home isn't always a place
James
“Yes it is,”
“No it isn’t,”
“Yes it is,”
“No it isn’t!”
And so on.
This is how James’ conversation—well, it’s more of an argument—with Sirius has gone on for the past ten minutes. Of course he knows it’s childish, but he is very confident watching the football and checking his own team’s stats on Sirius’ phone is far more important than Sirius checking his monthly listeners number for his music, which he does everyday anyway.
“You can literally check it anytime, football is only on now!” James exclaims through gritted teeth, making another pitiful attempt to snatch Sirius’ phone from where he is holding it just out of reach.
“Football is on all the time!” Sirius counters, laughing as his hand misses the phone for the third time in a row. He lets out a frustrated growl which only encourages Sirius to laugh harder. “Mate, seriously just watch it on your own phone!” He says eventually, despite clearly enjoying taunting him.
“It’s charging, you asshole, which is why I need yours,” He replies exasperatedly, his irritation now leaking into his tone. This is all very unfair, in his opinion. The Slytherin Snakes are playing against Durmstrang today and he absolutely needs to analyse their performance, seeing as his own team has famously been rivals with theirs for about as long as anyone can remember. Sirius sighs after a minute of considering this, and makes a point to roll his eyes as he reluctantly hands his phone over to James.
“Footballers these days,” Sirius mutters under his breath, folding his arms as he peers over James’ shoulder, watching as he swipes happily onto the Snakes’ website.
“Wait,” Remus calls out from across the room, drawing his and Sirius’ attention, their heads lifting simultaneously to see Remus staring back at them with his eyes wide.
“You're a footballer?” He asks, apparently unable to keep the surprise out of his tone, his gaze fixated on James. Marlene’s head snaps up.
“Yeah, I play for Gryffindor,” He replies simply, feeling on his face the bright smile he’s been told creeps across his lips whenever he talks about his team or really just football in general. Marlene gasps loudly and he swings his head around to see her eyes have turned wild.
“You’re the captain!” She all but shouts, scrambling to her feet at once, looking as though she’s just had the absolute shock of her life. James can’t help but let out a slightly disbelieving chuckle that just his presence alone can cause reactions like these. In his head, he’s just an ordinary guy, and he is, except the fans he occasionally runs into never seem to think so. It leaves him in a sort of dazed trance of amazement after meeting someone who clearly idolises him in such a way that he can’t comprehend, because, of course, he’s just him. He’s just James Potter. Though, to some people, that name means something significant, something big. In his chest something like pride swells whenever he finds himself thinking about it.
“I am,” He grins, and Marlene bounces up and down on the spot excitedly, her mouth wide open like she desperately wants to say something but doesn’t quite know what.
“Our little footballer,” Sirius coos in a childish voice from beside him and ruffles James’ hair roughly, pushing it all into his eyes. He bats Sirius’ hand away from his face grumpily before he can pinch his cheeks— because he’s regrettably been in this position enough times before to know exactly what happens next. A few seconds later the two of them are wrestling as best as they can without falling off the sofa they’ve found themselves on since dinner, though of course not without spewing ridiculous insults at one another through gritted teeth and fleeting, juvenile attempts to cover each other’s mouths.
“At least I don’t make noises with my mouth for a living!” James manages to say before Sirius straight-up attacks him, pounding his fists down onto his chest over and over until James decides he’s had enough and shoves him against the sofa arm, doing the same back to him except harder.
“No, you play with balls,” Sirius replies steadily, his lips twitching. James squawks loudly, falling backwards in surprise, his eyes growing wide. Someone from across the room who he strongly suspects is Mary cackles at this, being immediately followed by a deeper voice that can only belong to Remus barking out a strong laugh that makes the scarlet tint James knows is colouring his cheeks grow a few shades darker. Embarrassed, he shifts his gaze and has to force himself to watch a proud smirk unfold onto Sirius’ mouth as he stares down at him smugly, having unofficially won their fight. Actually, being aware that he’s quite largely competitive, James decides he much prefers being laughed at over this. He huffs and looks away sulkily, about to turn his attention back to the extensive list of players for the Snakes’ displayed across Sirius’ phone screen when the sound of his name being mentioned grabs it instead.
“Okay, can we just circle back to how on earth didn’t you recognise James, Marlene?” Dorcas asks incredulously, her eyebrows wrinkled in a bemused frown.
“In my defence, he doesn’t have those glasses on when he’s playing and he’s normally in a football kit!” Marlene snaps, gesturing over to where James is listening in, rather entertained. Dorcas arches a single eyebrow accusingly and all the fight visibly seeps out of Marlene’s body.
She just sighs and covers her face with her hands, shaking her head from side to side with shame. After a solid minute of silence it becomes apparent that this is all Dorcas will be getting out of her for the time being and so she swivels her body around in her chair to face James, leaning in slightly closer to him like she’s about to tell a secret. “She literally watches all of the Lions’ games, she never ever misses one and she owns more Gryffindor football memorabilia shit than I could even count!” She explains with an amused smirk and Marlene only shakes her head even more vigorously and James can’t help but be slightly concerned that she’ll give herself some sort of brain damage if she carries on as she is.
“I even have a mug with your face on it,” Marlene says eventually, her voice muffled by the fingers planted firmly on her face, like she can’t even bear to look at James—or Dorcas. Sirius’ blaring howl of a laugh sounds out from next to him and James has a feeling that the next time he visits Sirius’ apartment a horrendous mug with his face stretched across it will be awaiting him. James merely raises his eyebrows, trying his absolute best not to laugh in a sudden moment of pity for Marlene, the poor girl. Unfortunately, he fails. His shoulders shake in a fit of laughter he attempts to disguise as a coughing one instead, failing rather badly at that too. He’s not too sure why he finds it so funny—he’s regrettably seen many bad products with his face plastered on the front in his time, mostly courtesy of Sirius—but, in his defence, his day has been very strange and at this point that’s reason enough for any abnormal emotional outbursts that he may have. Luckily, Marlene’s attention seems to be currently preoccupied with intensely glaring at Dorcas, who is practically on the verge of hysteria as she swipes tears of mirth out from under her eyes, nodding her head to confirm that this mug is, indeed, real. Marlene’s hands lower from her face though only to be put to the far more practical use of sticking rather rude gestures up at James and Dorcas in a pointless attempt to shut them both up, only to slump her shoulders in defeat when she realises that’s definitely not going to happen any time soon.
“I will be buying one,” Sirius declares several minutes later, once everyone has just about sobered up. Marlene is sitting grumpily with her arms crossed against her chest, shooting daggers up at Lily every ten seconds when another giggle escapes from her mouth.
“I’m sure you will,” James responds drily because he knows from experience that Sirius is absolutely not joking about this. Sirius winks at him and James decides that’s his cue to go back to the phone that’s still gripped in his hand and finally continue checking out how his rival team is doing against Durmstrang—losing, hopefully. He swipes onto the screen that will give him his answer, silently praying on the Snakes’ downfall out of basic second nature and then groaning internally when he sees the current score. Not losing. Definitely not losing.
The Snakes’ are a good team—great, even. And although every fibre of his being despises the idea, and he would never admit it aloud, he quietly thinks to himself that they might even be better than the Gryffindor Lions’. They are neck-and-neck in the league right now, and have been for years, always facing off in the final together, always competing with the same amount of fierceness and passion. An odd result of this is that James, being the captain of his team, is constantly pit against and compared to the Snakes’ captain, Tom Riddle. James absolutely cannot stand the man—and it’s not even because of their ‘epic rivalry'—that’s mostly just media bullshit—it’s because he’s genuinely the most insane person he’s ever met in his entire life. Tom Riddle is a whole experience that comes with the additional package deal of contemplating all your life choices and the sudden realisation that you’ve just been manipulated, threatened and pyschoanalysed all in the span of a two minute conversation. It’s a great bargain, if you are looking to come away confused and scared, and then even more confused on why you feel scared in the first place. Tom Riddle in general just makes James’ head hurt a truly excessive amount and so he makes the executive decision to not waste any more brain power thinking about him.
The low hum of lazy conversation drifts in and out of his ears as a steady background noise for what could really only be classified as work as he scrutinises the football match playing out in front of him. Zooming in and replaying certain moments, he subconsciously takes note in his brain on who’s favouring which foot and what tactics are being used where, the memories hopefully proving themselves useful when his team next plays one of theirs. It helps him feel more at ease about sharing a pitch with a bunch of people who are completely happy to snap some ankles just to get a shot at a goal if he has a few of their weaknesses down and ready to use against them, seeing as he’s not really one to condone the use of violence back at them. Unless completely, absolutely necessary, of course. He yawns as the game comes to a close, watching the screen fade to black on Slytherin celebrating their respectful win of 5-3 and Durmstrang’s sullen faces as they reluctantly shake hands with the opposing team, eyebrows all creased into matching sour scowls. James can’t help but feel sorry for them, despite technically being their competition. He’s, unfortunately, experienced the wrath of the Snakes’ behaviour after a win—absolutely insufferable. He too was frowning when being spat on and shoved around by a group of sweaty, bulky, overall toxic men whilst the referee just stood there, apparently gone spontaneously blind and deaf with his head turned in the complete opposite direction to James. Rather convenient, if you ask him. That particular match is a fond memory of his, though, despite all of that, and one he revisits often. When he left the changing room that evening, drained emotionally and physically after losing a game which he was so very confident he was going to win, all he wanted to do was to go home to his bed and hopefully Regulus, using the motivation of those two things to at least survive the short journey to his car without just collapsing onto the ground with sheer exhaustion. So when he glanced up and saw Regulus casually leaning against a wall waiting for him with a small, stupid smile on his face, it absolutely made not just his day, but his entire year. That was the first ever one of his professional matches Regulus had gone to, and certainly not the last. Honestly, he thinks he nearly cried with happiness when he let his duffel bag slip off of his shoulder and onto the floor as he launched himself into Regulus’ arms, not even bothering to check if anyone was around to see. He wasn’t looking for Sirius, no, but just people in general.
James is the current poster-boy for British male football, and he was well on his way to the title at the time of that match, which a select few might call ridiculous due to the colour of his skin because it strongly suggests that he isn’t actually British himself. This is not entirely true. His parents’ whimsical love story is very long and dramatic and involves a lot of crossing vast oceans in the good name of romance, but to put it simply, he’s half Brazilian and half Indian. The thing is, James was born and raised here, in England, exactly like every single other person who is criticising his ability to do his job based on his appearance. Exactly like every single other footballer that he gets frequently told deserves his fame more than him for the lone reason that they ‘look more British’ because, yes, he’s actually had someone say that to him before. More than once. By multiple people, even. So, he assumes that if he gets shit from all the racists of the football community, he’ll probably get three times the amount from the homophobes if the world were to find out that, he, James Potter, is dating a boy. He’s spent hours staring at his ceiling at night, hopelessly wishing he had a life where he could be with Regulus and not have to hide from anyone at all. The idea seems so far-fetched from his reality that he finds it hard to believe that he really could obtain it if he tried. When he sees couples being all affectionate in public without a single care in the world, jealousy eats away at the happiness he’s supposed to feel for those who he’s watching with a forced smile and skin green with envy. Admittedly, he could come out. After all, he’s done it once before to Sirius. But. The prospect of coming out publicly, as much as he wants it, scares the shit out of him. He could lose his career, his team, his friends. He’s got far too much on the line for it all to disappear just because he decided to reveal the part of himself that he’s perfectly fine hiding.
He thinks back to earlier when Marlene had put him on the spot with her rather invasive question about his ‘someone special’. It certainly caught him off-guard, to say the least. He half expected Sirius to swoop in and save him but really, deep down, he knows that Sirius was as keen for his answer as everyone else in that room. If he can’t even admit that he likes boys in a room full of queer people then how on earth will he do it to a world of straight ones? He contemplates it all far too often to be healthy; constantly going around in circles with himself, never finding a way out of the loop of arguments and reasoning that replay in his mind like a broken record. It’s all not very fair on Regulus, he knows this, but if he manages to tug back the veil of guilt that wraps itself around his thoughts, he can quietly admit that it doesn’t really seem like Regulus minds all that much, but this leads back to the burning question of is he just pretending to be fine about it so as to not make James feel bad? Another circle.
There have been so few gay male footballers that he’s genuinely unsure of what would even happen if he just announced to the world that he’s dating a boy on a random Tuesday. Would he get suspended from the team? Would he still be respected by other players? Would he still be captain? The worst part of having so many of these questions is that there really is only one way to find out, and he’s not totally sure if he wants to. He’s done his research, of course. Through his late night Wikipedia explorations he’s found out, much to his shock and maybe even horror, that there have only been four male English players to be outwardly gay ever. Five in the United Kingdom. Seven in the entire world. Those numbers are quite intimidating, indeed. He knows he shouldn’t care, he knows he should just do what he wants because it’s his life, not anyone else’s and he should get to live it being his true, authentic self. He knows he shouldn’t care but he does because football is his life and all he’s ever wanted to do and if continuing to play it means not being able to be his true, authentic self, then that’s the price he has to pay. Hiding isn’t hard for him anyway, not anymore, not when it’s all he ever does. He’s grown so used to it now, the idea of doing anything else fills him with an uneasiness that certainly isn’t normal. Jesus, he thinks to himself, how fucked up am I? Living a life full of lies. It’s eating away at him and his sanity, but James desperately wants to keep both of those things—he doesn’t want to lie, never has. It’s at that moment when he decides in a rather spontaneous epiphany that he’s absolutely finished with hiding the truth, hiding himself. Yes, he’s told himself this before countless times but this time he really means it, whole-heartedly. He will be telling Sirius everything the very moment they get back home, not leaving a second to spare. His parents, too. It will be difficult and emotional and just overall painful but he believes it will be so worth it to have this crushing weight finally lifted off his shoulders after years of carrying it. About coming out to the rest of the world, he needs a bit more time to think about that yet. More time to mentally prepare himself for all the nightmarish outcomes that are very real and could very well happen to him as a result of it. For now, he’s just proud of himself for achieving the big, in his opinion, milestone of genuinely deciding to come clean to Sirius, this time without the lingering fear and excuses that always seem to be lurking in the back of his mind, corrupting his plans. Instead, he feels strangely excited at the possibility of being able to actually be honest about where he was on the weekend and why he is acting ‘weird’ when Sirius randomly comes over and Regulus is literally hiding under his bed in the other room.
He glances up to where Sirius is smiling at something Remus is saying, a new twinkle in his eyes James swears he has never seen before. It’s a beautiful sight, and one James hopes he will get to see more often now that Remus is in the picture, because James has an inkling he’ll be staying for a while. He lifts his hand to his mouth as he yawns again, scrubbing the tiredness out of his eyes. Next to him, he hears Sirius yawn a second later, his shoulders shaking against James’ with the sheer force of it; a chain-reaction soon sets off of everyone around them doing the same, one after another in some sort of cycle until Dorcas apparently decides she’s going to do something about it.
“Can we go to sleep now? I’m so tired and I hear you lot yawning,” Silence falls for a beat before Remus nods and stands up, rubbing at his face as he looks half-heartedly around the room for the bags of supplies Lily had brought with her earlier. James gets to his feet too, though he quickly realises he’s unsure on what he’s really meant to do next when he’s just left waiting idly for further instructions from Remus, helplessly watching him check behind wooden tables and cushy chairs. Along with everyone else around him, he slowly gravitates towards the bags Remus conveniently located about half a second after James had gotten onto his hands and knees in his own attempt to be of use and help him search. Remus, Dorcas and Mary all stand neatly arranged in a line, seeming like they have some sort of plan of action they must have discussed earlier, handing out various objects with clear directions to particular people out of the small group huddled around them with lazy waves of their hands and small, determined nods to each other. It’s more of a mission than a couple of drained young adults trying to turn a coffee shop into a suitable place for seven people to spend the night in. At least they’re not drunk, James thinks positively as he shuffles restlessly behind Sirius in the make-shift queue they’ve found themselves at the end of. If someone had brung alcohol he probably would’ve downed a whole bottle after he caught his first glance of those new paparazzi photos of him and Sirius from today. The painful image of their raw, stricken faces lingers a little longer in his mind before he shakes it away, deciding he’d rather not think about that right now—or ever.
James moves forward along with the queue until he’s stood directly in front of Mary, grinning at her expectantly as she rummages through a distinctly large and bulky bag resting by her feet before resurfacing with several heavy looking sleeping bags. She releases them into James’ outstretched arms so suddenly that he has to bend his legs to support the sheer weight of them and a slightly humiliating noise of surprise escapes his mouth before he can catch it. Straightening up with a triumphant smile, he turns away to place the sleeping bags wherever Mary said she wanted them when a sharp tug on his arm stops him in his tracks. Mary shoots him an unimpressed look before tilting herself onto her tiptoes to stack even more bags on top of the mountainous pile in his arms that is now blocking his vision with its height. He groans, his knees threatening to buckle under the weight before he quickly shifts his own, making his way blindly over to what is hopefully where he’s supposed to lay them all down. Fuck, he could have made multiple trips but no of course Mary insisted he had to carry them all at once. He must be holding, what, fifteen sleeping bags? Sixteen? There are definitely not sixteen people here. He feels himself bump straight into what can only be a person, though he has not a clue who, and mumbles a muffled apology before reversing and attempting a different direction. Feeling that he’s in the right place, he lets his hands fall to his sides and watches blankly as the cascade of bags come tumbling onto the ground before him. He inhales a large gulp of the cool air around him, only now realising how much of a struggle it was to breathe with a neon pink ball of fabric pressing against his mouth and nose. Running a swift hand through his curls, too far gone to care about messing them up, he stares down at the mess he’s created and scans the room for some sort of sign from the universe on what his next step should be. When he finds nothing but the apparently organised chaos unfolding around him, he decides he needs to take matters into his own hands.
“How do you want all of these?” He calls out aimlessly, just strongly hoping someone will answer. Remus, who was already striding past him in that very purposeful way he does, turns his head and halts, joining James in the surveying of the mournful sight he’s created of painstakingly bright blocks of material littered all across the floor and various decorations that were once arranged carefully on surfaces now knocked over onto the ground with them. Remus looks silently to the bags, to James and back to the bags again before just walking away without saying a word. Well then. That was helpful. Sighing deeply to himself, he falls onto his hands and knees for the second time in the past ten minutes and shoves, as best as he can, the bags into a wobbly sort of pile before just sinking down onto his back completely, gazing up at the ceiling with his only thought being that he might just hate sleeping bags more than Tom Riddle—and that, that is saying something. His eyes flutter shut and for a fleeting moment he imagines that he’s back in his house and Regulus' familiar warm body is curled up against his, or that he’s sixteen again and laying on the astronomy tower balcony at school. Watching the stars with his very own right beside him, pointing up at the night sky and naming constellations whilst he listens ever so carefully because back then his only worry was whether he could remember all the little astronomy facts Regulus would occasionally whisper in his ear. Admittedly, he never really stopped worrying about that, even now making an effort to memorise each and every piece of celestial knowledge Regulus still spontaneously shares with him, sometimes reciting a few of the oldest aloud to himself when he’s alone as to make sure he won't forget them, not that he thinks he even could, but, better to be safe than sorry.
After allowing himself a minute more of daydreaming, he realises with an internal groan that he should probably sort out the sleeping bags and tidy up the mess he’s regrettably made before Remus starts to get agitated at the state of his shop. James is more than slightly afraid of Remus’ apparent strength, though he admittedly has a bit of muscle on himself, he’s starkly aware that Remus could most definitely beat the absolute shit out of him without using too much effort at all—and those scars. James wanders idly whether they are from lots of fighting or something super cool like ninja training for a secret spy agency. He desperately wants to ask, but even he knows it’s intrusive and might come off as rude, when really he’s just genuinely curious. They certainly aren’t ugly, in fact James thinks they look rather enticing, and he definitely would tell Remus this but he fears it might sound a bit odd if he just randomly bursts out with something like ‘Remus, just in case you were insecure about your scars, you definitely shouldn’t be because they really do look very attractive on you, not in a weird way of course, but I just thought I’d let you know,’ He has a strong feeling if he actually said all of that Remus really would beat the shit out of him, and honestly he wouldn’t blame him.
James really likes Remus, not romantically obviously, though something about him makes James feel inexplicably drawn to him and just overall really intrigued by his existence. He’s only ever felt like this on three separate occasions before. One, of course, was with Sirius when they happened to sit next to each other on the lengthy train ride to their boarding school as scared little first years over a decade ago. Second was when he first ever properly spoke to Regulus towards the end of fourth year after he had accidentally bumped into him whilst walking backwards in the school library, engrossed in a book on the history of football. Finally, the third was the most recent, being a lad called Peter who recently joined the Lions’ about a month ago and ever since the day the two of them met, they’ve been constantly chatting at training and joking around in a way James is pretty sure only close friends do. They have yet to meet up outside of the Gryffindor training grounds, but James is damn near confident that Sirius would get along brilliantly with Peter and so he is toying with the idea of inviting them both out for a drink soon to see how it goes—and because he hasn’t had a night out in a while and is currently looking for any excuse to have one. And so, James finds himself undoubtedly wanting to be friends with Remus, even if it does sound a bit pathetic when he puts it that way, but he’s very sure, from experience, that this feeling he gets is never wrong about people.
He feels the air shift in the space around him and the unmistakable sweet scent of Sirius’ perfume tickles the inside of his nose. James is quite sure the perfume brand’s target audience was decidedly not bad-boy rockstar Sirius Black rather than teenage girls or older women but Sirius claims it’s better than any cologne will ever be and if he’s being honest, James can’t say he disagrees. He opens his eyes, squinting as he adjusts to the vibrant break-room lighting glaring down at him and rolls onto his side. Just as he suspected, Sirius is lying right there next to him, as always, staring across at him with his stupid grin and soft eyes that will have ghosts of previous tears forever haunting them. James imagines that every time he sees Sirius cry, a little crack forms in his heart, nearly breaking it in two, because that’s certainly what it felt like today. James never wants to have to feel like that again, for Sirius to ever feel like that again, which, in true best friend second nature, means trying his best to ensure that Sirius never really feels upset again. To be honest, he’s been taking it upon himself to do that very thing ever since they first met, dedicated as if he’s getting paid for it because it genuinely fucking pains James to see him as anything other than happy. Recently he’s been failing at his job rather drastically though, evidently. And since he just can’t be having that, James decides he’s going to fix the problem by putting in extra effort that he hadn’t been before and admittedly should have to the very worthwhile cause of Sirius being just perpetually full of joy. He’s aware it’s a technically impossible thing to do but he can at least attempt absolutely everything in his power to make Sirius feel happy most of the time, to stop him from being sad. That, he knows he can do.
The two of them don’t speak—they don’t need to when they’ve known each other as long as they have. The history of their friendship doesn’t need to be explained when you can see it in every glance that they share. When he looks at Sirius he can see a glimpse of his past self staring back at him, whether that past self is from three years ago or nine, he helped mould the person who he is today—and for that he is forever grateful to Sirius.
He lets out a loud yelp as a painful, sharp jab suddenly brings itself into his side. He slowly sits up, rubbing at his stomach as his head swings around the room, searching for whatever, or whoever did this to him. His gaze finds Sirius staring at him like he’s crazy before it spots Mary standing directly behind him with her hands on her hips and a disapproving stern look etched across her face that is switching between focusing on him and then Sirius. He flinches as he tilts his chin up to see her literally standing over him, and then flinches again at the expression on her face that reminds him an awful lot of the teachers back at school who spent hours shouting at him for the various mischief he got up to over the years. Almost forgetting himself, he nearly apologises to her, before remembering she kicked him and that he’s not fifteen again sitting in his Headmaster’s office.
“Did you just kick me?” He asks incredulously, matching the confidence she seems to carry around with her wherever she goes. Mary’s lips twitch.
“Are you just lying on the floor doing nothing?” She counters, staring at the two of them expectantly. It takes James a few moments of silence to realise she is genuinely expecting an answer from them.
“No..?” He tries hesitantly, wincing at how Mary’s change in expression is the one to tell him that that was the wrong thing to say.
“Yes,” Mary corrects sharply, frowning down at him like she just can’t believe she’s talking to someone this stupid. She rolls her eyes. “Just get up and start actually helping—like, lay out all of those sleeping bags so we can all actually have somewhere to sleep tonight, okay? Thank you,” She doesn’t bother waiting for a response from them and James watches her sashay away to somewhere else in the room, leaving him wondering idly to himself whether she’s aiming to be Prime Minister by the time she’s thirty. She certainly has the right attitude. Next to him, Sirius gets to his feet and tugs James up with him, stopping his train of thought in its tracks. Sirius sighs, combs a swift hand through his long hair and runs his eyes over The Great Sleeping Bag Tornado Of 2024 as James’ mind has now dubbed it.
“Literally what part of you thought it was okay to do this?” Sirius asks as he visibly struggles with a sleeping bag of a particularly unpleasant shade of neon green.
“Don’t ask me, I don’t fucking know,” James grumbles as he lowers himself onto his hands and knees for the third time in the past half an hour, which is just taking the piss if you ask him. Plus, to make matters even better, he’s stuck wearing too-small fluffy disney princess pyjamas for the next twelve hours or so. Can this day get any stranger? No, he doesn’t think so.
Three near mental breakdowns, five arguments and precisely twenty minutes later, Sirius and James have somehow finished laying out every single sleeping bag they were given, which is a truly excessive amount for seven people to use.
“I’m never doing that again,” Sirius declares rather dramatically as he drops down onto the soft pile of fabric that catches his fall.
“Ever,” James agrees with a humourless laugh and just as he’s about to do the same, he feels the air change of someone stopping behind him, yet again. He turns around to see Lily standing there with an innocent smile beaming across her face.
“Guess I over-packed, huh?” She says, tilting her head to the side. James scoffs and throws his hands up in the air, gearing up to go on one of his infamous rants when she walks away just in time to miss his infamous gearing up ‘Oh no, you didn’t!’, giggling into her hand in a way James finds absolutely outrageous after causing him such immense pain over a piece of fucking camping equipment.
“Ridiculous,” He mumbles under his breath as he envelopes himself under a bright red quilt that seems to have taken his liking and flutters his eyes shut, simply not caring at all about the overly-intense lighting overhead, nor the shouting coming from somewhere else in the room or even the fact that it’s only nine pm. He’s had a long day—emotionally and physically. Before he dozes off to sleep, James’ mind drifts away to the prospect of seeing Regulus tomorrow. Honestly he can’t wait, yet his earlier, rather difficult conversation with Reg niggles at his brain restlessly, keeping it awake and whirring with all his stupid worries that Regulus will just decide overnight that a liar like James isn’t worthy of someone like him. James wouldn’t blame him. Another recurring fear of his predictably makes its way into his head to join the other ones already lurking up there, when all he really wants is to go to fucking sleep. Tomorrow, Sirius might come to the conclusion that a liar like James doesn’t deserve someone like him too after James tells him everything because he absolutely will be. Truthfully, his confidence and optimism from earlier now seemingly having worn off, the idea makes him feel a little like screaming or being sick. Maybe both, actually. Certainly not for the first time, James wishes he could just have a life where he wouldn’t have to hide such a huge part of himself, or Regulus, away from anyone at all. Regulus doesn't deserve to be hidden away. At all. One day, he tries to reassure himself and yet somewhere deep down he knows ‘one day’ might not ever come. Not quite an empty promise, but not quite one he’s absolutely sure he can keep either, no matter how hard he’ll try or how much he desperately wants it. His brain hurts. Or maybe it’s only the harsh truth that is actually paining him. James turns over and buries himself tightly under his covers, like maybe he can suffocate the thoughts out of his own head if he tries hard enough. It doesn’t work. Out of desperation, he forces his mind back on Regulus again and that’s how he ends up falling asleep to the memorised phantom feeling of the rise and fall of Reg’s breathing with his chest pressed against his own.
Home.
* * *
Sirius
Sirius fondly watches James hug the plush quilt wrapped around him, his face released of all the tension and worries it must normally carry during the day as he falls deeply into a probably much needed slumber. They shared a room in boarding school for six years and then a house for three, meaning this is not an unusual sight for Sirius, though since adulthood got in the way, it’s strangely turned into the feeling of nostalgia more than familiarity for him. Someone laughs loudly at the other end of the room, rudely interrupting his sudden mourning for the freedom of his teenage years, and Sirius takes that as his cue to stop acting like a creep – staring at his friend sleeping like he’s some kind of stalker, and actually go and socialise with someone. Shaking his head and the stupid thoughts inside of it away, he rises to his feet, very carefully and very quietly so as to not wake James. He pads across the room and stops in front of the group of people he’s apparently about to have the most random, strangest and last-minute sleepover he’s ever had with.
Mary, talking to the huddle of them gathered around her about something Sirius can’t quite follow, finishes speaking to hear a rather loud response from the others—loud to him anyway with the profound knowledge that James is trying to go to sleep a mere ten steps away—which Sirius predictably also can’t follow. A few minutes later, after making his possibly sarcastic remark about someone from Mary’s story called Gideon, Remus acknowledges Sirius with a small smile, which Sirius, being the gracious, young gentleman he is, kindly returns before Remus’ face falls into a pit of confusion.
“Where is James?” He asks, eyes darting around the room curiously. Sirius points over to the large unidentifiable red lump of material laying like a mountain amongst the other flat sleeping bags at the same time Remus seems to spot him. Everyone else follows their gazes to where James lies unmoving, almost completely camouflaged within his surroundings.
“Is he asleep?” Mary’s voice naturally changes into a whisper and Sirius nods, an affectionate smile playing on his lips.
“It’s been a long day,” He explains, though he doesn’t really need to. They were all there riding the unstable rollercoaster of emotions the past several hours have been, since the moment he and James stepped, or fell, rather, through the front door. A low tide of murmured agreement ripples out in reply to this before falling into comfortable silence as they all turn to watch James as much as they can with his body almost wholly submerged under his duvet in his most peaceful state possible. Suddenly, sleep sounds pretty good. Remus must have been thinking the same thing as he stretches his arms out and yawns once again, reflecting the new mood of the room pretty well as they all seem to simultaneously realise just how tired they truly are. Mary turns to Lily, a playful smirk appearing onto her face.
“Can I see my pyjamas now?” She asks, still whispering but this time with her eyes twinkling a child-like hope. Lily lets out a small gasp as if she’d completely forgotten about them until now. The group of them watch anticipatedly as she hurries over to the now-much-less-full bag of ‘sleepover supplies’, as Mary and Marlene had dubbed it much earlier in the evening, and rummages through it for a good thirty seconds before resurfacing with a fistful of delicate material. Lily hands the clothes over to Mary, waiting patiently as she unfolds them carefully. What Sirius first sees is a hot pink t-shirt with a rhinestone crown encrusted across the front along with flowy cursive writing below it that reads ‘In a world full of witches, be a princess!’. Inspirational, Sirius thinks to himself amusedly before he eyes the matching glittery shorts that Mary is clutching in her other hand. Truthfully, he would much prefer her sparkly, giving-off-intense-Barbie-vibes pyjama set over his own fucking ill-fitting disney princess ones. Genuinely, he would wear them— and he would rock them, you simply can’t convince him otherwise. In fact, he’s halfway through persuading himself on asking Mary to swap with him when one of Marlene’s infamous too-loud cackles ring out in his ear next to him, causing him to physically flinch in shock and curse under his breath after, shaking his head in disapproval. Mary laughs too, though considerably quieter, presumably for the benefit of poor James, who if Marlene’s monstrosity of a noise didn’t wake him up, then Sirius honestly doesn’t know what will. His eyes drift over to Mary’s new pyjamas again, back to his own and then to Dorcas, Marlene and Remus’ strewn about across various surfaces in the room.
“Where the hell did you even go to find all these pyjamas?” Sirius asks incredulously before he can stop himself and everyone just bursts out laughing in response. Not quite the reaction he was expecting, to say the least. Well, okay then, he thinks to himself, feeling a slight twinge of annoyance at his seemingly constant lack of understanding.
“The only clothes shop in a thirty mile radius,” Dorcas eventually answers after about a minute filled with desperate attempts to stifle her giggles at James’ expense. Sirius frowns. Apparently in the past twelve years he’s spent living in central London, practically suffocating in fashion retail and concrete everywhere he steps, he’s forgotten what it felt like to grow up in the picturesque countryside of France, with literally nothing but surrounding fields stretching out from his house for what felt like eternity as a child but in reality was probably only an hour or so. A tangle of strange, uneasy feelings settle in his stomach as he thinks of how he seems to be more accustomed to this bustling city life than his old one. It’s been over a decade since he moved and somewhere along the way from then until now he subconsciously stopped calling his hometown his home and his new life just became his normal one. He can’t place why that makes him feel so weirdly ashamed of himself, a small part of him longs to go back to France, where he truly belongs, but another larger, dominant part of himself feels so connected and tied down to England—by his job, his friends, James, Regulus—he truly belongs with them . And suddenly the divided parts of him are sides and the sides are sides of a war fighting a constant conflict inside of him that he feels won’t ever settle, no matter how many corners of the Earth he crosses or however many years older he grows. Therefore, when Dorcas casually mentions that there is only one, single clothes store in a thirty mile radius from this coffee shop, it throws Sirius into some sort of mini existential crisis.
“What do you mean?” Is the only functional thing Sirius’ brain can come up with to say whilst currently preoccupied with rethinking his life choices.
“We mean that we have to catch an hour and a half train ride to just buy clothes from somewhere that hasn’t got the most questionable outfit selection you’ve ever seen and owned by an absolute lunatic,” Remus explains with a slight chuckle. Deciding that his French-English crisis can be had another day, and that this conversation sounds a lot more interesting, Sirius directs his full attention on the people around him. Next to him, Lily groans and stamps her feet, her face painted out in disgust.
“I had to face him alone today,” She says mournfully, shaking her head from side to side as if she’s trying to shake the memory out of it.
“Who’s this lunatic you're talking about then?” Sirius asks, curiosity getting the better of him now. His tiredness seems to also be coincidentally getting the better of him as he reaches a lazy hand to his mouth to cover a yawn.
“Argus Filch, proper slimy weirdo he is,” Mary genuinely shudders as she cites his name, much to the rest of their amusement, and Sirius is about to say something about it in response to her when Remus beats him to it.
“Eurgh, enough about that, please, if I think about him for much longer he’ll give me nightmares,” Remus says resolutely, complete with a stern facial expression that’s presumably meant to tell you that he is absolutely not joking about this.
“Talking of nightmares, can we all just actually fucking go to sleep now?” Dorcas cuts in suddenly and earnestly, looking around at them all with a specific, rather scary don’t-even-try-to-argue-with-me glint in her eye, and then proceeding to rub them both to further prove her point. Remus nods his head silently in agreement before crossing the room to grab his own pyjamas and walking straight out the door, all without saying a word. Everyone else seems to take on his influence as they all quite quickly dissipate into doing whatever they need to do in order to get ready for bed. Though Sirius, being the only person already changed—well, except for James, but he doesn’t count—sits down, unsure of what to do with himself and not wanting to go to sleep quite yet, despite how tired he is. He’s never really been one to go to sleep too early, or to even sleep very much at all; for as long as he can remember he’s spent a good part of each night staring up at his bedroom ceiling blankly, lying alone with just his thoughts to entertain him. Not that they are very often entertaining, usually they’re quite depressing, actually, but Sirius doesn’t really want to think too deeply into that right now—he’ll have plenty of time to do that later—hah.
Just as the world comes back into focus from where he seemed to be slightly zoned out for a minute or two, he rather conveniently notices Lily pulling a box of what looks like disposable toothbrushes from her apparently endless bag of supplies. Having nothing better to do—his phone is nowhere to be seen, and though he probably should be worried about that, he’s deemed it Tomorrow Him’s problem—and realising he should do basic hygiene where he can, with no shower nearby, he decides to go and negotiate his way into getting one.
“Lilith, I request your finest toothbrush, please,” Sirius puts on his most charming grin—and he knows it is because he’s been shamelessly practising it in the mirror every night before bed since he was around sixteen years old—and watches as Lily rolls her eyes playfully. She digs her hand around the box for a few seconds as if trying to find a specific one before resurfacing with a toothbrush that looks absolutely identical to all the others.
“My finest toothbrush, kind sir,” She says gleefully and promptly hands it over to him.
“And where, pray tell, would I find a lavatory to use such a tool, fair maiden?”
“Just down the hall, second door on your left”
“Right okay, thank you,” He begins to walk away, toothbrush in hand, disney princess pyjamas on, and lips curling into a small smile when Lily’s voice rings out again.
“Good day, sir,” She calls after him and he spins on his heel to give a swift but deep bow before spinning right back around again to embark on his new, dangerous and dark quest of searching for a bathroom to use Lily’s goddamn finest toothbrush in.
As he pads down the hallway he wonders idly where Remus could have gotten to after he walked out not much earlier and is in the middle of debating with himself on whether he should try and find him when he swings open what Lily had previously told him was the right door for the bathroom. Although it can’t be the right door for the bathroom because standing in front of him is Remus Lupin. Standing in front of him is Remus Lupin wearing nothing but his boxers and tattoos and scars and muscles and muscles and a jaw that is very much dropped. Sirius’ own jaw is very much dropped.
Remus blinks.
Sirius blinks.
Remus blinks again.
Sirius slams the door shut with what is probably excessive force but also is most definitely necessary at this moment and just stares at it. He just stares at it with the knowledge of what—of who—lies right behind it, only a thin piece of rectangle-shaped wood standing in the way of the two of them. Before he can make any stupid decisions, the door handle in front of him begins to turn with an unoiled screech and without a second thought Sirius dives—dives—around the corner of the hallway and lands, rather ungracefully, face-down onto the carpet with a loud thud and a stifled groan. He’s out of sight from Remus, which is a relief since his brain seems to have not quite completed short-circuiting yet, though he can feel some nasty carpet burn settling into his elbows from where he rolled up his sleeves earlier, which is not relieving at all, quite the opposite, actually. Alright, short circuit over. He needs to get a bloody grip, carpet burn is the absolute least of his current problems. Right now he needs to focus on transforming into an inanimate object or just fully fucking invisible so Remus doesn’t feel compelled to come and talk to him about what just happened and the sight that he just saw. Jesus Christ, the sight that he just saw. Scrambling to his feet at the same time as the door clicks open, he peers around the wall he’s cowering behind to watch Remus, now fully-clothed in his new, unfairly normal pyjamas, walk out of the doorway and pause. Sirius holds his breath as Remus swivels his head around from left to right, darting his own head back behind the wall when Remus’ gaze turns in his direction. It’s only then, getting a good view of his face, that Sirius notices the deep crimson flush that has encased Remus’ cheeks and wonders if he has one on himself to match, very suddenly registering the uncomfortably significant rise in his body temperature. Seemingly deciding that Sirius is somehow not in the hallway anymore, Remus makes his way over to the wooden door that leads back into the breakroom and with one final glance over his shoulder, he ducks through it, disappearing completely as it shuts gently behind him.
Freedom, Sirius thinks happily as he runs across to the bathroom, sprinting just in case Remus decides to come back and check for him again, for whatever reason. Wishful thinking, perhaps. Perhaps a part of him wanted Remus to find him. Perhaps this is a thought he should not be having after walking in on the man with next-to-no clothes on not even five minutes earlier. He immediately slides the silver metal bolt on the now-locked-door closed, not making the same mistake Remus did, before turning to grip the edge of the porcelain sink tightly in front of him. He laughs quietly to himself as he raises the toothbrush he still has clutched in his fist, at the absurdity of everything that has happened in the past five minutes, past five hours, past five years. Abruptly feeling quite overwhelmed with just—life, he decides to actually do the thing that he came in here to do in the first place and brush his goddamn teeth. Washing his toothbrush over with water, he quickly realises that he doesn’t even have any toothpaste to use before he even more quickly spots a small, crinkled tube standing alone on the side of the sink. Someone, Remus, must have left it there. Purposefully or by accident is the real question. The question that doesn’t fucking matter, Sirius berates himself, largely irritated by his own thoughts, once again. He drags his eyes to look up at himself in the mirror hung in front of him for the first time since he walked in. An answer to his previous question, yes, his cheeks are very much, very noticeably red, even though it’s literally been a whole seven minutes since the—incident. Agitatedly running a hand through his hair in a poor, desperate attempt to fix it before eventually admitting defeat to the lost cause that is the tangled frizziness of his waves - he refuses to stick his head inside the sink to wet it, though that might have to be a last resort for tomorrow morning before he leaves - he finishes brushing his teeth and wipes his mouth indolently with the back of his palm.
At least he found Remus, Sirius thinks amusedly to himself, trying to make the best of the situation. He washes his hands quickly and heaves a deep sigh, warily watching his reflection watch him in turn. What on God’s green Earth is he going to say to Remus when he is inevitably faced with him again? What are you supposed to say to someone after you’ve walked in on them changing, slammed a door in their face, and then proceeded to go to great measures just to avoid the conversation you are currently having with them? Sirius, for once in his life, would be speechless if Remus was in front of him right now. He opens the bathroom door lazily, and wow the universe seems to really enjoy fucking with him because of course Remus just so happens to actually be in front of him right now. Remus, who was apparently walking past at the perfect goddamn moment, slows his steps and turns to Sirius with wide, cautious eyes. Sirius opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out. Instead, he screws his eyes shut and tells himself over and over like a mantra to say something, say something, say something and yet he still doesn’t. What even is there to really say? An apology from him for walking in on Remus, probably. Yes, that’s a start, and he’ll have to—see where it goes from there. He opens his eyes and winces to see Remus staring back at him with a strange, unreadable expression on his face. That can’t be good. He opens his mouth again, not really knowing what’s about to come out and not really being particularly okay with that and literally just as he’s about to speak and probably royally fuck up him and Remus’ friendship forever, a miracle comes. Sirius has never been religious but this was truly a gift from the Gods above. A saviour sent from the heavens. A huge, deafeningly loud crash sounds out from somewhere else in the building, causing the both of them to recoil backwards with shock; it’s almost immediately followed by several slightly smaller crashes and bangs, until finally completed with a long string of yells and screams and curses after each one. Remus and Sirius meet each other’s alarmed, slightly terrified gazes and pause for about half a second of silent, fearful understanding before they both take off down the hall, running like they never have before, and heading straight towards the chaos they can still hear ensuing now, louder and louder with the closer they get.
They find themselves being led back into the main area of the coffee shop and in Sirius’ case, a rather full-circle moment. Remus’ steps thunder out in front of him—fuck, that man is faster than he looks—and he bursts through the door with such power that Sirius is briefly convinced it’s going to snap clean off of its hinges, yielding a string of curses that makes the moment so absurdly similar to when Remus did the exact same thing not six hours ago—hence, the full circle moment. Except earlier Sirius was on the opposite side of the door and now he’s right there beside Remus, with his own string of curses and door-bursting to match his, making it stronger. There’s something poetic about that in there somewhere. Sirius doesn’t have time to figure out exactly what it is for himself as the sight he stumbles upon after doing his door-bursting is—well. It’s something, alright. Not quite what he was expecting, to say the least, but fuck knows what he was even expecting in the first place. Not this, is the point. To start, there are shards of shattered glass and china littered absolutely everywhere, but Sirius can’t see any windows broken; spilled on the floor are puddles of dark liquid that look and smell strongly like coffee, evidently still scalding if the amount of steam that they’re emitting is anything to go by, and finally there is a very mild fire blazing away in a large plant pot in the corner of the room, which seems like the biggest of everyone’s problems currently. The smoke alarm is wailing awfully, though you can hardly hear it above the incoherent shouts and blaring yells everyone is shooting at each other, including Sirius who is mostly only screaming for the sake of it, and Marlene who seems to just be doing the same as him. After a good few minutes of straining his vocal chords, he decides, staring blankly at the chaos, that he would quite like to know what the hell’s actually going on, in slightly more detail. And so, he takes a step back, surveying the scene, but this time focusing more on the people around him, because he’s guessing that’s where the problem really started.
Mary, now in her glittery pink, rhinestone-encrusted pyjamas that Sirius still has the powerful urge to steal, is standing dangerously close to the still-small-but-oh-shit-it’s-growing fire and is screeching something in Dorcas’ face, flailing her arms about madly whilst Dorcas, also with her pyjamas on, does more or less the same thing back to her, but with less screeching and more swearing. Marlene is running around in circles aimlessly, quite comically like a character out of a cartoon and screaming her head off—just for the sake of it, like Sirius previously thought—though she keeps pausing every few seconds to quickly check on what everyone else is doing before eventually going back to her own thing. Lily has literally just skidded over to Remus through the broken glass, with shoes on, thankfully, and the two of them seem to be coming up with some sort of plan, also thankfully. Sirius shifts his gaze to James who has only now come stumbling through the door, rubbing at his eyes roughly and looking surprised when the mayhem is still there after his hands drop back down to his sides. Allowing himself a moment to laugh at this, before he has to start caring about the fact that the room he is standing in is burning, Sirius throws his head back and cackles, in true Marlene fashion, and then makes his way over to James, carefully side-stepping around the glass. He suddenly very much wishes his princess pyjamas came with matching slippers. He gracefully leaps over a small pool of the—coffee?—landing neatly beside James who seems to be quite freaked out and just really, awfully confused. Sirius has to bite down on his bottom lip to resist the urge to laugh again, afraid he might be kicked out by Lily or someone if he doesn’t start behaving appropriately. James turns to him and gestures a floppy hand out in the general direction of the fire, looking back to Sirius uselessly. When Sirius simply doesn’t say anything, rather enjoying exploiting James’ dazed state, James, rather poorly, attempts to use his words.
“Wh…why? Just–like…how–wh— what?” He eventually blurts out, gesturing his hand out once more, before going back to looking utterly helpless again. Sirius shakes his head solemnly.
“I wish I knew,” He mutters, fighting back a smile at the entertaining insanity of it all.
Thing is, Sirius and Remus weren’t even gone for that long.
“We weren’t even gone for that long!” Remus shrieks, coming up behind him because apparently he’s a fucking mind reader on top of a coffeeshop owner, bodybuilder, rockstar, track runner, chef and God knows what else. Sirius and James spin around to see a maximum-level-of-stressed Remus and an equally-stressed-but-also-very-frazzled-looking Lily communicating with each other frantically. After about two seconds of nonsensical hand-waving and pointing, Lily rushes out of the room and disappears down the hallway, whilst Remus turns his wild eyes onto James and Sirius. “You,” He snaps his fingers in James’ face, “come with me to get the fire extinguisher, and you,” He snaps his fingers at Sirius before pointing them over to where Mary, Dorcas and Marlene are, “get them lot to stop fucking frollicking about and away from the glass and fire,” With that he darts off to, presumably, wherever the fire extinguisher is kept, James in tow, leaving Sirius staring after them blankly.
If it took Lily and Remus that long to come up with the absolutely brilliantly genius idea to just get the bloody fire extinguisher then maybe Sirius is a lot smarter than he previously thought. Exhaling slowly as he eyes the now-spinning-in-circles Marlene, he decides, rather bravely, to try and split up the unfortunately-for-Sirius’-ears-still-screeching problem pair that is Dorcas and Mary. He cracks his knuckles and takes a deep, deep breath, manifesting all the courage and assertiveness and dominance he must have hiding somewhere deep down inside of him before he strides over to them with his chin up and shoulders back; though still artfully avoiding the glass, china, and puddles of supposedly-coffee, obviously. He places himself right beside them, in an attempt to grab their attention, though he, amusedly, just goes unnoticed. Before he risks his life breaking up their fight—just because Remus fucking Lupin told him to—he decides he deserves a minute of just watching the drama unfold, now that he can actually hear what they are saying.
“Yeah, well, at least my hair doesn’t look like a fucking pom-pom,” Dorcas sneers, flicking her eyes up and down Mary judgingly. Mary gasps dramatically.
“Oh no you did not!” She scoffs, reaching and grabbing a handful of Dorcas’ braids and staring intrigued as if she’s inspecting them. After a second she tuts, shaking her head in mock-shame, “Whoever did these did you so dirty that you could go through a car wash twice and still not be clean,” Dorcas gapes.
“You know damn well that you did these braids—”
A solid three more minutes of this and Sirius suddenly realises that their ‘argument’ has literally only been hair-related insults the entire time. He runs a quick hand over his face before thinking to himself that enough is enough.
“Alright, enough is enough!” He yells, voicing his opinion, and somehow louder than the sound of them arguing, the smoke alarm and Marlene’s screaming all put together. “Do you not see the giant fucking flames right beside your heads? Or maybe the broken glass all over the floor?” The two of them fall silent, now focusing on wherever he is angrily pointing around the room instead of each other, “There is a better fucking time and place to argue about your hair! In fact, if you must argue, at least do it where you won’t get burnt to a fucking crisp!” By the time he’s finished speaking, the only sound in the room is the timid beeping of the smoke alarm, and even that seemed to momentarily quieten for him. Marlene had turned to watch mid-rant, no longer screaming nor spinning, and Mary’s grip on Dorcas’ hair had slackened, the braids only now completely falling out of her hand and swinging back to join the others down by Dorcas’ waist. This seems to be the cue for reality to come whooshing back. Mary and Dorcas immediately burst into a fit of laughter which Sirius really should have anticipated, in retrospect, though they do at least follow his orders and walk over to the only clean and unaffected by whatever the hell happened here, which he still doesn’t know, end of the room, Marlene following closely behind them whilst also giggling away into her hand. Well, a win is a goddamn win, and nobody can take that away from Sirius—nobody.
Just as he begins to sigh happily to himself, feeling rather proud and about the calmest he’s been in nearly an hour, the unmistakable noise of James’ shrieking comes hurtling down the hallway. Can’t get a single moment of peace around here, Sirius thinks agitatedly to himself before turning and seeing, sure enough, James and Remus together yielding a large, heavy looking, bright red fire extinguisher, Lily on their heels, running as fast as they possibly can whilst being weighed down.
“Get out of the way!” James bellows, quite needlessly, and then proceeds to start screaming a fucking battle-cry as him and Remus turn and halt in front of the fire. Remus himself, does a strange, clearly taught and well-practised manoeuvre with the fire extinguisher before just fully picking it up and spraying it in one large sweeping motion across the flames effortlessly. Sirius has to say, James’ war cry did admittedly add rather well to the effect, or maybe Sirius can just go ahead and add ‘fireman’ to the long list of part-time jobs Remus seems to have because holy shit that man is good at putting out fires—even if it apparently took him and Lily quite a while to even think of using a fire extinguisher in the first place. At this point, Sirius is genuinely starting to believe that Remus is just naturally really good at literally everything he tries. Unfair, is what it is. Absolutely unfair.
The smoke alarm falls to a steady stop, leaving the room in total, utter silence. Remus sets the fire extinguisher down onto the floor with a small metallic clink that’s echo bounces off the walls.
“Well then,” Remus says, folding his arms and clearly turning into the manager that Sirius so often forgets that he is. Eerily calm, he slowly raises his eyebrows accusingly and asks tightly, “anyone care to explain to me what happened?” It’s a long moment before someone answers him, and Sirius thinks it was just about the most awkward long moment of his life. Until now he has never really understood the phrase ‘you could cut the tension with a knife’ but Jesus, you could cut the tension with a goddamn knife in this room. Marlene clears her throat and six heads immediately snap in her direction.
“Um,” She begins quietly, glancing nervously at Mary and then at Remus before just screwing her eyes shut all together, “Me and Mary were, uh, making hot chocolate and we wanted to get a new packet of marshmallows down from the big shelf,” Sirius follows everyone else’s gazes to a considerably high up and large wooden shelf on the wall behind the serving counter, except it’s not really a shelf nor high up anymore as it’s somehow been snapped completely in half. A few out of the several coffee machines lying below it, or where it used to be, look heavily damaged, to say the least; Sirius can distantly recall the shelf being lined with all sorts of glass jars and little trinkets, though now the shattered pieces left on the ground are the only remnants of them. Marlene opens her eyes and Remus nods, his face stoic, silently ordering her to finish her explanation. “We couldn’t reach the packet so I–,” She cuts herself off, wincing, before continuing with visible reluctance, “I thought the shelf could support me, because I thought it was, like, drilled into the wall, but when I used it to push myself up it just—snapped,” She finishes resolutely, staring firmly at a blank spot on a wall, not daring to meet Remus’ piercing gaze.
“So how did my plant pot catch on fire, coffee stain my floor and my coffee machines and jars break?” Remus demands coldly, not missing a beat. Mary, who was staying very still and very silent until now, obviously decides that Marlene has been put through enough and interjects, taking a small step forward.
“The jars all fell down with the shelf, most of them smashing on the floor as you guys can see, but some of the heavier ones dropped down on top of the coffee machines before we could do anything,” She takes a deep breath, “I knocked over a couple cups of coffee that had been left on the counter in a panic when a vase of flowers with water in spilled down onto the coffee machine we were using to make our hot chocolates; it caught fire and we didn’t know what to do,” She looks at Marlene and a million words seemed to pass between them and yet not a sound was made. Mary gives a tiny, barely tangible nod and Marlene clears her throat once more.
“I grabbed a tea towel and tried to put the fire out like I’ve seen you do before, Remus, but I obviously didn’t do it right as the towel caught alight too and so I just threw it, which I shouldn’t have, I know, and it landed directly in the pot plant,” This time Marlene nods at Mary.
“Whilst that happened, I put the coffee machine fire out with a different tea towel and that was when Lily and Dorcas came running in, and then you and Sirius, and then James,” Mary finishes softly, her eyes now flicking up to meet Remus’, “I’m so, so sorry, Remus - we’re so, so sorry, honestly I wish I could go back and change things–” Marlene nods earnestly and interrupts, catching Remus’ gaze now, too.
“Yeah, I feel horrible, Remus, we never, ever meant for any of this to happen, I’m so sorry,” Sirius looks over at Remus and studies his quiet demeanour. His lips are thinned and his eyes lethally sharp, though after a minute of visible contemplation he deflates like a popped balloon. He sighs and runs his hands over his face, once, twice.
“Okay,”
Mary frowns and Marlene gapes.
“Okay?” Mary repeats, her tone more confused than surprised and her eyebrows drawn together. Remus stares before turning to run his tired gaze over the sea of faces watching him carefully, if not ever so slightly fearfully.
“Tomorrow’s problem,” He announces slowly to a murmured ripple of agreement from his little audience.
Collectively they all trail back into the break room, leaving everything, all the chaos that has just happened in the past hour and in the past seven, physically and metaphorically behind them—at least until tomorrow, anyway.
“The neighbours are going to hate us,” Sirius catches Dorcas muttering under breath as she brushes past him on her way to her designated sleeping bag. He smiles fondly, too worn out to laugh, and after several quick ‘good night’s, and the complimenting of Lily’s stylish pyjamas that she had apparently brought from home, he settles down into his own crimson red sleeping bag placed, of course, right next to James’.
He doesn’t go to sleep, predictably, but instead finds himself thinking, as always. Though this time, possibly for the first time, his nighttime thoughts aren’t all that depressing, quite the opposite, actually. He thinks that today has possibly been the best day out of his twenty-three years of living by far, even despite everything that has happened. He thinks that he would give anything to do it all again, exactly the same. He thinks that he can’t wait to wake up tomorrow and have all of these new amazing people and memories in his life. He thinks that he doesn’t even have the words to describe the perpetual comforting warmth in his bones; how it feels like being surrounded by everyone he already thinks he might love—no, he does have one.
He has one word.
Home.