Oh whiskey, you're the devil, you're leading me astray,
Over hills and mountains and to Amerikay.
You're sweetness from the Bleachner and spunkier than tea.
Oh whiskey, you're my darling, drunk or sober.
The beds at the hostel were narrow but comfortable, and in spite of his late-night musings, Sirius awoke the next morning feeling relatively well-rested. The hostel even turned out to have a laundry room, which he was only too glad to take advantage of. While his clothes spun around, he shared breakfast with a few other guests in exchange for a couple of pounds and help with the dishes. The clothes dryer seemed to take forever. He had not arranged to meet Remus until ten o'clock, but he caught himself glancing at his watch several times, impatient to start the new day's adventuring.
It was misting heavily when Sirius at last stepped out onto the high street. Remus was waiting for him outside the pub, a ridiculous-looking battered broad-brimmed hat hanging down his back from a cord about his neck, hands in his pockets, looking completely unconcerned about the weather. The mottled ruddiness of his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose was even more pronounced in daylight than it had been in the dimness of the pub the night before.
He greeted Sirius with a lopsided smile. "Do you still want to go? I ken it's a wee bit saft out."
"No, I do," Sirius assured him. "I don't have an umbrella, though."
Remus's smile widened. "You'd look a right numpty, carrying a brolly in this. It's no but a bit o' mist."
His cheeriness and soft brogue took any sting out of the words, and Sirius returned the smile. "I don't mind if you don't."
"Nay, I prefer this sort o' weather."
They took a different road than the one that had brought Sirius into town the previous day. Past the last houses of the village, the pavement ran out, and the dirt-and-gravel track began to climb into the hills. At the top of the first rise, they paused for a rest and to take in what Remus said was the best view of the village.
Sirius had to admit it was lovely, even shrouded in mist. The heavy air softened and blurred the edges of everything until green and gray ran together, but there was a luminous quality to the air which kept it from feeling oppressive. Sirius took out his digital camera to snap a picture, but when he checked the result in the viewer, he was disappointed to find little more than a blurry, gray-green smudge.
"Aye, a lot o' photos around here turn out like that," Remus said when Sirius showed him. "Sometimes I think this place doesna want to be captured; it wants to remind you that the only way to ken what it's like is to be in it." He grinned sheepishly. "That probably sounds daft."
Sirius might have thought so under other circumstances, but coming from the young man standing on the Scottish hillside with droplets of mist clinging to his hair and the brown wool of his sweater, somehow it sounded entirely reasonable.
"No," he said. "I think I get it. I'll just have to remember what it looks like."
"Here," said Remus, bending to pick up what looked to Sirius like a perfectly ordinary gray pebble. He placed it on Sirius's outstretched palm. "This will help."
The gray stone was flecked with silver and crystal, and it was still warm from Remus's touch. "What is it?"
"Granite. It grows around here. Most o' the land in these parts is metamorphic rock. All this -" he waved a hand over the valley, "- used to be at the bottom o' the ocean and in the crust o' the earth. But here and there, you'll get pockets o' granite thrusting up through. It's the bones o' the land." He gave Sirius another sheepish smile. "So you'll keep a bit of it. To remember, aye?"
Sirius pulled his eyes away from Remus's face to the pebble in his hand. He closed his fingers around it, feeling the rough weight of it in his palm. "Yeah. I will."
Remus spent the rest of the walk to the distillery explaining how the local landscape had formed, and how it had affected settlement and regional history. They walked slowly, pausing often for Remus to point out various landmarks. Far from being bored, Sirius was entranced. Perhaps it was the obvious affection and enthusiasm with which Remus described the scenery, or the gossipy way he talked about history, or only the pleasant rhythm of his voice. He could startle a bark of laughter from Sirius as easily with a tale of a local chieftain hundreds of years dead as with an anecdote from his own childhood, spent scrabbling over the rocky outcrops and stream beds of the Highlands.
When Remus asked him questions about his own life, Sirius was almost too embarrassed to answer. It all felt so mundane by comparison. But Remus seemed genuinely interested, so Sirius told him about his family and the part of New England where he had grown up and the prep school he had gone to.
"I hadna figured you for posh." Remus gave him an odd smile. "Did you say where you're headed for uni?"
Sirius made a face. He had no desire to think about his plans for the future until it was absolutely necessary. "Harvard. My father went there, and he knows the dean of the business school."
"Aye, well, you should do well enough there," said Remus, but his smile had vanished.
"I suppose so," agreed Sirius without enthusiasm.
By the time they reached the distillery, nestled between two hills, the mist was beginning to lift. Remus told Sirius he would wait for him in the tasting room, since he had been on the tour before, but Sirius insisted on paying for his ticket.
"Consider it my thanks for keeping me company and acting as my tour guide," he said when Remus objected.
The distillery was much smaller and more old-fashioned than Sirius had imagined. Everything from the malting of the barley to the distilling and bottling of the liquor was done by traditional means, or with elderly-looking equipment. Sirius snapped a few photos, but humidity from the fermentation tubs hung heavy in the air, and they all came out looking blurry.
The tour moved on to a small stream, which their guide explained was the source of all the water used in the whisky-making process, and from which Remus pocketed another small granite pebble. They finished up in the tasting room, a cozy, pub-like space with a fire burning in the grate, and a long wooden bar, behind which glowed dozens of bottles of the local beverage.
"Have you drunk much whisky?" Remus asked as they leaned against the bar, awaiting the first of three tastings included in the price of the tour.
"Just the American stuff," said Sirius with a shrug as the woman behind the counter poured out two measures of aromatic gold.
"You'll have to let me know how this compares." Remus clinked his glass against Sirius's. "Slàinte."
"Cheers."
Sirius did not have much experience with hard liquor, and what he had mostly involved a few nights with friends that started out with shots, proceeded to drinking straight from the bottle, and ended with vague and unpleasant memories of a toilet, and a vicious hangover the following morning. But after seeing the care that went into crafting this whisky, tossing it back without tasting it seemed like a crime. He watched Remus take his first sip before tasting his own.
The flavor was odd. Complicated and heady. Sirius was not entirely certain whether he liked it or not, though Remus seemed to enjoy his immensely. Sirius took a few more careful sips before surreptitiously knocking back the rest as the Scot finished his own.
"You dinna like it?" Remus asked, looking mildly amused.
Sirius blushed. "No, it was - good."
"Let me choose the next. We'll find something to suit you."
The second whisky was more to Sirius's liking. It had a sweeter flavor, and set up a small pleasant glow in his belly, but he still could not imagine drinking very much of it.
"Better?" Remus grinned.
"Yeah. This is nice."
Remus clicked his tongue. "Nice? We can do better than that!" He squinted at the rows of bottles before indicating his selection to the tasting room attendant. "A wee dram o' that one, if you'd be so kind."
"That one'll cost you a bit extra," she warned them.
Remus hesitated before reaching for his wallet, but Sirius laid a hand on his arm.
"I've got it."
Remus's eyes were almost exactly the same color as the whisky. "Are you sure?"
"I trust your judgement," Sirius said, giving the Scot his most winning smile.
He could tell right away that the third whisky was something special. The aroma was completely different from the previous two, and when he brought it to his lips, the smooth, smoky flavor was like nothing he had ever tasted before. It sang in his throat without any of the burn the other liquor had carried.
When he lowered his glass, Remus was watching him. "Well?"
Sirius nodded. "It's good," he rasped, vocal chords mildly paralyzed by the strong drink.
"Aye, it is."
Remus raised his own glass, closing his eyes and savoring the whisky for a long moment before swallowing. His tongue darted out to catch a drop that lingered on his lower lip. Sirius had been right; Remus definitely had a tongue-piercing. He quickly buried his nose in his glass before Remus could notice him staring. If he did not stop doing that, the Scot might get the wrong idea, when really Sirius was only a bit tipsy, and enjoying Remus's company.
To prove to himself that he was just having a pleasant day with a new friend, Sirius raised his camera. "Say cheese."
Remus grinned self-consciously and held up his glass in a silent toast as Sirius snapped the picture.
"You're pissed," Remus laughed, shaking his head. "Yanks. Not a one o' you can hold your liquor. Three whiskies, and I have to carry you home."
"I'm not drunk," Sirius objected, standing up to demonstrate and only swaying slightly. "Just a bit -"
"Squiffy?"
Sirius giggled. "How many words do the Scots have for 'drunk'?"
"More than I could tell you if we sat here all day," Remus assured him. "We should be on our way, though, if we want to get back to the village for lunchtime."
"I'll get lunch," Sirius volunteered, but Remus shook his head, grinning.
"Nay, when a bonnie laddie treats me to thirty-year-old whisky, I must find some way to return the favor, aye?"
Sirius found himself blushing, and immediately blamed the drink for the thought which Remus's words sent flitting through his brain. The whisky was also making his knees wobbly, and filling him with a pleasant sense of euphoria.
The mist had burned off completely and the sun was peeking through the clouds as they left the distillery and turned back down the road to the village. Remus paused to put on his ridiculous hat, shading his face from the intermittent sun.
Though the return trip was largely downhill, it was slower going, since Sirius had a little trouble putting his feet in front of each other. Remus, who appeared annoyingly sober, kept distracting his attention from the awkward task by laughing and teasing him for his unsteady pace and limited capacity. But when Sirius's foot caught on a stone and he stumbled in earnest, Remus was there to catch him.
"All right?" he asked, searching Sirius's eyes. "Do you want to sit doon for a spell?"
Sirius could not quite make sense of the words. All he could see were concerned, whisky-colored eyes and a wide, full-lipped mouth with a worried set to it, and all he could think was that his family and everyone who knew him were thousands of miles away and he would be gone from this place soon and probably never see Remus again and it did not actually have to mean anything, did it, so why the hell not?
Sirius felt Remus's breath catch as he pressed his mouth to the Scot's. The smoky flavor of the whisky lingered on his lips and tongue, every bit as intoxicating as the golden beverage itself had been. He licked greedily into Remus's mouth, intrigued by the way his tongue stud clicked against his teeth, and Remus responded, hands sliding around Sirius's waist to pull him close, deepening the kiss.
It was Remus who broke away, pulling Sirius out of the road as a large truck roared past, which was a good thing, since Sirius had not even heard it coming. He felt mildly dizzy and very confused.
"I - ah -" said Remus, adjusting his hat, which had been knocked askew. "I - wasna sure if you were -"
"I'm not," Sirius replied, perhaps a little too quickly. "It's just -"
"The drink?" suggested Remus. "Do you snog a lot o' blokes when you're rat-arsed?"
"No! I've never - I'm not -" Sirius flailed with panic at the thought that he had somehow upset Remus by his actions, when he had only meant - well, he was not sure now what he had meant by kissing the Scot like that.
Skepticism was plainly writ across Remus's face. "Oh, aye? Never even thought about it, have you?"
Sirius shrugged uncomfortably, eyes downcast. "Everyone thinks about it sometimes. It's what you do that matters."
Remus made an unconvinced sound. "All right. As you like. You're not queer."
They walked on in silence for a while, Sirius feeling more sober now, but less cheerful than he had when they left the distillery.
When he could stand the silence no longer, he blurted out, "How long have you known? I mean, that you're -?"
"Gay?" Remus's tone was mocking, showing his contempt for Sirius's inability to use the word. "Always, I suppose. But I tried not to be for a long time. I went out with a few lasses, but it always felt like work, even the shagging." He shot Sirius a measuring look. "Last summer I met a bloke. We hit it off. He broke my heart. But after that, I couldna lie to myself anymore."
"Oh," said Sirius. "I'm sorry."
"What about you?" Remus asked. "Do you have a lass at home?"
Sirius shrugged. He did not want to talk about Venice Corbet. She was part of what he had come to Scotland to get away from. "Sort of," he admitted. "She's - we go to parties and things together, and my parents invite her over for dinner all the time. They adore her. But we're not sleeping together, or anything like that. She says she's saving it for the wedding night." He blushed.
Venice's reluctance had actually been a relief to Sirius, and he had given up trying after a few half-hearted attempts at seduction. She just was not his type. Even kissing her was not very interesting. She usually only kissed him in public, and she made an annoying mwah sound when she did it, as if to signal to anyone nearby that he belonged to her.
Remus was looking at him as if he were a puzzle the Scot was trying to figure out. "Are you promised to her, then?"
"Are we engaged, do you mean?" Again, Sirius shrugged. "She expects it. My parents expect it. But no, I haven't asked her yet."
"Do you love her?" Remus's voice was softer now. He did not seem annoyed anymore.
Sirius pressed his lips together. The truth was that he was not even sure he liked Venice. In the year or so that they had been seeing one another, he had never used the word love anymore than she had. She was just there. An assumption in human form. The right sort of girl from the right sort of family. Pretty, intelligent, and completely uninteresting to him in every way.
"No," he said with certainty, feeling a weight lift from his shoulders. "No, I don't."
Glossary:
ken/kent - know/knew
saft - damp, wet
numpty - ignorant person or fool
brolly - umbrella
daft - foolish
slàinte (slanj-uh) - health (Gaelic toast)
dram - a measure of liquor
lass/lassie - girl or young woman
Song: "Whiskey, You're the Devil" (Traditional)
