Work Text:
“What are you wearing tomorrow?” Lily asks, leaning against the frame of Remus’ bedroom door. She has her red hair in a loose ponytail and wears a pair of mom jeans with an oversized sweater and pink sparkly socks.
Remus lifts his head from where he lays sprawled on the bed, laptop resting on his chest. “What wedding?” he asks, closing the laptop and sitting up.
Lily sighs and shakes her head, pushing herself off of the door frame and walks over to the bed. She drops a stack of magazines on the mattress next to Remus and points to their glossy covers. “The royal wedding of Andromeda and Edward, Remus. What other wedding should I be talking about?”
Remus frowns. He doesn’t remember being invited to any wedding, especially not a royal one though he can vaguely recall having picked out a suit for a special occasion.
He takes one of the magazines. It has a picture of Princess Andromeda and her soon-to-be husband, Edward, on the cover. He has his arm around her waist, smiling at her fondly as they walk through the streets of what Remus assumes must be London. They look happy, he thinks and tosses the magazine back onto the mattress.
“I don’t want to go,” Remus says, finally.
“Why? Because Sirius will be there? Christ, Remus. This is the event of the year and you don’t want to go because of your little rivalry with the literal Prince of England?” Lily shakes her head in disbelief, takes one of the magazines and opens it shortly before closing it again immediately. “What’s your problem with him anyway?”
“He’s an awful person, Lils,” Remus says and crosses his arms over his chest defensively. “And he’s not the Prince of England. He has a little brother so he’s just one of many.”
Lily waves dismissively and replies, “One of two then, whatever.” She pulls her phone out, flips through her gallery and then shows Remus a picture of her dress.
And Remus is more than glad for the change of subject.
He and Sirius first met in person during the summer Olympics 2016 in Rio but even before that, everyone, especially the press, liked to compare the two of them. America’s golden boy and the royal breaker of hearts. He remembers how Lily used to read him the articles out loud while they were studying late at night or when they were flying around the country for his mother’s campaign. They made him grind his teeth in anger but he would sometimes rip out the pictures of Sirius, secretly keeping them stashed away in a shoe carton under his bed.
Because the truth is that Remus doesn’t hate Sirius, not at all. Quite on the contrary.
Lily’s dress is a beautiful sage green colour with long sleeves and a modest yet flattering neckline. “You look great,” Remus says, awkwardly clearing his throat.
Lily smiles at him and ruffles her hand through his curls. “Come on now, Moons. You should start packing, we leave tonight.”
Remus rolls his eyes. He knows that Lily is right but he hates packing almost as much as he hates spending an entire evening in a room with pretentious royalty.
“Whose stupid idea was a wedding in the middle of winter, anyway?” he scoffs, earning him an intense glare and a loving hit on the head from Lily.
❄
When they leave for the airport that evening, the wind is cold and Remus quickly finds himself shivering underneath his seemingly countless layers of clothing.
He dislikes the cold, hates how stiff his fingers feel and how his nose immediately starts running as soon as it gets colder. No matter how many sweaters and hoodies and warm socks he wears, Remus tends to freeze his butt off either way.
His toes start to turn numb, nose buried deeply in the soft wool of his scarf when they finally enter the plane and he takes his usual seat next to Lily down towards the back.
From his backpack, he retrieves his laptop and headphones along with his current read — Frankenstein by Mery Shelley. Maybe, Remus thinks, I will at least get some work done.
He’s not the biggest fan of flying but it at least gives him a break from the usual rush he is surrounded by in the White House and on campus.
Lily sits down beside him and hands Remus a pack of m&ms before she tears open her own pack and starts throwing them in the air to catch them with her mouth.
Once the plane is up in the air and Remus feels calm enough, he starts working on his essay.
His mother passes the two of them and stops to fondly ruffle her hand through his curls with a smile. “Do you ever stop working, sugar?” she asks with a soft laugh.
“Just this one essay, I promise,” Remus replies, muffled through the handful of m&ms he’s currently chewing on.
Remus always had the habit of completely surrounding himself with term papers and homework and essays to the point of complete exhaustion. During his first year at university, Lily had to physically drag him away from his laptop and into bed.
Hope nods and gives Remus a kiss on the forehead and says, “Okay, but don’t overdo it and try to get some sleep later. Tomorrow will be exhausting enough.” She smiles at him and Lily once more and returns to her seat.
With a sigh, Remus turns his attention back towards his laptop. His mother is right about getting some sleep and tomorrow being exhausting.
Remus wouldn’t consider himself an introvert per se. He enjoys being around other people, he loves to be with his friends and meet up with his study groups but every time he has to attend a big social event, his social battery tends to run out a lot faster and his anxiety tends to join the mix sooner or later.
With the first draft finished and the sky outside being a dark, velvety blue, Remus closes his laptop and decides to get some sleep.
When he wakes up again, Lily’s legs draped over his, the plane is close to landing. Remus rubs a hand over his face with an exhausted sigh, ruffling a hand through his hair before he sits up straight and leans over Lily to glimpse out of the window. It’s early morning, the sky heavy with grey clouds.
“Great,” Remus mumbles. “The British weather is just as awful as I imagined it would be.”
Next to him, Lily chuckles softly.
❄
The celebrations are in full swing and Remus has had maybe one or two glasses of champagne too many.
He wears his three-piece navy suit with a light blue tie. His suit jacket draped over the back of his chair, the first two buttons of his dress shirt undone, tie a lot looser than it was a few hours before.
Lily sits beside him, nipping on a glass of champagne, eyes scanning the crowd.
Between eating and drinking and even more eating, Remus barely had the time to actually look around. The guest list is packed with royalty and other important people.
Remus recognizes a few of them from the covers of Lily’s glossy magazines though he can only name a handful of them.
“Have you seen him yet?” Lily asks and sets her now empty glass down, tapping against the foot of the glass with her long nails.
“Who?” Remus asks, pretending to not know who Lily is talking about. But he knows exactly who she’s referring to — Sirius.
Truth is, Remus has been on the look-out for him too. He caught a quick glance at the prince and his brother earlier but hasn’t seen him since then.
Lily sighs and rolls her eyes, gesturing for a waiter. With a full glass of champagne in hand, she turns to look at Remus and says, “You know exactly who I’m talking about. Maybe this wedding would be a great occasion for the two of you to make up. Or out.” She winks.
Remus chokes on a piece of tomato that he has been playing with for the past five minutes before he had decided to finally eat it. “What?” he stutters, trying to regain his composure. His mother raises a questioning eyebrow at him from across the before she returns her attention to the ambassador of whatever. Remus doesn’t remember.
His best friend smiles a knowing smile. “Let’s go dance,” she says and stands up, holding her hand out to Remus.
“I don’t know, Lils. I’m afraid that I’m a little too drunk.” Which is partially true. Remus can feel his head growing fuzzier and fuzzier with alcohol as the seconds pass by but he also doesn’t want to embarrass himself in front of everyone with his mediocre dancing skills.
“Don’t leave me hanging, Moons. Come on. It will be fun, I promise.”
With a sigh, Remus downs the rest of his champagne and then follows Lily to the dance floor, his hand placed in the small of her back, gently guiding her through the crowd. But it’s also so much more than that. Lily’s warmth next to him is comforting, something stable that keeps him grounded and in the present moment.
He twirls her around and then places his hand on her hip, the other gently cupping hers. It’s a Viennese waltz, something Remus is familiar with.
As he and Lily move across the dancefloor smoothly, Remus spots a familiar set of grey eyes across the room — Sirius.
His heart suddenly drops to the floor and Remus stumbles, almost taking Lily and the three-tier wedding cake down with him. Thankfully, he catches himself the very last second, avoiding a much bigger catastrophe.
To Remus’ relief, his little accident goes mostly unnoticed but he still feels unnerved, a little jittery. “I need some fresh air,” he says to Lily and quickly pushes his way through the crowd.
Out in the snow-covered garden, Remus can feel his rapid heartbeat drumming in his ears, stomach flipping and flipping and flipping. He leans against a near-by tree, eyes blankly staring down the cobblestone path winding through hedges and flower beds like a river.
He sighs, slowly dragging his hand across his face.
“Room for two?” says a voice, heavy with a British accent, from somewhere behind Remus.
He startles and turns, spotting none other than Prince Sirius himself.
Remus has to admit that he looks good, maybe even more than good. He’s enragingly handsome. Sirius’ dark hair is longer now than Remus remembers it being, roughed up from dancing, and he wears a maroon-coloured three-piece suit with a white dress shirt, the tie hangs loosely from his neck.
Remus clears his throat and nods. “Yeah,” he croaks and quickly turns to look back out into the garden, hoping, no praying, that Sirius doesn’t spot the crimson blush on his cheeks. And even if he does, Remus could just blame it on the cold. It is, after all, the middle of winter and fucking cold.
He can hear the snow crunch beneath Sirius’ shoes as the prince steps closer, closer and closer until their shoulders touch.
To his demise, Remus finds that Sirius is taller than him by at least a few inches. Remus clears his throat and rolls back his shoulders and stands up straighter, hoping to at least minimize their height difference by an inch or two.
Sirius huffs under his breath and ruffles a hand through his hair.
Remus watches mesmerized. He’s never been someone who tends to pay attention to the littlest details but he can’t help but notice how long and elegant Sirius’ fingers are, the small scars on his index finger and the beauty mark on the back of his hand.
“I’m honored that you decide to spend this wonderful evening with me out in the cold rather than any of your countless suitors inside,” Remus says after they stood in silence for a while as the snow continues to fall silently around them.
Sirius laughs a genuine, honest laugh that makes Remus’ heart melt a little. The prince turns and looks at him, the moonlight reflecting in his beautiful grey eyes. There’s a shadow of sadness, loneliness but it’s gone as quickly as it got there. “I appreciate your company way more,” he says and Remus doesn’t miss the sly smile curling the corner of his lips in a way that makes Remus’ heart race.
“Oh really? I always had the impression that you despise me,” Remus says with a shrug, arms crossed behind his back.
There’s a surprised look on Sirius’ face, then a laugh pulls the corners of his lips up until his entire face is laughing, beaming even. “You’re funny,” he barks, his laugh loud in the otherwise silent night.
“Well, I’m flattered but I was actually being serious.”
“You can’t be serious because I already am,” Sirius replies, his smile turning into a grin. He has his hands buried in the pockets of his pants, teetering back and forth on the back of his feet, heels digging into the freshly fallen snow.
Remus just sighs and shakes his head, eyes fixed on the night sky. “Remember in Rio? How you told your bodyguard or whatever to get rid of me? I just wanted to be nice to you but I have never seen anyone looks as disgusted at me as you did that day,” Remus declares and takes a step forward. The snow crunches beneath his feet.
“ Oh ,” says Sirius. He too takes a step forward.
“Yes, oh .”
“Want to go for a walk?” Sirius asks after another moment of silence. “I want to show you something.” He’s already taken the next couple of steps before Remus even gets the chance to answer.
Remus opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, trying to find an answer that sounds respectable and not utterly stupid. The truth is that he would like to go on a walk with Sirius very much, would like to spend the entire night by his side, talking and talking and talking until his tongue runs out of words to say.
Instead, he just nods.
He quietly follows Sirius through the snow and down the path, taking turns here and there, passing lit up trees and hedges in all shapes and sizes. They don’t talk, the only sound coming from the gravel and snow underneath their shoes and the steady drum of Remus’ heart.
Remus has long lost count of all the turns they took when Sirius comes to a halt. He has lead him to a pavilion by a small, now frozen lake. The area is poorly lit but it’s just as beautiful. Sirius walks up the steps to the pavilion and over to the bannister, looking out to the lake and Remus does the same.
They remain in silence for another minute before Sirius turns to look at Remus. His nose and cheeks are red from the cold but it makes him look even more youthful, ethereal even.
“About what you said,” Sirius looks away again, “that I hate you and all.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t. Hate you, I mean. I don’t have many friends since grew up very sheltered and you were the first boy my age who I had the chance of being friends with. I know, it sounds ridiculous but I was so scared of what you might think of me that I fucked it up on our first meeting and feared you might not want to be my friend after what happened in Rio. So I just tried to avoid you as good as I could but-”
“I don’t hate you,” Remus interrupts because he feels the need to say something too. “And I’m not mad at you either. In fact, I even admire you a little. Living in a palace with the entirety of the world so obsessed with you and your family.”
Remus gently bumps his elbow against Sirius’. The contact, even if they are separated by layers of clothing, sends fireworks off inside of him. He can feel his heart hammering harder and harder against his ribs as he turns to look at Sirius.
He looks beautiful in the pale light.
Remus involuntarily steps closer until he has slotted himself against Sirius, until he can feel Sirius’ hot breath on his cold cheeks, until there is no space left between them.
He looks up at the prince, falling and drowning in the soft grey of his eyes. The colour reminds him of silver coins, the frozen sea, snow glistening in the night.
“Are we about to kiss right now?” Sirius whispers with a quiet chuckle, his pupils are blown wide and a smirk sits on his lips.
“I don’t know,” Remus says, voice small but confident. “But I would like that very much,” he adds even quieter, more private, only for Sirius to hear.
“You would?”
Remus nods, holding his breath. He has never realized until now how good he feels with Sirius so close by, how comfortable he feels around him, their little verbal back-and-forths.
He can hear a shaky breath hitching in the back of Sirius’ throat and then Sirius’ lips are on his. His lips are both cold and warm at the same time, their noses awkwardly bumping into each other, cold fingers finding something to hold onto, digging deeper and deeper until it’s sure that they will leave bruises.
Remus isn’t sure where the bravery to kiss the Prince of England came from but Sirius’ lips on his send shivers up and down his spine, heart beating with the power of a million drums.
“Wow,” Remus whispers once they break apart to gasp for air. Their breath meets in the small space between them, white puffs, little clouds in the dark night.
“Wow indeed,” Sirius confirms before crashing his lips against Remus’ once more.
Kissing a prince, Remus finds, isn’t too different from kissing teammates or his best friend on New Year’s Eve or strangers at college parties but it’s by far the best kiss yet.