Written For - DolbyDigital and Fairytales Assignment 3
Prompts Used - [DolbyDigital]: (setting) the Hogs Head, (Color) Purple, (word) water, (pairing) James/Regulus, (pairing) Sirius/Remus, [Fairytales Assignment 3]: (emotion) anger, (lyrics) Saltatio Mortis - Miststück: "Whoever told you that the world is turning, did he also tell you that you're standing in its centre?"
Notes - I accidentally made this a soulmate AU, so sorry about that. It's based on the AU where person A and B have to touch and then the place that they touch bursts into color if they're soulmates. I changed it a little, though, but I like the end result. Also, I've been listening to the song 'The Reynolds Pamphlet' on repeat while listening to this, so if any of this seems really salty or incredibly happy it's because of Daveed Diggs and Renee Elise Goldsberry. You're welcome for the Song/Musical/Lifestyle recommendation. Anyway, Enjoy!
Word Count - 1,300
The only thing that was on Remus's hand was the name of a place. Not a color other than tan and brown on him, either. Most people he knew had a time, or a date, or a word, or a phrase, and most had colors curling over their skin. But he just had a place. The Hog's Head, to be specific. He had been going here since he was a small child, and he was found here most days. Really, he was found here everyday. He wasn't going to break his routine now. He had been doing this since he was eleven, and eight years was nothing to sneeze at.
"Hey Moony. I'm gonna guess you want your usual," the bartender said each day. The man already had black and silver splattered over his arms, and sometimes he wondered how him and his soulmate had met. How they had ended up touching each other that ended up with both his arms covered in the ink-like design. He never asked, but instead smiled.
"You know it, Prongs," he would say. Then he would sit in the booth furthest from the door that you could still see the door from. Then he would wait twenty-three minutes for his food. Then he would wait. He was used to waiting, and he did so a lot. The bartender sometimes brought him a beer rather than water, and had been since he got the job two years prior. Remus didn't know if the man knew it had been illegal or not. He never asked.
He waited for about an hour and a half each day, then went back out, usually to the library. Sometimes, though, the bartender sat in front of him, usually just as he was about to leave, to talk to Remus. August thirty-first was one of those days.
"So, Moony, you wanna know how I got my battle scars?" Remus raised an eyebrow.
"What, pray tell, are your battle scars?" The man laughed.
"The colors, man. My friend Padfoot calls them that. He's just jealous. He hasn't gotten his yet, obviously," he said. Remus had learned not to question the nicknames. James had been giving them to everyone. The first thing he talked to with Remus was werewolves, so he was Moony. Their mutual friend Lily Evans was Lily-flower. Remus's friend Peter Pettigrew was Wormtail.
"And Padfoot is…?"
"Sirius Black, Regulus's brother. He's been my friend since we were 11, and he accidentally introduced me and Reg. He's been angry about it ever since," he said. Remus nodded.
"So, how did you get your colors," Remus asked. James grinned fondly.
"I was with Pads, and we were messing around. I shoved him into someone, so he shoved me into the next person we met. I used my arms to steady me, and it turned out that he was my soulmate. And his brother," he explained. Remus smiled.
"Nice," he said.
"Is that sarcasm I hear, or are you smart enough to stay alive?" James said, but he was still smiling. Remus didn't think the man could hurt a fly.
"I'm not to smart, it seems," Remus said. James laughed.
"I knew there was a reason I talked to you," he said. Remus just shrugged.
"Anyway, I was supposed to tell you, Pads is going to be here tomorrow instead of me, so you can't just rely on not talking to people. He's probably going to actually talk to you the whole time you're here, just so you know," James said.
"Eh, could be worse. It's better him than Severus Snape," Remus said. James nodded with wide eyes. Snape was notorious around Hogsmeade for being an all around awful person.
"That's true. Now, I gotta go Moony. My job is calling to me!" James said, gesturing to the door and the couple standing in front of it with green and purple, and blue and gold, on their left and right arm, respectively. Remus stood with him, making to the door.
"See you later, then. It seems I cannot just sit here and wait for someone to fall into my lap declaring their undying love for me," Remus said, dramatically sighing for effect. James laughed.
"See you later, Moony. Have fun with the quest for undying love," James called, then going back to the customers for their orders. Remus just smiled, and headed to the book store.
Remus had forgotten James wasn't going to be at the restaurant up until the moment the man didn't greet him by 'Moony'.
"Uh, you're Remus, right? The guy who has 'the Hog's Head' on your hand and gets the same thing everyday?" Remus looked up to the man greeting him, and was pleasantly surprised to see that he was quite hot. The man's black hair was pulled into a bun-ponytail thing, and rather than wear the apron James always wore, he had on a leather jacket.
"Yeah, and you must be Sirius. And if James told you that much about me he better have told you my order or—I swear to god—I'll murder him," Remus replied. The man laughed.
"Yeah, he did. You can feel free to murder him anyway, though. I really won't mind," he said. Remus grinned.
"I'll keep that in mind," he said, then went back to his booth. His food took shorter than it usually did, and once Sirius did leave his food in front of him, the man sat across from him.
"You're waiting for your soulmate, don't you," he said. Remus nodded, then showed him the palm of his hand.
"My dad thought it was weird that I found it so important. My mom understood why, that I wanted to have someone who would accept me. Someone that wouldn't leave. She brought me here a bunch of times when I was a little kid," Remus explained. He sighed and shook his head. "I'm probably being stupid." Sirius shook his head.
"You aren't being stupid. Believe me, at least you know where you're going to be. You have a relative idea of what's going to happen. I just have the day," he said, then opened his hand for Remus to see. Remus gasped. It was a date, a month and a day. More importantly, it was that day. September first.
"You must be joking," Remus whispered.
"I'm not sure I can, mate," Sirius said. Remus glanced up at him, no longer fixated on the other man's hand, and reached up to his cheek. Sirius was staring at him, confused.
"Would it be terrible of me if I-" Remus poked him, and Sirius's face burst into color. Swirls of amber, maroon, and gold twisting around the place where Remus had, ever-so-nicely, jabbed him. Sirius stared in shock at Remus's hand, which was now colored in silver, scarlet and gold.
"Well that took a while," Remus said. Sirius's face burst into a smile.
"At least your brother and best friend weren't soulmates," he said. "That was definitely an experience I never wanna go through again. I'm not kidding! They're all 'Whoever told you that the world is turning, did he also tell you that you're standing in its centre?' and all that stupid sappy nonsense that no one wants. Constantly! It was a disaster!" Remus laughed at Sirius's mocking.
"At least you didn't sit in the same restaurant everyday for eight years. It really does wonders on your social life. You know, if you don't want one," Remus said. Sirius snickered.
"I can see how we're soulmates," he said. Remus took a moment to respond, spending a second to admire the man in front of him, imagining the life he had ahead of him, and thinking about the time he had spent waiting for this.
"Yeah, me too."