Crimson Rivers

Chapter 18

Remus knocks on Sirius' door without a moment of hesitation.

Just raises his hand, by his own choice, and knocks. No fear, no worry, no restraint. His inner restrictions have been clipped away, and he feels really, really good about it.

It doesn't take Sirius very long to open the door, and then there he is, standing in place with bright eyes and damp hair. He looks more rested than he has in days, though the bruises under his eyes from the lack of overall sleep remains, even if they've faded a bit overnight. He's gorgeous, of course, and the first thought Remus has is that he would like to kiss him.

This is...probably rude, honestly, but the thought persists anyway, wild and defiant and wanting. No hello? Get it together, Lupin, he thinks, but in his defense, he now knows what it's like to have Sirius' mouth against his own. His lips are so, so unbearably soft. Remus is obsessed already, after one kiss.

"Hi," Sirius breathes out, fidgeting with the doorknob mindlessly as he looks right at Remus with a flush steadily rising in his cheeks.

"Hi," Remus responds, lips curling up.

"I was-I mean, I've been up. Awake. I just had a shower. I wasn't avoiding you," Sirius blurts out.

Remus arches an eyebrow. "I didn't think you were. Why would you be avoiding me?"

"Do you remember last night?" Sirius asks, his voice strained.

"Hm," Remus hums, lips twitching again. "Last night... Last night... We watched the games, then we made brownies... Yeah, I remember."

This doesn't make Sirius smile or blush, like Remus was expecting it to. Instead, he looks...uncomfortable, or maybe anxious and vaguely upset, or all three. "Remus, you-um, just don't-don't fuck with me about...memories. I have this-I have memory issues, so it's-complicated."

"Memory issues," Remus repeats, a surge of guilt rising within him in an instant, because he was fucking with Sirius. He had assumed that Sirius' reaction yesterday and the starting day of the games was something of a trauma response. He wasn't aware that it was a common thing, a recurring problem in day-to-day life, even on good days. Or, mostly good days.

"It's not-" Sirius heaves a weary sigh. "It's not from my time in the arena. Well, it is, but not physically. Like, it's not from a head injury or anything. I mean, I have a lot of different issues I accumulated from the arena, and most of them affect my mind more than my body. I just-sometimes, I sort of...blink out of existence, it feels like, and I can't remember anything that happened while I was gone. My body carries on, but I'm not present, really. Like you said, when it seemed like I was gone for a little while; that's because I was."

"Oh," Remus says softly, his heart clenching. He knew, or he could guess, but he didn't have all the details before this. "Is that-are there triggers for it?"

"Sometimes, yeah," Sirius admits. "Could be a form of defense, I think, because it can happen when I'm...really upset, or angry, or stressed. Too much of it to handle, and my brain just sort of-blocks it all out. But sometimes, no, it just happens. Nothing I can really do about it, honestly. It used to be much worse when I was younger, so it's gotten easier to live with, but it's still-well, it's never going away."

"You don't get the memories back?" Remus asks.

"No. Never," Sirius tells him quietly. He takes in a shuddering breath and starts fiddling with his shirt. "My memory is pretty shit. It's really spotty, especially before the games, and I barely remember my first year after the games at all. The games themselves-of course I remember them, every single second, which is just-" He scoffs. "The one thing I'd like to forget, and it's what I remember the most."