Not in texting
Sirius
Remus

"I... I really thought I could trust you," Remus managed to get out, his voice wobbling and barely louder than a whisper. He looked down at the boy he wasn't so sure he knew anymore and a shock of pain hit his chest, catching his breath slightly.

Sirius wouldn't meet his eyes, only looking at the ground. "I know. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" He said, his voice growing in volume with the rage pent up inside him. "Is that all you have to say? That your sorry you tricked me? Sorry you lied to me for months and pretended like you didn't know me? That you tried to comfort me when I complained about you! When I said I just needed a break from you!"

He still hid behind his hair as he answered. "I know what I did was horrible and I get it if you don't want to forgive me."

He half wanted to punch a wall and half wanted smack Sirius. "Oh I could probably forgive you if it were just that you were Pads! I could forgive you if it was just a mistaken drunk text that started something that got too out of hand. If all it was, was that you wanted to be my friend I could forgive you! But you knew! You knew my deepest secrets!"

"I didn't tell anyone, I swear." He reassured him.

A scuff came from his lips. "Oh I bet you didn't seeing as you're clearly so good at keeping secrets and lying to your friends! No, that's not the problem. You knew what I was going through and you still couldn't tell me the fucking truth. You were too much of a coward!"

Finally, finally, he looked up and their eyes met. He saw all the guilt in his irises get swallowed by shock. Hidden deep in his eyes was the pain, the ebbing pain Remus could relate to himself. That sort of pain was the same kind that was making his own eyes water, brimming with tears. Sirius' eyes, he realized, weren't so different from his own despite the unlike colors.

"What?" Sirius breathlessly asked, as if his own confusion and shock had knocked the wind out him.

Remus took a deep breath, clenching and releasing his fists at his sides to calm himself down. Don't cry, he told himself. Don't punch him either.

"You... you knew who I was and you knew how I was feeling. I shared with you my pain. I told you I had amnesia for Merlin's sake and you still stood by and watched. Not even that! You ran like a coward! Ignored me and refused to talk to me as either Padfoot or Sirius Black!" He slammed his hands onto the railing on either side of Sirius. "Do you have any idea how any of that feels! To trust someone with something only for them to run off with that secret like they never knew you! To have the one person who you thought you were safe with leave you!"

He hadn't even realized how up in Sirius' face he'd gotten, practically breathing down his neck at that point. He hoped his height was paying off and he seemed the slightest bit intimidating. Though he's sure the rage in his voice was enough to make anyone tremble with fear. Sirius though, he just continued to stare blankly at him.

Remus waited. Waited for Black to do something, to say the words that were so clearly on the tip of his tongue.

Sirius held his gaze. "I do know."

"You can't possible know what-"

"Remus!" Sirius raised his voice for the first time, silencing him. Both their breaths were quick, chests heaving up and down from the hot rage falling in waves from them. Padfoot pinched the bridge of his nose with a frustrated sigh. "Look, I don't want to play the guilt trick on you but you don't have the right to bitch to me about being ignored for a week when you've been ignoring me for years!"

His grip loosened on the railing. That wasn't what he'd expected him to say.

Digging through his faulty memory, he tried to recall a time when he'd actually talked to Sirius in the past three years other than the recent months. He came up short, his mind trying to wrap around just what Sirius was saying. He had ignored him. For three years at that.

Something inside him tightened and gripped at his heart. He'd done to Sirius exactly what he'd been doing to him this past week. The only difference was that Remus wasn't conscious of what he was doing before, but of course Sirius didn't know that.

"I'm..." He struggled to say the words his brain scrambled to find. What does one even say to something like that?

"Sorry? Confused? Yeah, me too." Sirius shook his head, strands of his long hair falling in his face. Sliding down against the railing he sat down on the ground, his head falling into his hands. It was a position of utter exhaustion. He was done with all this drama, and so was Remus. Why couldn't it just end already?

"I... I don't even know how to say this. You just- you just disappeared. You got back from America and it was like you'd learned something that made you finally realize how worthless we were. Something that showed you what a group of quirky losers we are." Sirius muttered.

"You're not a loser." He couldn't hold back the spite lacing into his voice. "If you were, the whole school wouldn't know your name."

"Pfft. They know me as Sirius Black, the local delinquent doing something stupid again. Wonder if it'll be enough this time to send him to jail, just like his parents." He look over at him. "I'm not popular Re, I'm just known. They all see me the way... the way you do. Like I'm an asshole. Just like Dad wanted me to be.

"Folks got caught doing some fucked up stuff when you were across seas. I was lucky the Potters took me in. I'm just glad to be out of that house, you know? I used to talk to you about them all the time. Remember?" The worst part was that he didn't. "You said if your parents weren't so sure that I was just like my own you'd let me move in with you. You'd said it so many times I can't even count on my fingers how many times I had to tell you I couldn't burden you like that. You'd always laugh and tell me it was what best friends were for, there'd be no burden to it.

"We were friends. Better than that, best friends. It was perfect back than, you know?" Sirius sighed, tilting his head to the sky again. "I just wish it had stayed that way. But of course you had to leave and I had to fucking kiss you and mess everything up. That was it wasn't it? You said you had a girlfriend, realized you didn't like guys or something? I just want to know what happened, Moons. What did we, I, do wrong?"

Remus' finger tapped nervously against his leg. He couldn't pull is eyes away from Sirius sitting there on the bridge with his held tilted to the sky like maybe he could get swallowed by the stars, become one of his own. The moonlight cast unique shadows across his cheekbones, his lips seeming paler than usual.

"Tonks wasn't the reason I ignored you. Nor was it the fact I figured out I was bi, not gay." He sat himself down next to him and folded his hands in his lap. He waited for Sirius to look at him again. "It wasn't because of you Sirius. It was my amnesia."

"Oh," was all Sirius seemed to say as understanding flooded him.

"I didn't... I didn't know you." He admitted. Then he started spilling it all, all the things he thought he'd never say. All the things he'd been keeping bottled up. "The docters said I would need prompting if I wanted to get memories back and, well, I didn't have anybody to tell me about you, or James or really anyone from our little group other than Pete. I thought that I had no one other than Peter. I thought I'd grown up with one friend and no one bothered to correct me.

"Mum and Dad wouldn't have been told about you, they didn't like you I don't think so I'm pretty sure I pretended not to know you around them. Guess that pretending turned into reality after the accident. I didn't ignore you, I just didn't know I was supposed to talk to you and from the outside, you don't seem the same if someone doesn't know you. I didn't think I'd want anything to do with you. I didn't... It wasn't- I- why didn't you try asking me what was wrong? Why didn't Pete?"

Sirius snorted. "I did try. The first time I talked to you, you looked at me like I was crazy then kept walking forward like you'd convinced yourself I couldn't possible be talking to. Looking back on it, you probably did." He pulled at a string on his hoodie. "When I went to Peter about it he said that something must of happened. Told James and I about how you didn't talk about the Marauders. When you kept turning down Wormtails offers to hang with us we figured you didn't want anything to do with us anymore, so we... we gave you your space."

Marauders. That's the same word Sirius had used when he texted him as Padfoot. Wormtail, Prongs, Padfoot and... Moony. The Marauders, that's what they must have called themselves as kids.

He glanced at the boy next to him. So he had been trying to tell him he was Pads, since the first day. Remus just didn't clue in to the subtle hints. If he'd had his memories he'd of no doubt figured it out right off the bat. If he had his memories none of those texts would have happened, they'd be in person conversations instead. In fact, he'd might have even been the one Sirius had been trying to text to get picked up that night of the first text.

Pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind, he wished they'd been reality.

"I still don't get one thing," Sirius said, breaking the silence. "I ignored you for a week because I didn't want to hurt you anymore, because that seems to be all that I ever do around you but what made you so mad you decided to run out of my house that night."

"I remembered," he answered, his frown deepening. "I remembered that I knew you and James. I just got so angry, and afraid. My whole world was flipped upside down, Sirius."

The smallest of smiles worked it's way onto his face. "That's the first time you've called me Sirius in... well years."

Oh.

He looked away from him, feeling his face heat up. He hadn't even realized that with all the times he'd called him Sirius in his head.

Merlin, this had been one of the wildest conversations he's ever had. It started off with 'accidentally' bumping into each other before descending into screaming at each other near tears, quieting down to actually freaking explaining crap to each other and now finally some normalcy.

They were a total train wreck.

He turned his head to look once again at Sirius. "Got any other questions?"

He shook his head. "You?"

"What was it like? Being friends and all?"

That same small smile returned to his features. "It was fun. You loved star gazing and so we, James, Peter and I that is, tried our best to go camping at least once a month to get a good look at them through your telescope. It took the three of us three months to save up for that telescope. We got it for your birthday." His eyes lit up as he continue to talk and Remus found a smile of his own working it's way onto his lips.

"We loved pranks, yeah. One time we managed to trick the whole school into thinking the chem lab was on fire while we snuck into the teachers lounge and you stole all the passwords. Minnie, Professor McGonagal, she pretended to hate the stuff we pulled on our classmates but she secretly loves it. We're like her kids, y'know? You were the smart one. You saved our butts with tutoring sessions so many times i don't think we'd have graduated middle school without you honestly. Oh! And..."

That's how the night dragged on. Till sunrise, they sat sharing stories, Sirius doing most of the sharing while Remus added in the bits and pieces he could remember. He told Sirius about London too, and about Tonks. At one point he'd started to cry and Pads had wrapped his arms around him and held him till his tears had dried away.

When the sun started to emerge from on the horizon, there'd still been a thousand stories left to tell but Remus knew he should be getting home. His eyes fell on Sirius who'd had his back leaning against the railing next to him, the hues of the rising sun lighting up his face in a way the pale of the moon couldn't compare to.

Looking at him, he didn't feel any hate in him, not anymore. Was he still upset about all that had happened, of course but he knew now that it wasn't entirely his fault. They'd both done things they shouldn't have, most of it because neither of them were very good at communicating with the other.

He yawned and stretched out his arms, jostling Sirius slightly. He said, "I should go. It's pretty late."

"You mean early," Sirius added with a smirk.

"Whatever." He playfully nudged him before pushing himself to his feet. He extended his hand to him and helped pull him up. His face grew hot when Sirius didn't let go of his hand right after. They were close, just close enough to-

"Well, uh, guess this was... interesting. Good to know who Pads is," he quickly said, taking a step back. He rubbed at the back of his neck. "I'll see you around."

"Yeah," Sirius replied, a grin plastered to his face. "See ya."

Remus smiled at him before bounding off down the street away from the bridge only stopping at the corner to pull out his phone, typing out a quick message before clicking send. Waiting to see the massive smile break out on Sirius' face, he turned the corner and ran down the street back to his apartment with a light feeling he hadn't felt in a while in his chest.

Padfoot <3 : Saturday - 6:03 AM

Friends?

Friends

<3

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.That was hell to write, I don't know why. I spent twenty minutes trying to write one sentence. One!

Two-ish more chapters. Thanks for waiting on the last chapter so you get this one early!

Happy Valentine's Day peeps!

    Stay healthy!
   Last update: 13/02/2021