A/N: December 1979

Trigger Warning: Smoking

References to war and death

Mentions of suicide

Mention of self-harm

Until Forever Ends

'Some infinities are bigger than other infinities'

'I will love you until forever ends'

Remus finds him on the roof and it speaks volumes about both the present situation and his understanding of Sirius that he's not even remotely surprised. He is alarmed though – just a little. It's not that he thinks he'd do anything – nothing pre-meditated, anyway – but it would only take a split second rash decision in a moment of blind agony or that awful furious despair (the kind he'd usually need Remus' steady words – or, when that fails, his lips - to pull him back from the brink of) and if he's up there…Remus can't contemplate it, the abyss without him – without them…

He stands there silently and watches him for a moment – simultaneously feeling an all-consuming love so intense it's painful (and wonders if this is how Sirius experiences emotion – everything heightened to extremes) and an aching sadness. Worry gnaws at him too. He doesn't know if he can do this – if he can pull Sirius through this like he's done with so many things before, pulling him from the lurking darkness, maybe a little worse for wear, but essentially still Sirius. Can you ever recover from something like this - really? It's not that he wants Sirius to be alright tomorrow or to get past it or anything equally naïve and stupid and insensitive…he just wants to be sure that he isn't going to lose him – that he isn't going to follow Regulus; when he finds him sitting on the edge of a building like this, Remus wants to be sure he's admiring the view and enjoying the thrill of the reckless danger and wind in his hair, not contemplating the drop.

With his hypersensitive werewolf senses he can smell him from here – all bitter cold and the reek of cigarette smoke and alcohol but under that he smells quintessentially Sirius – and there are no words that he knows for it, but there's the scent of their flat and wood smoke and petrol from the bike and something a bit like cloves and the metallic tang of blood, yet none of that sums it up…He smells of amortentia. That much Remus can say for sure. He can't keep staring at him like this – however much he doesn't want to break the stillness, shatter the moment like the baubles that fell victim to James and Peter's stupid prank that he just didn't feel up to participating in tonight, or the firewhiskey bottle next to Sirius at the edge of the roof, or young hearts and dreams all around them every day…

"Padfoot."

Sirius doesn't turn but he knows he's heard him by the way he tenses and relaxes at the same time – if such a thing were possible (and perhaps, because it's Sirius, it is). Remus approaches cautiously – unsure of his footing and of the reception he will receive. It takes more than a few seconds – although the roof is technically flat, he's fairly certain you aren't supposed to stand on it, never mind walk, and he doesn't have Sirius' effortless grace – but Sirius just continues to stare at the sky, cigarette smoke coiling in a twisted parody of festive wreaths around his head, even as his boyfriend sits gingerly next to him.

"You know you shouldn't smoke those things, Pads. The muggles reckon they give you lung cancer."

Sirius laughs harshly and retorts with bitter grimness "Moony, if I live long enough for this cigarette to kill me, I will be too old. Blacks don't live like that. They burn out young…" He trails off, gesturing in the direction of the stars with the glowing embers at the tip of his cigarette. A little ash falls into Remus' hair but he barely even notices.

"You're not a Black. You're a Marauder."

"And what makes you think Marauders live to be old and worry about lung cancer Moony? The way we're going it'll be a miracle if I ever finish the pack – and that's even with James nicking them when he thinks I'm not looking." His feeble effort to inject lightness into his tone falls flat. Remus searches for something to say to refute his hopeless resignation that they are going to die, but there's nothing he can say that won't sound hollow and insincere.

An uneasy silence falls between them - the sort that makes you feel empty inside. Remus aches to speak, to pull Sirius out of whatever dark thoughts he sees echoed in his shadowed face, but he still can't think of anything to say. Instead he rolls a cigarette, for want of anything better to do – because after all, Sirius is right, isn't he? – and has smoked it almost all the way down to the butt when his silent, brooding companion speaks again and this time his voice is tight with suppressed emotion – the complete opposite of his desolately uncaring tone before. "Do you think he knew, this time last year…knew that he wouldn't see another one?"

Remus doesn't have to ask who he's talking about, but he hasn't got an answer for him. The helpless silence stretches out again and maybe Sirius didn't want an answer – because what could possibly be said that he'd want to hear? – maybe he was just thinking aloud, voicing one of the many questions that can never be answered, that must haunt him…Just when it is getting unbearable, Sirius breaks the silence again.

"He loved Christmas."

He's not looking at Remus as he says it. He's looking at the stars and even though Remus is no astronomer he knows he is looking for his brother amongst their fiery ranks. He read somewhere once that some stars are dead by the time their light reaches you. He wonders how you know which ones they are.

He doesn't know what to do – he feels maddeningly useless. That terror he feels – sometimes dully, at the back of his mind, sometimes, like now, in overwhelming bursts – that he won't be enough for this beautiful, broken boy, consumes him again.

So he extracts the shard of broken bottle he only now realises Sirius was pressing into his palm, and kisses him, with all the tenderness due to someone so fragile and all the fierceness someone so strong can take, and he hopes it says all the things the most eloquent Marauder is at a loss for how to verbalise. He thinks maybe it does because Sirius kisses him back so hard they almost fall off the roof – but instead Remus pulls them down onto the hard concrete and it should be uncomfortable but it isn't because all he can feel is Sirius' cold hands on his face, and his own frozen ones are not yet numb to the sensation of being tangled in the other boy's hair and it tastes of cigarettes and cheap firewhiskey that wasn't strong enough to dull Sirius' pain or mute the memories but maybe Remus' kisses will be – for now at least – and it tastes of all the kisses that have gone before, and promises of as many in the future as they can manage, and Remus can't help but wonder if there is a trace – a taint – too of all the kisses that will never be…

It has started to snow – he has only noticed because it gets caught in Sirius' eyelashes, he doesn't feel cold at all – and the snow is grey – grimy with pollution and city smuts – and although' grey Christmas' hasn't got quite the same ring to it as the idealised lyrics of that old muggle song, it seems apt, because it is damaged but it is still beautiful, even as it falls.

"And we kissed as the sky fell in, holding you close…"

"You were always so lost in the dark"