"You were pretty quick to hop back into my bed."

The cheeky, self-satisfied smirk on Sirius' face doesn't quite mask the slightly bitter tone lurking beneath.

"Especially, you know, considering you previously thought I'd murdered your best friend and all that."

I flinch at the thinly disguised accusation; I can't blame him for feeling somewhat resentful but then again, I never wanted to believe. Never, I could never quite allow myself to have the two men I pictured in my mind's eye merge: the young, playful and loving Sirius whom I'd fallen in love with at school, and the gaunt, bellowing image of the man everyone knew had committed such atrocities, that man who'd brought my world crashing down around me. Any physical resemblance between the two could be ignored; in essence they were as far removed from each other as the houses of Slytherin and Gryffindor. They were not the same man, and never would be, not to me.

His charcoal eyes, still tainted with years spent undeserved in Azkaban, search my own desperately as if trying to read my thoughts whilst I digest this last statement.

"Sirius, I didn't- I mean, I-"

I falter slightly, unsure of whether to continue, but the longing etched upon his hollow face encourages me.

"I can't stop loving you."

My words hang heavily in the silence between us; neither of us ever said it before, though countless times since he was convicted I've wished I had. I daren't lower my gaze.

I feel the rough tips of his fingers lightly trace the ugly scars on my chest.

"We're not just fucking?"

"We're not just fucking."

A smile creeps its way onto his lips, before Sirius brushes his mouth across mine and breathes, "well, I'm sure we fix that, now can't we?"