Chapter Text
It had all begun when their plans didn't align the way they usually did for the summer.
For as long as they'd had access to a car and adult money, when the height of summer came and one was looking for Sirius Black, they'd probably find him at the beach house that he and his friends went to great pains to reserve every year. It was like a religion to them. As serious as Friendsmas dinner before they split for the holidays and Halloween.
His adoptive brother and father of his godson, James Potter, owned a share of the beach house along with his parents. There was a roster system at play so that each year all members of the family could get their turn at the palatial beach front villa in the South of France. They all got a few weeks between the end of spring and the start of autumn. Since Sirius was their mostly adopted son that included him. He and James had a habit of stacking their time to get an extra long stay.
With the end of their school years several years before they'd never missed a year.
Those weeks usually found Sirius testing the limitations of his pale olive skin under the Mediterranean sun, drinking too much summer wine, over cooking steak for his friends, and generally making the very most of the summer nights with his and James's other best mates, Peter and Remus.
Until this year.
This year life had happened.
James became a dad just as the summer got going. Peter had started a new job that didn't approve annual leave before the trial period was over. Remus was teaching and too distracted by exam proctoring to plan ahead. For his part, Sirius had been distracted too, getting to know his godson, Harry. It had been no-ones fault - just the way the cookie crumbled. And then one day Remus had come home to the flat he shared with Sirius to announce that he was going on a three week holiday with his mother to to Austria, Germany, and Switzerland during the period they were usually away together.
And Sirius… had been a little at a loss if he was honest. It was one thing to break with tradition and forgo his usual summer holiday with his mates. It was another thing for his very best mate in the world - Remus - to leave him to his own devices for almost a month. It was asking for trouble really.
He'd counted on a long summer stay-cation in London with Remus. He'd imagined them taking day trips to Brighton or walking for ice cream on particularly stuffy days and taking babysitting shifts for Lily and James so they could have a break. Without him, Sirius was truly at a loose end.
Sure, he was always welcome at the Potters - he had a room there just for him, for god's sake, but even he had to admit there was a limit to the joy a crying baby could give you when the heat was high and the house too small to escape it.
So he started looking for ways to get excited about having the flat to himself for once.
Cue Grand Designs, Changing Rooms and The Block Australia.
He'd been a DIY TV junkie ever since he'd started watching the home reno shows with Effie and Monty following his "relocation" from the Black family home. He'd been sick for a long time afterwards; his body working through a lifetime of stress and and his mind trying to process the monumental cleaving his disinheritance and running away had caused in his identity.
He'd been home-schooled for a while to try and protect him from the secondary school rumor-mill and retaliation from his parents, and when they weren't teaching him maths or biology, his new family would pop on the telly, assemble a plate of tea and biscuits and they would watch both the competent and the hopeless have a go at renovating their homes.
He hadn't seen the appeal at first. From what he could see, fewer than half of the people that were renovating had any skill and the rest had even less taste, but he soon caught the bug. There was something about the satisfaction of a project completed. The control you had over layout and colours. The catharsis of doing something with your hands - something you could look at at the end of the day that you had done; whether it was successful or not.
He'd had ideas he'd been wanting to try for ages; Plans for upgrades to the flat, and now he also had the time to try them.
And so that summer, when he'd have the house to himself and the long days to work with, that's exactly what he planned to do.
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"Now, you remember what I showed you with the fuse box, yeah?" Remus asked, picking up his backpack and heaving it over his shoulder. Sirius hurried forward to help him, clipping the backpack securely so it wouldn't fall off his bony shoulders and worsen his scoliosis.
"Yes, yes," Sirius gave dismissively, smoothing Remus's jumper under the bag straps so that it wouldn't get wrinkled. He resisted the urge to poke fun at Remus's reliable choice of a jumper even when the weather was rapidly approaching 26 degrees outside. "-But it's not going to be a problem because you fixed it! Right?"
Remus rolled his eyes, but let Sirius fuss without comment.
"It will keep being a problem if you keep running the toaster, kettle, and microwave all at the same time," he lectured gently, "it's an old block of flats, Pads, you have to remember the wiring needs a business minute to process multiple inputs."
"Well the faster you come back, the less chance there is of me blowing the lights, isn't there?" Sirius asked with a cheeky smile.
Remus looked down at him thoughtfully, his own private smile lingering on his plump, pink lips. As he assessed Sirius, he took the opportunity to admire the way the sunlight coming in through the lobby doors was lighting Remus's golden curls. His eyes were warm on Sirius; the colour of honey and the good whisky that made you swoon with its intensity. He looked flushed in the warmth. Sirius hoped he'd packed appropriately for his trip.
"Don't lie," Remus said finally, "I know you have all manner of things planned for the next few weeks... I saw those boxes in the cupboard…"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Sirius gave haughtily, trying to bite back a grin. "I shall be pining at the door like a pooch for the duration of your trip!"
Something in Remus's smile dimmed a little at that. Something like guilt or regret flittered over his expression before it disappeared again. "I'm sorry I made summer plans," he said regretfully, "But I'm sure you, and whoever you have over, will be far too busy to miss me anyway..."
Sirius frowned a little and made to say that he and James (his only planned guest for the time Remus was away) could never be too busy to miss Remus - it was Remus! - when there was a tooting outside, indicating the arrival of Remus's mum coming to pick him up. Sirius finally stepped away from his friend, swallowing a small pang of sadness.
"That'll be Hope," he said instead, patting Remus on the chest and reaching for the rolling suitcase at Remus's side before he could.
Before Remus could protest that he could manage, Sirius was already pulling the bag along to the doors to the exit of their building toward where Hope was waiting in a temporary park outside.
"Hi Hope! Enjoy Europe and take care of Moony for me, yeah?" Sirius said as he hauled Remus's bags into the trunk. "Make sure he eats his vegetables and doesn't subsist exclusively on the chocolate hobnobs I know he's stuffed his suitcase with…"
"Oi!" Remus said, catching up, "It's for tea time - and I eat more veggies than you!"
Hope just laughed from the driver's seat and beamed at Sirius through the window. The resemblance between her and her son was slight - where she was short and plump, he was tall and lanky. Where he had thick tumbly curls that were golden in the sun, she had straight mousy brown hair that she wore perpetually in a braid. Remus had inherited the majority of his looks from the Lupin side - his late father - but his eyes were all Hope. She fixed them on Sirius as he opened the door for a still grumbling Moony.
"You going to be alright?" she asked, "I'm sorry our little summer trip is leaving you all alone…"
"I'll be alright," Sirius gave with more confidence than he felt. "Have imagination; will use, you know?"
She gave him a knowing smile. He stepped back a little from the door to let Remus close it and buckle his seatbelt.
"Remember to take your meds and wear your hat," Sirius reminded Remus through the window, not quite ready to leave him just yet.
"I will," Remus said with exasperation as he settled himself. "Take care, okay? I'll miss you."
Sirius felt something squeeze inside him but he smiled bravely. "You're going to be too busy flirting with all the beer garden bar tenders to miss me," he quipped, "and three weeks will fly by," he added when a funny look crossed Remus's face. "And we'll talk over text…"
"Call me whenever," Remus said genuinely. Sirius leaned into the car and kissed Remus's cheek.
"I will," he said, "same with you - text me updates!"
They signed off and Sirius gave the car some space to pull off into traffic.
Hope waved to Sirius through the window, blowing him a kiss and told him to be good, and they were off, Remus waving at him through the rear-view window.
Sirius watched the back of the car get further and further away, that pang lingering in a way that was most annoying, before he shook himself and turned to go back inside.
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He tackled the first project immediately, too excited to wait.
It was more of a warmup than anything else. Something to get started on that was relatively low on the difficulty scale and guarenteed to make him feel accomplished when complete.
Beanbags.
Remus had expressly forbidden them on account of the presumption that he'd be left to clean it all up at the end when Sirius got bored or distracted. Sirius argued they'd bring the most immediate difference in their lives; improving their movie nights and hosting possibilities 10 fold. Or at least 2 fold.
He pulled out the beanbag boxes and the ginormous bags of white polystyrene ball filling with a grin. It wasn't quite Changing Rooms, but it was an idea he'd been sitting on -pardon the pun- for months.
Remus was convinced they were a gimmick - too messy for what little benefit he could derive from them. Sirius disagreed. And now he was going to prove it.
Remus would see sense as soon as he could sink down into the comfort of the chair on days he was sore. Then he'd be happy Sirius had pushed back and surprised him.
He turned on the the TV, tied back his long ebony locks and chose some random DIY show to play in the background as he worked. He fetched his brand new box cutter from the flashy new tool box he'd treated himself to. At the last second he dragged his trusty fan into the room, turning it on to better move the air inside the ancient stuffy flat. Then he opened the instruction booklet.
The first thing he realised was that this was a two person job. The process of assembling the beanbags was simple. 3 bags of styrofoam balls would go into each beanbag sack. The problem arose when he tried to figure out how to both hold the beanbag open and pour the styrofoam inside with only two hands.
Not to be perturbed, after a moment's thought, he pulled a dining chair into the room, hooked one side of the opening of the beanbag over the back, and leaving the opening easier to hold open on his own and then dragged the styrofoam closer.
He sliced open the first bag, carefully lifting, and tipping it into the opening of the beanbag with relative ease.
Delighted, he moved onto the next bag. That and the third went into the first sack. It was with profound satisfaction that he zipped up the first successfully assembled beanbag, feeling relatively smug at his solo success as he threw himself back into the pillowy softness.
He momentarily considered sending Remus a selfie from the red velour plushness, but ultimately decided against it. It would be worth it in three weeks time when Remus could see them first hand.
With that thought, he stood and prepared to repeat the process, pulling the second set of styrofoam bags and the beanbag to his partner in scheming, the dining chair. He was sure that he was bound to have similar success now that he'd got the hang of it. And he did. Until the final bag was due to be tipped into the beanbag.
It was all very unfortunate really. He couldn't have helped it even if he tried. It wasn't his fault that the gash in the styrofoam bag was a little bigger than the ones he'd done before. It couldn't be helped that he had more difficulty than usual controlling the flow of the balls into the sack as a result of the increased flow through the opening. And it absolutely wasn't in his control that at the moment the spill began; the tiny white balls falling from the mouth of the sack and onto the floor like a pile of snow upset from the slanted angle of a roof in the winter, his trusty fan caught the near weightless pieces of polystyrene and sent them flying through the air like it was a summer blizzard.
By the time he'd got to the fan, dropping the bag of balls and accidentally knocking over the chair the sack itself was hanging off - sending 2 more bags worth of styrofoam spilling out onto the carpet before switching it off, the room was covered in a thin layer of plastic white.
As he stood and looked around, totally at a loss as to what to do, his phone vibrated in his back pocket. He reached for it in a daze, shook off the white flecks that had somehow found their way into said pocket, and unlocked it with his thumb print. As he opened the notification he was momentarily taken out of the polystyrene snowdrift panic at the notification.
A text from Remus. A picture with a message attached of he and Hope sitting in what looked like very comfortable chairs in a first class airport lounge, holding flutes of champagne as if in toast. Delighted and a little confused, Sirius read the text sent after
We were upgraded! We got access to a fancy lounge with free drinks as part of a summer competition we didn't realise we entered when we booked the flights! Is this what it feels like to live the good life?
Sirius smiled, momentarily unconcerned with needing to hire a snowplough to clean up the spilled bean-bag-balls because Remus looked so nervously excited. Like he thought that at any moment someone would come and take the drink away, chuck them out, and tell them it was all a misunderstanding. Hope, on the other hand, was smiling wide - carefree and happy next to her handsome son as they waited for their boarding call. He composed his reply, deftly leaving out that exactly what Remus had been worried would happen… had happened.
The good life looks good on you Moons! Remember to eat so you don't start your vacay hungover x
When he pocketed his phone again, Remus having replied with a little heart and champagne emoji, he was still smiling, even as he looked around his living room, covered in a thin, clinging layer of tiny styrofoam balls. Without further ado, he started to scoop the balls into the beanbag sack, resigned to a long night of cleaning.
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"So, explain all the little white balls in all your nooks and crannies?" James asked, picking one such ball out of the mug of tea Sirius had served him the very next day.
Sirius huffed, coming to join James in the study and finding his own bit of styrofoam attached to his jacket. He brushed it off irritably.
"Beanbags have a vendetta against me..."
"Oh is that right?"
Sirius rolled his eyes, ignoring Jame's titillated expression. "Turns out trying to fill a beanbag with the fan going isn't the most effective way of keeping it all in one place…"
"No shit, Pads," James laughed loudly, eyeing the two mostly filled beanbags in the corner of the room. One of the bags was significantly less filled than the other, sagging in a slightly sad way. "Why the sudden interest in interior decor?"
Sirius shrugged, "I've always wanted to get Moony a beanbag - for his joints, you know - And then when I was fucking that up yesterday I ended up watching Grand Designs…"
"So you thought there were other projects you could fuck up while you were at it?"
James looked down at the the boxes of flatpack that Sirius had asked him over to help him assemble with no small amount of skepticism.
The truth was that after several hours of trying to salvage the rogue styrofoam and resorting to several rounds with the vacuum, Sirius had simply decided that he'd picked the wrong project to start with. And to enlist some help next time. He placed an order with next day delivery and called James, begging him to take a day off from being a dad to come and help him assemble a wall of book cases in Remus's study.
"I mean, there are instructions?" Sirius muttered uncertainly, "how hard could it be?"
Exhibiting his exemplary knees, James squatted down to find said instructions, making noises that sounded somewhat disparaging. Sirius made to check his phone before he put it aside to help. He was glas he did.
One new notification from Remus
So, it turns out that mum hid a fairly crucial detail of the trip from me.
Oh yes?
So, you know how the vacation starts in Salzburg?
Oh no. I think I know where this is going
If you think it's going in the direction of a 5 day Sound of Music tour that my mother absolutely did not tell me about when she sold the idea of the trip to me, then you'd be right
The text was accompanied by a timely photo of Remus and his mother with a group of people, all dressed in various costumes reflecting the theme of the tour. There were several nuns and even one or two ball gowns. And Remus and his mother…
Oh, Moony. Are you wearing what I think you are?
A follow up photo arrived of Remus taking a full length selfie in a public restroom. He was wearing lederhosen in a green and white floral pattern over a white short sleeve button down shirt. On his head he wore a matching green hat with a feather.
His expression was decidedly unimpressed. He was adorable.
My mother is so lucky I love her.
I mean she is a very gifted seamstress. Those lederhosen are almost detail perfect.
Is it too late to switch places with you? You'd enjoy this far more than I will
I mean I would absolutely rock a pair of lederhosen, but I feel like this will be character developing for you, Moony darling.
I wanted a bloody holiday, not musical theatre therapy…
Awww, stop being so grumpy :p Just think of a few of your favourite things!
And to think I came to you for sympathy :(
Aw, poor Remus with a mum that loves him enough to bring him on a trip to one of the most beautiful places on earth and make him fun costumes…
There was a little moment where the dots appeared, dissipated and reappeared as Remus typed and Sirius took the gap to make sure James wasn't missing him. He seemed very happy fighting with the instruction leaflet, so Sirius left him to it and returned to the text thread.
Ugh, fine, I'll lighten up. But I WILL NOT sing. You can't make me.
But you have such a lovely voice, Moony
imagine me fluttering my eyelashes.
Oh I'm imagining it. Maybe it will make me miss your singing a little less.
Sirius blinked at his phone, surprisingly touched. Before he could figure out how to reply, a follow up text arrived.
gtg, my mum will be wondering why I'm still in the loo, lol. Be good today x
Sirius grinned.
I'm always good ;)
"Are you smiling at your phone for any reason I might be interested in?" James asked wryly. Sirius looked up to find James kneeling on the floor now with segments of wood, baggies of screws, allen-keys, and various instruction manuals spread around him. "Alternatively, do you feel you could help build the book cases you wanted?"
Sirius knelt beside him sheepishly, putting away his phone, picking up a sheet of paper, and looking over it.
"It's not for me." he muttered, "Remus needs more room for his books…" He shot a look into the corner where Remus's one good bookcase was positively bursting with paperbacks, a pile on either side to catch the overflow.
"So why isn't Remus the one building this with you?" James asked with a huff. He was smiling though so Sirius knew he didn't really mind.
"Hard to build a book case from Austria, isn't it?" Sirius rolled his eyes, lightly smacking James on the arm as he gestured to the pages in front of them. "Now, where do we start?"
A few hours later and Sirius was finally beginning to feel positively about the plan to take on some more ambitious DIY projects around the flat in Remus's absence. The flat packs had gone far better than the beanbag ordeal had and by the end of the day they had the three free walls of Remus's study lined with floor to ceiling book shelves waiting to be filled.
They stood back and admired their work. standing next to James with a cup of tea in hand as they enjoyed the fruits of their labour. It sent a fizzing sort of excitement through him to think of Remus coming home from his holiday to find a problem of his had been solved thanks to Sirius's effort. It made him feel proud. Giddy even to think that he might have made Remus's life better with something he did.
Then he looked critically at the colour flat pack he'd chosen, deciding that the photo's online had been rather deceptive. Instead of a dark wood grain lino covering the mdf, they had come out as more of a mid oak. Not very in keeping with the rest of the furniture…
"You reckon I could paint them?" he asked after a moment. "I'm not sure Moony likes oak as much as he would a walnut or chestnut colour…" Sirius tried to picture the shelves a darker colour and decided it would look better; more rustic and academic. At the moment, the shelves looked more like they belonged in a coastal cottage than an ancient London flat.
"You know they usually have different wood colours, right?" James laughed, looking at Sirius with a curiosity that made him want to squirm. Sirius didn't feel like telling him how long he'd agonised over the colour before placing the order so he decided to let that comment pass without a response, ploughing ahead.
"Maybe I could spray paint it?" he said in leu of responding or acknowledging the way that James was still looking at him. James snorted.
"I think the time for that would have been before we had them assembled and installed, Pads, Sorry."
Before Sirius could respond, another text came through, Remus's personalised chirping noise breaking the relative quiet of the room. James watched him take the phone out and open the notification.
It was a selfie of Remus taken to the backdrop of a meadow in the Austrian hills. In the distance behind him he could just make out Hope with her arms out, clearly in mid-twirl under the sunny sky.
Apparently the hills are alive and musical. Should I be worried that I'm the only one who doesn't hear anything?
Sirius chuckled and showed the text to James who rolled his eyes and began the task of collecting the bubble wrap and boxes from the build, leaving him to it. Sirius composed a reply.
That's the next phase of the Sound of Music psychosis, Moons. You'll understand soon.
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