A Rainbow Sequin Skating Shirt?
At home Sirius went up to his room as usual, shouts from his mother asking him where he was followed him all the way upstairs.
Sirius turned on his phone to the message
Remus: so a rainbow sequin skating shirt hun?
He dropped his phone onto his bed and ran his hands through his hair.
“Fuck, he remembered” Sirius whisper-shouted at himself, he didn't open the message but could tell that was all he wrote.
If there was a way to get Sirius to do his homework, Remus had accidently figured that one out.
Sirius didn't know how to respond to that yet, as much as he wanted to talk to Remus, he wasn't sure he could face it right then.
Before he went to actually do homework, Sirius wanted to put on some dry pants. His pants had become like one giant sheet of ice, which was now thawing and dripping on his bedroom floor.
Sirius picked his pajama pants off his unmade bed and then tried to tackle getting out of his jeans.
His first instinct was to just pull them down as usual, which worked for a solid two seconds before they wouldn't move any farther.
Sirius sat on the edge of his bed and hooked as many fingers as he could around the ankle of his left pant leg and pulled, which proved difficult because his hands kept slipping and losing his grip.
Sirius tried again, he pulled the cuff of his pant leg away from him and his leg towards him and that worked a little better.
He moved to the floor. His legs were shivering from the cold but Sirius still couldn't get out of his frozen pants.
Why did I do this to myself? He thought, then remembered how fun being in the snow was and carried on.
Once he got his pant leg past his foot, things became a lot easier. Then Sirius got his right leg out by basically standing on the left pant leg and pulling his right leg up and out of them.
Sirius quickly put on his pajama pants and threw his soaked jeans halfway across the room so they landed half-hanging off his laundry basket in the corner.
He wouldn't have even tried to clean them up but something told him he didn't want to have a puddle in the middle of his bedroom.
He then set himself to work on some practice math problems.
About an hour of inconsistent work went by and that text was still nagging at him. What does he mean? What does he want? Is he mocking me? Does he like it? He had too many questions.
As much as Sirius wanted Remus to like him, he also figured that he didn't want to be friends with someone who would dislike him for wearing rainbow sequins. Sirius decided he wanted to find out where Remus stood on the matter.
He picked his phone up from where it was discarded on his bed and thought about his reply before even opening the message.
I know I’m overthinking it, he won't care, he’s just curious, it’ll be fine.
Sirius:yeah?
Remus: that sounds cool, I wasnt sure if Lily made that up to make fun of you for or not
Sirius: Lily wouldnt do that, I’ve done enough embarrassing things so she doesnt have to make them up for the sake of humiliation
Remus: I think everyone has, I’m gonna go now though, I have a test tomorrow that I’m studying for
Sirius: good luck with that
Sirius flopped backward onto his bed in both happiness and surprise at how well that went.
So he doesn't hate the idea and just didn't trust if Lily was telling the truth.
---
About a week goes by where Sirius and Lily don't see the boys, they all text every now and again when something notable happens but generally everyone else seems pretty on top of their schoolwork.
Just as Sirius started to get a bit annoyed with Lily telling him how great James is, she stopped talking about him and started explaining biology concepts to him at lunch instead. In preparation for a project she has to present tomorrow.
“Lily take a break, seriously, it's giving me a headache” Sirius told her at lunch one day while she was midway through talking about the rules of biomeal norman claytorture or something.
“You're right, I should stop, just for now, I have lunch to eat” she said and took out a container with a ham and cheese sandwich in it.
“You get rambley when you're nervous, it makes it really hard to follow” Sirius explained, “yeah, it's just that I worked hard on this project and I want it to be good” Lily said, “you work hard on every project”.
Lily shook her head then thought about it and gave up “yeah I guess so”.
She ate a few bites of the sandwich then said “tell me about Remus, all this school talk gets repetitive and boring”
Considering you're reading out the same presentation four times over during lunch, it sure does get repetitive.
Sirius swallowed a mouthful of the giant cookie he bought in the cafeteria.
“As much as I want to talk about him, I don't wanna do it here, where people could hear me,” Sirius said, glancing up and down the empty staircases that surrounded them.
“Why? I do it all the time” Lily asked, “you know why” Sirius said, defeated “you're a girl who likes boys and that's just something girls do, guys don't usually talk about how other guy’s eyes make them lose all spatial awareness or how you wanna run your hands through their fluffy brown hair, or how cool they are in general ”.
Lily giggled, “you did it, just then” she said. Sirius stared at her “did what?”
“You started talking about him and what you like about him, just like I do about every crush I’ve ever had” Lily explained, Sirius looked around “you tricked me”.
It was all in good fun and he laughed with Lily about it but underneath it he was scared someone heard, he's only out to Lily, he only trusts Lily with that kind of knowledge.
“Tell you what, we can talk all about Remus at my house later today, if you're not busy” Lily offered, “since when am I ever busy?” It was a rhetorical question because Sirius would rather hang out with friends even if he was busy so there was no point in asking him if he was busy.
---
As promised, later that day Sirius and Lily hung out at Lily’s house. Her parents were both still at work and Petunia was busy doing something in the basement.
They went up into Lily’s bedroom to talk as usual. Lily’s parents have always been ok with Sirius being in the house, and him and Lily being alone together. They had been best friends since they were 5, and have a more brother-sister relationship since then.
Lily sat down on the end of her bed and Sirius claimed the cushioned office chair.
“So Sirius, what is it that draws you to this Remus?” Lily had put on a funny voice as if she had never met Sirius. “This sounds more like an interview than a conversation but whatever,” Sirius said.
“I don't know, he's just, him y’know?” Sirius shook his head in an effort to clear his thoughts and arrange them properly. “I mean where do I start” he murmured, staring at the carpet underneath the chair.
“Why did he stand out to you initially then? I mean you couldn't have seen him for long the first time” Lily tried again. “I don't know, he's just tall, and he looked good, and he was laughing which is a nice thing. That's a problem with most guys, they all act like they’re too tough for anything and don’t have any emotions whatsoever but Remus looked happy and kinda cute in the moment” Sirius rattled off a few things.
“So he's not cute anymore?” Lily asked, Sirius gave her a confused look “what do you mean? Of course he is”, Lily smiled “well you said he looked cute in the moment so I was just wondering if that was always true or specifically for the three seconds you saw him”.
Sirius started to think of everything he knows about Remus as more reasons to like him. Hes tall, he's good at hockey, he's good at math, he seems to appreciate his friends, he has those amber type hazel eyes, and that fluffy mess of hair on top of his head that Sirius really wanted to touch, there was also a sort of mystery to him, but maybe that was just his shyness.
He could faintly hear some sort of noise in the background and Sirius looked up to see Lily giggling a little and shaking her head.
“What?” he asked, “were you thinking about him?” she asked. Sirius felt his face go red, “yeah”. “I could tell, you were just looking at the floor with the happiest expression on your face” Lily explained and Sirius went red all over again.
“I don't know what it is about him ok! I just know that he's really cool and I wanna kiss him sometime because his lips look soft, so does the rest of his face come to think of it. I want to feel his hair, its so fluffy lookin-” “Sirius!” Lily interrupted him, “yeah?” “you're doing it again,” they laughed.
“You wanted me to tell you about him didn't you?” Sirius joked.
“I just have one more question ok?” Lily said, Sirius nodded. “Why him and not James, I mean it would have ended up way worse for us if we were fighting over James, but I’m just curious” she asked.
Sirius had to think about that one “I guess it's just that Remus caught my eye more than James did” he said.
“Well that turned out great for us cause he's really cute especially with those glasses but it's like he's a different person when they play, he's just so-” “Lily, now you're doing it” Sirius said, “whoops” and they laughed again.
They talked about all sorts of things for another hour, mostly James and Remus, but they also decided they were gonna go dress shopping on Saturday, two weeks before the showcase.
---
At skating the next day, Narcissa was asking Lily for all the gossip on James in the dressing room. Which happens every time someone gets a crush and doesnt stop until they are dating or until they stop crushing on that person.
Towards the second half of practice, Sirius was trying to do his skills but forgot some of the steps in the middle. He went closer to the boards to read the pattern and practice the steps in a smaller space then went back out to do it properly, where it should be.
His coach Filius came about ten minutes later to give him a lesson, they worked on his double salchow.
“You have the position right and your legs are long enough to give you the power you need, it's just timing that you're missing” he said, “I would put you in the harness so you can feel what it should feel like but there's only five minutes left of practice so we will do that next time” Filius said and he and Sirius exchanged goodbye’s before Sirius skated off to find Lily, Narcissa, and Bellatrix.
“We’re having a competition to see who can do the most rotations in one spin” Bellatrix informed him. “Narcissa already went and got 17, I’ll go next” Lily said then began to do backwards cross cuts around the circle.
She did three or four to gain enough momentum then went into a normal one foot spin, as per the rules of this competition.
Spins are usually too fast to count how many rotations they do while they’re spinning but someone tries to count that, then they all go over to count the circular, almost spiral of toepick marks in the ice to see how many times they go around.
Lily got 15, “not my best but it's the end of the day so I don't really care” she said and Sirius went after her.
He got on the circle and did three cross cuts before stepping into the spin properly, his hair whipping around in the wind with him. Sirius tried to count how many times he saw Lily, Narcissa, and Bellatrix as he was spinning but that only lasted until the fourth time around.
After some deliberation the group concluded that Sirius did 18 rotations, Bellatrix went last.
Bellatrix and Narcissa ended up tying with 17 rotations each, Lily was in last with 15 and Sirius won with 18. They were all dizzy from spinning and watching others spin so it was a good thing that their ice time was over.
Everything was going as usual in the dressing room until Sirius and Lily’s phones both pinged at the same time.
Bellatrix, who was sitting on Sirius’s left side, swiped his phone from the bench beside him while he was untying one of his skates and turned on his phone.
“Ooooh, Lily, did you know that James is actually trying to go out with our dear Sirius and actually doesn't like you, or girls at all” she said in a haunting tone.
Lily shook her head and picked her own phone up from between her and Sirius to read the message herself. She went back to untying her other skate and turned her phone on again so Sirius could read it inconspicuously, the phone hidden by both their heads.
*The Ice Kids*
James: what are you up to tomorrow?
“Sirius, I didn't know you liked boys, what's your mom gonna do when I tell her about this?” Bellatrix asked.
This was why Lily is the only person who knows Sirius is actually gay, because he figured this is how his entire family would react
“I don't know Bellatrix, what is she gonna do when you tell her something that's completely false?” Sirius tried to sass his way out of the conversation but he didn't care enough to come up with something that was actually good.
Narcissa started looking over Bellatrix’s shoulder at the message and giggled.
“Sirius is trying to take Lily’s future boyfriend!” they announced to the entire dressing room. Lily facepalmed and Sirius sighed.
“Can I have my phone back now?” he asked and held a hand out for it, “let me think about that” Bellatrix mocked and answered very quickly with “no”.
Bellatrix doesn’t know Sirius’s passcode to get into his phone which was a huge relief so as long as Remus didn't also text him everything would be fine. Eventually she and Narcissa would get bored of trying to get into it and give it back.
Enough time goes by that Sirius and Lily are done untying their skates and are working on putting their coats on, Narcissa and Bellatrix are both still giggling over Sirius’s phone and trying to crack the code, they both only have one skate off between them.
Sirius put his hand out again in front of Bellatrix’s face “can I have my phone now” less of a question and more of a statement, he wanted to leave so the sooner he can do that the better.
“Fine I guess” Bellatrix lazily handed Sirius his phone and he walked out of the room right behind Lily.
As they were walking towards the lobby, Sirius turns his phone on and it displays ‘locked, try again in 15 minutes’. He sighed and stuffed his phone into his coat pocket, “I mean what else was I expecting from them”.
Lily had asked what they did and Sirius told her they locked him out of his own phone. It's not the worst thing ever though because they didn't have enough time to lock it for say, an hour or two.
They walked out into the parking lot. “So I’ll pick you up tomorrow at one and then we’ll go dress shopping right?” Sirius double checks the plan, Lily nods and they part ways to their respective cars.
Sirius ate supper as usual, trying to engage in the least amount of conversation as possible, then went up to his room.
*The Ice Kids*
James: what are you up to tomorrow?
Lily: me and Sirius were actually gonna go dress shopping so we’re a bit busy
James: no problem, I was just wondering in case you guys wanted to hang out, I’ve got nothing planned for this weekend
Sirius: yeah maybe some other time
---
Sirius drove up to Lily’s house and waited in the driveway for her. Shortly after he arrived, she came out and sat in the passenger seat.
“Got anything in mind?” she asked as Sirius began to drive out of her street, “not really but I’ll know when I see it” he said.
Sirius almost never had any idea what to pick for a skating outfit, though the men's section didn't really do much to help that as it's all very similar anyway. There were more extravagant outfits but they were harder to find and there were generally less of them.
“What about you?” he asked, “I’m thinking something with a skirt that goes no longer than my knees but not short short like the one from two years ago”.
Sirius racked his brain to remember the dress Lily was referencing, “it was that zebra looking one, remember?” she said.
It was a black and white zig-zag pattern with a short skirt, tank top type sleeves, and a red belt. It looked nice but Sirius could see why she wouldn't want something like that this year.
“Maybe something with short sleeves this time, like t-shirt type sleeves” she continued, “not sure on colour yet but I’ll find something”.
The rest of the drive consisted of Sirius and Lily singing to random songs that came on the radio and talking about everything and nothing.
The drive was only 25 minutes long and the sun was out so the roads were nice to drive on. Most of the snow that had fallen up until that point had melted because it was back in the positive degrees. The weathermen predict it will stay that way until sometime in December, with random bouts of freezing or regular rain.
Sirius and Lily made their way to the skating store in the mall and greeted one of the people working there, she left them to look at stuff and told them to ask her if they had any questions.
While they were walking around looking at dresses that were cool but not really what they came for, Lily nodded in the direction of a little girl an asle over, looking at dresses with her mom.
“It's weird that I used to be that small” Lily commented, loud enough for only Sirius to hear, he nodded.
When he was that small he got picked on for choosing figure skating over hockey but once the kids realised he was actually good at the sport, they calmed down and left him alone about it.
Lily and Sirius finally focused their search on actual dresses that Lily would want and picked out two from the rack. Sirius just followed as Lily went over to the lady from before and asked for a changing room.
She led them to the back of the store and opened a door for Lily, Sirius took a seat on what looked like a couch sized ottoman.
The woman smiled at Sirius as she passed by with some dresses that needed to be put back on the racks and asked if Lily was his girlfriend.
Sirius was used to this question because you couldn't exactly mistake them as siblings, him having jet black hair and Lily having red hair, among other things. Sirius just figured there is a higher chance of a boyfriend coming dress shopping than a boy figure skater, either that or he could be both.
Sirius knew Lily heard that and was imagining she would be shaking her head in half amusement at the question.
“No, I’m her friend, we skate at the same rink, we’ve known each other since we were 5” Sirius replied, the lady nodded “sorry, I didn't know, are you also here to buy an outfit?” She changed the subject. “Yeah, I’ll wait for my slowpoke of a friend to get changed and then we’ll go searching for mine” Sirius said and Lily shouted “hey!” from inside the changeroom but not too loud to be heard in the rest of the store.
The three of them laughed and the employee lady shifted the dresses in her arms and said “well, I’ll leave you to it, let me know if you need anything” and left.
Sirius’s phone went off.
*The Ice Kids*
James: hows dress shopping going?
Lily came out of the changeroom before he had a chance to reply. She was wearing a black dress that had dark blue fabric, rhinestones, and sequins swirled around the torso. The front of the skirt was black and shorter than the back, the back had layered black fabric on top of the same dark blue fabric. This dress had sleeves that went down almost three quarters of the way down her arm and frilled out at the end like the skirt.
Sirius zipped up the dress from where Lily couldn't reach anymore.
Lily stood in front of the mirror and moved around to see what it all looked like on her, as well as how it felt.
“What do you think?” Sirius asked, “I think I like it but the sleeves are a bit tight” Lily said, trying to adjust the cuffs of the sleeves, “I like the rest of it though, the colour and the pattern and stuff” she continued.
“Obligatory twirl” Sirius said. The obligatory twirl had become a thing, ever since they were little, everytime one of them put on a skating outfit for competition or testing, the other would tell them to do the obligatory twirl.
Lily spun on the spot and tried to watch the dress poof out in the mirror.
After her twirl, she started playing with the skirt, holding it out by her sides and dropping it again.
“James asked how dress shopping was going” Sirius said, Lily nodded. “Can I send them a picture of how it's going?” he asked, Lily bit her lip and thought for a second “yeah sure”.
Sirius took out his phone and they stood in the mirror and took a picture.
“What if he doesn't like it though?” Lily asked, “then he doesn't have good taste in dresses, or in girls” Sirius said, Lily laughed at him “ as if you would know anything about that” she said and did a couple extra twirls on the spot.
“I’m gonna try the other one, you go find something to try on cause I have a feeling this other one is gonna take more effort to get into” Lily said and went back to the changeroom.
The little girl and her mom had walked into the changeroom area carrying a little bright teal dress, Sirius smiled at them then walked towards the men's section which wasn't too far.
*The Ice Kids*
James: Sirius wheres your dress??
Sirius: they dont have any that match my sheer epicness
James: youre just saying that cause you know Lily will upstage you no matter what dress you choose
Remus: looks like you guys are having fun
James: yeah but youre gonna have to show us what one of the shirts you try on looks like, even though Lily will always outshine you
Lily: rude to Sirius but thanks, I try to be as cool as the dresses I wear
Remus: Sirius probably looks good in everything though so maybe itll be a fair battle
Lily: I’ve been cooler than him since the day we met
Sirius: probably cause youre always freezing cold, also arent you supposed to be getting changed, not texting us
Lily: yeah, and youre supposed to be looking for shirts so we’re both not doing what we should arent we
Remus: we’re not gonna distract you anymore until Sirius sends a picture of his outfit
Sirius turned back to the rack of shirts in front of him.
Does he really think I’d look good in anything? I've worn like two outfits since we’ve hung out and one of them is a winter coat and a hat
Sirius tried to focus his attention back to the task at hand and spotted a black shirt that had red accents like flames on the bottom and sequins that burst out of the middle in a circle. He took that one and another shirt off the rack and walked back to the changeroom area.
He was let into a room and quickly got out of his coat, sweater, and shirt, then put on the black and red one.
When he stepped out of the room, Lily was standing in front of the mirror with the little girl who was wearing the little teal dress.
Now he knew why it would take longer to sort out that dress, she looked like the embodiment of the sun or a phoenix or something.
The back of the dress had a whole bunch of straps that crossed over each other that Sirius could not figure out. The dress itself was pretty cool, it was mostly orange and red with bits of yellow and some white glitter as accents here and there. The skirt was jagged but it worked well with the rest of the dress.
“And I thought I looked like a fire” Sirius said. Lily turned around to look at him, “that one's not bad” she said.
“I don't think this is it but let's send them a picture of it anyway” Sirius suggested, this time they took a selfie and Lily sent it.
*The Ice Kids*
Remus: you guys look like you could take over the world and burn it to the ground
James: Rem, I hate to break it to ya but that makes no sense
Remus: they both look like fire, what else was I supposed to say?
James: idk that theyre hot?
Sirius: thanks guys
James: I mean it in a friends way, I’m not suggesting that any of us like boys
Lily: back to the task at hand, neither of us are gonna wear the fire outfits on performance day but you guys wanted proof of Sirius trying something
Sirius went back to the changeroom. He liked the red outfit but something felt off about it, and it was a bit small.
Reading James’s message about them not liking boys made part of Sirius want to not even bother trying to ask Remus out.
He could be lying, I do it all the time, the only way I’ll know for sure is asking him myself Sirius managed to convince himself, then continued to change out of the red and black shirt.
From inside the change room, Sirius could hear the little girl marveling at Lily’s dress and that she wanted one just like it. Her mom told her that she could get one when she was Lily’s age and that satisfied her.
Sirius walked out of the change room in the other shirt. Black with lime green fabric on the body of the shirt with a few purposefully placed sequins as accents, and darker green tassels on the back of the sleeves. There was also a streak of silver glitter and rhinestones that wrapped around from his left shoulder down to the right side of his waist and up his back to connect at the left shoulder.
Sirius checked himself out in the mirror, this one is better he thought. Lily came out of her change room in her normal clothes and carrying the dresses.
“That one’s cool” she said, “yeah, is it too much though?” Sirius asked, Lily came over and played with a tassel “no, besides, I think you're tired of wearing almost the same thing every year too” she said.
Sirius looked at himself in the mirror again and agreed.
“Obligatory twirl” Lily said and Sirius did one, the tassels felt funny but he would get used to them and they looked cool when he caught a glimpse of himself spinning in the mirror.
“Ok so that's mine sorted, what about you?” Sirius asked, Lily held up the black and blue dress from before, “alright then, lets checkout” he said and went back to the changeroom before heading to the checkout counter.