Words: 1817

Description: The world is in black and white until you meet your soulmate.

Story:

When Remus was little, his mum picked out his clothes for him. You see, she could see colors, he couldn't.

Everyone's born that way, colorblind in a sense. Until you meet your soulmate, the world around you is black and white.

He always loved hearing the story of his mum and dad. They met in uni when his mum was eighteen and his dad was twenty-one. They used to tell him the story almost every night as they tucked him into bed. How the world burst into color like a load of fireworks and suddenly, they could both see something other than black and white.

Their love wasn't instantaneous, but it was worked for, it was earned. His mum said that was why it worked so well.

His parents would describe his monotone world to him in all the colors. If only he knew what it all meant.

His mum would lean in close and tell him that his eyes were the prettiest amber, sometimes even green on a day when he was most joyful. She told him the sea was blue, and the sky was too. The sun was yellow. He didn't know what it all meant, but he kept them separate in his mind.

When he grew old enough that it was embarrassing to have your mum pick out your clothes, she made him a chart and she organized his clothes in different color categories. She labeled them all so he could see and had him practice which ones go together and which ones don't. He often grew frustrated and embarrassed, but Hope always reassured him that he would learn it and one day he would meet his soulmate and he wouldn't need to rehearse color combinations like flashcards anymore.

Remus didn't think he would ever meet his soulmate. He couldn't imagine anyone being in love with him in the way his parents were in love with each other. 

All throughout his childhood he'd watched the two of them. Their love was so sweet and pure. He longed to have something like that in his own life.

The way his father danced with his mother in the living room, complimenting the way her...her green dress complimented her green eyes. He wished he could see his mum's eyes. He wished he could tell her how pretty they were, but he couldn't.

Whenever Remus was imagining being in love, of seeing colors, he couldn't figure out why it didn't feel right. That was why he didn't think anyone could ever love him. He didn't think he had a soulmate at all.

"Mummy," he asked Hope one afternoon while Lyall was out in the garden tending to the flowers that smelled nice, but all looked the same to him.

"What is it, dear," she asked him, ruffling his curls.

"What if I don't have a soulmate?" He asked, lip trembling as the fear he'd been storing started to seep through.

"Oh, honey, of course you have a soulmate. You've said that you can't see colors. Only people who can see only one color don't have soulmates."

Remus wasn't reassured. Every time he tried to imagine dancing around the living room with a girl and commenting on her eyes, it just didn't feel right. He was scared that something was wrong with him.

"But-but the girl that—what if she..." he didn't know how to articulate what he was feeling. He didn't even really know what he was feeling, rather.

"Aw, love, your soulmate doesn't have to be a girl," Hope said, pulling little Remus into her side. "Love doesn't discriminate. It's called soulmates for a reason. Your soul fits with another's so perfectly that you see color. It doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl or anyone in between. Love is love, darling."

Remus was in shock. "So...so my soulmate...my soulmate can be a boy?" He didn't know what to think. It all sort of made a lot more sense to him now.

Hope nodded, smiling kindly at her son. "Yes, your soulmate can be a boy."

Over the years, Hope and Lyall tried to teach their son about love. Whenever Remus pictured himself dancing in the living room with his soulmate and he let himself picture dancing with a boy, that's when it felt right, the most natural to him.

His dad bought him a great big pride flag when he was sixteen and they spent the afternoon hanging it on the wall. Remus had grown up going to Pride Parades with his parents and watching them on TV and he'd always gazed at the paint on their faces and the flags that they waved and imagined what all the colors must look like.

"One day, you'll see the colors, son," Lyall said as the two of them looked at Remus's room. It was all black and white to Remus, but Lyall could see.

When Remus was eighteen years old, his mother got sick. She was dying from it, the doctors didn't know how to fix her.

His dad was heartbroken and after she died, in a moment of grief and sadness, he admitted to Remus that he'd seen the colors fading for weeks. And then they had all gone, all at once. And he saw the world as his son did, as Lyall himself had when he was young.

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When Sirius was little, he picked out his own clothes. They were all black, anyway. Some had some green, his mother told him once. Green was the only color she could see.

His parents weren't soulmates. They were never meant to be. His dad couldn't see colors, his soulmate was still out there somewhere. Or maybe dead. His mother was never meant to have one.

His brother Regulus and he were born out of a non-soulmate marriage. An arranged marriage, if you will. The Black Family had been doing it that way for generations. To make matters worse, his mum and dad had been cousins.

It was said that 90% of children born out of non-soulmate relationships weren't meant to have soulmates themselves. Regulus could only see the color yellow, which in all honesty, he couldn't see that either until he was six years old and went to primary school. There were no colors in their house anyway.

Sirius was the lucky one. He couldn't see any colors, which meant he had a soulmate out there somewhere.

But still, Sirius didn't think he could ever find him. Yes, Sirius had decided that his soulmate would be a him. He hadn't told his mum or dad because they would hate him even more, but he was gay.

Sirius had almost no hope of finding his soulmate because he too was destined for an arranged marriage. The lady was more of a distant relative, promised to him at birth, but still quite related.

Oh how Sirius longed to see the colors.

Regulus died in an accident when he was eighteen and Sirius forgot about colors for awhile. Regulus had always used to point out all the yellow to him, even though Sirius couldn't see it.

Sirius left his house as soon as he was able to. He'd run away to his mate James's house, who'd met his soulmate at eleven. James had been in love with Lily Evans for a great many years, though she loathed him in return. They didn't actually start to date until they were both seventeen years old, though.

They got married at nineteen and had a kid at twenty. Sirius longed for a love like theirs. It was the only example of love he'd ever experienced in his own life.

Sirius got his own flat shortly after James and Lily got engaged and he'd been working at the coffee shop next to the bookstore for quite sometime.

He was twenty-three when he bumped into a man on the way to his flat, right between the bookstore and the coffee shop.

And the man had the most beautiful green eyes.

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Remus didn't notice it at first. The colors. He always thought it would be an explosion of fireworks like his mum always used to describe. But it wasn't.

The man in front of him looked the same. He had black hair, pale skin, and icy silver eyes. He was dressed in all black, too. Remus probably wouldn't have noticed the colors because he was too transfixed with the man in front of him.

But soon he simply couldn't ignore the blossoming of color all around him.

Both men turned a full circle, taking in all the colors. The blue of the sky, the green of the grass, the purples, yellows, reds, oranges, everything!

Remus couldn't believe it. The man in front of him (quite handsome, he might add) was his soulmate. The emotions were overwhelming him, colors swirling around, and he started to cry.

It was all so much more than he'd ever imagined it. He finally understood the way his mum always explained it to him. How magical she made it sound. It really was magical, all the colors.

"Oh my god, are you crying? Are you okay? I'm so sorry, I'm know I'm not—" the man started to say but Remus interrupted him and pulled him into a bone crushing hug.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, god I'm so glad I found you!" Remus said, breathless.

He pulled away and the man laughed, a soulful sound that Remus instantly knew he wanted to hear more of.

"What's your name?" Remus asked urgently, grabbing the man's hand and pulling him among to a bench under a tree with beautifully green leaves. Normally, Remus is shy, but today he was shameless. He could only process that he met his soulmate, the one person he was meant to be with.

"Sirius Black," the man said, smiling widely.

"Remus Lupin," Remus replied.

The two talked for hours and hours, moving from the bench only when it got too cold. They migrated instead to a restaurant, not letting go of the other's hand for long in between.

They exchanged numbers and texted long into the night after they did separate and Remus brought Sirius home to meet his dad the very next day.

As it turned out, the two of them had been working at the bookstore and the coffee shop respectively for about the same amount of time. Everyday, Sirius's shift would end and he would head home and then Remus's shift would end and he'd head over to the coffee shop for a warm drink.

But the day they met, fate changed their schedules and Remus left a little earlier and Sirius a little later and their paths crossed perfectly.

And they both saw all the colors.

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