Work Text:
I used to be afraid of dying
Now I'm afraid of going home and turning on the TV
I wanna live in a shoebox house under your bed
With your liquor, stickers and strawberry moons
He doesn’t blink.
Remus has to place a charm on Sirius' eyes to keep them from drying out, but they still look raw and red if his eyes are open for more than a few hours. He takes naps often, and Remus gently shuts his eyelids with his fingers, feeling distinctly like closing the lids of a corpse.
There’s nothing left, Remus can say with certainty. His eyes, once so bright and sharp whether they cried or scrunched up in laughter, now are dull, no matter what Remus tries to do to wake him up— but there’s nothing for Sirius to wake up from.
Or at least, that’s what he says when St. Mungo’s checks in once a month.
They just… gave Sirius to him. A person Kissed is legally dead, so they had no reason to persecute Sirius anymore. Not a criminal anymore, but not a human.
The books and common knowledge say that someone Kissed is gone forever. Sirius isn’t.
Molly tuts nervously when he says this, fingers curled around a mug of tea as he sits in her sun-lit kitchen on a stray Wednesday. He knows he sounds desperate. He knows he sounds like a widower, driven half-mad by grief, taking care of a shell in a lonely home.
But there is something there.
It’s small. The dementors ripped something essential out of his mind, yes, but it could not have possibly been his soul, because Sirius reacts.
To touch, mostly. When Remus touches the back of his neck, Sirius will press into it, something innate seeking comfort, craving it. So Remus gives it to him.
Sirius is always dressed in soft jumpers, some of them Remus’ because he seems to like those more, curling into them with a soft noise.
The cottage’s sitting room turns into one large couch, pillows everywhere and as many blankets strewn about as possible. Sirius will curl up among the soft things and stare at Remus, and Remus will sigh through his nose and clamber to sit cross-legged next to him. Then he will manoeuvre the thin man to rest his head gently in his lap, and together they will just breathe.
Remus sometimes wonders if Sirius is afraid. If he can be. If he’s locked in his body with a perfectly aware mind or just as empty on the inside as he seems on the outside, sensing nothing but Remus’ soft touches and gentle words.
It sounds terrifying, and Remus can’t help but press a soft kiss to Sirius’ forehead when he does think about it. Most of the time he tries not to, though, because Sirius can usually sense when he’s distressed and becomes a bit more agitated and tense when he does.
Sirius loves going outside most of all. Remus settles him on the back porch after Breakfast and then goes to work on the garden, using mostly muggle methods to nurture the plants. Sirius glows outside, in a way that he never does inside. Remus wonders if it’s the Dementor’s Kiss or the effects of not seeing the sun for twelve years. For his entire twenties.
Fuck.
Remus tries not to dwell, truly, even though he’s rather awful at the endeavour. It does no good to think about what could’ve been.
Sirius doesn’t eat well, especially at the beginning. Emaciated and starved, he throws up most of his nutrient potions for weeks as Remus desperately tries to keep him fed. Mungo’s is utterly no help, and he can’t risk them seeing the same spark he does and taking him back. He finally owls Molly in desperation and she floos over that same night.
They spend a few hours trying to get Sirius to keep the potions down, his bony hands and sunken, blank eyes tearing Remus’ already worn heart to pieces. For the fiftieth time that day, he spoons some of the potion into Sirius’ mouth and wipes away the drops that leak out and drip down his chin. On a reflex, Sirius swallows weakly. Remus sighs and slumps against the kitchen counter. Sirius makes an upset noise and Remus gently brushes his cheek with his knuckles, a soft apology.
“Maybe it’s the naps,” Molly muses, studying both of them with an intensity that reminds Remus of Gideon. “Does he sleep after meals?"
“No. He’s throwing up an hour later, and then I get him settled enough to nap.”
Molly frowns. “When Charlie was a babe, he could never keep anything down. I had to burp him to get rid of gas bubbles…”
“You want me to—” Remus scoffs tiredly.
Molly looks at him with a slight frown.
“It’s infantilizing!”
“And it might help!” she retorts.
He hesitates, then shifts closer to Sirius and rubs gently around his stomach area. Molly rearranges his hands so they’re a bit higher, and after a few moments Sirius hiccoughs twice with a whine, but seems ever so slightly more content. Remus kisses his forehead.
A few hours later, Sirius hasn’t thrown up at all, instead sitting in front of the fire and staring at nothing, and Remus profusely thanks Molly despite his reservations about the situation.
Before she leaves, she turns to him, her eyes shining. “You’re right, I think,” she whispers. “There’s something there.”
In late July, the letter arrives.
The Ministry managed to catch Peter, and he was found guilty on all accounts after Veritaserum, so Sirius is posthumously declared innocent.
Nobody apologises, because they think there’s nobody to apologise to.
Remus sits at the table and itches for a cigarette as he stares at the words. Eyes shining, he presses his fist to his lips and chokes back a sob. Then he heaves in a gasping sigh in the empty kitchen and stands up. The chair squeaks angrily on the uneven wood floor.
The letter burns, and with it all of Remus’ fucks left to give.
With the letter, though, comes retribution.
The story of Sirius’ tragedy spreads like bushfire throughout the Wizarding World. Not just Britain, for soon wix from nearly every continent read the scorching headline. They call for an end to dementors, for prison reform. It is an infant of a movement, but when the people call for Azkaban to be taken down, the Ministry flounders.
And two months later, the dementors are legally extinct.
Remus doesn’t doubt that they kept some— the Ministry has always been afraid, hiding behind monsters to act as if they aren’t the monsters themselves. Dementors are likely locked deep in the Ministry, ready to be called upon.
For the moment, at least, they’re all gone.
Remus relays this information as he washes Sirius’ hair that night, scrubbing gently at his scalp. Sirius, sitting in the bathtub with bubbles up to his chest, makes a happy noise at the sensation. He’s always loved Remus playing with his hair.
“At least all of those things are gone, forever. Gods, the Ministry. Fucking fools, all of them,” Remus mutters. “I was a fool, Sirius. I’m sorry. I love you," he breathes.
Sirius doesn’t reply, just hits a bubble with his hand and flinches when it pops.
Remus rests his forehead on the edge of the tub for a moment, listening to Sirius’ nonsensical humming with a hammering heart, then finishes rinsing the soap out of his hair and shuts off the water.
Remus tugs Sirius out and wipes him down with the softest towel he could find. Then he guides him to sit on the edge of the bed on another towel so he can help him dress. Sirius likes the jumper he chooses, a maroon one that a student gifted him the past year. Sirius curls up in it, and Remus brushes his hair away from his eyes and gathers all of it into a thin elastic to let it dry.
He goes to put on a record, but something catches his wrist and Remus. stops. breathing.
He turns slowly, turning his wrist in the weak grip as he meets Sirius’ eyes. Remus studies his face, the fuller cheeks and sharper grey eyes that have improved so much since he came to live with him. “Sirius?” he whispers cautiously, barely able to breathe for fear of him reverting back to the nothingness that clouded his eyes for the last year.
A second later, Sirius blinks.
It's getting late, it's getting early
It's funny how the stars are always there
You said, "I think you need to go to bed
'Cause it's too late to make a wish."