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“I told you it’s left, then right!”
“It can’t be! It says go straight on, then take a right, then a left.”
“Are you blind? When was the last time you read a map?”
“Enough!” Sirius yelled, slamming his hands down on the steering wheel. “We’re never going to get there if you all don’t stop bickering over directions. You’re doing my head in!”
The Marauders were parked in a lay-by on a country lane. A cold mist had drawn in over the last hour and obscured their visibility so that, finally admitting defeat, Sirius had pulled over to consult the map. It was his car, the one he inherited from his uncle - all cream leather and tortoiseshell accents on the glovebox and gearstick. Sirius was in the driver’s seat and Remus riding shotgun beside him, with Peter and James hanging over the backs of their seats to gesture at the map Sirius was holding.
There was silence in the car for a moment - it was unlike Sirius to lose his cool like that.
“Sorry,” James said, “no need to get shirty.”
“Can we just find the way to get there?” Sirius sighed.
“Sirius,” Remus said, “the directions.”
“Right, Marlene said it was the Old Vicarage, Canterbury Lane,” Sirius mused, looking at the post-it-note attached to the top of the map. “And we want the village of Nettlebed St Lawrence.”
“Bananas name for a village,” Peter muttered.
“Just because you grew up in Middlesborough,” Sirius grinned, and Peter rolled his eyes.
“Not all of us had a London townhouse or a castle to grow up in.”
“Not all of us had parents like mine, either,” Sirius quipped darkly.
“Dickheads, can we focus?” James asked, poking Sirius in the shoulder.
“Yeah, sorry. Mouse,” Sirius said, throwing the map back into Remus’ hands, “you’re co-pilot.”
“But-“ James began.
“My car, my rules,” Sirius said sternly, but the twinkle had returned to his eye. “Anyone who argues gets yeeted out the window. Prongs, will you put some music on before I claw my eyes out having to listen to you all. And not Elton John.”
“Aye aye, skipper,” James said, mock saluting and grinning. He fished his phone out of his pocket and reached for the AUX cord.
“Pete,” Sirius said, swivelling in his chair to look at Peter, “try and keep them from killing each other while I’m driving, will you?”
Peter grinned.
“I’ll do my best,” he shrugged.
“Onwards, champions,” Sirius announced, pushing the car into first gear, and setting off.
James settled on ABBA’s Greatest Hits, which led to a raucous half-hour of sing-a-longs, and Sirius adamantly declaring that he was the dancing queen, thank you very much. Soon enough, Peter had fallen asleep, faced pressed against the window foggy with condensation, mouth hanging open. Every now and then, he let out a piggy grunt, making Sirius and Remus snigger as they caught one another’s eye. James followed suit quickly after, curling up and putting his headphones in. The two boys in the front sat in amicable silence for a while, as the Oxfordshire countryside passed them by, barely visible in the cloud that had descended.
“Storm’s coming in,” Sirius muttered, glancing up at the sky through the windscreen. “Should clear some of this fog overnight.”
“You think?” Remus asked, looking at him.
“Yeah,” Sirius replied, “you can smell it.”
“What, like a dog?” Remus teased, and Sirius huffed out a small laugh.
“I used to sneak away from my parents when we were up at the estate and hang out. Got pretty good at predicting the weather.”
Remus didn’t say anything in response to that, but simply watched Sirius. His strong jaw was tense as he peered through the fog, and even as he drove, he had that classic Sirius look on his face - chin jutting slightly up, eyes ever-so-slightly aloof. In the half-light of the late afternoon, shadows danced across his face, casting it in light and shade. His chestnut hair had grown longer over the past couple of months, the curls reaching his collar now. Sirius absentmindedly ran a hand through it, brushing it back from his forehead, and Remus bit back the urge to reach over and knot his fingers in it. He loved doing that, early in the morning, as Sirius sleepily pressed his lips to Remus’ collarbones.
Remus’ eyes travelled from Sirius’ face to his neck, watching the rise and fall of his Adam’s apple as he took a drink of water. A rivulet of liquid escaped his mouth, running along his throat and glistening against the alabaster skin that lay exposed. With a jolt in his stomach, Remus noticed the bright red blooms peeking from underneath his charcoal grey t-shirt, which he had left on Sirius’ neck the night before. He’d pulled the delicate skin between his teeth, eliciting a hiss of pain mingled with pleasure from Sirius’ lips.
Remus scanned Sirius’ arms, hungrily. The one nearest him displayed some of Sirius’ numerous tattoos, including one he found slightly off-putting, a lion holding a dead snake in its mouth. Remus had been fascinated by the one in Latin when they’d first met, desperate to know what motto this elegant, mysterious boy with the clipped consonants and elongated vowels had tattooed on his arm. After deliberately keeping it a secret for a while, Sirius had taken extortionate amounts of pleasure in informing him that it meant “never tickle a sleeping dragon”.
Remus’ eyes drifted further down, over Sirius’ forearms, veins prominent and blue under the skin. His fingers, wrapped round the steering wheel, were long and elegant; it had been no surprise for Remus to find out a few weeks after they met that Sirius played both piano and guitar. They were musician’s hands, capable of delicacy and subtlety. Remus had often thought it funny that Sirius - with his gambolling, vibrant, firecracker personality - had at some point had the discipline to study music. He glanced down at his own hands, calloused from hours of writing with his ancient fountain pen, nails bitten to the quick.
Sirius must cut a striking figure next to the rest of them, Remus thought. He knew much of his own lithe build came from too much black coffee and not enough sleep. Peter was squat, barely making 5’6 on a good day. All three of them - he, James, and Sirius - stood at least a head taller than him. Peter had always had weak, watery eyes and rather prominent front teeth, giving him a ratty appearance that wasn’t helped by his mousy brown hair and rather rotund build. James, by comparison, was the tallest, but not gangly. All the years of playing rugby had left him powerful and sinewy, making dainty Lily look even tinier when he wrapped his large hands gently around her wrists and pulled her close to him.
Sirius was curious, though. He didn’t exercise much - in fact, it was his favourite thing to say to James that he thought people who exercised a lot should be called exorcists. But he was strong - his upper body was taught, with well-built shoulders and arms, and he had a sort of casual elegance about him in the way he carried himself. Remus had always appreciated it, the way that Sirius could walk into any room and any situation with the same confident demeanour, the same absolute belief that he had the right to be there. He supposed that’s what happened when you were the son of an earl, and your whole life you’d been told that you mattered, that you were important.
Then again, it wasn’t arrogance, Remus mused. James had much more of an arrogant streak, which Remus had always presumed came from being the long-awaited and much-adored child of doting parents. No, Sirius wasn’t like that; he had, after all, always been told that he was important because he was a Black, not loved because he was Sirius.
Sirius looked at Remus out the side of his eye, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards into the ghost of a smile.
“Like what you see?” Sirius murmured, moving his hand from the gearstick to rest on Remus’ thigh.
“Behave,” Remus muttered, blushing.
“Just because I caught you checking me out,” Sirius smirked.
“Oh, shut up, Sirius,” Remus said, turning to look out the window, barely bothering to hide his own grin.
Fin.