N/A: This, hopefully, will be the starting point for a few short ficlets inspired by the songs of the marvellous Duke Special. Hope you enjoy :)
Disclaimer: Remus and Sirius are the property of J. K. Rowling. 'Of Hearth and Home' belongs to Duke Special. The union jack cutlery is my own :)
Of Hearth and Home
The house was black under the street lights, the chinks between bricks throwing sharp shadows up its narrow edifice. The tiny patch of grass that had run parallel to the slabbed path was now a bed of closed pansies, heads heavy with petals and drooping in the night air.
From the next house, the one formally owned by two middle aged women with a large collection of cats that had driven Padfoot nutty, the Top 40 was blaring through the paper thin walls, Céline Dion blanketing the street and drowning out the rumble of London's ceaseless commuter run.
For a long while, the man and the large black dog stood in silence and cast shadows under the halogen light. There was, after all, very little to be said. A truck clattered past, shaking the pavement and rattling the house and the jars of spices that probably still sat in the same cupboard as they had twelve years ago. No one ever empties spice cupboards.
When he'd sold the house, Remus had left it all. The battered leather sofa with the change and condom wrappers down the back, the chipped union jack knives and forks that Sirius had fallen head over heels for at Camden Market, the irrevocably paw printed rug in front of the back door; they could all still be there. He'd told them he was emigrating, the nice, ordinary young couple with a toddler who must have been about Harry's age. Told them they might as well keep it all. He hadn't the money to start again, of course, but couldn't face the thought of dragging the baggage of his former life, heavy with the past, heavy with Sirius, behind him.
The radio abruptly dropped out, the lights in the neighbouring house flickering off and plunging the terrace into only faintly illuminated darkness.
There was a soft crack, and the shadow of the great black dog lengthened and tapered into that of a man, who reached out for Remus' hand and caught a tangle of trembling fingers.
"I'm sorry," Remus said, hoarsely, dropping his gaze from the empty windows, the uninhabited gaps between the curtains. "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologise," Rather flat and gruff, Sirius ran a calloused finger over the back of Remus' hand, pulling him closer over the cracks in the pavement. "You couldn't have paid the mortgage." Clunky words, an off kilter reminder of the piece of contented suburbia they had so proudly held claim to. "You did the right thing, Rem."
"I told you," Remus began, after a dull pause, "That it would never last."
Sirius smiled sadly, tipping his head to one side, dark hair falling across his face as he stared up at the house and attempted not to walk the rooms. "Don't you just hate being right?" He murmured, and kissed him under the streetlamp, the moment collapsing into a kaleidoscope of hundreds of similar instances, performed by their younger selves. They were old hands now, taking one last curtain call before the final fall.
Remus smiled, a little unevenly, more than a little regretfully and took one last look back at the house that he now realised marked the high point, the pinnacle of his life, and wondered how such things can be so easily contained within bricks and mortar. Sirius tugged gently on his hand and old lovers, they left the scene and behind them, the estate agents' sign glinted out into the night, For Sale emblazoned large.