Marauders - Always - Part One

She Didn't Have to Make a Scene

Remus grabbed the tea towel hanging from the oven door handle and handed it to Spencer to wipe his face with as Spencer peeled off the fake facial hair he had donned to become Vincent Van Gogh for the evening. He scrubbed his face with the cloth.

Remus put on a kettle, reminding himself not to use magic to do it. He hoped they had any non-magical tea cups left in the cupboard. Several had been shattered a couple weeks ago when he and Sirius had been getting a little frisky on the kitchen counter.
The memory made Remus flush.

Remus frowned and reached up to the shelf in the cupboard. Luckily, there were two tea cups in the cupboard - one of Peter's and one of Remus's, but there were only two of Peter's saucers, none to match Rey's pattern. Embarrassing, not having a matching set for company, but of course if he pulled out his wand now and produced a set Spencer as sure to notice, so Remus decided he would simple make sure the mismatched pair was his. He slipped a sprig of aconite into his cup, carefully smushing the leaves and letting them fall into the bottom of the cup so Spencer might not immediately notice it. His knees were hurting from wearing the stupid boots and his stomach was twisting. November's moon meant a nasty pain in his throat as his tonsils and thyroid were tender - it was also the time of year he would put on a wee bit of weight, though the chocolates from Halloween might explain that as well. The heat of the tea would be a welcome sensation, though, and the aconite would help tame some of the wolfish side effects and help him concentrate better on Spencer.

"I can't believe she made a scene like that, I can't believe - how embarrassing..." Spencer was muttering, shaking his head. His usual, laid back tone had been replaced by his more refined accent that gave away his posh background. Sirius did that sometimes, too, Remus reflected off handedly. That switch from everyday to revert to the high end upbringing - your Noble House of Black is showing, Remus thought as Spencer rambled on his disbelief.

"What precisely happened anyway?" Remus asked. "I only heard maybe half the argument."

"She was goading me."

Remus sat at the table and pushed the cup to Spencer. "Goading you how?"

"Just in a bunch of little ways, a million little ways..."

Spencer took the cup up immediately, but didn't sip, just holding the cup, palms around the china. Remus's cup was off white with brown flowers and the way Spencer's hand closed around the cup felt somehow wrong - but Remus couldn't figure out exactly why. Maybe it was too intimate, Spencer's hand clasped around Remus's tea cup pattern, or perhaps he was just so embarrassed of the shabby cup that it hurt to look at the cup being held by someone who wasn't one of his closest friends.

"I didn't even say--," Spencer said, shaking his head and talking half to himself. "I wouldn't ever - though I will admit a poor choice of wording on my part - but still, she didn't need to make a scene - and -"

"If it helps at all, I reckon my friends are rather used to folks creating scenes and as far as scenes go in our circles this one was rather tame," Remus said.

"So they won't all be gossiping down there right now if I tuck my head out to check?"

"Oh. No, they'll be gossiping for a time about it, but they've seen way worse from even just Sirius and I, so they're quite used to it."

Spencer snorted.

Remus sipped his tea, couldn't taste the aconite, and got up to get a second leaf of it. "Needs a bit of mint," he murmured lamely, hoping Spencer wouldn't recognize the difference between the shapes of the leaves between aconite and mint. He tore the leaf up into tiny bits again as he'd done the first time and stirred them to hide amongst the milk.