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Remus has been trying to sleep for two hours.
Two. Whole. Hours.
He has turned his pillow over approximately seventeen times, rearranged his blankets, counted backwards from five hundred, and contemplated whether the moon gets lonely.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
And Sirius is beside him, lying flat on his back, staring at the ceiling with the haunted expression of a Victorian child who has just seen a ghost.
“Moony.”
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re about to.”
A pause.
“Do you think fish know they’re wet?”
Remus squeezes his eyes shut.
“I’m going to smother you with a pillow.”
“So they DO know?”
“Sirius.”
“Because, like, imagine being a fish and someone asks you what water feels like, and you’re like—”
“PADFOOT. I SWEAR TO GOD.”
Sirius starts giggling. Not a normal giggle. No. This is the horrible, breathless kind of giggling that makes the entire mattress shake and sounds like he’s actively fighting for his life.
And Remus, who was seconds away from contemplating the meaninglessness of existence, turns his head, sees Sirius’s face scrunched up with barely contained laughter, and starts laughing too.
Which is RIDICULOUS.Because neither of them has actually said anything funny.
They’re just two idiots in a bed.At four in the morning. With school in approximately three hours.
“Stop,” Remus wheezes.
“YOU’RE LAUGHING.”
“BECAUSE YOU’RE LAUGHING.”
“THAT’S NOT MY FAULT.”
“WHO ELSE WOULD IT BE, THE BLOODY TOOTH FAIRY?”
And that does it.
Sirius folds in half. Remus buries his face in Sirius’s shoulder, laughing so hard his ribs hurt, and Sirius wraps both arms around him, attempting to calm down while actively making the situation worse by whispering tooth fairy every thirty seconds.
Eventually, Remus manages to lift his head. His eyes are watering. His hair is sticking up in seventeen different directions.
“I hate you.”
Sirius looks at him with the softest, most unbearably fond expression imaginable.
“No, you don’t.”
“No, I don’t,” Remus admits, immediately, because he’s pathetic and Sirius knows it.
Sirius brushes a strand of hair off his forehead.
“Can’t sleep?”
Remus’s smile falters a little. He shrugs.
“My brain won’t shut up.”
And Sirius understands that one. More than he wishes he did. Because his own mind has been running in circles since midnight. Every stupid thing he’s ever said, every embarrassing thing he’s ever done, every possible disaster that could happen tomorrow. It’s exhausting, being trapped in a head that doesn’t believe in closing hours.
So he doesn’t tell Remus to stop thinking.
Doesn’t tell him to relax, or that it’s all in his head, or that he should just try harder to sleep. He just opens his arms.
“C’mere, Moony.”
Remus moves closer immediately, tucking his face into Sirius’s neck. Sirius pulls the blankets over both of them and starts tracing little absent-minded patterns against Remus’s back.
“Your brain’s a dick,” Sirius whispers.
Remus snorts against his collarbone.
“Very eloquent.”
“Thank you. I pride myself on my vocabulary.”
“Your vocabulary consists of swearing and the the most irrelevant charms and hexes.”
“And yet you’re in love with me.”
“Unfortunately.”
Sirius kisses the top of his head.
“Tragic, really.”
For a while, they actually get quiet.The dormitory is still. Somewhere outside, the wind rattles the window. James is snoring from the other side of the room like a lawn mower with a personal vendetta.
Remus lifts his head.
“Is James dying?”
Sirius listens.A particularly aggressive snore echoes through the room.
“No. I think he’s trying to communicate with whales.”
Remus makes a strangled noise.
“Sirius, PLEASE—”
“I’M JUST SAYING, IF A WHALE ANSWERS HIM, WE HAVE TO LET HIM GO.”
They’re laughing again. Quietly this time, because their roommates would murder them if they would laugh louder than that and wake them up.
And eventually, somewhere between Sirius mumbling that James would absolutely be the kind of person to get into a fight with a whale and Remus whispering that Peter would probably try to mediate the conflict, the laughter fades into little sleepy smiles.
Remus settles back against Sirius’s chest.
“Pads?”
“Mm?”
“Can you keep talking?”
Sirius’s hand pauses for half a second before continuing its gentle circles against Remus’s back.
“Yeah..Anything for my Moony.”
“Just about something stupid.”
“Brilliant. My specialty.”
And Sirius talks.About the world’s worst possible names for a cat. About whether James would survive being turned into a gnome. About how Remus would absolutely befriend a troll and then insist it was misunderstood.Remus contributes the occasional sleepy insult. Sirius laughs at every single one.
The sky outside slowly begins to lighten.
Neither of them notices.
Because Remus’s thoughts are finally becoming quieter..not gone,but softer around the edges. Sirius’s fingers keep moving through his hair, and every time his mind tries to drag him somewhere unpleasant, there’s a warm arm around his waist and a familiar voice telling him something utterly nonsensical.
At some point, Remus whispers, already half-asleep:
“Pads?”
“Yeah?”
“If I die, tell everyone I was handsome.”
Sirius goes completely silent.
Then, with the utmost seriousness:
“Moony, if you die, I’m telling everyone you were a coward who lost a fight with a staircase.”
Remus LAUGHS SO HARD HE WAKES HIMSELF UP.
“SIRIUS BLACK.”
“WHAT? IT’S WHAT YOU WOULD’VE WANTED.”
“YOU’RE ACTUALLY THE WORST PERSON I’VE EVER MET.”
“And yet,” Sirius says, pulling him closer, “you keep coming back to my bed.”
“Because you steal all the blankets in yours.”
“Lies. Slander. Defamation.”
“I’m breaking up with you.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. But you have to break up with me in the morning because I’m comfy.”
Remus stares at him.Sirius stares back.
Then Remus starts laughing again, helplessly, pressing his face into Sirius’s chest.And Sirius holds him like he’s the funniest, loveliest thing in the entire world.
Because he is.
5:12 a.m.
James, from across the dormitory, without even opening his eyes:
“IF YOU TWO AREN’T DEAD BY MORNING, I’M KILLING YOU MYSELF.”
Silence.A long, beautiful silence.Then Sirius whispers into Remus’s hair
“Think James knows what water feels like?”
Remus actually kicks him. And they both nearly fall out of bed trying not to scream laugh.