Chapter Text
Few things are so surprisingly straining as putting together furniture. And in this instance, it’s not even IKEA furniture with the easy-to-build instructions and little plastic bags filled with screws.
No, this is the real deal.
A handsome, light mid-century bookcase. One that has open bookshelves on the top half and cabinets on the bottom. Made in the sixties if Remus’ estimations are correct.
One that had to be taken apart before lifting the separate pieces into the small elevator and then put back together again, inserting the shelves and rehanging the cabinet doors after oiling and polishing the hardware.
But it is beautiful, Remus thinks as he releases his arms and aching fingers of the heavy box filled with books ready to be placed in the newly put together piece of furniture.
It’s one of those days that barely feel like they count in the regular calendar, one of those days between Christmas and New Year's. The wind is howling outside as he bends down to open the box of familiar titles but copies that don't belong to him.
Or now they do, sort of.
It’s like that with a lot of things nowadays.
Things that aren’t his but sort of are and things that were his own are no longer.
Not even his apartment.
Remus looks over his shoulder at the living room. It's the same place but with a totally different look from what it was during that first year.
The dark couch is still there but there is a lovely wool blanket in a colorful pattern strewn over the back, nestled in with the throw pillows. The coffee table was switched out for the one with more character.
In the large window, potted plants stand in numerous pots of different varieties and a sprouting avocado pit has just managed its third leaf on a spindly stem. Right between the couch and the window stands the old record player. No record is spinning on the table at the moment, but the amplifier has a radio setting that is filling the room with general pop nonsense.
Remus doesn’t have to look in the kitchen to know that it is also different. It’s more subtle, but the change is there as well. It’s there in the artisanal plates and the hand-embroidered tea towels. Snacks he would’ve never picked for himself in the cupboards and a second favorite tub of ice cream next to his own in the freezer.
The change is prominent. And so so so welcome.
Because just like every other part of Remus’ life, Sirius stormed into his apartment and his home and just made it better.
On the calendar hanging on the fridge are two dates circled in red pen. Two anniversaries of sorts. Because they couldn't just have one.
The first one is in September last year. That’s the day Remus and Sirius had walked in the botanical gardens, drinking strong to-go coffees with their fingers softly woven together and coming to the conclusion that yes, they would both very much like to be each other’s boyfriend.
A soft kiss was placed on Sirius’ lips that tasted of fresh air and coffee and so many feelings Remus’ chest threatened to crack and spill all over the place.
The second circled date is embarrassingly only three weeks later, in October. On that date at the restaurant that Remus had wanted to take Sirius which had misplaced their reservations and instead of waiting another hour to get a table they had decided to walk around the block to find a different place for dinner.
The skies had opened up to reveal the heaviest of rains and the two of them had just managed to run off into a pub at the end of a street that luckily had a free table for them. Remus tried to shake the rain out of his flat-laden hair as Sirius laughed at him. Remus had looked upon the most beautiful person in front of him and muttered in fake displeasure, “Don’t you dare laugh at the state of my hair, you’re lucky I love you so much.”
He had meant to say ‘like’ but the word that had felt so heavy and prominent in his mouth had just tumbled out of his mouth. It didn’t come as a surprise, but to Remus, who had carried that word around on his tongue for longer than he dared to admit, it felt too soon.
Sirius had been surprised. And had he been any other person he might’ve shied away from hearing those damning words so early in a relationship.
But neither of them was clear-headed or even normal about the other.
And Remus got to witness Sirius’ gray eyes light up from the inside and the blush that coated Remus’ neck didn’t feel so bad when Sirius finally replied with a smile bright enough to power the entire city, “I love you too.”
They weren’t practical and they moved quickly and it was a storm and a carousel Remus didn’t want to get out of.
But when it came time to move in together, the choice was obvious. Remus owned his apartment, with better connections to their respective offices, it was larger and all around the better choice.
Sirius lives, or used to live rather, in a small rental in the city, with steep rents but with an immaculate taste in interior design. So the shell of a place where Remus lived became a home filled with the two of them.
Is becoming a home, rather. This is the last moving day.
Remus looks down in the box filled with books that he recognizes from Sirius’ bookshelf in the former apartment. In front of him lay piles of his own books.
Time to integrate.
And just like how Sirius will wrap his arms around him in the kitchen as he cooks the two of them dinner on any random evening, Remus’ and Sirius’ books nestle in together on the shelves, side by side.
Just like how their bodies come together at night in sessions of mind-blowing sex that just gets better and better, the shared closet now holds two sock drawers and double the number of shirt hangers. Remus has moved his to the side; welcome, please take up space. Please take up space in my bed, in my closet, in my life. Let’s make it ours.
Sirius never hesitated to take up space. It has even come to the point where Remus had to pay for extra storage in his phone for all the pictures.
There’s the picture of them from Lily and James’ wedding six months ago, that one is Remus’ screen saver.
There are blurry pictures from the pub with Pete, Dorcas and Marlene, and Gid and Fabian. A couple of them feature Regulus mean-mugging the camera.
There are two strips of photo booth pictures clasped to the fridge with magnets. One from Horace’s holiday party that Remus joined as a plus one. One from AP&W’s when Sirius did him the same courtesy. Two strips of photo booth pictures, two opportunities to take cheesy kissing photos and hang them proudly on their now shared fridge.
Remus sits back in his heels as the tune played on the radio is one of Sirius' current favorites. And just like clockwork, Sirius steps out of the bedroom humming, mid-process of folding laundry and putting it in their new respective places. He is dressed in one of Remus’ ancient crew necks and comfy shorts, tube socks, and slippers. His hair is piled on the top of his head and held together with a clip. He is the most beautiful sight.
Sirius sings a bit off-key as their eyes lock and his legs are skinny and his knees are still so weirdly knobbly and comical. And he is Remus’.
Sirius crosses the living room, only pauses to lean down and place a soft kiss on Remus’ lips before taking the clean, folded tea towels into the kitchen.
Remus watches in amusement for his place on the floor as his lover puts the towels in their drawer before taking the same route back. He gets another kiss on the way back.
To be loved is to be changed for the better. To love is to revel in taking part in another’s growth.
This is most evident by Remus sleeping longer in the mornings, no longer rushing to the swimming pool in the basement in the early hours. He’d rather lay in bed for the extra time, tuck his nose in Sirius’ sleep-scented skin, and wrap his arms around him. This has resulted in him gaining another notch in his belt, now on the second-to-tightest eyelet.
It has resulted in Sirius being more settled, no longer rustled by career switches or Remus-based insecurities.
They laugh and they love and they cook and they talk and they live.
When most of the books are sorted and placed on the shelves there are only two paperbacks left. Two books, the same edition of the same novel. One abused and read through countless times, one a bit newer.
Remus picks them both up, holds them in each hand and smiles like they’re precious. They are precious.
One copy he bought himself a decade ago. The other belongs to Sirius.
Sirius actually admitted to it on their first proper date, breakfast at a cafe around the corner from here, that the play with passing the book off as a business expense was never an accident at all. Just a ploy, a trick to see what Remus would do. He couldn’t help himself, he said. Sirius may have grown since his schoolboy days but couldn’t help himself to see the reaction.
It had paid off.
Remus clutches the two copies of Maurice in his hands before placing them on the shelf, on the top to signify their specialness. They had to be together, those two copies.
It really had paid off, that trick. Something stuck that day that Remus hadn’t been able to shake off. He hadn’t even been able to throw away the printed copy of the receipt that Sirius had left on his desk.
Remus smiles at Sirius’ rendition of the power ballad on the radio that he can hear from the bedroom.
No, he had kept that receipt. He would always keep it.
Right now it’s placed in a drawer in his desk, right under the small ring box he keeps hidden there.
It’s no question of if, just a matter of when.
God, he thinks as he looks at those two paperbacks and thinks of that ring box and its contents and the man it will soon belong to, he is so incredibly happy.