For as long as Remus can remember he's had a hard life. Constant monthly mutilations of his skin, a absent father, and the trepidation of his blush inducing crush on Anastasia Fox. Anastasia Fox, who flirts with everyone, has matching fainter scars...
Anastasia searched the crowd not for the tall ginger who she had intentions with tonight but someone else. He was tucked in one of the corners of the common room by a window seemingly observing the room. She made her way over tucking herself in the cramped corner next to him. Maybe it was the crowd or the neon lights, the loud music, but her veins felt on fire with nerves.
"Lupin" Addressing him like this felt so formal.
"Anastasia." he gulps and whispers back.
She couldn't remember the last time he said her name truthfully or rather the last time anyone called her by her full name. James always called her Annie, for Sirius it was some form of endearment to her last name, and to everyone else it was Ana. It sounded so long coming out of his mouth. Like a drawn out sentence not some nine letter word. Say it again.
"I like your costume." She reached up petting the felt fur handmade ears on his head.
"The cowardly lion though- not very fitting." She watched him almost smiling. Her face watched his with an enthralled look as if him on this very night was a glory carried chevalier.
This conversation had no obvious riddle to any unsuspecting listener; it only held the surface level of small talk. Though the two knew both knew in their own way that it meant more- a word game, a mind-bender of hidden puzzles.
Their chests so close and air viscous turned solid around them. Anastasia felt it, the exposed environment trying to understand if he felt the same.
"It could be." His whispers. She thought and before Anastasia could question the intent of his answer-
"I like your costume." And there, Remus had broken their game. Out of fear, or overwhelmed tension, or to gain some control over her wandering thoughts which held the topic on her perception of him, or for some comfort in the conversation.
Her eyes creased, a chuckle. "You know what it is?"
Remus nods his head smiling down at her his eyes void of angst and wound.
"Everyone was looking at me and Marlene like we're crazy." She had to look away for a moment, to breathe, only to turn back a second later never wanting to leave his eyes. "I'm sure it would've taken well in the streets of London."
It was his turn to respond. Think of something Remus. "You know the reaction to Eddie's body, when they um pull away the table cloth?" She nods remembering the scene. "That was the actor's real reaction; they didn't know he was there." Gosh why did I say that.
Silence. Remus's mouth open and internally cringing wondering how or why he even knew that minuscule fact about a recent movie he had seen only once. Anastasia could only hold her laughter in for a minute before bursting out into breathy laughs at Remus's unexpected fact.
"No I-" giggles "I didn't know that." And now they are smiling at each other again and their proximity felt absolute and profoundly intimate.
A moment with them could only last so long. Mary's voice calling Anastasia over was heard. And her head turned and the shared states were broken.
A sigh and eyes meeting and their game had begun again. "I guess I should go." but it sounded like a question with a rational answer but an unwanted one.
"Yeah..."
"Un-" A hopeful smile. "Unless you'd want me to stay." If Anastasia had left her body in this moment and could look at her expression she'd be throughly embarrassed at her hopeful words and the sore desperation in her eyes.
Remus wanted to say "Yes please stay with me. Always stay with me. Always be with me. Never leave me." But he had no coherent, justified reason to ask her too. "Oh no I don't want to keep you too long."
Bitter disappointment. "Okay"
"Ok..." Remus said.
His costume was fitting. Out of all the options he wasn't without heart he was full of one, and he wasn't without a brain, he was logical, and he surely wasn't lost from home.
Authors Note:
Ugh I had such a big writing block for this chapter but I think I just needed a change of scenery to I wrote this drunk with all the lights turned off in my bathtub. ☠️. Anyways I recently got a lot of free time on my hands due to life happening and now I am hoping to be getting chapter out very fast like a full chapter all its parts within every five days. I am volunteering at this cultural thing where I live so I am wearing a bunch on like old times dresses and living out my little women fantasy.
I hope you liked this chapter 😘. What do you like better wizard of oz or Rocky horror (only one right answer)???
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