starfishstar

HANGOVER CURES

Summary: Listening to Remus pottering about in the kitchen, Sirius wondered how on Earth he’d managed to land the sort of man who would make him toast and bring him Muggle sports drinks after he’d been fool enough to challenge James to a contest of who could taste the most types of gin.

Written for the 2014 Remus/Sirius Games.

Characters/Pairing: Sirius/Remus

Rating: PG

Words: ~2,100

Notes: For prompt #9, a video titled "Hangover Cures." For Team Muggle; this year's theme: the five senses.

Thank you to

stereolightning for beta-reading.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sirius tried to open his eyes, then gave up and shut them tightly again.

“Ergggaugh,” he moaned. “Bright, bright, terrible thing. Make it go away.”

“The ‘bright, bright, terrible thing’ is the sun,” came Remus’ voice, faintly amused, from somewhere above him. “And I’m not entirely sure I can make it go away for you, though of course I would if I could.” True, that – even after all these months of living together, they still did not own proper curtains.

“Uggh, Moony,” Sirius groaned, mashing his face into the pillow. Oh, lovely cool, soft, silky pillow, so soothing against his throbbing forehead. Sirius’ face felt vaguely sticky and his mouth tasted stale, like some combination of old gin and other…old things. Sirius’ head hurt too much for metaphor. He burrowed further into the pillow. “Stop being all clever at me.”

Remus chuckled, a sound softer and more welcome even than the pillow beneath Sirius’ cheek, and Remus’ hand made an unexpected guest appearance at the nape of Sirius’ neck, carding gently upwards through his hair.

Sirius groaned. “Stupid, stupid Prongs and his stupid…stupidness,” he muttered into the pillow. “Right? ‘S stupid.”

“Indeed,” Remus agreed, a thread of warm laughter in his voice. “I suppose you’ll be glad to know, then, that Chez Potter has reported in by Floo, and James is just as hungover as you look to be.”

Sirius groaned again. It had seemed like such a brilliant idea last night. Muggle bar-hopping! Trying all the unfamiliar Muggle drinks! So many different ways to watch James make a lovable fool of himself, so many chances to observe that alluring flush of colour that appeared high on Remus’ cheeks when he drank. You could never tell Moony was drunk by his behaviour, but Sirius always knew by the way his cheeks took on a delicate shade of crimson and his smile went fractionally wider, just that little bit looser and more unguarded. It was worth any amount of hangover to see Remus smile like that.

Still, it was the principle of the thing.

“Actually, I blame Evans,” Sirius declared. He flopped over onto his back and then deeply regretted it as forks of lightning stabbed through his head, all the way from one side to the other. He moaned again, but persevered with his argument. “Her idea. Sneaky Evans. Gotta watch out for that one.”

James and Lily were still figuring out how to be doting parents, good friends and dedicated members of the Order simultaneously, and it wasn’t always possible to be all three at once. But yesterday – as Lily had explained to Sirius when he dropped by to collect James for the evening – she’d watched James getting that manic restlessness he’d sometimes developed back at school when he hadn’t had a chance to play Quidditch for several days at a stretch (“You know, he’d go all flail-y limbs and get that crazed look in his eye,” was how she’d described it to Sirius; “I did not,” James protested, but they both ignored him). So Lily had told James, “Go on, go out with Sirius and Remus, and don’t come back until you’ve had far more fun than is good for you.”

This was definitely Evans’ fault.

“Yes, all Lily’s fault,” Remus said, still with that sly, sardonic humour that made Sirius want to grab him and snog him breathless. If only he were able to, you know, move. At all. “Now, listen. I need you to sit up long enough to drink this. You’ll feel better afterwards if you do.”

Sirius cracked one eye halfway open and glared suspiciously up into the brightness. Remus floated above him, haloed in light, his brown hair rendered golden by the sunlight, the outlines of his cheekbones limned in molten radiance. He was also holding out a tall glass of cloudy liquid.

“That doesn’t look like any hangover potion I know,” Sirius complained.

“Electrolytes,” Remus said.

“Electro-what?”

“Electrolytes. They help with rehydration. Some Muggles use drinks like this when they do sport, but they supposedly help with a hangover as well.”

“Why can’t I just have a hangover potion?”

“Sirius. A wizarding hangover potion only works on wizarding drinks. I saw you down an impressive variety of alcohol last night, but I don’t think there was any Firewhisky or elderflower wine in the whole lot. Now, come on, sit up.”

“You’re annoyingly sexy when you’re being a mother hen,” Sirius grumbled, and Remus smiled.

Slowly, glaring periodically to let Remus know he was unhappy about doing so, Sirius sat up. The stabbing in his head worsened every time he moved, only lessening in those few moments when he was able to hold perfectly still.

Remus handed the glass over, his fingers pleasantly chilled from contact with the cold drink, and Sirius lingered, letting their hands brush. He thought he felt Remus shiver almost imperceptibly at his touch, and the gladness that swept through Sirius at that – him, making Remus feel like that – was enough to momentarily distract him from the horribleness of his head. Very, very soon, absolutely as soon as he could drive the horribleness away, Sirius was going to snog Remus senseless just for being Remus.

First, though, there was horribleness to be dealt with.

Sirius sniffed the drink Remus had given him, then took a cautious sip. It had a strangely powdery texture, and a flavour of artificial limes. It was not altogether horrible.

“Good boy,” Remus said, when Sirius handed the empty glass back to him.

Sirius stuck out his tongue at Remus. “Now you’re deliberately treating me like a child.” Bizarrely, he did feel a slight bit better, although the potion – the electro…thingy – surely couldn’t have taken effect already. Maybe he’d just needed to drink something, anything, that was hydrating rather than dehydrating. Remus was unfairly clever about these things.

“And you’re acting like one,” Remus retorted easily. “Now, some toast, I think. Some sort of carbohydrates.”

“Moony–” Sirius protested, but Remus was already rising, the edge of the bed where he had perched springing back when Remus’ weight left it, a jostling Sirius felt in his bones.

Remus left the room, and soon after Sirius could hear him pottering about in the kitchen. Sirius lay down again, gazing up at the flaking white paint of the ceiling, and wondered how on Earth he’d managed to land the sort of man who would make him toast and bring him Muggle sports drinks after he’d been fool enough to challenge James to a contest of who could taste the most types of gin.

Remus returned, bearing a plate with two pieces of toast cut neatly into triangles, lightly buttered. The scent, that comforting simplicity of bread and warmth combined, drifted up to Sirius’ nose, and his stomach registered its interest despite his mind’s protestations.

“Moony–” he began again. He wanted to say something that expressed his baffled gratitude, but didn’t know where to start.

“Eat your toast,” Remus said, holding out the plate and settling again on the edge of the bed. The mattress shifted as he did, rolling Sirius a little closer to where Remus was. Sirius sat up again and took the plate. He ate the toast, which was perfect, just the right degree of crunchy and warm. Sirius wondered if Remus had special toast-making powers.

Sirius leaned down to set the empty plate on the floor, and groaned as that made the blood rush to his head, which in turn made his head pound.

“Lie down,” Remus said, his voice gentle but somehow still commanding.

“I’m fine–” Sirius protested.

“No, you’re really not. Come on, budge over and lie down. I’ll join you.”

“Stop being so nice to me,” Sirius complained, but he lay down again, cheek resting on the cool pillow, and Remus slid in next to him, fully dressed for the day and rather aggravatingly well put-together for a man who had also been drinking gin most of the night. Remus arranged the blanket over them and draped an arm gently over Sirius’ chest, lying on one side so that he was facing Sirius, his arm a comforting weight.

“There,” Remus said. “Isn’t that better than sitting up and arguing with me about it?”

“Much,” Sirius admitted.

Remus hummed with pleased agreement and leaned in to kiss Sirius’ cheek.

“Oh, don’t,” Sirius protested. “I’m vile. I smell like all the gin had a gin party together in my mouth and then passed out in a puddle of its own vomit.”

Remus wrinkled his nose. “Lovely image, Sirius. Ta for that.”

“Well it’s the truth,” Sirius said.

Remus just laughed and reached up to smooth his hand over Sirius’ forehead, brushing stray strands of hair out of his eyes.

“Really, Moony. I’m boring and whiny and disgusting right now. You don’t have to look after me.”

“Sirius Black, you ridiculous man,” Remus said, his voice warm and immeasurably fond. “You look after me every single month after the full moon. Don’t I get to do the same once in a while?”

“But the only reason I’m feeling sick right now is ‘cause I’m stupid,” Sirius said.

Remus gave a small snort of laughter.

“I notice you don’t disagree,” Sirius said, allowing a hint of archness to slip into his tone.

“Challenging James to a drinking contest was not your finest moment, I’ll concede.”

Well, true. But Sirius hadn’t been able to help it. He worried – though Remus kept telling him not to – that James was going to change, now that he was a dad and all. Forget how to be himself. Get boring. And in his half-drunken state, round about bar number three of the evening, apparently Sirius had decided that the best synonym for “not boring” was “very drunk.” And he’d seen all those different types of gin, arrayed on the shelf behind the bar with their colourful labels, and he’d challenged James to try as many of them as he could.

And James, being not boring, but in the final analysis perhaps indeed a bit predictable, had promptly challenged Sirius to do the same.

And Remus… He’d sat there nursing that one gin and tonic the entire time, hadn’t he? Sneaky git.

Remus’ hand, now done smoothing Sirius’ hair, slid down to cup his cheek. Sirius worked one hand free from the blanket that swathed them, and covered Remus’ hand with his own.

“But that’s what you keep me around for, right?” he asked. “For coming up with terrible ideas?”

“That, among other things.” Remus lifted their joined hands to his lips and kissed Sirius’ fingers. “You should try to sleep a bit more, if you can.”

Sirius wanted to protest, but he really was tired. And his headache felt like it might actually retreat if he could manage to sleep for another hour or two.

He closed his eyes and let himself drift. Indistinct memories surfaced: walking down the street again, after they’d been to all the pubs they could handle, singing at the top of his lungs with James, the two of them bumping into each other as their unsteady steps wobbled them all over the pavement, Sirius’ voice reverberating weirdly inside his own head and mingling with James’ off-key hollering. A couple paces behind them, Remus had been laughing his head off, then trying to pretend he wasn’t, whenever they turned and looked at him.

“Remus,” Sirius said suddenly, opening his eyes. “Did we dance? In the middle of that square with the weird statue of the bloke with a hat that looks like a paper bag?”

Remus – sensible, sober, not even hungover Remus – made a sound that was almost a giggle. “Yeah. James was trying to keep time for us by clapping along, but James has no sense of rhythm when he’s drunk.”

Sirius smiled as he closed his eyes again and the memory came back: Remus, pressed close against him, the grass-covered ground uneven under their feet, yellow light from the Muggle street lamps spilling over everything, catching on Remus’ eyelashes and making his eyes sparkle. Not a memory Sirius would have wanted to forget.

All right, fewer drinks next time. And, yeah, not challenging James to drinking contests might help to that end.

Cosy now in Remus’ arms, Sirius yawned.

“Go on and sleep,” Remus murmured beside him, his voice somnolent and soothing. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Sirius squeezed Remus’ hand in his and closed his eyes. “You know what the best hangover cure is?” he mumbled, already beginning to drift. “You are. Better than electro-whatsit. Even better than toast. Your weirdly perfect toast.”

Remus chuckled, very softly, and Sirius sailed off to sleep to that sound.