Warning for alcohol, mild swearing.

Hanahaki disease but with a happy ending.


The moment James saw his best mate stumble into the flat, his anger was overridden with concern. Sirius looked pale, almost ghostly, a sheen of sweat on his face. One of his fists was clenched.

"I need a drink first," Sirius mumbled, his eyes glassy and unfocused. "G-Get —"

"Okay, that's enough for you. C'mon." James stood up, grasped his mate's arm, and half-dragged, half-guided him to the couch, where he gave him a light shove. Sirius fell facefirst into the cushions and clumsily righted himself as James went into the kitchen and returned with a bottle of water.

"What the hell happened?" he asked, handing Sirius the water. Sirius hiccuped. Wordlessly, he unclenched his fingers.

A petal. A white petal, sticky and wet with saliva. James stared at it incredulously. "What in the seven levels of hell is that?"

"What does it look like?" Sirius muttered and raised the bottle to his lips, chugging half of its contents in one go.

"A petal," James said slowly, "that you tried to swallow. That's so disgusting, Sirius."

"No," Sirius said. His head was light, feather-light, but he clung to the edges of reality. "I coughed it up." He had no idea how he was speaking so calmly and coherently.

"You're tipsy, mate," said James sympathetically, "of course you'd imagine something like that —"

"No," he repeated stubbornly, insistently, because James was the only person who could help him. "I was sober when it came out of my mouth."

Silence. Sirius saw the wheels in his head spin, watched as James blanched, and then his face turned ashy. "No," he breathed, staring at the flower with something like horror. "Sirius, this is —"

"It is," said Sirius in a voice that did not belong to him. It was calm, too calm. "It's Ha-Hana-"

"Hanahaki," James finished for him numbly, and both men stared at the petal, which was now the first of the hundreds, perhaps thousands of petals he was going to cough up.

"James," said Sirius, his brain still murky and light, "you have to help me."


Across town, Remus stared at the black petal in his hand. His chest ached, his heart thumped madly in his ribcage, and he couldn't believe his eyes.

It couldn't be. He couldn't be imagining this. The last time something like this, it had been James and Lily, and now —

Without a doubt, he knew who it was for — but they'd broken up, so how could Remus be in love with him? They'd broken up months ago, thanks to Sirius's parents' interference and Remus had fallen out of love with him.

He pictured Sirius's face, the sparkling grey eyes, those aristocratic, haughty lips around a cherry, his long black hair gleaming in the low lights —

No. No. It wasn't possible.

Yet his heart skipped his beat, and he knew the impossible was true.


Then

"We need to talk."

Those were never good words, Remus thought, as his heart began to sink. If he was honest, he'd already been suspecting this conversation; Sirius had not been himself for the last few days — moody, depressed, downtrodden, as if someone had crushed his spirits and he was gearing up to crush Remus's. In any case, Remus braced himself.

"I...don't want to be doing this," Sirius started, not looking at Remus, but at his own lap. His fingers were gripping the edge of the sofa cushion. "I talked to my parents a few days ago, and they...they told me some things."

Judging from the expression on his face, it was nothing good. Remus kept his voice gentle, but the mere mention of Sirius's parents only added to his resentment towards them, bubbling like lava in a volcano. "Yes?"

Sirius still avoided his eyes. "They….they were upset that I'm still dating you, and they…" He gulped, recoiling from Remus entirely. "They threatened to disown me if I didn't break up with you."


"We broke up, James," said Sirius tiredly, resting his head on the table. "I shouldn't still be in love with him, but I coughed up this bloody petal for a reason."

The petal sat at the center of the table, and it made for an ugly centerpiece. Sirius had wiped the saliva off of it but it still seemed to taunt him.

"I mean I don't have...strong feelings," he continued. "But...yesterday, when I saw him at that bar when we talked, and we almost kissed, I felt something weird. And then we both went our separate ways, and I saw him with some other bloke, and the weird feeling got worse."

"Sounds like you were jealous," James commented quietly, gazing at the petal with a faraway look in his eyes. Sirius guessed that he was having memories of his own, how his disease had progressed to coughing up two or three whole flowers at a time before Lily had confessed to him.

In short, Hanahaki sucked.

"I might have been," Sirius admitted, massaging his forehead. "I had to escape this pain somehow so I...ordered a drink. Or two."

"More than that, clearly," James muttered. "What the hell are we supposed to do?"


"Tell him," said Peter, interlacing his fingers and leaning forward to gaze intently at Remus. "He has a right to know."

"Yes but —" Remus broke off, pursing his lips. "You should have seen the expression on his face when that bloke started chatting me up. He was nice, but…" He trailed off.

He isn't Sirius.

"You need to tell him," Peter repeated. "You know what will happen if you don't ever tell him."

Remus was quiet. The pair of them jumped when a ding from Peter's phone reverberated through the room. Peter glanced at the screen and his eyebrows drew together. Picking up the phone, he scanned through the message.

"C'mon," he said abruptly, standing up. "Let's go to James's."

Wait — James? That would mean — Remus lurched out of his seat, alarm battling with anxiety in his chest. "Wait," he said, tugging on the hem of his cardigan. "I'm not ready."

"You can prepare yourself on the way," Peter said, a determined expression on his face. "One way or another, you're telling him, because I am sure as hell not watching my mates kill themselves over something like this. Literally."


"You invited Remus?!"

"And Peter," said James dryly, watching Sirius pace with increasing irritation and amusement. "He's bringing Remus and you two can sort this out because I'm sick of you dodging each other. Your life is at stake."

"But how do you know he loves me back?" Sirius cried, tearing through his hair. "For all I know, he'll laugh in my face."

"He won't," retorted James. "Especially not if you tell him about the petals." I'd wager he's coughing them up too. They're both so gone for each other.

Sirius let out a ragged sigh, finally halting and collapsing in a chair, his face slightly mollified. "I hope you're right."


"Do you think they're all right in there?" Peter asked, checking his watch. "It's been twenty minutes." There had been no sounds from within the room.

James had broken out the wine stash about ten minutes ago, and now he and Peter sipped from plastic cups (as neither of them was inclined to wash glasses). James took one cautious sip before he answered. "I dunno. I'm tempted to go look, but I'm afraid of walking in on them doing things."

Peter grimaced.


Ten minutes later, James, feeling emboldened by the alcohol in his system, pressed his ear against the door.

He heard a low moan and bedsprings creaking, and that told him everything he needed to know.

Reentering the kitchen, he declared, "Yup, I think they're done with the talking part."


"So, good news," Sirius said as he walked into the kitchen with Remus behind him; both looked flushed and abnormally ecstatic. "Remus and I are back together."

"No shit, Sherlock," Peter muttered under his breath. James grinned.

"What happened?"

"Well…" Sirius glanced at his ex-turned-lover. "We decided to not give a shit about my parents. The petals we were both coughing up helped us decide."

Remus said nothing, but his ears were still pink and he threaded his fingers through Sirius's, who gazed at him with the most lovesick expression a person could muster.

James's grin widened. "Well, I think this calls for some more...I mean, some wine."

"Sure, what the hell," Sirius said, but before he could reach for the bottle Remus slapped his hand away.

"Not for you," he said sternly. "You still haven't worked off last night's."

"So what am I supposed to drink then, grape juice?" Sirius asked incredulously. "I love you, babe, but I will not — "

Remus very cleverly interrupted what would have been a tirade by kissing him, and Sirius promptly shut up. James and Peter averted their eyes and only dared to look back when the noises stopped.

"So I presume you're drinking grape juice?" James snickered, and Sirius glared at him.

"Only because I liked the method of persuasion."


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