"WHAT!?" Remus and Sirius shouted at the same time. Both looking at each other incredulously.

"I found out fucking yesterday! End of November, she says. July, we'll have a baby! A fucking baby. I need fucking help, Remus. I can't. Dad? Can't. I'm nineteen. What the hell?"

"Breathe James, breathe. Are you still at your parents?"

"Well, kind of."
"Kind of?" Remus asked, exchanging a nervous glance with Sirius who hadn't even tried to say a word since WHAT.

"Well, I kind of ran out. After hugging Lily of course. Gently, of course. I just, I just can't be a dad, Remus. I don't know how. My dad was great, I can't be that great. What if I end up like yours?"
"James, you're not a bigot. So that's fine. Really though, you'll be a great dad. I know you will. You're amazing at all that stuff. You really are. Kids love you. And more importantly, you love everyone enough to try. I know you'll try."

"But what if it's not good enough?"
"It will be, trust me. But for now, you've got to go back to Lily. Okay? You've got to make sure she knows you're okay with everything.

"But what if she hates me? I just ran out on her. I shouldn't, shouldn't have done that. If I can't even handle that, how can I handle being a dad?"

"James, listen to me. Lily's not going to hate you. She knows you're just shocked. You're not going to be a bad dad, not at all. It'll be okay, it'll be okay," Remus promised, hoping desperately that he'd be able to calm James down. It wasn't often James freaked out, it was only Remus with the anxiety issues, but when James freaked out, he went all in.

"Are you sure?"
"I am sure. Now, you go to her. Do you want me to come down to meet you there?"

"Could you? I'll pay for it and everything. I promise. But, could you?"

"I wouldn't have offered if I couldn't manage it. I'll be on my way by 11:00, okay?"

"Okay. Okay. Thank you. I'll pay for it. Okay."

"James, enough. Go back to Lily. See you in a little while."

"Alright. Bye."

"Bye."

And Remus hung up the phone with a sigh. Leaning back against the tree branch, he closed his eyes, not even caring that Sirius was there. It was 10:36 now. He needed to be on the bus by 11:00, most likely. He needed to book a ticket for the train to Brighton. He needed to pack, probably. He needed a lot. But most of all, he was so thankful that he was doing alright with money at the moment.

This wasn't quite how he'd planned to spend the "last day of Christmas", but plans changed all the time. James was arguably more important that having a fun Boxing Day. Hopefully Sirius could see that too, because otherwise that would mean awful things for their friendship (or whatever it was).

"Sorry, Sirius."
"No problem at all. Don't stress. I've already looked up how long it'll take to get there," Sirius replied, holding up his phone. "Need to be on the bus at 11:05. Arrival at 1:07."

"Thanks. Really, thank you. I suppose, I'd better be going then. Should probably book the ticket and pack and everything."

Sirius bit his lip, "Remus, do you need a lift? Or, I don't know, I guess I could come?"

"Sirius." Remus paused, running a hand through his hair. "Surely you don't want to."

"If it'll help, then yes. Yes, I do."

Remus hesitated, it wasn't that he didn't want Sirius to come. Rather the contrary actually. He'd love it if Sirius came. But he wasn't going to ask him, and would it be weird?

"It's alright if you don't want me to come," Sirius promised, smiling ever so slightly. "I promise."

"No, no, not at all," Remus replied, pausing once again. "I mean, I can ask James. He'd probably like that. He really likes you, you know."
"Well, I should hope so." Sirius grinned. "I mean, he's let me into his apartment several times. Generally, it's good to like someone before you do that."

"Oh you think you're so funny."

"Aren't I?"

"Not at all."

"Wounded! Wounded, I tell you!"

"Nothing much I can do about that now, is there?"

"Take back your hurtful words?"

"That would just be too easy."

"Far too many people think you're kind. They don't know that it's all a carefully constructed mask," Sirius joked, grinning all the while.

"I can't imagine why you'd want to travel all the way to Brighton with me then," Remus stated, eyebrow raised.

A huff and then Sirius was laughing, throwing his hands up in exasperation, "oh fine then! If you must be so logical about it all!"

"I certainly must."

"Have you asked James yet?"

Remus couldn't help but smile at that. Here they were, still sitting in a tree, teasing each other like it was nothing. And that was the thing, it was nothing. It felt free, easy. Easy. How many things felt easy? How many things stayed easy? Not many. That was the answer to all of the above. Not much felt easy, certainly not for Remus. If he'd been in his right state of mind when he met this madman that called himself Sirius, he would have told him to get the hell out of his shop. But he didn't. No, of course he didn't. He asked him to stay. Because that was the logical thing to do, right?

"Yes, I've asked James." A quick look down at his phone let him know that James had replied too. "He says that would be very kind of you."

Sirius did nothing short of what Remus would call a scoff, "he did not say that. What did he actually say?"

Rolling his eyes, "He said; What a bloody fine chap Sirius is! That would be great. We can have a party!" Remus imitated James in a scarily realistic way. A way that almost had Sirius falling out of the tree.
"Goodness, his kid really is going to be insane."

"You couldn't be more right."

—

It had been the most interesting bus ride Remus had ever experienced, he'd never really thought of bus rides as interesting. Nice, calming, yes. But interesting? Not really. Apparently being with Sirius changed all of that though. Sirius really was like a dog, pointing out every little thing that he thought was cool. It was a bus ride filled with;

"Remus! Look, there's a dog!"

"That looks like a cool bookstore, I bet you'd love it."

"Have you been to that park?"

"So many nice buildings...I hate them."

"Haven't been on a bus for ages."

"If Gilderoy walks onto this bus, I'm going to attack him."

"Ooh, there's a bird!"

And so on and so forth. Remus couldn't help but laugh, though he really did want to just tell Sirius to be quiet. It was the loudest he'd ever heard anyone be on a bus, and he wasn't sure if it was entirely polite, but he couldn't tell Sirius to be quiet without making even more of a scene. So he sat, and he grinned and every so often, he laughed as Sirius made a particularly amusing comment. It was strange, he supposed, laughing on a bus, normally he caught them on the way to and from the bakery and there wasn't a whole lot of laughing going on then. Mostly just exhaustion. Also, he disliked people knowing how he felt, so he made sure to limit his expressions as much as he could.

But, now they were on the first train the needed to catch. It had been a close call though. Sirius, once again excited by a dog, had made sure that they had to walk at very, very fast pace. Remus was grateful for his long legs, and couldn't help but wonder how Sirius kept up while being so much shorter. Safely sitting down on the train — catching a train outside of peak hours was lovely — he glanced across at Sirius and began to speak, "Than—"

"Hush! You've thanked me about twenty times already. You're welcome. It's fine. All perfectly fine, I promise!"

"Don't you hush me," Remus replied, raising an eyebrow at Sirius.

A scoffed, "I'll hush you if you're going to keep insisting on thanking me unnecessarily. I've said it's okay. I've even said it'll be fun."

Rolling his eyes, Remus stared determinedly out the window, willing himself not to satisfy Sirius with a grin. Perhaps it was true that he'd said "thank you" almost twenty times. It wasn't though, he'd counted. He'd only said it fourteen. But whether or not that counted as "almost twenty" in Sirius' mind or not, he would always rather be polite than not, too many thank yous were better than not enough.

Neither of them really spoke for the rest of the 13 minute train trip, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Not at all. It was just like any other train trip, with just a bit of extra company. It was nice, it felt like they had known each other for years and years and could just be comfortable with even the most boring of silences. It was a bit like being with James, except not at all, not even close.

Another jog and they were at the right platform for the train to Brighton. Tickets in hand, from scanning them as they passed the gates, they shuffled through the carriage, attempting to find their designated seats with as little trouble as possible. Sirius only had a small bag — though Remus was sure it was enchanted when Sirius told him just how much he had packed — and Remus had just packed what he needed into a backpack. So it was fairly easy for them to get past people, or have people get past them. Remus had travelled with suitcases before, and that was an experience he never, ever wanted to experience again. Far too much of a hassle.

"So, have you been to Brighton before?" Remus asked Sirius. He was relieved that they were both sitting down and didn't appear to have anyone sitting next to them. It was about an hour trip to Brighton, nothing too long, but it was still nice to be comfortable. And he didn't think he could handle Sirius bouncing around and pacing the carriages as he was bound to do if they didn't have a proper seat. So, that was a relief too.

"Of course I've been to Brighton! Who hasn't?"

"I've met plenty of people who haven't been to Brighton. I hadn't, until the Potters invited me over," Remus retorted, rolling his eyes.

Sirius stuck his tongue out at Remus before asking, "And when was that?"

"Well, I suppose I would have been seventeen or eighteen?"

"So you were an adult?"
"Yes, I suppose so."

"No seaside holidays as a kid?"

"Absolutely not. I was in Wales as a kid! Then I went to a school in Scotland on a scholarship," Remus replied, shaking his head at Sirius. How could he think that Remus had just been able to have a holiday to Brighton?

"Oh, right. Yeah, I suppose that does make sense," Sirius hesitated, as if he wasn't sure if he should say something. "I —"

"Just say it. We've got an entire train trip. May as well talk."

"Well, I was just going to say that I went to Wales and it's not that far to travel."

Remus took a deep breath before responding, "But the question is, did you holiday to France? Italy? Spain?"

"I mean, that's not really the question, is it? Certainly, if it is, then the answer is yes, but why?"

Another deep breath and Remus brushed his overly curly hair away from his face. One more breath, because he couldn't burst out either laughing or crying on a train. A shake of his head and he was ready. As long as he didn't look into Sirius' quizzical gaze.

"Siri, you see, the thing is," he hesitated, mostly to remind himself that this was emSirius/em, who he could trust. "James, and you, I believe, both grew up with money around, right? And not just enough money, your families could both have piles of gold if they wanted to. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there's my family and now me. I didn't grow up with money around. We struggled to make ends meet half the time. I was prone to all sorts of illnesses and that certainly didn't help, but still I was finding ways to earn money when I was ten. We didn't holiday anywhere, let alone Brighton."

"Oh, okay." And now Sirius really did look like a puppy, albeit a kicked one.

"It's okay, it really is. But, no, there were no holidays for me as a kid. It's okay though. It's done now," Remus promised, he didn't want Sirius feeling bad for something he couldn't control. At the same time though, he felt the need to educate, just a little bit. It had taken James almost until they were done with school until he finally grasped that not everyone lived similar to him. Not because he wasn't trying, it was just that every holiday, he went back to the same place, where money was never a problem. And it's easy to forget. Remus forgot that James could live like that, and James forgot that Remus lived how he did. It wasn't bad, everyone was just misinformed.

"What do you want to say? You're biting your lip again, which means you're either nervous or want to say something—"

"It does not!" Remus protested, lying, though he knew very well that it did.

"Idiot. It definitely does. So, what do you want to say?" Sirius asked, rolling his eyes, "Also, you lied to me. You didn't wear your lip ring at all!"

"Ah, sorry about that. I forgot."

"It won't matter, if you tell me what you want to say. You were the one who said we may as well talk."

"Oh fine, then!" Remus whisper exclaimed, suddenly remembering that they were on a train. A thankfully mostly empty train, but a train nonetheless.

"Thank you!" Sirius threw his hands up and sat back in his seat, a smirk settling on his lips.

"It's not something I necessarily wa—"

"Come on then."

"If you'd let me finish, I would."

"Fine."

"As I was emsaying/em. It's not something I necessarily want to tell you, but you sort of need to know. I know that you don't have your own place, and you're probably living out of savings, and it seems like the best and least luxurious life you've lived, which it is. But I also know that it's likely the only reason you worked as a teenager was out of rebellion, I know that if you really wanted to, you could probably buy a emhouse/em in the middle of London, I know that unless your parents were being maniacal, you always had enough to eat, if you need something, you can go buy it.

I can't. My family can't. We couldn't. Things are a bit better now. Now that we know I've got fibro, now that I've got my own business, now that my mum and dad are by themselves. But you saw my apartment, you saw it. You were shocked, yeah? But so many people live like that Sirius, so many people are worse off than I am. So many people grew up like that, me included. You're never going to understand that fully, and I don't want you to, I don't want you to suffer through that. I don't want you to come to accept it as how it is. But you need to know that emis/em how it is for a lot of people."

"Rem, I—"

"Don't apologise. Please don't."

"Okay, I won't."
"Thank you." He leant back into the seat, closing his eyes for a second. Re-grounding himself. "And thank you for your concern, but it's okay. I'm working on it."

"If you need help, you know I'm here."

"I do, thank you."