Work Text:
October 31st 1981
He is sleeping with a two-week old moon that is still breaking his bones when he finds out. It’s pouring with rain, thunder cracking at the sky, split open, teeth pulled from the socket.
There are shouts on the street, fireworks scattering across the sky (and he thinks: they must be magical - the rain), and Remus receives a clanging phone call that brings the world to its knees. Rapturous endings, he is pulled into a future he never wanted, becomes the transient tides and waning moon cycles, nothing else.
The war is over. James and Lily and Peter are dead. Sirius is in Azkaban.
Remus throws up into the stained kitchen sink, black tar grime coating the bottom. He finds the firewhiskey in the back cupboard and drinks until he forgets.
And he keeps drinking.
The war is over. James and Lily and Peter are dead. Sirius –
It doesn’t kill him but he wishes it did.
///
Christmas, 1981
Months pass and Remus slips between days, tattered bookmark slotted between yellowed pages, a forgotten holding place. He is drunk and he is high and he forgets and then he remembers. He doesn’t work and he’s behind on rent by three weeks. When he trudged home from the shop earlier that evening, bread and cheese and three bottles clinking in his bag, there had been a wreath stuck to the door of the flat opposite.
Christmas.
He has a record on, one of his mothers that she used to play when he was young. He would stand on her feet and waltz around the tiny living room of their run-down cottage in Pembrokeshire. His father had watched and smiled one of those rare smiles Remus hoarded like the magic that had begun to bubble from his fingertips, filing cracks into the ceiling and sometimes, sometimes, bursting light fixtures and smashing plates.
He had been scared and angry as a child. Now, he is twenty-one and he is scared and angry again, and this time it is worse.
There isn’t a couch in the living room. Not after the night a few weeks ago when he brought someone home after lurking in one of the bars meant for people like him (gay, not werewolf) and fucked on that couch. He set it on fire after the man left and vanished it the next morning in the dishwater light. The scorch marks remained on the rotting wood, flared black and lashed in a spitting circle. He piles newspapers he doesn’t read on top of it.
The kitchen light is on as Remus slumps against the balcony door, one side knocked open to the night. He can hear carols in the distance.
He swigs the vodka; it doesn’t taste like him and his mouth after Gryffindor winning the Quidditch Cup in seventh year, the raucous party and the bleary hours behind silenced bed curtains, skin to skin. He traced Remus like a map, edging into unknowns and unwinding the taut string protection he had spent years warping across his ribcage.
Remus doesn’t buy firewhiskey anymore and he smokes a different brand of cigarettes, cheaper, no memories woven into the fibres of his clothes, his skin, beneath his fingernails. He is rotting, decaying, each day snacking on the pieces of him, memories sliced in half and sucked out between his teeth. He becomes the melting innards of a severed tree stump, smelling of death.
The November moon had torn him to shreds. Three new scars across his chest, right over his heart, ironic, the wolf, when He wants to be.
The record ends, empty air playing in replacement. The balcony door lets in a frigid breeze. The sky smells of snow, damp and bleeding with promises. There are colourful Christmas lights at the shops across the road. Remus turns his head to the flat and snaps his fingers to light another cigarette. Inhales until it burns, until his creaking lungs and creaking joints protest at the repression. He exhales. Swigs the vodka.
He points his wand blearily at the radio on the kitchen bench and carols play through that too. He can’t find the energy to change it.
His head thuds against the glass. He is alone, so alone. He has been lonely for longer.
He stares at the burning ember of his cigarette. Imagines his lungs and the black, twisting bubbles of rot, and thinks maybe this will kill him, or maybe it will be that thing, consequences of sin as the muggle religious fanatics rage, which kills him. He wishes, wishes. But he gets up every day, usually, maybe, and he finds food and he keeps eating and there is some life left. He thinks he can feel it as the cigarette burns out at his fingers, in the sting of pain. A flicker against the oily dregs left in him. Pain files down his bones, lives inside him like a malevolent spirit, haunting, and it is something, and maybe it keeps him alive.
As the bottle drains down a fifth, he finds himself remembering. A terrible side effect of the forgetting with drinking is that sometimes he doesn’t actually forget. Everyone that he loves is dead or has forgotten him – or, or worse- and he remembers things in starts, milky bursts of memory, filmed over tapes and fuzzy at the edges.
He heaves himself to a stand, wobbling on his feet, the floor undulating beneath him. There is a cardboard box, leftover from moving into the flat, hastily thrown together and shoved in the back of the wardrobe beneath a pile of old school cloaks. He remembers it with an ache, nostalgia and wish fulfilment.
By the end there hadn’t been much left of him in the flat, but Remus had been waiting for him to come home that night. He still had some clothes left at the edges of their wardrobe, his cologne and his favourite books on the side table by the bed. He was supposed to come home and everything was horrible, terrible, but they were supposed to make it better. They were supposed to hold each other and fix them and fix the world and instead, instead Remus is bled dry and picked over skin, cigarettes staining his fingers yellow. His best friends are dead and the man he was (is) in love with did it. Not with his hands, theatrical tilt to the one holding his wand, but he has bred wreckage and ruining all the same.
It is a truth that sank in his gut and never stuck to the roof of his mouth, taffy- sticky and cloying sweet. He spends countless nights spitting it back up, bile and vomit and burning liquor. He believes it he believes it he has to believe it. But then he thinks of Sirius tipping back in his chair during transfiguration, head hanging, the ladder-rung ridges of his throat stretched out for Remus’ eyes, his hair splaying over the chair and he is saying, Moony, darling, Moony and then they spend their lunch in a broom cupboard falling into each other, mouths and hot breath and wandering hands.
And sometimes it makes so little sense Remus blacks out for a few days to bare it.
When he comes back to body and consciousness after, he grounds himself with painful truth and thinks of Sirius looking at him across the living room after a full moon with a twist to his mouth that had never been there before. Remus’ breath was rattling his chest, two cracked ribs and bruises splotched up his arms, rose-bloom and pain.
He stumbled in at dawn and fell to the couch, dripping blood on the floor, smelling of forest and feral animal and hunger. Sirius came out of the bedroom, arms wrapped around his torso. Their eyes met. Remus, at the base of his palms and the lining of his stomach, kept the memory of Sirius looking at him when they were at Hogwarts and before, before the war was what it was, and how he would wrangle every stray thread of himself and the Wolf into submission if he could just keep Sirius’ eyes on him. That feeling flickered at the spots he always kept Sirius, but then there was the guilt and anger and desperation and fear and he wanted to take five showers in scalding water.
Sirius said, quiet, “Where have you been?”
Remus stared at him. Ran his tongue over his teeth and poked the tip to his incisor. “Why do you always ask? You know.”
“Know?” Sirius said, mouth twisting, fingers curling in his shirt. “It was the full moon last night and that’s about all I fucking know.”
“You know I can’t tell you,” Remus gritted out. His ribs were throbbing. He was always the needle and Sirius was underbelly skin, so easy to pierce. Always had been despite the pretences, the rebellion and cigarettes. “Where were you yesterday afternoon? Before I left?”
Sirius clenched his jaw, eyes shifting into something unfamiliar. After a pause he murmured, “Let me heal your ribs.”
Remus inhaled. Nodded. Sirius crouched at his feet and ran dry palms across his forearms, wandless healing for the minor abrasions, something he perfected in seventh year with a wonky grin and the watery light falling through the shrieking shack’s grime-coated windows. He pointed his wand to his ribs. Remus felt a swift lurch and bile rising behind his teeth and then the pain was drained out, slipping through the cracks.
He inhaled a shaky breath and Sirius dropped his hands, standing and taking three steps back. “Remus.”
Remus looked up. Sirius was staring at him. He was holding his mouth like he wanted to speak but there was no air left in his lungs. His hair curled over his forehead, too long, not enough time for haircuts, and Remus loved him with everything he had, even, even if maybe he was the traitor. The suspicion sat like oil on water, slick film resting atop his blood.
The flat was quiet. Nothing awake but the two of them. Sirius stared and Remus held his gaze, scraped his teeth into the flaking skin of his lip.
Remus said through his howl-ravaged throat, “If you’re so sure I’m the traitor, why the fuck are you still here?”
He stood. Sirius sucked in a breath, fingers reaching out to brush at Remus’ wrist, pulse-point yearning. Remus stepped out of his reach and through the bedroom door, letting it click shut behind him.
Sirius left and didn’t really come back after that. And then.
Remus is stumbling into the doorway, shoulder banging on the hollow wood. He cracks his knees on the floor when he falls, fingers scrabbling along the frigid metal handle of the cupboard door before he’s pulling it open and shoving aside everything, jackets and shirts tumbling until he has the box held between his palms.
He drags it out to the living room, resuming his spot by the open door. The ends of his jumper sleeves are frayed and stained. He hikes them up to his elbows and watches his flesh pebble, hairs standing on end.
He swigs the vodka.
The radio plays.
Remus opens the box and has to lurch to the side, sticking his head onto the balcony, sucking in cool rips of air. His stomach clenches, nausea raking through it. He lets his eyes blur against the colourful lights strung across the street before settling back against the glass, fingers folding against the supple leather sitting at the top of the box. He pulls it into his lap in one jolting motion and runs his thumbs over the collar and the split in the inner seam that Harry tugged incessantly on whenever his godfather held him. Remus’ hands shake, fine-line tremors wound in his limbs. This – this scrap, this woven together muggle jacket is him, it is Remus holding him in his arms and sifting through his curls, scratching that spot behind his ear that makes him hum as Sirius and as Padfoot. He is in the cigarette and bergamot scent, folded into the leather and stitching and Remus’ own skin.
Remus plucks another cigarette from the packet and throws aside the jacket. He shoves his hand into the box, fingers slipping over corners and curling book pages. His pointer catches on the edge of a stiff photograph and he pulls it from the box. Blood bubbles at the skin, paper cut, and he sucks it into his mouth. His vision is warping at the corners, alcohol mortar and pestled into his blood. Everything goes black for a moment when he catches sight of the moving photograph in his hand.
He sucks two puffs of the cigarette and ashes into his lap.
It’s them.
It’s him with his arm thrown around Remus’ shoulders, final day of school and the sun bright and hung hopeful over the Black Lake. Lily is in the background, smiling at someone in the distance. Remus is rolling his eyes as he, him, Sirius, plants a kiss to his cheek and rocks them as they stand.
Remus takes a pull of vodka, arresting sting behind his teeth, and he stares. He holds the photograph and he stares until the black hole, the rotting, warping loneliness and betrayal twists and chokes at his neck, thumb to jugular. He is gnarled root anger and the seeping cold of sadness. He is loss, he is made up of it, it is written into the make of his body, sinew and muscles and cells, and he has always been loss happening, waiting to happen. Now he is here, with a photo that should feel like lies but sits rocking on the edges of his chest, clings there, and Remus is pain boiled down to the living boundaries of tragedy. He has become nothing but the years that were good and bad, the war and before the war, loving and betraying.
He slips the photo in the inner pocket of the jacket and swallows back more vodka. It sits hot and roiling in his stomach.
The radio ticks over into another song as Remus cradles a small, clear glass bottle in the palm of his hand.
So this is Christmas and what have you done?
Another year over, a new one just begun.
He runs his fingers over the cracked cap. It broke when Sirius dropped it in his haste to meet Harry at Godric’s Hollow after Lily gave birth.
And so this is Christmas, I hope you have fun,
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
Remus lifts the bottle to his nose, trembling, and inhales. It’s the scent that sat beneath the fall of his hair, in the fluffy whorls at the base of his skull. Remus buried his nose to that spot, huddled close behind him in their shared dormitory and their shared flat, the bed Remus still sleeps in. It is so close to having him in his arms it’s almost like he can feel the weight of him, the slip of his legs against Remus’ own and the way he would scratch his nails into Remus’ scalp as they held each other close.
And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong,
(War is over if you want it)
For the rich and the poor ones,
The road is so long.
(War is over now)
His fingers clutch around the bottle, aching in their grip. His breath grows ragged, air teetering precariously at the top of his throat, coming out snatched and quick. The song continues and becomes white nose. War is over war is over the war is over. James and Lily and Peter are dead. Sirius is in Azkaban.
Remus lets out a sob, dry, sandpapered sound, and he rears his arm back, pelting the bottle at the radio. It smashes upon impact and the radio cracks, smoking, toppling off the counter and onto the kitchen floor.
Silence rings.
Remus is all breath and heaving sobs and now, now tears are leaking from his eyes, running down his cheeks. He presses into the door, back to glass, feet scrabbling on wood, arms coming up to cover his face.
He misses them he misses him he is never getting any of it back.
Remus sobs until he feels he might throw up. He drinks more until he does, falling asleep curled around the toilet, joints aching and cheeks sticky.
The cologne sits in the floorboards for hours, staining, staining.
The flat smells of him for weeks after.
///
Christmas, 1995
The fire crackles in the wide hearth at the end of the long kitchen at Grimmauld. There’s a Christmas hits record turning in the corner and a mess of people around the table, picking at extras of the golden potatoes and a large turkey in the centre. Molly cooked most of the meal with help from the kids; Tonks arriving with three bottles of brandy. Sirius sits at the head of the table, Harry to his left and Remus to his right, eyes lit up in a way Remus hasn’t seen in months.
He flicks his eyes to Remus and smiles, small and warm, and Remus lifts his wine glass to his lips, grinning into the liquid.
Remus’ plate is scraped clean, along with most of the table, and the pudding is set out with bowls of cream slotted amongst the debris. Sirius hands him an enormous slice lathered in cream and Remus relishes the sweet bitter mouthful.
There’s a lightness, a joy to the air that has been devoid in Grimmauld with just Remus and Sirius rattling around the carved darkness rooms, Order members filing in and out and pushing Sirius further into the bedroom they share, spending long days huddled beneath blankets. Remus is trying and so is Sirius. But it is hard. And the war is an ever-tightening grip at the backs of their necks, the ghost of fifteen years that never relinquished its haunting.
Ron is fixing a paper crown to Harry’s head, tucking wild curls beneath the thin paper, a tiny tear appearing at the seam. Ron huffs and Harry elbows him away, swiping at his fringe. Hermione sits on Ron’s other side, chatting, all hands and wild nods, with Ginny.
Harry picks up a red crown, unfolding it and handing it to Sirius. He grins – Lily’s eyes, James’ smile – and says, “Padfoot, you have to wear one too.”
Sirius wrinkles his nose but takes the crown and fixes it atop his head. He tosses his hair over his shoulder and Remus’ stomach lurches. “How does it look?” Sirius asks.
“Brilliant,” Harry grins.
“Ridiculous,” Remus teases.
Sirius shoves Remus’ shoulder. “Moony,” he gasps. “Don’t be rude.” He slides his palm down Remus’ arm and tangles their fingers together atop the table.
Remus bites the inside of his lip and stares resolutely at the cut of Sirius’ jaw, its dark stubble. It all came out during the summer, everyone knows, but Remus still harbours the jolt of nerves that comes with being so exposed, so open, when it had always been just them behind closed doors.
Remus strokes his thumb to the web of skin connecting Sirius’ thumb to his palm and glances at Harry. He is staring at their hands, chances a glance at Ron and blushes deeply beneath his dark skin before staring at his plate.
The dinner meanders in a food-drunk and tipsy fashion, and plates are cleared as adults peel off for home or for the front sitting room. Some of the kids disappear upstairs and Remus ignores George when he sneaks a bottle of firewhiskey from the counter.
Remus is content, hand still in Sirius’, when the music fades from Frank Sinatra to –
His stomach rolls as sweat beads at his upper lip.
The tune, so familiar, Remus swears he can smell that old cologne, the leather of Sirius’ jacket.
Remus stands up, chair scraping against stone. He drops Sirius’ hand and ducks his eyes to his feet as he scrambles away from the table.
“Just going to the loo,” he mumbles without looking at anyone and ducks into the hall, weaving until he is at the side of the house in another living room or sitting room and he hopes nothing is cursed in here because there is pressure filling up and stoppering at the height of his chest.
Remus slams the door and places a hand to the wall, fingernails catching on the peeling wallpaper. His other hand grips at the collar of his sweater, stretching it away from his neck. Gasps rattle in the room and he is distantly aware they are his own, like hearing his heartbeat through the echoing distance of a tunnel.
He blinks, presses his shoulder to the wall, and tries to breathe. Water splashes to his collarbone and he realises that he’s crying.
The door creaks open and Remus is right there, almost in the doorway, to see Sirius rake his gaze over him and shut the door quickly, stepping closer and placing gentle hands to his cheeks, his shoulder, his neck.
“Moony?” he murmurs. He steps closer still and Remus gasps into a sob, one hand clutching to the hair at the base of his neck. “Remus?”
Remus shakes his head and falls into Sirius, burrowing his head in the junction of his neck and shoulder, hot breath gathering against the skin. He is shaking so hard he can feel the tremors coaxing into Sirius.
Sirius breathes out a long, slow breath and curls his arms around Remus, holding, one hand stroking down his back while the other clasps the back of his neck.
He’s murmuring, “You’re okay. It’s okay, love.”
His body wraps itself around the old feeling, that night, those months and years with the lies he tried so desperately to understand, the truth held captive in a cell in the middle of the sea. Remus swallows it down, tries to push its echo into the corners, places he ignores for the present, but it is bleeding out of him in hiccupping sobs, sunlight spill on the horizon, cleansing dawn, new day, new day has broken.
Except.
James and Lily are dead. Sirius is innocent. Peter is alive and the traitor. Everything is still terribly wrong. Sirius is back and him and Remus have found something in each other again, blessed relief and twelve years of waiting, something that had never really left, tentative and terrified and sick with doing this hell all over again. This time it’s with Harry at the centre of it, eye of the storm.
Remus wants to burn this house and every tormenting experience Harry has ever had, steal away with them both to – to France and forget. Try to forget.
Sirius is still stroking his back and whispering comfort to the shell of his ear. His breathing has evened. He is still shaking.
He pulls back slightly and Sirius shifts his hands to stroke at his tacky cheeks, his own grey eyes brimming with tears. “What’s wrong, love?”
Remus exhales. Burrows his hands in the silly Christmas jumper Sirius put on this morning that made his hair frizz and stick up at the back. Remus had smoothed it down for him.
“That song,” he whispers.
“Yeah?”
Remus shakes his head and closes his eyes. Sirius wipes at his cheeks again and leads him to the lumpy couch, sitting them both down. He holds Remus close, legs overlapping. He waits.
Remus folds his fingers into Sirius’ palm. “It’s just memories,” he breathes.
“But this was – it seemed like something specific,” Sirius replies, holding him at the neck, thumb stroking across the skin, comfort: I’m here, it’s okay.
Remus stares at the empty grate. Coal dusts the stone. Remus sort of wants to press his thumbprint to the mess and mark himself. Damn spot.
Remus says, eyes unfocused, “It was Christmas, that first year. I was…I had been drunk and high for months.” He looks at Sirius then and finds him holding Remus’ words taut at the lines of his mouth, truths unsaid in half moon creases. Remus squeezes Sirius’ hand. “I was being perhaps a tad masochistic. I had this box of your things. And I went through it.”
“Oh, Moony,” Sirius murmurs, holding tight to his hand, burying his fingers down to the scalp, clutching his hair between the gaps.
Remus smiles. “I had the radio on,” his voice sounds far away, warped, “And that song played. Fucking John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It was so stupid. All of it. What I was doing those months, just wasting my entire fucking self. Looking through your things like it would give me answers to why I was still in love with you when I believed you had killed our best friends.”
Sirius shifts closer. “I’m so sorry I left you there,” he whispered.
Remus shakes his head. “I’m sorry I thought you were the traitor.” He chokes on a sob, tries to suffocate it in his throat. “I think I more than made up for that.”
Sirius sucks in a breath. Cups Remus’ face in both palms and holds him there, tender, so tender and careful and nothing like they used to handle each other. They were reckless, unsteady hands wrapped in three layers of nicotine and want, adrenaline ever present in their blood and methods of coping found in the holy quieting of their meeting bodies. Remus sighs and finds his tears have dried up.
“I’m not counting,” Sirius murmurs. Rests his forehead against Remus’ temple. “It’s us, now. We’re here.”
Remus clutches to the collar of Sirius’ Christmas jumper, its soft, pilling material. “I’m so scared,” he whispers.
Sirius lets out a wet laugh, yarn-pulled and unravelling. “Me too.”
“I’m not – not losing you this time. We’re not losing Harry.”
“No,” Sirius agrees. He grips Remus’ jaw and rolls his forehead against Remus’. “Not again. Not if I can help it.”
Remus sighs, stroking across Sirius’ cheekbone, on the knife’s edge of too gaunt and deeply sexy. Remus kisses his cheek. He smells like red wine and dust and Sirius. “I’m sorry that we’re here and not somewhere lovely. The Swiss Alps maybe, where Padfoot could romp around and ruin a nice little cabin’s floor.”
Sirius laughs and this time it’s bright and sweet, spring blooms. “Stop apologising. It’s not your fault.” He kisses him softly on the lips. “After. We’ll go away. Have a nice, long holiday.”
“Good,” Remus mumbles and he slots his lips to Sirius, slow dragging of lips and a gentle wanting.
They are often quiet with their desire now; it’s in the brush of their fingertips to the curve of an ear, or a kiss to the inside of a palm. Remus lets it flutter inside him, warm him, and eventually, not yet, boil him over. Sirius opens his mouth like he did when he was sixteen and twenty, a shock of heat, fast, and then the insistent slide of tongue. Remus exhales into his mouth, hands sliding over his neck and holding.
Sirius pulls away, quick, hot breaths puffing against Remus’ lips. He kisses him once more, smiling a little, eyelashes fluttering. Remus swipes his thumb over the tips of them. Sirius flinches lightly, eyes squeezing shut and brushing back open with a lovely fondness.
Sirius sighs. “We should probably head back.”
Remus hums. “Indeed.”
“Stop looking at my lips.”
Remus is, in fact, looking at Sirius’ lips. They’re bright red. They always get like that, even when they’ve barely kissed. Remus always feels a bubble of power, drawing heat to skin and rubbing Sirius a little raw with just his own mouth.
“I’m not.”
Sirius purses them and pecks Remus’ once more before heaving off the couch, hand extended out. “Off we go. We have guests.”
Remus wrinkles his nose, sighing, and takes Sirius’ hand, holding until they’re back in the kitchen.
He murmurs to Sirius behind the shadow of the doorway, “Do I look like I’ve just had a breakdown over a Christmas song?”
Sirius cranes his neck, looking at him. He kisses the hand he holds. “You look perfect, darling.”
Remus rolls his eyes, letting Sirius pull him back into the kitchen. “That wasn’t an answer.”
Sirius shoots him a look over his shoulder. Harry is standing at the end of the table, fiddling with a napkin and watching them carefully.
Sirius drops Remus’ hand and claps Harry’s shoulder, pulling him in for a side hug. “Need anything, kid?”
Harry shrugs and drops the napkin, tugging a hand through his hair. “I was looking for you – both of you, actually.” He flicks his gaze between them. “It’s nice everyone is here but maybe we could –“ He shuts his mouth and looks to the ground.
Remus brushes a hand to Sirius’ lower back when he looks to him, nodding. Sirius says, “Shall we find another draughty room to sit in. Maybe some stupid expensive whisky to go with it?”
Harry looks up and grins. “Could we?”
“Of course, Harry,” Remus says, already moving to find the heady stuff Sirius stores on the top shelf, away from visitors.
They settle in a different room to the one Remus and Sirius huddled in earlier. There are several couches but they all sit on one, Harry between them, legs folded beneath him and a small nip of whisky in his hand.
Remus settles his glass on the couch arm and squeezes Harry’s shoulder. “Didn’t want to invite Ron down with us?”
He watches Harry flush and take a large sip, coughing as it catches strong in his throat. Sirius and Remus share a look over his head. Remus remembers the overwhelming feeling of wanting his best friend; remembers how it sat at the base of his spine and crawled up his neck, between lessons and at meals, attention clocked to wherever Sirius was in any given room.
Sirius is facing them both with his knees tucked to his chest, bare feet poking out beneath his trousers. He nudges Harry’s thigh with his toes. “Ron’s a great friend.”
Harry looks at Sirius. Shoves a hand through his hair. “Why do you say that?”
Sirius shrugs, watching Harry with devoted care, waiting to see if he’s gone too far, overstepping. It is perhaps the most attentive Remus ever sees Sirius; when he is with Harry and listening to him speak. “It’s just an observation, if you want to talk about anything. School. Friends. You know.”
Remus coughs into his whisky, hiding a laugh. He catches Harry narrowing his eyes and Remus winks. Harry groans and flops back against the couch, all drama and angst. Sirius and Remus share another look. Sirius raises his brow as if to say: James, right?
Remus brushes a hand over his mouth and nods. Sirius tries again, “You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.”
Harry rolls his glass between his hands, frowning. “This is horrible,” he mutters. Then, he sits up and stares at both of them, head swivelling. “How did you two do it?”
Sirius laughs then, and so does Remus, because, god, not particularly well. Not when they were broom cupboards and secrets and loving each other with ferocity they could barely understand.
“It was confusing,” Remus offers and Harry stares at him, rapt. “It took us a while to figure out.”
Sirius clears his throat and drains his whisky. “I knew I was in love with Remus since second year. Well, I perhaps didn’t call it that when I was twelve but by the time I was fourteen I was very dramatic about it all.” Harry snorts and Remus grins, cheeks warming. They never really talk about this, finding each other, filled with youth and hesitancy. “I hated being away from him, even when we’d just met, and I think by sheer force of will and constant proximity Remus ended up feeling the same.”
“Not true,” Remus mutters.
Sirius laughs. “But I just kissed him one day. We were skiving off and Remus had just learnt how to light a cigarette without a wand. So I kissed him. He always looked very dashing when he smoked.”
Remus groans, hand covering his hot cheeks, red flush.
Harry scoffs. “You just kissed him? Just did it?”
Remus finishes his glass and sits it on the dusty coffee table by their shins. “Do talk about it afterwards though. We went two years without saying what we were feeling.”
Sirius strokes Remus’ hand where it rests on the back of the couch. The smile he sends him is hot tea and warm honey sweet, love and love and finally. “Don’t waste time,” he says, looking at Remus before back to Harry.
Harry twists his hands in his sweater, too big at the shoulders and stretched out at the hem. Remus thinks it might be one of his. Harry sets his glass down, only half drunk, and settles against Sirius’ chest, tucked under his arm.
“I think it’s a bit unfair that all of this is happening while also having – these - feelings. Romantic ones.” He is grumbling, voice slow, eyes drooping as he sinks into Sirius. Sirius tugs him to his chest, legs unfolded over the couch, and wraps an arm across his shoulders.
Remus settles Harry’s legs over his own, patting his bony ankle. “It is unfair, Harry.”
Harry mumbles something and his glasses slip halfway down his nose. Sirius says, “Why don’t you sleep, hey?”
Harry blinks his eyes hard and tries to sit up but is pulled back down by Sirius’ firm arm. Harry sighs. “I wanted to talk.”
“You’re exhausted,” Remus replies, squeezing his ankle. “Sleep and we can chat more tomorrow.”
“Promise?” Harry mumbles, eyes already slipping closed, head lolling to one side.
Sirius smiles, head tilted down, nose pressed to Harry’s mess of tangled curls. He smiles; Remus can see it by his eyes, tired, loving. “Promise,” he murmurs and then Harry is asleep, deep breaths that puff from his lips. He is so young, always, but especially asleep between the two closest people to parents that he has. It makes Remus’ chest ache.
“James could always fall asleep like that,” Remus comments softly.
Sirius chuckles and puts a hand across the back of the couch. Remus meets him, linking their fingers, holding, holding, a grounding moment in an untethered house, world, lifetime.
Sirius watches him, head tilted to one side. He murmurs, so quiet there is almost no sound, “I love you.”
Remus squeezes his hand. This isn’t their home but they’ll have one. One day. “I love you,” Remus replies, a caress of a phrase, fingertips to cheek.
Sirius holds Harry and Remus, and Remus does the same. There is war and it hasn’t been over for far too long, but there is home in each other, in the people that they love. And that is something, something more than pain.