The Perfect Plan
Surprisingly, the first few weeks of Uni came and left pretty quickly. Between induction classes and freshers events (which led to a questionable, drunk make out session with the very same ginger boy he’d met on his first night) bonding with James and Peter (who were now his best friends and he didn’t understand how he’d lived this far without them, especially James) and figuring out how to actually survive living without Andy, Sirius had not even had a chance to get caught up in his usual anxieties.
Sure, he still worried about what his hair looked like, what people thought of him, if he sounded too posh, if his parents were going to somehow figure out where he went to uni and come force him back blah blah blah, but really Sirius was doing better than he ever expected he would. Anytime he got too anxious he could call Andy, which he knew wasn’t fair on her but she insisted that she never minded, so at least three times a week they would both sit with their cup of tea on facetime and just chat away about what was bothering him, or just about what they’d been up to. Sirius’ favourite and equally least favourite part was the Dora updates- he was so proud of her but why was she getting so big?!
Sirius was really excited about his course, as well. They’d started one of their modules on ancient Roman art culture and he had been fascinated with colosseums and taking out library books weekly and returning them just as quick .
Okay, so maybe he was reading and returning so quick because the god like scarf boy from the party had apparently taken to volunteering in the campus library, and maybe sometimes he didn’t actually read the books, he just looked at the pictures whilst also sneakily stealing glances at the honey toned curls that went back and forth restocking shelves. And maybe this entire time he’d been manufacturing the perfect plan in his head for weeks of how to approach the insanely attractive library/scarf boy and just really casually bring up in conversation how he’d briefly seen him (drunkenly gawked at him) their first night, and how he'd accidentally picked up his scarf (Sirius had never worn a scarf in his life and obviously had not also brought one to the party) and how he didn’t even realise who’s it was (he literally has it hanging it on his bedpost) until he coincidentally spotted him in the library wearing a similar one (He’d categorised and memorised every outfit the boy wore since the first time in the library) and then his face finally rang a bell (the boys face could be a needle in a fucking haystack and Sirius would still pick it out immediately).
BUT regardless, he had actually really been enjoying the research and was already planning his project that wasn’t due until November.
Sometimes, it took Sirius quite a while to get interested in school subjects and will struggle to focus, but his interest in Roman and Greek history was one of the only things he still took from his childhood tutoring sessions.
So, despite all odds, Sirius’ life was actually going pretty well.
That was until one seemingly normal morning in early October, when he had just gotten out of the shower and was grabbing a cup of tea from the kitchen, and as he hummed to himself with his headphones on and curls dripping down his back, he somehow failed to notice the three people sitting in his kitchen.
It was just Peter..
And his friend Mary from his Film Music course, she’d been round a few times in the last few weeks to go over various lectures that the other one had missed (it appeared that Peter and Mary had bonded over their shared habit for sleeping in..)
And then, sat right next to Mary, awkwardly sipping out of Sirius’ David Bowie mug (which he needed to stop leaving it in the dish drainer because Pete then uses it) , was scarf/library/dream boy.
Sirius was carelessly picking his tea bag out the cupboard, whilst the kettle boiled and Taylor Swift played a little too loudly through his headphones, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Sirius? You’re gonna go deaf the volume you keep those things at!” Peter said, really trying to make him aware of the situation behind him without startling him so much his towel fell down.
He chuckled. “Listen Pete, there is no such thing as too loud when Taylor is involved. If I could inject Reputation like heroin, I’d be the world’s worst addict and-
Oh fucking hell.
He turned around, mug in hand and gawked at the two people sitting at their kitchen island. Mary had a shit eating grin on her face, and scarf boy buried his head in the mug and looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole. You and me both, Sirius thought
Before anyone could say anything, Sirius somehow stammered through an apology, threw his scalding cup of tea in the sink, splashing himself with burning hot water in the process, and darted out of the room, narrowly avoiding a very unfortunate towel dropping accident.
‘Oh my fucking god, the hottest man on earth has just seen me in nothing but a towel, and looked like he wanted to kill himself, I might die. I might actually die’ went through his head as he sat on the edge of his bed, frantically trying to pull his clothes on whilst his body was still wet and getting immediately overwhelmed.
He hadn’t even had a chance to notice the nasty burn on his arm, his main focus being getting back out there, acting totally cool, natural and casual, finding a way to give the scarf back since it would be weird and definitely stalkerish if he now followed through on his library conversation ‘perfect plan’, and then promptly throwing himself off the nearest cliff due to a new ground-breaking level of embarrassment.
It took him around twenty minutes to calm down and return to the kitchen in a state of dress that was deemed appropriate for guests, checking his still damp ringlets in the mirror at least fifty times, and last minute, for some reason as if anyone would be coming into his room, frantically scuffing the scarf under his bed, before putting his phone in his pocket, picking up the half empty glass from his nightstand and dragging himself back to the kitchen, promising himself that it’s all better for his social anxiety in the long run, and definitely not trying to think about the absolute man of his dreams that he couldn’t even form words around, sitting in the kitchen drinking out of his favourite mug.
It's fine, it’s all so fine he said to himself in the mirror, not believing a word of it.
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When Mary had asked him to come to Peter’s flat with her, he really couldn’t be bothered. Sure, he’d met Peter when he’d come over to theirs and he seemed super lovely and was asking Marlene how her girlfriend was doing and talked to him about his course and rather passionately about Anderson movies which it just happened Remus was also quite partial to, so it wasn’t actually Peter that was the problem, he was just absolutely exhausted.
Once again, his migraines had kept him up all night-as they had been doing at least three times a week since coming to uni. He knew logically it was just all the stress and anxiety of new course, new friends, new town and so on, so stress induced chronic migraines were obviously bound to occur more often. But he couldn’t help worrying that his body was rejecting his new medication- which his doctor did say could happen, but he wasn’t ready for it to be true. It was the only one that had properly worked so far, and to have to give it up less than a month into uni could seriously set him back. He hadn’t even been able to go to the library most of last week because his fatigue was so bad, but luckily he had books a plenty in his flat.
But despite all of this, the last few weeks otherwise hadn’t been so bad. His course was interesting, Marlene was in most of his seminars and lectures so they encouraged the other to actually go, and the girls and him were now quite inseparable. They didn’t ask too many questions, but still educated themselves when necessary, and had honestly been a godsend for Remus who was really missing his mum.
He still called her every night and may or may not have called her when he burnt his pasta bake and ended up sobbing on the kitchen floor because he’d had a really bad day and all his clothes were on his skin in the wrong way and he could hear his teeth and smell his thoughts and really the pasta bake just tipped him over the edge.
Still, he was coping. Remus had never been particularly good at making friends, but always seemed to keep enough people around for it to look like he did, and he had actually spoken to one or two people on his course.
A girl called Alice in his literary criticism seminar had sparked a conversation about his converse with the stars all over and they’d ended up exchanging numbers after Remus mentioned that he lived with three girls she’d get on really well with. It turns out that Alice’s boyfriend Frank, was the Residents Assistant of his building and therefore she actually stayed in Remus’ building more often than not, and said she would come over for tea sometime so they could discuss theoretical frames together.
Nothing too traumatic had happened, and he had gotten particularly close with Lily, who seemed to understand him without even saying anything. It felt nice, comfortable and familiar in a way no other friendship ever had to him, warming him from the inside out.
So, as tired as he was, he agreed to go with Mary (honestly, there wasn’t actually any saying no to Mary, you just have to pretend to put up a fight for a while to humble her) to Peter’s flat because she said that they were going to go over ethnomusicology and Remus’ insite of ethnolinguistics in modern culture may be of interest to them, which he did actually agree. Plus, it was a lazy Saturday afternoon, it’s not like he was going to do any work..
Peter’s flat was on the same floor as theirs, just on the other side so it only took about three minutes to walk their. When they arrived, Peter made them all tea and started talking to Mary about Black Panther casually, whilst Remus internally surveyed the flat.
It was an identical layout to theirs, just reversed- their living room and kitchen were on opposite sides. Peters’ flat had minimal decoration, unlike theirs which after a few weeks was already covered in every flyer and poster each of them had received at freshers fair- ranging from safe sex manifestos to local uni bands and bars with drink offers on student night.
Not to mention the aggressive variety of fairy lights, LED’s, sunset lamps, pink and sage green coasters, fuzzy rugs, plant pots- you name it. Most of it was the girls’, but Remus loved it. Growing up with his Mam made him enjoy the comfort of such an obvious feminine presence in the house- as confusing as that felt when he really thought about it.
Peters’ flat however, had a couple dozen beer mats obviously taken from various pubs scattered around the kitchen and dining table, a marvel poster right next to the TV, and an entire patch of wall filled nearly from floor to ceiling with bright pink post it notes , entitled the ‘Dilf wall’. He read a few of the names on it, chuckling at some of the chosen candidates; Chris Hemsworth, Robert Downey Jr, Hugh Dennis, Mark Ruffalo.
They had just gotten onto the topic of the misuse of tribal and indigenous culture in a lot of children’s animation, when from the hallway of their small flat, came something Remus was definitely not expecting.
It was the boy from the party.
The beautiful boy.
The one that nearly caused him and Mary to fall out on their very first night.
The boy Remus hadn’t stopped thinking about since said night, and had seen in the library a few times when he’d come to collect second hand copies of scripts he needed for his course, and may or may not have taken up a volunteer slot in the library just in hopes that the boy came in that often all the time, and the one that made him stack and restack the same true crime section at least eight times a day just because that’s near the table he usually sits at, and the one who for weeks he has been trying to strike up a conversation with, but every time he considers it a little bit of bile rises to the inside of his mouth.
And he’s in a fucking towel. I’m fucked, Remus thought.
Of all the people Peter could live with, of course he had to live with Remus’ biggest crush ever, it was just his luck. When party/library/towel boy had come in, he hadn’t even noticed Mary and Remus sitting their, and this was evident in the way he was humming to himself (he could hear getaway car playing through his headphones rather loudly), and ever so slightly swayed his hips whilst he mindlessly made his tea, which Remus found just mildly distracting…
“You’re gonna catch a fly, Remus” Mary whispered into his ear, whilst Peter stood there rolling his eyes and waving his hands dramatically behind his roommate in an attempt to get him to turn around.
“Shut up” he muttered, but nudged her playfully, still not yet taking his eyes of the beads of water trickling down from towel boys incredibly shiny curls. She giggled and kicked him under the table, whilst Peter was finally tapping his roommate on the shoulder.
“Sirius? You’re gonna go deaf the volume you keep those things at!” Peter half-shouted to the boy who still had his headphones on.
He took one ear off and laughed in a way where his head tilted back and Remus got a rather mesmorising view of his long, pale neck column. Remus damn near passed out right there.
“Listen Pete, there is no such thing as too loud when Taylor is involved. If I could inject Reputation like heroin, I’d be the worlds worst addict and-
At that moment, the beautiful boy turned round and stunted like a dear in headlights at the sight of Remus and Mary.
Remus immediately looked down and began to find the bottom of his tea cup absolutely fascinating, whilst trying to hide the flushed red his entire face had become. Fuck, he really hoped he hadn’t caught him staring, he thought. ‘yeah what an awesome first impression, this weird ugly person sat in my kitchen, staring at me half naked like a pervert’ he was definitely going to speak to him now.
The boy, managing to make looking absolutely mortified the most charming thing in the world, muttered something and absolutely flew out the room, flinging his tea in the sink and barely even noticing that the boiling water sprayed up his arm as he went, nearly dropping his towel behind him.
Remus heard Peter and Mary burst into laughter and start laughing about the situation, but Remus had been so caught up in trying to hide his blush that he had only just registered what Peter had said to the man of his dreams, and it echoed in his head.
“Sirius? You’re gonna go deaf the volume you keep those things at!”
“Sirius? You’re gonna go …
“Sirius?
Sirius.
The boy he had been thinking about, dreaming about, and gawking over for the past 5 weeks was not only Peter’s flatmate, not only the most mesmerising human being in the world, had now seen in just a towel, but his name was Sirius.
Like the star, he thought. Beautiful.
He couldn’t help when his face lit up, as he thought about everything he knew about the Sirius star quickly, about the Canis majors constellation and the other stars in its family and surrounding; Sirius- the dog star and the brightest in the constellation, translating roughly to ‘glowing’ or ‘scorching’.
Radiant and hot, that’s accuracy if I’ve ever seen it.
There’s also Adhara, he thought on. Surrounded by Columba, and Lepus and-
“Earth to Remus?” it was Mary. His brain came back into focus and he smiled sheepishly at her.
“Now that you’ve stopped drooling, we need your insite on Western classism culture.”.
Remus did his best to put an annoyed face on, though it only seemed to amuse Mary.
“I wasn’t drooling I was… well I mean I wasn’t, it didn’t, I never” he looked around hopelessly, but Mary had erupted into giggles again and Peter just gave him a soft, kind look, as if to say ‘I wasn’t going to say anything’.
They chatted for a while longer and Remus just about managed to regulate his heartbeat after a second cup of tea and some very non arousing discussion of the crossover between poetry and lyricism.
When the boy, Sirius, entered the room again around twenty minutes later, he was entirely calm and collected, which only made Remus feel like his face was heating up again. He apologised for earlier which was met with a round of ‘okays’ and ‘not to worries’ and ‘it happens to the best of us’ , he offered a refill on their teas and re-introduced himself now that he was wearing clothes.
First, he said hello to Mary, that it was nice to see her again and kissed her on the cheek, which made Remus’ stomach churn a little bit but it was probably just because he hadn’t eaten anything yet. Remus was however extremely confused when Mary just replied that it was good to see him, smiled and then turned back to her conversation, completely missing a chance to flirt with a boy she said only a few weeks ago she was ‘hungry’ for.
He turned to Remus, notably a little shyer and said “Hi, I’m Sirius”.
“I know” Remus blurted out before he could stop, and then was looking a very puzzled, very gorgeous Sirius stood in front of him, tucking one of his still damp, shiny black curls behind his ear.
“Uhm, that sounded weird” Remus laughed awkwardly. Kill me now. “What I meant to say was that Peter told us after you left the room” He smiled even more awkwardly, feeling suddenly even more insecure about his flat yet unruly curls, and trying not to flash back to only-in-a-towel-Sirius from less than half an hour ago.
“Right” he said. “Tea?” Sirius said, moving on entirely to save them both the embarrassment, thank god.
“Sure, hope you make it as good as Peter” He joked, trying to seem as normal as possible and like he didn’t want to go home and let his duvet swallow him right now.
“Better” said Sirius, winking before reaching the Bowie mug out of Remus’ hand and turning to the kettle.
Well just send me to heaven right fucking now, he thought. It’s over, it’s all over.
Once again, spreading from his cheekbones, his face was crimson and he choked on what appeared to be some thin air, spluttering hard whilst Mary pounded him on the back. Everyone was staring at him and he could feel his heartbeat picking up, the prickling sensation beginning in his fingertips and his vision pulsing in his head.
Not here, please. Not now
Remus held his hand out to assure everyone he was fine, and as Sirius was asking Mary how she took her tea, Peter leaned over to Remus and casually said -
“Hey, Remus, that film you were telling me about, I can’t remember what it was called, can you come show me on Netflix so I can add it to my watch list?” Peter nodded towards the living room, which was empty and quiet.
Remus hadn’t been telling Peter about any films and looked very confused. But when Peter signalled to the living room again and made a subtle breathing in and out motion with his hand, Remus could’ve burst into tears. How did Peter know that Remus needed to calm down and be in a quiet situation right now?
Thank god for Peter Pettigrew.
He led Remus through to the living room and they sat on the couch together, aimlessly scrolling through Netflix and talking about various things they like watching. Remus wanted to say something to Pete about getting him out of the situation, but he wasn’t really sure what to say.
‘Thanks for removing me from the kitchen where I saw your half naked flatmate that I’m absolutely gone for, because I had a panic attack and nearly choked myself because he is that gorgeous that I forgot to breathe for a minute’.
That didn’t really seem like the best thing to say to someone who you’ve known for less than a month.
Just as they’d flipped over to Disney+ because Pete really wanted to find one particular Modern Family episode to show Remus, who had never seen it before and as Pete said that was ‘an abomination’, a rather sweaty, tanned boy wearing large round glasses and a gigantic smile burst through the front door, looking like he’d very nearly escaped a pack of cheetah’s.
As he slammed the front door, took off his top and used it to wipe his face, he came and sat next to Peter and Remus on the couch, and Remus wasn’t sure whether to be attracted to his confidence, baffled by his proudness or laugh at the fact he hadn’t even notice a complete stranger was on his couch. He settled for waiting until Peter introduced him.
“Good Run James?” said Peter, to the sweaty man who’s name was obviously James, Remus noted for later.
“Boss mate, beat my PB for a 5K!” James said, and downed the glass of water that Sirius had just brought in for him, followed by Mary who both sat down on the other sofa, quite close together.
“Nice one Jam!” Sirius replied to James, who cheesed back in response. James was now shoving his shoes into a corner and had held his damp tshirt against his chest for what Remus presumed was his version of modesty. As he looked at the TV, Peter was mindlessly skipping through the animated movies section.
“Oh so we’re watching Cars then?” said James, making grabby hands for the remote.
“No one said that James” Peter laughed as he reached the TV remote as far as he could to the left, over Remus’ body and away from James.
“James we watched it two days ago! Sirius chimed in
“Okay and did we not watch Tangled three times last week because you were in a mood?” James jabbed at Sirius who was now throwing a pillow at him
“I was not in a mood I was j-‘
“No, you were absolutely in a mood. You said it was because you didn’t see that guy at the librar-
But Peter has slammed his hand into James’ mouth before he could finish his sentence and unknowingly to Remus, make Sirius’ life a living hell.
“James, stop being a brat. We have guests, who by the way you did not introduce yourself to and instead just sat down topless in their presence” Peter chastised at James, Remus could definitely tell he the mum friend.
“I’m not complaining” smirked Mary, before holding her hands up in an ‘I’m joking!’ fashion when Sirius jabbed at her. Remus looked over to them to see Sirius’ face was red. Great. He thought. He does fancy her, of course he does. Why wouldn’t he.
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry. Hi, I’m James, James Potter.” He said, smiling at Remus and holding a hand out.
He took it and smiled back. “Remus. Remus Lupin” he replied to James Potter.
James did the same with Mary, kissing her cheek (which Remus hated to admit, made him feel a lot better about Sirius doing it, maybe it was just something they did).
“Okay, new friends have been introduced, I bought beer on the way back from my run. So legally the only thing to do now is obviously invite them to stay for movies and pizza?” James said casually, Remus could tell immediately that he was going to be a lot but in a good way.
Remus started panicking for a second, he didn’t really know these people, Sirius was there and somehow managed to make sweatpants and a hoodie look incredible right now, and he knew that he got overwhelmed in other people’s company for too long. Not to mention they didn’t know about him, what if something went wrong?
Still, he tried to remind himself that this is what Uni is all about, it was already October and this was only the second flat he’d stepped in other than his own. Mary was friends with them, and he trusted Mary and had her there if something did go wrong. Plus, as nervous as he was he wasn’t in any position to pass up spending time with the most stupidly big crush he’d ever had.
Before he could say anything, Sirius spoke up. “You don’t really say no to James, otherwise he either gives you the saddest puppy dog eyes, or just kind of gaslights you until you’re doing it anyway. I mean if you have something else on today that’s totally fine but, I’m sure we’d all love for you to stay. I’d love for you to stay. Remus. And Mary” his face turned a blush pink again, and Remus kicked himself internally for finding it so beautiful when it wasn’t for him.
He quickly laughed it off and replied. “Yeah, it’s kinda like that with Mary, you don’t say no to her and if you do, she convinces you within an hour anyway” Remus smiled as Mary faked putting a crown on her head.
“You just can’t say no to these faces” and Mary pulled herself up and put a fake crown on James as well, then they stood there bowing to each other and repeating ‘my liege’, until each and every one of them were in a fit of giggles.
Mary calmed down and returned to her seat on the couch. “I’m down if you are Remus, but would it be okay if we invited our other flatmates too? You will love them, and I don’t wanna leave them home alone because we coincidentally were also gonna do movies and pizza tonight so we could kind of just, do it together?” she said, pulling out her phone in preparation.
“Course! More the merrier!” James beamed. “I can make cocktails again!!”
Peter and Sirius groaned outwardly, and James looked utterly offended.
“Jam, the last time you made cocktails Sirius threw up into his shoes and then tried to put them on to ‘take the sick outside’” Pete said before he could stop himself, leaving Sirius looking like he was ready to commit murder.
Remus couldn’t help but burst out laughing and somehow got a bout of confidence to say “Oh now this I’ve got to see” and wink in Sirius’ direction, who was now promptly trying to suffocate Peter with a pillow, and proceeded to do so for the next couple of minutes whilst Remus spoke to James about uni and tried not to throw up at the fact that he’d just flirted with the most magnificent man on the planet.
“So, it’s settled then. Just rang the girls who said they will be here in ten as they’re only in ours and will bring wine and blankets!”
“Wicked! I’m gonna take a quick shower” James said.
“Oh thank god.” Said Sirius, who instantly regretted it as James ran over to him trying to shove armpits in his face, leading him to chase Sirius all around the living room until he ended up basically catapulting himself onto the sofa right next to Remus, their arms barely grazing each other as he steadied his balance from laughing so hard.
Remus felt his heart skip a beat and then thought what a fucking cliché.
The rest of the evening actually turned out to be lovely. Pizza was ordered, cocktails and wine were passed around and Mamma Mia played in the background (except for when everyone except Remus and Marlene got up to perform extensive dance routines to their favourite songs. Seeing Sirius dance along to ‘does your mother know’ was not good for Remus’ resting heart rate after a couple of James’ homemade (and disgustingly strong) woo woo’s.
Later, Mary, Marlene and Peter were on one couch talking about their favourite film tropes, James and Lily had gone to the kitchen to make more drinks (well James had sort of dragged her there, not that she seemed too displeased- Remus thought it looked like they wanted to jump each other after five minutes of meeting)
Which left Sirius and Remus on the other couch. They exchanged the odd mutter back and forth, but neither could seem look at the other for more than a few seconds. Remus knew his was nerves and could only imagine that Sirius just didn’t want to look at Remus because he was… him.
“Remus Lupin” Sirius quietly and suddenly said out of no where, whilst the others were deep in conversation.
Remus looked up from the TV. “Sirius Black?”. Sirius laughed.
“No that’s not what i… sorry. Just been thinking about it since you said it before. Lupin is Latin, meaning Wolf, and Remus was brother of Romulus, who were raised by wolves… so’
“So my name is wolf wolf. Yeah, I get that a lot” Remus replied before Sirius could finish.
“Oh, shit sorry, I bet you do. I never meant to offend you I just-
“No! it’s fine! Besides, people just usually ask what it means because it’s unusual, I’m surprised you knew it first. You speak Latin?”
“A little, and I know a lot about ancient Rome and Greece because of my course. I’m studying Art History.” He smiled back, and Remus could swear (or at least he hoped) he’d seen the faintest of pinks rise to Sirius’ cheeks.
“That’s so cool! I’m doing English Lit, like Marlene. Anyway, Sirius is a really cool name. The dog star” Remus replied.
“You know stars?” Remus nodded pointed to his beat up brown converse, which were covered in black and silver sharpied stars and constellations all over.
“I’ve been obsessed with stars and stargazing since I was about eleven. I got a telescope for my birthday and would sit and chart them for hours when I couldn’t sleep”.
“Oh cool, I never really looked at the stars” Sirius said.
“Really?” Questioned Remus. “But you’re named after one? The brightest one in its constellation, too”.
Remus wasn’t sure what he’d said, but it had clearly made Sirius uncomfortable the way he shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. He begged for any reason to change the topic.
Moments later, as if they’d read his mind, James and Lily sauntered back in with the fresh batch of cocktails and took seats on the couch. Unfortunately, they both sat on the same couch as them, so Sirius and Remus were now shoulder to shoulder, causing Remus’ breath to hitch.
“Isn’t this cosy” Lily said, smiling a little too knowingly at Remus.
They proceeded to watch Mamma Mia 2, all having very different opinions on Cher’s belonging in the plot line and how hot Lily James was.
Remus had felt himself drifting off, sleepy from the alcohol and the long, overbearing day, but between his dozing he made out bits of a conversation.
“Yeah, so I’m wanting to base it on that, but I wanted to do it from kind of a high perspective, rather than going down there, but my room’s on the wrong side for it, and I’ve been trying to think of a way around it ever since.” He heard Sirius say, unsure of the context.
“Oh my God!” Mary squealed. “Remus’ room literally looks directly out to it, AND he has the big bay window the lucky bastard. You should totally sketch it from there!”
Remus had heard his name and also Marys squeals enough to make him sit up from where he was drifting in and out. “What’s happening?” he asked to no one in particular.
“Oh, nothing i-‘ began Sirius
“For Sirius’ art project, he wants to do a landscape of the town castle from different perspectives, but his window only overlooks a tiny bit of it. Buttt, yours looks directly over the entrance, so it’s perfect for sketching from!!” Mary replied, as if it was obvious.
Remus wasn’t sure what Mary was up to, but she had a mischief in her eyes that would terrify anyone.
“Oh Remus, please you don’t have to let me use your room at all, I was just thinking out loud about stuff” Sirius said, looking down at his hands.
Remus took a deep breath, and for some foolish reason came out with what might be the worst mistake he’d ever made.
“You’d be more than welcome to erm, come over and use my bed. Room. my bedroom. My room. To um, sketch. Yeah, if it’s for a uni project, obviously”.
If he died right now he wouldn’t complain.
“Really? I don’t wanna intrude or anything but-“
“It’s not a problem Sirius” It was Lily this time, obviously catching on to whatever Mary was doing.
“We better get going because we’re gonna do a flat Aldi trip in the morning, but why don’t you two exchange numbers and you can sort it out that way? James, I’ll help you clean the glasses up” Lily smiled and got up from the couch, taking a handful of glasses and a transfixed James Potter with her into the kitchen.
Mary and Marlene started giggling about something whilst they put their shoes on.
“As long as you really don’t mind?”
“What, getting your phone number or having you in my room?” Remus chuckled but instantly regretted it when Sirius just gawked at him.
He fumbled for his phone to hand to Sirius, but he got there first. Remus typed in his number and James waved the four out of their flat so they could all head to bed, now that it was reaching midnight.
Remus climbed into bed only half undressed and extremely exhausted, feeling like an absolute idiot for the fool he’d made of himself in front of his new friend Sirius, the Greek God.
He set his phone on his nightstand when it pinged.
00:16am
Unknown number: is this remus lupin?
He smiled to himself stupidly, obviously knowing who the text was from. His fingers hovered over the screen for a minute before he replied.
remus lupin: im going to take a wild guess that this is sirius black. are we sticking with the full names for good or?
sirius black: oh no, thank fuck, I was just worried you may put the wrong number in or something
remus lupin: ??
sirius black: nvm
sirius black: anyway, was just texting so you had my number, you know for the art thingy :)
remus lupin: yeah ofc, i can talk to you about it tomorrow? i am absolutely shattered. james makes a LETHAL cocktail, but you already know that…
Sirius black: I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT PETER TOLD THAT STORY I WANT TO CURL UP AND DIE
Sirius black: but of course, sorry for messaging so late
Sirius black: was good to meet you : )
Remus lupin: hahahhaa no it was funny
Remus lupin: no don’t say sorry! im just a grandad when it comes to bedtime :’)
Remus lupin: it was nice to meet you too
Remus smacked himself in the head at the absolute lie he had just told, saying it was ‘nice to meet him’ as if he didn’t take a fucking job just to stare at him for hours a week. But Sirius didn’t need to know that…
Sirius black: well, talk to you tomorrow then.
Sirius black: if u want
Sirius black: goodnight remus lupin : )
Remus lupin: goodnight, Sirius black : )