Sirius frowned at Remus, who was sitting in the living room staring into middle-distance with equal amounts of sullenness and moroseness.
"Are you sulking again?" He demanded, walking to stand in front of the other man.
"No." Remus said, sulkily despite it all.
"Look, James is a wanker. If he's got a problem with it, it's his problem, not yours." Sirius stated. "Fuck him."
Remus looked up at him flatly.
"I hardly think that course of action will make him feel any more comfortable about my sexuality." He said dryly.
Sirius' mouth quirked up.
"That's my Moony! Sarcastic as ever!"
"What sarcasm? It's true!"
"Come on." Sirius said, moving across the room and tossing Remus' jacket to him. "Let's go out. It'll cheer you up."
"No it won't." Remus moaned petulantly, pulling his coat off his head and scowling at Sirius. "I don't want to go out. I hate going out."
"No, you like going out." The other man corrected patiently. "You hate people."
"Will there be people where we're going?"
"Most likely. Funny thing about Earth that. Populated with people."
"Then I don't want to go." Remus threw his coat back at Sirius, and felt a little bit better when it hit Sirius' face with a 'flap', and the 'ow' of someone getting hit in the teeth with a zip.
"Don't be a brat." Sirius said. "Look, we'll go to that muggle bar on the corner. And maybe I'll buy you a Coke and a packet of Cheese and Onion crisps."
"I hate Cheese and Onion Crisps." Remus pointed out.
"Fine. I'll buy myself a Coke and a packet of Cheese and Onion crisps, and you can starve like the ungrateful wretch you are."
"I never said I didn't want the Coke."
"Look, just shut up, put your coat on and come play pool and mock muggles with me."
"Oh alright. Bossy."
James Potter was not used to getting phone calls at half past eleven at night.
Truth be told, he wasn't used to getting phone calls at all, but Lily was making him practice, and the few times he had answered the phone, it had been at a respectable hour.
When the phone rang, he glanced plaintively at his wife, wondering if she would take pity on him, as it was rather late and he was so comfortable, but no. She just raised her eyebrows in askance, so he let out a heartfelt sigh and heaved himself out of his chair and over to the phone.
"Hello?" He asked sullenly down the receiver.
"James?" It was Remus.
"Oh." James said, his voice going tighter. "What do you want?"
"Look, James, Sirius and I are in a bit of a pickle. Could you help us?"
"What do you need help with?"
"Well, for starters, the strange man staring at my rear."
"I thought you liked it when Sirius did that."
"I do. But I do not like it when fifty-stone men who may or may not be named 'Bubba' do it."
"What the hell kind of gay bar are you in?" James demanded.
"Wimbledon local police station." Remus replied calmly. "But I wouldn't call it a gay bar to their faces. They tend to get a little touchy over that sort of thing."
"Oh Christ, what've you done now?"
"I can't explain right this minute. Can you come get us out?"
"Alright, I'm on my way." He sighed and put the phone down.
"What was all that?" Lily called.
"Remus and Sirius have got themselves arrested by the muggle police." James said, pulling on his coat. "I've got to go help the poofy bastards out."
"You'd better be nice, James." She said warningly, leaning over the back of her chair and pointing at him. "And not be the tosser you were the other day."
"But - "
"No buts, James Potter. It's their choice how they want to live their lives."
"But...Having sex with men is yucky!" James insisted, petulantly, despite having lost this argument three days previously and only holding out now on the principle of it.
"Then be glad it's Remus and Sirius doing it and not you!" She waved him off. "Now shoo!"
James put on his serious face as the Constable ushered him into the interview room where Sirius and Remus were. Sirius was flopped forward in his chair, face resting on his arms, while Remus was leaning back, eyes closed, gently thumping his head against the wall.
"What did you two arsewipes do this time?" He demanded, making them both jump.
Sirius gaped at him for a moment, before turning to Remus.
"You called James?" He hissed.
"Who else was I going to call?" Remus hissed back. "No-one else we know has a phone!"
"Oh shut up." James snapped, coming to sit opposite them. "I didn't come here to get involved in a domestic. Tell me what happened so we can get you out of here with all your money and bodily parts in the right place."
Remus raised his eyebrows at Sirius, who sighed and looked back at James.
"Alright," He began. "It's like this. Moony was miserable because you were such a wanker to us - "
"Hey!" James protested.
"Well you were. So, Moony was," Sirius paused, and snickered. "Moony was...mooning around."
"Sirius, will you get to the bloody point?" Remus asked.
"Yes. Right. Well, anyway, Moony was miserable, so I took him down to that muggle pub on the corner to play pool so he'd cheer up a bit..."
Magical Flashback-y...thing
"Ah, I suck!" Sirius huffed, as Remus beat him at pool for the third time.
"You do." Remus agreed, smirking. "You also lost. Drinks are on you. Again."
"Come on, Moony!" Sirius pleaded quietly, moving around the table to stand close in front of Remus. "Surely we're long past playing for drinks now..."
"I'm not playing for your sexual favours as they are worth shit." Remus stated flatly. "Now go! Buy Coca-Cola! Bring me fizzy, tooth-rotting refreshment!"
Sirius sighed.
"Alright. Alright. You're a cruel master, Remus Lupin."
"Stop whinging." Remus ordered, as Sirius slouched off and he turned around to set up the table for another game.
"Hey," Came a gruff voice from behind him, as he was organising all the balls in the triangle. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"
Remus turned obligingly around and found himself facing a small group of rather rough-looking individuals.
"Yes?" He asked politely, keeping his voice even. "Can I help you?"
End of Magical Flashback-y...thing
"They threatened you?" James exclaimed, outraged, staring at Remus who just rolled his eyes.
"Well, yes, if you want to get technical about it, they did."
"What happened then?" The bespectacled man asked urgently.
"I came back from the bar, and saw them menacing Remus." Sirius said. "So I put the drinks down on an empty table and came up behind them just as they said something... rather offensive to Moony."
"They called me a 'Cunt-faced cock-sucker who was gagging to be fucked into the wall like the little manwhore that I was'." Remus said dryly, when it was obvious Sirius wasn't going to elaborate. "And asked me to leave as they did not appreciate 'my type' patronising their bar."
James gaped at him.
"They said that to you?" He demanded. "They actually said that? And you didn't kill them?"
"That's the thing," Sirius said. "I come round and stand next to Moony and put on my 'intimidating' face and ask if there's any problem. They say there isn't, and I nod, nice and polite - "
"Then he hauls off and wallops the guy who'd been giving me lip!" Remus cut in, his lips quirking upwards. "He falls backwards, taking a couple of his friends with him, clutching his jaw and yelling that it was broken. And Sirius...Well..."
More Magical Flashback-y thing
"Oh God," Sirius darted forward and helped the man upright, all solicitude and apparent regret. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah..." The man said, rather confused. "Yeah...I'm fine."
"Really?" Sirius asked.
"Yeah." The man assured him, trying to wave him away.
"We can fix that." Sirius snarled, and punched him again.
End of second Magical Flashback-y thing
"You didn't!" James stared at Sirius, who was obviously trying to suppress a grin. The other man shrugged and folded his arms behind his head.
"He did." Remus said seriously, his own grin becoming quite obvious.
"Then what happened?"
"Well," Sirius leaned forwards again, resting his elbows on the table. "After that, this brawl started going. Me versus the guy and his mates, so pretty uneven odds, but they were all three parts drunk anyway so they didn't manage to land any decent hits – they hit each other more than they hit me. And through all this, Remus is busy leaning against the pool table, arms folded, unruffled, the perfect image of a stiff-upper-lip British gentleman, all calm, when the guy who's face I was trying to imprint into the floor, well, his girlfriend comes along and drapes herself all over him!"
Magical Flashback-y thing number three
"Hey," The woman said, sidling up beside Remus.
"Hello." Remus replied.
"You know, I don't think you're a cunt-faced cocksucker." She said, twirling a bit of bleached-blonde hair around her finger.
"That's a relief." Remus said. "I was getting worried that I projected that image to the world in general."
"But you do like men, don't you?" She asked.
"I hardly think that's any of your business."
"I think it's hot."
Remus raised an eyebrow as the woman's hand drifted from his arm, to his chest, and down across his stomach. He grabbed her wrist quickly and removed her hand.
"Good for you." He told her.
"Maybe you'd be interested...in a threesome?"
Remus felt his lip curl slightly in disgust as she fluttered her eyelashes at him.
"Not if you're the third party." He said flatly.
End of third Magical Flashback-y thing
Both Sirius and Remus were chuckling now, James sniggering along with them.
"And then what?" James prompted.
"The guy I'm smacking around sees what's going on," Sirius said, between chuckles. "And shoves me out the way."
"Next thing we know," Remus carried on, as Sirius dissolved into laughter again. "We're in the middle of a domestic, with the guy and his girlfriend going at each other worse than Sirius was, screaming abuse and pulling hair and slapping and everything."
"So, like the gentlemen we are, we try and pull them apart – this bloke's friends had all scarpered, 'cause they'd heard the barman calling the police. We hadn't." Sirius ran a hand through his hair. "About five minutes later, they arrived. Burst in all gung-ho and arrested the four of us."
"Wait – you got arrested, not for beating some guy up, but for stopping him beat his girlfriend up?"
"Yeah." Remus nodded, chuckling at James' confused expression. "So, they drag us down to the Police station..."
Fourth Magical Flashback-y Thing
"Hey!" Sirius said. "I demand a phone call! Don't we get one phone call?"
"Not in England you don't." Said the constable dryly. "You've been watching too much American TV."
Sirius opened his mouth to protest this fact, but closed it with a snap when he realised that, actually, it was quite an accurate point.
"Look," The policeman said, after a pause. "We haven't got a record of any previous incidents, and judging by your age, there probably haven't been any. I'm guessing you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. What we're going to do is just put you in cells for a couple of hours until you sober up, and then you're free to go. Alright?"
"But we're not drunk!" Remus insisted. "I don't drink, and Sirius has only had Coke with me tonight!"
"I'm sorry, but I'm just following the rules." The policeman said apologetically. "You were involved in a breach of the peace, however minor, and unfortunately this is what we have to do. Think yourselves fortunate – the other two are going to be in here all night."
Remus sighed and shrugged at Sirius, who was fuming, and followed as the PC lead them down to the cells. He opened the door to one and ushered Remus in. Sirius tried to follow him in, but was stopped.
"Wha-?"
"Only one per cell in England." The constable told him, looking amused and closing the door.
"You're kidding?"
"No. Come on, this one's for you."
"You mean I won't be sharing with a fifty-stone man named 'Bubba'?"
The policeman chuckled.
"I would've thought that was a good thing." He said, closing the door on Sirius and heading back to the front desk.
End of final magical flashback-y thing
"Wait a minute," James said. "If they were going to let you go anyway, why did you phone me? And why did you say there was a guy named 'Bubba' staring at you if it was only one per cell?"
"Thought you'd get here faster if you thought there was a chance that we might be violated by an obese convict." Remus told him.
"We needed to phone you," Sirius said. "Because by the time they came to let us out, both of us had seen the funny side of the situation and were in fits of hysterical laughter."
"They thought we were on something illegal, so we had to call you to come and prove that we're like this normally." Remus added, grinning.
"Oh Jesus." James muttered. "You know, I've got half a mind to leave you both here, you utter wankers."
"Oh come on, Jamie," Sirius wheedled. "You know you enjoyed it really."
James stood.
"Yeah, yeah. Come on, let's go."
The other two stood and followed him obediently as he left the room and told the police officer that no, they weren't on anything illegal or terribly exciting but that yes, they were mentally unstable, before leaving the police station.
"Hey James," Sirius said, as they stepped out into the cool night air. "Does this mean that everything we said the other day, you know...About me and Moony...it's all forgiven?"
"If it wasn't," James said wryly. "You'd be being violated by obese convicts and Lily would be hanging me off the roof by my intestines."
Sirius smiled and pulled James into a rough hug that turned very quickly into a headlock. Remus watched placidly as they wrestled for a bit.
"We need to celebrate this!" Sirius cried, a little while later. "Let's go out!"
Remus and James shared a look, then apparated away, leaving an indignant Sirius to follow them.