GP - dreaming of a black christmas

[lcrpg_npc]

The repurposed railway arches that housed Beagle's bar and restaurant were decked in shades of black: black christmas trees glittering with sparkly and satiny black ornaments, black wreaths with perfectly tied bows, black garlands draping along the walls and bar, ribbons edging the long banquet benches in the restaurant dining room. A gentle snow seemed to fall from the ceiling, a specially designed lighting effect much more pleasant than the cold and wet that would've accompanied real snow. Christmas music played over hidden speakers, setting the mood without interfering with conversation.

The Kraken Black Christmas feast was a different spin on the holiday than you'd find most places, and yet, a christmas feast all the same. All the flavors of the season were there, both in the bar's specialty cocktails and in the feast itself, served banquet-style to those fortunate enough to get tickets - mulled wine, egg nog, roasts and stuffing and puddings, and so much more. Yet the food and drinks all shared the same theme as the decor, shades of black augmented with squid ink, charcoal, or black sesame seeds.

Guests had been encouraged to continue the theme with black festive attire, but it wasn't required, and spots of color could be found here and there along the table or mingling in the bar. There was one thing everyone could agree on, though. No matter how black the theme, the mood was anything but dark.

Comments

[harrowgate]

Felix was trying to conceal his incredulity. Remus had spent most of their friendship enduring Felix's flirting with gentle humor while quietly, but decidedly, deflecting him. Now Remus was speaking to him like an ill-behaved bottom who hadn't earned the firm handling he desired. The change seemed quite sudden to Felix, but it looked so natural on Remus that he was beginning to doubt all his previous assumptions.

And when Remus looked at him like that, clucked at him like he was in a fit of pique, Felix rather wanted to press him back against the wall and show him just how badly he could behave. His eyes widened in a quick flare of surprise, before narrowing down again, calculating.

"Do you think you could?" he lilted, leaning a fraction of an inch nearer, as though Remus had a secret to tell him. Felix lowered his voice. "I should be delighted to volunteer, if Sirius grows too excitable to manage." His own small smile and steady gaze said clearly that if Remus wanted to play with him, Felix was ready to call his bluff.

[wandandawolf]

Remus noticed the reaction he was engendering in Felix: he was too well attuned to people not to. And while it probably should have heightened his interest, it banked it instead. Remus took his play rather seriously (every pun intended) and he simply didn't want...complications. As tempting as Felix was.

So his expression softened, a little, although there was still a firm certainly in his voice. "I rather think so," he replied, smiling in return, "and as much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, I've always been able to manage Sirius in the past. You're very pretty, Felix, and very intelligent, and utterly delightful - but you'd come off second best, I'd afraid, in terms of my attentions. And you don't seem like someone who'd take being second best particular well, and I'd hate to hurt someone so dear to me." He leaned in and lightly brushed the backs of his fingers across Felix's cheek.

"I quite enjoy talking up a storm, but..." Remus turned and unerringly found Sirius through the crowd, letting Felix follow his gaze if he wished. Sirius was in the middle of an extended snog with some fit young bloke, and Remus clearly didn't mind as he smiled a little sadly at Felix: "...I'm afraid one pretty thing in my bed is probably all I can manage without a lot of bruised egos. I'm sure you understand."

[harrowgate]

The remarkable thing was, Felix did understand perfectly. Though he had not experienced a great deal of rejection in his adult life, Remus' was probably the kindest, warmest rejection he'd ever heard. Felix had never in his life been turned down for sex and decided to like the man even more because of it. Remus was honest with him, and if he couldn't lure the charming intellectual and his rake of a boyfriend into bed with him, honesty was all he could ask for. He even let Remus touch him, without giving him the usual I-see-what-you're-doing look.

He did turn to watch Remus find Sirius in the crowd -- with a fellow wizard for a lover, that was a luxury Felix envied just slightly -- and was only faintly surprised to see Sirius entangled with someone else. "As long as you don't mind the occasional well-earned compliment, I won't suggest it again, darling," Felix answered, light and musical and not in the least offended. He didn't even seem particularly upset.

Rather than belabor the point (because he had just been rejected, and no matter how kind he didn't care to discuss it for very long), Felix tipped his head toward Sirius. "You don't mind that he... enjoys his own second-bests?"

[wandandawolf]

Remus didn't offer his thanks for Felix's understanding, but he rather thought he didn't need to, from the way their eyes met for that one second before they both ended up looking at Sirius.

Who probably would have loved the attention, if he'd only known about it. "Oh, Sirius always comes home safe," Remus murmured, glad for a moment at their little lives, at how he'd been able to hold things together. Despite time, and death, they managed to endure. And because of that, he knew he had no real need for jealousy. "Or I go pull him out of the fire," he added, under his breath, flashing a brief smile at Felix. "Besides, Sirius has some very....extensive needs. I'm glad someone is satisfying them. I'm too ill sometimes, you see."

[harrowgate]

Felix gave a small sound of consideration, dipping his chin in a faint semblance of a nod. So, Remus and Sirius had exactly the sort of arrangement that Felix had more or less insisted upon with Shannon -- though Remus made it sound like that was out of necessity. Felix could never, would never, wish the sort of illness that Remus had spoken of upon his own lover, not for any reason.

"You've drawn some uncannily accurate parallels between Sirius and myself," he said, more quietly. "The cannot be said about you and Shannon, I'm afraid. He'd be rather annoyed that you and I have been conversing this way. He doesn't share your views when it comes to my...."

He waved a hand and did not finish the sentence. Could he really say that Shannon did not try to satisfy what Felix really needed? Could he explain it at all, without admitting to his own selfishness? Robin's words came back to haunt him, as they had regularly in the last few days. 'Your problem is that you don't want to be in a relationship with anyone.'

[wandandawolf]

Remus thought about Felix's reaction, about his and Sirius' rather complicated history. (History. Ha.) He left further musings on parallels between the two of them - or was it the four of them? - Remus didn't want to muse too deeply, that way lay madness. Or a lot of brooding. Possibly both.

"Like I said: he always comes home." There was a touch of sadness in his eyes as he said it, an admission that in the times he and Sirius knew best that coming home wasn't always a given. To have lived through the War and not be grateful for life and love - well, Remus wasn't capable of it. And that Sirius came home, to him, always had, always would - that had made the furious jealousies and the curdling self-loathing enough to bear, most of the time. The jealousy, at least, had been quiescent since they'd gotten together. The self-loathing had not.

"...Obviously, this conversation never happened," Remus murmured, offering Felix a warm, dry salvation he didn't know how to offer himself. "I wouldn't want either of us to get in trouble."

[harrowgate]

Felix could have kissed Remus for that statement alone... did rather want to kiss him, if only to learn whether he tasted like toffee and melted butter the way that he looked. His odd-eyed gaze lingered on Remus' mouth for a moment too long, as though considering it regardless of the conversation, the circumstances, or the observable nature of their current position.

However, in the end, Felix wasn't one to take anything that wasn't offered. He inclined a nod of acceptance, and one of gratitude, if one knew where to look for the tiny signs of it. The truth was, Felix had no one with whom to discuss his relationship with Shannon -- no one who wasn't rather biased by being one of Felix's lovers on the side, that is. It was tempting to unburden himself to Remus, but to what end? If physical intimacy wasn't on the table, then emotional intimacy wasn't even allowed in the room.

"You're a rare breed, among my friends," Felix answered him, as lightly as he could manage. "Most of them adore getting me in trouble. That makes you my current favorite. To self-preservation," he added, offering his drink up in toast.

[wandandawolf]

Remus chuckled, but it wasn't an especially amused sound. "Oh, you're not the first to say I'm a rare breed. But I always appreciate being someone's favourite." He returned the toast with a sip, pacing himself for no real reason.

He got the feeling that somehow their friendship had gotten more distant and yet more intimate over the course of the conversation: they knew each other more deeply than they had before, they understand where each was coming from, and yet for all that Remus was quite happy to be everyone's agony aunt, Felix was not availing himself of what seemed like the perfect opportunity. Perhaps he never would.

"I'm sure you're nearly everyone's favourite." Something else he had in common with Sirius. "But let's go back to our menfolk, shall we? It was lovely to see you, m'dear."

[harrowgate]

Felix could talk for hours on end and still say very little about himself, his feelings, or the things that troubled him. Yet Remus' offer to listen to him was clear, and Felix couldn't say he wasn't tempted to confess. Remus probably wouldn't even judge him for the choices he'd made... but it still felt too much like pulling down the protections he'd built and exposing himself to danger.

"And you, darling. Now that you and Sirius are an item, we'll get the four of us together, shall we? As long as we don't chatter about magic all night, Shannon will find it delightful, I'm sure." He leaned up off the wall and self-consciously smoothed down his jacket in preparation.

[wandandawolf]

Remus smiled. "Let's make it," he promised, "a date."