The date
Remus had just broken up with Lucas a couple of weeks ago after three years of dating. Three years of his life wasted. Three years thinking he could change an immature man into husband material. And it really wasn’t the cheating, he was honestly relieved he caught him cheating, at least it was a good excuse to break up with him. But again it wasn’t so much the cheating as it was the little things that he never did: never posting him on social media only reposting stories, always being late to dates, leaving his clothes everywhere and finally not moving forward with their relationship. I mean three years and not even considering moving in together. He had enough.
But now, after much persuasion from Lily, he was getting ready for his first blind date in literally years. He had chosen a nice sweater and a leather jacket layered, his brown flared jeans and even decided not to bring his cane along for the first date, he was having a good day anyways.
But then it was eight thirty and his blind date still wasn’t here, it was rude, a terrible sign. The knocking on the door made him jump. He stood up, passing his hands through his sweater in an attempt to smooth it out as he walked to the door slowly opening it.
Remus was greeted by a man shorter than he was granted and who looked like he had just slipped out of the backstage of a pop-rock concert and magically appeared on his front porch. The man wore a cropped band tee, a leather jacket, and jeans so tight Remus wondered if he had a death wish. To top it all off he had black eyeliner shaping his eyes. And it did not go unnoticed the up and down he received from the hot stranger with a sly smirk.
“Ehh… Hello”
“Hi”
The awkward handshake that followed was the beginning of a night that Remus was certain he would regret.
“I´m Remus…Lupin”
“Sirius, well actually Padfoot”
Remus raised an eyebrow at this waiting for further explanation.
“Padfoot?”
“Padfoot. Yeah. Everybody calls me that”
“Well it's nice to finally meet you. Um Padfoot.”
“Am I late?” Sirius asked, ruffling his dark hair.
Remus raised an unimpressed brow. “Only by an hour. No big deal,” he turned around to lock his door, and faced Padfoot again “besides Lily said it was your memo... so...” he shrugged.
“James said you'd probably say something…so…” Sirius tried to murmur this last part but Remus heard perfectly.
“Ha. ha. Oh did he now? Oh okay”
They both chuckled letting a silence fall between them. Unable to let the silence last any longer, Remus coughed before speaking.
“Neat. Should we go?”
Despite the rocky start Remus thought it was just the beginning of night and he could still salvage this train wreck. He played with his hands nervously and Sirius passed a hand through his messy long hair before answering.
“Yeah. yeah. Let's go”
“Yeah, let's get some dinner. I'm super hungry, It's been like an hour” he couldn't help but add.
They walked through his gate, Sirius' eyes grounded on the floor and occasionally on Remus' ass. He thought it wasn’t the best start but it had been years since he last went on a real date and he was settled on having fun.
“Lily mentioned you just moved to Atlanta?”
Remus tried to make some small talk since his apartment was on the fourth floor and the elevator wasn´t working, plus the lobby, it was a long walk towards the parking lot.
“Em…yeah I just got a new gig here”
“Oh, what do you work as?”
“I’m a television technical sports director”
Perfect another jock, like Lucas, Remus thought.
“Ah! That’s um cool”
Remus leaned heavily on the railing as they went down while Sirius bit down a smile at his last answer.
“You have no idea what that is do you?”
“Nope, not a clue”
Sirius laughed and unable to keep still ran a hand through his hair once again. As they got to the lobby and Remus walked in front of him greeting the people below he thought the guy James had set him up with wasn’t half bad, he had a cute smile and a great ass. If he played his cards right he might just end the night right.
“How long have you known James for?”
Sirius smiled truly for the first time all night.
“Gosh, we go way back, maybe since middle school”
“Oh. wow” Remus was genuinely impressed.
“Yeah…”
“I've known Lily since College. We both majored in English Literature”
“Of course you did”
Or maybe this night would suck. It took everything in Sirius not to roll his eyes, of course James had to set him up with a total nerd. He’d probably spend all of dinner talking about how much smarter he was compared to everyone else. And the feeling seemed to be mutual because by the time they reached the curb, Sirius had managed to irritate Remus in a dozen small ways, from his casual attitude to the smug grin he kept flashing at him. And then there was the motorcycle.
“Is that a joke?” Remus did not hide his shock and frankly annoyance at the vehicle he saw in front of him. A horrible deathcycle.
“What? Don’t tell me you’ve never ridden one.” Sirius handed him a helmet like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Which Remus obviously did not accept and just stood there staring at Sirius and the deathly vehicle.
“Come on. You have to hold on tight. I promise I don’t bite.” he paused to smirk infuriatingly “Not on the first date at least”
Sirius thought that the grimace he received from Remus told him everything he needed to know about the guy: can’t take a joke, won’t get on his motorcycle, which in his humble opinion is quite a privilege and honor. So he got on top of his bike waiting for Remus to follow along.
“Yeah, no. I don’t ‘do’ motorcycles,” Remus replied, stepping back. “My car’s right there, and I’ll be driving, thanks.”
Sirius’ grin faltered for a fraction of a second.
“Excuse me? What?”
Remus rubbed a nervous hand behind his neck walking towards his parked car.
“Sorry, honestly. I just-You know. I don't even think I could really get my leg up over it, I have a bad knee…But I'll drive. My car's right here. And it's new so I love driving it”
Remus chuckled nervously, already pulling his keys from his pocket. And in all honesty he loved his car and after his own accident, he’d rather never get on a motorcycle ever again. Sirius looked like he was about to protest but he breathed deeply, mustered the best half smile he could and followed. His attempts to fit into Remus’ Mini Cooper were comical at best, which made him wonder how someone as big as Remus could fit and actually enjoy having a car like this one.
“It's a erm sweet ride”
Remus grinned “I know right. Hop in”
After noticing how Sirius folded himself awkwardly into the passenger seat he spoke dryly “I thought you were a sporty type”
“I am. But this is… cozy,” Sirius replied, his knee brushing the dashboard.
Remus got in, he loved his car, it felt comfortable and still smelled like new and a bit like cigarettes. He shook his head, starting the engine. The conversation that followed was stilted, punctuated by Sirius’ overly casual demeanor and Remus’ growing irritation.
“So where am I driving too?” The confusion was clear on both of their faces.
“I don´t know” Sirius answered as if he were stating the sky is blue.
“Uh. Where did you make the reservations?”
This only spurred Sirius confusion and Remus irritation.
“You know the reservations that you told Lily you were gonna make”
As if someone had decided to turn on the lights in Sirius' head, everything became clear however he had forgotten about this and the silence in the car spoke for itself.
“You didn't make them” It wasn’t a question more like a deadpan fact. Remus looked at the child beside him, because that’s what he was a child, playing with his rings and avoiding his sight.
“I said that? I'm pretty sure I’d remember if I said that”
Remus breathed deeply through his nose and nodded slightly to himself as he internally debated if he should go through with tonight or just head back to his home for a warm bath.
Fuck it, he was already dressed up anyways.
“You know what? It's cool. Whatever. Let’s just go anywhere.”
“Um..cool, cool, cool. We can go anywhere. I don't care. We can-- You pick it. We'll grab a table and we’ll just slide right in”
Sirius made a hand motion of just sliding in and Remus turned off the engine of his car to think.
“Okay. Well, how about Cafe Snakes and Lions? Have you ever been there?”
“No, new in town remember, haha, sounds good though.”
“Yeah it’s actually ran by my two friends: Marlene and Dorcas, there a c-”
Remus was cut off by Sirius' phone and his particularly interesting ringtone. He immediately recognised it, Get down, make love by Queen.
Get down, make love. Get down, make love. You take my body, I give you heat. You say you’re hungry, I give you meat. I suck your mind, you blow my head.
Sirius bit his lip not even looking the slightest apologetic just slight blushed.
“It's just my phone”
Sirius grabbed his phone through his jacket hoping to silence it, through telepathy. Remus stared at his hands on the steering wheel slowly turning white.
“I figured. You can answer it if you w-”
“No. no. Of course not. It'll go to voicemail.”
[RINGTONE STOPS]
“Okay…so what do you think? It’s like fifteen minutes away by car and-”
His phone rang again, the song repeating itself over and over. Remus let go of the steering wheel and his high, delusional hopes for tonight.
“Just....You know what? Go ahead. just answer it. It 's fine.”
“I'm… It can wait.”
“All right. Yeah. It's just a little too loud.”
Sirius made a face but begrudgingly answered, wincing when he heard who was on the other side. But after taking a glance at his annoyed date, he realized maybe this was not the worst thing to ever happen to him, maybe it was God or a sign.
“Hey you. Well you know me always in the middle of something. Yeah. okay. yeah. Eleven? Yeah. You know what? Why don't we make it 10:30? All right. All right. Later. Okay.”
By the time he finished the call Remus had silently scoffed and was planning all of the ways to murder Lily for this. Sirius looked up from his phone, feigning innocence.
“I'm sorry. it's.... It's a sick friend, he has a throat thing.
That was the last straw. Remus did not need to go through this all over again.
“You know what? Forget it. This was clearly a mistake.”
“Really? Okay.”
Sirius answered way too fast and his hand grabbed the handle of the car as if his life depended on it. That infuriated Remus.
“Oh. My. God. Are you serious?”
Sirius tried, he really did, but there were better things he could be doing on a Saturday night.
“Oh, come on.” Sirius turned in his seat, a lazy grin playing on his lips “Let's be honest, you knew the moment you saw me you didn't like me.”
Okay so maybe he wasn’t the stereotypical guy Remus would go for, but he was willing to try. Still he scoffed at Sirius' words.
“Our mutual friends set this up so I think we owe it to them to-”
“To what? Spend a few hours faking small talk? Best case scenario we get drunk and we hook up.”
Remus was wrong, this was his last straw, he laughed and shook his head before turning to look at Sirius beside him.
“What kind of an asshole are you?”
Sirius wasn’t an asshole, he thought, he just didn’t want to do this anymore, the mood died the second he refused to hop on his motorcycle.
“Look, it's a Saturday night. I just wanna have some fun. I can go see my sick friend and you can go do...whatever it is you like to do on a Saturday night. You look like you crochet, you can go crochet a scarf.”
At this point Remus just shook his head in utter disbelief at the ridiculous man Lily thought would hit it off with him.
“Or I don´t know go update your blog. Do you blog? You look like the type.”
“Do I blog? Okay. You know what? If you wanted to ensure that this wasn't gonna be a lousy night here's a tip: don't show up an hour late and don't make a booty call in fucking front of me.”
Sirius did look ashamed now as he tried to justify himself “He´s a friend and sick.”
Remus actually laughed out loud at this. “Oh. Right. Sure love. Were you going to heal him with your magic penis?”
Sirius sighed, his thumb and index over his nose, eyes closed. “Fine. If you wanna go out we'll go out-”
The next words out of Remus mouth came out venomous and infuriated “Oh. My God! Obviously NOT! I'm not going out with you now. Are you actually insane? Get out of my car! Get out of my smart car.”
Sirius didn't need to be told twice, Remus locked his car and strutted angrily towards his gate as he yelled over his shoulder at the jerk behind him.
“I don't know what they were thinking…”
“Me neither!”
Sirius made sure to yell back. He got up on his bike and rode off, not bothering to look back, he planned to go back to James place, yell at him for a couple of hours for forcing him to endure that and head off to Lockhart´s flat, he was a naive idiot but hot and a good fuck, just what he needed to wash off tonight.
Remus called Lily as he took off his shoes, and pulled off his nice jacket, all wasted on that manwhore, jackass, idiotic, morone. So much for having fun and moving forward. The line connected as she picked up.
“Lily Evans, I swear to God. The only way you can make this up to me is if you promise I never have to see him again.”
Lily laughed on the other side of the line. “That bad huh?”
“Bad? Terrible, I mean he was a total ass and I even left my cane back, thinking I could get some and gosh, he was just- I have no words.”
Lily couldn´t stop laughing at the other side of the line.
“I´m so sorry Rem. I genuinely thought you´d make a good match personality wise”
Remus scoffed. “So where did he screw up? At the restaurant? The ride home?”
Now Remus truly laughed his heart out, as he picked up his yarn and needles.
“Lils, we didn't even make it to the restaurant.”
The only thing that made it better was hearing Lily spitting her water out on the other side of the line, and choking on her laughter.
“Oh, honey! I'm sorry for laughing and the date. I just met him a couple of times and thought he had a vibe. A vibe you matched, but don´t worry if it makes you feel better. I don't think this thing with Potter will last so you won't have to see him again.”
“Thank fucking God”