Remus did his best to relax and allow Sirius to rearrange them the way he preferred, loosening his grip around him slightly. Remus was under no illusions that this was anything but a basal comfort Sirius had been stripped of for years, but Merlin did it make Remus’ heart clench, a much more selfish absence being resolved, having missed Sirius so desperately.
When Sirius seemed to settle, Remus once again grabbed blindly for the duvet, carefully trying to arrange it to at least cover Sirius’ shoulders even despite the awkwardness of the angle. After a moment of fussing, Remus felt tentatively satisfied, brushing his palm flat across Sirius’ shoulders, smoothing it against the curve of his back, before gently settling at the back of Sirius’ neck, holding him close.

Probably for the first time since escaping from Azkaban, Sirius felt so safe and cared for that he barely knew how to handle it. The simple gesture of Remus pulling the blanket over him and just holding him made him so emotional that he felt that he couldn’t do much but just cling to Remus.
He buried his face in Remus’ chest, his shirt soft and smelling so familiar that the sob that broke through Sirius felt completely inevitable.
Sirius really didn’t mean to start crying, having had such a tight hold on himself and his emotions for so long that it surprised him that he even had them still. However, now he was sobbing, clinging to Remus like he was a raft and he was drowning, feeling everything overwhelm him all at once.

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Though no one had more to cry about than Sirius, his tears took Remus by surprise. Sirius had been so guarded, even around Remus, and this was insight to something deeply vulnerable. He felt the relief bloom through his chest as if it was his own, pressure and tension finally easing from Sirius’ chest, certain it was much needed.
“Oh, Sirius,” Remus cooed, adjusting his grip around Sirius to properly embrace him.
Wrapping his free arm around Sirius’ shoulders as well, it settled at Sirius’ crown, brushing stray hairs away from his face.
“You’re here now,” he reassured, not daring to promise Sirius that things were ever going to be alright again. “It’s done, you’re here.”

The soft praises coming from Remus only made Sirius sob harder, clutching his chest and just wanting to soak up the feeling of safety that Remus was so easily providing him with. He wanted to wrap himself up in it and he never wanted to leave.
Sirius wasn’t sure how long he had been sobbing, nor was he certain how he managed to find any air in his lungs, but he glanced up at Remus, feeling like sobbing again just from seeing him.
“I didn’t think I was every going to see you again,” he said in a weak voice, feeling raw from sobbing and it didn’t help that the tears were still falling from his cheeks.

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Remus had to put conscious effort into not just crying along with Sirius, the sensation of him sobbing into Remus’ chest wrecking through him, feeling it all the way into his bloodstream. Remus’ urge to cry was so vastly different from Sirius’, however, and Sirius didn’t need that burden, especially not now.
He had managed it, alternating shutting his eyes tight or staring into the dark ceiling above them as Sirius’ sobs finally subsided. When Remus felt him shift, he too tipped his head to look down at him, immediately negating every effort made. The sight was heartbreaking, but his words were even worse, precisely pinpointing the worst of Remus’ guilt.
“I’m sorry,” he all but whispered, his voice cracking as the words were punched out of him with deep remorse.
Remus had desperately wanted to speak to Sirius, to visit him at Azkaban. Being denied entry due to his affiliations with the camps had all but killed Remus, the verdict circular in a way that made Remus feel like a child again, having cried many bitter tears at the unfairness. For so many years, Sirius had been just out of his reach; he might as well have died, too, but contrary to James, Remus had never been able to shake the feeling of having just left him there to die.
Not daring to be the one to brush the tears away from Sirius’ face, Remus instead brushed the caress across Sirius’ hair, smoothing over the stray hairs.
“I’ve missed you so much.”

Sirius hadn’t said it with the intention of making Remus feel bad, more as an explanation for his sudden outburst. However, he was happy to know that Remus had missed him as well, glad that even with the years that had passed they still had at least that connection.
He really had missed Remus with his entire being, finding that he really was the only person Sirius had left in the world and yet he had been kept away from him. It had seemed so awfully unfair that Sirius had barely been able to stand it.
“I missed you too,” he said, voice still raw but he was slowly getting it back.

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Though it took his breath away, there was little actual relief in hearing that Sirius had missed him; the sensation more like drowning than resurfacing. Over the course of his life, Remus felt like he had experienced many cruelties, but this had to be among the worst. Whether Sirius meant it or not, rationally unsure if Azkaban had even allowed him to miss anything coherently, Remus himself could and had. Twelve years of longing barrelling to the forefront, Remus couldn’t help to think what a waste it all had been, this conversation no different to the ones they had a decade ago, even despite the time and distance.
Adjusting his grip around Sirius, one hand slipping back around his shoulders, Remus pulled him close to his chest in a hug, not knowing what else to say besides wanting Sirius close.

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Upon waking, it took Sirius a moment to orient himself. At first the panic set in, having been without physical touch for so long that the sensation almost felt oppressive.
Once he realised that it was Remus he was wrapped up in though, he felt a calm fall over him to an extent that almost sent him into a panic again; so unused to the feeling of comfort that he could barely wrap his head around it.
He looked up at Remus, barely able to believe that he was actually seeing him again. During his time in Azkaban he had often imagined what it would feel like to see Remus again, knowing deep within his bones that Remus was his last tie to proper humanity and he needed to be around him so bad that he could barely breathe.
Unable to help himself, Sirius reached out to carefully cup Remus’ cheek, showing very little care in whether or not he as awake yet. He just needed to be able to touch him and confirm that this was real and that Remus as actually there.

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Despite his exhaustion, it felt like it had taken ages for Remus to fall asleep. His mind hadn’t been able to settle, too many thoughts and impressions keeping him awake until the early hours of the morning, only waking at the touch on his face.
Opening his eyes, Remus’ stomach swooped at the sight, a surreal double exposure. For years, Remus had woken with a sleep-muddled hope that it would be Sirius laying beside him, intimately familiar with one of his life’s smallest heartbreaks, there and gone in the split second it took Remus’ mind to fully wake. Actually seeing Sirius there, when Remus rationally was expecting someone else, made Remus’ lids briefly fall shut again, overwhelmed.
Not knowing how to put that emotion into words, Remus’ reached up to cover Sirius’ hand on his cheek with his own, simultaneously a returned caress and a plea to prolong it. With a gentle hold, he brought it to his mouth, mindlessly pressing a kiss to Sirius’ palm.

There really was nothing that Sirius could do but just stare at Remus, so enamoured with the fact that he could do that now. He knew that things weren’t exactly good around them, but right in that moment Sirius got to just lay there and soak up the physical touch that he had been so violently craving for the past 12 years.
Part of him wanted to say something, wanting to be able to tell Remus what this meant to him and how much he had needed this, but no words came to him.

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Remus’ eyes once again blinked open when it became apparent that Sirius offered no resistance, that he didn’t pull back his hand at the kiss. Remus found him staring at him over top of the line of Sirius’ hand, still lingering only a few inches away from Remus’ mouth. It made his heart stutter at the unabashed attention with which Sirius was watching him; Remus’ eyes involuntarily dipped to Sirius’ lips, a dragged out moment where Remus’ mind struggled to distance himself from the suffocating, invigorating familiarity of it all.
He barely let go of Sirius’ hand, barely even moving it properly out of the narrow space between them. Before Remus even realised, he had leaned forward far enough to catch Sirius’ lips in a kiss.

It was the easiest thing in the world for Sirius to kiss Remus back. Part of him was still not sure that this was actually real, fearing that Azkaban had finally gotten to him proper and that this was simply a vivid hallucination. However, there was no denying the feeling of Remus’ body against his own, the feeling both familiar and foreign to him.
His hand found Remus’ jaw, feeling so relieved that he almost felt like crying again, but Remus was so sweet that he couldn’t find it in himself to do so.

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Feeling Sirius return the kiss made a small punched-out sound escape Remus, everything hitting him like a ton of bricks in that moment. Remus had missed Sirius in every conceivable way, ever-present in the back of his mind not only for the past decade, but for multiple, having probably missed him even when they were simply split apart by the curtains of their canopy beds back at Hogwarts. The fact that Sirius was not only here again, but didn’t loathe him enough to push Remus away, made something complicated and ancient tug at the pit of Remus’ stomach, threatening to make him sob.
Without stopping to think twice about the implications, Remus’ hand found Sirius’ waist, the grip inadvertently a little too tight as he desperately pulled him closer into the kiss.

The hold on his waist was really too tight, but Sirius had a hard time really minding it as he was pulled closer to Remus; desperate for the sense of comfort that he had only ever managed to find in Remus’ embrace.
His own hand slid backwards into Remus’ hair, tugging at the strands, the familiar feeling of the slightly coarse texture sending shivers down his spine.
During his years in Azkaban, Sirius had almost managed to convince himself that this wasn’t something that he would be able to get again, the physical comfort of another human being a foreign idea for him at the time, and now he wanted to drown in it; selfishly taking whatever Remus was offering him and pleading for more.

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