November, 1982
A gentle blanket of streetlight settles into the room where Remus wakes up crying, tears rolling down his face from a dream that he’s already forgotten. Cars drive past and if he listens closely, he can hear the noise from the pub down the road. It sounds celebratory. He supposes that’s what people are at pubs at two in the morning.
Wiping the tears from his face, he wonders how many nights it’s been that he’s woken up like this now. It happens often. It’s not sad anymore, not really. It’s more frustrating than anything. Frustrating that even now, a year after everything, he’s still not able to sleep the whole night through. Frustrating that anything ever made things like this normal.
He wants to forget it all. He wants to forget everyone and everything that he’s lost. He knows it’s an awful thing to think, but there are just so many of them and he doesn’t know how he’s going to cope like this. These dreams that feel so real until he opens his eyes. These nights, cheeks damp, breathing painful — he can’t remember the last time he slept through the night. And then the days come and are almost worse because he just goes about doing the things he needs to do like there’s not this awful tearing at his chest, at his throat, at his breath.
A cheer goes up at the pub. People are clapping and yelling and Remus wonders if it’s a sport thing or if it’s a birthday thing or if it’s just a thing. He’s happy for them. He wishes he were them.
Stretching his right arm out to pat the other side of the bed, he feels that it’s still warm. It can’t have been long since Sirius had woken up. He doesn’t know the last time Sirius slept through the night either. He wishes Sirius was one of the people at the pub celebrating, he of all people deserved it.
Slipping the covers around his shoulders as he gets out of bed, Remus thinks that maybe they should start keeping count of how many nights they spend like this. It would be an interesting thing to keep track of. Never mind that he can gather a pretty accurate estimate without counting.
On the way out of the bedroom, he leans over Harry’s cot to make sure the now two-year-old is still peaceful. He was grateful that of all of them, Harry was the one who got some peace. Merlin knows that he’s going to need it while he’s still young. Remus shudders at the fact that one day Harry is going to ask questions that he and Sirius are going to have to break their hearts to answer.
They have to get there first though. Sometimes the idea of that is what Remus shudders at.
Leaning against the doorframe for a moment, Remus watches Sirius as he stands on their balcony, just large enough for the two of them and a singular, almost dying, plant. The soft yellow glow of the streetlights pour over Sirius and Remus is, as always, amazed at Sirius’ beauty. He’s more amazed at the fact that Sirius is here. He’s here, in a flat that they own. The two of them, together. Even after everything had come to an end, they were together in their flat. He finds it surreal, even now.
Sliding the door open, still cloaked in their duvet, Remus steps out next to Sirius. Wordlessly, he stretches out his right arm, offering Sirius the edge of the blanket to wrap around himself. They stand there silently for a moment, breathing in tandem.
“Morning,” Sirius whispers, turning his head to press his lips to Remus’ temple.
“We’re besting even the 5AM exercisers.”
Sirius barks out a laugh, and really, it’s no wonder that he turns into a dog. “Your overachieving must be rubbing off on me.”
“Something was bound to.”
“Mhm.”
“How are you doing?” Remus asks, looking for honesty, looking for an opening to help.
“How are you doing?” Sirius returns, wrapping his side of the blanket around them more firmly as he leans against the railing.
They always stand close together these days, Remus worries that if they don’t one of them is going to simply fade away. He worries that one of them might anyway.
“I asked first.”
“Fine,” Sirius huffs, though he’s smiling and that’s a relief. “I’m so tired of it all, Moony. We did everything we could and yet, everything’s come to nothing. It’s just us now, you know?”
They’ve spoken about this countless times. The fact that they’re some of the few left. They go to the monthly catch-up sessions that are organised, usually by Molly, because they need to know that there are other people who made it out and they need to support the others who have. But in a way, it makes it all worse. Because the group is smaller and smaller every time and none of them know what to do about it.
“I know,” Remus acknowledges. He does know. He doesn’t know what they can do about it either. They’d even tried to make friends with the muggles around them just to have people to look to, to say ‘I know them’. And most of them were lovely people, but then one man threatened to out them to their landlord and after reading the muggle newspapers, they had silently agreed it was best to not to frequent the muggle side of the world so much while they could.
“And you, how are you feeling?”
“I’m so fucking exhausted. I know that no one deserved the deaths they got, but it would be so much easier to be them right now” Remus says darkly. What else is there to say? “But we’ll be okay.”
“Of course we will be,” Sirius replies, offering a smile, though it’s soft and it’s sad and that seems to be most of their lives at the moment.
“What are we going to do today?” Remus asks, hoping to pry them both away from the edge with domesticity. Some days it works better than others. He’s not quite sure what will happen today.
Sirius trills happily, seemingly okay to be appeased by distraction today, “it’s bakery day.”
“Is it?” Remus has never been good at keeping track of what day it is, but now more so than ever, the days seem to blur into one. He doesn’t imagine that waking up at two in the morning helps that any.
“Saturday, right?”
“I trust you,” Remus says gently, hoping that the meaning behind it is clear.
He trusts Sirius. He hasn’t always. But he does now. He’s loved Sirius since they met, but trust had come and gone too many times for them to know. But he trusts him now and now is all that matters because they’re living in a world that has fallen to pieces and is being built up again. Because the other half of their world is falling to pieces and Remus doesn’t know when it will be built up again. Because they have a child in their bedroom and they have every intention of raising him. Now is all that matters because now is all they have and Remus needs Sirius to know that he trusts him.
Sirius knows.
—
November, 1987
“Hi, love,” Remus greets Sirius as he closes the door behind him.
“Hey Remus,” Sirius replies, getting up off the couch, gesturing to the closed bedroom door to indicate a sleeping Harry as he does so.
“We do need to move, don’t we?” Remus sighs. He doesn’t particularly want to go through the hassle of moving, but Harry was only going to get older, and a one-bedroom flat wasn’t going to work forever, even if they had split their bedroom into two with the help of a screen and more than a little magic.
“Soon,” Sirius agrees, though he isn’t fussed, wrapping Remus in a hug. “How was it today?”
“Depressing.”
Remus had known for a long time that it would be easier to get a muggle job than a wizarding one and so that’s what he had done, it made sense. What made less sense was why he was working for a charity, albeit one very close to their hearts. He had debated it for months, not sure if it would be worth it for the small salary, for his peace of mind, for the time it would take. He still wasn’t sure that it was worth it, but at least he was doing something. It wasn’t the most feel-good of jobs though.
“Unsurprisingly,” Sirius comments, still holding Remus close.
“Unsurprisingly,” Remus agrees, nodding. “How was your day? You’re not working tonight are you?”
“Good. And nope!” Sirius confirms brightly. “Here, eat. Pasta,” he says, letting go of Remus to start filing a bowl with food.
“I can do that,” Remus protests, smiling. “You made it.”
“I know you can, but so can I,” Sirius replies, handing Remus a bowl and a fork with a grin. “C’mon, things are okay, you’re doing important work.”
“Things are definitely okay, more than okay, even.” And it’s true, he realises. They are okay and they have been okay for awhile now.
“Good.”
Comfortable silence falls across them as they settle into the couch, Remus pulling Sirius in for a proper kiss before starting on the meal. Both content in their quietude, Remus muses on how nice it all is. They’d made it this far, who was to say they couldn’t keep making it?
They were twenty-seven and despite everything, they were content. Content as the streetlight poured in to them. Content on cheap pasta and Sirius’ pasta sauce. Content with the boy they never should have had to raise. Content even with the drive to the nearest woods every full moon. Content even as they both worked long hours, as they both wondered who’d turn up tomorrow. Content because despite it all, they could sit together on the couch after Remus’ work and before Sirius’ and know that the other would always come back to this spot at the end of it all.
“I can’t believe he’s seven now,” Remus says, breaking the silence, glancing in the direction of the bedroom. “It’s been six years.”
“I know,” Sirius replies, grinning, eyes lit up. “I wish it hadn’t happened this way, I wish… well, so many things. But he’s so perfect, isn’t he?”
“He is,” Remus agrees. “He just, he looks so much like them.”
“He does, he acts like them too,” Sirius says, expression clouding over, but only briefly. “I miss them, but I reckon they think we’re doing alright.”
“They’d better! They chose us, after all. That is wholly their fault.”
“He’s a good kid. He’s clever,” Sirius replies, smiling. “I think he’s happy too,” he adds, eyeing Remus.
Remus had seen Sirius many different ways and hoped to see him many more, but Sirius talking about Harry might’ve been one of his favourites. Always so beautiful talking about their godson, the child they had raised. He had seen Sirius a lot of different kinds of beautiful as well.
“I love you,” Remus whispers, a secret that’s not a secret because they’re always telling each other, even if not through words. “So much.”
“I love you too,” Sirius replies, not even bothering to whisper.
Remus knows. Remus knows that Sirius loves him because he comes home every day to Sirius who is always happy to see him. Even when they are fighting or exhausted or simply grieving, Sirius is still happy to see him. Remus knows that he loves Sirius because he doesn’t mind being woken up in the early hours of the morning when Sirius gets home from the wizarding bar he’s been working at. Even when he’s had a long day, a hard day, or simply A Day.
They still spend their Saturdays together. It’s still bakery day, much to everyone’s delight. Harry is old enough to tell the baker what kind of bread he wants now and Remus watches Sirius watching Harry proudly. They are proud. Both of them. Of Harry. Of themselves. Of the fact that they’ve made it to this point.
Sirius loves Remus in the way that he cooks and in the way that he’s always buying things for Remus that he sees around and in the way that he’s always looking for a moment to kiss him. Remus loves Sirius in the way that he leaves notes around the house and in the way that he’s always bringing home flowers and in the way he’s always waiting for a moment to hold hands.
They’re twenty-seven and they’re too young to have gone through what they’ve gone through and what they’re going through, but they’re okay. Because they’ve filled their flat and their lives with love. Love for each other, love for Harry, love for the fact that they’re still here.
Remus doesn’t pretend that there aren’t days when he feels the same way he did five years ago, he doesn’t think there’s any good in pretending he’s not got scattered pieces of pain built into him doing their best to rebuild him into them as they have done before. But he also doesn’t pretend there’s not something good about what they three of them have got, what they’ve built together and what they will keep building together, separate and intertwined with that pain.
Sirius still has nights he wakes up screaming and nights that he can’t tell if he’s screaming because of the war or because of his family or because of something else entirely. Those nights are impossible to ignore, but neither of them need to anymore. They have charms up to protect Harry and their neighbours from those screams and those late night sobs, but they also have charms up for equally late night laughing and fucking and storytelling.
Four years from the last time either of them tried to escape life or each other, six years from the end of the war, eight years from the rings they had bought each other, ten years from the first time they lived alone together, twelve years from their first date, fourteen years from their respective gay awakenings, sixteen years from the first time they met.
Sixteen years of knowing each other and they knew they were raising Harry in household overflowing with love, overflowing with kindness, overflowing with patience as they all grew into themselves.
Remus loves Sirius so much that it hurts sometimes and he knows Sirius feels the same way and while they both know that nothing is ever perfect, they both feel like this is pretty close.