Work Text:
Sirius trudged up to the attic behind Remus. They were moving and needed to pack up all of the junk and Teddy’s old clothes that should have been donated. But Sirius hated packing.
“C’mon. The sooner we start, the sooner we’re done,” Remus said. He was insistent on properly packing and looking through the boxes that had migrated up as time passed only to be forgotten.
Sirius sighed. So much was already in boxes and his idea of packing involved throwing the rest into another box and shoving them in the attic at their new house. Or better yet, not moving. But Teddy had started uni a few months ago and the house felt empty.
The first box was full of old university notebooks that Remus had been keen on keeping for some reason, Sirius didn’t quite understand why but didn’t complain as it meant that was one less box to go through. They came across a lot of Teddy’s things - old stuffies, clothes, and large stacks of art from his days of early primary school. Neither of them had the heart to get rid of anything Teddy had drawn and the kid loved art, a passion that never died out as he was now studying it.
“God, I always hated how brutally honest his drawings were,” Remus said, tracing a large line across a stick figure’s face. It mirrored a large, jagged scar across his face.
“You’re telling me,” Sirius pointed to the stick figure of himself, a whole head shorter than Remus’ which made his husband snort.
Sirius sat with the box, looking through page after page of drawings. An entire box full that went up until year 7 or 8 when he’d swapped to sketch pads and canvases and digital art. Remus continued on through the other boxes, setting some things aside to donate.
Remus moved a box and a small wrapped gift fell to the floor with a cloud of dust flying off. It quickly got Sirius’ attention. Remus’ eyes bulged at the gift as he quickly scooped it up but Sirius had already seen his husband’s handwriting To: Pads Love: Moony. Remus had instantly recognized the gift, a present he’d intended for Sirius their second Christmas in the house. They were young and stupid and he had completely torn apart the attic that year after having hidden it, only to lose it.
“Rem? What is that?” Sirius asked, clearly amused.
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“It was a gift. A gift for me. A gift that had two, two and half decades of dust on it.”
Remus was blushing. “It’s nothing.”
“Please. Please. Please. Pleeeeease let me see it.”
Remus just shook his head.
“It was pinned to the wall behind a box?” Sirius took a couple steps over to where the box had fallen and made a quick move for it, snatching it from Remus’ hands.
“No, please don’t open that. It’s awful. It’s so bad and we’re lucky I’d lost it.” Remus’ face was buried in his hands.
Sirius looked at the old present. The perfect wrapping and neat handwriting, still intact.
“Please?”
Remus sighed. “It’s the cringiest gift. That’s your warning. Open it at your own risk.”
Sirius smiled, carefully peeling up the tape, not wanting to rip the old paper. His hand flew over his mouth as he looked down at a cassette that read Happy Christmas 1987! I love you, Pads. -Your Moony.
“You made me a mixtape?!” Sirius shrieked.
Remus nodded, face still buried in his hands.
“I need a cassette player right now!”
Sirius began quickly looking through boxes, ignoring everything that wasn’t a cassette player until he came across a box from their sixth form, finding all sorts of pictures. Remus crouched, peering over Sirius’ shoulder with arms wrapped around him as he pulled out picture after picture. Some of all of their friends, some of them with James and Peter, some obviously taken by Lily right when they’d begun dating but hadn’t yet told anyone - stolen looks, lost stares, small smiles, and an unfortunately hard to hide love bite. There were pictures of James and Lily, both still as madly in love now as they were as teenagers. Pictures of drunken parties, getting ready for dances, concerts.
Along with pictures were old clothes, Sirius’ old leather jacket that had been through hell and back. Busted up and replaced by one that still sat in his closet. He picked it up to find old band t-shirts harshly cut into crop tops or muscle tees with an old pair of kitchen shears.
Remus dug through the box finding some of his own clothes, retired jumpers and jackets and band t-shirts that lacked the same DIY altering that his husband’s did.
“Oh yes,” Sirius said, slipping off his shirt despite the cool attic air and replacing it with a cropped Bowie t-shirt. He slid the leather jacket over it. “Can I still pull this off?”
“Even in your old age,” he teased, despite the fact that his heart fluttered like he was a teenager.
Sirius chucked a shirt at Remus’ head before his hands migrated to his pockets, finding £10 and gasping, pulling out eyeliner from at least twenty years ago. He pulled out his phone, using the camera as a mirror and quickly tracing along the bottom of his eye.
“You look…” Remus’ voice trailed off.
Sirius cocked an eyebrow. “I look…”
“You look hot. In a way that makes me want to kiss like we did when we first started dating.”
Sirius kept his cool composure despite the blush painting his cheeks as he pulled Remus from the attic and to their bedroom. There was no time for soft kissing, it was immediately pulling into passion, deep kisses with hums and moans that vibrated through them both. Warm shared breaths and an overwhelming need to have their hands on each other. And maybe clearing the attic hadn’t been as bad as Sirius had dreaded.