand, but he could feel the sinewy strength underneath. His breath suddenly came fast. Remus turned to look at him, and Sirius was suddenly blazingly aware that he would only have to lean forward a few inches to press his mouth against Remus'.
“Padfoot?” Remus said, eyes wide. “Is something wrong?”
“Uh,” Sirius said, wetting his lips. “No?”
“Okay,” Remus said, and he was blushing, the colour rising up beneath his freckles to flood his cheeks, and Sirius really had to stop staring right now.
“Drink!” he croaked, stumbling backwards.
“Drink?” Remus echoed. “Why?”
From the other side of the room, Sirius could regain some composure. He shrugged. “Why not?”
“There is something inherently flawed in that line of argument.”
“Yeah?” Sirius said, turning to his drinks cabinet. “Identify the flaw.”
Remus snorted and wandered across the room to join him. He lent forward, and Sirius tensed as a wing draped across his back, his wrist jerking as he poured.
“Bloody hell,” Remus said. “You know most people prefer to have more tonic than gin?”
“You chicken?” Sirius asked, trying not to move. His back was suddenly warm, and he wanted to curl backwards into the mass of feathers. “Chicken Wings Lupin.”
“What are you – twelve?” But Remus picked the glass up, his hand brushing against Sirius' wrist. Sirius twitched.
Remus made a thoughtful noise and asked, “We betting on this?”
Oh, now that was interesting. Hadn't played this game since the night with the naked Quidditch challenge back in Seventh Year. “What's your stakes, Mr Moony?”
Remus pressed the glass against his lips, smiling slightly. “Name yours first.”
“You fly,” Sirius said at once, biting back kiss me, please. “I'll do the levitation charms. Yours?”
Another sly smile. “I'll tell you if I win.”
“Not fair,” Sirius muttered.
“Well, you'd better be sure you're the last one standing, then.”
Sirius grabbed the bottle of gin and headed for the kitchen table. It might be sensible to have a few feet of solid oak between him and Remus' wings before he started drinking.
Ninety-two minutes later, Remus' elbow skidded onto the surface of the table and he said, laughing slightly, “Bugger!”
“Flight!” Sirius chanted, downing his drink. “Fly, Moony, fly!”
“Can't fly here,” Remus said, words very precise. “Muggles might see. And there's, y'know, sticking up things.”
Sirius nodded gravely and then said, “Eh?”
Remus frowned, sucking at the rim of his glass. “Chimneys!”
“Right,” Sirius said, feeling the familiar warm fog of drunkenness settle in his belly. “Need space. Air. The bike!”
It took a couple of tries to get the disillusionment working, and a fair bit of swerving and stalling to get airborne, but soon they were roaring towards the North Downs. Sirius found himself humming happily, hyperaware of the way Remus was draped across his back, wings curled round and cheek pressed against Sirius' neck. And really, one had to be logical, even when one was squiffy and as hard as a rock, because Moony liked blokes, right, and he himself was in fact a bloke, so maybe it wouldn't be such an utter disaster if they found some way to like each other.
Although it was probably bad form to proposition one of your best mates at fifty feet.
“You awake?” Sirius asked cautiously.
“Yeah,” Remus murmured, lips brushing the back of his neck, and Sirius gulped.
“Get you weightless then.”
“Is it safe?” Remus asked and then shuddered as the spell rolled over him. “Tickles.”
“Reckon we're miles from anywhere now.”
“Nowhere in the south of England is miles from anywhere.”
“Pedant,” Sirius managed and turned the bike upside down.
Remus howled like a banshee as he plummeted, and Sirius hurriedly swung the bike round and plunged after him. Just as he was beginning to panic, Remus' wings curled out and the wind caught him. Sirius leant dangerously to the side, hair blowing into his eyes, bellowing advice as Remus swooped away.
For the first ten minutes Remus just tumbled through the air, steering himself ineptly. Sirius hovered above, watching gleefully as every tilt of his wings took on a new grace. The moon was half full and its light caught on pale wings and hair, turning Remus ghostly.
At last he swooped back round to hover in front of Sirius, wings spread wide. He was grinning so widely it must have hurt as he said, “You are a complete and utter wanker.”
“Yeah, love you too, mate,” Sirius said, and then choked on his smile as he realised it was absolute truth.
*
For the next few days, Sirius found himself drifting through his daily routine. The less he thought about things, the less panic pressed down on him.
Remus watched him constantly, always frowning. James stopped taking the piss and started inviting himself round every evening. Peter started to bring him extra biscuits whenever he did a canteen run.
When his cousin Andromeda wandered over from her department to see Remus' wings, she took one look at him and laughed for five minutes straight. Then she brushed a kiss across his cheek and told him to bring the lucky bloke over for dinner.
“What was that about?” Remus asked as she retreated, still smirking.
“Nothing,” Sirius yelped.
“Right.” Remus sighed, rolling his shoulders. “Heard anything about a counterspell yet?”
“I thought you liked them.”
His wings lifted, shadowing his face. “It's only eight days to the moon. What if the wings stay?”
Sirius swore. If there was the least chance the wolf could fly, then it meant no running under the moon, which meant all the pain of the cage. Fuck.
“I'll speak to Moody,” he said, shoving to his feet. “He won't hex me on sight.”
“Are you betting on that?” Remus murmured.
*
In the end, the lack of a counterspell didn't matter. Three nights before the moon, Sirius stumbled back in from a mission to find bloody feathers scattered across the floor. His wards were still intact, but that didn't stop him from diving through the dark flat, wand out.
Remus was sitting on the edge of the bed, bare back towards the door. The floor and the bed were awash in brown feathers. At the sound of Sirius' footsteps, he swung round, hand clenched around his wand.
“What happened?” Sirius asked, stumbling towards him as feathers floated up in his wake.
He got a tight, wry smile. “I moulted.”
“So I can see.” He settled on the edge of the bed, not sure what to say. “Are you okay?”
Remus shrugged. “Yeah. Stung a bit, but it's okay now. Time to be boring again.”
“You're not boring,” Sirius snapped.
“Right.” He turned away. “Suppose we don't need to worry about the moon now.”
“I'm sorry,” Sirius said, cupping his hand around Remus' shoulder. The skin under his palm was warm and soft, apart from the faint ridge of a scar, and he couldn't quite resist smoothing his hand along to the base of Remus' neck.
Well, that answered his last doubt. Even without the wings, he still lusted after the bloke. Considering his options, he ran his finger down the line of Remus' spine.
Remus gasped and twisted around to stare at him, brown eyes wide. “Sirius?”
Sirius whipped his hand away. “Sorry.”
“I don't mind,” Remus murmured, the corners of his mouth twisting up. “I thought it was only the wings you fancied.”
“Of course it wasn't-” Sirius started. “Wait. What?”
Remus leant forward, catching Sirius' hand in his own. “Just because you've been completely oblivious to the way I've been flirting with you-”
“What?”
“You have many sterling qualities, but subtlety has never been one of them.”
“You've been flirting with me?”
Remus snorted with laughter. “The night you took me flying – when I didn't name my stakes. Guess what I wanted?”
“What?” Sirius murmured for the last time, leaning forward.
Remus pressed a smiling kiss to his mouth. Sirius, finding his arms suddenly full of amorous Moony, kissed him back enthusiastically. He felt feathers billow up around them as they toppled over onto the bed, kiss-soft against his side even as Remus pressed down onto him, warm and solid and eager. This was better than wings.
Author/Artist:
rosemaryandrue Written for:
buckle_berryRating: R for a wee bit of fantasising and Sirius Black's potty mouth.
Summary and/or Prompt: Wingfic!
Any other random notes, warnings, etc.: Thanks to the lovely
such_heights for reading this through, and to buckle_berry for requesting one of my pet writing indulgences. This was a joy to write :)Overall, Sirius decided, this particular skirmish could be counted as a victory for the Order. They'd saved the kids and there was a minor Bulstrode cousin in custody. On the other hand, Emmy had taken a nasty hex which would leave her out of action for a few weeks and Marlene was still hiccuping up slugs.
And, in the chaos of overlapping curses, Lily, Alastor, Frank and Remus had all sprouted wings.
“-and I'd thank you all to stop laughing and do something to get rid of these bloody things!” Lily was screeching, blazing red wings beating the air behind her.
“Keep your feathers on, Evans,” Sirius said, smirking at her from where he leant against the wall. “No need to lay an egg over it.”
James grabbed her as she leapt forward, and Peter said hurriedly, “Steady on, Lils. Don't kill him.”
“Give me one good reason why not!”
“It would spoil the carpet,” suggested Peter.
“Len's already puked up slugs all over it,” Frank pointed out, studying his own wings with interest.
“Good point,” James muttered. “Leave me your bike, yeah?”
Sirius judged the distance between them and drawled, “As if you could handle her, Potter. Get that, heh, bird of yours to calm down, will you?”
“I'm warning you, Black-”
“Enough!” Moody growled, bringing his fist down on the table. His black wings were hunched behind his shoulders, ragged-edged. “We've established that the standard reversals don't work. So go home, the lot of you, and you'll be contacted when we have a counterspell.”
“Fantastic,” Lily muttered. James slipped an arm around her waist, patting her hip awkwardly. Sirius shook his head at them, unable to hold back his smile. Daft, the pair of them.
“What about work?” Remus said quietly. Sirius frowned, hearing the suppressed note of panic in his voice.
“I'm expecting you in the office as usual, Lupin.” Moody growled. “You'll be provided with a cover story. Same goes for you, Longbottom. Potter, we can provide you with a story as well, if you need.”
She shrugged quickly, eyes still stormy. “I can work from home.”
“Right. Piss off then, the lot of you.”
“Always a pleasure to work with you, Alastor,” Sirius said lazily and pushed off the wall. He crossed over to brush a kiss over Lily's cheek. “Chin up, Evans. They look good on you.”
“I'm married, Sirius,” she snapped, but gave him a quick smile.
“So paws off, Black,” James said, grinning at him. “See you tomorrow, yeah.”
Sirius turned back to speak to Peter and frowned. Remus had pulled Moody aside and was talking to him quietly, face tight and worried. Sirius, who loathed few non war-related things as intensely as he loathed a worried Moony, slid closer to eavesdrop.
“My Dad's a Muggle,” Remus was saying, tugging at the torn edge of his shirt. His wings were the same dusty owl brown as his hair, arching up behind him to cast soft shadows across his face. “And he keeps a hotel. There's no way I can-”
“Come home with me,” Sirius broke in promptly. “Come on, mate. My home is yours and all that.”
Remus looked alarmed. “Sirius-”
“Good man, Black. Now will you all please piss off. Some of us have to reset the wards in here before we can get home to our beds.”
Half an hour later, Sirius retreated reluctantly from the phonebox outside his flat. Oh, how he loved Muggle technology, even when it stank of piss. It was almost a good thing that Remus couldn't leave the flat, if it meant he got a chance to practise his technological skills.
Mr Lupin had been fairly relaxed about the whole thing, considering. Good man, Remus' Dad – always ready to help a bloke with a bit of motorbike tinkering or advice on how things worked in a world without house elves. Had some fabulous ideas, too.
Sirius tried his hardest not to bounce as he let himself back in. All the same, Mr Lupin's idea was so lovely he couldn't quite help himself.
Remus was making up a bed on the sofa, completely hidden behind trailing wings.
“Your Dad,” Sirius announced, grinning, “wants to know whether you can fly?”
“Whether I can...” Remus echoed. “So he took it well?”
“Fly!” Sirius repeated, hopefully.
Remus hunched his shoulders, wings flaring out with a soft rustle. “From my limited knowledge of aerodynamics-”
“Moony!” Sirius exclaimed. “You are going to try, aren't you?”
“Not at three am,” Remus snapped, trying to sit down. His wings scrunched up against the back of the sofa and he winced.
“You're not sleeping there,” Sirius said, deciding to leave the important argument until morning.
Remus blinked at him, startled and sleepy, and Sirius suddenly felt like he was back at school, trying to orchestrate chaos despite the hopeless hindrance of partners in crime who could only cope with life on eight hours sleep a night.
“Honestly, Moony,” he said, tugging on Remus' wrist to get him off the sofa. “What sort of a host do you think I am? You get the bed. I get the sofa.”
“Oh,” Remus said. “Right. Okay. Are your sheets clean?”
“Moony! That's a terribly rude question. Private matter, the state of a man's sheets.”
“But-”
“Can't just go round interrogating people about their bedding.” Remus was still blinking at him, which meant he wasn't arguing, which meant that if Sirius kept blathering, Moony might not realise that he was on the receiving end of a favour, which meant he might not be awkward about it. Sirius took a breath and continued as he steered Remus further into the bedroom, “Symbolic stuff, sheets are, being all white and, er, intimate and, er, drapey. Talk about a man's sheets and you might as well-”
“Sirius,” Remus said wearily. “It's the middle of the night, my head is pounding and my back hurts. Will you please shut the fuck up?”
“Charming,” Sirius said, and pushed at his shoulders enough that he folded up onto the bed in a tangle of feathers and skinny limbs. Sirius grinned down at him. “Want a bedtime story as well?”
Remus shook his head slowly, and smiled, for the first time since they'd left Order Headquarters. “Good night, Sirius.”
Sirius grinned and retreated. By the time he got to the door, Remus had burrowed into the pillows, all but invisible under the blanket of his wings.
By the next afternoon, Sirius was beginning to realise that flight was the very least of the complications associated with Remus' wings. There was the problem of getting to work, for a start – Auror Headquarters had hefty Apparition blocks, and the lifts down from the Atrium had not been designed with winged creatures in mind. He'd ended up having to blag a Portkey off some old git in the Dragon bureau.
Then there had been the constant flow of gawkers. It seemed that every inbred, underworked paper pusher in the Ministry had found an excuse to pass through the office today. None of them were stupid enough to bother Moody in his den, and Frank had made his lack of patience loudly and messily clear long before the morning tea break, but Remus, damn his mild-mannered soul, seemed to feel obliged to be polite. Sirius, who had been brought up to consider politeness a precisely honed weapon rather than a general human right, had taken to sitting across the opening to their cubicle, glowering and practising his hexes on the wanted posters pinned to the wall opposite.
Even so, a foolhardy few got past him, though none retreated unscathed. Sirius could see how Remus' shoulders hunched up further with every curse he fired, but he couldn't bring himself to stop. Bloody gawkers were not only making Moony miserable and embarrassed, but every single one of them who got within arm's reach was stroking his wings.
And that, Sirius thought, levelling his wand at Dirk Cresswell, was most definitely not on.
“Sirius!” Remus snapped, as Cresswell's over-pretty face sprouted orange boils and he went waltzing away towards the Improper Use of Magic Office. “Stop that!”
“He was touching you,” Sirius said.
Remus' face suddenly flushed red, and he swung away, muttering, “I'd noticed.”
Sirius stared at him, incredulous. “But you don't want him to!”
Remus' wings lifted, ruffling out in a slow sigh, and he said, primly, “We don't all have half the Wizarding World throwing themselves at our feet. Now, if we could focus on the work we are supposed to be doing-”
“You don't fancy Cresswell,” Sirius said weakly.
Remus shrugged. “It wouldn't hurt to find out. Now, work, Padfoot, remember that?”
“No point,” Sirius said cheerfully. “Nobody's going to waste time actually reading our reports. Might as well take up origami. Do you want me to get Cresswell back here?”
“I rather think that opportunity has passed,” Remus said, and bent over his desk again. Then he hesitated and added, with a wry note in his voice, “And, please, Padfoot, no matchmaking.”
Sirius snorted and went back to firing drawing pins at Antonin Dolohov's wanted poster. All the same, he found himself stealing glances at Remus. It wasn't that he didn't know what the bloke looked like – known him since he was eleven, after all. It was just that the wings made everything, well, different. Remus was still Remus, in the old shabby robes they'd cut wing holes in this morning. His mousy hair still curled up untidily at the ends, although now it brushed against feathers as well as faded robes. His eyes were still the same brown, but the addition of wings somehow made it startlingly obvious that they were the exact same hue as his hair. There was nothing dazzling about him but Sirius was finding it hard to look away. When had Moony stopped being all gawky and bewildered and started being all unobtrusively coordinated?
Were those wings as soft as they looked? Would the feathers spring back under his hand if he stroked up them? What would they feel like in bed, against his bare skin? How did you shag somebody with-
Oh, fuck.
“Is something wrong?” Remus asked, frowning slightly.
“No,” Sirius croaked, desperately chanting to himself, Thou shalt not have sexual fantasies about thy best friends, thou almighty plonker. Thou shalt not.
He didn't fancy Moony. No, not at all. Not his type. He chased after the sort of aesthetically dissolute Muggleborns his mother would have hexed on sight. Not quiet, dependable blokes with sly senses of humour and exceedingly long eyelashes.
Oh, fuck.
It was just temporary insanity, that was all. Wing-induced insanity, not the gibbering in the attic traditional family kind. Just a short term sort of thing, like the effects of a bludger in the head. Yeah.
Unfortunately, as the days went by, it did not fade. Nothing, it seemed, could dampen Sirius' sudden and inconvenient fit of lust – not the faint miasma of wet feathers which now scented his flat, nor the way Remus kept clogging up the kitchen sink with tea leaves nor the ridiculously messy business of preening nor the ludicrous amount of broken china Remus left in his wake every time he swished through the kitchen. Even wanking didn't help, not when he spent every shower he took braced against the wall, imagining how he would slide his mouth over Remus' cock whilst those vast wings beat the air around him.
It had to be the wings. It was some weird side effect of the charm.
However, when he consulted James and Alice they both denied noticing any extra attraction to their newly-winged spouses. Alice seemed puzzled by his careful questioning, but James started honking with laughter every time he walked past their cubicle at work. Remus rolled his eyes and threatened to tell Lily her husband had finally lost his mind. Sirius merely glowered at his back. Wanker.
Unfortunately James wasn't the only one Remus was giving puzzled stares. It wasn't exactly Sirius' fault that he kept staring at those bloody wings. They did take up a lot of space, after all. The only problem was that he couldn't explain why he was staring.
Which was why he tried to persuade Remus to take up flying.
Remus steadfastly refused to consider the idea, adamant that his bone mass was too dense for the wings to support him. Sirius, given an excuse to get close, found himself running his fingertips along the ridge of Remus' wings, murmuring about levitation charms.
The feathers were soft around his fingers, enveloping his hand, but he could feel the sinewy strength underneath. His breath suddenly came fast. Remus turned to look at him, and Sirius was suddenly blazingly aware that he would only have to lean forward a few inches to press his mouth against Remus'.
“Padfoot?” Remus said, eyes wide. “Is something wrong?”
“Uh,” Sirius said, wetting his lips. “No?”
“Okay,” Remus said, and he was blushing, the colour rising up beneath his freckles to flood his cheeks, and Sirius really had to stop staring right now.
“Drink!” he croaked, stumbling backwards.
“Drink?” Remus echoed. “Why?”
From the other side of the room, Sirius could regain some composure. He shrugged. “Why not?”
“There is something inherently flawed in that line of argument.”
“Yeah?” Sirius said, turning to his drinks cabinet. “Identify the flaw.”
Remus snorted and wandered across the room to join him. He lent forward, and Sirius tensed as a wing draped across his back, his wrist jerking as he poured.
“Bloody hell,” Remus said. “You know most people prefer to have more tonic than gin?”
“You chicken?” Sirius asked, trying not to move. His back was suddenly warm, and he wanted to curl backwards into the mass of feathers. “Chicken Wings Lupin.”
“What are you – twelve?” But Remus picked the glass up, his hand brushing against Sirius' wrist. Sirius twitched.
Remus made a thoughtful noise and asked, “We betting on this?”
Oh, now that was interesting. Hadn't played this game since the night with the naked Quidditch challenge back in Seventh Year. “What's your stakes, Mr Moony?”
Remus pressed the glass against his lips, smiling slightly. “Name yours first.”
“You fly,” Sirius said at once, biting back kiss me, please. “I'll do the levitation charms. Yours?”
Another sly smile. “I'll tell you if I win.”
“Not fair,” Sirius muttered.
“Well, you'd better be sure you're the last one standing, then.”
Sirius grabbed the bottle of gin and headed for the kitchen table. It might be sensible to have a few feet of solid oak between him and Remus' wings before he started drinking.
Ninety-two minutes later, Remus' elbow skidded onto the surface of the table and he said, laughing slightly, “Bugger!”
“Flight!” Sirius chanted, downing his drink. “Fly, Moony, fly!”
“Can't fly here,” Remus said, words very precise. “Muggles might see. And there's, y'know, sticking up things.”
Sirius nodded gravely and then said, “Eh?”
Remus frowned, sucking at the rim of his glass. “Chimneys!”
“Right,” Sirius said, feeling the familiar warm fog of drunkenness settle in his belly. “Need space. Air. The bike!”
It took a couple of tries to get the disillusionment working, and a fair bit of swerving and stalling to get airborne, but soon they were roaring towards the North Downs. Sirius found himself humming happily, hyperaware of the way Remus was draped across his back, wings curled round and cheek pressed against Sirius' neck. And really, one had to be logical, even when one was squiffy and as hard as a rock, because Moony liked blokes, right, and he himself was in fact a bloke, so maybe it wouldn't be such an utter disaster if they found some way to like each other.
Although it was probably bad form to proposition one of your best mates at fifty feet.
“You awake?” Sirius asked cautiously.
“Yeah,” Remus murmured, lips brushing the back of his neck, and Sirius gulped.
“Get you weightless then.”
“Is it safe?” Remus asked and then shuddered as the spell rolled over him. “Tickles.”
“Reckon we're miles from anywhere now.”
“Nowhere in the south of England is miles from anywhere.”
“Pedant,” Sirius managed and turned the bike upside down.
Remus howled like a banshee as he plummeted, and Sirius hurriedly swung the bike round and plunged after him. Just as he was beginning to panic, Remus' wings curled out and the wind caught him. Sirius leant dangerously to the side, hair blowing into his eyes, bellowing advice as Remus swooped away.
For the first ten minutes Remus just tumbled through the air, steering himself ineptly. Sirius hovered above, watching gleefully as every tilt of his wings took on a new grace. The moon was half full and its light caught on pale wings and hair, turning Remus ghostly.
At last he swooped back round to hover in front of Sirius, wings spread wide. He was grinning so widely it must have hurt as he said, “You are a complete and utter wanker.”
“Yeah, love you too, mate,” Sirius said, and then choked on his smile as he realised it was absolute truth.
For the next few days, Sirius found himself drifting through his daily routine. The less he thought about things, the less panic pressed down on him.
Remus watched him constantly, always frowning. James stopped taking the piss and started inviting himself round every evening. Peter started to bring him extra biscuits whenever he did a canteen run.
When his cousin Andromeda wandered over from her department to see Remus' wings, she took one look at him and laughed for five minutes straight. Then she brushed a kiss across his cheek and told him to bring the lucky bloke over for dinner.
“What was that about?” Remus asked as she retreated, still smirking.
“Nothing,” Sirius yelped.
“Right.” Remus sighed, rolling his shoulders. “Heard anything about a counterspell yet?”
“I thought you liked them.”
His wings lifted, shadowing his face. “It's only eight days to the moon. What if the wings stay?”
Sirius swore. If there was the least chance the wolf could fly, then it meant no running under the moon, which meant all the pain of the cage. Fuck.
“I'll speak to Moody,” he said, shoving to his feet. “He won't hex me on sight.”
“Are you betting on that?” Remus murmured.
In the end, the lack of a counterspell didn't matter. Three nights before the moon, Sirius stumbled back in from a mission to find bloody feathers scattered across the floor. His wards were still intact, but that didn't stop him from diving through the dark flat, wand out.
Remus was sitting on the edge of the bed, bare back towards the door. The floor and the bed were awash in brown feathers. At the sound of Sirius' footsteps, he swung round, hand clenched around his wand.
“What happened?” Sirius asked, stumbling towards him as feathers floated up in his wake.
He got a tight, wry smile. “I moulted.”
“So I can see.” He settled on the edge of the bed, not sure what to say. “Are you okay?”
Remus shrugged. “Yeah. Stung a bit, but it's okay now. Time to be boring again.”
“You're not boring,” Sirius snapped.
“Right.” He turned away. “Suppose we don't need to worry about the moon now.”
“I'm sorry,” Sirius said, cupping his hand around Remus' shoulder. The skin under his palm was warm and soft, apart from the faint ridge of a scar, and he couldn't quite resist smoothing his hand along to the base of Remus' neck.
Well, that answered his last doubt. Even without the wings, he still lusted after the bloke. Considering his options, he ran his finger down the line of Remus' spine.
Remus gasped and twisted around to stare at him, brown eyes wide. “Sirius?”
Sirius whipped his hand away. “Sorry.”
“I don't mind,” Remus murmured, the corners of his mouth twisting up. “I thought it was only the wings you fancied.”
“Of course it wasn't-” Sirius started. “Wait. What?”
Remus leant forward, catching Sirius' hand in his own. “Just because you've been completely oblivious to the way I've been flirting with you-”
“What?”
“You have many sterling qualities, but subtlety has never been one of them.”
“You've been flirting with me?”
Remus snorted with laughter. “The night you took me flying – when I didn't name my stakes. Guess what I wanted?”
“What?” Sirius murmured for the last time, leaning forward.
Remus pressed a smiling kiss to his mouth. Sirius, finding his arms suddenly full of amorous Moony, kissed him back enthusiastically. He felt feathers billow up around them as they toppled over onto the bed, kiss-soft against his side even as Remus pressed down onto him, warm and solid and eager. This was better than wings.
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Date: 2006-12-23 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-31 08:04 pm (UTC):)
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Date: 2006-12-23 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-23 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-23 06:53 pm (UTC)This is great ^^
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Date: 2006-12-24 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-24 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-24 04:15 am (UTC)i love the flying so, so much. and Remus burrowing into the pillows under his wings. i wanted a winged Remus of my own, I think. mmm.
and Peter bringing Sirius extra biscuits. so sweet.
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Date: 2006-12-24 05:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-24 07:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-24 07:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-24 12:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-24 01:11 pm (UTC)This was very sweet, poor Sirius, so completely clueless! Really enjoyed it, thank you for sharing.
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Date: 2006-12-24 01:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-24 08:44 pm (UTC)Much enjoyed!
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Date: 2006-12-25 08:52 am (UTC)Thanks for this fun story.
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Date: 2006-12-26 09:49 pm (UTC)For some reason I loved that description. This was lovely!
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Date: 2006-12-27 03:51 am (UTC)Were those wings as soft as they looked? Would the feathers spring back under his hand if he stroked up them? What would they feel like in bed, against his bare skin? How did you shag somebody with-
Oh, fuck.
Heee! This was a fun read -- loved the idea of Remus with wings! I snickered when Sirius started having sexual thoughts about them. Lovely little fic.
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Date: 2006-12-28 04:33 pm (UTC)wingfic is one of my guilty pleasures, and this story is the perfect indulgence for me. i love the way the wings act as a catalyst for a change in their relationship, making remus a bit bolder and opening sirius's eyes.
the characterisation is spot on, which i could tell it was going to be from “Keep your feathers on, Evans,” Sirius said, smirking at her from where he leant against the wall. “No need to lay an egg over it.” sirius, you clown! it is hard to pick out my favourite lines, but this:
Even wanking didn't help, not when he spent every shower he took braced against the wall, imagining how he would slide his mouth over Remus' cock whilst those vast wings beat the air around him.
was delicious, and this:
“Are you okay?”
Remus shrugged. “Yeah. Stung a bit, but it's okay now. Time to be boring again.”
“You're not boring,” Sirius snapped.
“Right.” He turned away.
made me sigh in that beautiful, bittersweet way.
basically i just really loved it, nd i'm trying hard not to gush, but i know i will read it over and over again. thank you, thank you, thank you!
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Date: 2007-01-03 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-03 06:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-04 01:07 am (UTC)This is adorable. I love the idea of Remus with wings. Wings!
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Date: 2007-01-06 01:13 pm (UTC)AND WITH THAT YOU HAVE WON MY HEART.
No, really, I was enjoying the bickering, the wings, your worried!Sirius who gets cuter every single time, though he might not appreciate the adjective, and then he bounces in asking that? Seriously, how in hell can you expect me not to start laughing like that? Thumping the mattress, even? EH? Not to mention the eciding to leave the important argument until morning bit. You are a very, VERY cruel woman, I just want you to know that. Or the bit about Moony being on the receiving end of a favour, that made me smile and bit my lip (literally), just like Sirius being actually very very jealous, or - when I started phrasing the rest of the sentence in mind (because, yes, sometimes it does happen, and I've got to tell you it doesn't help any with the "making sense" department), I realized I was actually making a summary of the story, so I guess I'll just jump at the image of James pissing himself with laughter passing by the puppies' cubicle. Just. That. Oh.
(Or drunk!Sirius nodding and then realizing he hadn't understood. Or that he had misunderstood. One of the two.)
(Okay, more likely the second.)
...
Well, I guess I made clear enough what I thought of your story, don't you think? :P