Push and Pull (Sirius Black X Reader)

Chapter 22

When I get home, the living room is empty. I frown as I kick off my shoes and wander deeper into the house, searching for any sign of Sirius. He usually waits for me in the living room, but today, I find him in the kitchen.

"Sirius?"

"Hey," he says, seeming surprised. He glances at the clock from where he sits on one of the stools at the island. "Lost track of time." He makes to stand, but I beat him to it and stap between his legs, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and pressing my nose into the crook of his neck. He hugs me back. 

"What are you doing out here?" I ask.

"I'm baking a celebratory cake," he whispers. "I just put it in."

"Celebratory?"

"For when you tell me that your counterproposal went through."

"What if it didn't?" I ask.

"I saw how hard you worked. I know you won," he says, pressing a kiss on my shoulder.

"We did," I confirm and hug him tighter.

"You don't seem as excited as I expected," he says quietly, rubbing my back slowly.

"I don't feel excited," I admit. "I thought I would. I just feel tired, I guess."

He doesn't answer, and I don't elaborate. Because I'm not sure why I don't feel excited. I just feel a little empty. I put so much into the proposal. Now that it's done, I feel like the thing that has kept me going...it's gone. I feel like...

"I love you," I say. His hands tighten around my waist.

"I love you too, Sunshine," he says, but he sounds a little concerned. Maybe he should be. I don't know why I feel like this. I think I need some sleep maybe. I want to sleep, but I also want him to be happy and oblivious to how I'm feeling. I slide one hand down to the front of his pants and palm him until he's completely hard, peppering kisses on his neck. His breathing deepens as he watches my hand.

I slip my hand into the front of his pants and begin to stroke him, and he breathes heavily into my shoulder, his fingers pressing into my back. I move slowly, my touch firm, and he lets out a breathy moan, stifling it with a kiss on my shoulder, his nose pressed into my skin as he bites on the small fleshy area above my collarbone, just hard enough to register. I let my other hand slide around the back of his neck, tugging gently on his hair. He leans further into me and I can feel his warm exhalation on my shoulder. His moans are breathy and slightly whiny, a delicious combination that distracts me from the strange emptiness I feel inside.

His moans become louder and more frequent until his body tenses and he cums, his fingers digging deep into my skin. I stroke him until he's spent, and then I slip my hand out of his pants. He presses his warm face into my neck, dropping kisses between deep breaths.

Sirius pulls away after a couple minutes and uses his wand to clean himself up, and then he has to take the cake out of the oven to cool. His cheeks are still flushed a pretty pink, and I steal his seat as I watch him move around the kitchen. He says, "Are you feeling okay, love?"

"I'm fine."

"Listen," he says, leaning on the counter across from me, "I know you're spent. You've been working on this for a while and now it's over, and I know it's going to be stressful to get your old job back, but you're going to do great things, and—"

"Sirius, I'm not getting my old job back."

"Oh. I'm sorry, love. I'm so sorry."

"No," I say, "I chose this. I didn't want my old job back."

"What?"

"It's just...I know that I was going to go for the promotion at first...but I've realized that that's not what I want anymore. I don't need the added responsibility of it, and you never what's going to happen with the Order. Things are getting tense, and we don't know what's going to happen, so I don't want to take the position when everything is so uncertain."

"What are you talking about?"

"Sirius."

"No, what are you talking about? You don't feel safe?"

"Of course I don't. I can't risk something happening to me and the position falling to someone like Hal. I asked that Gracie or Noah get the job because I know they will do good things if something happens to me—"

"Nothing is going to happen to you. What are you talking about?" His eyes are wide, as if he has never considered that something could happen to either of us during the war.

"Sometimes unexpected things happen—"

"No, nothing is going to happen—"

"Like nothing happened to you?" I ask. The silence is deafening. "I've been through this before, Sirius, and you have too. What happened to you and James and Lily was unexpected. But it still happened. Bad things can happen to anyone during the war."

"But...Y/N, you can't think that. Thinking that...Assuming that..."

"I'm not saying it will happen. I'm just saying that there's a chance, and I want to be prepared if something does happen to me. Or to you. After you left, I fell apart. I was a shell of the person I was. I lost everything. First you and James and Lily, and then I lost my job and all of my other friends. All I had was Remus, and everything was fucked up. I was fucked up. So if anything happens to you, I know I would react the same because I'm no different than I was then. I like to pretend that I've grown as a person, but if you left me again..."

"Why do you say it like that?" he asks quietly, eyebrows furrowed.

"What?"

"That I left you? I didn't leave you. I was forced away."

I don't respond, looking down at the counter.

"I didn't leave you," he repeats softly, reaching out to grab my hand. I watch as he intertwines our fingers, his pale skin pressed against mine. I stare at our hands together for a moment, and then I pull my hand away, meeting his eyes.

"You did."

"Not on purpose."

"I'm not talking about Azkaban," I say, and he flinches at the word. "I'm talking about before. I asked you not to go." My voice cracks as tears build in my eyes. "I asked you not to leave me and you did. And you didn't come back. You left me, Sirius. If you had just listened to me and stayed..." I take a deep breath. "You left me."