[Podfic-TTS] Wolfstar Podfics Composed by BurningAurora

Of Memories, Bitter and Sweet by MsAlexWP

Sirius Black doesn’t believe in god.

Then the doctors start asking Remus questions.

“What’s your name?”

Remus doesn’t reply. His eyelids look heavy, too heavy to lift fully. His gaze drags slowly around the hospital room—the bright white walls, the TV mounted just under the ceiling, the faded yellow and green curtain pulled halfway around the bed—before they land on Sirius, bleary and unseeing, as though Remus is looking through him. Sirius watches Remus struggle to focus and knows when he does because suddenly Remus is blinking at him slowly like their cat and giving him a weak smile. He’s mouthing “hi.”

That’s normal, Sirius thinks. It’s normal that he can’t talk yet. The breathing tube had been in for 13 days while Remus was in the coma, and the doctors said it would be a few weeks before his vocal chords were fully healed.

“Hi, baby,” Sirius whispers back, trying to give Remus a reassuring smile. He holds Remus’s hand—being careful of the IV—and waits for an answer.

Remus’s eyes fall closed, and they wait some more, but Remus sleeps until morning.

The next day they try again. Remus seems a little more awake now. A little more agitated, too, which Sirius is relieved to see. He’s got some fight in him.

“What’s your name?” the doctor asks.

“Remus Lupin.”

Sirius nods, squeezes his hand.

“That’s good, baby,” he whispers.

The doctor continues.

“Who’s the prime minister?”

Remus sighs. Looks at Sirius like, Can you believe this idiot?

“Tony Blair,” Remus replies, his voice barely a ragged whisper.

Sirius’s arms and legs flood with hot, electric fear. He looks at the doctors in alarm, expecting a reaction, but they just nod quietly, calmly. Sirius thinks they’re far too calm, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to frighten Remus. Instead, he bites the inside of his cheek and digs his fingernails into his palm.

“What year is it?”

“2001.”

Everyone glances around at each other. Concerned looks pass between the doctors and nurses, but no one says anything. Sirius stares at them, but they don’t meet his eye. A doctor whispers to one of the nurses instead. She nods and types something in her laptop. No one says anything for a full minute, and Sirius can’t take it anymore.

“Do you know who I am, sweetie?” he asks, leaning in front of Remus’s face. His voice is tense, desperate and shaking, and he wonders if everyone around him can tell he’s trying not to throw up.

“Sirius Black,” Remus rasps and winces through the words. His broken cheekbone is a sickening purplish yellow. It looks terrible, but it’s better than it was two weeks ago when his entire face was covered in blood and broken glass. Sirius sees it every time he closes his eyes.

“Who am I to you?”

“Boyfriend,” Remus whispers and falls back to sleep.

Sirius is numb when the doctors sit him down in the family consultation room a few minutes later. He stares at his hands, rubbing his thumb over the crescent moon tattoo on his wrist, as they assure him that this is actually very good news. Remus’s memory is altered, but he’s otherwise recovering beautifully. And considering that the truck barreled into them at 55 miles per hour when they were stopped at a red light, he’s lucky to be alive. They both are.

Sirius just agrees with them because there’s nothing else he can do.

“I know we’re lucky,” he says, and his voice sounds strange, like it’s coming from someone else’s mouth.

A nurse finds him later that night in the blue vinyl chair with his head resting on the edge of Remus’s bed and rubbing Remus’s forearm while he watches him sleep. The nurse tries to give Sirius an ice pack for the bruise on his arm and offers to sit with Remus for a few minutes so Sirius can go to the cafeteria to get something to eat, but he refuses both.

“No, thank you,” he says quietly, not taking his eyes off of Remus’s face.

“How long have you been married?” she asks with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Sev—” Sirius tries to say but tears suffocate him. He takes a heaving breath. “Seventeen years.”

Sirius Black doesn’t believe in god, but he prays to one anyhow.

*******

Remus’s sock is on crooked. The toe seam is all twisted to the side and the heel is bunched up around his ankle. It makes Sirius irrationally angry. How can he trust these people to take care of his husband if they aren’t even competent enough to put a sock on correctly? He fixes it himself, lifting the dead weight of Remus’s foot as he sleeps and gently straightening it out. He pulls the sock up over his calf, then thinks Remus probably wouldn’t like that, so he pushes it back down a little.

He checks the other sock under the blanket. It looks fine. He fusses with it anyhow. He covers Remus’s legs with the blanket and decides it’s too thin and too rough. He’ll bring one from home tomorrow. The blue one with the tassels. The one they got in Edinburgh when they went away before Christmas last year.

*******

James or Lily have visited every day since the accident, bringing snacks and dragging Sirius out of Remus’s room, if only for 15 minutes at a time. Just to make sure he sees the sun and eats something.

“Has he woken up at all today?” James asks, as they walk back through the ICU with cups of coffee. It’s unnaturally quiet in a way Sirius doesn’t even notice anymore. There are beeps and hushed voices and the hum of ventilators coming from every room up and down the hall.

Sirius just shrugs.

“A little this morning,” Sirius says. “He kept asking what time it was. It was weird.”

Sirius yawns, and James stops walking. He puts a hand on Sirius’s shoulder to get him to stop, too.

“Hey,” James says gently. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Sirius replies, but James is unconvinced.

“Lily and I are getting worried about you, Pads,” James says, his brown eyes wide and earnest. “You’re exhausted. You were hurt, too, and Remus would be upset that you aren’t take care of yourself.”

“I’m fine,” Sirius says, a little defensively, although his ribs still twinge a little. A lot.

“You look like you’ve lost a lot of weight.”

“Food here sucks,” Sirius mutters.

“Have you been sleeping?”

“Yes, James,” Sirius replies shortly.

And in fact, he has been. There’s a chair next to Remus’s bed that folds out completely flat. The nurses brought him sheets and blankets at first, but eventually Sirius found the clean laundry cart at the end of the ward, and he makes his own bed every night himself now.

“Have you been home at all this week?” James presses on, his forehead lined with concern.

“I’ve been home a lot,” Sirius insists. James levels him with a look, and Sirius sighs. “I’ve been home enough, Jamie.”

James looks at him for a few more seconds, then concedes defeat.

“Fine,” James says. “I’ll stop interrogating you now.”

“Thank you.”

“I just love you. I love you both.”

“I know,” Sirius says, pulling James into a hug. “We love you, too.”

*******

After four days of mostly sleeping, Remus is finally more awake.

“You’re still here,” Remus whispers when he opens his eyes. He looks at Sirius sitting in the chair next to him like he’s a bit baffled by this.

“Of course, love,” Sirius says, quickly putting down the book he was reading without even marking the page and hurrying over to Remus’s bedside. Remus’s eyes flicker to Sirius’s wedding ring and back up to his face, and Sirius watches his pupils dilate in slow motion as his eyes struggle to focus.

“So we really are married?” Remus asks, even though he’s been told three times. He speaks as though every word is an effort.

“We really are,” Sirius assures him.

Remus shuts his eyes and pain radiates across his face.

“You could’ve done a lot better,” he whispers slowly, and Sirius is brought vividly back to the first few months they dated when Remus couldn’t fathom why Sirius was interested in him and acted as though the bottom would drop out of their relationship any day.

“There is no one better,” Sirius tells him, just like he did then, and gently kisses his forehead. Remus winces at the touch, while silent tears leak out from under his eyelashes, across his swollen cheekbones, and down his neck.

Remus might be properly awake after the coma, but he’s far from himself. He’s either tearful or quiet or both. He stares out the window a lot and seems confused and a little upset by Sirius’s phone. He looks at the TV but doesn’t actually watch it. James comes to visit again, and Remus cries even more. He tells Sirius later it’s because James’s hair is so gray. Sitting up makes him feel dizzy. He eats four bites of cherry Jell-O and throws up within 15 minutes. Sirius cleans him up and Remus falls asleep immediately afterwards.

“We’re really married?” Remus asks again that night.

“Yes,” Sirius says. “I love you so much, Remus.”

Remus only nods and gives him a sad smile, like he’s not sure how to respond.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

The next day, he’s even more awake. He eats an ice lolly and keeps it down.

The day after that Remus asks for his mother. He doesn’t remember she died five years ago, and Sirius has to tell him about the bone cancer.

Afterwards, Remus doesn’t say much besides “please” and “thank you” for a couple of days. When Sirius tries to give him a sponge bath, Remus presses the call button for the nurse to do it instead and motions for her to shut the curtains around his bed for privacy. Sirius walks outside to the ambulance bay and cries by himself. His broken ribs ache with every sob.

*******

Remus cries in his sleep and Sirius feels helpless watching him. Sometimes it’s a whimper, as though from pain, but other times it’s a terrified howl that jolts him awake. Sirius wonders whether he’s replaying the accident in his dreams or if it’s something else.

Sirius is the one who’d always been plagued by nightmares as a child and as a young man, and it was only years of sleeping next to Remus that finally soothed them away. Sirius would wake, thrashing and sweaty, so often that he never spent the entire night with someone, preferring instead to make a 3:00 am getaway, which helped him earn his playboy reputation. He was happy to feed into the legend and not correct people if it meant that he wouldn’t have to share his secret.

But Remus softened all of his hard edges and made him feel safe right away. They started spending the night together immediately, and even when nightmares of his father’s belt haunted him, Remus didn’t make him feel embarrassed or ashamed. He only held him quietly, kissed his hair, and rubbed his back until he fell back to sleep. Sirius isn’t sure when the nightmares ended, but they did. He hasn’t had one for years.

Now, Remus has them all night and sometimes during the day, too, and Sirius wants to curl Remus into his own body and swaddle him, but he can’t. He can’t hold him or kiss him or rub his back. He can only stand there, useless, at the side of Remus’s hospital bed and sometimes he doesn’t even want to do that because of the way Remus looks at him. Like, I barely know you; why won’t you just leave me alone?

*******

The doctors can’t say how long Remus will be in the hospital but they expect it will be another couple of weeks, so Sirius tries to make Remus’s room feel a little more like home. He brings Remus’s own pillow and his toothbrush. He brings Remus’s favorite vase, the one they bought at Portobello Road with the little blue and yellow forget-me-nots painted on it. He fills it with roses and puts it next to Remus’s bed. He brings Remus’s favorite dark chocolate-orange candy bars, a little stuffed lion they won playing balloon darts at a carnival that Remus keeps on his desk, and a portable speaker in case Remus wants to listen to music. He wants to bring Remus’s turntable and records, but the hospital room is already cramped.

He takes a few pictures from their entryway table and brings those, too, and lines them up across the windowsill. There’s the picture of them in the photo booth at Pete and Mara’s wedding, where Remus is kissing Sirius’s cheek; the one of them sitting on their stone garden wall, holding hands, with Sirius resting his head on Remus’s shoulder; and the one of them standing in front of the Christmas tree in matching red plaid pajamas, their arms flung over each other’s shoulders, mid-laugh.

But when Remus sees it all, he just sighs sadly and closes his eyes.

Sirius finds The Vicar of Dibley on Netflix and plays it on his laptop for Remus. They watched it all the time when they first started dating, so he starts with the episodes from 2002. Remus can barely lift his head off the pillow but smiles weakly at the jokes as though he’s hearing them for the first time, which he kind of is. Sirius drags his chair right next to Remus’s bed so he can try to pretend they’re cuddling on the couch at home. But when he reaches for Remus’s hand, Remus pulls it away, so Sirius sits stiffly next to him instead, chewing the inside of his cheek.

“Do you want me to get you anything else from home?” Sirius asks him the next morning, desperate to do something, anything, that would make Remus want him around.

“I don’t know where home is,” Remus mutters into his pillow. “And I don’t know anything I have there.”

*******

“Are you talking to someone about it?” Lily asks.

She and Sirius are having coffee at Starbucks in the hospital lobby while James visits with Remus for a little while.

“Yeah,” Sirius says, because technically he has.

A social worker came by the other day to talk to him about memory loss and loved ones, and how Sirius needs to be gentle with himself and Remus. Because Remus needs to heal physically, as well as emotionally, and so does Sirius.

But all Sirius thinks about is how it should have been him instead. Because Remus is too good, too kind, too important for this to happen to. He’s a teacher, for fuck’s sake, and he pours his heart and soul into those kids, giving them everything they need all the time. And he’s always been like that for everyone. Sirius spent half his life a spoiled wild child who only found his way because of the man who’s now laying wrecked in a hospital bed.

Remus doesn’t deserve this. Sirius would take it all himself if he could. He’d take every broken bone, every bruised and crushed organ, just so Remus wouldn’t have to. He’d trade his own life for Remus’s in a heartbeat.

How did Sirius walk away unscathed, when Remus—darling, beautiful, selfless Remus—nearly died? He did die, technically. His heart stopped in the ambulance for 13 agonizing seconds. Would Sirius ever stop seeing the slow-motion video reel in his mind of Remus smiling just before the truck crashed into them? Of the paddles jolting electricity into Remus’s bare chest and the feeling of the stretcher restraints cutting into Sirius’s shoulders as he fought to get to him in the back of the ambulance?

“Is it helping?” Lily asks.

“No,” Sirius says.

*******

“Bruise.”

Remus is sitting up a little. His hand is resting on his lap, and he’s pointing one finger at Sirius.

“Hmm?” Sirius asks. He’s been working on book edits on his laptop and thought Remus was sleeping. Instead, Remus is pointing and frowning at him. Remus gets frustrated because people often can’t hear him or understand him with his voice still a mess, but Sirius has become his translator and quickly puts two and two together about what he’s pointing at. He looks down at his own arm and sees the fading, but still mottled and angry-looking, yellow bruise that covers most of his shoulder and bicep.

“Oh. It’s from the accident,” he explains, and Remus’s frown deepens.

“Does it hurt?” Remus asks.

“It’s fine,” Sirius says, and Remus narrows his eyes at him.

“That’s not really an answer,” Remus replies, and Sirius marvels at his ability to see through him, always.

“It hurt a lot before, but it’s OK now,” Sirius assures him, and Remus nods.

“What else?” Remus says, and Sirius knows what he’s asking. Remus always cared more about Sirius than himself.

“Umm, four broken ribs, a concussion, and a bruised spleen,” Sirius says. Remus’s lower lip starts to tremble and his eyes fill with tears.

“I’m sorry,” Remus says.

“No, baby, I’m sorry,” Sirius replies, rushing over to Remus’s bedside. “I’m the one who was driving.”

Remus reaches up slowly, dragging the IV tube across his lap, and brushes away the tear that’s fallen down Sirius’s cheek.

“Not your fault,” he whispers.

*******

The doctors encourage them to think about memories.

It turns out that once he starts to try, Remus remembers a lot from his first few months dating Sirius, and he spends the next several days writing it in a notebook because it still hurts to speak. Writing hurts, too, because of the IV in his hand, but not as much as talking. It takes a long time, and the handwriting is messy and drifts down the page at an angle because of the pain medicine. Sirius struggles to decipher it but once he does, he reads it again and again, curls up with the notebook after Remus goes to sleep and reads it by the flashlight on his phone.

Met Sirius at a pub on campus. So, so, nervous. Black hair, blue eyes, living god, could never want me. Strutted through the crowd, everyone stared at him, but he ignored them all and walked right up to me. Asked to buy me a drink. Couldn’t breathe. Lily laughed at me. He was too fit and posh. Must be a mistake. Took him home and shagged him for three days straight anyhow. Never wanted to stop. Best bloody kisser on earth. And he was funny. Sometimes god gives with both fucking hands.

Sirius remembers seeing Remus from across the crowded pub that night and wondering out loud how the other half of his soul could live in such a beautiful vessel. James told him to stop being such a drama queen and just go talk to the guy.

Remus fell fast and hard, but Sirius fell faster and harder. Either way, it didn’t take long for them to become just “Sirius-and-Remus,” like Salt-and-Pepper or Rock-and-Roll.

Remus doesn’t remember that part. But Sirius does, so he tells him all about it. Remus looks at him like he doesn’t quite believe it but smiles at him shyly and watches him from underneath his eyelashes, and Sirius loves him so much.

Here’s what else Remus remembers:

Sirius teaching him the lower half of “Heart and Soul” on the piano
Introducing Sirius’s best friend to Remus’s best friend
Dropping his strawberry ice cream on the sidewalk and Sirius rushing to buy him a new one
The planes hitting the World Trade Center towers in New York City
Seeing Donnie Darko with Lily and James in the movie theater
Telling his mother about Sirius, and that her favorite flower was hydrangea
Thinking he could probably fall in love with this guy
Remus asks for Lily, and she visits with him all afternoon while Sirius goes home to sort through the mail, pay some bills, and return phone calls to their friends and Remus’s co-workers, who’ve been sending flowers and balloons to his hospital room. He cuddles with their cat, Biscuit, for a little while too, since she’s looking a bit grumpy and touch starved. Their neighbor has been feeding her and cleaning her litterbox, too, which Sirius thinks is the least she can do, considering Remus has shoveled her driveway every time it snowed for the past decade.

Biscuit curls up on Sirius’s lap, and he supposes he should try to relax for a little while now that he has the chance. Their couch at home is so much more comfortable than that stupid hospital chair. But after only 15 minutes, he’s grabbing his keys and driving back to the hospital in Remus’s car. His own car was destroyed, of course.

When he gets there, Lily is just leaving, and they hug in the hallway for a long time.

“I don’t know if he loves me anymore,” Sirius confesses.

“Of course he loves you. That doesn’t go away,” she says. “He’s just really scared.”

Me too, Sirius thinks.

“Good visit?” Sirius asks when he walks into the room, but Remus is already asleep with the bed still upright and his blue hospital gown slipping off his shoulder. Sirius lowers the bed a little and pulls his gown up to straighten it. Sirius wants to kiss his beautiful neck in the soft spot where it dips into his collarbone, where the seatbelt left bruises and burns that have mostly faded. But he doesn’t. He isn’t sure if he can or should. He doesn’t feel allowed. He feels a little like a stranger. So he reads Remus’s list of memories again instead.

*******

Remus is sitting up with a stack of pillows propped behind his back and looking at the dark blue velvet wedding album that Sirius brought from home. The doctors said seeing more pictures might jog his memory.

Sirius opens the album onto Remus’s lap. He turns the pages for him and tells him all about the day, keeping up a constant narration and talking too fast like he does whenever he’s nervous. Remus doesn’t say much, only nods sleepily, and Sirius can’t tell whether he’s really even paying much attention.

Here’s when their godson, Harry, couldn’t get the ring off the pillow, Sirius babbles. Here’s their first kiss after saying “I do.” Here are the flowers. They were peonies. Here’s when James and Lily gave their joint toasts. Here’s when Remus danced with his mother. This is the cake. It was dark chocolate with orange filling. Here’s when Remus and Sirius had their first dance together.

Remus touches Sirius’s hand to stop him from turning the page. He stares at the photo of their first dance and traces around the edges of it with his finger. This photo was always one of Remus’s favorites because they’re laughing and singing to each other, and Sirius wonders if something about it stirs his memory. Remus’s eyebrows crease together, and he sticks his tongue between his teeth in that endearing way of his when he’s concentrating, and it’s so familiar and comforting that Sirius is almost tricked into thinking things are normal.

But things aren’t normal. Remus’s eyes glass over and fill with tears.

“What song was it?” Remus asks so quietly that Sirius can’t hear him. He hasn’t said much for a couple days, and his voice still isn’t cooperating.

“What did you say, love?” Sirius asks, putting a gentle hand across Remus’s forearm and leaning closer so their cheeks are touching.

“What song was it?” Remus asks again, his voice sounding rough and raspy, and he grimaces with pain as he struggles to speak loudly enough for Sirius to hear him. His vocal chords are still damaged after the breathing tube, and the words come out slowly, like they’re being dragged across gravel. “What song did we dance to?”

Remus turns his sweet and sad honey-brown eyes to Sirius, who feels his heart lodge in his throat at the sight of him. Remus looks so tired and so, so pale, making his freckles and the cuts and bruises that crisscross his face stand out even darker than they might have done otherwise. Remus’s skin was flawless before the accident. No one ever believed he was 40. Sirius thinks he’s just as handsome right now as he was on their wedding day. He knows that even when the cuts heal and fade into scars, he’ll still be the most beautiful person Sirius has ever seen.

Remus hasn’t seen himself yet, though. The doctors think they should wait a little longer.

Sirius brushes a messy curl behind Remus’s ear unnecessarily.

“Better Togeth—” he tries to choke out, feeling angry and frustrated with himself for almost crying when Remus needs him to be strong and calm. He takes a deep breath—in through his nose, out through his mouth like the social worker said—and tries again. “Better Together by Jack Johnson.”

Remus’s face crumples, and he heaves a shuddering, painful breath. He draws the knee that’s not in a cast up to his chest, upsetting the photo album across his lap. The machine beeps a warning as Remus’s pulse races, and he struggles to speak through tears.

“I don’t know that song,” Remus sobs, his fingers fisting the sheets in frustration, and Sirius realizes he has never known heartbreak quite like this.

“I’ll play it for you, baby,” Sirius says, and he’s crying now, too. He fumbles with his phone, his fingers shaking so hard that he has trouble searching for the song in his music library. He keeps typing “Hack” or “Kack” instead of Jack, and finally gives up and scrolls through every song until he finds it and presses play.

I believe in memories
They look so, so pretty when I sleep
Hey now and, and when I wake up
You look so pretty sleeping next to me
But there is not enough time
And there is no, no song I could sing
And there is no combination of words I could say
But I will still tell you one thing
We're better together

“Do you like it?” Sirius asks a little desperately, searching Remus’s face carefully, as though his answer will contain some kind of omen, will reveal some truth one way or another.

“Yeah, I do,” Remus croaks, and he’s still crying, but Sirius sighs with relief. Remus grasps his hand and squeezes as hard as he can, which isn’t very hard at all, but Sirius loves the way it feels just the same.

Remus falls asleep with a frown creasing his forehead, like he’s feeling pain even in his sleep. Sirius kisses and rubs it gently with his thumb. It never smooths. But Remus never lets go of Sirius’s hand, either.

*******

“Do I have one of those, too?”

Remus is watching Sirius look at his phone.

“A phone?” Sirius asks, and Remus nods.

“Yeah, it’s at home,” Sirius says. In fact, it’s in a duffel bag full of stuff that James pulled out of the wrecked car a few days after the accident. It’s stuffed into the bag along with paperwork and receipts, an umbrella, Remus’s brown jumper, their sunglasses, a pack of gum, loose change.

“I can get it for you, if you want.”

“Why would I want it?”

“It has pictures and things on it.”

“OK.”

Sirius goes home for it. It’s dead, so he charges it while he takes a quick shower and gathers a few other things to bring back to the hospital. When he gets back, the phone has enough of a charge for Remus to look at it for a little while. Remus’s face ID doesn’t work anymore, so he has to put in his passcode.

“It’s 110381,” Sirius tells him.

“Your birthday,” Remus says.

“Yes!” Sirius replies, excited. Another thing he remembers.

Remus is a fast learner, as always, and picks up how to use the phone immediately. Sirius teaches him about text messages, and they read through a few of their last ones:

Remus: How’s your headache??

Sirius: Ugh, still bad.

Remus: Poor thing!

Remus: I’ll rub your shoulders when you get home.

Sirius: Thanks, lovey.

****

Sirius: Need anything while I’m out?

Remus: I would love a bagel! If you don’t mind?

Sirius: Toasted? Or do you want to toast it at home?

Remus: I’ll toast it at home. Thank u!! XO

Sirius: You got it babe.

****

Sirius: Can you text me a pic of the grocery list? I forgot it on the counter.

Remus: Yes, my sweet, forgetful boy. Here you go.

Sirius: What would I do without you?

Remus: Don’t worry, you’ll never have to find out.

****

Sirius: Look at you all cute doing yardwork

Remus: Are you stalking me?

Sirius: Yes! I’m watching you out the window from my desk.

Sirius: Your arse is remarkable.

Remus: You know it

****

Sirius shows Remus the photos on his camera roll, and they spend an hour looking through them.

“We have a cat?” Remus asks, as he scrolls past endless photos of Biscuit. “I didn’t think you liked cats.”

Another memory.

“You like cats,” Sirius says simply. “And I love this one.”

There are pictures of them at a dinner party and at a backyard barbecue. There they are at a summer wedding and on a Ferris wheel. There’s the new bird feeder that Remus put up in the backyard; there they are winning a pub trivia night; there’s Remus and his co-workers dressed as candy bars on Halloween.

“I’m a teacher?” Remus asks, looking carefully at the photo, which was clearly taken in a classroom.

“You’re the best teacher in the city,” Sirius says, and Remus scoffs, but then Sirius scrolls to a photo of an awards ceremony where Remus was named “Teacher of the Year.”

“Wow,” Remus laughs quietly. “So I am.”

There they are grinning at Harry’s rugby match, standing on either side of their bespectacled godson who is beaming and covered in mud, his arms thrown over each of their shoulders.

“That’s the little boy from our wedding?” Remus asks, and Sirius hardly believes it either. At 19, Harry is a fully fledged man now.

“He looks just like James,” Remus says, his voice shaking, and Sirius realizes that this photo of Harry is closer to Remus’s memory of James than what James looks like now. No wonder he’s so scared.

There’s a selfie of them cuddling in bed, with Remus’s face nuzzled into Sirius’s neck; kissing under some mistletoe at the Potters’ Christmas party; of Sirius shirtless on the beach in the Bahamas.

“You have more tattoos now,” Remus says, and there’s another memory for the list.

There’s a video of Sirius singing “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” to Remus into a wooden spoon, holding it like a microphone while he spins around in their kitchen while Remus laughs from behind the camera.

It's 'cause I love you, babe
In every kind of way
Just a little taste
Know I love you, babe

“We really love each other, huh?” Remus asks quietly, not looking up.

“Yeah,” Sirius says. “We really do.”

Remus drops the phone onto his lap. He twists his shaking fingers together and starts to cry.

“I’m so sorry, Sirius,” Remus says. “I don’t remember. But I want to. I promise.”

Sirius lowers the bedrail, sits on the side of the bed, and wraps one arm gingerly around his back, and Remus doesn’t protest the touch. He drops his head onto Sirius’s shoulder and sobs. His hair smells like harsh hospital shampoo but feels so good against Sirius’s cheek. He buries his face in Remus’s curls and cries with him.

*******

“Where’s my wedding ring?” Remus asks.

They’re holding hands, and Remus is absently rubbing his thumb back and forth across Sirius’s wedding ring while they watch TV. Sirius watches the intimate gesture with an ache in his chest.

“It’s right here,” Sirius says. He’s been wearing it on a chain around his neck. He pulls it out from under his jumper, unclasps it, and hands the ring and chain to Remus. Remus turns it in his fingers, then notices the date engraved in the inside.

“May 7, 2005,” Remus says. “So gay marriage was legal, then?”

“No, it wasn’t yet,” Sirius admits. “But nine years later it was, so we went and did it for real, just without the big party. It’s a good thing we did, too, because otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be able to hover around you in this hospital room and bother you day and night.”

Sirius laughs weakly, but Remus only takes his hand again.

“It was real the first time,” Remus says.

“What?” Sirius asks, both because Remus speaks so quietly these days and because he isn’t sure what he means.

“You said we got married ‘for real’ nine years later. But it was real the first time, too,” Remus says. “I don’t need to remember it to know that.”

Sirius just smiles and nods because he knows he’ll cry if he opens his mouth, and he’s done enough crying for a lifetime at this point. Remus doesn’t put on the ring, simply holds it between their clasped hands while they keep watching TV. But Sirius notices the chain around his neck while he sleeps later that night.

*******

“I always knew you’d age well,” Remus blurts out 37 days after the accident.

Sirius thought he was sleeping, and his head snaps up from his laptop at the sound of Remus’s voice.

“You’re awake,” Sirius says.

“And you’re hot,” Remus slurs, a mischievous little smile playing on his lips. They changed his pain medication this morning, and he’s staring at Sirius with undisguised longing.

“So are you,” Sirius says with an amused smirk, but Remus just rolls his eyes.

“Remind me again how old we are?” he asks, trying to point to Sirius but actually pointing somewhere over his shoulder toward the ceiling.

“Forty,” Sirius said. “Well, you are. I’m 41. I just had a birthday…”

He doesn’t tell Remus that he turned 41 the day the drunk driver slammed into them.

Remus just gives him a cute little smile and looks Sirius up and down in a way that makes Sirius’s stomach flip with desire, which is ridiculous considering where they are.

“You look really fucking good,” Remus says slowly.

“Thank you,” Sirius says. “You’re not so bad yourself, you know.”

“Shut up. Do you ever get sick of shagging the same person for 20 years?” Remus asks, then frowns, confused. “Wait. Do we still do it?”

Sirius laughs. Yes, they still do it, all the damn time.

“Of course we still do it,” Sirius says. “And I’d never get sick of you.”

“I don’t know what the rules are when you’re 40,” Remus shrugs dopily, drooling a little. “Is it still good? Or is it boring? The sex, I mean.”

“It’s better than ever,” Sirius says, because it is.

Remus raises one eyebrow and nods slowly, looking Sirius up and down. Sirius blushes a little, which is saying something.

“Nice. You dicked me down better than anyone. Glad we’re still hitting it,” Remus says, and falls back to sleep.

They change his pain medication again the next day.

Sirius hasn’t kissed his husband in 37 days. He wants to touch Remus so badly. He longs to crawl into bed with him and kiss him and hold him, but Remus is hooked up to so many wires and tubes and needles that he can’t. There’s a heavy cast around his left femur and a surgical wound from where they removed his spleen. His lips are raw and chapped and his face is still sore and yellow with old bruises.

Sirius also isn’t sure where the line of intimacy is between them. Does Remus even want to be married to Sirius anymore? Does he want to be married at all? So Sirius doesn’t push it. He gives only chaste forehead kisses and holds Remus’s hand when he seems to want that.

But after Remus tells him he’s hot, he thinks about kissing him a lot.

*******

A Christmas tree goes up in the ward, and Sirius brings garland and white twinkle lights from home to hang around the windows in Remus’s new room. He was moved out of the ICU and onto a regular surgical unit. The cast is coming off his leg in a few days, and Remus is talking more now, too.

“What do you do for work?” Remus asks as Sirius replaces wilting flowers with fresh ones on Remus’s bedside table. His voice is still a little scratchy but sounds much better. He almost sounds like his old self.

“I’m a writer,” Sirius says. “I write novels.”

“Just like you always wanted,” Remus says, leaning his head against his pillow and gazing at Sirius fondly. Another thing he remembers. “Are you good at it?”

“Yeah,” Sirius laughs, shrugging. Why be falsely modest? He is good at it. And Remus will find out eventually, anyhow. Hopefully.

“They, umm, they made one of my books into a movie,” Sirius tells him a little timidly.

“They did?” Remus exclaims, his eyes wide, and Sirius smiles at how amazed he looks.

“Yeah. It was cool. Weird, but cool,” Sirius says, then pauses and looks at Remus, who’s still gazing at him with a soft expression that’s making his heart pound.

“Would you want to maybe watch it sometime?” Sirius asks, and he feels oddly nervous, like he’s asking his own husband on a first date.

“We could watch it now?” Remus asks tentatively. “Unless you’re busy or have to work or something. I know it’s the middle of the day.”

“No, we can watch it now!” Sirius cuts in quickly, and he feels happier than he has in weeks.

Sirius’s fingers shake as he searches for the film on Netflix. It’s called “Black Star,” and it’s a love story between two boys who meet at university. It was only a small independent film, but it won a few awards, and he and Remus even walked a red carpet at its premier.

Sirius presses play and spends more time watching Remus watch the movie than he spends watching it himself.

“How is it that the other half of my soul could live in such a beautiful vessel?” the black-haired boy on the screen asks his friend after spotting the blonde, curly-haired boy across a crowded pub.

“God, stop being such a drama queen and just go talk to the guy,” his friend replies.

Remus laughs and bites his bottom lip. He reaches for Sirius’s hand and looks at him with such sweetness that Sirius thinks his chest is going to explode with joy.

“I thought you said you wrote novels,” Remus teases. “Not memoirs.”

“Some things are too good not to write down,” Sirius says, and Remus laughs again. They stare into each other’s eyes for a few more seconds before Remus looks away shyly. They keep holding hands through the whole rest of the movie, and when it ends Remus claps adorably.

“I loved it,” he says. “It was beautiful, Sirius. And really funny. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you,” Sirius says.

“I wish I could read your books, but I can’t right now,” Remus says. “The pages look all blurry, and it hurts my eyes.”

“I could read them to you, if you wanted,” Sirius offers, and Remus looks astounded.

“Really?” he asks. “You would do that?”

Sirius swallows and nods.

“There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, Remus.”

Remus takes a shaking breath, and a tear trickles down his cheek. He puts his hand out and Sirius takes it.

“I can see why I love you,” Remus says.

*******

A week later, they move Remus to a rehab hospital that feels less like a hospital and more like a little flat. There are fewer nurses tending to him day and night, and instead, Remus is put through grueling physical therapy to relearn walking. It’s painful and frustrating, and after one particularly difficult session, Sirius can tell he’s struggling not to cry.

“It’s OK, you can cry if you need to,” Sirius says.

“I don’t want to fucking cry,” Remus snaps. “You don’t think I cry enough?”

“That’s not what I meant…” Sirius says, feeling his irritation rising, but he lets his voice trail away as Remus does, indeed, start to cry.

“Please don’t look at me like that,” Remus sobs angrily, burying his face in his hands.

“Like what? I’m not looking at you like anything, Remus!”

“Like you feel fucking sorry for me! I don’t need your fucking pity, Pads,” he practically yells through furious tears.

But Sirius stills and stares at him, his heart beating fast.

“You just called me Pads,” Sirius says.

“So?” Remus demands.

“Remus, you didn’t start calling me that until 2005. We did paintball for our bachelor party, and we made up codenames,” Sirius says.

Remus stares into the distance with unfocused eyes, and Sirius sees the realization wash over him.

“Moony…Wormtail…Padfoot…and Prongs,” Remus says, like he’s reading from a slowly developing Polaroid picture. “Our team. The Marauders.”

“Yes!” Sirius says, nodding.

“Oh my god,” Remus breathes, looking at him wide-eyed. “I remember.”

He remembers nothing else, no matter how hard he tries. But it’s a start, and Sirius will take it.

*******

“I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.”

“Will you sit with me?” Remus interrupts.

Sirius is reading to Remus from Jane Eyre, and he wonders if Remus’s soul knows something his memory doesn’t.

“You want me to sit with you?” Sirius asks, his voice and hands shaking.

“Would you?”

“Yeah.”

Sirius crosses the room with the book. He kicks off his shoes next to the bed and moves to sit on top of the blankets when Remus stops him with a delicate brush of fingers to his wrist.

“Actually,” Remus says. “Do you want to get in? It’s kind of cold in here.”

“Are you sure?”

Remus pulls the blanket aside and nods in answer, and Sirius climbs into bed next to him. Remus pulls the blanket over both of their laps, takes one of the pillows from behind his own back, and tucks it behind Sirius.

Remus snuggles down lower in the bed, finds Sirius’s hand under the covers, and laces their fingers together. He doesn’t have the IV anymore, and his hand feel so familiar that Sirius wants to cry. Remus drops his head on Sirius’s shoulder and his hair tickles the bottom of Sirius’s chin.

“Do you want to keep reading?” Sirius asks, trying to calm his racing heart. “Or watch TV? Or a movie?”

“You decide,” Remus says through a yawn.

“I…I can keep reading,” Sirius says. He fiddles with the page, and his fingers tremble so much he rips the paper a little.

“Are you OK?” Remus asks, tilting his chin to look up at Sirius, and he’s so, so beautiful. His hair, his lips, his eyes, his sweet little nose covered in freckles. If they were home in their own bed right now, Sirius would take Remus’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and kiss him.

“This passage…” Sirius admits. “Lily read it at our wedding.”

“Did I pick it?” Remus asks.

“Yeah, you did,” Sirius tells him. “You wanted something from Jane Eyre but you didn’t know what, so you sat up reading all night until you found this paragraph. See?”

And he tilts the book toward Remus to show him his own handwriting in the margin. Remus had circled the passage in purple pen and put little stars all around it. This is the one! Remus wrote. Sirius, my good angel, my pure, powerful flame. That’s you, baby.

Remus looks down at his words and then up at Sirius again with those wide, pretty eyes.

“My good angel,” he smiles sleepily, his cheek pressed against Sirius’s shoulder. “That is you. Will you read it again?”

Of course, Sirius thinks. He’ll read it a thousand times a day if that’s what Remus wants.

But he only reads it once, and soon, Remus is asleep on his shoulder. Sirius kisses the top of his head and leans his cheek against Remus’s hair. He lays like that in silence for a long time, until dusk paints the room in grays and light blues, content to finally be close to his sympathy, his better self, the man he loves.

*******

There’s a Christmas tea in the rehab hospital’s common room, and Sirius and Remus go because they have nothing else to do and maybe it’ll be fun.

It’s not. There’s a sad tray of green and red biscuits, limp paper garlands hanging from the ceiling, and a terrible pianist playing the standup piano under harsh fluorescent lights. The patients are lined up in folding chairs or wheelchairs and watch him play and sing, and Sirius winces every time he hits a false note or his voice cracks, which is a lot. The secondhand embarrassment is painful.

He sits and endures it, though, until he glances over at Remus, whose expression mirrors what Sirius is thinking. They catch each other’s eye. Remus mimes hanging himself, and Sirius snorts. Remus starts shaking with silent laughter, then he’s pressing a hand to his mouth, trying to be quiet. Sirius starts laughing, too. He shakes his head at Remus, mouths “stop it!” and Remus laughs harder, squeezes Sirius’s knee, digging his fingers into the muscle. He’s scrunching his face up and tears are rolling down his pink cheeks. Sirius bites his lip, and now they’re both laughing so hard that the people around them are turning their heads to look.

“We have to go,” Remus whispers through barely contained sniggers, and Sirius nods in agreement. He fumbles to unlock the brakes on Remus’s wheelchair, spins him around, and races out of the room. Remus puts his hands out to push the door open, and soon they’re barreling down the corridor, no longer repressing their wild laughter but letting it bounce off the walls, off each other. They make it back to Remus’s room, breathless and panting. Remus lets out a happy sigh, grabs Sirius by the wrist, and pulls. Sirius stumbles a little in surprise, then drops to his knees on the cold tile floor and crawls toward Remus so they’re face to face. Remus’s fingers slip down Sirius’s wrist and into his hand as they look at each other, and Sirius feels the air around them electrify.

Remus brushes a little strand of hair away from Sirius’s forehead, tucks it behind his ear and lets his hand linger there for a moment before bringing it gently under his chin. Remus’s eyes are bright and beautiful, flecked with violet and gold and sage, and Sirius has never been more aware of how hard his heart is beating. Remus brushes the pad of his thumb across Sirius’s lower lip. He leans forward and Sirius’s eyes fall shut at the feeling of Remus’s lips on his, of their breath meeting, finally. Their mouths slide together, Remus’s tongue flits into Sirius’s mouth, and Sirius grips Remus’s hand as though it’s the last thing keeping him solid, the last thing securing him to earth. Remus laughs a little and kisses him deeper, pulls him closer, weaves his fingers into the back of Sirius’s hair.

“Best bloody kisser on earth,” Remus whispers against Sirius’s lips.

*******

After that, they spend a lot of time kissing.

They kiss on the little loveseat in Remus’s room.

They kiss in the courtyard with the plastic picnic tables and in the other courtyard with the wooden benches.

They kiss in the quiet corridor behind the cafeteria, and at the table in Remus’s room after they share takeout with Lily and James.

And they kiss in Remus’s bed, under the sheets, in broad daylight, breathing heavily like teenagers, and Sirius wonders if this is actually “allowed.” He’s careful, so careful not to touch Remus anywhere that might hurt him, which is almost everywhere, and he has to practically sit on his hands to keep himself from feeling Remus’s lovely body all over.

Remus’s body is already very different than it was 49 days ago. His limbs—once lean and strong—are now skinny and weak with wasted muscle. His skin is paler, and the cuts, bruises, and surgical wounds that crisscrossed his face, neck, arms, legs, and torso have healed into puffy pink scars. He sees the changes when Remus puts on new pajamas or massages vitamin E oil onto his scars, but he doesn’t think him any less beautiful. Sirius wants to kiss every inch of him. He wants to trace each scar with reverent fingers, to worship the way Remus’s bold, miraculous body pushed back from the brink to repair itself and live. Sirius feels alive kissing Remus again, and it’s more than he can bear sometimes. Sometimes he just holds Remus’s face in his hands and stares at him until Remus laughs and calls him a silly wanker and kisses him again.

One afternoon, two days before Christmas, snow falls thickly outside, gathering on the window ledge and casting a soft, silvery glow around Remus’s room. Sirius keeps his hands pressed diligently between his thighs as he kisses Remus on the bed, but Remus lets his own hands wander. He pushes them under Sirius’s jumper and drags his fingers along his chest and stomach, lets them roam under the waistband of his jeans and between his legs until they brush against his hard length, and Sirius lets out a surprised little moan into Remus’s mouth.

“Go lock the door,” Remus breathes, kissing across Sirius’s jaw and onto his neck.

“What? Why? Are you…are you sure?” Sirius stutters, and Remus pulls his earlobe between his teeth.

“Yes, go. Go now,” Remus says, and Sirius jumps up, shuffles to the door in his tented trousers, twists the deadbolt, and comes back to the edge of the bed, unsure what to do next.

“Come here,” Remus says, pulling at the waistband of Sirius’s jeans. Sirius nearly stumbles onto the bed as Remus draws him into another kiss before unzipping his trousers and pushing them down around his thighs. He grabs the little bottle of vitamin E oil from the rolling bedside table, pours some into his palm, and reaches into Sirius’s boxers, wrapping his hand around him and stroking him with long, slippery pulls, rubbing his thumb across the head with every caress upward.

They kiss feverishly, and Sirius’s entire body responds to Remus’s touch. His back arches, his thighs tense, and within 45 seconds, he’s panting into Remus’s mouth and spilling over his fist with a cry that comes from deep within him. Remus kisses and strokes him through it, until Sirius is weak and gasping on the bed. Remus grabs the box of cheap tissues from the bedside table and cleans Sirius up as best he can, then scootches down, rests his head onto Sirius’s chest, and flings an arm over his waist, kissing wherever he can reach until his breathing slows.

“That was…” Sirius says, carding his fingers through Remus’s hair, struggling and failing to find the right words.

“It was beautiful,” Remus finishes for him.

*******

Sirius has brought a little Christmas tree into Remus’s room and some of their ornaments from home, and on Christmas Eve they make hot chocolate and popcorn and decorate together. Remus holds the box of ornaments on his lap while he sits in the wheelchair and asks questions about each of them. Sirius never realized how many memories were attached to them until right now.

There’s the little blue Vespa they brought home from Rome and the glittery shell they brought home from the Bahamas. There’s the pinecone Santa Claus that Harry made for them and the plaster cast of his baby handprint. There’s the red bulb with two grooms and the words “Newlyweds 2005” painted on the side, and the “New Home 2011” ornament of a red front door adorned with an evergreen wreath. There are some of Remus’s childhood ornaments, too, that he inherited from his mother, and he remembers each one, telling stories that Sirius has heard countless times before but is all too happy to listen to again.

Sirius is hanging the pipe cleaner candy cane that Harry made them when he was six when Remus goes quiet and still. Sirius can feel the change in his demeanor and turns around.

“Edinburgh,” Remus whispers.

Remus is staring at a carved wooden elf in his palm. He sees Sirius watching him and holds the ornament up by the red ribbon attached to the elf’s head.

“Did we get this in Edinburgh, Pads?”

“Yes!” Sirius replies, rushing over to him. “Do you remember?”

Remus looks at the elf again and nods slowly, his eyes misty and unfocused.

“Yeah,” Remus says. “We were there in December. Last year. It rained the whole time. We went to a distillery for a whisky tasting and tour, and the guide wouldn’t stop flirting with you, and I was so annoyed, so we shagged in the loo to get revenge. And we stayed at The Scotsman and you bought me a blue blanket with tassels, a tartan scarf, and this elf ornament. I liked it because it reminded me of one I had when I was a little boy.”

He looks up at Sirius with a huge smile.

“I remember, I remember all of it!” he says, and Sirius falls to his knees and throws his arms around Remus’s neck.

Remus hugs him back, then kisses him with so much fervor that Sirius’s head swims a little. They pull away and look at each other, not saying anything for a few seconds, then kiss again, eager and ecstatic and so, so happy.

They comb through the rest of the ornaments and look at more pictures on their phones, trying to see if Remus remembers anything else. He doesn’t, but it’s OK. For the first time, Sirius truly believes—truly knows—that he will.

Whether or not spouses are permitted to spend every night at the rehab hospital, Sirius never officially finds out, but he has a feeling the nurses are making an exception for him and Remus because of the amnesia. Usually, he sleeps on the pull-out couch that unfolds from the loveseat, but tonight, he curls up next to Remus in his narrow hospital bed, their hands clasped tightly together. They lay next to each other, face-to-face, not speaking, not needing to, and Remus places a gentle palm to Sirius’s cheek. He closes his eyes and kisses him, and nothing has ever felt better.

Remus pulls back, stares into Sirius’s eyes, and takes a trembling breath.

“I…” he whispers, shy and hesitant. “I love you, Sirius.”

Sirius wants to reply, but the words are stuck in his throat, and Remus keeps talking.

“I know I’ve been told that I love you…that I loved you…and I’m sure I did. But I also love you, just you, all by yourself, right this second. Without any of the memories. I don’t need to remember loving you because I love you now,” Remus says. His shaking voice is getting stronger and tears are painting his cheeks, making his skin shimmer in the soft light of the Christmas tree. “I love you right now. I love you, Sirius. I love you. And I want to marry you again. And again and again. I love you so much. In every lifetime and in every way.”

Sirius doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. He nods and cries and presses their foreheads together and kisses Remus through wet, salty tears. They cling to each other, and it’s not desperate, but hopeful and wondrous, and Sirius feels reborn with a glow in his heart that he’ll never lose or let go of. He’ll treasure it and keep it forever, hold it closely and carefully until he takes his last breath. The road ahead of them is long and treacherous. Walking it won’t be easy. But they’ll walk it together. They always have, and they always will.

Sirius Black doesn’t believe in God.

But he believes in love.