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
Warnings: NA
Uncle Padfoot
Remus got home so late that he wasn't surprised that the lights were off. He had left some blankets out for Sirius and told him to make himself at home if he got tired.
He locked the flat door behind him and dropped his keys in the bowl by the door, which was how he found a note that Dora had left for him before darting off on her graveyard shift. He smiled as he read over the I love you and tucked the note in his back pocket, walking through the dining room to get to the living room. He was somewhat surprised not to find Sirius asleep on the couch, but then again Sirius had never been the shy type. He'd quite possibly made himself comfortable in their bed and called it a day. Sirius had slept in stranger places for stranger reasons.
Remus cut through the living room and checked the kitchen fridge, satisfied to see that Sirius had indeed used the Muggle money he'd left on the table to order himself pizza. He shut the fridge door and wandered down the hallway of bedrooms. His mouth tasted like whiskey from his night out with some of the other Hogwarts professors and he desperately wanted to brush his teeth, but he opted to check on Teddy first to make sure he'd gone to sleep alright.
He pushed open the nursery door gently and peaked inside the navy blue room. When Dora had picked the colour he'd first been skeptical about how mundane of a colour choice that was for her, but the quilts and books and stuffed toys that had been packed in Teddy's room since had brought more life and colour to the room. His heart nearly leapt out of his chest in absolute panic when he registered the empty crib, but then there was movement on the floor that drew Remus' focus.
He immediately softened at the sight of the big black dog on the ground, in all its shaggy and fluffy glory, curled up tightly around the baby leaning against him. Teddy was wearing one of his softest pairs of pajamas which shone a bright lemon yellow, and as he slept his hair transitioned from soft blues to pinks like the Northern lights—a sure sign that he was feeling safe and sound and that his sleep was deep. One of his meaty little hands was knotted in Padfoot's fur, but the great dog seemed to be sleeping just as profoundly.
Remus leaned against the doorway, his head resting against the wood as he smiled. The pair of them looked so cozy, even if they were for all intents and purposes sleeping on the ground. It reminded Remus of when they used to babysit baby Harry, who used to love tossing his stuffed toys for 'Pafoo,' as he'd called Sirius, to fetch. Sometimes, they would prop Harry up against the big black dog to soothe him into eating mushy peas or pureed carrots—or they would sit him up there with a book that he'd pretend to read while muttering gibberish to go along with the pictures. He remembered how loudly Harry used to giggle when Padfoot would lick his cheeks and nudge into his little belly.
It was a bit surreal now to watch Sirius curled up with his own son. Lily used to tell him that he would one day make a "Mrs. Lupin unless she kept her last name" very happy—but Remus had always batted those remarks away, never believing that they may one day be true. If someone had described this moment to him seventeen years ago… Remus wouldn't have believed it. But he liked what he saw now. He liked how peaceful and normal and casual all this tenderness and all this love was.
As if sensing his presence, Sirius opened his yellowed eyes and looked at Remus. Remus crossed the room and carefully picked up Teddy, scooping the one-year-old against his chest as gently as he could so that the baby wouldn't wake. Thankfully, he stayed asleep, and so Remus backed up to give Sirius space to transform. His friend looked up at him from the nursery floor, stretching his arms above his head.
"How long have you been like that?" Remus asked quietly, a touch amused.
"Tonks said bedtime was at 7:30," Sirius whispered back.
"And you got him down that quickly? Babysitter of the year," Remus said. He knew for a fact that Harry always delayed bedtime in favour of more playtime or a third bedtime story or extra time in the bath.
"Uncle Padfoot's good at what he does," Sirius said, rising to his feet and straightening out his back.
"I hope he was good for you," Remus said, his voice still low.
"Of course he was," Sirius said. "He's one of the most mellow babies to ever live."
"That he is," Remus said. He kissed the top of Teddy's sky blue head and saw Sirius smiling at him. "What?"
"Nothing," Sirius said. "It's just… good to see you like this. Plus, I didn't think I would have more than the one nephew."
Remus smiled.
"I didn't think… I never imagined that I would be here either," he said. "And even if I had imagined it, I wouldn't have imagined that you would have… that you would be here too…"
"I know," Sirius said quietly. His voice shook a little bit as he said it, which just made a very nostalgic and ergo unstable Remus' heart break a little bit more.
Remus opened up his spare arm and his best friend wrapped his arms around him.
"I'm glad we both made it," Remus said quietly into Sirius' hair.
"I'm glad we both made it too," Sirius repeated.
Word count: 961