Chapter Text
There was a kind of horrible pessimism about waking up every single morning with the thought ‘ I may lose everyone I love today ’ rattling around inside your brain like loose change, but it was a morning ritual that Sirius Black was intimately familiar with.
So intimate, in fact, that before he shoved those thoughts out the door they even stopped to make him breakfast and kick him in the bollocks on the way out. They were more than a one night stand. It was a committed, reluctant, toxic sludge pile of a relationship.
(The only real comfort there was that he wouldn’t have to actually see the mutilated, mangled bodies of his loved ones, being blind as a bloody bat since that first kaiju attack hit London when he’d been sixteen.)
It didn’t help when the president herself personally asked him to show Remus Lupin around the base upon his arrival like Sirius was a tour guide and not the (blind, did he mention blind?) leading engineer on base who had important sciency things to do and shit to blow up and interns to irradiate and people to save, Minnie, what the fuck?
But still.
Remus Lupin.
Remus Lupin .
As in the one and only person to ever survive piloting a jaeger by himself after his partner was killed in action.
The Remus Lupin who completely noped out of the program after that and who only agreed to come back after Minerva McGonagall had gone to him personally to ask for his assistance.
Fuck.
He’d set up a sign -made by Nymphadora Tonks herself, who promised Sirius there was so much glitter on it that Lupin wouldn’t have been able to miss it if he tried- and settled onto the bench with his tablet. He trusted that a legend such as Lupin would be smart enough to read a sign; he had his own work to be doing.
He was sure there was something he was missing. There had to be a way to keep the internal broadcast conductor from seizing the second the hydraulic system circulator took a hit.
Someone cleared their throat.
“Are you Remus Lupin?” Sirius didn’t raise his eyes from the tablet, not that where he cast his eyes made any difference anyhow, “Because if you’re not Remus Lupin, I shouldn’t have to tell you to go bother someone who cares.” They should know. Sirius wasn’t known for being the most sociable of scientists – and for good reason. “I have a fucking sign.”
“I’m Remus Lupin,” the man’s voice was a little lower than what Sirius had expected, “And I see your sign. It’s. Very sparkly.”
Sirius grunted something like a confirmation and groped around next to him until he found his bag and was able to slip his tablet into it and pull his cane out. Then he stood and, because James had specifically asked him to be pleasant, held out a hand. “Sirius,” he said simply.
“Like the constellation?”
“Like the person standing in front of you waiting for a handshake,” the scientist said pointedly. Then Lupin took his hand and Sirius was completely taken aback by the feel of it.
He’d learned to discern a lot about people by their handshake. “You’re smaller than I expected.”
“What?”
Okay, in retrospect that was probably a kind of weird statement, “I expected more ‘gorilla’ and less ‘crocodile’.” Sirius explained like that made any more sense to someone who wasn’t in his head. He’d have to drift with Remus for him to understand that. “Never mind,” Sirius shook his head, “I’m supposed to show you around.”
There was a second of silence and Sirius frowned. “Did you just nod?” He asked as he very pointedly (there was a land called Passive Agressiva and he was their king ) unfolded his cane.
You’d think there would have been a better alternative to a cane but, no. Sirius found his way around using a stick like it was 1873.
“… You’re blind?”
Sirius started walking, cane stretched out in front of him, “No, I just like the sound it makes when I hit things with it."
For the first time since Sirius was a teenager someone didn’t apologize for not realizing he couldn’t see just from looking at him.
Sirius kind of liked it.
“Has anyone touched it since…” Lupin didn’t finish the sentence but it didn’t take a genius to figure out where he was going with it (and Sirius was a genius so it didn’t matter any which way).
“Since you took off like a ghost in the night?” Sirius asked, “Only me.”
“What did you do?” Oh, there was the skepticism in Remus’s voice that Sirius had been waiting for. The ‘what is a blind kid doing here’ tone that had Sirius simultaneously raising his hackles and smirking because he knew it .
“Tweaked it here and there,” Sirius shrugged a shoulder in feigned, arrogant nonchalance, “see for yourself.”
He ran his fingers up the wall until he hit the keypad and counted carefully to punch in the code, relaxing just the slightest bit at the familiar hiss of the hanger doors and the wafting smell of grease and fairly recent explosions.
A lot of their projects tended to be a bit… unstable.
“Wolf Moon should be the third one in on your left.” Unless they’d completely rearranged the hanger since the previous night. Which had actually, unbelievably, happened before.
The fallout had been spectacular. There was, apparently, a video made of the incident that was shown to all new recruits as a warning not to fuck with Science Shit because reckoning would come and it would come in the form of Sirius Black and his thermo-driver.
Lupin didn’t answer and Sirius started in on the changes he’d made just to fill the silence, “The entire left side was basically shot when she got in here. I recrafted most of that by hand, replaced the top half of the arm with one from a deactivated MK4 and charged up the hand with a tesla core. The right side was mostly good to go, though I did throw in a chain sword. I’ve been told it looks acceptable.”
The exact word James had used was ‘badass’.
Lupin hummed thoughtfully but made no discernable move to actually go into the hanger.
So Sirius just. Kept talking.
“It was so top heavy; I mean bloody top heavy and I couldn’t get rid of that feature entirely, the MK2s were made to be top heavy and unless I wanted to revamp the whole design –which I did not have time to do since I’m basically the only fuckin’ competant arsehole here – I just had to stick with the repairs that had to be made. I did manage to lighten it up a little and reinforce it with a lighter, more durable alloy we’ve been playing with.”
“You’ve been busy,” was all Lupin said.
Seriously?
Seriously?
Sirius basically writes him a sonnet of all the things he’d done to make his life easier –and longer – and all he got was a ‘You’ve been busy’.
“I have. Thanks for the gratitude. My sleepless nights probably saved your life at least twice.” He tried not to be annoyed, he really did, but… “Kaijus have gotten bigger and stronger since you went AWOL, Mr. Lupin. Cat twos rarely show anymore. We get threes and, more recently, fours. Have you ever seen a category four kaiju? Because I haven’t.”
“Do you spend all day thinking up your own blind jokes?”
“When I make them first it catches people off guard. And then they tend to get uncomfortable, which is a nice turn of events since usually I’m the one uncomfortable.”
Remus hummed again, which seemed to be his go-to when he didn’t have anything to add to the conversation, “Where to next?”
“You’re not going to go in and get a good, close look at what I did to your jaeger?”
“No,” Remus said, “now where to next?”
They ended the tour in the lab, where Sirius could hear Tonks and James quietly bickering before he’d even opened the door.
Sirius felt a headache building behind his eyes.
“James, whatever you’re holding put it down before she beats you over the head with a wrench.”
Not that he wasn’t sure James would deserve it, but Sirius seriously didn’t want to have to deal with blood in his lab when his day was already a fucking trash can.
“And Tonks: yes, I know he’s a prat. No, we cannot ban him from the lab. He’s our boss.” He’d tried that once. It hadn’t gone well.
“Love of my life!” James cried, always with too much energy and enthusiasm as his arm wrapped firmly around Sirius’s shoulders, “And you must be Remus Lupin.”
“I am,” Lupin confirmed, “pleasure to meet you, commander.”
“Talkative, I see,” James laughed, shifting as he presumably held out his hand, “James Potter.”
“You look like your mother.” Lupin said, mildly surprised - then he grunted, “You shake hands like her too.”
James threw his head back and laughed, the movement jarring Sirius slightly, “Yep. Dear old mum,” a pause. “Don’t tell her I called her old. I’m already not the favorite child.”
Sirius snorted and ducked out from his best friend’s hold. James was completely the favorite (and only biological) child – charming, charismatic, skilled jaeger pilot beat awkward, asshole, adopted scientist every time.
“Don’t you make that noise at me, Sirius,” James said loudly as Sirius dropped into his chair, “she totally loves you best.” The intensity of his voice changed as he turned away from Sirius and back to Lupin, “It is really good to meet you, though, man. I’m glad you decided to come back. You’re a legend. ”
“For all the wrong reasons,” Lupin said, and that was the point where Sirius checked out of their conversation, choosing instead to plug his tablet into his computer and trace his fingers over the rapid fire readings that came in.
He couldn’t see his reports but there was no one on this side of the world who could read braille as quickly as he could.
“Hey, T?” He called softly as an afterthought.
Everything about him felt softer, now that he was back in his lab and Remus Lupin was no longer his responsibility. The tight feeling in his chest eased, somewhat, and he almost felt bad for how much of a prat he’d been.
Almost.
“Whatcha’ want, Black?” The sound of wheels on linoleum and then Tonks’ violet shampoo in his nose as she leant over his shoulder, “That program workin’ for ya?”
Nodding, Sirius managed to summon a smile. Tonks had been the one to come up with the idea of a tablet that converted type into braille rather than words. Things got very loud on base sometimes, the robotic voice had been hard to decipher a lot of the time without headphones and, already being one sense down, Sirius hadn’t relished having to give up more awareness of the world around him by covering his ears.
“It’s amazing,” he said, “really, Tonks. It’s absolutely fantastic. You did a wonderful job.”
Tonks laughed, clapping him on the back, “Aw, shucks, Sirius. You’re makin’ me blush.”
“You look lovely in pink,” he said sagely, though he really had no idea. He hadn’t met his favorite cousin more than once before he’d lost his sight, and at the time she’d been about eleven and incredibly busy challenging anyone who crossed her path to a pirate’s duel. He hadn’t taken as much note of her appearance as he had her swinging a large stick at his face and calling him a scoundrel.
She’d offered to let him touch her face, to map out her features so he had an idea, but he’d declined.
“Brat,” she huffed, “what did you need?”
“I was just wondering if you’ve seen Gryf around?” His cat tended to work herself into places she shouldn’t and since she hadn’t wound around his ankles and whined at him for leaving her, she had to be out causing mischief.
“Not since I fed her this mornin’,” there was a rustling movement that Sirius categorized as a shrug, “she’s probably down in the hanger makin’ a nuisance of herself. It is a day that ends in ‘Y’ after all.”
“Did you lose that bloody cat of yours again?” James rejoined Sirius’s world, sounding exasperated yet amused.
Sirius frowned defensively, “She’s not lost ,” he said, “she’s on sabbatical.”
Lost implied an inability to be found. Lost implied finality. Battles were lost. Lives were lost. Gryf was just off enjoying herself and nicking a few shiny things to add to her hoard. She was not lost.
“Sorry, sorry,” James was closer now, and a hand raked through Sirius’s loose curls, “I forgot you hate that word. Is your cat off on sabbatical again?”
Allowing himself an indulgent smile for his best friend, Sirius nodded, “As always,” he said, “she likes adventure.”
“You’re allowed to have pets on base?” Oh, Lupin was still there.
“Not technically,” James replied, sounding fond, “but Sirius has Gryf anyways.”
“She’ll never admit it, but Minnie loves that evil ball of fluff.”
“Just like she loves it when you call her Minnie ,” James hummed, “Hey, have you shown Lupin his room yet? He looks dead on his feet. You’re a shitty host.”
Leveling his most unimpressed look in the direction of his best friend, Sirius dryly responded, “Really? To me it looked like he was doing cartwheels.”
“I’m going to murder you.”
Smiling smugly, Sirius leant back in his chair, “Seriously, though, are you offering? Because I actually have things to do here, unlike you lot who just sit around on your arses all day waiting for carnage.”
“You are extra snarky today,” James noted.
“I’m not a bloody tour guide, James, and if you happen to see President Minnie Mouse while you’re showing Mr. Lupin to his room perhaps you could mention that? She doesn’t seem to feel like listening to me.”
“She doesn’t listen to anyone,” Lupin said after a moment of hesitation, “if you want to rile her up, ask her about the time with the pineapple.”
James made a delighted noise, like a child on Christmas, and called hasty goodbyes to Tonks and his best friend as he left, trying to pester Lupin into spilling the beans on their dear president.
As soon as the door shut, Sirius slumped in his seat, the pressure behind his eyes turning into a full on migraine. None of this was good – Remus Lupin was actually sort of likable and Sirius really, really did not want to like him.
“You’re worrying,” Tonks said matter of factly, “You’ll wrinkle.”
Sirius groaned.
It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. Not with Tonks, not with James, not with his mother, not with anyone.
The simple fact was that he worried so much . All day every day he was worrying. Worrying about his dad and his heart. Worrying about Tonks getting hurt. Worrying about James and Peter, about Alice and Frank, and Minerva and Albus, about everyone he already knew and gave a shit about who regularly battled giant sea monsters inside of equally giant robots.
He thought his heart was going to stop every single time the kaiju alarm went off because every kaiju was another chance for someone he loved to die. He was waiting for the call. And he just couldn’t worry about anyone else. He didn’t have it in him.
“I don’t speak whale,” Tonks told him, “so you’ll have to say that again in English.”
“He’s absurdly likeable,” Sirius said after a long moment, reaching out and wrapping numb fingers around a stray piece of machinery.
“Mr. Lupin?” Tonks asked, her voice colored in surprise, “He seemed a little reserved to me, to be honest.”
Sirius pursed his lips. He knew his first impressions were different than someone who could see. They relied on their eyes to tell them things – facial expression, body language. Sirius didn’t have that fallback. He had to hear the differences, feel the mood in the air. To him, Mr. Lupin had been pleasant.
He had a wry sense of humor, an abject disdain for his own status – as had become apparent when he’d huffed an annoyed breath after the eighth person had stopped them so they could express how heroic he was for coming back – even less of a tolerance for needless conversation, and hadn’t made any attempts to discredit Sirius for his lack of sight.
As far as the scientist was concerned, Remus Lupin was one of the most likeable people on base.
“You thought differently,” Tonks said after a few moments of thoughtful silence.
“I did,” Sirius admitted with a heavy sigh.
Tonks shifted, her footsteps padding closer until she perched herself on the edge of Sirius’s work area, her dangling feet brushing gently against his legs, “And that’s a… problem?” She asked carefully, “Him being likable?”
“I can’t afford to like him.”
Laughter burst from Tonks' mouth, “That’s silly,” she said, “you like everyone. Me, James, Peter – ”
“And isn’t that quite enough people to have to worry about?” Sirius snapped, immediately regretting it when Tonks fell silent with a quiet hiss, “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching up to cover his eyes with both his hands, “Bloody he- I’m sorry, Tonks.”
Hesitantly, Tonks' fingers wrapped loosely around his wrist, squeezing gently, “I know what you mean,” she said softly, “I worry every time the alarm goes off, too, Sirius.”
“Every day,” he said, “every day I wake up and wonder if this is the day everyone I love is going to die.”
Tonks didn’t say anything, just settled her other hand on his shoulder and sighed.
Lupin’s room was the only one in the pilot’s residence hall without a name plate – it was also the seventeenth door down on the left – and Sirius was fairly sure he’d found the right one.
Still, when the door hissed open Sirius carefully asked, “Mr. Lupin?”
“Mr. Black,” Lupin answered back, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
Don’t be cute, Lupin , “It’s time for dinner,” he said, “I’m here to show you to the caf.”
Grunting, Lupin moved away from the door, back into his room, “Just let me put on a shirt.”
For the love of – “Nice room,” Sirius commented on instinct, leaning against the doorframe and focusing his eyes towards the floor, “love what you’ve done with it.”
From inside the room, Gryf’s careful meow made Sirius startle.
“Godric? Is that you?”
Another meow, then Gryf rubbed up against his legs, purring loudly when he bent to scoop her up, “There you are, darling girl,” he sighed, nuzzling his cheek against the soft fur between her ears.
“Yes, I meant to comm you,” Lupin said, a little sheepishly, “she found her way in here about an hour ago. I’m not sure how . Also, how is Gryf short for Godric?”
Sirius chuckled as Gryf’s purr intensified, “Godric Gryffindor, dude, keep up. And yes, she is a little shit. Aren’t you?”
Chirp.
“Quite cute,” Lupin commented, suddenly very, very close. Sirius could pick up the scent of his soap should he choose to tilt his head slightly to the left, “She likes shiny things.”
“Did you steal from Mr. Lupin?” Sirius found it was much easier to address his cat than the man in front of him, “We’ve talked about this.”
“Just a pair of cufflinks,” Lupin assured warmly, “nothing I will miss. They belonged to an old uncle of mine that I’ve never met and I’ve never actually had an occasion to wear them.”
Laughing quietly, despite himself, Sirius shook his head, “Seems you’ve made a new friend,” he said, not quite addressing either of them but also both of them, before settling Gryf down, “run along, darling. I hear they’re having a problem with mice down on the loading deck.”
“Is the loading deck to the left of here?” Lupin asked.
“Nope,” Sirius said with no small amount of amusement, “but Alice Longbottom’s room is. She always has catnip for her – I suppose Gryf’s making her rounds to get a little spoiled. Are you ready to go, Mr. Lupin?”
“Lead the way, Mr. Black.”
Gryf was going to be disappointed, as Alice was not in her room. Instead, she was wrapping Sirius up into a hug the second he entered the caf.
“Sirius!” She pressed a kiss to his hair, “We were just talking about you,” He was sure they were, as he could pick out James’ voice in the menagerie around them, the incorrigible gossip, “Are you going to stay and eat with us for once?”
He hadn’t been planning on it. He was just going to grab a cup of coffee and head back to the lab, maybe take a walk down to the hanger and get a little bit of work done on Wolf Moon.
“I have work to do,” he said stepping out of her reach a little awkwardly and shuffling his feet.
He’d never liked crowds, even when he could see. And people touching him in a crowded place were also not at the top of his list, whether he was comfortable with them individually or not. The only person who could get away with it was James and that was more because he would be a prat about it.
“You have socializing to do,” speaking of his best friend being a prat, “so have a seat and I’ll get you some food.”
“I’m not-“ but James’ footsteps were already retreating.
Guess he was hungry after all.
“Tonks,” Sirius sighed, his fingers tightening on his cane, “where is there an empty seat?” Since his sibling had left him standing in the middle of the caf looking like an idiot.
“The right chair next to me,” she said, though she made no move to actually get up, which he appreciated immediately, instead she kept talking so he could find his own way, “Mr. Lupin,” she said once Sirius had sat down, “have you gotten all settled in, then?”
“I have,” Lupin voice answered, closer to Sirius than he’d been expecting him to find a seat, “James showed me how to personalize my code.” A pause, then he wryly added, “Not that it helps to keep out thieving cats.”
Laughter erupted.
“You’ve met Gryf, then!” Alice said delightedly somewhere to Sirius’s left, “Isn’t she a gem?”
“She is something, all right,” Lupin agreed.
Sirius startled as a tray was set in front of him with a quiet bang. He was going to put a bell on James one day – he’d been swearing that since he was five years old and some things, apparently, never changed.
“What’s this?”
“Soup. Eat it,” something else slid his way, “there’s a spoon.”
Sirius frowned down at the soup – it smelled like his childhood. Like catching a chill after a long morning of playing in fresh snow, and James’ mother, long before he was officially adopted, making him chicken soup to warm his bones, “What if I’m not hungry?” He asked, just to be contrary.
“Have you eaten today?” Tonks asked.
Sirius had to think about it; he hadn’t. “Yes.” He lied.
“No, you haven’t; eat the damn soup, Black.”
It was a testament to how terrifying Tonks was when she set her mind to something that not a single person reminded her that Sirius was a grown adult who could make his own nutritional decisions.
Including Sirius.
“So, Remus,” James said somewhere around Sirius’s third bite of chicken and stars, “how’s the food?”
“There’s real coffee.” Remus said and he sounded so damned pleased that Sirius almost smiled.
Instead, his face twisted in horror. He preferred tea, as every good Brit did, but pulling the kind of hours he tended to work, he’d had to learn to tolerate coffee. It was genuinely the only thing that kept him functioning sometimes. Living without it sounded like a horror movie.
“That is unanimously the main perk about living here.” James agreed, “The constant fear of violent death is still here, but we get to be well caffeinated while we die.” His voice turned more towards his best friend, “There’s coffee and tea on your tray, by the way. I wasn’t sure which one you’d be in the mood for.”
Both, was usually the answer. Coffee to keep him awake and tea to wash away the taste of hot dirt water out of his mouth, “I take back every bad thing I’ve said about you today.”
“You talk shit about me?” James gasped dramatically in mock offense, “Me? Your own best friend?”
“Only when I’m breathing,” Sirius allowed himself to smirk as he reached for the left mug – a quick sniff revealed it to be the coffee and he took a long sip, trying to taste it as little as he possibly could before chasing it with a sip of his tea.
Marlene McKinnon’s laughter sounded like bells, “That’s not very nice.”
“I’m not nice,” he grunts, ignoring the rest of the group’s laughter.
He hadn’t seen his own reflection in nearly twenty years, but he had been told -more than once- that he was just about as intimidating as a wet kitten. Which is to say, not very intimidating at all. James went as far as to say that the simile was an insult to the kitten.
Prat.
Living in perpetual darkness gave Sirius a complete disregard for the differences of day and night. He slept when he was tired and worked when he wasn’t. It was how he found himself wedged between Wolf Moon’s shoulder joint and the grimy concrete wall as he ran his scanner over some of the more finicky components that had been giving him cheek.
Electrical wiring had never been Sirius’s strong point. He thrived under the tenuous conditions nuclear cores provided. Wolf Moon contained elements of both in its new design and he always found himself struggling with the electrical side of things.
“Roger,” Sirius sighed, waiting for the chirp of the artificial intelligence in his tablet turning on, “what’s the time?”
“ It is approximately 3:41 A.M, ” replied Roger.
Too late to call Tonks - he’d learned the hard way that not checking the time and accidentally ringing Tonks at some ungodly hour would have her grumpy at him until he finally broke down and convinced the kitchen to make her apology brownies.
No one could stay angry in the face of Nana Kowalski’s Apology Brownies. Sirius had used them to his advantage more than his fair share. He was a prickly asshole, he knew that, but he could always make it up to them with apology brownies.
Metal skid across the grated floor of the walkway below and Sirius tensed. He wasn’t on great terms with the other engineers. Despite being leaps and bounds ahead of them all intellectually, they were convinced that since he was blind he only got his job because of his best friend’s status as commander.
“Shit,” Lupin hissed, “goddammit.”
Spine relaxing, Sirius shoved his screwdriver into the component in front of him with a little more force than was probably necessary. Electricity licked at Sirius’s skin, sending tingling currents up his arm and he let go of the tool with a hiss.
All movement down below stopped as the screwdriver clattered onto the walkway.
“Who’s there?” Lupin called out, guarded.
Sirius winced and shoved back carefully until he could wiggle his way to fresh air, “Just me,” he said, taking note of the moment Lupin’ breathing slowed down and the railing groaned as he presumably braced his hands on it and let it hold his weight.
“I should have known,” he mumbled quietly, probably not for Sirius to hear, before he raised his voice, “Don’t scientists ever sleep?”
“Only when we’re programmed to,” Sirius replied dryly, ducking back into the relative safety his little hole behind the jaeger provided. After a moment of nearly comfortable silence, Sirius added in a soft, almost idle voice, “My sleep schedule is really messed up. It always… it always feels like night.”
Stop talking, Sirius. Stop oversharing with the man you’re trying not to like, what is wrong with you.
Lupin was quiet for so long that Sirius almost thought he’d left - he hadn’t Sirius would have heard the retreating footsteps - before he took a deep breath, “I have nightmares,” he said softly, almost grudgingly , “about when she was killed. It makes sleeping… difficult.”
“Your partner?” Sirius asked, because some of the aspects of Wolf Moon’s destruction were lost in the tide of gossip -and anyways, Sirius tried to stay away from fighter monkey gossip.
“My sister,” Lupin answered, still barely audible.
“You were still connected,” Sirius said, “when she died.” That hadn’t been in the reports but Sirius wasn’t sure how he’d never connected the dots. Jaeger pilots shared a neural link. They could feel what the other felt, see what they saw.
To feel someone you loved die - it was everything he was terrified of and then some and Remus Lupin had lived it and somehow come out standing on the other side, and more than that was willing to possibly go through it again because the world needed him to.
“You’re amazing,” Sirius breathed, immediately feeling the urge to slap his hand over his mouth and throw himself from Wolf Moon’s headpiece. He’d said that out loud what was wrong with him.
“I’m sorry?” Lupin said sharply.
Sirius winced and busied himself with pawing through his tool kit in search of his spare screwdriver. Sirius Orion Black you absolute dolt, “I said that you’re amazing,” he repeated, because there was no use in lying when he’d obviously been heard.
“Hardly.”
“You’re here, aren’t you?” Sirius asked, “You went through the unimaginable, and you still came back when we needed you.” A pause, “I don’t know if I would have.”
“You would have.”
“No,” Sirius shook his head, “people think I got my job because of my family. They’re wrong there, I got it because I am damn good at what I do. But I accepted the job because of my family. If they weren’t here I would have fucked off to somewhere very boring and very landlocked. But as scared as I am to lose them, I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if I lost them while doing nothing.”
It was another one of those thoughts that stopped to make him breakfast on their way out. What could be worse than standing by and letting his family die?
“Without them,” he continued after a moment, “my world truly feel dark, Mr. Lupin and in that darkness I... I would not come back.”
“You’re stronger than you think you are, Mr. Black,”
“So are you,” a pause; fuck it , “Remus.”
“Sirius,” bloody hell, he could hear the smile in the other man’s voice; giant turtle in the sky, strike him where he sat, “You up for a cup of coffee?”
“God no,” but he didn’t let the rejection settle, “though I could be persuaded into some Earl Gray if it’s company you’re after.”
It took a moment for Sirius to shimmy his way back to ground level, and even longer for him to figure out all of the safety straps, but once he did he shook out his hair and offered Remus the first, genuine smile of their short acquaintanceship, “I. Um. I have coffee back at my quarters if you want to skip the caf. I personally don’t care for it, but Tonks is there enough that I keep it in my cabinets for her.”
Come back from Sharesville, Sirius.
“You two are close, huh?”
Brows furrowing and mouth twisting into something between a humorless scowl and an amused grin (and either way he looked like a fuckin’ idiot, so no one was ever going to care what he was going for. What he got was Constipated Chic ,) “Bloody hell, I’d hope so. She’s the only member of my family that still deigns to associate with me, I’d hate to be kept at arms length.”
“Not that you’d know,” Remus beat him to the joke and Sirius, honest to turtle, laughed.
“Now you’re catching on,” he said, pulling his cane from his belt, “now come on; if we catch any interns out and about this late I am legally allowed to hit them with this.”
“That sounds sketchy at best .”
Humming contentedly, Sirius resigned himself to the fact that he was a great, shaggy dog on the inside and that purposefully being an aloof bastard to protect his squishy heart never lasted very long -- fifteen pages at 12 point font, at the most, “James was going to be a lawyer, before the world went to hell,” he confided, “he had torturing interns written into my contract.”
Remus didn’t answer; he was too busy laughing.