An Indirect Method of Acquiring Confidences: Or, Potter Sucks!

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

Title: An Indirect Method of Acquiring Confidences; Or, Potter Sucks!
Author: Elucreh
Rating: R
Pairing: Remus/James...technically
Summary: James is a bit of a prat. But he likes to help his friends. Sometimes the ways he helps them are...unorthodox.
Notes: Inspired by madsciencechick and her wonderful Advent; a kind of unauthorised prequel, though it stands in its own right. (Think of it as a remix, without the being-part-of-the-Remix part.) Thanks to corvidae9 and adalanne for the beta and advisory.



The thing about Moony, James reflected, absently letting the Golden Snitch out of his fist and snagging it by the corner of one silver wing, was that even when you thought you were quite sure of what he was thinking, you could never tell whether he really knew it himself. This made out-and-out accusations, blatant innuendo, and the last-resort-but-usually-effective "shoving him into the person he fancied and watching him blush" routine increasingly maddening forms of test. While Moony wasn't reacting in the slightest, on the one hand, on the other he had the poker face of someone who'd spent more than a decade pretending not to need to be locked up.

Of course, he added, as he let the ball go again and then twisted his head for a moment to give it a lead, Sirius had no poker face at all, and he had been persuading people that he didn't need to be locked up his entire life. But perhaps that was the difference between them--the pretending to be normal as opposed to the pretending that your insanity was, in fact, full of charm and--whooops, there it was, the little bugger--meant that all was secretly right with the world.

Very secretly, he put in, and half-ducked before remembering that Sirius couldn't actually hear this conversation.

"--ight, James?"

"Eh?"

"I asked if you were all right," Peter said, patiently. "Because if you have a nervous tic or anything you ought to go and see Madam Pomfrey, and if I've got to take you then it has to be now, because I've got a date with Kimberly in half an hour, and she's just got a new something-or-other she wants to show me."

"Something or other?" James asked, distracted, letting the Snitch slip free again.

"Something they want her to wear in next year's calendar. I dunno, she's all nervous about it, and apparently they've got another one for her to wear on shoot and we're allowed to test this one." He smirked for a moment, shooting James a sidelong look.

"God bless you, my son," James announced, his eyes glazing over slightly at the thought of Kimberly testing any sort of lingerie. "Go forth, and refrain only from being fruitful and multiplying. If you ruin that body the world will never forgive you."

"True." Peter grinned and punched him in the shoulder. "But do you need Pomfrey? Cause it's twenty minutes now."

"No, no--I was just ducking."

"Ducking?"

"The Sirius in my head."

"Ah. I'll tell him, shall I?"

"What? NO! No, no...he'll find out soon enough, if I'm right. If I'm wrong, then I certainly don't need him on top of everything else."

"Right." Peter stared at him for a long moment. "Anything...else...you need help with?"

"No, no, not just at this stage. Perhaps later."

"Right. I'll just go and...and use some Stringmints, shall I?"

"Go on, go on, my son..." James reached absently for the Snitch. "Damn!"

"What?"

"You distracted me. It's all the way up in the corner."

"...Sorry?"

"Quite all right. Go away, Wormtail, I'm thinking."

The thing of it was, James resumed, climbing on Sirius's desk chair and reaching for the little ball, which was now hovering just out of reach, the thing was that he didn't dare say anything to either of them. He'd done his best with Remus and words, but he'd got nowhere. And it wouldn't help anybody if he told the party of the second part until he was quite, quite sure about Remus.

It would be worse, he reflected, than the time in fourth year that Evans had told Remus that he had beautiful eyes and she would quite like it if he were to go on a walk with her sometime. She had implied things about broom cupboards, even. By the time Moony'd managed to stammer something resembling an apology, with "misunderstood" and "friends" and "really, very honoured" coming out all jumbled, she'd looked quite upset.

Birds were funny that way, James reminded himself as the Snitch took a sudden dive and shot across the room. He pushed himself off from the wall and landed with a resounding "twang" on Sirius's bed. The Snitch came to hover over his head as he began to disentangle his limbs enough to sit up. Tell them that a bloke wasn't really interested in them, and quite often they were hurt by it. You didn't see him all wobbly-lipped and tears welling and all that sort of stuff when Evans compared him to bubotuber root rot, now did you?

Predictably, as soon as he was clear of his own legs, the Snitch disappeared again. Not that there was anything wrong with Evans going wobbly-lipped, he corrected himself hastily, flopping back onto the pillows. Course he'd rather she was wobbling with passion or pleasure or even annoyance, but hurt would do in a pinch. It was such a nibbly little treat...James felt a stirring in his lower regions and hastily sat up to look for the Snitch.

It would be stupid, though, to let Moony just go on being unrequited and miserable when he could be getting snogged regularly, James told himself, heading for the fluttering glint just over Remus's desk. There wasn't any way that his feelings wouldn't be returned. The only trouble was making him realise that he was in love, and that he had a perfectly good chance. Once that had been done, it would be simple.

He stretched out his hand, and the Snitch dodged away, dancing in small circles, swerving just enough to avoid capture. The trouble was that Moony wasn't talkative enough, James decided. If he were any sort of a noisy bloke, he would have let a name slip when wanking and James wouldn't be put to all this trouble. But Moony was always so blasted private about things like that. He always waited until he was decently in bed, behind closed curtains, on his own. If he were any normal bloke he'd use the loo or the showers occasionally, and another bloke might be there, and know just where Moony's mind was when he was preoccupied.

His hand closed around the Snitch. Hah. The small wings beat furiously against his palm as he stood for a moment, lower lip caught between his teeth in concentration.

***************************

"My friends!" Sirius declared, waving his arms about and sloshing Peter with Firewhiskey. "And you are my friends...my brothers...sealed together in the bonds of friendship and pranking and Firewhiskey, which is much, much thicker than blood."

"True," Remus agreed solemnly. "Harder to swallow." He was currently leaning only twenty degrees to the right, which meant that James had to be careful not to let him have much more, or he would revert to only a very occasional shouting of shellfish.

Peter, slightly owl-eyed but content and still coherent, frowned a little. "But doesn't it have to be flowing through our veins to count?" he demanded.

"Firewhiskey is definitely flowing through our veins, Wormtail," James pointed out. "If it weren't, do you think that you would be quite so blurry?"

"Well. That's a point," he admitted, and took another swallow of the Firewhiskey. He reached for the bottle, tugging it out of Sirius's hand, but, as he pulled on it, he managed to upend it on himself. Fortunately there were only two or three shots left anyway, but it meant that there wasn't any left to go in his mouth, because it was all in his hair.

"I think," James said, craftily, "that we should go home. I think that Peter spilling all the whiskey was a sign from the gods."

"What!?" Sirius looked at him in blank astonishment. "But you're still coherent and everything. What can you be thinking?"

"It is the middle of the week, Padfoot," James said, rather pompously. "Class tomorrow, and all. And I still haven't finished my essay for Defense."

"Ridiculous! I for one am not stirring a step out of this pub until I can no longer pronounce 'stirring step'."

"Well and good for you, Sirius, but Moony's going to pass out again. What say, Peter—will you watch over our canine friend if I take old Prefecture back to the castle?"

"Sure, sure," Peter said. "But only if he's buying. Because I require more whiskey if I'm going to haul his arse back up to the castle later."

"My family's money," Sirius announced, solemnly, "is your money, dearest Wormtail."

"Settled, then," James said, and tossed a few coins onto the table to help with the tab. "Now, come on, Moony old thing."

Remus wavered to his feet. "Home, then?"

"Home," James agreed, and followed him out.

--------

The chill in the air and the exercise had taken a bit of the edge off, for Remus, and he was communicating in entire sentences by the time they got back into their dorm and were shedding clothes for bed.

"Moony," James began, cautiously, untying his boots.

"Hm?"

"Got a question."

"Hm?" Remus collapsed onto his bed backwards, staring up at the canopy.

"How far have you gone?"

"Well, there was Norway, once, with my parents, when I was eight--" Remus told his curtains, with the air of one making small talk with a stranger.

"Moony. That is not what I meant. I meant, with a girl, like."

"Oh, well. Kissing, and all that."

James looked up from untying his tie. He hadn't known that...and it was unlike Remus to be so...nonchalant about it. "With who?"

"Oh, you know. Concordia, and them. You let Sirius set you up with Slytherins, you're bound to be sexually assaulted sooner or later." Remus had a grave look on his face, as though he was imparting Important Secret Information.

"No good, then? Sirius always swears they do wicked things with their tongues, but you don't sound like you enjoyed it much."

"They seemed to think they were doing wicked things with their tongues," Remus allowed. "But personally I didn't find being slammed up against a wall and slathered with human saliva all that appealing. Sirius seemed to be enjoying himself, so perhaps it's just me."

"I'm told the right person sometimes helps," James offered, carefully. "I mean, is there any one you do like that way? One of Evans's dormmates, or a Ravenclaw? She's friendly with most of them...she could put in a good word, like."

"No. No girl." Remus had given up on confiding in the drapery, and was now talking to his navel as one finger traced random loops on the duvet. "Silly giggling things, most of them, though I'll give you Lily."

"No girl at all? No urges?"

"Oh, there are urges," Remus muttered to his stomach, or possibly a little lower. "Plenty of urges to go round."

James drew his pyjama bottoms up over his hips and knotted the string as he oh-so-innocently asked his next question. "Well, if there are urges, but no girls, what's inspiring them?"

"Shit." Remus's eyes opened wide and he slammed his head back against bed, the tracing hand suddenly balled in the quilt.

"Moony..." James went over to sit beside him, and the mattress sank a little under their combined weight. "Moony, mate, it's me. You can tell me anything. You know you can trust me, don't you? With any kind of secret?"

Remus lay still for several moments more. James watched his lips move...best guess he was scolding himself in between trying to figure out how to get out of confessing anything. In the end, he apparently decided he was fucked anyway, so he might as well spill all. He bit his lip.

"It's boys, James. I think—I think I may be gay."

"You think?" Careful now, Jamie, don't scare the lad off it...

"Yes, I think. It's not as though I were a book, James, I can't go to the card catalogue and write in 'homosexual' and wait to see if I come up and whether I've been checked out recently or I'm on the shelf. Nobody's put a label on my back that I can read when the question comes up!"

"Well, all right, no, but have you--done--anything? I mean, surely it would help if you kissed a boy? Or got off with him?"

Remus laughed bitterly. "Sure; because there are thousands of boys out there who just can't wait to suck me off just so I know whether I like it or not."

"Maybe not thousands," James agreed. "But there's us, isn't there? We'd know you didn't mean it."

"Sure, tomorrow I'll just waltz up to Pete and say, 'Hey, there, Wormtail, how about a blowjob? And would you mind not telling anyone?' That'll go over well."

"Well, no, but I had me more in mind."

Remus sat up.

"Ex--what? You?"

"Well, I mean, if you don't find it appealing, but if you'd like to test it out, like, you'd know you were safe enough with me. And I don't mind."

"But...Lily?"

"What about her? This is about you, mate, about settling things in your head. Nothing to do with romance, nothing to do with Lily, nothing to do with a relationship." At least between you and me, he added in his head.

"Well."

"Well?"

"Well—all right then." But Remus only sat and stared at him.

"Oh, for..." James reached out to take his friend by the chin, and pulled Moony's face towards his own. He could feel short, shaky breaths panting against his fingertips, and deep in his own head he marvelled at how this could be affecting his friend so much. Even the first time he'd kissed Evans, he'd managed to control his physical reaction to the fear, even if inside his head had been a mess of ohgodohgodohgod and shesgoingtostopshesgoingtolaugh and notachanceinhellPotter. And that had been Evans. Not a simple kiss between friends...the first kiss, the kiss that could change and shape his life.

Well, perhaps it was that for Remus now, if in a different way.

Slowly, James bent his head and pressed his lips to Remus's, rubbing the cool, dry flesh with his own rather chapped mouth until it warmed. He opened his mouth a little, teasing as—bit by bit—Moony relaxed, leaned up and in, began to imitate the soft, sure motion. James let him get into the rhythm a bit before he flicked his tongue out from between his teeth, startling Remus just enough to gain entrance to the inner edges of his lips. Still teasing, still teaching, he coaxed Remus into opening his mouth properly, into letting his own tongue move against James's.

That was it, there; Remus seemed to be enjoying himself, his hand moving up to tangle in James's hair, his body arching towards his friend. James let his hand slip from Moony's chin and stroke down his neck, caressing his chest and hovering for a few moments around his navel before brushing his knuckles up against a bulge. Oh, yes, Moony was enjoying himself.

James began to separate his mouth from Remus's with small, sucking movements, tonguing his way down across chin and neck, following the path of his hand. Remus's hand clutched in his hair while the other clung to the bedclothes. James chanced a look at him while he reached up to undo Moony's buttons...his head was thrown back and his eyes were closed. Perfect. Probably well into fantasy mode already.

As the buttons slipped from their places, James let his mouth go down, down, further down, leaving wet, shiny trails on the golden-brown skin. Remus was moaning now, shifting restlessly under the relentless, determined assault on his senses. James paused for a moment at his waistband, running his tongue under the flannel, and Remus's groans found words. "S-s-stop teasing me, s--" before his knuckles tightened in the quilt and he closed his mouth firmly, swallowing his own reactions.

James wasn't having that, and he brought a rough finger to the crease between Moony's thigh and hip before his friend could regain his self-control, rubbing fiercely. Remus moaned and arched his back, and James pulled the elastic of his pyjamas over his cock and down his thighs before Moony could stop and think, lifting the heavy flesh into his mouth with his tongue.

Moony made a strangled sound and James grinned to himself, working his mouth over his friend's cock as he tried to work out what Evans liked to do to him. He had a vague notion she moved her tongue a lot, and he imitated her. Remus was nearly grunting now, his moans of pleasure hiccuped into silence by his heavy breathing, and James went for Evans's secret weapon, a firm hand just behind his balls.

Moony bucked his hips, his cock thrusting up into James's mouth as he came, and James nearly missed a strangled name escaping Remus' lips as he tried not to choke on the sudden flood.

Nearly.

Both of them sat panting for a moment, James trying to swallow or wipe off Remus's come where it had splattered, Remus's muscles twitching as he came down. Finally, James looked up and met his friend's terrified gaze. "Sirius, eh? I knew it."

Remus had gone pale where he wasn't flushed, leaving him with a blotched, unhealthy complexion. "Oh, God—James, you can't tell him. You have to swear--"

"Moony—he—"

"No—no—James, you can't--if he found out I'd--"

"Hey—hey—" James was startled by how very wide his friend's eyes were. He hadn't seen him this terrified since the night they'd confronted him about the wolf. "Calm down, Moony. Calm down. If it really means that much to you--"

"James, please--"

"Well, then, I won't. Say anything. But that's two you owe me now, you know," he added wryly, looking at his come-stained pyjamas.

Remus flushed again. "Well, I could—return it. At least the first one." He reached a shaky hand toward his friend.

"No, mate," James shook his head and stood up. "Joking, I was. I told you—not about me. You've found out what you needed to know, haven't you? What this was about. No need to go touching someone you're not into and making you feel worse." He was, actually, feeling a little guilty at having tricked his friend into revealing something so extremely personal. He hadn't expected Moony to be so—vulnerable, in this secret. "Not even as if I'm hard. Don't worry about it. But really—you ought to tell him. I'm telling you he'd--"

"No." Remus's mouth was set in mulish lines that James recognised all too well.

"Well, that you owe me for, then. If he found out I knew and didn't tell him, I'll never hear the end of it."

"Yeah." It came out a little hoarse, as Remus nodded slowly. "I can see that."

"All right, then." James pushed against the bed and stood up. "I'm for a shower, mate. Tuck yourself in and leave me a nightlight. The others won't be back for hours, yet—especially as we're talking Wormtail on Padfoot's tab."

Remus's wry smile was a little slow coming. "Think Rosmerta'll ever tell Sirius his family isn't paying that off anymore?"

"Not a chance. All the world fancies him, you know—middle-aged witches and bookish werewolves."

Remus rolled his eyes and threw a pillow. "Shut up."

Comments

[aquila-star.livejournal.com]

Wow, this was great. Way to go James...figuring it out and working it out of Remus with a lovely blow job. Nice.

It's a great little prequel to Advent, which I love! :D

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!

[secretsolitaire.livejournal.com]

This is charming. I tend to see James as hopelessly straight, but this characterization worked for me. And I love the way you show Remus's vulnerability.

[secretsolitaire.livejournal.com]

Oh -- here via kaalee's little list thing, btw. :-)

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

Lol...I did wonder.

[elucreh.livejournal.com]

Anybody as clueless with Lily as he was must have been straight, I always think. *G*