Title: Game
Author: trickssi
Pairing: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Warnings: None.
Dedication: To C, my wonderful Remus whose birthday arrives in about a week. To my wonderful reviewers, for whom I've decided to write this sequel of sorts. To those whose love lives are b+w.
Game
There were few things in the world which Sirius Black could not do. It was mainly ice fishing ("How do fish even survive in that kind of weather?"), making tacos that don't have pounds of meat/tomato/lettuce falling from all sides, and not procrastinating. There was also the matter of tolerating his family, but that hardly counted. After all, he escaped 12 Grimmauld Place with ease.
More important was his refractory refusal to shovel any manner of snow. He always ended up with the short shovel or boots without traction. More importantly, he chose the shovel or boots to mask the fact that he could not fare as well as others in the freezing conditions. Snow was such a muggle concern, anyhow. Didn't wizardry invent some way to prevent the task of moving solid precipitation? Apparently, there was too much commotion; if wizards with suburban homes tried to use a spell, the neighbors would notice and scandal would ensue and all that. Primitive shoveling, then, right.
The first time spoiled-brat Sirius ever needed to shovel snow was once that Christmas when he'd retreated to Moony's house instead of Prongs's, for the Potters decided that they ought to show James a few old magical castles before he was too old to have a family holiday. The Lupins were horridly old-fashioned. Naturally, they'd strayed away from magic after the Incident, but honestly. A driveway a mile long deserves a little special treatment, and not the kind in which one attaches a rusty curve to the front of a pickup. It was Remus's turn to shovel the driveway (which was only actually a quarter of a mile long) and he hated to be alone outside of his house.
That time hadn't been so bad. It wasn't windy, no chunks of sleet pounded his face. The calm snow seemed to float to the edges of the path. Of course, Remus was finished before him, but then again, Sirius had never experienced the dull work of shoveling anything. When they were finished, they sat in the centre of the pristine snow and attempted a snowman. The poor thing crumbled before it knew the meaning of Parson Brown. Then, there was sledding, and a great snowball war between the two. Sirius won at those events without question.
He remembers coming inside the house soggy and aching from laughter more than exertion. The fire enveloped him with smoky haze and memories of the common room. Since it was the Eve before Christmas Eve, Mrs. Lupin had begun her yearly cookie extravaganza. Italian wedding cookies were her specialty, as well as miniature cheesecakes. Remus loved chocolate chip, so there'd be at least two batches of those. This year, Sirius got to choose the type of cookies the Lupins would bring to all of their friends' parties.
"I guess… you've already got some chocolate chip, so more chocolate's probably not a good idea," he said.
"I disagree!" Remus shouted from across the room. "You can never have enough."
"Let's see. What's simple enough that we would have the ingredients already?" Mrs. Lupin pondered aloud. Sirius prayed that she didn't mean those cheap muggle cookies that came pre-sliced; the kind that you only popped right onto the tin and into the oven. Those weren't real cookies.
"How about sugar cookies? They're addicting," he suggested.
"Ooo! Don't we have icing, Mum? We could decorate them, too!"
"Sounds manageable. Let's see if we have all of the materials first, boys," Mrs. Lupin said. She was quite pragmatic on the exterior, but Sirius could tell she really cared for Remus's well-being. He was always pushed to do chores inside and to study and pass with flying colors, and to look for a job worth having. That's why Sirius intended to commandeer the kitchen for the making of said cookies. He was skilled in messes.
Mrs. Lupin indeed found all of the ingredients and passed them on to the boys. Little did she know that when she would return to the kitchen an hour later, flour would coat every surface like the snow on the ground.
"Aw, Moony, look, she's got cutters in the shape of crescents!" Sirius exclaimed upon finding them. He also found a dog, a star, a pig, a tree, an airplane that could be configured to look like a demented tree, and Santa Claus himself.
"That's nice. Could you pass the teaspoon of vanilla?"
"You expect me to have that when I'm finding the perfect molds for our cookies?" Sirius threw a mischievous glance as he held up a few of the tin templates.
It took Remus all of point-five seconds to reply, "Yes." Eventually, he got his vanilla, and the whole recipe was blended to death. Then came the fun part. Remus got out the flour, which he spread across the counter.
"What did you do that for?" Sirius asked.
"Haven't you ever made sugar cookies? This is to keep them from sticking to the counter."
"Oh." Obviously, flour was not made for that sole purpose. It was made for sticking your hand into the bag and putting the white handprint on your forehead while waiting for the cookies to come out of the oven. Remus didn't notice until his friend had turned around from retrieving the most recent batch.
"Padfoot!"
Setting the sheet down carefully, Sirius simply looked up. "…What?"
"Are you a fighting Uruk-hai?" Remus questioned. Oh. The handprint. He grinned wickedly.
"Yes." Then a huff of a sigh from the other side of the room, then a bark-laugh from Sirius, and elastic silence.
Most of the decoration of the cookies was left to Remus, the more artistic, although Sirius did manage to make one of the airplane-that-could-be-configured cookies into a brilliant tree, complete with star on top. And Sirius was very good at stealing the bits of excess dough, covering himself in sprinkles, and slightly burning some of the cookies. At least Remus's mum would eat those ones, he figured. All in all, the sugar cookies tasted better than the mess that was made, so every detail was worth it.
They wrapped up the sweets in cellophane to be left on the countertop. At the ten o'clock warnings of Mrs. Lupin, the boys decided it was best that they go to bed. Can't very well practice staying up late until after Christmas. Remus went upstairs to brush his teeth, half-muttering a "good night" because things like that weren't often said in his house. Sirius showered to get the bits of sugar and flour out of his hair and collapsed on the makeshift bed the Lupins had provided in the basement. 10:24. Holy Merlin, they'd spent four hours making goddamn cookies the old-fashioned way.
10:30. The air was a bit too cold in this basement.
11:13. Wished he'd had a record player around somewhere.
11:42. The door creaked open without any reassuring light to provide a shadow, and a meek figure made its way onto the pull-out mattress. Well, it's about time. "Hey," Remus's distinct voice offered.
"Budge over, you're on my foot—One second! I'll get that," Sirius said. He shifted the blankets around so that Remus was no longer entangled. "What're you here for?" Why did you keep me waiting?—Waiting for what…
"Because it's cold and we've run out of blankets. For you. To sleep in. And I hate sleeping bags," he admitted.
Sirius shrugged. "Me too."
It could have been that Remus really was just cold, but then he wouldn't be close to Sirius under the sheets. Close not-touching-but-almost kind of a close. It could have been Sirius was just being a watchdog as Remus slept. He was more of a night owl.
Theories spun and toppled over at 12:16 when Sirius breathed into the back junction of Remus's neck and shoulder. He realized it all… He wanted to say something, but the body beside him was in the pattern of deep sleep. He wanted to jump up, lungs heaving, and shout, "I know something you don't know" in the way that means, "Guess what, Moons? I love you more than Christmas itself!" But he choked. The notion died in a hitch of frigid cellar air.
The next morning, the sheets were freezing again and the tap took ten minutes to heat up. Sirius plodded up the stairs horribly alone, but found a hot breakfast waiting across the table from Remus. The excited spark hit him in that instant that he saw Moony, pajama-clad, waiting for him. Sirius Black was very, very inept at telling people what he really wanted them to know.
Of course, still tells himself he's only piss poor at five things: the ice fishing, taco making, not procrastinating, shoveling snow, and putting up with his family. When the matter comes up… It never really comes up, but in his head when he thinks about it, he just substitutes his family for the way he insistently feels too much and shows too little. No matter how much he acts out, the words just don't come. Maybe next time Remus came to him he'd press himself more firmly to the boy's body, or maybe he'd steal the covers in a gesture of play. Maybe instead of whispering things to himself he'd whisper to Remus how grateful he was for all this, the cookies, shower, shoveling, the jocularity he found here. How warm he was, and how he just knew. Knew what?
"Oi, Remus, you're good at midnights."
Hope you liked. Think of it as a sort of Valentine's Day gift. Please review, and continue to watch for updates--I plan to make this a three-part series. Thanks for stopping by!