Chapter Text
Remus Lupin is freshly twenty years old and sitting on a park bench in central London, he has a squashed pastry bag next to him and a cup of tea clutched between perpetually cold fingers.
He moved to London eight months ago in search of a new doctor after having grown up on a little farm in Wales, and he hasn’t taken well to city life. The weather is mostly the same, but the wind is colder and there are fewer birds - well, the bird are different. At home he set up several feeders in the front garden and watched them get fat through the spring, he favoured the blackbirds because, although they looked plain at first, their song was the one that reminded him most of childhood and home. Here, in the flat he shares with his parents, the pigeons roost in front of their windows and on the building across the street, and while he likes them well enough it just isn’t the same. There’s no room for a bird feeder, and even if there were it would probably collect rats.
He's taken to this park mostly because the trees are dense, the people are sparse, and there are birds. Nice ones that sing and hop from bench to bench scavenging for dropped bits of food or else pulling worms from the earth. Today he’s watching a pair of ducks glide easily across the pond. He thinks they must have a nest nearby, and in a few weeks there will be ducklings.
It’s the warmest day of the year so far, which isn’t saying much, and Remus is almost always several degrees too cold anyway. He’s wearing a t-shirt and a thick knit jumper underneath a patched up tweed jacket with a red beanie on his head and a mustard yellow scarf around his neck. Most of the other park residents have taken to windbreakers or fleeces, though they pay him very little mind in his thick winter wear, if they notice at all. He is happy to be ignored and content to watch the ducks and the people.
One person, mostly.
There is a man about his age who should be along any minute. He’s seen him every Friday at around this time, sometimes talking loudly on a cellphone while he walks, sometimes hurrying against the wind with his hands in his pockets, and sometimes followed by a troupe of 2 or 3 other men. Often, when it isn’t too cold and he doesn’t seem to be in a rush, he stops at the edge of the water and feeds the duck little ripped up pieces of bread from his pockets.
Twice he’s thought to tell him that ducks are not supposed to eat bread, but he is shockingly, intimidatingly, gut-wrenchingly beautiful, and the last thing Remus needs is something messing with his already fussy heart.
Opening a book on his lap and carefully bending back the spine, Remus tears his eyes from the ducks to the pages. He reads four lines and then glances up with a sigh. The park is particularly empty today, there is no beautiful man, just him and the birds and the occasional cyclist zipping along the path behind him. He checks his watch and has read half a page more when a branch snaps to the left of him and he marks his spot with a finger.
He freezes, takes a slow, leveling breath, and looks up as casually as possible.
He doesn’t want to look like he is looking for him.
And there he is, wearing a very impractical leather jacket and a light grey beanie. His hair sticks out from under it, curling around the nape of his neck, and he has his hands stuck in his pockets.
Remus chews his lip and shifts on the bench. He tries to read another page, he does, but there is a small flock of ducks gathering at the water’s edge now and the beautiful man is tearing off the crust of a sandwich. Slowly, because he does most things slowly, Remus pushes up to his feet and closes his book. He steadies his cup of tea to ensure it won’t tip over, and then he picks up the little grocery bag he brought with him and makes his way to the water’s edge (and the beautiful man and his sandwich).
He didn’t think ahead to what he might say to him, so he clears his throat awkwardly, shifts from foot to foot, and then says: “I brought peas.”
The beautiful man startles, turning to look at him with the most striking blue-grey eyes he thinks he’s ever seen, and says: “what?”
He would very much like to retreat to his bench, to be neither seen nor heard.
“Err – peas. I brought peas. Would you like some?”
The beautiful man with the blue-grey eyes and perfect hair furrows his brow and reaches up to take his headphones out of his ears, blinking slowly, “would I like some of your peas?”
And lord he thinks his face must be a terribly unbecoming shade of pink. He blinks several times and swallows the uncomfortable lump in his throat before finally saying, “for the ducks. Bread is bad for them – it expands when they eat it and then they could starve.”
To his credit, the beautiful man looks stricken, glancing down at the puffed-up bread chunks floating near the edge of the pond. He says “oh,” and furrows his eyebrows even further and then finally adds “sure, I’d love to borrow your peas. Do they like peas?”
Remus’ cheeks are still pink, but he grins.
“Yes, they like peas, here-,” and then he's pouring a handful of peas into the beautiful man’s palms, careful not to touch him and accidentally give himself a heart attack, and watching as he scatters them amongst the bread. The ducks dive for them, the man laughs out loud, and Remus feels inexplicably relieved (it’s only because the ducks are eating peas and not bread, obviously).
“Here, keep them for next time,” he hands over the bag of peas and the other man gives him a peculiar little smile, but tucks them obediently into his pocket where he’ll probably forget about them until they’ve turned to mush.
“I’m Sirius,” he says, and sticks out his hand, which Remus finds a bit funny. He’s used to new doctors shaking his hand, or friends of his parents, the specialists his dad drags him around to, but not men around his age. He shakes it anyway (Sirius’ hands are impossibly warm and soft, like he uses a lot of lotion), and after a beat of quiet says, “Remus. Remus Lupin.”
“So Remus Lupin,” Sirius grins at him with too many teeth, he throws the rest of the peas in his palm into the pond, and then shoves his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “You’re out here like… every day.”
Remus’ eyes widen and eyebrows furrow, his lips pull into a frown. He’s never been much for attention. He spent half his childhood homeschooled by his mother and the other half missing so much class that when he showed up all the kids fawned over him – it was nice, kind of, they didn’t bully him but they did pity him. Sometimes his teacher would have them all write their names on cards when he had an especially long stint in the hospital and when he got back they’d treat him like the coolest new thing until he was too tired to play with them properly.
“I,” he stumbles over it and sticks his own hands in his pockets, “yeah. I like the ducks.”
Sirius’ grin shifts into something like a smirk and Remus’ cheeks flush fiercely red. His shoulders pull up to his ears and he frowns at the ground under his feet. An uncomfortable byproduct of all of the homeschooling and the hospital stays and the lack of friends his age is this apparent inability to stand still under scrutiny, to carry on a half-normal conversation, to collect himself under someone else’s attention.
Perhaps sensing his discomfort, Sirius softens – just a little –
“So what, you’ve been stalking me?” Remus asks.
He has always been awkward, thanks to a life devoid of real friendship, but he’s never been this awkward, he’s always been able to hold a bloody conversation without his cheeks flushing and his mouth going strangely dry. He wonders vaguely if there’s something wrong with him, if he needs to book in with his therapist, if turning twenty has rattled something around in his brain and made him incapable of coherent speech. And then Sirius laughs, tossing his head back again and Remus’ heart seizes in his chest and, no, he’s just so taken in that the words tangle up before they make it out of his mouth. That’s it, that’s the problem.
“Maybe,” he says and winks, and then he checks the time on his phone and curses under his breath. “Same time same place?”
Remus opens his mouth but nothing comes out, and then Sirius is gone.