five lights on // marauders x f1

pole position

February 4th, 2023 - Sirius' Flat, London

"Hey dude, wanna come over today?" Remus said through the phone, sounding distracted in the way that comes with doing multiple things at the same time. Sirius was stood in his kitchen, making an omelette for himself, his phone on loud-speaker on the counter. 

"Ah, sorry dude, James invited me over in the afternoon just to get to know each other a bit more."

Sirius could hear the uncomfortableness in the silence on the other end of the phone, and it immediately made his skin crawl. "Hey, that's okay, why don't we do tomorrow then? Go to the cinema or something?" Sirius smiled at the quick recovery, nodding enthusiastically before realising that Remus could not, in fact, see him and confirming verbally with the brunette. They hung up quickly, with a string of non-committal insults, and Sirius resumed his initial activity. 

There'd been a weird shift in his and Remus' relationship over the past few weeks, and Sirius was pretty sure he knew the exact reason why. He wasn't oblivious. Everyone in the world of motor sports was talking about it. 

Sirius Black, eighteen-year-old rookie, promoted to Formula1 because of his parents' political stance. 

Now, he knew it wasn't true, and Remus knew it wasn't true, but it was still a hard thing to ignore. To everyone outside of his inner circle, he was just the rich-kid who got a leg up because of his parents' success and simply paid his way through the sport; rather than earning any of his spots. The reality, though, was that he had gotten into the idea of racing at four-years-old and, very quickly, realised that it was something that he excelled at and that made him feel truly excited. His parents had spotted the talent their son had an had practically forced him to continue with his hobby, making it very clear that they intended for him to bring in a lot of money and publicity when he entered adulthood. However, once he was old enough to realise that he could never be happy in that house, he left. He took his little brother, and the credit card he had set up the minute he had started making money from sponsorships and the sport in general, and had left their childhood home without ever looking back. 

Due to the nature of the sport and his parents' jobs, it instantly became the most talked about news story, but his parents deflected with statements such as "he was ready to begin his own life" and "we are overseeing every step of his journey" and eventually the people let it go. Now, two years later, it was still his most brought up question in interviews but one thing had changed drastically. 

Remus. 

The brunette was his biggest defender whenever that specific question was brought up. As soon as Remus had been told about Sirius' situation, he had vowed that he could never let journalists make it into a big issue, and he had stuck by that. 

"Oi, arrêtez d'être un idiot. Don't fucking burn it."

Sirius snapped out of his thoughts and quickly moved the pan off the heat, at the sound of his brother's voice. The younger Black was sat comfortably on the kitchen island, legs swinging, as he watched his brother with genuine concern on his face. "How the fuck do you not know how to cook an omelette?" Regulus sniped, only watching as Sirius rolled his eyes and continued making them breakfast. 

It only took a few minutes before they were sat opposite each other, making their way through their breakfasts. "Can I trust you not to burn the house down, this afternoon?" Sirius asked, simply being met with a roll of his brother's eyes. 

"Where are you going?"

"James', he invited me over to spend some time together. I'm shitting myself, honestly, but I'm also just absolutely fucking buzzing. Are you still coming out with me to Bahrain next month?" Sirius asked.