Title: Losing faith//gaining love
Pairing: Remus/Sirius
Summary: Remus misses him. Sirius makes it so he doesn't have to anymore.

It was the middle of the war and Remus was losing his mind. His hands were shaking from the cold and his wand lay, idly, hanging over the edge of the shabby coffee table in his lowly apartment. The couch wasn't much, but it was comfortable -- enough for him at least, and it wasn't as if he got much company anymore. It wasn't as if he ever did.

Sirius watched him avidly from the battered armchair, "seen better days" he muttered, and he tried so hard not to stare. It was different, this was different. The dark hair hung just under his chin, which - Remus noted - was no longer holding the perpetual two o clock shadow. His cheeks, as flushed and full as they ever were. And silent.

He did, of course, have a thousand and one questions all stirring from the pit of his stomach right up his spine, making his skin tingle. He rubbed his hands over his face and just couldn't force the right words out. Or any words out. They sat bathed in the dim glow of wandlight until a flustered sigh broke Remus at last. All of the careful planning, the lonely nights lying in bed, playing it out - just incase - in the back of his mind. He'd just never expected the chance for it to ever be real. It's how he stopped himself from going over the edge. Everything, and he couldn't think of a single word to say other than a stuttered gasp of "Why?"

"Because it's you," Sirius replied imediately, without thinking, without even breathing, and he smiled, "You know me, Moony, I can't handle the lonely thing. Drives me crazy."

Remus held onto his tongue and almost choked on his own disbelief before throwing his head back and laughing. Really laughing. His throat dried up and his stomach ached before he let his eyes rest, once again, just over the arm of the chair, by Sirius's shoulder.

"I --I--" he started, before his lips formed a tight line. His hands stumbled against the table top before nimbly taking one of Sirius's in his own, "I missed you," he said softly, dropping his voice to a whisper and looking up into his eyes, "I miss you".

"You don't have to anymore."

Sirius wrapped his hand around Remus's until their knuckles touched.

And then they fell apart.