He came to with a scream as buckets of ice cold water hit him like needles. Someone was trying to kill him with cold. He was drowning. He was going to die. The Dementors had found him!
Sirius grasped frantically for a hold on something, his hands sliding down the smooth porcelain of a....bathtub? He shot up from where he was lying, his soaking wet hair falling into his face to find himself elsewhere and...quite naked?
“Welcome back,” Remus said from where he was sitting cross-legged on the loo.
“Stop it,” Sirius said with chattering teeth, drawing his knees into his chest and wrapping his arms around them in an attempt to retain some small measure of heat. He felt as though he’d never be warm again. “Stop it.”
“What? The water?”
Sirius nodded, his teeth chattering and clattering as his knees knocked together. He was so cold.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
Sirius squinted. “Seven?” he asked hopefully.
“On one hand?” Remus answered, sounding surprised. “No. You’ll get the water for a bit longer.”
Sirius wailed. “Make i’ stop!” he begged, shivering.
“In a while. Why did you drink five bottles of Firewhiskey? It tastes like acid.”
Sirius didn’t ask what acid was. “Did’n drink five bottles. Smashed one. Spilled t’other one.”
“It was still too much. Why?”
“Turn the water off!” Sirius whined again.
“Not until you answer my question. Why did you do it?”
Sirius glared at him, even though he wanted to cry. Why was Moony trying to kill him? Had he become a sadist since he’d been in Azkaban? How could Moony be sitting there, so calmly, watching him in the bathtub, naked and cold enough to freeze his bits off? He’d always thought that Moony liked his bits.
“Well?”
Sirius opened his mouth and felt something something salty slip into it. He swallowed at the same moment that he was crying again. The hot tears mixed with the icy water as he cried silently, his shoulders heaving as he sought to get his brain out of the pillow it had been stuffed into. The water was sharp against him, but everything else was fuzzy and dull. He heard Remus sigh heavily before the water came to a blessed stop.
He was sitting naked in the empty tub for a moment before it was suddenly filled with lovely hot water, easing him He felt nearly every muscle in his body melt in the delicious warmth. He’d never felt anything so good in his life as the hot water. He made a promise to himself that he would take a hot bath every single day for the rest of his life if Remus didn’t kill him first. He moaned at the thought, not wanting to consider the fact that Remus clearly wanted him dead, and burying his face in his hands, he slipped lower into the water.
“Oh no you don’t,” Remus said, hoisting him back up by pulling on his hair. “I won’t let you drown yourself literally either.”
“Bastard!” Sirius yelled, clumsily forcing Remus’s hands from his hair even as he realized that Remus must not want him dead after all if he’d stopped him from drowning. Unless...unless he really was a sadist and just wanted to prolong the torture.
“You don’t mean that,” Remus said easily. “Now, are you going to wash yourself up like a big boy or do I have to do it for you?”
“‘M no’ a baby,” Sirius muttered, taking offense at his tone. So Remus wanted him dead and he was going to treat him like a child while he killed him? The indignity was too much.
“That’s right. You’re an idiot and that’s much worse. Now again, can I leave you to wash yourself up so I can go get you some coffee or“”
“Coffee?” Sirius echoed, his ears perking up. It must have been years since he had had a decent cup of the stuff.
Remus smiled. “Yes. Coffee.”
“I’ll wash up!” Sirius promised, nodding his head eagerly as he grabbed for the bar of soap.
“Good. I’m trusting you not to drown yourself while I’m gone,” Remus said, standing up. “You won’t get any coffee if you do. Do you promise?”
“I promise,” Sirius said solemnly and Remus left the bathroom. If Remus was going to get him coffee he couldn’t be trying to kill him.
Somehow, Sirius managed to wash himself, although, it always was possible that he had washed the third arm and his two extra legs that had just appeared instead of the originals, but Remus would check when he came back. He stared around at the unfamiliar bathroom, his first time in it and left to his own thoughts again, slowly became wretched once more. He noticed the bottle of shampoo on the ledge labeled toxic though and was trying to unscrew the cap to drink that when Remus walked back in. He grabbed it from Sirius with a yell, nearly spilling the scalding coffee all over him.
“Watch m’ parts!” Sirius yelled, frantically covering himself.
Remus stared at him, and then burst out laughing, barely getting the cup down on the counter before doubling over and clutching his stomach.
“No’ funny!” Sirius yelled, far more than annoyed. It was one thing for Remus to want him dead. It was entirely another for him to start attacking his bits and then laugh about it!
“I’m sorry,” Remus wheezed, holding onto a corner of the sink, knocking off the graying toothbrush resting there and not noticing. “Sorry. I promise to watch your parts.”
Sirius considered this statement. “No funny business!” he warned, wagging a finger at Remus. If Remus wasn’t going to be careful about his bits, he didn’t deserve them.
Remus shook his head solemnly. “Absolutely not,” he agreed. “I promise to watch your parts with only the utmost of serious care.”
Sirius considered this statement as well. “You makin’ fun o’ me?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Thas’ all right then.”
Remus smiled. “Did you wash yourself up?”
Sirius nodded, completely forgetting in his drunken state that he had wanted Remus to make sure he was clean.
“Good. You may have your coffee then.”
Sirius took the mug greedily, and tipped it back before spewing the horrible tasting sludge that he had let into his mouth out a moment later. “Yech!” he said, pulling a face. Remus definitely wanted him dead.
“Drink up,” Remus said, smiling.
“But“”
“Drink,” Remus said, his voice sterner.
Sirius drank, making faces at Remus the entire time over the rim. This wasn’t coffee. This wasn’t even mud. It was bitterness, undiluted. Hadn’t he had enough of that tonight? “Done,” he said finally, handing it back. “Now can I have real coffee?”
“In a bit,” Remus said. “First we have to get you out of the tub, dried and dressed and under some heavy blankets.”
Sirius closed his eyes. “Mm. Blankets. I love blankets.” If Remus was going to let him get under the blankets he couldn’t want him dead. Unless he was going to smother him in his sleep with a pillow....
Remus laughed again, and Sirius opened his eyes to glare at this obvious mockery of himself to see Remus holding out a huge towel in front of him.
“Come on out.”
Sirius rose like a tsunami, splashing half of the water out of the tub and shaking the rest off himself like a wet dog. He allowed Remus to wrap the towel around him after a renewed promise of no ‘funny business’ before he followed Remus to his bedroom at the end of the hall.
It was a very regular sized room, with a very regular bed in the middle of it. A few pieces of very regular furniture filled it, dressers and a closet, and there were fairly regular belongings strewn about the room. Sirius met this with satisfaction. Of course; Remus was far away enough from regular to more than make up for the rest of the house.
Sirius smiled lewdly, remembering the parts of Remus that weren’t so regular.
“These are yours,” Remus said, interrupting the first pleasant thoughts Sirius had had all night and passing a pair of pajamas to him.
They looked vaguely familiar. “Are these“” he started, screwing his eyes up as he thought.
“Yes,” Remus said.
“You kept 'em? All this time?” Sirius asked, the shock of this realization taking him just a bit further out of his drunken stupor.
“Yes,” Remus answered. “I’ll expect you to explain why you haven’t come to claim them before tonight.”
“Why I“” Sirius began, confused. But Remus took him by the hand, helping him into the worn and comfortable pajamas he hadn’t used to sleep in for thirteen years. Although, he considered as Remus guided his legs into through the pajama bottoms, he hadn’t really ever done much sleeping in them. They’d ended up on the floor more often than not.
“Stick out your feet,” Remus said, hunching down on the floor.
Sirius eyes him warily. “Why?”
“Socks,” he answered simply, holding the pair up.
Sirius laughed like a two year, giggling as he fell back onto the mattress. It was good of Moony to remember after all these years that he didn’t like for his feet to be cold. Of course, the last time they had spent Christmas together, it had been Moony’s feet that had been cold.
“Yes, Sirius, socks,” Remus said, smiling back. “No cold feet for you tonight. Under the blankets,” he said, standing up and lifting Sirius’s socked-feet off the floor and up onto the bed, pulling the blanket out and covering him with it. “Now,” he said once they were both settled, “why did you get drunk?”
“I tol’ you, I was“”
“Drowning memories,” Remus finished. “I know. Which ones?”
“All of ‘em,” Sirius answered, waving a vague hand around the room.
“Ah ha. If I may ask, why?”
“They were hunting“no,” he said. That wasn’t right. “Erm. Haunting me.” That was the right word. He smiled, pleased that he had managed to find it in the muddle of his mind.
Remus though, frowned at him. “Why were they haunting you?”
“I’s Chris’mas,” Sirius said simply, as though that explained it.
“Ah. And ghosts haunt you on Christmas because....?”
“Because i’s Chris’mas,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes at Remus’s inability to grasp such a simple concept.
“Ah,” Remus said once more.
Sirius pointed an angry finger at Remus. “Why’d’you keep sayin’ tha’?”
“Saying what?” Remus asked, leaning back and away from the finger that was practically touching his nose.
“Ah!” Sirius yelled.
“Oh.”
Sirius glared at Remus.
“Sorry,” Remus said, “I’ll try not to say it again.”
“Good. Y’better not,”Sirius said warningly. “Now. ‘M goin’ t’sleep,” he announced, rolling onto his side and closing his eyes, sinking into the mattress. Mattresses were lovely too. He hadn’t slept on a real mattress in the longest time.
“Sirius.”
He snored loudly, theatrically. A lovely sound, really. He wished he’d known how to snore like that back in school. Would have gotten him out of quite a few messes.
Remus sighed. “Fine. I’m waking you up in an hour though. You aren’t going to get away with this so easily.”
“Will too,” Sirius argued. Too late he realized that Remus would realize now that he wasn’t sleeping. “Damn,” he said.
He felt Remus’s weight leave the bed and the light closed a moment later, followed by the click of the door. He was fast asleep before Remus’s hand left the handle.