The Nerds
When Remus got to work the following day, Dorcas and Emmeline were in the office waiting for him.
“How was dinner with your in-laws?” Dorcas asked with a grin.
Remus rolled his eyes, “James and Sirius reverted to their teenage selves. The food was incredible. Effie and Monty were very sweet. Lily and I had a heart-to-heart. Standard stuff.”
“That’s it?” Emmeline asked.
“Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to hear about how I took Pads up to his old room after dinner and got on my knees beneath the glow-in-the-dark stars?”
“You what?” Dorcas gasped, then frowned as Remus laughed, “You’re a piece of work, you really had me there for a second.”
“It’s not real, Dor.” He shook his head, “In a couple of weeks everything will return to normal, apart from his parents, whose hearts may actually be broken. I’m just glad we weren’t accidentally forced to tell my parents. My mum loves Sirius. I'd never hear the end of it.”
Dorcas sighed as she pulled her braids up into a bun on the top of her head, “Sure, their hearts will be broken.” She muttered.
“Is it really that different?” Emmeline handed Remus a cup of tea. “The fake dating?”
“It’s— I think I’m just more conscious about things now. I don’t know.” Remus weighed his words carefully, “But not that different, but then we’re not exactly uh, exploring a physical relationship. So, holding hands and the occasional kiss on the cheek or whatever, yeah that’s not all that different, I guess.” He could feel his cheeks burning and this was not what he needed before a 9 am lecture with first years about romance tropes.
“Interesting,” Dorcas said with a grin. “Can't wait for trivia night.”
“Piss off,” Remus said, hiding his smile behind his mug.
Going through the lecture slides, he discussed forbidden love, enemies to lovers and love triangles. When he got to friends-to-lovers he knew he was blushing, by the time he got to fake relationships, he knew that he was scarlet. At least he had genuine insight when a student asked him for an example of why someone would fake a relationship.
“Character A and Character B are good friends. Character A had a messy breakup where they were hurt by their ex-partner, let’s say he caught the ex cheating. On his birthday.” A small gasp travelled around the students, “A and B see the ex in… in Tesco a few months later, and B decides that making the ex jealous would be fun. They tell the ex that they’re together now, and then the ex invites them to a party, so they have to continue the act.”
“Well that sounds like a very stupid plan,” the student replied.
“Yes,” Remus nodded, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment, “I suppose it does. Then consider that B’s parents find out that A and B are ‘together’ and they’re over the moon. They’ve been worried about B never finding someone to love, and now A, who they’ve known for years, and really like, could be that person. B doesn’t have the heart to tell them it’s fake, so they decide to carry on for a few more weeks.”
“But wouldn’t that just hurt B’s parents more in the long run?” Another student asked, “Now they’re attached to the idea of A and B being together. That's always going to be in the back of their mind as ‘what could have been’.”
Remus thought for a moment, “That’s a good insight. Often within these tropes, the feelings of people around the couple aren’t explored very deeply. It’s something you could maybe consider for this week’s writing task.”
Remus didn’t particularly want to read forty short stories exploring how fake dating affected the people around the couple, but it was too late for that now. Most people would probably choose something else, but he could tell by the look in Dean Thomas’ eyes that he would be getting at least one such story.
Moony
An eighteen-year-old just told me that anyone involved in a fake relationship is an idiot. I didn't need to be called out like this on a Monday morning.
Padfoot
Wow, drag us.
One perk of working for myself - Only I call myself an idiot!
Wait, that came out wrong
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Friday night came around quickly. Remus eventually texted Benjy back, ignoring his drunk text, and letting him know that they’d be at trivia night, but that James and Lily wanted to come so he and Sirius wouldn’t be on his team.
Things with Sirius felt weird. Every time he touched Remus, even a brush of their fingers while handing him a cup of tea, sent goosebumps down his arms and made his cheeks heat up. He’d almost bumped into Sirius coming out of his room on Thursday morning and Sirius had clung to Remus’ waist to steady himself. The searing sensation from where Sirius’ fingers pressed into his torso led to him leaning his cheek on the top of Sirius’ head without thinking. When he regained control of his senses, he’d stepped away abruptly to find Sirius staring at him, wide-eyed. They hadn’t talked about it, because that would involve, you know, talking about it.
“Team name?” They’d split into two teams, James, Lily, Pete and Mary were one team, and Remus, Sirius, Dorcas, Marlene and Emmeline were the other.
“The nerds,” Marlene suggested with a grin, as Dorcas protested loudly. “Three of you have literal doctorates!”
“Sorry that we make you feel inadequate, Marly.” Remus laughed, “We can’t all be starving artists.”
“There must be some reference with doctors and artists.” Dorcas pondered.
“Vincent and the Doctor,” Sirius said, looking over at Remus, who beamed at him. Remus got him into Doctor Who during lockdown, and the episode about Van Gogh was one of their favourites. They cried at the end every single time.
“Like I said, The Nerds,” Marlene said.
“Sure, why not.” Dorcas rolled her eyes before writing ‘The Nerds’ at the top of their answer sheet. Remus appreciated that the pub still used answer sheets rather than an app. Wow, was he old?
Sirius went to the bar to get a round in, and less than a minute later he looked over his shoulder to find Benjy in his seat. He frowned slightly as he watched Remus remove Benjy’s hand from his leg. Remus looked up at that moment and froze when his eyes met Sirius’.
‘You alright?’ Sirius mouthed. Remus nodded and rolled his eyes.
Sirius ordered their drinks and headed back to the table. He set the tray down on the table, then sat on Remus’ lap, looping his arms around his neck.
“Sorry, am I in your seat?” Benjy said, making no move to stand up.
“No worries, I’m fine here.” Sirius smiled sweetly and was sure it was disconcerting. “Good to see you again.”
“You too,” Benjy said, with an attempt at a smile. “Sorry about the—”
“It’s fine. We’ve all been there, right Moons?”
Remus shook his head with a smile, “Yes, I suppose we have.”
“I once got twenty-three missed calls from Remus after a night out.” Sirius grinned. “The voicemails were a journey.”
“In my defence, Marlene bought me a lot of tequila, I forgot you were visiting Andy, and I lost my keys and I was furious because I thought you just weren’t letting me into the flat!”
“Is that the night you showed up in my bedroom doorway at 3 am?” Dorcas cackled, “That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever woken up to. Just Remus in the doorway, not saying anything. Just standing there.”
“You never lock your flat door, that’s on you!” Remus sipped his drink. “I also passed out leaning against our flat door that night. It was a lot.” Benjy said nothing but laughed along without taking his eyes off Remus.
“Welcome to Trivia Night!” A voice boomed over the microphone. "If you haven't paid your entry and collected an answer sheet, now is the time!"
“Ah, well, better get back.” Benjy said, “May the best team win.” With one last glance at Remus, he scurried back to his table, where his friends seemed to have many questions.
Lily watched Remus with an eyebrow raised. “Well, you’ve certainly convinced him.”
Sirius, still sitting on Remus grinned, “Yeah. I told you he’d buy it, Moons.” Remus just sighed.
“Round one is Music! I’ll play you ten songs and I want the name of the song and the artist. Twenty points up for grabs here!”
Between the five of them, they were doing pretty well, Remus thought. There was only one question that they hadn’t even been able to guess an answer to, and he knew that they’d got a lot of them right. There wasn’t a round on books, much to his chagrin, but Emmeline came in clutch for the movies round.
Sirius had moved back to his seat after the music round, and Remus missed his warm body pressing against him instantly. He didn’t need to look at Lily to know she was looking at him with a smug smile. He reached for Sirius’ hand under the table and relaxed slightly when Sirius slid his fingers in between Remus’ and brushed the back of his hand with his thumb.
They won comfortably, beating Lily and James’ team in second place by six points. Benjy’s team didn’t even come in the top five. Remus looked over at him, to find Benjy already looking, and shrugged at him with a smile. Sirius caught this and frowned slightly.
“Free shots!” Marlene set the tray of twenty shots in front of them. They hadn’t planned to have a heavy night, but Dorcas was already two shots in, so Sirius clinked his tiny glass against Remus' and got stuck in. Fruity vodka was nobody’s favourite thing to throw back, but it was free. He knew that within twenty minutes, stupid, hot, tipsy Remus would be out in full force. He needed to make sure that he was nowhere near Benjy when that happened.
It appeared that Benjy knew about how Remus got after a few drinks. Of course, he would. They were together for so long. So when Benjy came swanning over after half an hour and rested his chin on Remus’ shoulder to whisper in his ear, Sirius couldn’t help the pang of jealousy. He looked over to James and Lily to find them both already looking at him.
“Moons,” Sirius said in a low voice. Remus looked at him, Benjy still in his ear. “Fancy a smoke?”
Remus didn’t smoke unless he was drunk anymore, but his eyes lit up and he nodded. “Scuse me, Benj.” He said, shrugging Benjy off his shoulder and taking Sirius’ hand in his as they headed outside.
“What was he saying to you?” Sirius asked once he’d lit both of their cigarettes.
“Pretty much what you’d expect.” Remus chuckled. “I take back any time I said this was a bad plan, Pads.”
Sirius prickled with jealousy. “He said that he wants you?”
Remus nodded, exhaling smoke through his nose in a way that made Sirius want to push him against the brick wall behind him and kiss him senseless. “Said he’s planning to break up with Gil anyway, apparently.”
“And?” Sirius knew he was frowning.
“I may be a bit drunk, but I'm not stupid, love.” Remus smiled at him. Sirius stepped closer to him, bracing his arm on the wall next to Remus’ head.
“You sure?” Sirius whispered.
They stared at each other and Remus was sure that Sirius was about to break and kiss him when Benjy appeared.
“Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.” He smirked. “I’m having a get-together tomorrow night at my flat. I invited the others, but it would be great to see you too. You know the address, Rem. I’ll text you more details tomorrow.”
Sirius nodded, slowly stepping back from Remus. “Thanks.”
“Well, see you then, hopefully.” He winked at Remus before strolling away whistling Bad Romance (which, to be fair to him had been in the music round).
Sirius stepped backwards, taking another drag on his cigarette.
Remus tried not to feel disappointed. He took a long drag on his cigarette, put it out in a flowerpot, flattened his palm against Sirius’ chest, pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his jaw and went back inside without saying a word.
Sirius had humoured Remus when he said he planned to be confusing and annoying during this whole… escapade, but yeah, this was confusing, which in itself was annoying. Remus was kinda drunk, getting to the top end of what could be considered tipsy, for sure. Sirius wasn’t quite there yet.
He finished smoking and leaned against the wall, stunned. He desperately wanted to go to this party, just to be Remus’ boyfriend for another night, but he knew this was pushing it. He’d go along with whatever Remus wanted, he decided.
“You good?” Sirius jumped, he hadn’t noticed James come outside.
“Yeah, sorry mate, just thinking.” Sirius frowned. “So... I think I like Moony.”
James laughed. “You think?”
“Well, I’ve had several shots in the last half an hour, and he just kissed me here.” He pointed to the edge of his jaw. “And if Benjy hadn’t interrupted… I think I was about to kiss him. But maybe my reality is a little skewed right now.”
James’ mouth dropped open. “You were going to— For real?” Sirius nodded, “Well, this is a fine situation you’ve got yourself in Padfoot.”
“Oh shut up.” He tried to smile. “The thing is, when we do couple stuff there’s this part of me that is desperate for it to be real, and I know that it’s not. And like, I really want to go to this party tomorrow, one more night, y’know. But that’s also such a bad idea.”
James studied him, “Pads? What do you think would happen if you talked to Moony about this?”
“Oh he’d be all noble and Moony about it, you know him. ‘I don’t want to risk our friendship’, ‘you’re probably just lonely’, ‘who could ever want me, the hot, smart, wonderful Doctor?’.”
James paused before laughing, a lot. “Fucking hell.”
“Shut up!” Sirius whined. “I’m having a bad time!”
Remus, inside, was also not having a great time.
“You kissed his… jaw?”
“It looked… very kissable. Shut up.” Remus thunked his head on the table, making Lily wince. “I am fucked.”
“Not yet,” she muttered. “Have you considered talking to him about it?”
“And be met with ‘it’s not real, we’re just pretending’ and then have things be weird with Sirius for the rest of my life?” He lifted his head from the table, “For the record, I never thought this was a good idea. Not even when I said it was a good idea ten minutes ago. Probably.”
“And yet, here you are.” Dorcas grinned. “You have to go to this party. If nothing else, one more night of whatever this is can’t hurt. Maybe one of you will act like an actual adult and do something about this palpable sexual tension.”
“You say that…” Remus said, “Maybe. I mean, we’ve clearly done what we set out to do and wind Benj up. So it might be weird to suggest that we go. Also, shut up.”
“You are so ridiculous.” Lily snapped. “Just tell him you want to go, then go and kiss his stupid face.”
Remus looked at her in shock. “You didn’t even have four disgusting shots! You can’t say things like that!”
“Moony, I love you, I do. But if you drag this out much longer, I may have to hurt you.” Marlene sipped her cocktail. “Because the two of you are being insufferable. Fuck him or call it off.”
“I have no friends. I don’t know any of you.” He stood up with a chuckle and headed to the bar.
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Things were awkward when they got home. The mood had definitely changed and neither of them knew how to handle it. Remus took his kebab to bed to eat it there, while Sirius tackled his in the kitchen.
Remus brought up the party the next day, nursing a slight hangover. Another four pints after those shots had not been the wonderful idea that he’d convinced himself it was. At least he’d managed to hold himself back from kissing parts of Sirius’ face again. That was mainly because he’d avoided Sirius when he and James came back in, and because he went straight to bed when they got home. He missed their usual post-night-out-debrief, but sitting alone with Sirius while that level of drunk would have been inadvisable, so really, Remus thought, he’d done a pretty good job.
“So, do you want to go to the party tonight?” He asked, hands wrapped around a mug of tea. “It would mean missing video games and cocktails.”
“Won’t hurt to miss it for one week, plus James and Lily can come if they want to spend time with us so badly,” So much for ‘I’ll go along with whatever Remus wants’.
“Oh, so you do want to go?” Remus nodded, “Alright.”
Sirius couldn’t exactly take it back now. He nodded and watched the steam rise off his coffee. One more night wouldn’t be too bad, right? He could keep it together for one more night.
Dad
Sirius, your mum and I are hosting a Halloween party next week. Theme is - Halloween. Please come in costume, and bring Remus, also in a costume. Lots of love!
His dad’s texts never failed to put a smile on his face, but tonight was one thing, could they really keep this going for another week?
When he looked up, Remus was watching him, “Your dad?”
“Other people text me, you know.”
“Sure they do.” He rolled his eyes, “What’s new with Monty?”
“Halloween party next week.” He watched as Remus realised what that entailed, “He said the theme, helpfully, is Halloween, and to wear a costume and bring you, also in a costume.”
“Oh.” Remus said quietly, “Yeah, I can do that. Got any costume ideas?”
Sirius blinked at him. He’d expected more pushback. “Uh, not yet. We could figure out a couple’s costume.” He swore that Remus smirked at him over his cup of tea.
“Might as well.” He said, “You’ll come up with something I’m sure.”
“Why me?”
“Your family’s party.” He shrugged, “You handle them, I handle Benjy, that’s how this works.”
“There will be no handling of Benjy, thank you,” Sirius said before he could help himself, and, yep, Remus was definitely smirking at him. Infuriating. “You know what I mean!”
Neither of them brought up the moment outside the pub that Benjy had interrupted.