Remus Lupin was, had always been, and planned to be a very punctual person. As long as his whereabouts and actions were in his control, he was always on time. Right now, however, he was extremely close to breaking this lifelong streak.
He was preparing for an online interview with one of the universities he applied to, turned on his laptop, made sure he looked presentable, and even made a cup of tea for himself. It was all going perfectly to plan. That was until he looked at his laptop screen and saw that the wifi wouldn’t connect.
It was all his dads fault really, he’s the one who didn’t tell Remus about the letter that came through the door the day prior, the letter that told them that their wifi would go down between nine-thirty and one o’clock. Remus wanted to be furious about it but he honestly didn’t expect anything different from his dad. They didn’t get on at all, hadn’t since Remus was young, but it only got worse two years ago when Remus came out as bisexual to his parents. His mum didn’t mind at all, his dad, on the other hand, used this as another poor excuse to cut ties with him. This was quite difficult considering they still lived in the same house, but either way it made things difficult. So this is why Remus was desperate for this interview to go well. As much as he loves living at home with his mum and being able to see her all the time, Remus was very eager to leave his house.
Due to this, instead of getting angry at his dad, Remus quickly grabbed the keys to the family’s shared car — without asking permission like he was supposed to — put his laptop on the passenger’s seat and set off to find somewhere else with wifi. His first thought was heading to a friend’s house.
He had two friends: Lily and Pete. Saying he only had two friends sounded kind of sad but he didn’t care, they were good friends—loyal, and he wouldn’t ever trade those two friendships for multiple half-assed, meaningless ones. That being said, he was slightly regretting that decision at that moment because neither one of them would pick up their phone.
Remus was driving along the road in the general direction to Lily and Peter’s houses (they only lived three streets apart) while frantically tapping on his phone in hopes that one of them would pick up the bloody call as well as constantly flicking his eyes over to the dashboard to keep an eye on the time. Much to his dismay, time was still moving.
As multiple more minutes had passed and what felt like hundreds of calls had been missed, Remus saw a McDonald’s. This was a new low surely. A university interview in a McDonald’s. But he had no choice. They had free wifi and if he didn’t do this interview the consequences would be much worse than if he did it in an odd setting. So, he made a right turn into the car park, parked the car in a way that was severely under par, and practically ran into McDonald’s.
As he made his way through the doors he quickly scanned the seats, it wasn’t too busy but there were a few people in there so he quickly rushed to a back corner table to set up his computer. He currently had 6 minutes until he was supposed to join the call.
While setting up his wifi on his laptop, Remus opened up his phone and used his data to download the McDonald’s app, an app he’d never dream of having, so that he could order something. The last thing he needed was to get kicked out of a bloody McDonald’s for not having bought something. He multitasked and set up the wifi while also ordering a cup of tea to his table from his phone. Once that was done he shakily plugged his earphones into the computer. He now had 2 minutes.
When he had about 20 seconds left, he sat on the call waiting for the person interviewing him to join. He could see himself on the screen and realised that his previous ‘well put-together’ look from earlier had gone completely down the drain. His hair, that was combed back nicely earlier, had returned to its usual messy style; his shirt was slightly crumpled up and he was pretty sure he was sweating through it, but he hoped that wasn’t noticeable; his face was completely red from stressing and rushing around everywhere. But before he had time to even attempt at fixing himself, there was someone on the other end of the call.
“Good morning Mr Lupin,” the interviewer said to him. She sounded like a kind enough lady and Remus hoped that, should she ask, she would be alright with Remus’ odd location.
“Hi- hello,” he replied, pinching himself under the table for already managing to stumble over his words.
The lady opened her mouth to say something and Remus was watching and listening in anticipation, but nothing ever came. She was frozen.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. This was just his fucking luck. He instantly lunged forwards in his seat and began to desperately try and fix his wifi, but it was a lost cause. Not only had the interviewer frozen but it was now saying on the screen that he had lost connection. Before he knew it, the call had ended. Sod’s Law. “Fuck!” He slammed lid of his laptop down and put his face in his hands. He knew he could probably explain his circumstances to somebody over an email and get another chance at an interview but right now it felt like nothing would ever go his way. So he began to stress. He was probably embarrassing himself but it was nothing new, it felt like all he did was constantly embarrass himself.
The only thing that broke him out of it was the sound of footsteps making their way closer to him. He was hidden away in one of the back corners and nobody had walked back there yet. So in an attempt to act sort of normal, Remus sat up and looked to see who was walking near him. He looked up just in time to see someone walking towards him in the McDonald’s employee uniform, holding the cup of tea Remus ordered to his table earlier. He also looked up in time to see this employee dismiss the wet floor sign next to Remus’ booth and slip over on the floor, spilling his very hot tea all over Remus.
Remus sat in shock in his seat, tea soaking through his white shirt and onto his skin. But as the employee quickly scrambled up off of the floor and began mumbling apologies, he was in shock for a different reason. This person was beautiful. He couldn’t even deny it. Remus wasn’t the type to get random little crushes on people he didn’t know, but for some reason, just by looking at this person, the burn of the tea on his skin felt like nothing compared to the burning flush that had made its way to his face. Another embarrassing thing for the list.
“-me, fuck! I’m so sorry. Indescribably. Are you-” The employee was rambling but Remus was barely taking in a word of it. Too busy trying to avoid eye contact and calm himself down.
He looked down at his shirt that was now a tea-stained colour and for some reason, due to the absolute insanity of his day, he began to laugh. This stopped the countless apologies and as he looked up at the McDonald’s worker, he noticed a confused grin on his face.
“Sorry,” Remus said while slapping his hand to his mouth to try and conceal his laughter, “‘s just been a very random day and it’s only-“ he checked his phone, “half ten”. This caused a laugh to escape from the other boy’s mouth and Remus got the opportunity to get a proper look at him. He had dark hair that framed his face and brushed his shoulders, cheekbones that made him look akin to a model, and when he opened his eyes after laughing, Remus saw the most gorgeous silver eyes. He didn’t even know human beings could have silver eyes. But this person was living proof. He looked completely and utterly out of place working at a McDonald’s and Remus figured that he must feel out of place too by the way he acted. But somehow, where Remus figured it would make him more awkward, it made this person more endearing. It was odd. The whole day was odd. Odd odd odd. But what was really odd was the way this person was looking at Remus.
He just stood there with a smile on his face and looked. Looked at everything. He looked at Remus’ face, then his eyes flicked over to the table where all of Remus’ things were, then they moved back to Remus, but this time they moved down to look at Remus’ soaked shirt. After that he averted his eyes to the tea that had been spilt on the floor before clearing his throat to speak again.
“I am so sorry, I’ll uhm- clean all this up and well- I can give you a dry t-shirt to put on, if you’d like to take that one off, because- well- uh, well it’s practically see through now isn’t it.”
The boy was practically playing hot potato with his eyes, every time he looked at Remus it was as if he would be burnt if he didn’t look away immediately. Remus was confused, surely it should be him acting all nervous and jittery. It’s not like he was the insanely attractive person out of the two.
While he was thinking about this, Remus must have forgotten to reply to the boy, because he began to speak again,
“I’m gonna go grab the t-shirt anyway, so I’ll be right back,” he said before turning and walking away. Once he got about 4 paces away he turned back, “I’m called Sirius by the way. For if you want to- uh, you know, like complain to my manager or something”. Remus just nodded.
-
Sirius returned quite quickly, this time with a black shirt clutched in his hands. Once he got to Remus, who had attempted (and failed) at trying to clean up his shirt with some napkins, he handed the shirt over to Remus.
“Sorry, this is the only shirt I had with me today, if you want to change, I’ll watch over your stuff while you’re in the toilet, promise not to spill tea all over it ha,” he attempted to joke. But Remus was stuck on the first part.
“This is your shirt?”
“Well, yeah.”
“I cant take it, it’s yours. I’ll just go home like this, it’s fine.” Remus held the t-shirt out to Sirius in an attempt to give it back. But Sirius just gently nudged the shirt back to Remus, their hands only millimetres away from touching, before demanding again,
“No please, I insist. It’s the least I could do.”
Remus was about to shake his head and give it back, but when he looked at Sirius’ face it genuinely looked like he wanted to help Remus. After seeing that he couldn’t really say no, could he?
“Alright,” he said while beginning to stand up, “thank you.”
“Please, don’t thank me. I was the one who spilt the drink. And, I mean, you already didn’t look like you were having a good time, so, I’m sorry.”
“Honestly, it’s fine. You snapped me out of my little strop.”
They both gave each other a soft smile and let their eyes linger over each other’s faces for a moment. Remus scanned his face and couldn’t help himself for having a quick appreciative glance at Sirius’ lips before looking back up to his eyes. Only to see that his eyes were once again looking at Remus’ wet, partially see-through shirt. He honestly didn’t know whether to feel self-conscious or flattered. And he didn’t give himself a chance to think about it either. Before he knew it, he was walking past Sirius, uttering a small ‘thank you’ and heading to the toilet.
Once he got into a cubicle, Remus removed his shirt and began to unravel the black t-shirt that had been scrunched up in his hand. Giving it a proper look he realised that the t-shirt wasn’t just plain black like he’d expected, it had a design on it. Right on the front of the t-shirt it showed the cover of Aladdin Sane by David Bowie. Trust the insanely attractive idiot to have good music taste as well. Jesus fucking Christ.
He put the t-shirt on and looked at himself in the bathroom’s mirrors. The t-shirt wasn’t tight but it was more tight-fitting than what Remus would normally go for. Oh well, it would do. Remus sort of just stared at himself in the mirror for a bit, zoning in and out until he heard the door open. Quickly he came back to himself and turned to the door, nearly bumping into the man that had just walked in. He didn’t know how other people perceived him but he really hoped it was in a different way to how he perceived himself.
He stumbled back out of the toilets, his own shirt now clutched in his hand, and made his way back over to his things. Sirius was mopping up the spilt tea surrounding the table and as Remus got closer to him he cleared his throat to let Sirius know he was there.
“Good music taste,” Remus said while gesturing to the front of the t-shirt that he was now wearing. “But seriously-“
“I’m always Sirius.”
“Oh my god,” Remus replied, accompanied by an eye roll, for some reason it was very easy to treat Sirius like someone he’d known for years. “What I was trying to say is are you sure you’re alright with lending me this? Don’t you need it?”
“Nah, my brother’s picking me up from work and we’re going out after so i’ll just get him to bring a different t-shirt with him,” Sirius had now completely abandoned his mopping. “And I’m not lending it to you, you can keep it. I can just get another.”
“No, I can’t do that, ‘s your shirt after all.”
“Genuinely, it’s fine.”
“Nah I’m not taking that as an answer, c’mon just give me your phone number and I’ll return it to you”
“Ah I see,” Sirius said with a very smug grin on his face.
“You see what?”
“You’re just trying to get my number aren’t ya!” He said, nudging Remus’ arm in a joking manner.
“Oh Jesus Christ, piss off, I’m just trying to be nice.”
“Wow alright, no need to get so defensive, didn’t think I was that bad.”
“Don’t even do that.”
“Do what?”
“Act like you don’t look the way you do!” Remus exclaimed exasperatedly.
He regretted it as soon as he said it. What’s he doing flirting with a McDonald’s employee who, firstly, spilt his drink all over him, secondly, doesn’t even know his name, and lastly, is like a hundred times out of his league? It was a good distraction though, only roughly about ten percent of his brain was thinking about his failed interview earlier. At least he wasn’t stressing about that.
“Wow, didn’t know you felt so strongly about me… Moony.”
“Moony?”
“Well I was gonna call you by your name, but, well, I don’t know it, so you get a nickname,” Sirius replied, gesturing to the faded crescent moon and stars Remus had drawn on his hand the day prior.
“Ah got it” Remus said, now glancing at his hand.
“So…”
“So.”
“What is your name then?”
“I’ll tell you if you let me get your number… just so I can return this bloody tshirt.”
“Alright Moony,” was the reply that Remus got and soon enough an iPhone was being shoved into his hands.
Remus put his number in and created a contact. He realised he had the opportunity to make up a fake name or something but he thought that Sirius would probably think his real name was a fake one anyways. What were the chances of two people with such odd names knowing each other? Remus thought they must be quite low. So, he put his real name into Sirius’ phone with a little moon emoji next to it before sending himself a simple ‘.’ so that the contact would show up on his phone too.
After that Remus handed Sirius his phone back who had begun to look for the contact in order to find out Remus’ name. In the mean time, Remus picked up his laptop and started heading through the now-busy restaurant and towards the door. He threw a ‘see you soon, Sirius’ over his shoulder before getting in the car. He internally cringed at his parking from earlier, especially because now he knows that it was all a waste anyway.
As Remus was just about to turn the engine on, he got a call. His stomach started doing somersaults at the chance that it could be Sirius calling, which he thought was quite embarrassing, after all, Sirius was still at work and would probably wait for Remus to contact him. He didn’t know why he was acting as if him and Sirius actually knew each other. They were just two people who happened to both be part of an unfortunate incident.
Anyways, he got his phone out of his pocket to see that the phone call was coming from Lily. He sat back more comfortably in his sit and hit the accept button.
“Hey Lils,” he said letting out a sigh.
“Are you alright? What’s the 38 missed calls about? Where are you?”
“I’m alright Lily, was jus’ throwing a bit of a hissy fit and if I’m honest it’s all a bit too much to explain over the phone, can I come to your house?”
“I mean yeah sure, but I can’t pick you up.”
“Yeah that’s fine I’ve got the car.”
“What? Why? You’re never allowed it on-“
“-FUCKING HELL!“ Remus interrupted Lily because he was fucking scared shitless at the sudden knock right next to his window. He was looking the other way and so didn’t see anyone approaching but now that he looked up he saw Sirius stood there telling him to roll down his window. Honestly if this was anyone else, he’d probably come off as a bit creepy, but when it was Sirius it all seemed very charming.
“What is it Remus?” Lily sounded terrified.
“No! Don’t worry Lils, it’s all alright. Someone just made me jump tha’s’all. Just give me two minutes, stay on the call,” after that Remus pressed the mute button in order to turn off his microphone and he rolled down the window.
“You made me shit myself.”
“Oops, do you need my trousers as well then?”
“Oh piss off, the shirt’s enough.”
“If you insist.”
“I do. And why do you insist on creeping up on me in my car?”
“Because I come bearing gifts,” Sirius said as he lifted up a new cup of tea and handed it to Remus who just laughed. “And I didn’t creep up on you, you were just distracted by…” he peeked into Remus’ car and saw his phone. “Lily.”
Remus could have sworn he saw Sirius’ face fall but maybe that was just him having high hopes.
“So who’s that? Girlfriend?”
Now that made Remus properly laugh,
“Nah, best mate.”
“Ah, alright,” Sirius said, now glancing at a car parked across the carpark from Remus that had been sporadically beeping the car horn for the last couple minutes.
“ALRIGHT!” He ended up shouting at the car, “I’m coming, Jesus Christ.” He then said, but this time, muttered under his breath.
“Who’s that?”
“My brother, I’ve got to go, but I’ll hopefully see you soon, yeah?”
“Uh yeah, but I thought you were working?”
“Oh, yeah, well my shift just finished a couple minutes ago so…” he said, no backing his way across the carpark.
“Ah alright, bye Sirius.”
“Bye Remus,” Sirius said with a grin on his face before turning around and walking the rest of the way across the car park to his brother. He nearly walked into a car that was reversing out of its space while doing so, Remus laughed at that, what an absolute clutz.
Once he was out of eyesight, Remus faced forward in his car again and went to unmute himself, only to realise he didn’t do it properly in the first place, he must have missed the button or something of the sort.
“Soooo Mr Remus John Lupin you have some explaining to do… who was that and why is he lending you clothes?”
“Honestly Lils it’s nothing like th-“
“Nope save all the details for when you get over here.”
“No, he just sp-“
“Ew!”
“No!”
“Get over here.”
“Alright.”
“See you soon.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Remus hung up and set off to Lily’s house to disappoint her with the real events of his morning.