I want to be sorry.
Maybe no one will ever ask me to write canon again after this.
Enjoy? X
He's the same.
They're the same.
If you looked at them from the outside, everything looks fine. Maybe not as close as they'd always been, but there's a war, they're fighting it, and everyone's entitled to a rough patch.
He's still the same Remus, though.
The purple splotches under his eyes are a little darker, he's a little quieter, but his jumpers are still soft and warm, he still leaves his half drunk mugs of tea around their flat, still always misses the fireplace when he tries to throw his old bits of parchment in.
His hands don't linger anymore, don't find their way to the base of Sirius' neck, don't wind themselves into his hair. He doesn't bite his lip to catch a smile, doesn't watch Sirius the way he used to. He doesn't chuckle under his breath, can barely bring himself to write to James, but that's exhaustion and confusion and the war more than anything else. It couldn't be anything else. There's nothing else wrong.
He's still the same person, no matter how much it doesn't feel like it sometimes. And more and more often lately, he's starting to feel like someone else entirely.
When he watches Sirius now, he's not doing it because he likes tracing the lines of his body as he moves, because he wants to watch the quick, easy smile bloom on his lips, he's doing it because he's trying to explain something to himself, to figure out if the distance he feels is really there or if he's made it all up in his head, if this is the beginning of the end of something that he's just not ready to give up on. If this thing, this relationship, this fucking man that has meant so much to him, that's shaped him, that's —
He just can't tell if all of this is over — if it is, it happened right in front of his eyes and he didn't realise it until it was too late.
He's not sure what shifted, and, if asked, he probably couldn't put his finger on what exactly it is. It's more of a feeling, the way that Sirius will look at him until Remus looks up to catch his eye, the way he comes to bed late, sleeps curled up along the edge of the mattress, the way Sirius is careful not to brush up against him anymore when they're moving around the kitchen together. There's a distance in his eyes, a hollowness to the way that he laughs, and every time, every time, it cuts Remus just a bit deeper, makes him feel almost desperate, like he's clamoring to patch a hole that he can't even find while the damn ship sinks around him.
The evidence of it is everywhere, but he can't figure out what the problem is. He can't find the source, and without the source, how the fuck is he supposed to fix it?
The thing about Sirius, though, is that whatever Remus senses is really only the tip of the iceberg.
There's so much more to it than he realises, than he could ever realise, because most of it, Sirius can't even admit to himself. He wants everything to be fine, pretends that everything is fine, but it doesn't stop nagging at him in the back of his mind, doesn't stop changing the way that they exist together, because whether he means to or not, Sirius withdraws, and he withdraws hard.
He can't bring himself to look Remus in the eye, can't let himself feel that pull that's always there when he catches the corner of Remus' mouth hitching up just a touch as he reads, can't even register the familiar exasperation when Remus asks for another cuppa and there are four half-finished mugs littered around the flat.
He sometimes feels that rush of affection in his chest, the one that used to make him stop and catch his breath because it didn't make sense that this bloody man felt the way he said he did, that he could love someone as hard and cold and broken as Sirius could be, but now, the rush is barely there, an echo of what it used to be, so weak that he nearly misses it when it happens. It's similar enough that he can recognise it, but so different that that, the shift, is all he can really focus on.
And so he leaves more often, creates a distance, a space around himself, because he can't be close, not when he's thinking the things that he is or feeling the way that he does. It doesn't matter if he's wrong or right, either way he's ashamed — one way he's in love, so fucking in love, with a man that's actively betraying them, the other he believed that Remus, the kindest, bravest person he knows — he can't believe he believes it of him, but it's there and he can't shake it and sometimes he's not even sure that he wants to.
This is yet another thing that he blames his parents for.
He wants to forget about it, to say fuck it and just be, to let himself fall back into the familiar patterns of their relationship, his cold hands under Remus' jumpers, Remus' hands tugging on the lapels of his leather jacket for just a moment before he pushes it off his shoulders. He wants to lay on the sofa, tangled limbs and a haphazardly draped blanket, and listen to the steady thrumming of Remus' heart, wants to nudge Remus' foot with his when they're sitting on the edge of the bed in the morning whining about getting dressed, wants to mumble very audible comments about Remus' pile of parchment in front of the fireplace about how after all these years and all those attempts, he can't believe that Remus' aim is still that fucking terrible, wants to laugh against Remus' lips when he tells him he can't believes that he loves someone so incredibly fucking rude.
He wants it all back, he wants it so desperately, but it doesn't feel right to want it, not when he's the one killing it. Remus would never even forgive him anyway, not if he knew the real reason that Sirius wasn't sleeping anymore, because he's doing it again, taking the thing that Remus hates the most about himself and using it against him.
They'd barely survived it in fifth year, and this was — this felt like so much more than that.
They were supposed to have moved beyond that, supposed to have worked this out already, but here he was, and no matter how much he told himself that it couldn't be Peter and it wasn't him and that only left Remus, Sirius knew, he knew, that there had to be more to it, there had to be a reason that this was where he'd gone first and that even if there wasn't, that Remus would never believe that anyway, and it almost didn't matter that he hated himself so much for even thinking it, because Remus — that would be unbearable.
And the rage would be one thing — it would hurt and it would be terrible, especially because Remus so rarely gets genuinely angry, but anger Sirius could handle, anger he was used to. The hurt, the betrayal, the look that Sirius knew would be all over Remus' face when, if, he found out — even imagining it was enough to damn near kill him and so he kept his mouth shut, didn't say a damn word, and just let his suspicions fester.
But god, what he wouldn't do to have it all back, when he would sit at the table and flick bits of bacon at Remus' head for sassing him about being a black-coffee-drinking, leather-jacket-wearing cliche, when Remus would rest his head in his lap while he worked on the Prophet cryptic and Sirius would run his fingers through his hair, watch his expression change as he tried to figure out a clue (and watch him try to decide if he was more irritated or grateful when Sirius gave him answers before he was able to figure them out himself). He wanted Sundays when they didn't get out of bed at all, when he could lie there and watch the sun creep in through the blinds, the light moving slowly over Remus' skin, the whispered conversations they'd used to have, snuggled close in a bed that always felt too large after years of dorms. He wanted Remus' hand on the small of his back when he leaned past him to grab something from the cupboard, wanted to drag his lips down Remus' neck and hear that fucking noise he always made, the one that drove Sirius absolutely out of his mind, wanted to lie in bed all bloody day and pretend that everything, every single thing, was alright.
He would give up anything, absolutely anything, for everything to be the same as it was. For them to be same.
But they aren't the same.
They can't be.