The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

How to Have a Healthy Conversation

Remus brought Tonks home fairly quickly, the full of Sheer Heart Attack hadn't even played (Sirius duplicated it with a charm and gave it to her, hoping that the duplicate would play correctly when she dropped the needle) and when he returned he was carrying a bag of three new comic books for Bradley, who eagerly rushed to his room in the suitcase, eager to read them and rather sick of listening to Sirius's on-going musical education, which had continued long after Remus and Tonks left the flat in East London. This, at last, left Remus and Sirius alone, standing in the living room, facing one another from opposite ends of the coffee table.

Remus drew a deep breath. "Alright, now we talk."

Sirius nodded. A pit was forming in his stomach. He bit his lower lip. "I'm really nervous, Remus." He paused, then, "I don't really know how to do this properly. I mean, with you and I. For some reason, it's harder when it's you and I. Why is it harder, then?"

Remus thought for a moment, then he said, "Perhaps because we expect too much of the other."

"Expect too much?" Sirius asked.

"Yes, for instance, I love you and I don't understand why you don't think the same way that I do and a lot of the time I sort of act - and react - as though you do think the same way that I do. I feel so much like you are a part of me and I a part of you that it's very hard to differentiate, sometimes, between where you end and I begin and I think that it hurts our communication skills quite a lot at times. We expect each other to just get it, and... unfortunately, that's not how it usually works."

Sirius thought about this, then nodded, "Alright, that makes sense."

Remus nodded. He slid his hands into his jumper pockets. "I reckon we ought to do this in the kitchen, and perhaps sit at the table and I'll make us some tea and we'll do this properly... have a healthy conversation for once."

Sirius said, "Tea sounds good."

They went into the kitchen and Sirius sat down while Remus magicked the kettle onto the stove and got out Sirius's favorite tea bags and a handful of aconite for himself to float on top. He knew better than Sirius did himself how Sirius took his tea - splash of milk, more sugar than Remus himself found necessary - and within minutes he was sliding a piping cup across the table to Sirius, who wrapped his palms around it and Remus sank into the chair opposite him.

Sirius sat sprawled in his chair, his legs wide apart like he'd landed from a great distance, one arm over the back of the chair, his bum pushed forward to the edge of the seat. Remus sat a bit more proper, his right leg crossed over the left one at the knee so it lay at a right angle, his back against the chair back, but pushed back from the table so that he held his cup on it's saucer on his knee instead of the table itself, balancing.

"So - how to have a healthy conversation," Remus mused, thinking.

"When you're us," intoned Sirius with a smirk.

"I think we need to lie down some ground rules."

"Here you go with the logistics," Sirius said, smiling, "Doesn't this feel familiar?"

"The rules will be a wee bit different for this than they are for -- for logistics," Remus replied evenly. He paused, then, "Though the idea is the same. We need to consider each other's feelings and - erm - needs, input. Et-cetera. If we don't pay each other the proper respect then someone --"

"Will get torn a new one," Sirius smirked.

"I was going to say would get hurt."

"I mean, getting torn a new one would hurt, wouldn't it?"

Remus cleared his throat.

"Sorry. You know me. I joke when I'm nervous as fuck."

Remus nodded, "I do know that about you. See, that's an example of something that we don't usually voice, but take for granted as an expectation. You expect that I would know that about you. And I do know that about you. But I do appreciate the acknowledgement that it was inappropriate at the moment."