He woke up around two and a half hours later when they decided to stop and get some food in Jefferson City. Sirius was sleeping soundly next to him, still holding him, still radiating the warmth that Remus always seemed to lack. Remus pulled away slowly, trying to make sure he didn't wake the boy next to him in the process. "Moony!" James greeted quietly. "Welcome back to the land of the living, how are you feeling this fine day?" Remus groaned and thumped his head against James' shoulder.
"Tired," He admitted, lifting his head back up. "Much better than earlier, though." James shifted his eyes down to Sirius, then looked back up at Remus and raised his eyebrows curiously, a knowing smirk slowly stretching across his lips. Remus sighed. "You really can just see straight through me, can't you?" James snorted.
"No, Moons, I can see straight through Sirius. You're a bloody steel box, I couldn't see through you I tried. Sirius, on the other hand, anyone can see through him. He was grinning like a bloody idiot and staring at you like nothing else mattered to him." Remus couldn't help but smile, despite his flaws Sirius was a sap. Sometimes, anyway.
"Nothing is official yet, James, though it was heavily implied." James rolled his eyes and leaned against the side of the van. Remus could sense another pair of eyes on him and glanced up. Peter was looking back at them while Lily was inside the store getting the food for them, Remus was admittedly surprised James had let her go alone.
"I don't care if you're properly or officially together, or anything else. I just know there's something. I can see you're both happy and that's why I'm so happy for the two of you, regardless of everything else." Remus smiled shyly, glancing back down at Sirius. He was snoring softly, it probably couldn't even be counted as snoring, just small puffs of air. "The universe did right with you two, and I swear if anything gets in the way I will fucking burn it."
"I think you're more involved in their relationship than they are, James," Peter piped up. Remus snorted and looked up at James. He was scowling playfully. "I like how we haven't used magic very much during this trip."
"Isn't that what Lily was aiming for?" Remus wondered.
"Yeah, she wanted us to have a better understanding of what it's like to be a Muggle, I admit I respect her for it. Not many wizards or witches do things like that. Magic is our way of life." Remus nodded in wordless agreement. They stopped talking after that, there was nothing more to be said. Remus laid back down next to Sirius a moment later and brushed some hair out of the older boy's face, smiling when his eyes opened.
"Morning, Pads." Sirius's eyes shot open and he scrambled to sit up, looking out the windows.
"I slept till morning?"
"Wha- no, Sirius, it's afternoon. Don't worry." Sirius pouted and playfully punched Remus's arm, but it didn't last long because Remus planted a quick kiss on Sirius's cheek.
It was in that moment everything seemed right again.
But of course, it wasn't alright then. A quick kiss on the cheek couldn't solve everything they had all went through, the damage Sirius had done. It didn't wipe away the memories of being stuck in a dark room with nothing more than women and children who were to be shipped off and used as toys and rats for company. It didn't take away the complete and utter fear of losing someone you care about or having them leave you.
They both still had insecurities, they were just too proud to show them.
It came out into the open a week later when they were in the capital of Nebraska, trying to pinpoint the most tourist-filled spots to raid. It was the night after they visited one of the large gardens that Remus woke up to an empty bed. For a horrifying, brief second Remus wondered if he'd left again, but it was soothed when he heard running water in the bathroom and he could clearly see Peter asleep on the other bed.
He rolled over, prepared to go back to sleep when he heard a soft sniffling and a quiet cry. Anyone else would've missed it, and Remus had never been so glad to have sensitive hearing. He crept out of bed and made his way over to the bathroom, raising his fist to gently knock on the bathroom door. He hesitated for a moment because Sirius never liked to show any sign of weakness or vulnerability. He'd only seen Sirius cry a couple times, and he hadn't been happy about it.
He finally did knock.
The door opened a few seconds later, much to Remus's surprise. He had expected to be shooed away. He entered and immediately wrapped his arms around Sirius, there was absolutely no hesitation in that movement. Sirius practically went limp in his arms, had Remus not been as strong as he was he would've toppled over because Sirius was quite a bit taller than him. Remus slid down to the floor next to the shower and held him.
He held him and he let him cried into his shoulder and grip his shirt and completely soak it with his tears, but Remus didn't mind. He ran a soothing hand up and down Sirius's back as he did his best to calm him down by whispering soft, soothing words to the older boy. He just continued to cry, and Remus didn't say a word. There were none to say. Sirius needed this cry, he bottled everything up until it all came pouring out.
"I can't just leave them there, Remus," Sirius choked out.
"Leave who where, Siri?"
"In Missouri, there were children, younger than we were when he began school." Remus held Sirius's head against his chest and breathed out a deep sigh. He admittedly felt the same, but he couldn't... they couldn't...
"Sirius..."
"I'm so sorry, Rem," Sirius croaked out. Remus gently lifted his chin and looked him in the eyes, the stormy grey he'd grown to love.
"It's okay," He whispered back. Sirius pushed Remus's hand away and practically fell out of his lap, shaking his head rapidly.
"No," Sirius stressed, "it's not okay! I said you were better off dead and then ignored you because I was too much of an ass to face what I'd done! Then," Sirius swallowed hard before he continued. "I leave with some girl I didn't even like because I thought it would be better for you, and I only ended up putting you in danger! And now they're in danger! I have to do something!" Sirius fell back to his knees and began tugging his hair angrily.
"Stop!" Remus chided gently, grabbed his two wrists and pulling them close to his chest. "Don't do that, it won't solve anything. I've forgiven you for all of that, I did a long time ago. Sirius, you need to forgive yourself. There's nothing you can do." Sirius stilled with those words and stopped trying to pull away. He let Remus pull him back into his chest and kiss the top of his head. He let Remus stand him up and undress him, he let Remus lead him into the shower and wash him.
Nothing about it was sexual, it was a form of comfort and care. Sirius didn't mind as Remus massaged the shampoo into his hair and helped him rinse it, he didn't care that Remus's hands were all over his body, cleaning him as thoroughly as he could in such a situation. Remus turned off the water and helped Sirius out and dried him, he gave him clean clothes and then led him back to bed.
"I don't deserve you, Rem," Sirius whispered after they had climbed into bed. "No one does. You're so special."
"Then please, Sirius, don't let me go. Don't let something small ruin this, ruin us. I'm yours until you prove you don't want me." Sirius let the words sink in as they fell asleep. With those words, Sirius realized, his respect for Remus only grew.
/
It was another week later when Remus had a breakdown of his own. His wasn't quite as private as Sirius's had been, they were driving up to South Dakota when Sirius had briefly said something that completely sent Remus over the edge. He began crying and he didn't quite know why, but as he continued all the reasons he had to cry fell into place, and it only made everything worse. Sirius held him close while he cried, no questions why, no words of comfort and Remus was thankful for it.
He calmed down pretty quickly when he felt Sirius's shaking hand grab one of his own. No one asked what had happened. Once he sobered up Sirius grabbed his tape player and began playing David Bowie. "Hey, Moons?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you think I could rock an androgynous style like Bowie does?" Remus snorted at the question.
"Of course you could, you could rock anything you wanted." It was this answer that resulted in Sirius insisting to stop at the nearest place that did makeup because he was determined to get his done. Since James was the one driving it wasn't very hard to convince him to stop. Peter smirked and handed Remus a chocolate frog.
"You deserve much more than this for such a thing." Remus grinned and opened it, beginning to eat the chocolate frog. It wasn't hard to find a place, it took another thirty minutes. Sirius was out of the van before James even turned it off, followed by an exasperated Remus. Remus and Lily were the two people who waited for Sirius while James and Peter went off in search of somewhere to have lunch.
"This is your fault," Lily accused, her voice light and playful. "Though, I'm very excited to see what Sirius ends up doing."
"Me too," Remus admitted. "He'd occasionally wear a bit of eyeliner or lipgloss back at Hogwarts but even that was rare, I've never seen him this excited over makeup."
It took an hour before he was done. Remus almost choked when he saw him, it wasn't what he had expected. Sirius had a beautiful golden smokey eye, topped with eyeliner. Subtle skin-toned lipstick, and in his hands he held three bags, Remus mentally sighed, but outwardly he grinned. "Merlin, Pads. I haven't seen anyone pull off makeup off that well." Sirius grinned and planted a kiss on Remus's cheek, making the werewolf smile even brighter.
"I asked the women to show me how to do it, then I decided to buy some and kind of got carried away..." Sirius motioned down to the bags in his hands.
"It looks amazing," Lily admitted. "I can give you some tips if you let me borrow some of the makeup you bought."
"Sounds like a fair deal to me."
James and Peter arrived ten minutes later, both of them complementing Sirius and herding them into the van. James didn't say where they were going, but it took a while to drive there. "I admit," James began once they were getting closer. "I apparated around and asked a few locals, so this wasn't entirely magic free, but... it'll be worth it."
Another thirty minutes they arrived. It was a lake, a beautiful, clear lake with brilliant bright green trees surrounding it, some containing small blossoms. James led Lily to the lake shore and kissed her hand before dropping to one knee. Remus sucked in a breath and sought out Sirius's hand, lacing their fingers together as they watched the scene unfold before them.
"Lily, you know I've fancied you since the very moment I saw you. I don't know what it was that drew me to you, maybe it was Sirius's small taunts as time went on, claiming Potter men have a thing for redheads, maybe it was how much you hated me. I don't know, but as you grew up, as we grew up, that crush blossomed into love. I can't thank Sirius enough for helping us, for taking that polyjuice and pretending to be me because I was too afraid to ask you myself... ever since I first saw you, I wanted to make you my wife. So what do you say, Lily? Will you marry me?"
"Didn't I propose to you first?"
"Yes, but I had the decency to get a ring." Lily laughed through her watery eyes and dropped down to her knees and grabbed James' cheeks so she could kiss him.
"Of course I'll marry you, prat." James grinned and slipped the ring onto Lily's finger. The band was white-gold, a blue diamond sat in the middle with a flower made of smaller, white diamonds on either side.
"That'll be us one day," Sirius whispered to Remus. The werewolf elbowed him in the ribs and shushed him.
"It'll have to be until after they get married because James will invest more time in our wedding than his."
"True, but they're getting married in Vegas last time I heard," Sirius reminded him.
"If this is your way of a proposal, Sirius Black, I am afraid I am going to have to decline." Sirius chuckled and kissed Remus's temple.
"Prat." Lily walked back over to Sirius and looked him over for a moment.
"Since you have your makeup done, would you let me do your hair?" She asked. Sirius glanced over at Remus, then James, then Peter, all of which seemed to like the idea. He nodded and sat on a grassy patch near the shore of the lake while Lily gathered flowers and other things to put in his hair.
"That was pretty romantic there, Prongs, I didn't know you had it in you," Remus mused, nudging his friend with his elbow.
"I admit, a lot of that was our very own Wormtail." Peter was currently sitting next to Sirius, encouraging Lily to do his hair too. "He's going to make some girl very happy one day, undoubtedly."
"Definitely. Do you think we should go over there and make Lily do our hair too?" A nod from James sealed the deal.
/
Continuing on their way to South Dakota, Sirius had yet another brilliant idea. At least, he thought it was a good idea. "We should all get tattoos." Remus sighed audibly this time and climbed out of Sirius's lap and into James' with a second thought.
"You're my boyfriend now, my old one kept coming up with stupid ideas." James patted Remus's back and kissed his cheek, chuckling at Sirius's annoyed expression.
"Really!" Sirius insisted. Sirius already had a tattoo, just one that he'd got right after he'd graduated from Hogwarts. It was the Gryffindor house crest on his ankle. When he got it no one really said anything and he'd never said anything about it. It was just there, never mentioned or pointed out. "It'll be fun!"
"I'm up for it," James agreed. He'd already thought about it, months before. He wanted to get a pair of antlers on his shoulder blades, and he wanted the space between them to be filled with Lilies. Remus heaved another sigh and moved onto Peter.
"I like the idea too," Peter told James sheepishly. Remus sighed once more and climbed up into the passenger seat next to Lily.
"I don't want to get anything, but if the three of you really want I can find you a place to get one." The three boys in the back all grinned at each other.
"Moony!" Sirius whined. "Please get one? Anything you want? It'll be fun!"
Remus ended up getting one, they all did. They managed to find a wizard couple who did tattoos on the outskirts of South Dakota. James had gotten the tattoo he'd planned on getting, as well as Canis Major, the constellation containing the star Sirius, on the back of his neck. After Remus and Peter both complained about not having one, he continued to get a moon for Remus (after he'd approved it, of course) and mouse ears with whiskers for Peter.
Peter had gotten the outline of all their animagus forms on his wrist, the word "Marauders" written beneath. Sirius had gotten two, he'd gotten the date he and James had met on his wrist and a small, sleeping wolf behind his ear. After a lot of begging on Sirius's part, Remus had gotten a sleeping back dog behind his ear. Lily had been the hardest to persuade, but of course, she couldn't say no to James Potter.
She'd gotten a simple doe and a stag on either arm while Remus got his since neither of them had intended to get one. For the first time since this road trip, Sirius was the one who volunteered to drive. Remus sat up front with him since Sirius claimed Remus was now in charge of music (he wasn't really, Sirius just knew he'd play whatever he requested).
It took another two hours for them to make it to Sioux Falls, even though it really only should've taken them an hour. Sirius kept stopping every so often to fix something or to kiss Remus or to get into a heated debate with someone else that required a lot of hand movements. The werewolf didn't mind the frequent stops. He would assume no one else would've minded them either if it hadn't been ten at night.
When they checked into the hotel that night Sirius was insistent upon having a room just for him and Remus, who was blatantly ignored while Sirius explained this to James in front of the lady behind the desk, despite his blushing boyfriend's attempts to shush him. Finally, they got their rooms, Peter was staying in one with James and Lily for this stop. Sirius dragged Remus up to the room as quickly as he could and was all over Remus the moment they entered their room.
This time was so different from the last. The last time was in the middle of nature, their bodies were heavy with want and lust and a passion that they had been deprived of for so, so long. Last time they were together for what they both assumed to be the last time, but this time... this time was different. This time Sirius took note of every breath Remus breathed and every slow, lust-filled blink of his eyes, every moan, every scar.
Sirius drank him in like he was drinking from the fountain of youth. He tasted of autumn, the fresh leaves, and moonlight. But he was also warm like honey dripping from beehives. His hands gripped Remus's parchment hips as they rocked against each other. His amber eyes that, if you looked close enough, looked like sun hitting yellow tree sap on spring days. He cupped Remus's face and looked down into his eyes, looked down into the depths of his soul because Remus... he loved Remus.
And Remus... he didn't love Sirius yet. But as he gazed into his stormy grey eyes that thought slipped his mind, the fact he didn't was replaced with "why?". Why didn't he? Remus lifted his own hands and cupped Sirius's cheeks in his hands, running his thumbs over his sharp cheekbones before kissing him again. Sirius, in every sense, was a storm. He wrecked havoc and made up for it the best he could. His eyes contained storm clouds, he was cold and tasted of rain.
They made love again that night. They were closer than ever before, their kisses contained passion and want and comfort that they both so desperately craved. They kissed and they mixed and that warm honey mixed with rainwater to create the perfect concoction of tea on rainy days. They loved like they had never felt before, it was that night Remus fell in love with Sirius Black for the second time in his life. He didn't know it, he wouldn't know it for quite some time.
Not consciously, at least, because he slept soundly that night. He slept properly for the first time in weeks, all because his brain was once again content. All because Moony was once again content, all because he had the love of his life back. All because... he loved him. He loved Sirius Black. They loved each other more passionately than either of them would have ever thought possible, but neither minded.
Neither minded because neither noticed.
All they noticed was each other, and that was all that mattered.