Chapter 3
“Sirius!” Remus splutters eventually.
“Hey Remus. I didn’t think you’d still be here.” How dare he say that? Like he didn’t just abandon him. If he’d stayed, even two days longer, he would probably have known that Remus would still be here.
“I didn’t think you’d ever come back, but here you are. Cash or card?”
“Card. But I’ll take a pack of Embassy’s as well, please,” Sirius says, perfectly calmly. Remus hands over the cigarettes, and freezes as Sirius’ fingers brush his. Somehow, Remus doesn’t think it was an accident. Sirius pays, and Remus gives him a strained half smile.
“Nice to see you. Bye.”
“Hm. When does your shift finish?” Sirius asks, in that way of his.
“I’m here till the shop closes.”
“Why’s your till closed?” Sirius asks, smirking.
Remus pauses. For some reason, he doesn’t feel like lying, even though he’s sure that if he tells the truth it will end badly. Oh well. Fuck it. “I’m hoping to go on my break. I have to clear it with my manager though, and to be honest he’ll probably just send me to work in the back. It’s mad busy today.”
“Ok. Well, if he does let you out, I’ll probably be out front.” Sirius wiggles his eyebrows, and leaves.
Remus sighs as he grabs his stuff. He knew this would happen, and his manager will give him a break, he knows it. He could skip it, but he’s still desperate for a smoke. He takes his time heading out, but as soon as he reaches the designated smoking area, his heart sinks. There is only a colleague that he has never spoken to and two other customers there. And Sirius. Of course.
“You made it!” He chirps. When he sees Remus approaching.
“Mhm.”
“So… have you just lived here for the last four years then?”
“Mhm.”
“I thought you would’ve gone back to Wales.”
“Actually, my parents left Wales. They live about half an hour up the coast.”
“Oh. When did they move? When you finished your course?”
“No. Before that.”
“Oh.”
Remus knows he’s being really short with his answers, but he can’t bring himself to care. He can tell Sirius wants him to ask why he’s here, but he won’t do it. Sirius won’t want to tell him, because then he’ll seem self obsessed. Which he is.
“Soo…did you keep in touch with James or Pete?”
“Not really. We text a few times a year, that’s all,” Remus says. He wasn’t going to add the last bit, but he felt like being rude. Emphasising that it was only Sirius he hadn’t spoken to at all.
“Same.”
Ok, that surprises Remus. He assumed that when the others didn’t mention Sirius, or even each other, it was because they didn’t want to risk offending him. He’d never in a million years thought they’d lose contact as well.
“Really?” Remus says.
“Yeah. Of course, the house in Wales that was so great mother and father just had to move there immediately, had no signal for miles around. It’s kinda hard to keep in touch when you’ve got to go on a four hour hike just to get to the nearest town so you can send a text. James suggested I write him letters, but really? Letters? Anyway, I doubt the postman would have come all the way out to us, and I certainly didn’t see any postboxes, so it wouldn’t have solved anything. Honestly, no offence, but Wales is shit. I don’t know how you put up with it.”
“You mean you actually went with them? I thought you’d have run off with James.”
“I should’ve,” Sirius says darkly, and doesn’t elaborate. Obviously a sore spot, then.
“Do you still live with them?”
“Nah. I only stuck around for about six months. Oh, I think you are needed!” Sirius says, using his cigarette to gesture to where his boss is hanging out the door.
“Oi! Lupin! Get back here, you’ve got work to do!” He shouts good naturedly.
“Coming!” Remus says, stubbing out his cigarette, before turning to Sirius.
“Bye Sirius. Actually, now. Don’t stand out here until the shop closes.”
“Don’t worry, I will. By the way, I’m here for two weeks!” He calls after Remus’ retreating form.
Well. That was certainly not how he expected to spend his smoke break.
~
Sirius used the next few days after his discovery processing it. He didn’t do much, just sat in his room, deliberately not looking out of the window. Occasionally, the girls came to bother him, but when he declined every offer to go out with them, they eventually got bored.
The evening after he’d sent them, he got a reply to his messages, which he well and truly regretted sending by that point. It was from James. Of course it was.
Prongs:Omg!
Prongs:I’ve only been back once, and it was two years ago. Mum wanted to go back to check up on something
Prongs:What’s it like?
Prongs:We all have to meet up soon, it’s been too long.
Prongs:@Moony, do you still live there?
Sirius replies briefly, hoping Moony, who does, in fact, still live there, doesn’t read them.
Padfoot:It’s great!
Padfoot:It’s still really similar.
Padfoot:i already visited Minnie. She nearly murdered me for leaving without telling her
Padfoot:and I visited Rosmerta
Padfoot:btw moony thx for tellig them we left I genuinely think you saved my life
James replied to that with a thumbs up emoji, before moving over to a private chat.
James:Mate, have you seen Moony? I’m sure he still lives there
Sirius sighs. What’s James going to do, he’s in Scotland? He can know.
Sirius:I saw him last night. He didn’t see me.
James:bloody hell
James:You’re just gonna avoid him aren’t u
Sirius:Sure am.
Sirius:Last time I saw him we didn’t end on the best of terms
Sirius:I doubt he’ll want to talk
James:Idiots. Both of you
James:Anyway how are u
Sirius:I’m good. Got back from the US a few months ago
Sirius:I’m here for a little project thingy at the weekend
James:Cool
After that the conversation fizzled out. That’s what seemed to happen to any conversation they had these days.
Peter replied at some point. Sirius didn’t read it. He’d powered his phone off completely.
Eventually, the girls got tired of Sirius’ moping, and made him promise to come on a walk along the beach with them. They gave him an hour to prepare.
He decides he should probably go and buy lunch, so he heads to the town’s main supermarket. It’s packed, and there is only one till open. He grabs a few items, and gets to the queue as quickly as he can.
Thanks to the cashier, Sirius thinks, they aren’t moving too slow, considering the queue length, but when he finally gets near the front, his heart stops.
After that it seems to take forever, yet it’s still too soon when he’s at the front, and Remus is scanning his items with practiced speed, and those hands. Those fucking hands.
Then he speaks. Fuck. He sounds the exact same. Although, perhaps his Welsh lilt is less strong now…?
How does Sirius reply? Not wanting to wait too long, he blurts out a vague response.
The effect was immediate. Those brown eyes were on him in seconds, and he blurts out his name in pure shock. He definitely hasn’t read the messages, then.
Suddenly Sirius felt brave. He could still read Remus like an open book, and he could predict exactly how he was going to react. He uses this calculated knowledge to get Remus outside. He wants to talk to him.
Remus actually comes out. Although, Sirius suspects that may have partly been his desperation for a cigarette, if he was anything like he used to be. Which Sirius has decided he was.
Maybe he has slightly misjudged this, he thinks soon after. He knew Remus would be reluctant to talk, but he was making this conversation almost impossible. By the end of it, Sirius had only gotten through one cigarette, due to how much he’d been talking. He had wanted to have gotten more out of Moony, but he should have known how unlikely that was.
When he gets to the beach, he checks his watch; he still has about fifteen minutes until he has to meet Dorcas and Pandora. Grinning, he finds a bench and pulls his phone out, and clicks on the chat that is back to where it should be, near the top.
Sirius:UPDATE!
Sirius:JAMES I SPOKE TO MOONY
James’ response is almost immediate. It seems he has missed this friendship as well.
James:How’d that go then
James:And how’d you convince him to speak to you in the first place
And so Sirius gives a brief recount of their encounter.
James:Jesus.
James:at least your crippling nicotine addictions ended up useful for something
James:…you are aware that he’s probably not going to reach out to you again right
Sirius:Yeah
Sirius:I’m not entirely sure what to do about that tbh
James:You could text him
James:His numbers the same
Sirius:He deleted my number.
Sirius:He probably blocked me
James:and you know this how…?
Sirius:U know how I saw him the other night
James:Yea.
James:I thought you said he didn’t see u
Sirius:Well I was in this bar and I went up to get another drink and some guy got up so I went to his seat but he left his phone
James:Padfoot you didn’t
Sirius:Didn’t what
Sirius:Anyway shut up I’m getting to it
Sirius:So I look to see where the guy went so I could give his phone bakc and I saw him going to the toilet
Sirius:And I went huh that guy looks kinda like moony
Sirius:Btw I was drunk
Sirius:And that was when i was texting you guys
James:Why do I get the impression that you only texted us bc u were drunk
Sirius:Omg James how’d u guess ur a genius
Sirius:Anyway I was sending the last text then
Sirius:And then the mysterious moony-guy’s(yes that was what I was calling him in my head) phone lit up
Sirius:And I didn’t mean to be nosy but it was right there.
Sirius:I just kinda saw it
Sirius:But anyway I saw and my name had that wierd little squiggle thing when u don’t have the number saved so it’s using the name I have set up
Sirius:At least I assume Remus doesn’t have my name saved in his phone as ~Sirius O Black
James:Oh
JamesThat story had a lot of build up for a really basic thing.
James:What did you do afte that
Sirius:I went back to my emo seat in the corner and watched him return like a little stalker
Sirius:When he looked at the notifications he didn’t read them he just rolled his eyes
Sirius:btw, if he had looked at them instead of being so fuckimg stubborn, it would have saved him the surprise of seeing me today
Sirius:Then I left before o did something stupid
James:Of course you did
For the first time in four years, Sirius felt like he’d actually be able to keep this conversation going. Of course, that was when the girls decided to show up. He sends off one last text.
Sirius:Sorry, gtg. My colleagues are here to drag me on a walk. I think they actually want to kill me. Talk to you tonight?
James’ reply is fast enough that he reads it before he shuts his phone off.
James:Ha lol. Have fun, definitely talk to u later.
They’ve not even been walking for five minutes before the girls are ambushing him.
“So. Why have you been so odd the last couple of days?”
“Does it have anything to do with the person you were just texting?”
“Or maybe, a certain wolfy ‘friend’ of yours, who definitely still lives here?”
Bloody hell. They don’t cut any corners, do they? He can see why Reg likes them.
“What?! How do you know he still lives here?”
“Aha! So it is that!”
“N-no…I meant it like how would you know if he still lives here?” Sirius mumbles, knowing it’s hopeless.
“You saw him, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“I can see why you’re in love with him. He’s really hot. And I’m a lesbian.” Dorcas says casually.
“You what?! I’m not in love with him! And how do you know what he looks like?”
“We saw him. You didn’t tell us he played at the Leaky Cauldron. Is that why you wanted us out of there before the music started?”
“He plays at the Leaky? I didn’t know that. What does he even play?”
“You didn’t know? Ah, I don’t think we should have told you.”
“Yeah, we should probably let you figure this out on your own.”
“Yes. Please do,” Sirius cries.
“Although, it seems that you already are, from the look on your face when we got here. You were texting really fast.”
“I wasn’t texting Remus. I was texting my best friend…old best friend. James. I tried to get back in touch. It’s kinda nostalgic, coming back here, to be honest.”
“Hmm. We’ll see about that…” Dorcas says, and Pandora runs off in front of them, towards the sea, giggling wildly.
Sirius watches as they mingle with the other clusters of people, many of them chatting and laughing. A soft, slightly bitter smile forms on his face as he is once again flooded with happy memories, tarnished by longing and nostalgia.