Work Text:
There are only so many parallel universes
that concern us. In one, he isn't dead.
In another, you drink light with your hands all winter.
(...)
There is a universe in which there is no difference
between the past and the ground. Another
where the oceans pull the moon. And so on.
Introduction to Quantum Theory —Franny Choi
Wales is dense with mildew and December froth. Hope’s cottage lives underneath a copse of oaks there, thirty kilometres from the sheep farm that Remus grew up in.
The porch of his mother’s house groans chidingly when he apparates. It does little to pacify the deafening hum in his ears. Remus drops his head against the hardwood and lets out a noise he can’t decipher. Upon rushing to open the door, Hope’s greying eyebrows knit into a line, her billowy cardigan held fiercely at her midriff.
Remus falls against her is what he can gather. It’s malpractice to put dead weight on your ageing mother - this he can attest to at least, knows it by logic and heart, but the outside is far too bitingly cold, and when he closes his eyes he can make a dull attempt at pretending she’s still the spirited woman that made a crib for him all these years. That raised him in the guise of him concealing the beast and becoming whatever the most sensible attempt at a man can be - from this very sofa, which Remus lays back on with a groan and a convulsing, dastardly arm wrapped around his abdomen.
The woolly fabric pooling off her shoulders is stained brown in the shape of his handprints. James had asked him once where he gets it from: the unending urge to dress as though he’s never once seen an urban city in his life. Remus thinks he’s going to be ill and bites his tongue, thinking that dribbling out organs and soot wouldn’t be his most intelligent decision at the moment.
Hope returns from the kitchen limping but nonetheless with a wet rag and an ancient vat of murtlap essence in her hands. Remus coughs out a laugh that sounds more like a gurgle and lets her peel back the jumper plastered onto his skin. He reckons the last time she’d done this might have been at Hogwarts - no, at home. Seventh year.
“Mum,” Remus croaks.
Hope wraps a hand around his neck.
“Call,” Remus breathes out, then holds his breath. The slick drag of potion fills his stomach, and he doesn’t know whether he feels it inside or out. “Mm - …mmh.”
“Shh. They’re coming, sweet.”
“No - “ Remus says. His chest rises and falls, fresh blood smearing onto his teeth. “Just Marlene. Mmph - McKinnon. Please, she’s a Healer.”
Hope glances up at him, concernedly.
“Please,” Remus repeats, breathing heavily. “…mum. Please.”
Hope carefully brings his jumper down again and presses it against his skin. Remus bites his cheek, hard. She turns toward the phone, and Remus lets out the air in his lungs, letting it come back in sharp gusts. The dial spins, then rings. Remus raises his hand and nudges it under the torn hem of his sweater, trying to feel.
His fingernail fits under a hot layer of skin. He leans forward and retches.
Hope shoves the tellyphone back.
Remus’ ears resume their buzzing. Hope sits by him and brings him into her arms, whispering something in his ear. So close to the moon, he can make out her heart in her chest, erratically thumping as she presses her wrinkled lips to his vile, scorching forehead. Somehow, it fills him with a comfort greater than the dull numbing of the murtlap essence.
“Mum,” he says again, breathily. “Marlene…”
Hope doesn’t answer, combing his matted hair back from his forehead.
Minutes later, the crack of apparition trembles through the foundations of the house. Hope retreats slowly from her spot pillowing Remus’ moveless head and ambles rapidly to the front door. Remus shuts his eyes, letting out a terse sigh of relief, slowly allowing the voice in his head reminding him to stay awake to dwindle out into a nameless nothing.
His hand twitches on his stomach, cheekbone pressing against the thick corduroy of the couch. When the light graze of a wandtip touches his forehead, magic invading through his skin, Remus feels as though he may cry.
Then he opens his eyes.
The warmth lilting from Hope’s fireplace is replaced by the frigidness of Sirius’ eyes, lifeless grey worked into a stiffness. He casts a numbing spell on Remus that makes his jaw become slack, mindlessly reducing the torment on his limbs.
“Fuck,” Remus sighs out, twisting his head.
Sirius crouches down, fingers reaching for his jumper. Remus’ hand closes around his wrist for a moment on instinct, then retreats. Sirius glares at him before going through the same motion his mother had, examining him, non-apprehensive.
Remus feels naked, watching the sick dribble off the side of the couch.
“It’s shit, yeah,” says Sirius simply, brows settled thin. “Couldn’t have let it finish you off? I mean, I had your death notice drafted on my desk already.”
“Padfoot,” Remus says, incoherent.
“Don’t -“ Sirius inhales, shoving Remus’ jumper back. “Fucking call me that.”
He tells Hope something, standing up. Remus lolls his head back and sees her nodding. It’s not a long time before Sirius is next to him again, indelicate grasp fitting around Remus’ scratched wrist.
The world spins into a vortex.
Remus huffs out, back pressed against the sheets. He feels his stomach gurgle again, presses his wrist against his cupid’s bow. Rapidly, Sirius has his shoulders, turning him on his side.
He pukes all over Sirius’ trousers.
Remus’ temples burn with tears, and he heaves again, knees curling into his chest. Sirius doesn’t jostle him or try to get him to the loo three steps ahead, only steps out of the way, one hand on Remus’ battered shoulder while the other combs into his hair and stills in. Remus presses his hand into his eye, coughing out.
“I’m sorry,” he tries.
Sirius grimaces. He circles the vomit, stepping out of his shoes and then his trousers. Remus watches blearily as he unhooks a face towel from the wash, wetting it under the sink.
Walking back, he mouths a Scourgify under his breath.
“Sirius,” Remus breathes.
Sirius purses his lips. He leaves the towel on the nightstand, reaching to fist Remus’ jumper with both of his hands. Remus looks down, barely gets a moment to mourn it before Sirius is flexing his forearms and jerking it to either side.
It tears down the middle, making a shrilling sound.
Nevermind that it’s completely muddled with nearly every bodily substance Remus can produce. Sirius shoulders off his jacket and is left in just his off-white vest and his boxers, increasingly more humane than he had looked earlier, with Remus’ jugular placed between his teeth. He pulls Remus’ jumper from his arms, then from underneath him, and they both observe the mangled mess he’s made of himself.
“Slacks off,” Sirius huffs out.
“Sirius,” Remus repeats, breathless.
“Lupin,” Sirius throws back, brows twitching. He reaches for the button at Remus’ waistband, releasing it from the wrangled fabric. The trousers hill over the swell of Remus’ thighs on their way down, catching on more than one gash.
“Padfoot,” Remus says, past the recoil in his tongue.
“Piss off,” Sirius tells him, flippantly. Remus is undressed, then, and not kindly: Sirius barely looks at him, unearthing his wand from the discarded pocket of his leather jacket, murmuring a stitching spell that sticks to Remus’ sinew.
“Love,” he says.
Sirius glares at him.
He is distinctly familiar to his brother when he’s angry.
“Every month of my life,” Sirius says. “I have to consider the possibility that you’ve been cursed to death and left to rot in a ditch.”
“I know.”
“Do you know how debilitatingly miserable that is?”
“No.”
“No, you fucking don’t.”
“Yeah,” says Remus, exhaling. “But if I didn’t make it -”
Sirius’ eyes flash.
“Sirius,” Remus insists, sitting up with difficulty. “If I died, you’d bloody know.”
“Lie down, arsehole.” Sirius is seething, face twisted into a frown so closely resembling hatred that it almost convinces Remus they’re done now. “What? You’d send me an owl from the afterlife or something?”
Remus grabs him by the collar, pulling him against his mouth.
“No,” Remus rasps. “You bloody let me vomit on your lap. You’re nearly naked in front of me. Dickhead.”
Sirius pushes him to arm’s length, blushing despite himself. “And you’re genuinely fucking tapped in the head. If you think some sodding force of the universe is going to enlighten me in your wake or something - if you think that - consider how utterly and divinely fucked the situation we’re in right now is, Remus.”
“You didn’t think I was dead,” Remus says.
“Clearly not,” Sirius scoffs, still indignant.
“Uh huh,” Remus tells him.
“Shut up,” says Sirius, stepping back. He picks up the towel again, wiping Remus’ spit from his lips. “You’ve pissed me off.”
Remus lies back down. The battering noises in his head have receded to a quiet hum, only replaced by the bittersweet brush of Sirius’ voice through his ears.
Despite his words, Sirius finishes the stitching, wand tapping the recesses of Remus’ skin, which he wipes off on his shirt later. It dusts on stains the colour of the ones that were left on his mum, and Remus feels a surge of something raw in his chest.
These days, with Dumbledore churning the machine of the world, Remus rarely sees Sirius outside of the days where he’s mauled to the skin of his teeth. Sirius rarely sees Remus outside of the days where he’s fretted himself into such a godless strain that all of the skin around his fingernails has peeled off. He thought his mum might’ve been better in that way; she was closer.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats.
“Fucking idiot,” Sirius whispers, softer albeit, knuckle grazing the diagonal slash on Remus’ navel. It comes off wet and dark. When he casts the spell, it stings more than the others.
Remus inhales, rib cage swelling. Sirius glances at him, blue eyes begrudging in the rising sun of the room. Upon looking, he realises that it’s Sirius’. It’s Sirius’ room they were apparated into.
Remus grabs a handful of the pillow to his left. He watches the grit under his fingernails defile its cleanliness. Sirius’ wand slips down, pushing on his hip, and Remus twists his head to the side, inhaling.
When he drops back, Sirius’ mouth parts, snorting.
“What,” Remus says.
“Merlin,” replies Sirius, to himself.
“Smells like your hair,” Remus is daft enough to tell him.
Sirius touches his stomach, making him wince. It’s better now, has created raised fractures of skin, knit together invisibly by Sirius’ magic - which used to be so sloppy, Remus has it all over him, the scars he’d let Sirius practise on back at Hogwarts: the ugly ones on the jut of his hip and the side of his knee, the valley of his shoulders.
“I’ll owl Marlene,” Sirius says. He starts dragging the damp towel over Remus’ chest, not meeting his eye. “She’s got the strong stuff. For now we’ve Prongs’ pot and Sleep Draughts. Actually, we may be out of those.”
Sirius’ hand circles his neck. The rag makes a squelching noise when he squeezes it, water trickling into Remus’ nape. Remus observes him: the sole freckle that exists above his top lip, the aristocratic peak of his nose. The gelid fractals in his eyes, which won’t meet Remus’.
“Just use Scourgify,” he tells Sirius, who has taken to rubbing Remus’ chin.
Sirius’ thumb fits over Remus’ torn bottom lip, ignoring him. “Open,” he says.
Unthinking, he does. Sirius’ eyes drag over his teeth, then his finger does, brushing under Remus’ canine.
“It’s not done,” he says, pulling back. His thumb is nicked. “The moon.”
“Isn’t it?” Remus asks, winded.
“No,” Sirius replies, sucking away the small bead of blood. “I’ll draw a bath. Yeah? Calm you down?”
“Christ,” Remus says, embarrassed.
Sirius’ mouth quirks.
After a moment, the water stream starts in the bathroom. Sirius’ bathroom. Remus’ arm falls over his eye, and distantly he can feel Sirius tugging out new sheets from inside his dresser, picking out the pillows and undoing their sleeves. Soon the smell of white cedar is lifted by the whistling airflow, dragging past the room and onto the awaking gutters of London.
Sirius’ hand curls around his shoulder, squeezing. When Remus opens his eyes, it’s to find him tugging his vest over his head, shirtless now, and cold. He lets Sirius help him up, one lithe arm under his shoulders, Remus’ grime mucking up his unmarked skin.
Remus twists his head to the mirror, feet meeting the cold pane. They’re a disturbing opposite of each other.
“Don’t look,” Sirius tells him, gently.
Remus drops his underwear sheepishly and lowers into the bath. The hot water calms his aching muscles. Sirius closes the door and uncaps the shower wash, drizzling it onto the bath sponge.
“I can do it,” Remus tells him. Sirius’ skin has begun picking up the humidity, nose bridge forming speckles of glittering mist.
“Quit being a twat,” Sirius says, fingers squeezing under the water. It sloshes transparently between them. “D’you want me to come in with you?”
“Sirius,” Remus grouses. He flares up, rubbing his face.
“Moony,” Sirius responds, quietly. Remus glares at him over his wrist.
Sirius removes his boxers without preamble. He’s much less disgruntled about it, stepping to the side purposefully, bunching his hair into a knot at the nape of his neck. It falls apart anyway when he steps in, water lifting with him, into a light translucent veil over his chest, which is speckled in goosebumps. The confidence that had invaded Remus for a moment retreats now, skin throbbing in the fragrant bath salts.
“I detest you,” says Remus, full of shit.
“Do you?” Sirius asks. Settling finally, the tips of his hair dip into the water, hand raising to caress Remus’ shoulders.
His legs nudge on either side of Remus’, bordering them. He squeezes Remus’ neck, urging him back.
Remus’ temple rests on Sirius’ collarbone. Like this, pressed against him, he can feel how warm he is in comparison to Sirius - and perhaps it is truly a vestige of the moon. Sirius’ lathered hand drags down his ribs, sinking underwater.
“I think this one’s broken,” he says, into Remus’ ear. He presses on it, below his nipple, where Remus can see the irregular skin jutting out.
“Can’t feel it,” Remus supplies.
“Hm,” Sirius says. “Good spell.”
He closes his eyes. Sirius’ mouth presses against his hairline but doesn’t move, and his hand makes gentle laps over Remus’ skin, moving to his sternum. He’s knackered, feels as though it would be easy to become unconscious here and let Sirius take care of everything else. Realistically, it’s a horrific idea.
“I’m disgusting,” he slurs out.
“Gathered that,” Sirius tells him. Remus realises he’s quit the sponge and has begun carding his hand through Remus’ hair. It’s wet, he knows; it’s soapy.
“Arse.”
“I’m having you on,” Sirius says. Then, perhaps worse: “well. I’m not.”
Remus grimaces. “Bloody embarrassing.”
“Prongs has given me a bath before,” Sirius says. “After Grimmauld. I was gross.”
“Wow,” Remus says. “That really helps. Thanks.”
“Git,” Sirius responds, smiling. “It was different then. Obviously.”
“Yeah, all right.”
Sirius grabs his mandible, twisting Remus to face him. Remus opens his eyes, coming to face with his sweaty expression, hair curling at the edges, cheeks blotchy and flushed in the upheaving heat.
Sirius slips forward, and slots his wet lips in between Remus’.
Remus inhales, boneless. Sirius licks softly into him, pressing him back into the porcelain, hand curling around his nape. He feels the sodding rib, then, worked into a crick, and it coerces a noise from his throat, scraped from the depths.
“It’s not bloody fair when you do that,” Remus says, against Sirius’ mouth.
“You never kiss me,” Sirius says to him. “And then you do incredibly dangerous shit, so I’m still supposed to act like I’m cross with you all the time. Which…”
“You can kiss me all you like.”
Sirius’ stomach dips with his laugh. “Tell me when you aren’t mutilated inside of a bathtub with me.”
His legs bend at the foot of the tub.
“I will,” Remus says. He looks up at Sirius, who goes cross-eyed with the proximity. “Reckon you wouldn’t be so certain, then, either.”
“Maybe not.”
“Maybe not?”
“Definitely not,” Sirius corrects, whispering. “You make me too bloody nervous.”
When the water runs cold, after two refills, Sirius helps him to bed, sending an owl off to Marlene. Remus, under the covers, considers how pathetic it would be to ask him if he’s going to sleep on his own mattress. The day has just crackled open outside the walls of their flat, and he’s unsure whether Sirius would want to accompany him - whether he would be capable of doing it.
His answer comes when Sirius slips on a well-worn sleep shirt, draws the curtains and turns off the light, shutting the door behind him. He looks through the drawers for a draught and clicks his tongue when he finds it. Sitting next to Remus, he instructs him to open his mouth.
Remus tilts his head back. When it’s all smoothly down his throat, Sirius licks the rim, then leans down to kiss him.
Remus lets his hands crowd in his hair. Sirius seems to have a liking for it. It’s all surreal to him, but he’ll encourage it still if it means he’ll get to have this for the feeble moments it lasts, Sirius’ lips hot on his, his tongue ginger and filling like a curative.
“So bloody worried about you,” Sirius says, in the dark. “I can never fucking sleep.”
His thighs bracket Remus’, squeezing. Remus’ hands slip around his face.
“You need to visit James more,” he says.
“Lily’s too pregnant,” Sirius replies. “She hates everyone except him. Sometimes she also hates him.”
“She’s anxious,” Remus says.
“Yeah,” Sirius concedes. “Just - I can’t. I can’t bloody think, Moony, I - it’s my worst nightmare, this. I can’t fucking stand sitting still while we… I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“I know,” Remus says, thinking of Dumbledore sending Sirius on spy missions with the other Aurors - who are all far more experienced than him. “Me too.”
Sirius’ face fits into his neck, breathing out hot. “Tell me if I’m hurting you,” he says. Secretly, Remus’ hip cracks under Sirius’ weight, rib giving a brief twitch. He doesn’t say anything, tucking his nose into the nook of Sirius’ ear.
Later, when Marlene fixes his bones, Sirius will lean against the doorframe with his hair mussed, under eyes swollen from sleep. He’ll have cast good stitches, according to Marlene, hurried ones albeit. After, when the world is quiet and the other side of Remus’ bed is empty, he’ll slip in through the cracks.
Remus will grab him, bandages clinging onto his body, and he will kiss him. And he will pull him into the warmth.