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Sirius swung his overnight bag up into the overhead compartment and climbed into his chair. He had the window seat, and despite being too tall for any seat on an airplane (who isn’t though, Sirius remarked), he was content. He could spend the next two hours reading or staring out into the sky in peace.
Increased noise from the front of the aisle told him that more passengers were boarding. Sirius began to play a seemingly-mandatory game of guessing which passenger would be his seatmate. No, no, nope, and then oh. The man he had noticed earlier, in the boarding area, with the tawny curls and the oversized jacket, was apparently on this flight.
The woman who had boarded before him had decided that now was an appropriate time to remove her sweater and stow it in her suitcase, and so the aisle was blocked. Sirius’s guessing game took an unscheduled intermission during the wait. He took another glance or two at the man. James had elbowed him in the ribs earlier for it, because he wasn’t paying attention to whatever his brother was saying at him. But now, with James seated several rows back, Sirius could stare all he wanted.
He certainly wasn’t Sirius’s usual type. Bookish, slightly awkward, the man looked like he would be more comfortable in a library or in the front of a history classroom than in a bar or a club. But looking at him now, Sirius wasn’t sure he had a usual type anymore. He couldn’t really remember any of his ex-flings anymore.
Eventually, the aisle cleared, and Sirius got to resume his guessing game. People walked past him, and then, suddenly, the man stopped. Their eyes met, and Sirius, very confidently and suave, of course, said “4A?”
The man looked down at his printed boarding pass, then up at the seat numbers briefly. “That’s me,” he confirmed, before swinging his long legs down into the chair beside Sirius.
“Cool,” Sirius said after a pause.
“Are you going to try to talk to me during this entire flight?” Bookish man asked.
“Nope, definitely not,” Sirius said, raising his eyebrows. So the bookish and slightly awkward professor man is a dick, too. That’s fine, Sirius thought. He isn’t even interested. It’s not like his left leg was still tingling from where his seatmate’s right had brushed against it briefly.
Determined to display his indifference, Sirius dug into his backpack for his book. He read it in silence, and it wasn’t until after the safety announcements had come and gone that he heard from his nemesis again.
“What are you reading?”
Sirius narrowed his eyes briefly, but couldn’t help the small smile on his face. If playing hard to get was a game, then he was winning. “Just a random, uh, book.” Okay, so maybe he’s still not on his game one hundred percent.
“Is it any good?” The seatmate asked.
Sirius blushed slightly. He didn’t really know how to answer that, seeing as he suddenly became aware that he was reading gay erotica on a plane next to an attractive man who he suddenly realized may be straight. If he hadn’t been charmed by Sirius’s natural good looks by now, then maybe he was of the more unfortunate persuasion, Sirius thought. “It’s fine?” Sirius answered loftily. “Bit of a guilty pleasure, to be honest.”
“Guilty?” He asked. And really, what’s with this guy, Sirius thought. First he was rude when Sirius talked to him, and now he won’t let him read in peace.
“Uh, yeah. Guilty because the writing is kind of bad. But I’m almost done with it, so. Yeah.” Sirius decided to go back to haughty. He actually was in the middle of a more interesting scene, so he was currently quite a bit invested, even if the writing wasn’t very high-brow.
“I’ll leave you to it, then.” The stranger replied curtly.
Eventually, a flight attendant came by, offering drinks and snacks. Rather absorbed in the book at this point, Sirius was actually rather grateful to find his seatmate tap his shoulder to get his attention. He never would have forgiven the man if he had let Sirius go without the free pretzels.
A little while later, a baby began to cry rather loudly, from somewhere behind them.
“God, who brings a baby on a plane,” the bookish man complained.
Sirius quirked his eyebrows at that, but didn’t play his cards. “Yeah, pretty inconsiderate. The parents should just drug the baby or something. They do it for dogs anyway.”
The stranger furrowed his brow, as if not agreeing completely with Sirius’s feigned cruelty.
In the resulting silence between the two of them, but the sustained volume from a (familiar) baby, Sirius finally finished his book. When he got to the inside of the back cover, he was shocked to see his seatmate’s face printed in black and white.
“Oh my god,” he said reflexively. “It’s you.” Sirius held up the book towards the other man’s face, and sure enough, it was him. The same haughty expression, and upon being presented with his own book close to his face, the man’s eyebrows knitted in the same way.
“Yeah.”
“You write gay erotica,” Sirius said plainly.
The man didn’t even blush. “It’s lowbrow writing, or so I’m told.”
At that, Sirius blushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your, um. Writing. I liked the ending?” he offered. The man shrugged.
Remus Lupin, Sirius read. “Is it a pen name?”
He didn’t really expect an answer, but surprisingly, the man turned back to him again. “No, actually. I was born with that ridiculous name.”
“Me too. Well, not that one, obviously. But also ridiculous. Sirius Black.”
“Nice to meet you,” Remus returned, still looking slightly peeved.
Just then, footsteps came from down the aisle. Suddenly, James was there, and stretched over Remus’s personal space unceremoniously to dump baby Harry in Sirius’s lap. “He wants you,” James said, then turned and walked away without waiting for a response.
Sirius laughed slightly, then focused his attention on Harry. He bounced the infant on his knee, and watched as his green eyes took in his new surroundings. He didn’t seem close to tears at the moment, but Sirius almost hoped he would make noise, just to annoy the standoffish author.
“I, uh. Sorry?” Remus stammered.
“For?” Sirius grinned.
“I didn’t realize that the baby was, um. Yours.”
Sirius shrugged, still looking at Harry. “I insulted your book, you insulted my brother’s choice of bringing his infant on a short plane trip. We’ll call it even.” He got a sudden mischievous thought. “But only if you autograph the book.”
Remus rolled his eyes. “Fine,” he prompted. “Hand it over.”
Sirius watched, surprised, as Remus scrawled an elegant signature across the title page.
“Where do you live?” Remus asked.
“London,” Sirius replied. “Same as you, according to your author bio.”
Remus returned to the book briefly, before stowing it away in Sirius’s backpack for him. With a baby in his arms, Sirius welcomed the extra help.
It wasn’t until after Harry screamed his head off during the landing, and after they left the plane, and after Sirius reconnected with James and Lily, and after Sirius said goodbye to the haughty and standoffish and cute Remus Lupin, and after Fleamont and Euphemia picked them up, and after a whole day of food and family time, that Sirius reopened the book. He was laying in bed, at the Potters’ house, thinking, and he opened the book to peek at the signature, just out of curiosity.
To his surprise, underneath the cursive, was a string of digits, and a note in block letters. When we’re both back in London.