James was reading a book. Lily stood in the kitchen, watching him from where she was leaning against the counter, twirling a strand of her ginger hair 'round and 'round her finger as she watched him. His nose was itchy - she could tell because periodically he would pause in his reading, reach up, punch his glasses up his nose with his index finger, then rub his nose for several seconds, sniff, and go back to page-turning. She tilted her head and her eyes trailed along his jawline and down the soft spot under his ear to his neck.. .his Adam's apple... She bit her lower lip.

Dora Potter had had an appointment earlier that day and was well asleep up stairs before James ever came home from the World Cup. He'd been buzzing with excitement and Lily had hoped it might have been energy he'd route into something else, but instead he'd calmed and was now sitting with his cup of tea steaming at his elbow, wearing socks and reading one of the old sci fi novels that had belonged to Charlus.

Lily wandered out to the living room and crawled onto the couch next to James so she was kneeling beside him, leaning against the back of the couch, one arm propping up her head as she stared at him. He glanced at her, then turned back to his book, turning the page.

She cleared her throat.

"Can I help you, Evans?"

"You sure can..."

"How's that?" he asked, eyes still on the page.

Lily puckered her lips up and looked at him through her eyelashes.

"Evans?" he asked, turning to look at her when she didn't say anything outloud.

Lily raised her eyebrows.

James blinked at her a moment, then reached up, punched his glasses up his nose, scratched his nose, and sniffed. "You alright, then?" he asked.

"James."

"Evans?"

"What's the matter, honey?"

"Nothing's the matter."

Lily frowned. "Well, what are you doing?"

James held the book up. "Reading?"

"Okay. I'm going to be really frank with you --"

"You're going to be Longbottom?"

"James Charlus Fleamont Potter."

"Hang on - you're three naming me? What am I in trouble for?"

She took his hand in hers, held it tight a second, gave it a good squeeze. When she took her hand away from his, it was to tug her jumper up over her head so that her hair fell 'round her shoulders, which were covered only with a soft cotton bra, white with tiny pink rosebuds all over it. Lily leaned against him, looking up at him, her cheek on his shoulder and said, "Please. For the love of Godric Gryffindor. Please. I am literally begging you right now."

James lost his breath as she stared into his eyes and her hand pressed to his chest, slowly moving across his sternum to his abdomen, and down... And James felt his entire body tense as she was unbuckling his belt and the. unbuttoning his trousers...

"Evans," he said suddenly.

"Mmm?" she asked.

"Am I awake right now?"

"Yes, James," she laughed, "What sort of question is that honey?"

"It's just - it's just I've had some weird - dreams lately," he said, words chopping as she leaned in and kissed his neck, "And they always - they've been starting out similar to this and then, well, honestly things go a bit wrong and I don't reckon I could - take it if - um - they - I -"

Lily's hand was on his thigh and his brain was mudded.

"Are they... dirty dreams... Potter?" she asked in a husky voice that had his stomach flipped over.

"Well I suppose they would be except -"

"Except...?" she ask, and he could feel her tongue against his neck.

"Except that in every one of them I turn out to be inadequate."

Silence followed the sentence.

The loudest silence ever.

She stopped.

His face flushed.

She pulled back.

He could feel her eyes on him.

"Oh James," she said, and he reckoned even a god carved from marble would have gone soft at the tone of her voice just then. He flushed all the more and covered his face with his hands, the book laying across his lap. "Okay. We need to talk."

James's voice was muffled by his palms. "We do?"

"Yes we do. Don't you think we do?"

James shrugged. "Dunno if I really want to talk about... this."

She shifted how she was sitting so it was far less suggestive, and put her jumper back on.

He stared resolutely at his knees.

"James, it's been absolute weeks since we went and got those stupid tests done and we haven't -- not even once -- since then..."

He bit his lip.

"I miss you."

"You say that in the dreams, too," he intoned.

"It doesn't have to be about trying, if that's what you're worried about."

"You say that, too," he murmured.

"James."

"Evans, what if we try and we try and try and try and I can't ever -- and we don't - we don't get pregnant? We don't have any - any kids? Any - family?"

"I know we will."

"Lily..."

"I do," she said firmly. She took his hand. "And even if we don't... Gods, James, it's fun trying isn't it?"

"Says the one that's not inadequate." 

"Honey... James. James, look at me."

He shook his head.

"James." She reached over and lifted his chin with her forefinger. "James Potter, you are so much more than adequate. You're like - you're like -" she paused, thinking, then said, "You know that part - in the Wizard of Oz - when Dorothy first arrives to Munchkin Land and everything is all sepia-tone, and she gets up and she opens the door and --" Lily waved her hand. "Color."

James stared at her.

"My life was sepia-tone, James... and then -- color."

"Pretty sure that's Sirius that's done that," James murmured.

"No, Baby. Sirius adds glitter to things." She looked very directly in his eyes, hers were so green and honest and sincere. "You, James Potter... you've been bleeding color all over everything in my life for... years." 

She slid a hand up to the back of his neck, her fingers were in his hair at the nape of his neck. "I don't care what any doctor's test says, James, or what the odds are, or about any of that testosterone-y, sperm count rubbish. I don't care about any of that. There are loads and loads of ways to have babies and we'll figure that bit out. And it's my fault for putting so much pressure on you that you thought I only wanted to have sex with you if we were trying to have a baby. I want you for so much more than that... What we do isn't just procreational, Potter, it's recreational. It's - it's damn magic, isn't it? And honestly, it's not very polite of you - with all of your good looks - walking around this house, looking all... you-ish... and not letting me shag you, is it?"

A grin slowly crawled over James's mouth. "You, uh, you think sex with me is magical, Evans?"

"I do."

"And - and I suppose it is rather rude to be so sexy and not letting you have me, isn't it?"

"Extremely," she nodded.

"I'm a rather horrible tease, really."

"Such a tease."

His upper lip hung up on his crooked tooth and he reached up to push his glasses up his nose and Lily took the book off his lap and tossed it onto the coffee table, then moved so she was straddling over his legs, her pelvis to his abdomen, staring down at his eyes. He stared up at her and his hands went to her waist, and she took hold of the hem of her jumper, pulling it up over her head. "Now. Where were we?"

James watched the jumper go and he drew a deep breath as her bra with the little rosebuds came back into view, staring at her chest for a moment, then he looked up at her as his hands slid up her sides and 'round her back to the clasp of it. "Just about here, I think," he murmured.

Sirius lay backward on the bed in his and Remus's room, feet on the pillow, head at the end, his hair hanging up over the footboard. An ash tray rested on his chest, and he tapped his cigarette against the edge of it, the ash falling into the little bowl. It was a wonky looking thing that Nymphadora Tonks had made for him out of clay. She's painted it hot pink and smashed glitter all over it so that it sparkled. Across the bottom, she'd signed her name in big loopy letters. TONKS. 

He stared up at the framed portrait on the wall. It hadn't moved since he'd come back from France.

He heard the front door open and close and he sat up, tapping the last of the ash off the cigarette before putting it out and flapping his arm about to dispel the smoke, though he knew Remus would smell it anyhow. He pushed the ash tray onto the nightstand and turned 'round as Remus came into the room, looking exhausted. It was nearly the new moon, Sirius thought, glancing at the tattoo on his wrist, and Remus always had a headache 'round these days.

"Hey Love," Remus said. He sighed as he put his briefcase down on the desk and sank into the desk chair, bending down to untie the laces on his shoes and then neatly place them side-by-side next to the closet. 

Sirius watched the process of the shoe untying, smirking at the methodicalness of it. "Hullo Moony." He nodded at the sketchbook on the desk. "How was your class?"

"Oh it was good," Remus said, nodding. "We were working on drawing hands tonight and they're incredibly complex and wonderful to draw. So many lines and marks and there's just a lot of poeticness to a hand I never thought about before."

"Yeah?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah. You'd think - oh it's just a hand. Five fingers and a wrist, right? But there's actually a lot to them, and you have to really consider them when you draw them, you know, like think about what sort of hand it is. Is it soft and delicate or rough and calloused? What sorts of things does the hand you're drawing do? You know? There's stories in hands... I never thought about it like that before." He was changing into his pyjamas - soft brown and cream-colored plaid things that were somehow simultaneously the least and most sexy things Sirius had ever seen him wear. It was something about the way the waist band hung 'round Remus's bony hips, the way it rode down just a tiny bit so the V of his abdomen showed over it. Remus was utterly unaware of Sirius's stare at the muscles there as he changed, he was too busy talking on and on about hands and the details - something about finger nails and emotional stability he was on about - but Sirius just smiled.

When Remus had finished changing, he climbed up into the bed beside Sirius and Sirius got under the covers next to him.

"You were smoking in bed again," Remus murmured.

Sirius said, "Guilty as charged."

Remus sighed. 

Sirius rolled his head to look at Remus. "Am I a bad boy? Should you spank me?"

"You'd enjoy that too much," Remus murmured, and he tucked the blanket up to his chin. "Is it bloody freezing or is it just me?"

"It's just you," Sirius answered. Then, "For someone so hot, you sure get cold a lot."

Remus rolled his eyes and said, "Do you sit about and stare in mirrors and practice those lines?"

"Lines!" Sirius gasped. "Please."

"I'll bet you do. Practice them, I mean."

"So judgmental. It's as though you don't benefit from my creativity."

Remus chuckled. Then, "Oh, I told Stewie and Lula that we'd go out to dinner with them next week."

Sirius raised an eyebrow, "You did?"

"Yes. It's Stewie's birthday on the 19th and Lula's planned this big dinner thing and she's invited us - both of us - and I told her we'd come."

"Alright."

"You don't mind, do you?" Remus asked, looking over at Sirius.

"No," Sirius answered. "I mean, they probably both think I'm daft after I ran out of the art show, but sure. Not awkward at all. It'll be great."

Remus teased, "We do make funo f that quite a lot when we're gossiping while we paint."

"You say it like you think you're joking but I'll bet you're not really."

"Lula thinks you're the coolest thing since the invention of sliced bread and Stewie was just as taken aback by the irony of things as you were."

"Was sliced bread invented?"

"Yes. In 1928. By Otto Frederick Rohwedder."

"You're making that up."

"I'm not," Remus said.

"But how did people eat bread before it was sliced?"

"Tore it off, I suppose," Remus shrugged.

"Like heathens?!" Sirius gasped.

"Exactly like," Remus nodded.

"Uncultured swines!" Sirius shook his head.

Remus laughed. "Come over here closer and kiss me, will you?"

Sirius grinned and rolled over until he was on top of Remus, staring down into his eyes. "Is this close enough?"

"Nearly," Remus said.

Sirius's eyes twinkled and he leaned down and kissed Remus's mouth, humming his approval as he did, and when he pulled back a moment later he said, "You know, I think I shall spend the Swan Upping with you after all. Prongs gets enough days with Tuesdays and Bank Holidays and all."

"Oh?" 

"Yeah. He didn't even know when the swan upping was," Sirius said.

"Uncultured swine," Remus echoed Sirius.

Sirius laughed, then, testing, "You know when it is, don't you, Remmy-darling?"

"Third week of July," Remus said.

"I knew I could count on you to know." Sirius grinned, "And he was also worried about the chafing."

Remus shook his head. "Inexperienced beast, he is... that's what they make the lotion for."

"Gods, I love you, you dirty werewolf," Sirius grinned and kissed Remus again.