Cider
“How many did he have?” Lily whispered in his ear, her eyes following Remus who was currently at the other side of the pub and hugging James in what seemed to be a very tight embrace. James pet his hair.
Sirius felt the corner of his mouth tugging upwards and answered after a few seconds. “One.”
From the corner of his eye he saw Lily whip her head around to gape at him. “One,” she repeated as if he was bullshitting her. A reasonable conclusion, to be fair, but not this time.
“One,” he repeated, eyes still following the love his life who had now let go of James to come stumbling towards them, cheeks rosy and hair mussed.
Lily opened her mouth to say something else but was interrupted by Remus who grabbed one shoulder of each of them and took a steadying breath before speaking.
“I love you guys,” he mumbled and then sniffed, eyes getting dangerously wet. “I just – “ he choked off, shaking his head. “I love you so much.”
And then he pulled them into a very tight and sloppy hug.
Sirius quickly hugged the tipsy Remus back, or rather, steadied him to keep them all from falling over and crushing poor Lily under their combined weight.
“We love you too, Moony,” he replied and was met with another sniff in his ear. He could smell the drink he had on his breath.
“Yeah, we love you, Remus,” he heard Lily’s muffled response from where her face was pressed into his chest.
After what must have been at least three minutes, Remus finally pulled away with another sniff, rubbed his reddened eyes, and turned around to steer back to the bar.
They watched him accidentally stumble into a massive, muscular guy and apologize profusely before reaching the bar to order another cider.
“You’re sure it was just one?” Lily asked skeptically, as if he couldn’t keep track of his boyfriend.
“Yep.” He popped the ‘p,’ still watching Remus.
“Should he have another?”
He didn’t reply immediately and promptly felt her chiding look on him. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious how Remus would behave after two full glasses of wine, and he knew secretly Lily was too. What if he became even more clingy and emotional? What if … What if he started singing and dancing like Prongs? If he stopped him now, he would be robbing the world of a possibly glorious sight and him and James of something to hold over Moony’s head to blackmail him for the rest of their lives.
But Lily’s chiding look didn’t waver and he knew deep down in his heart he couldn’t let Remus do something stupid, so he fondly rolled his eyes and went to babysit his tipsy boyfriend who was chatting with the barkeeper and not noticing he was being flirted with.