blackbird
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Sirius had tried to close himself up too many times before; fold in like the flimsy pieces of origami Lily had once made in the Common Room night after night, nimble fingers halving brightly colored paper. He had tried to shut himself up like cabinets and drawers, locked tight by the painful press of his lips.
It was unnatural, and made the back of Remus's neck itch.
But this wasn't meant to be all about Sirius.
"Let it alone, Remus." James said over a pint. He kept smoothing his adult-sized hands uncomfortably over his face, which frequented more lines than Remus had time to count. There were laughter lines, stress lines. Remus could see the outlining of his wallet in his pocket and knew the exact content; a few coins and notes, and a photograph of Lily and Harry, worn down from travel and love.
He stirred at the rum with the tip of his finger and sulked, "Don't be thick, James. There's something wrong."
James: once their school's golden-boy, charismatic Head of their year, now a nine-to-fiver in some department that didn't always cut it. It did, but not enough to erase faint anxiety lines from Lily's face.
"You seen Peter lately? I heard he's been round some place."
"No."
There isn't anything else to say. James gets up with a shabby excuse of, "Gotta get home to the missus, you know!" and nearly launches himself from his seat, clapping Remus on the shoulder with a parting shot that sounds more malicious than it is meant to be--"Have fun brat sitting, eh, Moony?"
Remus stops himself from hitting James across the face, but just barely.
[-]
Sirius is clawing at the door when Remus decides to let himself in, long, jagged nails tearing at the wooden frames, his mouth a sloppy hole against his teeth. His hair is longer than polite society dictates it should be, and soft to the touch with the faint scent of rainwater and the old lilac water that he'd stolen from Grimmauld Place when he'd left.
Remus presses his nose onto the top of Sirus's head and has to remind himself, not for the first time, that he is a grown man.
[-]
Sirius routinely wakes him up. He doesn't loll over and press mouth-wet touches to the bony jut of Remus's clavicle--they aren't seventeen anymore--but he gets up and paces, loudly and disruptively like a child working its way up to a tantrum. It looks frighteningly wrong in the dark--Sirius, a whirling dark blur with a face that stands out too brightly, his red-raw mouth downturned and scowling.
"You don't touch me anymore." he accuses. "Never, not anymore, not at all. How come?"
"C'mon, Sirius, back to bed." Remus says. It's four in the morning and he has work tomorrow with James and Peter, and not even a cup of the strongest coffee Lily can make will carry him through the hours if he doesn't sleep now.
"No!" Sirius says violently, and his face twists into the ugliest approximation or beauty Remus has ever seen, "I want to know! You aren't taking me seriously, Moony, honestly. And after all I did for you--I kept your secret, Moony, I helped you out in the Shrieking Shack! We were like brothers, at that time. We were such good, good brothers."
"Brothers?" says Remus disbelievingly. Christ. Sirius scuttles across the room and back into the bed, his limbs tangling across Remus's in a way that reminds of being seventeen and sunlight shining through the plastic windows in old bedrooms.
Sirius ducks his head into the dip of Remus's collarbone and nods. "Yeah. Moony, Moony, we were the best of friends. We met when were eleven, you know? You sat in the compartment and Malfoy came in--he was such a prick but oh, Moony, you were just the calmest thing--"
Remus closes his eyes tightly. He sees red against his eyelids, and black and orange and green. There are spots when he opens them again, and Sirius is nearly on top of him, eyes boring into his face.
Sirius's face is gaunter; his cheekbones are higher and his dark eyes set deeper than they were in high school. There's stubble at his chin line, and he keeps snatching at it. "The best of mates, eh, Moony?" he crows, and laughs, jarringly.
"The very best."
Sirius quiets down and mutters, "The very, very best," and settles next to him, his skinny arm wrapped around the circumference of Remus's body. His eyes close and Remus thinks for once, he's got it made.
Then, Sirius's eyes snap open and he whispers softly into Remus's ear, "Harry's turning eleven tomorrow, did you know? Oh, he'll be so excited to get his letter from Hogwarts…we'll take him into Diagon Alley, won't we? You know, Moony, I think he'll really be something at that school. The boy people tell stories about."
And Remus, because he is an adult, murmurs 'yes' and 'of course' and places two fingers down on Sirius's eyelids and gently pushes him into sleep,
standard disclaimers.