Ping!
Sirius grabs his phone and smiles when he sees the notification. A new message from the guy he's been talking to for the last few hours appears on the screen:
Nah, I love dogs. Cats, on the other hand, not so much.
Sirius bites his lower lip, then types out a reply.
Me too. I went to this private high school, and the dean had a cat that would follow me around all day. I think it's caused some PTSD, to be honest with you.
Ha, that's great. My friends own a cat, and I swear it can tell I don't like it.
Yeah?
The thing always sits on my lap, which doesn't even make sense because most animals hate me.
I've got a friend like that. We think he emits some sort of weird hormonal things, because the only animals that can stand him are pets, and even those barely.
Sirius sees the other person start to type, then stop, and wonders if he's somehow insulted the other man. Should he have steered the topic away from cats? Is he being awkward? Sirius isn't sure. It's a new feeling for him.
Usually when a conversation lags, he can just toss his hair and wink, which causes the other person either to do the 21st century equivalent of a swoon, or to roll their eyes and laugh. Both of these options are perfectly acceptable, but neither of them is currently available to him.
The phone's fallen asleep by the time a new reply registers.
Yeah. Listen, why the username? I've been wondering.
Okay, that's fine. He probably just went to the bathroom or something.
Sirius glances at the name at the top of the screen: "werewolf mcwerewolf". It's a bit strange, but during his brief time using this app Sirius has seen far stranger. He's picked this app over dozens of others advertising the same thing (true love (or, at the very least, a shag)) for a reason: it doesn't require you to enter your name. He would be far too easy to look up, and therefore stalk; how many people named Sirius can there be in England?
(One. There is exactly one person named Sirius in England. He knows this because he has looked his name up numerous times.)
So he's using "jokingly" as his username because he is hilarious, incredibly so.
Sort of a private joke. It's a bit of a play on my name, which is pretty weird, and before you ask, I'm not telling you what it is.
As if you're the only one with a strange name.
Oh? What's yours?
To say or not to say, that is the question.
?
Shakespeare.
I know it's Shakespeare, idiot. Asking whether you're going to tell me or not.
I think not.
Will you not tell me even on our wedding date? Shall we stand at the altar, and will you say "I do", and I will ask you your name, and even then you will refuse me? Is this what my fate will be, to forever be denied the thing I want most in the world?
There's no reply for a few minutes, and Sirius is again seized with a jolt of paranoia. This is what comes of being overdramatic, he tells himself before deciding that if that was enough to scare this werewolf mcwerewolf person away, they wouldn't have gotten along anyway.
Ah, so you're one of those people.
Sirius is a bit embarrassed at how quickly he jumps to respond. It's kind of sad, actually, that after over two weeks online, werewolf mcwerewolf is the first not-insane human being he's met whose starter hadn't been "suck my dick". Normally Sirius isn't opposed, but a little subtlety can go a long way in the art of seduction.
Which, alright, maybe he's not the best at that either. But his strategy, after all, has never once failed him, and this time isn't about to be the first time.
"James! Hey James, take a look at this."
"I swear to god, Sirius, if this is another dick pick I'm throwing your phone out the window."
"That was an accident, as I've told you time and time again. And you shouldn't have swiped on someone else's photo gallery, were you raised in a barn or something?"
They're in James and his girlfriend Lily's flat, waiting for Lily to come back from the store, where she is hopefully buying as much alcohol as a human can carry. It's about 8 PM on a Friday night, and the fact that Remus and Peter couldn't make this rendezvous just speaks of how busy they all are nowadays.
Sirius throws his phone to James, who catches it with minimal fumbling.
"Huh," James says, scrolling through messages. "Is this from that weird app you downloaded?"
Sirius nods. "I've been talking to him for about a week, and I'm pretty sure that he's not going to murder me."
The phone buzzes, and Sirius snatches it out of James's hands.
Are you seriously going to go with that? Not only is that a pun, it's a terrible pun.
Did you just insult my puns? You never insult a man's puns!
"You do know that's Remus, right?" James asks, peering over his shoulder.
The phone drops out of Sirius's hands, and James (Sirius blesses his ridiculous instincts) catches it.
"What? Who's Remus?"
"The guy you're talking to. His username's werewolf mcwerewolf; he's practically spelling it out for you. And look at this—this sounds exactly like him. Shakespeare, Sirius. How many 20-year old men do you know who quote Shakespeare?"
Remus. The bloke he's been flirting with for the past week is his apparently-not-straight crush, one of his best friends since they were eleven. Well. Sirius can work with this.
"Do you think he knows?"
"Yes, I think he knows. He's not an idiot."
Sirius rolls his eyes. "Fine, I'll tell him."
James says you're Remus, confirm or deny?
They stare at the phone screen.
Confirm. Brunch tomorrow, my flat?
Sirius tries, and fails, to suppress a smile. He ignores the annoyingly knowing smile James gives him and types a response.
Confirm.
