Chapter Text
Only one fucking day, that’s all Sirius Black gets, only one day with his baby brother after basically raising the motherfucker and busting his ass working all year so he can put him through uni, obviously with the help of the very generous money their uncle Alphard gives them. They are in the middle of their first lunch since Regulus finished classes for the summer and Sirius came back from his and his band’s little tour around Europe and just as he starts listing all the activities he has planned for the both of them his younger brother goes.
“That all sounds delightful Sirius, but I’m afraid it is going to have to wait at least a few weeks.” - he announces absentmindedly, his green eyes looking everywhere but at Sirius.
“What? A few weeks? Why?” - asks Sirius, almost choking on his drink.
“Uhmm… I am going on a little trip with my friends, it came up last minute. Evan offered his family’s vacation house in Italy and we booked the tickets last week and…” explains Regulus calmly.
“And when were you planning on telling me? We literally spoke everyday last week and you did not think of mentioning it?”- interrupts Sirius, it all starts feeling very suspicious to him. His brother continues to avoid eye contact, there must be something bothering him. Regulus tells him everything, he was the first to know that Regulus was actually a boy, he told him about his little crush on James when they were in high school, and he talks his ear off weekly with the latest school gossip.
“I am telling you now, I knew you would freak out.”- Regulus sighs, finally daring to look his brother in the eye, Sirius is looking at him with his sad puppy eyes, the older Black always so dramatic. - “I need to be away for a few weeks, this trip might help me solve some… boy trouble I’ve been having.”
Alarm bells going off on Sirius' brain, Boy trouble? How have I not heard of this? How could I have missed it? I’m a terrible brother.
“Boy trouble? When? Who is it? Did someone hurt you? Do you need me to kill anyone? I promise I will make their life hell Reggie, anythi”- Regulus claps a hand to his brother's mouth, fixing him with a hard look.
“Enough, you are not making anyone’s life hell, this is something I have to figure out by myself, and I need you to trust me”- there was the word, trust, as soon as Regulus uttered it the argument was over. And just like in every argument for the past twenty one years, Sirius is not able to refuse his brother anything.
“Oh Reg, of course I trust you. I'm overreacting, it is Italy for fucks sake, and with your best friends no less, you can’t miss out. I’m sorry.” - Sirius rambles on and a little smile breaks on his brother's face, he reaches across the table to hold his brother’s hand.
“Thank you, you whiny bitch. I promise to call everyday and send you hundreds of pictures. Okay? Now how about you tell me everything about your last show?”.- and just like that they go back to their lunch and mindless gossip. But as Regulus goes on about all the texts he has to read during the summer, uneasiness makes Sirius’s stomach twist, his brother is hiding something from him and as much as he trusts his little brother the idea of anything bothering him in the slightless makes his blood boil.
Sirius first ran away from home when he was fifteen, even though he begged his brother to come with him, he had to leave him the first time. Two years later he came back for his brother. They grabbed what they could and ran away into the night, it was on a park bench while they were waiting for the Potter’s to pick them up, Regulus’ sleeping head resting on his shoulder with an ugly bruise starting to form on his cheek, that he made a promise to himself, he was going to protect his brother from anyone who hurt him, no matter what it took, he was going to keep his brother happy and safe for the rest of their lives. And so, a plan starts forming in his head, he will find whoever broke his little brother's heart and make him pay.
It’s a little past 8 am, James Potter is just coming back from his morning run when noises coming from the kitchen startle him, weird, Sirius never wakes up early, he is as good as dead until after at least 10 am. He makes his way across their shared apartment; he and Sirius moved in two years ago right after finishing school, they fell in love with the place at first sight, “a true rockstar’s place Prongs”, Sirius had said to him back then and signed the lease almost immediately. Since then, the barren walls and rooms have been filled in with band posters, records and trinkets they bring back from their touring. Their living room, dining room and kitchen all merge into one big floor, both their rooms and a little improvised recording studio are tucked away in a second half floor.
“Good morning Prongs!”- waves Sirius from where he is sitting at the kitchen table, he is already dressed, black ripped jeans and a white t-shirt, his black hair still wet from the shower.
“You’re up early Pads, everything alright?” - James makes it to the kitchen and starts laying out things to get started on breakfast, his best friend turns in his chair toward him and shrugs.
“Oh you know, ain’t no rest for the wicked. Actually you arrived right on time to help me plot.”
“And what might one wonder are you plotting?”- asks James and something bold flashes behind Sirius’s gray eyes, a wicked smile on his lips.
“I’m getting back at the motherfucker who broke our little brother’s heart.”- James' eyes soften at the mention of Regulus, he could barely catch up with him before he left on his little trip with his friends. They grow up so fast, it feels like yesterday when Reg was just a quiet lanky boy shadowing them around all they.
“Nice! Who are we messing with?”.- James perks up, anything prank related always gets adrenaline rushing through his body. It is his and Sirius' speciality after all, evil masterminds and perfect partners in crime ever since they met.
“Well, Reggie was quite secretive about that, but some bribing got me intriguing information from Pandora. According to her, Regulus never mentioned anything official to his group of friends, but says he told her around two months ago he thought the bartender at their favourite club was cute, and she says he has been sneaking out in the night ever since.”- says Sirius looking proud of himself, like he just revealed to James the meaning of life. Their eyes meet, he expects Sirius to continue, but he just smiles and James lifts an eyebrow.
“That 's it? Not even a name? And how do you know Reg had a secret love affair with the guy? You don’t even know if he even talked to him, he just thought he was cute. I think the same about a lot of strangers in the street everyday and I don’t go having a secret love affair with each one.”- He says and moves towards his best friend, he has always been a little bit overprotective over Regulus. James puts a hand on his shoulder trying to comfort him.-“I think you are jumping to conclusions, mate.”
“James, we are talking about Regulus here, he is the most private and secretive twenty one year old in the world, he doesn’t go all out like you and me, you must pay attention to detail with everything he says, it’s like he speaks in encoded riddles. Or actual riddles, remember when he had a crush on you and left little notes with riddles in your pockets? He has never confessed to anyone he has ever liked in his whole life, so him saying out loud he thinks someone is cute is basically a marriage proposal.” - while his best friend shakes him by the shoulders as if trying to knock sense into him, things start turning in James' brain. Were he a smarter man, he would stop to think twice over the load of bullshit Sirius is clearly presenting him with. Unfortunately for both of them, smart has never been his forte and so big brown eyes meet silver, twin evil grins bloom on their faces.
“Alright mate, count me in. I’ll call Peter”.
They end up at Merlin’ s, Reg’s and his friends' favourite club, a hidden spot definitely too posh and classy for regular college students, dimly lit by red lights, small lounges scattered around the place, the walls filled with art and vintage decoration. Sirius can picture his brother at home here, tucked away with his friends in a corner chatting and spilling secrets over a bottle of wine. Something akin jealousy settles in his stomach, you’ve never been here with him, he has never invited you, until his eyes set on a chalkboard sign atop a stage in the back of the club, “Live Jazz Every Friday” it reads. And Sirius' heart clenches in his chest, jealousy vanishing from his mind, maybe he comes here because he misses you.
James and him make their way into the place grabbing a table with a clear view of the bar, all part of the first part of their plan, reckon and first contact. Their friend and bandmate Peter Pettiegrew is already waiting for them, the blonde man is sitting on a tall chair already nursing a drink. Ever the loyal companion he immediately agreed to come along after filling him up on their plotting as much as they could over text.
James runs over to Peter and wraps him in a crushing embrace. “PETE, oh man I’ve missed you so much”.
“We saw each other three days ago, James. Besides, we’ve been sleeping in the same hotel room for the past six months.” - Peter’s cheeks have gone beetroot red, and he rolls his eyes fondly at his friend.
“Three whole days is too much without you Pete. Don’t tell me you have not missed us dearly as well?.” - continues Sirius as he ambushes Peter from the other side and smacks a loud and wet kiss on his cheek.
“Leave me alone Black, we both know you are the one who’s missing me the most, not even a whole week back in London and you’re already making up pranks to get us together. You know I have a Minecraft server I’ve left abandoned for far too long so this prank better be good.”- Peter pushes them both to their chairs, and takes a sip of his drink.
“Since I got here earlier I thought I would make myself useful and found out some useful information from our waitress Marlene.” - he points toward a woman delivering drinks at a table nearby. Sirius guesses she must be around their age.
“The name of the man you are looking for is Remus, he is over there behind the bar, and he is the only male bartender who works here, aside from Alastor who is 40 years old, wears an eyepatch and I’m guessing is not someone your brother would refer to as cute.”
Both him and James basically leap from their chairs, fuck discretion, eyes looking for their subject. And bingo! Towering over the bar and carefully wiping glasses with long and deft fingers is Remus, and if he wasn’t the man who broke his brother's heart Sirius knows he would already be heading to the bar to try and make a move on him. Soft brown curls, long eyelashes, pretty honey coloured eyes and wide lean shoulders he feels the urge to bite. Bite? Sirius mentally slaps himself, he broke your little brother’s heart, pull yourself together. He pushes to the back of his mind any impure thoughts he might have about his brother’s ex boyfriend and turns towards James, who’s already looking at him expectantly.
“Alright guys, so here’s what I’m thinking. We go up to him, strike conversation and distract him while one of us grabs his wallet, finds out his address and then we release a wild boar inside his house.” - says James brimming with excitement and looking much too proud of his mastermind plan. It earns him an eye roll from Peter and Sirius slaps him in the back of his head.
“Jamie, I love you.”-. starts Sirius and James mutters a small “love you too mate”.- “But that’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard. Where would we even get a wild boar from?”
“How about we go chat him up and get his number and make posters with it to make creeps send him nudes?”- supplies Peter, which doesn’t sound as bad or as stupid as James’ idea. Sirius must remember not to mess with the man in the future, little freak. But he is craving vengeance and he has already made up his mind.
“Gentlemen, please. I hear you, but it is my brother’s honor we are defending here and his innocent and inexperienced heart. So I call for good old vengeance, an eye for an eye, a broken heart for a broken heart. We must woo this man, get him to fall in love and then when he least expects it…”- he slams his fist on the table startling his companions. “BAM we break his heart. We could even snap a pic of him crying pathetically for Reg.”
And Sirius beams the idea of telling his brother all about it when he comes back. Oh my Sirius, you are the best big brother in the whole world. Beside him, James bursts into giggles. Although he might have gotten a tiny bit carried away, judging by the concerned stares he is receiving from his friends.
“Dude, no offense but all that sounds a little bit… how to put it?” - goes James.
“Sociopathic and fucked up”.- finishes Peter.
Funny, Sirius wasn’t expecting his plan to be rejected so harshly, his plan was many things, ambitious? for sure, mischievous? most definitely, and probably only borderline mental. But sociopathic? he does not think so, the only sociopath here was the idiot who broke his brother's heart. Although entertaining the thought that his closest friends might think of him as fucked up and cold hearted is something he does not intend to get a taste of, and reluctantly he gives up his plan.
“Fineee, we’ll go with Pete’s idea.”- he coincides, and reaches over to down Peter’s drink in one go. He’ll probably need it.
“I can’t wait to pull my pick up lines on this guy, he won’t know what hit him.”- he says, oh James you lovely dork, thinks Sirius as his best friend throws him an over exaggerated wink.
“Jamie, darling, you know you are the love of my life and I mean it when I say that in my opinion, you are the most charming man on this side of the Atlantic. But I’ve heard your pickup lines and they wouldn’t lift a fly. Besides, if this man liked Regulus I am much more his type than you babe, and you know I’ve yet to meet a man who can resist my charms, I’m a natural charmer.”- he pats his best friend’s back and wiggles his eyebrows at him.
Peter snorts beside him, shaking his head.
“How humble Black, I didn’t know natural charmer was how we referred to sluts these days.” - says Peter, and James bursts out laughing. Sirius pretends to be offended but he’s actually relieved they are back to their normal bantering.
“Vey funny Peter, back to the matter at hand. We can both attempt the wooing, the important thing is to get it, right? But if I get it you owe this slut a drink, Pettigrew.” - he says, pointing towards himself, and drags James towards the unsuspecting bartender. Back from their table Peter bids them a pair of thumbs up as if wishing them good luck.
Sirius Black is no stranger to flirting, if you asked him he’d even refer to himself as an expert. It also helps that he has spent the last six months picking up cute guys at every venue they played at, maybe Peter was onto something when he called him a slut, but who cares? Sirius Black is a man who knows what he wants and gets it. He undoes a few buttons of his shirt and tries to fix James' wild hair as much as he can, they approach Remus who’s chatting animatedly with a redheaded girl in a floral dress sitting at the bar.
“What can I get you, gentlemen?”.- Remus offers them a polite smile, eyes traveling between him and James, up close Sirius can fully study him. I see why Reggie thinks you’re cute, much to Sirius’ dismay the bastard is quite handsome, are those freckles? god, he loves freckles, Remus has a long and elegant nose, statuesque, his mind supplies, a white faded scar that runs from the top of his nose to the left side of full pink lips, quite lovely lips, quips his mind again, oh god! Shut up mind, you have to look cool, be cool, be cool. He puts up a flirtatious smile and opens his mouth to reply but James beats him to it.
“Excuse me, do you have the time? I just want to remember the exact minute I met the love of my life.”-says James, but to Sirius’ surprise he’s directed toward the girl Remus was talking to. Oh for fucks sake, leave it James to ditch reason and duty for a pair of pretty eyes. He reaches out and offers the girl his hand.- “James Potter, pleasure to meet you…”
“Lily”.- the girl takes his hand, her pretty green eyes stare back at James unimpressed and calculating. “So you chose me as the love of your life based only on my looks? You don’t even know me, I could murder old ladies and kick puppies in my free time for all you know”
Fluttering auburn lashes make James' sudden confidence vanish, and Lily has turned him into a blabbering blushing mess. James Potter you beautiful fool.
“But you don’t murder old ladies, do you? Maybe you have a good reason to murder them?”- continues James trying to save even a little bit of his dignity.
“Even if I did murder old ladies, you made your assumptions based only on my looks which means you were objectifying me. Misogynistic much love?” - ouch! James probably won’t make it back from that, although by the looks of it he’s still struggling between focusing on trying to answer articulately to Lily and the fact that she called him “love”. Sirius decides to put him out of his misery.
“Please excuse my brother, he gets really nervous around pretty people.”- tries Sirius glancing briefly at Remus at the word “pretty”.-“I’m Sirius, lovely to meet you both, please let James here buy your next drink as an apology, I swear he is not misogynistic, just a little bit dumb and impulsive.”
He offers Lily an apologetic smile, and turns to Remus who’s carefully watching their exchange, lean arms crossed under his chest he lifts an eyebrow at him, he looks borderline exasperated and it’s making Sirius' determination scatter. Remember you need to get his number.
“Didn’t catch your name.”- he says to Remus in his most flirtatious voice, and he feels if they keep making eye contact for more than a minute the air around them will turn electric, sadly he doesn’t find out because Remus busies himself pouring Lily another glass of wine.
“This is Remus Lupin, we are actually roommates and best friends.”- Lily apparently perks up the mention of his friend, their awkward introduction now long forgotten.
“Your name is literally wolf wolf? Are you serious?- Sirius can’t help snorting at the absurdity, thank you Walburga for the Latin and Greek classes, but Remus doesn't find it amusing because Sirius notices it triggers the smallest tick in his eye. He looks so good, exasperated, I want to push all his buttons, I’d love to make him… Wait! Mind no, you are just happy he is annoyed because he is a terrible person who broke your brother's heart. Yes, that 's it!
“I thought you were Sirius”.- says Remus hey! that’s my joke -“Impressive etymological knowledge, truly original. But yes that is my actual name, my dad really likes wolves”- Remus continues. Wow it was just a joke, learn to take a joke you dick.
They are back to intensely staring at each other, Sirius doesn't like this guy, he is an uptight obnoxious prat and no amount of cute freckles and soft looking brown curls is worth putting up with him. Sirius is a heartbeat away from reaching for the nearest drink to throw at his stupid face, when Regulus’ face flashes in his mind. Remember you are doing this for Reg, and your little brother deserves proper retribution, you can’t just toss everything out the window for a petty comment, you haven’t even gotten his number yet. He’s making fun of you, so what? Let’s up the stakes, fuck Peter’s plan let’s really mess with this guy. You know he deserves it.
And god if there isn’t a thing Sirius wouldn’t do for his little brother, he reluctantly swallows his pride, which is known to be titanic, and giggles, he honest to god giggles.
“You’re funny.”- he answers, that’s right suck up to him, men love that, and ignore him, men love that too. Sirius plays his most flirtatious self he goes back to chatting casually with Lily, who seems delighted with his interest in Remus, and makes sure to throw the occasional glance at Remus. James eventually recovers from the embarrassment of their introduction and joins their conversation as well.
They tell Lily all about their latest tour and she tells them all kinds of cute stories about her current job as a biology teacher. Her and Remus live in a house they share with two other girls they met in uni. Remus listens intently but barely participates in the conversation and he suddenly excuses himself to attend something he describes as “work related”. No, don’t go, I've barely started seducing you. Lily notices his reaction to Remus leaving and offers him an empathetic look.
“I’m sorry about him, he’s not having a great day but if it means anything it isn’t your fault, you are totally his type.”- she says.
“Oh shit, we totally forgot to ask for his number. That’s why we came here in the first place but I got a little distracted.”- apologises James, his neck and cheeks blushing bright red. Lily’s eyes widen briefly and she starts frantically looking for something inside her purse, she triumphantly pulls out a sparkly pin pen and starts scribbling in a napkin that she hands over to Sirius.
“I hope Remus can forgive me for this, but you look like a nice guy and you should totally text him to ask him out.”- Oh Lily dearest, I would kiss you right now if I wasn't so violently gay. Sirius wastes no time registering Remus' number, and saves his contact as Remus Brotherfucker Lupin. They make their way back to Peter who got a little bit drunk while waiting for them, he entrusts Pete to James’ capable hands and runs back to Lily.
“He’s a total catch, please think about it and don’t break his heart or else.”- he winks at Lily and leaves her a napkin with James’ number on it.
He catches Remus’ gaze on his way out and throws him a wink. Remus Lupin, I am going to make you wish you were dead.