small_gifts | Fic: Christmas in London Town for solidbaby!

closet-zebra.livejournal.com posting in

Title: Just This.
Author:

closet_zebra
Recipient:

solidbaby [But she sadly seems to be deleted now?!! :(]
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 2010
Summary: Remus spends a few Christmassy days in London with Mr. Sirius Black. :)
Author's notes: Christmas in London, Fingerless gloves and Christmas 70s pop songs were the prompts. This fluffy, snowy little fic is the result. I hope wherever

solidbaby is she'll still like it.

Just This

The train to King’s Cross arrives at 14.58 and every nerve in Sirius’ body is wired, electric, completely alive and desperately excited. He’s been stood waiting for it for the last fourteen minutes and he knows he shouldn’t have come early and he knows he shouldn’t stand waiting like some loser with nothing better to do. He likes the idea of giving off an aura, a radiance of coolness and waiting, looking needy doesn’t give off anything even remotely similar.

The problem is though, that on that train, sat in one of those cheap red seats, probably getting biscuit crumbs in their lap is the one thing that makes Sirius go from the coolest boy in the room to the kind of boy who needs a pocket organiser and a fire engine red lunch box. The boy with soft hair in the colour of too-many-times-washed blond and that slightly sarcastic smile.

And an arse that just will not quit.

When the clock at the station hits 14.58 he almost has a heart attack and has to physically retrain himself from running to check the gates to the platform. As more people pass by, all from the same destination, he goes from excited, to anxious, to annoyed, to nervous and reaches up to pat down his hair just as Remus steps into sight from behind a family with big orange suitcases.

He’s beautiful. That’s the thought Sirius has and a part of him hates himself for it because boy’s don’t say beautiful but Remus really is. Sirius feels his stomach tighten and his mouth ache from grinning and he has a ridiculous urge to spin on the spot that he’s only ever felt when drunk.

“Hey,” Remus grins, eyes bright and taking in Sirius like a police team searching a suspected drug smuggler. “You’re taller. And your hair’s longer.” Sirius freezes before nodding but Remus’ mouth remains in that shit eating grin and Sirius’ soon follows. “You look good.”

“You look amazing,” Sirius grins, keeping his voice down because, as much as he wants to run his hands under Remus’ shirt and tangle their tongues so much the other boy can’t breathe, they’re in public. Meaning any kissing or inappropriate touching would get them both in trouble. “Really, really good. Let’s get out of here quick before I can’t stand it any longer.”

He’s only got three days with Remus over the holidays because of different, stupid reasons. Three glorious days alone with the best looking, funniest, most brilliant person on the planet and he’s not going to spend that in a police station because his boyfriend has very full, very pink lips. After all, it’s not Remus’ fault that his bottom lip is asking Sirius to bite down on it. Hard.

They push through the crowds and Sirius wishes it was snowing and empty and holiday spirit was on the faces of the people around them. Rather, the air is dusty from taxis and trains and the sky above is a cloudy grey but bitingly cold. He pulls his coat around him a bit tighter and smiles absently at Remus’ fingerless gloves, desperately wanting to take the boy’s hands and warm those fingertips. The setting is bleak, really, it’s a busy, crowded, noisy day at King’s cross and Christmas shoppers are panicking as time runs out in the run up to Christmas.

Yet, none of it matters, because Remus’ smile warms him through and he feels terribly romantic and all grown up to be all alone in a big city with the boy of his dreams.

They cross over to the bus stops and Sirius only wishes for a moment that they could apparate before he’s too pleased with Remus being with him to care. When he slides into the seat next to the boy and grins at him, he feels his stomach fill with butterflies and his mind skips ahead to his crappy, chilly flat with that broken floor board in the bathroom and the annoyingly loud buzz of a very old fridge.

When they get in, he lies Remus down on his slightly creaky bed and they don’t leave his room for two hours, kissing and stroking and making love as though it wasn’t two weeks ago that they last saw each other but a thousand years. Sirius’ lips are slightly chapped from the cold and Remus’ fingers freezing on his back when they first press to skin. But it’s like coming home and when they finally pull out of the tangled covers to go in search of food, Sirius feels like they’re in a romance novel and twirls Remus around the slightly dirty kitchen until the boy gets dizzy.

The next day, they go out into the city and Sirius smiles at London through Remus’ eyes, the way they light up at the carollers on the corner and reflect back the Christmas lights hung high above the streets. When Remus pauses at a stall selling Father Christmas hats, Sirius grins and buys two, slamming one down on his own head and tucking Remus’ ears into another. Remus looks ridiculous and he knows he does too but as the day gets dark way too early and they pad over to Covent Garden, Sirius can only grin at the sight of Remus, jolly and filled with the sights and sounds of Christmas in London.

He begs Remus for a full fifteen minutes to be allowed to go into the Santa’s Grotto but Remus sensibly tells him he can’t and that he really is too old for that not to be creepy anymore. So instead they go to Ben’s cookies on the corner and buy two huge cookies, Remus’ triple chocolate chip with squares sticking out and Sirius’ a sickly sweet toffee and fudge. And he knows scoffing the whole thing will make him sick but he does anyway, grinning at Remus with goo between his teeth until the other boy looks nearly about to throw up.

Eventually, they walk to the far side and slip onto a bench, hidden away slightly and way too exposed to the elements to be taken. The wind chills them right through and they pull their scarves tight, fixing on their Santa hats to not let in a stray breath of icy air. It’s cold and there’s one of those annoying Christmas songs playing in the background but they can finally slide their fingers together, shifting closer on the bench and looking at the golden lights strung up over the arches of Covent Garden and the weather doesn’t really matter when that’s the case.

“Oh I wish it could be Christmas,” Remus yawns widely around a smile, chuckling and throwing the last of his cookie into his mouth.

“Everydaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay,” Sirius sings with much more enthusiasm, the song way ahead of them in the background where it’s playing from some little stall selling expensive jewellery. “Do you really?”
“Do I really what?”

“Do you wish it was Christmas everyday?” Sirius asks, completely serious, his fingers squeezing Remus’ to make sure that the other boy is paying attention.

Remus just blinked, his eyes on Sirius like he’s mental. Finally, he humours the boy, frowning and shaking his head.

“I do. It’d be bloody awesome.”

“No, you don’t,” Remus says with a laugh, sliding his thumb over the back of Sirius’ hand and trying not to be too annoyed that all he really feels is Sirius’ glove. “You’d get annoyed with the lack of variety. Also, you’d get sick of it and you’d run out of presents you wanted.”

“I’d be able to kiss you under mistletoe any time I wanted.”

Remus’ eyebrow slides up in an arch and he snorts in a way that Sirius really would find unattractive on somebody else.

“Yes, because you need mistletoe to get me to kiss you,” he replies, sarcastically.

“Well no,” Sirius laughs. “That’s not what I said. Without mistletoe I need some semblance of permission. With mistletoe…. Well it’d just be very bad spirited and Grinch-worthy to not let me kiss you with mistletoe, wouldn’t it?”

“Oh yes,” Remus nods. “Very much the case.”

Sirius nods, laughing at how much Remus just humours him even though the other boy obviously thinks him just slightly unhinged.

“You think I’m mad, don’t you?”

“Oh yes,” Remus repeats, trying not to grin as he looks at the lights. “Very much the case.”

They finally stand up when the cold gets that little too much and they creak slightly as they walk to the tube station and get on the noisy, rickety tube to the area where Sirius’ flat is hidden away. When they finally get inside the safety of Sirius’ badly decorated walls, they strip off their coats and sip hot tea on the sofa in the livingroom, Remus’ socked feet in Sirius’ lap, identical smiles on their faces.

It’s only when they’re ordering takeway for dinner that Sirius notices that Remus is still wearing his Santa hat and bursts out laughing, pulling the boy into a hug that only serves to confuse him. He presses their mouths together and kisses and kisses and kisses the boy until they’re both threatening to go blue in the face and when he pulls apart he just laughs.

“What are you on?” Remus asks, breathing deeply into starved lungs and laughing himself in confusion.

“Holiday spirit?” Sirius suggests, groping Remus’ arse and mouthing at his neck.

“Well,” Remus smiles. “No more for you. You’ve had enough.”

They stand like that until the doorbell rings and then they eat on the sofa, chatting out the Christmas lights in London and how they compare to the ones in York where Remus comes from.

It won’t be long and Remus will be back on the train and heading up North and back home to his parents. Sirius knows he shouldn’t think about it but he does when he’s with the boy, his mind scarcely able to get away from the issue. He wants Remus to stay forever, cuddling up to him at night and drinking beer from his noisy fridge.

Next year, though, holds apparition tests and licenses and Remus able to pop in and out of his flat with just the will to want to and the then there will be no stopping them. Next month holds Hogwarts and Remus’ too-small bed where they curl up regardless of the fact that they both have one each. Next week holds Christmas day at the Potter’s and Remus’ owl when he opens his present and is happy because Sirius got him the best present ever.

The next day, again, holds Christmas in London and the soft glow of lights above the streets. It’ll probably rain and Sirius doesn’t mind because he’ll hardly notice with Remus there with him. They’ll do some Christmas shopping so Remus can get his dad a present and they’ll get ice-cream even if it the weather is horrid and Sirius will bring his boyfriend home and they’ll share a hot bath to chase away the chill.

It’s perfect, basically, he thinks as he pokes Remus in the ribs. It’s perfect and so stunningly wonderful that it’s almost unreal and by the time they crawl into bed and slide feet beneath the cold sheets, Sirius thinks that his boyfriend may be right.

He doesn’t want Christmas everyday. It’d be too much to handle Remus like this all year. He doesn’t want Christmas everyday because he’d miss Remus’ summer freckles and his skinny legs when they wear shorts in the hot weather. He wants this, everyday, this feeling of safety and love that is almost startling and doesn’t quite feel right at his age. He wants them, him and Remus, against the world like a couple of rascals, eating cookies and dodging the rain. He wants this.

“Christmas…” Remus yawns widely, the words slurring as he presses up close and grins. “Everydayyy.”

“No,” Sirius breaths, eyes bright even in the dark and staring at the boy so close as he presses their mouths together. “Just this.”