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Chapter Text

It’s a busy pub, the air thick with cigarette smoke and sweet with beer and too many people. Sirius is already there even though it’s on the nose of the time he’d given in that scrap of parchment summoning him for a drink. The punctuality is unusual, as is the way he’s already folded himself into a booth, staring unseeingly across the crowd. Perhaps this feels like a big deal to Sirius, too, after months of barely seeing each other but for brief moments of eye contact in the Order meetings they overlapped in and the time Sirius-and-James had gotten back from something and found Remus sat the Potter’s kitchen table drinking tea with Lily, and the conversation had stuttered and died. This invite to the pub had felt like a peace offering in a fight Remus wasn’t entirely clear they were having or why they might be having it, hitting him with this rush of nervous-relief and anticipation. Sirius wasn’t quite done with him, then.

He wanted them to ‘catch up’, which had cause a sharp lump in the back of his throat that rather made him want to cry or reply to Sirius with a neatly scrawled ‘with due respect Padfoot, fuck off’ because there was a time when the idea of a ‘catch up’ would’ve been entirely redundant. Their lives were so intertwined that they had nothing to catch up, on, which still didn’t stop Sirius doing it anyway: endlessly giving him updates about classes Remus had been in, sat right next to him, monologuing at him for hours while Remus tried to study in some ploy to get more of his attention, poking him in the side and occasionally saying outrageous things just to check if he was listening. He’d spent nine hours a day with the man and slept three foot away until the cliff edge that was the end of Hogwarts, until their easy-report had somehow circled the drain and dried out to once a week pub trips until, after he lost that first job and picked up some shitty magical security work that had him working nights, he missed three in a row and then he was sent off on his first order mission and seemed to somehow stopped being invited. Or maybe they stopped happening, overtaken by the war entirely, in that way that everything was eventually. For a while, Sirius had always seemed pleased to see him when they did cross paths. There was a galling surprise that always accompanied it — that since Remus had flat out refused his offer of moving into his flat, he’d somehow forgotten that he might still be invited to anything at all — but, for a while those snatches of contact had felt quite normal, until something had shifted, and he’d felt altogether like he was being treated like someone else, not a Marauder, someone not-in-the-group. Sirius could be bright and bold and funny, all performance of confidence and mirth, but with all that shared vulnerability stripped away and buried. And then Sirius’ humour died overnight with another funeral, at least to the tables where Remus had been invited, and so much time had passed that Remus no longer knew how to talk to him at all.

“Allright?” Remus says, squeezing himself into the booth. Either Sirius picked the smallest confined space that two people could possibly choose to sit in, or else there wasn’t a great deal of choice. They’re blocked out of the way of most of the rest of the crowd. Sirius has already shed his leather jacket, clad in a faded Rolling Stones t-shirt that he bought in the summer he was disowned at Camden market. He’d written to Remus about it. Well, the letter had specifically been talking around their shared Summer misery without either of them directly writing ‘I am unhappy’ but the t-shirt had featured, and after Remus turned up at the Potter’s, summoned by the news of his disownment, he’d sat on the bed and said ‘show us your new shirt, then’ rather than ask about what his mother had done. It has a lower neck-line than most t-shirts, so that you can just see a shock of collar bone stretching up the column of his throat. He is still, obviously, quite beautiful. That’s not why Remus finds himself here, accepting whatever scraps Sirius is willing to give him because he’d still be pathetically hungry for his friendship regardless of any other doomed wants, but it certainly doesn’t help his resolve. Sirius also looks tired. That kind of war tired that bruises under your eyes and has aged them all prematurely. For Sirius, it’s manifested as this agitation constantly sparking under his skin. He never seems quite relaxed. Even in this corner of the pub, his arms are held very tightly, his spine-too-straight, some of his pureblood posture coming out after years of trying to reject all of it.

“Hello, Moony,” Sirius says, looking up at him and drinking him in. He does quite a thorough job of it, which makes Remus feel quite conscious about the hole in his jeans — not like the rips in Sirius’ jeans, but more because the things are held together with more magic than anything else — and his jumper, and his general everything.

“That answers at least one of my security questions.”

Sirius barks a laugh. It’s not one of those deep-set ones, but it’s something. It acts as some kind of balm over his anxiousness.

“I’m sure plenty of Death Eaters know about our nicknames by now.” Sirius drawls back. That’s the kind of thinking that burrows it’s way into the back of his head and keeps him up all night, but he didn’t come out to be treated to a round of Sirius’ paranoia - the one common thread to all of the interactions they’ve had, lately - and he can just as well get maudlin on his own in his flat. He does so regularly, in fact.

“Alright, then,” Remus says, knuckling down on lightness. “The name of our fourth year pot supplier.”

“Davy Jacobs,” Sirius says, and he is almost smiling which is a big improvement on anything he’s gotten for a long time. “What did James say the first time he tried a cigarette?”

“Nothing, the over dramatic prat nearly coughed up a lung, then took himself down to the kitchens for some pumpkin juice,” Remus says, “Bit of a shit question though, Pads, anyone who’s met James could’ve guessed how that would go.”

Sirius does smile at that. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but it’s warmer.

“Pint?” Sirius says.

“Please,” Remus agrees. He watches Sirius as he crosses the pub, elbowing his way to the bar itself, and altogether feels tired already. Sirius has always been exhausting, but this feels like a different sort; more of an existential weariness that’s settled into his limbs and made Remus look old, too.

Eventually, Sirius makes it back from the bar balancing two pints and two golden- shot glasses, setting them down in front of them with a clink. Remus opts not to question it. Instead, he picks up his shot of tequila, holds it aloft and downs it.

“Atta boy, Lupin,” Sirius says, nudging with his arm. Remus tries not to let either the almost-compliment or the physical touch impact him remotely, but the warmth in his gut probably isn’t from the tequila. Sirius knocks his own back and washes it down with a few mouthfuls of beer, before he leans across the table and stares at him. It drags out longer, with this dredging silence in its wake, as Sirius’ intense grey bores into his skin. He’s expecting Sirius to break it given he’s the one that suggested all of this in the first place, but instead he gets the full force of his undivided attention.

Clearly, Sirius hasn’t been sleeping well. He never was very good at it, even before the war, but it seems like he’s given it up entirely. They were always the insomniacs of the Marauders: James had a very quidditch focused approach to early nights, Peter could always sleep anywhere in any circumstances and they would be the two of them left awake, putting off calling it a night until the dregs of the day disappeared. Usually, Sirius would invade his space and demand entertainment but in a quieter way that he would during the day, which mostly accumulated in them lying shoulder-to-shoulder on Remus’ bed and talking about nothing until the early hours of the morning, or the odd occasion where Remus felt restless with the waning of the moon and was persuaded to sneak down to the kitchens, or to Hogsmede, or once-- towards the end of it all -- to the shack, where Sirius shared a surprisingly vulnerable treatise about how deep-set the worry for his brother ran. It has always been one of those things that Remus knew without it being discussed, but Sirius had sat on the floor of the shack with his hands balled into fists and looked close to crying. They didn’t talk about the fact that neither of them slept well due a mix of nightmares and the plague of intrusive 3am thoughts, but he knew that, the same way he knew when Sirius was having a bad day, or when something had happened with his mother, or when he was struggling to reconcile his identity with who he really wanted to be, even though most of that shared understanding was wordless. They were so close that he’d never envisioned that there might be a time where he didn’t know what to say to him and now they’re staring at each other in the bloody pub, and Remus is abruptly aware that he’s actually furious at him for this silent, steady disappearing act. He did know that, in part, but he can feel it running hot in his blood and feel it coiled in his spine.

Remus clears his throat and picks up his pint for something to do. Sirius watches him for another few moments, before he jerks himself into action.

“Been well?” Sirius asks, the sharp gaze not letting up.

“Well enough.” Remus hedges.

“Haven’t seen you lately.”

“Been away,” Remus says, which they both know means something Order related. Sirius' expression empties of any softness. “Seems like you’ve been busy too.”

“I suppose,” Sirius says. “Didn’t see you at that thing at the Prewett’s.”

“I was working.” Remus says, which is true but only in the sense that he picked up a shift specifically to avoid it. Not that he had the real freedom of financial choice and it looked like that job was soon to go the way of the last three, so he’d committed to providing a pitiful lining to his bank account rather than spending an evening feeling like an awkward spare part around people he’d long since considered family. Besides, this latest iteration of Sirius has taken to compensating for the surly unhappiness that’s descended over him by being a spectacularly awful drunk: he’s always been a ridiculous, loud flirt, but now there’s an edge to it that feels like he’s a hairbreadth away from becoming cruel at any given moment. He didn’t want to be involved with any of it.

Sirius hums. He looks at his beer for a moment, then looks at Remus’ for a long moment, before finally turning his gaze back to Remus.

“How is work?” Sirius asks.

It’s a predictable question, but Remus isn’t sure what iteration of work Sirius is actually talking about. He’s burnt through a number of jobs since that first one, the ministry’s paranoia about the werewolf population being passed down to the general public via the medium of grossly inaccurate Prophet articles and general propaganda. Trust is in short supply everywhere, which Remus can’t really blame anyone for given the backdrop of death. Sirius’ intel could be three forms of employment behind . Lily had been asking until Remus had shut it all down and clammed up and she’d been gracious enough to avoid the conversation altogether. He presumed some of this information was filtered to James and therefore to the Sirius-and-James hive mind, but he doesn’t actually know. He also doesn’t want to talk about it, which was the other galling part of the request for a catch up: there is absolutely nothing going on in Remus’ life that he would actually like to talk about.

“About as disappointing as you always purported working life would be,” Remus says, rubbing a thumb over the rim of his beer glass. “I suppose Auror training is altogether more exciting.”

“Wouldn’t know.” Sirius says, “They’ve paused it. Ministry says they need all hands on deck, not investing in the bright young things of their future.”

“That’s depressing,” Remus grimaces, then makes an effort to wrestle his mouth into a smile. He cocks an eyebrow at him. “So you’re a man of leisure.”

“Temporarily. It suits me.” Sirius says, with a smirk. It’s not a real one, but one of those try-hard versions that he’s relatively sure that only James Potter, Regulus Black and Remus could ever differentiate between. Maybe Lily, at this point in the game.

“I bet it does.”

“I have no idea what you mean, Moony, I am a gentleman and a highly productive member of society.”

“You’re a prat.” Remus says, with genuine affection. Fake-camaraderie is still better than stilted conversation. “How’s James?”

“Missing living with me,” Sirius says, “Hasn’t said that, obviously. Maintaining that marrying Evans was the best decision he ever made, but a man knows his best friend’s mind.”

“Marrying Potter,” Remus corrects. “Forget Lily’s parents, we ought to have you give Prongs away at the altar.”

“I never would.” Sirius says, dramatically thumping his chest. Remus laughs and takes a mouthful of beer. “You’re missing him then,” Remus supplies.

Sirius' expression turns cloudier.

“Missing most things about how things used to be.”

“Yes, it’s all been a bit grim,” Remus agrees, looking down at his pint and frowning. The other real conversation topics they have available to them are unappealing, given they involve the war, Remus’ flat, his parents, or the fact that he’s currently weighing up the relative merits of trying to borrow money from his father, James Potter or give it all up and accept what’s felt like the steadily tightening ropes, inevitable and inescapable, that he cannot sustain a roof over his head without a dwindling supply of charity. He doesn’t want to talk about any of those things which are sure to wipe any of the slightly forced humour out of Sirius’ expression and leave him surly and angry.

“You been seeing anyone?” Sirius asks, slightly short. It throws Remus entirely for a minute, because dating has been so far down his list of priorities that he can’t fathom that anyone would be doing it in the middle of the war.

Remus snorts.

“Do I ever?”

“Wouldn’t know, you’re always very clandestine about it.”

“Compared to you three oversharers.” Remus counters, “I think we rather needed someone on the other end of the scale than Prongs, for all our sanity.”

Sirius laughs, bright and loud. The sound of it tugs under his ribs the way it always does when he is able to win such a reaction from Sirius Black. It’s pride and satisfaction, and it feels as addictive as ever. He hasn’t heard it much lately.

“Very true, Moony, very true,” Sirius says. “I still remember Prong’s face when he saw you and Dearborn on the map, that live, very slow, realisation of what our good prefect was up to.”

“Ah, well, James was always very sheltered.”

“Wormy turned purple.”

“ And you were the picture of unperturbed, were you?” Remus snorts. He looks down at his beer and tries to work out how to keep them in this light, almost-easy space. He knows, really, that Sirius is pretending at being jovial, but then they’ve both always been good at shoving down the dark things and masking them in casual humour. It’s probably pathetic, but it feels like he could live off a few more of these moments for months, squirrelling away and hiding them in his chest, a reminder of not feeling other. It’s a shadow of how it had been at Hogwarts, but it is something, even if he no longer believes that it’s real. “And was that any worse than Pete’s retelling of that Hufflepuff party and the Murphy incident, only to realise Murphy was sitting in earshot?”

“Ah, that was painful,” Sirius says, “He never did get his book bag to stop insulting him.”

“It got kinder, as the years went on.” Remus says, “Maybe in a few years it’ll stop swearing.”

“Ah, well, we’ve all been there.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Sirius arches an eyebrow at him and considers him.

“You were always surprisingly good with girls.”

“Thank you, Padfoot. That’s lovely.” Remus says, dryly.

“Oh, you know what I mean.” Sirius says, eyes drilling into him. “Obviously, I know why blokes were into you, but teenaged girls are a different species.”

“Perhaps thinking of them as such was the problem.”

“Even Lily tolerated you long before she’d willingly sit in the same room with Prongsie.”

“Well, I tried to have a conversation with her, rather than chase her around reading love poetry.”

Sirius barks a laugh.

“It was a winning strategy in the end.”

“Oh no it wasn’t,” Remus says, “James got the girl despite his efforts. Honestly, Pads, I just spoke to them, which you never had the patience to do,”

“Well, I had no ulterior motives,”

“That doesn’t make it better,” Remus says, “Actually, it makes you quite a lot of a prat.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Sirius says, waving this away. “Anyway you didn’t just speak to them, you do that thing where you turn around the conversation so it’s all about them. You’re doing it now, where I came here to catch up and you’ve managed to get away with not talking about yourself at all.”

“You mean I listened,” Remus deadpans, then laughs, “I see why that would be confusing for you, Padfoot.”

“I am an excellent listener.”

“I’ll ask Mcgongall what she thinks about that, shall I?”

“ Remus,” Sirius complains, in that sing-song voice of his voice. “How are you?”

“Better than I was before this tequila.”

“That isn’t a real answer.” Sirius says, his expression flickering. “You rationing this beer, Moony?” Sirius asks, nodding at Remus’ pint. He has only drunk a third of it to Sirius’ nearly-empty pint, distracted by trying to keep ahead of the conversation and avoid steering them into a conversational ditch. They’re still sitting very close. Sirius is radiating a familiar heat, his limbs taking up most of the bloody booth, looking at him with that grey gaze.

“I can’t afford my round and I was counting on your impatience,” Remus says, then snaps his jaw shut, surprised at himself. It’s true, but he didn’t intend to say it. Clearly, the weight of the evening and the war is being to him. Sirius smiles broadly and laughs, loud, throwing an arm around his shoulders and squeezing Remus’ arm. He stays there for longer than Remus expects him too.

“My idea, my treat.” Sirius says. Remus swallows past the indignity of it all. Accepting Sirius’ charity in particular has always managed to cut him on the inside. In theory, there’s nothing altogether that different to the delivery than when James does it —- in fact, Sirius is probably more understanding given there was that window where he was cut off and penniless — but for some reason it always makes him feel patronised from Sirius. He deals with it by not remotely reacting to Sirius’ arm around him, picking up his pint and draining most of the rest of it.

“You always were secretive about the rest of your life.” Sirius says, the edge of his smile bearing down on him.

“If you say so.”

Sirius leans forward slightly. Their arms are pressed up against each other in their booth, this hot line of contact that used to be so commonplace that it’s devastatingly familiar.

“ Why did you hide things from us? Like your little trist with Dearborn.”

“I wanted to have something that was just mine,” Remus says, more honest than he’d really meant to be. His forehead creases. Sirius is drinking Remus in like he’s fascinated, gaze flicking over his skin. “And I was used to it, having secrets. Sometimes it felt more comfortable.”

“What do you mean, comfortable?”

“It made me feel better to spend some of my time with people they didn’t have the power to ruin in my life,” Remus says, and he doesn’t know why he’s being so antagonistic. Nothing good comes out of framing it like that. It’s the kind of thing he’d normally skirt around. “I mean —- to have some relationships where I was more anonymous. More like what I expected for myself and what my father would be happy with.”

“You could do that and tell us everything.” Sirius says

“You get jealous of others,” Remus says, and Sirius clenches his jaw. Looks at him.

“We weren’t going to ruin your life.”

“You nearly did,”

“You haven’t forgiven me.”

“I have,” Remus says, “But I can’t forget it .”

Sirius nods, tilts his head.

“So, you didn’t tell me about Dearborn because you thought I’d be jealous?” Sirius says, slowly, a little like he’s calling bullshit on the whole thing.

“No,” Remus says, and, for some reason, he keeps talking; the words tumbling out of his mouth before he has a chance to filter them. “Because I couldn’t stand it if you weren’t.”

Sirius is staring at him now, intense. His gaze is hot. Remus feels calmer than he should do, or maybe the horror of it hasn’t hit him yet.

“You wanted me to be jealous?” Sirius asks, his voice lower and dangerous.

“I’m in love with you.” Remus says, and then he knows something has gone wrong, because he would not say that to Sirius Black. He has been not bloody saying that for years and he has no reason or desire to blurt it out now, after two thirds of a damn pint and he —- his gaze is swimming slightly, actually, some fogginess in his head that goes beyond just panic — and he reaches down for the wand in his jacket for the feeling of security, and it isn’t there.

He doesn’t have his wand anymore.

He should be panicking, and he is, but it’s a slow, building panic because his brain isn’t working. He stares at his drink. “What —-?” Remus begins, and then he re-processes Sirius throwing that casual arm over his shoulders, and he looks at Sirius’ pint. He didn’t actually see him drink any of it, even though it’s all gone. Sirius is watching him fiercely.

Sirius did this.

He can hear Moody's usual call of constant vigilance on a loop and —- and oh, he is stupid, stupid, stupid — and he can’t really move his limbs anymore. His muscles are full of treacle.

He doesn’t have his wand and he can’t move properly. Sirius, Sirius, Sirius.

“What did you do?” Remus asks, but the words come out slurred. Sirius has his own wand out under the table and casts some silent charm that snaps Remus’ wrist together and he is powerless, this unfurling dread, his heart rate beginning to skyrocket .

“Sorry Moony,” Sirius says, his voice sounding tense and tight, as he drags him up into a standing position. Remus stumbles, no longer in full control, as Sirius bodily manhandles him out of the booth. He offers a wide, charming smile to the couple at the next table. “Can’t handle his liquor.”

“That’s not true,” Remus says, although he neither wants or means to, truth flowing out of him. “I can handle it fine. I’m —- getoff, Sirius.”

“ Cooperate, Lupin, or it’ll be worse,” Sirius says, low and soft into his ear. Dangerous.

He’s trapped.

He can’t fight it with no wand, in the middle of a muggle pub, his coordination shot and his head fuzzy and thick with something, so he just gives into it instead. His thoughts are slow. He’d be so sure that it is Sirius, with those particular stares, the memories and the physicality of him: Remus is sure that he’d know him fucking anywhere, in any disguise, in any circumstance, and he can’t —- he doesn’t understand, polyjuice or imperius, but he’d have noticed, unless this is —

Sirius did this.

The cold air slaps him round the face as they stumble into the fresh night air. It’s helpful in bringing clarity of thought, cleaning his mind enough to think . Sirius — or, this Sirius-like figure — halts just beyond the doorway, as he attempts to straighten his grip and he’s distracted enough for Remus to make the only play available to him, to shrug himself out of his grip as if he’s falling sideways, then swing his arms upwards. They’re still snapped together at the wrist. It’s ungainly and he nearly topples over, but Sirius isn’t expecting it and doesn’t react in time. The back of his knuckles collide with Sirius’ face. He swears and drops his wand.

Remus sways forward to grab it, the back of his hands wet with blood — he’s broken his nose, he thinks — but something hits him in the back of his knees before he gets there. Sirius’ legs. Remus overbalances and buckles. Sirius scrambles to his feet, making a noise of anger at the back of his throat, and then there’s a flash of red light and darkness.

Chapter Text

He comes to suddenly, snapping awake to find that he’s tied to a chair in one of the dirty back rooms they’ve held various Order meetings in. Sirius sits on a chair next to him, bent over with his hands gripped tightly together over his knees. There’s a steak of blood and dirt across his face. For a moment, none of it makes any sense at all, and then the reality descends. It feels a little like the floor has given way and he’s suspended in a moment of clarity before it all comes rushing to meet him, roaring in his ears, this bitter resignation and relief and rage. He hates how fucking obvious the realisation feels because, of course , they don’t trust him.

They don’t trust him.

He’s felt that in the way that invisible walls have been erected around him, the disbelief, the way some people have stopped asking him questions at all and others seemed to pick at his answers. He’s felt this chasm opening up and swallowing him, but he’d labelled it as busyness and the war and growing up and generalised paranoia, but it all seems very specific right now. Unless they’ve done this to everyone — which seems exceptionally unlikely — what he’d been trying to write off as his own insecurities is much more real and much worse than he’d imagined it. There’s ‘not trusting someone’ and there’s ‘ sending someone to drug and attack him’ and he’d have thought that Sirius, at least, would have his back. James, Peter, Lily. He can handle everyone else in the whole fucking world not trusting him, but for it to come from Sirius, who he … from Sirius Black.

“You could’ve just asked me.” Remus says, out loud. His voice is steadier than he’d have expected it to be, which he’s marking down to adrenaline rather than any sense that he’s taking this well. He’s not sure if there is a good way to take it, but he can feel this hurricane of something in his gut. At this point, he doesn’t know what the dominant emotion is going to be.

Sirius sits up and turns to him. There’s a challenge in Sirius’ gaze. It’s hard and unyielding. The sort of look that Sirius used to reserve for his brother, with this personalised cruelty. Sirius is sure. Sirius is Sirius, no imperius curse, no polyjuice, no side switching, he just doesn’t trust him.

Apparently, Remus’ swing at him hit him full in the face. His nose is bloody and his left eye is tinged purple and he’s done nothing about either. Right now, there is a part of Remus that isn’t even sorry.

The war has broken them.

“You’ll be the next scapegoat on the list, after the werewolf. I’d have thought you’d want to set a better precedent.” Remus says, watching as Sirius clenches his jaw. His shoulders are bunched together under his leather jacket. His expression tightens at Remus’ words and —- Remus has no real idea why he is antagonising him or what he could possibly gain from it, but it gives him some illusion of power at a moment where he feels so entirely wrecked by how powerless he is.

Sirius looks back out across the corridor.

“What did you give me?” Remus asks, “Veritaserum, obviously, and something else.”

“Muggle drug.” Sirius says, short.

“You roofied me,” Remus deadpans. “Brilliant. Nice nose.”

Sirius huffs and stares back down at his knees. He manages to maintain his resolve of silence for thirty seconds, before he breaks.

“Well?” Sirius says, eventually. He doesn’t elaborate and it isn’t really a question, so the compulsion to answer truthfully isn’t pressing at the back of his mouth as much. He can recognise it now he’s on guard.

There’s a twisted part of him that wants to refuse to answer, to leave him in this suspense, because if Sirius is capable of thinking so badly of him then he should stew in it. He doesn’t see why he should be the one to put him out of his misery, but he also can’t really stand the thought of Sirius believing it for another sodding second. He wants to wipe that grim confidence off his face. He wants him to feel the full force of the guilt of it.

He picks his words out carefully.

“I am not a spy.” Remus says, slowly, looking him dead in the eyes. “I am not a Death Eater. I have never knowingly passed any information to a Death Eater. I hate all of it every inch as much as I did the day we agreed to fight. I would die before I betrayed any of you. I would die for any of you.”

Sirius deflates. He physically shrinks. Remus wants it to be gratifying, but mostly this pressing sadness is threatening to clog up his oesophagus. He actually thinks he would like to cry.

Sirius.

“You attacked me.” Sirius says, because of fucking course he’s defending himself rather than getting down on his knees and apologising, because Sirius Black doesn’t do well when he’s backed into a corner.

“I didn’t know why you’d lured me to the pub to drug me, you bloody git.” Remus says, and he’s horrified to discover that the emotion is pushing at the back of his eyes, twisting his voice into something out of his control. He might actually cry, and he can’t, not like this, when he’s already been so humiliated, with Sirius sitting there, with Remus stripped away of his ability to lie and protect himself. “ Why? I — it’s not just my secrets I’m keeping.”

“I know,” Sirius says grimly, roughly rubbing his face and then looking up at him. There’s a tortured look that’s spilling out now, which makes Remus’ stomach twist up into these painful knots because, of course, he still can’t really stand to see Sirius look like that, wretched and torn up. It doesn’t matter, apparently, what he does. “I know, Moony, I —- ”

“ Don’t,”

“Remus,”

“I would’ve drunk the stuff willingly if someone had asked me. Not you, there’s enough things I didn’t want you to know, but James, Peter.” Remus says, his voice hot, the words still spilling out of him.

“Peter said —— your werewolf tolerance. That it wouldn’t prove anything. He didn’t — he said we shouldn’t — ”

“You’re a coward.”

“I am,” Sirius says.

“You discussed this.” Remus says. It’s another wound, but it probably isn’t really a surprise. It’s logical, but it winds him anyway. Sirius aggressively rubs the palm of his hand across his cheeks, smearing blood over his skin, and —- and it’s worse than the abject humiliation of discovering that this distrust runs deep enough for this, that they’ve all been discussing how to out him as a spy, because Sirius had to fucking ask that. His skin is crawling with the shame of all of it; of how stupid it is, for him to have ever assumed enough inclusion for his presumptuous bloody feelings. “ Why did it have to be you?” Remus asks, the words coming out of his throat rough, much too close to begging, but he’s too saturated with it to feel anything close to embarrassment.

Sirius doesn’t answer. He looks entirely like he has no idea what to say. He’s used to Sirius looking larger than life, but now he looks small and tired. Lost. He has the ability to draw silence around him like a weapon, but this looks like it’s come upon him unwillingly, and Remus doesn’t know what to do with that. Sirius is so rarely meek that he doesn’t know what to feel or think.

Remus concentrates on slowing his breathing down and trying to conjure up some veneer of calm to get him through the rest of this. He shuts his eyes. His hands are tied to the chair, but he screws his fingers into fists anyway.

“Are you alright?” Sirius asks, after the silence has absorbed several long, painful minutes. Remus blinks his eyes open and stares at him.

“No,” Remus says, before he can think of what he’d like to say, the truth thoughtless pouring out of him. It’s a bloody stupid question and Sirius seems to know that by the way he’s wincing and leaning towards him.

“Remus,”

“I don’t want to look at you,” Remus says. “I am… humiliated and furious.”

Sirius makes a noise at the back of his throat. He stands up and starts pacing the corridor. His steps echo loudly into the space between them. Remus looks at the floor and continues to focus on breathing in and out, willing himself to be less aware of every bloody movement that Sirius is making, like some dissonance will stop the new waves of it rolling over him. He can’t, though, because Sirius is always so loud with his emotions, even if he rarely ever talks about them, and each step on the solid stone beneath their feet feels like another dull knife to the gut. They don’t trust him, they don’t trust him, they don’t trust him. Sirius doesn’t trust him.

Sirius cuts himself off early in the length of his pacing, turning around to face him with that restless energy back. It’s a kind of reckless agitation that he’d always known was a predecessor to Sirius doing something completely bloody stupid, that used to be caused by his mother until the war usurped her as the chief agitator in Sirius’ existence.

“Why did you lie about where you’ve been disappearing off to?”

“Dumbledore’s orders,” Remus says, except that’s not the whole truth, and he can’t swallow back the rest of his answer now because it’s clawing out of his throat. “And because it was horrible and I didn’t want to talk about it, because I don’t know how I feel about them and I didn’t want to be judged for it.”

“The werewolves?” Sirius asks, searching his expression like he’s trying to dissect him and understand him through sight alone. Technically, the fact that most of his absence have been due to liasing with the werewolves was a secret, but one of those that was always known. He has never actually confirmed it to any of them before, but the Veriterserum leaves him no option.

“Yes,”

Sirius nods and almost finishes pacing towards the wall, before he stops, seems to come to a decision. He puffs his shoulders out as if preparing for combat.

“Why didn’t you want to live with me?” Sirius asks.

“Because I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“ Why?”

“ Because I needed some space, after years, to attempt to get over you, rather than putting up with you being loud and demanding, taking up all the space physically and inside my head,” Remus says, feeling heat crawl up the back of his neck. There’s irritation too, at the implication of not wanting to put up with Sirius’ bloody music, or his motorbike, or his hookups being some valid reason to doubt his whole character. “ Because I couldn’t afford a quarter of your rent and I hate feeling like a charity case, because you’re inconsiderate about noise and mess and it looks like the whole place has been vomited on with red and gold and I don’t want to feel like a substitute James, with you comparing how much fun we are to live with every sodding day. Take your bloody pick of reasons, Sirius.”

“I, alright,” Sirius says, shortly. “Fair enough.”

“You gave me more, while I was unconscious.” Remus says, because now he feels almost dizzy with the truth, and he can feel the other-worldliness of the experience of picking out words. He was distracted at the pub, but he’s still sure that there’s more in his system now.

“I didn’t think,” Sirius begins, then looks almost embarrassed. He breaks his gaze. “I didn’t think it was working.”

“You stupid bastard.”

“I,” Sirius begins.

“ Stop it,” Remus cuts across, while he has some element of the upper hand, because he absolutely needs not to say anything else. “ This is cruel. You’re not being fair.”

“I,” he begins again, “I’m sorry,”

“I don’t care,” Remus says, which inherently must be true.

“I, Remus, I have to know ——”

“ No,” Remus interjects, pulse racing in his chest, before Sirius wrangles his stilted speech into an actual question he has to answer. He’s already said the worst of it, but there’s plenty of sodding details he’d rather die with than blurt out in the middle of this dank corridor, and right now he desperately wishes that none of it was true . Loving Sirius Black has always seemed like a bad idea, but it’s never seemed as entirely ruinous or unfair as it does right now. He’s never so passionately wished he could just stop. “You don’t get to come back from coercing me into this conversation, Sirius, you don’t. I don’t know how I’m supposed to forgive this, I don’t even know if I want to, if you even care if I can’t——that I —- if you ever cared about me at all, then you’d shut up .”

Sirius slams his jaw shut. He shuts his eyes and draws in a deep breath.

“What can I do?” He asks, quieter, slightly desperate. Some of the facade is stripped away, and it’s just Sirius, low and earnest. That doesn’t help. It hurts, mostly.

“Go away. Get someone else. Not James or Peter, just —- anyone else. ”

Sirius nods, closing in on himself. He pulls his wand out to conjure a patronus that he sends away and sits back down in silence, expressionless and unmoving.

Apparently, he called for Lily, which is certainly the best and kindest ‘anyone else’ that he could have picked. He doesn’t have it in him to be grateful for the act.

She turns up in a whirlwind of bright red hair looking distinctly more pregnant than when Remus last saw her, but even so she drops to her knees in front of him, pulling out her wand to do something about his bounds, looking electric with rage.

“ Don’t,” Remus says weakly, “Leave it. I’d rather just —- clear my name than put you in the firing line.”

“I didn’t know,” Lily says, folding her hands over his and squeezing his hands. That’s clearly true from the way her almond eyes are sharp with anger, the flush to her cheeks and the way she strode past Sirius like he didn’t exist, and it opens up a balloon of gratitude in his chest. Someone has faith in him. Someone wouldn’t have done it. “I’m going to kill him, Remus. I’m going to bloody kill him. ”

Remus manages a weak chuckle. He’d like to squeeze her hands back, but the way he’s tied makes it difficult. He settles for a tight smile.

“I think I would like them to experience pain and immense guilt, but I don’t want any of them to die. Ah, that’s the truth potion talking.”

Lily’s eyes flash and she makes to stand up. Sirius makes an aborted movement to help her to her feet, which she completely ignores and does it herself, even though it looks bloody awkward, at this point. She straightens herself up using the chair and she finally looks over at Sirius, her voice cold.

“How long are they going to be?” Lily demands. She was intimidating before she was pregnant, but there’s something about the power radiating off her now that makes her fury palpable. It makes Remus feel less angry, like he can outsource it somewhere else and instead feel everything else that’s been circling.

Sirius doesn’t answer. Remus assumes that’s because he doesn’t know. Lily makes a disparaging noise at the back of his throat that’s somehow more cutting and ruthless than anything Remus could’ve ever said.

“I want you to go, Sirius,” Remus says.

Sirius looks at him again. He looks somewhere between defeated and angry, although at what in particular Remus wouldn’t be able to guess. He holds the agitation of it in his shoulders, though, and he looks like he’s welded his own jaw shut. If Remus was generous, he’d say there was something pleading in the sharp grey gaze digging into him, but mostly it’s just concentration intensity. He nods once, curt, before he leaves without another word.

In the silence, Lily twists the chair around so it’s closer and facing him. She covers his hands with hers again, steadfast and kind, and he’s never felt so grateful for the existence of Lily Potter. It feels like a balm over some of the creeping hopelessness in his stomach.

“How bad was it?” Lily asks, softer now they’re alone. She’s picked her words carefully, too, given space in it for him to reply to whatever depths he’d like. Remus draws in another shuddering breath and shuts his eyes.

“From my perspective, rather awful,” Remus says, then he offers a grim smile. “It’s not over yet.”

“If Mad-Eye thinks he has free reign to ask you anything he wants, then he’s got another thing coming.”

“ Lily.”

“ No,” Lily says, fierce. “This shouldn’t never have happened in the first place, but it sounded like Black already asked enough to clear your name. They should’ve released you on the spot.”

“I didn’t get the impression he was supposed to ask me anything,” Remus says. “He was merely the delivery service.”

Lily swears quite colourfully. She’s going to be an incredible mother, if the war lets them. Remus still thinks they’re certifiably insane to be doing this in this backdrop, but she’ll be incredible nonetheless.

“Lily, thank you.”

“Nonsense,” Lily says, squeezing his hand tightly before she finally withdraws it. They sit for a while as Remus steadies himself. Mostly, that involves trying not to think about them at all, but they only fucking thing he can think about is James and Peter and Sirius discussing this. Debating it. Deciding whether it was worth pissing all over their friendship.

“Remus,” Lily says, after a while. She’s looking at him carefully, with a dangerous level of understanding and compassion that means Remus is unlikely to like what comes next. “Did you tell him?” Lily asks. She’s kept it deliberately vague, which is a kindness in itself, but mostly he’s struck by the fact that she knows enough to ask. He’s not really surprised . Lily has always been whip smart and whip people-smart. She figured out about his lycanthropy staggeringly fast, considering they weren’t really friends at the time. He’d noted some of the edge to some of the questions she’d asked about Sirius. She hadn’t asked for or expected an explanation for why he didn’t want to move in with him and he’d thought, fleetingly, that he’d felt a set of curious green eyes on them at the Longbottom wedding. The only real surprise is that she feels confident enough in her assumption to ask, and assume shared knowledge.

“Yes,” Remus says, haunted.

“Bastard,” Lily mutters.

Right now, he’d find it difficult to disagree.

Chapter Text

Sirius gives him a grand total of four hours to lick his wounds before he shows up at his flat. It’s the middle of the fucking night, by now, not that Remus had made any attempt at going to bed since Mad-Eye finished with him. Sirius evidently expected that and there’s no one else he’d anticipate showing up at three in the bloody morning in the middle of a damn war, and he’s tired and upset, and he’d probably rather get the rest of this disaster over with, so he lets him without a word and locks the door and the rest of the wards after him.

Sirius looks wretched. Properly grim, actually, like he’s spent the last few hours running his hands through his hair and beating himself up and maybe crying. He still hasn’t done anything about either his bloody nose or the bruising on his eye, despite being more than capable of doing so and it’s now dried rust-brown across his face. Remus hasn’t seen him look like this since the incident with Snape and Remus isn’t altogether sure whether this is better or worse or hurts in just about the same way. On the other hand, Remus is relatively sure that he must look worse with the way it feels rather like a black hole has opened up in his chest and is slowly taking over all the memories and thoughts that he’d been using to cling on to these last few months, because none of them feel real anymore. He can’t have ever been the carefree, or happy, or accepted, if it only took a few fucking years for it to descend to this.

Still, his chest flips at the sight of him. It’s almost always been more painful than pleasant and now it splits open something new and raw. It’s just wonderful, the way Sirius has this ability to break him.

Remus stalks to the kitchen and pours them both a measure of fire whiskey — his third, if they’re counting — then sits down and stares at him. His flat gives no real ability to hide from any of this. There’s two rooms, with the second being a bathroom so tiny you can barely turn around in it, and everything else is squashed into the tiny, dank corners of the place. Remus sits in the centre of the mouldy sofa because he’s not inclined to give up one inch of comfort for the rest of this conversation. Sirius takes the single other chair. He twists it round to face him, then sits and stares for long enough that - on most days - Remus would break the silence, but he’s not doing the bloody work today. He’s not doing a bloody thing.

“ Remus,” Sirius says, eventually. The word feels rather like Sirius has a hand tightly gripped around his heart and has just squeezed it, crushed it in his fist, but Remus deliberately does not react. Sirius got enough of his emotions spilling out earlier and he’s not going to be undone by something pathetic as Sirius saying his name like he’s begging for something. His real name, rather than any of his monikers. Sirius doesn’t use it much. More than James, actually, but somehow whenever Sirius does it, it sounds more intimate. He’s not falling for it, though. He swirls his fire whiskey round his glass, gaze pointedly fixed on the amber liquid.

“What do you want, Sirius?r”

“Has it worn off?” Sirius asks.

“Yes,” Remus says. Sirius nods and swallows. He hasn’t touched his drink. He’s just staring at a spot over Remus’ left shoulder with his shoulders bunched together.

“I can dose myself up for this conversation, if you prefer.” Sirius offers, and it comes out slightly defiant, but that Sirius-brand that he’s long since used to cover vulnerability. He knows it well.

“Don’t bother,” Remus says, and his voice sounds cold and harsh. Much more level than he feels. “Save the Order’s supply of Veritaserum and just tell me the truth like a fucking adult.”

Sirius nods curtly. He looks down at his hands. He stares at them for a long time. There’s still blood and dirt crusted on the lines of his palms.

“What you —-,” Sirius begins, then cuts himself off to look at him. “I didn’t know that you had feelings for me.”

It is probably not the place Remus would’ve chosen to start and it is exceptionally far down the list of things he wants to talk about.

“You knew you were supposed to be my best friend.”

“Yes,” Sirius says, and he sounds haunted. He rubs his face roughly with the heel of his palms and sits up straighter, facing him head on. “I thought it was you because you’re the last person I’d want it to be, because you’d be the most effective — making everyone like you — because,” Sirius says, and roughly ruffles up his hair, “You’ve been so distant, secretive, I never know what’s going on with you anymore, and you fob me off if I try and talk to you about it — ”

“ — you haven’t really tried to talk to me about anything for weeks, Sirius. Months, actually.”

“I know,” Sirius says, with bite. It’s not clear where the bite is directed at. “I always over think every fucking thing you ever say and I — - I don’t know, I felt rejected when you said you wouldn’t live with me.

“God, I’m fucking sorry, Sirius, feeling rejected must’ve been awful.”

“I —- yes, I deserve that,” Sirius says, nodding. His jaw is set. “I know, Moony, there’s no excuse.”

“There isn’t,” Remus agrees, and he knocks back the rest of his fire whiskey. He’s shaking slightly.

“I’m not trying to —— justify myself,” Sirius says, and he picks up his own glass with this white-knuckle grip, “I just —- we never saw you anymore.”

“I had a job, Sirius.”

“You had half a dozen fucking jobs, Moony, and you wouldn’t talk about any of them, or say what had happened, why you were burning through them, and you —- you’ve always been good at dodging things you don’t want to bloody talk about, I know that, but you —- you can’t afford this place, we all know that, and I didn’t understand —- ”

“Fuck you,” Remus says, standing up. He walks to the kitchen for something to do that isn’t punch him in the face again, his adrenaline spiking hard. He’s sure that he’d never been this angry in his entire life and it is blinding, and he’s vibrating with it. He clutches hold of his kitchen cabinet and tries to breathe, forcing himself to calm, because -- somewhere, deep down, he doesn’t want to cause anymore damage.

“ Remus.” Sirius says, and he’s following him, the dumb bastard.

“You know why I lost those fucking jobs, Sirius. You know. You think I’d sell out my friends, for money ?”

“No,” Sirius says, punchy. “No.”

“ Benjy Fenwick. Dorcas Meadowes. Caradoc Dearborn. You thought I did that, to pay my fucking rent?” Remus demands. They’re standing close enough together in the kitchen that Remus can see every minute change in expression, and it flickers slightly at the final name. “ What?” He demands.

Sirius looks pained. He wrings his hands.

“Marlene … she thought you’d taken up with him again.” Sirius says, which is such a change in direction that it takes Remus a minute to catch up.

“So Marlene is in on this fucking plan, too?”

“ No, no, she was just —— gossiping,” Sirius says, waving this away. “But I —- I thought maybe he just wanted out, and you— you helped, and that you were lying but not —”

“ That’s why you kept bringing him up at the pub,” Remus says, slowly, shaking his head. “He’s dead , Sirius. He’s not out of the war on some holiday, he’s dead.”

Sirius’ jaw squares.

“I know that,” Sirius says, “But there wasn’t a body, and I wanted someone not to be dead. I wanted —- at least if someone found a way out…”

“And I did it?” Remus demands.

“I don’t know,” Sirius says, “I just knew that you were lying about another thing, Moony, that none of your behaviour made any sense to me and you — you didn’t say anything about it, about Dearborn.”

“And, let’s get this straight, you thought I was secretly bloody dating Dearborn, and he disappears for four months, no word, and your response —- your fucking response to that, instead of asking me if I’m alright, is to suspect me of being involved, to trick me to the pub, to drug me and deliver me for questioning. Because, what? I’m skint and didn’t want to live with you?”

“It’s not just that,” Sirius says, frustration packed into his voice. “The Death Eaters never show up on your missions and —- you were the last person to see Dorcas and … things only you know about get out, when you’re the only one never giving straight answers about where you’ve been and —- ”

“That’s Order protocol, Sirius, and you —- how would you know when and where Death Eaters have shown up when I’m not under your nose, being the nice domesticated werewolf and Marauder groupie? I thought —- I thought we were more than that. I thought I mattered to you.”

“You do fucking matter,” Sirius says, “Remus, you know you fucking matter.”

“I don’t, actually,” Remus cuts in. “I feel like shit, Sirius, I feel like none of it was real, because I couldn’t —- I would never have believed you capable of what you believed about me . Never. Even if I watched you do any one of those things, I wouldn’t believe it.”

“That’s because you’re better than me,” Sirius says, “ Remus, no one has ever thought you’re a groupie, or bloody domesticated, I —- Moony, thinking this has been tearing me up, I hated it, I — you didn’t deserve it, you, I know I fucked up and you shouldn’t — you shouldn’t forgive me, I just —- you all but disappeared and I…. ”

“ You didn’t try to see me.” Remus counters.

“ You didn’t try, either.” Sirius echo’s back, the words snapping back into the room.

“I thought you didn’t want me anymore,” Remus says, “Now that we’re in the real world, and I’m a social piranha, and it’s not fun, anymore, to run around with your pet werewolf —”

“ — no one has ever thought of you like that,”

“And it’s better, is it, to think I’m capable of selling you all to Voldemort?”

“Of course it isn’t,” Sirius says, some of the heat petering out of his voice. He’s shrinking again. He swallows. “I was scared.”

He looks it, too. It cuts across some of the worst of the rage for a minute, so that he’s able to think clearly. Sirius is so very rarely openly scared. Usually, he masks it in chasing humour and distraction, or the surly silence.

“Well, same, Sirius.” Remus says, and it somehow cuts the momentum out of the conversation and leaves them back in silence. Remus’ heavy breathing evens out and he stares at him, trying to understand. Fear makes sense. Sirius has never been good at fear. He can understand fear.

Remus sets his empty glass down on the square of the kitchen counter. He’d had it in his hands when he’d gotten to his feet. He doesn’t refill it. The ‘click’ of the glass against the surface feels very loud.

“So,” Sirius says, after the silence has drawn on and they’re mostly standing in the kitchen eyeing each other like neither of them are sure if the other is about to attack. “He was your boyfriend?”

It’s a stupid way to diffuse the situation, but it does work. Remus is almost amused by it, even though it’s awful. The lack of sensitivity about bringing him up at all has been awful, but they’d all settled on their own strategies of dealing with it. The only way seemed to be through it.

“No,” Remus says, a little shortly.

“Marlene —- ”

“Why listen to Marlene rather than just ask me in the first place?” Remus says, impatience creeping back in..

“ Moony, I can’t ask you about your love life,” Sirius says, for all the world like it’s obvious why. Remus thins his lips.

“There was one additional hook up.”

“I thought I was one additional hook up.” Sirius says, looking at him through his bloody eyelashes and — of all the things Remus wanted brought into this conversation, that is far down the list, but of course Sirius would continue to be exactly himself in any given bloody moment.

“You were a bad idea.” Remus says, not taking his eyes off him as reaches for his cigarettes, because if they’re talking about this after Remus has already cut himself off alcohol, then he needs a smoke.

“Which time?” Sirius asks, faux-sweetly.

“Every time,” Remus says. He pointedly doesn’t offer Sirius one as he lights it. His hands are still slightly unsteady, but the nicotine helps. His ashtray is still on the coffee table, so he pushes past him to get back to his seat.

Sirius doesn’t sit back down, but he does follow him like a bad shadow. He hovers over him.

“Remus, I’m sorry,” Sirius says, his voice lower and more syrupy. There’s sincerity in it, but Remus is relatively sure that isn’t enough. His pride has been fucking shot at but, more than that, he feels shaken. The things he’s built his worldview on aren’t true anymore.

“I thought,” Remus begins, and his voice is back to shaky and emotional. He preferred being snappish. “I thought, out of the whole bloody world, that the three of you understood me. Had my back.”

“I know,” Sirius says, low, “I know this is —- unforgivable. Horrible. It’s my fault. Don’t blame James, he didn’t really —- he said you wouldn’t, and I —- he said some of those things, about why you wouldn’t want to move in, about money, about me being shit to live with, about —- about how he thought you felt.”

That’s another blow, but there’s been so many tonight it’s barely worth counting them. He barely has an ego left to bruise.

“I told him he had to be wrong about that.” Sirius says.

“Oh?” Remus asks, feigning a lack of interest as he takes another drag on his cigarette. Sirius shifts to be back in his eyeline.

“I told him, about, well. Our … extracurriculars , and that you’d wanted to leave it be.” Sirius says, which is an interesting interpretation of events.

“It’s funny, I don’t remember us having a conversation about that.”

“Don’t be a prick , Moony, regardless of how you feel it’s clear to me that you never intended for me to have any knowledge of it.”

Remus snorts, because it’s such a Sirius move to call him a prick when he rightfully should be begging for an apology. He hates how amused and fond it makes him feel. He also can’t argue with it. Not really. He put considerable effort into ensuring there was no natural moment to talk about it. He has never even really entertained the notion of bringing up this conversation.

Sirius knows him very well, most of the time. That’s part of what feels so shattering. He’d have said that Sirius understood him better than anyone he’s ever met.

Remus proffers the pack of cigarettes in his direction. Sirius accepts one and sits back down on his creaky chair. He lights it with his fingertips, in that way they perfected in fifth year. He remembers Sirius’ eyes lighting up with excitement, full of wonder and mischief. Now, he looks worn out and wary.

He clears his throat before he actually brings it to his lips.

“And I’m —— suppose that was your prerogative, so. I didn’t mean to make you tell me. I —- that was an accident.”

Remus inhales another lungful of nicotine, watching his face carefully. Right now, he’s difficult to read and Remus doesn’t really know what to say about any of it, so he focuses on stubbing the ash of his cigarette into the ashtray. It was a gift from Sirius, which doesn’t help.

“And this revelation about my supposed feelings or lack of feelings made James lose all faith in me, did it?”

“No,” Sirius says. “But, he hadn’t known about it and, well, he was… surprised.”

“ I’m surprised,” Remus says, which isn’t quite the truth. He had assumed Sirius had kept it to himself because he’d watched James’ behaviour like a hawk in the weeks after that first time, just in case James was the one who tried to broach the conversation with him in some misguided attempt at being a good friend. He had expected Sirius to tell him. “ Must’ve been the longest you’ve ever kept anything from James Potter.”

“I was following your lead.”

“You wanted me to tell James Potter?” Remus asks, arching an eyebrow at him.

Sirius rolls his eyes.

“You didn’t seem like you wanted it to be public knowledge. You’re —private. I wanted to respect that.”

“There’s a first.” Remus comments. “Or is it fine, then, as long as you know all the sordid details?”

“ Moony,” Sirius complains, which is irritating.

“I didn’t know sleeping with you less than half a dozen times across several years made me automatically untrustworthy. I should warn the rest of us.”

“For Merlin’s sake,” Sirius mutters irritably, “It wasn’t anything to do with that, it’s just —- even James had to admit that you’re good at secrets.”

“I’m a werewolf.” Remus deadpans. “So only a bit James , not Lily, but I can blame Peter by omission.” Sirius swallows guiltily. “Great,” Remus says, and stubs out the rest of his cigarette for later. He has less than half a pack left and he is flat out broke. Obviously, Sirius isn’t wrong about that.

“ Remus,” Sirius says, in that tone of voice again. It’s desperate and compelling, steeped in regret and hurt, and it does that thing to his chest again. Remus looks back up at him. “You haven’t asked what I felt about it. Ever, actually.”

“I suppose I haven’t,” Remus says, neutrally.

“It might have helped.” Sirius says, “For us to actually have a conversation.” Remus hums. Vanishes away the cigarette ash with his wand. His insides feel like they’ve turned to concrete. He doesn’t want to look at him. “Because I’m — I was jealous, I always have been jealous.”

“Stop it, Sirius,” Remus says, pinching his forehead. “I’m not in the mood for you poking at my feelings.”

“I wouldn’t,” Sirius says, then seems to regret the declaration given the context of everything else that’s happened today. “I’m not.” He corrects himself. “ Remus.”

“Please, Sirius, just —- leave it alone. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Remus, you never —— you never had relationships, you only had flings, and I thought — after, when you just brushed it off that you didn’t want me. It didn’t happen again for a year, and I —- you didn’t say,” Sirius says, pressing his fingers into his temple. “You never said anything.”

Remus arches an eyebrow at him. The subtext of it seems to be understood by the way Sirius huffs.

“I tried to flirt with you.”

“You flirt with everyone.”

“You don’t flirt with anyone.” Sirius counters.

Remus sucks in a breath and exhales. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with any of this.

“I don’t think any of this matters,” Remus says, coolly.

“How can it not matter? Moony --”

“Because you just drugged me in a pub and dragged me in for questioning,” Remus says, “Thinking I’d be capable of trying to get you all killed, if that is your version of --- whatever feelings you’re claiming to have for me, then I can live without it, Sirius.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“I don’t believe you,” Remus affirms, “I believe you’re walking in here trying to make anything about what happened today better and saying anything you can think of to make me feel better, when you have broken it, Sirius. My trust. My understanding of you, us. My belief that I have friends, at all, out of some stupid, misplaced —”

“— there is a spy, Remus, someone is doing it, I’ve never —— I’ve never been so relieved to be wrong in my entire life, it’s been killing me, doubting you, I —

“I am sorry this has been bad for you, Black.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Sirius says, heated. “Remus, please, I’m —- I know I’ve buggered it up spectacularly, but I’m not saying anything to make you feel better, I’m --- it’s been years of me being hopeless and stupid. I’m no fucking good at it, obviously, but I am. I do, Moony.” Sirius says, then he stops and picks up his half-empty glass of fire whiskey. He drains the rest of it. “I’m in love with you, whether you want to hear it or not.”

The words ring in his ears. He’s too saturated to really process anything else. He is tired, his head is spinning and he has absolutely no idea what he feels about that. He does understand vaguely that, once, that would be considered good news.

“Well,” Remus says, “Congratulations, Padfoot. You’re officially worse at wooing than James Potter. I never thought I’d see the day he was dethroned.”

Sirius huffs and reaches for the bottle and tops up his glass again. He sits back in his chair and stares at him, his expression something akin to sulking, but stormy.

“So, that’s it. You won’t talk about it. Take me seriously.”

“Other things on my mind, Pads,” Remus says. He exhales and pinches his forehead. “You fucking idiot.”

“No arguments here,” Sirius mutters back. “So, what did you tell him?”

“Mad-eye?” Remus asks, “Well, Lily made him stick to his script, but yes, your little canine trick is out of the bag. And the map. And half a dozen other stupid things we did. He asked if I’d ever lied to Dumbledore. I suspect we’ll all be the first graduates to be retroactively expelled.”

“Another Marauder first,” Sirius says with a faux-smile, lifting his glass aloft. “We’ll be in the record books.”

Remus snorts and shakes his head. His chest aches. He wants another drink.

“You broke my heart, you know.” Remus says. His tone is conversational and light, but he can tell by the way that Sirius looks at him that he knows that he’s completely serious.

“I know,” Sirius says, and he puts his glass down. His expression turns solemn again and he half-leans forward in his seat, about to say something.

He never finds out what.

He’s cut off by the dim flat suddenly being flooded by light, as a brilliant silver stag bursts in the room.

“James,” Remus says, already up on his feet with his wand in his hand.

“It’s Peter,” The stag says, in James’ voice “He’s just confessed under the influence of Veritaserum. Mad-Eye has ordered a lockdown until we know more. Padfoot — stay where you are until we have more information.”

“ James,” Remus says, desperately, because he needs more , because he --- Peter -- but the stag has already turned in the air, galloping off and disappearing in a wisp of smoke, leaving them alone with a grenade in their midst.

Remus realises he’s speaking, the words having risen up in his throat like vomit, a chorus of ‘no, no, no’, and he’s tugging at his jumper and it’s -- - it’s too much, after every other thing today, it’s too much, the horror of it sinking under his skin.

Sirius is on his feet.

Peter.

“That bastard,” Sirius hisses through his teeth. He’s alive with fury.

“He,” Remus begins, his mouth moving at the same time as his thoughts, something cold travelling down his spine, into his bones. “He was setting me up.”

“Yes,” Sirius growls, and there’s something about the word that means Remus knows, abruptly, what Sirius is about to do. It feels like he’s snapped back into his own body -- away from the realisation that Peter, Peter, who struggled with basic charms but could beat anyone in Hogwarts at chess, who laughed with his whole body, who learned how to be a rat for him, that Peter -- and he’s moving on instinct, wand out, and he sends Sirius flying across the room.

Sirius ends up sprawled at the foot of the refrigerator. He makes a muted roar of anger and tries to grab for his wand, but it buys Remus just enough time to cast an anti-apparition charm and another ward that’s strong enough that the force of it feels like a slap in the face. It locks itself around them, boxing them in.

“ Moony, you have to-” Sirius growls, struggling up to his feet. “That rat, I’ll kill him, I’ll --- .”

Remus strides across the room. He rips his wand out of Sirius’ hand and Sirius doesn’t even try to stop him, incoherent with rage, shaking with it.

“ Remus.”

“No,” He says, cold and cutting. Sirius makes a noise of complaint at the back of his throat. “ The instruction is to stay.”

“Remus,” Sirius says again, that agitation packed in his lungs, and Remus growls and grabs him by the scruff of his collar, because he is furious too. With Peter, with Sirius and James, with the war and with Mad-Eye, and fucking Voldemort too; for what he has done to them. They were happy. They sat by the lake and laughed, alive and bright, and it’s all been ripped away from them with cruelly and precision. Peter. Peter. Peter. “Let me go,” Sirius spits, “Let me ---”

Remus pushes him back up against the fridge, eyes flashing.

“I am not losing anything else. ” Remus growls, and the simmering heat in the words seems to be enough to snap Sirius out of it. Sirius stops struggling. He stares at him, instead, with those bright grey eyes. A lock of his hair falls into his face. They’re centimetres apart. He looks harrowed, aged with dried blood, dirt and the emotion of all of it. He’s exhausted. He has so clearly been exhausted for months. “Not another fucking thing, okay?”

“Okay,” Sirius agrees, and then he roughly grabs a handful of jumper and pulls him in until they collide, and it all descends after that.

Chapter Text

It’s been a bleak June so far, but it’s a bright morning. Remus is relatively sure that his flat looks better at night, like the sunlight that manages to sneak into the room through either of the tiny, rickety windows throws into contrast how dingy it really is. It was already starting to get light by the time they went to sleep, but now it feels like Summer is trying to declare itself in earnest, flooding light into the dust and grime and misery.

He should still be asleep. He can feel the exhaustion heavy in his bones and a headache pressing in. The scant hours he caught before the light woke him up were insufficient, but now he’s awake he’s thinking and there’s enough to think about to keep him awake for lifetimes.

To his left, Sirius is still asleep, sprawled across the bed on his front. Even in sleep, he’s somehow entitled enough to have stolen the best pillow, which he’s half burying his face into and half hugging to his chest and Remus does not know how he feels about it. His throat feels thick and painful even looking at him. For a long time, he has considered the situation well-managed that he has slept with Sirius Black five times (now six) without it having a significant impact on their friendship and, apparently, having gone widely unknown or unacknowledged, but there’s no brushing this under the carpet, with the sharp edges of betrayal and humiliation, their whole relationship re-shaped by mistrust and forced-honesty. It wasn’t the same last night. They’d held each other differently, with desperation and pain.

Remus half sits up with his back against the bed and reaches for the pack of cigarettes on the windowsill he uses as a bedside table and lights one to clear his head. It doesn’t help much, but he does feel calmer.

The first time had been somewhere in the midst of their Sixth year. He’d been trying to finish his homework, Sirius had been bored and was therefore attempting to occupy his attention through any means necessary. On that occasion, it had taken the shape of something that was halfway between proposition and a joke, with some insinuation that he had no proof that Remus wasn’t the prudish bookworm he presented himself as and Remus had been irritated and rattled with that something prickling under his skin, the way it always would when he had Sirius lazing on the other side of his bed with his limbs bloody everywhere, presumptuous and unreasonably charming despite being a total prat, and he just wanted to shut him up, so he’d said ‘ fine then’ with promise and he’d expected Sirius to back down, but he didn’t, and he’d expected himself to back down, and instead he’d inadvertently invited a game of gay chicken, forgetting they were both pig headed and stubborn Gryffindors and no one was due back in the dorm for hours. After, Sirius had just stared at him and Remus had come back to his senses and felt exposed and very vulnerable and completely terrified, and he’d patted him on the shoulder, reclaimed his discarded books and said ‘night, Pads’ to never discuss it again.

He’s still not quite sure how the second time even happened, except that there was a precedent, then, and they’d been left in charge of getting the alcohol after their seventh year Quidditch Cup victory and he somehow wound up on his knees behind the portrait of Bertrand the Barmy.

And then, three months after that, he’d been helping Sirius properly move into his flat while James was in Cokeworth trying to convince Lily’s parents that he was charming and trustworthy, and the sudden novelty of having a bedroom in an empty flat rather than a whole dormitory had led to a rather grave misjudgment, because that time he couldn’t even convince himself that it wasn’t really a big deal given they hadn’t gone the whole hog , because they very much did.

After that, he started to recognise the look : this slow and intense look, with this unvoiced spark, Sirius’ eye on him from across the room, and there’d be this shared understanding and expectation, without ever having a conversation. There’d been a few near misses, where it very much felt like they were heading in the trajectory until one of them changed course. It only actually happened twice more, which Remus had considered to be a relatively successful track record of self-control. They were sharing a hotel room after the Longbottom wedding and he’d caught his eye somewhere in the middle of the speeches and it all felt very obvious where they were ending up and, hell, maybe the possibility had been lining the whole plan. The last time had been more reckless and stupid, barely a month later, at the flat Remus shared with Lily for those scant months before the Potters got engaged, and Lily had been out, but only briefly. She was back home by the time that Sirius left and it was that fact, and how soon it had been after the time before, and they hadn’t exactly been subtle at the wedding, that wormed its way into his head and reignited that fear and made Remus consider the fact that maybe it wasn’t under control after all.

He had tried to reinstate some distance. He’d nearly caved after Lily and James’ wedding, the day being so full of brightness and joy, of Sirius’ loud laughter, of all of them radiating this happiness that lit them up from the inside out that it felt hard to hold onto anything serious, but they’d already had the conversation about Remus not moving in with Sirius by then and he was scared shitless that if Sirius asked again he’d lose any semblance of resolve.

He’s not sure where in the midst of it all, Sirius was supposed to have developed feelings for him. He’s not sure when he forgot that he’d tried to create some space between them, first.

Sirius reaches out and kicks him in the shin.

Remus looks down to see him looking up at him, slightly bleary, with one eye cracked open. His legs are twisted together in the bedsheets. He’s gotten a new tattoo since the last time Remus has seen him without a shirt on and he’s not sure if he knew about that. He’s had Sirius talk animatedly about all the rest. He’d gone with him for the first, sneaking out to muggle London on a Hogsmede weekend.

“You’re overthinking.” Sirius says. “Stop it.”

“You underthink, I’m pulling up the average.”

“Depends on the circumstances,” Sirius says, dislodging his head from the pillow slightly to look at him better. He yawns. “Go back to sleep, Moony.”

Remus stubs out his cigarette and shifts down the bed, lying back down till they’re looking at each other. He’s stuck by the absurd length of his eyelashes, those aristocratic cheekbones. He’s not sure if it’s better or worse for Sirius to doubt him so thoroughly if he is in love with him, or for him to be led around into doubting him by a friend; both factors have confused things rather than clarified anything.

“I’ve overthought us plenty.” Sirius admits, with that raw, intense look.

“Apparently.” Remus says back, and stares back at him. “This was probably inadvisable.” Remus says, but he’s not sure he really means it. He doesn’t really regret it. It’s left him with more questions that all rather feel like they’re pushing in on all sides in a pretty solid attempt to crush him, but it’s not the worst thing that could’ve happened. If he looks at it pragmatically, he’s not entirely sure where else they could’ve ended up. Dumbledore’s orders — the official ones coming in an hour and a half after James’ patronus — made it clear that they weren’t allowed to go anywhere until further notice. Sirius has never been any good at being caged up and Remus is too saturated to be in control, which was always going to be a bad combination. Sleeping together was probably a better place to direct all that intensity and emotion than cutting each other to shreds, verbally or otherwise. He feels slightly more mellowed out. Clamer.

“Never been very good at taking advice,” Sirius mutters.

Remus chuckles despite himself.

“True, that.” Remus agrees. “And on top of all of it, you’ve hogged the best pillow and all the bloody covers.”

“Come on now, Moony, that other one is shit.” Sirius says, smirking slightly at him.

“Pillow princess.” Remus throws out, kicking him back.

Sirius barks a laugh and untangles his legs from the covers, throwing half of it unceremoniously in the direction of Remus’ limbs.

“There you go, you big whiner,” Sirius says.

“Prat.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, then his expression flickers and the humour is extinguished. “Sorry. Know you prefer to get into this with an exit strategy, and now we’re stuck here and you have to put up with me.”

“It’s never been nearly as calculated as that,” Remus says, mildly. He’d like to drink in the exact changes in Sirius' expression to get some kind of insight into what he thinks, but he’s always dealt with this with the veneer that it wasn’t a big deal and it’s a difficult habit to break. It’s pointless to keep it up, but he doesn’t know what else to do.

“I didn’t,” Sirius begins, then cuts himself off. “You don’t need to worry, Remus, I don’t think this makes any of this okay between us, or that you’ve forgiven me.”

“True,” Remus agrees, “You’re not that good in bed.”

“Shut up,” Sirius says, a spark of that amusement flaring up again. It doesn’t last. “I know it doesn’t mean anything.”

Remus sighs and looks up at the ceiling.

“I don’t know about that, Pads.” He says. He sounds as tired as he feels, voice split open with something vulnerable, but at least that’s more honest.

“Obviously, I’d prefer it if it did, but. Wouldn’t hold it against you,” Sirius says.

“I’m a bit confused, to be honest,” Remus says, looking back at him.

“ Do you believe me?” Sirius asks, scanning his expression.

“About what?” Remus asks, pinching his forehead and sighing. “I don’t know, Sirius. Nothing I believed yesterday morning feels like it holds true anymore. I —- I wouldn’t’ve believed any of it. That you’d suspect me, that you’d — that you’d do that, that Peter…” he trails off, because the words taste too unpleasant at the back of his throat. They both fall silent for a while. “James must’ve figured it out.”

“Yes,” Sirius agrees.

“So he was ,” Remus begins, swallows, “He was steering you in my direction.”

“He,” Sirius begins, his expression darkening. “Yes. He —- he didn’t want to do it, veritaserum, kept saying it wouldn’t prove anything. Obviously he knew that it would mess up his plan , and —- would’ve seen that if I stopped to fucking think properly and —- that swine.”

“How long, Sirius?”

“Months,” he says, stormy and bitter. “I don’t know when, but he —- he’s been playing me, off my insecurities, I —- I’m a fool, listening to him I —- I thought it came from me, that I was the first person to say it out loud, I’ve been hating myself for it, and now I’m… he’d ask me all these questions about where you’d been, where you were, just casual questions, and they stuck in my head and I —- bloody stupid.”

“You’ve always underestimated Peter.” Remus says, which probably isn’t a very fair or kind thing to say but he doesn’t have it in him to be fair or kind right now. He feels sick. He can’t find it within him to comfort Sirius about this. “He saw us. At the Longbottom Wedding. Before we left. I —- I remember him noticing us.”

Sirius sucks a breath in between his teeth. He doesn’t say anything else, but it lands heavily. His eyes turn darker, angrier. “Any news from James or Dumbledore?” He asks, eventually.

“No.”

“Still stuck here, then?”

“Yes.”

“When do you need to get to work?” Sirius asks. Remus exhales and rolls onto his back.

“Not an issue,” Remus says, idly picking at the sheets. He stares out over the apartment. Sirius doesn’t comment on it, but he can hear the judgement about the lack of disclosure very clearly in his silence. “It shouldn’t’ve been easy, Sirius, it shouldn’t’ve been possible for him to…” his voice cuts out, the reality of it clawing up his throat.

“Remus,”

“I need a cup of tea for this,” Remus says, throwing the sheets off his legs. He’d almost forgotten that he’s naked and he pauses to reclaim his underwear, picking his way across the flat to get to the kettle. It’s creeping up on him again. It’s … all of it. Peter —- Peter, not just betraying them, but planning it, assessing them and exploiting them for weaknesses; Sirius being primed to doubt and James being easy to convince; Sirius hands on him last night; that I’m in love with you and the violation of being tricked and forced into telling the truth, of Peter, Peter, Peter.

His hands are shaking as he gets out a mug.

Peter set him up.

They shared a bedroom for seven years. Remus saw him two weeks ago and Peter had asked about his mother’s health and whether he’d seen the others lately, and all the while he was planning to set him up, twisting everyone’s opinion against him.

“Remus,” Sirius mutters, suddenly behind him. His voice is soft but impatient, as he knocks his hands out the way and takes over the business of making tea. Remus doesn’t fight it because he’s not got anything left in him to fight with and — Merlin, he’s tired, heavy with it — and then the rest of it hits him. It’s a physical pain in the gut. He’d been projecting his emotion af the wall, but now it overtakes him. “Come on, Moony,” Sirius says, gently nudging him back in the direction he came from. The back of his legs hit the bed frame. His knees give way. Less than a minute later, Sirius presses the cup of tea into his hands and Remus starts to cry.

He rarely does it. He can’t remember the last funeral he cried at or what else might have driven him to tears, but they’re coming now from somewhere deep in his gut. He didn’t know crying could involve his whole body, but it does, and he —- he couldn’t tell you what he was crying over, Peter, or Sirius, pitying tears for himself of the war — but they keep coming.

Sirius reaches forward and clutches his shoulder, fortifying and solid. He hasn’t done anything more than pull on his underwear, either, but that feels all very irrelevant and inconsequential right now. Remus slumps against his chest, hides his face in his skin and weeps.

“It’s alright,” Sirius says, low and soothing. Remus swallows a lungful of air and screws his eyes shut to stop it. “It’s alright.”

“What’s alright?” Remus asks, reaching up and roughly rubbing his cheeks dry. “ Nothing about this is —“

“At least we know,”

“Know what?” Remus asks, “What did he confess too? How —- how long has he been…? Why? ”

“We’ll find out,” Sirius says, “ Remus,” Sirius says again, but there’s nothing more to say. There’s no platitudes or way to make it feel smaller, really.

Eventually, he cries himself out and stills. He pulls himself away from Sirius and rights himself. Blinks out into the room.

“Get some more sleep, Moony, you look like shit,” Sirius says, gently. He doesn’t really have it in him to argue. He is exhausted. He feels like shit. He feels like he’s been hit with a brick wall. His limbs ache with it. He stares at Sirius, poised on the edge of a question about what he’s going to do while Remus sleeps, what the fuck they’re doing here, what Sirius wants or excepts to happen next, when Sirius promptly turns into Padfoot and leaps up onto the edge of the bed.

“Avoidant prat,” Remus mutters, as he reclaims the good pillow. Padfoot barks and settles himself curled up against Remus’ side. Remus exhales sharply then reaches out to stroke the fur into his ears and he falls back asleep feeling heavy and sad and more confused than ever.

*

When he wakes up a second time the full midday sun is streaming through the window and Sirius is sitting on the other side of his bed with a book cracked open over his knees. He’s pale and drawn out and looks about as bad as Sirius is ever capable of looking, eyes darting across the page so quickly Remus is sure he can’t possibly be taking it in. He’s always pale, but now he looks like he’s been emptied of colour.

“Any news?” Remus asks, sitting up slowly. His voice is hoarse from crying, which he hates.

“Yes,” Sirius says, gruffly. “You’re out of fire whiskey.”

They’d left a third of it in the bottle last night, but he’s not really surprised about the development. There was a point shortly after he’d drifted off last night where he’d felt the mattress shift, heard Sirius creaking around, the sound of the bottle being unscrewed. He’d been closer to asleep than awake, but he clocked it then.

“Is that how you’ve been dealing with things, then?” Remus asks, assessing him. He’s never had a good relationship with alcohol, but Remus had found himself quietly monitoring it from afar since the end of Hogwarts.

“Yes,” Sirius says, which is surprisingly honest. Sour. “You know I’m shit at being on my own.”

“Brilliant,” Remus mutters. He balls his fists into the covers. “How’s that been helping with the paranoia, then?”

“Is it paranoia if someone is out to get you?” Sirius asks sweetly. Remus shakes his head and exhales, struggling to catch up with the fact he’s dealing with this rough, jagged-edged Sirius. He knows this iteration well, but it’s a jarring jump from what else he’s had this morning. “Tried to make breakfast, too.” Sirius says, and there’s a lot packed in there. Heated-frustration feels like it’s the emotion closest to the surface.

“Ah,” Remus says, squaring his jaw. He wants to be needled that Sirius has been poking around his flat, but he can’t work himself up to it. They’re stuck here. It’s not Sirius’ fault if he’s hungry and bored and it’s not ideal, really that they’re stuck here when Remus is relatively sure that the grand total of the food in the place is milk, the dregs of a block of butter, half a pack of biscuits and a tin of soup. He’d like to avoid the conversation about the implication, but from the agitation projecting out of Sirius it feels highly unlikely. “Was going to get to the shops today, before my best friend drugged me and knocked me out.” Remus says, which he can tell they both know is a lie.

“Read your post, too.” Sirius says, brusque, and that does spark a certain indignation. He isn’t surprised, but he is irritated by it.

“Is today really the day you want to violate my privacy?”

Sirius slams his book shut and turns to face him.

“Am I really that bad?” Sirius demands, his voice hot and angry, a certain wildness in it. “Am I so awful that you’d do this just to get away from me? Starve to death in this shit hole? Sleep on the streets?”

That robs all the irritation straight out of his chest.

“It wasn’t going to come to that.” Remus says, quieter.

“ Not according to the letter from your landlord.”

“Sirius,”

“What was your plan, Moony?” Sirius demands, “I didn’t realise that I was so bloody awful that it was better to be a sodding martyr. Even with a fucking truth potion, you still never tell me what’s going on.”

“You’re not.” Remus cuts in, sharp and angry, “ You’re not. I told you, it was about me.”

“I remember exactly what you said.” Sirius says, eyes flashing.

“You don’t get to get mad at me for things I said when you’d drugged me, Black.”

“ Why were you so hell bent on getting over me, if you care so much? Why don’t you want me? ”

Remus blinks at him. Sirius rubs his face angrily and then winces. He’s knocked his nose again. It looks angrier this morning, and it strikes Remus that he must’ve been in pain for most of the damn night, and that he probably wasn’t all that attentive or gentle about avoiding his face yesterday. He’d probably been hurting him by accident. Sirius didn’t say anything or do anything about it, which feels so maddeningly typical.

“Sorry,” Sirius cringes, the anger cut out of his voice, “None of my business. No leg to stand on, asking you about that.”

Remus sucks in a deep breath and assesses him. An odd sense of calm settles over him.

“Let me,” Remus begins, his voice softer and low, standing up and gesturing vaguely at Sirius. He carries on as he walks to the bathroom, retrieving a tub of ointment and his wand. “Sort you out. Sick of you getting your blood all over the place. On my best pillow, you prat.”

Sirius swings his legs round so they’re hanging off the bed, giving Remus space to stand in the open v of his legs front of him to assess him.

“You and that bloody pillow.” Sirius says.

“I’m shit at household spells, now I’ve got to live with your blood smeared everywhere.”

“ Shouldn’t’ve hit me so hard,” Sirius says, with that practised amused smirk.

Remus almost manages a smile but gets caught up on how messed up it all is. He pauses with his wand out, stomach turning over.

“ Remus , don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” Remus deadpans, forcing himself back into motion. He wordlessly fixes Sirius' nose and vanishes the dried blood and assess his work as he usually only uses these spells on himself. His nose looks better, even if he still looks miserable and drawn.

“Try and get all sensible,” Sirius says.

“ That ship has sailed.”

“Exactly,” Sirius says, as Remus unscrews the ointment and starts applying it to the edge of the bruises under his eye, watching as the skins progress from black, to blue and to yellow before it fades back away. It’s good stuff. Marlene gave it to him, not long after she officially found out about his lycanthropy. He’s been rationing it. “So don’t get your robes in a twist, Moony. You had a perfectly good reason to hit me in the face and you’re making me all pretty again now, so. No harm done.”

“Alright.” Remus says, and he doesn’t move. He stays close. Despite it all, he does hate the idea of making Sirius feel like that. Unwanted and pushed out. He thinks, on one level, he might just have a right to ask, that maybe there’s things for Remus to own here, too. He can’t claim that his behaviour has been logical. He barely understands it and half of it is out there now, anyway, and he is tired of it. He’s tired of all of it. “Of course you’re not that awful. I — these last twenty four hours aside, where I think we’ll all agree you’ve been a bit of a bastard, you’re actually pretty much my favourite person.”

“I’m just not allowed to help you, or know anything about you.” Sirius supplies, his voice lined with bitterness.

“I’m allowed my pride, Sirius.”

“This is pride, is it?” Sirius asks, “Shutting yourself off from your friends and punishing yourself for something that isn’t your fault. Fuck your pride, Moony. You can’t —- you can’t live like this.”

He can’t. He’s not wrong about that.

“It’s only just got this bad.”

“You’re all ribs and scars.” Sirius says, which is true. He’s been steadily losing weight since Hogwarts and the last few moons haven’t been kind to him. He doesn’t feel good about it being pointed out. More of the raw, vulnerable parts of him being laid bare. “You’re not the picture of health yourself, Pads.” Remus says. He makes to move away, but Sirius stops him by trapping him with his legs, boxing him in with his thighs. “Pads,” he complains. It’s weary and resigned.

“Don’t go all distant on me, Moony. It doesn’t help.” Sirius says, somewhere close to begging.

“You mean it doesn’t help you.” Remus counters.

“I — alright. But I don’t think it does you any favours either, all this pushing people away.”

“ Bad thing to pick at, Black.”

“I don’t understand why you didn’t say anything,” Sirius says, “About any of it. About us, about losing your job, about money. You, what? Assumed I wasn’t interested.”

“Yes,” Remus says, “Obviously.”

“ Why?” Sirius asks. “ Why?”

“Because, Sirius,” Remus sighs, “Because you’re Sirius Black — this loud, brilliant, beautiful prat, who’s a defiant git who hides all his strength and pain under the pursuit of a good time, who is the bravest and most reckless person I know. Because you push, and approach everything with this air of mischief, because anyone could fall in love with you, you perfect tortured bad boy with your bloody motorbike and your leather jacket. And I’m —-”

“ Perfect,” Sirius cuts in. Remus laughs humorlessly and tries to pull back. Sirius’s hands are now somehow on his waist, holding him there. Something in his chest flutters. “ Remus,”

“You’ve just been yelling at me about how un-perfect I am,” Remus says. He sucks in a breath and tries to conjure up some honesty and some vulnerability, because apparently Sirius needs it . He’s not sure how that can possibly be new information, but he can’t deal with Sirius in pain. He never could, which is why he’d never say anything when he went and dealt with it by lashing out or self-destructing all over the place. “I didn’t expect to get this. Friendship, acceptance , and I — I guess I didn’t, in the end. ”

“Remus,” Sirius says, voice syrupy and low. “You did. You do.”

“I didn’t want to ask or expect too much,” Remus says. It costs him to be honest. It feels like his lungs are shrinking in his chest. “I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“Well, I’ve gone and covered that base now, anyway.” Sirius says. He tightens his hands on Remus’ hips. “ I —— I’m not good at feeling rejected, probably something to do with my mother and Regulus, but—- I don’t know, Moony. Horrible irony in us both sitting here silently convinced we’re not good enough, except obviously I’m right, while you’re just hung up on being a werewolf.”

Sirius has always been blunt about cutting to the truth of the thing.

“That minor complication.”

“ Like it matters to anyone with half a brain,” Sirius says, “If you weren’t so blinded by that, you’d have seen how obvious it is that I’m —- that I’ve always wanted more from you, obsessed with figuring you out, fascinated by your kindness and your mild-manner act, hiding that wicked sense of humour, your adventurous spirit. You’re so bloody brave and —- making everybody like you, making everyone feel good to know you and — it’s been slowly driving me mad, Remus, not knowing what you think, not knowing how to understand anything about you.”

“Well,” Remus says, his voice slightly thick. “Sorry about that.”

Sirius laughs, swaying forward to rest his forehead against Remus’ chest. He slowly reaches out and touches his hair. It feels wild, reckless. They have slept together before, but they always approached it like friends. This feels new.

“Sirius,” Remus says, a warning in his voice.

“I know, I know, I’ve broken it.” He says, tightening his grip on Remus’ waist.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to trust you.” Remus says. “ Emotionally. Not like how you apparently don’t trust me.”

“To be fair, Moony, you haven’t trusted me emotionally since Snape.” Sirius says, and then he sits up and looks up at him. “I —- I’m not worried about you not forgiving me. You wouldn’t’ve let me in if you weren’t going to. I don’t deserve it, but you — you’d forgive anyone for anything, Snape, your father, me. But you never forget it and you just ——- you give less of yourself. You hold yourself ransom, perfectly fucking politely, and I can’t stand it. Maybe your father is happy to have civil, polite conversations where you never talk about anything real, but I can’t abide by it and —- you didn’t used to withhold all these things from me, before Snape. You’d have told me about how you felt, about losing your job. So I’ve broken it twice and that —- that is the biggest regret of my life and I have no idea how to make it better .”

“You’re wrong,” Remus says, “Not about all of it, I —- maybe,” Remus says, and he blinks and stares at him, because it’s disarming. He didn’t think that was true. He didn’t think he’d ever really successfully held ransom anything that Sirius might want from him, but it echoes round his head. Sirius does know him very well. “Maybe you’re right about some of it, but it’s not —- I’ve never done it on purpose.”

“I know,” Sirius says, and grits his teeth. “What am I wrong about, then?”

“ I had feelings for you before the Snape incident and I didn’t tell you then, either.”

Sirius blinks up at him.

“Long time,” He says. Remus hums in response. “I —- I didn’t realise until Snape. Bloody inconvenient timing, but. Facing the concept of not having you made it all rather undeniable and feel like I’ve been trying to figure out how you feel about me since then. How to fix it.”

“Long time,” Remus echoes.

“What can I do?” Sirius asks, and he sounds wretched again. He’s not used to standing this close to him and … it’s not lost on him, that Sirius dosed him up with veritaserum and spent more time asking about his sodding love life and his feelings than Voldemort, that this is currently the furthest point away from the moon and he’s quite sure Sirius did that on purpose, that Remus has been hiding things and hiding in general. He doesn’t know what to do with any of that. He does believe it. He believes that Sirius loves him. “Is that it? Ruined?”

“Sirius,” Remus says, something thick and complicated in his throat, “I don’t know, I don’t —— this is pretty much the worst day of my life.” Sirius nods, his throat bobbing. “And pretty much the only thing I can think of that would make it worse is you not being here.”

Sirius makes a noise at the back of his throat. He swings forward like his strings have been cut and hugs him round his midriff, holding him tight. Remus reaches out and touches his cheek, his jaw.

“Remus,” Sirius says, and then he pulls back and stands up and kisses him. It’s not the first, but it’s the first like this; slow, unsure, wondrous. It shatters something else in his chest. It feels dangerous and absurd, like running flat out away from Filch in the middle of the night with his friends breathless with laughter behind him.

Somewhere in the midst of it, Sirius’ stomach rumbles.

Remus is smiling when he pulls back away from him, assessing him with a raised eyebrow.

“Well then,” he says, “Time to crack open the biscuits?”

Chapter Text

They end up playing gobstones on the tiny coffee table because they’re bored and hungry and there’s nothing else to do except fall into another argument or talk about any of the other dark, serious things and he doesn’t feel like it anymore. He anticipates they will get back to it later, but it feels better ignoring all of it to pass the time instead, even if it’s becoming apparent that he’s been achingly lonely for months in virtue of some of that lifting. He hadn’t realised how suffocating it was. It had been the same when he’d started Hogwarts and suddenly realised he’d been craving acceptance and companionship for years.

“James would lend you some money for your rent, you know,” Sirius says, gaze fixed steadily on his gobstones, as if he’s entirely focused despite Sirius making his opinion about the game very clear. His shoulders are too tense for Remus to buy it. “You should ask him.”

Remus makes his move before he replies. He wasn’t expecting Sirius to approach it at that angle. If anything, he’d anticipated another treatise about why he should move into Sirius’ flat, so it’s a surprisingly sensitive gambit.

“I was considering it,” He admits, eventually. He’d probably end up at James’ door before his father’s, although both concepts are still unappealing. More so, now.

“Good,” Sirius says, slightly curt. “I still —- obviously I would help, but. Understand if you didn’t want to accept anything from me, after everything.”

“James still signed off on drugging me at the pub, even if you’re the one that did the dirty work.” Remus says, as he assesses the board. Apparently, he’s back to not being able to avoid the topic entirely and is settling somewhere between passive aggression and a joke. He’s allowing himself to be an ass about it guiltlessly, for now.

“He wasn’t happy about it.”

“That’s nice,” Remus says mildly, as he takes one of his gobstones. It squirts the usual thick, putrid liquid into Sirius face, which is far funnier than it should be. He laughs as Sirius wipes it off his cheek looking disgruntled. He looks back up at him over his gobstones, expression complicated.

“I’d hate it if I’d ruined you and James too.”

“Peter ruined it, you just enabled him.”

“Yes, that’s much better,” Sirius scoffs.

“It’s slightly better. You ought to accept the wins where you can, in your position.” Remus says. He makes another move. A second of his gobstones gets Sirius in the face, this one just to the left of his nose. He smirks widely and Sirius exhales irritably.

“You’re enjoying this, Lupin.”

“Yes,”

Sirius flicks some of the liquid he’s just wiped off his cheek in his direction. Remus flips him off.

“For your birthday I’m getting you a chess set,” he says, grumpily. “Next time we get locked down here we might as well have something good to do.”

“Mmhmm, and a better supply of whiskey.”

“Least I had a full pack of cigarettes.”

“True,” Remus agrees, “That got you much closer to forgiveness.”

Sirius snorts and looks at his watch.

“What’s taking them so long?” He asks, impatiently. It’s the first time either of them have mentioned they’re waiting for anything for well over an hour. Remus has nothing to say on the topic, so he takes the opportunity to swipe another stone. In the next round, he wins the game.

Sirius makes a muted noise of frustration and pushes the board aside very much like a disgruntled toddler.

“There’s got to be something else in the place to do. I’m bored to death.”

“Don’t look at me, that line isn’t going to work on me twice.”

Sirius laughs, a bright thing that transforms his face into something younger. He is in better spirits than Remus would have expected him to be now it’s edging close to late evening and they’re still stuck here with no word and no sustenance. Then again, he’s always been better at being hungry than Remus would’ve anticipated. He’d barely complained that time they all got locked in the passage behind the one eyed witch for six hours, while James and Peter had been a nightmare with their complaining. He’d been curious about it for a long time before he’d come to the uncomfortable conclusion that it might have been one of Walburga’s strategies to ‘ manage his behaviour’. He never had that confirmed, but it seemed to tie in with the few brief dark references he had made about it. That’s the kind of thinking that makes it difficult to hold Sirius responsible for anything, because he knows there’s a shitty underlying to Sirius’ relationship with love and trust.

He can see how it could happen. How years of them failing to communicate could worm its way into doubt, when Sirius was already paranoid and chasing shadows, when he already had questions that he’d never voiced about Remus’ behaviour and attitude. He can almost understand it.

“I bet it would,” Sirius says, quirking his eyebrows at him. He’s always found Sirius most compelling when he’s being mischievous. There’s something about the glint in his eye that makes Remus want to push the joke further and make all the darkness surrounding them feel smaller.

“Mmhmm, probably,” Remus agrees, swiping the gobstones back into the box. “I’d give it a week or so before you try it. Give me more time to get over it.”

“A week?” Sirius asks, arching an eyebrow.

“Maybe a fortnight, we’ll see.”

Sirius almost smiles, dissecting him with his gaze and really taking him in, before he bursts into motion and stands up.

“Budge over,” Sirius says, pushing his chair away and making for the sofa. “Reckon I can make your TV work before I spontaneously combust.”

“Told you, it was broken when I moved in,” Remus says, shifting sideways as Sirius flops onto the other side of the spongy sofa, unceremoniously dumping his legs over Remus lap. That isn’t new. Sirius is a tactile beast and has spent half his life using him as a pillow, but it feels a bit different now.

“I’m an expert at mixing magic and muggle together, now,” Sirius declares, pulling out his wand and twirling it through his fingers. Despite it all, the arrogance is charming.

“A motorbike is a bit different to a television,” Remus says, watching as he experimentally twists his wand through the air, showing sparks. It takes him ten minutes or so of intense focus, but after one final jab and a muttered spell that Remus doesn’t recognise that he probably invented himself, the telly splutters into life. He’s always loved Sirius’ magic, how creative and clever he is with it. He is remarkable. “Wow,” Remus says, with a touch of sarcasm he doesn't really mean. “I remember when you didn’t know what one was.”

“Mmmhmm. My mother is very proud of me,” Sirius says, summoning the remote and jabbing at it. The screen flickers and then turns a funny colour. Sirius makes a noise of alarm then clicks something that puts it back to normal. “Ah, might just be stuck with the one channel.”

“Still, I think that deserves the final biscuit.”

“Mmhm, no, you won it fair and square with your bloody gobstones.”

“Half and half,” Remus says, picking it up, splitting it into two and passing half to him.

“Watch the crumbs, Moony. At this rate that’s got to last us the week.” Sirius says, wolfing down his half with relish. “Going to have to play strip Gobstones after we’ve gambled for the soup.”

“Bloody prat,” Remus says, reaching out to poke him in the side. They never got round to putting shirts on, so he ends up podding just below his bare ribs, above that first tattoo. Sirius reaches out to capture his hand, runs his thumb over the back of his knuckles, maps out the shape of his fingers. Remus stares at him, feeling abruptly unable to move.

“You are intending to get over it then,” Sirius says, looking at him very intently. Remus' heart beats very fast. Sirius would be this direct, this soon, this insistent about it.

“Yes I think so,” Remus says, and he’s not really sure of it till the words come out of his mouth. It’s harder to hold onto the shape of all of his anger when Sirius’s smooth palms are still folded over his hands. “Bit of a waste, otherwise.”

Sirius sinks back into the sofa. He doesn’t smile, but some of the residual heaviness seems to fall away from his shoulders. He shuts his eyes for a moment, still holding Remus' hand.

“Thank you,” Sirius says, eventually, the words lined with something immense, like he’s speaking out from right in the centre of his chest.

“No guarantees on time frames,” Remus says, “I’m still…” he gestures vaugely with his free hand it at himself, hoping that it communicates something on the line of being a total fucking mess about it. Sirius nods.

“Well. I’m not going anywhere.” Sirius says. “Very happy to wait.”

“You hate waiting for anything,” Remus says, his mouth softening into something like a smile.

“True,” Sirius says, “Let me know if there’s anything that might help. Begging, prostrating myself, an apology blow job, that sort of thing.” Remus snorts and rolls his eyes. “I am sorry, Remus. I don’t take it for granted that you’re even tolerating speaking to me. I’m very lucky that you’re the most magnanimous man in britain.”

“That’s a nice way of calling me a doormat.” Remus says.

“It wasn’t. You’re not,” Sirius says.

“Well,” Remus says, “The thing is, Padfoot. You’ve always been worth forgiving.”

Sirius makes a noise that makes it sound very much like he disagrees with that sentiment. “I’m sorry too,” Remus continues, caught in that intense grey gaze, piercing enough that he’s not sure he could look away if he wanted to. “Never meant to make you feel like I was punishing you or pushing you away. I shouldn’t’ve given you space to doubt, just because I’m an insecure git.”

Sirius swallows. Slumps closer to him. Neither of them speak for a long time, until Sirius clears his throat and says ‘what the hell is this show?’ and they both settle into commentating on the TV entirely too close together.

They stay like that until Fawkes arrives with the message that they’re officially free about an hour later. There’s no further information with the message.

Sirius turns off the television and sits up straighter, looking at him seriously.

“Well then,” Remus says, and he picks up his wand to undo some of the extra warding for something to do to fill this new space. There’s a loud crack less than thirty seconds after he’s disabled the anti-apparition charm. He jumps up, heart in his throat, dislodging Sirius legs from his lap. He freezes when he takes in that it’s James standing there, in his wonky glasses and crumpled robes.

“ Some warning, Prongs,” Remus mutters, setting down his wand.

“Sorry about that.” James says, then he assesses them both. “Well lads,” he continues, humour in his voice, but with this grim, seriousness lining it. He looks exhausted. He cocks his eyebrows at them, which seems to somehow highlight their shirtlessness and their proximity on the sofa. Remus feels a heat creeping up the back of his neck. “Good to see you’ve been using this time productively. Moony, mate.” He says, turning to him, eyes wide and compassionate. “I’m so sorry.”

Remus cuts him off by shaking his head and then James is pulling him into a rough, serious hug, where he aggressively pats him on the shoulder. Something settles in himself. “Moony,” James says, hand on his shoulder, steady and firm, as he steps away to look at him. “ None of this is a reflection on you or your character, mate. None of it. We never should’ve doubted you, alright?”

Remus nods, feeling absurdly grateful for the bright, brilliant James. .

Sirius clears his throat.

“I’ll go get that take-out we talked about,” Sirius says, voice slightly terse as he pulls on the Rolling Stones t-shirt he wore to the pub what feels like lifetimes ago, then shrugs on his leather jacket. They didn’t ever actually talk about take out, but now he’s bought up the idea he’s ravenous. Mostly, it’s exceptionally kind for Sirius to set aside his own impatience to give them a few minutes to talk.

“Alright, Padfoot,” James says, and he claps him on the shoulder too. Squeezes it. They exchange one of their looks that always seem like whole conversations and Remus uses the time to find a t-shirt and shrug it on. “I’ll save the proper update till you’re back.”

James pulls up a seat but doesn’t start the conversation until the second after the doors shut. Remus sits back down opposite.

“You two alright?” James asks, assessing him carefully. He looks more like a real adult than Remus has ever seen him, but that’s been creeping up on them for a while. He always was better at being able to swap to being serious than any of the rest of them. At the heart of it, James has always been a sucker for responsibility. Remus always blamed the quidditch for that, but really it was always that James approached things with this self-assurance in his abilities and character and thrived under the weight of new expectations, while they’d get swept up and buried in them.

It’s a complicated question. He’s not really sure about the answer,

“Not really,” Remus says, glancing over to the door. “Could be worse.

“Bet you’re bloody furious, mate,” James says, gentle. “At both of us. Wished we could’ve come earlier. Lily’s been beside herself, but. I said maybe you being locked in together might mean you actually talked about it and we ---- well, we’ve been with Dumbledore. I — I’ll save that for when he’s back. She wanted to come,” James says, filling in the space, “But she’s exhausted after all of it and I —— well, I thought it would be good to be just us for a bit. Hasn’t happened in a while.”

“Are you okay?”

“No,” James says, “Not really.” He frowns into the air, his forehead crumpled. “Still struggling to wrap my head around it all.”

“You figured it out.”

“Yeah, yeah I did,” James says, as he straightens his glasses. Blinks. “Was already halfway there when —— Sirius came by, after he’d summoned Lily. Was in too much of a state to talk, really, just said he’d been wrong and stared at the wall for an hour. Wouldn’t let me do anything about his messed up face or accept a drink or talk. He took off pretty sharpish when Lily got back which was a good call on his end, actually, she wants to tear him a new one. Said he was going to get some sleep.” Remus hums noncommittally, because it feels quite clear that Sirius hadn’t slept for days when he turned up at Remus’ flat. “And then Lily demands I explain myself,” James says, with such apparent affection in his voice that it always makes Remus smile. Lots has changed, but James is still hopelessly obsessed with Lily Evans Potter. It’s reassuring, “And by the time I said it out loud it was obvious what had happened. I spoke to Mad-Eye and wrote a note to Peter, saying he’d been right about Veritaserum not working on you, asking him to come over and make a new plan…” James trails off.

Remus swallows past the lump on his throat. He clears his throat.

“Tea?”

“Could murder one,” James agrees. Remus gets up and heads for the kettles. He can feel James’ eyes on him as he travels around the kitchen. “He’s not been doing well. Sirius. You know what he’s like when he gets something in his head, can’t stop until he knows if he’s right or not.” James says to his back, as Remus gets the mugs and the tea bag. And of course, Remus does know that. Sirius had applied that dogged curiously to finding out the truth about Remus ( he had been disconcertingly intrigued about Remus from the third month of first year, always asking him questions, watching him, digging, until he’d figured it out privately on his own —as Remus found out later — and then wildly pivoted to never pushing for information again, leaving him feeling oddly rejected, confused and nervous). He’d applied it to discovering everything there was to know about Hogwarts, the map , to figuring out how to be an animagus. In their final year, his big mission had been to establish if he was right about Regulus taking the mark, even if he later proved himself to be unable to deal with the consequences. The phrase ‘dog with a bone’ had never been so clear to him until he’d been facing down the black-dog version of Sirius.

“But I shouldn’t’ve —— honestly, mate, I didn’t …”

Remus turns around to assess him. He’s missed James. He’s always been easy to be around. Uncomplicated and transparent with how he feels about just about everything. It’s much easier to have this conversation with James. There’s less layers of hurt to wade through.

“He said you didn’t really believe it.”

“Believed it enough not to talk him out of it,” James says, regret etched around his face. “I’m not going to pretend to be blameless. That paranoid prat can be convincing when he’s in his flow.”

“He wasn’t as wrong as I thought he was,” Remus says, “With Pete.”

James frowns, looking sad rather than angry. He doesn’t say anything more on that topic.

“Part of me thought at least he’d shut up about it when you proved his theory wrong, but —- ”

“ Prongs,” Remus says, because he’s not sure he can stand to hear anymore of it. He doesn’t know if it’s making him more or less mad at any of them as individuals or collective, or if finding out these minute details will help him or haunt him. “We’re okay, James. Me and you. We’re not brilliant, but we’re okay.”

James quiets and watches him finish off the cups of tea and bring them over.

“So,” James says, when he’s eyeing him over his mug. He smiles slightly as he assesses him. “Too soon to ask about you about doing the deed with our Padfoot?”

Remus isn’t sure when he means, given James apparently only recently found out about it happening at all and the implication in his opening gambit, but he is entirely sure that he doesn’t want to talk about it.

“Oh, definitely.” Remus says, mildly, with a sweet smile that reveals absolutely nothing.

James chuckles.

“Can’t say much about your taste, Moony.”

“I’ve had moments of questioning it myself, lately.”

“I’ll bet,” James says. He pauses with his tea half way to his mouth, as if deciding whether to say something. He puts the mug down. “For what it’s worth, that idiot loves you something stupid.”

Remus squares his jaw and looks at his tea.

“I know it’s none of my business and I’ve been over here not getting involved for years and —- I can’t imagine how you feel right now, Moony, but … it’s been a long war and it is spectacularly shit in a lot of ways and I think… well, life might actually be too short. I’ll shut up about it now, leave you be unless either of you want my input but… I know I have been a lousy friend, but I am here if you do want to talk about it. About anything.” James says, honing back in on his cup of tea.

“Won’t make a difference if Lily plans on taking him out, anyway.” Remus says, lightly. If he’d known that James would’ve been so affirmingly neutral he probably would’ve been less concerned about hiding it all these years.

“Think she’s thinking castration, rather than full baying for blood,”

“Ah, well, that’s still a problem for me personally,” Remus says, which wins him a snort.

“Have it out with Lily, mate.” James says, sagely. “Put in a good word for me while you’re at it. This rate I’m going to be on the sofa till little Potter arrives.”

“I’ll think about it tomorrow, see which way I’m inclined.”

James laughs and then catches himself. He rubs his forehead, distractedly messes up his hair and sighs.

“What a bloody mess,” He mutters, then looks up as Sirius arrives back through the door laden with foil trays of curry and a twelve pack of muggle beers.

“Didn’t know if you were eating Prongs, so got enough for everyone.” Sirius says, which turns out to be a fair amount of an understatement. Remus stands and gets out the plates and the cutlery as James opts in for a second dinner after some needling in that direction. Both cups of tea get abandoned in favour of the beers pressed into their hands and he ends up back on the sofa, squashed against Sirius. The curry is hot and delicious, filling the empty pit in his stomach and fortifying him. Despite the circumstances, he is glad they’re both here.

“Hungry, mate?” James asks, raising an eyebrow at the speed at which Sirius sits down and commits to his meal.

“No food in.” Sirius supplies, ripping apart a piece of naan bread with brutal efficiency.

“That’s a barefaced lie, Black. We still had a tin of soup.”

“Merlin, you must be starving,” James says.

“ Almost no food,” Sirius concedes. “Bored, mostly,”

“I’m sure you found some way to entertain yourself,” James says, arching an eyebrow. Sirius sends him a flat look that turns James' expression serious, which is interesting from Remus’ perspective. Apparently, this is not something Sirius is willing to joke about with others. James clears his throat and looks down at his plate.

“So, you saw him then?” Sirius asks. It feels like the wrong setting to have this conversation, but he’s both been desperate to know more and desperate for it to feel less true for hours, and they can’t really put it off anymore. James sets down his cutlery and wipes the corner of his mouth.

“Yeah,” James says, solemn. “Yeah, I saw him.” He says, and the rest of the meal is taken over by the retelling of a decade worth of friendship being torn to shreds.

*

It’s late when they’ve talked themselves out and James yawns and declares he needs to get back to Lily, should’ve been hours ago. He hugs Remus again on the way out and tells Sirius to ‘ look after himself’ in a way that’s quite stern and loaded. He takes something with him when he leaves, throwing the flat into a loaded silence that feels like it’s closing in on him again.

The facts are this: Peter is on his way to Azkaban. He has been charged with leaking information to Voldermort that directly cause the death of at least six individuals, including Benjy Fenwick, Dorcas Meadowes and Caradoc Dearborn . The trial will happen in two weeks and it is exceptionally likely he will be sentenced to lifetime imprisonment.

Remus clears up the bottles and the plates as Sirius loads up the fridge with leftover curry (he really did buy a lot, as if overcompensating hard from being cut out of other ways of assisting) and then they’re left staring warily at each other in the kitchen.

James said they would be allowed to visit before the trial if they wanted, suggesting with that James earnestness that it might be helpful. He said hearing it straight from Peter made it easier for him to understand. This suggestion alone had sent Remus’ head spinning into the misty possibly of what the hell he would want to hear, or want to say, and had rendered both of them silent for a long time.

“Well.” Sirius says, pocketing his hands. “I suppose I better…” he trails off before he finishes the sentence, but the implication is clear.

“Glad they’re not going to charge you for the animagus thing.” Remus says, conjuring up a tea towel to dry the plates even though he’d normally just leave them to dry. He’s not sure why he’s dragging it out.

“Least they could do, after James caught them a spy,” Sirius says, darkly. He’s fallen back into being surly, any trace of a joke or a laugh vanished from his features.

Remus had an eye on him throughout most of their meal, silently calculating the number of beers he got through, watching the tight angry line of his shoulders at every word about Peter. For much of the night, he was uncharacteristically quiet. He’s still rash and self-destructive and liable to not sleep and spend the rest of the night picking his liver and torturing himself instead. Remus isn’t much better . He knows himself well enough to know there’s a chasm of self-doubt and self-pity that’s waiting for him to sink into. There’s plenty of memories to revisit and ruin with all this new content. He’d quite like to drink to blot some of it out, too, and if Sirius leaves the remaining beers or the cigarettes then he can’t envision him having the self control to stop himself.

There is no reason for Sirius to stay anymore. He’s already been here too long. He ought to head home and for both of them to have a chance to process without being locked up together, bouncing their own issues off each other and likely to spark into another fight about something. Sirius is clearly hovering around, waiting for the cue to leave.

“Do you need a hand?” Sirius asks. There’s three plates and three mugs, but he offers Sirius a tea towel anyway and they stand side by side and dry them together.

Sirius should leave.

But, life is too bloody short.

Remus sets his tea towel down and turns towards him.

“I don’t want to stay here tonight.” He says. It’s blunt, but it’s true. Sirius is right about this place being a shit hole. It’s dark and cramped and claustrophobic even when you’re not locked in with someone who you are both deeply hurt by and deeply concerned by. He doesn’t want to do it. He doesn’t want to be here and spiral, alone, when it’s pointless and lonely.

Sirius blinks at him.

“Alright,” Sirius says. He clears his throat. “Well, James’ old room —”

“ Padfoot.”

“Moony,” Sirius parrots back. “Thought you said it was inadvisable. ”

“I’m not very good at following advice, either.” Remus says.

“You’re angry at me.”

“That’s true,” Remus nods, “But I’ve had a very bad day, Pads, and you’ve had a very bad day and I’d really rather focus on the part of that shit show that was actually good news.”

“Which is?” Sirius asks, sardonic.

“Don’t be a prat, you know,” Remus says, and they’re standing closer together now. Sirius sets his own tea towel down and hooks one of his fingers into the belt hooks of his jeans. He looks at him seriously.

“Probably going to be a bit of a disappointment,” Sirius says. “Not doing very well, to be honest.”

“Oh, well. It’s been going brilliantly, from my end,” Remus deadpans, gesturing around his flat. “You better not be trying to talk me out of it, after all this.”

“No, no,” Sirius says, quickly. “Definitely not. Just giving you due warning.”

“Noted,” Remus says, reaching out and brushing a thumb over the rough of his cheek. Sirius exhales like he’s been holding his breath for a very long time. Some of the hard lines of his shoulders melt. He is absurdly handsome. “Come on then, Pads, take me home.”

“Do I have to let you come back?” Sirius asks, faux-sweetly.

Remus chuckles and kisses him, patting him on the shoulder as he gathers his things.

*

It’s later that it becomes very apparent to Remus that Sirius had been putting his own efforts into stopping their forays into intimacy from bleeding out into their friendship, because now he’s assumed permission to linger it feels entirely different. Sirius seems entirely different. He’s experienced the version of Sirius that has all the performance stripped out of him before, but this is a new flavour of it. Lying next to him feels closer to those nights chasing away the dregs of the night in low tones in the Gryffindor dormitories as to not wake the others, mixed with having Padfoot nuzzle at him, head-bumping his hands until he commits to petting him, than any of the other incidents. He’s still hungry for his attention, but it’s mellower, and it comes in the form of Sirius distractedly skimming his fingertips of the cage of his ribs, from him burying his face in the hollow of his neck, from him holding him, generally. It all feels so obviously characteristic of Sirius that he feels foolish for not expecting it, but he’s never actually seen Sirius be languid or slow with anyone. His interests had always seemed so fleeting and brief that Remus had never really delved into what it would be like to get the full, undivided attention of a sleepy and soft Sirius Black. He feels an abrupt need to tell someone the surprising revelation that Sirius is a cuddler.

“Have I mentioned that you're very good at that?” Sirius asks. Remus has spent the last few minutes idly playing with Sirius’ hair, which he hadn’t known he’d wanted to do until Sirius was sprawled out across his chest, warm, with that familiar Sirius-scent that never stopped feeling like part of home, so maybe he’s more tactile than he realised, too. Remus hums an answer. He’s not really following the thread of what Sirius is talking about, because he’s too comfortable, too lost in considering how bloody awful the alternative course would’ve been. Some of his feelings are still complicated and thorny in his chest, but it is disarmingly clear that hanging onto any of that tonight would not have been worth it. “Don’t think I said, after the other occasions. Thought it was sodding unreasonable, actually. Bloody unfair.”

“My apologies,” Remus says, mildly. “Won’t do it again.”

“You better,” Sirius grumbles. Remus smiles into the dark. Sirius presses a kiss into his collarbone. “Can’t believe you insulted my decor.” Remus laughs at that. “ Vomited on with red and gold.”

“We all know you’re a big brave Gryffindor, Pads. There are other colours.”

“And what would you do with the place, prey?”

“Tidy up a bit, for a start.”

“I wasn’t expecting guests,” Sirius says, slightly disgruntled. “Won’t make that mistake again.”

“Good,” Remus affirms. Sirius huffs and cosies in closer.

“This is nice,” Sirius says.

“Yes,”

“Peaceful.”

“Are you going to be providing commentary all night?” Remus asks, voice bathed in affection.

“Probably. You know I never shut up,” Sirius says.

“That’s true,” Remus agrees. His hands still in his hair as he considers. “Peaceful is a good word.”

Sirius twists, re-angling himself so he can actually look him in the eye. They’re legs are still tangled together. There’s vulnerability in that grey gaze.

“Thought you might end up regretting it.”

“No,” Remus says, reaching out to map his jaw with his hand, to lean forward and kiss him, tipping them back over onto the covers, and then hides his face in his skin and tells him exactly how he feels, uncoerced and freely, because he absolutely refuses to let the darkness take anything else.

In the end, it feels a lot like meeting three bright, brilliant boys at Hogwarts. Like acceptance, delight and freedom.