"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Hamlet, Act I, Scene V, Lines 168-169.

—November 20th—

Everything looked perfect, Remus thought. He'd sent a text to Sirius about the fact that Matt was supposed to be coming over to watch a movie for their date night, but hadn't gotten a response. That wasn't particularly abnormal for his roommate, they'd developed some sort of an "in case of emergency" texting plan—if one or the other was coming back late in the evening, or needed the dorm for a quiet moment, they'd send a quick message over to the other, but responses weren't strictly necessary. It was all he could hope for that Sirius had seen it, and wouldn't come waltzing in half-naked after a shower because he'd forgotten.

Shaking that thought from his mind, Remus checked his phone again before glancing around the room. He'd cleaned up his and Sirius' things enough to make the dorm passable for a date, minus a few odds and ends of Sirius' that he didn't quite know where to place. His phone chimed and he smiled at it, tossing the popcorn bags on his bed and heading out the door. He'd been seeing Matt for almost a month now, and Remus was very happy about their relationship, quietly of course. He'd never dated someone who made him feel quite normal, and he'd been happy to discover that Matthew was just as kind as he'd seemed when they first met at a party back in September.

Despite the fact that he'd protested against it, James had forced Remus to join him and attend the party that night. James had been thrilled at the idea of having a few drinks and making new friends, but Remus wasn't exactly the drinking type—both by nature, and by circumstance. He'd never been much inclined to break the rules to begin with, but the medication he was on had come with a perfectly clear "do not mix with alcohol" label, and Remus wasn't about to forego that for the sake of a freshman's ill-fated party. But James had wanted a friend, so Remus acquiesced, planning to spend the night drinking a can of soda in the corner and watching James delve deeper into his drunken persona. Instead, Remus had found himself deep in conversation with a tall brunette about Shakespeare, of all things. He'd been so engrossed in their discussion that he'd almost missed James drunkenly calling him from the doorway and saying it was time for them to leave. But he'd exchanged numbers with the brunette, Matt, and had escorted James home with a smile that hadn't faded— even when James took it upon himself to discover three different places to vomit in their suite.

Matt had texted the next day, asking if Remus would like to meet for coffee, and Remus had nearly rejected the offer when he remembered his mother's plea to "live a little" and relented. He'd been concerned that their interaction the night before had been too good to be true, that it'd been fueled by Matt's casual sips of alcohol and by Remus' amazement that anyone wanted to talk to him, of all people, but Remus found himself mistaken upon arrival. Matt had apologized for the state of the dorm the night before, explaining how he'd been roped into hosting because he felt bad saying no to his suitemates, and Remus had chuckled while explaining how his own similar mindset had led him to the party in the first place. The two overstayed their planned hour at the coffee shop, and at the end of it, Remus had worked up the nerve to ask to see him again.

Things had moved smoothly from there, the two grabbing movies on weekends and meeting up to study together. Remus was delighted to have found someone who seemed so kind, so early on in his time at school, and spent nearly every date wondering what exactly he'd done to deserve this. There were a few things that Remus had flagged as concerns, of course, but then there always were, and a short temper was a minor character flaw in the grand scheme of things. Remus was happy enough to be in a relationship, he figured the fixing things and making perfect could come later.

Which is how he found himself meeting his boyfriend at the entrance to his dormitory with a slight blush on his cheeks. Matt smiled tightly at him before glancing down at his watch.

"You're late," he intoned darkly.

"Sorry about that, had to clean up after my roommate and lost track of time," Remus laughed lightly. "I'm all ready now though, come on up!"

Matt huffed and walked past him, leaving Remus staring from the doorway for a moment before he regained his senses and followed his boyfriend up the stairway. Matt had already gone into Remus and Sirius' room when Remus entered the dorm. Peter was sitting on the couch in the common area and shot his suitemate an anxious glance.

"Is he alright?"

Remus sighed. "I think something's up. He seemed like he was in a bad mood when he got here."

Peter hummed. "Have you seen James or Sirius tonight?"

Remus frowned. "Nope. Were they supposed to be doing something tonight?"

"I thought they were going to the movies, but I didn't get my usual series of complaining texts from James about how Sirius only ever wants to watch historical fantasy so he can point out the inaccuracies, so…?" Peter trailed off uncertainly and Remus held back a chuckle.

"Sounds about right," Remus said with a small smile. He knew from personal experience that offering up historical commentary on films was a favorite pastime of Sirius'—after the Gladiator incident, the two had sworn off dramas in the dorm for a month. "Text me if you hear from them? I tried to reach out to Sirius about Matt coming over but he hasn't responded."

Peter sent a mock salute to Remus before walking into his and James' room, leaving Remus alone in the common area. Remus looked to his room with a slight frown before walking in. Matt had already claimed his space on Remus' bed, the pillows Remus had carefully arranged thrown haphazardly towards the other end. Remus sent a hesitant smile towards his boyfriend before grabbing the popcorn and climbing up to join him.

"So how was your day?" Remus offered quietly, hoping to get some of the tension out of the way before the two spent a couple of hours alternating between rapt attention for the film and the feel of the other's hair in their hands. Despite the innocuous question, Matt stiffened beneath Remus' arms.

"Fine, Remus. Are we going to choose a movie, or…?" Matt intoned, shifting a little to create some distance between him and his boyfriend.

"Yeah, of course…" Remus trailed off, "how do we feel about Mamma Mia?"

Matt groaned. "I thought I told you I wasn't going to watch your stupid 'Big Fat Greek Wedding' origin story. You promised we could do something normal this time around, isn't there another Kill Bill movie that came out last year or something?"

Remus felt his breath catch in his throat and nodded as he searched through the list of available movies. "Uh...how about the latest Bond film? Is that alright?"

"Whatever. That works." Remus could hear the irritation in Matt's voice when he responded but he selected the movie and carefully leaned back against his boyfriend again as the movie started.

By the time Sirius got back to the dorm, he was exhausted. His expedition with James was only meant to be an hour or so, but after discovering that the historic church next to campus was undergoing construction, the two had decided to poke around. It was only when Sirius bothered to check his phone that he realized the battery had died, and asked James to check his. At this point, the two discovered that neither Peter nor Remus knew where they were, that Remus had a date, and that Peter was heading off to bed early. None of these were particularly urgent updates, but James responded to the most recent one regardless, letting Peter know that they were on their way back now.

Unfortunately, "on the way back" required both boys to maneuver their way down from the roof of the old church. James made some careful hops and jumps across the abandoned beams and then motioned for Sirius to follow his lead. Sirius gracefully made his way down to the lower level before reaching a hand over and swinging onto a wooden ladder the workmen had left behind. In a startling moment of self-awareness, Sirius realized that he hadn't done a good job countering his own momentum, and despite attempting to leap from the ladder at the appropriate moment, he landed in a moderately sore heap beneath the climbing apparatus.

Which is how he found himself slightly limping as James held open the door to their dorm.

"You sure you're okay, man?"

Sirius nodded and faced his room, pausing at the door to turn back to James. "Think Remus is back yet?"

James shrugged. "I don't know, maybe?" He paused. "Do you have a first aid kit in your room, or do you need stuff from mine?"

"Pretty sure Remus has one, I should be all good."

"If you say so. 'Night, Sirius."

"G'night James."

Sirius opened the door quietly in case Remus was asleep, and flinched back in surprise when he saw a frustrated looking Matt being cuddled by an unsurprisingly asleep Remus. Sirius blushed and stammered out a hasty apology, turning to leave before pausing as a voice interrupted him.

"Is that blood?"

Turning around to face the beds again, Sirius saw a bleary-eyed Remus leaning up slightly from his boyfriend, a confused expression on his face.

"What? Where?"

Remus sat up more properly now and looked more closely at Sirius, who had grabbed onto the nearest desk chair when he turned and was still wincing from the fast motion.

"There on your knee? And on your hand?"

Sirius looked down carefully before cross-referencing the soreness he felt against the already catalogued injuries from his fall and weighing the results.

"No…?" he offered up hesitantly.

Remus narrowed his eyes. "That's not the sort of question you're supposed to answer with a question, you dork." He muttered softly, hopping off of the bed to get a closer look at his roommate.

"It's nothing 'a little soap and water won't fix,' I figure," Sirius smirked. A moment later, he looked on in surprise as his roommate rolled his eyes, pulled the first aid kit out of his desk and knelt in front of him to tend to the blood on his palm in one fluid motion.

"So what happened to you?" Remus said jokingly, "You get into a fistfight without me?" he grinned up at Sirius, whose heart swelled a bit at the gentleness behind Remus' joking expression.

The dark-haired boy stammered out an explanation that had something to do with ladders and churches while Remus moved down to examine the scrape on Sirius' knee and huffed.

"Take off your pants," Remus said suddenly, cutting off Sirius' rambling about how he and James had found an older book of psalms in the attic of the church.

"You want me to...do what? Remus you have a boyfriend who's literally in the room."

Remus' head shot up and a pretty flush spread across his cheeks. "Oh God, that wasn't how I meant that," he glanced back at Matt and frantically started motioning between his boyfriend and his roommate.

"I need to see your whole knee, not just the bit that I can see through the tear in your jeans there, that's all."

Sirius brought his gaze up from the top of Remus' head to meet Matt's eyes. Remus' boyfriend was glaring furiously at the two of them, and Sirius wriggled under Remus' gentle treatment of his knee.

"Uh, Remus? Got an idea for you, if you'll hear it."

Remus looked up and raised an eyebrow.

"How about I go shower and change into clothes I can sleep in? Then I'll get all of the dirt and mud off of me, and you'll be able to see my knee without, uh, needing my pants to come off."

Sirius' gaze flicked up to Matt again. The kid really was more than a bit intimidating for someone who Sirius knew had passionate opinions about 90's heartthrobs. Regardless, at the moment Matt seemed to be the biggest man in the room, and Sirius wasn't looking to get into a fight. His eyes skipped over to Remus as the sandy-haired boy rolled himself back onto his heels and stood up with a frown.

"I 'spose that'll work, yeah. Why don't you do that? I'll take care of things when you come back."

Sirius nodded and quickly gathered the items necessary to go shower and hurried out of the room. He made it all the way to the bathroom before he realized he'd forgotten his hairbrush in the bedroom and turned back to grab it. As he heard the voice spilling out from their dorm, however, Sirius froze.

"You were late for a date at your own dorm, you fell asleep during the movie, and halfway through started eye-fucking your roommate when he walked in! Tell me what there is about that that I 'don't need to get mad about,' Remus."

Whatever Remus' response was, it was too quiet for Sirius to hear, but it clearly didn't lessen any of his boyfriend's anger.

"I don't care if he was bleeding, he was clearly fine—he walked in a straight line, he didn't pass out, he wasn't limping—"

Remus cut Matt off with another comment, and Sirius could hear the tension in the room.

"I don't know how else to say this. I. Don't. Care. That he's your friend. You were supposed to be having a date with me and you were barely present, what sort of a boyfriend drops everything in the middle of his date to go cuddle up to his friend?"

Sirius suddenly felt sick to his stomach, and decided against grabbing his hairbrush. Walking back to the showers dejectedly, he turned the water to as cold of a temperature as he could handle and stepped in.

When Sirius came back to the room, it was empty. Matt was gone, but evidence of his presence remained; Remus' pillows, almost always neatly arranged at the head of the bed, were in a heap at the foot, and there was a stack of empty candy boxes and wrappers thrown carelessly onto the desk. Sirius frowned. He didn't like what he'd overheard, but he wasn't sure if it was his place to say anything. Maybe the guy was having a hard time? Sirius shook his head as he hung his towel up on the closet door. It didn't matter, really. Remus didn't deserve to be spoken to like that.

The boy in question came into the dorm minutes later, looking more shaken up than Sirius had seen him before. His eyes were redder than usual, his hands were shoved in his pockets forcefully, and Sirius had half a mind to track down Matt right then and there to give him a piece of his mind. He didn't though. Instead, having already climbed up onto his bed, Sirius watched Remus as he entered their room. The taller boy didn't look up, instead resignedly sighing and throwing the pillows back where they belonged and grabbing the garbage to move it to the trash. It wasn't until he began climbing onto his bed that he noticed Sirius had returned, with a slight startle.

"Oh," Remus murmured, "you're back already."

Sirius observed his friend carefully. "Yeah, got back a few minutes ago. Still want to patch me up?" He smiled gently, hoping the offered activity would take Remus' mind off of Matt's words.

Looking at Sirius' knee, then to his first aid kit, Remus nodded and jumped down off the side of the bed. He didn't say anything as he unwrapped an alcohol wipe, and he didn't say anything as he carefully dabbed antiseptic cream on Sirius' knee, and he didn't say anything as he put a piece of gauze over the cut and adhered it carefully with medical tape. He'd gone a full three minutes without speaking when Sirius finally broke the silence as he offered up his palm for Remus' inspection.

"So when did you get so good at first aid? I seem to recall a certain sandy-haired gentleman stumbling in here a month ago with a tissue shoved halfway up his nose and blood all over himself."

Remus smiled, a half-hearted, lopsided sort of thing that made Sirius' heart take a rather unexpected jump to his throat. "I thought I told you...My mom's a nurse," he said quietly, wiping the cuts on Sirius' palm with an apologetic grimace as the dark-haired boy winced.

"You did, you're right. I forgot," Sirius paused. "So were you interested in medical things growing up, or did it just come with the territory?" he asked tentatively, grasping at straws to try and keep the conversation going, but desperately trying to avoid a topic that would lead them back to Remus' boyfriend.

"I—Well…" Remus started haltingly as he wound a cloth bandage around Sirius' hand, "Kind of both, I guess. We haven't really talked about this, have we?"

Sirius, who had been staring at his hand to give Remus some semblance of privacy, felt his neck crack as he snapped his head up to meet the now-standing boy's gaze. Remus' eyes widened in surprise before he schooled his expression and walked back to his desk to put the kit away, leaving Sirius to massage his neck gently while his roommate closed the door.

"I'd already talked to James and Peter about this, I think I forgot that you didn't know," Remus started lightly, and Sirius felt his spine stiffen in anticipation of what Remus was about to say.

"I had leukemia as a kid, a few times, actually." Remus stated casually.

Sirius froze, staring stunned at his roommate, who hadn't made eye contact since he'd walked away from Sirius' bed. Remus continued while fixing the pillows to sit properly at the head of his bed.

"The first time I was in remission, we realized that it made sense for me to be able to differentiate between normal cuts and bruises and abnormal ones, so my mom gave me really basic lessons in first aid," Remus shrugged. "So then we just refreshed the skills whenever it felt relevant in the years after."

Sirius wasn't sure he had heard Remus correctly. "You had…" he started, before trailing off, not daring to say what he'd heard out loud.

"Cancer, yeah. It's not a bad word. And I'm almost two years clear now, so really, it's fi—"

"If you try and tell me 'it's fine,' I'm throwing a pillow at you, Remus."

Remus looked up at that with a genuine smile, the first one Sirius had seen since he'd come back from the shower.

"Okay fine, I won't say that. But it's been a minute since anything's actually been wrong, I'm at least allowed to acknowledge that, you know."

Sirius was still floored. He flopped back onto his bed and held his bandaged hand up, observing how neatly Remus had tended to the injury.

"Am I allowed to ask...I mean, I don't want to pry, but…"

Remus let out a chuckle. "Sirius, I've been dealing with this for over a decade now, whatever questions you have couldn't possibly be more invasive than the ones I usually get from people who don't really know me all that well. Ask away."

"A decade. So you were 8, then?" Sirius said quietly, dropping his hand to rest on his stomach.

"Seven, but yeah, around then."

"Jesus, that's young," Sirius exhaled slowly, "What was that even like as a kid?"

Remus grabbed a pen and a journal before laying down in his own bed and absently drawing patterns on the paper. "Not quite pleasant, but I'm sure you guessed as much. A lot of blood tests and IVs and other procedures that would make most adults squirm, let alone a seven-year-old who only wanted to climb trees and play kick the can with his neighbors."

Sirius turned towards the wall to hide the smile that crept onto his face as he thought about a seven-year-old Remus running down his street with reckless abandon, mud on his hands and curls flopping about his face. "I'd bet. But you...got over it?"

"Sort of. I underwent treatment that was relatively mild, all things considered, for the first two years after—up until I was nine, when I formally moved into the maintenance stage. The doctors caught it early enough the first time that they figured they didn't need to go overboard with it, especially since I was too young to fully understand why all of that was happening. But it came back just about two years later. All of my charts had looked good, and check-ins had become less frequent, and then it was just...back." Remus sighed. "It's not a terribly uncommon thing to happen with cancer, and especially not in kids. So we started the whole thing over again."

Sirius was quiet for a moment, doing some math in his head. "That takes you up to what, 12? Not to be an ass, but am I missing something here? I thought you said it's been two years since anything happened...Are you some sort of teenage prodigy? Is this the alternate version of 16 and Pregnant? 15 and Matriculating or something?"

Remus snorted at that before shaking his head. "Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm just about the average age of most high school graduates who come to college. But yeah, the math doesn't add up because it came back again, when I was fifteen."

"You've got to be kidding me. Is there some sort of karmic retribution I can enact against someone for that? It's completely unfair!" Sirius exclaimed in frustration. "Honestly, you're telling me you've had three separate cancer diagnoses in under a decade? Fuck that. You didn't deserve that."

"I don't suppose I did, but that's kind of how life works. You roll with the punches or you learn how to treat the bruises. I just had...a few more bruises than the average person, literally and figuratively."

Sirius huffed in discontent. "But you're fine—God, I hate using that word—now, though?"

"Yeah. By the time the third notice came around, my doctors were prepared to go in on a more aggressive plan, and I was old enough to want them to. It's worked pretty well so far, at this point I'm about a year and a half out from the last time we saw any cancer cells, so I consider that a success." Remus answered, chuckling at Sirius' irritated tone.

"Hm."

"Something you'd like to say?"

"Laying it on a bit thick with the sass, aren't we Moon Boy?" Sirius smirked from his bed and shot a mischievous look towards his roommate before continuing in a softer tone, "But yeah, I do. It's...A bit personal though, so I'd understand if you don't want to answer it."

Remus sighed, and Sirius swore he could hear the boy across from him age five years when he spoke. "Hit me with it, what's up?"

"I just..How do you know it won't...come back?"

Remus sat up properly and looked at his roommate in astonishment before bursting into laughter. Sirius, who did not find his question or this topic particularly funny, pouted on his bed while he waited for a reply, bringing himself to an upright position while he waited for his roommate to calm down.

"I'm sorry—really, I am, I just…You said a personal question and I was expecting you to ask about my sex life or something ridiculous, and instead," Remus broke off into giggles again, "instead you ask me how I feel about my future, God that's so funny to me."

Sirius glared half-heartedly at his roommate, who finally adopted a more stoic expression when he noticed that Sirius' glare was only just masking an expression of concern.

"To answer your question, I don't. It could come back again, and there's not much I can do about that if it does. All I can do right now is take the medication they've given me, and make sure I'm not willfully putting myself in positions where I could easily get sick, since we don't have a completely accurate picture of my white blood cell count at any given time. But it's all just maintenance, at the end of the day. 'What's coming will come, and we'll meet it when it does," and all that, you know?"

Sirius shook his head. "I don't think I do."

"What do you mean?"

Sirius weighed his words carefully before speaking. "We've talked a little about my family, right?" Remus nodded.

"They've never been particularly fond of the whole 'that's life, deal with it' mentality. I've only ever been told that I need to do everything in my power to make sure the family name doesn't fall into disrepute, and my own life and accomplishments and wellbeing always just sort of...fell into that category. If I wasn't the best, I had to try my hardest until I was; if I wasn't well, I needed to get better, and fast. So it's a bit strange to hear you say that you've just sort of accepted all of this."

"What else was I supposed to do? Go shout at the sky and force the universe to change their mind about it? That wouldn't have done anything for anyone, least of all me. But, for what it's worth, it's not like I'm just going to...resign myself to it, if it came back. There was a bit there, back when I was 16…" Remus trailed off, his mind clearly elsewhere as he went silent. "That sort of thinking doesn't help things. So I've accepted that this is my life, and has been for the last 11 years, and if it comes back then I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."

Sirius leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes while he thought of an appropriate response. The argument he'd overheard earlier swam to the front of his mind, and try as he might, he couldn't shake the feeling that he needed to say something about it.

"Hey Remus, you know that you don't have to just...accept everything, right?"

Remus looked over at him curiously. "I can't just choose not to accept that I've had cancer, Sirius. That's a fact?"

"That's not what I meant," Sirius said, shaking his head. "Some things just...happen to you, you know? And you don't get to choose those, you have to accept those—like what you're saying, or like—" he stopped and a somber look came over his face, "like Regulus. We didn't choose for those things to happen, the only thing that we had a say in was how we reacted to them. But not everything is something that the world forces on you, do you get what I mean?"

Remus shook his head. "I think I might if it wasn't 10pm on a Saturday, but go on."

"It's just that some things we choose ourselves, and if they aren't good for us we should...choose differently," Sirius finished lamely.

Remus stiffened in the bed across from him, but Sirius didn't notice that. What he did notice was the cold tone that his friend adopted when he responded.

"If you're referring to Matt, I'd like to politely remind you that my dating life is none of your business or concern."

Sirius sighed before turning his head to face Remus. "It kind of is when I could hear him yelling at you from halfway down the hall, Remus. I'm surprised James and Peter didn't wake up."

A stern look came across Remus' face and he huffed in frustration. "Matthew had a long day, and I did a shit job of being ready for tonight's date—"

"Which I interrupted by walking in as a bleeding mess."

"You didn't do anything wrong."

Neither did you, Sirius wanted to shout at his roommate, but he held his tongue. "I'm just saying, you don't deserve to be treated that way."

Remus' mouth opened to form a response, but Sirius cut him off. "Even if it was a one-off thing. Whoever you're with...they shouldn't treat you that way. They should treat you with respect, and concern, and...love, if you're serious about each other."

Sirius blushed and broke eye contact with his roommate.

Remus was scowling, but in a much less hostile way than he had been before. "I think that's enough about that. Do you want to get the lights? I'm exhausted," he said with a yawn.

Sirius could tell that his roommate was faking tiredness, but he figured the two had examined Remus' life under a microscope for long enough that evening, so he let it slide. He nodded and made his way down from the bed, painstakingly trying to hide that his hip was still sore from falling earlier.

"Sirius, are you limping?"

Apparently the attempt hadn't been good enough, because Remus was eyeing him suspiciously from his bed. Sirius grimaced a bit as he reached for the light switch.

"No, why would you say that."

"You dork, I can see it from here," Remus retorted, rolling his eyes. "Wait, before you turn off the light—can you grab something from my desk?"

Sirius nodded and moved in front of Remus' study space. "Where am I looking?"

"Second drawer from the bottom in the plastic dresser-type thing—no, not that one," he directed Sirius, "yeah, there. Can you grab an icy-hot patch?"

Sirius plucked one of the silver envelopes from the drawer and shut it before turning the lights off. Remus' book light was still on, casting the room in an amber glow as Sirius made his way to his roommate's bed to deliver the requested item. Remus waved him off when he moved past the foot of their beds, though.

"No no, it's for you. I assume it's just a bruise or else you would've said something. Throw that thing on it and see how you feel in the morning, it works wonders on me when I'm feeling a bit under the weather."

Sirius' face turned a deep red and he fervently hoped that his roommate couldn't see his face as he climbed back into his own bed. Sticking the slightly tacky patch to his hip, Sirius' eyes fluttered closed and he almost immediately sighed loudly in relief.

"Told you so," Remus mumbled from the other bed, his voice slightly obscured by his pillows, now in their rightful places.

Sirius snorted. "Thanks," he murmured quietly. "For everything I mean—the first aid, and telling me about the cancer and whatnot. I appreciate it."

"Of course, I trust you well enough."

Sirius' heart skipped a beat at that statement. Remus trusted him, wasn't that something? Before he got comfortable, he shifted over to face his roommate one last time.

"Hey Remus?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry if I crossed a line earlier. When I was talking about Matt, I mean. I just...want to make sure you're alright."

Remus sighed. "I know."

"Good. Just wanted to make sure."

"You'll stop commenting on my relationship status then?"

"Not a chance, Moon Boy," Sirius shot back, and Remus chuckled.

"Should've guessed as much."

"Obviously," Sirius snorted before an easy smile made its way onto his face. I'd take on anyone who tried to hurt you like that.