A/N: For my friend, who challenged me to write something happy for once :) And who wrote me a Charlie/Sirius fic in return.
The picnic blanket is mine, but that's about it. Un beta-ed.
Of Blankets and Picnics, and all the Loves of an Autumn Afternoon
It's cold out, but the flush of red wine hovers about them, patronus like, and the golf umbrella propped against a convenient tree creates a bubble of comfort that even the autumn wind cannot breach. The afternoon is wearing on and the park is empty; the children sit oblivious in schools, pointing at globe-bound countries to the background of soft jazz, but here in the midst of the chaos and the war and the fear, in an old muggle neighbourhood somewhere north of London, Remus and Sirius have created their own blissful oblivion.
The picnic blanket is tartan, crumb-scattered and irrevocably paw-stained, but it provides a cheerful flair of colour that is missing from the lifeless grass; the field seems leached of all energy, as if the world outside mirrors the weariness that has driven them to exile. But, if this is a reflection of themselves, Remus muses, Sirius is most definitely the blanket – bright and vibrant and all encompassing, if a little tattered around the edges, but always, always able to raise his spirits.
The thought slips dreamily through Remus' mind, provoking a smile as it navigates the rose-tinted warmth of strong arms around him, to flit like the first swallow of spring into the part of his brain that isn't soaked in love and warmth and the taste of chocolate on his lips. It is one of those idle thoughts, the sort that Sirius teases him about when they crash at Lily and James' to blow through their hot water supply, but today is for them alone, and so Remus voices the thought into the mid-afternoon drowsiness.
Sirius, stretched out on his back with his hair about him like a fan and his T-shirt riding up above his stomach, gives a little moan in half-hearted protest at the words, unwilling to sacrifice the warm quiet of his dream-world for a conversation that will surely involve thoughts more coherent than the softness of Remus' hair or the warmth of the head resting on his chest.
"Moons..." The whine in the back of his throat is like smoke, more air than speech, and though his lips form the sounds, the syllable trails off into silence unpronounced. The vibration of it thrumming beneath his head reminds Remus of a purring cat (Padders would surely be offended if he knew), and for a while his mind drifts away from blankets and geography and muggle children, basking in the weak sunlight and surrendering himself to long, guitar-calloused fingers carding gently through his hair to massage his tired skull. In fact, he forgets all about it when Sirius, a little more awake now and probably dying for a fag, shifts them over until they are lying face to face, and proceeds to prove with very little discouragement from Remus that he can be very distracting indeed.
So when, hours later as they huddle in bed against the post-adrenaline cold, it is Sirius who breaks the silence, he is surprised. He is less surprised at the mode of speech, because "Picnic..." thrown out into the 2am darkness of their bedroom is, after all, a very Sirius way to start a conversation, but when Remus sleepily enquires just why they are talking about picnics, it is this answer that surprises him most of all.
Because, Sirius informs him with gentle exasperation, if he is a picnic blanket, then Remus is the picnic. After all, "who in their right bloody mind needs a picnic blanket without you?"
A/N: Please review :)