#fondness

@wolfstarmicrofic February 24, word count 999

Sirius watched as the builder placed another brick on the wall that his parents had decided they needed when a family they had never heard of moved in down the street. 

“No knowing what kind of riff-raff they’d bring with them,” Walburga had scoffed haughtily. Sirius had met the offending couple. He was a banker at a prestigious firm in the city, and she was the head teacher of a private school he’d never heard of, but was sure it was a perfectly fine school with her as the headteacher. But they weren’t from old money, and so, in the eyes of his parents, could not be trusted, hence the wall. 

The man he was watching had a name almost as daft as his own. Remus. He’d heard the foreman yelling it across the garden when Remus had been watching the water splash from the fountain, daydreaming by the look of it. 

Sirius and Regulus had been banned from speaking to any of the workmen, but that didn’t stop him from watching them. 

He’d discovered that Remus had a fondness for chocolate. It didn’t seem to matter what; if it was chocolate, he’d eat it. So, Sirius, feeling brave one afternoon, opened his bedroom window and whistled. He did it quietly, so that hopefully, only Remus would hear him. 

Remus looked up, wiping the sweat from his brow and gazed around the garden, trying to find the source of the whistle. Sirius whistled again, and Remus met his gaze. 

Sirius felt his cheeks flush instantly, and his throat went so dry he felt like he needed to cough. He gulped loudly and held up the bar of chocolate he’d gone out specially to get. He smiled shyly and made a throwing motion. Remus looked around to make sure no one was watching their exchange and then smiled at him. 

Sirius threw the chocolate bar, and Remus deftly caught it, tearing the wrapper and taking a bite faster than Sirius could blink. The pure bliss on his face was worth the potential beating if his parents caught him. 

Sirius watched Remus devour the chocolate, checking the wrapper to make sure he hadn’t left any behind. 

‘Thank you,’ he mouthed up at Sirius and got back to work. 

Sirius continued to watch him, pretending to be reading a book when he was checked on. It was getting close to the time the workers went home, the wall looked almost done, and Sirius knew his time staring out the window at the beautiful young bricklayer was soon to be over. He sighed, wishing he had any other parents but the ones he had. 

When he stopped daydreaming, he noticed Remus was waving at him and pointing at a rock by the water feature. Remus bent and picked it up, slipping a scrap of paper beneath it. Remus lifted his hand to his ear, extending his little finger and thumb until his hand resembled a telephone and mouthed. ‘Call me,’ at Sirius before hurrying after the rest of his team. 

As soon as Sirius felt he would be allowed to go outside, he made a dash for the rock. With shaking hands, he lifted it and snatched the scrap of paper up. Written on it in terrible handwriting was Remus’s name and his phone number. Sirius clutched it to his chest and snuck back inside to go memorise the number as he couldn’t leave something so dangerous lying about for someone to find. 

That evening, he went out for his evening walk as normal, but as soon as he was out of view of Grimmauld Place, he raced to the nearest phone box. He carefully dialled the number, checking each digit twice before he pressed it and held the receiver against his ear with trembling hands, his eyes roving the growing darkness for any signs he was being watched. 

“Hello?” A gruff voice answered. Sirius froze. Had he dialled the wrong number?

“Erm, is Remus there?” He asked uncertainly. 

“REMUS!!!” The man shouted, and Sirius could just about hear the sound of someone running towards the phone. The lone crackled and then. 

“Hi, this is Remus.”

Sirius froze again. 

“Hi,” he finally said. “You left your number under a rock for me to find.”  

“Oh, hello,” Remus said with such warmth in his voice that Sirius’s knees wobbled. 

“Did you enjoy the chocolate?” He blurted out, clamping his mouth shut as soon as the words were out. He thought very hard about just hanging up and running home, but Remus answered before he could do either. 

“I did, thank you,” The warmth trickled through the phone and down into his chest. 

“Are, are you free on Saturday?” Sirius asked, thinking of a way they could possibly meet. “My brother and I are going into the city to visit our tailor, but that won’t take long, and maybe we could go for a coffee or something,” he raced through his proposal, waiting for the rejection. 

“Tailor? Damn, you’re posh,” Remus chuckled. 

“I know, it was a stupid idea, sorry for wasting your time,” Sirius said sadly, his hopes plummeting. 

“Oi, I didn’t say that, did I? I would love to meet you on Saturday. Just give me a time and a place.”

They made their arrangements, and Sirius hung up the phone. He’d run out of coins anyway, so he made a mental note to collect some from the bank while he was out on Saturday so he’d be able to call Remus if all went well. He returned to the house with a notable spring in his step. His mother glared at him, clearly wondering what had him acting so chipper. 

Sirius was on his best behaviour for the rest of the week. Nothing was worth giving up his free time on Saturday and the chance to meet Remus properly. He went to bed grinning like a loon as he imagined what his life would be like if he and Remus were together. 

It's hard to capture the thick gold light of a September afternoon; the dust on their boots; the way that wary hope curled inside their chests and pooled in the palms of their hands after journeys of bitterness, truce, and wonder. How to express that Nicolò shook, but that he reached for Yusuf anyway; that in the same moment – it was the same, yes?  Yes, the same – Yusuf reached for him, closed his fingers in the loose linen of Nicolò’s shirt, and they kissed. Impossible, then, to capture that a dry press of lips could unlock a long lifetime’s devotion, that Nicolò thrilled to it, that Yusuf’s thought his knees might give. That was the first kiss, but the second—after they bumped noses, and laughed nervously, and rearranged the tilt of their heads—was sweeter, and slick, and new, and Nicolò sat directly in the dirt afterwards, his knees proving weaker, and pulled Yusuf with him so that they might kiss again.

Sometimes they do not wrangle words at all, but simply look at each other with such frank affection that their interrogators melt away, their questions answered, astonished that two men of such recent acquaintance could regard each other with such love. Partners in a former life, say some; blessed beyond measure, say others.

@wolfstarmicrofic word count: 651

“Ho-”

“ly-”

“Shit!” James, Peter, and Sirius all said in sequence, and Remus rolled his eyes. In an effort to drag Sirius away from his house this summer, he had invited the three of them to explore his muggle hometown with him. There wasn’t much to do, really; a pub they were too young to drink at, a run down diner, the library, of course, and this. An arcade.

It was generous to call it one, really. A few claw games, the new and shiny Space Invaders, and a few other games that Remus had not ever really played himself. He guessed his friend's reaction was more to the blinking colorful lights and the neons around the prize booth than recognition of the games themselves. They dived in immediately, taking turns and watching over each other’s shoulders, cheering loudly when they did well and cursing when they didn’t. James was surprisingly bad at every single game, which brought Sirius and Peter no small amount of joy, and Pete had all but mastered the art of the joystick within the first thirty minutes. Sirius seemed to be enjoying himself, but after more than an hour of watching and playing with their friends he grabbed Remus’ hand and pulled him away towards the back corner where the photo booth was.

“Can we use this?” He asked, uncharacteristically shy.

“Yeah, of course.” Remus replied. It took muggle money, not arcade tokens, but Remus hadn’t been saving all of July for nothing. A photo of all of them would be nice, he thought, but a photo of just him and Sirius seemed perfect.

They scrambled into the cramped booth together, Remus closing the little curtain behind them before inserting his coins and pressing the start button.

“It’ll count down from three each time, I think, and take four pictures.” He told Sirius, who grinned at him. The machine counted down and for the first photo Sirius just stared in wonder at the screen in front of him, Remus laughing a bit at his fascination. Then it started to count down again and Sirius moved, leaning into Remus’ space and squishing his smiling cheeks together. He made some sort of face and the camera flashed, and then it was counting down again and Sirius’ hands were still on his face, no longer squishing him but just sort of… holding him. 

“Thank you.” Sirius said, sincerely and quietly like he never did, and Remus’ look of surprise was caught by the flash of the camera.

“Any time,” He said back, and he meant it, “For you. Anything.” And the machine was starting to count down but Sirius’ hands were still on his cheeks and then suddenly his lips were on Remus’, warm and soft and everything he ever imagined they would be. He didn’t even hear the fourth flash, or the shutter of the pictures being printed, or the start up music being played again. He was lost, hand in Sirius’ hair, lips on his, content in the fact that he was here, and warm, and safe, and happy, and that Remus had been the one to make it so.

Finally they broke apart, both grinning. Sirius said something about a group photo and scampered off to gather the other two. Remus stood up out of the booth to clear his head and grab their own photos. It would have been easy to spiral about it; they had never kissed before. Had never even come close to it. It would have been so easy to say this came out of nowhere but looking at the photos, Remus couldn’t.

True love ♥️♥️🦜

Love doesn’t always need words — sometimes it’s a touch, a look, a heartbeat. 💚