Aisles

Chapter 13

Thursday, October 31st

Remus had to wake early for a class and tiptoed around his flat getting ready to avoid waking Sirius up. He shamelessly ate his breakfast whilst watching Sirius sleep, hyper focused on the slow rise and fall of his chest which indicated that he was unconscious and therefore safe for Remus to observe.

He didn't know when he would be able to be this close to Sirius again.

It hurt him to think it but Remus knew that he had to distance himself. It wasn't right to overthink Sirius' behaviour, to twist it into meaning something that it wasn't meant to mean. Sure, Sirius came to him when he didn't want to be alone, and he was flirty and made dirty jokes, but where had he been just a couple hours earlier? Someone else's bed, probably saying the exact same things.

Remus found it hard to be Sirius' friend but would find it harder to be Sirius' hookup, someone he fucked to not feel lonely and then ignored. But Remus wasn't even sure that Sirius had been approaching that. How embarrassing would it be to think that and find that Sirius was just being friendly.

All in all, Sirius was a mind-fuck. It would be better to distance himself whilst he untangled his confusion and focused on other things.

On his way out, he scribbled a note for Sirius and opened the door. As he was leaving, he thought he heard Sirius mutter, "Moony?", but he shook his head and left. It was irrelevant. He knew that if he went back, and Sirius was awake, he would lose his resolve. He had to be strong for just this little bit and then it would get easier. He'd be able to be Sirius' friend without the aching sense of longing that occupied his heart.

Although it wasn't quite what Mary had suggested, Remus made a plan regarding Sirius. It wasn't a 'How to get Sirius to like him back', more a 'Multi-step plan in bettering Remus' life and getting over Sirius before he made an embarrassing assumption and humiliated himself'. Catchy, I know.

The plan started with leaving up the photo. The comments, likes and messages were validating.

The next step was rescheduling shifts at the shop; Remus had been working more than him and Lily had initially agreed to, but he now cut back and started to work only on days where he had no university - Fridays, Saturdays and then Sundays (shorter day). For those shifts, he only had Saturday with Sirius, but he would also be working alongside Lily for the whole day, James for part of the day, and Marlene for the rest so there would never be a moment where they were alone together.

Of course, he realised he might suffer a bit financially for this, but resolved that it would pay off long term by giving him more undivided focus on work for his course. However, he did submit his CV to one of his professors looking for a team of assistants for another minimum wage package and some brownie-points towards his degree.

Remus also started accepting Mary's invitations to go out more - he was a student, it made sense for him to do student-y things like go to bars and complain about lecturers to people on his course. He saw Gideon, again, for the first time since That Night, but he had a new boyfriend and so the two moved smoothly past the incident, pretending it never happened.

It was the first week of Remus' new plan and he walked into the shop early on Saturday emotionally prepared, repeating his mantra 'Move on to move up' (he'd watched a few too many Ted talks). Unfortunately, this was almost entirely dashed by the simple sight of Sirius. God that man was attractive, it was so unfair.

Sirius worked all day on Saturday because it was the busiest day and he was the best at placating customers who complained about the wait times at checkout. Lily worked all day Saturday, bar the last hour, but spent the majority of the time in the office doing 'Manager Things'. James worked the first half and then went to football practice in the afternoon. Marlene took the afternoon, usually nursing a hangover in the morning.