Chapter Text
Friday, 13th September 1986
Two days ago Lily broke up with James and Remus hadn't seen him around since. Maybe he finally took the train back to his hometown. Revisit his parents graves. They had been really rich apparently, all of it gon to James, but he lost it somehow. He didn't want to talk about it.
"Sirius isn't coming today either." Remus said to Lily. Her red hair was today paired with a green badana, the same shade as her eyes. Lily rarely wore makupe, and the freckles covering her cheeks and collarbones looked more like stars than anything else. She smelled like flowers, her sent overpowering the smell of detergent. Her blouse was white and her apron blue, and just as always Remus felt as if he didn't really live up to her standards, though she never told him that. She was dressed up for work every day, looked like a flirty barista, but in all the years of knowing her she'd never appeared as one. Remus always wore sweaters and straight or baggy jeans and badly matched striped, colorful socks. He had a few tattoos, the moon phases and the Lupus Constellation, including the star with his name, and the moon phaces. He had a collection of Converse, brown, green, black, wine red, beige and cream. Tote-bags and messanger bags. Lily once croched a red bag to match his maroon Converse, since nothing else matched with them. He was forever thankful.
The bell over the door made that sound Remus was so tired of, high pitched, metallic and never-ending. He lifted his gaze and almost got a heart attack as he saw who entered the café. He knew from the very moment he laid eyes on the high boots and the black jeans. He turned around to call for Lily, but she peaked out from behind a corner, smirked and dissapeared out to the kitchen. Remus bit his lip as Sirius Black took a few confident steps towards Remus.
"Hey." he said. He was talking to Remus.
"H-H..Hello." Remus stammered.
"You're not the usual one." He was talking to Remus. They were having a conversasion.
"N-No, I'm taking over this.. shift." Remus mumbled while looking at the desk. Those eyes, in this light appearing electric blue. Flattering his soul and piercing his heart to the edge of his ribcage, his beter mind threathening to bust his brain open and let him blead out. Sirius took a seat.
"I'd like three coffees." Three, that's unusual. But he didn't say anything. He had never served him coffe before.
"We, me and my brother got a tenant some days ago. I have feed him, you know." Sirius took a seat as Remus asked him with a stuttering voice what coffe he would like. He turned around to make three cups. He gave him the first two coffees and when he turned around to grab the last one Sirius said: "I like you more than the other one. Lilvia or what's shes called."
"Lily." Remus said, his cheek flushing. He reached for the coffe, spun around an placed it in front of Sirius. His sleeve rolled up and Sirius placed his long fingers, not around the coffe, but around Remus' arm. Sirius Black had his nails painted black, flawless. The pinkie nail tho, was a vibrant green neon color. The touch sent a shiver up his arm as Sirius wrapped his fingers around his overarm and turned it over.
"You've got a tattoo!" Sirius said. As he leaned over Remus could see the black ink trailing up the side of his neck. "It's a constallation right." Remus blushed even more and looked away.
"Stars." It was nothing more than a whipser. Why'd he say that? Such a stupid stupid thing to say. "Lupus constellation."
"The wolf. Why that one?" Their eye's met, muddy green and bright, oh so bright blue.
"It has my name in it."
"And what's your name." Remus felt self consious. What if his hair was dirty, or his shirt was clinging too much to his tall skinny body. And not to talk about his scars. What if he thought they were ugly, horrible, repulsive....
"Remus. Remus Lupin." Sirius Black pointed at the star who's name was his.
"Wolf Wolf?" Sirius Black laughed a heavenly laugh. Like music, like a song you couldn't help but fall in love with, as you let it beat you up, break you down and throw you to the wall, headfirts, all while you're sitting in silence, in your mind your singing along to what you can relate to but never utter, what someone else said, words so true they could just as well be your own. But you're not a poet, you're simply a barista, always struggeling financially, and you seemed to have had this crush on the boy you felt as if you knew, simply by him being aware of your presence. Listening to Sirius Black laugh, knowing he, with his name, was the one who caused this beutiful one to express hu,or in such a way. Sirius black laughed not at his name, but with it, and just as it'd broken Remus down, it just as easily built him back together. That was what hearing Sirius Black, perhaps the love of Remus' pathetic daydream, but also the one Remus dreamth of at night, laugh.
"Yeah."
"I'm Sirius Black. Maybe you'd like to come over to mine and Regulus' record shop. Sunday maybe." Sirius hand left his arm, leaving no visible trace, but a physic contact that made Remus long for what he thought he'd never have. Made him want those hands everywhere, and get to know Sirius everywhere. He grabbed the coffees and walked out the door. Lily reappeared.
"Remus!" she half screamed, hugging him tightly. "You've got a date! You've got a date!"
"What?" A wave of chock bolted through Remus like a lightning.
"He asked you out!" Lily juped up and down and Remus sat down.
"I think I'll black out."
"No you're overreacting. But you actually got a date. First time you met him..."
"Not the first time, I saw him every day in secondary school." Remus protested.
"We have to find you an outfit!"
"I'll just wear this." Remus said, suddenly shy.
"This?! Sunday is in two days."
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Saturday, 14th 1986 and Sunday, 15th September 1986
Saturday evening, Remus' body felt stiff, he couldn't sleep. Lily had been right, he had nothing to wear. He still couldn't drift away. He looked out the window, saw the moon and the stars. He knew that the coulds were there somewhere, but the stars to bright and the sky too dark. You could make a poem out of that. Not that he was good at it, but someone surely was.
It was early in the morning, Remus got up, ate breakfast and dressed himself. Dark brown Converse, beige trousers and a knitted sweater. Striped i the same colors as his socks: brown, reddish brown, but a warm tone, light green and a number of beige shades. Rings in gold and bracelets made out of beads and some in gold. A necklace too, a golden moon with golden stars around it. He liked silver too, but sadly he was allergic to it. Remus threw his favorite messanger bag over his shoulder, also that one a brown color, matching his hair, just as well as his skin. The scars trailed over his face, arms, back and legs, memories of an old forgotten past. A past that didn't quite want to leave. All of them wasn't done by him, but some. Remus Lupin had lived a hard life.
Remus got on the buss, walked up the stairs and took a seat. The buss driver was playing a song he new all too well. Five Years by David Bowie. It was one of his personal favorites. He leaned against his window and watched London swish past his gaze.
Remus saw the bus stop he got of on every weekday morning, just that today he wasn't heading towards work, but to Sirius Black. He got up and walked down the stairs. As he walked of some kids got on. Remus lit a cigarette and breathed in the smoke. When he was younger, seventeen or so, he always used to choke, but not now. Lily said it was bad to smoke and she "didn't like the smell".
He felt nervous, more nervous than he had, ever in his life before as he saw his work place come closer, and therefore Sirius' store. He finished the cigarette and threw it away. He opened the door, not knowing where all this braveness had come from. He took a few steps into the store. No annoying bell over the door rang when he entered, instead he was greeted by Sirius Black in an oversized T-shirt with the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Music busted from somewhere in the back. It was Doing Alright by Queen. I was their debute record and Remus hadn't listend to them that much.
"Lupin! You came." Sirius said smiling.
"You thought I wouldn't?" Remus raised an eyebrow and Sirius put up two hands in front of him.
"No, I thought you'd forget." Sirius blushed. He actually blushed. "Anyways, you're dressed up, ey?"
Remus was the one blushing now and mumbled somthing about Lily and that he'd had a lot of time in the morning.
Sirius showed him around the shop, he met Dorcas Meadowes, a girl their age with dark skin and even darker braids, but eyes clearer than the pictures he'd seen of the ocean. But he saw no trace of Regulus.
"Regulus is out somewhere with our tenant. He's quite fond of him." Sirius scratched his head and put his hair up in a bun with a drumstick. He looked so hot. So fucking hot.
"You play the drums?" Remus asked and took his eyes of Sirius.
"Yep, there's a set of drums in the back."
"Can you play?" Remus asked greedily. Sirius blushed and his neck flushed red. Without a word he led Remus behind some curtains and sat down. Remus leaned against the wall and Sirius started playing. It sounded heavenly, the tempo was beating itself into Remus' heart.
"That," Remus said when Sirius stood up. "Was really good."
"Thank you, but I'm better with the guitar."
"Me too." Remus said, which was true, Lily once said Remus was "a guitar blessed with an angel", and tho she had been drunk and probably high Remus had thought it was beutiful. "Or at least Lily says I'm good at it." Suddenly shy, he let his hair fall in his eyes.
"You and Lily. Are you like, dating?" Sirius asked and Remus had to hold back so hard not to burst out in laughter. The corners of Sirius' mouth twisted, seeing that Remus thought the idea was so funny.
"No, no. we're just friends. She broke up with her boyfriend just about a week ago." Remus clarified. He wanted to tell him so badly that he wasn't into girls that much.
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Days went on, all of them resulting in Remus coming to Sirius' store. They played guitar and drank tea. Sirius showed him how to tattoo on plastiic silicone, and Remus failed drastically, ink ended up everywhere, but Sirius just laughed, Dorcas too. Remus met Regulus and quickly they bonded over their love for literature. Dorcas was also very nice, and one of they're "dates" resulted in a night out together with Lily and her very boring sister Petunia, who left the party with a man who looked more like a pig than anything else.