When Remus came around the morning after the full moon, he had expected to be the only one in the hospital wing. It had been Sirius' seventeenth birthday the night before and Remus had insisted that they not spend it running around the grounds with him at night. Of course, they had protested, but it had been one of the rare occasions in which Remus had put his foot down.
"You're only seventeen once," he had said. "Do something different."
Grumbling, Sirius had agreed. But now that Remus was awake, he could see that Sirius was lying on the bed next to his own; and he wasn't in the best shape. Bruises were patterned down one side of his face, a vicious yellowy-green.
Remus felt his heart speed up. Had he done this? Had Sirius come to see him anyway and been hurt or – Merlin forbid – bitten for his trouble? Despite his typical post-transformation exhaustion, Remus struggled to sit up, to see better the damage he had done. His movements seemed to wake Sirius, who gave out the grumpy sort of moan that he usually did when his sleep was interrupted.
"Sirius?" Remus whispered, horribly uncertain. He had to know what he'd done but he didn't know if he could bear to hear it.
Sirius opened one lazy eye and then the other as he saw Remus sitting up, deathly pale.
"Morning Moony," he said wearily. "You okay? You look kind of shaky."
The normalcy of the conversation calmed Remus a little.
"I look better than you do," he said, trying for a joke but unable to prevent the worry seeping into his voice. Sirius raised his eyebrows.
"What, this?" he replied, gesturing to the bruises on his face. Remus nodded and Sirius let out a bark of laughter which in turn made him wince and put a hand to his ribs.
"It's fine, Moony," he said, seeing his friend's expression. "Really. I just… lost an argument." Sirius sounded almost sheepish, and it was Remus' turn to raise his eyebrows.
"What argument?" he asked, feeling his world return to normal.
"Well…" Sirius began, "we were just having a good time, and Lily and I… disagreed about something, so I decided to prove that she was wrong."
"Which resulted in you…" Remus gestured to the hospital wing around them questioningly.
"…falling down the main staircase and breaking a couple of ribs." Sirius was trying hard to pull off a nonchalant expression, but it wasn't really working.
"What did you disagree on?" Remus asked. There was a pause, and then Sirius answered.
"That gin is a good replacement for water."
Remus was still laughing when James dropped by to check on them both, half an hour later.