Chapter Text
Lyall’s old truck sounded like Remus’ mum’s old blender she refused to throw away. But he swore that it was in perfectly good conditions for Remus to take it to New York. If you ask Remus, he’d say he had no other choice but to trust his father (and had no money to buy a car himself).
Luckily, he wouldn’t have to go alone. Emmeline, a friend of Alice’s (therefore, his friend), told him his boyfriend was moving to New York and that it’d be great if they’d go together so Remus wouldn’t have to drive all the way. Remus accepted, of course. The odds of the truck stopping in the middle of the road were pretty high, and having someone around gave him a sense of security.
He was there just in time, but had to wait for fifteen minutes until Emmeline and Sirius decided to stop making out on the sidewalk. Remus had to honk the horn three times for them to pull away.
“I’ll miss you,” Emmeline said, dreamily, as Sirius walked towards the car.
His gaze never left hers. “I’ll miss you more!”
Remus rolled his eyes, and seriously reconsidered his choice. Maybe the car breaking down in the middle of the road wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
“No, I’ll miss you more!”
“Not possible!”
“Call me as soon as you get there!”
“Count on it, babe!”
“I love you!”
Sirius blew her a kiss in response and—finally—got inside the truck.
“You two done?” Remus asked, a little too loud to be heard over the noise of the engine.
Sirius rolled down the window. “Hell yeah. Let’s go to New York, baby!”
“Okay, tell me something about you.”
Remus frowned. His idea for this trip implied nothing but to listen to music and enjoy the view. “Huh?”
“C’mon. We’ll be here for eighteen hours, we might as well get to know each other a little. I can start if you want. My name’s Sirius Black, I’m a scorpio, and I plan on buying a motorbike as soon as I arrive in New York,” he grinned. “Now you. Go.”
Remus thought he was ridiculous. But what else could he do but follow along?
He sighed. “Remus Lupin, I—I don’t really know my zodiac sign, Lily told me but I forgot, and I’ll study in Godric. That’s my plan for New York.”
Sirius scoffed a laugh. “No way you don’t know your sun sign. I mean, your moon sign? Okay, I’d get it. But your sun sign? What are you, Remus Lupin? Some kind of joyless sod?”
“I didn’t understand anything you just said.”
Sirius clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I cannot believe this. Okay. Okay. It’s fine,” he reached for his backpack and pulled out a magazine with a picture of Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover. After going through a few pages he stopped. “Tell me your birthday.”
“What are you—”
“Birthday. Now.”
“March tenth.”
“March tenth,” he echoed as his finger ran through the page until it stopped. “Found it! You’re a pisces. Oh god, no.” He slapped a hand to his face. “My ex was a pisces. I can’t do pisces. Sorry, our friendship is destined to ruin.”
“How sad.”
“I mean it, Lupin. I might have to jump from the car right now and hitch a ride from a guy in a pick-up who doesn’t know left and right from wrong.”
Remus couldn’t help a laugh. “That’s how bad it ended, then?”
“It was the worst. How can I know that you’re any better?”
Remus glanced briefly at him, Sirius’ eyebrows were up, waiting for an answer.
“When did I say I was?”
Sirius’ face split into a grin. “Oh, I like you,” he said in a casual way. “Em and Alice said you were nice, so, naturally, I thought you were just a swot trying to get into their pants.”
“Naturally.”
“But you are nice, aren’t you, Lupin?” Sirius got comfortable on his seat, both feet on the dashboard, and opened the magazine again. Bowie’s Moonage Daydream started playing. “Ooh, I love this song!”
Sirius was, to say the least, interesting. Interesting in a way Remus couldn’t quite decipher. He talked a lot—and I mean, a lot— but not in a way that he took the hold of the whole conversation. He listened to Remus whenever he had something to say—which didn’t happen much, but when it did Sirius listened like there wasn’t anything more important. Maybe because there wasn’t, really, anything else to do. It was just the road and Sirius’ never ending conversation. And maybe he was becoming a little crazy, because at one point he started to enjoy it.
They stopped at a place for dinner, big neon sign and all.
“You are not serious!” Sirius yelled as they climbed off the truck, slamming the door. “You would let go of the woman you had the greatest sex of your life with, just because she’s a stripper?”
“Yeap.”
“I’m talking about bombastic—out of this world—sex.”
Remus opened the restaurant’s door. “My answer is the same.”
Sirius’ eyes widened, then he clicked his tongue. “Okay, fine. I get it.”
They sat in a booth by the corner. One in front of the other. Remus realised it was the first time they were having a conversation without talking to the other’s profile. Sirius’ eyes looked magically blue under this light.
“What do you mean you ‘get it’?”
“Nothing.”
He leaned over the table. “What, Sirius?”
“Forget it,” he shrugged.
“Forget what?”
“It’s not important.”
“Fine, don’t tell me,” he leaned back, disinterested.
Sirius rolled his eyes. “Okay. Fine. I’ll tell you. It’s just—you obviously haven’t had great sex yet.”
Remus frowned, half scoffing a laugh. “I so have.”
“Don’t think so.”
“For your information, I’ve had plenty of great sex.”
Just then, the waiter coughed in her hand trying to get their attention. “Sorry to interrupt. You two know what you’re having already or should I come back later?”
Sirius was trying hard not to laugh, biting his bottom lip and looking at the menu like it was the most interesting thing in the world. Remus had to put a hand over his own mouth.
“I—yeah—we—”
“I’ll just come back later,” the lady said and disappeared into the background.
Then Sirius bursted into laughter. Remus kicked him from under the table, but it did nothing to stop him.
“Okay,” Sirius wiped a tear away. “Okay, Romeo. With whom?”
“Huh?”
“This great sex. Who was she?”
Remus huffed. “Like I’d tell you.”
“Sure. ‘Cause she isn’t real.” Sirius was starting to get into his nerves. More so, when he started reading the menu like the last five minutes hadn’t happened. “Didn’t perceive you as the lying type, Remus. I’m kind of disappointed.”
A beat of silence, and then.
“Dorcas Meadowes.”
Sirius looked up from the menu. “The lesbian?”
“She isn’t a lesbian.”
“Remus, she wore pants to prom. Wake up.”
Well, yeah. And she made out with Lily that time they both got pissed.
“Okay. Okay, fine. I’ve never had great sex with a woman. Is that what you wanted to hear? That’s why I wouldn’t marry the stripper. Not because she’s a stripper. I wouldn’t marry any woman. Except, maybe, for Lily but that’s only if we hit thirty and are both sad and alone in Las Vegas.”
Sirius smiled, showing teeth, eyebrows wiggling. “Have you had sex with boys then?”
“You won’t stop even if I say no, will you?”
Sirius raised a hand to his chest, dramatically. “You know me so well already.”
The waitress came back, like she said she would, and they both ordered. Remus got his chocolate milk with extra chocolate and extra sugar, and pancakes. Sirius ordered a hamburger and a strawberry milkshake. When they were done, the other boy was left with a cream moustache. Again, the conversation jumped from one topic to the other, and somehow Sirius ended up knowing about Remus’ first kiss with no other than Gilderoy, who happened to be Sirius’ first kiss as well. For a town so small, they found it fascinating how they’d never met before. Some part of Remus cursed himself for it. Maybe, if they had found each other sooner—but they didn’t.
Just as Remus paid the waitress, he felt a pair of blue eyes on him.
“Do I have something on my face?” He asked.
Sirius didn’t answer. He just kept staring. “You’re very attractive,” he said, eyeing him up and down. It sounded dangerous.
Remus frowned. “Fuck you, Black.” And he expected the joke—or whatever that was—to end there.
“No—I mean it. You’re hot, Lupin,” he leaned, elbow on the table. “Have you ever been told? Out of this world type of hot.”
Remus couldn’t fucking believe it.
“You’re dating Emmeline,” he hissed.
Sirius didn’t even blink at the mention of her name. “So?”
Rolling his eyes, Remus stood up. “She’s my friend. Who you happen to be dating.”
Sirius followed him to the truck. “What? I can’t say you’re attractive just ‘cause I have a girlfriend? I wasn’t even—it’s just a fact, you know. You might as well sue me for saying the sky is blue.”
Remus gave him a look. C’mon, Black.
Maybe he wasn’t Emmeline's closest friend, but he wasn’t going to be the other woman. God, he wished Sirius was just a little less handsome because his fucking face was making everything very difficult.
“Okay,” Sirius continued as he jumped to the pilot’s seat. “Okay, let’s say I was hitting on you. What do you want me to do about it? Take it back?” Silence. “I’ve never done that in my life, I’m not starting now. But if that’ll make that line on your forehead go away, fine, I’ll do it. I’m taking it back. See?” Silence. “C’mon, Lupin. We were just fine. Can’t we—be friends at least?”
Remus stared for a moment too long. He felt something in his chest just then. With Sirius looking at him like that, was he even thinking straight?
They still had seven hours left.
“Okay,” he finally said, “we can be friends.”
“You do realise, though, we can never be friends?”
Remus was half asleep when he heard Sirius’ voice. “What?”
“You and me. Friends. It won’t work. I’ll always think you’re hot and, and I see how you look at me. I don’t trust us as friends. Sex will always be in the way.”
Cheeks burning, Remus did his best not to feel whatever he was feeling on the pit of his stomach. This was his friend’s boyfriend after all. No matter how stunning he was. Sirius Black was not better than any other man.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a shame,” Remus said, honestly. “You’re the only person I’ll know in New York.”
The next morning, by the time Sirius woke up they were already in New York. It smelled just as Remus remembered, in the worst of ways. But it held his future, and it was as exciting as it could be. Finally, he’d be making his life from scratch. And if everything went according to plan, Lily would be joining him in just a year. Just a year. He could do it.
Those good things were the things he was focusing on when he said goodbye to Sirius Black.
What a shame, he thought. Because in another universe maybe they could’ve been very good friends.