The air is too thick and hot to breathe, so Remus doesn't. Instead, he takes drag after drag on Sirius's disgusting cigarettes. Everything about Sirius is filthy (Why should I bathe? It's not as though I've anyplace to be.), and it drives Remus mad. The way he lives, the things he says—it's all sickening. But not as sickening, Remus thinks, as the fact that he can't bring himself to leave. It's an exercise in self-loathing, this endless cycle of abuse and torment and cold, hard silence. The fleeting moments of heat are sporadic at best, and Remus knows they are not what he stays for. He knows he is living, living there, for the pain in between. Because as long as it hurts, at least he can be sure he is still alive. At least he can be sure there's something left between them.
Sirius is always drunk or high or both when he stumbles into bed, with smoke in his eyes and heat on his lips. Some nights they fuck (Shut up, don't say a goddamn word.), and Remus comes with his face pressed into the mattress or the wall or the floor. Other nights, Sirius is too smashed or stoned to do anything but touch (Moony… Oh, gods, Moony, I think I might be dead.), and Remus thinks he likes these nights better. There's no urgency, no anonymity, and he can pretend that they are back at school, kissing quietly behind the draperies, finding each other beneath the covers, with roving hands and trembling fingers in the dark. He can pretend that they are going to grow up to be like their parents (or Remus's parents, anyhow) and have bills and pets and all the time in the world. But they aren't children anymore, and this war is endless. And they are expendable.
The days are endless, and at night, when he's alone (which is most nights), Remus sleeps with the lights on. They shuffle around, devoid of purpose, living out of habit more than anything else. Everything is gritty and damp, like a bad movie or a sketchy pub. The faux-tile in the washroom is starting to peel away, the ceiling in the living room is stained and leaking, and the plaster above the headboard is falling off in chunks, so that their bed is always coated in white dust. Remus thinks of fixing these things, but finds he doesn't care anymore. Let it all rot. He tells himself it's too good a metaphor to waste, but really, it's that he doesn't mind the decay nearly so much as he minds the fact that Sirius doesn't seem to notice. Sirius doesn't notice anything, except for when his cigarettes have run out or when James' letters stop coming.
They are silent, save for the occasional complaint about the heat or the lack of news. Nothing else seems relevant. They don't talk about the bruises on Remus's wrists, nor the fact that Sirius drinks until he's sick more days than not. They don't discuss the war, because for one thing, they have no idea what's going on, but even if they did, they learned ages ago that talking about war is for people who have yet to see it face to face. To stare death in the eye and see the bodies in crumpled heaps on the ground, like so many piles of ash. Talking is for children with delusions of purpose and usefulness and righteousness, not hardened men at the age of twenty, battle-weary, with mouths full of bile and lungs full of dust. But mostly, Remus doesn't talk because he is afraid of the terrible, dangerous things he might say (I hate you. I wish you were dead. I need you to come back to me.).
For weeks (or perhaps it's just months) they are sure the world has forgotten them. Then suddenly, there's news and it's as though someone has thrown open a window in the heat of summer, but instead of a breeze, there is only more hot air.
Seven more dead.
Bitterness seeps into Remus's throat. No names. Too risky. He's sure that if it were James or Lily, the Patronus would have said, but what about the others? Would Frank or Fabian warrant a mention? Or does the lack of specificity mean they were fringe members—muggles or tradesmen—with bad timing and worse luck? There's no point in thinking about it, so Remus doesn't. And then he wonders when it became so easy to ignore death. Was it after seeing one pair of vacant eyes? Two? Ten?
"If it were one of us, he would have sent word," a voice says from somewhere far away. Like a dusty record, the sound catches and creaks, and for a moment, Remus thinks he's imagined it. But when he turns around, there's Sirius—not the shell of bones and booze that's been haunting their flat for months, but the blazing, burning, beautiful boy that Remus discovered beneath dormitory sheets so many lifetimes ago. And his eyes are smoke-grey and shining, and Remus realizes he has never seen Sirius cry.
Remus's hands twitch, wanting to reach out, wanting to close the miles and miles between them with a few steps and a few touches. But something cold winds its way through his stomach, and he hesitates. On his way out of the room, out of the corner of his eye, Remus sees Sirius fade into the backdrop once more.
"I think I should go alone this month," Remus says in the clearest, calmest voice he can manage.
"Why?" Sirius responds, without looking up.
"Because you don't want to come and it's not your obligation," says Remus, his voice only faltering a moment on the word "obligation." Such a nasty word.
There's a long pause, during which Sirius picks at a cut on his knee that's nearly healed, opening it up and causing it to bleed. Remus decides he's stopped listening and starts to back out of the doorway.
"You're right… It's not my obligation."
Remus wishes he hadn't said anything, that he had just gone off on his own and left well enough alone.
"Right. Goodnight the—"
"But don't tell me what I bloody want."
For a moment, nothing sinks in. The cold, silver dust of months and months of silence has left Remus's brain clumsy and slow. Without words, Sirius is standing in front of the tired werewolf, inches away, his fists at his sides. Without words, they are fifteen and free and full of fear and lust. Without words, they are kissing. Their hands move instinctually—into each other's hair and under one another's shirts. It's so automatic they don't need to think or speak, just keep moving. Preserve the momentum. Don't ruin it.
All at once, they pick up speed. Fingers grasp and tear at clothing as their mouths suck and slide together. Remus's shirt is already ripped and Sirius pulls it completely in half, letting it fall to the floor along with a thousand cigarette butts and his own t-shirt. Naked and shaking, despite the August heat, They fall sideways onto the sofa, limbs tangling awkwardly as they struggle into position. There is no permission asked or granted, but Remus knows that Sirius knows it's fine. In shallow breaths and friction, they confess their sins. Remus feels as though he is being brought back to life, bit by bit. First his fingers as they claw Sirius's shoulder blades, then his legs as they wrap around Sirius's waist, and finally his entire body as Sirius enters him in one slow movement.
It's as though they never stopped, and the rhythm is so natural, it feels like breathing. Remus rocks his hips upward with every thrust, so that their bones collide and then fall apart, again and again. They are both so close that Remus is amazed they've managed to last this long. In a flurry of eyelashes and teeth and bleeding lips, Remus is coming, his body emptying itself helplessly until it borders on pain. For a moment, the air in this dead, forgotten place is alive.
He doesn't notice when Sirius comes, and he isn't awake when Sirius goes.
A week later, they are summoned. They are separated.
No one asks about the scratch marks dug deep into Sirius's flesh, and no one questions the way Remus doesn't speak quite so loudly when forced to talk at meetings and funerals. One day, many years later, they find themselves in a room nearly as filthy as the flat they once shared. And they touch and kiss and fuck, and they pretend they are twenty and innocent and alive.