Title: New Traditions
Author: ELLE
Pairings/Warnings: Sirius/Remus, modern day au, mild language, referenced homophobia
Notes: Written for Miss Murdered's and I's "Twelve Days of Christmas" prompt challenge. The prompt was "decorations." HUGE thanks to a one_golden_sun for her advice and pre-reading this so that I feel confident enough to actually post it. Without her it would not have happened.
Christmas was always a difficult time of year for Sirius – at least since he had stopped painting his parents through rose colored glasses. Once he was old enough to brag about, holidays quickly became about hot and itchy clothes, being as quiet as possible, touching nothing, and showing off a year's worth of piano lessons to fat women who wore too much perfume and their sleazy husbands. He preferred the simple warmth of his nanny, unaware for the first five years of his life that that was abnormal, but always feeling like that was what Christmas was really about – a simple meal with someone you cared about, maybe a present or two. So watching the houses pass by as he headed home from work, lights coming on as the sun set, filled him with a weird mix of nostalgia and dread. Never before had it been this bad, but this year...
He and Remus has bought a house together in the spring after three years of sharing shitty apartments and truly, it was great. Their dogs had space to stretch their legs and their neighbors were mostly cool. Remus had a whole room for his library and Sirius could meet private training clients in their formal sitting room. Honestly his whole life was nicer than anything he'd imagined sitting in jail after going down for a non-violent crime he didn't even commit, having no one to turn to after his friends sold him out. And he refused to call his parents after he told them to fuck off at eighteen, moving out on his own with nothing but the few hundred bucks he stole from their wallets. But though he severed himself from the influence of his parents, he didn't expect how much his parents' traditionalism would come back to haunt him as soon as he was truly settled.
When they moved in he found himself glaring at the laminate flooring, specing out how much it would cost to replace them with real hardwood despite how nice they were only to decide in the end to keep the laminate out of spite. In the fall he began tuning all their appliances up for winter just as his father had and packing away their summer clothes despite the ample closet space as if driven by the invisible hand of his mother. And now that Christmas was coming he was itching to decorate, even though he found his parents' traditional wreaths and candelabras pretentious and boring.
But nurture was a cruel bitch and not just to him. Sirius was careful when he brought it up with Remus, lying tangled together in bed, their singular cat snoozing at the corner of their bed, blissfully undisturbed by their gentle lovemaking. It was perfect and he let his fingertips brush along Remus' shoulder, feeling the softness of his skin, hoping that asking the question wouldn't alienate him after how far out of his way he went to avoid the display of fake Christmas trees at Target.
"Do you want to put up Christmas lights?"
It was a whisper, barely anything at all, but Remus froze completely, shut down, turned over, locked him out.
Sirius knew it was the week before Christmas when Remus' mother found his tentative e-mails to another boy in class, effectively ending what he knew of as his life. He didn't know much more than that – just that what was once a happy childhood switched immediately to callous disregard for him bordering on cruelty. In their own way, despite the lack of money and the warmth they had once displayed, Remus' parents were just as wrapped up in traditionalism and appearances as his own parents. It was part of how they fit together, how they worked – and so he let it go.
Still... he didn't expect it to be so hard.
Icicle light rimmed awnings and candy cane lined walkways passed by and it stung. Why couldn't they have normal things now? Despite their pasts, they were happy now. It wasn't fair that those demons were sitting there, lying in wait, waiting to claw them back to those dark places in their past. Just the simple suggestion – decorating for Christmas – and Remus wasn't okay for a week. He didn't deserve that.
So Sirius ultimately decided not to push it. They had been through a lot this year – buying a house together, Remus taking a trial admin position at the school, Sirius hiring an assistant manager at the kennel and starting to accept clients for one-on-one dog training. They didn't have to tackle every issue this year – or even the next.
At least that was what he kept telling himself. But Sirius was nothing if not a fighter and though he would do anything for Remus, it felt a lot like giving up.
Yet when he crested the hill to their house he had to do a double-take as he pulled into the driveway. It was... It looked like Christmas threw up in their yard. The whole facade of their house was lined in big, blinking multicolored lights. Blue strands, red strands, white strands of lights twisted up the trees in their yard in no particular order. There were net lights over bushes and wire framed deer that moved their heads and cardboard cartoon penguins on stakes and the crown jewel that Remus was just plugging into the whole power strip nightmare – a huge inflatable snow globe with a blizzard of fake snow coating the family of snowmen inside. It was hideous – gloriously so – and Sirius was in absolute shock.
Their dogs greeted him enthusiastically when he got out of the truck and he stroked their heads absentmindedly as he stepped toward Remus who was chewing his lip, looking nervous and unsure in his snow jacket and gloves.
"Do you like it?" he asked softly and Sirius laughed, full and robust.
"Like it?" Sirius asked, shoving his shoulder. "It's horrible."
"Hey!" Remus shot back, irritated, pushing him in retaliation but Sirius caught his arm, throwing him off balance so that he fell back into the snow – but he had grabbed Sirius' coat as he tried to catch himself and he ended up dragging Sirius down on top of him.
The dogs were going nuts, kicking up snow as they licked at their faces and their hands, making sure they were okay, whipping Sirius with their tails – but he only had eyes for Remus.
"Would your parents hate it?" Remus asked and Sirius beamed down at him with love and adoration.
"Oh god, would they ever," he replied, brushing the hair from Remus' face. "But you didn't have to, you know."
"Yeah but..." Remus looked away, their German shepherd giving him one firm lick across the nose. "It would really stick it to mine to know how happy I am now."
Sirius was grinning so hard it hurt, his heart swelling with a pride he'd never felt before. He didn't need to tackle everything – Remus was perfectly capable of ripping the claws off his own demons and sending them back to his past.
He took Remus' face in his hands, forcing him to look him in the eyes, watching the little smile faltering uncertainly across his lips.
"I love it," Sirius assured him, running a thumb across his cheek, watching the way the lights from their house reflected in Remus' eyes, knowing that everything he wanted was being reflected back. "I love you."
Sirius leaned down to kiss him in the front yard of their house, their safe space, the place they were building together with their own traditions and their own meaning. He would never forget this Christmas. And silently he pressed a promise to Remus' lips that he would try his damnedest to never let their parents or their pasts come between them.