a different language is a different vision of life
Remus (mostly)
Remus watches as Sirius speaks animatedly in an intense debate about something to do with french fries - from what Remus has so far heard - with Marlene, James and Mary, who are only mirroring his enthusiasm. Dorcas however is sitting in the cracked, old leather armchair beside him, scrolling absently through brain-rotting, in his opinion, social media. In the couple of hours he has been here, Sirius has explained rather sheepishly to them all that the paparazzi won't leave until the end of the day, since they wouldn’t want to waste the lengthy journey up into the depths of England’s finest array of old-school villages. Though fans should start to arrive in the area after whatever pictures were taken of him get posted and will stay here looking for him until at least tomorrow - Remus noticed the town square looks busier than normal - meaning it isn’t necessarily safe for Sirius (and James) to leave the building for the next day or two. Which is fine, the pair of them apologised profusely and even offered to pay Remus to make up for whatever work would be lost with the shop closed - which he did accept. Although he does need to get home fairly soon otherwise he’ll never hear the end of it from his mother. Hope Lupin is not a force to be reckoned with.
The realisation suddenly dawns on him that Sirius and James would be sleeping here. Overnight. In his shop. Without him there. Remus isn’t entirely sure about how he feels about that, after all, the two boys are practically strangers to him. It’s not that he thinks they would do something totally reckless and ruin the shop and his future and his entire life (maybe he does, just a little bit). After a good fifteen minutes of overthinking and consideration, he comes to a conclusion. Rising from his chair and exiting the room, he draws his phone from his jean pocket and presses it against his ear.
“Remus, darling! I was just about to call and ask where you are?” His mother’s comforting voice floods his insides with warmth. His stressed expression cracks until it splits into a smile.
“Hi, Mum,” He pauses, not quite knowing how to explain the past few hours to her, “It’s a long story, right, but I’m going to have to stay overnight at the shop,” He imagines her confusion - why would someone ever need to stay overnight here? Turns out the answer sounds rather far-fetched when you actually put it into words.
“What? Why? Has something happened?” He cringes at her worried tone.
“No, no, nothing’s happened Mum, just-” He sighs exasperatedly and pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Listen, so a big celebrity and his friend were, like, being chased by paparazzi and kind of fell into our shop and because of press rules or something they can’t leave until tomorrow or the day after so I’m staying here with them,” The silence that falls after he finishes speaking drags on for what feels like an eternity - he momentarily thinks his own mother has hung up on him until she speaks again.
“Trust my son to find himself stuck with a celebrity all night!” She laughs and he exhales, chuckling breathily, “Who is this mystery celebrity then? Oh, is he handsome? Remus you know what I say about fate,” Remus does indeed know what she says about fate. He feels his cheeks colour.
“Mum! It’s not like that,” A pitiful part of him wishes it was. “Anyway, his name is Sirius Black - I don’t know if you’ve heard of him,” He hears his mum squeal excitedly - a sound he is confident he’s never heard her make before.
“Oh! Oh! He was in my magazine! He was ranked fifth in the Hottest 30 under 30 section, well deserved if you ask me,” She teases and Remus can hear her smile in her voice.
“I’m hanging up now,” He says, in a mock-serious tone, “Oh, before I go, so it’s okay if I stay here?” He’d forgotten all about what he’d actually called for.
“Yes, yes, that’s all fine, darling, you should get back to your guest,” He smiles, twisting the gold rings around his fingers absent-mindedly.
“Bye, Mum,” He ends the call after she begins to attempt making another comment about him and Sirius.
He slides his phone back into his trouser pocket and turns around to see Sirius himself, leaning against a doorframe with his face stretched into– amazement? Slightly confused, Remus blushes, silently praying that he hadn’t overheard his mother’s side of the conversation.
“Uh– sorry, my mum–” He begins awkwardly but gets abruptly cut off mid-sentence.
“You speak welsh? That was Welsh, right? I knew I heard a tiny accent earlier!” Sirius exclaims, looking more curious now than amazed. Of course, Remus thinks. Obviously he knew he and his mother were speaking Welsh at the time, but it was subconscious and so he hadn’t really registered the fact that Sirius wouldn’t have understood a word he said.
“Yes?” He responds, his brain taking a second to catch-up.
He is exceptional at hiding his accent after living in England for the past twelve years. He hated when he was younger how it made him stand out more than he already does with his scars and so he trained himself until he could turn it on and off like a switch. Of course, there are times when he’s panicking about one thing or the other and he forgets to flick the switch on, and straight after speaking the language it gets especially hard to erase the drawn-out syllables from his sentences. But obviously, Sirius Black, who he’s not even known for twenty-four hours, heard a tiny accent in his voice. Hell, his coworkers believed he was born and raised here until he set a towel on fire and he started screaming in Welsh last year.
He regains his focus after realising he was zoned out and Sirius seemingly had just been– watching him, that lingering curiosity so evidently there, still marked across his face. He looks at Sirius - really looks at him - and decides that it is simply impossible that this man had just stumbled into his shop, chose his town to stay in and is now choosing him to talk to. He clears his throat and looks to the side, down and back up, meeting Sirius’ storming grey eyes once again.
“Sorry– uh, did you need anything?” Remus asks hesitantly, remembering Sirius probably has a purpose for talking to him. He catches the other boy frowning, until the expression washes away almost as quickly as it came, replaced with an embarrassed flush spreading across his face.
“What? Oh! I just noticed you disappeared,” He says sheepishly, a slight smile tugging at his lips. No purpose then, Remus thinks. He mentally kicks himself when he notices he hasn’t replied yet again.
“Oh,” Is all he finds himself saying, quickly realising that he has just made it infinitely more awkward when they are both back to just staring at each other. “So, do you know any languages?” is the only relevant thing he can think of saying. It must have been the right thing though since Sirius’ face lights up like a child's on Christmas morning.
“I grew up in France so I speak French, obviously, and my parents made me and my brother learn English, Italian, German, and a little Polish and Russian as well,” Sirius’ grin becomes intenser as he watches Remus’ eyes grow wider and his eyebrows raise higher every time he lists off another language.
“Holy shit, they must really like their languages,” He laughs, Sirius nods his head and chuckles with him.
“Yeah, you’d be surprised,” He says once they have calmed down a bit. Sirius wants to keep on talking to Remus forever, he doesn't know what it is, but he wants to tell Remus everything he can think of whilst simultaneously listening to Remus talking about everything with him. He’s never felt like that before.
“Should we?” Remus asks, nodding his head to the doorway in which Sirius is currently blocking. No, no, let’s not, let’s stay here, Sirius so desperately wants to say.
“Yeah,” He forces out of himself instead with great effort. He ducks out of the way and waits for Remus to walk past him before following.
“What a gentlemen,” Remus muses as they make their way to the room where everyone else sits, talking, laughing. To Remus’ surprise, Sirius stops walking momentarily and straight-up bows in front of him.
“Why thank you, Remus kind sir,” He replies, adopting a posher British accent. Remus hits him on the arm lightly as they walk through the doorway to find the others all sprawled about in conversation; Dorcas has moved to sit next to Marlene since they had been gone, their limbs now entangled. Remus claps his hands together, drawing everyone’s attention.
“So, everyone,” He says, eyes glittering as he looks round at them all, “looks like we’re having a sleepover,”