Secret Garden
The October wind waves the trees in all directions. Huge raindrops create an echo as they fall onto the surface of a muddy street. Remus’ sneakers are soaking wet, as are his orange wool jumper and dark jeans that reveal his bare ankles. His hair, dripping with water, is sticking to his tanned forehead. Even though he’s likely to have a runny nose and his freckled cheeks are pink from the cold, there’s a big shiny grin on his face.
In less than five minutes, he’ll see Sirius at the coffee shop where the curly-haired boy works.
Today the streets are completely empty. There are no playing and laughing children on the playground, there are no men or women returning from work on the pavement and there are no driving cars that bring out the music currently playing on the radio. The only sounds that can be heard are the sound of wind breaking through the barely overgrown branches of the trees and the rattling of the rain pouring.
When Remus spots the logo of the little café he is heading to, he quickens the pace. He opens the door and hurries into the warm room. His feet leave mud marks on the (this time perfectly swept) floor, he will have to apologize to Sirius for this, who, by the way, is not behind the counter.
Remus frowns and starts looking for the man who is the reason for his coming here. There is no sign of Sirius anywhere, so Remus calls him in a voice hoarse from rain. Just seconds after he calls out Sirius’ name, the lanky boy sticks his head out the staff door. At the sight of Remus, a wide smile appears on his flushed face, which then droops and is replaced by a frown.
“What happened? You’re soaking wet!” Sirius exclaims, worry inscribed in his bluish in the current light irises that are fringed by long, slightly curled eyelashes. Eventually he leaves the back room and now Remus can see what the boy is wearing. His endless legs are tucked in black ripped jeans, and his slim torso is covered with a flowery blue shirt which sleeves reach halfway down his forearms.
Remus’ attention is mostly drawn to Sirius’ curls, that are braided into two tight plaits. Remus can’t look away from the twisted end braids and the few curls falling down on Sirius porcelain forehead. The braids are tied with lavender hair bands that perfectly math the colour of a small clip attached to one of the plaits.
“I didn’t know the rain would catch me, so I didn’t take my coat or umbrella with me,” saying this, the taller boy pushes his wet hair away from his face as it begins to enter his field of vision.
“You’ll catch a cold if you stay in those clothes, I’ll see if I have anything for you to change in the back room,” Sirius offers with concern in his voice to which Remus nods and says he can make them tea at the time.
Remus goes to the other side of the counter and picks up a metal kettle, which he fills with tap water. He puts the pot on the gas stove and then turns it on. In the drawer there is a box with various types of teas sorted alphabetically. He decides to use rose tea, so he takes out two tea bags with its contents. While the water is boiling, he selects two of the multi-coloured massive mugs from the kitchen cupboard and places the tea bags in them.
At the same time as the kettle begins to whistle to inform that the water is boiling, Sirius leaves the servants’ room with a set of clothes folded into cubes in his delicate hands.
Remus turns off the gas and pours the contents of the kettle into both mugs, then asks Sirius how many teaspoons of sugar he wants and adds two teaspoons of sweetener to both teas. Sirius hands him soft sweatpants and a loose white T-shirt with some band’s name on it. Remus informs him that he is going to the bathroom to change and will be back in a moment.
He finds the bathroom door with no problem, it is bright yellow with a little toilet symbol in the middle. Remus enters a room where the floors are tiled with lime and the walls are painted turquoise. He locks himself in a wooden cabin and quickly starts replacing his soaked clothes with those he got from Sirius.
The t-shirt hangs loosely on his slender chest and the sweats a bit too short, but he feels comfortable in them, he can also inhale the scent of their owner which they are soaked with.
When he returns to the main room of the café, Sirius sips his tea from a large red mug while sitting at the table where Remus had sat the previous days. Remus sits down at the table, blushing slightly at the man, who’s smiling at him with this adorable dimple in his cheek.
The boys are sitting in comfortable silence, the only sounds in the room are the soft slurps of hot drinks and the rain hitting the windows with incredible force.
“You forgot to take your book yesterday,” Sirius breaks the silence with his low, flowing voice, pronouncing each word at a very slow pace making them clearly audible. “I read it, hope you don’t mind,”
“Sure, that’s okay, you can honestly keep it, the plot didn’t interest me very much,” Remus says,m truthfully, biting his lip. The sentence evokes an amused expression on the curly-haired boy’s face.
“But so much was happening there! The entire book touched upon topics controversial for our society, and the characters were presented in a very original way! And believe me, it’s rich, coming from me because I don’t really read much,”
So this is how the couple of hours of their meeting go on, Sirius tells Remus the story from the book, emphasizing the most important issues for him, and Remus comments on some of his statements, but most of all, he admires how Sirius’ eyes shine when he talks about what he is fascinated with.
When it strikes ten o’clock in the evening, Remus takes his clothes from the radiator and puts them in the plastic bag he got from Sirius so his clothes won’t get wet again. They agree that Remus will return Sirius’ clothes at their next meeting, which will probably take place tomorrow. Remus complements the shorter boy’s hairstyle and leaves the café, a proud smile on his face that stays on even when a giant dot of rain loads on the tip of his nose.
He runs late to the café – well, not late because his presence there is not obligatory, but he has promised Sirius to be there today at the same times as yesterday, which struck four hours ago. Remus helped his friend with unpacking, James moved in less than two weeks ago, and they finally had to clean up a bit. It took them many hours, because Jesus – how many football trophies this boy has. Another difficulty was that Remus was completely unfamiliar with all kind of sports, let alone the items that are needed for them, so every ball, knee pad or weird shoes were laying in random places all over the flat.
That’s why he is now running on uneven and as wet as yesterday concrete, now and then crookedly putting his foot on the edge of the pavement, hoping that the café is still open at this time.
Thinking logically, it should be, after all, he left it yesterday after ten in the night, and it’s still before eight, but it’s also possible that Sirius stayed with him the night before after hours not wanting to throw him out. Thinking about such a gesture made by a boy with curly mop of hair caused a fond smile to appear on Remus’ face and his eyes close slightly. It’s not a good idea to close your eyes while running, he learns when he collides with a road sign. He falls to the hard, wet ground that leaves dirty marks on his recently purchased jeans. His wrists are sore, because during the fall he tried to support himself with them, and his hands are almost bloody scratched, but he rises to a standing position as soon as possible just to start jogging towards the coffee shop again.
After about ten minutes, Remus walks to the café and opens the door with his muddy fingers. The blond-haired boy exhales in relief when he realizes the café is still open.
The room is quiet. Very quiet.
The rain stopped falling, so it’s impossible to hear the hitting drops on the surface of – this time clean – windows, no melody comes of the record player, and all the shaky tables are completely empty. The only living soul in this room (aside from Remus) is obviously Sirius, sitting hunched over the counter. His hair is tied in a loose ponytail at the top of his head, because of their structure, the black curls are intertwined, creating something resembling a tornado in appearance. The boy’s eyes are focused on the book that lies open in the middle of the table-top and his big eyes seem bored reading the same sentence over and over again. On his face, you can see confusion and something like...disappointment? He is so engrossed in his own thoughts that he doesn’t even hear the ringing of the bell that signifies Remus’ entry into the room.
To attract Sirius’ attention, Remus walks over to the counter and places his dirty and scratched hand in the centre of the page that the curly-haired boy seems to be stuck at. Sirius’ gaze turns to Remus in the blink of an eye, a small dimple, in which Remus wants to put his finger in is making its way to Sirius’ cheek.
“I thought you weren’t going to show up,” Sirius is the first to break the silence that is flowing in the air along with the fading scent of raspberry tea. He looks like he’s trying to hide his smile by biting his plush lips, the colour of which is so dark today that it almost turns red. “I was about to close,”.
“Yes, sorry about that, I had to help my friend, then I was running here and I feel into a pole and it rained-,”
“It’s alright, Remus, really. I’m not mad or anything like that,” Sirius interrupts him with an amused voice, shaking his head while doing so, which causes his ponytail to start flying in different directions and Remus’ gaze follows every movement of the raven curls, as if to remember how twisted they are. “What happened to your hands?” Sirius asks with sincere worry, grabbing Louis’ big hands in his smeller ones and starts softly touching the scratches with his long fingers. Remus notices that Sirius’ nails are painted alternately, black and purple nail polish, perfectly matching his jade Led Zappelin t-shirt.
“Fell on them after bumping into a road sign,”
“Come on, in the back I have a first aid kit in which there should be wound ointment,” Sirius suggests and then he grabs Remus by his hands leading him straight to the staff room without even waiting for Remus to answer him.
Remus enters a small room right behind Sirius and tries to remember all the details of the area. His warm eyes scan the amber walls that are barely visible from under the many layers of post-it notes on which the recipes and little reminders like ‘open the window at two o’clock’ are written, or those with little hearts drawn on them. Books in thick and torn covers lie on a single oak desk in the corner of the room, next to the metal hanger with a black leather coat and a burgundy scarf with golden stripes. The floor is lined with cheap panels, and a self-made lamp made of coloured glass gives the room a unique character by illuminating each sections of the walls with a different colour light. James would love to have this lamp. On the other side there is a high chest of drawers to which the shorter boy goes, still holding Remus by the hand. He takes a small red first aid kit out of the drawer. Sirius takes the tracksuits out of the wardrobe, this time in a deep maroon colour, and hands them to Remus, probably noticing that his jeans are underused.
First, Sirius washes the dirt from Remus’ hands and then he gently rinses the wounds with disinfectant, warning him that it might burn a little. After washing the wounds completely, the dark-haired boy strokes the inside of Remus’ hand and lays a light kiss on the scratch. His lips are soft and although they were on Remus’ skin for only few seconds, he has already become addicted to the feeling of them pressing against his caramel skin.
Sirius straightens up and looks at Louis with brave eyes, a cocky smile lurking at the tips of his full strawberry lips. His cheeks are slightly pink and the loose curl that fell of his ponytail adorns his pale porcelain forehead. His dark lashes cast a shadow over his flushed cheeks and the barely visible freckles on his nose look like tiny flecks of beach sand mixed with glitter showing as a glow on his sharp cheekbones. He is truly beautiful.
Remus sends him a sincere but shy smile and then informs him that he’s going to change, something fragile hangs between them, something that neither of them intends to break or breach in any way, it is a calm and safe feeling mixed with the evaporating scent of coffee vanilla, tea and cherry candles standing on the old table in the corner of the room.
While Remus changes in the bathroom, shedding his muddy jeans and replacing them with soft pastel sweatpants, which are a bit long by the way, Sirius heads towards the old counter and after getting there he starts making two lemon coffees. When the coffee is ready, Sirius pours it into two previously prepared cups decorated with little drawing of blue elephants and he pours a thin layer of milk foam on which he puts small petals of pansies – that are growing in battered orange pots on the windowsill – on top of the drink.
At the moment that Sirius puts the cups on their standard table, Remus leaves the bathroom, creaking the door while doing so, in clean sweatpants. He looks very cosy in them and somehow fits perfectly into the atmosphere of the café. It is a bit funny – the colour isn’t completely combined with the shades of walls or furniture – but it adds a bit of charm and warmth to the chaotic space.
The boys exchange smiles and slowly sit down at the wooden table. Remus starts drinking the hot drink and Sirius blows cold air on his coffee to cool it down a bit. Outside the window you can see the sun setting behind the horizon and the sky slowly takes on more and more interesting colours, the grey accompanying the dark clouds turns into waves of yellow and oranges obscuring increasingly thinner strings of bright light. The streets, although empty, bustle with life. Birds fly back and forth, street lamps are flashing which should be terrifying but here it is normal, the wind is moving the trees, and they look as if they are dancing even though there is no music coming out from the record player and the crossing streets are shining with raindrops.
“What book were you reading before I walked in?” Remus initiates looking at Sirius who is staring at the window.
“You mean before you put your muddy hand on it?” Sirius raises a challenging eyebrow, he doesn’t sound angry, rather amused. “‘The Secret Garden’,” he says after a moment. Have you ever read it?”
“I think I did but I’m not entirely sure. I read quite a lot so it’s difficult to say, we may be talking about completely different books, yours sounds rather childish,” at that, Sirius laughs, a deep and relaxing sound leaves his plush lips and his eyes shine with tears of joy.
And so begins their conversation about their favourite books, Remus concludes that Sirius’ favourite genre is adventure and thriller, and Sirius learns that Remus loves crime stories even though it’s hard to find a book of this kind without the boring romance trope.
When it’s already dark outside, the only source of light is a snow-white moon in a cloudy sky and old street lamps, which – as Remus has noticed – are covered with ivy, Remus decides it’s time to go home.
He says goodbye to Sirius, thanking him for the long-forgotten coffee, and after taking his dirty jeans he goes to the door, suddenly remembering that he forgot to give back the clothes that Sirius lent him yesterday. He mentions it, and Sirius just waves his hand dismissively at it, saying that Remus is allowed keep them.
“Alright, thank you again for the drinks as well as the sweatpants, It was really kind of you,”
“No problem, goodnight Remus,” Sirius whispers and if it weren’t for the light from the moonlight, Remus wouldn’t have noticed the shy expression on the shorter boy’s face.
“Goodnight Sirius.”