Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Remus has never liked driving. It’s dangerous, unpredictable, and overall an entirely horrible experience. He’s always tense, always overly focused on things his instructor says “aren’t actually what he’s supposed to focus on”, as if driving is meant to be as easy as breathing if u stop wasting energy on paying attention to specific details. As if whenever he gets behind a wheel, Remus doesn’t sort of feel like crying.

In any case, Remus hates driving. Which is why he chooses to take the bus, then walk for fifteen minutes, then ride five stops on the tube, then walk some more, then take another bus to his parents’ house, instead of renting a car. There would, of course, be the option of calling a taxi, however his parents live in a town that most drivers consider inconvenient enough to charge ungodly amounts of money, and being a teacher doesn’t necessarily pay as Remus, in his humble opinion, thinks it should.

When he gets off the plane, checking his messages and noticing an alert for a snow storm, he doesn’t worry too much. Truly, with his exhaustion, he can’t be bothered with things as trivial as snow storms. How bad could it possibly get?

He gets his answer when his bus, the one that was meant to take him right to the house, abruptly stops near a gas station, announcing that the weather conditions are far too worrying from there on, and that there would be another bus coming to take everyone back in fifteen minutes, in case their destination hadn’t been that town.

The almost sincere apologies aren’t exactly comforting to Remus. Apparently they hadn’t expected the storm to get this bad and they would be in danger if they were to continue. Everyone piles slowly inside to warm up and wait for the bus or for any family members or friends living nearby to pick them up.

As Remus hurries for the entrance, his eyes rest for a few seconds on a man, around his age, shorter than him, with long, dark hair. That is all he gets a glimpse of before the man disappears inside. Remus’ brain sometimes does this, gets stuck on beautiful or aesthetically pleasing things, be it people, objects or landscapes. He can’t help it, although he’s tried, after being caught a few times staring by people who seemed to assume he was a stalker or a serial killer. Fair enough, he would probably be freaked out as well.

Inside, it isn’t exactly warm, and most people seem uncomfortable, stressed, and exhausted, not too different from how he’s feeling himself. Everyone has their phone out, but Remus has no idea what to do. As far as he knows, there are no hotels nearby, and even if he were to go back to the airport, he wouldn’t have money for a room with no reservation in advance. They would probably be full anyway, with the storm and everything.

As the minutes go by, people start getting picked up, hugging and kissing their loved ones and leaving the gas station emptier and colder. He paces from one wall to the opposite, rubbing his stiff neck and trying to think.

When the bus finally arrives — hell knows why they had to call another one — he still doesn’t know what to do. He looks up, worrying at his bottom lip, aware that he looks like a lost and scared child. Should he try to find a hotel near the airport?—

‘Are you okay?’ a clear voice asks, followed by a gentle tap on his shoulder.

He turns around and is faced with the man that had caught his eye before, his curly hair now braided into two low ponytails. Remus has the distinct thought that he could only be described as pretty, in an elegant, expensive sort of way. He shakes his head slightly and clears his throat, aware his eyes have been fixed on the braids.

‘Yeah,’ he answers stiffly.

The man frowns and stares right into his eyes, like that’s not hard for him at all. ‘You’ve been pacing for a bit. And if you’re heading back, the bus is about to leave.’ His voice is serious, without much emotion, as he points behind them at the last few people boarding, though his brows are furrowed a little, as if in concern or confusion.

Remus is silent for a moment, staring at the man and then down at his shoes. ‘I’m not from here, so there isn’t much I can do except hope for a hotel.’ He thinks a bit and then decides to go for it, ‘Do you know any that are affordable? And also that might happen to have a room with literally no time in advance?’

He’s aware his tone's a bit rude, a bit condescending, but he actually does want to know, and the man smiles slightly. His smile is nice as well. It reminds him of something.

‘There is one hotel that hasn’t been reported to have bed bugs, but I don’t think you have much of a chance.’ Remus visibly deflates and the man straightens up, clearing his throat. ‘You could call, see if—’

The sound of a car honking interrupts him. His eyes visibly light up, like a child finding out he’s about to receive gifts, and he runs for the doors.

Remus stands there, a bit taken aback, before he decides the conversation must be over and his only realistic option is to take the bus back and try to find accommodations for the night. His resolve, however, dissipates once he steps outside and is faced with the man from before loudly gesturing, with his back to Remus, standing in front of someone he can’t see.

He says a quiet “excuse me” and passes the two, but the man yelps and grabs his arm, not harshly, to stop him. Remus turns, confused and a little irritated from the exhaustion and the frankly terrible situation he’s in (while trying to get to his parents’ house, mind you, which isn’t in the first place his choice of a good time).

The man lets out a breathy, self-conscious laugh and drops his arm. ‘Sorry. Um, this is James.’

The other guy smiles brightly, like, genuinely brightly, as though he has a small sun in his mouth that’s shining through his perfectly white grin. ‘Hi,’ he says in a deep voice that Remus could find himself getting addicted to. He’s also ridiculously hot, so.

‘Yeah, hi.’

‘Oh, and I’m Sirius,’ the man says with a sheepish, much smaller smile of his own and extends his hand for Remus to shake.

He does, cautiously. Odd name. ‘Remus.’

‘Remus?' His lips lift into a closed smile, like he's trying to hold something back. 'Nice to meet you. So this is gonna sound really strange, but I talked to James— he lives nearby— and he’s offered to let you stay at his house since you’re in a pretty shit situation and have nowhere else to go. There’s room, like, a lot of room, so it wouldn’t be a problem,’ Sirius says, talking at a fast pace, a bit all over the place.

He frowns and stares at them again, studying James a little more. He’s really tall, only a bit shorter than Remus, with dark brown skin, glasses, messy, dark hair and a pretty standard fluffy coat. He doesn’t look like a serial killer.

Remus would never do this, he would never take two perfect strangers up on such a delirious offer, in the middle of a soon to be blizzard, in a town he’s never been to before other than passing through it on his way to and from the airport.

So why in the world does he shrug and say ‘Sure. If it’s not too inconvenient’?

Only once he’s in James’ car, a rusty, but decently working red Jeep, does Remus finally start to panic. What the hell is he thinking? He’s in the back seat, fidgeting from the sudden anxiety that’s enveloping him. He needs a plan.

‘I didn’t ask enough questions,’ he speaks up, voice hoarse, meeting James’ eyes in the mirror.

‘Yeah, that was a bit abrupt,’ James says, an easy grin still on his face, taking a turn down a snow-covered road.

‘Could you give me the address so I can text my parents?’

James does and then proceeds to give a few directions in case his parents want to come pick him up after the storm is over. He talks in a calm, but serious voice and Remus immediately starts feeling like he can trust him. Which is bad, probably.

‘And how old are you?’ he asks afterwards, clearly unsure of his own questions. This is awkward as hell, he wants to go home immediately.

‘We’re both 21.’

‘Oh, okay, me too. And what do you do?’

‘I own a small coffee shop and…’ he trails off as though waiting for Sirius to say something, but he’s staring out the window, chewing his bottom lip. ‘Sirius is a bit between jobs, but he takes shifts at the shop whenever we’re a bit busy.’

Remus nods to himself, wondering why Sirius isn’t saying anything. He’s probably realising just how stupidly awkward the situation is and wishes he hadn’t offered to help. That’s fine. Remus didn’t need their help, it’s their problem they offered.

Once the silence settles back in the car, Remus scoots over to the right side of the car, behind James’ seat, and decides to stare at the city, in case he needs to run away in the middle of the night and find his way to a public facility... Or something.

The town is called Ample Port, although Remus is very well aware there are no docks anywhere. Back in his childhood town — South Ample Port, the counterpart of this place — people referred to it simply as “Ample”. It’s definitely a much more affluent town than his, with beautiful, suburban yet modern houses with shops and cafes in between, now covered in snow. It’s all quite charming. In South Ample, there was only one neighbourhood where richer families lived, and people like Remus never approached it. Well, except the one time Remus did.

‘We’re here,’ James says, snapping him out of his thoughts.

He jumps a bit, surprised, and Sirius gives him a funny look, to which Remus frowns, making the other roll his eyes with a soft smile on his lips. Okay, that’s weird. Remus needs to get out of here as soon as the roads are cleared.

James’ house, or rather his parents’—Fleamont and Euphemia Potter's—house, is truly the embodiment of homey, and Remus hasn’t even stepped inside. It’s got a small garden filled with plants, with a white, old table and four chairs next to the stairs that lead to a tiny porch. There are more flowers on the banister and Remus falls in love with the whole thing a little bit. It feels warm, lived in, but not in the way Remus’ house does, with rugged, dirty stairs and creaking doors.

They take their stuff out of the trunk and walk inside, huffing a bit under the weight.

The entrance is simple, with even more plants crowding it, a rack for jackets and a drawer stacked with probably fifteen pairs of shoes by Remus’ (lower middle-class) count. Okay maybe he’s a bit jealous, a bit petty. But who can blame him.

They add their shoes to the stack and then Sirius and James take out honest-to-God fluffy slippers, with honest-to-God straight faces. Remus looks at them in disbelief, eyebrows raised, aware that they can probably tell he’s about to burst out laughing. Sirius blushes a deep pink and looks away.

‘Oh,’ James laughs, scratching the back of his neck, ‘I haven’t brought anyone new here in a while, I forgot this isn’t usually normal. We wear these inside ‘cause it gets cold, especially in winter. I have some for you if you want, but you obviously don’t have to wear them.’

Remus lets out a snort and then waits a moment to calm down, before responding. ‘I’m good, thanks.’

Sirius frowns further, clearly embarrassed, and walks speedily into the rest of the house. Remus feels a strange sense of satisfaction, and proceeds to follow James inside.

‘So, this is the kitchen,’ he starts, opening a door on the right to an absolutely gorgeous kitchen that Remus has the strong urge to paint, even though he hasn’t done it in forever. ‘This is the living room and there you have a bathroom if you need, but there are more upstairs.’

His “living room” would probably evoke the royal family’s envy. Okay, no, that is a gross exaggeration, but it’s still pretty damn great. It has beautiful, soft green wallpaper, with paintings, pictures and plants everywhere, the dark wood of the furniture making everything feel even cosier. There is a couch with an armchair next to it, both a mustard yellow, probably where Remus will be sleeping. There's a coffee table in front of it and, against the wall, a fireplace with a TV above. Most importantly, though, Remus spots a window seat, and books everywhere. He feels giddy.

Once he’s had a look and James has apologised for the embarrassing childhood photos—Remus notices Sirius is in most of them, although he’s pretty sure they aren’t siblings, unless one of them is adopted—they go upstairs.

‘On the right,’ he opens the door, ‘this is Sirius’ room. Well, it used to be the guest room before he moved in.’ So not brothers then. He follows James outside, not really getting to look at anything properly. He only gets a glimpse of the dark blue wallpaper, and some white dots on the walls and the ceiling. ‘This is my dad’s study. In there is my parents’ bedroom, but I won’t bore you with that right now, you can explore whenever you want, no one minds. That’s a balcony, be careful ‘cause it’s a bit smaller than the one in mum and dad’s room, so, like, don’t fall over or anything,’ James flashes a charming grin that tells Remus they might’ve had almost-accidents at some point. ‘And here,’ he leads him to the last door, ‘is my room. Well, yours, for now.’

Remus doesn’t even process at first, and then it finally settles in his brain. ‘Huh?’

‘Well, you could sleep in the guest room, but that bed’s a bit bigger, and we figured me and Sirius could sleep there and you can take my room. I’d give you my parents', but I’d rather not have another room to tidy up, I’m seriously lazy these days. Love being home, right? I can’t stand cleaning my apartment anymore.’

While James rambles, Remus doesn’t even have time to think about how decidedly not lovely it is when he goes to his parents’ house, but it’s for the better.

‘Hold on, hold on,’ Remus says and James finally takes a break. ‘I thought I would take the couch or something?’

‘What?’ he says, a bit too loudly, genuinely shocked. ‘Of course not! Please, try to feel as at home as possible, we don’t mind one bit. Friends stay here all the time.’

Speaking of.

‘Well… if you’re sure. That’s really nice of you, and your house is great, James. Just— one question, how come you took me in? How do you know I’m not a creep?’

James smiles, a bit shyly for the first time. ‘Oh, well, for one, I called my parents to let them know you’re here, my friends who live nearby know as well, and it’s my house, you’ve no idea where we keep the knives yet,’ James grins, and Remus feels a strong, unexpected impulse to laugh, but he holds it in. ‘And besides,’ James continues, sitting down on the armchair, ‘Sirius said you seemed pretty normal during the bus ride. Says you just read most of the time.’

At that, Remus’ eyebrows shoot up, his mouth falling a bit agape. ‘He saw me before?’

‘Yeah. Sirius likes people watching, and you’re really interesting to look at, mate.’

Remus’ cheeks immediately start warming up and his stomach does a little flip. James is hot, no one can judge him, and he hasn’t gotten compliments in a while. If that was a compliment. He thinks it was? ‘Oh, okay, thanks,’ he says, a bit embarrassed, and James lets out a loud cackle, then pats him on the back and heads back downstairs, telling him to come down whenever.

Okay what the hell is Remus doing.

He takes a breath and places his backpacks on the floor, as neatly as possible. After a few more moments to compose himself and wonder a bit more if he’s gone crazy, he follows James, taking the stairs slowly, feeling his knees start to become sore. The day hasn’t been very kind to his back and his legs, especially all the sitting down in way too tiny spaces for his height.

When he enters the living room again, James is going through some drawers, seeming to search for something. At first, Sirius seems to still be gone, until Remus hears the fridge, probably, closing. Then, he appears, braids still tied, but curls now messy, sticking out everywhere because of the humidity.

‘We’ve got pasta, some cream cheese, bread, milk that’s probably gone bad, a few other types of cheese, five eggs aaaaand,’ he says, without looking up from the pack of pasta in his hands, ‘some ham.’

He finally glances toward the room, spots Remus and seems to go a bit tense. Clearly, he'd not been noticed. James looks up from the drawer with a small, happy cry, and holds up a charger that looks like it’s seen better days.

‘Found it. And that’s honestly perfect, we can make some Carbonara, and we’ve got breakfast sorted. After that, I think we’ve some peas somewhere and maybe I can find more stuff in the pantry. I really don’t think we have time for a trip to the store.’

Remus turns to the window and he can already tell it’s getting dark, foggy, with the trees barely holding up against the wind. The storm is definitely near.

‘Right.’ Sirius claps once, with a determined look on his face. ‘Shall we get started then?’ he asks, looking only at James. It makes something stir in Remus and he suddenly wants to jump around waving his hands as if to say “I’m here, shithead”.

‘I’ve really gotta shower and change, and you probably do too, considering you literally just had a flight, don’t you think?’

Sirius rolls his eyes and slaps James over the head lightly as he passes him on his way upstairs. ‘I’m using Effy and Monty’s bathroom!’ he yells from somewhere above, before slamming a door.

James groans and drags his hands over his face. ‘At least there are no sheets to change there,’ he says, although not exactly to Remus.

‘Should I help with the food? After I shower, I mean.’

‘Yeah, ‘course. I mean, only if you feel like it, obviously. But I love cooking with people. Although Sirius’ idea of “cooking” is sitting on the counter in my way, swinging his legs and yapping loudly, so, y’know.’

And that is exactly what Sirius is doing as Remus tries to grate the cheese. It’s really hard to listen to him, and James’ instructions, and focus on not fucking up his fingers, and all of that over the music. Granted, it’s more than decent music, so he does sway his hips a bit.

‘You done?’ James asks, talking over Sirius who barely even seems to notice.

It dawns on Remus that Sirius seems a little selfcentered, but he knows that's just past experience making him see those faults highlighted like goddamn neon signs above the man's head. ‘Almost.’ He finishes up the last bit and nods, adding the cheese in the pan when James tells him to.

It smells great and Remus can already feel his stomach rumbling a bit. He’s used to snacking and eating pretty consistently. While James stirs, Remus leans back against the counter, the other on his right and Sirius on his left, still swinging his long legs.

‘So where are your parents?’ Remus asks, hoping James can make sense of what he’s saying.

‘Oh, they’ve gone to Spain. They actually won’t be back until after New Year’s.’ A small frown starts to appear between his eyebrows, but he shakes it off quickly and smiles his charming smile. ‘Sirius and I came ‘cause most of our friends are from here or close by and we all come back for the holidays anyway.’

Remus nods. He weirdly enjoys James’ company a lot. He has a sort of comforting, simple, yet exciting presence. He notices Sirius has stopped talking, now leaning back on his hands and staring off into space.

‘I miss them.’

James smiles, a bit sadly. ‘Me too. But we’ll see them in a few, okay?’ he says reassuringly and reaches over Remus to squeeze Sirius’ knee.

Suddenly, it dawns upon Remus that they might be a couple. South Ample was always predominantly a homophobic town, and he’d always assumed Ample was the same, but even so, it was entirely possible. Embarrassed, he clears his throat and moves out of the way, sitting at the small, round table in the kitchen.

Neither of them seems to notice. They keep talking about trivial subjects until the food is ready, and then they each grab a plate and go back to the table in the living room.

He feels a bit weird, sitting at a table for easily eight people with only the three of them, but it doesn’t last. Sirius and James are really freakishly good at conversation. They jump from subject to subject, randomly asking Remus questions, or debating things in a way that makes him feel comfortable chiming in, which is, safe to say, unusual for him.

‘All I’m saying is they could’ve given me a notice,’ Sirius says while they’re on the subject of him apparently losing his job as an assistant at a clothing chain. He already seems a lot more relaxed than before.

‘They should’ve,’ Remus says and takes a sip of his water. ‘That’s illegal.’ When he looks up, they both stare at him with wide eyes, suddenly quiet. Remus, his face still halfway into his glass, raises his eyebrows. ‘What?’

‘Are you, like, a proper adult with your life together?’ Sirius asks. Then he seems to think about it and shakes his head. ‘Nah, you agreed to be stranded in a stranger’s house for who knows how long, so that can’t be.’

He blinks at them, but when neither of them says anything, he defends himself. ‘Oh, come on, you can’t not have known they’re not allowed to literally kick you out with no notice.’

‘I mean I know that, running a business and all,’ James says. ‘But I thought that just happens when a manager is shitty.’

Remus nods. ‘It does. Doesn’t make it legal though. You could sue them.’

Sirius keeps staring at him, child-like wonder in his eyes. ‘Are you a lawyer?’

Remus laughs a bit despite himself. ‘No. I’m just… I had a few bad experiences.’ The two of them nod, suddenly a bit more serious. He didn’t mean to upset the mood, so he tries to go on. ‘So what jobs have you been looking into?’

Sirius laughs a bit self-consciously. ‘I don’t really… know. Haven’t gone to uni, so I’ll probably just look for another store or movie theatre, maybe. Whatever pays minimum wage.’

‘I’ve always wanted to work in a theatre!’ James chimes in. ‘I wonder if you can steal snacks. Bring them back to the apartment.’

So they live together. Probably together then. Although they don’t really seem all that relationshipy. Just closer than most friends, like they have a special connection or something. But hell, what does he know about how couples are really supposed to act.

After dinner, Remus heads to his temporary room to change into something to sleep in and call his parents. He’d texted them that he wouldn’t make it that day, that he was okay, and that he’d call them later.

The phone rings only once.

‘Remus?’ his mother’s worried voice comes in on the other end.

‘Hi mum.’

‘Are you okay? What happened?’

He can hear his dad asking if it’s him on the phone and his mother confirming it. Then some shuffling.

‘Didn’t the storm reach you guys?’

‘Yes, that’s why we’re worried. Are you at the hotel? Did they have rooms left?’

Remus thinks for a second. How can he explain he’s accepted two strangers’ offer of a place to stay for the night?

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m going to be staying here for a bit. But don’t worry, it’s not that expensive. And I’m okay.’

His mother sighs. ‘Thank God. And you ate?’

Remus nods to himself. ‘Yeah, showered too. I’m about to head to bed actually. I’m exhausted. Call you guys later?’

‘Of course. We love you, see you soon, darling.’

‘Love you.’

He hangs up the phone and allows the familiar guilt of lying to them to settle in. His whole life is made up of smaller and bigger lies, but he’s not yet become used to it. Part of him thinks he probably shouldn’t want that, but it gets so hard sometimes. He thinks maybe getting desensitised to it wouldn’t be so bad.

Suddenly, there’s a knock on his door, followed by Sirius’ head popping through the ajar door, and Remus snaps out of his thoughts, raising his eyebrows at him.

Sirius grins, far from the tense man he’s been since they’ve arrived at the house.

‘Just Dance!’ he yells and disappears immediately afterwards, running down the stairs.

Remus blinks at his door. What the fuck?

Chapter Text

Turns out Sirius wasn’t joking.

When Remus goes downstairs, James is fiddling with a controler. When he approaches him, he looks up and hands it to Remus, grinning as if it’s the easiest thing in the world, as he seems to always do.

Sirius walks in from the kitchen, hair tie in his mouth and hands pulling his hair back into a ponytail. Remus feels sick and wonders briefly if Sirius is aware of what he’s doing. If he knows he could probably make anyone do a double-take. Then he feels the familiar burn of guilt, because he’s decided that the two are probably together, even if it doesn’t necessarily resemble what he thinks a relationship would look like.

‘We’ll start with an easy one, warm-up and all,’ James says, pulling him out of his thoughts. ‘But after that, we’re playing three games and if we all get one point, we’re doing a tie breaker. Deal?’

Sirius nods excitedly and Remus suddenly realises the implication that he has to dance.

‘What? What is happening right now?’

‘Come on, have a little fun,’ Sirius says, as if he’s already figured out just how boring Remus is in his day-to-day life.

He doesn’t want that. These people don’t know him, and even if they’ll get to find out more about him, he can still do himself a favour and try something unusual for once. Even if they’ll still be able to tell he’s as plain as they come, as basic and as common.

‘Alright, fine.’

James whoops and looks up a song, picking something with an easy difficulty. They all pick a character and get into position.

Remus absolutely sucks at this. They’ve finished the warm-up and are halfway through the first song, and he genuinely thinks he’s not gotten a single point. But, to his absolute and utter surprise, it’s fun as hell. They’re all messing up constantly and bursting out laughing at themselves and each other. Sirius keeps bumping into them because he’s in the middle, James gets distracted often and starts doing his own thing, and Remus is simply not made for the intricate art of Just Dance, apparently. Who would’ve guessed?

‘Okay, okay,’ Sirius pants while they take a water break. ‘Jamie-boy wins this one, but I get to pick the next song. Medium, right?’

Remus and James nod. For some reason, this one simple action makes him think again of how comfortable and natural everything is. He’s not self-conscious, he’s not afraid to answer a question like that in case it hadn’t been directed at him or it wasn’t his place to answer, he just feels like he’s hanging out with friends, doing something stupid. Although they’re not friends, not really. He can’t really get himself to care, though.

The characters are two bodyguard-looking people and one main dancer in the middle, dressed in  an absolutely ridiculous sparkling suit.

‘Oh my God,’ Sirius laughs, ‘Remus, you’ve gotta be the guy in the middle. I swear. He looks just like you.’

James cackles next to them and Remus squints his eyes at him, trying to look judgy, which only makes the others laugh louder, and that in turn makes him smile crookedly. He accepts and moves into position. He decides if they chose him as the main, he’s gonna give them a show. He pops his hips and makes dramatic expressions, giving it his all, but also knowing he looks ridiculous. He doesn’t mind it.

Thankfully, his performance completely distracts Sirius and James and he ends up winning the round, which means either he or Sirius get a point, or it’s a tie. The next song is a hard level.

He should’ve known, should’ve felt the familiar throb of pain in his body, but because he’s having so much fun and he feels high on adrenaline, he doesn’t. Which is why when he feels a sharp jab in his back, he falls to the floor without time to catch himself. He hits the — thankfully fluffy — carpet with his right knee and groans in pain. James and Sirius get down beside him with worried looks.

‘What’s wrong? Did you pull a muscle or something?’ James asks, voice serious immediately.

‘Mmhm, yeah, something like that,’ Remus says, squeezing his eyes against the pain.

‘What do you mean something like that?’ Sirius asks, voice thick and a little panicked.

‘Help me up, please.’

‘Of course,’ James answers, getting up quickly and pulling Remus along, who groans again, but manages to make it to the couch.

He sighs, trying to relax so the pain subsides. James goes to grab some ice and Sirius sits down next to him, frowning at him, more in confusion than anything else.

‘Can we help?’

‘It’s okay, it was my fault, I shouldn’t have pushed myself so hard.’

‘But can we do anything to help? What hurts?’

Sirius gets closer to him, as if he’ll be able to see where Remus is hurting. He pulls back, trying to hint to Sirius to pull away a little as well.

‘It’s just my back right now.’

‘Right now,’ Sirius repeats and Remus cringes at his words. Damn it. ‘So this happens a lot? You didn’t just pull something because of the dance?’

‘I have some back problems… And knee problems.’

‘Like, from an accident?’

‘Yeah, I used to get into accidents while skating when I was a kid, and there was also a bit of a bigger one. And… there was some getting pushed around.’ He shakes the thoughts away. ‘Overall not very great for my body while growing up, but doctors also say I have, like, weak bones or muscles or something. I don’t really know. I just take pain killers sometimes and go to physical therapy once in a while. Not a big deal.’

Sirius stares at him, wide-eyed. Remus wants to drag his hands across his face and maybe scream a little into a pillow. He hates telling people this, he doesn’t even know why he did just now. He always has to talk too much each time he explains this, like a little speech, and it makes him burn with embarrassment. It’s genuinely not even that big of a deal, just one of the things he lives with.

‘So,’ Sirius starts, almost a whisper, ‘so can I help?’

Remus blinks at him. ‘I’m okay,’ he assures him again. ‘I usually just wait for the back pain to pass, the muscles in my back are tensed up and that’s part of it. And the ice will help for my knee, ‘cause I also fell on it.’

Sirius nods and keeps looking at him with that wide, open expression, until James shows up with a handful of ice wrapped in a towel. Remus holds it against his knee and quickly tells James what he just explained, in as few words as possible.

‘Jesus, that sucks, man.’

Remus nods. ‘Yeah, but I got used to it.’

‘You got beat up a lot as a kid?’ James asks, the worried, dad-like voice making an appearance again.

Remus waves him off. ‘I wouldn’t say beat up beat up. Just pushed around a little.’

James shudders. ‘Boys can be such shitheads sometimes. I’m really sorry, Remus.’

He shrugs. ‘S’okay. Long time ago.’

‘Still.’

After a few moments of silence, not as uncomfortable as Remus would’ve expected, Sirius looks at them with a mischievous smile on his face. It makes something stir inside him with delight.

‘So, who won?’ Sirius asks, and James whacks him over the head.

They decide none of them won and, when Remus and Sirius start yawning with fewer and fewer breaks in between, exhausted from their flights, they decide to call it a night.

Remus brushes his teeth and goes back downstairs to grab a glass of water before heading off to bed. Just before entering his room, the door across the hall opens, revealing a soft, warm light, and Sirius. He steps out and notices Remus, smiling almost shyly.

‘I’m sorry you didn’t make it home tonight.’

Remus blinks at him. ‘Thank you for not leaving me to a shitty absurdly expensive room at a hotel.’

Sirius’ smile turns into a sleepy grin. ‘Night.’

He disappears down the stairs, probably grabbing water as well, and Remus enters the room, falling face first onto the bed and immediately drifting off.

He wakes up seemingly in the middle of the night and groans. Did something wake him up? He groans, buries his face into his pillow, then accepts his fate and checks his phone for messages from his parents or work.

10 A.M.

What.

He gets on his knees to look out of the window and immediately tenses up. The sky is completely covered in dense, grey clouds, there is fog everywhere and the snow is falling so fast and heavy that you wouldn’t be able to see outside even without aforementioned fog.

‘Fuck,’ he whispers under his breath.

The bit of roof he can glimpse below his window is already covered with at least half a meter of snow, so he assumes so are the roads. At that point he realises just how cold he is. His knees are already stiff from the freezing temperature and he knows his back won’t be much better soon.

He puts on a pair of socks and a zip-on old hoodie, and goes down in the living room. He finds Sirius with puffy eyes, barely awake on the couch, a leg lazily draped on top of the back of it, wrapped up in at least two blankets.

‘Morning,’ he says and his voice comes out rough.

Sirius seems to wake up a bit and lifts his head. ‘Hi. Good morning.’

‘Where’s James?’

‘Oh, he’s gone to turn up the heating.’

Remus nods and then shifts a bit awkwardly from one foot to the other, then decides to sit down on the armchair near the couch.

‘Did you sleep okay?’ Sirius asks, also a bit awkward.

He nods again. ‘Yeah. But when I woke up I thought it was the middle of the night.’

‘Same. It’s really a storm isn’t it.’

‘Yeah. I don’t think any of us are going outside anytime soon.’

A small frown appears between Sirius’ perfect eyebrows, and he worries at his bottom lip. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says quietly.

It honestly catches Remus by surprise. He’s right, though, he should be thinking about his family and not getting to be with them for at least a couple of days, but he’s not. He does, obviously, distantly miss them, but the thought of going to that house and having to lie for the rest of the holiday fills him with such dread that, guiltily, he feels relieved.

‘Oh, don’t worry. I’m okay, I’m honestly glad I’m not alone.’

Something like pleasant surprise twitches over Sirius’ face, and then James shows up, a mug in each of his hands.

‘It’ll take a bit to — Oh, hi Remus!’ he grins, ‘It’ll take a bit for the house to warm up, I’ve made some tea in the meantime.’

They both thank him and sigh at the warmth radiating off of the mugs as James goes to retrieve his own. Remus respects him more with every passing moment, as he shows time and again that he genuinely cares about other people. He’d learned very young that such a trait wasn’t as common in the real world as he would’ve hoped. He learned it should be treasured and appreciated.

‘So, eggs for breakfast?’

After they all agree, James and Remus go to get everything ready because Sirius is clearly way too sleepy to help, or what he would call helping.

They’re done quickly and Remus goes to call Sirius, finding him curled up, sleeping soundly. James tells him to just push him off the couch, which he does consider briefly, but ends up shaking his shoulders until his puffy eyes blink open.

They eat, wash the dishes, put everything away, and the house starts to feel properly warmer. James suggests they play some cards, which they do, and all three of them get ridiculously competitive, shouting and making fun of each other each time someone wins a round.

Then ,James says he has to go make some calls to make sure their friends in the town are all okay and Remus takes the opportunity to check some emails from the school and some from his students.

The weather doesn’t get much better.

After they eat lunch, they decide a Christmas movie marathon is in order. The real reason is that the storm has gotten significantly worse and they all want to take their minds off of it. They all huddle up on the couch, blankets draped over their long legs, with James in the middle, his right knee resting on top of Sirius. His head ends up on Remus’ shoulder halfway through the second movie, and it’s all so incredibly comfortable that he genuinely feels like he doesn’t want to move again.

‘I’m telling you he’s a bad guy!’ Sirius says, for the fifth time in, like, fifteen minutes, about a character in their third movie.

‘Literally why!’ James yells, and Remus bursts out into giggles, feeling calm and toasty.

‘He just gives me a bad vibe,’ Sirius complains, like they’re the unreasonable ones.

‘“A bad vibe”,’ Remus giggles to himself.

Sirius leans forward and nudges his knee, pouting and laughing at the same time. ‘When it turns out I’m right, you guys have to cook for me and wash the dishes.’

‘He says, as if that isn’t what happened at breakfast and dinner,’ he tells James, nodding solemnly, like Sirius isn’t right there.

James starts laughing loudly, leaning forward, his legs kicking in the air, and Sirius takes the opportunity to reach behind him and push Remus until he lazily falls over slightly, resting on the arm of the chair.

That is the way most of the marathon’s been going, with those unstoppable giggles, like you’re drunk and everything is entirely too hilarious, except you’re not, you’re just having a really really good night.

Remus feels giddy with it.

He wakes up abruptly, and this time he checks immediately to see that it’s 3 A.M.

It’s 3 A.M. And it’s fucking freezing. As in Remus can see his breath in front of his face.

They’d gone to bed at around 1 A.M., after finishing their fourth movie, a hallmark bullshit that absolutely delighted them. He definitely had not been expecting to wake up in a literal freezer. He goes out in the hall, blanket still wrapped tightly around his shoulders. Because the heat had been turned up, he’d taken off his hoodie and his socks, which he’s really regretting now.

He hears voices downstairs, but before he can reach the living room, he meets Sirius on the stairs.

‘I was just coming to wake you,’ he says, breath visible as well. His nose and cheeks are red with the cold. He also looks a bit too tense, but it’s probably just from being uncomfortable with the temperature.

‘What’s wrong? Did the heating stop working?’ Remus asks as they go down the stairs.

Sirius shakes his head. ‘Power outage.’

‘Fuck me.’

‘Right? It’s fucking paradise out here isn’t it?’

Remus laughs, even though his teeth are starting to chatter.

‘Alright, I’ve gathered the wood,’ James says when they make it downstairs. They’re all standing in front of the fireplace. James has his hands on his hips, lips pressed tightly into a line, as he nods to himself thoughtfully. Then, he turns to look at them, still just as thoughtful. ‘Does anyone have any idea how to build a fire?’

With a quick google search, they start struggling their way through arranging the wood into some semblance of a good ignitable stack.

‘Did Monty never teach you to do this?’ Sirius whines as his log fails to stay into position again.

‘Like you ever paid attention when he did this!’

Sirius mocks him in a childish voice and James sticks his tongue out at him. Remus rethinks the possibility of them being in a relationship again.

‘Alright,’ Remus says, clapping his hands together and getting back up as the fire starts to take.

‘We’re literal geniuses,’ Sirius decides, and James high fives him as Remus rolls his eyes.

‘So I think we should bring blankets down and sleep here,’ James suggests.

They all agree and start making trips up and down the stairs to bring their things. Remus puts on socks again, vaguely regretting not taking James up on his offer of the fluffy slippers, and takes two blankets and his phone with him.

‘Shit,’ James says as they wait for Sirius to come down, typing quickly on his phone.

‘Something wrong?’

‘Just this girl I’ve been talking to. She wanted to face time, but I forgot.’

Remus feels a jolt of curiosity. ‘Is she your girlfriend?’

‘Not really. I’m still entirely single, shocker, I know. We went out on a couple of dates, but honestly I didn’t really feel it, and I think she didn’t either. She hasn’t even texted me about the face time, I think she’d only asked because she didn’t know if it was too rude not to talk at all during the holidays.’

Remus nods. So he and Sirius are definitely not together, which at this point he’d been pretty sure of anyway. They act too much like siblings. ‘Fair enough,’ he says.

‘I’ll tell her tomorrow that I think we should stay friends.’

‘Yeah, good,’ he says, as if talking to girls, or any dating resembling anything healthy, is at all familiar to him.

Sirius shows up then. ‘Oooo,’ he coos, ‘are we talking about Nancy?’

‘Yeah, just deciding I’ll end it tomorrow.’

Sirius pouts. ‘But then where will I get my entertaining romance stories from?’

So they’re all lame single guys during the holidays then.

‘Yes, because that was exactly what you would call romantic.’

Sirius shrugs. ‘I mean it wasn’t the love story of the century, but it would’ve been someone to at least flirt with during Christmas and New Year’s so you’re not pathetic like me.’

James rolls his eyes, sitting on his make-shift bed. ‘I don’t think the holidays are about that necessarily. They’re about love in general.’

Remus feels something sour in his mouth. He’s never been able to see them that way.

‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Sirius says, then rolls over to face them. ‘When I think about Christmas, I think of Effy’s cooking.’

James grins. ‘And Pete’s mulled wine.’

Sirius groans. ‘Oh my God, yes.’

‘Oh, oh! And Mary’s knitted presents,’ James adds giggling.

‘Crocheted, moron.’

‘Whatever.’

They both giggle again, then sigh contentedly.

After they calm down a bit, James looks at Remus, smile still on his lips. ‘How are your holidays usually?’

Remus looks down at his feet, biting at his lower lip. ‘Um. I mean, nothing special, really.’

‘Come on, you must have some traditions,’ Sirius urges him on.

‘We usually just have a family dinner. I’m not really a fan, if I’m honest.’

‘Oh,’ Sirius says quietly.

He’s killed the mood. He wants to slap himself, but he wouldn’t even know where to begin to convince anyone, including himself, that he enjoys Christmas. He can only think of the quietness and sadness of his house, how much he wishes it could be what the others are describing.

‘Does your family not celebrate?’ James asks, to his surprise not sounding put off by Remus ruining the mood. Only curious, gentle.

‘We do, but, well.’ Oh, fuck it ‘My parents aren’t exactly happy with my lifestyle.’

‘Are you a wanted criminal?’ Sirius asks, getting up on his elbows, a bit too excitedly.

‘What? No! I’m just gay, Jesus.’

‘Oh. Okay, go on.’

‘Don’t sound so disappointed?’

‘I was joking!’

‘Sure, sure.’ Sirius kicks him in the shin and he laughs. ‘Well, they’re religious. Like, seriously religious. And I came out to them when I was fifteen and they literally did not accept it, refused to believe it. They barely spoke to me for three or four months, and then I decided to tell them I was wrong, that I’d been going through a phase or something.’

‘That’s so shitty, what the hell?’ James says, leaning on his elbows now as well, with a frustrated look on his face.

Remus shrugs. ‘I’ve just basically been lying since. If anyone asks, I regularly go on dates with women. With boobs and everything.’

Sirius bursts out laughing. Remus feels himself smiling at them, and decides to go on. ‘I guess I don’t particularly like the holidays ‘cause I have to go home, and when I do, I have to actively lie, actively pretend I’m someone else.’

They’re all silent for a few seconds, only the sound of the wood burning filling the room.

‘That sounds like absolute crap,’ Sirius finally says, and they all nod like he’s just perfectly summed up everything that Remus has said. He sort of has, in a way.

They fall asleep quickly after that, drifting off one after another, finally warm and comfortable, knowing they understand each other. In Remus’ case, more than he has felt understood by anyone in a long time.

Chapter Text

They eat junk food for breakfast, to James’ disappointment. Remus loves food, truly, any type of food, so he couldn’t give less of a shit, and Sirius is essentially a twelve year old when it comes to his taste, so he doesn’t complain.

When James’ phone rings, they’ve been playing cards for hours, with nothing else to do, and frankly it probably saves them from biting each other’s heads off. Sirius’ breathing irritates James, his humming when he thinks which card to put down drives Remus mad, and the fact that Remus keeps on winning irritates the hell out of the other two, both of them groaning every time he looks up at them with a guilty, embarrassed smile before placing his last card on the pile.

‘It’s my dad,’ James says as he gets up.

‘Say hi for me and ask him if he also has to make that god-awful sound every time his brain has to push out a single thought.’

James mocks Sirius in a high voice as he goes in the kitchen, making the other giggle to himself.

‘Another round?’ Sirius asks after James is gone, already shuffling the cards.

Remus shrugs and nods. He knows they absolutely need to find something else to do or they’ll murder each other, probably starting with him because of his winning streak.

‘So how come you and James’ parents are so close?’

A small smile starts to appear on his lips. ‘I sort of… ran away from home when I was fifteen.’ Remus lifts his eyes from his cards, eyebrows raised, and Sirius gives him a grin that he’s started to associate with him already. Something a little mischievous and cheeky behind it. ‘Yeah. And they took me in, basically became like family to me, although they already were a bit. Me and James met at fourteen, we were in the same class in high school. You said you were from South Ample right?’

‘Yep,’ he confirms, feeling a little embarrassed for no other reason than that he knows people usually think of his town as lesser than this one.

‘I’m actually from there too.’

‘What?’ he asks, because he can’t picture that. And also, how come they’ve never met, then? Sirius laughs a little and nods. ‘How come you didn’t go to our high school then?’

At this, he gets a sour look on his face, scoffing. ‘My dear old parents are to thank for that.’

‘Oh,’ he says softly, stupidly. ‘Were they overly controlling? Is that why you ran away?’

He realises immediately that the way he said that made it seem like he was downplaying whatever Sirius had gone through and not taking it seriously. And, indeed, the other gets a little frown between his eyebrows, his eyes back on his cards.

‘One of the many reasons, yeah.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…’

Sirius waves him off and they continue to play, a bit stiffer than before, but still with the same comfortable atmosphere between them.

A few seconds later, James shows up, putting his phone back into his pocket and sitting down on the floor, next to the coffee table where the cards are spread.

‘He was just checking in,’ He explains. ‘Told him about the outage and he said to bring in candles and shit before it gets dark ‘cause our phones will probably die and we need to see where we’re going and such.’ Sirius and Remus both nod, making faces at each other, because apparently they both recognise the serious-dad-voice James sometimes uses.

‘Do we even have candles?’

‘In the garage I think. I’ll look in a bit.’ James turns his attention to the game as Sirius nods. ‘So, what are we playing?’

They both groan and Sirius says, ‘Please, we need something else to do. I can feel my brain screaming at me.’

‘And what’s your bright idea?’ James says.

Sirius shrugs and they’re all quiet for a few moments. Remus suddenly notices that it’s no longer snowing and that the sky has cleared up a bit.

‘Should we go beat the shit out of each other with snow?’ he suggests half-heartedly.

When neither of them says anything, he looks up only to be faced with wide, manic grins.

So, they end up in the small front yard of the Potters’ house, dressed in baggy ski pants that they apparently had lying around, and each wearing a fluffy pair of gloves. It’s so cold Remus can’t stop shaking, but it’s better than playing cards for the rest of the day or until the power is back on, whenever that may be.

‘Should we set some ru—’ James starts, but is graciously interrupted by a snowball hitting him right in the stomach, courtesy of Sirius.

‘You little shit,’ Remus laughs, already bending to make his own in preparation.

‘Only losers hesitate,’ Sirius yells, sticking his tongue out.

And thus, war begins.

They each take a small part of the yard as their “base”, hiding behind chairs, trees, bushes or whatever else they can find, and throwing snowball after snowball. It’s honestly a lot of fun, and the constant moving around doesn’t give Remus a chance to feel the cold anymore. He’s high on adrenaline, all of them grinning widely with red cheeks and noses.

He feels like a little kid again. He almost can’t believe it, a high school teacher with bills to pay and other such adult responsibilities, playing in the snow with people he desperately knows, deep in his chest, that he should call friends.

‘Not the face!’ Sirius yells, just before getting hit in the face by one of James’ snowballs. ‘Fucker!’

‘You’re still just as ugly, don’t you worry,’ James says, smiling sweetly.

Sirius gives a yelp of indignation and proceeds to make a ginormous snowball — snow boulder? Remus doesn’t even know at this point.

‘Oh shit,’ James says, eyes wide.

He runs towards Remus’ side, which he yells in protest about, and hides behind him like a coward, which he points out. When Sirius looks up from his snow monster, he whines again, placing his hands on his hips.

‘That’s not fair, I can’t hit Remus with this, he’ll, like, lose his legs or something,’ he complains.

Remus makes a sound of disbelief. ‘Sirius that’s so— I won’t break!’ He thinks a bit more about it. ‘But yeah, actually, don’t hit me with that I might lose a leg.’ This makes Sirius giggle, and he can’t help but smile as well.

‘Well you’re the one who didn’t let me set any rules, dumbass.’

Sirius rolls his eyes. He stares at them for a few more seconds, seeming to plot in his head against both their entire bloodlines. Suddenly, there’s a spark in his eyes, that knowing grin on his face again, and he lunges towards Remus. He’s so shocked he doesn’t even think to move, not that he could’ve, with James desperately holding onto his shoulders. Sirius pushes him to the ground, softly, not quite tackling him fully to avoid hurting his back. And there’s a second when they just stay like that, both smiling and huffing, staring at each other. Remus feels like everything is quiet for a moment. There are little snowflakes on Sirius’ eyelashes. His nose is so pink he wonders if he can still feel it—

Sirius gets up, grabs as much snow as he can, and shoves it in James face. They fall down as well, and Sirius continues to shove snow at James, who’s groaning and trying to push him off.

And Remus is still where Sirius left him, chest moving quickly with ragged breaths, and heart racing. He’s familiar with this feeling. It’s a bit different than he remembers it for some reason, but he can still recognise it. And it needs to stop.

He gets up and flicks off the snow on his clothes, shaking his head to get it out of his hair as well. He places a palm over his heart and wills it to slow down. While he does this, James and Sirius both get up, laughing breathlessly and turning to face him.

‘Okay, I think we need a break,’ James says, and they both agree.

It’s already quite late when they finally sit down on the couch, all having taken showers, changing into soft, warm clothes and making tea. Remus has finally accepted the fluffy slippers, and he can finally feel his toes again.

James suddenly goes stiff. ‘Fuck me,’ he says.

Sirius and Remus both look up to stare at him, waiting.

‘We forgot the candles.’

All three of them groan in unison. It’s already dark outside, and their phones are long dead, which means one of them has to go to the garage to grab the flashlights and candles. James looks at Sirius swiftly, who’s been a little more tense than usual since they got back in the house, then nods to himself.

‘Alright, you two wait here. I might be a while ‘cause I don’t know where anything is and everything is completely dark.’

They nod and he goes out. Remus sits back on the couch, staring at the ceiling, then closes his eyes. Although he didn’t get any sharp pains in his knees or back, the very active day did take its toll on him, and he desperately needs to just sit for a while.

The quiet, however, is suddenly interrupted by quick, short breaths. He opens his eyes and sees Sirius, sitting on the couch next to him with his legs pulled tightly to his chest and a worried look on his face. He’s grabbing at his chest and curving in on himself.

‘Hey,’ Remus says softly, grabbing his attention. ‘What’s wrong? Did you get hurt?’

Sirius shakes his head and swallows. Then he smiles wobbly, clearly trying his best. ‘It’s silly.’ Remus frowns at him and raises an eyebrow. ‘I’m just… Well, I have a problem with being in the dark, especially when it’s quiet like this.’

‘Oh,’ he says softly. That is honestly something Remus wouldn’t have expected.

‘I know it’s stupid, I know nothing can happen. Everything’s the same as it would be if the lights were on.’ Despite his words, he’s still tense all over, with the same look of panic in his eyes.

‘Can I touch you?’

Sirius snaps his eyes at him, seeming to forget his initial panic for a moment in favour of something else passing over his face, akin to shock. But then he nods, and Remus scoots closer, placing a hand on Sirius’ chest. He’s warm and solid. He grabs one of Sirius’ hands and places it on his own chest.

‘Can you try to match my breathing?’ he asks, still talking softly.

Sirius nods hesitantly, then closes his eyes and starts to breathe a bit more slowly. He doesn’t quite manage at first, but he does start to calm down a little.

‘Does it help to remind you you’re not alone?’ Remus asks.

Frankly, he has no idea what to do, because a fear of the dark could take many forms, which means different things might help, so he just follows his gut. Sirius nods, this time more confidently. So, he does just that. He whispers things to Sirius, whatever his mind thinks of, telling him he’s there, they’re in a place he knows, and that they’ll have flashlights soon and that it’ll be okay.

Once his breathing has gone back to normal, Sirius looks at him, his eyes soft, grateful.

‘Do you feel better?’ Remus asks, his voice groggy.

Sirius nods and uses his free hand to push his hair back so it’s no longer in his face. Jesus, his hair is beautiful.

‘Thank you,’ Sirius whispers.

Remus shrugs, which makes him laugh softly.

‘I, um. When I was younger— You know, my family wasn’t great. I’ve told you.’ Remus nods. ‘They were actually quite shit. My mother had a very odd way of parenting, if you could even call it that. And she, um, sometimes she would, like, make me go to my room, or to the bathroom, or a broom closet, or whatever, and make me stay in there as a form of punishment?’ He feels his skin going cold, but he doesn’t say anything, not wanting to interrupt Sirius. ‘And well, when it was a bathroom she wouldn’t bother to turn on the lights, or when it was a broom or utility closet, and I would usually cry, especially when I was smaller, but she’d say it was so I would learn “respect” or whatever. And, like, I think that’s why. I mean, yeah, that’s why. So.’

The whole time he’s telling Remus this, he stares at his hands, fidgeting and pulling at his fingers. It’s clearly a hard thing for him to talk about and Remus really, really wishes in that moment he were better at words, at comforting. But people don’t often open up to him. So the only thing he can think to do is lean into him and bump his shoulder, and say, ‘I think you’re really strong. Thank you for telling me this.’

Sirius looks at him, surprised. ‘Why strong?’

Remus nods. ‘Mmhm. I think I would’ve started crying already. Maybe even with a little bit of snot.’

Sirius bursts out into a beautiful laugh, pushing Remus away half-heartedly. ‘Fucking gross!’

‘Yeah, with that ugly crying face, you know? Full on sobbing.’

‘With red eyes and everything?’ Sirius asks, and they start laughing even louder, throwing their heads back and holding their sides, a bit hysterical with exhaustion.

When they finally calm down, Sirius smiles at him with a glimmer in his eyes that Remus thinks people should write poems about. That’s when James comes back, small bag in one hand and two flashlights in the other.

‘Okay, we’ve got four small candles and two bigger ones, but I think we should maybe all sleep here again cause otherwise we’ll freeze our asses off.’ Then, he notices the fact that they’re standing so close, Sirius’ hand still on Remus’ chest lazily. He drops what he’s holding and rushes to the couch. ‘Did you panic?’ he asks, voice frantic and full of worry.

Sirius nods and James apologises for leaving, asking if he’s okay. As they talk, Remus gets up quietly. He suddenly realises— remembers that he’s still an outsider here. He was the one to help Sirius only because James wasn’t there. Even though he knows it’s not his place at all, he feels it like a stone falling in his stomach, like his heart dropping a little. He feels jealous and left out and he has no right to either of those. They’ve been friends forever and he’s been here two nights. Did these few days spent together feel more like a friendship, more like family than Remus has felt maybe ever? Sure. But why should that be the same for them?

He grabs a flashlight and goes back to his room, unnoticed, and takes out the papers he has to grade. Might as well get started.

After half an hour, he simply can’t seem to focus. His brain won’t stop circling back to what Sirius told him, to his family, if it can even be called that. He’s honestly appalled. And here he was, complaining about his borderline homophobic parents when Sirius was literally abused as a child. He feels weirdly protective of that small boy, stuck in a house that hurt him. He wishes he’d known him back then. He wishes he’d known James as well. He wishes they could be his friends.

He manages to finish two more papers before there’s a quiet knock on the door.

‘Yeah?’

Sirius’ head pops in, just like it did when he called him downstairs to play Just Dance.

‘Mind if I sit?’

Remus nods, so he sits on the bed, crossing his legs, leaning back on his arms and looking at him, from his eyes to his arms, to his fingers on the pen that had just written some notes for his student.

‘What are you doing?’ he asks, jerking his head toward the desk.

Sometimes Remus thinks Sirius acts so weird. Unlike anyone he’s ever met. Like he’s shy and bold at the same time, covering his fear with bravery.

‘I have some stuff to do for work.’

‘What do you even do? You never told us.’

‘You never asked,’ Remus points out, eyebrows raised. Sirius scoffs and rolls his eyes and he laughs in return. ‘I’m a high school teacher. History.’

Sirius makes a soft “oh” and nods. ‘Do you like it?’

‘I do. Mostly. Sometimes it gets tiring, it feels like— like the reward doesn’t match the effort?’ Sirius nods and although he probably doesn’t fully get it, Remus feels like he understands. ‘But I do like it. I even like my students. Most of them.’

Sirius nods again and then they’re quiet. Remus knows he wants to say something because he’s fidgeting again, so he waits, trying to give him the space to talk.

‘You calmed me down,’ he finally says, almost a whisper, not looking up from his fingers.

‘Oh. Well, I might’ve helped, but your body did that.’

He shakes his head. ‘No one’s ever calmed me down before. If I start to properly panic, I usually go on and on for at least half an hour, usually until I either start to cry or fall asleep. But you slowed me down. You calmed me down.’

Remus doesn’t know what to say. It really was just Sirius’ body and his mind working together to remind his brain he’s not in danger. But yes, he did help. He knows a few exercises from the internet, because it’s always good to be prepared, he’s always thought.

‘How did you do that? Why did you do that?’

Remus stares at him steadily. He gets up and sits on the bed next to Sirius, not paying attention to the surprise on his face, taking his hand again and placing it over his chest. He takes a deep breath.

‘It’s pretty simple,’ he starts, still holding his gaze. ‘I was just trying to make you match my breathing. And also remind you I was there. And I realised after you told me that maybe part of the problem was that when you were younger, you felt really lonely and maybe— maybe a bit abandoned in those rooms in the dark.’

‘I did.’

‘And I helped you because—’ He frowns. ‘I mean, why wouldn’t I have?’

Sirius finally looks away, frowning a bit as well. ‘Well I’m pretty sure it’s kinda weird when I panic. Like I usually look like a mess, and the loud breathing must be annoying. It can’t be very nice to witness. But you came closer.’

He takes a moment to think. ‘I don’t feel the need to get away from you. I haven’t and I don’t think I will feel that. And you didn’t… inconvenience me or anything. I’m glad I was there. I’m glad I could help you.’

There’s something so strong, so real shining in Sirius’ eyes, but he looks away so quickly Remus barely has time to catch a glimpse. He wants to grab his face and make him hold still so he can study his face.

Finally, he looks back at Remus, now only smiling softly. ‘Thank you, Remus,’ he says again.

‘Thank you for sharing that with me,’ Remus says again, because being trusted like that makes him hope that maybe Sirius could care about him at least a little bit, even though they’ve only just met.

It looks like one of them might say something else, but James’ voice suddenly chimes from downstairs.

‘I know what we’re doing!’ he yells.

They exchange a look, smile, trying to hold back their laughter, then go downstairs, Remus just behind Sirius with the flashlight.

They find James struggling to place batteries inside what appears to be a pick-up for vinyls. A very small pick-up that looks a bit shit, but nonetheless.

‘We’re about to become pretentious assholes, my boys,’ he says smugly, finally managing to put the batteries in it.

‘He says, as if we aren’t already.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Remus says, just as smugly as James.

‘We’re going to look for a book each and read a bit of poetry to each other,’ James says as if they hadn’t interrupted him. ‘And I’ll put on some music in the background. This is literally all we have ‘cause I haven’t found a portable charger for our phones, so, Sirius, fetch me the vinyls.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Wait, for real?’ Remus says, a little bewildered.

James nods, as though all of this is normal.

‘How do you guys even think of this stuff?’

‘We… get bored really easily.’

Remus grins at him. ‘Isn’t this extremely posh and kind of weird?’

‘First of all, I am extremely posh and weird,’ Sirius says, coming back with a bunch of records in his hands, ‘and second of all, it’s gonna be really fun, so who cares, truly.’

As they turn on the pick-up, Remus rolls his eyes and bends down to help them pick an album. He knows he should be a little embarrassed they’re about to do this, but he can’t get himself to. He’s only feeling the beginnings of excitement.

They end up sitting on the floor with blankets over and around them, the fire lighting the room up comfortably. They each have a few books scattered next to them that they found while roaming the house. Remus decided to pick things he’s never heard of, for the fun of it.

James takes a sip of his tea and clears his throat.

‘Because I could not stop for Death –

He kindly stopped for me –

The Carriage held but just Ourselves –

And Immortality.’

Remus knows the poem, but still enjoys James’ soft, sort of unsure voice reading it aloud, enjoys the way Sirius reacts to the words, the way he knows they’re all appreciating it for what it is. It feels unreal, that he would find two random men so like himself while still being so different. He feels so warm and he can feel himself getting emotional, so he closes his eyes and focuses on his breathing until James is done.

‘Okay, that was actually so great,’ Sirius says when James closes the book.

Remus nods and they all smile stupidly at each other. He wonders what it must’ve been like to have always had a friendship like theirs. To have grown up with someone always there that got you and made you feel wanted and loved.

Clearly, he’s extremely tired and is therefore having these thoughts, which he never would entertain otherwise. Obviously.

‘Okay, my turn,’ Sirius says and proceeds to read a poem by Poe which is new for Remus as well.

They all take turns and end up deciding to just flip through Shakespeare’s sonnets at some point and read whatever they land on. They do dramatic voices and act them out, laughing until they can’t breathe.

‘(Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;’

Sirius recites, holding his arm out toward Remus, who immediately takes on a dramatic role, placing his hand against his forehead and sighing, James giggling uncontrollably next to them.

‘For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.’

He finishes and they both lean forward, clasping their hands together and staring at each other, Sirius clearly trying not to laugh. James starts clapping furiously, shouting “Bravo!”, and they turn to him, doing their very professional bows.

When they’re finally done, they all lie back on the floor, staring at the ceiling and catching their breath.

‘That was really fun, James,’ Remus says, which makes him grin proudly. Although he is definitely a confident guy, Remus can tell James sometimes needs the praise, the appreciation to know that he’s doing something right, that they’re having a good time thanks to him.

‘Alright, I think it’s time we sleep. Tomorrow’s Eve,’ Sirius says, bouncing to his place excitedly.

They all settle down, grabbing their water glasses and covering themselves with at least two blankets each. James falls asleep quickly, breathing steadily, his glasses forgotten on his nose. Remus smiles at the sight and turns over, trying to get comfortable.

Before he falls asleep, he hears a soft “pssst”, and turns around again to see Sirius trying to nudge him with his foot, not managing to reach him. Remus raises his eyebrows at him in question.

Sirius smiles and it’s so beautiful that Remus genuinely feels like he might cry. ‘Thanks for being my Fair Youth,’ he whispers.

Oh.

Shit.

Remus knows this, he knows these butterflies, these little pleasant jumps in his stomach, the ones he always tried to avoid as a kid, knowing it wasn’t allowed, that it was wrong, at least according to his town.

Because he can’t find any words, he simply stares at Sirius’ vague shape in the dark, blinking rapidly and barely breathing. Sirius doesn’t seem to mind the staring though, his smile widening and his eyes turning into crescents before he turns with his back to Remus.

Fucking shit.

Chapter Text

Because it is the 24th, it appears that the town workers have been doing their best to clear up the roads and, when he goes outside to ask a neighbour, James finds out that, by 2 o’clock, the bus that Remus needs will be running again.

When they’d woken up, the power was already back on, so they all hurriedly charged their phones to tell everyone that they were okay. The snow was already starting to melt, and Remus could feel the dread building up in his chest, knowing he would have to go home.

Now, he is in James’ room, picking up the few things he’s taken out of his bags and getting ready to leave. They’ll have lunch and then Remus will go. And then he’ll never see them again.

He’ll never see Sirius again.

He snaps himself out of it and shakes his head, dragging his hands over his face. This is the last thing he needed right now. A goddamn crush.

It’s obviously just an attraction though, because Sirius is objectively beautiful and he has a great sense of humour. Nothing to worry about at all. He pushes the feeling as far away as it’ll go and drags his bags downstairs, where James is happily cooking, having finally been able to go to the supermarket for groceries.

‘Need help with that?’ Sirius asks, popping up next to him and already grabbing one of the bags, the heavier one, before Remus can say anything.

He takes a moment to look at him, knowing this is probably the last time he’ll get to. He’s made friends, which he’s felt closer to than maybe anyone before, and now he is going to go back to his bleak, quiet house and eat dinner in silence with his parents. His parents who barely even know him.

Sirius’ hair is in two braids again, messy, with curls sticking out everywhere and sort of uneven. He’s wearing a black crop top with a big, white star in the middle and grey sweatpants that should not look as good on him as they do.

‘I’ll walk you to the bus stop, okay?’ Sirius says as they wrestle the bags to the front door.

‘You don’t have to,’ Remus says, genuinely surprised.

‘I know.’

He leaves before Remus can say anything, which is frustrating as well as comforting, because what could he even say to that? To knowing that Sirius just wants to see Remus off and spend a few more minutes with him.

During lunch, the fear inside the pit of his stomach grows uncomfortably, unrelenting. He feels a little sick by the end and apologises to James for not finishing his food.

‘No worries! I always cook a bit too much. I think it’s because mum always does. In her hometown, families always cooked for, like, at least ten more people and the people that lived nearby would all gather and eat together. It’s probably a habit that stuck.’

‘And thank God for that,’ Sirius says, taking his last bite and grinning.

‘It was great, really,’ Remus assures James again, just to be sure. He knows he’ll miss his oversharing nature, that he’s now come to think of as more of a storytelling skill.

They’re all quiet until everyone is done. Then, James clears his throat and looks at Remus with a soft, but cautious look in his eyes, like he wants to make sure he’s comfortable.

‘Remus, I’m really glad you’ve stayed with us for these few days,’ he says. ‘I’m glad I met you.’ Remus must look the way he feels, which is grateful and sad, so James adds, ‘and that I witnessed your acting during the sonnets,’ which makes them all start laughing.

‘Thank you, both of you. I’ve no idea why you’d take in a random stranger off the streets. But then again, I’ve no idea why I’d agree to stay at a random stranger’s house, so maybe we’re all just a little bit fucked in the head.’

‘A little, he says,’ Sirius chimes, turning to nod seriously at James, whose face breaks into a grin.

‘And you guys are serious fun, even with those weird ideas you get.’

They all laugh again and smile at each other. Then, it’s finally time to leave.

James can’t join them because he has to pick up a package for his father, so he waits for Sirius and Remus to get their coats and shoes on, in his fluffy slippers, his hair as messy as it’s been since he met him. He pulls Remus in a tight hug, which is utterly embarrassing — and much appreciated.

He grabs Remus’ hand and gives him his phone. ‘Give us your number, okay? We’ll stay in touch.’

Something heavy and painful lifts off of his chest. ‘Okay,’ he agrees, voice rough.

After they say their goodbyes, Remus and Sirius each grab a bag and start their walk to the bus stop. They’re silent, the sounds of their steps in the snow loud. Deafening, to Remus, who can’t seem to calm his breathing down properly. Because he can’t. He can’t go there again. Especially after getting this break, this little comfortable and beautiful break away from that house, where he’ll likely want to scream into his pillow every night and feel like an animal in a cage having to pretend he’s something else.

‘Remus,’ Sirius says, probably having called his name a few times before.

‘What? Sorry.’

‘What’s wrong?’

Remus notices they’re here. There are a few more people waiting for the bus, bags at their feet and tired looks on their faces. ‘I’m just… nervous to go back.’

Something passes over Sirius’ face and Remus hopes desperately it’s not pity.

‘Is it really bad?’

‘It’s…’ Remus sighs. ‘It’s like I’m going to see two people I love, in the house and town I grew up in, but I’m also going to a place that doesn’t even know me, to a place that would probably hate me if I was honest. I—’

He’s hyperventilating a little and he can feel the pressure building in his head along with the fear that’s been growing for hours. He can’t even get himself to feel properly embarrassed about Sirius witnessing this.

‘I love them.’

Sirius steps closer to him and grabs his hand. ‘Of course you do, Remus,’ he says, his voice soft.

‘I do.’

He nods, like he believes him, which Remus hopes he does. Because he loves them. But he also wants another storm to come just so he doesn’t have to go back. And what kind of son does that make him?

‘They know you do, I’m sure. And you can feel both love and hate for that place. It makes you human.’

Remus shakes his head. He knows it’s worse in his head than in reality, but his breathing won’t slow down, his body won’t listen to him. Still, when Sirius reaches up and puts his fingers on the side of his neck and pulls him down, Remus’ body seems to freeze for a second. He pulls him closer until he can press their foreheads together, and he closes his eyes. He breathes slowly, like Remus did when he was panicking the other day.

Remus stares at him wide eyed, at his nose, his eyes, so close and so distinctly Sirius’. After a few more seconds, Sirius opens his eyes again and for a moment they just gaze at each other, before he pulls away.

‘Sorry,’ he says, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. Seeing Sirius embarrassed is as odd as seeing a speaking dog would be. It feels unnatural, and yet something inside Remus wants to make him blush again and again. ‘I know I was supposed to do the thing with the hand, but,’ he gives a half-hearted laugh and a shrug, ‘guess instinct kicked in.’

Remus doesn’t have the heart to tell him that it wasn’t even the breathing thing that calmed him down, but the shock of being so close to Sirius.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Thanks.’

Sirius nods and then frowns, starting to pace, biting at his lip. Remus watches him, but doesn’t interrupt, wondering what he’s thinking so hard about. After a few minutes, he halts in front of Remus. His eyes seem a little frantic, he barely seems to be breathing. Still and yet radiating nervous energy. Remus waits for him to say something, wanting to fidget under the wight of his stare.

‘Stay,’ he finally breathes.

Remus’ heart really can’t take all these little fun surprises life keeps hitting him in the fucking face with.

‘What?’

There’s that light blush again. ‘Stay a few more days,’ he goes on, avoiding his eyes. ‘Tell your parents the roads are still closed here. Say you’ll try to make it to New Year’s.’

Remus can feel his eyes widening with each word that comes out of his mouth. ‘Sirius, I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’ Sirius honest to fucking hell pouts.

‘Because!’ When Sirius doesn’t seem impressed by this, he continues, ‘Because it’s James’ house—’

‘—Effy and Monty’s—’

‘—and because my parents, my parents are waiting. And, then there’s— it’s Christmas!’

‘So you should be happy!’ Sirius half-shouts back. ‘You should feel like you can be yourself!’

‘I, I don’t, I can’t do this!’ he stammers, hearing the tremor in his already weak voice.

‘Why not?’

They stare at each other, chests heaving from the sort of shouting match. People are carefully avoiding looking in their direction. The sun is shining, melting that horrible, absolutely wonderful snow off the pavement. Then, Sirius’ eyes go soft again.

‘Stay,’ he whispers again.

Remus keeps looking at him, breathing heavily and not managing to figure out why the hell Sirius would be so (aggressively) kind to him.

‘James won’t mind.’

That makes Remus smile, because he’s known the guy for barely four days and yet he knows he won’t mind. So..

‘Okay,’ he agrees, stupidly, just like he did when this whole thing started.

But even if this wasn’t saving him from that house, from a miserable Christmas, Remus thinks it would still be worth if for the grin that breaks over Sirius’ face.

When they make it back to the house, James is already gone. The rooms are eerily quiet, the missing constant shuffle making Remus feel stiff, snapping him out of the warm feeling of Sirius wanting him to stay, and reminding him that this is absolutely deranged.

Still, he doesn’t stop Sirius when he nudges his bags up the staircase, leaving him to call his parents. And lie.

‘Good morning,’ his dad answers, voice as levelled as always. ‘Are you on your way? Your mother wants to start on lunch and she would like your help.’

He can feel his stomach turn a little, but mostly he just feels numb. Like he always does when he lies to them. ‘There’s been, um, a problem.’

He’s quiet for too long, because his dad says, ‘Did something happen?’

Remus already knows from the worry barely seizable in his voice that he’s thinking about his back or his knees. ‘I’m alright, don’t worry. But…’ he clears his voice as he feels numbness overtake the rest of his body, ‘the roads haven’t cleared up yet.’

‘I thought the buses were already working?’

‘It was a mistake, the person I asked thought I was talking about another town that’s already been cleared up.’

They’re both silent for a moment. ‘So you won’t be home for Christmas.’

‘No. I’m sorry.’

‘Your mother won’t be happy.’

‘I’m really sorry dad, I wish I could be there.’

He can hear his dad moving around, probably thinking of how he would break it to his mum. ‘What’s important is that you’re safe. Do you need any money for the hotel?’

Remus closes his eyes against the guilt that engulfs him. Talking to his dad is often hardest, because he always catches him off guard with kind words, with genuine worry and reminders that he’s lying through his teeth.

‘I’m okay, but I’ll keep you updated. It’s not very expensive here.’

‘Alright. We’ll miss you on Christmas, but we’ll save some leftovers for you.’

‘I’ll miss you too. Merry Christmas, dad.’

‘Merry Christmas.’

He hangs up just as Sirius comes down the stairs, skipping the last two steps. He walks to where Remus is sitting on the couch, a soft smile on his lips, covering his obvious worry.

‘How did it go?’ he asks, sitting down, back straight and knees together.

Remus scratches the back of his neck and shrugs. ‘Well, they bought it.’

Sirius flinches a bit at his tone. ‘But how do you feel?’

Their eyes meet, and Remus can tell he’s coming back to himself, but the cold feeling in his body is still there.

‘Do you regret it?’ Sirius asks, so much anxiety in his eyes, accompanied by a little guilt, that Remus wants to tell him he’s never been happier, just so Sirius doesn’t feel responsible for his own bad habit of lying like he can’t even help it.

‘I’m… a little sad,’ he admits.

Sirius’ eyes stay guilty and anxious, but he doesn’t say anything, nodding to urge him on.

‘I hate doing this, but I do it so often it feels like second nature. And I always feel so… emotionless, I guess, when I do it.’

‘Detached?’ Sirius prompts.

‘Yeah, like my body goes numb. But I don’t regret it,’ he adds, holding Sirius’ gaze. ‘And trust me, the relief will come.’

That finally gets Sirius to smile again and he immediately slouches, spreading his legs so he sits in his normal, natural pose. The numbness seems to fade much faster than usual.

‘Did you tell James I’m still here?’

Sirius shakes his head. ‘I’ll call him right now.’

After Sirius gets up and goes in the kitchen, Remus turns on the TV, which is already logged into Netflix, and puts on a random show. His mind is full of thoughts, ranging from crushing guilt to uncontrollable giddiness. As the seconds pass, the latter seems to completely overshadow any other worry and he can’t stop smiling about getting to spend at least one more night here.

‘Jamie-boy is ecstatic,’ Sirius’ voice chimes in right before he enters the living room again. ‘Never heard a man happier, truly.’

Remus grins at him, pausing the show. ‘I tend to have that effect on people, yes.’

Sirius cackles, delighted. ‘One thing. We have some mates whose parents are also away. James is bringing them over, is that okay?’

He sounds as though if Remus complained, he’d actually call James and forbid him from bringing people over. He doesn’t know what to do with that. ‘Oh, of course, if they won’t mind either.’

Sirius falls on the couch and slings his legs up on the coffee table, waving him off. ‘They’ll love you, I’ll make sure of it.’ His eyes finally pause on the screen, and his jaw drops. ‘Oh my God, I’ve heard so much about this! I didn’t know it was on Netflix.’

He bounces closer to Remus and stares at him expectantly until he hits play.

They watch the show in relative silence, occasionally commenting on the characters’ choices, the camerawork, the plot, cracking jokes that should not be that funny, but still make them hold their sides cackling.

‘Honestly same,’ Sirius says when the main character ignores a bunch of red flags and forgives her boyfriend only because she’s horny.

Remus shakes his head, but still smiles, because who is he to judge her or Sirius when he’s basically been doing similar things his entire life.

In another scene, the protagonist gets ready for a party, covering her eyes in black eyeshadow. He swears he can feel the thought forming in Sirius’ head right before he sits up straight, eyes wide on Remus and a wild grin in place.

‘No,’ Remus says immediately, and repeats it while Sirius nods.

‘Yes! Let’s get ready for the party,’ he says, shaking Remus.

‘What party?’ he whines.

‘Y’know,’ he waves his hands half-heartedly. ‘People are coming over, it’s a party.’

‘No.’

Sirius nods. ‘Yes.’

Remus groans and kicks his legs off the coffee table. He huffs, squinting at Sirius, who keeps grinning widely. ‘Do you even own make up?’

He gasps, leaning against Remus’ side with the back of his hand against his forehead. Dramatic ass. ‘Of course I do! To be fair, only some eyeliner, mascara, blush and highlighter,’ he lists off on his fingers, then yells ‘But! I’m sure Effy has something we can borrow.’

‘I better look like a fucking Hollywood teenager at an unrealistic party with glitter and all that shit,’ he huffs, crossing his arms and, to his absolute delight, Sirius giggles and gets up, grabbing his hand.

Remus’ stomach flips which he personally thinks is quite disrespectful to himself, but anyhow. He follows Sirius quickly up the stairs, although he does slow down after a few steps, remembering Remus’ knees. They flop down on the bed in James’ room after Sirius chaotically moves around looking for lost make up.

‘Okay, what are we thinking?’

‘Glitter,’ Remus repeats, matter-of-factly.

Sirius nods professionally. ‘Of course, of course.’

As Remus sits with his back against the wall, propped up by a pillow, eyes closed, Sirius works silently, brushing different parts of his face softly. It feels nice, like being taken care of. He’s keenly aware of how close they are and wonders what the other thinks of him. Does he think his few acne scars are ugly? Does he think his nose is too big, his pores too wide, his eyebrows too messy? It feels like vulnerability and like comfort at the same time and it makes him feel dizzy.

Sirius blows lightly on one of his eyes to get some extra eyeshadow off and Remus barely stops himself from smiling stupidly. It’s just that he’s surrounded by Sirius. His smell, his voice, his hair tickling his jaw, and all he wants to do is lean forward and bury himself in his shoulder. It’s mad, and he needs to think about something else or he’ll do something really stupid.

‘Is brown glitter okay? It’ll work great with your skin and your eyes.’

He just nods, feeling not quite able to form sentences as a human might.

A few minutes later, Sirius snaps a palette shut and leans away from where he’d been sitting, cross-legged and slouched over Remus. He gets up and goes to look at himself in the mirror.

At his shocked expression, Sirius smiles sheepishly, shrugging. ‘Okay, maybe I had a phase when I watched tutorials, like, everyday. Maybe I still kind of do,’ he laughs.

‘Sirius, this is borderline professional,’ he says, turning back to look at him.

Sirius scoffs and waves him off. ‘Nah, I’m not that good. But the girls do ask me to do their make up sometimes, so.’

He can’t help but turn around again to stare at himself some more. He’s never looked like this before. Sirius has managed to make him objectively hot. He’s got dark brown eyeshadow around his eyes, like a very smudged, subtle eyeliner, his brows are a bit more cleaned up, but still similar to his normal look, he has a very small amount of lipstick on that makes him look like he’s just made out with someone, and he has glitter on his cheekbones and on his eyes. But what seems to really make the look is the golden highlighter Sirius used. It makes him look kind and mysterious at the same time.

‘Do you like it?’

Remus blinks at him in the mirror, then spins on his heels and fixes him with a stare he hopes looks sincere. ‘I’ve never looked this good in my life.’

Sirius throws his head back and laughs generously, then leans forward and pushes a hand through his hair, messing it up a little, and somehow making him look even better.

‘Wanna do mine?’ he asks mischievously.

‘Absolutely not, are you joking? I’m never breathing near any sort of make up while you’re around, ever.’

‘Oh, come on, it can’t be that bad. Just so some black eyeliner and give me some lipstick. Makes my eyes pop,’ he says and Remus definitely doesn’t imagine the sparkle in his blue eyes.

‘Fine, but don’t laugh at me.’

‘I would never!’

Turns out eyeliner is not that hard to do when you have someone guiding you a bit and the person you’re doing it on is so beautiful it doesn’t really matter how badly you mess up.

‘So who are the girls?’ he asks as he cleans one eye up a bit.

‘Hm?’ Sirius says softly, eyes closed into a relaxed expression.

‘Earlier you said something about doing the girls’ make up.’

‘Oh. Lily, Marlene and Mary. They’re our friends. I think they’re coming over although I’m not sure about Marlene, I think her parents are in town.’

Remus nods and keeps working, trying to get the eyes to look the same. ‘Childhood friends?’

‘Sort of. I met them when I moved in at fifteen, but most of them grew up together. We’re very close, but I wish we could see each other more.’

‘Did they stay here after high school?’

‘Most of them actually moved to London as well. Marlene stayed, though. But we’re all very busy with work and our schedules are really different. Still, we usually manage to meet up for drinks as a group at least once a month, except for Marls. But we face time her constantly and she visits sometimes.’

‘I’m glad you have friends there.’

This makes Sirius jump a bit. ‘Wait, you’re from London as well, aren’t you?’ Remus confirms, looking at him suspiciously although he knows he can’t see him. ‘Then we’ll definitely stay in touch!’

Remus swallows. Sirius keeps going on about all the places he wants to hang out at with Remus, but he just stares at his beautiful, happy features, wondering how and why someone like Sirius, and James for that matter, would be so eager to stay in touch with him. He wonders if that’s just how they are with anyone, but a big part of him doubts it.

‘Tell me about your friends?’

Remus’ head floods with memories of smiles, of people telling jokes and hugging goodbye, of full lips parting into a grin and then the same ones letting out deafening shouts full of hatred. He closes his eyes and shakes his head to get rid of those images.

‘I don’t really have any constant ones.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well I hang out with people sometimes, no one really sticks.’

Sirius frowns and looks ready to ask another question when he feels the lipstick Remus chose pressing against his bottom lip and opens one eye to squint at him.

‘Mmm, what are you doing?’

‘Putting lipstick on you?’

‘Not like that you’re not,’ he says, opening his other eye as well.

Remus groans. ‘What.’

‘You’re wasting product like that. You need to take some on your finger first and use it to apply. That way you can also blend better if you’re using a pencil for example.’

‘Well I’m not using a pencil now, am I,’ Remus says in a mocking voice, but does as he is told.

He presses his middle finger to the lipstick and reaches for Sirius, but stops just short of touching his lips. His mind starts chanting “holy shit” very unhelpfully and he can’t take his eyes off of Sirius. The fact that Sirius hasn’t closed his eyes again and keeps looking at him with an odd look on his face doesn’t help much.

He finally presses his finger to the bottom lip, then the top one, smudging it on quickly.

‘Done?’ Sirius asks, his voice much softer than before.

Remus tries to confirm, but his voice breaks so he just nods.

Sirius walks to the mirror and starts grinning like he’s trying not to. For a moment, Remus is about to complain about being laughed at, but when he notices the look in Sirius’ eyes, his words die in his throat. He looks… He doesn’t know how he looks.

‘It’s okay?’

He only gets a nod back, and then they start cleaning up so no make up gets lost or sat on. Then Sirius leaves to change into some “party clothes” so Remus just changes his T-shirt into a very slightly see-through, black button-up shirt — which he’d packed only because he’d left in a hurry and had mistaken it for a simple black shirt — leaving the first few buttons open. He keeps the loose black jeans he has on because he’d only had two pairs of pants and he isn’t sure how to ask James to do a load of laundry at his house, although it is starting to become increasingly necessary.

Soon enough, Remus is back on the couch, looking over a few papers to make sure he doesn’t get too behind on grading. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of the occasional absolutely baffling essay, which follows no proper academic pattern and yet manages to make incredible points. He can’t help but hope those kids will make it in life, especially when he knows himself that school systems don’t really uplift unique thinkers. He makes a note to give the kid some pamphlets for projects that would look good on their CV if they ever want to pursue anything in the area.

‘Remus,’ Sirius calls from upstairs. ‘Are my hair ties downstairs?’

He sits up and looks under a few scattered pillows and finds them almost engulfed by the couch. ‘Yeah,’ he answers just as Sirius comes skipping on the stairs and reaching out for the ties.

He pulls his hair into a low, loose bun, then adds a star-shaped clip on one side to hold some pieces in place. He has dark, baggy jeans and a long-sleeved, black top on. He looks lovely.

They finally hear footsteps and voices that sound like they’re bickering outside and they both turn their heads toward the door. Soon enough, they hear the front door bang shut and James’ voice rings from the entrance hall.

‘Slippers anyone?’

Remus hears the voice of a woman, deep, but smooth and pleasant, excitedly requesting a pair of red slippers and another green one for “Lily”.

Sirius smiles at him, but doesn’t move to greet them, which Remus is thankful for because he doesn’t want to be left alone when they make their way inside the living room.

‘They should be back by now,’ James is saying as he walks in, head still turned to the girls. He’s wearing a navy T-shirt and some sweatpants, with a bobble hat still on his head.

‘Hiya,’ Sirius grins, snickering when James jumps.

‘Remus!’ he smiles, bright as always, and he can’t help but be relieved that James really doesn’t mind his being here, even looks glad of it.

‘Only here for a few more days, if that’s okay,’ he smiles back, open and fully relaxed, finally.

‘As long as you need,’ James says and pats him on the back.

Remus wonders what Sirius has told him, if anything. James knows he doesn’t like going back home, but he doesn’t know if he assumed Remus had just blatantly lied to them. Like he always does.

‘I’ve repeatedly told you not to bring that bag.’

He looks up and sees two women, around his age, dragging a bag, which seems to have a ripped handle, on the floor. One of them has dark skin, with her hair braided into a crown and beautiful rosey make up on her smooth skin. She has a cozy looking sweater on and some corduroy flare pants. The other one has objectively gorgeous red hair, loose on her shoulders, with a sweater on as well and a long, beige skirt. She has freckles all over her face and, if not for the exasperated expression weighing her features, she’d probably look very kind and approachable.

‘Girls, this is Remus,’ Sirius announces loudly. ‘Remus, girls.’

He rolls his eyes at Sirius and steps toward them, reaching out his hand to shake both of theirs. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi, I’m Mary,’ the one with the rosey make up says, throwing on a charming smile.

‘Lily,’ the other one says. ‘Nice to meet you.’

‘Do you need help with that?’ James asks and, judging by his tone, it’s not the first time he’s offered.

‘I can do it,’ Lily says, snapping a little.

‘Listen, I’m sorry. I could’ve sworn you said to get this bag—’

‘I said don’t get the red bag.’

‘—but it’s no reason for you to struggle up the stairs with it, honestly.’ Mary follows behind Lily who relentlessly fights her way to the staircase. Then, she abruptly turns to look at Remus as James and Sirius go to the kitchen to start getting dinner ready. ‘So where are you from, handsome?’

Remus feels himself blush and remembers that right now he really is kind of handsome.

‘South Ample. You?’

‘I was born in the north but we moved here when I was four so I kind of consider this place my home. Other than London, of course.’

Remus tries to sympathise, but all he associates London with is group after group of faceless people he got to call friends for less than a year before things changed again. Well, that and his students.

‘And how are you liking Ample so far?’

Remus is just about to answer, when Lily comes back down, throwing her hair back over a shoulder.

‘There was a snowstorm, I don’t think he got to see much.’

‘True, true’ Mary agrees, nodding thoughtfully.

‘It seems nice though. The town. Definitely much bigger than mine.’

Lily grins at him, catching him off guard with the playful glint in her eyes. ‘I have some family there. Honestly, it kind of sucks, no offence.’

He waves to assure her he doesn’t mind. ‘There are some good parts, especially if you live there long enough to find them, but yeah, mostly it does suck. I think it’s just cause it’s so weirdly secluded.’

‘That’s true. Especially the posh neighbourhood.’

Remus grins back at that. He’ll always be in for bashing the assholes from the posh side of his town. Those guys were seriously fucked up with their traditional and most probably incestuous families.

‘What are you three gossiping about?’ Sirius asks, appearing with the biggest smirk on his face.

‘Remus’ and your shitty town,’ Mary answers plainly, moving to flop on the couch, lying down so her body covers its entire surface.

Lily follows her, lifting her feet with a grunt and placing them in her lap after sitting down. He and Sirius look at each other, then shrug and follow suit, Remus sitting on an armchair and Sirius on a pillow thrown on the floor in front of him.

‘How’re the folks?’ Sirius asks and, to Remus’ absolute horror, drops his head back so it’s resting almost between his legs.

‘Mum’s tired as hell. I’m glad they’re away so she can relax a little bit,’ Mary says with a sigh.

‘She and Marlene should take a break once in a while,’ Lily adds, nodding. ‘We could help out when we’re in town.’

‘Yeah, but that doesn’t happen very often, does it?’

As they talk, Remus leans down to whisper in Sirius’ ear. ‘What are they talking about?’

Sirius meets his eyes, then strains his neck to reach Remus’ ear. ‘Marlene worked for Mary’s mum from when she was around fifteen until she turned nineteen. Then, for her birthday, Mary’s mum surprised her and made her manager of the bar. She’ll most likely pass it on to her soon.’ While he says this, his breath keeps tickling Remus’ cheek and he can barely remember to actually listen to the words.

‘That sounds cool,’ he whispers back.

‘It’s great, but they work constantly. They bought the building next-door last year, tore down the wall and extended the space. But now they’ve got twice the customers and they’re understaffed. They take on shifts like every other day, even though they’re supposed to be in administration and such.’

Remus nods. ‘That sounds exhausting. I can barely grade papers in time.’

Sirius huffs a laugh. ‘It’ll be worth it though. And James and I always stay a few more days after the holidays and take, like, every shift available.’ For a moment they’re both quiet, turning their attention back to the girls. Then, Sirius motions for him to bend down again. ‘I’ll take you there,’ he whispers, and then jumps into the ongoing conversation, like he didn’t just make Remus’ breath hitch audibly.

Chapter Text

James calls for them to come to dinner half an hour later. When Remus enters the kitchen, he sees him fussing about, moving dishes and searching for lost utensils, apron still tied around his middle. It warms his chest a little. His presence makes any room feel homey.

‘Okay,’ he says, clapping his hands together. ‘Lils, those are for you. No meat.’ He points to a plate and Lily smiles softly, like she doesn’t mean to. ‘Sirius, I’m sorry, but I refuse to make curry that’s not spicy.’

Sirius pouts, sitting down at the table, and Remus turns to him, feeling his eyes widen. ‘You don’t like spicy food?’ he asks, offended on behalf of good taste.

Sirius purses his lips and lifts his chin. ‘I like it just fine.’

‘Yeah,’ James laughs, adding some food to his plate. ‘He just avoids it like the plague.’

Sirius crosses his arms and sticks his tongue out, which makes James do the same. Honestly, the two of them.

‘Food is food,’ Mary says, her eyes sparkling while she fills her plate. ‘And James’ food is fantastic.’

‘Aw, thanks Mary,’ James says, kissing her on the cheek and finally sitting down himself.

Eating in the kitchen together feels laid back, comfortable, and really fun. Especially when there are this many of them, and at least two people are constantly talking, making everyone laugh while trying to keep the food in their mouths.

‘And, stop me if I’m wrong,’ Sirius says at one point, waving his fork around. ‘But I’ve never seen a man look anything other than hot with a mullet.’

Lily snorts. ‘You haven’t seen enough men, then.’

Sirius gasps dramatically. ‘I have plenty of game, thank you very much.’

‘Sure you do,’ James says, sharing a look with Lily that makes everyone except for Sirius burst into giggles.

‘I do!’

‘You’ve literally never been in a relationship,’ Lily deadpans.

‘I have too.’ He opens his mouth to say something, then stutters. ‘There was… There was William,’ he says finally, clearing his throat and fixing his eyes on his food.

‘His name was Walker,’ Lily laughs. ‘And you hooked up with him three times max. A record for you, sure. Not a relationship though.’

Sirius groans ‘Fine. I still think mullets are hot as a general rule’

They go on talking and don’t stop until long after they’ve finished their food. They talk while they clean up as well, Lily and Mary putting things back in the fridge and then sitting on the counter, swinging their legs while Remus washes dishes and James and Sirius put them away.

Remus thinks he might get addicted to this easy, exhilarating feeling of having genuine, pleasant conversations with people he already likes and respects. He chooses not to think about the fact that, despite what Sirius said, he’s very likely to never see them again after they leave. Maybe they’ll meet up out of politeness, but that’ll be it.

‘Okay, so,’ Mary says, after they’re finally done. ‘You lot are clearly dressed up. I’m thinking me and Lily should go get changed, put on some make up, and then we can finally start the fun?’

‘Yes!’ Sirius yells, making Lily squint (fondly) at him.

‘I’ll go change as well,’ James says and then turns toward Sirius. ‘Come do my eyeliner. I almost poked an eye out last time.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Sirius says, making a salute and following them up the stairs.

Once alone, Remus decides to wonder around the house and think for a second, finally being able to hear his own thoughts.

So, he lied to his parents. For the first time without a proper reason. Of course he can’t be honest about his relationships, they would try to keep him home, to change his mind, they would go on about God and sin. But there was no real excuse for his lies now. So what if he felt more alone there than anywhere else? At least he had a family that loved him, or the part of himself he showed them. He was lucky and he was acting like a horrible person, taking up space at James’ house, intruding on a group of friends, leaving his parents alone for Christmas—

‘How do I look?’ James asks loudly, interrupting his thoughts.

He’s framing his face with his hands and wiggling his fingers. Remus forces himself to smile and walks closer to take a good look.

‘Fantastic,’ he answers.

He only has some eyeliner on and some glitter on his temples, but it still looks much more party-appropriate.

‘Yes, no one knows how I do it. Masterpiece after masterpiece,’ Sirius sighs as he comes down as well, the girls close behind.

Lily has a short black dress on, with ruffles on the bottom and her hair is pulled up into a pretty bun. Mary has a cropped, white tank top with long black pants. They both look great and much more energised than when they’d come in struggling with their bags.

‘Okay, now we can relax,’ Mary says, grinning and opening a cabinet that reveals burgundy bottles.

‘Shots?’ James asks, helping Mary take some out so they can decide on what they want.

Lily shakes her head. ‘I haven’t recovered from Sirius’ birthday, I think I’ll throw up without mixers.’

James nods and heads to the kitchen to look for whatever they’d bought on their way back.

They make some simple cocktails, except for Mary who decides she needs shots and proceeds to down two before they can even get the other glasses out. James puts on a playlist on shuffle and they lunge around a bit, nursing their drinks. Sirius and Lily talk animatedly about something Remus can’t hear, and, before long, James and Mary get into it about what seems to be a story involving people he doesn’t know.

He nods his head to the music and sips on his beer, having decided to forgo any strong alcohol in favour of not getting a pounding in his temples the next day. It’s starting to get warm again with the heating finally working, although he’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss the atmosphere of the fireplace.

Looking around the room like this, a thought finally dawns on him.

‘Where’s the tree?’ he asks, making James and Mary snap out of their conversation to blink at him.

‘What?’ James says.

‘The tree,’ he repeats.

Sirius hears as well, judging by the loud “Ha!”. ‘You forgot the tree!’ he says, delighted grin on his face.

‘What d’you mean I forgot the tree? What were you doing?’

‘We said you’d bring it in and I’d take out the boxes from the attic.’

James blinks at him in disbelief. ‘And did you do that?’ he says, exasperated.

Sirius lifts his nose in defiance. ‘No.’

‘And anyway, you could’ve remembered the tree as well—’

Their row is interrupted by Lily groaning and dropping her head in her hands. ‘I can’t believe you! I offered to host, did I not?’ Both James and Sirius are quiet, still squinting at each other. ‘Every goddamn time.’

She huffs and goes out the backdoor, leaving the other two to stare at each other sheepishly.

‘It happened once,’ Sirius finally says, but quietly and without much conviction.

‘Twice, now,’ James says.

They go after her to help her bring the Christmas tree in, which Remus didn’t even know was in the backyard. Mary makes her way to him and sits down on the couch.

She turns toward him, one knee bent on the cushions and one leg spread at her side on the floor. ‘Hey,’ she says to grab his attention. He just meets her eyes and nods. ‘This always happens. I mean, not the tree specifically, but the little spats. They do it sort of lovingly, I think.’

Remus nods. He doesn’t get it, really. Arguments have never been a good sign in his life. They’re usually followed by friendships ending.

‘So what d’you do?’

‘I’m a history teacher.’

She scrunches her nose. ‘Why?’

What could possibly be so wrong with being a history teacher? He’s not so sure how he feels about her. ‘I like history?’

‘S’that a question?’ she asks, eyes wide.

He huffs. ‘No. I like history.’

‘Cool. Why teach?’

Why teach? ‘Cause he wants to. What type of question is that? ‘I don’t know,’ he answers, feeling a little irritation seeping into his voice. ‘I like teaching.’

‘Do you like the kids?’ she asks, unrelenting.

‘I teach high schoolers.’ She doesn’t say anything, so he sighs and goes on. ‘History because I like patterns and stories, teaching because what the hell else could I do with a history degree.’

‘So you don’t like teaching?’

He frowns. ‘Didn’t say that.’

‘And why not English if you like stories?’

He barely notices the others stumbling through the door with the tree as he answers, ‘Books are personal to me. Teaching about literature would entail having to share the way I read them, the way I view characters and arcs. That’s for me.’

She nods and he’s hit with the debilitating realisation that he’s just said that out loud, to a stranger. He distantly hears Lily directing the boys.

‘What’s your favourite?’

‘Book?’

‘Student.’

‘Lift, Lily!’

‘My favourite student?’ She nods. He’s getting so worked up and they’ve barely talked for a minute. ‘I like them all, I guess.’

‘Oh, come on. You’ve got to have a few that you like more.’

She’s asking so many questions. He feels trapped and suffocated, but she does it so quickly he barely notices he’s opened his mouth before he’s already answering. It’s confusing and concerning at the same time. He wants to get away from her, but he’s curious about his answers as well.

‘I don’t.’

She looks at him for a few seconds, as though she’s deliberating. He wants her to ask him again, to give him a reason to talk about this part of his life that he’s always gone about automatically. Wake up, go to work, go home, grade, repeat.

‘Really?’

He feels his lips twitch into the smallest smile, which he’s sure she interprets as annoyance. ‘There’s a kid in one of my classes,’ he finally admits, adding another tired sigh, for effect. Mary doesn’t really react, just nods for him to go on. ‘I was grading his essay recently. He’s got this way of writing about events in such a raw way. Like he empathises with everyone involved, every group of people, rich, poor, powerful, weak. I don’t know. I’ve just never seen someone feel so freely for others. Usually, we view history as data, statistics, patterns.’

‘That’s how you see it?’

He nods. ‘Again, I do like the stories as well, but i love finding the events that repeat themselves and figuring out why. He’s just in it for humanity and its course.’

She watches him for what feels like forever, then finally grins. ‘You do like teaching.’

He frowns, but doesn’t get to answer, because Lily plops a dusty box in front of them on the floor.

‘Sort,’ she orders, then makes her way back to the stairs and, presumably, the attic to get more boxes.

‘As she commands,’ Mary says and begins to dig through the decorations.

They end up sorting the them into a few loose piles of Christmas lights, stockings, and so on. Sirius puts the tree in its stand and James and Lily do something in the kitchen. Remus quickly decides that Mary is an incredibly talkative person, and also that she does not give up on getting answers out of him. She never asks anything too intrusive theoretically, but they all seem to be meaningful questions for him specifically.

Well, not all of them.

‘What’s your favourite type of ice cream?’

He’s long stopped rolling his eyes or sighing, so he just answers honestly. ‘All of them.’

She laughs, her voice velvety. ’What do you mean all of them?,’ she questions as they start adding decorations to the tree.

‘What are you talking about?’ Sirius asks, joining in eagerly, probably tired from holding the tree up (even though he insisted he do it alone).

‘Ice cream,’ Remus answers, distracted. ‘I just like all of them. I’d eat every flavour at once.’

This is the first time Mary looks genuinely surprised. ‘Huh.’

‘What’s that mean?’ he frowns, feeling judged. Yeah, he has odd, some would go so far as to say disturbing, eating habits. There are worse flaws to have.

She shrugs. ‘Just that I wasn’t expecting you to have a sweet tooth, s’all.’

Before he can say anything, Sirius leans over with a shit-eating grin on his face. ‘What she actually means is what the hell and also how have you survived this long eating like a three year old left unsupervised?’

‘Excuse me, don’t talk to me about taste, Mr. “Would fuck anything with a mullet”.’

Sirius gasps and squints at him. ‘I would most certainly not!’

Remus shakes his head, hiding a small smile, and goes back to the tree, but Sirius chimes in with ‘They would have to be over 5’7, as well,’ nodding to himself thoughtfully.

He and Mary laugh and Sirius grins proudly at his joke. Then, James comes in to place the star and the house is deemed sufficiently decorated. They plop down on the couch and armchair, exhausted, and they turn on a speaker to put on some music again. As James works on the queue, Lily turns to the rest of them, looking at something on her phone.

‘Marlene will be here at 3 tomorrow and she says she’ll give Pete a ride. Is that okay?’ she asks, turning back to James.

‘Of course. Ask if they can bring sides. My mashed potatoes are always lumpy.’ He pouts, but no one seems compelled to convince him otherwise.

Soon enough, they regain their forces and they start pouring more drinks. Remus goes to grab another beer and, on his way back from the kitchen, Mary grabs his free hand and swings him from side to side a little. He laughs, but moves to the beat for only a few moments before rushing back to his comfortable, knees and back-safe spot on the couch. This doesn’t seem to deter Mary, though, who grabs Lily as a new dancing partner.

He recognises many of the songs and he’s glad once again that he seems to have similar music taste to James and the others. He hums to himself and watches as the others sing, dance and talk, content.

Half an hour in, they naturally start gathering in a loose circle around Remus, who’s still on the couch, talking and drinking.

‘Where’s that?’ Sirius asks.

‘Near the bar,’ Lily answers. ‘You’ve literally passed it, like, a million times.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Remember Mr. Jonah?’

‘Yeah?’

‘He owns it.’

‘Bullshit!’

Remus laughs to himself as he takes another sip. They’re talking about some studio that one of their former classmates had been renting, where he’d recently thrown a party that had involved a window being broken by a thrown vase? Or plate? Or something of the sort. He couldn’t really keep up with all the people and locations involved that he couldn’t place, but he enjoys listening to them.

Although Lily had, at first, seemed a little uptight to Remus, he’s starting to think she might not be so bad at all. She might even be great. He’s learnt she loves history and literature like him, and that she works at a social centre somewhere a little outside of London. It’s quite the commute, but she talks with such passion about the kids there that it’s clear she loves it and even he, who could usually not give less of a shit about people’s jobs, can’t wait to hear more.

‘And, as we all know, dear Jonah’s never had a great head of hair,’ James says with exaggerated sorrow, making Remus realise he’s completely lost and definitely missed a few important details in the story.

‘You’re one to talk,’ Mary says, leaning over and pretending to look at James’ inexistent receding hairline with concern.

He rolls his eyes, not even bothering to lift his hand to check. ’You’ve literally met my dad,’ he deadpans.

Mary shrugs. ‘A girl can try.’

At some point, Remus can’t remember when, they start playing a game of Truth or Dare, but because they can’t all sit in one place for more than a few minutes, it sort of fades in and out, with each of them randomly asking someone to pick whenever they feel like it.

James dares Lily to show everyone what’s in her bag and wallet, which reveals an alarming number of receipts, but nothing else of interest, and Lily dares him to tell his latest date that he’s not interested, which results in James chugging the rest of his gin. Sirius asks both Mary and James what their weirdest celebrity crush is and dares Remus to show the others one of the dances he “learnt” earlier, if his back’s okay. This earns him many whoops and many high-pitched screams, as well as an embarrassingly red neck.

When it’s nearing 11, they gather around the tree to place their presents. Remus feels a burning sensation behind his eyes and scratches the back of his neck. He hadn’t even thought about presents with everything going on with his parents. He’d eaten James’ food, done laundry and showered at his place, even took his room, and he couldn’t even do anything to repay him. Obviously he couldn’t have had time to buy them anything, but the shame isn’t swayed by that logic.

He decides the best thing to do is go back to his spot on the couch and wait until everyone is done arranging their gifts, so he won’t be in the way. But, only a little bit later, the cushion next to him dips with James’ weight. He smiles brightly at Remus, cheeks red from the alcohol and eyes a little hazy, and holds up a brown, poorly wrapped package.

There’s no way. Remus’ll kill him.

‘I got you this so you have something to open tomorrow,’ he says, clearly trying to sober up to not mess up his words as he tells Remus this. ‘It isn’t much, but it’s Christmas, and we couldn’t leave you gift-less, obviously.’

‘We hope you’ll like it,’ Sirius adds, coming up behind James.

“We”. Remus’ll kill them both.

‘You absolutely did not have to do this.’

‘Pish-posh,’ Sirius says, waving his hand around, but smiling softly, clearly knowing that this wasn’t something Remus would’ve expected.

‘Thank you,’ he says, as seriously and genuinely as he can muster.

He feels as though these past few days his world’s kept tilting little by little, now being close to turning completely upside-down. Who are these people, these kind, open, poetry-reading, beautiful people? How is it possible for Remus to have searched for someone to call a friend all these years in one of the biggest cities in the world, coming back empty-handed each time and with more of his patience chipped away little by little, only to be drowning in kindness he has no idea how to accept and return, in Ample of all places. He’s learnt long ago that this doesn’t happen. Not to him.

‘Okay, okay, no getting emotional before we even open the presents,’ Mary says, graciously breaking the tension.

Remus laughs and clears his throat, going to the kitchen again for one more drink. Mary follows him as Sirius and Lily go upstairs so she can borrow a pair of sweatpants to change into something more comfortable.

‘Truth or dare?’ Mary asks, jumping on the counter and crossing her legs.

‘Huh?’

‘Truth or dare?’

‘Oh.’ He’d forgotten about the game. He decides she’s gotten enough truths out of him for a person he’s met only a few hours ago. ‘Dare.’

‘Okay. I dare you to…’ she drags the last word, tapping her chin in thought. ‘Tell your favourite student why you studied history,’ she says, smiling softly.

‘What?’

‘Yep. And I mean really tell him. Not the way you told me. Tell him why you love it.’

He doesn’t love it. He remembers that being the case once, though. A few hundred lies and fake stories about himself ago. He frowns and gives her one short nod.

Her smile widens and she nods back, turning to leave, but he grabs her arm to stop her.

‘Truth or dare?’

Her smile falters a little. ‘Truth.’

‘What do you do?’

She doesn’t say anything for a moment and Remus thinks she won’t answer, but then she gets a determined look on her face. ‘I work at my mum’s bar part-time when I’m here.’ He nods, willing to accept that answer, but she goes on. ‘And I dance at a club.’

He blinks at her. Like a stripper?

‘I’m a stripper,’ she clarifies.

‘Okay. That’s cool.’

She laughs, surprised. ‘It’s “cool”?’

He shrugs. ‘I dunno. I certainly could never hold myself up on a spinning metal bar or whatever.’

Her smile widens again and she makes a show of looking him up and down. ‘Don’t underestimate yourself, big guy.’

‘Oh, yeah, totally. Bet I could even out-dance you,’ he says as they make their way back to the living room, where Lily, now in sweatpants and a fitted tank top, and James are swaying to the music together, smiling and stumbling over the words of the song.

Mary’s eyes seem to shine a little in the faint light. ‘Totally. Okay, truth or dare?’

Oh, they’re still going. Right. ‘Dare.’

‘I dare you to yell, but I mean really yell, the first word that comes to mind.’

His mouth opens before he has time to stop himself, and he screams an exhilarating “stripper” with his whole chest. Both James and Lily turn to look at him with concerned faces and he and Mary dissolve into a fit of giggles.

‘Okay, okay, your turn,’ she says, catching her breath.

‘Truth or dare?’

‘Truth.’

‘What’s… Hm. Oh, what’s a secret you’ve never told anyone?’ Then, to make sure he doesn’t go too far, he adds, ‘It can be anything, even something small.’

She barely takes a second to think, it’s like the answer is pulled right out of her. ‘I’ve never been in love,’ she whispers conspiratorially.

‘Really?’

‘Mhm. I know it’ll happen though. I can feel it. I’m meant to make someone feel loved.’

Remus can’t help his smile. ‘That’s a nice way to look at it.’

She shrugs, but her smile is proud, though tiny. ‘What about you?’

‘Didn’t choose truth,’ he reminds her.

‘Yeah. You can still answer though.’

He sees hands with long, rough fingers. He sees soft hair, he sees lips splitting into a crooked smile and then feels screams shaking through him, making him feel small. He never can forget anyone.

‘I’ve been in love, yeah.’

Thankfully, this one time, she doesn’t make him elaborate. Only watches him, nods and moves to the couch to watch Lily dance, by herself now.

‘Truth or dare?’

‘Dare.’

‘I dare you to dance with the next person that comes into the living room,’ she says, just as Sirius finally makes his way down the stairs, rosy cheeks and messy hair.

Remus blinks, not comprehending. ‘What? You what?’

‘Dance with the first person that comes into the living,’ Mary repeats, jerking her head toward the now clear candidate.

‘I don’t dance.’

‘You danced just a few minutes ago.’

‘That was a joke.’

‘Okay. This is a joke as well.’

He shakes his head, watching Sirius join Lily and start moving to the beat of the song, eyes crinkling from his smile. ‘No.’

‘So you give up? You lose?’

‘What? Lose? This wasn’t a competition.’

‘Mmm, I’m pretty sure every game we play is a competition. Plus, no one’s refused to do theirs. What’s so wrong with dancing with Sirius?’

Remus frowns. ‘There’s nothing wrong with dancing with Sirius. It’s just. It’s not a fair dare. You’d also be forcing him to dance with me, and he’s not picked dare, so.’

She smiles at him and it sends a warning shiver down his spine. ’Oi, Sirius, truth or dare?’

Sirius looks up and answers ‘Dare’ around the hair tie in his mouth as he’s gathering his hair into a ponytail to fix his failed messy bun, ruined by the wind from the balcony in James’ parents’ room, where he’d gone for a cigarette.

‘Dance with Remus.’

Remus whips back around to stare daggers at Mary. ‘What the hell!’ he whisper-yells, just as Sirius says ‘Okay’ cheerily.

She lifts her hands innocently. ‘What?’ she asks grinning and proceeds to push Remus away from her and toward Sirius.

What if Sirius thinks he asked Mary to give him the dare? What if he thinks he’s a creep? Remus has to get out of this.

Before he has time to think of something, though, he feels a light touch on his arm which comes just short of making him jump out of his skin.

‘Do you mind?’ Sirius asks him, moving to stand with a small distance between them.

He can’t get his throat to start working to say he absolutely does mind. To his absolute horror, he shakes his head, which makes Sirius smile again and move a little closer so he can place one of his hands on the crook of Remus’ neck, where it meets his shoulder. It’s freezing cold, from the chilly air outside.

He keeps his other hand free to move around as he starts to move to the music. The light red dusting his cheeks makes it clear he finds it awkward as well, but he doesn’t say anything, nor does he stop smiling.

Remus tries to match his dancing, and manages to at least not make Sirius stumble with his jerky, probably a little off-beat moves. He feels like there’s no air between them, and he can’t stop looking at the light bouncing off of Sirius’ face, making the little beads of sweat on his forehead shine a little. How long is this song?

‘Happy you stayed?’ Sirius asks him over the song.

It catches him a little off-guard as he’d assumed they wouldn’t speak and would try to get through this as quickly as possible. ‘Yeah,’ he says, not meaning for it to be as soft as it comes out.

Sirius nods to himself, like he’d still been worried Remus regretted this. Remus really does not regret this. God, he can’t go through this again. He can’t have a crush after he’s just gotten back to himself again.

‘Don’t worry about the present. It really is just something small. We know you couldn’t return the favour. Jamie just saw it on his way to pick up the girls and decided to buy it.’

‘Impulse purchase,’ he says off-handedly, not really paying attention to his own words, but Sirius’ laugh is genuine.

‘You have no idea how on-point you are with that one.’

‘I am?’

Sirius nods, still moving to the music lazily. ‘He once bought a cat wand because it was the same colour as Ziggy, our pet.’

He makes a mental note to investigate the origins of that name because he can already feel the alarm bells going off in his head that that must be a Bowie reference.’What’s wrong with that?’

‘Ziggy’s a dog.’

Remus lets out a loud cackle, and Sirius grins at him. ‘I’m sure dogs can like cat wands as well,’ he says, but phrases it more like a question.

Sirius shakes his head, still grinning. ‘Not Ziggy, at least.’

‘So what’d you do with it?’

‘We use it to duel, obviously,’ Sirius says, matter-of-factly.

‘Naturally,’ he answers, nodding seriously but barely hiding his smile.

As the song comes to an end, he realises it wasn’t so bad. Maybe this really was just attraction, a small crush, nothing to get so worried over. This’d only been his brain going into panic mode and predicting this situation would be like the ones before. But there was nothing to overthink. He’d forgotten he was even that close to Sirius as they talked. Clearly it was fine.

He feels like a weight’s been lifted off his chest and he smiles one last time at Sirius before they step away from each other and head back to the others, no weird energy left between them. Only a pleasant buzz from the dancing and the drinks.

He’s made friends. And he has nothing to worry about, at least not tonight. Finally.

Just as he is about to join the ongoing conversation, the doorbell rings loudly, sharply, cutting through everyone’s voices. Everyone goes silent. James frowns, clearly not knowing who it could be. Sirius shrugs as well, so the other gets up, saying he’ll be right back.

‘Are we expecting anyone else?’ Lily asks.

‘Maybe Marlene and Pete convinced their parents to come early?’ Mary suggests, but none of them seem certain.

For a moment, only the sound of James’ footsteps disturbs the quiet that’s settled as they wait. And then the door opens. Thinking back on it, Remus could swear he felt the anticipation in his chest, like he knew this would be important. There’s another quiet beat, and then, breathlessly,

‘Regulus?’