"You lost your TEMPER more like! Your mind is perfectly fine. Or at least as close to perfectly fine as it ever was. Sirius - YOU are the one that went against what Lily and James asked of us, AND you abandoned me, your - your own husband."

Sirius let out a barking laugh. "Oh Remus... how quickly we forget."

Remus stared at Sirius.

"Who abandoned who, Remus?"

Sirius was laughing, his head thrown back, that horrible, manic type of laugh that reminded Remus of newspaper headlines he couldn't get away from - every day on the front cover of the Daily Prophet for months and months... appearing periodically when he least expected it under the fold, in columns that counted anniversaries and more recently in commentary on the search for the escaped convicted murderer... It reminded him of being haunted for thirteen years, of nights up alone and pacing, or else laying in bed, screaming into a pillow in an empty flat he could no longer afford, the clock's ticking slowly getting louder, of bright yellow eviction notices taped to the door and long nights in the bomb shelter alone with the stacked cans of mushy peas and spaghetti hoops... Of a long boat ride through choppy water and under pitch-black skies, his patronus sitting beside him, tongue lolling, a bright-white reminder of the dog that he thought he would never see again... Of guilt-ridden thoughts, thinking it would've been easier to cope with the loss if he was dead than this... wishing that he was dead... or maybe wishing that he, Remus, was instead.

"Stop it," Remus whispered, then a bit louder, "Stop it..." and when the laughing continued, he shouted it, "STOP IT, SIRIUS, PLEASE!"

Sirius's laughter died away - slowly fading off as he stared at Remus.

"How many times do I have to say I'm sorry for something that never happened?" Remus asked, his voice quiet.

"We both know it did happen."

Remus's jaw squared and he stared resolutely at Sirius.

"Also, what friend were you sharing our Map with? Let's talk about that a moment, shall we?"

Remus was thrown off by this. "What?"

"In the Shrieking Shack," Sirius said, "You mentioned looking at the Marauder's Map with a friend. Then Snape comes along talking about a cozy little scene up in your office..."

"Oh for Godric's sake, it was Tonks," Remus snapped, rolling his eyes. "You're ridiculous. You've been just sitting about, waiting to bring that back up, haven't you?"

"No it's just popped back into my head. You understand why... given the subject at hand now... betrayal and abandonment and everything that went wrong back then, yeah?"

"Sirius, I did NOT betray you, or abandon you!" and before Sirius could clap back as he always did, "Who else was going to go in and talk to the werewolves? Who else was ever capable of doing that? You? Were you going to go marching into the middle of all that and play your Alpha-Omega games, Snuffles?"

"It wasn't just the werewolves! I know that was a bloody assignment -- I know that was about the war... We were already so far gone by then that I didn't even expect you to tell me the whole truth then! We were already shattered!"

"If you bloody say what I think you're about to --"

"I SAW THE DRAWINGS, REMUS!"

"You've never listened to me when I tell you the way things were, you're too busy making assumptions and --"

Sirius stared at him.

"For crying out loud. That's it. We're settling this! I'm - I'm getting a pensieve!"

"Where the hell are you going to get a pensieve from?" Sirius grumbled, "The fucking pensieve store? PENSIEVES R US?!"

"I'll bloody make a pensieve if I've got to! We are settling this --" Remus charged toward the kitchen. "We're settling this right bloody now, right this bloody second --" and Sirius trotted after him, watching from the door way as Remus tore open kitchen cupboards, digging about. "...should've done this years ago, made you look at it, you stubborn bastard dog, always so bleeding dramatic, no self control... absolute arsehole..."

Sirius was grinning shamelessly at Remus's back side as he bent to look in a lower cupboard.

Finally Remus turned around, holding up a large wok and a deep spaghetti pot. "Which one of these do you reckon your ridiculous head will fit in better?"

Sirius's lip trembled.

"Don't you fucking smile at me, don't you laugh. Don't you dare. You're looking at this damned memory or I'll blast it into your ears and you can bloody look at it the hard way!" Remus considered the two cookware pieces in his hands. "I think this one would be best," Remus said, waving the wok, "It's wider, so you can squash all of that idiot-fucking-grinning face of yours right in and really get a good look at--" But Remus's words were cut off.

Sirius had gone across the room in three quick strides, ducking around the flailing wok, and caught Remus up into his arms, pressing his mouth against Remus's in a furious passion, dipping him back ever so slightly. Sirius had come in at a angle so that his nose brushed Remus's cheek even as his lips moved against Remus's mouth and one of his hands went up into the back of Remus's hair, his fingers sliding through until he was gripping the curls on top of Remus's head and his tongue was slipping long, brushing over the small gap in Remus's teeth and then curling into his mouth... Remus gasped and his arms lowered, both the wok and the pot clattering to the floor as he released them, and he answered the kiss, pressing back into Sirius's so that their mouths were dueling for dominance over the other...

Sirius's fingers tightened in Remus's hair and he pulled Remus's head back, up and out of the kiss, exposing Remus's throat and Sirius's mouth descended over Remus's chin to his adam's apple and he nipped at the pistachio tie with his teeth, burying his nose into the soft folds of the fleshy bit of Remus's neck, just below his jaw.

Remus was breathing hard, his eyes closed, mouth gaping open, and Sirius let go of the clump of his hair, but Remus didn't move, he kept his head aiming skyward as he tried to catch his breath.

"Wh-what --?"

"I hate how irresistible you are when you're being a smart ass, Lupin," Sirius growled in his ear... and he nipped the soft ear lobe...

Remus bit onto his lower lip and slowly lowered his face to stare into Sirius's. Remus kept his chin jutted just a bit higher than he normally would, so he looked down at Sirius over his nose as Sirius slowly drew back again, kissing along Remus's jawline... pushing the jumper vest up, off, and onto the counter, where it lay forgotten.

"You know that I couldn't blame either of you if you did do more than just make your silly scribbles," Sirius whispered.

"I didn't," Remus answered as Sirius was fiddling about with the buttons of his oxford. "They were drawings only."

"You never drew me like that."

"I drew you plenty like that."

"You didn't."

"I did... "

"When?"

"A few times when you were sleeping and I - I didn't want to forget how perfect you looked," Remus answered, flushing. "And - and a few times since --" Remus voice lowered, as though he might overheard. "I have... from memory."

Sirius paused. "Oh?"

Remus's heart quickened. "Yeah."

"And how did I look in these drawings?"

"...exactly like I remembered."

"Sexy?"

"You always were." Remus amended, "Are."

"Well, you needn't go lying to me about it," Sirius chuckled, "I'm sure I've looked better than I do right now, for example."

"You haven't really, though. Not to me."

"I'm calling bullshit."

"You're here," Remus whispered.

Sirius was just about finished unbuttoning his oxford - he'd been going at it very slowly and deliberately, watching the fabric fall away and revealing more and more of Remus's skin.

"I never thought you would be here again, but you are and --" Remus paused as Sirius's hands parted his shirt and ran up his torso, fingers flickering over the scars of Remus's chest... and Remus could tell without even thinking about it that Sirius's fingers were tracing the fresher ones - the ones he'd gotten in the last twelve years since Sirius had last seen them close-up. "-- and that... that beats... imaginary..." Remus's words were weakening, his thinking going out in the wash with every touch of Sirius's fingers...

Remus had missed this, this feeling of their bodies melting and getting a bit blurry about where the Moony ended and the Padfoot began and vice versa. They'd been like this in the dorm, in the Shrieking Shack, in the flat... it seemed like moments ago, and yet it had been years...

As Sirius pushed away Remus's shirt and ran his hands over the scars, Remus remembered what it was like... what it was like to feel forgiven for being a werewolf, the way he'd always felt whenever Sirius inspected his scars, as though every time he'd ever clawed, bitten, scratched or gnawed himself raw was healed a little more by each fingerprint Sirius left on the skin. Sirius's touch burned through his skin, causing every sensation that made him feel like a man, rather than a wolf...

And Remus made a move.

Caught off guard, Sirius nearly tripped over the wok on the floor as Remus pushed him back against the refrigerator, knocking a load of magnets to the floor, colorful plastic alphabet letters scattered about. Sirius gasped as Remus pulled off that ridiculous pink t-shirt and chucked it aside. He paused, staring at Sirius's bare chest in a bit of surprise. There were so many more tattoos than he'd had before, they covered his chest and lined his sternum, wrapped around his arms and stomach and around toward his back... They were all symbols and marks and runes and numerals and cryptic scrawlings... Remus squinted, leaning closer. "Sirius? Are these... are these song lyrics?... translated to - to ancient runes?"

Sirius laughed. "Only the most important ones."

Remus studied them a moment. "Wild thing..."

"You make my heart sing," whispered Sirius, and he ran his fingers along the curving shape of the lyrics that spiraled over his heart.

Remus leaned forward and kissed Sirius, catching his lower lip between his teeth and tugging it gently. As sure as the sun rising in the east, Sirius made the sound. Somewhere between a grunt and a moan, a short little glottal sound. There wasn't a sound in the world that had the same effect on Remus as that one did. It made him feel wild and powerful in a way that he didn't usually feel, and he leaned forward even closer and kissed Sirius's neck.

"Remus," Sirius whispered, and he wrapped his arms around, palms running over the scars on Remus's back, fingers tracing through the silver lines... Tears were coming from Sirius's eyes and he said, "I miss you."

"I'm right here," Remus replied.

"No, no, I --" Sirius clung onto him, "No, you're a thousand miles away."

Remus cupped Sirius's face with his hands, ducked down until Sirius was looking directly into his eyes.

"How can you be right here in my arms and still feel like you're a thousand miles away?" Sirius asked. "Come closer, Remus... please." Sirius pressed himself against Remus's bare chest, his cheek against Remus's collar bone, his arms holding tight, hooked about Remus's torso.

The word logistics hovered at the edges of Remus's mind, like a silver lining on a dark storm cloud.

"Well - I did answer an advert for a position as a logistical expert, didn't I?" Remus whispered.

Sirius laughed quietly. "You did."

"Then I reckon I best get to work."