This is my first attempt at writing something solely slash/romancey/angsty so please forgive me if it's completely terrible, plus, I've been out of practice because of having exams just after Christmas.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any associated characters.

Something Else

It had been a long day. First, taking the children to King's Cross, then helping Molly and Arthur Weasley pack so they could move back to The Burrow, and now Remus Lupin was packing – albeit half-heartedly – for himself. It shouldn't have taken him this long, seeing as he didn't have that many possessions to call his own that he would be needing, but his general reluctance to pack meant that he had allowed himself to be distracted easily; starting to read any book that he picked up to put back on the bookcase, going back to check the letter that had arrived from Dumbledore, and more than once he had unpacked the tattered old rucksack to make sure he had indeed already packed something.

Now, Remus was immersed in another book he had found on the floor. It wasn't one of his own; rather, he had found it under the bed when he was looking for some robes that had gone missing. But it had caught his attention, and now he was idly thumbing the pages of the photo album, staring at the photographs on each page for a long time before turning the page.

"You're leaving again."

Remus hadn't heard the door open, and jumped at the sound of Sirius' voice. He turned around to see Sirius standing in the doorway.

"Yes," Remus said. He closed the photo album and placed it on the bed next to where he sat.

Sirius didn't speak as he walked around the bed to sit beside Remus. Remus watched him with a wary eye: ever since he had escaped from Azkaban - and particularly since he had started living in Grimmauld Place - Sirius had become prone to mood swings, and the toneless voice he had spoken with, plus his current silence, suggested to Remus that he was on the verge of one such mood swing.

Remus would have to be careful about what he said in case it set Sirius off.

He inwardly sighed at this thought; Sirius never used to be this hard to be around. In faded memories of days long past, Sirius was always the one laughing, a grin on his face, arms lazily thrown over shoulders… Sure, the war had taken its toll on him, as it had on them all, but Sirius had been the constant, his natural brightness filling every room he walked in. No matter what bad news they had received, Sirius had been able to remind everyone why they were fighting – what they were fighting for.

Now, Remus sometimes wondered whether Sirius knew what they were doing all of this for.

"Are you going back to the werewolves?" asked Sirius, breaking the silence. He wasn't looking at Remus, choosing to stare out the window to the Muggle square below them. Despite this, Remus wasn't foolish enough to think that Sirius didn't know he was watching him.

"Yes. Dumbledore sent me an owl." Remus gestured towards the piece of parchment on one of the bedside tables. "He said it was important."

"Is that all I get, 'important'?" Sirius' voice hadn't changed, but there were some things that time couldn't erase, and one of those things was Remus' knowledge of how Sirius' reactions didn't always correspond to his true feelings on the matter. Remus could tell that anger was bubbling beneath his dispirited visage.

"You know why I need to go. If Voldemort gains the werewolves as an ally again then people's lives are going to be ruined, and it isn't just those who become infected. Their families and friends are affected by it as well. Dumbledore's found a new pack, though he says it's more of a support group. He reckons I'll have some more luck with them."

Something Remus said stirred Sirius, as he tore away his gaze from outside and looked straight at Remus.

"Do you believe that?"

"Well if they're helping each other rather than giving in to it then I don't think –"

"Not that – that your life's been ruined because of what you are?"

Remus hesitated, knowing that Sirius wouldn't like his answer. However, there was no point lying to him - experience had proven that honesty was indeed the best policy.

"Yes."

"You're wrong."

"Am I?" It surprised Remus himself how angry his voice sounded. "I can't hold down a decent job, I think the longest was a year when I worked for an old couple who ran a bookshop. They were lovely, but the hassle they got from the Ministry eventually got to them – fines, tax rises, and unannounced inspections at any time of day. It was too much. I've lived on charity for my entire adult life, first you and James, and then my parents. What I am bled them dry, looking after me and trying to find a cure. And once they died, the rest of my family disowned me, I wasn't even welcome at my own mother's funeral."

"It hasn't ruined you, though. You're still you."

Remus had to work to suppress a laugh. "I'm not seventeen now, Sirius. You can't say things like that and expect me to think that that's all that matters."

"It's still something."

"I can't exactly put it on a CV."

"Why's that so important to you now? It didn't matter before. You couldn't get a job then, you'd always try again the next day, and the day after, but it was never what everything came back to."

"For a long time it was the only thing left I still had a chance at."

Sirius stared at Remus, speechless, for what felt like several days.

"I'm sorry," he said, eventually.

Remus shook his head. "It's not your fault."

"I should have trusted you. I –"

"Stop, Sirius. We've had this conversation a million times, and it doesn't help anything. You can't keep thinking like that or you'll go crazy, and that won't help anyone. The Order needs you, Harry needs you."

Sirius looked away, nodding slightly as if that was exactly what he had needed to hear.

"What about you?"

Of all the things Sirius could have said, he chose the one that Remus would never have expected to hear. Remus swallowed.

"What about me?" Remus felt his throat constrict, which made it hard to speak. His heart was thumping so loudly in his chest he thought Sirius would be able to hear it. For over a year, Remus had done his best to avoid turns in the conversation like this in an attempt to keep the past in the past. It had worked, or so he hoped it had, until now.

"Do you need me?" Sirius still wasn't looking at him, giving Remus a chance to think of an answer.

Yes, was the answer. It was so amazingly simple to Remus that he was surprised that Sirius hadn't guessed. However, even as he thought it, Remus' heart sank. He had spent the better part of twelve years trying to forget, and in the space of a year Sirius had managed to undo all that work. It was remarkable, really, how one person could do that to you. Twelve years of training yourself to not think of someone, to move on with your life, and after – what? – one, two conversations with them, everything you thought you'd accomplished was destroyed.

But Remus couldn't just say yes. They had been through far too much for the answer to be that simple. Both of them had been damaged, they had their own issues to work through, and trying to support each other at the same time could lead to disastrous consequences. They weren't teenagers anymore; their decisions affected other people.

"Sirius."

He turned his head slightly, barely acknowledging that Remus had spoken.

"Sirius." Remus spoke more harshly and Sirius looked at him in shock, probably surprised that Remus could even think in that tone of voice.

And Remus looked into the gaunt face that held only faint traces of the handsome youth he had fallen in love with. The features had been warped by the years in Azkaban and two years on the run, all except the eyes. Instead of being the stone grey of the rest of his family, Sirius' eyes had always had a strange burning fire to them, resembling starlight more than stone. It was a subtle difference, and Remus used to wonder whether he was the only one who could see it. Maybe he was. It didn't matter.

Because, for Remus, it meant that, despite everything, that fire was still there. That his outward appearance was deceiving, and the Sirius that Remus still loved was there. That he wasn't damaged beyond repair, and, maybe, it could work.

Maybe now there was something else that Remus had a chance at.

"I've always needed you."

The words escaped Remus' lips before he had a chance to stop them. He watched Sirius' face for any sort of reaction, but there wasn't one.

"I wasn't there when you did need me."

"I've just said not to –"

"I know, just listen to me for a change, okay? You survived when I wasn't there, how do you know you still need me if you managed without me when you needed someone the most?"

"I survived, I didn't live."

Remus waited a moment, allowing his words to sink in. But before Sirius could say anything else, he asked:

"What about you?"

Sirius' face paled until it looked like he'd just seen Voldemort enter the room. Remus instantly regretted speaking.

"I – I didn't even survive. I mean, you were always there in my mind, and I knew you'd been innocent, and every day I hoped you'd come and you didn't. Merlin, Moony, I was a mess. Even if I hadn't been in that place I don't think I'd have been able to do anything except curl up in a ball somewhere. It was –"

Sirius had started shaking, and the shakes grew more violent as he spoke, until he could speak no more, his breathing coming out in ragged gasps.

Remus hesitated, then put his arms around Sirius, pulling him into his chest.

They sat like that for a short moment, until Sirius suddenly pushed Remus away. Remus let him go, not wanting to overstep some invisible boundary.

He waited, silently, while Sirius took deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself. Sirius held his head in his hands, hiding his face, but when he finally looked up, Remus could see the tell-tale tear tracks down his cheeks.

Neither one of them spoke. Remus didn't know what to say – anything he thought of sounded cliché and fake. There was no point in saying that everything was going to be okay, because who knew? He couldn't make that promise, no one could. They were too old, and had seen too much, to believe that nonsense.

So they sat in silence, inches apart, but those few inches might as well have been miles – light-years – for all Remus cared.

He wondered whether this meant that the conversation had been pointless. If these things were supposed to happen, then they were easy. They had been easy. This wasn't; this was difficult. This wore Remus down simply by sitting there and thinking about it.

As this thought passed through Remus' mind, Sirius spoke,

"It never used to be like this, did it? All this silence and not knowing what to say."

"We've changed. We've grown up."

"Speak for yourself." A ghost of a grin flitted across Sirius' face. And then, in an obvious attempt to change the topic, Sirius added, "What were you reading?"

Remus grimaced. It wasn't going to be as much of a change of topic as he would have liked. "I wasn't reading. I found an old photograph album under the bed."

"So you were amusing yourself looking at baby pictures of Death Eaters?"

"No, it must have been yours. I don't know how it ended up in here. It had old school photos in it."

"Let's have a look."

Remus didn't think it was a good idea, but he picked up the photo album he had placed beside him and handed it over to Sirius. Sirius carefully turned over the front cover, and stared at the first picture, at the four laughing faces looking up at him. Slowly, he raised one finger and traced the outline of Remus in the picture.

Sirius turned page after page, taking in each photograph, occasionally making an observation to Remus, who "hmm-ed" in response, but kept quiet for the most part.

When Sirius reached the last photograph, he closed the album, but didn't give it back to Remus.

"I must have left it here by accident, when I ran away," Sirius said, though the way he murmured it, almost inaudible, made it seem more like he was thinking out loud than actually talking to Remus. As a result, Remus didn't say anything; he didn't need to, Sirius continued anyway, "I'm surprised they didn't just burn it, they were probably hoping I'd come back to get it and they'd be able to kill me on the spot. Leaving here was the best decision I ever made, might be the only good decision I ever made."

"That's not what you used to say." Remus stared straight ahead. He knew that Sirius would know what he meant – now that they had touched on the subject Remus' mind was full of hazy memories of long summer days and warm winter nights in front of a small fireplace. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sirius turn to look at him.

"No… but look at where that's got us."

"So before, when you were saying you couldn't survive without me – that was what exactly? If you regret everything from back then, why were we having that conversation? You're giving off mixed signals and I can't sit around not knowing which mood you're going to be in."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Then how did you mean it?"

"I don't –"

Remus didn't think he could sit and listen anymore. He stood up, and started making his way to the other side of the room, so he could continue packing. He got maybe halfway to the wardrobe when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Remus spun round, intending to shake off Sirius' hand and vent the anger that was bubbling up in him.

But Sirius acted before Remus could. His lips crashed against Remus', and Remus froze in shock.

And then Remus reacted, falling into the familiarity of the kiss, though this was different. This was the kiss of a desperate man, one who had lost everything and was clinging to something, anything, to keep him sane. But that didn't seem to bother Remus right now, because he was the same. He may put on a better show than Sirius, but he had spent far too long not having anything to hold onto, too.

Sirius' arm wound around Remus' waist, pulling them closer. Remus' hand found the nape of Sirius' neck, and formed a fist around the hair there, forcing his head closer to his own.

They eventually parted, breathing heavily, foreheads resting against each other. Remus kept his eyes closed; if he did that, and never opened them, then he could pretend that this moment would last forever and there'd be no need for any further talk, or explanations.

And everything would be okay.

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