Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Remus only woke up the next morning because Sydney forced him to.
"Come on, my love," she said gently. "You have to eat."
She wiped his hair off his forehead and kissed him carefully. Remus, eyes still closed, blindly kissed her on the cheek.
"I don't wanna," he said sleepily. He tightened his arms around her waist. "I jus wanna lay here with you."
Sydney stroked his cheek softly with her thumb and kissed him on the forehead again.
"I know," she said. "But you were too nauseas to eat last night, so you have to eat something now. C'mon."
Remus sighed and loosened his grip on her. He opened his eyes to find her smiling softly at him. He kissed her again and then sat up.
Evidently, they had never gone upstairs the night before. Remus knew that he had fallen asleep on the couch in Sydney's arms. He assumed that either she had fallen asleep shortly after or had been awake when the others returned and simply did not want to wake Remus up. He had been extremely ill, after all.
Remus picked up Sydney's hand and led her into the kitchen.
"What do you want for breakfast?" he asked.
"I can make something," Sydney insisted, walking with him to the stove. Remus breathed a laugh.
"Good one," he said. Sydney frowned. "Chocolate chip pancakes?" Remus asked. Her frown disappeared.
Once he had managed to force Sydney to sit at the table and do nothing, Remus finished making the first batch of pancakes quite quickly. He set the first plate down in front of Sydney, though when his stomach growled loudly in protest, Sydney forced him to take it for himself.
"I know how to make pancakes," she said dryly. "And besides, you won't have to eat the ones I make, so it won't matter. Go sit down."
Remus had a quip cued up about still caring whether or not Sydney poisoned herself, but his stomach shouted up at him again, so he grabbed the maple syrup and went to sit at the table. Sydney followed a few minutes later with a set of pancakes that actually looked edible.
"See?" Sydney said. "I'm not entirely useless."
"Debatable," Remus said through a mouthful of food. Sydney rolled her eyes and was about to say something in return but was cut off by the brisk entrance of James and Lily.
James looked completely out of sorts, which Remus supposed wasn't unusual when in the presence of Lily, though still, something seemed off. Either way, this combined with the fact that James and Lily had come in through the side door left Remus and Sydney nearly invisible in their place at the table.
"I know I was a bit of an annoyance for the first few years of our friendship," James said. He paused for a moment, shifted uncomfortably, and added, "Well, I suppose we weren't quite friends... But I feel like this week we've really connected."
