Chapter Text
Remus padded into the flat, pausing to let his eyes adjust. The open-plan living space was dim. Sirius had only left the lamp on by the couch, casting a soft golden glow through the flat. It should have felt cosy like it always did. But instead, it felt like walking into a fog. A thick, heavy fog that typically coated moors in gothic novels.
He raised his arm to hang up his coat, but his fingers met air. He frowned, stepped closer, and turned his head to look directly at the hooks. Only then did they snap into clear view. He hung his coat with more concentration than it should have required.
"Hey, love," Sirius called from the kitchen. Pots clanged softly. There was laughter in his voice.
"Hey," Remus replied, forcing ease into his tone.
He stepped carefully into the flat, tracking the edges of the hallway with his eyes. The shadows pooled in corners and made him nervous in a way he didn’t want to admit, even to himself. He'd bumped into the sideboard last week. Told Sirius it was because he was distracted.
Sirius appeared, drying his hands with a tea towel, face alight when he saw Remus. "How’d it go?"
Remus’s stomach lurched. The leaflets buried deep in the bag that was still slung over his shoulder suddenly felt heavier and more dangerous, like they might burst through the bottom of his bag at any minute and give the game away. He looked slightly to the side of Sirius, then corrected himself with a slight tilt of his head so he could see him properly. Focus. Lie quickly.
"Not as dramatic as I thought," Remus said lightly, letting the satchel slip from his shoulder to the floor. "Apparently, I just need new glasses."
Sirius raised a brow. "Again? That’s the third time in two years."
"Guess I’m just aging badly," Remus said, attempting a crooked grin.
Sirius scoffed and made grabby hands as he stepped closer, eventually looping an arm around Remus’s waist briefly, his touch grounding. He pressed a long, lingering kiss to Remus's lips before pulling back to look him in the eyes. "I beg to differ. You're ageing like a fine wine. Or a good cheese."
Remus chuckled and leaned in for another kiss, as much to break the eye contact as anything, for fear that Sirius would see the hidden defects within them. Sirius's mobile suddenly dinged from the kitchen. Saved by the bell, Remus thought.
Sirius pulled away and swiped his phone screen to silence the alarm. "Dinner’s almost ready. You’re on salad duty. But you will be telling me about the world’s most dramatic optometrist, later."
"In vivid detail," Remus promised, even though guilt was already climbing through his body like a second spine.
The kitchen was warmly lit, but it felt dim to Remus. Sirius liked soft lighting, and thought overheads were “aggressively unromantic.” Tonight, with the added weight of Remus's fresh diagnosis clinging to him, it felt like walking through water.
At the counter, Remus squinted at the vegetables. He had to turn his head slightly to spot the cucumber he'd just put down. The edges of the cutting board blurred into the counter unless he stared straight at them. He moved slowly, trying not to let the knife drift too far outside his ever-narrowing field of vision.
Sirius, plating pasta, chattered happily beside him. "Reg called again. Started off normal. Art exhibit, gallery stuff. Then, surprise, he tried to convince me Mum and Dad have changed."
Remus snorted. "Changed how?"
"Apparently, being old and rich is enough to earn redemption." Sirius shook his head. "Sounds more like they're trying to bribe him into loyalty if you ask me. Apparently they've donated huge funds to his gallery in the last year to show their support. He actually told me I should go to dinner sometime. Dinner, Remus. Like I didn’t spend half my childhood hiding under that same bloody dining table."
Remus looked up, catching Sirius’s face only after turning fully toward him. "Reg means well, even if he’s living in a fantasy."
"Fantasy’s right. Like an HBO reboot of our family, except with even worse lighting."
Remus laughed—genuinely—and then missed his next chop, slicing the edge of the tomato instead of the centre. He quickly corrected, but the pulse in his neck beat harder, as his body threatened to betray him in more ways than it already had.
#
Later that evening, as they curled up on the sofa together, Sirius turned on their usual movie-night setup. A projector low on the far wall, just a lamp glowing behind them. The darkness hugged the room. Remus adjusted his position, leaning slightly closer, ensuring he was looking directly at the screen to see it more clearly.
"You okay?" Sirius asked, noticing the lean.
"Yeah, just tired," Remus murmured, adjusting his head again to better catch the movement on the screen. Peripheral images felt like smears. When Sirius gestured during a story, Remus missed it completely.
"Work was madness today," Sirius said. "Lily got hit on by an elderly gentleman who needed stitches in his thumb after. Offered to share half his packet of biscuits with her as a way to woo her. I was pretty jealous, to be fair. I'd have killed for a biscuit mid-shift."
Remus smiled. He kept his eyes forward, not trusting that he could track Sirius’s face without moving his whole head. His hands were clenched in his lap. He couldn’t stop noticing the way the hallway had melted into darkness, and how the kitchen shadows made it hard to find things he knew were there.
He wanted to tell him. Wanted to say, It’s not glasses. I’m losing my sight, Sirius. It’s going, slowly, at the edges, and the dark feels bigger every day.
But instead, he just leaned his head on Sirius’s shoulder and closed his eyes. Better to pretend to sleep than explain the way the world was disappearing at the corners.