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'Want another?' Sirius asks the hippogriff absent-mindedly. Buckbeak gives a sort of grunt in response and Sirius levitates a bloody rat to where the hippogriff is curled up on his mother's old bed.

He takes another long drag from his cigarette and rests his head against the wall. The nicotine helps calm him down; his tense muscles loosen a little and allow him to finally relax.

'Reckon Harry will be here soon?'

Talking to a hippogriff. Is this a sign of madness? Buckbeak looks up at him and Sirius could swear he sees the creature nod. He grins, before shaking his own head. Definitely a sign of madness.

'Hope so,' he mumbles. He takes a final drag on the cigarette and fumbles in his robes for another. As he extracts the next fag from the pack with his teeth, a head pokes round the door.

'Thought I'd find you here,' Remus says, coming in and shutting the door behind him. Sirius shrugs and lights his cigarette with the end of the other.

'Molly's worried about you,' Remus continues softly. He sits down beside Sirius, who stiffens slightly at both the proximity and the remark. Trying to appear nonchalant, he stubs out the first cigarette on the once perfect wooden floor. It joins four other butts on the ground.

'Why's that?' he asks, breathing out a cloud of grey smoke.

'Says you're not eating enough,' Remus replies. 'She's right.'

'I'm fine,' Sirius says flatly.

'You need to eat more. You're bloody skin and bone.'

'I'm not hungry.'

'How could you not be hungry - when was the last time you ate something halfway decent?' Remus demands.

Sirius shrugs once more. 'Sunday maybe.'

'It's Wednesday now,' Remus says exasperatedly. 'No wonder you're hardly putting on any weight.'

'I've no appetite Remus, alright? I'm a fucking adult too so you can all stop telling me what I should be fucking doing!'

Sirius finds himself standing, and breathing heavily. Behind him on the bed, Buckbeak lets out a plaintive cry. Sirius ignores the animal and takes another long drag on the cigarette. Remus looks ready to comment on that too, but stops himself, standing instead.

'Sirius,' he says, his voice weary. 'We're not trying to tell you what to do. We're just worried for you.'

'Are you though?' Sirius asks, vulnerability showing for the first time. He hides it rapidly, and his voice becomes harder, more bitter. 'Or is Molly just upset that someone might not like her cooking and you just want a better shag? Someone who doesn't wake you up sobbing in the middle of the night.'

Remus looks at him, aghast- partly because, well maybe yes, he does sometimes wish for an easier relationship, with someone who hasn't lived through twelve years in hell.

'Of- of course not, Sirius. Do you really- do you really think that's all I care about?'

Sirius shrugs slightly, looking away. Most of his cigarette has burnt away but he doesn't notice. 'Isn't it?'

'No I-…I love you, Sirius.' He is both surprised and not at how hard it is to say. They used to tell each other that all the time. As they were going out the door, at the end of letters, throughout the letter, in the postscript, after sex, before sex, when they woke up the morning, going to bed at night, when Sirius burnt the eggs and Remus burnt the toast. But, Remus supposes, when you haven't professed to loving someone in fourteen years, and you spent those years trying to hate that same someone, it becomes difficult. He wonders - and hates himself for doing so - if he really does love Sirius at all anymore.

Sirius turns back to face him. He takes a shaky drag on the cigarette, sucking in nicotine and carbon monoxide like a lifeline. When he meets Remus' eye, he looks drained and sick. Wrecked from too many sleepless nights of terrible nightmares.

'I love you too,' he whispers, and grimaces. As if it was an awful, shameful confession. Grey smoke pours from his mouth with the words. 'Fuck it, Remus. I don't- I want to be with you but- I can't- I'm a mess. I can't even talk right. Look, you'd be happier without- fuck.'

'Sirius, look, I know Azkaban was hard but we can-' Remus begins, but he's cut off.

'You have no idea.' His voice trembles and breaks from some barely controlled emotion. Haunted eyes stare at Remus for the briefest of moments, and then look away. 'No idea.'

'Well how can I if you never talk about it?' Remus demands, and he can hear anger colouring his voice even though he hadn't intended it. 'It'll help, to talk to someone-'

'What do you want me to say, Remus?' Sirius shoots back, and his voice rises too. 'About how I wished, prayed every day that someone would come through the cell door and tell me there'd been some huge fucking mistake? How I screamed for four days straight for you or James or Lily? How I couldn't sleep for more than a week, terrified of nightmares or what might happen to me? How much I fucking deserved it? Or about how I can't stand to be around people now, but being alone is even worse? Look! You don't want to hear any of that, and I can't say I blame you.'

And Remus really doesn't know what to say to any of that. And he really doesn't know if Sirius even wants to hear anything from him. Perhaps he wants nothing more than for Remus to turn right around and leave him to his fags and his misery. But then he sees Sirius trembling in his place, with fear in his eyes - fear that Remus might leave him, perhaps (again) - and he can do nothing but pull him gently into his arms.

Sirius is still too thin, too small, too breakable, and Remus can feel nothing but guilt as he holds the shaking body close. He thinks Sirius has dropped the cigarette but it could be burning a hole in his jacket for all he cares now. He hears a choked sob, muffled in Remus' shoulder, and tightens his grip.

'Shh sh, Sirius. It's okay,' he murmurs, even though it's not. 'You're not there anymore, alright? You're safe. It'll get better.'

He doesn't know where he gets off telling these awful lies but he doesn't know what else to say. He has to at least hope things will get better.

'I missed you so much,' Sirius says in a broken whisper that Remus can hardly bear.

Sirius is the first to break away, rubbing hastily at his eyes and looking more at Remus' shoes than his face. He appears to be steeling himself for something; he stiffens and his face tightens and he looks ready to snap in two. He seems oddly brittle, though Remus is not sure if that's possible.

'Remus,' he says, and then takes a slow breath. 'I want you to go downstairs and- and ask Tonks if she wants to have dinner with you tomorrow night.'

Remus can't do anything but stare for a moment. What on earth is he talking about? And when realisation hits him, he lets out a startled laugh in response. Sirius looks angry at that but doesn't say anything. Remus suddenly sees both how brave Sirius is being and what a fucking idiot he is. He's still staring at Remus' shoes.

'You want me to go out with your cousin?' he asks, unable to keep disbelief from his voice. He seems to have slipped to a voice several octaves higher than his usual tone.

'You'll be happier. I- I've been selfish all my life and this is where it's got me so-'

It sounds like a prepared statement but Remus can't listen to it.

'What kind of an idiot are you?' he asks. 'If I wanted to go out with Tonks, I would. If I wanted to shag Severus Snape, I would. Well, if I had his consent. I'm with you because I want to be with you.'

'No you're not,' Sirius replies, very quietly. He meets Remus' eyes for a second, before his eyes flick away again. 'You're here out of some misguided, noble sense of duty or something. You don't want to be here in this fucking house, with a house elf who insults you when he thinks you're not listening and a pathetic, wasted alcoholic you don't want anymore. I- I'm not that twenty-one year old, Remus. I can't be, I've tried. I can't do it.'

'I know. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not twenty-one anymore either,' Remus says, attempting a smile but not quite carrying it off. 'It's been fourteen years, Sirius. You'd have changed even without Azkaban.'

Sirius lets out a harsh bark of laughter that makes Remus wince.

'This much?' he asks. He matches Remus' gaze at last. 'You should ask Tonks out, you know.'

'I'm not going to,' Remus answers levelly. Sirius nods. He takes the box of cigarettes from his pocket again and toys with it.

'Want one?' he offers. Remus shakes his head. 'Mm…nah, me neither. Got to keep my health after all.'

He laughs bitterly again and Remus kisses him to cut off the painful sound. After a surprised moment's pause, Sirius responds. It's not one of the hesitant, gentle kisses of their first days, nor the heady, fumbling kisses that followed. It bears little resemblance to the hard, vicious kisses that preceded that end. It's not comfortable or knowing or soft. It's all deliberate hands and unapologetic lips and tongues and mouths and teeth and both are sure it's a bad idea but they're doing it anyway. It's the physical representation of 'fuck it', Remus thinks, until Sirius presses him to the wall and he's not thinking at all anymore.

AN: had considered writing more but it only felt forced. Concrit would be lovely!