Remus & Gilmore (dated May 9)
May. 9th, 2018 08:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainNot long after he arrives at the school Remus follows some interesting smells and runs into Gilmore. No, people don't make soap because they're poor. Also book nerdery. And "Timber!!!"
Remus had discovered after arriving at the school that it was terribly easy to get lost. So he began to do some exploring, making his way through the halls as if he were creating a map in his head. It also gave him something to do, since he was still shy around all the new people he met, but still did not want to seem like the weird kid who kept to himself all the time. At least this made it look as if he was going somewhere.
Though now, he stopped his methodical map-based wandering in order to follow another path - a smell. Something that smelled like the outdoors, but indoors. Curious, he walked in the direction where the smell was the strongest, until he reached an ajar door.
Curiosity getting the best of him, he rapped politely on it, looking inside. "Ah, hello?"
"In here," sang out a deep, rich young man's voice from within the workroom. "I'm just measuring, be with you in half a jiffy, promise!"
Several fans were on in the room, but the scent that hung heavy on the air was something like cedar, something like fir, and a hint of something golden and sweet like honey had just entered the blend. The owner of the voice that had called out was a darker-skinned fellow, long black hair pulled back in a tail, wearing a pair of safety glasses and bent over a large metal bowl on one of the work tables. A number of tools, including a hand blender and a rectangular mold, were lined up neatly on the table beside him. He finished pouring something oily and very fragrant into the bowl, and finally looked up.
"Hi there," said Gilmore to the young man he'd never seen before, warm and welcoming. He had a very white smile and a very soft-looking black goatee. "Come on in."
Remus walked in, though still hung back a bit, still not entirely sure he wasn't intruding. He was also trying not to stare, since the young man in the room was very interesting looking, as was... whatever he was doing. "I don't mean to intrude," he said politely. "I was just curious about this smell..."
The adorable accent, similar to but not the same as Percy or Vax, made Gilmore pause. As the other boy came in to the room, Gilmore reached over and picked up an extra pair of safety glasses, and waggled them his way. "You're not intruding at all, but I'm mixing lye, so pop these on, won't you? We're all terribly fashionable here, as you can see. I'm Gilmore, Shaun Gilmore, and you are the first to experience my new signature soap scent. The working name is 'Mountain Man Candy' but I haven't settled on that yet. What's your name?"
"Oh, you're making soap!" Remus said, sounding surprised and a little delighted by the realization. He moved closer and took the glasses. "My name is Remus Lupin," he said politely, and then put on the glasses, pushing them underneath the flop of hair that did little to actually hide the scars on his face despite his best intentions. "I think it smells very nice."
"A pleasure to meet you, Remus Lupin. Your name is positively mythological," said Gilmore admiringly, beginning to mix the fragrance oils into the soap base. The mixer whirred gently, and he spoke up a little. "I'm going to choose to believe that you wandered in here just now for a reason, and that reason is to help me think of a better name for this scent. What do you think of when you smell this delightful aroma?" Gilmore flashed an encouraging grin at Remus. Either he didn't notice the other boy's scars, or he wasn't phased by them. Indeed, he seemed to have too much to do, and far too much to say, to focus on that sort of thing.
"A forest dripping with honey," Remus said immediately, and then looked a bit embarrassed. "I mean - well, it's very nice. Though they have soap here, don't they? They gave me soap and clothes and..." His voice trailed off as he realized that of course this man wasn't making soap because he was poor, it was just where Remus' had immediately gone.
Gilmore bit back a laugh, because he would have been a bit embarrassed if he'd said that first bit aloud, as well. No, he couldn't very well name it that. "Sure, they have soap, but they don't have this soap. This is a completely original and exclusive creation of Gilmore's Glorious Goods, absolutely unique and from my special recipe, too. I guarantee that anything you wash with it will feel as fresh and soft as the day you were born."
He leaned over the bowl to give it another good sniff, and breathed a contented sigh. "Oh, it's going to be hard to part with, though."
"So you're making soap... for fun?" Remus asked, venturing a bit closer. "Because the soap you make is better than regular soap? I'm not sure I realized that there were a lot of kinds of soap. But really, it will make your skin softer?"
"Sure it will. I make it with milk from the farmer's market, so I have to make it all at once before the milk goes off," Gilmore explained. "Though it's not exactly for fun. It's to sell. I have a thriving business in custom-scented, handmade soap. All I have to do is give it a sexy name, and it just about flies out of the shop."
He barely seemed to need to breathe as he chatted, stirring and adding and stirring again. "That's why it's so fortuitous you're here. You can help me come up with the perfect name."
"Oh, I don't know if I'll be much help," Remus said, feeling a bit shy in the face of Gilmore's boisterousness. "What makes a name sexy?" He'd never really thought of soap as sexy before. Most of what he knew about sexy at all came from books.
"In my experience, it's something that inspires you to take off your clothes," answered Gilmore, amused. "Which is a very good quality for soap, don't you think? Here, hold that measuring cup stead, would you? We need to dye about half of this before we mold it." Because this was a 'we' production, now, according to Gilmore.
Rather whimsically, he asked, "What would you call a romance novel about a forest-dwelling lumberjack who smelled amazing?"
Remus did precisely as he was told, holding the cup steady, and then said without really thinking about it first, "Timber. I mean, that's - well, it's how a lumberjack commands a tree to... fall for him." Though as soon as he said this, he thought it probably sounded quite stupid.
Gilmore had started pouring from the bowl into the measuring cup, but when Remus suggested that, he audibly gasped. "Oh, my god, I love it," he breathed, still managing to pour cleanly. Probably because he'd done it a hundred times. "How perfect are you? Oh, I'm keeping you around, Remus Lupin, I think you're good luck."
For a brief second, Remus thought that Gilmore was making fun of him. But then he realized that it was sincere, and there was no mistaking his shy delight at the praise. He hadn't gotten very much of that in a long time, he realized. He was always a good student, so before he changed there was school... but he hadn't been to school in years. "Oh, I'm - glad to help."
"Timber," Gilmore purred, and his low, resonant voice gave the words a distinctly sultry quality. "'Command him to fall for you.' We might have to put a PG-13 rating on this product." He chuckled, adding the dye to the separated portion, and went on working. In the end, 'Timber' would be a beautifully marbled slab of deep forest green and warm cream. "So, Remus, you're new to the school? Tell me all about you."
Remus peered closer for a moment, appreciating how nice the colors looked as they mixed. Then he looked at Gilmore. "Oh, I don't think there is very much to tell," he said. "I lived near London. Now I'm here. I'm not very interesting. I read a lot." He'd been thinking about what he might do if all the students here knew of each other's mutations, what they might think of him when they found out. And decided to simply cross that road when he came to it.
Gilmore worked contentedly, marbling the colors in a rectangular mold, then used a glass rod to create a perfect swirl pattern of green and cream along the top. "That's wonderful," he said enthusiastically. "I make loads of things inspired by books. Usually I stick with the most popular series, the ones that end up in Hollywood. What are your favorites? I'm always looking for the next big thing."
"Oh, I may not be much help there," Remus said. "I'm still making my way through the classics, not so much up on the newest things... I love Dickens, and Austen, and Shakespeare... though I suppose Hollywood gets back around to the classics, too. Have you read The Handmaid's Tale? It just chilled me to the bone, made me think that my life wasn't so bad after all..."
"Not yet. It's a little heavy for me, I'm afraid," said Gilmore, and he sounded actually apologetic. He did wonder what there was in Remus' life that was 'so bad,' but he knew better than to ask right away. This fellow might seem shy, but he was hungry to talk to people, that much was clear. It wouldn't do to shut the conversation down before they'd really gotten started. "But if you want to talk classics, I've been a fan of the Narnia books practically since birth. I'm always finding new inspiration in those."
Remus' smile widened, and it lit up his face in such a way as to chase away the embarrassed shyness that had seemed like a fixture before. "Oh, I love those books. I've read them all several times... You make soap inspired by then?" This had certainly never occurred to him before.
Now there was something Gilmore wished he could capture and bottle. That smile could make the birds sing and the sun rise, he was sure. Now he knew he was on the right path to coaxing this darling creature out into the light. "Soap, candles, scents, jewelry, probably more," he confirmed. Gilmore reached to grab a towel and quickly wipe off his hands, then picked up his phone from a separate table where he'd left it out of the way.
With a few quick taps, he'd brought up the front page of Gilmore's Glorious Goods on his Etsy app -- complete with the stylized white and purple unicorn logo. Then he offered the screen to Remus to peruse. "Here. I've got a few one-of-a-kind specialty pieces, and then a steady stock of the really popular items. The 'Courage, Dear Heart' necklace is most popular, but my 'Susan' perfume really took off a couple of seasons ago."
Remus took the phone from him and swiped through the pictures. "You made all of these things?" he asked, sounding impressed. "These are really beautiful..." He paused on a bracelet, admiring the colors of the beads. "You're very talented."
"Why thank you," Gilmore practically purred. While Remus was distracted by the phone, Gilmore was quickly fashioning a smaller mold out of some extra bits and pieces, and pouring the last leavings of the soap mixture into it. When it firmed up, he'd package and deliver it to Remus directly. Gilmore didn't do credit, but he did love presents. "I do fairly well for myself, and it's fun, so what more could I ask for?"
There was something about Gilmore that Remus found a bit... overwhelming, but mostly it made him worried that he'd say or do something dumb. Gilmore had to be the coolest seeming person he'd ever met in person. "It does seem like a very nice hobby," Remus said. "I, ah..." He hesitated, but then decided that Gilmore might be the one boy who wouldn't tease him for this. "I knit, sometimes."
Quite the contrary, Gilmore lit up with interest. "Do you? That's one of the fine crafting arts I never got the hang of. What sort of things do you knit? What inspires you?" That was always Gilmore's main interest in others -- their motivations, their passions.
What inspired him? Wanting to be warm? "Um... I confess I don't think I have much of a sense of style. I've mostly knit blankets, scarves, the occasional slightly misshapen sweater. Nothing so nice as the things you make."
"I can give you an absolute, one hundred percent, Gilmore-certified guarantee that any sweater you knit will be worlds nicer than any sweater I knit, because yours will actually resemble a sweater," Gilmore laughed. Now that the soap was setting, he pushed his plastic glasses up to perch them in his very thick hair, which somehow still managed to look intentional and fashionable. "We all have our talents, I just happen to mercilessly milk mine for shameless self-promotion. And, well, for money."
"Well, I use mine for staying warm when it's cold," Remus said lightly. He was still kind of in awe of how cool Gilmore was. The hair, the clothes, the jewelry, the confidence... Remus felt like he was on an entirely different plane of existence or something.
Gilmore thought himself fairly cool, but mostly he was interested in other people and what made them tick. He had fastened lids back on containers and was taking the used measuring cups to the sink to rinse them out. Everything else in his work space was neat and tidy. The extra mold was tucked behind the big one, out of sight, so he could keep it a surprise. "Lucky for us, it's warm right now, and even luckier for us, there is a communal supply of popsicles upstairs. Want to join me while our creation is setting up?"
"Oh - yes, I'd love to. Popsicles sound really nice. Perhaps we could walk around outside? It's so beautiful here, don't you think." Remus was finding it so much easier to be happy here. Even if this involved trying not to think about what would happen in less than a month.
"Glorious," Gilmore pronounced, grinning broadly. He removed the rest of his safety gear and set it neatly on the work table, made one last sweep of the room to make sure everything was tidy, and then went to escort Remus out. "Let's see what the school grounds have to show us, shall we?"
Remus had discovered after arriving at the school that it was terribly easy to get lost. So he began to do some exploring, making his way through the halls as if he were creating a map in his head. It also gave him something to do, since he was still shy around all the new people he met, but still did not want to seem like the weird kid who kept to himself all the time. At least this made it look as if he was going somewhere.
Though now, he stopped his methodical map-based wandering in order to follow another path - a smell. Something that smelled like the outdoors, but indoors. Curious, he walked in the direction where the smell was the strongest, until he reached an ajar door.
Curiosity getting the best of him, he rapped politely on it, looking inside. "Ah, hello?"
"In here," sang out a deep, rich young man's voice from within the workroom. "I'm just measuring, be with you in half a jiffy, promise!"
Several fans were on in the room, but the scent that hung heavy on the air was something like cedar, something like fir, and a hint of something golden and sweet like honey had just entered the blend. The owner of the voice that had called out was a darker-skinned fellow, long black hair pulled back in a tail, wearing a pair of safety glasses and bent over a large metal bowl on one of the work tables. A number of tools, including a hand blender and a rectangular mold, were lined up neatly on the table beside him. He finished pouring something oily and very fragrant into the bowl, and finally looked up.
"Hi there," said Gilmore to the young man he'd never seen before, warm and welcoming. He had a very white smile and a very soft-looking black goatee. "Come on in."
Remus walked in, though still hung back a bit, still not entirely sure he wasn't intruding. He was also trying not to stare, since the young man in the room was very interesting looking, as was... whatever he was doing. "I don't mean to intrude," he said politely. "I was just curious about this smell..."
The adorable accent, similar to but not the same as Percy or Vax, made Gilmore pause. As the other boy came in to the room, Gilmore reached over and picked up an extra pair of safety glasses, and waggled them his way. "You're not intruding at all, but I'm mixing lye, so pop these on, won't you? We're all terribly fashionable here, as you can see. I'm Gilmore, Shaun Gilmore, and you are the first to experience my new signature soap scent. The working name is 'Mountain Man Candy' but I haven't settled on that yet. What's your name?"
"Oh, you're making soap!" Remus said, sounding surprised and a little delighted by the realization. He moved closer and took the glasses. "My name is Remus Lupin," he said politely, and then put on the glasses, pushing them underneath the flop of hair that did little to actually hide the scars on his face despite his best intentions. "I think it smells very nice."
"A pleasure to meet you, Remus Lupin. Your name is positively mythological," said Gilmore admiringly, beginning to mix the fragrance oils into the soap base. The mixer whirred gently, and he spoke up a little. "I'm going to choose to believe that you wandered in here just now for a reason, and that reason is to help me think of a better name for this scent. What do you think of when you smell this delightful aroma?" Gilmore flashed an encouraging grin at Remus. Either he didn't notice the other boy's scars, or he wasn't phased by them. Indeed, he seemed to have too much to do, and far too much to say, to focus on that sort of thing.
"A forest dripping with honey," Remus said immediately, and then looked a bit embarrassed. "I mean - well, it's very nice. Though they have soap here, don't they? They gave me soap and clothes and..." His voice trailed off as he realized that of course this man wasn't making soap because he was poor, it was just where Remus' had immediately gone.
Gilmore bit back a laugh, because he would have been a bit embarrassed if he'd said that first bit aloud, as well. No, he couldn't very well name it that. "Sure, they have soap, but they don't have this soap. This is a completely original and exclusive creation of Gilmore's Glorious Goods, absolutely unique and from my special recipe, too. I guarantee that anything you wash with it will feel as fresh and soft as the day you were born."
He leaned over the bowl to give it another good sniff, and breathed a contented sigh. "Oh, it's going to be hard to part with, though."
"So you're making soap... for fun?" Remus asked, venturing a bit closer. "Because the soap you make is better than regular soap? I'm not sure I realized that there were a lot of kinds of soap. But really, it will make your skin softer?"
"Sure it will. I make it with milk from the farmer's market, so I have to make it all at once before the milk goes off," Gilmore explained. "Though it's not exactly for fun. It's to sell. I have a thriving business in custom-scented, handmade soap. All I have to do is give it a sexy name, and it just about flies out of the shop."
He barely seemed to need to breathe as he chatted, stirring and adding and stirring again. "That's why it's so fortuitous you're here. You can help me come up with the perfect name."
"Oh, I don't know if I'll be much help," Remus said, feeling a bit shy in the face of Gilmore's boisterousness. "What makes a name sexy?" He'd never really thought of soap as sexy before. Most of what he knew about sexy at all came from books.
"In my experience, it's something that inspires you to take off your clothes," answered Gilmore, amused. "Which is a very good quality for soap, don't you think? Here, hold that measuring cup stead, would you? We need to dye about half of this before we mold it." Because this was a 'we' production, now, according to Gilmore.
Rather whimsically, he asked, "What would you call a romance novel about a forest-dwelling lumberjack who smelled amazing?"
Remus did precisely as he was told, holding the cup steady, and then said without really thinking about it first, "Timber. I mean, that's - well, it's how a lumberjack commands a tree to... fall for him." Though as soon as he said this, he thought it probably sounded quite stupid.
Gilmore had started pouring from the bowl into the measuring cup, but when Remus suggested that, he audibly gasped. "Oh, my god, I love it," he breathed, still managing to pour cleanly. Probably because he'd done it a hundred times. "How perfect are you? Oh, I'm keeping you around, Remus Lupin, I think you're good luck."
For a brief second, Remus thought that Gilmore was making fun of him. But then he realized that it was sincere, and there was no mistaking his shy delight at the praise. He hadn't gotten very much of that in a long time, he realized. He was always a good student, so before he changed there was school... but he hadn't been to school in years. "Oh, I'm - glad to help."
"Timber," Gilmore purred, and his low, resonant voice gave the words a distinctly sultry quality. "'Command him to fall for you.' We might have to put a PG-13 rating on this product." He chuckled, adding the dye to the separated portion, and went on working. In the end, 'Timber' would be a beautifully marbled slab of deep forest green and warm cream. "So, Remus, you're new to the school? Tell me all about you."
Remus peered closer for a moment, appreciating how nice the colors looked as they mixed. Then he looked at Gilmore. "Oh, I don't think there is very much to tell," he said. "I lived near London. Now I'm here. I'm not very interesting. I read a lot." He'd been thinking about what he might do if all the students here knew of each other's mutations, what they might think of him when they found out. And decided to simply cross that road when he came to it.
Gilmore worked contentedly, marbling the colors in a rectangular mold, then used a glass rod to create a perfect swirl pattern of green and cream along the top. "That's wonderful," he said enthusiastically. "I make loads of things inspired by books. Usually I stick with the most popular series, the ones that end up in Hollywood. What are your favorites? I'm always looking for the next big thing."
"Oh, I may not be much help there," Remus said. "I'm still making my way through the classics, not so much up on the newest things... I love Dickens, and Austen, and Shakespeare... though I suppose Hollywood gets back around to the classics, too. Have you read The Handmaid's Tale? It just chilled me to the bone, made me think that my life wasn't so bad after all..."
"Not yet. It's a little heavy for me, I'm afraid," said Gilmore, and he sounded actually apologetic. He did wonder what there was in Remus' life that was 'so bad,' but he knew better than to ask right away. This fellow might seem shy, but he was hungry to talk to people, that much was clear. It wouldn't do to shut the conversation down before they'd really gotten started. "But if you want to talk classics, I've been a fan of the Narnia books practically since birth. I'm always finding new inspiration in those."
Remus' smile widened, and it lit up his face in such a way as to chase away the embarrassed shyness that had seemed like a fixture before. "Oh, I love those books. I've read them all several times... You make soap inspired by then?" This had certainly never occurred to him before.
Now there was something Gilmore wished he could capture and bottle. That smile could make the birds sing and the sun rise, he was sure. Now he knew he was on the right path to coaxing this darling creature out into the light. "Soap, candles, scents, jewelry, probably more," he confirmed. Gilmore reached to grab a towel and quickly wipe off his hands, then picked up his phone from a separate table where he'd left it out of the way.
With a few quick taps, he'd brought up the front page of Gilmore's Glorious Goods on his Etsy app -- complete with the stylized white and purple unicorn logo. Then he offered the screen to Remus to peruse. "Here. I've got a few one-of-a-kind specialty pieces, and then a steady stock of the really popular items. The 'Courage, Dear Heart' necklace is most popular, but my 'Susan' perfume really took off a couple of seasons ago."
Remus took the phone from him and swiped through the pictures. "You made all of these things?" he asked, sounding impressed. "These are really beautiful..." He paused on a bracelet, admiring the colors of the beads. "You're very talented."
"Why thank you," Gilmore practically purred. While Remus was distracted by the phone, Gilmore was quickly fashioning a smaller mold out of some extra bits and pieces, and pouring the last leavings of the soap mixture into it. When it firmed up, he'd package and deliver it to Remus directly. Gilmore didn't do credit, but he did love presents. "I do fairly well for myself, and it's fun, so what more could I ask for?"
There was something about Gilmore that Remus found a bit... overwhelming, but mostly it made him worried that he'd say or do something dumb. Gilmore had to be the coolest seeming person he'd ever met in person. "It does seem like a very nice hobby," Remus said. "I, ah..." He hesitated, but then decided that Gilmore might be the one boy who wouldn't tease him for this. "I knit, sometimes."
Quite the contrary, Gilmore lit up with interest. "Do you? That's one of the fine crafting arts I never got the hang of. What sort of things do you knit? What inspires you?" That was always Gilmore's main interest in others -- their motivations, their passions.
What inspired him? Wanting to be warm? "Um... I confess I don't think I have much of a sense of style. I've mostly knit blankets, scarves, the occasional slightly misshapen sweater. Nothing so nice as the things you make."
"I can give you an absolute, one hundred percent, Gilmore-certified guarantee that any sweater you knit will be worlds nicer than any sweater I knit, because yours will actually resemble a sweater," Gilmore laughed. Now that the soap was setting, he pushed his plastic glasses up to perch them in his very thick hair, which somehow still managed to look intentional and fashionable. "We all have our talents, I just happen to mercilessly milk mine for shameless self-promotion. And, well, for money."
"Well, I use mine for staying warm when it's cold," Remus said lightly. He was still kind of in awe of how cool Gilmore was. The hair, the clothes, the jewelry, the confidence... Remus felt like he was on an entirely different plane of existence or something.
Gilmore thought himself fairly cool, but mostly he was interested in other people and what made them tick. He had fastened lids back on containers and was taking the used measuring cups to the sink to rinse them out. Everything else in his work space was neat and tidy. The extra mold was tucked behind the big one, out of sight, so he could keep it a surprise. "Lucky for us, it's warm right now, and even luckier for us, there is a communal supply of popsicles upstairs. Want to join me while our creation is setting up?"
"Oh - yes, I'd love to. Popsicles sound really nice. Perhaps we could walk around outside? It's so beautiful here, don't you think." Remus was finding it so much easier to be happy here. Even if this involved trying not to think about what would happen in less than a month.
"Glorious," Gilmore pronounced, grinning broadly. He removed the rest of his safety gear and set it neatly on the work table, made one last sweep of the room to make sure everything was tidy, and then went to escort Remus out. "Let's see what the school grounds have to show us, shall we?"
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