Remus brought Tonks home fairly quickly, the full of Sheer Heart Attack hadn't even played (Sirius duplicated it with a charm and gave it to her, hoping that the duplicate would play correctly when she dropped the needle) and when he returned he was carrying a bag of three new comic books for Bradley, who eagerly rushed to his room in the suitcase, eager to read them and rather sick of listening to Sirius's on-going musical education, which had continued long after Remus and Tonks left the flat in East London. This, at last, left Remus and Sirius alone, standing in the living room, facing one another from opposite ends of the coffee table.

Remus drew a deep breath. "Alright, now we talk."

Sirius nodded. A pit was forming in his stomach. He bit his lower lip. "I'm really nervous, Remus." He paused, then, "I don't really know how to do this properly. I mean, with you and I. For some reason, it's harder when it's you and I. Why is it harder, then?"

Remus thought for a moment, then he said, "Perhaps because we expect too much of the other."

"Expect too much?" Sirius asked.

"Yes, for instance, I love you and I don't understand why you don't think the same way that I do and a lot of the time I sort of act - and react - as though you do think the same way that I do. I feel so much like you are a part of me and I a part of you that it's very hard to differentiate, sometimes, between where you end and I begin and I think that it hurts our communication skills quite a lot at times. We expect each other to just get it, and... unfortunately, that's not how it usually works."

Sirius thought about this, then nodded, "Alright, that makes sense."

Remus nodded. He slid his hands into his jumper pockets. "I reckon we ought to do this in the kitchen, and perhaps sit at the table and I'll make us some tea and we'll do this properly... have a healthy conversation for once."

Sirius said, "Tea sounds good."

They went into the kitchen and Sirius sat down while Remus magicked the kettle onto the stove and got out Sirius's favorite tea bags and a handful of aconite for himself to float on top. He knew better than Sirius did himself how Sirius took his tea - splash of milk, more sugar than Remus himself found necessary - and within minutes he was sliding a piping cup across the table to Sirius, who wrapped his palms around it and Remus sank into the chair opposite him.

Sirius sat sprawled in his chair, his legs wide apart like he'd landed from a great distance, one arm over the back of the chair, his bum pushed forward to the edge of the seat. Remus sat a bit more proper, his right leg crossed over the left one at the knee so it lay at a right angle, his back against the chair back, but pushed back from the table so that he held his cup on it's saucer on his knee instead of the table itself, balancing.

"So - how to have a healthy conversation," Remus mused, thinking.

"When you're us," intoned Sirius with a smirk.

"I think we need to lie down some ground rules."

"Here you go with the logistics," Sirius said, smiling, "Doesn't this feel familiar?"

"The rules will be a wee bit different for this than they are for -- for logistics," Remus replied evenly. He paused, then, "Though the idea is the same. We need to consider each other's feelings and - erm - needs, input. Et-cetera. If we don't pay each other the proper respect then someone --"

"Will get torn a new one," Sirius smirked.

"I was going to say would get hurt."

"I mean, getting torn a new one would hurt, wouldn't it?"

Remus cleared his throat.

"Sorry. You know me. I joke when I'm nervous as fuck."

Remus nodded, "I do know that about you. See, that's an example of something that we don't usually voice, but take for granted as an expectation. You expect that I would know that about you. And I do know that about you. But I do appreciate the acknowledgement that it was inappropriate at the moment."

Sirius nodded.

"So here's what I think we should do - and feel free to tell me if you think this is in anyway unfair - I think that we should take turns talking about this. First, let's talk about what actually happened that day with Ms. Leonard. For that one, I'll talk first. I'll tell you what I have perceived, which may explain to you better why I am hurt, and I'll tell you how I feel about what I have perceived and experienced through this. Then, when I have finished talking, it will be your turn and that is when you will tell me what happened from your point of view and why it happened the way that it did, like what you were thinking. You won't interrupt me while I'm talking and I won't interrupt you while you're talking. When we've both finished speaking, we'll evaluate if we need to go another round of that or not. We'll do that until we both are happy with the resolution, including anything that we wish would have changed, and what we might do if we were to encounter a similar situation in the future." Remus paused. "How does that sound, first off?"

Sirius nodded again, "That sounds reasonable."

"Now I know you and I know that the hardest part of that entire thing I've just said will be you not interrupting me," Remus said.

"I know that, too," Sirius admitted, chuckling.

Remus said, "But try your hardest."

Sirius nodded, "And if I do interrupt you... it's only because I feel like I'll forget what I wanted to say. And because it's important."

"I appreciate that."

Sirius nodded.

"After we've discussed that, we need to talk about what just happened in the bedroom."

Sirius flushed. "Remus, I'm really sorry, I wasn't trying to hurt you, that wasn't --"

"Save it until we get there, love."

Sirius nodded.

"Now the rules. Like we already discussed, there will be no interrupting. We don't get to use each other's feelings against one another - and by that I mean like what I've just done in the bedroom, saying the things I did about your - your crisis, you called it?"

Sirius nodded.

"And what you did saying I didn't understand."

"I know you do."

"We're talking purely about our own feelings and not conjecturing things that the other might be feeling. We're not projecting things onto the other. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"Lastly, when we are finished here, we're going to bring Bradley over to the Potters for the night and you and I will have the evening alone together to reconnect and unwind from all of this because we need it, and I think that rebuilding is just as important as anything we end up saying here. Our cut off for this discussion is --" he looked at his watch, "Five o'clock. If we have to do a second session tomorrow, we will. But either way, we stop at five o'clock and we rebuild and unwind before bed. Whatever happens, we do not get up from this table angry."

Sirius nodded.

"Alright." Remus drew a deep breath. 

"You have the floor, Moonpie," Sirius said.

Remus was already proud of them. He hadn't even started talking, just seeing how willing Sirius was to do this is such an academic, logical, organized way already had him feeling much better about things.

"My entire life, I have wanted to be normal. My parents didn't know how to handle me when Greyback changed me. I learned from the way that they reacted to my lycanthropy - and others, too - that I was a monster. So I saw myself as one. You know that, we've talked about that a great deal. For me, school - getting to go to Hogwarts - was a very big deal because that's what normal kids got to do, and before that my mum taught me all my maths and reading and history and such... It wasn't perfect, and I worried a great deal that I'd be stupid compared with others and it would be like - oh Remus Lupin, the stupid werewolf that doesn't even know maths! Success at school was very important, therefore, because I had to prove to others - and to myself - that I was good enough, that, despite my condition --"

"Furry little problem," Sirius interrupted. "Sorry. But that was important."

Remus gave him a kindly Look, and Sirius closed his mouth tightly. 

"I had to prove that despite my condition, I could have a normal life. That's why University is so very important to me, too, because that's a step further in that proving... Not only am I good enough to do what normal people do but I'm good enough to do what the advanced normal people do. And I got into a grand uni, and sought-after program... And I know I didn't say it a lot, but I was really very proud of myself for the first time in my life for it."

Sirius's eyes were sad.

"My lycanthropy did effect my ability to go to university, though. And I found that out when Ms. Leonard confronted me about the standards of the school and said all that awful stuff about humans and werewolves as though they're two different things and for the first time in awhile - and it had been awhile only because of you and the lads, I'll point that out, too - for the first time in awhile somebody was saying that my condition - my furry little problem," Remus corrected, seeing Sirius's lips twitch, "- actually would hold me back... that I really couldn't do the things that a normal person could do. It was so hard to hear that... It was so fucking hard, I couldn't barely process it, and I was struggling honestly..."

Remus continued, "I visited the college I'm going to do the art class at this summer, and I had it in my head going over there that it would be... subpar or less than that university for some reason. I mean, they don't have standards that exclude werewolves. It's a muggle school. I made a mistake and I believed it being a muggle school made it less. The same way that Ms. Leonard believed I was less for being a werewolf. Well, the school is quite wonderful really and I was excited, I was coming back from the visit and I had made friends there, Sirius, and I had all this information about - about enrolling there full time and I was so excited to tell you about it. And instead, I get home and you're acting strange, and you've not the patience or the attention span for me and you've got me dragged off to the Potters and you're not telling me what's wrong..."

Sirius's eyes cast down to the table.

"...and then the next thing I know Frank Longbottom is there and he's arresting you and he's - he's saying - he's saying they're going to comfiscate your - your beast. And I was confused at first, I was confused because - because wh-what beast, and -- I -- then I realized... I realized he - he meant me." Remus's face was red and he was staring very hard into his tea. "He meant me because I was no more than a beast... and he knew... he knew my secret... because of something that had happened, which you hadn't told me about despite me asking you what was happening."

Sirius had tears in his eyes.

"I had... I had flashbacks, Sirius. I had flashbacks to fifth year when Severus Snape knew that I was a werewolf because you told him - you told him - and I remembered how betrayed I felt then, and I felt - I felt even more so now because we weren't stupid school kids anymore, now we were - we're married - we're married and the stakes are so much higher for people finding out my secret now than they were back then. I could lose - I could lose you, even, for it. And I was watching you be arrested for harboring an illegal beast... And I felt..." Remus paused. He closed his eyes, remembering the feeling when he was standing there, remembering what it had been like. "I felt all the part of the monster all over again... You made me into a monster again, by... by threatening her with me, like I was a weapon, like I was nothing more than - the beast they all say I am."

Silence hung heavy and ringing between them.

Remus paused. Then, "Alright, I think that's all I have for the first round of this. What do you think about all that?"

Sirius leaned his head back so he was staring up at the ceiling for a moment, then he leaned forward with his entire body so that his chest was pressed to the table and he hunkered down against the table, elbows bent outward like a bird in flight, his chin resting on his hands.

"See, the thing for me was how much it broke my fucking heart to hear that."

"It broke me to see how sad you were that night, telling me about that horrible woman's bloody standards  and how down on yourself you were because of all the rubbish she'd told you. Judging you like she knew you..." Sirius's eyes flashed, "I hate it when people are mean to me, Remus, I do, but I loathe it entirely when they are mean to you."

Remus flushed.

"That's all I could think about, from the moment you told me about what she said to you and how much of a monster she made you feel like." Sirius paused. He sat up. "What bothers me most, I think, about the things you said, is that - out of everything you said just now - everything was backward."

"Backward?"

"No interrupting, Moonshine, remember?" Sirius wagged his finger at Remus with a grin.

Remus's mouth twisted with amusement as he bit his upperlip to keep from speaking.

Sirius's eyes sparkled a moment - God alive, he loved it when Remus did that with his mouth. But then he cleared his throat and continued on:

"Yes, backward. It was all about how YOU had to prove yourself worthy, how YOU were less-than and having to EARN something, how YOU were the monster, YOU are the villain. Moony - did you ever pause and think on the fact that maybe YOU are not the monster? Maybe they are? For treating you like one?"

Remus froze. 

His eyes met Sirius's.

Sirius said, "When I was kneeling in that old witch's garden, degnoming her foundations, and she's sitting up there in her perfect little world with her perfect bloody little friends, tittering on and gossiping like it's no big deal... Saying rubbish, hateful, racist things that have no merit, no validity, gossiping about you like she has the right to judge you or look down on you, like you're nothing because you're a werewolf - that PISSED ME OFF." Sirius slapped his hand down and the table jolted under his palm. "It pisses me off because who the fuck is she?"

Remus felt like his chest was tightening as Sirius spoke.

"I hate that you feel less than human. I hate it. I love you too much to ignore it when somebody is talking down about you. I'm sorry that I hurt you in the process of it, and I'm sorry that I exposed your secret to even a single other person in this world. I'm sorry that I made you cry or feel confused or ashamed or betrayed. But I didn't do what I did to betray you. I didn't do what I did because I wasn't thinking about what I was doing. I knew what I was doing. And honestly, I'm not sorry for what I did. I'm not sorry for defending you - and werewolves everywhere - I'm not sorry for standing up for what's right and what I believe in. I'm not. Sorry for the consequences, sorry that the world has to be like this, but fuck, Remus, I love you and I hate that the world doesn't see you as valid just because you've been a victim of circumstance."

Remus's eyes were wide. 

"I'd be arrested again in a heart beat to defend any one of my friends, Remus... and a hundred times more to defend you... and it breaks my fucking soul that you don't see that's what I was doing because I know the only reason you don't see it that way is because you don't see yourself as worthy of being defended."

Remus closed his eyes.

Sirius shook his head and sighed heavily. He looked down, his tea was cold. He pushed the cup away, then looked back up. "I didn't threaten her with you like she said, like the report says. She lied about that part. I didn't ever threaten to use you as a weapon."

Remus blinked in surprise.

"That's right, I didn't even do what you're mad at me for - what I technically got arrested for. That's why Underhill was able to get me off so easily, Remus. Because I'm innocent. But we always think the worst of each other, don't we? Always guilty until proven innocent with us?"

Remus looked down.

"Remus?"

He looked up and met Sirius's eyes.

"I didn't get you expelled. We could've figured out something to get around the standards that bloody university set because fuck that university and if my bloody werewolf wants to go to university there, then he will bloody go to university there and fuck whatever standards they have. I'll steal their book of standards and let you rip it up on a full moon night for that matter. But you just said yourself, in your very own explanation, that you'd decided to go to muggle university and you were excited to tell me about it. Before you knew what I'd done."

Remus blinked. He hadn't even realized that. He - he really had. Sirius's arrest had not been the catalyst that caused him to look at switching to the muggle college. It hadn't even happened yet when he was on the bus coming back to East London, looking at the course catalogs and thinking about the classes he could take and his new friends.

He'd been blaming Sirius all this time for something Sirius had never even done... he'd been taking anger out on Sirius for something the university had done.

And wasn't Sirius right, wasn't Sirius right that he did count himself the villain in his own story? He did, he did more than anyone realized - or, rather, more than most people realized. Sirius evidently did realize it.

"I wish I'd gotten to hear about the muggle college and your excitement over it. If I had, I might have had some hope to keep me from yelling at that woman." Sirius paused. "And all this is not to say that what I did was right. It wasn't. I was a bastard and I mouthed off and I ought not to have done because - like you said, I expected you to understand why I was going off like I did. I didn't slow to think about the implications of what I was saying or how it might effect you and I ought to have thought before I made my move. It's in my blood, but it isn't an excuse."

Remus sipped his cold tea, letting one of the aconite leaves slide into his mouth and pressed it under his tongue thoughtfully.

"I'm sorry, Remus," Sirius said, "I am sorry with every part of me for hurting you, ever." He reached across, stretching his arms out for Remus, palms up, inviting him to take hold.

Remus put his tea cup down on the table and slid forward, putting his hands into Sirius's. "I forgive you, Sirius. And better,  I understand what you did now, and - and a part of me is actually kind of proud of you now, hearing it laid out that way? I hate that it turned into what it did, but I think it's rather sexy, you defending me, and I appreciate how passionate you are about werewolf rights. But it's dangerous to be doing it when I'm not registered, when people can put two and two and make out the truth like that... It's dangerous for you, too, not just me. I couldn't bear it if you got put into Azkaban for something like this, knowing it was because of me and my rights that you were there. I couldn't bear thinking of you in a place like that."

"I'd go anywhere to defend you. To Hell itself."

"Azkaban might just be worse than Hell if what I've heard is true."

Sirius shrugged. He squeezed Remus's hand. "My point is that you aren't a Monster and anyone that says you are is the Monster themselves and I'll go down fighting to keep you from them."

"Thank you Sirius." Remus paused, then added, "And I'm sorry, too, for assuming you were guilty, and assuming this was like the past. It never occurred to me that there might have been exaggerations or lies involved and I completely disregarded any sort of noble cause to what you'd done, I just focused on what your actions did to me." He thought for a moment, then said, "I am the victim of my life, as equally as the villain... and it's no more healthy to see myself that way than it is to see myself as the villain."

"You've been through so much, of course you see yourself a victim - you bloody are one half the time, and you don't deserve it. But you're a bloody hero. You're my bloody hero."

Remus smiled.

Sirius lifted Remus's hand from the table and kissed it, pressing the back of it to his lips.

They sat in silence for a few moments, letting the relief of the first part of their conversation fall over them. Then, with hesitation, Remus said, "There's - there's more we need to talk about." He looked at his watch, "It's only half four. I think we can do it in before five."

Sirius nodded. "Let's do it."