Push and Pull (Sirius Black X Reader)

Sirius enters the room, and my eyes catch on him. I have trouble looking away, still unused to his shorter hair. When he meets my eyes and smiles, I finally find myself able to break eye contact, looking down at the papers on my lap instead.

I've been writing up my counterproposal to Hal's. I don't know if I'll ever have the courage to present it but it eases my worries to have one prepared just in case. Part of me knows that I should fight for the department and its mission, but part of me knows how easy it is to live in complacency. 

It's been three weeks since I moved in with Sirius. He's already begun to fill out and regain some of his liveliness, although much of his attempts began far before I moved in with him. He's taken to working out when he can, trying to burn up the energy that builds as he remains cooped up in the house. He does it in the sitting room, which happens to be the place where I've set up my work today. I watch as he scoots the mahogany coffee table to the side, pressed tightly against one of the maroon couches because, for some reason, Mrs. Black felt the need to have three couches in the room.

I begin to gather up my paperwork to give him some privacy, and my rustling attracts his attention.

"Where are you going?" he asks. "You don't have to leave on account of me being here. Unless I'll bother you."

"No, you don't bother me. It's your house."

"It's our house as of now," he says.

"Doesn't matter," I say, although I don't believe when he says it anyway. "You don't bother me."

"Then stay," he says. "We can talk."

I set my papers back down. I draw the one I'm working on back into my lap and twirl my pen in my fingers as I watch him stretch.

"So," he says, "what are you working on?"

"A counterproposal," I tell him.

"To dipwad's proposal?" He takes off his sweater, leaving him in a white t-shirt. I can see some of his tattoos, only on one arm. They seem to be runes of some sort, and I can't decipher the fragmented bits I can see from the cover of his shirt.

"Yeah."

"So you're fighting it then?"

"Don't know yet," I say quietly, looking back at my papers. "I guess I have to choose what's more important to me—my integrity or my job."

"Maybe you'll get to keep both," he says.

"Maybe." But I'm not convinced. I scrawl out another draft of my argument.

To dispose of the prophecies viewed as 'unnecessarily preserved,' as Mr. Hal Rhodes labels them, would be a blatant disobedience to the mission of our department, and to instate further regulations regarding the admittance of new prophecies will not reduce the number of prophecies that we are meant to preserve without consequence, as doing so would merely ensure that we as a department fail in our duty to record all prophecies, regardless of their subjective values as decided by Mr. Rhodes. 

I frown and scratch the argument out, starting over again.

If the Department of—

A groan snaps me out of my trance, and I look up, cheeks ablaze, to see Sirius doing sit-ups. With each one, he makes a little noise, a quiet groan or pant, hands folded behind his head. I blink and look back to my work, starting again.

In order to ensure that the Department of Mysteries continues to carry out—

"Have you considered—" a grunt— "including specific—" a heavy breath— "prophecies he means to dispose of?"