title: bottles of wine
prompt: wine in the afternoon by franz ferdinand
author: goodnight news, also referred to as remy.
genre: romance
rating: pg? a few bad words. wine. one kiss. nothing awful.
summary: Sirius likes wine; Remus likes Sirius.
Remus never knew that Sirius liked wine until two summers after they graduated.
To be completely honest, Remus had Sirius pegged as a beer person. It was very easy to picture him sitting in a dark, smoke filled bar with a pint in front of him, chatting with James. Hard liquor, even, was more probably as Sirius's favorite than wine. Remus could picture him sitting in James's basement with a bottle of vodka, doing shots. Sirius liked a rush, he liked strong flavours, and that would certainly do it.
Remus had never been to France. His parents had been there on holiday when he was twelve, but Remus had stayed at school, unwilling to unleash the wolf on a whole new country - the full moon had been coming up. He found it slightly ironic that he had once rejected the idea of going to a new country because he was a werewolf, while now he had to go to a new country because he was a werewolf.
The French countryside was absolutely beautiful. The sky was a perfect shade of blue, with a few clouds floating across the sky like puffs of smoke [it might've actually been smoke clouding the windshield and making the sky look like it had clouds; Sirius was having a cigarette as they drove. The road was winding through the middle of nowhere, with the occasional house. Long grasses that looked rather dried out, instead of lush and green, crept up on the road. Wildflowers dotted the landscape, and the car that Remus was driving kicked up dust clouds behind him. It was his perfect picture of rustic beauty; early afternoon, the sun shining directly overhead.
"Are we almost there?" Remus tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he listened to Sirius ask the same question for the fourth time that hour. "We're completely in the middle of bloody nowhere, this can't be where Dumbledore wanted you to stay. He said you'd be a spy of sorts, well what good are you going to do in nowhere?"
"Sirius, hush! They could have someone out here too, and if they heard you talking like that--"
"We'd already be dead, so stop worrying. I'm just saying, it seems like a dam n awful place to put your spy, in the middle of nowhere."
A deep sigh pushed its way out of Remus's throat. He kept driving, eyes on the road. "For the last time, Sirius, I'm not here as a spy of any sort. I'm here for my own protection, so the middle of nowhere is probably the best place to put me; they're bound to have people trying to infiltrate the French Ministry in Paris, so any major city is off-limits."
There was no response from Sirius, and Remus was glad. It was bad enough that he was being shipped off to France to save himself from being captured and unleashed on unsuspecting Muggles during the full moon; he didn't need Sirius coming up with some crack theory that he was going to be some sort of spy. It killed him that Remus couldn't do anything for the resistance since the new set of laws regarding werewolves had been released, so the last thing he needed was Sirius pretending for him.
They drove in silence for a few minutes more. Sirius's cigarette was done, he'd moved on to tapping his fingers against the window and staring outside. Remus didn't say anything, even though the tapping was driving him crazy. This was his last day with Sirius for God knew how long, he didn't want to waste it on some silly fight.
"Hey, Moony, what's "Bienvenue à Anger" mean?"
Remus smiled and chuckled to himself at Sirius's atrocious French accent. "It's pronounced 'On-Jay', just so you know, Padfoot, and it means 'Welcome to Anger'."
"Oh. Well, does that mean we're here? Because we just passed a sign that said that."
"Yes, that traditionally does mean we've arrived in a place..."
And sure enough, after a few more minutes of driving, clusters of houses started to appear, instead of solitary homes. Two more miles and there were small shops, cafés, and an inn all gathered around the street. Remus took it all in without really feeling anything. This would be his home until Dumbledore sent for him to come back to England, and Remus didn't even think that God knew when that would be.
"What was the address?" Remus asked the black haired boy, who began searching his pockets for a scrap of paper.
"Sixty - six, Rue Lombarde," he read off, French accent still quite awful. Remus didn't laugh this time.
"I'm going to go buy you some food, Moony," Sirius called as he was headed out the door. Remus poked his head around the corner.
"I think you mean you're going to buy yourself some food, but thanks," he told his Animagus friend. Sirius was sniggering as he walked out the door.
Remus, for his part, was setting up his bedroom. After seven years in a dormitory elaborately furnished with Gryffindor pennants and Quidditch posters, and then two years sharing a flat with Sirius, sparsely decorated, but littered with motorcycle parts and magazine clippings, Remus had never actually decorated his own living space. He was sure he'd figure something out in the time he spent here, but right now he wanted only decorations of things that reminded him of Sirius.
The werewolf wandered into the kitchen, opening cupboards and glancing at the refrigerator. There was nothing in the cooler, but the cupboards were full of dishes and wineglasses. A thin layer of dust was spread over the counter. Remus wrinkled his nose, making a mental note to dust everything in this bloody house before attempting to cook. He hadn't cooked in ages; living with Sirius meant take-out or eating at James's apartment for every meal except breakfast.
Remus moved on again, this time to the small living room, furnished by only a couch and a coffee table. He sank gratefully into the couch, kicking off his shoes and resting his head on one of the soft, dusty brown pillows. It had been a long drive, and he was so tired...Remus yawned loudly and settled down to wait for Sirius.
"Get up, Rem, we're going on a picnic."
Remus blinked, bleary - eyed and confused. A picnic in London? In the middle of a war? Even Sirius wasn't that thick. Remus rubbed his eyes. Things came back to him in a slow trickle; he was not in London, he must've fallen asleep on the couch, Sirius was standing there with shopping bags, he was in France. He was a fugitive.
"A picnic? Let's just eat here, Pads, I'm tired..."
"Clearly you're tired, but you just spent about three hours sleeping on the couch, so that's not an excuse. And I'm hungry and you know bloody well I can't use a stove so let's just go, all right?"
No argument surfaced in Remus's mind, so he stood up, put his shoes back on, and trailed after Sirius to the car. He got into the drivers seat, turned the ignition on, and found that the gas tank was almost empty. Oh well, it wasn't like he was going to be driving anywhere anytime soon.
"Stop here," Sirius said after about five minutes. They were just past the cluster of shops that made up the town, and the grass was the perfect, dried out shade of green - turned - brown that Remus loved.
They got out of the car, Sirius dragging two paper bags filled with food, and sat down about ten feet away from the road, down a small hill. Remus stretched out in the grass, not particularly hungry, and watched Sirius. The black haired boy pulled out a loaf of bread, some cheese, grapes, two sandwiches, and...a bottle of wine. And two wineglasses.
"White wine, Sirius?" Remus asked, slightly amused.
"'S my favorite," Sirius replied, pouring the stuff into two glasses.
"Really," Remus remarked, taking his glass.
"Yeah. There's just something about drinking wine...I dunno. I like it." He shrugged.
Several glasses of wine later, the bottle was nearly empty, the sun was beginning to fade, and the two boys were both rather drunk.
Remus leaned his head against Sirius's shoulder. "I'm gonna miss you, Pads," he whispered, surprisingly lucid and suddenly serious, after an hour of joking and slurred speech. "I'll miss everyone. But you the most."
Sirius patted the werewolf's back slightly awkwardly. "Miss you too, Remus."
The wind blew just then, knocking over the empty glasses and blowing away the last bits of food. Neither boy got up to do anything; this moment was too raw and strange and perfect for either of them to move or do anything to disturb it. Remus lifted himself slightly and pressed a sloppy, open - mouthed kiss to the corner of Sirius's lips. Sirius looked down at him and stroked his hair gently.
"I should go."
Remus pulled himself away from Sirius and stood, head spinning slightly. He hugged his friend tightly, unwilling to let him go just yet.
"Send me the Prophet, all right? And any news." His voice cracked. "Don't die on me out there. I'd miss you too much."
Sirius nodded. "I'll come visit you, okay? And I won't die on you. I promise."
That night, with Sirius gone and the car out of gas, Remus walked the ten minutes back to the house, leaving the wineglasses in the field, carrying with him only the label from the bottle.
The decorations in the house, after three months of being lived in by Remus, are simple. Newspaper clippings are stuck to the walls, detailing the horrors going on back home in England. The kitchen's clean now, with no blanket of dust. The table in the living room is covered with letters from Sirius, and in the kitchen, there is an entire cupboard devoted to white wine.
Because Sirius liked white wine, and Remus will take anything that reminds him of Sirius.
fin.