Dairy Milk Dickhead
Gilderoy’s birthday party was being held in a big hall in the middle of town, and he’d obviously had a hand in the decorations because garish would be an understatement.
“Did everything need to be purple though?” Remus said quietly as they headed for the bar, holding hands. “Ugh, bet you a tenner that he’s wearing a purple suit.”
“Willy Wonka realness.” Sirius chuckled, “Dairy Milk Dickhead.”
“See, if you’d been at all those parties Benjy dragged me to, they would have been much more fun.”
Sirius decided not to read anything into that. “Double vodka and coke and a double Tia Maria and orange juice please.” He said to the man behind the bar, who physically winced at the thought of coffee liqueur and orange juice. “It tastes like chocolate orange apparently. But it really doesn’t. There’s no accounting for taste, right.”
“It does!” Remus said, “Feel free to have a sip mate, it’ll change your life.” The bartender nodded, sharing a look with Sirius, definitely not convinced.
They found a table in the corner of the room. “A nice secluded corner.” He winked at Remus, “You keep your hands where I can see them, Moony.”
“Fuck off.” He laughed. “Oh, we’ve been spotted.” He said out of the corner of his mouth as he saw Benjy heading their way. Sirius linked their pinky fingers under the table and didn’t miss the soft smile that crossed Remus’ face and the way his shoulders relaxed slightly.
“Remus! Sirius!” He smiled at them, but it didn’t quite meet his eyes. “So glad you could make it! James and Lily not with you?”
“They couldn’t make it.” Remus said, “Date night or something.”
“Ah, shame. Well, I’m glad the two of you are here, anyway.” He sat down opposite them and Sirius laced the rest of their fingers together and gave Remus’ hand a gentle squeeze. “So, I’m nosy, Remus you know how nosy I am, baby.” Remus gripped Sirius’ hand harder under the table, “I’ve been dying to know. How did this—” He gestured between them, “happen?”
Sirius smiled at Remus, tilting his head slightly, “Well, you know how much Remus loves Eurovision.” Benjy frowned slightly, apparently, he did not know how much Remus loved Eurovision. Interesting. “Mary throws a party every year, I guess Moony never convinced you to come, and it turns out that cheesy European pop music is the perfect backdrop to telling your mate that you fancy him.”
“How… lovely.” Benjy was staring at Remus, who didn’t notice, as he was too busy grinning at Sirius. “And you’re still living together?” At the time of the breakup, Remus had been spending a lot of time at Benjy’s flat and they’d talked about him moving in.
“Yeah, that’s been an adjustment.” Remus still hadn’t taken his eyes off Sirius. “But we turned my old room into a library-slash-studio and yeah, it’s pretty wonderful.”
“Fantastic.” Benjy’s smile was getting faker by the second.
“And how are things with you and Gilderoy?” Sirius asked. “Old man still keeping you on your toes?”
Benjy’s smile dropped completely. “We’re great. He’s great.”
“Great.” Sirius grinned as Remus squeezed his hand. “Thank you so much for inviting us, by the way. I know it could have been weird having us here, but it’s very kind of you to overlook that.”
“Like I said, I’m glad the two of you are here,” Benjy said, with none of the friendliness he’d said it with earlier. He glanced down at Remus’ drink. “Rem, tell me that’s not Tia Maria and orange juice! That’s so gross. Have you not moved on from that yet?”
“What? You don’t like Tia Maria and orange juice?” Sirius said before Remus could reply. “It’s so good! Do you not like chocolate orange? Do you not like fun? All that and no hangover! How on earth were you together so long?” Remus snorted as Sirius rested his free hand on Remus' chest. “Sorry, Moons, got a bit passionate about your drink there, darling.”
Remus tilted his head and smiled at Sirius. “You get as passionate as you want, sweetheart.”
“And on that note, I should probably go and find the birthday boy!” Benjy stood up and walked away before they could say goodbye.
They held it together reasonably well until he was well out of earshot and they started giggling.
“‘Do you not like fun?’ Oh my god.” Remus wheezed. “Well, I’m pretty sure we convinced him anyway.”
“I can tease you about your… unusual taste in drinks, but he doesn’t get to.” Sirius smiled smugly. “My man, my mockery.”
“Is that right?” He sipped his drink and a blissful expression crossed his face, “You don’t know what you’re missing.” He added with a wink.
Sirius’ cheeks suddenly burned and he recognised that feeling, low in his stomach. Nope, no thank you, he willed his body to get a handle on itself. He had a few mouthfuls of his own drink. Maybe he could blame the pink cheeks on vodka if he was quick enough.
“You good?” Remus was looking at him with an eyebrow raised. “Have one knocked over once?”
“What?”
“Oh, my mum says that when I drink my drink too quickly, like ‘did you have a drink knocked over before, so now you down it just in case it happens again?’.” Remus shrugged.
“Ah, classic Hope.” Sirius chuckled, “How is Hope? I haven’t seen her in months!”
“She’s good. She discovered Grey's Anatomy and she’s been binge-watching and driving my Dad mad.” He said, “She likes to point out all the medical inaccuracies and gets furious every time they breach data protection, or HIPAA or whatever it’s called in the US.”
“Ah, like mother, like son.” Sirius sighed.
“The fuck that’s supposed to mean?” He asked with a laugh.
“Well, you’re a pedantic little shit too.”
“I’m going to tell her that you called her a pedantic little shit!” Remus pulled out his phone.
“Moony! You can’t! She’ll never give me her blessing if you tell her that!” Sirius grabbed the phone from his hand and quickly shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans.
“Her blessing?”
“I know it’s soon to be talking about marriage, Moons, but I still don’t want her to hate me and condemn our inevitable nuptials.” Sirius dodged the palm Remus pushed towards his face, leading him to almost fall into Sirius’ lap. They started giggling again as Remus tried to fish his phone out of Sirius’ pocket. When he finally retrieved it, he looked up, triumphant only to find Sirius’ face only a few centimetres away.
They stopped laughing and blinked at each other for a few seconds before Remus pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, more on his cheek than anything, before looking around warily. Right, the fake boyfriend thing, Sirius reminded himself almost too late. He really wished that he hadn’t enjoyed the touch of Remus’ lips so much. At least it was over fast. If he could just stop his heart from pounding, he'd be fine.
“Sorry,” Remus said in a low voice. “I thought it would look weird if anyone happened to see. We probably should have talked about stuff like this. Boundaries. Fuck, sorry.”
“No worries,” Sirius put on what he hoped was a genuine-looking smile, “Yeah, we probably should have. Oh well. As long as you’re not planning to fuck me in the middle of this Oompa Loompa Extravaganza, just assume that I’m down.” Remus arched an eyebrow, saying nothing. “Oh, shut up, Moons. You know what I mean.” He rested his head on Remus’ shoulder as they took in more of the room. It was hideous. Remus knew that he didn’t have much of a signature when it came to decorating other than ‘books’ or ‘cosy’, but surely that was better than this purple monstrosity.
Sirius went to the very busy bar for another round of drinks shortly after that, leaving Remus alone at the table. When he next looked over Benjy had returned, with a few other people that Sirius vaguely remembered as friends of Benjy’s. Caradoc and… someone from school? He looked very familiar. He knew he’d probably be at least ten minutes based on the queue, so he fired off a text to Remus.
Pads
I can come back if you want?
He watched as Remus pulled his phone out of his pocket and discreetly checked it, a soft smile forming on his face before he looked up and met Sirius’ gaze. He shook his head slightly before replying.
Moony
It’s ok. Just Caradoc and Lucius. All of them are being nosy bitches. 🙄
Lucius. Of course. Sirius frowned instinctively. By the time he returned to the table over fifteen minutes later, with two drinks for both of them (because fuck standing in that queue again), Lucius had swanned off to his girlfriend, Narcissa, ugh Narcissa, leaving Remus with Benjy and Caradoc. He set the drinks down and smiled across at them.
“Sorry, love, the queue was huge!” He said, pressed a kiss to the side of Remus’ head as he sat down. “Hi, it’s Caradoc, right?” Caradoc smiled and nodded at Sirius in response.
“Anyway, so I was thinking, what if you joined our quiz team?” Benjy said. “Gilderoy doesn’t care about trivia, and you’ve always been the smartest person I know.” Remus looked at Sirius with a ‘Can you believe this tosser?’ Look on his face that Benjy misread somehow. “Of course, we have room on the team for both of you.”
“I don’t—” Remus said, as Sirius cut in.
“We love trivia! Count us in. Where and when?”
Remus stared daggers at him as Benjy gave him the information. “See you there, then,” Benjy said as he stood up, Caradoc right behind him.
“What the fuck was that?” Remus hissed.
“You love trivia?” Sirius’ grin faltered.
“I love trivia. I don’t love hanging out with my ex.” Remus made a good point, Sirius thought. “And this, us, was supposed to be just for tonight.”
“Oh,” Sirius now remembered that’s what they were doing. “I got carried away at the thought of trivia and making Benjy look stupid, I think. We don’t have to go.”
“Won’t it look suspicious if we don’t?” Remus scowled.
Sirius cupped Remus’ cheek in his hand, “That’s not the face of Remus in love, is it? Get out of frown town!”
“Fuck off.” Remus rolled his eyes, but he cracked a small smile at least. “We never go to pub quizzes anymore.”
“What if we went with Lily and James and gave Benjy’s team an absolute thrashing?” Sirius suggested. “Invite a whole crowd.”
“Oh, I like that plan!” Remus paused, “But that would mean still having to do… this thing with us.”
“One more evening won’t kill us. Probably.” He grabbed Remus’ hand under the table again, “You can absolutely say no, though. You know that, right?”
Remus sighed, “Yes, I know. Thank you. It was just meant to be for this party and— Oh my god, I totally called the purple suit.”
Sirius turned around to look and there was Gilderoy Lockhart in a Cadbury purple suit, complete with a bow tie, pocket watch, lavender buttonhole and purple shoes. “Oh wow. That’s commitment.”
Remus finished his drink and started on the second. “There are times when I think wow, Benjy literally chose that… fairground attraction over me.”
“Well, those don’t sound like particularly helpful thoughts.” Sirius poked his thigh, “Quite the opposite in fact. I also think it’s more the case that Benjy has questionable taste sometimes, made a series of bad decisions and didn’t want to be alone after you broke up with him.”
“Well, I hadn’t really looked at it like that.” Remus smiled, “Yeah, I’ll go with that.”
“Sirius!” Sirius didn’t want to turn around, but after plastering on a fake smile, he did. Narcissa, hanging off Lucius’ arm and slurring her words slightly, was smirking at him. “Lucius tells me that the two of you finally got together!”
“Oh, yeah.” Sirius squeezed Remus’ hand, “Took us long enough, right?”
“I always knew from the day you showed up late to your mother’s 50th birthday together.” She nodded knowingly. That was over five years ago and Remus had been with Benjy back then.
“It’s not like they were particularly subtle at school, Cissa.” Lucius drawled.
“True.” She smiled politely at Remus, “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” He said, looking at Sirius. “We’re very happy.”
“Hmmm, good.” She said, “Well, until the next time Sirius.”
As Lucius and Narcissa walked away Sirius closed his eyes, “Why the fuck is Benjy friends with them? Or is it Gilderoy?”
“Could be either. Don’t care really.” Remus shrugged. “We don’t have to stay much longer if you don’t want to, just let me know when you want to head home.”
Sirius didn’t expect to feel a stab of disappointment in his chest at the thought of the night being over. He liked people thinking that he was Remus’ boyfriend, he realised. He liked holding hands with Remus under the table, a lot. Those facts alone were probably excellent reasons to end the night sooner rather than later.
Remus finished his drinks quicker than Sirius and Sirius was trying not to notice how the alcohol had made Remus’ cheeks flush and how Remus was now playing with the fingers of Sirius’ hand that were entwined with his own. Tipsy Remus was hot, and Sirius had known this for fifteen years. Just the right level of inhibitions left him, but still very much Remus in control, Remus without a facade. Oh fuck. he really hadn’t thought this through. Even if they went home now it’d be almost an hour before they were back home, and he knew Remus would convince him to go to a shop on the way to the station and grab some train booze. At least he could put some distance between them once they left.
“You look like someone died,” Remus said, next to his ear, making him jump and goosebumps spread down his arm.
“Sorry, got lost in my head for a minute.” He smiled at Remus, “I’m ready to leave whenever you are, Moons. Yes, we can get you your little cans of gin and tonic for the train.”
Remus looked very pleased with himself, “Alrighty then.”
They managed to leave the party without seeing anyone they knew. They thought they were free and clear until they ran into Caradoc outside.
They stood chatting with him for a few minutes, Remus’ arm slung across Sirius’ shoulders and Sirius’ around Remus’ waist. It was colder than it had been earlier and Sirius pressed himself closer to Remus for warmth. Remus kissed Sirius’ temple and their eyes met momentarily.
Just as they were saying goodbye to Caradoc, Sirius heard a voice behind him that made the colour drain from his face.
“I told you it was him! Sirius!”