Cleaning
*The Ice Kids*
Remus: I’m also not dead or in a coma guys
James: good
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Sirius spent more time at Remus’s house than his own for the two days before Remus’s parents would come home, followed by Christmas.
Lily and James were coming over to hang out again, and they hid the fact that Sirius had been there for 3 days pretty well, or so they thought.
About an hour before Lily and James were supposed to get there, Sirius and Remus started to clean the house of evidence of Sirius’s stay.
“Put all my dishes in the dishwasher and just leave out maybe one of everything?” Sirius suggested while they were in the kitchen. “Yeah that's a good idea, I mean why would they even go looking in the dishwasher” Remus reasoned and opened the dishwasher.
He loaded it with half the dirty dishes from the counter and left the rest where they were. Sirius was stacking and moving the few newspapers with half finished crossword puzzles.
That was something Remus liked doing, Sirius was curious and joined him. They had managed to solve a couple of them together and had become something they did if they were bored of the tv and their phones.
This meant that there were some answers in Sirius’s writing which may be illegible to some but Lily would recognise it and know something was up because Sirius hardly so much as looked at a newspaper most of the time.
Remus was done with the dishes and cleaning up some food scraps so they went to continue rearranging stuff in the living room.
“Time to disassemble the nest” Remus said with a sad tone. The couch had become their favourite place to hang out during the day. Covered in blankets and throw pillows Remus had found in the basement.
Remus tossed Sirius a few of the extra pillows so he could take them downstairs and put them back where they belonged.
When Sirius came back up, Remus had taken the four blankets off each other and laid them haphazardly in piles on the couch.
They worked together to fold them up, they left the one that did belong in the living room folded on the recliner and put the rest away.
They grabbed a couple wrappers and pop cans off the coffee table, along with some mugs and got them to where they should be. Then they returned to the living room to do a final scan of it.
“It looks like you were never here” Remus commented, “then I guess we did pretty well” Sirius said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his skates on the doormat, “missed something” he said.
They went over to the skates and Sirius packed his up and Remus made his look more like how he would have put them out to dry.
“And with half an hour to spare” Sirius said, “yeah, I think you should go home though to either change or at least move your car or something cause its been sitting in the driveway under snow for the majority of three days so that would make our efforts in here useless” Remus said.
“I’ll move the car and push some snow around in the driveway then get changed cause I’m pretty sure I have an extra couple things from when I went home to get stuff on Wednesday” Sirius explained his plan.
Sirius put his boots on, then the rest of his winter gear. “Snow shovel’s where we left it in the garage right?” he asked, Remus nodded “should be”.
Sirius waved as he walked out the front door.
Last night it had snowed a decent amount so there was snow on his car and the surrounding driveway, as well as covering the path to the porch.
Maybe I should shovel some of that too
Sirius got the shovel and leaned it against the garage so he could pat his pockets for car keys, his pockets were empty. He walked halfway back to the house and Remus opened the door, “missing something?” he called, “yeah very funny Moony, give em’ here cause I’m not walking all the way back up there” Sirius said. Remus threw the keys and they landed a little bit in front of Sirius, “let’s just say there's a reason you play hockey and not baseball” “watch your mouth or next time I’m not gonna miss, except it'll be a puck to the face” Remus threatened. They both laughed and they knew it was all in friendly banter.
Sirius grabbed the keys and Remus retreated inside to do who knows what.
Sirius brushed off the car enough so that it looked like he had driven here and backed it up to the road so there would be fresh tire prints coming off the road and into the driveway. Sirius parked the car on the other side of Remus’s car and got out to cover his old parking spot in snow.
He did the best he could to make it look natural and then covered his footprints until he got to the path where he was planning on shoveling a little anyway.
It didn't take as long as Sirius was expecting so they had ten minutes until Lily and James said they would show up, probably a bit more than that seeing as James is almost never on time.
Sirius came in and knocked the snow off his boots before taking them off, he hung his coat on the coat rack and carried his gloves and hat into the house. “Hey Rem, I’m gonna get changed before Lily and James get here” Sirius announced as he couldn't see Remus from where he was and figured he was probably in the bathroom or downstairs.
Sirius ran upstairs and laid his gloves and hat on the register right inside Remus’s room so they could dry a little from some of the snow they had on them.
He took off the shirt he had on and as he was reaching to take the clean shirt off the top of the dresser. Sirius got tackled from the side and the next thing he knew he was laying on Remus’s bed.
“What the- Remus! Where the hell did you come from?” Sirius asked. Remus pushed himself off of Sirius. Sirius could watch his eyes darting all over him, before coming down on him again and connecting their lips as an answer.
Sirius didn't have time to respond or react properly, but kissing was something he was not about to say no to.
Remus was seemingly trying to touch every part of Sirius that wasn't covered in clothing, Sirius wanted to do the same but there were too many clothes in the way.
Fuck you Remus for wanting to be warm
Half of Remus’s weight was on Sirius and it was nicer than Sirius was expecting, which just made him crave having all of Remus on him.
In trying to move his arm to hold Remus’s back, Sirius whacked his arm against the wall, right at his funny bone.
The thud that Sirius’s arm and the wall made Remus stop, Sirius was both giggling and in pain while clutching his elbow.
Remus had his hands on either side of Sirius’s body to hold himself up halfway.
“What did you do?” Remus asked, “I hit my funny bone on the stupid wall” Sirius said, “and now it feels funny”. “Well it is in the name, do you need me to kiss it better?” Remus said. Sirius couldn't really tell if he was joking or not, so he shrugged as an answer.
Remus bent down again and kissed Sirius’s elbow and then his lips one last time before getting up. “I’ll be downstairs, keep an ear out, if the door opens go into the bathroom at the bottom of the stairs and come out when you think makes sense so you have a viable excuse” Remus said as he walked out of his room.
Sirius stood up and picked up his shirt again, then looked for any unexpected incoming kiss tackles. He saw that Remus was just out of the doorway and staring at him. “You are so far gone” Sirius laughed as he put the shirt over his head, “only for you” Remus replied and this time he actually left.
Sirius finished getting changed and put the clothes he was wearing together in a pile near Remus’s dirty laundry.
They shouldn't be coming up here but just in case
Sirius came downstairs in the nick of time. He sat down on the couch right before Lily knocked on the door. Remus went to open it.
“Hey Remus, how’ve you been?” Lily asked, “pretty good, it's been nice to have the place to myself, just do nothing all day pretty much” he said.
Sirius got up to join them at the door, “hi Sirius, how's your homework been going?” Lily asked, “you know me, doing all the homework” Sirius joked, “we still have a week, I’ll get it done and if not, who cares. I’ve not handed in homework before and the world is still spinning”.
Lily took off her boots and the three hung out in the living room until James came in, Remus and Lily on the couch and Sirius on the recliner.
There was a lull in the conversation and they heard the sound of tires crunching on the snow in the driveway so they figured James pulled in. They greeted him at the door.
“Remus I thought you would have had this walkway nicely shoveled, how's a guy supposed to travel safely from his car to the front door, there's a constant risk of slipping out here” James opened with. “Nice to see you too James” Remus said, the group started laughing and James closed the door behind himself.
“James, I thought you played hockey, shouldn't you be used to ice and the constant threat of slipping by now?” Sirius asked.
Lily joined them at the front door, “so what are we gonna do?” she asked, the group exchanged looks, “uno” they said in unison.
Remus went to the kitchen for a tray and the rest set up the room like the first time.
Games were played, cards were thrown, threats were said. It was a good time.
When they were done playing, the sun had come out more so they decided to go skate.
Sirius went upstairs to grab his hat and gloves before coming downstairs again to join the others.
Sirius and Lily grabbed the sticks, and Remus and James brought the bags of skates and their own sticks.
The ice had snow on it so James, who tied his skates fastest, was voluntold to clean the ice.
By the time the ice was halfway cleared, the rest had their skates on and Remus had enough of listening to James complain so he took over and cleaned the rest.
Lily was messing with the stick and trying to skate without losing the puck every few times she moved the stick.
Sirius also grabbed the stick he had been using and tried to do those shots where they come around the net and put the puck in right in the side of the net.
It took a lot of tries but eventually he had it figured out. James had been doing slapshots on the other net, so as to not interfere with Lily and Sirius’s practicing.
When Remus was done shoveling the ice, he took his old stick from the top of the net and skated around shooting pucks every now and again. Mostly just making sure everybody got their pucks back when they lost them in the snow banks.
Sirius could tell Remus was trying to remember the steps to their routine but also fishing pucks out of random places so that it was less obvious.
“You guys ready for a game?” James called from the other end of the ice. “Yeah sure, us three against you” Sirius yelled back. They all skated closer to the middle.
“That's no fair, that's three against one” James said, “we’re two figure skaters and a defenseman, you're a forward, I say it's even” Sirius argued.
James opened his mouth to respond, then his ego got the better of him. “Yeah, you know what, I can take you all on, let's go” he said.
They split up, Remus went back to the net to defend it, Sirius was going to take face off, and Lily got the rest of the pucks out of the way and chose one for drop puck.
James was very close to being right about being able to take them all on. He got them tied at two to two, but Sirius managed to pass to Lily and she got the puck in James’s net by not even thirty centimeters.
She yelled in celebration and threw her arms in the air, dropping her stick. Lily skated back towards her teammates and Sirius and Remus opened their arms for a group hug.
James skated by with his shoulders low and his eyes looking at the ice near his feet.
“James stop moping and get over here” Lily said and opened an arm for him to join the hug. James did as he was told and became part of the hug.
“We never bring this up with the guys ok” James told Remus as they broke apart. Remus nodded and pretended to zip his mouth shut.
They stayed out on the pond for about an hour, playing hockey and having the boys complain whenever Sirius and Lily ‘showed off’ their skating moves even though they actually didn't mind.
The ice started to get really torn up, Sirius and Remus knew it was because they had been out a lot in the past two days but didn’t flood it because they would be too tired after skating at night.
“Guys I wouldn't recommend skating over there” James said and pointed to a corner of the pond with his stick. Remus went over to inspect the area, “what do you not believe me?” James asked, “no, I just wanna assess the damage” Remus answered while he was bent over looking at it.
Remus ran his stick over the area and sure enough, chucks of ice came loose from the pond.
James noting that the ice in that corner was bad made Sirius and Lily skate more carefully while looking for other spots that could be rough.
“I think we should flood it and then leave it overnight and I’ll flood it again in the morning, see how it is then and hopefully it'll be patched up enough, if not I can just keep going until I think it's better” Remus concluded.
Remus and James took off their skates to get the cooler that has been dedicated to flooding the ice. Lily and Sirius stayed at the pond to take all the pucks and nets off, as well as shovel some of the snow and ice chunks off.
Sirius skated to the far end of the ice to grab the net while Lily was getting as many pucks as she could find into the bucket.
“So, how's Remus been?” Lily asked, “what do you mean? He seems fine to me” Sirius tried to play dumb. “Don't pull that with me, I know you've been here for longer than just like ten minutes before I got here” she said.
Sirius had made it to the side of the ice with the chairs and put the net in the bank of snow beside the pond.
“Why do you think that?” Sirius asked, Lily smiled “oh no reason, just a hunch” and left the conversation at that. She plopped the bucket into the snow next to the net.
Sirius picked up the second net and put it beside the bucket. Just as Sirius and Lily were skating to the edge of the ice, they heard it crack beneath them.
They made instant eye contact in panic and threw an arm over each other's shoulders out of instinct, not that it would help for much other than comfort.
“Shit” they whispered in sync. Lily took the one step from where she was to get onto the shoveled out path of snow next to the pond and Sirius followed.
Their eyes travelled over the surface of the pond to try and locate the break. Just then, Remus and James were walking through the trees to meet them.
“You guys look like you've seen a ghost” James commented, “yeah, the ice cracked pretty loudly while we were on it” Sirius said. James let go of the rope he was using to pull the cooler with and Remus put down his big pail of extra water so they could inspect the ice.
The four of them walked around the edge of the ice, it didn't take long before they found the break.
“There it is,” Remus said and pointed at a crack that was maybe a centimeter thick and ran about ten feet towards the middle of the ice. “The good thing is that you can't see anything through it, it's just more solid ice down there so it's probably still safe” he concluded.
“Alright but if this breaks and we die, I’m holding you accountable” James said, “how is anyone gonna hold anyone else accountable if we all die?” Remus responded.
They laughed and returned to the cooler and bucket of water. The game plan was for Lily and Sirius to scrape the snow and ice chunks off the ice in front of James who would be pulling the cooler behind himself while Remus kept it topped up with water, and made sure the towel was still fanned out properly.
When they got to the crack in the ice, Sirius and Lily packed some snow into it before James went over it with the cooler in an attempt to seal it better.
After multiple trips to the house for more water, and small jokes about falling through the ice, they were done.
Sirius and Lily took their skates off and helped to carry stuff back to Remus’s house.
“I feel like after all that hard work we definitely deserve food,” James said as he flopped onto the couch. Remus walked to the kitchen and when he came back, threw a bag of onions at an unsuspecting James.
“Hey! That's not what I meant, what did you even throw at me? Onions?!” James was talking in the most exasperated way Sirius had ever heard anyone use which made the rest burst into laughter.
“That was worth the fifteen seconds I spent walking to and from the kitchen to get them,” Remus said through giggles. He picked the onions up and brought them back to the kitchen.
“There's not a ton left in here” Remus called from the kitchen, followed by the sound of cupboard doors closing. “Unless you want ice cream, we have lots of that” Remus added.
“Sounds like you need to go grocery shopping” James said and got up from the couch. Lily and Sirius followed him to the kitchen.
James made himself at home by opening almost every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen to look for something he wanted to eat. Sirius knew full well that there was a box of cake mix somewhere in the kitchen that he and Remus were planning on making at some point but didn't get around to yet, he just hoped that James wouldn't find it.
“Remus, where are the glasses?” Lily asked, Sirius almost answered for him but Remus got there first and gestured at the proper cupboard.
Lily got herself a glass of water and sat down on a barstool to continue watching James’s antics.
Remus had some sort of smug smile on his face, “James, we could make bacon and eggs for everyone”, “why didn't I think of that?” James said.
“Probably cause you never looked in the fridge” Lily commented, “well I wasn't exactly in the mood for something cold when I’m already hypothermic” James said, “ah yes, hypothermic” Remus was nodding. He held his hand up to James’s forehead to give the joke more effect. James is in no way hypothermic, just mildly cold but they all went with it.
James got the bacon and eggs out of the fridge, Remus got a pan, Sirius asked where the bread was so he could start to get toast going, even though he knew where it was.
Remus made everyone bacon and eggs to the best of their description and his ability to cook them. Luckily they had enough eggs and a couple to spare.
“You know what Moony” James started, “for a three in the afternoon meal, this wasn't so bad” “I can always expect astounding reviews from you can't I, Prongs” Remus replied.
Lily was the first to have gotten her egg so by the time Remus sat down with his, she was already done.
“Sirius I would like to file a complaint, my toast is burnt slightly on this corner” James said in a very snooty voice, “hey don't blame me, blame Remus’s toaster” Sirius said and pointed his fork at Remus.
“I’m gonna blame you cause you were the one operating it” James continued. “Well if I had turned it down any, the rest of the bread wouldn't have even been toasted at all” Sirius said.
“Guys give it up for a minute” Lily said, even though Sirius could tell she wasn't really bothered by the bickering. “Sorry Lils, we were just messing around” James said.
Sirius laughed, Lily wasn't one for nicknames and James was about to figure that out.
Lily didn't react as much as Sirius was expecting but she still shut him down about the nicknames.
James and Sirius finished their eggs and Remus was done not too long after. Lily took it upon herself to clean up the dishes, “just leave them on the counter over there, I can sort it out later” Remus told her.
Sirius risked looking at Remus cause they both knew their secret would be public knowledge the second the dishwasher were to open.
Lily stacked all the plates and put them next to one of Remus’s cereal bowls and they all went back to the living room.
“That was great and all but now I’m kinda tired, plus I have some Christmas presents that still need wrapping so I’m gonna head out” Lily said.
“Oh shit it's that close to Christmas already?” James exclaimed, “yeah, it's on Saturday” Lily said as she pulled her boots on. “Well then I better go while the stores are still open, I have shopping to do, even if I don't want to” James said.
“Would it make your shopping endeavors less dreadful if I went with you and then helped you wrap stuff?” Lily offered. James looked like he needed to reboot his brain, wondering if that was a real thing she was willing to do, “yeah sure”.
“It'll be fun, I’ll meet you at the mall in say half an hour?” Lily asked, James nodded, almost frozen in place. Lily smiled and took her things with her out the door.
“Did you hear that?” James asked, Remus and Sirius nodded. “Sounds to me like she wants to hang out with you alone” Sirius said, “yeah sorry dude, I’m stealing your best friend” James said, judging by his tone he wasn't really sorry at all. “Go have fun, she could use another best friend every now and then, she invited you, not me so don’t feel bad, I’ve been shopping with her lots before” Sirius finished.
James finished getting his stuff together and right as he was about to leave asked “Sirius, aren't you gonna go? Remus has a whole house to clean, nobody wants to be part of that”.
Sirius looked at Remus who shrugged, “it's just the living room and kitchen” he said. James looked like he wasn't going to leave unless Sirius was leaving too, so Sirius put on his boots and coat, gathered his skating stuff, then James decided to walk out the door, after saying his goodbyes to both of them.
Sirius pretended to be very busy looking for his car keys while James left so he would have a good reason for not following him. Remus watched James drive off and told Sirius he was all clear.
Sirius took his snow gear off again, “I’m tired, I think I’m gonna have a nap if you don't mind” he said. “Me too, upstairs?” Remus asked.
That was all it took for them to both make their way upstairs and into Remus’s room.