Aisles

Chapter 9

Wednesday, October 23rd

"Bye, Lily!" Sirius called out as he ducked out of the shop, followed by Remus. They caught the bus and headed to the top deck, sitting mid-way down.

Sirius was chatting about a customer interaction of the day but Remus was too distracted to listen: he was staring at the way Sirius' eyes crinkled as he laughed, the way he ran a hand through his hair, the way he-

"Remus?" Sirius looked at him expectantly.

"Er, yeah?" Remus blinked.

"You okay? I don't think you heard a word of what I was saying," Sirius smirked. Remus flushed red and tugged at his jumper sleeve.

"Sorry, just thinking, I s'pose..." He murmured.

"Well, yeah, I see that," Sirius raised an eyebrow and Remus averted his gaze before he flushed an even deeper shade of red. "Come on, what's up? You know you can talk to me if somethings worrying you?"

"Thanks, but no, I'm okay," Remus smiled and, when Sirius smiled back, he felt his heart thump inside his chest.

They looked in a few shops. Sirius had ordered a specific 'Scooby-Doo' hat and... collar, but was looking for some clothes to go along. Or rather, he was supposed to be looking. He kept getting distracted with other things.

"Oh my god, what do you think of this jacket?" Remus and Sirius were stood inside a charity-shop and Sirius held up a leather jacket which had a lining of stalked-flowers. He shrugged it on and it hung off him perfectly. He looked... so cool.

"You have to get that," Remus managed to get out. Sirius grinned in response and took it off, holding it in his hands as he moved onto the next rack. Remus was still thinking about how good Sirius looked in that jacket when he suddenly came-to and realised Sirius had been calling his name for at least a minute.

"Oh, sorry, what?" He blinked.

"Jesus, Remus, you're so moony today. I was just saying that I think you'd look good in this," Sirius held up a thick knitted sweater. "Hipster vibes, no?"

"Did you just call me a hipster?" Remus raised an eyebrow and hoped his ironic tone was enough to cover the shivers that Sirius' compliment gave him.

"Oh yeah, 100%," Sirius smirked and handed Remus the sweater, who obligingly tried it on.

"Come on, twirl for me, Moony!" Sirius said laughing. Remus rolled his eyes.

"You calling me Moony now? A guy doesn't pay rapt attention to you once and he gets a whole nickname?" Remus teased.

"Yeah, usually the guys pay very close attention to me," Sirius winked and turned back to the racks before he could see Remus flush a very deep shade of red.

The shopping trip was a success. To be honest, Remus' costume was very simple - brown trousers, green shirt, although Sirius had also insisted on buying Remus the jumper, and he'd grudgingly accepted. Sirius had paused for too long outside a pet store, wondering if a leash was overkill but Remus herded him away, unsure he'd be able to cope with that happening...

They were on the bus back when Sirius' phone buzzed. He fished it out of his pocket:

"Prongs!" He half-yelled into his phone. "Yeah, we are just on our way back... I'm feeling pizza...okay, I'll ask," Sirius turned to Remus. "Do you wanna come back to ours? We are ordering pizza, Lily will be there, too,"

"Yeah, sounds good," Remus smiled.

"Great!" Sirius put his phone back to his ear. "He said yes, but come on, Prongs, who would turn down an offer to have dinner with us, eh?" Sirius shoved Remus playfully, which gave Remus a very sudden pang of de-ja-vu...