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As the credits rolled up on the movie that Sirius and Remus had been watching, Sirius disentangled himself from Remus’s limbs and climbed up from the sofa.
“Where are you going?” Remus asked sleepily, reaching out for Sirius. “Come back. You were keeping me warm.”
“I know, babe.” Sirius grinned and he reached over to peck Remus on the corner of the mouth. “I’m just nipping over to James’s house. I won’t be long.”
Remus furrowed his brow. “Why? We saw James just a few hours ago.”
“Yes, I know. He was acting really weird, don’t you think? He didn’t want to stay for movie night. He never wants to miss movie night.”
“Well, Peter didn’t come over either, so maybe he didn’t want to be a third wheel.”
Sirius scoffed. “Since when has James ever cared about that? He sits next to us on the couch when we’re making out regularly.”
“True.” Remus pressed a button on the TV remote, switching it onto a normal channel. “But that doesn’t mean you need to go around and invade his space. He might be doing something private.”
Sirius grabbed his leather jacket from the back of the couch and shrugged it onto his shoulders. “Oh yeah, he’s doing something private, alright. I’m going to find out what it is.”
“I don’t think you understand the meaning of the word ‘private’, babe.”
“Look.” Sirius zipped up his jacket and turned to face Remus, who had splayed himself out across the sofa now that Sirius had vacated it. “He keeps having some secret woman over.” Sirius paused and chewed his lip thoughtfully. “Or a man. I don’t know, it’s besides the point. What does matter is that he’s having some secret fling that I want to know about. He’s been sneaking around and dropping out of our plans at the last minute for weeks.” Sirius scoffed again. “He thinks he’s such a lady killer. I bet he’s having a different bird or bloke around every week.”
“Sirius, leave the man alone,” snorted Remus. “He’s allowed to have secrets!”
“Not from me, he’s not!” Sirius walked over to the front door and reached for a set of keys that were hanging on the wall.
“Sirius, no,” Remus muttered. He was eyeballing Sirius dangerously over the back of the couch.
“What?” Sirius replied innocently.
“James gave you a spare set of keys to his flat for emergencies.”
“Well, this is an emergency.”
“Following up on your mad hunch that James is having a secret shag is not an emergency, it’s you being a nosy cow.”
“He might be in danger!”
“From what?” Remus replied.
“I don’t know…sexually transmitted diseases. Or…pregnancy? It’s dangerous out there, okay!”
Remus flapped his hand at Sirius, apparently fed up with the entire discussion. “Okay, okay. I’m not going to change your mind, am I?”
“No.”
“Well, just hurry up and come home then. I don’t want to wait up all night for you.”
“Love you, babe.” Sirius ducked out of the front door as Remus threw a cushion after him.
When Sirius appeared outside James’s flat, he tried the door first. It was locked, but that didn’t matter. He fished the keys out of his pocket and quietly unlocked the front door.
He could have knocked first, but that would have given James time to get whoever he was shacking up with out of the way, and Sirius wasn’t about to miss out on finding out the big secret.
Of course, there was still the possibility that Remus was right and James just wanted to be ‘private’, and Sirius was overthinking the whole thing, but he had a hunch.
And when he had a hunch, it took a lot to shake it off and get on with his life.
Quietly, he tiptoed into the flat, making sure to close the door behind him as carefully as possible. All the lights were off, save for his bedroom. The bedroom door was closed tight, but Sirius could see a shard of light shining through the crack under the door.
There was the muffled sound of voices. A giggle. Something that sounded suspiciously like a moan. Sirius grinned triumphantly. He was right. James did have someone in there with him!
For a brief second, he considered throwing open the bedroom door and laughing in James’s face, but even he wasn’t that bad of a friend. He wasn’t about to let James lose the chance to get his end away. So instead, Sirius sat down on the edge of the armchair that faced James’s bedroom door, and waited.
He would wait until James and his mystery woman — or man — showed themselves, and then he could revel in the glory of knowing James’s secret.
It went on for much, much longer than Sirius expected.
In the first ten minutes, Sirius was actually quite proud that James was doing such a good job. His bedroom partner, whose gender was yet to be determined (Sirius couldn’t tell from the myriad of sounds that came from the room), certainly seemed satisfied by James’s efforts. After a while though, it started to become…tiring.
Every time they’d quieten down and the headboard would stop banging against the wall, Sirius would perk up in his seat, preparing a smug expression for James’s exit.
But for hours, no one left the bedroom. There would be the sound of footsteps around the bedroom, muffled voices, and then the bed would inevitably start creaking again, followed by a series of groans and grunts that signalled that they had started something yet again.
It was after they quietened down for the fourth time that Sirius thought about leaving and returning home to Remus. No one was leaving the bedroom. His plan of catching James red-handed and basking in his embarrassment was going down the pan, and he was ready to stomp home and sulk into a glass of wine. He climbed out of his seat and headed towards the kitchenette, where he opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of cheap rosé wine.
It was the least James owed him for spoiling his plan, Sirius mused. He tucked it under his arm, and he was just about to leave the flat when he heard the sound of a door opening behind him.
Without thinking, Sirius sprinted across the room and ducked behind the chair that he’d been sitting in. It wasn’t exactly how he’d planned for James to bump into him — he’d been envisioning himself sitting in the armchair in the dark, where he would flick on the lamp dramatically when James came down the hallway. But it would have to do.
He crouched behind the armchair, listening for James’s footsteps coming down the hall. As he headed towards the kitchenette, Sirius peeked out behind the chair, his face plastered with a grin as he prepared to jump out and surprise his best friend.
But it wasn’t his best friend.
The man who was opening the fridge and leaning over to look inside it wasn’t James. He was wearing the t-shirt that James had been wearing earlier in the day, which was luckily long enough to cover up his backside. He had dark hair, which was scruffy and sticking up from whatever shenanigans had been going on in the bedroom, and long pale legs that were scandalously bare. There was a minimal tattoo on the back of his right thigh — a line drawing of a stag with a constellation of stars between its antlers.
Sirius knew that tattoo. He’d been in the studio when that tattoo was being done, offering his support. According to his little brother, the artwork had been something in a magazine that he just loved.
Apparently there was a deeper meaning to the tattoo that Sirius was only just learning.
He dropped the bottle of wine in shock, and it clattered heavily on the wooden floor. Regulus jumped so hard that he banged his head on the roof of the fridge, and he spun around, rubbing the back of his head.
“Regulus!” Sirius gasped, his mouth hanging open. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” Regulus shouted, pulling the hem of the shirt down over his bare legs as he gawked back at Sirius in horror.
“I — I was —” Sirius spluttered. The dots started to connect in his head. The noises that he had sat and listened to for the last three hours.
He felt sick.
“What’s going on?” a familiar voice called from down the hall.
“James,” Sirius grumbled. He started to stomp towards the bedroom, leaving the dropped bottle abandoned on the floor.
“For God’s sake,” Regulus groaned, hurrying after Sirius. He didn’t catch up in time, however, and Sirius burst into the bedroom, to be met with the sight of James, sprawled out completely naked on his bed.
“Potter!”
James yelped in shock, struggling to pull the covers over himself. “S-Sirius! What the—”
Sirius was sure there must be steam coming out of his ears. “It stinks of sex and shame in here.”
“There’s no shame,” Regulus muttered, flashing a grin at Sirius as he brushed past and climbed on the bed next to James.
“I’ll deal with you later,” Sirius said, not looking away from James. “Mate. Do you want to explain what the fuck you think you’re doing with my…my brother?”
“It’s not what it looks like,” James spluttered.
“It absolutely is what it looks like,” Regulus said gleefully. He was clearly enjoying Sirius’s reaction to this entire ordeal.
“How long has this been going on for?” Sirius demanded to know.
“I’m — I don’t — I mean—”
“About two years,” said Regulus.
“Two years?” shrieked Sirius. “You kept this from me for two years?”
“Mate,” begged James, looking desperate. “We knew you’d…I didn’t want…”
“We knew you would throw a complete hissy fit exactly like you are,” Regulus continued, looking at his fingernails. “Personally, I knew it would be extremely entertaining and I wanted to tell you ages ago. But James was worried about you having a complete meltdown. How long were you waiting out there?”
Sirius grit his teeth together. “About three hours.”
As James groaned in horror, Regulus laughed out loud.
“I swear, if you weren’t so naked, I’d come over there and beat the shit out of you,” Sirius hissed.
“Yeah, yeah,” Regulus flapped his hand at Sirius. “This has been amusing and all, but you should leave. Unless you’re trying to get further traumatised.”
“I can’t believe this,” Sirius muttered, shaking his head as he backed out of the hallway. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow, Potter.”
James shrank in the bed, pulling the covers over his head, and Regulus only laughed louder.
“This was just as hilarious as I expected it to be!” he called as Sirius stomped out of the flat, reaching to grab the bottle of wine as he did so.
Remus was sitting cross-legged on the couch when Sirius walked in. He didn’t look up from his book as Sirius threw himself down on the sofa.
“Well, were you right? Was James having a scandalous secret shag? Was it someone we know?”
Sirius groaned and threw his arms over his face. “I really, really don’t want to talk about it.”