La la la la la... back to the present... enjoy ;)

Sorry about the delay: Fan Fic decided that it was going to be an arsehole and not let me or Andraste upload for ages - Something to do with some Error on the edit bit ¬¬ But it's all good now ^ ^ so enjoy the fabulousness that is Remus and Sirius ;) Thank you, Fan Fic :D

I stood at the foot of the set of flats, staring up to the window where I once lived, heart clenching painfully in my chest, fearing the worst. Icy February danced about my lengths of dark, matted hair, chilling me through, playing nicely with the lump of worry that had slowly penetrated my flesh and taken to defiantly residing itself inside my chest. I removed a hand from my pocket and reached for the handle, fingers twitching, shaking violently, struggling to open the heavy door. He could be dead for all I knew – just because I left him in a good state doesn't mean he'd stay in one. A wave of warm air slipped through the door and I moved inside, making my way apprehensively up 3 flights of stairs, unsure if I was going to make it to the front door before my legs gave way and I was left a heap of anxious mess in the middle of the corridor. I knocked on the door overly enthusiastically, reddening my knuckles, and leaned against the frame, trying to look as calm and composed as I could, fiddling with some buttons on my shirt to accentuate the 'wow factor' I'd receive when he opened it to find me standing there, arms folded, looking positively cool. But rather than that, as the door swung open I was met with a gasp. And not a good gasp - a gasp that sounded like it hurt... for both of us. I winced a little inside my head at the dark look Remus was stabbing my face with.

"Oh... hey, Rems." I gritted my teeth nervously, disguising it as a wonky grin. "I see you're ok then..."

"If you want to call it that... or are you under the impression that I've forgotten what you did in Russia?"

I sighed and stared at him blankly, placing my broken smile back in my pocket. Angry was better than dead. But he must have been completely out of it for the whole conversation we'd had, meaning the repercussions of his drinking were much worse that I'd imagined. I pushed my way into the flat and looked around at the job he'd done, keeping it clean.

"It's more your memory that I'm concerned by." I muttered in to the air that no longer smelt of dead things, but of air freshener and fabric softener.

"OH SO NOW YOU'RE CONCERNED ABOUT ME, HMM? YOU'RE JUST UNBELIEVEABLE!"

I smirked and ran my fingers through my hair, shifting my body so that he could see every tattoo, every mark on my chest that he'd seemed to be loving dearly, over the earlier months, until he was staring at me with such hunger he was almost dribbling. My hand slid down my torso and popped open one more button, snapping him back into reality.

"STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! YOU'VE DONE SO MANY THINGS WRONG! I CAN'T TAKE IT! AND NOW, YOU THINK BY STRIPPING I'M GOING FORGET IT ALL AND FALL INTO YOUR ARMS! IT'S NOT HAPPENING!"

I chuckled.

"It was worth a try. Come on, sit down then."

He shook his head, as if trying to vindicate his thoughts, and collapsed onto the old, tatty sofa that had miraculously appeared out of a heap of dirt when I cleared the apartment more than a month ago.

"Please don't to this to me, Siri. I don't know why you think you can just march in here and mess up my life. If you really loved me, you'd let me go."

"Oh, Rems," I heaved "Only stupid people think that."

I dropped my self beside him, running my fingers through the voluptuary gold that sprouted from his scalp, the occasional strand of fine platinum marking nearly 20 years of 'us'. As pernicious a human being I was, over all the time we'd been together I could never let him go, not completely at least – there would always be a velleity, however small it was, calling me to him in the back of my head. I stroked down his soft, rosy cheeks, my flesh playing in the crevices of his friendly little scars, skin surprisingly untouched by the callous hand of time, unworn by the frequent tracks of tears that had run down them throughout his lifetime. He flicked his face away from me, as if I'd slapped him with a cold flannel. I grabbed his head and clamped it in cupped hands, staring deep into his stunning blue eyes that were glistening with water and dribbling down his wonderful face, looking at every line he'd acquired over the years: the small creases at the front of his eyes he'd earned as a consequence of my cruelty; the dip in his cheeks from years of laughing and smiling with me; the thin streaks on his forehead from his cute little I'm-really-enjoying-this-more-more-more face and, of course, every diverse and extraordinary scar that danced over his beautiful features – I loved them all.

"Please don't hurt me... please... please... please don't get angry at me..." he whimpered, a thousand tones of dread vibrating in his voice.

I grasped him in a bear hug that would put any normal person in a love induced coma.

"Shh shh shh shh... I swear on everything I have and ever have had, I will never hurt you again. You hear that? Never in the rest of my life. A month ago, I realised, not for the first time, how much you actually mean to me. I thought I'd killed you, Rems. I thought you were dead. You were flat-out on the floor, surrounded in bottles, marinating in your own sick. I honestly thought I'd destroyed everything that I held dear to me, I'd destroyed you."

"Believe me, Sirius; I'd wanted to have died."

I nodded, composing myself with a deep breath.

"I just can't believe I let you leave and do that to yourself. I mean, you were delusional and crying on and off in odd flashes, insisting that I'd run off with Snape, thinking I was James. I had to clean you up like that, afraid to drown you when I left you, to clean up or get you more chocolate. I felt disgusting."

"Why? You saved my life. I can't live without you, it's obvious. So, why are we like this? Why did it happen?"

I pulled him from our hug and kissed his forehead, smelling the all too familiar scent of his hair. It could be made into a perfume called 'Eau du Remus Lupin' and then I wouldn't have to go a day without sniffing the sweet fragrance he emitted.

"I would take a bullet for you, Rems. Please, please, please come back to me."

I yanked him close once more, nuzzling my head into his collar bone, trying to hide the tears.

"I'm a monster, Rems, and I know it. I don't deserve you. But being like that, seeing you in that state, made me realise that, to live a day without you is like crawling across broken glass for a century."