Would You Rather

Three things were immediately brought to Remus’s attention on Thursday morning:

1. His friends were early

2. They were each holding something behind their backs

3. Each of them looked extremely suspicious

Remus narrowed his eyes, considering if it was even worth trying to slam the door in their faces. Sirius removed one hand from his back and placed it on the door to prevent it, nonetheless.

He knew Remus far too well.

“Alright,” Remus sighed, “What’s behind your backs.”

Peter giggled, but Sirius and James attempted to keep the act up.

“What’s makes you think there’s something behind our backs?”

Remus didn’t even bother replying.

James continued anyway. “We just have a small present for our bestest friend—“

“And biggest cheerleader!” Sirius added enthusiastically.

Remus blinked at his friends, unimpressed.

“If you guys even dare to hand me a cheerleading uniform, i’m airing the place out.”

Sirius shook his head with a smile. “No need for violence, Moons— we would never buy anything so idiotic.”

“And there’s probably not one in your size, anyway—“

“Shut up Peter!”

Remus silenced his friends with his hand. “Just show me what you have.”

In perfect synchronization, all three boys brought their hands to the front of their bodies, revealing three signs; two which looked like they were from the school, and one homemade.

Remus instantly recognized them, for he’d had his fair share of signs extremely similar to these.

They were the sports yard signs.

The only difference between these and the ones Remus had over the years was the picture of a football replacing the basketball on Remus’s.

Sirius’s had his name and number on it (number five), along with a picture of the school’s mascot (a lion). James’s was similar, just with his own name and number (seven).

Unfortunately, the signs still didn’t mention the positions they played. Remus had no idea why they would’ve, he was just holding out hope.

Peter’s sign, Remus realized, was very noticeably just four pieces of paper glued onto an old yard sign, most likely from last season. Written on the paper (very sloppily) was a message in all caps saying “Sirius and James’s #1 fan and boyfriend!” with a bunch of hearts drawn around it.

Remus raised one unimpressed brow.

“It’s not even creative.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Sirius stated, “It just has to get the point across.”

Remus sighed, shaking his head with disappointment.

“I’d say i’m absolutely not putting these in my yard, but I don’t even have a yard to put them in.” Remus gestured around his apartment, which just so happened to be on the second floor.

“Fear not, my dearest,” Sirius said with a flourish, pulling something out of james back pocket— which looked weird as hell, by the way. Somehow, it was an entire roll of duck tape. Why the hell James had an entire roll of duck tape in his back pocket was beyond him. “We’ve found a solution.”

“No— you’re not taping the signs to my house! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

James shoved Remus out of the way and strolled into his apartment uninvited, followed shortly by Sirius and Peter as well.

“James, no, don’t even go back there—“

Remus’s attempts were futile— his annoying friends had already approached the door to his bedroom— once again, just barging in without permission.

“Seriously, guys, my mom’s actually gonna kill me—“

“I’m always Sirius, Moons.”

“That doesn’t even make sense—!” Remus attempted— but obviously, Sirius didn’t listen.

Remus’s room was small; basically just a twin sized bed and a dresser. It was clear there was only one thing of interest in his dismal bedroom to his friends— the window which could be viewed directly from the parking lot outside.

His friends got straight to work, pulling back Remus’s still drawn navy curtains and holding the signs up to the window. They seemed to struggle a bit with the tape, but Remus obviously made no attempt to help them. He just stood behind them, tapping his foot impatiently with his arms crossed like an angry mother.

“Please,” Remus’s sighed, “Don’t make me keep those up.”

His friends just grinned at him, taking a step back to admire their work. It was a pretty lame sight to behold, considering they were all just staring at the back of yard signs, which had been violently taped to a window. They hadn’t even bothered to take out the metal stakes— it was pathetic.

Sirius walked back to Remus, throwing an arm around his shoulder.

“If you don’t like it, I could get that cheerleading uniform custom ordered by tonight.”

Remus rubbed a hand over his face.

“Please— don’t even joke about that.”

•••

Remus didn’t hate his job— he just didn’t like it. There was plenty to complain about when working in the service industry, and Remus sure did love to complain. For starters, the ugly ass uniforms— Remus was sure the entire world had to be in agreement that the red polos they were forced to wear were absolutely hideous. Also, he didn’t like name tags. It made Remus shiver whenever some old lady referred to him using his actual name while trying to buy cigarettes.

Secondly, he complained about his dumbass coworker— Fabian Prewett. It wasn’t that Fabian was a bad guy, he was just so— football-y? The aggressive dap ups before every shift, the claps to the back which nearly knocked Remus over daily, the annoying ass gaggle of girls who would show up exactly when his shift started just to see him (Remus dealt with enough of that already, being friends with Sirius)— it was infuriating. He was a nice guy, and seemed to like Remus, but that didn’t make him any less annoying.

But, Fabian did have one upside—

…

He always brought his pen.

Okay, sure— smoking’s bad, it’ll kill you, it ruins your lungs, blah blah blah— he’d heard it all. Remus didn’t give a fuck— it was a free country! Well, technically he’s not legally allowed for another three-ish years, but who the fuck listened to the law anyway.

That was how Remus somehow ended up sitting by the dumpsters, just thirty minutes into his shift— attempting not to be peer pressured into taking a blinker by Fabian.

It was difficult.

“Come on, man,” Fabian was still holding the pen out to Remus, “Would you rather go through this entire shift, painfully and miserably—“

“Please don’t—“

“Or”— Fabian ignored him. Sometimes, Remus felt like he was invisible around Fabian— that guy just lived in his own little world. “Go through it jollily and merrily?”

“‘Jollily and merrily’? Are those even words? You sound like you’re trying to convince a little kid to sit on Santa’s lap.”

Fabian rolled his eyes. “I don’t know what the hell that means— but I still think you should do it.”

Remus, coincidentally, also had no clue what the fuck he was talking about. So much for self-control.

…

Okay, Remus was quickly loosing his resolve. This was bad.

Fabian groaned. “Just do it, no balls.”

…

Remus would’ve liked to say it took a bit more convincing than “no balls”, but that would be a lie.

He gave in.

As Remus inhaled, Fabian cheered loudly— probably scaring off anyone trying to get gas around the corner. Remus always talked a lot of shit about how stupid his friends were, but those were just jokes (sometimes). This guy, though— he was genuinely stupid. How he even managed to get a job with his 0.5 GPA, Remus’ll never know.

When it blinked, Remus fell victim to another violent clap on the back— causing him to nearly cough his own fucking lung out. Remus was going to kill Fabian and hide his body in that dumpster they were leaning against.

Okay, no he wasn’t. Remus probably wasn’t strong enough to pick up Fabian, anyway.

…

Whatever.

“Yeah, Loops!” Fabian whooped, not even bothering to apologize for his essential murder attempt.

Fabian stared at Remus for a few seconds, like he was waiting for something.

Remus just stared back, his eyes watering from all the coughing, and the pen still clutched in him hand.

…

“Alright, pass it back now.”

•••

“You guys look so stupid.”

Sirius immediately pointed an accusing finger towards James.

“It’s his fault! I put it on first!”

“How would you even know that?” James rolled his eyes.

“Because I put a bunch of cameras in your room, that’s why, you fucking idiot—“

“I’d believe it, lowkey.” Peter quipped. Remus nodded— it 100% sounded like something Sirius would do.

“It’s fine, Sirius,” James rubbed his eyelids from beneath his glasses, “No one’ll even notice.”

Sirius moved his still pointed finger towards Remus.

“Moony noticed!”

“Yeah, but that’s Remus.” James waved his hand dismissively, “He notices everything.”

Sirius lowered his hand and shook his head.

“You gotta go home and change, James— I am not walking around school like this.”

Remus snickered. This entire argument had started because the two idiots— James and Sirius— had somehow worn the exact same outfit. Like genuinely, down to the socks and the silver chain. How the hell does that even happen— and how did they not notice on the way to school? They literally live with eachother!

Both James and Sirius had on a red flannel shirt, jorts, and those ugly ass Birkenstock clogs they’d recently become obsessed with. It wasn’t even that good outfit— how did they both end up wearing it?!

Their group was standing by the lunch tables at school, scaring literally everyone who walked by with their loud ass yelling. Even the birds looked terrified.

“Just admit it James,” Remus was broken out of his thoughts by Sirius, who seemed to still be arguing. “I look way better in red! And, you have a car! You could just go home whenever you want!”

“No the fuck I can’t! That’s not how it works—“

“Ladies, ladies— you’re both beautiful—“ Peter attempted, but was ignored. Remus snorted at his joke in sympathy.

Wrong place, and wrong time. You’ll get ‘em next time, Wormy.

“— And you’re such a liar! I was literally born to wear red! Your color has always been blue— you can’t just steal my color!”

“Since when has my color ever been blue?!”

“Since forever— literally everything you own is blue! Your backpack, your tooth brush, your bed covers—“

A group of girls, led by Mary Macdonald, approached them with amused expressions on their faces; thankfully, putting their conversation on hold. Unfortunately, Remus knew exactly where this was going.

“Why are you guys matching?” Marlene Mckinnon— another one of the popular girls— asked immediately.

“Because they’re stupid.” Remus responded dryly. A couple of the girls giggled.

Sirius huffed, clearly deciding to put on a show. “It’s because this fuckwad over here decided to copy me!”

“I copied you?” James nearly shouted, “I’ve worn this outfit like forty times!”

“Nu uh!”

“Yea huh!”

Mary turned to Remus, looking up at him with her massive brown eyes.

“Are they always like this?” She stage whispered.

Remus rolled his eyes and snorted.

“Unfortunately.”

Mary and a few of the others giggled again, drawing the attention of Sirius.

“What’re you laughing about over there, Moons?” Sirius’s nostrils were flaring, and his eyebrows were drawn accusingly— all clear signs he was mad. Why he was angry, Remus had no clue.

Remus shrugged. “You.”

Sirius’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t make me come over there, Lupin.”

Remus was unable to stop the smirk from spreading over his lips.

“Oh, so it’s Lupin now?”

Sirius huffed again— he kinda looked like a bull when he did that.

“I’m warning you—!”

Mary giggled, and Marlene leaned over to whisper as well.

“Careful, Remus,” she said between laughs, “He’s about to show you his ‘true power.’”

“Yeah,” Mary joined in, whispering just loud enough for Sirius to hear. “Don’t play with him— he sees red when he’s angry.”

Remus snorted again.

“You know, I think he’s been seeing a lot a red today.” Remus gestured with his hand to where James and Sirius were both standing.

Whatever else he was going to say was abruptly interrupted by Sirius— who was suddenly running at Remus full speed. Remus yelped and spun around, facing his back to his feral friend. In one strange motion, Sirius war cried, leapt into the air, and latched himself onto Remus’s back like a weird ass monkey. Remus nearly tipped backwards from all the extra weight, but managed to grab onto Sirius’s thighs and right himself before that could happen. Sirius wrapped his arms around Remus’s neck, basically strangling him to death.

Everyone, including James, started laughing at the ridiculous display— even Remus managed to huff a bit in amusement, despite the fact he was being choked.

“I tried to warn you, Moony—“ Sirius laughed from where he was latched behind Remus.

“Boys!” A loud, stern voice broke through the happy chittering of the group, silencing everyone at once. Mrs. McGonagall was quickly approaching, an angry look on her face.

“What is the meaning of this?” She snapped, looking between James and the Remus-Sirius combo.

Remus immediately let go of Sirius’s legs, and the boy scrambled to his feet, standing in front of McGonagall like a soldier called to action.

“The meaning of what, miss?” James and Remus shared a confused look behind Sirius. Had they done something? Knowing Sirius and James’s record, they probably had.

McGonagall gestured at both James and Sirius. “It’s game day— you boys are supposed to be wearing your jerseys for school. You wouldn’t want me to report this to your coach, would you?”

James and Sirius’s eyes both widened dramatically. Remus resisted the urge to laugh.

“No Mrs, McGonagall!” James and Sirius basically shouted at the teacher. She gave a sharp nod.

“Good. You better play well tonight— I’ll be watching.”

“Yes ma’am!” the boys chimed again— Sirius saluting and James nodding enthusiastically.

With another nod, the English teacher turned sharply on her heel, returning back to whatever hell hole she’d climbed out of.

James and Sirius both shared a look, for the first time that day, in complete silence.

Sirius looked James up and down, and then looked to himself— letting out a heavy sigh as he did so.

“Go start the car James.”

James nodded, and the boys took off at a run.

…

Fucking idiots.

•••

Very unsurprisingly, Remus and his friends were back at Walmart again. This time, their objective had nothing to do with homecoming— Sirius wanted new backpacks.

Why did Sirius want a new backpack? Well, since James commented on the “blueness” of his current one (his words, not Remus’s), Sirius insisted they all went to the store to buy new ones.

At most high schools, there was this weird ass tradition where all of the seniors got stupid backpacks— usually ones meant for kids. Remus and his friends probably would’ve participated in this tradition sooner, but apparently, Sirius had only recently found out about it, thanks to some random girl in his science class.

Hence, why they were at Walmart on a Saturday morning, hunting for backpacks.

Sirius picked up a Dora one and swung it over his shoulder, taking a few seconds to pose for the invisible cameras he claimed always followed him.

“Is this the one, Moons?” Sirius asked, bent in a strange “damsel in distress” type of position, with his hand draped over his forehead.

Remus just shook his head, causing Sirius to pout.

Dumbass.

The group continued through the isles, occasionally picking some up and presenting them to eachother— but none really caught their eye.

That was, until, they found the Among Us ones.

The second Remus laid eyes on the four different colored backpacks, he knew the decision was already made for him.

They were going to look so fucking stupid.

James immediately gasped, running towards the backpacks at full speed and nearly trampling a poor kid walking with his mom. Remus swears his friends have absolutely no situational awareness.

Sirius (unsurprisingly) went straight for the blue one.

He was so fucking predictable.

The backpack was pretty simple— just a solid color with the glass of the helmet displayed across the front. Honestly, Remus shouldn’t complain— this was the most tame it’d get.

Thank god Sirius had decided against the Dora ones.

As his friends modeled the bags, Remus made eye contact with a small red headed kid— tears welling up in his eyes, and his mom no where to be found. Remus sighed and bent down, getting to the kids level.

“What’s wrong, buddy?” Remus asked, trying to keep his voice light. He knew he was usually pretty scary to kids, but he wasn’t wanting to deal with a crying one at the moment.

The little boy sniffed and wiped his arm under his nose before pointing towards Remus’s idiot friends.

“I wanted the pink one, but they’re taking it.” The little boy’s voice was wobbling, and there were tears nearly threatening to spill.

Remus looked over to where his friends were, in fact, hoarding all of the back packs— one on each of their backs, and a pink one being held in Sirius’s hand (presumably for Remus).

Of course those assholes would give him the worst color— but that was irrelevant.

Remus sighed and looked back down to the kid. “What’s your name, little man?”

The kid sniffed again. “Fred.”

“Alright, Fred, I want you to wait right here for me, okay?” Remus motioned for Fred to stay, and thankfully, the little boy nodded.

Walking briskly towards his friends, he all but snatched the pink backpack out of Sirius’s hand. Sirius smirked and spun around for Remus to see his back, but Remus just rolled his eyes.

“I bet your the impostor, Moony— I saw you venting over by the—“

Remus didn’t let Sirius finish his dumbass joke before turning away with the backpack, heading back to where Fred was still standing— except somehow, Fred had managed to multiply himself?

Uhhh, okayyy…

Weird ass hell, but not his problem.

Instead of one red headed boy standing in front of the school supplies, there were now two, nearly identical looking boys— the only difference being their clothes. Remus blinked in confusion.

Eventually, Remus pointed toward the new boy with a sigh. “Does he want a back pack too?”

Fred and the other one nodded eagerly, and Remus turned back around again— this time heading straight for Peter. In one swift motion, Remus managed to strip the green backpack from Peter’s back, and speed walk away before any of his friends could even acknowledge what had happened.

Remus crouched back down and handed the two boys their backpacks— both of them now wearing big smiles on their faces. Remus couldn’t help but return the smile as well.

The boys thanked him happily, and ran off towards a red headed woman in the distance. Remus jumped when a hand landed on his shoulder.

“Aww,” Sirius cooed, reaching over to pinch Remus’s cheek from where he stood behind him. “Look at Moony helping out little kids!”

“He’s like the Big Friendly Giant!” James added with a snicker.

Remus swatted at Sirius’s hands and threw him from his back with a grumbled “shut up”, but there wasn’t any malice behind his words.

They stood in silence for a second, until Sirius clapped his hands together loudly.

“So,” Sirius smirked, “Dora it is then!”

Everyone groaned in unison.

Once he set his mind to something, it was impossible to deny Sirius.

Stubborn bitch.

•••

The aux in James’s car was broken.

How the hell that even happened, Remus had no idea— but he suspected it was probably Sirius’s fault.

This meant the boys were subject to a whole ten minutes of the morning radio.

The audio on the radio was slightly crackily, but that didn’t matter— no one was talking anyway. Sirius was in one of his “moods” that morning, which basically just meant no one spoke unless they were spoken too.

To make matters even worse, they were stuck in traffic.

An absolutely awful combination.

Remus decided to ignore the vibe in the car and just focused on the car radio, where a man and a woman sounded like they had just received a call.

“Heeeeello, this is Tim from ‘Tim and Tiffany get the Tea’ on channel 98.7,” Remus cringed at the awful name. “What’s your name, and what brings you to the show?”

The girl sighed into her phone. “I think I’d prefer to stay anonymous.”

The sounds of a crowd “ooh”ing and “ahhh”ing played in the background, and the girl sighed again.

“Well, Mrs. Anonymous,” The girl host— Tiffany— asked, “Is there anything you’d like to share with us and our listeners this morning?”

“I- I don’t know if it was a good idea to come on here,” the woman stuttered, “But I’ve just been feeling— I don’t know— paranoid? Like, I feel like I’m jumping to conclusions, but I want a second opinion— just to be sure.”

“Of course, sweetie,” Tiffany cooed. “Take your time— we’ve got all morning.”

“O— okay. I think I’m ready.” The woman started to speak again, this time much faster— as if the words were spilling out of her mouth before she could stop them.

“So my husband— let’s just call him Jerald—“ Sirius snickered at the name. “Has recently become obsessed with Barnes and Nobles. And I know you might be thinking— ‘Why’s this crazy lazy worried that her husband’s reading?’— but that’s the thing! He can’t read! And I’m not talking just, slow at reading or anything like that— he genuinely can’t read. I met my husband in Japan, because that’s where I did my mission, and he decided to come back to America with me. The legal process was a pain, but I love him, so it was worth it.”

Sirius leaned forward and turned up the radio, just a bit.

“Anyways, I’m sure that’s not what you want to hear. My point is— he doesn’t know how to read english. He can speak it well enough, and I speak fluent Japanese, so I guess he hasn’t felt the need to? I don’t know. All I know is that he can’t read— so why the sudden interest in a bookstore?”

“Maybe he’s trying to learn how to read to impress you?” Tim interrupted.

“That’s exactly what I thought!” The woman exclaimed. “So of course— me being the nosy person I am— I decided to investigate.”

Tim and Tiffany laughed.

“Did you manage to find anything?”

“Well, I was getting there. So I follow him— right— and the second he gets to the store, he immediately starts walking all the way to the back. And like, that’s weird— right? Who goes to a book store and immediately goes to the back? Red flags. So I trail behind him— and eventually, he gets to this ‘Employees Only’ door, so I thought he’d like— turn around or something— but he didn’t! Instead, he waited there for a bit, texted someone on his phone, and a few minutes later— this random lady opens the door for him!”

James gasped quietly. Sirius turned the radio up one more notch.

“And this is where I kinda went crazy mode—“

“Well, that’s fair,” Tiffany interrupted the story again, “You just saw your man walk into a room with another woman! I’dve started swinging at that *****!”

The woman laughed. “I certainly wanted to— but I kept my cool. I didn’t want to go around falsely accusing people, and who knows— maybe they hold private reading lessons in the back?”

Sirius huffed. “‘Private reading lessons in the back’? This fucking idiot—“

Peter shushed him, and Sirius pouted.

“So I went up to the front desk and told one of the teenage employees the situation and asked her for the camera footage in the back room, and she was like, ‘We don’t have cameras back there, but I’ll give you the key.’— she was super sweet. So me and her went to the back room, and she unlocked the door, and like, all of the lights were off— which obviously is a red flag. The room was like, just a room with books and a bunch of other doors, so me and the employee girl just started looking around— until I heard a noise. It was like— a grunt? Not quite, but similar. So I went to the door, and do you know what I ******* saw? Jerald, doing—“

The radio snapped off, and Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas Is You” started blasting at full volume. Every single one of the boys jumped nearly a foot in the air.

“What the hell, James?” Sirius yelled, frantically going to twist the nobs of the radio. James swatted his hands away.

“Stop! It’s connected to your phone, you fucking idiot!” James yelled

“But you said the aux was broken—!“

“Well I guess it unbroke— I don’t know!”

“Disconnect your phone, Sirius!” Remus started hitting the back of Sirius head rest impatiently. “I wanna hear what happened!”

“I’m trying!” Sirius yelped, his eyes wide as he fumbled with his phone.

Everyone in the car was panicking and trying to get Sirius to disconnect his phone faster, while Mariah Carey serenaded them in the background. All in all— it was chaotic as fuck.

Sirius eventually managed to silence the god awful Christmas music, and finally disconnected the phone from the car. But, to everyone’s dismay— the fucking idiot had changed the radio when he messed with the nobs. The entire car groaned.

“Fix it James!” Sirius yelled.

“I don’t remember the station!”

“It was 98.7!” Remus chimed. Sirius looked back at him with a smile and reached to ruffle his hair— his mood doing a complete 180.

“Thank god for Moons memory-“

“Shut up, Sirius— I’m trying to focus!” James grumbled as Remus fought Sirius’s hand away from his hair.

The radio clicked back on, and Remus once again heard the sounds of Tim and Tiffany.

“Well folks,” Tim said, the sound of this hands clapping together sounding through the speaker. “That’s all for this morning! If you want to give us some morning tea, call us at 742-345–“

The sound went quiet as Remus leaned over the console and turned the radio off irritably. Everyone sat in silence for a moment— stunned.

…

“He was definitely cheating.”

Everyone else nodded eagerly.

“I mean, ‘Private reading lessons?’” Sirius snickered, “Give me a fucking break.”