The first birthday after he left home, Regulus had waited for someone to call.
By the fifth, he had stopped.
Birthdays became quiet things after that. Pandora always remembered, even if work had her somewhere across the country. Barty and Evan would send increasingly offensive voice notes that somehow still managed to say we love you beneath all the insults. And then, silence.
He'd become good at wearing solitude. People mistook it for preference.
It was easier to let them.
The lake was silver beneath the winter sky, the wind biting at his cheeks as he walked with his hands buried deep in his coat pockets. The city glowed warmly behind him, windows full of people celebrating lives that looked nothing like his.
"Sorry-"
Regulus turned.
A tall man stood a few feet away, clutching two takeaway coffees, looking as though he'd already forgotten how speaking worked.
"I, um..."
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"I just thought you looked..."
A pause.
"...interesting."
Regulus raised an eyebrow.
"Interesting?"
"No."
Another pause.
"That's not what I meant either."
Despite himself, Regulus smiled.
The stranger looked relieved enough that it almost made him laugh.
"I'm Remus."
"Regulus."
Another beat of silence settled comfortably between them before, for reasons he couldn't explain, Regulus heard himself say,
"It's my birthday today."
The words surprised them both, and yet it felt strangely cathartic to share that tiny meaningless detail with some random beautiful man who blushed at every word said and unsaid. That, maybe, a date on the calender would actually have some meaning if they both shared it in this moment, like a tree falling and having someone witness it for its existence to have actually mattered. Even though this man, Remus, would probably forget it the moment he laid his head on his pillow tonight.
Remus blinked.
"Oh."
Then, softer,
"Happy birthday."
Regulus shrugged, the words strange to his ears but still not helping the faint blush he could feel rising on his cheeks. Maybe it was the sincerity in Remus' voice, or the soft smile that he had directed on him.
"Thanks."
"Did you... have a good one?"
He looked back at the lake.
"Define good."
Something flickered across Remus's face, and without another word, he started patting down every pocket of his coat until he pulled out a slightly squashed Mars bar.
"I know," he said, already laughing at himself. "Not exactly a birthday cake."
He snapped it cleanly in half and held one piece out.
"But it's all I've got."
Their fingers brushed as Regulus accepted it, laughing quitely at the sight the made, one tailored in an expensive cashemere coat and the other in his chunky forest green knit scarf and gloves sharing a Mars bar by the lake.
The chocolate was cold from the weather, but it was the sweetest thing he has ever tasted in a while.
They stood there eating in silence until Remus glanced sideways at him, his pointer fixing his glasses on his nose, a beautiful flush to his cheeks.
"So..." Remus started, his fingers drumming on the paper cup he was still holding in his hand, "I know we've known each other for approximately four minutes, and you probably think I'm some crazy man... But I don't think birthdays should end with half a Mars bar."
Remus's ears had gone bright red.
"I was wondering if..." He swallowed. "Maybe I could buy you dinner."
"A birthday dinner?"
"...Hopefully." Remus smiled, "I know a place with great chocoloate cakes for dessert, and we'll ask for candles on the table, that definetly makes it a birthday dinner."
"And?"
Remus smiled, small and nervous.
"...Maybe a first date."
"A first date?" Regulus echoed.
Remus's face fell just enough that Regulus knew he was already preparing for rejection.
"Yeah," he admitted quietly. "If... if you'd like, it's okay if you don't, it's crazy anyways. I just saw you standing here for a while, and you're really gorgeous, and I thought- Oh my fucking god, did I just say I thought you were gorgeous? Well, I'm sure I'm not the first to think that, and you probably know it... Fuck, I'll stop talking because I embarassed myself enough for a lifetime."
Regulus looked at him for a long moment, at the flushed cheeks, at the nervous hands and the Mars bar wrapper still sticking out of his pocket.
Then he laughed, soft, genuine, the kind of laugh he hadn't heard from himself in years.
"Happy birthday to me," he murmured.
Every birthday before this one had ended the same way: walking home alone through streets that belonged to everyone except him.
This one ended with someone walking beside him.
And so, for the first time in years, Regulus's birthday stopped feeling like something to endure, instead, it became the day he met Remus Lupin.
And from now on, the same date would have all of Remus’ beautiful hues painted over it. His kindness, his courage, his intelligence, his caring, the gentle way his fingers wrapped around his heart like something worth holding, his dimpled smile as he opened his eyes next to him in the bed every morning, but most importantly, his love.
