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All Remus sees when he wakes is a long black snout.
His heavy eyelids sink shut again. It’s a milky kind of light behind his eyes, no longer night but neither yet morning. The sun, he knows, is as tired as he is. Lingering sleepily below the horizon, somewhere to the east. Soft, snoozy. Like thick morning mist, dewdrops hanging on blades of grass.
He can sense the dog beside him, feels longing eyes on his face, and he wants to reach for him. One arm is caught beneath him. The other is twisted in sheets. He’s too tired for this. Bone-deep, snared in the bags under his eyes, slowing every thought and muscle.
A soft snuffling, the click of nails on hardwood, and he tries again. With one arm free, he reaches for the dog, petting the soft fur of his face. The way it runs up the snout and in between iron black eyes. He doesn’t have to open his eyes for this. Scratching softly, that spot just between his brows that he knows he likes. Luxuriating in the feel of silken ears, softer than anything he’s felt before. Except.
A lick to the palm of his hand for his effort.
He draws his arm back, pats the bed beside him.
“C’mup.” His throat is raw, growly. The wolf lingering somewhere inside him. Sated and subdued.
He doesn’t have to ask twice. The dog leaps onto the bed in one smooth movement. He curls into the negative space left by the question mark of his body. A solid weight, pressed against him from bent knee to curved chest.
Remus throws an arm over the dog loosely, not caring where it lands. It’s enough to feel him below his arm, his heat though the thin blankets. He tugs him closer.
It could be days later, it could be seconds; there’s a desperate tongue against his face, wetting his cheeks, his eyelids. Kissing over his nose. He spins his face into the mattress. Blissful gray darkness. The dog licks his exposed neck from shoulder to ear, one long stripe that cools quickly. He wraps a hand around a thin, furred leg. The bones are delicate under his fingers.
“Sirius?” He says, unsure. It’s too much to open his eyes, this time. They’re so heavy. But who else would it be?
In half a dream, he can feel the fur shift to skin, becoming stronger, wider, until he grips a wrist loosely. He slips his fingers along the back of a hand, feeling the veins and bones and knuckles under thin skin. Catches smooth, warm metal on one finger. Curls his hand underneath. Holding hands. He smiles, though his lips barely move.
“Moony,” says Sirius. Hot breath along the shell of his ear. Remus twists his face to the side. A gentle kiss is pressed to his nose. A second to his cheek. A third to the space between his eyebrows. The fourth, so gently it might not have happened at all, to his lips. There’s drool drying on the corner of his mouth, but it’s not important. He sighs, snuggling deeper into the bed.
“Moony, I have to go.” Another kiss to the tip of his nose.
“Stay.” It’s barely a word, swallowed by thick blankets.
He knows Sirius is smiling as he crawls carefully over him, sinks into the space behind him, fits himself to Remus’s languid body.
Soft acquiescence as a warm breath against the back of his neck. He slides back into sleep under the comforting weight of Sirius’s arm.