Chapter Text
Sirius doesn’t remember deciding to stay.
There isn’t a conversation. No clear turning point. He just keeps waking up in Remus’s apartment. Keeps reaching for the same chipped mug in the cabinet. Keeps leaving his shirts slung over the back of a chair instead of folding them into his bag.
At first, it’s easy to pretend it’s temporary. A few extra days after Streamer Weekend. A week. Maybe two.
He starts by stealing Remus’s clothes.
Not intentionally. A t-shirt after spilling coffee down the front of his own. A hoodie when the mornings are colder than he expects. Remus never makes a thing of it. He just hands things over, as if this is already settled.
Somewhere along the way, Sirius stops reaching for his bag entirely.
He wears the same borrowed hoodie three days in a row before it clicks that maybe he should do something about it. One morning, he catches his reflection in the mirror. Remus’s shirt hangs loose over his shoulders, and he feels a flicker of awareness settle in his chest.
So he goes shopping.
A couple of t-shirts because he’s tired of rotating the same ones. Jeans he actually likes. A hoodie. He comes back that evening and stands in the doorway with the bag still in his hand.
Remus looks up from his desk. “You going to come in, or…?”
Sirius steps inside. “I, uh. Got clothes.”
“I can see that.”
Remus gets up, crosses to the dresser, and slides his things over. Later, Sirius notices empty hangers in the closet. His shirts are mixed in with Remus’s. No discussion. No announcement. Just space made for him.
That’s when it stops feeling borrowed.
He tells himself it makes sense. Especially once he realizes how much he likes waking up to the sound of Remus already moving through the apartment.
* * *
When Sirius finally has to fly back to San Diego, Remus goes with him.
They talk about it a few nights before, in the kitchen. Dinner halfway done. Steam rising from the stove. Sirius leans against the counter and stares at nothing in particular.
He sighs.
Remus doesn’t look up. “That’s loud.”
“I’m stressed.”
“About?”
“My apartment.” Sirius rubs the back of his neck. “I keep thinking I should go back. And I don’t. I’m paying for a place that’s just sitting there.”
Remus turns the heat down and faces him. “So go get your shit.”
Sirius blinks. “What?”
“We’ll pack it up.”
“We?”
“Yeah. We.” Remus shrugs. “You’ve basically lived here since Portland. This just makes it official instead of pretending you’re crashing indefinitely.”
Sirius huffs a laugh. “Wow. Calling me out.”
“I’m not wrong.”
“…You’re not.”
He hesitates. “It’s fast.”
Remus tilts his head. “Is it?”
Sirius thinks about it. About the way his bag hasn’t been packed in weeks. About his clothes in Remus’s drawers. The mornings. The nights.
“…Okay, maybe not,” he says.
He looks up. “You sure?”
“Positive. I want you here. With me. In Seattle.”
Sirius swallows and lets out a quiet laugh. “Fuck.”
“Good fuck or bad fuck?”
“Good. Definitely good.”
“Cool. Then we’ll go this weekend.”
Just like that.
Remus turns back to the stove. Sirius stays where he is, watching him, feeling something settle without spectacle.
San Diego feels different with Remus beside him.
Too bright. Too loud. His apartment looks smaller than he remembers, the walls bare, the rooms echo when they step inside. He’s lived there for years, but standing in the doorway with Remus’s shoulder brushing his, it doesn’t feel like home anymore.
They pack slowly.
Sirius pulls things from shelves and drawers, pausing more than he means to. Old shirts, tangled cables, books he hasn’t opened in years. He makes two piles on the floor, keep and donate, and moves things back and forth between them more than once.
His phone buzzes on the dresser.
He glances at the screen, then pushes himself to his feet, brushing dust off his hands against his jeans as he heads toward the door.
Remus looks up from the bed, a shirt half-folded in his hands. “Where you going?”
Sirius doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “Just meeting someone to sell something real quick, I’ll be right back.”
Remus watches him for a second, then nods. “Alright.”
Sirius grabs his keys off the dresser and heads downstairs.
A woman stands near the entrance, checking her phone. She looks up when she hears his footsteps.
“Emmaline?” Sirius calls, lifting a hand.
“That’s me, are you Sirius?” she asks, stepping closer.
“Yeah.” He gestures down the row with his keys. “I’ve got the board in my storage down here.”
She follows him. He unlocks the door and rolls it up, the metal rattling overhead.
The board rests on a rack against the back wall, wax still dull and ridged under the fluorescent lights.
“9 foot, 2+1, Becker.” He runs a hand along the rail, checking it out of habit. “No dings. I didn't have a chance to strip the wax, as you can probably see.”
Emmaline crouches slightly, fingers brushing the deck before she lifts it carefully. She turns it in her hands, checking the fins. “It’s perfect. Can I ask why you're selling?”
Sirius shifts his weight, one hand settling at the back of his neck. “I, uh, I'm moving north. I don't see myself braving the Washington coast.”
She shivers, rubbing her arms. “Yeah no, I get it.”
He nods and steps back toward the storage unit. “Do you need any leashes? Wetsuits? Wax? I’ll throw them in with the board.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Are you serious?”
“That’s the name.” He huffs under his breath. “Sorry, bad joke. Yeah I’m not going to need any of it.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “Sure, I’ll take them off your hands.”
They exchange payment. Sirius counts it quickly and slips it into his pocket. He helps her carry the board to her car. He holds it steady while she straps it onto the rack, tightening each line until it sits secure.
She steps back and gives him a quick nod. “Thanks.”
“Yeah,” Sirius says, stepping away, hands sliding into his pockets. “Enjoy it.”
He watches the car pull out of the lot. The board disappears around the corner.
He stands there a second longer than he needs to, hands shoved into his pockets, then turns and heads back inside.
When he walks into the bedroom, Remus is still on the bed, folding clothes and packing them into boxes. The door clicks shut behind Sirius, and Remus glances up.
“You okay?”
Sirius nods, but the breath he pulls in shudders on the way out. He tries for a smile and only half lands it. “I will be.”
Remus sets the shirt aside and crosses the room. He stops close, searching Sirius’s face. “If you’re not ready-.”
Sirius shakes his head quickly, cutting him off. “No. No I’m ready. I want to.” His hands flex at his sides before he lets them fall. “It’s just a lot, you know.”
Remus steps in and lifts his arms around Sirius’s shoulders, drawing him close.
Sirius exhales against him and wraps his arms around Remus’s waist, pulling him in tighter than he means to. His fingers press into the fabric at Remus’s back, holding there. Remus’s hand slides up once, steady at the base of his neck, thumb brushing lightly through his hair.
They stay like that until Sirius’s breathing evens out.
Later, they order takeout and eat on the floor, backs against the couch. Sirius pulls his knees in, carton balancing in his lap. He watches Remus eat noodles straight from the box, wrist flicking cleanly as he gathers another bite.
“You’re not even using a plate,” Sirius mutters.
Remus nudges his knee with his foot. “Pretty sure you donated all of them.”
Sirius huffs under his breath, but he shifts closer instead of pulling away, shoulder brushing Remus’s.
That night, Sirius lies awake staring at the ceiling fan. Traffic hums outside the window, headlights flashing faint shadows across the ceiling. Beside him, Remus sleeps deeply, one hand curled loosely in Sirius’s shirt.
Sirius stays still so he doesn’t wake him. He watches the steady rise and fall of Remus’s chest, listens to his breathing settle into a rhythm, and lets the noise outside blur into the background.
The boxes go out in stages. Taped shut. Labeled. Carried downstairs two at a time. Shipped north.
Sirius stands on the curb and watches them get loaded into the truck. He shoves his hands into his pockets and feels something loosen in his chest as they disappear.
Back in Washington, Remus doesn’t make a big deal of it. He shifts things around in the closet and clears a shelf in the bathroom.
Sirius notices.
He doesn’t say anything either.
* * *
By the time Remus’s lease comes up, the decision is easy.
The new place has three bedrooms.
“We don’t need all that,” Sirius says, scrolling through the listing on Remus’s phone, thumb flicking through the photos.
Remus hums beside him. “No,” he agrees. Then, after a second, “But I kind of want it.”
Sirius glances over at him. “For what?”
Remus shrugs, shoulder brushing Sirius’s where they sit close on the couch. “I don’t know. Space. Separate rooms for streaming. A bedroom that actually has room for both our stuff instead of just shoving shit in random places and hoping for the best.”
Sirius snorts softly. “That is our current decorating philosophy.”
“Exactly.”
Sirius scrolls back to the floor plan and studies it again. Three bedrooms. Real closets. Windows that actually face something other than a brick wall.
“Okay,” he says finally, handing the phone back. “Fine. I’m outvoted.”
“You are literally one person,” Remus says.
“Still counts.”
They move in a month later.
The first bedroom becomes Remus’s office. The desk goes under the window, PC and monitors lined up with neat precision. His guitar stand and keyboard settle into the corner, always within reach. A small couch gets pushed in front of a shelf that fills quickly with notebooks, sheet music, and plants Sirius insists are alive despite their dramatic droop.
“They’re fine,” Sirius says. “They’re just being dramatic.”
“They’re dying,” Remus replies without looking up from adjusting a mic stand.
“Wow. Harsh.”
Sirius’s office comes together in stages. First the desk. Then the chair. Then the cables he swears he’ll organize properly and absolutely does not. His PC sits under the desk, two monitors on top. LED lights go up along the wall, casting a glow that makes the room unmistakably his. Posters and art prints from his old apartment follow, taped and rehung with more care than he lets on.
It’s louder than the rest of the apartment. Visually and otherwise.
The third bedroom is theirs.
They build the bed late one night, both of them tired enough to start laughing when the frame doesn’t line up the first time. Sirius insists he can do it himself and immediately tries to force one side into place.
“Stop fighting it,” Remus says, crouched on the opposite side with the instruction manual in his hand.
“I’m not fighting it.”
“You just called it a piece of shit.”
“That was constructive feedback.”
Remus reaches over and adjusts the angle slightly. The pieces slide together with a solid click.
Sirius stares at it. “Okay. That one was on me.”
“I know.”
“Rude.”
They step back and look at it like they’ve accomplished something significant.
The bed is centered against the wall surrounded by two mismatched nightstands. A dresser they share without labeling whose side is whose. A lamp Sirius picks because it makes the room feel warm at night. Curtains Remus chooses because they soften the morning light without turning the room into a cave.
When everything is in place, Sirius stands in the doorway, taking it in.
It feels settled in a way he doesn’t expect.
He doesn’t say that out loud.
He just walks in and makes the bed.
* * *
TheMoonyVerse — LIVE
music stream
The camera angles down. No face. No background. Just Remus’s hands and the guitar resting against his leg.
He presses into the strings, adjusts, and starts playing without introduction.
Anyone who knows the song recognizes it within the first few chords.
The opening of Missing Limbs comes slower than the recording, stripped back. Remus lets the silence between notes linger. When he starts to sing, his voice is softer than usual.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME
HIS VOICE TONIGHT
THIS SONG HURTS
He keeps his gaze on the guitar, not looking at chat. He never does during songs like this. There’s no push for reaction. He lets the lyrics sit where they land.
Down the hall, a door creaks.
Sirius steps out of his office on his way to get water. He stops mid-step when the melody carries through the apartment.
He moves toward the sound and pauses outside Remus’s office. The door is barely open. He leans one shoulder into the frame and listens.
He doesn’t interrupt.
He closes his eyes for a second, forehead resting against the wood, letting the final line wash over him.
And I’ll live like I’ve got missing limbs for you.
The last note fades.
Remus clears his throat lightly. “Thanks for hanging out,” he says, voice neutral again. “That one always… yeah.”
He nods once to himself and reaches forward to end the stream.
Sirius pushes off the doorframe only after the screen goes dark.
Remus looks up and notices him there. Sirius lifts a hand in a small wave.
“Hi,” Remus says.
“Hi.”
“You need something?”
Sirius shakes his head. “No. Just listening.”
Remus studies him for a second, then nods. “Okay.”
Sirius doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t make a joke. He just follows him back down the hall and stays close for the rest of the night.
* * *
SiriuslyNotChill — LIVE
late-night horror stream
Sirius screams and launches himself backward hard enough that the desk rattles.
His monitor goes black.
“Oh, fuck. Nope. Nope. I broke it.”
From somewhere off-mic, Remus’s voice drifts in. “You didn’t break it.”
“It just died.”
“You jumped. Hard.”
“I did not—” Sirius pauses. “Okay, I jumped. But that thing moved.”
He crouches down and fumbles blindly behind the monitor, squinting at the tangle of cables. “I don’t know what I’m doing back here. I can’t get it to fit in the slot.”
There’s a brief pause.
“That’s not what you said last night,” Remus says evenly.
AYO???
MOONY????
HELP ME
“Okay,” Sirius says quickly. “Nope. Moving on. Nobody clip that. I swear to god.”
A hand appears at the edge of the frame, reaching in behind the monitor. There’s a soft click as the cable slides back into place.
The screen flickers, then comes back to life.
Sirius drops into his chair. “I didn’t even fucking touch it.”
“You yanked the HDMI out,” Remus says.
tech support king 👑
Sirius leans into the mic, grinning. “Don’t encourage him. He’ll start charging me.”
* * *
TheMarauders — LIVE
The Marauders channel comes together after their weekend in Portland.
It becomes the place where the four of them can stream together easily. One page. One chat. Four frames on screen.
When they go live, the boxes fill in one by one.
James’s camera pops up first, already mid-rant. His hands fly as he talks, controller wobbling hard enough that his camera shakes with it.
“This thing drifts on its own,” he insists. “I’m not even touching it.”
Pete’s frame appears next. He laughs immediately, loud enough to peak his mic, then winces and leans back from it. “Sorry. Sorry. That one’s on me.”
Sirius goes live third. He leans back in his chair, one socked foot propped on his desk, spinning slightly as he listens. His setup glows behind him, LEDs low enough to feel intentional instead of blinding.
Remus’s frame fills in last. His overlay appears with the small moon in the corner. No face. Just mic and his quiet presence. He’s in the other room, door open. His voice carries easily through both the apartment and the stream.
THE SQUAD IS BACK
THIS IS MY FAVORITE STREAM SETUP
Sirius tilts his head toward James’s screen. “Explain something to me. Why does your controller survive being thrown across the room, but mine dies if I breathe on it wrong?”
“That sounds like a user issue,” Remus says calmly.
James snorts. “That’s because Moony respects his equipment.”
Pete leans closer to his mic, cheerful. “You spilled coffee on your keyboard last week.”
Sirius points at his camera. “That was one time.”
Remus doesn’t add anything. He just makes a quiet sound under his breath that might be a laugh.
Sirius catches it anyway. His mouth curves before he can stop it.
James keeps ranting. Pete keeps laughing. The chat scrolls too fast to read properly, messages stacking on top of each other while the four of them talk over one another without ever really missing the rhythm.
This is how their streams go now.
Loud. Easy. Familiar.
And unmistakably theirs.
* * *
Washington winter is an adjustment.
Sirius hates it.
“It’s wet,” he complains one morning, wrapped in a hoodie that used to belong to Remus, sleeves pulled down over his hands. He stands near the window, staring out at the steady gray. “Cold should not be wet. That’s fucking illegal.”
“You say this every day,” Remus says from the counter, coffee steaming between his hands.
“And every day, I’m right.”
Remus huffs into his mug. “Move here voluntarily and then act shocked.”
“I was misled.”
“By who?”
Sirius turns, pointing vaguely at the sky. “The aesthetic.”
Still, he learns.
He learns where Remus keeps the extra blankets and which ones are warmer than they look. He learns that layering socks actually helps, even if he refuses to acknowledge that out loud. He learns how to make coffee strong enough to survive gray mornings, though he still insists it tastes better when Remus makes it and refuses to be told otherwise.
He learns the light here, too. How it comes in slow and pale through the windows, stretching across the floor instead of flooding it. How mornings and afternoons blur together, the sky never quite deciding what it wants to do.
And he learns the quiet.
Back home, silence always feels temporary. Something to fill. Something to outrun. Here, it settles into the apartment without demanding anything from him. It threads through their routine—Remus moving down the hall, the soft thud of a cabinet closing, the low hum of the heater.
Sirius finds himself moving slower without meaning to. Letting moments linger. Standing in the kitchen a little longer while the kettle warms. Sitting on the couch without reaching for his phone.
Some mornings he doesn’t turn music on right away. Some nights he lets the heater click on and off without reacting to it.
The quiet stays.
It doesn’t feel empty.
It feels like rest.
* * *
Remus passes through his streams often.
Sometimes it’s practical. Fixing audio drivers when something glitches. Adjusting a mic arm Sirius has nudged out of place with one dramatic hand gesture too many. Other times he just appears long enough to set a glass of water within reach when Sirius forgets to hydrate.
He always says hi. His voice stays soft, affectionate, close enough to the mic to be caught but never performing for it. Sometimes he leans in just enough to murmur something that makes Sirius glance off-camera and laugh under his breath.
Every now and then, Remus hooks two fingers into the collar of Sirius’s shirt and tugs him just out of frame. There’s a quiet, quick kiss. Chat only catches the aftermath—Sirius’s sudden grin, the way his shoulders drop when he sits back down.
TECH SUPPORT HAS ENTERED THE CHAT
MORAL SUPPORT TOO
HYDRATE KING
Sirius rolls his eyes for show, but he doesn’t correct them.
When the stream winds down, he stays live a few minutes longer, leaning back in his chair and talking about nothing important. About the cold and how Washington winter is still bullshit. About Pete’s refusal to learn maps. About James being too competitive for his own good.
From off-camera, a chair shifts. Remus comes into the room and settles beside him, just out of frame, close enough that their knees press together.
Sirius glances sideways, a smile pulling at his mouth that he doesn’t bother hiding. “Alright. I’m calling it. You’ve all been unhinged tonight.”
NO
ONE MORE GAME
LET HIM LIVE
“I’ll be back soon,” Sirius promises. He looks straight into the camera. “Night, chat.”
He ends the stream and leans back, exhaling as the monitors dim.
Remus’s fingers brush through his hair.
“Good stream.”
“You say that every time.”
“That’s because it’s usually true.”
Sirius lets out a quiet laugh and leans into the touch, eyes closing for a second. The heater clicks on. Traffic hums faintly outside.
“You hungry?” Remus asks.
“Always.”
They move into the kitchen. Sirius pulls ingredients from the fridge and sets them on the counter while Remus works the stove.
Remus nudges his phone awake with his knuckle and scrolls for a second before setting it down on the counter, music filling the kitchen.
Sirius glances over. “Is that—”
“Our mix,” Remus says.
Sirius smiles. “Yeah. Thought so.”
The songs roll on, a mix of chaos and softness. The same tracks they’ve used for Queue Combat. The ones meant to spike heart rates and throw each other off. Remus stirs, tastes, and adds seasoning.
One song bleeds into the next, shifting the energy. The playlist softens. The tempo drops.
Pretty Boy settles into the room.
“Oh,” Sirius says quietly, straightening a little as the opening notes change. He smiles. “Remember when you played this on stream?”
Remus glances over his shoulder. “Yeah.”
“You didn’t even say anything,” Sirius continues. “Just let it play and pretended you didn’t know exactly what you were doing.”
Remus stirs the pan, unbothered. “I said I liked it.”
“That was you choosing violence,” Sirius says.
A small smile tugs at Remus’s mouth. “You lived.”
“Barely. You started humming into the mic and thought I was going to short-circuit on camera.”
“You handled it fine.”
Sirius laughs, softer now, leaning back against the counter. “I absolutely did not.”
The song continues, the rest of the playlist following suit. The back half is different. Slower. The songs they’ve sent each other off-stream. Songs that say things neither of them know how to say out loud yet.
Sirius hovers uselessly near the stove, content to stay out of the way. The music stays low beneath the clink of utensils and the hum of the burner.
He watches Remus move through the kitchen and feels something settle in his chest.
It isn’t loud. It isn’t dramatic.
It just is.
* * *
They have an open-door policy.
Sirius likes hearing Remus play, and Remus likes knowing Sirius can hear him. So the doors stay cracked. Just enough.
Sirius retreats to his office. Remus disappears into his. The space between them stays open.
Sirius boots up a game, the headset settling over his ears. Every so often, the quiet strum of a guitar drifts down the hall, threading faintly into his mic between matches.
IS THAT A GUITAR
MOONY???
Sirius doesn’t bother denying it. He just smiles to himself and keeps playing.
Some nights he ends his stream early. Not because he is tired, but because he wants to sit with Remus while he plays or reads. He wants to listen without dividing his attention between chat and the hall.
“Alright,” Sirius says one night, glancing at the clock in the corner of his screen. “I’m heading out a little early tonight.”
BOOO
WHERE YOU GOING
He grins at the camera. “You know where.”
He raids Remus mid-chapter with a casual “on my way,” then pulls off his headset and walks down the hall. Through Remus’s mic, chat hears the quiet laugh that slips out of Sirius when Remus looks up and smiles at him.
“Hi,” Remus says.
“Hey,” Sirius replies, lowering himself into the chair beside him.
may this kind of love find me one day
PADFOOT IS LITERALLY A GOLDEN RETRIEVER
CRIES IN SINGLE
Sirius stays quiet after that. He always does. He tucks himself in close, resting his head against Remus’s shoulder, listening while Remus plays and talks and fills the room with sound. Sometimes Remus reaches up without looking, fingers brushing through Sirius’s hair before returning to the guitar.
Sirius doesn’t move. He lets himself be there.
Later, after the stream ends and the apartment settles back into itself, he finds Remus on the couch, curled into the corner with a book.
Sirius drops down beside him and tucks his feet under Remus’s leg for warmth.
“Long day,” Sirius murmurs.
Remus nods, turning a page. “A good one.”
Sirius rests his head against Remus’s shoulder. He feels the steady rise and fall of his breathing. The warmth. The solid weight of him there.
For once, Sirius isn’t thinking about what comes next. He’s not waiting for the moment he has to leave. He is not bracing for a shift.
He’s just here.
Remus turns another page.
Home, Sirius thinks, and he doesn’t question it.