In Vino Veritas

There are times he has to force himself to think about the cursed house on Grimmauld Place - times he doesn't want it to appear, times he'd rather Apparate back to his own space, without Mrs. Black's screaming curses, Sirius's sullen complaining, Molly's constant worrying. There are times he has to bite his tongue to keep from lashing out at Tonks's clumsiness, Sirius's sarcastic whining.

Remus squared his shoulders, sighed, and after a slightly longer-than-normal moment, the house appeared in all its faded glory. Sirius would still be up, he knew, but couldn't bring himself to seek him out. Not yet. Not until he figured out where to find the strength to hold Sirius in a vain attempt to stave off the inevitable nightmares.

He wandered through the darkened downstairs, stopped in the kitchen. He wasn't hungry, not really thirsty, but maybe somewhere in tea's stolen time he'd find the answers questions he forgot long ago.

The teapot stood lonely on the counter, biscuits and sugar cubes but cold company.

Remus stared a moment more at the forlorn teapot, contemplating the number of times it had sat between much younger incarnations of himself and Sirius, could hear his lighter, younger voice reprimanding his flatmate for eating all the biscuits. Again.

He didn't really want tea. Turning his back on the strangers of his memory, he rummaged through cupboards until he found the Firewhiskey and a tumbler. He knew that it was futile to try and drown his all-too persistent sorrows, but damned if he wasn't going to try anyway.

Sirius carefully loosened the bottle from his friend's hand. He set it down elsewhere, studying the rather depressing image of Remus's head resting on the table. Sighing, he bent and placed a kiss in the midst of Moony's rapidly-greying hair.

"Thanks for putting up with me like you do, Re." He couldn't be sure if he'd heard.

Sirius's soft words cut through the Firewhiskey-induced haze in Remus's brain, releasing a torrent of guilt at having been irked enough to start his drinking binge at all. Tears he'd later deny soaked his shirtsleeve as he prayed that Sirius would take his unresponsiveness as a sign of unconsciousness. Maybe he wouldn't notice the slight shaking that was just out of Remus's control.

For a moment Sirius hesitated, staring into gloomy space. If left here, Remus would inevitably be found by Arthur or Molly in the morning, a sign of vulnerability that he could never forgive himself for displaying. Still, Sirius hadn't the strength or energy at this hour to carry him. The noise Apparating produced might wake him, but given Remus's current state, that seemed unlikely. Extinguishing the single candle that was sputtering to fiery end, Sirius hoisted his friend upright. There was a familiar, sickening lurch and a whip-like crack, and the pitch-darkness of the Blacks' spare bedroom engulfed them.

He lowered Moony onto the tired mattress, which creaked slightly but mostly didn't bother to complain. Sirius removed Remus's boots and cloak, resisting the temptation to hold his breath. He took the familiar wand from Remus's pocket, placing it down a few feet away. It rattled slightly as it touched the wooden surface of the nightstand, and Padfoot was surprised to discover that he was shaking. He had seen Remus in more intimate situations that this one, after all, and he'd assisted more than his share of drunken companions.

Stop being stupid about this. He's fine. The man is more than capable of caring for himself.

And yet . . . .

Sighing with exasperation, Sirius groped in the dark and located an ancient-smelling armchair. He sat, shifting until he found a position in which he wasn't being jabbed by something or another.

I'll just stay here for a few minutes, he thought, just long enough to make sure he's really all right.

Sudden movement interrupted Remus's tears and he realized that he was perhaps not sober enough to be standing. He reeled slightly, secure in Sirius's grip, before giving up and going limp, still feigning unconsciousness.

Remus felt more than heard the crack as Sirius Apparated, and screwed his eyes more tightly shut against his suddenly rebellious stomach. Still fighting back nausea, he let Sirius remove shoes, cloak, and wand and was dimly aware of Sirius moving away and settling somewhere else.

Eventually the wave of queasiness passed, taking some of the drunken stupor with it. Remus turned on his side, watching the room spin once more before settling back into relative stillness.

The room was silent as Remus's mind began to work again, only feeling sorrier for himself now that Sirius had also put him to bed. Tenderness had never been common from the man, and was less so after Azkaban, so any evidence of a softer side was all the more poignant to Remus. Another tear crossed the bridge of his nose, traveling down to the already moistened pillow. Soon after, Remus began to feel the unavoidable after-effects of such emotion. Within a few moments, the struggle became too great, and Remus heard himself sniff and was mortified at the pitiful sobbing sound that escaped with it.

Bloody hell. Maybe he didn't hear that. Right. Hell.

Sirius froze where he sat. He couldn't be sure any more whether his ears were trustworthy (what really was, after all?), but he could have sworn he'd heard something.

Just one peek, just to make sure he'll be all right.

Sirius felt his way to the bed, wand in hand. He fumbled until he found the place where Remus's blissfully unconscious face should have been. Wand in one hand, he reached forward with the other, murmuring, "Lumos ."

Remus's eyes looked reddened and tired, yet up they turned to meet Sirius's gaze. Though his hand had been mere inches from Lupin's face, Sirius pulled back as if he'd been unexpectedly burned.

Remus squinted against the sudden light but could only stand Sirius's shocked gaze for a moment before looking away. He didn't bother to wipe an errant tear away or hide the second sniff.

His hair fell into his eyes as he maneuvered his sobering self up into a sitting position, drawing his knees to his chest. The rooms provided counterpoint to his movements as it shifted, spinning slightly. He closed his eyes against it, head still bowed.

"I'm so sorry, Siri," he whispered hoarsely, all attempts at feigning anything forgotten.

There was a horrible silence in which Sirius's sleep-deprived brain frantically searched for something to say. Something gentle, comforting, meaningful - anything at all to repair the shattered scene unfolding before his eyes, to pretend the Remus was fine that he was fine, that they were fine. But in the end, one though alone echoed through his head.

This is all my fault.

And it was all Sirius's fault; he could think of no way to deny it. He was the one who leaned on Remus the most, who had depended on him so heavily since escaping the Hell of wizard prison. Remus had taken him in, had re-acclimated him to something resembling a normal life, had held Sirius through the darkest hours when the sobs wracked his frame and Sirius hadn't the decency to hold them back. And what had Remus received in return?

Sirius wished more than anything to hold him, to comfort his friend as he deserved to be comforted. Yet as he stared down at Remus's shaking form, he could not bring himself to touch him. Sirius sat on the edge of the bed, fingers rubbing the bridge of his nose in some feeble attempt to erase the image of Remus's form from his mind.

"I should have never come back."

It wasn't the first time Remus had heard those particular words from Sirius's mouth. Every other time, though, he'd pulled Sirius into a tight hug and kissed his tears away, hoping the physical contact would be enough because words hardly seemed adequate; had let Sirius pour his frustrations into bruising caresses and biting kisses that traveled the length of his back.

However, he'd already drunk himself past the point of tenderness.

"God, Sirius," he started quietly, not yet lifting his head," only you could sit there and make this about yourself." He looked up, drying eyes now boring pitiless twin holes into the back of Sirius's head. "You are not the only one who has seen Hell, and you are not the only one trying to make the best of this, when you even bother to try at all." His voice remained maddeningly calm, still quiet, though he knew he'd probably regret his last words when he was sober again.

Remus's voice stung more than any spell could have. Padfoot's head dipped down until his body was topped by jutting shoulder blades. When he spoke, his voice sounded harsher than he'd expected.

"Sorry, I just can't bring myself to put on the noble-yet-tragic hero façade that you've adopted so damned perfectly."

Remus sat stunned for a moment, letting Sirius's words sink in. For a split second, tears threatened again, but were replaced with slow anger. He dangled his feet off the edge of the bed, deciding whether he'd been sobered up enough to stand.

"So that's what you think of me." He decided it was safe to stand and walked to the door, his back to Sirius. "Tell me, Sirius," he continued quietly, "am I a friend or just a convenient piece of ass"

He heard Sirius move and mutter, but didn't turn. Expecting to lock himself in a different room until he was sober enough to Apparate out, he opened the door and found himself faced with a brick wall. Slowly, he shut the door and turned to face Sirius, who now stood, wand glowing at his side. Remus caught and held Sirius's eyes and stretched a hand toward the night table.

"Accio wand."

Some part of Sirius's psyche couldn't comprehend what was happening. For a split second, he could see himself on a crowded street with Peter again, and a flash of light. Muggles were screaming, and there were rough hands holding him back, hauling him away as he screamed himself hoarse and helpless . . . .

But that had been a lifetime ago, all of it. He snapped back to the moment, to Remus's biting words, to the image of his best friend and lover standing before him.

A convenient piece of ass?

He was too stunned to even fight back in some failing attempt to his own injured ego. After all they'd been through, how could Remus even say that? He couldn't possibly be so miserable a friend and a human being.

"How can . . . Remus . . . Moony, do you really think that?" Their gaze had yet to break, but Sirius could feel the tension in his shoulders dropping away. This was lunacy, but perhaps this lunacy was long overdue.

Remus's gaze softened slightly at Sirius's obvious pain, anger abating to disbelief. Perhaps he'd been too harsh - he knew that Sirius had trouble expressing emotion.

And yet . . . .

"Do you really think that I've got some kind of martyr complex? And if we're being honest here, yes. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you - God, Padfoot, you sit there and insult me, and are surprised when I snap back. What are I supposed to do, Sirius?" His voice had not yet risen above its normal soft timbre, but emotion bled through around the edges.

Sirius took a shaking breath. "Oh god."

His eyes closed in resignation, breaking the death-gaze in which they had been locked. He lifted his wand, hearing Remus start slightly - but this time there was no Impedimeto to hold his lover's limbs, no Silencio to stifle his words of protest. Two candles on the desk lit the darkened room, seemingly of their own accord. Sirius abandoned his wand where Remus's had been resting moments before. He sat again on the edge of the bed, knees slightly parted, his closed eyes turned forward and down.

Remus lowered his eyes as Sirius collapsed. Slowly, he moved to sit next to Sirius, leaving a foot of space between them. His wand dangled loosely from clasped fingers, his forearms resting on his thighs. His gaze, however, returned to Sirius: waiting, watching, but not yet ready to back away.

"I always though that you enjoyed . . . us. I mean, you've never complained before about it."

Remus looked away, staring forward as he chose his words. "I was never sure you'd listen," he began softly, carefully. "It seemed always to be something you needed . . . ." his voice trailed off as he ran out of words.

Sirius winced involuntarily and hoped Remus hadn't caught it. "So you've just let me . . . do that to you, all this time. Silent, as always."

He saw Sirius's slight movement in the corner of his eye and gentled his tone accordingly. "I didn't say that I don't enjoy being your lover, Sirius." He left the "but" unsaid, not ready yet to complete his thought.

"But the nights when you lay there as I took out every stupid desire and emotion, the nights you began to object and I silenced you, as part of the game . . . and brought you lukewarm tea in the morning, as insincere apology." He released a dry laugh, because tears seemed suddenly obscene. "And I wondered why you were drinking alone."

Remus's wand clattered to the floor as his head bowed. He couldn't deny any of what Sirius had said, but at the same time could not bring himself to affirm it aloud. "Not out of anger or bitterness." His voice was a whisper, choked silent by the gravity evoked by Sirius's dark laugh. "Not towards you."

"Don't try to -" Sirius's voice was louder than he'd intended, and he forced himself silent in a desperate attempted to clear his head. A simple apology seemed terribly inadequate. "It's just . . . it's easy for me to forget sometimes that you're human, for everyone to forget that." He could feel Remus stiffen, and shook his head. "Not the transformations. I meant that you just take everything, with so little sign of emotion. . . it's easy to pretend that you have no emotion of your own at all."

Remus unclenched his shoulders and pondered Sirius's words. The edges of his lips quirked upwards in a brief, sad smile. "We all have our faults. There are times that it's just easier to be the calm one, and times when maintaining calm is absolutely maddening. But necessary. This house - this world," he continued, gesturing absently at the room, "it's lunacy. Perhaps I'm a bit of a lunatic for keeping such tight control on myself. But you have your ways of keeping control of life - I have mine."

"With the small problem that my ways of keeping control directly tax yours?" Sirius gave another hollow laugh, like the moving of tree branches in late autumn. "You can't keep this up forever. Neither of us can."

"I know." He sighed again. "But we saw tonight what happens when I allow visible emotion." Piercing eyes turned back to Sirius.

The sound of Sirius swallowing seemed suddenly deafening. There was no half-joking retort to reply to the man beside him, no way to justify or defend himself or his actions. "I know, Re . . . and I'm sorry." There was a pause in which he sought something else, a way to convey his sincerity. But the silence ticked on painfully, each second a lost opportunity to repair the damage done. "I'm so sorry, Remus."

Remus's eyes had dropped the moment he'd realized what he'd said. "No, Sirius, I'm sorry. That was . . . harsher than I meant."

A sound emitted from Sirius's lips that seemed a cross between a laugh and a bark of exasperation. "Would you stop apologizing when I'm trying to apologize?"

Remus turned to his friend. A small smile crept onto his face as the trace of liquor left in his brain realized the absurdity of the situation. "Sorry," he said, sincerity overlaid with cautious, quiet impudence.

"If the pillows weren't so damn far away, I'd throw one at you, Remus Lupin." He grinned a little in spite of himself, slowly forcing his body upright from the hunched posture to which it was quickly growing accustomed. Sirius raked his hair out of his face, much as James had done incessantly two decades before. His voice dropped slightly as he finally turned to face his long-time companion. "So, then, we've established that you possess a maddeningly calm exterior, that I have a tendency to be a complete jackass towards you, and that if I continue to do so, you're going to break down and drink all of the Firewhiskey. Does that sound more or less accurate?"

A smile crossed Remus's face. "Add that there are times - mostly when I'm drunk - that I can be a passive-aggressive prick, for which I apologize profusely, and that your jackass tendencies are forgiven provided that they don't get out of hand."

Sirius smiled for real this time, but it only lasted a moment. "Seriously, though, Remus. Talk to me - I'm pretty sure I'm going to continue to be a jackass at least part of the time. I might regret this later, but tell me when I'm being a prick, eh? Don't go all stoic at me. And I'll work on actually listening to you. Deal?"

"Deal."

From beyond Padfoot's brick wall came the muffled chimes of the rusted clock downstairs, tolling midnight. Sirius's thoughts were brought back to the immediate present and the daily routine. "Do you need to be up in the morning?"

Remus sighed. "One of us should be - Molly and Arthur said they were going to pop 'round tomorrow - and I'm running low on Wolfsbane, too, so Severus will be here sometime. Probably bloody early, just to spite me."

Sirius grumbled under his breath. "You deal with him."

"Right." The more Remus thought about it the coming day, the more inviting the stretch of bed behind him looked. "In that case, I'm knackered." He stood and moved to the other side of the bed, stretching out on his side, back towards Sirius. "Do remember to take down the wall so one of us don't forget and crash into it, eh, Padfoot?"

"Mm." It was more of a grunt than a sign of actual acknowledgement. He could always take care of it in the morning. Sirius twisted slightly, taking in the sight of Remus stretched out on the far end of the bed. Padfoot released a breathe that seemed to take all of his remaining energy with it He carefully lowered himself onto the opposite side of the bed, facing away, with a sizable gap of space between them.

Dimly, Sirius was aware of his own pulse as it ticked the seconds away. He sighed, louder and more forcefully than he'd intended.

Do something.

I don't know how.

Then it's high time you learned, isn't it?

Slowly, tentatively, Sirius rolled over onto his other side. He crept toward Remus's end of the bed, hardly daring to exhale, until he was lying just behind him. Padfoot wrapped his arm around Moony gingerly, feeling his friend wince slightly at the foreign touch. Remus remained tensed for a moment before settling down into Sirius's embrace, leaning back against him.

Remus smiled slightly. Though he'd been surprised at Sirius's unbidden, gentle touch, it was not at all unwelcome. Something inside him warmed, filled, though Remus had denied ever really being cold and empty. His hand found Sirius's where it lay on Remus's chest, and covered it. He squeezed for a second in affection, trying with the simple gesture to convey renewed faith, apology, and forgiveness all at once. Leaving his hand on Sirius's, Remus relaxed into sleep.