meals are to be earnt
Remus
Remus just can’t help but burst out in a fit of laughter as Sirius and James shuffle shamefully through the door, fully decked out in fluffy pink disney princess pyjamas that seem to only just fit them properly. Sirius looks as though he doesn’t quite know whether to laugh or cry as he forcefully tugs on the sleeves that rest stubbornly halfway up his forearms. James, however, is sporting a beaming smile across his face and is currently striking poses for the rest of them, strutting up and down the room with a swish of his hips. Marlene falls sideways into Remus’ lap as she pretends to swoon when James blows a kiss in her direction, sighing contently. Sirius apparently admits defeat in his pointless battle with his jumper and begins to show off his own flirtatious runway walk to much applause from the very entertained audience consisting of Remus, Mary, Marlene, Lily and Dorcas. Lily snorts as the ridiculous pair serve her brief matching glares as they sashay past, Sirius flicking his lengthy hair over his shoulder and purposefully into her face in the process - much to Remus’ amusement. Mary turns to her, shoulders shaking with laughter.
“Out of all the pyjamas in the shop, you chose these ones?” She asks, gesturing outwardly over to where Sirius and James have flopped themselves down onto a cushy sofa and are raising their eyebrows accusingly at Lily, waiting for a response. Lily shrugs and grins innocently.
“Well, I didn’t know who I was buying pyjamas for and based on your names I thought you sounded quite strange, to be honest,” She admits shamelessly, holding her palms up in the air. James and Sirius both look equally as offended at this, Sirius gasping dramatically.
“James is a normal name, thank you very much!” James exclaims loudly, throwing his hands up, outraged. Sirius nods his head aggressively in agreement.
“Yes well the name Sirius definitely isn’t!” Lily replies exasperatedly, sticking her pointer finger out over to where Sirius is wrinkling his eyebrows in a scandalised frown.
“Uh, excuse you!” He snaps, clearly gearing up to go on some sort of rant before Marlene interrupts.
“Does your name, like, mean something?” She asks thoughtfully, a pleasantly calm change from the previous, rather chaotic, shouting. Sirius sighs and runs a hand through his long black waves sulkily.
“Sirius is a star, it’s like—a family tradition, yeah? My brother is named after a star too, same with my father and my cousins,” He grumbles, flicking his eyes down to his fingers, pretending to be indifferent on the subject. Sirius seems to really dislike talking about his family, Remus has noticed.
He’s vaguely aware that Sirius’ father, Orion Black, is a well known politician, though not for all the right reasons. He has never been very interested in politics, but his father was always talking about elections and such whilst he was growing up. His father used to say that in another life he would’ve been a politician himself if the shop didn’t need looking after all those years ago. Remus occasionally wonders if his father is now, in another life, achieving that dream he always had. He thinks how Orion must be an awful person to have as family, based on the stuff he does know about him, and suddenly he feels quite sympathetic towards Sirius. He remembers some of the policies his own father would tell him Orion’s political party represent and none of them even seem vaguely morally correct—how his party hasn’t been shut down yet is a miracle in Remus’ eyes. He hasn’t a clue whether the policies have changed since or even whether the party has been shut down but he’s assuming from everything he’s learnt about Sirius after knowing him these past couple hours that he decidedly doesn’t agree with his father’s ideas, which is a relief since they practically promote discrimination.
Marlene speaks again, the noise loud in his ears from where she’s draped herself across his legs, transporting him out of his train of thought and back to reality.
“That’s actually really cool,” She comments, obviously not sensing Sirius’ discomfort from where she’s staring up at the ceiling blankly, twisting blonde strands of her hair together absent-mindedly. Sirius wrinkles his nose in disapproval.
“You think so?” He replies doubtedly, the tone of his voice suggesting he finds the idea absurd.
“Yeah ‘course, like, you’ve got your very own constellation that people will see when they look up at the sky and whenever you look up at the sky you’re able to see your family there anytime—well, when it’s night, obviously,” She cuts herself off when Remus nudges her head with his knee lightly, thankfully getting the hint to stop talking. She apparently hasn’t picked up on the fact that Sirius probably wouldn’t want to see his family, from the way he acts when he’s forced to talk about them. Though, disproving Remus’ assumption, Sirius tilts his head to the side and a small smile creeps onto his lips.
“I guess it is kind of cool,” He admits slowly, and Remus observes how next to him James’ expression softens as Sirius visibly contemplates Marlene's outlook. Sirius must have at least one decent family member, then.
“So, where are our pyjamas then?” Mary asks curiously, turning to Lily who lights up at the question. She lifts the large shopping bag resting by her feet onto her lap and begins to rummage through it before tugging out two balled up pieces of clothing. She launches them across the room in Remus’ direction and they hit him square in the face and drop down onto Marlene’s as he fails to catch them, getting a few laughs from the others. She lets out a muffled groan from beneath the clothes and snatches them off herself, thrusting them into Remus’ hands with slight annoyance before settling down again peacefully in his lap. He holds up a basic dark grey t-shirt that looks about his size and hums in approval, then grabs the second item of clothing which appears to be classic plaid pyjama bottoms. He was sending silent prayers that Lily had gotten him something relatively normal and it looks like they were answered, shockingly. He lowers the clothes from where he was previously holding them out in front of him to reveal Sirius and James’ gawping expressions as they stare with open mouths at his new outfit. He decidedly ignores them and instead smiles at Lily.
“Thank you,” He says gratefully, and Sirius scoffs and folds his arms, clearly unimpressed.
“You are all paying me back for these, by the way,” She announces happily in a sing-song voice, her head half-hidden in the bag as she digs through it again. This time she surfaces with two pairs of pyjamas, staring at them for a second to make sure they’re the right ones before tossing one pair to Dorcas and the other to Marlene. They unfold them quickly and both laugh when they see the shirts Lily has gotten them. Remus peers over Marlene’s shoulder at hers as she sits up, scanning it with a chuckle. It’s black with white writing printed across it that reads ‘I <3 my crazy hot girlfriend!’. It definitely looks like it was designed for the sole purpose of a straight middle-aged man who thought it looked good except it really, really doesn’t. Marlene seems quite happy with it though, tugging it over the top of the overalls she was already wearing excitedly and shoving the matching shorts it came with beside her for later. Dorcas proudly lifts up her own shirt for her and Remus to see from where they’re sat opposite her. Her one says ‘I <3 my hot crazy girlfriend!’. Marlene cackles, and, in Remus’ opinion, the shirts are quite accurate for the two of them. Sirius and James crane their necks from where they’re reclining across each other in the corner of the room to get a good look at the shirts, eyes widening when they read the wording scrawled across them.
“You two are dating?” Sirius bursts out, his gaze flicking between the pair wildly. Marlene rolls her eyes, though it doesn’t give quite the desired effect as she’s still grinning madly at Dorcas.
“Yes, but Remus banned affection in the workplace, so I haven’t kissed my girlfriend for—,” She pauses to look at the time on her phone, “ten hours! Do you even know how upsetting that is?” Marlene glares at Remus pointedly and that’s all the reasoning he needs to bring up the rather embarrassing story that got the rule put into action in the first place. Now it’s his turn to roll his eyes.
“First of all, I said during work hours, which in case you haven’t noticed, those ended—,” He glances at his watch, “about four hours ago, in those four hours you could’ve kissed Dorcas all you like! Secondly, do I need to bring up why we have a no affection rule?” He asks innocently, smirking as Marlene and Dorcas’ eyes bulge and Marlene shakes her head aggressively from side to side.
“No, no, it’s okay,” She says quickly, but Remus’ mind is already made up.
“I think we might need a reminder, just to make sure nobody forgets,” He replies smugly, eyes lit up with a mischievous glint. Dorcas hides her face behind her hands in embarrassment that hasn’t even surfaced yet, and it’s very lucky she did, as in that moment Remus is overcome by a gnawing twinge of guilt that he knows he won’t be able to shake off if he says any more on the matter—and so he finds himself flipping the conversation to what is a safe subject in his eyes.
“You know what, I’m really hungry, is anyone else hungry? Let’s go make dinner,” He announces suddenly, rising from his chair and clapping his hands together. Dorcas lowers her hands from her face to reveal a very confused expression aimed in his direction. Marlene, startled, opens her eyes from where she was squeezing them shut and frowns at him before seemingly deciding to just accept his generosity without asking any questions. She shoots him a relieved smile as she leaps onto her feet to stand beside him.
“Yeah, I’m hungry too, let’s go,” She says casually before turning to walk out the door, Remus just about to follow when Mary clamps firm hands down on either of their shoulders, preventing them from moving. She arches an eyebrow, a determined spark in her eye Remus has seen well enough over the years to know he absolutely won’t be leaving this room until she says so.
“Food can wait, I want to hear whatever this is,” She waves a hand around the area in which Remus and Marlene are shuffling about awkwardly, attempting to escape Mary’s grasp, and where Dorcas is perched on a chair behind them, looking very miserable as she has apparently accepted the fate that her shameful story will, in fact, be told today. Remus exhales wearily and gives one last fleeting attempt to try and save Marlene and Dorcas’ dignity.
“Look, Mary, I think it’s not something they want to share and, if it was me, I’d be the same and I know you would be too and it was cruel for me to bring it up in the first place so let’s just leave it—yeah?” He’s silent as he watches Mary’s eyes narrow slightly and for a second he thinks he’s lost all hope of getting out of this but then, rather shockingly, her hand goes limp on his shoulder and falls back to her side as she steps back reluctantly, admitting defeat.
“Okay, but I will find out eventually,” She calls back over her shoulder from where she’s began striding towards the door, leaving the rest of them behind in her dust, staring after her blankly. Relief floods through Remus after he processes what she just said and he glances at Dorcas and Marlene to see them having similar reactions. Nobody needs to know about the time Remus accidentally walked in on the two of them doing something he'd rather not like to think about occurring inside of his shop, scarring him for life, and despite what Mary claims, they won't be discussing this again. Not if Remus can help it. Mary pauses and spins around, looking at them all strangely “What? You said you were hungry,” Nobody moves for a couple beats before Sirius shrugs and gets to his feet, trailing behind her out the door, quickly followed by everyone else.
On the journey to the kitchen, Remus falls into step with Lily. She turns to him, gazing at him with something a little like pride in her eyes.
“That was nice of you,” She remarks and he scoffs, looking away as his cheeks flush slightly.
“It was basic human decency,” He counters, not quite sure why he couldn’t just take a compliment where he can get one.
“Yes, well—wait,” She stops in her tracks, setting off a domino effect of everyone else halting around them. She searches the sea of their quizzical faces until her eyes find Mary and her expression fades into a frown. Remus opens his mouth to ask her what on earth is wrong but she speaks again. “I never got to give you your pyjamas,” She says quietly with such a soft, disappointed tone to her voice that he struggles not to laugh at the absurdity that this is the same person as the feisty, no bullshit best friend he’s used to. Remus can’t help but smile affectionately at how much she obviously cares about this, it’s beautiful, really, seeing her in love. Mary chuckles warmly before grabbing her hand and dragging her further down the hallway towards the kitchen, despite the steady stream of Lily’s insistent protests.
“Come on, you can show me later, right now we need to feed our guests,” Mary assures her, gesturing over to where James and Sirius are rather sheepishly pressed against a wall, visibly trying their absolute best not to invade anyone’s personal space. Turns out trying to fit seven people in one part of such a narrow area is quite the struggle. Lily huffs before mumbling a stubborn 'Fine’ under her breath and Mary beams at her victoriously before tugging her around the corner forcefully. They all start moving again, thankfully, since it was beginning to feel slightly claustrophobic, and Remus accidentally catches Sirius’ eye. He flashes him a small, subtle grin which he returns graciously with colour in his cheeks before looking away quickly at the same time Remus does. Remus’ eyes widen slightly as he turns his head to face the wall beside him, an uncontrollable, genuine smile beginning to blossom across his lips. He forces his eyes forward in an attempt to look normal, his brain replaying the interaction over and over again in his head until he’s pretty sure he could draw the memory out blindfolded and upside down if he was asked to.
He steps into the familiar, warm space where he’s practically grown up. This room has seen him on his darkest and happiest days, his most recent and his oldest memories with his family created here—well, ever since they moved. The kitchen overlooks the entirety of the cafe through the large empty window frame connected to the rustic bar lined with comfy stools on the other side of the wall. Ever since his father first introduced him to the shop that is now his own, he’s been preparing carefully crafted food to slide across the table to the various waiters and waitresses employed here over the years. It’s probably been the most consistent thing he has in his life, apart from his own mother, maybe.
He tugs off his jumper, tossing it carelessly over his head onto the countertop he knows is behind him before straightening out his t-shirt lazily. He slips on his sage green apron with his name sewn on in small, white writing over the top of it, an action he’s done so many times it’s basically reflex by now. He makes a face at the group of people huddling in his kitchen by the doorway watching him uncertainly. This just won’t do. He reaches out and grabs a small towel from the rack beside him, a plan forming in his head. He silently strolls towards them, pouring all his energy into the gruelling task of not bursting out laughing at their rather fearful expressions. He halts intimidatingly when he finds himself standing eye to eye with the group—well, he is considerably taller than all, if not most, of them, so not really eye to eye; just inches apart from the group of heads staring intensely up at him. He patiently waits a few seconds before raising the towel in his hand to his side from behind his back, revealing it to the others. A few of them step back cautiously, predicting rather well what he’s about to do. Suddenly, he whacks the towel lightly across each of their faces rapidly, allowing himself to laugh at the yelps of shock and surprise that echo about the room. He doesn’t stop there, repeating the movement over and over, just whipping the towel aimlessly across whoever he can find—nobody is safe. Squeals and attempts to hide behind one another are made frantically as he gradually nudges them backwards towards the door.
“Oi! Out of my kitchen!” He laughs, the shock beginning to wear off the others and they begin to giggle and laugh along with him as he punctuates each word with another whack across someone new. Dorcas bats the towel away from her head grumpily, and he jabs his pointer finger out to the bar stools. He watches smugly with his arms folded across his chest as they all scurry one by one out of the room, quick to escape whilst slightly out of breath from all the towel-dodging. He listens to their scampering footsteps travel throughout the building, amused as he hears Sirius shout frantically from somewhere ‘I don’t know where I’m going!’ until the man himself pops into sight opposite him, looking comically calm and collected as if he absolutely hadn’t been running about screaming just moments before and absolutely isn’t wearing disney princess pyjamas. He untucks a stool from underneath the bar and swings himself onto it with ease, supporting his chin in his hands as he leans forward, elbows firmly on the table as he attempts to level out his breathing discreetly. Mary bursts in, kicking the door open dramatically, followed closely by James and Lily, all panting heavily. They collapse simultaneously around Sirius, taking up the seats either side of him, much less graciously than Sirius had before them. Remus chuckles as they shoot lethal glares of daggers up at him—it’s well deserved, he knows, but he can’t help but find their worn out states a little funny. Finally, Marlene jogs into the room with a good-natured smile, Dorcas walking behind her lazily, looking very bored. They’re all silent for one peaceful, glorious moment before Lily, who can’t keep her mouth shut for the life of her when she’s pissed off, bats her hair out of her eyes with an irritated glance up at Remus and immediately he knows what’s coming.
“You could’ve just—oh I don’t know, just told us to leave!” She yells angrily through the empty window frame at him, throwing her arms up in the air to exaggerate her point. A low ripple of agreement flows throughout across the table and he just tilts his head to the side and tuts, stepping backwards.
“You’ve got to work for your meal somehow,” He chides, smirking at the uproar that comment sets off. Sighing happily, he turns and snatches a handful of laminated menus from the stack closest to him.
“That was fun, wasn’t it? Yes?” He nods encouragingly at the provoked faces in front of him with a wide grin until he receives a half-hearted nod back from Marlene. Deciding that he’s put them through enough, he tosses the menus at the table and watches as all of their faces immediately light up at the long list of food to choose from, a warm, fuzzy feeling surfacing in his chest.
After minor arguing—he had accidentally left them one menu short—James and Sirius share a menu, pouring over it intensely and occasionally muttering to each other and pointing various names of food out with a smile and a chuckle. Remus sees as they all each tap various items on the menus of people around them, suggesting things or telling funny stories and discussing what they’re going to order from Remus, talking excitedly. Not for the first time today, he thinks again on how this is what the building was purposed for—laughter, love, friendship and he finds himself smiling a little at how he’s managed to keep those elements from what was originally his grandfather’s business, hand-built by him with those three things forever embedded in the bricks of the shop, still flowing throughout it today, possibly even more now than ever. After a few minutes, he grabs his designated notepad and pen and scrawls his order at the top of a fresh page, not having to look at a menu to know what he’s having. He turns with a polite smile to where Dorcas is sat furthest away from him at the beginning of the long line of stools.
“Chicken caesar salad with fries and a diet coke, please,” She recites quickly, setting her menu down with a wide grin. Remus resists the urge to roll his eyes, though it would be with affection. She has ordered the same thing every single time she gets food here without fail, since the very first day she strutted in and tasted the salad, no matter how much Marlene pesters her about trying new things. He finishes writing and looks to Lily expectantly.
“Can I have a burger and fries, please?” He could’ve guessed her order too. She is also very predictable to Remus, or maybe he just knows her too well—he can’t really tell at this point. He raises his eyebrows slightly and she adds quickly, “Oh, and a lemonade, please,” James clears his throat when Remus turns to him and adjusts his glasses on the bridge of his nose as he gears up to read his order out from the menu.
“Please may I have one Lupin Special,” He announces a little louder than necessary, staring blankly up at Remus. Remus immediately barks out in laughter that he attempts rather poorly to disguise as a cough into his elbow but he catches Lily’s eye who is giggling into her hand and that’s all it takes to set him off again. The Lupin Special is a sandwich that he added to the menu as a joke many years ago at Lily’s request. Nobody ever orders it as it's a seemingly atrocious combination of ingredients that nobody in their right mind would want to order—except for himself as it actually tastes delicious and no one can convince him otherwise, no matter how hard they’ve tried. Lily used to make fun of him for having one everyday at school when he would bring it in for lunch and gradually they grew to call it the Lupin Special as only members of the Lupin family have ever been brave enough to try it. He composes himself, taking a deep breath and turning slowly back to James who is watching him with an uncertain smile. “Did I pronounce that right?” He asks suddenly, face falling and it takes every atom of Remus’ being not to erupt into a fit of laughter again.
“Yes, yes you did,” He breathes, wiping a tear of mirth out from under his eye, inhaling slowly through his nose before calmly writing out the order, rather proud of himself for even managing to do that. Sirius opens his mouth to say what he wants to eat when James lets out a sharp ‘Oh!’ noise next to him.
“Do we need to pay for this?” He asks cautiously, his hand flying to his pocket which assumingly is carrying his wallet in. Remus feels himself beginning to laugh again and just shakes his head from side to side, folding his lips inwards.
“Okay, thank you,” James says with a small, confused chuckle, clearly having a lot of questions but is just too polite to ask them.
He only just gets through the rest of the orders in one piece, finishing by slapping the notepad and pen onto the countertop harshly. He runs a hand through his hair and the others begin to start up their own conversations amongst themselves again. He squints at a clock from across the room and decides he, unfortunately, won’t be able to get all this food done by himself. He wanders casually over to where Dorcas and Lily are chattering about one thing or another and clears his throat loudly. They pause and turn to look up at him. He twists his facial expression into something hopefully apologetic, staring at Dorcas and she just sighs, shooting an upset look at Lily before trudging over into the kitchen miserably. She greets Remus with a hard flick on the shoulder which he knows is actually a display of affection from Dorcas reserved for him only and so he receives it with grace, smiling at her until she rolls her eyes, tilting her head to the side to hide the tiny smile spreading across her own lips. As he waits patiently for her to tie her braids up in a bun and wash her hands, he admires how Sirius across the table seems to thrive in conversations, surrounded by people and interacting with everyone so easily, always saying the right thing to make people smile or laugh. It’s an amazing sight, really, everyone should get to experience it at least once in their lifetime, Remus decides firmly, as it simply seems wrong not to. Dorcas nudges into him lightly and he flinches back to reality, spinning around and fumbling with the ingredients laid out in front of him. Dorcas doesn’t say anything but he can feel her smug gaze trained on him when he very pointedly refuses to make eye contact with her. He nearly cuts himself chopping vegetables and he internally shouts at himself to ‘Focus.’ and he surprisingly enough actually does, feeling himself fade into the familiar, remarkably concentrated trance he falls into whenever he gets into The Zone as he’s baking or cooking. They’ve got a meal to prepare.
* * *
Sirius
Sirius fiddles with his sleeve absent-mindedly as he chats to the people around him, growing slightly more agitated with it by the minute. Was it really that hard for Lily to just get a size up? He’s a grown man for gods’ sake. He feels his grin become tighter around the edges as he tugs harder on it without making a difference. He doesn’t know what it is, but he’s never been able to handle very well when clothes don’t fit him right, the irritated feeling it gives him makes him want to scream at the top of his lungs and yank the clothes straight off himself. Tossing them out a window would probably feel pretty good too, he thinks amusedly to himself. Obviously, he’s incredibly grateful for the pyjamas but it’s just getting hard to focus on anything else around him except for his sleeves, which really seems ridiculous when he thinks about it but he simply can’t help it.
Mary is talking to him about something to do with—hair? He’s not completely sure, which he feels quite guilty about as he nods along politely, just hoping that he does actually agree with whatever she’s saying. He makes the silly mistake of accidentally looking down to his arm where his other hand is still working hard on trying to get the material to magically grow into a suitable length and Mary abruptly stops speaking, her own eyes flicking down to his sleeves. She looks back up at him with a pitiful smile.
“Those are bothering you?” She asks, her facial expression telling him quite clearly that there’s no point in lying. He exhales and nods ruefully with a shy smile. She doesn’t judge him or laugh at him, much to his surprise, but instead leans in closer to him.
“You want to know a trick?” She says it as if she’s telling him a secret, with a comforting mischievous glint in her eye, and Sirius nods again quickly, eager to solve his little issue. “Roll up your sleeves,” she says simply, moving backwards and nodding down to his arms. Sirius stares at her sceptically, confident that there must be more to it than that. She doesn’t say anything further and so he decides to just try it, knowing he’s going to kick himself if it really is as simple as she claims. He tugs the sleeves on either of his arms up to his elbows and the persistent feeling of frustration floats away. He looks up in amazement to where Mary is wearing a proud smirk on her face. “Told you,” She winks and turns away to join in James and Marlene’s conversation.
He turns away too, sliding his legs around in his seat so he’s no longer sat sideways, staring at the table in lingering disbelief. A whole—what? Thirty minutes? A whole thirty minutes he had spent in discomfort when he could have just rolled his sleeves up? He sighs to himself and looks up at the sound of sizzling pans and busy activity coming from the kitchen in front of him. His eyes widen and his lips part with the glorious sight he’s met with.
Sweat glistens off of Remus’ ridiculously toned arm muscles, highlighted especially by the vibrant kitchen lights. Remus’ muscles flex as he grips onto a frying pan filled with colourful, flavoursome vegetables, tossing them up into the air with an experienced shift of his fingers. When Remus had taken off his jumper earlier, his shirt had ridden up and Sirius simply could not tear his eyes away for the life of him. First of all, he had finally gotten a peek at those tattoos he had seen in that video Dorcas had shown earlier, confirming they are, indeed, real. Second of all, the whole experience left him with the burning question of why on earth was a coffee shop owner this jacked? It’s not fair on the poor, poor people like Sirius who have to physically restrain themselves whenever they catch glimpses of his chest. The view he’s seeing right now though makes him genuinely worried he might faint. He imagines a doctor asking him ‘why did you faint, Sirius?’ and him just having to answer casually ‘oh I just saw Remus cooking for the first time,’. An unlikely scenario yet he feels his cheeks heat up just thinking of the humiliation. All in all, he’s feeling incredibly flustered—he thinks anyway, he’s never felt very flustered up until now.
He distantly hears a voice calling his name, weakening the trance Remus seems to have cast him under—the bloody bastard. He tears his gaze away from the kitchen reluctantly to find James staring back at him, his amused expression blurring into disbelief as he takes in the full, never-seen-before, image of Flustered Sirius, his eyes flicking him up and down. James swings his head around the room to see what broke Sirius this much and Sirius himself covers his face with his hands in shame as he awaits James’ inevitable mocking. After a few dragging seconds, he peeks over his fingers at James’ raised eyebrows and laughing mouth before deciding he’d rather just not look.
An eternity flies by and Sirius can’t take just staring blankly into infinite darkness for any longer and gives up on that idea. James’ eyes are still trained on him, but, thankfully, he’s stopped laughing. He opens his mouth in what was probably about to be a pitiful attempt to defend himself when James just shakes his head, an entertained smile playing on his lips before he quickly gets roped into some sort of debate between the others by Lily.
Sirius feels oddly like banging his head into the table repeatedly, maybe it would actually knock some sense into him. On a normal occasion maybe he would, except he assumes he might get a few strange looks if he went through with it this time. When he goes back to London tomorrow he will have a million meetings to attend, a million emails to read, a million press and social media matters to deal with. Right now, he can relax and not think about work—he can socialise with people like he’s meant to be doing.
Decidedly tucking away anything work-and-London-related into a neat little pocket far away in his mind, he puts on a bright smile and tunes into the current conversation floating around him.
“What about your love life James? Anyone special?” Marlene asks James pointedly, gazing at him with lit up eyes and a curious smile. Sirius studies James’ face carefully. He hasn’t dated anyone since about fourth year at boarding school, as far as Sirius knows, not even a single one-night-stand, no matter how much Sirius has encouraged him over the years. Sirius does admittedly find this a little odd and he tries his best to not pry on the matter often but when he does, all James ever says is that he wants to focus on football before romance, then the subject somehow always manages to get changed rather quickly before Sirius can press any further. He often wanders if James has other reasons that he’s not telling him, because surely that can’t just be it. They’ve had the sexuality talk, over the years they’ve figured out in their own time that they both are, actually, bisexual and so Sirius figures that James is at least interested in dating other people, even if it’s apparently not going to happen for a long while.
A cascade of emotions flicker across James’ face in such a remarkably short amount of time that Sirius has trouble keeping up. Wanting to analyse it further, he replays the moment in his head and deciphers—shock? Okay, so he wasn’t expecting the question, that makes perfect sense. Then comes a split second of what seems like panic. Sirius thinks to himself that James maybe didn’t want the others to know that he is rather lacking in the romance department and therefore panicked, it isn’t anything to be ashamed of, but James probably has his reasons. Then his expression flips again to its default polite smile, though it’s contrasted by a familiar mischievous glint that is shining brightly in his eyes.
“Why, you interested in me, McKinnon?” He counters boldly, lips twitching. Marlene’s face stretches into an amusing combination of shock and horror as the group explodes into laughter around her.
“Unluckily for you, Potter, I’m gay,” She replies flippantly, flicking her hair over her shoulder with an excessive amount of sass, gathering lots of cheers and sharp whistles of encouragement.
“Yeah, gay for me,” Mary comments with a dashing smile, winking at Marlene flirtatiously, shoving James out the way harshly.
“Obviously,” Marlene responds without missing a beat, blowing Mary a kiss to prove her point, which she mimes catching and presses protectively to her chest. Sirius turns his eyes on Lily to see what she thinks of all of this, catching her midway through rolling her eyes.
“Fight me, bitch” She glares at Marlene and reaches out to tug Mary into a short kiss, smirking afterwards at Marlene’s feigned shock and hurt. Marlene huffs and folds her arms, turning away sulkily. Sirius snorts at her pettiness that’s nearly on the same level as his own as they wait for her to inevitably break character. It doesn’t take very long at all before she bursts out laughing and faces the rather entertained group again, them all laughing along with her.
Time is filled with more banter and even more fleeting glances back at Remus in the kitchen before it passes and Remus begins sliding plates of mouth-watering food towards people, quite impressively without even looking as he rushes to continue cooking the other various meals to be made. Sirius’ carbonara he had ordered previously appears in front of him magically when he looks down at the wooden table. He tilts his head up to thank Remus but he’s somehow already returned to the busy looking counter, his back to Sirius as he seems to be garnishing someone else’s pasta hastily. Sirius stares at the simply gorgeous looking food—yes, he just called pasta gorgeous—and decides that he absolutely must show his appreciation for this dish.
“Thank you, Remus!” He hollers loudly, grinning expectantly at the boy as he grabs his fork, excited to dig in. Remus turns around, arms full with ingredients and as he moves quickly through the kitchen. On his journey, he gives Sirius a wide smile and a wink in response before burying his head deep inside of a cupboard. Sirius, very satisfied with this, is about to finally turn his full attention to his food when incredibly stressed shouts suddenly sound out from in front of him. Dorcas is yelling at Remus crouching on the floor, his head no longer in the cupboard. Remus scowls up at her and shouts back something angrily, which Sirius can’t really make out very well over the loud conversations surrounding him. He catches a bit of heavy swearing but that’s about all and he wonders thoughtfully to himself as he takes a bite of his pasta what Remus did to piss Dorcas off so much. It’s at that moment when he properly registers that Dorcas would have contributed to his meal just as much as Remus. Feeling shameful that he hadn’t realised this earlier, Sirius takes one look at Dorcas’ stormy expression and promises himself he will thank her profusely later.
Fifteen minutes later to be precise, when Dorcas and Remus shuffle out of the kitchen looking both happy and tired as they carry the last of the food out themselves with weak grins, he utters a quick ‘thank you’ as Dorcas walks past him to which she sends him an appreciative smile as a reply. She flops down in her seat and tucks into her food immediately, Sirius doesn’t blame her, he saw how she was running about the kitchen before and thinks he wouldn’t have been able to last all the way until now to eat after a workout like that. Remus, carrying two identical plates of—questionable, to say the least—looking sandwiches, places one in front of James and his shoulders begin to shake with laughter as they always seem to do when James’ order is brought up. James shoots him a bright smile, clearly not bothering to try and understand why Remus keeps laughing at him and shifts in his seat happily, gearing up to try his food. Remus sits down and cranes his neck around the various people blocking his view of James, staring expectantly at him with an amused expression. Sirius makes a face at the precarious tower of bread and various contradicting ingredients piled on top of one another on his plate and turns to the excitement James is practically radiating with a confused tilt of his head.
“Why would you order this, out of all things?” He asks bluntly, not bothering to be polite as he wrinkles his nose in distaste. James’ mood doesn’t falter one bit at Sirius’ comment, but instead the corners of his mouth stretch out further .
“I trust Remus’ opinion,” He shrugs before taking the sandwich in his hands, his eyes flicking around his small audience which have paused and gone silent to watch him with growing anticipation.
He stares blankly at the sandwich for a second more and Sirius genuinely doubts whether he is actually going to eat it. Without warning, he shoves the sandwich in his mouth to the slightly disgusted cheers of the people around him. Remus looks quite startled, like he wasn’t expecting James to even taste it, let alone eat half of it in one bite, and he lets out a breathless chuckle of disbelief as James swallows and licks his lips casually. James turns to Remus with wide eyes and an even wider smile.
“That,” He starts, pausing as he grabs a napkin, “is bloody incredible! How did you even come up with it?” He exclaims wildly, waving his hands about with passion. Remus’ jaw drops open as though this news has genuinely shocked him to his core. He turns to Lily slowly, who seems to be nearly as surprised as him.
“I told you! What have I been telling you all these years, hm? It’s good, Lils!” Remus bursts out loudly, flying to his feet and jabbing a pointing finger in her unimpressed face. She rolls her eyes and sighs defeatedly.
“Fine, fine, It’s good,” She grumbles as though the words are physically painful for her to speak. Remus lets out a very loud whoop and looks like he’s just about to break out in a victory dance when he suddenly gasps very dramatically.
“I need to call my mum!” He announces, much to the others’ amusement as they watch him actually dial his mum’s number into his phone and turn on the speaker. The call connects and Lily looks like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This sandwich must be a big deal around here, then, Sirius thinks to himself, quite entertained by the whole experience.
“Mum? Mum! Someone tried the Lupin Special and said it was good!” Remus shouts excitedly down the phone—in English, this time, not like the Welsh Sirius had heard him speak earlier— and his mother on the other side of the line inhales a sharp intake of breath. Next to Sirius, Mary giggles as though she can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. The noise sums up how Sirius feels right now pretty well.
“No!” Remus’ Mother gasps, “Who was it? Have you told Lily? I bet she isn't very happy!” She mutters something else in Welsh under her breath as well that Sirius obviously can’t understand. She has a very strong Welsh accent, Sirius notices—well, it’s rather hard not to notice. It makes him wonder why Remus hasn’t got much of one at all. Lily chuckles, smiling like she can’t help it.
“I’m here, Hope, and you’re right, I am not very happy,” She chimes in, leaning in closer to the phone to make herself heard, glaring pointedly at James who looks adorably confused and apologetic for the kerfuffle he unknowingly created. Sirius thinks he could do with an explanation around about now.
“Sirius’ friend, James, tried the sandwich and called it incredible, Mum!” Remus adds quickly, looking just completely overjoyed. Sirius flinches at his name being mentioned and realises with a start that Remus must have already spoken to his mother about him for her to know who he is. An uncontrollable smile splits open across his lips—Remus’ mother knows who he is. He isn’t sure why that feels so significant and decides not to think too deeply into it, just enjoying the moment.
Remus turns his lit up eyes on James and gestures outwardly for him to speak. James widens his own eyes before blinking away his surprise and putting on a dashing smile, which Sirius knows he reserves for parents specifically, as if Remus’ mother—Hope?—is actually there to see it. James clears his throat and shuffles forward in his seat, closer to the phone.
“Hello, yes, it’s James! Yes, the sandwich was amazing, your son really knows how to cook! Oh, I’m sure he does get it from you, Hope—can I call you that? Perfect, it was lovely meeting you, Hope,” He looks hesitatingly to Remus for confirmation that he’s said all the right things and gets his approval via an encouraging nod. James’ face relaxes as he falls back in his chair, looking quite content with himself and the conversation.
“Ooh, Remus, is Sirius there? I’d quite like to meet him, if you don’t mind,” Hope’s voice crackles through the phone once more. Sirius nearly falls off his stool, having to steady himself by gripping hard onto the table next to him. Remus’ cheeks colour as pushes his phone in Sirius’ direction, smiling warmly with an obvious tint of embarrassment faltering it slightly. Oh, he was not at all prepared for this. James is the one who can charm parents—not him. Having grown up with ones of his own that he could barely even call his parents, he never knows what to say or how to act around other peoples', which is a confusing and unfamiliar feeling that he hates and so he tries to avoid it wherever and whenever possible.
Sirius panics momentarily, his brain scrambling wildly to figure out what to say because naturally he’s forgotten all the simple greetings he could possibly use. He tries his absolute best whilst stressing out internally to find some English words to say, but all he can think of are things in literally every other stupid language he knows. He frantically looks to James for help, and thankfully he somehow understands immediately. He mouths the words Sirius needs to say whilst whispering them so very quietly and discreetly that Sirius has to strain his ears in the gaping silence to hear him. As soon as he does, the language comes flooding back to him. He chuckles casually in an attempt to make up for the long pause of silence he left in between Hope’s words and his.
“Sorry about that, I’m here now! I must admit, your son’s cooking is delicious, Hope, but I overheard you say to James that yours is better? I simply must try it if this is true, and I don’t doubt for a second that it is,” He says cheekily, shooting a playful grin at Remus.
“What a charmer! I’m sure that can be arranged for you, my dear. I must say though, in my Hottest 30 under 30s magazine, you were ranked fifth which is just outrageous with your looks, my dear, you should’ve been first, honestly! Me and Cheryl were talking about the other day, she thinks so too, I think she fancies you quite a bit—” Remus chokes on what can only be air, his face flushed and his eyes panicked. Sirius’ jaw is dropped open as he faces James, who’s mirroring his expression. Did he just get called attractive by Remus’ mother? This might just be the best day of his life, which is quite impressive considering he’s only known Remus half a day and he’s literally been to the Met Gala several times.
“Right, I think that’s enough! We have to go now, Mum,” Remus interrupts rather loudly, his finger hovering above the red hang up button.
“No, no, It’s fine, I don’t mind, Remus,” He says quickly with a slight laugh. Remus visibly contemplates this for a few seconds and then sighs deeply, holding his phone out for Sirius once again, though he keeps his eyes strongly fixated on the floor the whole time. Sirius does not like that, he wants Remus to look at him, to pay him clear attention, to see him.
“Why thank you, Hope! I’m very sure you are a fine-looking lady yourself, It’s a shame we aren’t closer in age, truly, otherwise I feel this conversation would have gone very differently,” He finishes speaking with a smirk as Remus’ head turns slowly to face him with a horrified expression etched all over it, his lips parted. Sirius thinks with a stupid flutter in his stomach that he would do just about anything for Remus’ undiverted attention—and yes, that includes basically flirting with Remus’ mum. Everyone else in the room is also staring at him with open mouths and raised eyebrows, which he shouldn’t feel proud about but strangely he does. Remus’ mother lets out a loud, shrieking laugh over the phone, cracking the stunned silence Sirius left the room in in two. This seems to startle Remus enough into action that he remembers his mother is still there listening in, and with one last bewildered glance back at Sirius, he presses the phone onto his ear and mutters something in Welsh quickly into it before hanging up. His body swivels around excruciatingly steadily to face Sirius again, his expression unnervingly calm as he stares unwavering into Sirius’ eyes. This is admittedly a bit more scary than Sirius had expected – not that he was really thinking of the consequences of his words at the time, though in retrospect, he most certainly should have. Consider his lesson learnt.
“Did you,” Remus drags out the words just as slowly as he had moved before and for one absolutely terrifying moment, Sirius is very sure Remus is about to beat the shit out of him. “Did you just flirt with my mother?” He finishes, his gaze piercing through Sirius so intensely that he genuinely considers making a break for it. Suffocating silence sits in the room so heavily that it takes him a questionable amount of time before he realises suddenly that Remus is waiting for him to answer. What the fuck is he supposed to say to that? He thinks incredulously to himself and he nearly says it out loud before remembering Remus could probably crush him with one hand and thinks better of it. After a quick calculation of the likelihood of him not getting decked by Remus for each obvious answer he could say, he decides that as he’s already said it, he might as well own it.
“Yes,” He replies simply, a dangerous smirk dancing across his lips. Remus stares at him long enough that his smile almost falters because what if he actually does attack him? He has James, but he has a strong feeling that Remus could take on both of them easily. Shit, is he actually about to get beaten up because he can’t keep his fucking mouth shut? The fear rising uneasily in his chest must reflect onto his face as Remus, without any warning at all, bursts out laughing, and not psychotic evil laughter, thankfully, but genuine laughter as if someone has told a hilarious joke, all smiles and knee-slaps. Sirius lets out a nervous chuckle, quite unsure on what’s even going on anymore.
“You and my mother just flirted!” Remus manages to choke out, this time in between roaring barks of laughter. Oh, Sirius thinks, I told the hilarious joke. An uncontrollable smile blossoms on his own lips at the glorious sound of Remus’ pure, hysterical, joy and he chooses to just go along with it, shooting him a mischievous wink.
“What can I say, she’s a lovely lady,” He says innocently, gesturing his arms out to really emphasise his point. The others begin to laugh as well and before long they all settle back into lively conversation as they finish their food. They mostly talk amusedly about the rather dramatic series of events that have just occurred, all laughing loudly as Sirius admits sheepishly that he had originally thought Remus was going to fight him, Remus himself looking quite startled by this revelation.
“Oh come on, don’t look so shocked when you have all–” He waves his hand around Remus’ chest area, not exactly wanting to say ‘all these unusually big muscles that you could for sure use to crush me with’ in case it somehow offends him. Remus glances down to the area where Sirius is pointing at and back up again, a confused frown knitting his eyebrows together.
“Have all what?” He asks, seeming genuinely perplexed by what Sirius is implying. Sirius turns to James desperately for help, but is only met with raised eyebrows and an unhelpful smile.
“Go on, I want to hear this, what does Remus have?” James adds, just because that’s exactly what Sirius needs right now, whilst leaning backwards against the bar behind him and folding his arms across his chest, serving him an accusatory look. As if that wasn’t enough, he even swings his head around to Remus and leans in to squint at his clearly defined chest hugged by his t-shirt that must be too tight, now Sirius really thinks about it, only to surface with a confused frown of his own Sirius is well aware is only there to mock him. He huffs exasperatedly and only just resists the urge to cover his face with his hands as he’s forced to finish his previous sentence.
“With all your big muscles,” He mumbles miserably to the table in front of him and winces at how silly it sounds out loud. Lily snorts like she can’t help herself and quickly covers her mouth with her palm and whispers a muffled apology before continuing to snigger into her hand which only makes Sirius’ current need for the ground to swallow him up stronger. No longer being able to take not looking, he forces his eyes up to meet Remus’ who looks genuinely taken by surprise. Literally what else did he think that Sirius was referring to? Sirius thinks, frustrated, internally begging for someone to speak or even laugh at him again because honestly anything’s better than the rather humiliating silence he’s finding himself engulfed in right now.
“Oh,” Is the best thing Remus seems to find to say. Out of the vast variety of all the words the English language has to offer, ‘oh’ is apparently the one Remus settles with. A couple excruciating seconds pass before he speaks again. “..Thank you?” His voice goes high at the end of his sentence as if it’s a question and everyone laughs, except Sirius who just bangs his head on the table next to him repeatedly in shame, this time not caring how many strange looks he may get. Afterwards, he begins to laugh too—it’s either that or cry and he’s definitely done enough of that today—and, in that moment, he realises this is possibly the happiest he’s felt in months and he’s just sat around with a bunch of strangers who really aren’t all that strange with a home-cooked meal and as far away from citylife as he could possibly get. Don’t get him wrong, he loves his job, being a popstar is his dream, but if he’s being really honest with himself, recently it’s been turning into his nightmare, and there’s nothing that scares him more than that thought. Except for maybe the thought of losing James and even all these other brilliant people he’s befriended today, because though he didn’t realise it before, his life was truly empty before he met them and he knows this is true because he feels so complete now that he has.