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The air conditioning in the taxi is too cold. It's making Sirius shiver, half from discomfort and half from bad memories. It hasn't been quite long enough for him to banish memories of the cold basement from his mind, and familiar cold concrete and cobweb-filled corners still linger in his mind, especially prevalent in certain situations.
Cold.
Darkness.
Silence.
The taxi they're in only checks one out of three boxes, thankfully. It's a nice day in Britain for once, sunshine finding its way into the car and making it easier to forget about the past two months. As for the silence, Remus had made sure to ask the driver to turn on the radio the second they'd climbed in. For not having known each other before being turned into hostages, they can read each other well. Maybe too well.
Remus eyes him, sees the tremble in his hands. No doubt he's reminded of the past couple of days in Sirius's apartment, of Sirius's unsteady fingers wrapped around a cup of coffee, tiny ripples giving away his newfound hatred of a quiet morning. And technically, Remus shouldn't even have been there to see it in the first place. Remus's colleagues at the FBI had made sure to get him nice accommodations at a nearby hotel while things were sorted out, but Sirius had asked him to stay at his place instead. They were both unsettled by the idea of being alone after everything.
So now Remus is even more aware of Sirius's issues than he had been when they were still captive. He doesn't comment, though, instead just leaning forward past the center console and asking the driver to turn the heat on.
Sirius gives him a grateful smile when he leans back again, and Remus returns it a tight grimace.
He knows what he's thinking about—the flight back to the States, trapped in the small space of a plane and unable to leave for hours upon end. Sirius ended up with a fear of silence and the dark and the cold; Remus ended up hating small spaces. Even the car had been a struggle to get into this afternoon, too similar to the space they'd been held in, and it was only after Sirius had come up with the solution of leaving the windows cracked that he'd agreed to get in.
They'll be late now, only arriving an hour and a half ahead of the flight instead of the recommended two. Or, he should say, Remus will be late.
Sirius isn't going with him.
The airport catches him by surprise. From the way Remus flinches at the sight of it, he hadn't been expecting it quite yet either. Time plays tricks on both of them now from time to time, because days and weeks in the same space with no true concept of time will do that to a person.
Remus doesn't mention it, and Sirius doesn't bring it up. They both know what they're going through. They don't need words to convey it.
It's the type of understanding that Sirius has only really ever had with James before, the kind of thing that doesn't need words or body language or even facial expressions. They just know. It's bizarre that he and Remus have it after just two months, but he's been learning to accept the more bizarre things in his life without much question. Only way to stay sane, or so he's heard.
He doesn't feel entirely sane now as he helps Remus get his luggage from the trunk and set it on the sidewalk, wrapping his hand around the handle of the suitcase and walking alongside Remus through the doors of the airport and to security. It's one of the longer lines Sirius has seen, winding through fences and crawling along like flies in molasses. Maybe they should've gotten here sooner.
(Remus, he reminds himself. Remus should've gotten here sooner. Sirius isn't going with him.)
The reminder has him straightening and sucking a deep breath in. His chest feels weirdly tight, but he speaks around it.
"You'll be okay here?" he asks.
Remus doesn't answer right away. Instead, he lets his gaze sweep through the vast space, surveying the travelers and metal detectors and security guards. His eyes return to Sirius's, golden amber and perpetually tired.
"Yeah, I'll be okay," is his response.
That's his cue to leave, Sirius knows, but his feet still stick to the floor like they've been glued in place. He can't stay here, though. He's not going with Remus. He's not.
So, he forces himself to nod, to let go of the suitcase, to say goodbye to Remus and turn around and take a step, another, another, until he's out the door and back by the street, hailing down a new taxi and stepping inside it and telling the driver his address.
Time feels weird again as he leaves the airport. Buildings blur together out the window as he thinks about it all—the way the mission had gone so incredibly wrong, telling his team to save themselves, the way they'd all made it out except for him. He'd been cuffed and blindfolded and stuck in a car, dragged to a house he didn't know and couldn't see, shoved down stairs until he'd reached a small basement. Remus had already been there. Only a day, he'd told Sirius, put there after having gotten caught while tracking the same target. Meadowes—the target—had connections in the States as well, which made her an interest to the force in the U.S., and Remus had been assigned to her. So, now he was here, sticking out like a sore thumb whenever he talked.
Sirius had never particularly liked American accents until he’d met Remus. He’d come to appreciate it quickly, though, because the accent meant that he wasn’t being subjected to the oppressing silence of the cellar.
Instead, it meant learning about Remus's time in the FBI, about why he decided to become an agent (he attributed it to his love of murder mysteries, especially Agatha Christie), about his favorite color (brown, like chocolate), about the scars on his face (mission in Texas gone wrong.)
In turn, Sirius had shared more about himself than he probably should've—about his own experiences of being an agent, the way his too-cruel parents were the reason he became one, about James and his unwavering support and how he was probably losing his mind not knowing whether or not Sirius was okay.
Then came the day when they'd been broken out by Sirius's colleagues, who'd apparently been looking for him since the very moment he'd been taken. He knew they found it weird the way he and Remus refused to put more than several meters between them, but he hadn't particularly cared.
Sure, maybe they had been strangers upon first meeting, but now they knew each other better than he could even put into words. That's why it'd been so easy to invite Remus to come stay with him during the time in-between the rescue and the flight, why it'd been so easy to fall into a routine they were both comfortable with.
It'll be weird, Sirius realizes, to go back home and not have Remus be there.
Remus, with his warm smile and love of chocolate and his weird habit of always wearing mismatched socks no matter how much Sirus teases him about it, won't be there when he gets home. His shoes won't be by the door, there'll be no book on the coffee table, and Sirius will have to go back to making meals for one.
It's entirely unfair, really. Remus leaving should mean that Sirius can go back to his everyday life, can start to heal from what happened, can stop thinking about the kidnapping and the cellar and the way the air conditioning is much too cold in this car, too, but all he can think about is Remus.
Remus, stepping out of a car with his FBI badge and American accent and tired eyes and walking away from him.
Remus, going through airport security just to get on a too-small plane.
Remus, who would've noticed the shaking in his hands by now and asked the driver to turn on the heat.
Remus, who maybe knows him better than anyone, right now.
"We need to turn around," Sirius blurts out, startling the driver. His eyes flick up to the mirror in a question, bewildered when he finds him in the mirror, but Sirius isn't deterred. "Right now," he stresses. "We need to go back, it might already be too late, but I need—" to see him again. To tell him that I don't want him to leave. To tell him how much I like his tired eyes and American accent and his weird, mismatched socks.
Sirius swallows painfully. "We need to go back," he repeats.
The driver must hear something in his voice, because he doesn't argue. He just turns around as soon as the opportunity finds them, and soon they're retracing their steps, going faster and faster every time Sirius promises to pay him more for his troubles.
Still, even though the driver's doing everything he can, Sirius doesn't relax until they're pulling back up to the airport.
He throws the money at the driver almost frantically, then just about falls over in his haste to get out of the car. He does calculations while he's running—how long was he gone? Twenty minutes? Thirty? How long will Remus be held up in the line before making it through security?
People give him weird looks, and he can't blame them, not when he's skidding to a halt at the end of the line he left Remus in and causing affronted cries as he shoves his way through.
"Sorry!" he calls, "I need to find someone, need to get to him before he's gon—!"
Sirius almost doesn't stop in time. He catches sight of Remus's sandy hair and barely registers it enough to tell his legs to stop as Remus turns, successfully distracted from walking through the metal detector by the commotion going on behind him.
His eyes, his beautiful amber eyes, widen in shock, and then Sirius is crashing into him, hands flying to his hips to try and slow his momentum, but it's useless—they topple backwards, straight through the metal detector.
Neither of them pay attention to the alarm going off, triggered by Sirius's piercings. All they can do is stare at each other, finally, painfully aware of this thing between them.
"Hey," Sirius says, staring into his eyes. It could either be a second or eternity before he manages, "Stay?"
They're lying in a tangled heap in the middle of a metal detector, alarms blaring around them, people muttering and pointing as security guards try and figure out what to do, but it might as well be background noise for the way Remus begins to laugh.
Sirius feels a grin spread over his face at the sound.
"You might be the craziest person I've ever met," Remus tells him, eyes shining.
Sirius just grins even wider, bordering on manic, and pinches at Remus's hip.
"Is that a yes, then?"
Remus chuckles again, too easy for what Sirius is asking, but he has a feeling that Remus is learning to accept the bizarre without too much of a question, too.
"I suppose it must be."
"Hey!" The sound of a security guard's voice cuts through all the noise, and the two of them look up at the same time to see a stern woman stalking towards them, mouth cutting a displeased line.
Right.
They're in an airport, in the middle of a metal detector, and have just caused a scene. No wonder the woman looks so angry.
Remus groans at the interruption, and Sirius is inclined to agree with the sentiment as Remus pushes them into a sitting position. They manage to right themselves just in time for the woman to reach them, her hands on her hips while she glares down at them.
This is not the time or place to be grinning, so he tries to tamp it down. He's not quite sure he manages, though, just judging front the vitriol she aims his way.
"We can't have anyone causing commotions," she says, voice severe and disapproving. "Security at airports is no joke. So tell me, just who do you think you are?"
There's a beat of awkward silence, and Sirius jumps to fill it.
"Oh, terribly sorry about that, ma'am," he apologizes. "One moment."
He doesn't leave the house without it, except for special occasions, so it's muscle memory to draw the string out from under his shirt and hold the badge up. He shoots a smile at her as she reads it and realizes precisely what it is.
"Agent Black," he says, and watches the way her eye twitches, "NCA."
Sirius feels a little bad for her, in a way. She's just doing her job, and it's clear that she has no idea how to handle a situation like this. She throws a bit of a helpless look over her shoulder, maybe seeking help from the other guards, but turns back when she realizes she isn't going to get it. None of them know what to do about an agent sitting in their midst, especially when said agent has just sprinted through their airport and crashed through a metal detector.
So, he doesn't blame her when she entirely breezes past the fact that Sirius far outranks her, instead shaking her head to regain her composure.
She turns towards Remus.
"And you?" she asks him, voice sharp. "I don't suppose you're from the NCA, too?"
"Of course not," Remus says, like it's personally offended him.
The quick denial has the lady's shoulders relaxing ever so slightly, and after a quick breath of relief, she throws another look behind her and waves impatiently to call the others over to help. Consequently, she entirely misses that hand Remus reaches into his pocket to draw out a small, black, wallet-looking thing.
"Not NCA," Remus corrects, drawing the guard's attention back to him. She looks on in barely disguised horror as he lets the badge fall open.
"FBI, actually," he says breezily. "Nice to meet you."