RohrKatze

2019 // 2026

"Holy shit, Remus."

With stifled scream, Remus tried to cover himself with his underwear. Honestly, Lily was an amazing friend and roommate, but she forgot too easily that doors could be closed for a reason.

"Hello to you too," he muttered trying to put his pants on without… it didn't matter, Lily seemed rather focused on him. "Lils, you have a boyfriend and I'm… not interested."

His friend didn't even acknowledge the comment, giving him an unimpressed look and raising her right eyebrow.

"Look, I could ask what the fuck is that, but I fucking know."

With his bits finally covered, Remus could focus on whatever had made her friend act so weird. He followed her gaze to his own navel, and then his hips, where four purple marks along with a couple of hickies could be seen. He blushed and cleared his throat.

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh." Lily smirked. "That means you and Sirius finally…"

"Finally?" Remus heard himself ask.

"Come on, the sexual tension could be cut with a knife. It took you years to do something about it."

"Years?"

"But it seems you aren't wasting time now," Lily went on and then she grabbed Remus hand and led him to the bed. "Tell me everything."

Resigned to his fate, Remus sighed—althought he couldn't avoid the little smile on his face.

"I'm not telling you everything."

"Darling, the things you want to pretend to be too shy to tell me, I already can see," she chuckled, dismissing the comment with a flick of her hand and looking again at the bruises. "To be fair, it maks senses, with how obsessed he is with your waist."

At that, Remus was flabbergasted again.

"How- do you- what?"

"You really are blind, aren't you? Everytime Sirius moves around you he grabs your waist, even if he doesn't need to, what it's most of the time."

That… could be true, now that he thought about it. But he had been to preoccupied pretending not to panic—or melt—when it happened to realise. It wasn't his fault.

»"Okay, but now fucking tell your best friend what happened last night."

Then Remus started talking.

He talked about how they couldn't go out for dinner as they had planned—it had been a long time since the two of them had gone out together, without the rest of their friends—because it was raining too much and Remus was not letting Sirius ride his bike (that, of course, lead to Lily saying something along the lines of "Ah, but there was some riding done… and dirty riding, because those finers's positions…" but Remus didn't acknowledged it).

Remus told her that they were bickering because of it, Sirius telling him it was cute how worried he got, and how Remus blushed because of it.

He told her that later, while having dinner, the air had felt heavier.

Remus told her about how Sirius had laugh when Remus had gotten his cheek stained with chocolate ice cream before trying to clean it up, but there were no napkins near, so he had licked it. At first, it seemed silly, but their faces had stayed close for too long.

He talked about how that lead to a shy kiss, and that to things much more heated than shy kisses.

But against Lily's complains, he then talked about the after.

The long talk, the soft caresses, the warm bed… The morning after, rushed because Sirius had to get to his job at the workshop, but sweet, because they couldn't stop smiling and kissing.

"And then I came home, got a shower, and was ambused by my best friend."

"That explains why James got a text telling him to go to the worksop…" Lily whispered, grinning. Then her expression turned softer. "Remus, I'm so happy for you both. Even if... Even if I don't know how are you able to walk today…"

"Lily!"

But his friend just shook her head.

"Come on, love. Have you seen those marks?"

And Remus felt the part of him that was a little bit naughty, and that was so fucking proud of himself, coming to life.

"Yes. I've seen them," he smiled smugly. "In fact... I've felt them being made."

Lily gasped, feigning surprise, bringing her hand to her chest as if she were clutching her pearls. But she quickly abandoned the act, pouting.

"Come on, Remus, you know you want to tell me the juicy details…"

"Maybe you don't want to hear the juicy details."

"Not all of them, of course. But… Your skin is purple!" She exclaimed. "Is Sirius' chest covered with scratches?"

They stared at each other for a couple of seconds. Remus tried to fight it, but the right corner of his lips went up, and soon he was trying not to giggle. He ended giving up.

"There was not only riding," he admitted. "And it was dirty."

Lily squaked and clapped her hands together.

»"Okay, okay, but first I'm getting dressed."

At the end, she got some of those juicy details—only the most "appropiate" ones, mind you, she wasn't that interested. But most important of all, he got Remus to open, to not hide behind his shyness. To remember he had a best friend who would listen to him, and be fucking happy about it. Sometimes, he still forgot.

When she looked at her phone later that day, she saw a text from James.

"Right," James said, leaning against the doorframe, eating an apple. "Two mates. Who coordinate their outfits."

Sirius looked down. He was wearing one of Remus's oversized, oatmeal-colored cardigans because he’d been cold earlier. Remus was wearing a nearly identical beige cable-knit sweater because that was simply his wardrobe.

"Coincidence," Sirius scoffed.

"And are you going to hold hands to 'keep the group together' like you did at Diagon Alley?" James smirked.

"It was crowded! I didn't want to lose him!"

"You didn't want to lose Remus?"

"He wanders off!" Sirius defended hotly. "He gets distracted by bookshops!"

"Sirius," Remus called from the kitchen. "Ready? I packed the sandwiches you like. The ones without the crusts."

Sirius’s face went soft instantly. "Coming, Moony!" He looked back at James. "Shut up."

Jaskier likes to gossip and he has a lot of secret and compromising information about everyone and Geralt listens to him when he talks about it, even when he's pretending not to.

So when some noble or mayor refuses to pay Geralt for a job, because he thinks he can get away with it, Geralt is like:

"Oh, fine... Guess your wife won't mind to hear you slept with her sister".

And just like that, he gets paid.

***

“I can’t believe we are actually doing this.”

“How many times are you going to say that, Moony?”

Remus looked at his friend with wide eyes and his foot tapping on the ground. There was a rock band playing through the venue's speakers, the main reason Sirius had chosen that place. Remus liked it, but it didn’t help him relax. Well, his last three days had been kind of delirious.

“Every time you get me to do something crazy,” he answered.

Sirius punched him in the shoulder, playfully. He adored that face Remus did when he wanted to do something, but part of his brain wasn’t convinced; his little frown, the way he fidgeted with the hem of his t-shirt, the glow in his eyes. And he also adored teasing him and making him get out of his comfort zone.

“Oh, come on. Everyone goes on an unplanned trip from time to time.”

“No, they don’t.” Remus rolled his eyes. “Much less to another continent. But we were already over that. This is worse.”

“Getting a tattoo is worse than accepting to get on a plane to Spain on a random Friday morning without previous notice?”

“Yes, completely.”

Trying to hold his laughter, Sirius licked his lips. He leaned in a bit to whisper in Remus’s ear.

“Are you afraid, Moons?”

His voice so close made Remus squirm, though he concealed it with a nudge to his friend's ribs.

“Shut up,” he growled. “This is your, what? Fiftieth tattoo? Your skin is used to being tortured, and your brain sees it like a game.”

“I swear to you it’s not going to hurt that much.”

“Do you know what it's really not going to do? Disappear. It’s not going to disappear. This is permanent, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” Sirius said, suddenly more earnest. “And I also know I would never want a tattoo that reminds me of you to disappear.”

Remus gaped a couple of times. He ended up crossing his arms and putting on an adorable pout. Or at least that’s what Sirius thought.

“That’s a low blow,” Remus muttered through gritted teeth.

Sirius chuckled. At the same time, the door to their right opened, and a purple-haired woman called their names.

“Come on, it’s our turn.”

"Bite Me", Steve Rogers & Bucky Barnes [Chris Evans & Sebastian Stan], from this classic post/image manip (the oldest version I can find of it)

Apr, 2026

Recoloured, texture overlaid, overlined, because what else are classics for if not for re-imagining?

A veterinary clinic dedicated solely to rescue animals! For these little ones without owners, a lack of funds is nothing short of a death sentence. I am beyond grateful for this hospital. Our Bucky must have met Alpine on the streets too, right? I'm so thankful to the people who help make these beautiful connections possible. 🐾❤️

If someone asked Sirius how he had ended there… well, he would have lied. Because it was fucking embarrassing. It was supposed to be a quick prank: Go down to the dungeons, cast a couple of spells on the walls, bribe Peeves to wake the Slytherins and laugh watching them fall on their asses and jumping because their legs would be itching as if they had hundreds of ants under their pyjamas.

It turned out to be more complex because somehow the Slytherins had discovered they were plotting something, and the Marauders had faced a fucking trap. Now, they had snakes chasing them, venomous snakes. And if Sirius knew they were venous, it was because he knew them.

“I can’t believe my little brother is trying to kill me,” he growled while running through the corridors.

Remus chuckled at his side, even if it sounded kind of breathless.

“Are you sure you can’t believe it?”

“Yeah, maybe I should say I can’t believe my brother is actually close to killing me.”

They kept running up the stairs, waking up some of the portraits and making sure that Filch would appear at any moment. That night would end with them killed; there wasn’t another option.

“Do you think the venom would hurt less than being hanged up by our wrists?” Remus asked when they turned a corner that they knew would take them to a secret passage. It gave them a couple of seconds of advantage, but soon they heard the hissing once again.

“I think both are slow deaths.”

“Well, I’m used to that.”

They left the passageway, encountering then two possibilities, which were exponentially reduced upon hearing a "meow" to their left.

“No time for that now, Remus!”

And, of course, the left option was a ramp they had to climb.

“Oh, Merlin. My lungs are exploding.” Remus coughed, leaning on the wall.

“No, hey, come on.”

Sirius went back to him, putting his hands on his shoulders and patting them a couple of times. They could already hear Flich's voice somewhere behind them, his typical “students out of bed” chant mixed with curses about the snakes. Oh, they were going to blame them for that, too.

But Remus was red like a tomato and with tears in his eyes. Sirius cursed under his breath and intertwined his fingers with his friend’s, who looked at him as if he had been hit by lightning. But they didn’t have time to think about why their skin felt like burning in the best of ways just by a silly touch. They had to run.

knight in stilted armour

Recognition was instant.

Steve led the meeting with polished, strategic language filled with metaphors that echoed their night together.

Bucky answered with guarded professionalism, even as the subtext unsettled him.

Nothing explicit was said, no line was crossed, yet Steve controlled the room completely.

And when it ended, everything was proper on record, but Bucky left certain of two things: Steve remembered, and he was choosing not to forget.

Steve Rogers was a retired investigative journalist living in a remote cabin.

Bucky Barnes was a high-ranking junior partner at a massive law firm who had just discovered a conspiracy he couldn't ignore.

Bucky showed up at Steve’s doorstep in the middle of the night, still in his work clothes, holding a flash drive.

He needed the one man who used to be fearless enough to tell the truth to help him take down the firm.

Steve was in his early 50s now, he walked away from journalism after exposing a story that costed people their lives and nearly broke him, the cabin wasn’t just isolation, it was penance.

Bucky, late 30s, brilliant and meticulously controlled, spent years climbing a law firm that prided tself on “ethical aggression”, he believed in the system until he found a sealed internal archive linked to a dead whistleblower and a chain of shell companies funding private prisons, political blackmail, and at least one “accidental” death, the firm wasn’t just corrupt, it was lethal.

Bucky drove six hours in the rain because Steve’s name was the only one that never disappeared from the footnotes of old exposés.

When he reached the cabin, he didn’t knock like a visitor, he knocked like someone being hunted.

Steve almost didn’t open the door, and when he did, he saw a man who looked like the city followed him there: tailored coat soaked through, hands shaking, eyes burning with terror.

The flash drive was warm from Bucky’s grip as he said:

“I don’t know who else to trust”

Steve told him to leave.

Bucky said “They know I know”

Steve agreed to help for one night just to see what was on the drive.

The files were worse than Bucky realized, Steve recognized patterns, redactions, false trails, it wasn’t a legal case, it was a narrative war.

They worked in silence at first, then conversation started.

Bucky was all precision and control, unused to being the vulnerable one, Steve was blunt, tired, allergic to hope, but still radiant when he started connecting dots.

The firm sent feelers, a car parked too long on the road, a “wellness check” email and a former colleague of Bucky's who suddenly stopped answering calls.

Steve realized the danger wasn’t theoretical and Bucky realized Steve wasn’t just helping, he was choosing.

The attraction was unexpected and deeply inconvenient.

Steve was older, more grounded, carrying grief Bucky could sense but didn't yet understand.

Bucky was still burning, still believed exposure could save something.

They clashed about risk, about timing, about whether the truth was worth the cost.

But...

Bucky watched Steve come alive while building the story, hands steady, voice sure.

Steve watched Bucky refuse to look away, even when it costed him everything he worked for.

They shared nights of quiet proximity, coffee at dawn, shoulders brushing, the start of something neither named because naming it would make it fragile.

The firm escalated.

Bucky’s apartment was raided.

Steve’s old editor was found dead, ruled a suicide.

Steve wanted to pull back because he was there before and he knew how it was going to end.

Bucky refused “If we stop now, they win and we’re still in danger”

They argued, it was vicious, honest and personal.

That night, Steve admitted the real reason he quit journalism, he once chose the story over a person, and lost them and he promised himself he wouldn't do it again.

Bucky said quietly “I’m not asking you to choose the story, I’m asking you to choose me”

Bucky was targeted directly, an “accident” staged on a mountain road, he survived because Steve insisted on driving.

After that, there was no pretending, they were in this together.

Steve leaked parts of the story strategically, using old contacts and burner channels.

Bucky worked the legal angles, planting evidence where it couldn't be buried.

The firm turned on itself, junior partners flipping and clients fleeing.

But it came at a cost: Steve was exposed publicly, his past mistakes were dragged into the light and Bucky was disbarred before the case even broke.

The final release went live while they were hiding out documents, testimonies, names.

It exploded, arrests followed, congressional hearings, and then finally the firm collapsed.

But in the aftermath, Bucky disappeared.

Steve found him weeks later, alive but shaken, he was hiding in the cabin’s crawlspace after realizing someone followed him and hit his car causing it to fall of a cliff but he was miraculously fine, which meant the danger wasn’t entirely gone yet.

Steve held him like it was instinct to protect him, like this was the choice he didn’t make last time.

Eventually, they survived.

Bucky had to rebuild from nothing, no firm, no reputation, no illusion that the system protected its own.

Steve didn’t go back to journalism full-time but he didn't disappear either.

They stayed in the cabin longer than planned, then longer still.

The world knew the truth now.