AN: QLFC Season 5 Round 11. Prompt is unrequited love coming true on a winter's night, and additional prompts are "I gave you a second chance. I ran back into a burning house to save the things I loved." by Beau Taplin, muffle, and the song Oceans by Seafret (prompts 8, 9, and 15). I used lyrics from the song as the title for this story and within the dialogue.

It may seem like I'm writing a lot of Sirius/Remus, but I promised my friend I'd write something happy for these two after the last round. So I just... kind of dropped them into a College AU? Oops. Though honestly this story would have better pacing if it had like, 10k more words.

As a final note the poem that Sirius recites is 'As is the Sea Marvelous' by ee cummings. If you haven't read it before, you definitely should. (It's a love poem.)

Final word count: 2154

"So are you coming back for Christmas?" Remus asks, deliberately nonchalant. He folds his laundry as he says it, every fold almost obsessively precise. He smooths out each crease nervously, because his anxiety always tends to show up somewhere, and anyway it's not like Sirius can see the nervous tics.

Sirius laughs sheepishly over the speakers of Remus' cheap phone. His voice is tinny, and if he speaks too loud sometimes he sounds more like static than an actual person. It's the one of the few things Remus has of Sirius, now that Sirius is on the other side of the ocean. It's a funny way of thinking, because Remus has spaces in his home that Sirius has more or less claimed as his own. There's an old sweater that's lost its smell in the back of his closet, a blanket with cartoon dogs on the sofa, coffee he doesn't drink in the kitchen. A whole bunch of little things that Remus shared with Sirius that Remus never really gave thought to before.

Now, they're just Remus'.

"Well, a ticket to London and back wasn't exactly part of the scholarship," Sirius says, a little wistful. "Not that I'm not thankful for everything else," he adds.

Remus smiles, a little sad. "You worked hard for that full-ride," he says. He puts another shirt on to the pile of folded laundry next to him, then grabs another shirt out of the laundry bin. "You barely got any sleep for the last two years of highschool just for that scholarship."

"You mean so I never had to step foot in the same town as my family again," Sirius corrects dryly.

"That too," Remus says with a small laugh. The laughter peters off quickly, easing into a sigh. Another shirt joins the pile of folded laundry.

"Literature major, though," he says. "Who would have thought." He stares at his hands for a moment. A university on the other side of the world. Who would have thought.

"It pissed my parents off so much," Sirius agrees gleefully. "But you've gotten me offtrack. Wait, hang on -"

He says something to someone on his side of the line that's too muffled for Remus to hear clearly. The sound of a car door slamming, then Sirius' voice again, cheerful. "Anyway! Like I said, airplane tickets weren't exactly part of the scholarship deal, but I got a part-time job, remember? I've been saving for months."

Remus blinks, glancing at his phone like it would reveal Sirius' face. Of course it doesn't. Sirius has been insisting on calling Remus without any video for a solid two weeks now, giving dumb excuses like his dorm room was a mess, or he was outside. Remus knew Sirius was lying from the get-go. His room is always looks like a bomb went off in his closet.

"Sirius?" Remus says. "What did you do?"

Sirius barks out a laugh. Static overlays it, but by this point that's familiar, comfortable, even though it's not what Remus wants.

"I haven't done anything!" Sirius defends himself, though he laughs through it and doesn't do a good job of being convincing. "Honest. I haven't done anything. Bad, that is."

Remus frowns. He pushes aside the laundry basket and stretches to reach his phone on the coffee table. "Sirius," he says very seriously into the phone. "What did you do?"

Sirius' grin is almost audible. "'She goes forth out of hands and she returns into hands.' Look outside, Remus."

It feels like everything suddenly stopped in that moment: the dust motes in the air illuminated by the sunset coming through his curtains freeze in place, his heart stops beating, his breath stops mid-inhale, the sound of the cars outside his apartment suddenly become silent.

Then everything resumes.

Remus scrambles up from the couch, almost knocking over his folded laundry, and sprints for the window. He wrenches them open, and, squinting through the golden light, peers down to the street below. He almost drops his phone, but his hand tightens around it reflexively. "Oh my god," he breathes out.

Sirius looks up from the pavement, dressed warmly for the weather in a thick coat and a beanie already lightly dusted by snowflakes. His cheeks are a rosy pink from the cold, and his mouth is stretched into such a wide grin Remus can see its smug lilt clearly from the third floor. He waves with his free hand after shouldering his heavy backpack more securely behind him. Somehow, they make eye contact - Sirius' mischievous eyes into Remus' wide ones.

"Merry Christmas," Sirius says into the phone, voice soft and deep, like his eyes.

Sirius takes them Honeyduke's for hot chocolate.

"God, you look so different with that stubble," Remus remarks, sipping his drink. "Much better than whatever that thing on your face was in highschool."

Sirius snickers as he nods in thanks to the barista. He turns with his drink in hand and begins to herd Remus out of the coffee shop. The place is full, anyway, so it wasn't like they were going to find a place to sit down. Just as he thinks that, he has to pause as some rowdy college students scurry into the store, laughing raucously.

The corner of Remus' lip quirks up. It's hard to believe he's the same age as them.

"What about that moustache that you tried growing, huh? Glasshouses, Remus," Sirius says. He holds open the door solicitously for Remus, and begins to walk down the road. Snow crunches underfoot, but since the snowfall only stopped recently the snow is actually clean and white for once.

"Okay, point," Remus says. The moustache was terrible. They pause at an intersection to wait for the lights to change. Cars slowly pass by, carefully driving through the accumulated snow that has yet to be plowed out of the way.

Remus stares at the street sign next to the crossing light for a long moment. Sirius sips his hot chocolate.

"Sirius?" Remus says. "Can I ask you something?"

Sirius looks over, but Remus keeps staring straight ahead. The pedestrian light comes on, so he walks forward as he thinks of how to phrase his question. Sirius follows after a second of hesitation. They both carefully step over the wet, blackened tracks of snow as they make their way to the other side of the street.

"Why did you come back?" Remus ends up saying. He waves the hand holding his drink around as if to indicate the town, since his other hand is shoved in his coat pocket. "I mean, you said that once you got out of this town you'd never come back." Remus pauses, and then, ruthlessly admits to the both of them, "You hate this town."

There. A truth they've never put into words before now.

Sirius is quiet for a moment as he steers them down one of the quieter roads.

"'I gave you a second chance,'" Sirius says, voice low and melodious, the way he sounds when he recites poems that he's studied to Remus over the phone. "'I ran back into a burning house to save the things I loved-'" Remus' hand tighten around his drink at the word 'love,' even though he knows Sirius doesn't mean it the way Remus want him to.

"- or at least that what it feels like." Sirius finally looks at Remus, his face serious for once.

"I figured," Sirius says, a bit rueful, "that I'd give this place a second chance." He breaks out into a crooked grin. "It's got you, after all. And I ended up missing you more than I ever thought I could."

Maybe, Remus thinks, for the first time in his life. Maybe it'd work out.

"I'm going back to America in two days," Sirius says, deliberately nonchalant. His voice is even and strong, and his back is to Remus as he says it. He's looking forward instead as they hike through the forest just outside of town, on the trail to the old castle.

The castle is tiny for an old Scottish castle, but their town is small enough that the castle seems huge and important. In their childhood they'd played there pretending to be knights and wizards and all sorts of things. They called the castle Hogwarts; their own home away from home.

"I have lunch with James and Lily tomorrow, but after that I was hoping to spend the rest of my time with you."

Remus doesn't say anything, instead looking at the tense line of Sirius' shoulders. They'd finished their drinks a while ago so there's nothing for Sirius to distract his hands with. They curl at his side into tight fists instead. Another moment of silence, and then Sirius whirls around, almost tripping on a tree root. "I know I didn't give you much warning, but I - I wanted to stay with you for however long - " Sirius catches Remus' eyes, finally, and softens, the tension going out of him. "For however long you'll let me," he says softly. "I'll follow your lead."

Remus is smiling. "I'd like that."

They trek a little more, until they reach a fork in the trail. The more well traveled, familiar path on the right leads to Hogwarts, another half an hour of hiking away. No doubt there's at least a handful of people already there. There's footprints in the snow, pressing the snow down until its slippery and brown.

Remus tugs Sirius down the path on the left; down, down, and then up the sudden incline of stairs, until finally the forest opens up and they're edging past and creaky, boarded up shack. Past the shack is Remus' spot, the one he found all on his own one day after his class at the community college left him more lonely and frustrated than usual.

The sunset is almost over, a beautiful golden-orange colour with streaks of red in a cloudless sky. This high up and away from the lights in town, the sunset looks almost saturate. That isn't what Remus comes here for, though. Down below their small town sprawls out in glittering gold, the sun reflecting off of pure white snow. A shimmering sea of sunlight.

"Wow," Sirius says. "Wow," he repeats, going around the fallen log a few meters away from the edge and sitting on it. He doesn't even try to dust off the snow, but that makes sense. He's wearing the snowpants Remus forced him into before they left after Sirius has said he wanted to see the forest - he won't get wet.

Remus steps over the log and sits down next to him. They watch the last few minutes of sunlight together.

"Hey, Sirius?" Remus says, still staring at the town even as darkness engulfs it so that the town is just pinpricks of light in the dark. He wrings his hands nervously in his lap. "I'm just - I don't know how to phrase what - I just - "

"Remus," Sirius says gently. "'She returns into hands,' remember? Say whatever you need to say. I'll still be here."

Remus huffs out a laugh. "Okay," he say, taking a steadying breath. "You asked for it."

Despite saying that, Remus still needs another long minute to begin. "Okay. I want you. I want you and nothing comes close to - I need you, okay? Ever since we were kids, and I think I always will." Remus looks down at his hands. "It just came to a - a head when you left and all those months I thought I'd never see you again and I thought I'd rather - I'd rather drown than go on without you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you don't need this, you can't even stay for long - "

Sirius puts his hand on top of Remus'.

"I love you," he says, plainly, and sincerely. For a brief moment Remus thinks that it's ironic that the literature student is the one without the flowery language, but then his brain catches up and Remus' head whips up to stare into Sirius' dark eyes. There's a familiar warmth and softness to them, and only now Remus recognises those eyes as the same ones he looks at Sirius with.

"'The sea does not change and she goes forth out of hands and she returns into hands.' I've always loved you. For forever. I just didn't realise until I left, and when I did I knew I had to come back." Sirius says, squeezing Remus' hands.

Sirius grins, leaning forward. "I guess we've both been waiting a long time."