Archive of Our Own

It happens slowly. Like a tired breath exhaled at the end of the longest possible day. A world-weary sigh released behind a tightly closed door. The admittance and acceptance that the world — one personal, enveloping world — is failing; that it won’t last forever and eternity; that man is fragile and not constant.

It happens like a sunset, not there at all, and then painting the sky with its miraculous palette of colors before, in a blink, it has changed and gone.

Sirius begins to forget.

Small things at first. Tiny blips of searching or questioning. Those things that no one tends to notice until it's too late.

Most would argue that taking notice at the first minuscule sign means that it's already too late. The day of a certain person's birth, long before any signs would present themselves, is too late.

In the world as it is known now, they wouldn't be wrong.

"Moony, have you seen that — what's it called? You know, the long flipper thing I like so much. The blue one."

"The spatula? It's in the drawer to your right where we always keep it."

"That's it! Brilliant."

It starts with forgetting the words to things. It happens to everyone on occasion. There isn't any reason for concern.

The days of the week go next. Confusion about it being Tuesday instead of Sunday.

"I lost two whole days, Lupin," he remarks with dazzling humor. "Haven't done that in a while. Do you think I'm getting old?"

"You? Never. You're perfectly preserved at twenty-five. Time wouldn't dare."

Sirius scoffs, turning his head to hide his blossoming grin, but Remus still catches it. Beautiful like a flower caught in the thin rays of sunlight between parting clouds. Nothing rare about it. The type of common flower found along every pathway and inside window-boxes of the world, always so freely available.

"It wouldn't dare," he echoes, that grin flashing in Remus' direction. "And it's twenty-four, you sappy sod. That was my best year."

"They've all been your best years. Except for thirty-six. You were a real train wreck that year. I'm still convinced you were possessed."

"Twat."

"I love you, too."

It happens. Weeks pass by in a blur as people get older. Losing track of the days is a common occurrence. It doesn't raise concern.

Remus doesn't see the signs. He doesn't question the lapses because why should he? Sirius is as brilliant and clever as he has always been. His mind is sharper than the loose tack in the arm of their favorite chair that neither of them have ever bothered to fix. Sirius gets angry whenever he pokes himself with it or he finds a new scratch on Remus' arm from it, but there are precious memories hiding beneath its biting metal, so they leave it on purpose every time.

It becomes a problem when other people begin to notice while Remus still rests firmly in his blissful ignorance.

"Do you lot want to do anything for your anniversary this year?" Sirius withdraws a notebook that he's taken to carrying with him at all times from the pocket of his robes, and clicks his pen. He's always found them more convenient than quills. "We should start planning. I've already got ideas."

James perks his light head up from the chair where he's sitting in his and Lily's lounge. He'd gone grey exceptionally early, the first streaks appearing in his late thirties. Sirius had been horrified, but James had been nothing but thrilled.

"Our anniversary?" he questions with a cocked, bushy eyebrow. Those are still mostly black with long, unsightly white hairs growing wildly out of them. They drive Lily mad and she sometimes plucks them in James' sleep much to James' chagrin and the amusement of everyone else. "You're a bit late, aren't you? Or exceedingly early."

"He always did excel in the strangest of areas," mutters Lily from where she's rearranging photos over the fireplace. She's always doing that, shifting things around the house, never settled or satisfied for long with the placement of her carefully curated items.

Sirius huffs, clicking his pen again. "I resent that. I excel at everything," His retort is pompous, and occurs without his gaze leaving James. "C'mon. Planning takes time, which we're quickly losing."

"Lils and I are just going to have a quiet dinner to ourselves. Which we've had planned for two months because our anniversary is in four days, Padfoot. You're good, I'll give you that, but even you can't pull off a big production in that amount of time."

"It's not." Sirius looks at James with a baffled expression. "You've still got weeks. You've gone round the bend, mate. I'm so sorry, Red. I tried my best to burn the date into his brain, but he's so stubborn when it comes to good sense."

James sits up straighter, looking exactly like a ruffled bird. "I remember my anniversary! It's my wedding anniversary! I was there! I was one half of the main event."

"I was there, too!"

"Sirius," says Lily, voice soft and yet somehow commanding. When Remus looks around from where he's been watching the pair of friends with exasperated amusement because, obviously, Sirius is having them on, he finds Lily staring at Sirius with a small frown, clear concern in her green eyes. "When do you think our anniversary is?"

"The eighth of August," answers Sirius knowingly, his shoulders stiffening as he sits up straighter.

Lily's frown deepens. "Yes," she murmurs in reply, the lines carved across her forehead exceptionally deep, "that's correct. Which is in four days."

They all watch as Sirius' posture slowly shifts while he blinks at Lily without speaking. Remus can see that he's no longer there, at least not at the surface, scouring his mind and sinking deeply into it.

"No," he tries to argue, but his voice is brittle now; tender and flaking at the edges. Sirius shakes his head as he looks down at his knees. "No, that can't be right. It's not for nearly a month…"

"We just did Harry's birthday. Forty-three. You kept teasing him about fifty. Don't you remember?"

Sirius' face spasms a little. "Right. Yeah. 'Course I do," he mumbles, eyes narrowed in confusion. Sirius is lying, and James doesn't look very amused anymore. "Seven more years. He's in for it," he jokes, but there isn't any weight behind it; no meaning or humor.

He opens his notebook — more of a journal, really; thickly bound in leather that smells so much like Sirius often does — and scribbles something onto its pages. Remus can't read what it is from his angle, but he can see that it doesn't alleviate any of Sirius' troubling confusion. There are numbers on the page, Sirius' scrawling yet swooping handwriting leaving little mistake. Remus thinks that it looks a little like a maths equation, a simple one, something Sirius should be able to do with ease in his head, but he stares at the book halfway folded on his knees with a puzzling frown as he taps his pen against the whiteness, leaving tiny pinpricks of ink stains behind.

When Sirius looks up again, his gaze lands on Lily for a second before jumping to James. The cloudiness of his eyes disappears in a blink, and a smirk forms over his features.

"Your sixtieth, right?" jabs Sirius jokingly, appearing proud of himself.

James looks offended and squawks, "Forty-sixth! I am not almost eighty years old."

"You and your hair are telling a different story, mate. Could have fooled me."

"Prat," grumbles James as Sirius laughs heartily, but there is a spark of concern in James' eyes that stays with him the rest of the time Sirius and Remus are there that afternoon.

Remus ignores the signs. Again. There aren't any signs to see, so there isn't anything for him to miss or ignore. Sirius is fine. Sirius is getting older like the rest of them. Sirius has too many things on his mind; a brain that never stops churning and spinning like a water wheel in constant motion, always powering thoughts no one else has caught up to besides Sirius. Forgetfulness happens. Confusion comes with the territory.

They live their lives. James and Lily celebrate their anniversary quietly just as they had said they would. Sirius buys them an excessively extravagant gift for which they have no practical use. They work and sleep and make dinner together every night. They listen to James' broadcasts of Quidditch games on the wireless and Sirius harasses Lily's magical plants in their garden when they go to visit. Remus purchases a white board for their kitchen that he writes the date on every morning. Sirius draws constellations onto all four corners, and he leaves the same message written in different places every day.

We're cosmic.

——————————

"Why do you insist on using that thing?"

Remus startles and drops the hose to the vacuum cleaner where he's cleaning away the gathered cobwebs in the corners of his and Sirius' sitting room. Sirius gets fussed when he sees it happening, claiming Remus is destroying ecosystems, which means Remus has taken to doing it in secret over the past forty years.

"Why are you insistent on giving me a heart attack?" he demands as he rounds on James. "And why haven't you learned how to knock yet?"

James eyes the rumbling vacuum with more ire than Remus thinks it deserves as he continues like Remus hadn't spoken. "Lily loves ours, too. I don't get it. Cleaning charms work just as well," he grouses. "And they're quiet."

Sighing, Remus resists the impulse to roll his eyes as he kicks the machine off with his toe. "Sirius isn't here, Prongs," he says in exasperation. "He's at the shelter."

"I know. I always know where he is. Do you ever get tired of him coming home smelling like animals and creatures that he whinges about not being able to have?"

"Of course you do. You didn't answer my question."

"You didn't answer my question. Either of them."

"Because you've asked me the same thing once a week for the past twenty-six years," mutters Remus with annoyance.

"Not the one about the vacuum. That one is new."

Remus pinches the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. James adjusts his own.

"James," groans Remus as he tips his head back, and James finally appears to relent. His face falls into serious lines, the crow's feet around his eyes growing deeper.

"Fine," pushes out James. "Tell me what's wrong with Sirius. He's been off for a while now, and it's getting worse. Lily and I are worried. It's not right, you hiding whatever it is from us."

Bent over the vacuum to wrap up the cord before they trip on it, Remus pauses and frowns as he lifts his head to look at James with tightly pinched brows. "What are you talking about? There isn't anything wrong with Sirius. He's — "

"Brilliant, yes, I know. I've listened to you say the same thing about him for years, and I agree with you, but stop having me on, Moony," says James with rising frustration. He crosses his arms over his chest in a show of stubbornness. "I'm not playing a game with you here."

"I'm not playing a game!" protests Remus as he straightens and looks at James with scandalized eyes. "Sirius is fine."

James' gaze sweeps over Remus, charting a slow path up and down his body until his hazel eyes land back on Remus' face. His mouth pulls into a thin line of vexation, and Remus knows from that expression that this conversation won't be ending any time soon.

"Really?" utters James damningly, and Remus barely contains a tired sigh. He loves James Potter, but sometimes his friend can be so disgustingly self-righteous and pompous in what he thinks he knows that Remus can hardly stand it. James takes off walking, leaving Remus behind to sputter silently as James barges through the kitchen door and disappears. His smugly accusing voice rings out a moment later. "What's this, then?"

Dropping the cord and groaning at the sheer exhaustion one man can create in his life, Remus says sardonically, "I don't know, do I? I can't see through walls, James."

A caustic snort sounds from the kitchen as James grumbles about following him and asks why he has to explain every little thing, but Remus is already moving. When he steps through the door, he finds James glaring at him with one finger pointing towards the new white board hanging on the wall.

"What about it?" questions Remus with sagging eyelids. He loves James Potter. He does love James Potter. Remus has to remind himself of that a lot in moments like this. "It's just a board. I thought we could use it for notes. Shopping lists. That sort of thing."

"You've been in this house for thirty-five years, and in that ruddy flat Sirius loved so much for eight years before that," says James, looking very unconvinced by Remus' explanation, "and you've only just now decided a board to write down all your notes and lists is a good idea? With the date in big, giant letters at the top where it can't be missed?"

"It's just a board, James!" reiterates Remus with intense exasperation as he motions towards it wildly. "It's plastic and tin clumped together in an aesthetic design. It's useful."

James' mouth pulls tightly again and his eyes narrow. "Has it helped him remember the date?" he asks softly.

Remus opens his mouth to answer, but he stumbles to a halt as he stares back at James who is looking at him as though he can read every thought Remus is currently having. Can he see into Remus' mind? Can he see the way Sirius sometimes stands in their kitchen for far too long while he gazes at the board as though trying to figure out whether what Remus has written is right or not? Can he glimpse the days that Remus has casually corrected the written date after Sirius has taken the initiative to change it himself in the morning? Remus thinks that maybe he can.

"Sirius doesn't need help remembering what the date is," replies Remus cleanly while ignoring the uncomfortable squirm inside his belly, "because he is fine."

Hardening before his eyes, James drops his arms and huffs before he turns and leaves the house without another word. Remus knows this isn't the end of it; that he hasn't brought any peace to James' worry, just as he knows James won't take that worry to Sirius. Not yet. Not until he has something concrete to present to him. Which doesn't exist. Remus isn't concerned.

He continues through his days with that same level of complacence, grumbling when Sirius wakes him up too early in the mornings and admiring his husband in the bathroom mirror with his more pepper than salt hair that Sirius rubs in James' face whenever he gets the chance. Remus reminds him to brush his teeth sometimes when Sirius gets too eager to get started with his day, and he slowly slips the forgotten wedding ring back on Sirius' finger as Remus kisses between his eyes and the tip of his nose.

People like to talk about not being able to survive and persevere without their partners, but Remus is aware most of that is senseless and longing talk. Those comments are born out of fear; fear of losing what is most treasured and held a little too tightly. Remus and Sirius could and would survive without one another. They would keep moving forward through their lives, but they would never thrive, always left reaching and searching for something no longer there. As much as Remus knows this, he is conscious of the known fact of their combined lives that they are better together than apart.

Remus becomes very skilled at ignoring those signs that resolutely are not signs at all. The weeks and months pass, James backs off and says nothing else about it, and Remus forgets about the tiny slips that happen so rarely that they are barely worth mentioning or thinking about. Sirius fills his notebook and moves on to a new one. They plan a dinner out with Harry and Ginny. Sirius doesn't show.

"You've not heard from him since this morning?" Harry has always held more concern for his godfather than almost anyone else, the pair bonding fast and strongly during Harry's earliest years, but the intensity of it tonight is worse than usual. He shifts out of the way from the door to the restaurant so that other people can pass, his green eyes focused solely on Remus. "Do you think Dad has heard anything from him?"

Ginny's hand pats over one side of her husband's chest. "I'm sure he's fine, Harry," she says comfortingly. Remus waits for her to comment about Sirius being a grown man or for her to make some sort of joke about him falling into the exhaust of his motorbike, but she says nothing else.

"I'm so sorry, you two," apologizes Remus. "He probably got distracted at the shelter. You know how he is. I'll go home and check to see if he's there. We'll all do dinner another night, all right? You both should go home as well."

Harry's chin juts out stubbornly, and while he looks exactly like James, that action had been inherited directly from Lily. "I'm coming with you," he announces, and he takes off walking without waiting for Ginny or Remus, leaving them to glance at one another before scrambling to catch up.

He makes it to the house before they do, darting around the side of a quiet building and Apparating while the other two are still ten steps behind him. By the time Remus and Ginny appear, Harry is bouncing impatiently with his hands stuffed deeply into the pockets of his jacket. He is bent over the shrubbery out front, trying to peer through one of the windows into the lounge, though Remus isn't sure why. They had charmed the windows against prying eyes years ago due to James' penchant for spying on them, thinking it was funny whenever Remus startled upon finding a large stag staring at him. Numerous cups of tea were wasted to their poor floor. Such a shame.

"Just like his father," says Ginny with a cluck of her tongue, nearly causing Harry to overbalance into the foliage. He scowls at her while righting himself, giving his jacket a tiny yank at the bottom, but the anxious look on his face never fades.

Stepping up to the door with a tight chuckle, Remus taps it with his wand and lets them inside, Harry quickly shoving in behind him. Remus moves deeper into the house, pushing his way through the lounge door, and he internally sighs with relief but also frowns when he finds Sirius seated on their sofa with a book in his hands as he reads it with squinted eyes.

"Moony," calls out Sirius, his voice tinged with a bit of frustration. "Where have you been? I put dinner on when I got home. It's been ready for ages. By the way, have you seen my reading glasses? I can't find them any — Harry! Ginny!" Sirius' eyes brighten when the couple crowds into the room behind Remus. "This is a lovely surprise. Care for some dinner?"

"I told you he was fine," mutters Remus to Harry, who glowers at him.

"You said nothing of the sort."

Sirius casts them a puzzled look. "Why wouldn't I be fine? I'm irritated, that's what I am," he complains. "I'm hungry, and you've made me wait. You don't mess with my food, Remus."

Heaving a small sigh, Remus turns his attention back to his partner and says, "Harry was a little worried. You were meant to meet us for dinner an hour ago."

"I was?" Sirius leans forward and snags his ever-present notebook, flipping through the pages and squinting at the words until he grumbles, "Bloody — where are my glasses?"

"Have you checked your pocket, love?"

Hand dipping past his hip, Sirius sinks it into his pocket, returning with his glasses. He frowns at them as he mumbles, "Could've sworn I searched there…" He continues to frown in puzzlement for a second before shaking his head as he slides his glasses over his nose. Sirius flips a few pages as he looks, finally settling on one that looks like a carefully drawn calendar, and his face falls a little. "Ah. Reckon I forgot to write it down. Sorry, kid."

"Since when do you have to write things like this down?" Harry hasn't calmed down all that much, and his bushy eyebrows he had inherited from James pinch above his eyes.

Sirius doesn't answer him. "Why don't you two have dinner with us here? And we can go out next week, yeah? I'll write it down now." He glances down at his book again. "How does Tuesday sound?" Sirius clicks his pen with a wide smile on his face.

Ginny and Harry do stay for dinner, but they don't eat very much. The longer the evening goes on, and the more Sirius talks, the more they simply pick at their food, their glances cast between one another and towards Remus growing increasingly more concerned. The final rusty nail in the night seems to be when Sirius asks if the kids had been happy to return to school, including JS who had finished Hogwarts two years earlier. Harry visibly locks down, and he doesn't say another word to Remus until later when Ginny stands and guides Sirius away while they clean up together.

"Dad's right," hisses Harry as he rounds on Remus, his eyes narrowed into thin slits behind his glasses. "Something isn't right with him. When are you going to stop pretending and do something about it?"

There has been what feels like the weight of a bludger steadily settling inside Remus' stomach all night. As he stares back at Harry, the weight solidifies and grows until Remus feels like he might burst with it. He doesn't get the chance to say anything as Sirius returns to the table to collect more dishes and pulls Harry into conversation, but later that night as he is readying for bed, Remus gingerly broaches the subject with Sirius.

"Have you been feeling all right lately?" he attempts, tugging Sirius' attention away from his notebook where he is once again scribbling.

"'Course I have. What kind of silly question is that? I'm as healthy as a hippogriff."

Remus makes a face. "You know I hate that expression. How can you possibly measure health in accordance to a creature? Which hippogriff are we using as a standard?"

"Moony," says Sirius in a mildly chastising tone, and Remus sighs.

"I only ask because you seem to be forgetting things recently. A lot of things. I'm…beginning to get a bit worried. It's very unlike you. We're all getting a little worried, to be honest."

Sirius' gaze sharpens, and his expression hardens, something in the lines of how he is staring at Remus piercing straight through him, though it's an effect Remus is well-versed in after so many years. He hardly cowers under it now, but there's something off about it this time.

"If I didn't know any better," says Sirius through obviously gritted teeth, "I would think you were trying to insinuate that I'm getting old, Lupin."

It's the way he is holding his body, the stiffening of his shoulders like he is crafting a shield of defense instead of his usual rigid posture signaling a coming fight like a brewing storm. Remus doesn't miss the lightning fast drop of Sirius' eyes to the journal spread open on his knees or the flash that clouds his grey irises for only a second, nor is he blind to the subtle pull at one corner of Sirius' mouth, a sure sign he is chewing on his cheek. His hand pushes into his hair, diverts almost immediately, and fingers comb hair behind his ear. Nervous ticks, so tiny most others would miss them. Smoke and mirrors. Sirius has always been very good at those.

Slowly moving forward across the room, Remus slips into their bed next to Sirius. He reaches up to cradle the side of Sirius' face, thumb resting against his temple, and Sirius wavers a little more under the touch.

"Sirius." Remus' voice is softer than when Sirius had said his name, and Sirius' blazing, challenging eyes finally fall away from him. His chest stutters and jumps the smallest amount, and if Remus hadn't known before, he does now. "You know it's been happening, too, right?" His other hand fingers the edges of Sirius' notebook, something Remus has never read or peeked inside to see what it contains, and he has no plans of starting now. "That's what this is about."

Sirius' face pinches in on itself a little even as he shakes his head. "There's just a lot of things going on. Sometimes it's helpful to write things down. As reminders." He clears his throat. "You're saying this like you think there's something wrong with me," he says with an almost wet chuckle.

"Oh," says Remus with gravity, sucking on his teeth. "There is a terribly awful amount of things wrong with you. I'm so sorry. I thought you knew."

Sirius gives him a shove against his arm, his laugh cleaner and clearer this time. "Berk," he mutters, but it fades into a sigh. "I'm guessing you'd like for me to go to St. Mungo's."

"Will you?" Remus brushes his thumb against Sirius' temple again, letting it slip back towards his hair. The small nod Sirius gives makes Remus feel only a tiny bit better, but he kisses where his thumb had been, Sirius turning his head to face towards him. "Just for some peace of mind," he whispers.

"You're not hoping to get rid of me, are you, Moony?" asks Sirius, a soft murmur close enough that Remus can feel his warm breath against his cheek.

Remus slowly shakes his head while he maps out the constellations that exist only in Sirius' eyes. "I'd be a madman to ever consider such a thing."

"Good." Sirius' palm slips around Remus' jaw, his fingers cool to the touch but so very familiar, just like the warmth of his smile and the brush of his lips against Remus' ear. "You couldn't possibly. We're cosmic, remember? You're stuck with me forever."

Remus really loves the sound of forever.

——————————

They had believed that Remus would go first. His body had started showing signs of fault and failure early in his life, with his joints protesting normal movements by his teenage years and lousy hips in his twenties. By the time he reached thirty, his knees clicked with every step he took, and his back sometimes refused to let him stand up straight for more than a minute.

His eyesight had started to fail him at thirty-six, long before Sirius' had faltered even slightly, and by forty, he was forced to wear glasses all the time. Sirius hadn't minded that so much, practically mauling Remus the first time he had seen Remus wearing them. They had some spectacular sex because of it (Remus made to keep the glasses on, of course).

Sixty years of enduring the monthly changes of a werewolf takes its toll. A body ripped apart twelve — sometimes thirteen — times each year destroys once healthy tissue and weakens bones and organs. Most werewolves do not last so long, though the statistics on why aren't something anyone has ever bothered to study. Remus thinks that others less lucky than he has been simply give up.

He should probably amend his earlier thought. Remus has always believed he would go first. It is something he accepted long ago. Sirius, for all his merits of looking at and tackling the world head on without obvious fear, has always been less inclined to agree. It is a fact of their joint lives that he has firmly refused to accept, going so far as to walk away whenever Remus broaches the subject. Admittedly, it is an irritating aspect of Sirius' personality.

For all of Sirius' denial, he has been insistent for years about Remus taking care of himself. He makes Remus eat healthy meals and snacks, aside from the occasional sweets Remus still sneaks. Sirius prefers that Remus doesn't drink, and in a show of solidarity that had stunned Remus, Sirius had given up drinking as well, only indulging in the random pint whenever he and James went to a pub. They don't smoke. They get solid sleep. They take care of themselves through Sirius' persistence that Remus will not leave the world before him.

Remus hates it when Sirius is right.

The diagnosis isn't surprising when it finally comes, but Remus feels as though all the air has been sucked out of his body. A black hole takes him, compressing his lungs and crippling every part of him until he can't move. All he can do is stare at the man who shares his life and holds his heart; the man who gazes straight ahead without reaction or words, blinking slowly and breathing calmly. Remus can't read him; can't figure out if Sirius is deciding whether he can challenge the Healer to retract his news and do better, or if Sirius is even there at all in the moment.

For all the merits of magic, there are some things it simply cannot achieve or take away. The brain is a delicate place, and the Alzheimer's disease is a clever beast. There are no spells that will not leave Sirius lacking in some drastic way. They can slow it down, but they can't stop it entirely. Sirius is going to slip away, and there is nothing anyone can do to keep him here.

They don't talk on their way home. In fact, Sirius has barely said a word in hours. Remus isn't certain what he should expect upon stepping through their door. Sirius has never been one to keep his thoughts and feelings stoppered like a vial of disgusting potion, spewing his internal emotions like a volatile cauldron bubbling over and exploding. Sometimes Remus gets a festering silence from Sirius as he stews until it all comes out in anger or disbelief, which is what Remus is anticipating now, but Sirius only angles toward their kitchen as Remus locks the door behind him, soon hearing cupboards opening and closing.

He follows Sirius into the kitchen, finding his husband working on their dinner as though it is a normal evening; one where their entire world hasn't cracked into two separate halves of itself. Remus waits as he hands Sirius the garlic press, receiving a grateful smile in return. He waits while the pasta boils and the sauce bubbles in their pans. He waits through their entire meal while they talk about Harry's kids and a crup Sirius had to pick up from a Muggle animal shelter when a seemingly normal puppy kept biting the Muggles and had suddenly sprouted a second tail. Sirius laughs through the telling of how the separated kennel housing the creature had been surrounded with religious items and some of the Muggles had refused to go near the area, spouting words about devils and second comings, and Remus waits.

They never discuss the elephant filling the room. There are a lot of moments when Remus wonders if Sirius remembers at all.

Remus isn't sure what to do as the days pass and they still don't broach the topic. He wants to talk about it, knowing they have to eventually, but Remus is hesitant to do so. Sirius seems okay right now, not brooding or upset as he builds to an eruption. Remus doesn't want to bring that crashing down, and while at St. Mungo's, the Healer had pulled Remus aside to give him a more in-depth picture of what was coming. He had warned Remus about not pushing back too hard against Sirius' own will. The man had dumped a lot of recommendations and advise into Remus' too-tiny hands, and while Remus is doubtful any medical personnel could ever know or predict Sirius as well as Remus can, the entire conversation and situation has only confused him on his best courses of action.

He keeps waiting, and while he waits, he watches Sirius closely. They don't tell anyone else because Remus isn't sure how, and he is worried that someone like James or even Lily might do the complete opposite of what Remus is trying so hard to avoid, which is pushing Sirius. He really wishes his plan had worked better.

A week and a half has passed, and they still haven't said a word about Sirius' diagnosis. It has become like a constant itch beneath Remus' skin that crawls around and attacks different places on his body, impossible to find and irritating enough to make him want to pull his teeth out one by one. Sirius has continued to live his life and go about his daily routines like usual, something Remus has left alone only because the Healer had advised such action was for the best, but Remus still hovers and watches whenever Sirius is nearby.

"I can make dinner tonight," offers Remus one evening when he enters the kitchen and finds Sirius pulling things out of their cupboards. He has arranged the items almost systematically across their counter, though Remus can't begin to understand the order. "You've had a long day at the shelter, and I haven't done — "

Sirius slams a can of beans down on the counter, the sound loud and crashing, and Remus startles. He takes a step forward in concern, but quickly retreats when Sirius rounds on him in anger, feeling something hot and heavy invade his throat and take permanent residence.

"I can make dinner, Remus," he snaps vehemently, some of the hair trapped in the messy knot on his head falling free to cascade down the column of his neck. "I'm not an invalid."

Remus lifts his hands between them in a calming gesture, but that only seems to make Sirius angrier, so Remus quickly drops his arms back to his sides. "I never said you were," he says, attempting to soothe the rage building in front of him. "It was just an offer, love."

"Yeah, well," mutters Sirius scornfully as he glowers at Remus, "your offer sounded an awful lot like an insult." He turns away from Remus, picking up the can of beans and slinging it back into the cupboard with a slam of the door, pulling a puzzled frown from Remus. He shoves a can of tuna fish back into another cupboard, Remus watching him with a perplexed expression. "What is it you think I'm going to do? Set the kitchen on fire?"

Sirius goes suddenly still, hand hovering in the air as he stares at the counter with a distant gaze. He swallows, the knot on his throat bobbing roughly with the action, and then he releases a weak chuckle, the sound sad and small, almost choking.

"I reckon I might actually do that at some point, huh?" he whispers, his voice so tiny that it breaks Remus' heart. Sirius pushes his hands up to scrub over his face as the laugh still spilling out of him turns gruff and strained, Remus standing frozen with his own hands flexing at his sides. Even after all these years, he isn't sure how to act in these moments of uncertainty with Sirius, not knowing whether the other man will welcome his intervention and touch, or if Sirius will push him away and tell him to stop being so bloody soft.

Remus chews on the inside of his cheek, debating what to do and say. "Maybe." He finally pushes his hands into his pockets when Sirius' shoulders hunch inwards. "But if you do, it's not like it would be the first time, right?" Sirius looks around at him, his eyes narrowed as he wobbles on the verge of frustrated anger again, but Remus keeps going. "Seems I recall more than a few life threatening accidents in our first several years after school."

"That can hardly be considered my fault," argues Sirius in a stubborn mumble. "Our appliances were horrid. Particularly our old oven."

"Yes, well, I don't think you trying to charm it to be polite helped matters much."

Sirius grimaces. "It really didn't like that." He blows out a huffing sigh. "Still not my fault. They held a vendetta against me. Kind of like that time I took your eyebrows off with that blender Lily gave us. She should have known better."

"I'd say she learned her lesson pretty quickly after she laughed herself out of her chair and broke her elbow in the fall." Remus pauses as he regards Sirius. "Funny how our oven and all our other appliances behaved just fine for me."

"Remus," whinges Sirius, finally turning to look at him plaintively, and Remus breaks. He gives a chuckle and moves forward, hands emerging from his pockets to find Sirius' face and the salt and pepper stubble lining his jaw.

"It's okay. I'm sure those appliances miss you now," assures Remus in a teasing tone. It causes Sirius to release a hmph of sound. "Can I please help you with dinner?"

Sirius chews on his bottom lip for a second before he finally nods. "Yeah, all right."

"Thank you, love." Remus glances at the items assembled on the counter, puzzling over them as he thinks about what Sirius had slammed back into the cupboards. "What were you planning to make?"

He watches as grey eyes skim the counter, Sirius' face spasming and twitching the longer he looks. His chest jumps suddenly and sharply, and his mouth works silently in obvious struggle before Sirius says in a tiny voice that barely sounds like him, "I really don't know. I don't remember."

Sirius' gaze finds Remus again, and he looks so terrified that it stabs around Remus' heart in the worst way. Remus can see it in Sirius' eyes, those shadows creeping in, hooking claws made out of dark smoke slowly invading with the promise of abduction. They mock him because Remus knows there isn't anything he can do to stop them.

"That's okay," says Remus softly, thumbs brushing Sirius' cheeks as Remus kisses the light hair growing at his temples. He gives Sirius a sad smile while pulling him in for a tight embrace, Sirius' arms slithering around his back like those same creeping tendrils of threatening smoke. "It's okay, love. We'll figure it out together."

——————————

They tell the other important people in their life together, all at once. Sirius chooses to treat it like an annoying plaster, ripping it off the skin in one solid yank and accepting the burn. Harry and Lily ask a lot of questions, Lily calmer than Harry, her son already formulating plans for second opinions and talking to Hermione because Hermione knows everything, assuring them that what she doesn't know, she figures out. Ginny remains more solemn than her husband and mother-in-law, though Remus doesn't miss the fire flaring in her eyes before it bursts outwards, turning into a conviction so strong about speaking with St. Mungo's herself that Remus almost believes she holds the power to change fate.

James doesn't say a word. He sits silently and stares at Sirius almost like he is memorizing his best friend's face as Sirius looks back at him. Remus wonders if James is trying to figure out if Sirius recognizes him, but he doesn't say it out loud. He thinks it hurts Sirius, but that doesn't get spoken either.

When they return home that evening, Sirius locks himself inside the bathroom for so long that Remus begins to worry. He tries to leave him alone and not pry, moving about the house almost like a ghost of himself until the door finally opens again. Sirius emerges holding his notebook so tightly that there are clutch marks in the leather. He leaves it on his bedside table, and though Remus is immensely curious, he refuses to snoop.

For a long time, Sirius doesn't change much. He still forgets small things and loses track of days and time, but they learn how to manage that. Hermione introduces them to Muggle cellular phones, getting one for both Sirius and Remus. She teaches them how to use their basic functions, and Sirius being the clever beast that he is, figures out the rest of their usages.

They develop a good system with the devices. They set up alarms on Sirius' phone with attached messages, reminding him to go to the shelter and when to come home. Some trigger reminders for appointments or other plans. Hermione had even shown them how to send text messages, something they both utilize, Sirius sending messages before he travels so that Remus will know if something happens in the middle or letting Remus know if he is going somewhere else to stop Remus from worrying so much. After the first time Sirius arrives home to find Remus gone, resulting in a minor panic brought to life by confusion for Sirius, Remus begins sending messages containing information about his own plans and whereabouts to avoid potential hazards in the future.

Sirius takes full advantage of their new system, sending Remus photos of creatures from the shelter or quotes of things that James has said that Sirius deems ridiculous enough to share, sent completely out of context. He makes use of the emoji board to the point that he forms complete sentences out of the images that make no sense to Remus. And sometimes, on random days and at random times, Remus gets other texts that stop him on the spot, his eyes glued to the screen of the device held in his hand as he tries to commit it all to memory.

You and I are cosmic, baby. Remember it for me.

——————————

"I'm worried about James," says Lily one afternoon while Remus pokes around with her inside her greenhouse. Sirius is out with Harry, and instead of pacing their house with worry, Remus had decided it was better to occupy himself in some other way.

"Why is that?" Remus leans in to examine a strange plant he can't identify, but when it snaps at him, he quickly retreats and stuffs his hands into his pockets. "He came round last night and he seemed fine. He and Sirius spent three hours playing with Sirius' phone."

"Sirius has made that thing hostile," remarks Lily as she nods towards the plant. "And yes, I'm aware. Thanks for that, by the way. Now James wants one. I'll never have any peace if he gets his way."

Remus snorts in amusement. "Which is why you'll not be allowing that."

"Exactly." Lily sniffs smartly. "He just isn't right lately. James. Do you know he still hasn't talked about what's happening with Sirius? Not to me or Sirius. Not to anyone that I can tell. It isn't healthy. He keeps going for runs."

"You know James. He has his own way of dealing with things. He'll come around when he's ready," says Remus, still examining the plant while trying to figure out what Sirius could have possibly done to the thing. "I don't see what is so bad about him going for runs. Aren't you always after him to exercise more? Though why, I'm not sure. You're the one that keeps feeding him all the horrible things that have given him that belly of his."

"I happen to like his tiny belly, and James makes more of the dinners around here than I do. He's become remarkably good at it," insists Lily, "but you're missing the point. James Potter does not run. I mean, have you seen him try to run? Do you remember that film we saw ages ago? About the pirate that reminded us of Sirius and we irritated him constantly about it until he embraced it and dressed like him. Remember how he ran?"

Remus pulls his hands out of his pockets, holding up his arms and mimicking the movement as he trots in place.

Clicking her tongue, Lily points one finger at him. "That's the one."

"Mm, yeah. Captain Jack Sparrow," says Remus as he stares off into the distance and recalls just what he and Sirius had done with the costume. More than once.

"Keep it in your pants, Lupin," chastises Lily with glittering eyes.

"I'd just like to point out that Sirius does not run that way." Remus shifts to a different plant that he recognizes and reaches out to pet its leaves, making it purr softly. "Nor does he do anything else that way."

Lily scoffs and rolls her eyes. "Bully for you, but James does. It's embarrassing. I wouldn't claim him, except everyone in the area already knows he belongs to me, so what am I to do? I just…" Lily trails off and releases a sigh. "I'm worried about him. It's concerning to me that he might not be processing this the way he should be. I expected him to leap into action to try to find some way to fix it, but he hasn't done that. He hasn't done anything. I would almost believe he's given up and accepted it, except I don't think he's done that either."

"No," says Remus with heavy glumness and a lot of weight settling over his chest, unseen but there and felt, "that's not really James' way of things." He looks down and scuffs the toe of his shoe through the dirt. "I wish he could fix it."

The weight increases, dragging Remus' hand to his chest where he presses and massages as though it will somehow make it better. It doesn't, and he knows that by now. He wishes the feeling was something new, but it isn't. It stays with him at all times, sometimes fading and growing easier to live with, but it never leaves him. The truth of the matter is that one day in the future, it will become so heavy that it will crush him, and it will happen during the worst moment of his life; the moment he doesn't want to ever think about, and yet he can think about little else. His every thought rests on Sirius.

"Remus."

He looks up to find Lily beside him, her green eyes stricken with grief he feels in every part of his body. Her hand rests over top of his own on his chest, and Remus feels his lungs struggling as his chest jumps beneath their touches. He chokes a little around a desperate attempt to swallow, tears flooding his eyes from the pain of it, and Remus nods at Lily as though everything is okay, when in reality…it isn't.

Lily looks so sad as she stands with him. He thinks her mouth should be wobbling, but it isn't no matter how bright her eyes are shining. Remus wonders how long he has been breathing this way — the absence of breath in a heaving chest under a weight that won't ever leave him again. Lily pulls his other hand up, pressing it against her own chest that rises and falls so steadily, making Remus wonder how something that seems so simple could ever be possible for him. She makes him feel it, her lips rounding as she exhales loudly and Remus watches her until he begins to mimic her, his chest slowing and his air coming easier.

"I'm so sorry, Remus." Lily's apology is soft and scared. Remus doesn't want her to be scared because he's scared enough for the entire world on his own. "Sometimes I can be a real knob, can't I? This isn't about — "

"It's fine, Lily. Really, it is."

"No, it's not. I'm making it about James and my worry, but this is about Sirius. And you."

Remus shakes his head. "You're wrong," he says quietly as he tries to keep the rhythm of his heart steady. "This is about all of us. Sirius is only the epicenter. We're all losing. We are all going to lose."

Lily doesn't appear to know what to say to that, standing a bit like a statue beside Remus. When he soon excuses himself to return home, Lily offers a very weak argument that doesn't last through his insistence. No one knows what to do or how to behave around Sirius and Remus now, and it isn't as though Remus can completely blame them, except that he wants to. Sirius might be changing in ways they can't see, but he is still Sirius. He hasn't forgotten everything yet, not even close, and Remus thinks everyone else's altered attitudes towards him are affecting him more than Sirius will allow to show right now.

Lily hadn't been wrong about James. While he still comes around and he is very much James as he has always been, even Remus can see the difference in how he treats his best friend. He no longer tries to pull Sirius out of the house to whisk him off to new adventures. He doesn't suggest random pub nights as he once had so often in the past, and he never invites Sirius to sit with him during Quidditch matches while James makes commentary. James used to shout insults at Sirius through their mirrors all the time or send random owls with notes containing different insults, simply because that is who they both are, but he hasn't done it in months. Sometimes, Remus catches Sirius staring out the window like he's waiting for something, or idly fumbling his mirror in one hand while he does other things.

It comes to a head a few weeks after Remus' visit with Lily when he is once again in the back garden with her, helping her tame a plant she needs for her research. The crack of Apparition draws their attention, two gazes swinging around to find Sirius standing a few paces away with irate eyes and a foreboding expression coating his features. He takes one look at them before rounding on his heels and marching off inside the house, leaving Lily and Remus to watch after him in frozen astonishment for a second before they hasten to follow.

"James Potter!" Sirius' voice booms through the house as they enter, the power of it strong enough to quake the earth. When he locates James in the lounge, Sirius gives him a forceful shove against his chest to push him down onto an armchair. "Sit down," he orders.

"Padfoot — "

Sirius' hand slices through the air, and James instantly falls silent, his mouth still trying to form words without success. "Shut up. Listen." James once again tries to speak, but Sirius shoots him a cutting look that quickly ceases James' attempts. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to shove me away inside a wardrobe like some old Quidditch robes or one of those magazines you think Lily doesn't know about."

James' wide eyes jump to Lily, but she only rolls her own and gives her husband a wry expression.

"You don't get to forget parts of me or us and who we are together. You can't forget pieces of us and push them to the side like they don't matter, because they matter to me," snaps Sirius, his rant drawing James' attention back to him. "You can't forget any of it, because I'm forgetting enough of it for both of us."

It's the nearly whining plea that covers Sirius' voice at the end that seems to wither James where he sits. His mouth turns down and shivers a little, and when he opens it to speak again, whatever spell Sirius had placed over him has disappeared.

"I was trying to wean myself," whispers James in a heartbroken tone. "I thought it would be easier."

"Well, you can't! You can't do that to me! I need you, Potter! I fucking need you."

Sirius finishes in a whisper resembling James' own, and like glass cracking, James cracks, too. He surges out of the chair and crashes forward against Sirius, hauling Sirius into his arms where they both hold one another like the very land might split beneath them and try to tear them apart.

Beside Remus, Lily sighs. "I'll make the tea," she says with weary fondness.

——————————

He finds Sirius in their tiny back garden, the one that Lily mocks mercilessly because it's too small for them to really do anything, but Sirius had fallen in love with it the first time they looked at the house. Remus is still convinced it is the only reason they bought the place, even if Sirius refuses to admit it to this day.

Sirius is wearing his old leather jacket from their younger days. Remus hasn't seen it in the open for years. As Sirius had grown older, it had stopped fitting, too snug over his shoulders and around his back, but with all the weight and general muscle mass he has lost over the past year, it hangs off his shoulders loosely now. Remus does his best to pretend that doesn't bother him.

He is smoking, something that had stopped around the time the jacket had disappeared. James buys them for Sirius, Remus knows. Their friend is too soft now where Sirius is concerned, unable to tell him no for almost any reason. The orange cherry on the end flares dull red through Sirius' grey eyes every time he inhales from the tip, setting him ablaze as his lips wrap around the filter so casually and skillfully. They are chapped and cracking from the cold that mixes the exhaled smoke with water vapor from Sirius' breath. Remus wants to wet them; treat them with a soft balm. Sirius likely won't let him right now.

His dark head turns, lit only by the dim lanterns strung along their fence. Sirius glances at Remus, taking him in from face to waist for a moment before he casts his gaze forward once more. He sniffs sharply, the sound loud in the silence enveloping them, and the air feels strangely charged between them. Remus begins to reach for him as a way to disperse it, his hand moving towards Sirius' upper arm.

"I'm in love with him." Remus freezes. "You probably didn't expect that. Or maybe you already knew. People in your position sometimes have that extra sense about them, or so I've gathered."

Sirius' tone is so flat and straightforward that it is startling, but Remus is having difficulty focusing on that right now with how consuming the words are that he is speaking.

"I am aware you don't like me. You don't approve of who I am or where I come from, but that isn't anything new to me. I'm well-versed in what it's like to rub against the grain of others. I'm a Black. I'm cruel. I can be heartless. Even he thinks that sometimes. He thinks I don't know, but I do, and that's okay because I think he loves me, too. He's too scared to say it out loud because we're men; because he doesn't want to disappoint you."

The burning tip of the cigarette flares brighter between Sirius' fingers and lips, and Remus can't make himself breathe.

"He loves you, too. You already knew that, but it needs to be said," states Sirius bluntly, his gaze landing on Remus again, filled with more fire than the sun blazing on the other side of the world. "So, you can hate me. You can curse my name into your pillow every night and spend every second you are around me averting your eyes or glaring at me while waiting for me to disintegrate. You can think me a monster who does nothing but corrupt. It won't bother me. What you are not allowed to do is hate him, because you will break him. You'll break away some of the best pieces of him, and I'll salvage what I can and mend him back together, but he'll always miss the pieces of himself that came from you and do come from you, because without you, they won't ever come back. Hate me, Lyall, but don't stop loving your son."

Remus sucks in a gasping breath, and then he exhales in a rush. "Oh."

"Yes, oh." Sirius turns his body, fully facing Remus now, and Remus isn't sure that he has ever witnessed such an expression of pure conviction on his husband's features before. "Call me silly or foolish, I don't care. Remus and I, we're it. Remus is it. He is the only one for me, and I pray to whatever gods there may be that I'm the only one for him. Because we're cosmic, the two of us. We are bigger and brighter and better than this whole bloody galaxy."

The way Remus' lungs expand inside his chest can't be normal, that shaky feeling left in the absence of breath after being granted everything coveted within dreams kept silent and secret. His hands frame Sirius' face, thumbs brushing the corners of his lips and the laugh lines carved into his skin so very long ago. It makes Sirius blink and his brows pinch tightly together before a fog seems to clear, his own chest expanding largely.

"Remus?" he says in a whisper, eyes shuttering and then opening again. Sirius glances around in confusion, out over their garden and down at his arms covered with leather to the cigarette dangling forgotten between his fingers.

"It's me. I'm here." Remus waits for Sirius to press against his touch before pulling him forward into his arms. "I'm always going to be right here. How could I ever go anywhere without you? We're cosmic, remember?"

——————————

Sirius is having a bad day. They happen sometimes now, but they turn Remus' insides to slushy rot whenever they do. He has minutes or an hour of lucid clarity of his world before he slips away to other places Remus can't always follow.

After several hours of Sirius pacing around the house and almost frantically tearing through his notebook as though looking for something he can't find, Remus has managed to get Sirius into their bed for a kip. He collapses onto their sofa, the springs groaning along with him as his weight settles, and Remus closes his eyes with exhaustion, pinching and massaging the bridge of his nose. He has so much he needs to do, but tasks and chores are difficult on days like this when Sirius is so unsettled in his own mind.

Finally leveraging himself up from his slumped position, Remus stands, but he pauses as his gaze lights on Sirius' open journal teetering on the corner of the table in front of him. Remus has never read it, not once. He has never looked inside, but he picks it up now and slowly skims through the pages until his knees give out beneath him, sending him falling backwards onto the sofa again as he reads over Sirius' messy handwriting.

James is your best friend. He is your brother. He is the most important person in the world to you. He has stupid hair and stupid glasses, not to be confused with his son Harry who looks remarkably similar but is dashingly handsome while his dad looks like little more than a tragic deer that has spent too much time lost in the woods. James will do anything for you no matter how much you mercilessly mock him, and you both made the promise at eleven that when one of you dies, the other dies, too. There is no reason to live without the other. Make sure James forgets this because he has an infinite number of reasons to be alive.

Harry is your godson. You love him more than anyone else. You don't have kids of your own because you have never needed them. Harry has always been enough. He is married to Ginny who is made of fire and love and kindness. She makes you the best tiny cakes and tells you to not eat them all in one day, but you always do because they are so good that they melt in your mouth and you don't even have to chew them. They have three kids (these kids are also yours; you claimed them at birth) who are remarkable and clever and wild enough to make you proud.

Lily is James' wife and Harry's mum. She is also sort of your mum. She scolds you and loves you and feeds you to make you fat, which has become a lot easier since you got older. She and James are perfect for one another, even if they do fight like feral cats sometimes. Don't let them forget how much they love each other because sometimes they try. You are the one that knocks sense back into them when they are too stubborn to see the truth themselves. She is pretty when she cries even through all her blubbering snot and red eyes, but you won't ever tell her this because then she will only cry more. You are not good at dealing with crying women. Don't make her cry.

There are not enough pages in the world to explain who Remus is to you. If you ever forget who he is, you might as well forget yourself, too, because a life without Remus isn't worth sticking around for. He is universal. He is cosmic.

For the first time, Remus cries.

——————————

Sometimes, it feels as if nothing is happening at all. Their lives are entirely the same as they have always been. There are no mood swings, no drops in memory, no refusals to eat and drink. It feels normal, and everything is right with the world.

Those moments become rarer and rarer as the weeks and months pass. Sirius becomes more combative, more temperamental, more…everything he once so rarely was. Remus watches him lose more pieces of himself with every passing day, and it hurts to see it happen directly in front of his eyes, especially when he knows he has to keep fighting when Sirius won't. He has to wage those wars that go against Sirius' smaller battles, coaxing him and tricking him into eating, into bathing, into stepping out the front door for five minutes to feel the sunshine on his skin.

Remus wishes that was the worst part.

There are times, happening more frequently now, when Sirius will look at him and Remus believes that Sirius has no idea who he is. His grey eyes suddenly go blank, the life and love fading out of them like a cork pulled from his base, letting everything important seep away. He stares and he blinks, and his expression turns into a neutral slab of uncaring lines. He looks like the version of Sirius that Remus had first met more than fifty years ago in their first year of school, except it isn't him.

That Sirius had been haughty and spoiled. He had looked upon the world around him with disdain, only showing interest in the things that had excited him. He was crass, blunt, brutish in a way that only a wealthy and well-trained pureblood could be, looking over the rest of the world from his ivory tower as he hand-selected the pieces he deemed preferable to keep around.

This Sirius is like that at times. He slips and slides so far that he forgets the life he has lived; forgets who he has become. He falters and resets to his default, but Remus can handle that. He knows that Sirius. That isn't what scares him. He has also lived with that Sirius, but in the moments when Sirius forgets everything, even himself, Remus struggles to breathe through the fear of it all.

Sirius always comes back to him. Sometimes slowly and with stuttering steps, while other times it happens in a blink, as though he has woken from a dream. It's always a relief, but the weight over Remus' chest doesn't evaporate. It doesn't stop pressing. It only grows heavier.

Because one day Sirius won't come back to him. He won't come back to any of them.

No one talks about the level of supervision and attention it takes to care for a wizard with an unsteady memory. No one told Remus. He has heard stories about Muggles and the accidents that happen. Remus thinks it would be slightly easier if Sirius were a Muggle. He could take away car keys, put special locks on the doors, ward off the fireplace and the appliances. He wouldn't have to worry about Sirius tapping the locks with his wand and getting through the doors to wander aimlessly. Apparition would be of no concern, nor would mending the splinches leaving Sirius bleeding when he is finally found. How can he possibly explain to a child who found a friendly companion in a stray black dog that it is actually an unregistered Animagus who has no idea who he is or that he isn't, in fact, a pet?

Remus stops sleeping at night. He can't let himself do it anymore, like there is a block around his consciousness that won't let him slip very far away because Sirius has developed a habit of leaving the bed when Remus isn't alert enough to notice. Once, he had found Sirius standing in the middle of their small garden without a shirt, no socks or shoes, and an icy wind blowing around him. Remus had worried they wouldn't save his toes even with magic. Another night, Sirius had flooded half of their house when he had left the bath running. He had been confused; said he thought Remus had been in there because the bath had been meant for him. Their food spoiled another night when Sirius had left their refrigerator door open and walked away. He set their lounge on fire while trying to use the Floo to talk to Regulus, and then broke a mirror with his fist because Regulus had been mocking him inside the glass.

It's better not to sleep.

Sirius gets angry at him when he realizes what Remus is doing. They have spectacular fights about it. They have seven spectacular fights because Sirius realizes what Remus is doing seven separate times before he forgets again. The rage that comes out of him and the brutal, punching, concise arguments he wages are brilliant things, because through it all, Sirius remains remarkably brilliant.

Too many people regard dementia as a failing mind, but Remus witnesses it firsthand, and there is nothing failing about it. There is a fluctuation to it; an unrest that can be seen when one bothers to pay attention. It shifts and slides, stumbles and trips, but Sirius remains as clever as he has always been. The details he recalls at times that Remus had forgotten through time and age astound Remus at every turn. He can quote many of their textbooks from school verbatim, remembers almost every book he has ever read and many that Remus has read. Song lyrics belt from his mouth from the shower, constantly running, never forgotten.

He begins to relive their youth a lot, and when James shows up with school uniforms in hand after arranging to take Sirius to Hogwarts for a day, Sirius remembers every secret passage, every tapestry that hides a shortcut, every sinking step and shifting staircase. He leaves James and Remus in the dust as they race through the corridors of the school on old, aching knees, his laughter loud and ringing as he calls for them to catch up. The portraits cluck their tongues and clutch their pearls, Sirius ignoring them, charming them with his same glowing smile, sending them two fingers and cackling in the face of their outrage.

The next day, he forgets who James is. Remus has never seen James cry before, not even when he lost his parents, but he cries in the middle of their kitchen after Sirius introduces himself as Remus' husband and then walks away without giving James a second glance.

It is hard on Sirius — to watch him struggle, to see the anger in the moments when he understands how deeply he has faded once he comes back — and no one will deny that. The thing that is impossible to admit, that no one will dare to speak out loud, is that watching it happen is harder on everyone else.

——————————

"Why didn't you ever marry me?"

The question pulls Remus out of the surprisingly peaceful doze happening over Sirius' lap. These moments still happen, though they are rarer now than ever before, and Remus wants to hold onto it with all the strength of his teeth and never let it go, but the fingers slowly sliding through his hair have stopped, and one glance up at Sirius' eyes shows something lacking that had been there earlier. He has slipped again, backslid down a piece of the mountain, he and Remus no longer existing together.

Remus looks down at his hand where his wedding band rests. They had married roughly a year after it had been legalized, Sirius ready to jump immediately but stubbornly refusing to do it so soon, claiming he didn't want them to think he and Remus had been waiting for permission. Remus opens his mouth to answer, but he closes it a second later as he peers up at Sirius with a thoughtful gaze, recalling his decision made what feels like an eternity ago that wherever Sirius went, Remus would follow without question.

He sits up and turns around on their sofa to face Sirius. There are still gaps in his gaze, Remus can see them, but they don't matter right now. Not much else matters beyond Sirius.

"Do you want to marry me?"

Sirius scoffs. "What sort of proposal is that?" He plucks at a stray bit of lint on his shirt, fingers flicking it away while he gives Remus a slightly sour look. "I would have at least given you flowers or something."

Sirius did not give him flowers. Remus had been told to put on his best trousers without the ink stain near his bollocks because they were leaving to get married.

"I don't like flowers."

"'Course you do. Everyone likes flowers, Moony."

Sighing to himself, Remus rakes his eyes over Sirius before he huffs, "Fine."

He stands quickly and leaves the house, Apparating into James and Lily's overly large garden. Remus gains a horrible look from Lily when she pokes her head through the door, and then a harsh tongue lashing for cutting down several bunches of her flowers, but Remus leaves again without a word, worried that Sirius won't be mentally there anymore by the time he returns. His partner hasn't moved off the sofa, though he has sat up straighter and appears confused, but Remus pushes forward, dropping down to one knee with a deep grunt.

"Sirius Black, will you marry me?" he asks, presenting the sloppy bundle of flowers.

His question and actions receive only a blink, and Remus worries that Sirius has drifted somewhere else. He stares at Remus with puzzlement before he reacts, bouncing up from the sofa while tugging at Remus' arms.

"You silly sod, get off the floor before you break your hip," scolds Sirius, carefully tugging Remus up from the floor before he envelopes him in tightly hugging arms so quickly that it makes Remus stumble a little until he settles in that embrace that will never wear thin or waver from his own memory. "You know I hate flowers."

"No, you don't," whispers Remus as he squeezes Sirius in return.

Lily and Ginny handle the entire thing. It's a small affair held in their friends' back garden away from the more carnivorous plants she cultivates. Sirius has to keep being reminded why they are there and what they are doing, and even as they stand before the altar James had built for them, he slips. Remus doesn't care. He holds Sirius' gaze, slides hands through Sirius' own, and Remus follows him even as he gently tugs him back to the present.

More foolish men would describe their shared kiss as feeling like the first time, but Remus will never. It feels like a rainy and lazy Wednesday afternoon as they rest on their sofa. It's like the peck of lips while they pass one another on a busy morning. It is sleepy forehead kisses in the middle of the night and a happy-to-see-you kiss after a full day away from one another. It is the future and the past tucked inside the present. It's a memory preserved.

"I'm never going to leave you, you know," says Sirius softly against Remus' ear as they slip between each other's arms. "It's not possible."

His lips brush Remus' cheek as he pulls back enough for Remus to see his smile.

"We're cosmic, remember?"