fic: It's Cool, We Can Still Be Friends
For a brief moment when Remus had found him again, he thought that maybe things could go back to how they used to be. It was a very fleeting thought, because there were more pressing matters at hand, namely the rat (in more ways than one). But it was there, a brief moment when Remus allowed himself to remember those memories he had banished to the back of his head for 12 years, everything he had refused to remember about Sirius, his smell and his taste and how it felt pressed against him, arms around him when he fell asleep, cold air when he awoke because Sirius always stole the blankets. Wet sloppy kisses and scruffy beard against his neck. He is overwhelmed by this Sirius, ignored for so long. The memories are so vivid that he almost doesn’t recognize the Sirius he sees now, thin and sick with yellow teeth and eyes that see only one thing. That thing is not Remus.
And then everything falls apart. He falls apart, rips apart, tears apart, ruins everything, and not even Sirius can contain him. The wolf is angry at Padfoot for 12 years of absence.
And then he wakes up in the hospital wing. Dumbledore is there, and he is explaining, but Remus is smart, and Remus has figured it out. Sirius is gone. Safe, but gone. And Remus is out of a job.
Later he will receive a letter, flown to his window by a bird that, as far as he can tell, is made, not of bone and feathers, but colour, just colour.
Sirius’ letter is seven and a half pages long. Remus reads it 23 times. It explains, in detail, what he had been doing since his escape. It also talks about everything that had happened with James and Lily and Peter. Then it says,
I know you said you forgave me for believing you the spy, Moony, but I know after a million apologies I still will never be able to forgive myself. Peter tried to convince me that you were on Voldemort’s side, and for reasons I’ll never understand I believed him instead of you.
We always said the only thing he was good at was being a rat.
Remus can remember nights when Sirius slept on the couch, nights when Sirius didn’t come home, angry, nasty fights and even angrier, nastier sex. Remus remembers when Sirius just stopped coming home. And he can remember that night when Voldemort fell, when Lily and James died, and more than anything he remembers that horrid feeling in his stomach. Like his body was being ripped apart. Like he was turning into the wolf, but the transformation never completed. Like he was stuck. Half human, half wolf. All pain.
Sirius ends the letter with this:
I really hope I see you again, Moony. I miss you.
Padfoot
Remus traces over the words with his eyes, learns every twist and curve. They engrave themselves on the inside of his eyelids. I miss you.
Memories choke him, and he misses Sirius. He had never allowed himself to miss Sirius. Sirius was a liar, a spy, and a murderer. It would be improper to miss the man who killed your best friends, even if you had loved him, once upon a time. But now that Sirius is not those things he can miss him. And Christ, does he miss him. Remus has never missed anything more in his life than Sirius Black.
---
He gets another letter, this time delivered by owl.
Thursday, four o clock, meet me at the entrance to Hogsmeade. Bring food.
He thinks, he is going to get himself killed. He thinks, this is too dangerous. He thinks, I am going to see him again.
When he gets to Hogsmeade that big black dog is waiting for him. Padfoot’s tail wags when he catches sight of Remus, and then leads him on a hike that leaves Remus’ old, brittle bones aching.
When they finally get to the cave, Remus looks around in horror at Sirius’ living condition.
“It’s better than Azkaban.”
Sirius is human now, but his eyes aren’t focused on Remus- rather, on the bag resting on his hip. Remus holds it out for the man, who grabs it in a frenzy.
“I- well. I couldn’t bring much. You know.”
Sirius finally looks at him. “Thank you.”
They stare at each other for a while and Remus realizes that in the hundreds of possibilities he had imagined for this moment, awkwardness had never been one of them. Him and Sirius had never been awkward. Not even when they woke up naked in Sirius’ bed one day in sixth year. Not even after Sirius sent Snape into the Shack after Remus. There hadn’t been awkwardness. Remus had yelled, Sirius had apologized, and Remus forgave him. They knew each other too well to be awkward.
Sirius is the first to speak. “You’re old, Moony.”
“Yes, well. Twelve years will do that to you.”
Sirius continues to stare at him. You know, you never aged in my head. You always stayed 20 years old.”
Remus doesn’t know what to say to this. So he doesn’t say anything.
To his surprise, Sirius does. “Can you do me a favour, Remus?”
Remus nods. He doesn’t tell Sirius that he would do anything for him, but he would.
“Can we- can we not be like this? All this shit’s that’s happening, I can’t- I mean. Fuck. I just- I need you. I need you, and I need- I don’t know. Never mind.”
“You need us to not be awkward.”
Sirius sags in relief. “You always knew what I was trying to say, Moony.”
Remus smiles at him and pulls out his wand. “Do you want me to fix your teeth?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“They they’re disgusting. Come here.”
When Sirius has a mouth full of working, if slightly tinted teeth, Remus says, “I can try to do something with that hair, but my magical abilities may not be quite enough for it.”
“I like my hair.”
“Why?”
Sirius shrugs. Remus reaches out to touch the tangled mess on top of Sirius’ head, but Sirius flinches away. Remus pulls his hand back as if he’s been burned.
“Sorry,” he whispers. He is scared. He does not recognize this man in front of him, and suddenly he is overcome with the feeling of missing Sirius again, that tearing apart of his body. Sirius is a wounded bird in front of him. His wings don’t work.
“What do you need, Sirius? Tell me please. I want to help.”
He isn’t sure what to expect. Food, maybe. He is terrified Sirius will ask to live with him, because Remus doesn’t how the hell he would go about hiding an escaped convict and a fucking Hippogriff in his tiny flat. But instead Sirius, who seems to have shrunk since Remus first got to the cave, says, “Can I just- I want to sleep. Properly.”
Remus nods and tries to smile reassuringly. “Then sleep. I’ll make sure nothing happens. Sleep for as long as you need.”
Sirius looks as though he is about to say something, but instead he hunkers down, using the bag that Remus had carried the food in as a pillow, and sleeps.
Remus sits on his hands, afraid they will reach out to touch him.
---
Remus does not visit often. It is too risky, too dangerous, and too painful. But when he does, the routine is the same. He will bring food, which Sirius splits with Buckbeak, and then they will talk for a bit, and then Sirius will sleep.
“I’m sorry,” Sirius says on one of these occasions.
“For what?” Sirius has apologized tenfold for everything already. They’ve beaten the conversation into the ground. They have forgiven, and they have been forgiven. All’s fair in love and war, and all that.
“Twelve years, Moony. Twelve years of transformations, all by yourself.”
Remus rolls his eyes. “That was hardly your fault, Sirius.”
“I should have been there, though. I told you I always would.”
Remus can remember that conversation. He can remember Sirius, triumphant with the success of their first transformation, saying, now I’ll always be there for you when you transform, Moony.
Remus, noting the pronoun (Sirius had apparently forgotten about James and Peter), had said you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, Sirius, but had believed him anyway.
“Not so bad, anymore. They have that potion.”
Sirius is not fooled. “Does it still hurt?”
Remus contemplates lying, but he has a feeling nothing could fool Sirius. “It always hurts.”
“I should have been there,” he says. Remus shakes his head. “Go to sleep, Sirius.”
Sirius does.
---
There’s a knock on his door and when he opens it a big black dog brushes past him. Remus is speechless. He locks the door and shuts all the blinds, and when he’s certain there is privacy Sirius changes back.
“What is going on-“
“Fudge- he’s denying everything, he won’t believe what’s right in front of his eyes-”
“Sirius, sit down, breathe, and tell me the whole story, I can’t understand you when you’re pulling out your hair.”
Sirius does, starts from the beginning. When he gets to the part about Cedric, about Harry bringing him back, Remus resists the urge to reach out and hold him. His voice is taut with worry.
“Fudge is afraid, Sirius, he doesn’t want to admit that the worst Dark Wizard we’ve ever experienced is out roaming the streets-”
“What about Harry, Harry saw him-”
“Harry is a 14 year old boy. I’m not saying Fudge is right but you can’t blame him for being afraid.”
Sirius glares at him, a look he’s seen many times before, a look that says I hate you for being the voice of reason.
“Focus on Harry, Sirius. Harry is safe. Isn’t that the most important thing?”
Sirius nods, sighing. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
When Sirius finally calms, when things are straightened out, Sirius and Remus spend the night beneath the stars, hidden beneath a curtain of spells for protection.
“I’m glad you decided not to live close to anyone, Moony.”
“More like nobody wants to live close to me.”
Sirius turns his head to look at Remus. Back when they were younger, when Remus would make these sort of self-deprecating remarks, Sirius would pull him close, nip at his ear and whisper who gives a fuck what they think, Moony, you still have me. And that was always enough for Remus.
Now, though, Sirius stays quiet for a long time, until Remus glances over and discovers that he’s asleep. Sirius used to curl up beside Remus whenever he fell asleep.
Now he is as far away as the stars above his head.
---
Then they are in Grimmauld Place talking to Dumbledore. Well, Sirius is talking to Dumbledore. Remus is watching Sirius. Anyone else would think that Sirius was oddly fine, considering he was in the hated, nightmarish house of his childhood. But Remus knows better. Remus has spent a lot of time watching Sirius Black, and he can recognize the subtle signs that indicate that Sirius isn’t quite as well adjusted as he may lead you to believe. It’s his clenched fists, the whiteness of his knuckles. How he stares at Dumbledore, as if trying not to see any of the other surroundings. Remus wants to reassure him but he has a nasty feeling that his touch would send Sirius- never very stable on the best of days- over the edge.
When Number 12 Grimmauld Place has become official headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix, and Dumbledore has gone, Sirius stops him before he leaves.
“Remus.” His voice is strained and Remus’ worry peaks. Sirius stares somewhere in the vicinity of Remus’ left shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“Will you stay with me?” Sirius says this very quickly, his words sticking together. He tries again. “I mean, move in here. It just- well, it seems silly for just me to stay here, it’s so big, and-”
Remus knows Sirius will most likely have a hundred and one reasons why Remus should stay, but Remus can see the real one in Sirius’ demeanour. Don’t leave me alone here, Sirius’ eyes plead. I can’t be alone in this house.
“Of course, Sirius,” is what he says, and Sirius relaxes. Not like I could afford to keep living in my old flat, anyway.
He thinks this, but he does not say it. There was a time when he would have told Sirius this, just as there was a time when Sirius would have told Remus the real reason he wanted him to stay. Words whispered into Remus’ collarbone, or his hipbones, don’t go and stay with me, Sirius’ lips the only reason given, and the only reason needed.
But now there is too much between them. Now Sirius keeps his secrets hidden from Remus, and Remus, in retaliation, keeps himself hidden from Sirius. All of those unspoken words build up, and Remus is all too aware of the distance between them.
Of course I’ll stay with you. Do you think I’m ever going to let you go again?
---
Remus is gone often, carrying out Dumbledore’s orders. Really, it’s a good thing Sirius asked him to move into Grimmauld Place, because with all this attention focused on the Order, there is really no time at all to even look for a job. He is barely even there at all. He always feels guilty when he thinks of Sirius alone in his parents’ house.
On the night’s he is there Sirius sleeps in Remus’ bed. There is always a respectable distance between them, but that first night Remus goes downstairs at three in the morning to find Sirius sitting at the table, wide awake.
“I can’t sleep,” is his answer when Remus questions him, and Remus nods and makes his way back to his room. But the next night Sirius creeps into his bedroom and wakes him up.
“Moony,” he breathes. Remus blinks at him, sleep hazy. “I can’t sleep in this fucking house.”
Remus shifts himself in such a way that Sirius can take it however he wants. He can either think that Remus is moving to a more comfortable position, or...
Sirius chooses the second option, which is to climb in beside him. Remus can feel the heat coming off the man in his bed and tries not to think about other times when Sirius was in his bed.
“Thanks, Remus.”
Remus swallows and stays awake the entire night, staring at the ceiling and listening to the gentle breathing beside him.
---
He wonders sometimes, how Sirius sleeps when he’s off doing things for Dumbledore. He worries about him, and whenever he finally gets home (he realizes that’s what it is to him, home. Strange, because he hasn’t felt at home anywhere since Hogwarts) Sirius will have bags under his eyes. He’ll smile and ask Remus how the job went and then he’ll say, quietly, “I’m glad you’re back.”
Remus will look at him and each time he will try to convince himself to reach across and touch Sirius, to tell him you’re here and I’m here and I still need you and you still need me too, I know because I hear you breathe next to me every single night.
He never does though.
---
When the children come, and the house fills up with people, Sirius goes to bed alone and Remus lies in an empty bed and stares at the ceiling for three hours before Sirius creepy silently into the room and into bed beside him.
“Sirius, are you crazy?”
“No, just tired.”
“And what do you think will happen if someone finds out?”
Sirius grins. “We tell them what we used to do in bed, they’ll forget about this.”
Remus freezes and Sirius, as if realizing what he had just said, turns away.
---
“No.”
“I don’t see the problem.”
“It isn’t the same anymore, Pads. I just lock myself in a room and stay there until the sun comes up. It wouldn’t be fun for you.”
“You think it’s fun for me, seeing you like that? Do you think that’s why I want to be there, because I’m bored? You should know better Remus. This is more than that.”
He wants to tell Sirius that he doesn’t need him anymore, that in 12 years of being alone he learned how to cope, but that is such a blatant lie that his lips won’t even form the words.
That night the wolf takes his body but he holds onto his mind; he stays locked in the room, curled in the closet, and Padfoot is beside him. In human form they try not to touch but this is apparently not the case for Moony and Padfoot, who lie together, flank to flank. The wolf inside him fights for control- he can smell Padfoot and wants to run, wants to be let loose, wants to howl and play with his mate by his side. Remus shoves him away. It’s not like that anymore, he tells it.
When Remus awakes he is naked and Padfoot is pressed against his side. It is no matter that Remus is naked. He had worried that there would be awkwardness, considering their pasts, but this transformation role has been played for so long that everything, for once, feels natural. Remus runs his hands through Padfoot’s fur, forgetting momentarily that things are different between them.
“Thank you,” he whispers and Padfoot nudges him, cold nose pressed against his neck. They stay like that until Remus comes back into his senses and pushes Padfoot away.
“Daft dog,” he mutters, getting up and walking out, and if Padfoot whines Remus doesn’t hear him.
---
Remus, as a rule, isn’t much of a drinker. Never one who liked to be out of control, he hated the way alcohol would take him over and make him do things he would never do normally, just like with the wolf, such as running stark naked with James through McGonagall’s late night remedial Transfiguration class. Even if he liked that part, the morning after part was always hell, even with the Hangover spell, which only went so far.
Despite all these facts, Remus finds himself digging through the Black’s liquor cabinet. Kreacher catches him.
“Those belong to Mistress.”
Remus, who always tried to be nice to Kreacher to make up for Sirius’ abuse, is in no mood for the elf today.
“They belong to Sirius now, and somehow I doubt he’ll care what happens to them.”
Kreacher mumbles some more (“filthy sodomizing half breed”) but slouches out of the room and Remus grabs a few bottles and sits down.
Remus, as a rule, isn’t much of a drinker, but he’s at the end of the line. Every glance from Sirius, every touch, no matter how insignificant, brings with it a flood of memories, each more vivid than the last, and he starts to miss him again, that terrible ache that tears his body apart.
Sirius, it appears, doesn’t miss him at all, doesn’t even think of how they used to be, and so Remus pours himself a drink in the hopes that the memories will be washed away with the stinging taste of firewhiskey.
By the time Sirius finally finds him Remus is swaying, singing a little song to himself, and hiccoughing. Sirius takes a glance at the scene in front of him and takes the alcohol away.
“God, I wish I could see what my mother would do if she saw a werewolf drinking out of her precious Black liquor.”
Remus just stares at him. Sirius clicks his tongue. “I thought you didn’t drink. It was, if I recall, one of your rules. You always listed all your rules whenever James convinced you to break them.”
“Rules are made t’ be broken.”
“Christ, how drunk are you?”
Remus hiccoughs in response. Sirius sighs. “You’ll regret this in the morning, Moony. Come on, you stupid beast, let’s get you to bed before you pass out on the kitchen table.”
Sirius grabs Remus underneath the arms and heaves. The two are in a constant competition to see who can be the thinnest, but Remus can barely move, and even though there isn’t much of him he bares down on Sirius. “Come on, Moony, move your goddamn feet,” he mutters, dragging Remus up the steps.
After much effort Sirius finally dumps Remus in the bed, where he lies there in a heap. Sirius unfolds him and they stare at each other for a while, Remus breathing heavily. After a while Sirius, with a sigh that seems to say he’s spent the last few minutes deliberating seriously and is still not really sure of the decision he’s come to, sits on the bed beside Remus.
“Moony. Moony listen to me. I’m going to tell you something and I want you to try really hard to remember. Okay? You have to remember. Promise me you’ll try, okay?”
Remus’ tongue seems to be much bigger in his mouth than it usually is, but he nods and whispers “Okay.”
The word is barely out of Remus’ mouth when Sirius suddenly lurches forward and presses his lips to Remus’. Remus can’t move, just sits there with his mouth open as Sirius’ lips move. Dimly, Remus’ alcohol laden mind will realize that Sirius doesn’t taste the same as he used to, but he can’t quite figure out what the new tastes are. He tries to remember how to kiss back but by the time he realizes how to move his lips Sirius has pulled away.
“Moony, please remember. Please. I never stopped needing you, can’t you see? When I saw you again I thought, everything is going to be fine, Remus is here. And I- I hate when you leave. I hate it. I just want to lock you in here with me, as selfish as that is. How could you think I stopped loving you? I need you, Remus, I just don’t remember how to do that anymore. How to need. For so long I couldn’t feel, couldn’t want, couldn’t need, but I’m not in Azkaban anymore and I do, I need you. And I need you to remember this Moony, please. Please remember.”
With that Sirius places a chaste kiss to Remus’ mouth, mutters, “Christ, your breath,” then urges, “Remember, Moony,” once more before leaving, leaving Remus there to try to think about what the fuck just happened.
His sluggish brain tries to make sense of it all and fails. He goes to sleep instead.
---
Remus doesn’t drink for a lot of reasons. His brain stops working properly when he’s drunk. It turns against him, makes him do stupid, idiotic things like compose poetry about Dumbledore’s beard and shout it from the top of the Astronomy tower. And lots of times he won’t remember any of this- most time he’ll wake up the next morning and be told that he has three weeks of detention for his creative haikus.
Sometimes, though, he will remember. Sometimes he’ll wake up and groan as memories start to come back to him. Did I really proposition Slughorn? He will ask his friends, to which the answer is almost always yes.
When Remus wakes up in the morning he rolls over and tries to die. When that doesn’t work he summons a glass of water. After a few moments there is the sound of breaking glass against the door, and then Sirius enters with a glass of water.
“Morning, sunshine.”
“Why are you yelling?”
“I’m whispering, idiot. This is what happens when you drink alone.”
“Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I would have, had I known.”
Something in Sirius’ voice makes Remus look up. Sirius is staring at him, something behind his eyes. Something niggles at Remus’ brain. Something important. Fuck, this is why he doesn’t drink!
He takes another sip of water. His mouth is dry. He reaches up to wipe it when he stops, his hand on his lips. He is suddenly bombarded with memories.
Lips on his. They tasted differently, but they were the same lips. He remembers words, too, dimly, but he concentrates solely on the lips because he needs those to be real the most.
Sirius is still staring at him. Remus is afraid to meet his eyes but he does so anyway. Those grey eyes are almost black.
“Sirius...”
“Do you remember?”
Remus tries to move but the hand of God chooses that moment to take a hammer to his skull and he groans, clutches his head, falls back on the pillows and curses himself a thousand times over.
Sirius goes to him instead.
And then everything falls apart. He falls apart, rips apart, tears apart, ruins everything, and not even Sirius can contain him. The wolf is angry at Padfoot for 12 years of absence.
And then he wakes up in the hospital wing. Dumbledore is there, and he is explaining, but Remus is smart, and Remus has figured it out. Sirius is gone. Safe, but gone. And Remus is out of a job.
Later he will receive a letter, flown to his window by a bird that, as far as he can tell, is made, not of bone and feathers, but colour, just colour.
Sirius’ letter is seven and a half pages long. Remus reads it 23 times. It explains, in detail, what he had been doing since his escape. It also talks about everything that had happened with James and Lily and Peter. Then it says,
I know you said you forgave me for believing you the spy, Moony, but I know after a million apologies I still will never be able to forgive myself. Peter tried to convince me that you were on Voldemort’s side, and for reasons I’ll never understand I believed him instead of you.
We always said the only thing he was good at was being a rat.
Remus can remember nights when Sirius slept on the couch, nights when Sirius didn’t come home, angry, nasty fights and even angrier, nastier sex. Remus remembers when Sirius just stopped coming home. And he can remember that night when Voldemort fell, when Lily and James died, and more than anything he remembers that horrid feeling in his stomach. Like his body was being ripped apart. Like he was turning into the wolf, but the transformation never completed. Like he was stuck. Half human, half wolf. All pain.
Sirius ends the letter with this:
I really hope I see you again, Moony. I miss you.
Padfoot
Remus traces over the words with his eyes, learns every twist and curve. They engrave themselves on the inside of his eyelids. I miss you.
Memories choke him, and he misses Sirius. He had never allowed himself to miss Sirius. Sirius was a liar, a spy, and a murderer. It would be improper to miss the man who killed your best friends, even if you had loved him, once upon a time. But now that Sirius is not those things he can miss him. And Christ, does he miss him. Remus has never missed anything more in his life than Sirius Black.
---
He gets another letter, this time delivered by owl.
Thursday, four o clock, meet me at the entrance to Hogsmeade. Bring food.
He thinks, he is going to get himself killed. He thinks, this is too dangerous. He thinks, I am going to see him again.
When he gets to Hogsmeade that big black dog is waiting for him. Padfoot’s tail wags when he catches sight of Remus, and then leads him on a hike that leaves Remus’ old, brittle bones aching.
When they finally get to the cave, Remus looks around in horror at Sirius’ living condition.
“It’s better than Azkaban.”
Sirius is human now, but his eyes aren’t focused on Remus- rather, on the bag resting on his hip. Remus holds it out for the man, who grabs it in a frenzy.
“I- well. I couldn’t bring much. You know.”
Sirius finally looks at him. “Thank you.”
They stare at each other for a while and Remus realizes that in the hundreds of possibilities he had imagined for this moment, awkwardness had never been one of them. Him and Sirius had never been awkward. Not even when they woke up naked in Sirius’ bed one day in sixth year. Not even after Sirius sent Snape into the Shack after Remus. There hadn’t been awkwardness. Remus had yelled, Sirius had apologized, and Remus forgave him. They knew each other too well to be awkward.
Sirius is the first to speak. “You’re old, Moony.”
“Yes, well. Twelve years will do that to you.”
Sirius continues to stare at him. You know, you never aged in my head. You always stayed 20 years old.”
Remus doesn’t know what to say to this. So he doesn’t say anything.
To his surprise, Sirius does. “Can you do me a favour, Remus?”
Remus nods. He doesn’t tell Sirius that he would do anything for him, but he would.
“Can we- can we not be like this? All this shit’s that’s happening, I can’t- I mean. Fuck. I just- I need you. I need you, and I need- I don’t know. Never mind.”
“You need us to not be awkward.”
Sirius sags in relief. “You always knew what I was trying to say, Moony.”
Remus smiles at him and pulls out his wand. “Do you want me to fix your teeth?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“They they’re disgusting. Come here.”
When Sirius has a mouth full of working, if slightly tinted teeth, Remus says, “I can try to do something with that hair, but my magical abilities may not be quite enough for it.”
“I like my hair.”
“Why?”
Sirius shrugs. Remus reaches out to touch the tangled mess on top of Sirius’ head, but Sirius flinches away. Remus pulls his hand back as if he’s been burned.
“Sorry,” he whispers. He is scared. He does not recognize this man in front of him, and suddenly he is overcome with the feeling of missing Sirius again, that tearing apart of his body. Sirius is a wounded bird in front of him. His wings don’t work.
“What do you need, Sirius? Tell me please. I want to help.”
He isn’t sure what to expect. Food, maybe. He is terrified Sirius will ask to live with him, because Remus doesn’t how the hell he would go about hiding an escaped convict and a fucking Hippogriff in his tiny flat. But instead Sirius, who seems to have shrunk since Remus first got to the cave, says, “Can I just- I want to sleep. Properly.”
Remus nods and tries to smile reassuringly. “Then sleep. I’ll make sure nothing happens. Sleep for as long as you need.”
Sirius looks as though he is about to say something, but instead he hunkers down, using the bag that Remus had carried the food in as a pillow, and sleeps.
Remus sits on his hands, afraid they will reach out to touch him.
---
Remus does not visit often. It is too risky, too dangerous, and too painful. But when he does, the routine is the same. He will bring food, which Sirius splits with Buckbeak, and then they will talk for a bit, and then Sirius will sleep.
“I’m sorry,” Sirius says on one of these occasions.
“For what?” Sirius has apologized tenfold for everything already. They’ve beaten the conversation into the ground. They have forgiven, and they have been forgiven. All’s fair in love and war, and all that.
“Twelve years, Moony. Twelve years of transformations, all by yourself.”
Remus rolls his eyes. “That was hardly your fault, Sirius.”
“I should have been there, though. I told you I always would.”
Remus can remember that conversation. He can remember Sirius, triumphant with the success of their first transformation, saying, now I’ll always be there for you when you transform, Moony.
Remus, noting the pronoun (Sirius had apparently forgotten about James and Peter), had said you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep, Sirius, but had believed him anyway.
“Not so bad, anymore. They have that potion.”
Sirius is not fooled. “Does it still hurt?”
Remus contemplates lying, but he has a feeling nothing could fool Sirius. “It always hurts.”
“I should have been there,” he says. Remus shakes his head. “Go to sleep, Sirius.”
Sirius does.
---
There’s a knock on his door and when he opens it a big black dog brushes past him. Remus is speechless. He locks the door and shuts all the blinds, and when he’s certain there is privacy Sirius changes back.
“What is going on-“
“Fudge- he’s denying everything, he won’t believe what’s right in front of his eyes-”
“Sirius, sit down, breathe, and tell me the whole story, I can’t understand you when you’re pulling out your hair.”
Sirius does, starts from the beginning. When he gets to the part about Cedric, about Harry bringing him back, Remus resists the urge to reach out and hold him. His voice is taut with worry.
“Fudge is afraid, Sirius, he doesn’t want to admit that the worst Dark Wizard we’ve ever experienced is out roaming the streets-”
“What about Harry, Harry saw him-”
“Harry is a 14 year old boy. I’m not saying Fudge is right but you can’t blame him for being afraid.”
Sirius glares at him, a look he’s seen many times before, a look that says I hate you for being the voice of reason.
“Focus on Harry, Sirius. Harry is safe. Isn’t that the most important thing?”
Sirius nods, sighing. “I hate it when you’re right.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
When Sirius finally calms, when things are straightened out, Sirius and Remus spend the night beneath the stars, hidden beneath a curtain of spells for protection.
“I’m glad you decided not to live close to anyone, Moony.”
“More like nobody wants to live close to me.”
Sirius turns his head to look at Remus. Back when they were younger, when Remus would make these sort of self-deprecating remarks, Sirius would pull him close, nip at his ear and whisper who gives a fuck what they think, Moony, you still have me. And that was always enough for Remus.
Now, though, Sirius stays quiet for a long time, until Remus glances over and discovers that he’s asleep. Sirius used to curl up beside Remus whenever he fell asleep.
Now he is as far away as the stars above his head.
---
Then they are in Grimmauld Place talking to Dumbledore. Well, Sirius is talking to Dumbledore. Remus is watching Sirius. Anyone else would think that Sirius was oddly fine, considering he was in the hated, nightmarish house of his childhood. But Remus knows better. Remus has spent a lot of time watching Sirius Black, and he can recognize the subtle signs that indicate that Sirius isn’t quite as well adjusted as he may lead you to believe. It’s his clenched fists, the whiteness of his knuckles. How he stares at Dumbledore, as if trying not to see any of the other surroundings. Remus wants to reassure him but he has a nasty feeling that his touch would send Sirius- never very stable on the best of days- over the edge.
When Number 12 Grimmauld Place has become official headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix, and Dumbledore has gone, Sirius stops him before he leaves.
“Remus.” His voice is strained and Remus’ worry peaks. Sirius stares somewhere in the vicinity of Remus’ left shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“Will you stay with me?” Sirius says this very quickly, his words sticking together. He tries again. “I mean, move in here. It just- well, it seems silly for just me to stay here, it’s so big, and-”
Remus knows Sirius will most likely have a hundred and one reasons why Remus should stay, but Remus can see the real one in Sirius’ demeanour. Don’t leave me alone here, Sirius’ eyes plead. I can’t be alone in this house.
“Of course, Sirius,” is what he says, and Sirius relaxes. Not like I could afford to keep living in my old flat, anyway.
He thinks this, but he does not say it. There was a time when he would have told Sirius this, just as there was a time when Sirius would have told Remus the real reason he wanted him to stay. Words whispered into Remus’ collarbone, or his hipbones, don’t go and stay with me, Sirius’ lips the only reason given, and the only reason needed.
But now there is too much between them. Now Sirius keeps his secrets hidden from Remus, and Remus, in retaliation, keeps himself hidden from Sirius. All of those unspoken words build up, and Remus is all too aware of the distance between them.
Of course I’ll stay with you. Do you think I’m ever going to let you go again?
---
Remus is gone often, carrying out Dumbledore’s orders. Really, it’s a good thing Sirius asked him to move into Grimmauld Place, because with all this attention focused on the Order, there is really no time at all to even look for a job. He is barely even there at all. He always feels guilty when he thinks of Sirius alone in his parents’ house.
On the night’s he is there Sirius sleeps in Remus’ bed. There is always a respectable distance between them, but that first night Remus goes downstairs at three in the morning to find Sirius sitting at the table, wide awake.
“I can’t sleep,” is his answer when Remus questions him, and Remus nods and makes his way back to his room. But the next night Sirius creeps into his bedroom and wakes him up.
“Moony,” he breathes. Remus blinks at him, sleep hazy. “I can’t sleep in this fucking house.”
Remus shifts himself in such a way that Sirius can take it however he wants. He can either think that Remus is moving to a more comfortable position, or...
Sirius chooses the second option, which is to climb in beside him. Remus can feel the heat coming off the man in his bed and tries not to think about other times when Sirius was in his bed.
“Thanks, Remus.”
Remus swallows and stays awake the entire night, staring at the ceiling and listening to the gentle breathing beside him.
---
He wonders sometimes, how Sirius sleeps when he’s off doing things for Dumbledore. He worries about him, and whenever he finally gets home (he realizes that’s what it is to him, home. Strange, because he hasn’t felt at home anywhere since Hogwarts) Sirius will have bags under his eyes. He’ll smile and ask Remus how the job went and then he’ll say, quietly, “I’m glad you’re back.”
Remus will look at him and each time he will try to convince himself to reach across and touch Sirius, to tell him you’re here and I’m here and I still need you and you still need me too, I know because I hear you breathe next to me every single night.
He never does though.
---
When the children come, and the house fills up with people, Sirius goes to bed alone and Remus lies in an empty bed and stares at the ceiling for three hours before Sirius creepy silently into the room and into bed beside him.
“Sirius, are you crazy?”
“No, just tired.”
“And what do you think will happen if someone finds out?”
Sirius grins. “We tell them what we used to do in bed, they’ll forget about this.”
Remus freezes and Sirius, as if realizing what he had just said, turns away.
---
“No.”
“I don’t see the problem.”
“It isn’t the same anymore, Pads. I just lock myself in a room and stay there until the sun comes up. It wouldn’t be fun for you.”
“You think it’s fun for me, seeing you like that? Do you think that’s why I want to be there, because I’m bored? You should know better Remus. This is more than that.”
He wants to tell Sirius that he doesn’t need him anymore, that in 12 years of being alone he learned how to cope, but that is such a blatant lie that his lips won’t even form the words.
That night the wolf takes his body but he holds onto his mind; he stays locked in the room, curled in the closet, and Padfoot is beside him. In human form they try not to touch but this is apparently not the case for Moony and Padfoot, who lie together, flank to flank. The wolf inside him fights for control- he can smell Padfoot and wants to run, wants to be let loose, wants to howl and play with his mate by his side. Remus shoves him away. It’s not like that anymore, he tells it.
When Remus awakes he is naked and Padfoot is pressed against his side. It is no matter that Remus is naked. He had worried that there would be awkwardness, considering their pasts, but this transformation role has been played for so long that everything, for once, feels natural. Remus runs his hands through Padfoot’s fur, forgetting momentarily that things are different between them.
“Thank you,” he whispers and Padfoot nudges him, cold nose pressed against his neck. They stay like that until Remus comes back into his senses and pushes Padfoot away.
“Daft dog,” he mutters, getting up and walking out, and if Padfoot whines Remus doesn’t hear him.
---
Remus, as a rule, isn’t much of a drinker. Never one who liked to be out of control, he hated the way alcohol would take him over and make him do things he would never do normally, just like with the wolf, such as running stark naked with James through McGonagall’s late night remedial Transfiguration class. Even if he liked that part, the morning after part was always hell, even with the Hangover spell, which only went so far.
Despite all these facts, Remus finds himself digging through the Black’s liquor cabinet. Kreacher catches him.
“Those belong to Mistress.”
Remus, who always tried to be nice to Kreacher to make up for Sirius’ abuse, is in no mood for the elf today.
“They belong to Sirius now, and somehow I doubt he’ll care what happens to them.”
Kreacher mumbles some more (“filthy sodomizing half breed”) but slouches out of the room and Remus grabs a few bottles and sits down.
Remus, as a rule, isn’t much of a drinker, but he’s at the end of the line. Every glance from Sirius, every touch, no matter how insignificant, brings with it a flood of memories, each more vivid than the last, and he starts to miss him again, that terrible ache that tears his body apart.
Sirius, it appears, doesn’t miss him at all, doesn’t even think of how they used to be, and so Remus pours himself a drink in the hopes that the memories will be washed away with the stinging taste of firewhiskey.
By the time Sirius finally finds him Remus is swaying, singing a little song to himself, and hiccoughing. Sirius takes a glance at the scene in front of him and takes the alcohol away.
“God, I wish I could see what my mother would do if she saw a werewolf drinking out of her precious Black liquor.”
Remus just stares at him. Sirius clicks his tongue. “I thought you didn’t drink. It was, if I recall, one of your rules. You always listed all your rules whenever James convinced you to break them.”
“Rules are made t’ be broken.”
“Christ, how drunk are you?”
Remus hiccoughs in response. Sirius sighs. “You’ll regret this in the morning, Moony. Come on, you stupid beast, let’s get you to bed before you pass out on the kitchen table.”
Sirius grabs Remus underneath the arms and heaves. The two are in a constant competition to see who can be the thinnest, but Remus can barely move, and even though there isn’t much of him he bares down on Sirius. “Come on, Moony, move your goddamn feet,” he mutters, dragging Remus up the steps.
After much effort Sirius finally dumps Remus in the bed, where he lies there in a heap. Sirius unfolds him and they stare at each other for a while, Remus breathing heavily. After a while Sirius, with a sigh that seems to say he’s spent the last few minutes deliberating seriously and is still not really sure of the decision he’s come to, sits on the bed beside Remus.
“Moony. Moony listen to me. I’m going to tell you something and I want you to try really hard to remember. Okay? You have to remember. Promise me you’ll try, okay?”
Remus’ tongue seems to be much bigger in his mouth than it usually is, but he nods and whispers “Okay.”
The word is barely out of Remus’ mouth when Sirius suddenly lurches forward and presses his lips to Remus’. Remus can’t move, just sits there with his mouth open as Sirius’ lips move. Dimly, Remus’ alcohol laden mind will realize that Sirius doesn’t taste the same as he used to, but he can’t quite figure out what the new tastes are. He tries to remember how to kiss back but by the time he realizes how to move his lips Sirius has pulled away.
“Moony, please remember. Please. I never stopped needing you, can’t you see? When I saw you again I thought, everything is going to be fine, Remus is here. And I- I hate when you leave. I hate it. I just want to lock you in here with me, as selfish as that is. How could you think I stopped loving you? I need you, Remus, I just don’t remember how to do that anymore. How to need. For so long I couldn’t feel, couldn’t want, couldn’t need, but I’m not in Azkaban anymore and I do, I need you. And I need you to remember this Moony, please. Please remember.”
With that Sirius places a chaste kiss to Remus’ mouth, mutters, “Christ, your breath,” then urges, “Remember, Moony,” once more before leaving, leaving Remus there to try to think about what the fuck just happened.
His sluggish brain tries to make sense of it all and fails. He goes to sleep instead.
---
Remus doesn’t drink for a lot of reasons. His brain stops working properly when he’s drunk. It turns against him, makes him do stupid, idiotic things like compose poetry about Dumbledore’s beard and shout it from the top of the Astronomy tower. And lots of times he won’t remember any of this- most time he’ll wake up the next morning and be told that he has three weeks of detention for his creative haikus.
Sometimes, though, he will remember. Sometimes he’ll wake up and groan as memories start to come back to him. Did I really proposition Slughorn? He will ask his friends, to which the answer is almost always yes.
When Remus wakes up in the morning he rolls over and tries to die. When that doesn’t work he summons a glass of water. After a few moments there is the sound of breaking glass against the door, and then Sirius enters with a glass of water.
“Morning, sunshine.”
“Why are you yelling?”
“I’m whispering, idiot. This is what happens when you drink alone.”
“Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I would have, had I known.”
Something in Sirius’ voice makes Remus look up. Sirius is staring at him, something behind his eyes. Something niggles at Remus’ brain. Something important. Fuck, this is why he doesn’t drink!
He takes another sip of water. His mouth is dry. He reaches up to wipe it when he stops, his hand on his lips. He is suddenly bombarded with memories.
Lips on his. They tasted differently, but they were the same lips. He remembers words, too, dimly, but he concentrates solely on the lips because he needs those to be real the most.
Sirius is still staring at him. Remus is afraid to meet his eyes but he does so anyway. Those grey eyes are almost black.
“Sirius...”
“Do you remember?”
Remus tries to move but the hand of God chooses that moment to take a hammer to his skull and he groans, clutches his head, falls back on the pillows and curses himself a thousand times over.
Sirius goes to him instead.