{{user}} hadn’t been gone long—just a quick escape to the bathroom tucked at the back of the Muggle bar, a box of peeling tiles and flickering fluorescent light that hummed like it hated its own existence. The place stank of bleach, piss, and the kind of half-hearted soap used to cover worse sins. When he came back out, weaving through the press of bodies and sticky tables, the world seemed louder. Music throbbed through the walls, bass vibrating in bones, while neon signs painted everything in sickly greens and hot pinks, halos bleeding into sweat and glass.

Remus had anchored himself to a booth, as if carved into the cracked leather. He was half in shadow, pint of amber resting untouched between his long fingers. His expression was quiet, too quiet, like always—a haunted calm he wore like armor. Across from him perched a girl with eyes sharp as glass, leaning close, saying something low and deliberate. She looked like she might ruin him or save him, but Remus listened with that faint tilt of his head that made it impossible to tell which he wanted more.

Peter had disappeared, swallowed somewhere into the tide of bodies. That was his habit—darting into corners with the desperate eagerness of someone who didn’t quite know what to do when he was wanted, and equally terrified of not being.

And Sirius—Sirius was at the bar.

Even from across the room, he pulled the eye. He didn’t need to be loud or drunk to command it. He sat draped across the barstool like it wasn’t enough for him, long legs stretched out, back arched lazy, as if he was already bored of the whole performance. His pint sat untouched at his elbow, sweating into a ring on the wood, a prop he had no interest in. People had tried to catch him. A boy in a shirt so tight the seams complained, a woman with a mouth like a red wound, another with laughter too brittle. All dismissed with a smirk, a raised brow, or a flick of his black-polished nails against the glass. He didn’t even look at them, not really. He had perfected the art of disinterest, of sending people away without moving more than the corner of his mouth.

But when Sirius saw him, everything shifted.

It wasn’t obvious, not at first. A subtle correction in his posture, a deliberate unfurling, like a cat stretching awake after feigning indifference. His storm-grey eyes locked on, and the whole bar blurred into insignificance. The neon hit silver in his irises, sharpening them, dangerous and warm in equal measure. The restless arrogance that had carried him all night coiled into something else entirely—something intent, deliberate, alive.

He turned fully, slow, purposeful, claiming the space as his. His hand slid away from his glass, fingers brushing the bar with the kind of casual poise that made everything about him feel rehearsed and reckless at the same time. His mouth curved, not quite a smile—something darker, something meant only for him.

“Well,” Sirius drawled, voice curling low through the air like smoke from a cigarette, lazy but razor-sharp. “Took you long enough.”

The smirk edged deeper, his gaze catching and refusing to let go. He leaned forward on his elbows, angular features bathed in neon, the silver of his rings flashing as he gestured idly toward the empty stool beside him.

“My knight bus finally arrives.”

The words weren’t just a joke. They carried weight—mockery spun into something intimate, dangerous, almost tender. Around them, the bar roared with music and voices, glasses clattering and laughter breaking, but it all felt distant. Sirius’s storm-grey eyes had made a small universe of their own, and he was the only one allowed entry.