Sirius and Remus enjoy the first few years of their married life, Remus getting a job as a chemistry teacher at their old high school. Sirius pursues several careers: bartending, tattoo artistry, mechanics. Eventually, to the surprise of most of their friends, he starts a moderately successful bakery. All the product names are puns. Once Harry is born, it takes them a year of babysitting to decide they want to adopt. Again, to the surprise of most, it's Sirius who brings it up first. Of course it's a battle to get an adoption agency to let a gay, HIV positive couple to adopt, but there's hardly an argument Remus can't win. They adopt a little boy first, and name him Reggie, after Regulus. Sirius's little brother did become a lawyer, carrying on the Black tradition, but he uses his license for environmental law and activism. Tragically, he was killed at a protest against unlawful waste disposal that got out of hand. It's one of Sirius's greatest regrets that they never reconciled their relationship. A few years later they adopt a little girl. They name her Hope, after Remus's mom, who is absolutely smitten with both her grandchildren. Things are by no means easy, but they make a good family, and both Hope and Reggie get along great with cousin Harry. Several years later…
"Hope, if you're not in the kitchen in five minutes we're leaving without you!" Sirius called over his shoulder as he shoved ziplocs of baby carrots and sandwiches into two brown paper bags. Reggie was sitting across from him at the counter, shoving oatmeal down his throat while reading a comic book.
"How many times do I have to tell you that yelling doesn't make me do my hair any faster?" The ten year old screamed from her bathroom down the hall.
"You know it's you that she gets this sass from," Sirius whispered to his husband, who was practically asleep, leaned against the door frame. "You ok?"
Remus blinked his eyes open. "Yeah just didn't get enough sleep I guess."
"You fell asleep ten minutes into jeopardy last night." Sirius cocked his head playfully.
"You went to bed before eight? God, dad you're old." Oatmeal sprayed everywhere as Reggie laughed at his dad.
"And how late did you stay up, then?" Remus rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and pulled a Danimals out of the fridge. He might be 46, but no one is ever too old to start their morning with a strawberry explosion.
"Only until like 1:30." Reggie replied, burying his nose back into his comic book.
"WHAT?" That spun the heads of both his parents, Remus frozen mid sip. "You're 13, what can you possibly be doing at 1:30 in the morning?" As soon as the question left his mouth, he side eyed Sirius, realizing they might not want to hear the answer to this.
"I had to see if Captain America won." Sirius and Remus breathed audible sighs of relief.
"Reg, it's the fourth time you've read that comic. You know how it ends."
"No more reading comics in the middle of the night." Remus downed his Danimals in one sip. "We're leaving Hope!" He called down the hallway.
Hope bounced down the hallway into the kitchen, her hair pulled back into two poofy buns on top of her head and her book bag slung over her shoulder.
"You look nice," Remus said as he linked his arm through Sirius's leaning on him a bit for support.
"Yeah well I'd look a lot nicer if SOMEBODY didn't rush me." She beat her brother out the door and to the car.
"Education is more important than your hair." Sirius called after his daughter, his mind wandering, though, when Remus shifted some of his weight onto him. "Are you sure you're ok?
"Yeah, just waiting for the coffee to kick in." Sirius looked over his shoulder, at the coffee cup sitting on the counter, untouched and forgotten.
Sirius set Remus in the passenger's seat and got in the driver's seat himself, checking over his shoulder to make sure seat belts were buckled. "The comic book is staying in the car, Reg. I don't want anymore notes home that you're reading in Algebra."
"Well, if Mr. Linn would make Algebra interesting I wouldn't have to read during his class."
"The book stays in the car."
"Whatever."
Sirius suppressed the 'watch your tone' that welled up behind his lips, his eye caught by his already sleeping husband in the passenger seat, a lapful of graded quizzes slipping on to the floor of the car.
Hope was dropped off first, her bright blue bookbag bouncing as she ran through the front doors of the elementary school. Next, Reg scampered off to middle school still sulking a bit as he pined for the comic book left in the car.
The high school was only two minutes away, and on a normal day that's where Remus, excuse me, Professor Lupin, would be dropped off, frantically touching up lesson plans on enolates and cyclizations before running in to teach his junior chemistry class. But for some reason, for a lot of reasons actually, this didn't feel like a normal day.
It took Remus a few minutes before he even realized that they had passed the high school. "Sirius you missed the turn."
"I know."
"I have class, Sirius."
"I know."
"Well you haven't turned us around."
"I'm taking you to a hospital, Rem." His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and his jaw was trembling ever so slightly.
"What, why?" Remus sat up a little straighter.
"You're fatigued-"
"I told you I just didn't get enough sleep-"
"You got almost 12 hours. Is that not enough? I've seen you more alert on 5 and a half. You've been sniffling all morning. You're flushed like you've got a fever, and you only drink danimals when your throat hurts."
"Ok so I'm a little under the weather."
"Don't be stupid about this Rem, we both know under the weather for you is more of a problem than it is for most people. Call in sick so no one worries. We're almost there."
Remus pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, his sleepy fingers dialing Mcgonagall, who in her many years as english teacher had finally retired, taking the job of Principal. Everyone told her that didn't really count as retiring, but everyone was glad to have her.
"Hey Min, I'm calling in sick today." Her response was muted.
"Blame Sirius, he's kidnapped me and is forcing me- What? I am not being childish!" Sirius let a small laugh escape his set jaw.
Remus finished his phone call, promising Mcgonagall he'd update her after his appointment, and thanking her for getting him a substitute at such short notice.
The rest of the ride to the hospital was tense. For anybody else a cold was something that went barely noticed. But Remus didn't have that luxury. A cold could kill him. Hell, a cold sore could kill him.
Sirius and him both new that it was nearly a miracle that he had survived this long without progressing from acute HIV to AIDS. It was almost like he was living on borrowed time. Every sneeze, every cough, every yawn brought fear to both their eyes.
A few minutes later they pulled into the emergency room parking lot.
"He's HIV positive and is presenting as fatigued, and fevery, and just generally sick. We're gonna need a CD4 count, and-" Sirius was already talking off the ear of the poor RN who had met them at the door.
"Sirius, I can still talk." He put a hand on Sirius's arm, holding him back. "You watch too much Grey's Anatomy, love." He turned his attention to the politely smiling RN. "Is there any paperwork I have to fill out while we wait?" She handed him a paper attached to a clipboard and a pen.
They sat down in the waiting room, and Remus leaned his head on Sirius's shoulder as he slowly filled out the form. Sirius was muttering under his breath. "This is the emergency room, why do they have forms. This is urgent. Paper work is the least urgent thing in the world."
"Sirius."
"I mean if you had run in here with your finger chopped off I don't think they'd ask you to do paperwork. If you had run in here bleeding out, they'd whisk you back and save the paperwork for later."
"Sirius."
"I mean just because they can't see your disease, doesn't mean this isn't an emergency." Sirius was talking loud enough for the RN at the counter to hear. Hoping she heard, actually.
"Sirius."
"What?"
"Sign here please." He offered up the form, his finger pointing to the line marked 'spouse.' "You can go hand it in when you're done."
Sirius walked the form up to the RN, who accepted it, smiling through gritted teeth. "We'll see you as soon as we can, sir."
It was only about five minutes before another nurse came out to escort them back. Not very many emergencies on a Tuesday morning.
"Alright, Mr. Lupin," the doctor said, briefly scanning over the chart. "How about you lie down. I'll order your CD4 count and we'll see what we're dealing with here." The older man smiled kindly, helping Remus up into the bed.
"Are there any other tests you can do? Does he need multiple? Is there anyway that the CD4 test could be wrong? Hit him with every test you've got."
"Sirius," Remus grabbed his husbands hand from the hospital bed. "The longer you talk, the longer this is going to take. Let him do his job."
The doctor left, mostly to go order the test, but also to escape the barrage of questions still being thrown at him by the man in emergency bay number 3.
"Sirius if you don't calm down, you're going to be the thing that kills me." Despite the joking tone, Sirius could hear the fear eating away at the back of Remus's voice.
"That's not funny Remus."
"We've been through so much together. We can get through this. Whatever this even is." Remus sank back into the thin hospital pillow, trying to keep his eyes open. He felt weak. And scared.
Sirius was sitting nervously in a chair next to his bed still holding his hand, fondly thinking about the 'so much' that they had been through. He always felt helpless in hospitals. He couldn't do anything to help Remus, not really. Not medically. He could, however, make him laugh.
"Do you remember our first prank?" He asked, not even sure Remus was listening, since his eyes were closed and he was breathing heavily.
"Do I remember?" Remus laughed wearily, keeping his eyes closed. "Sirius that took me a month to plan, and another month to work up the courage to ask you to help. Of course I remember."
"You planned it before you asked me?"
"If you're going to ask the cutest boy in school to help you with a project, you have to make sure it's one hell of a project."
"Oh my god, you had a crush on me?"
"Sirius, we're married."
"Oh right." Sirius leaned back in his chair, twisting Remus's wedding ring around on his finger. "I still can't believe we got away with it."
"We've gotten away with more." Remus smiled. "Remember when we dyed James's hair pink?"
"I can't believe that bastard thought it was Lily! Like she could have come up with that."
"Come up with putting hair dye in shampoo? Let him think it was her, it means we get away with it."
"Genius demands an audience."
"You have low standards for genius, babe."
A nurse came through the door of their room holding a few vials and a needle. "Alright Mr. Lupin, I'm going to draw some blood." She took his left arm, tying a band just above his elbow. "You'll feel a little prick."
"Oh, he knows the drill, he shoots a lot of heroin."
"Sirius!" Remus blushed, trying to hold back a laugh. "Ignore him." The nurse didn't seem to find it as funny as they did.
Once the vials were full, she packed her things and whisked the samples to the lab, letting them know "Results should be in in about an hour."
"Heroin? Really?"
"Well you can't shoot up weed."
"Now she's going to go talk to all her nurse buddies about the junkie who got HIV by sharing needles in an alley."
"Oh shit babe I didn't think about that."
"It's a miracle they let us adopt with your mouth."
Sirius smiled sheepishly at the comment. "Didn't really think we'd end up like this did you?" He asked, playing with his own wedding ring now.
"Married, with an SUV and two kids? Wouldn't have guessed, that's for sure."
"To be honest, if you'd have asked me in high school, I would have told you I'd never get married."
"What changed your mind?" Remus was rubbing the track mark in his arm.
"Dating you." Sirius looked up at his husband, who was holding back a smile. "Quit trying to get me to be sappy." He swatted at Remus from where he was sitting. "You already know I had a crush on you the moment I saw you. How many times do you need me to say it?"
"Only a couple more times."
"Fuck you."
"Do you ever miss dating? I mean each other. If you talk about an ex, I'll punch you."
Sirius looked up again. "Miss dating? Oh, actually remember that one…" They caught each other's eye.
"Oh my god the aquarium. That one was my favorite." Remus sighed.
"Yeah tha- wait, the aquarium?" He looked at Remus bewildered. "I mean that was top ten, but I was thinking about that beach road trip."
"The one where we got lost? Sirius that wasn't even a date, that was awful!"
"Oh ho ho, we'll revisit that choice statement later, but answer me this professor. Why the aquarium? I barely even talked to you."
"I know. It was adorable."
"What? I practically ignored you."
"But it was out of bewilderment, so it was kind of...endearing. Sirius you had never been to an aquarium before, never seen a live fish I'm pretty sure, and I got to be the one to see that."
"Oh my god that's so embarrassing. I was a sheltered kid."
"In a weird way, I suppose. In other ways, no."
"I can't believe that was your favorite."
"I can't believe we stood by the shark tank for an hour and a half while you labored over what names to give them."
"Haha what were they again? Brendon, Hubert…" Sirius counted off on his fingers as he tried to list the names back.
"I don't even think you could tell them apart. I'm pretty sure you named the same shark six different times."
"Probably." They sat for a while, just remembering.
Finally Remus spoke up. "So the beach trip huh?"
"Yeah…" Sirius said, a warm smile spreading across his face.
"Just to clarify, this is the beach trip where we lost the map, tried to use road signs, and were almost a day late."
"Yeah tha-"
"The one where the engine died two hours in, leaving us stranded in front of a church, in 100 degree weather. A church where a funeral was going on, and our car, our unmovable car was blocking the funeral procession?"
"That's the one." Sirius laughed. "Don't look at me like that. How does the saying go? You don't really know someone until you see their road rage? Well I really got to know you on that trip."
"Fuck you."
They passed the next few minutes in silence, Remus closing his eyes again, Sirius nervously chewing on his bottom lip.
"Sirius, don't be too hard on whoever Hope falls in love with."
"What?"
"And Reggie. He's a great kid, but he's not your brother, Sirius. I know we named him after Regulus, but don't hold him to that standard. Let him be his own person."
"Remus, I don't. He's- he's only thirteen."
"Make sure they're kind. Make sure they know how much we love them. Make sure they know how important it is to like what they do with their life. Make sure they remember me."
Sirius swallowed the fear in his throat, trying to make his voice sound stern, not terrified. "Remus Lupin, don't talk to me like you're dying."
Behind them, the curtain shifted and the doctor walked back in, a clipboard full of confusing graphs and numbers in his hand. "Alright Mr. Lupin."
The doctor explained that although Remus's CD4 count was low, it wasn't low enough to categorize his symptoms as AIDS just yet. "Frankly, considering how long you've had the disorder, I'm surprised you're standing in front of me today. But looking at the numbers in front of me, I'd say you have a few more years yet before we have to consider AIDS."
Remus and Sirius both breathed huge sighs of relief. The doctor went over Remus's medication with him, upping a few dosages here and there, adding a new prescription. In his professional opinion the fatigue and other symptoms had just been brought on by Remus out growing his current prescription.
"I'd like to see you back here in a few months. If we monitor this regularly, we'll be more prepared." Remus and Sirius both pretended they didn't know 'prepared' really meant 'affairs in order.'
Remus and Sirius made their way back up to the front desk, scheduling the next few appointments. With Sirius's arms wrapped around Remus's waist, holding him up, but also just holding him, they turned to leave.
"We're fucking like it's the end of the world tonight."
The nurse behind them choked on her Aquafina.
