{{Mature--slightly more tame than usual because its about the love </3}}
"How was Peter?"
Someday, Sirius would ask her why she waited so long to say the things she knew to be true. He would ask her if she knew where exactly he and James and Peter had stood in the cool air under the blue midnight sky. If she knew this whole time that he had been the secret keeper, not Dumbledore like she had initially surmised. Someday, he would ask. Today, he can't resist a rueful smile. He kicks off his sand covered shoes, watching as they flop over next to a pair of discarded blue socks. She refused to wear shoes on the beach and ignored him when he made fun of her desire to wear socks in the sand. Her feet were cold. They usually were.
He peers around the corner and finds her sitting at her writing desk, green wrappers strewn about parchment and magazines. The exhaustion of the day slowly slips away as he walks over to where she's sitting. Sirius eyes the familiar gold charm hanging over the back of her chair, the chain swaying back and forth. When she'd revealed the time turner, he had pleaded with her that she not tell him more. It was alluring as is, the idea of moving backwards through time. But he could only go so far. He didn't want to think about what he would change if he could. Ultimately, he wasn't sure that he would change anything, and that was what saddened him and delighted him all at once. His fingers wrap around the back of her chair, her hair tickling his knuckles as he hunches down and eyes the maps she's studying.
Her head slowly turns, brow raising slightly in time with the descent of her smile. He can't resist leaning in to press him mouth to hers, feel that smile give him life. It turns to a grin, her voice muffled, "I hope you didn't greet him like this."
"No," Sirius grins too, amazed by her ability to wash away the dark, "I didn't, Inferi."
She leans back with a small sigh, her eyes tracing his face, "I wish I'd managed to see him the last time I was in London. There's apparently a muggle candy shop that he wants to try, but we weren't sure if it would draw too much attention."
Sirius' brows furrow slightly. Peter hadn't mentioned meeting up with Gwen. He brushes it aside, pressing his lips to her temple while mumbling, "Yes, it would draw too much attention. He's not in London anyhow."
Gwen reaches back behind her, her arms stretching as far as they can to rest on his back. He leans down more, hunching over her shoulder and wrapping his own arms around her front. She grins, squinting one eye up at him, "He'd like to be. He wants to leave his mothers for good. I'm surprised he didn't mention it."
Sirius shrugs slightly, "He's always been touchy about his house. I don't blame him for leaving," His nose wrinkles, picturing the sagging roof and dusty brown that seems to suffocate every inch of the interior, "His mum was a daft cow."
"Sirius!" Her voice is admonishing, but when he cranes his neck to see her eyes he sees a bubbling of mirth that kicks up his heart rate. He grins, "It's true. She was minging--"
"Stop!" She laughs, pinching him hard enough to earn a grunt. Sirius bares his teeth against her jaw, muttering, "Alright, alright. She was a lovely woman. Stunning. She might have even been Veela."
The look she sends his way could make Voldemort cry for mercy. It only makes him laugh, his arms tightening and teeth playfully tugging at her skin until she pinches him again. He slides his nose across her cheek until it bumps hers, his hand slipping up to turn her chin. He presses his lips to hers again, craving her touch. She smells like jasmine and tastes like acid pops and mischief. He pulls at her lower lip, biting down sharply and chuckling at the huff that sounds from her. He rounds the back of her chair, fighting some smugness at the way she leans her head up to keep their lips together. It's only when he plops down in her lap, straddling her waist that she rears her head back and laughs hysterically. He hides his face under her tilted up chin, laughing too for what felt like forever. It felt euphoric, laughing with her. She shakes her head, finally calming down enough to look at him. To look through him when she says, "I think something is bothering you, but I'm going to trust that you don't want me to know what it is."
His smile fades and he stares at her silently. She gives him what he never was able to give her, at least not at first. She gives him the opportunity to have his secrets, ones that he hopes he never has to speak of. Secrets about how he thinks Peter is going to die because of him, and he's okay with it so long as she stays safe. He would check on his friend tomorrow anyway, just to be sure that he was doing alright. He's nearly sick over the thought of visiting the leaning, brown home again. Though perhaps it's the guilt that makes him nauseated. It didn't matter. So long as he can focus on protecting Gwen, keeping her secrets. She gives him his secrets and she loves him just the same. She doesn't know what he was doing with Peter, she has absolutely no idea that he was with James, that tomorrow Sirius would ask his mousy friend if he was sure that he was still up to the job and pray that Peter wouldn't cower in the face of danger like he had so many times before. She doesn't know, and she's okay with not knowing.
Sirius weaves his fingers through her hair, his whisper a song of uncertainty, "Do you believe in fate, Ninnie?"
Her eyes grow softer at the nickname. He hadn't used it. Not since Marlene had. But the Veela was stronger now, her grief had washed away slowly with the tide, with a few bittersweet reminders of pain and friendship that still sometimes dulled the intuitive sparkle of her aura. She settles her hands on his knees that rest on either side of her, a small smile lifting one side of her lips. "I don't know. Do you?"
Sirius smiles too, heart aching with love for her. He would sacrifice anything for her. Everything. He never would have imagined getting here, finding anything that he could love unconditionally. He had never been taught that kind of love. He was glad they learned together.
"I don't know," He says in agreement. "I don't know if I would call it fate."
She tilts her head slightly, and he grins at the expression on her face. Flat, plain. Listening. She was always listening. He bites back a laugh when she tries to shift under neath his weight. He'd move soon. Just not yet. She finally asks boredly, "Call what?"
He presses his thumbs against her temples gently, voice just as soft, "Finding you."
She stares at him, blinking only after a few long moments have passed. Sirius shifts uncomfortably before standing and grumbling, "This is where you say how wonderful I am."
Gwen stands too, scooting her chair back from the writing desk so that there is room for both of them between the two pieces of furniture. Her eyes glint with words he's certain she'll never say, but that just means the ones he does get to hear mean so much more. She reaches up, grazing her thumb across his cheekbone before settling her hand along the side of his neck. Her palm is warm, she could burn him. She could use her wild charm and magic and bring him to his knees. But her words do that instead, "I don't believe in fate. I think that you and I are simply links in a never ending chain of discovery and war and birth and death." His heart turns to fire as her cheeks turn pink, "Maybe I was meant to meet you, to love you. Maybe. But what I believe in, what makes me feel safe and happy and loved, is my ability to choose."
Sirius' hands grip at her shirt to steady themselves when she smiles. He wants it tattooed across his chest, under the symbol that unites them. Not that they needed it. Their hearts, their minds. Their souls, entwined like a family of constellations yet to be discovered. Gwen tilts her head to the side, saying calmly, "I would choose you. Over and over. Even if fate were to exist in an obvious sort of way and compel me to love someone else, I think I would still somehow find away to choose you. It's our choices that make us who we are, Sirius. I would hate to think that our lives are already written out for us line by line. It seems like a rather boring sort of existence."
The last few words come out muffled, his mouth on her's in a desperate attempt to taste her wisdom. He needed it, craved it, damned himself for it. He drags his tongue against her's, reaching down to grab at her legs and pull her up into his chest. She comes willingly, her knees pressing against his sides, ankles locking behind his back. Sirius pulls back from her lips only so that he won't trip as he makes a very quick few strides to the stairs. Gwen laughs into his hair, sticking out a hand to steady a portrait that he had a habit of knocking his shoulder into. He'd never confess that he did it on purpose, always disturbed the portrait of her standing next to him while they watched their friends wreak havoc in the Potter's back yard. Because if he bumped into it, made it crooked so that the frame tilted and looked odd, she would have to stand there and stare at it to make sure it was centered on the wall. He would never confess that he made her look at that picture, and she would never confess that she knew.
He hikes her legs up higher on his torso, groaning when her mouth glides down his throat before biting at the skin stretched over his adam's apple. "I should shower," He mumbles, all too aware of the mud that cakes his trousers from the forest and the grease that tattoos his skin from his bike. Gwen shakes her head, twisting her head back to ghost her lips across his as she breathes, "After."
He huffs out a laugh, stumbling down to hall towards her--their room. Their room. The cottage floors shake when he throws the door open and tosses her down onto the sage colored duvet. The walls crowd with even more pictures than the first time he'd step foot into the room all those years ago. There were doodles, star charts they made next to a campfire smoldering in the sand. Pictures and paintings of birds and water and fish and shells and sandcastles. On his side table was his silver telescope, so that if one of them woke in the middle of the night to a horrid nightmare, they could look through the magic object and see happy stars that didn't seem so far away.
Gwen flexes her fingers in the air, reaching for him and forcing a laugh from his chest. She grins before their lips meet again, playful and flirty, and it doesn't take much for him to remember the sound of rain pattering on the canvas of the quidditch tents. He remembers her slick skin, the blue fire of her eyes. His first real taste of her. His first real taste of his future, his freedom.
He makes quick work of her shirt, unbuttoning the first few so that he can simply pull it off over her head and groan at the bare skin of her chest. Gwen flushes at the sound, like after all this time she can't believe that he wants her always. He reaches back over his head, tugging his shirt free so that he can feel her pressed against him. Skin to skin, heart to heart, lips to lips.
"Gwen," He breathes shakily, fighting another sound of pleasure when her teeth tug on his lower lip until he says her name again. again. He speaks only of her, sees only her, tastes only her as his hands shove down her pants and knickers in one go. She hums happily, whispering, "Mon rêve. Mon mari." His hands seize their movements on the belt of his trousers, eyes whipping up to meet her gaze. She smiles, coy and bashful. Her cheeks are pink and warm and he can't resist pressing the side of his face to hers so that he can whisper in her ear, "Say it again."
"Mon mari," She murmurs again, and Sirius quietly says the contraceptive spell with trembling syllables. Gwen presses up against him, glides her hands up his arms. "Mon mari. My husband."
Sirius moans quietly, shaking his head. His heart threatens to explode, just hearing her say it. It pains him, emotionally, physically. He catches her lips in a slow kiss, his fingers dimpling the skin of the back of her knee as he hooks it around his waist. Gwen gasps when he thrusts into her slowly, her back arching and a songlike moan falling from her pink lips. It wasn't true yet, he wasn't her husband. Yet. Urgency coats his tongue alongside the taste of her, forcing him to rasp, "Soon. Soon. Let's do it soon."
"Tomorrow," She begs in reply, rutting her hips up against his mercilessly slow movements. It sends fire through his veins, her claim on him, her desire for him. She groans quietly when he runs his tongue between the valley of her breasts, sucking on the skin where his tattoo exists on his own body. Amalgamation. Marriage. Unity. He wants it all. She wants it too, and it soothes the last aching part of his soul when she says airily, "Lets do it tomorrow. Marry me tomorrow."
It's too much. Her words, her warmth clenching around him and her hips raising to give way to something deeper. He grabs her sides, fingers flexing on her ribs as his thrusts grow more urgent, more heated. Gwen whimpers his name, murmurs sinful words that float him high above the clouds. He knows she's close, he can see it in the way her eyes look darker, like the blue of the sheets they would get tangled in at Hogwarts. Her fingers claw at his back, scratching and forcing another rumbling sound of pleasure that erupts from him just as she climaxes. He curses at the feeling of her, hot and wet and clenching so tight that it takes him only a few more shallow thrusts to follow her lead. He was always going to follow her lead.
Their chests bump into each other as they try to catch their breath. Sirius slowly props himself up on his elbows, framing her flushed face. She pries open one eye, looking slightly dazed as she comes down from her high. Sirius tries not to feel smug, but he knows he's failed when she smacks him lazily on the arm and mumbles, "That'll show you not to call Peter's mum a veela."
Sirius laughs hard enough for his arms to give out, laughing more at the grunt that sounds from her when his weight falls onto her. She doesn't complain though, her hands coasting up where she'd scratched his back. He turns his head so he can see her, his nose gently brushing hers. For a moment they look at each other, memorizing. Savoring. Gwen's lips slowly tilt up into a grin he hadn't seen in what felt like ages. Relaxed, happy. Hopeful.
"Tomorrow?" She asks, her voice holding a hint of a challenge. Merlin, he loved being challenged by her. He smirks and nods, replying confidently,
"Tomorrow."
{{oh god. I can't take it.}}