A/N: For Allie's Big/Lil' Sis Team Prompt Competition II on HPFC (in which my lil sis, Teddy (aka teddylupin-snape) wrote a companion piece to this story, so go check that out)! Using the prompts of Sirius/Remus, "I wish", believe, holding hands and just before dawn.

Set in the summer before OotP, when Sirius first comes back to 12 Grimmauld Place.

x

Here, where there was only half-light, Sirius remembered. He had so many memories lit by this same light. The kind of light that was gentle. Soft. How the patterns of the net curtains fell across skin, warm and delicate. He shook his head. So many mornings were this bright.

Dust clung to everything like a second skin. He sat carefully on the edge of the bed and watched it rise from the sheets. He tried to remember the last night he had slept here. The last time he had fallen asleep in this bed. When he was still a boy, and still so sure that good triumphed evil, that they would all survive on kindness and justice and truth alone. His sixteen year old self would weep if he could see this; a man, rake-thin, crying in the room he had tried so hard to escape, because against all reason and against all odds, it felt so very good to be home. This place had never seemed like somewhere that Sirius would consider home. Azkaban changes a man.

It was only just before dawn. That half-light crept across the bed, across his waiting hand, and Sirius remembered the warmth of those old mornings. Of the sun on his back and his lover at his front. Caught delightfully between the warmth of early spring and the warmth of Remus Lupin.

"You still have the handsome, brooding look down then," came a voice from the door, and Sirius jumped, pulling his hand back out of the sun.

"Remus." Sirius' mouth was suddenly dry. Something was growing in his chest, a dark cloud of anxiety and fear.

Remus stood in the doorway awkwardly. He looked like he didn't know what to do with his hands. Sirius felt the urge, the need, to clasp them between his own. He stayed, perched on the edge of a bed that used to be his, and motioned to a man who used to love him. Remus hesitated only a second too long, but that was okay, Sirius decided. It had been a long time. It had been a lifetime.

The dust that had settled now danced again in the morning light as the bed dipped beneath Remus' body. The cloud in Sirius' chest swirled, though rays of something bright were threatening to break through. "I've missed you," Remus said quietly. Sirius barked a laugh, a harsh sound. "Missed me?" he asked. "You thought me a murderer, Remus. You thought I killed our friends."

Remus looked at his hands sitting in his lap. Sirius looked too. He forgot sometimes, when he thought about Remus, how much time had passed for him. How the world had continued to turn when he had been locked away. But these were an older man's hands. These were not the hands of the boy Sirius had known, not the hands that had played with his hair and slipped beneath the waistband of his uniform. He wondered briefly how many other men these hands had known since. How many women. Anger spiked in his chest as he reached for them, their fingers entwining instinctively, an old, familiar habit.

Remus looked up, meeting Sirius' eyes for the first time since he had sat down. "I hated you," he said, sincerity ringing in his words. "You understand, Sirius. You have to. You understand that – before, when we said we couldn't trust anyone – I knew that. I knew I couldn't. Trust you." His thumb ran along the back of Sirius' hand. "But I did. I trusted you, and I loved you even when we believed it was bad for us to – to be in love, to be together. I knew you weren't mine anymore but I trusted you still."

Sirius nodded noncommittally. He had spent thousands of hours wishing he had a chance to explain himself to Remus. Wishing he could make it right. He had imagined a million times all the things that he would say and the truths that he would tell and the words that would make it all okay. And here he was, gripping Remus' hand and unable to think of a single thing to say. His throat felt tight. A hurricane raged in his chest.

"I missed the you I thought I had," Remus whispered. "I missed the you I love and trusted. The murderer – he was just another man who wore your face. And I hated him."

Sirius did not speak. Instead, he watched Remus' face. A scarred and beautiful thing, his expression half nostalgia and half pain.

"I mourned you," he said. "I mourned that man. The one I loved." He turned to Sirius, their knees knocking. Sirius could feel the warmth of him through his robes. He had never wanted to touch all of someone so much. "It was easier to – to compartmentalise. To keep the Sirius I had known separate and safe, and remember him as a dead lover. And to distance myself from the murderer. The traitor. Do you remember years ago when I asked you to promise me one thing?" Sirius nodded again. "I said we should never regret us. I tried so hard to keep that promise," he said, so softly that Sirius could barely hear. "They took you away and I tried so hard." Raising a hand, Remus ran his fingers along Sirius' jaw gently. His old hands. Sirius swallowed and felt something in him break.

He felt hot tears spilling down his cheeks, but could not find it in him to care. "I still loved you – still do love you," he choked. Remus' own eyes looked bright, and Sirius could not bear to see him cry. He leaned forward and stopped just before his lips met Remus', just to revel for a moment in the warmth and sweetness of his breath. He let himself breathe in only Remus, and then closed the gap for the first time in fourteen years. The kiss tasted of salty tears and lust and Remus, and Sirius felt the dark cloud in his chest evaporate completely.

The sun shone fully through the net curtains now, the lace pattern projected onto the sides of their faces. It was warm, and soft, and everything was so bright. Sirius sighed against Remus' neck and smiled. The sun had risen. A new day had begun.