#i was told micro means between 50 and 50k

[krethes]

@wolfstarmicrofic July, Day Four: slippy

Yes, more firefighters. I warned you, lol. Gets a little NSFW towards the bottom.

The heat is oppressive, a smothering weight that cloys and resists the wind's attempt at moving it. Remus wipes sweat from his brow with a grimace and casts a pleading look their Captain's way. "Captain, are you su-" Remus stops himself and changes course. "Do people actually pay for this?"

Captain Shacklebolt laughs, a deep booming thing, and jerks his head in the direction of the growing queue of cars littering the block. Moments before, it was a ghost town. What changed? "Eyes front, probie," the Captain insists. Remus doesn't like being called that, mostly because he's not. Technically. Well, he is a probie here at this station, but that's only because he moved and is new to the department. Back home in Arizona, he had two years of experience under his belt. Still. No one argues with the Captain, so Remus looks and the... motivation for all of the cars becomes readily apparent as Sirius and Lieutenant Potter come rounding the corner, bare to their waists, each holding a sign: 'Firefighter Car Wash: Donations only' and 'Put Suntan Lotion/Sunscreen on a Firefighter: $5'

Remus looks back at their Captain, his brows raised. "This-"

"Every year, Lupin. Like clockwork. Rake in a ton of cash for the Widows fund and Burn Camps. Haven't had a tough year since Black and Potter came onboard."

Remus, looking back at the two men now running up the sidewalk to direct traffic to the empty car lot, can see why. Potter is a bronzed, sculpted statue of a man whom Remus had never had the pleasure of seeing shirtless before and fuck, Lt. Evans has it good but, then, so does he. Because next to him, Sirius is effortless beauty, muscular and pale as the sun is bright, his long hair tied up off his neck. Remus has seen him very shirtless before, but it hasn't lost its charm.

"Yeah," Lt. Evans laughs, coming up to bump Remus with her hip. She barely comes up to his bicep, but she's a sturdy one. "He's hot. C'mon, Lupin, time to get wet." She winks, laughs again, and jogs backwards towards the first car.

Washing cars with firehouses is actually a lot easier than Remus anticipated. He used to spend an hour or more getting his dad's truck nice and clean, but with four of them to a car, they're making short work of an ever-growing line.

Well, mostly four of them. Sirius and Lt. Potter keep getting pulled away (as do the Prewetts from B shift) to submit to the $5 application offer, not that it seems like it's much of a trial.

"Take it off," he hears Sirius murmur low and against his shoulder. Remus shivers despite the heat and tries to bat him away. "You're soaked. Just take it off. You're gorgeous. Let them see."

Remus scowls and makes a grab for Sirius, but his wrist, coated in god-knows-how-many layers of sunscreen, slides right out of his hold. "You're a slippy bastard," Remus grumbles.

"You could be, too. You've got to give James and me a break. We're like 80% oil by this point. It's not safe! You wouldn't want us to slip and fall, would you? All the firefighters in town are busy with a silly car wash!" Sirius casts his silver eyes up at him with a pitiful little wobble of his lower lip and Remus's resolve crumbles.

"Don't harass the probie!" Lt. Evans scolds, swatting Sirius with a towel. "Lupin, you don't have to take off your shirt if you don't want to. It's not a requirement."

Remus sees Sirius roll his eyes behind her back and smothers his smile. "Nah, it's okay. It's soaked through anyway." He strips the dark blue cotton off in a fluid motion, to the approving honks and whoops and held-out five dollar bills of cars further down the line, and Remus blushes. When he was younger, he had quite the time getting strong enough to pass his training, but once he started packing the muscle on, his body seemed to get with the program.

"Holy-!" Lt. Potter gasps, looking Remus up and down. He looks at Sirius, mouths something that looks suspiciously like 'well done' and beams at Remus. "Ahem. Right. Red Mazda four down would like to oil you up, Lupin. Atta boy!" he calls while Remus dutifully trails off.

Even after a long, hot shower (and a longer, hotter make-out session in said shower), he and Sirius both still smell like coconut, but it's not the worst thing. He's learned a lot about Sirius today, like that his hair gets adorably curly when exposed to humidity for a long period of time, and that he gets a little possessive after an afternoon of watching other people put their hands all over Remus's upper body.

Presently, Sirius has Remus's arms pinned by the wrists above his head as he straddles him, licking and nipping his way down his chest in excruciating slowness. Remus is worried he might actually burst. Sirius has been at this for half an hour at least, intent on covering every inch of him, muttering things like 'stupid fundraiser' as he goes.

"Y-you, fuck, careful...!" Remus groans with Sirius sits down on his hips. They're both in loose sweatpants, and Remus's briefs are in Sirius's washing machine, so there's not much to hide his very obvious reaction to Sirius's ministrations.

"What if I don't want to be careful?" Sirius asks, nipping his earlobe. They haven't actually had sex yet. They've been dating (as much as two very busy firefighters can) for a couple of weeks, but the time hasn't seemed right. Hasn't seemed special enough. And Remus has never cared about timing before. God knows he's had plenty of flings and failed relationships, but with Sirius...he wants it to matter. He wants to fall for him first, not his phenomenal body.

"Then I'm going to come in your spare sweatpants," Remus warns bluntly. "But as I was saying- oh, fuck you, that feels good," he moans when Sirius rolls his hips down. "Fuck, Sirius. You didn't get like this when they were touching Potter!"

Sirius snorts. "I'm not fucking James."

"You're not fucking me, either," Remus blurts before he can stop himself.

Sirius pulls back and regards him, pink-cheeked and beautiful. "I want to. You know I want to," he whispers. "Do you not want to?"

Remus wraps his arms around Sirius's waist and drags him down to lie on top of him. "No, I do. I really, really do. I just...I really like you, Sirius. I don't want to fuck this up."

"You think sleeping together will fuck it up?"

Remus sighs and shuts his eyes tight as he holds Sirius tighter. He's a heavy weight atop him but it feels good. Grounding. "It has before. Pretty much every time. People I like don't tend to stick around." He doesn't know what's wrong with him. But he's never been the one to break up with someone. It's always been him, staring at his phone or, once, an email, wondering where things went south. He's not hideous. He doesn't have many vices. Nothing illegal, anyway. Nothing abusive. He knows he's hard to get close to, between his own hang-ups and his work schedule, but surely someone would have stuck around longer than a few months.

"I'm not going anywhere, Remus. If that's the thing holding you back, that you're worried I'm a one-and-done type of guy...don't. If there's more, if there's something I can do to prove that I really like you, too, just let me know and I'll respect that, but if it's just that you think I'm only here because you're fucking hot, you're absolutely wrong." A hard edge has crept into Sirius's voice, and his fingers dig into Remus's shoulders where he's holding on. "I'm here because you're kind, and funny, and really gentle. Watching you with those school tours and those kids is like magic. I mean, you're also really fucking hot, but that's just a bonus."

Emotion wells up in Remus's chest and he lets out a shaky breath. "I'm sorry."

Sirius pulls up and kisses him sweetly. "Don't be. We've all got our shit. And dating is hard in our job. But it's been pretty fun lately, don't you think?"

Remus nods, bolstered by the kiss. "Really fun. I'll try not to overthink this. It's just sex, but sex with you feels like it'll mean something. And not just because you're like a fucking supermodel," Remus adds quickly, because he can feel a cocky comment just waiting in the wings for the appropriate time.

Sirius wriggles out of his hold and sits on top of Remus again, his knees on either side of his hips. "It'll mean something because you mean something. If it happens, it happens," he says simply. A predatory look comes over his face, and Remus can feel himself stiffen in the borrowed sweatpants. "Right now, though, I think I'm still taking inventory. So. If you would be so kind," he says with a little twirl of his fingers at Remus's hands.

Remus rolls his eyes good-naturedly and, because he can and because he's got a bit of the devil in him, too, he thrusts upwards, jostling Sirius and sending a beautiful flush to his cheeks.

"Oh, you're in for it," Sirius warns, lurching forward to pin Remus's wrists above his head again.

"Bring it," Remus baits just as Sirius delves his tongue into his mouth, taking the fight out of him even as his blood reignites.

[krethes]

@wolfstarmicrofic Day Twenty-Five: curl

@theresthesnitch bullied me (it wasn't hard) into another firefighter AU "micro"fic. Only mildly NSFW this time.

Read: Part One (Wildfire), Part Two (Inhale), Part Three (Accident), Part Four (Popsicle).

Days off are so rare and so precious, and tandem days off are nearly unheard of, so when they do happen, Remus wants to spend the whole day curled up with Sirius on their couch eating junk food and reading or watching television or doing things that normal couples with normal lives get to do. Such was not the case for today, because they apparently owed Andromeda a favor, though for the life of him, Remus can't remember why...

Remus knew something bad was going to happen the moment Nymphadora—sorry, "Tonks" now—showed up at the playground with purple, green, and blue hair. Andromeda just smirked when she dropped her off, told Sirius (not her child) to have fun, told Remus "good luck", and promptly got the fuck out of there.

Sirius had that look in his eye. The one that said he's about to do something exceptionally stupid. Logic and Reason (lifelong foes of Sirius Black outside of work) go flying out the window when faced with the indominatable will and fire of his little cousin, and Remus just has to hang on for the ride and run damage control.

On Nym- Tonks's sixth birthday, Sirius gave himself a concussion trying to beat her record at popping balloons taped to the ceiling with a unicorn helmet strapped to his head. On her eighth birthday, Sirius ate so many hot dogs he was sick for three days (but he'd won the contest, so it was #worthit, apparently).

Today isn't a birthday, just a favor they're doing for Andi so she can Ted can have a nice day out at a spa, but Remus can already see where this is going.

"Race you," Tonks challenges Sirius, and before Remus can even warn them both that the ground is wet from the morning's rain, they're off. Miraculously, they survive the dead sprint to the swings, and again cheat death or dismemberment despite swinging so high Tonks nearly does a loop. The jungle gym maze itself, while posing quite the challenge to directionally-deficient and grace-lacking tonks, still results in no injuries beyond a few scrapes and bruises.

Remus exhales. Perhaps he'd been too hasty in his judgment. Sirius is, after all, a professional firefighter and has a great deal of control over his body. He knows what's at stake if he hurts himself, and has probably grown out of his weird phase of trying to be the "cool uncle" to this twelve-year-old heathen.

"Bet you can't make it all the way across."

Oh. Oh no.

"Kid, I'm a firefighter-"

"And you never shut up about it." Remus knows she's teasing, just trying to bait Sirius into doing someting dumb.

"Because when you need me to come drag your scrawny butt out of a burning building because you left your straightener on-"

"That was ONE time!"

"-you'll be glad you know the world's best firefighter." From across the playground, Remus sees Sirius look at him and quickly away. "Tied with Remus." Ridiculous man.

Tonks snorts. "Good. So do it."

"I will!"

'It' appears to be a balance and ropes course that ends in a very long set of monkeybars. On paper, this shouldn't pose a problem to Sirius. He's right—their job gives them quite a lot of upper body strength, but... Sirius makes mistakes when his hubris takes the helm.

Sirius makes it all the way to the monkeybars and Remus has just decided that perhaps this won't end poorly at all until-

"Fuc- I mean, fudge! Fudge, fudge, fudge!"

Remus runs over before he can stop himself. He doesn't want to look. If he doesn't look, it'll all just be a weird fever dream and he'll wake up at home with a fully intact and unharmed Sirius in his bed and they'll eat breakfast and...

"Ow..."

"And you call me clumsy."

"Not now, Nymphadora!"

Tonks rolls her eyes but casts a guilty look Remus's way. Sirius is sprawled on the ground, woodchips and dirt in his hair, and his right ankle is rapidly swelling. Remus can see her two sides at war: the contrary preteen versus part of her that is actually quite a good human, who feels remorse and everything (a rare trait for preteens, in Remus's experience).

Remus goes into paramedic mode to the pathetic whimpers of his pathetic husband. Some gentle manipulation of the joint and careful prodding gives him some hope that it's not broken, but Sirius has always been a bit of a baby when it comes to pain. That, plus his very fine-boned, aristocratic ankles makes him an extremely difficult patient. "Tonks, I need to take him to the ER. Come with us and I'll have your mother pick you up from there."

"Nah, I'll just take an Uber!" she announces and, within ten seconds, has her phone out and a ride confirmed. Impressive. "Mom knows Sirius gets a little stupid around me, made sure I had money on my card."

Sirius groans and flops dramatically down flat against the ground. Enough life in him to have a fit of melodrama, which is promising. "I am actively dying and you're taking cheap shots?"

"Have to make them while we can; there's no use when you're dead," Remus says drily.

"Et tu, Moony? Et tu?!"

Remus, though the option to leave Sirius on the ground is increasingly tempting, gets him to sitting upright by the time Tonks's ride shows up. Remus warns her to be safe, tells her to text him immediately when she gets home, and makes sure the driver can see the swell of his biceps and the "FIRE RESCUE" and seal on his shirt. It's usually enough to keep weirdos at bay. People might fuck with police officers (jumped-up twats that they are), but no one fucks with a firefighter.

"Alright, you. Can you stand?"

"No." The bastard doesn't even try. "You'll have to carry me."

"I feel like this would be more productive if you just limped along to the truck."

"It would not."

"Sirius."

"Remus."

"Sirius."

"Remus, I'm injured! I'm dying! You can't make a dying man do things that would bring him closer to death!"

Remus looks at the silicon band on his ring finger and then up at the sky. "I love him, I love him, I love him," he mutters under his breath.

"You love me."

"Somehow." Remus rolls his eyes, crouches down, and lifts Sirius into his arms with a firm heave. Sirius weighs more than he does, and he's a heavy burden in the curl of Remus's arms, but the look on his face and the slight parting of his lips gives Remus the extra strength he needs. It's crazy. Seven years together, and they still get hot for feats of strength.

Sirius doesn't give the ER nurses any lip. Even with all of his charm and long eyelashes and beautiful face, they don't take shit or heckling from him. After some x-rays and a great deal of teasing from the staff who joke he hurts himself off-duty more than he does on, Sirius's ankle is determined to be sprained, and he's required to take four weeks off and be re-evaluated before he can return to work.

"You're telling Lily," Remus says bluntly as he helps Sirius out of the truck.

Sirius pouts and makes Remus carry him again—crutches are apparently 'torture'—into the house. "Can I tell her after I make it up to you?"

Remus almost drops him on the couch, but recovers quickly enough to set him down gently. "...What did you have in mind?" He clears his throat. "It'll have to be good. I've carried your thick ass all afternoon."

Sirius props himself on one elbow and drags Remus close by his beltloops. "But you love my thick ass," he practically purrs against Remus's fly, and he's not wrong. He really, really does. Sirius mouths the growing bulge in his jeans and flicks his silver eyes up at Remus. "Don't worry. It'll be good."

[krethes]

@wolfstarmicrofic Day Six: explore NSFW, 18+ only.

Remus has a fondness for maps. As a child, he explored every inch of shore and cove he'd been permitted to at his home in Dover, documenting the flat rocks that the mermaids and selkies liked to sun themselves on or where the crabs laid their clutches so he could watch them hatch and scatter across the sand. At Hogwarts, he had help canvassing the seemingly endless hallways and secret passages, tunnels that led to the epitome of boyhood heaven: a chocolate shop. He learned the names of the portraits and earned their trust, earning him more secrets to uncover. But here, in their wide bathtub filled with scented bubbles and slick oil, is Remus's favorite thing to explore. Harry's in the capable hands of the Longbottoms for the weekend, and Sirius is all his for the first time in nearly eight months. Eight months of quick handjobs, half-distracted with one eye each on the door and ears listening for the cries of their godson instead of savoring the moans of their partner. Eight months of chaste pecks and brief hugs, because anything more would lead to something, and there's this powder keg of want sitting like an erumpent in the room, bold, red-lettered: WARNING: FLAMMABLE. Eight months of missing him. Sirius's body hasn't changed all that much in eight months; he's thinner and his muscles are less defined (sudden guardianship of a 1-year-old leaves little time for dedicated exercise), but Remus feels like he's learning him all over again. Sirius sits between his spread knees, his back to Remus's chest and his head tipped back onto his shoulder. Remus's hands wander, searching, memorizing, half-guided by muscle memory, half by sheer desire. They'd gotten off already on the sectional as soon as they got the "all clear" from Frank, just to take the edge off, but it didn't bank the fire. He traces the new, still-reddened tattoo on Sirius's sternum: a shield rune made of ink, blood, and pure magical force, and thrills in Sirius's shiver. Remus noses into his hair, fragrant from the posh soap Sirius has finally started buying again, whispering filthy promises against his wet curls. He glides his hands over his collarbone, his ribs, down the trail of hair below his navel and over to Sirius's hips and back up again. He's so responsive like this, all warm and relaxed, two bottles of mead gone between them, leaving them languid but no less thirsty. Remus is a cartographer of the landscape before him. He leaves no goosebump, pebbled nipple, or hard cock unexplored, unturned, and when Sirius comes, gasping his name like the answer to life's riddle, it's like a compass rose, like Polaris, a bright shining beacon of everything he never dreamed he'd have guiding him home.

[krethes]

@wolfstarmicrofic Day Seven: imaginary

This is closer to 50 than 2000 so... Yes. Enjoy. :)

Sirius never really gave much thought to his future. It was pretty cut and dry: he was the eldest son of a powerful, old Pureblood family. He'd marry a daughter of one of his parents' political allies, have several sons, and become Lord Black. It wasn't complicated. There was no diverting from the plan.

His cousins (Narcissa) would cajole him into playing pretend. Narcissa was fond of looking through magazines and getting the house elves to set up elaborate tea parties-turned-weddings. Sirius, whose own parents were cousins, was less than thrilled at being cast as Narcissa's "groom", but she assured him she had zero interest in his grumpy face.

He didn't think about his future, because there was no point. Everything was certain.

Until that ruddy hat called, "GRYFFINDOR!" and upended Sirius's entire world. He'd seen the abject horror and shock on the faces of his cousins at the Slytherin table, how Bellatrix's changed to vicious glee, Andromeda's to concern, and Narcissa's to something resembling sadness. Three syllables—the wrong syllables—changed everything.

The Family maintained an air of hesitant, begrudging acceptance for a whole year, but when Regulus went to Slytherin, Sirius knew things would never be the same. He mourned his loss, grieved the absence of things he thought he'd needed to survive, the love he thought he'd had from his parents.

He had to give thought to his future now, with McGonagall looking at him in her piercing, unsettling way, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, like Padfoot's fur ruffles when he's unsettled. Maybe he can live as a dog... That would be easier, for sure.

"Mr Black, I get the distinct impression that I've lost you. Sirius? Founders help me..."

Sirius ignores her mutterings, absolutely lost in his own head. Someone would probably take him. James, for sure, or Remus...

Remus.

Being James's dog would mean a lot of running, but Remus would let him sleep in and have a cuddle and they'd run around on the full moon together and have lazy Sundays in front of the fire. James wouldn't ever let his dog eat cakes or bacon, but Sirius reckons he could win Remus over with a bit of begging.

Yeah, living as a dog seems like the best choice for him. The world's going to shit, and it's not like his name carries much weight now that he's been disowned.

"Mr Black!"

Sirius blinks and stares at her, wide-eyed and startled. "Professor McGonagall!" he parrots on instinct and immediately regrets his decision, because her nostrils do that flaring thing and he's sure that if she were a cat right now, her tail would be twitching a warning.

Remus keeps him company during the detention he has to serve for his sass. He's not very helpful, the lazy sod, leaning against the wall popping chocolate bon bons in his mouth while Sirius works like a dog cleaning the floors without magic. "I just don' understan'," Remus says around a mouthful of candy, "Why didn't you just answer her question, Pads?"

Sirius scowls at the flagstones and sighs dramatically. "It's a stupid question! I'm 16, I don't know what I want to do when I leave here. It's a big question, isn't it, and like... Who even knows? Okay-" Sirius says, cutting Remus's no-doubt snide remark short, "Prongs is going to play for the Magpies and marry Lily Evans but we both know only one of those things is even a little bit possible, so he's just as bad off as I am!"

Remus suddenly crouches down in front of him, and the smell of the chocolate and the faint scent of Moony makes Sirius a little dizzy. "Just...use your imagination, Padfoot. What do you want to be, and so help me God, if you say a 'dog'..."

Sirius isn't scared of this "God" Remus is always on about, but he bites back "dog" nonetheless. "...dunno, really. Not Quidditch. Nothing with potions. Beach bum?"

Remus laughs and tosses a bonbon at him, which he cleverly catches in his mouth with a little woof. "Yeah, sure, you and me, Pads. We'll be beach bums together until we're old and toothless."

The idea of living with his best friend (and secret, desperate crush) on the beach in a tiny shack is far more appealing than any other plan Sirius has had made for his life, and even though he knows it's a ridiculous thing and definitely not going to happen, he tucks that image deep inside his heart to remember on a rainy day.