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Being back in this house was Weird, with a capital W. It looked almost exactly how he left it at 16 - pictures of snobbish relatives hissed at him from their frames, Kreacher giving him a wide berth, the scorch marks on the family tree where his name was incinerated. The green wallpaper and silver trinkets lining the halls seemed to encroach into his space. His childhood bedroom brought little comfort either - it looks like his mother attempted to take down his posters, and when his permanent sticking charms prevented her, she had covered the women’s bodies in snakes, silver scales shining as they undulated across the photos. It felt uncomfortably like he was being watched. Even without the horrifying additions, he felt restless in this room - he’s 33, for fucks sake. His behavior took on the quality of him at 16 - like being in this house made him regress.
His tics had been acting up for months - in Azkaban he was a dog almost 24/7, and dogs (at least to his knowledge) couldn’t have Tourettes. It was strange, but in that inhospitable environment he somehow experienced silence and stillness for the first time since he was 10. It felt as though he was making up for his years of freedom by feeling an overwhelming urge towards movement in every waking moment. He’d taken to sleeping as Padfoot - the twitches and squeaks kept him up at night whenever he tried to be a human.
Tonight, he thought to himself, I want to sleep as myself tonight.
That was a terrible idea, it turned out.
He tossed and turned, twitched and groaned. When he could briefly settle into sleep, nightmares - of dementors, of his friends’ stiff and frozen bodies, of Remus’s face whispering cruel words, of Harry screaming in fear - played on loop until he woke in a cold sweat. “Son of a bitch,” he grumbled to himself. He threw his duvet off himself and stood from the bed. He rubbed his eyes, pushed his hair back out of his face, and grabbed his wand. “Lumos” , he whispered, and the tip of his wand lit up with a small white glow. He opened his creaky door, and proceeded down the darkened hallway, lit only by his wand. He figured that he could at least make a cup of tea and some toast to try and settle down.
He padded down the stairs in his socks, careful to keep his sound effects to a minimum. He followed the long central hallway to the kitchen. The paintings murmured and spat around him as he passed, annoyed by the light.
He entered the kitchen and made his midnight snack quickly. He carried them out to the hallway, reluctantly returning to face the perversion of his childhood room, and almost immediately came face to face with someone else.
“Merlin,” he breathed, “What the fuck are you doing Remus?”
“I could honestly ask you the same question Sirius,” Remus retorted in a hushed tone.
“I’m making a cup of tea,” Sirius pouted indignantly.
“Well, I’m here to do the same,” Remus said as he stepped around the shorter man. His graying hair was ruffled, the back flat and the ends curling around his ears. Sirius stared at him as he unceremoniously flipped the light on in the kitchen, and produced a mug from the cabinet beside the sink.
“It’s 2 in the morning,” Sirius deadpanned, “bit late for a cuppa, don’t you think?” Remus raised his eyebrows and gestured towards Sirius’s own rapidly cooling mug of tea. Sirius twitched his head and grumbled. Remus wrapped up his tea making and walked past Sirius with purpose. He made it halfway down the hallway and then turned around.
“You coming?” Remus asked and gestured towards the sitting room with his head. Sirius blushed and nodded, following the taller man like a duckling.
They sat facing each other on the tufted green velvet couch, Remus calmly sipping his tea, Sirius trying very hard to not throw his across the room. He took a steadying breath and took a sip. Though the tea was lukewarm at this point, it was still warm enough to be comforting.
“So,” Remus began, “why are you up so late?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” Sirius grouched.
“You’ve been sleeping fine so far.”
“I’ve been a dog every night for the last week,” Sirius took a grumpy sip of his tea, “I wanted to sleep like a normal person tonight,” he paused, “Besides, how would you know if I’m sleeping.” He glared up through his eyelashes, and noticed for the first time the deepening arcs of purple underneath Remus’s eyes. Remus smiled wistfully.
“I’ve gone through two boxes of tea bags this week. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, and the healers at St Mungo’s are weaning me off my sleeping potions, so I’d guess you’d say tea is my vice at this point,” he took a hearty sip, “Supposedly it helps you sleep. I haven’t found that to be the case for me, but I keep trying.” Sirius looked down, ashamed. For some reason, he hadn’t even thought about anyone else struggling. He did his waiting, 12 years of it in Azkaban, but Remus was just as alone outside those walls. His friends had died too. He was a child soldier in Dumbledore’s seemingly never ending war too. He shook his head rapidly, hair swishing across his neck. Remus reached out and put his hand on his knee. His head stilled, and he took a deep breath.
They had held each other when they reunited, best friends finally coming home to each other. Since then, with Sirius in hiding and Remus doing work for the Order, they hadn’t really seen each other face to face. It was awkward, it felt bizarre. You were my savior, Sirius thought, my best friend, the most important person in my world. Now, you sit in front of me, drinking tea at the scene of every one of my childhood crimes, in a cardigan I don’t recognize and with greying hair I don’t remember you having. I miss you, I love you, I need you. Sirius’s felt his facade fall, his face crumpling into tears. He knocked over his mug of cold tea onto the carpet and hit the side of his head with the heel of his palm.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispered, “I’m sorry for everything I put you through,”
Remus’s eyes filled with silent tears, and he wiped them with the sleeve of his sweater.
“Come here,” he answered softly, matter of factly. Sirius inched across the couch until he fell into Remus’s familiar and comforting embrace. His head jerked to the left three times, and Remus thread his hand through his curly hair. Sirius traced circles around Remus’s back, and they both fell back into soothing each other, like they had so many years before.
Sirius remembered Remus in his bed after a full moon, unable to sleep unless Sirius told him a story and rubbed his back. Sirius remembered himself in Remus’s bed after NEWTs, trying to still his body enough for them both to sleep, and Remus playing with his hair and singing his mother’s Welsh lullabies. Sirius remembered his first night sleeping in Azkaban, whispering Remus’s songs and wondering if Remus still told himself his stories.
Sirius’s heart rate slowed, slow breaths matching Remus’s, his body quieting. He fell asleep with his cheek against Remus’s chest, his heart beating softly in his ear. He breathed in the smell of Remus’s cardigan, and it smelled like home.
Harry walked into the sitting room in the morning to find spilled tea, abandoned wands, and two sleeping men, clinging to each other for dear life.