adventurous // wolfstar au ✔️

t h r e e

"hurry the hell up," james calls to sirius.

"it would go faster if you'd help," sirius snaps back as he struggles to carry their crap to the van. james rolls his eyes, but gets out to help him. james hangs around to hug his parents goodbye as sirius stands awkwardly by the van, wishing his own parents loved him like that. he checks his phone, hoping for a text from regulus or something, but no such luck. fleamont recognizes the sad expression on sirius' face, and pulls him into his arms for a hug, too.

"okay," james says when they're finally in the van. sirius immediately puts his feet up on the dash, annoyingly enough. "shall we?"

"fuck yeah, we fuckin' shall," sirius responds, which makes james laugh, not that that's unusual. sirius is always making james laugh. "i can't believe we're seriously doing this, jay."

"i can't either," james admits, biting his lip. his shoulders are practically up to his ears with excitement, and his smile hurts his face. "where are we stopping for the night?"

"wherever the hell we want," sirius smiles. he turns up the volume on the radio, and "sun shy," by dresses is playing softly. he closes his eyes, wiggling his feet to the beat.

"let's stop a few hours in and get ridiculously fucking drunk," james suggests.

"our fake ids are terrible," sirius replies, "but okay. you're paying for the hotel we stay in tonight, though, because neither of us are driving."

"fair," james responds. 

- - -

"i can't believe we drove fifteen hours before stopping," sirius whines as they lug their luggage into a hotel. "my legs are killing me. i need, like, a three hour nap before doing anything."

"even getting drunk?"

"especially getting drunk." 

james laughs and rolls his eyes at sirius as they dump the last of their stuff in the hotel. sirius immediately trudges to his bed, calls out, "this one's mine," and collapses face-first. "goodnight."

james rolls his eyes again. "you're a dork," he responds.

- - -

"this isn't gonna work, lily." remus' voice is tense, and his hand is sweating; he's amazed she hasn't let go of him yet.

"shut up, remus."

"but it won't --"

"remus."

remus rolls his eyes. lily is stubborn as hell -- when she gets an idea in her head, there's no stopping her. and even though she knows remus doesn't drink, and even though she knows their fake ids are shit, she still drags him to this bar anyway.

remus doesn't know what he's doing here.

he doesn't know how she convinced his parents, or her own, for that matter, to let them take this road trip, but she did. lily could do anything, he thinks, even make the world stop spinning on its axis.

"you don't look twenty-one," the bouncer says with a frown. it isn't really true -- with that slim fitting sparkly dress and her six-inch heels, lily looks almost twenty-five. it's quite odd.

"thank you, sweetheart," lily responds, taking her id back from him and slipping into the club. "'it won't work, lily,'" she mocks, and remus rolls his eyes.

"do you want me to clap?" he asks dryly, and lily laughs.

"you want a coke or anything?" she asks, getting up to go to the bar. remus shakes his head, boredly pulls his phone out of his pocket. he watches as lily flirts with the guy at the bar to get free drinks, which makes him laugh. in any other situation, this would be so unlike her.

he jumps when there's a sudden presence at his side. "hey, sweetheart. who you here with?"

remus doesn't recognize the voice, and when he turns, he realizes it's because he doesn't know this person. they're very tall and much older than him, and he immediately feels uncomfortable. 

"oh. i -- uh -- with my friend," remus stammers, and then mentally facepalms. he should've said lily was his girlfriend.

"friend, huh?" the guy's smile widens, showing a yellow smile with multiple missing teeth. remus has to fight not to cringe. "you looking for someone to go home with?"

"ummmm...no," remus says slowly. his gaze flickers around the room frantically -- where is lily? why won't she come save him?

"you sure?" the guy's fingers are dancing up remus' thigh, and panic is rippling up his spine. then, out of nowhere, his savior comes.

- - -

"he looks seriously uncomfortable, though, jay. look." sirius judges james' shoulder and james turns. sure enough, the guy that's being hit on looks super uncomfortable -- he's looking around the room as if asking for help.

"what are you gonna do?"

"fuck, man. help a bro out, i guess," sirius shrugs. he pushes off the wall where he'd been standing next to james and walks towards the guy. "mikey!" he calls, the first name he could think of. "mikey, dude, is that you?"

remus looks up. "um..."

"mikey," sirius says, more firmly. "dude, i didn't know you were here! you were supposed to call me! do you still wanna get out of here?"

"he's with me," the guy hitting on him says. 

"mikey, come on, i still owe you pizza." sirius doesn't know how much more convincing he can be, and he puts a hand out for remus to take. remus doesn't even hesitate, he just takes it, lets sirius pull him towards him. he stumbles -- he doesn't have very good balance, don't judge him -- and stumbles into sirius' chest. he smells good. "are you okay, mikey? drank too much?"

remus shakes his head. "i don't drink." then he whispers, "please get me out of here."

sirius nods. "you here alone?"

lily. remus had almost forgotten. "no...lily." he scans the room for her. "there she is!" he points -- she's being chatted up by james, of course.

"oh, good. she's with my best friend. we'll get you guys out of here, mikey." sirius leads remus towards lily and james, and he realizes they're still holding hands. he doesn't let go.

"hey, look at you, prince charming," james calls when sirius and remus stroll up hand-in-hand.

sirius rolls his eyes. "just a humble servant, jay. i did rescue mikey here from a pervert, though."

"mikey? his name is remus." lily is confused.

"remus," sirius repeats, turning to stare at remus. remus' cheeks pink at the attention. "yeah, well, i just used the first name that popped in my head, happened to be mikey. got you out of there, though, huh, remus?"

remus is smiling, though he doesn't want to. "yeah, you did. thanks. what's your name anyway?"

"sirius black."

"nice to meet you," remus responds. he realizes he's still holding sirius' hand. he still doesn't let go.