Author's note: Enjoy!

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the canon, world, and characters portrayed below and you can tell I'm not J.K. Rowling because #transrights

Hogwarts: Assignment 10, Demonology Task #3, Write a fic featuring one of the deadly sins (Pride)

Content Warnings: NA

(Too) Close For Comfort

"What did I tell you?" Remus asked, leaning in the doorframe of the hospital room. Sirius looked up from where he lay and rolled his eyes. His arm was wrapped up in a cast to stabilize it, as the potion stitched his bones back together, and he'd been scratched up rather thoroughly, but as far as Remus was concerned the man was lucky to be alive. "What did I tell you about that motorcycle?"

"Really?" Sirius asked. "Now? When I'm wounded."

"You're the one who made me your emergency contact," Remus asked, digging his hands in his pockets and waltzing into the room. "Were you even wearing the helmet Lily got you?"

"It messes up my hair," Sirius said, trying and failing to look dignified in the baby blue paper gown the Healers had put him in. It showed off how badly his knees were scarred. The clothes he'd been brought in with were piled on a nearby table, and Remus saw blood on the leather jacket.

"Your legendary hair, oh yes. Well, that isn't something you'd have to worry about if you split your skull open, I suppose," Remus said.

"Exactly," Sirius agreed with a grin.

"This isn't funny," Remus said, crossing his arms. "Think of how badly this could have gone."

"I never look back darling, it distracts from the now."

"You could have been hurt much worse than this."

"I've never fallen before," Sirius insisted.

"So? What does that change? Are you on some free trial with gravity?" Remus asked.

"I'm fine," Sirius said. "They'll have my bones stitched back together before the day's done."

"Yes! And that was insanely lucky! Well what if you weren't fine?" Remus snapped. "What if you hadn't fallen where a wizard had seen you? What if they'd brought you to a Muggle hospital? What if nobody had found you at all and you'd just bled out on some country road? Or worst, what if you'd been in the air, not on the ground? What if you'd snapped your neck or gotten stuck under that contraption or broken your back or cracked your skull or done something to yourself that the Healers couldn't fix at all—nevermind in a day?"

As he spoke, his voice rose and his fists were clenched. His imagination was running ahead of his words as he imagined a thousand scenarios—Sirius bloodier and more broken than he was now, Sirius never coming home, Remus spending the night running about trying to find him, Death Eaters stumbling on an injured Sirius and taking their opportunity to take out one of the Order's most bold fighters…

"Hey," Sirius said. His voice softened. "Hey, I had a motorcycle accident. It's not the end of the world."

"No thanks to you," Remus said. He took a deep breath, the exhale shaky. "Sirius, what if… Sirius, they took down the Prewetts in the middle of the night. Marlene is still missing. My mum died two weeks after they told her she was sick. Lily and James and Harry are all in hiding and scared out of their minds. Peter's been disappearing for days on those secret missions Mad-Eye gives him. Every werewolf I know is flocking to Greyback. There's so much going on, can you please, please try not to be someone else who might vanish?"

Sirius looked at him a little stunned, eyebrows high over those startlingly grey eyes. With his good hand, he reached up and ran a hand through his shaggy hair.

"I'm not going anywhere," Sirius said.

"You say that, but you don't know that," Remus said.

"Yeah, I do. Come here," Sirius said, holding his good arm out. Remus felt bad—he was the injured one, after all—but he drifted towards the hospital bed and perched on its side and Sirius pulled him against him.

"I'm sorry," Sirius said. "For everything that's been going on. I'm sorry I worried you."

"Okay," Remus said. He swallowed hard. "I just… I can't, Sirius. I know you've always felt invincible but I'm just so, so sure that something terrible is always about to happen and I can't handle losing you."

"I…" Sirius didn't know what to say. "I'll keep my pride in check. I'll be more careful."

"Thank you," Remus said quietly. Then he let go of some of his own pride and lay his head on Sirius's shoulder.

WC: 726