Disclaimer: Forgot this last time. Ok here goes, the characters and their present situation are not mine. It may be tired and worn but I'd like to make everyone aware of the fact that if Remus ever shows up on your doorstep I will be happy to claim him but at the moment, no they aren't mine. Even the plot isn't mine because lets face it, there isn't one *grins* Oh, and I couldn't resist with the chapter titles. No 1 is from Harry Potter its self and No2 is Notting Hill.
Enjoy the story.

*

He started to drink his tea, realised it was salty and restrained the urge to hurl it melodramatically across the room into the lemon yellow walls of his kitchen.

"Padfoot, I'm making some more tea do you want some?"

"No."

"Coffee?"

"No, thank you."

A tinny theme tune that he vaguely recognised as Scooby Doo wafted cheerfully into the room and Remus slammed the door in between himself and Sirius before walking to the sink and throwing away the rest of his tea laden tea. Slowly he moved towards the kettle, poured in enough water to fill one cup and clicked down the large, grey plastic button on the top. A little red light near the button blinked dimly at him and Remus stared at it disinterestedly until it snapped off again. He added milk, four sugar cubes and sipped it for a while before he realised that this wasn't how he liked his tea.

This was Sirius' tea. Sirius' tea that he didn't want.

His wand was lying by a mutilated picture in a silver frame on the old tabletop and Remus grabbed it and changed his disgustingly sweet drink into one without sugar.

He sipped it again and grimaced. Merlin, Magical tea was foul.

His gaze fell upon the bowl of sugar cubes and he wondered briefly why he had sugar cubes before emptying them onto the floor and crushing each one slowly and deliberately with the sole of his foot.

Because Sirius likes them.

Well Sirius could go to hell for all he cared. The theme tune started up again. Remus took another gulp of his nauseating tea, decided to hell with dignity as well and flung the cup as hard as he could into the doorway where it shattered. He watched the brown liquid seeping down into his carpet for while, head resting in his hands. Why did it always have to be like this?

The door creaked open and Sirius stepped on a piece of broken crockery and swore loudly. Remus felt a flash of triumph followed by a louder feeling of annoyance. "Sod off."

The door banged shut once more and he breathed out.

"I believe this is yours."

"It was," Remus agreed placidly not looking at the mug handle in Sirius fingers, knowing he was being childish but wanting to show he was annoyed, needing Sirius to understand, knowing he wouldn't but desperately needing him to try.

"The rest of its embedded somewhere in my foot, any time you want it back just ask."

"I'll do that."

He heard the sound of the door opening and decided to speak again. "I thought you wanted to be left alone."

"I heard you breaking things."

"I broke one thing. Cup. Singular."

"Fine." Sirius' voice lost the casual, humorous inflections of his seventeen-year-old self and became those of the man who had thrown Remus from his own sitting room an hour earlier. "Fine," he repeated coldly when Remus didn't move and closed the door behind him with a bang.

*

Another hour passed. Remus paced and glared at inanimate objects, getting steadily more bored, angry and more depressed. All the rooms backed onto the sitting room and to get anywhere else he would have to go back through it, nothing connected to the kitchen and so, for the moment, he was stuck in here; a prisoner within his own house. He collapsed in his chair again, hated Sirius and drummed his fingers against the tabletop.

The situation did not improve.

Thirty-eight minutes ticked slowly past, Remus sat with his face in his hands and tried to hate his friend and finally the door creaked open once more.

"Why did you come here in the first place?" the werewolf whispered through the gap between his fingers.

He saw Sirius' feet move towards the table and watched as the chair opposite him moved back away from it. "Because I wanted to see you again." He sighed, imperceptibly. "Because Harry's not the only person I care about. You know I didn't mean what I said before."

"Mmm."

He sat down opposite Remus. "You haven't moved the rest of that bloody cup yet."

The other grinned sheepishly. "I was hoping you'd come back."

"Really touched you had such a warm reception waiting for me," Sirius grunted picking more ceramic shards from his foot. Remus smiled slightly and looked away, across at the picture in the frame, his friend followed his eye line. "Merlin what did you do that thing?"

"It's a tradition muggles have," Remus explained still looking fondly at the picture, which waved back happily. "When someone disappoints you, you cut them out of all your photos."

"You cut me out of your photos?!" The frame was seized.

"I put you back in the end," the other apologised, grinning at the reaction. "You have no idea how hard it was to separate your image from James'," he remarked wistfully. "Probably didn't help that I wasn't seeing or thinking too clearly at the time."

Sirius was still examining the picture. "And now Peter's gone."

"Mm." Lupin's face grew tight again. "Burned all the pieces."

Padfoot's eyebrows shot up. "But you didn't burn mine."

"No."

Silence, then "why not?"

"I don't know," Remus got up and moved over to the window, painfully aware that something had not been said but quite possibly understood. "I don't really remember much of that year and like I said, I probably couldn't have told you my name if you'd taken me by surprise." He stared out blankly over the neat lawn and immaculate flowerbeds of his garden and soon Sirius came to join him. "Thank you," he murmured softly, lips barely moving.

"For what?"

"For not writing me off as a lost cause I guess." He grinned, the patented Padfoot's heartbreaker grin back in its rightful place. "Even if you admit you were seriously unhinged at the time.

He was rewarded with a smile of Lupin's own. "My pleasure." Then his nose wrinkled and a small laugh escaped him. "You smell awful."

"Thanks."

"You look it too."

Sirius grinned lopsidedly at him. "I feel honoured to have true friends who are so cruelly honest and accept their opinions graciously."

"Well, as said true friend my opinion is that you should have a bath post haste and stop polluting my air." He looked across at the other, an expression of mirth playing around his lips. "Will you accept it graciously?"

"How could I refuse if you come with me?"

Remus' heart stopped for a second and then Sirius let out a loud bark of laughter and clapped him soundly around the shoulders. "Come on, show me where it is. I'll throw in a hair cut free if you've got some scissors."

Remus must have still looked shocked and confused because his friend laughed again and steered him from the room. "For me Moony. The haircut's for me."

*

"There are towels already in there and shampoo and scissors should be in one of the cupboards if you don't mind rooting around for a while."

"A chance to rummage through someone else's private possessions, how could I pass it up?"

Remus smiled weakly and handed him a pile of clothes that appeared to be several years old. "You left these here… I don't know why I kept them, but anyway they're yours now…again really, I suppose…" he trailed off as the laundry basket next to the bath shook alarmingly.

Sirius jumped visibly. "What was that?"

"Probably just another boggart," Remus replied, vaguely cheerful again now they were back on familiar territory. "House is infested with them. Ridiculous really considering I taught Defence against the Dark Arts last year. I'll get rid of it while you wash."

"Not staying then?" Sirius asked, a twinkle in his eye.

Remus grinned again with slightly more humour, shook his head "not this time" and left the room, shutting the door firmly behind him, the wicker washing basket clasped in his hands.

He carried into his bedroom, waited for the sound of rushing water and Sirius' loud and rather off key singing to fill the room and opened the lid cautiously, wand grasped in his right hand.

He stepped back away from the basket, towards the door.

Where was the moon?

He whirled in search of it and found nothing. Then a dreadful thought hit him.

Maybe it wasn't a boggart.

He cursed loudly and pushed the lid back on top of the basket. He should've checked first instead of blindly assuming he was right, but then the house was full with boggarts. They usually scared off any lesser magical pests. He swore again and started searching the room.

"Moony, are you alright?"

He turned and saw Sirius standing in the doorway, clad only in a towel, water streaming from his hair.

"Yer… yes, fine. Boggart in the washing basket, not there" he explained coherently. "There's no moon."

"What?"

"There's no-"

And then he was kissing Sirius; fingers forgot about his wand and dropped it carelessly on the floor before catching in the damp black tendrils of his hair, lips forgot about protestations of platonic friendship and coursed hungrily over the others. And it was as wonderful as he could have ever imagined it would be…

Except Sirius wasn't kissing him back.

Author's Note: Oh isn't my plot [of sorts] transparent? *beams* but I don't mind, tis a lot of fun to write which is the main thing. What will happen? [Hmmm, I wonder?] Tune in next time for another thrilling episode!

Longer and more articulate thanks than usual go to:

ali, who doesn't like r/s but read it anyway. thanx.

Irish 1, who i carefully manipulated to come here. *grins* sorry but thanks for reading it, yours is as always v good.

Bohemian Storm: you read my story when nobody who wasn't already my friend had. thankyou! love your stories and what can i say, i totally agree. remus and sirius forever!

Miyamashi: of course it will get happier. still holding out for yours on that front....lol.

AlianneOfTortall: love you as always. and it will get happier again after a great deal of angsting on remus' part because that's fun too!... i'm so mean to him, no wonder he likes sirius rather than me. sigh.

DavidCamp: again thanks for reading this when i know how strongly you are against this ship. have a feeling you won't like chapter 2, the slightly gayer version as much.

connie: have written more. thanks for reviewing, it makes my day.

Clothespin: er... haven't thought about which paticular friend died... will have to do that... i mean, i did it on purpose, ha! *slinks away*

miichan2: glad you liked sirius' anger... which he has er, lost by this chapter. no don't ask me why, it works better that way.

QueenSmithy: yes you are crap at reviewing things *grins* but i love you anyway. keep reviewing! and write something i can beta!