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𝚇𝚇𝙸𝚇 >> 𝙾𝙽𝙴 𝚂𝙸𝙽𝙶𝙻𝙴 𝙳𝙴𝙲𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝚂𝙲𝙾𝙽𝙴

< 2 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS >

Snape leads a prosperous day due to it being a Saturday. He has no classes to prepare for nor embark. He wakes up on Lupin's sofa to the noise of him cooking something in the kitchen, and he need not brood over missing it.

He sits up, readjusting his robes. He can't remember when or how he even fell asleep here. But he doesn't care and this information does not matter to him. He is here and he is warm and a great weight has been taken off of him, his secrets becoming diaphanous and buoyant as they've been spilled. Sunlight waves itself through the thin, translucid curtains on the nearest window; Severus feels a ray of it on his skin.

"Hello, Lupin."

Remus' head peeks through the kitchen doorway and smiles at him in a way that he finds eerily jovial, but Remus has always been like this: laid-back, accepting, galvanized in the youth of his spirit.

"Good morning, Sev," he says warmly, and he means it. "I'm making you quite likely the greatest oatmeal to ever grace your deserving self on this undeserving earth."

There's a blanket that has been draped over Snape's shoulders. Accepting it, he pulls it tighter around himself. "You claim the title of oatmeal superiority spanning the history of the whole world?" he challenges, although his heart is barely in the arraignment.

"I am," Lupin replies, and he brings out a bowl, appearing from the kitchen in loose nightclothes and handing it over with a spoon. "When it's all you can afford to live on, you learn how to make it well out of necessity. Not too thick nor too thin, not too sweet, and just enough berries to tie it together." He says this prestigiously, as if he's a master chef with a lot more money than he has, and the light sarcasm is flagrant even to Severus, who is so used to his own that he often tunes it out.

"I assume you can dispense an unerring number of berries with precise measurements of brown sugar and butter when making such high-class endeavors," Severus naturally conjectures, and he only pretends to count everything. But, to his incredulity, Remus is actually fully ready for this question, and is furthermore barely even joking when he explains.

"The blueberry-to-raspberry ratio should be two-to-one," he replies. "Any more raspberries and you'll probably say to yourself, 'There are too many raspberries in here,' and then you won't want to eat it anymore."

Severus, feeling rather forced into this, takes a small bite of the oatmeal, which tastes slightly better than how he remembers oatmeal ever tasting. "Oddly, Rem, I cannot name it terrible."

"Yeah, it's typically decent," Remus replies. "I've got no idea how old the oats are, though." He sits next to Snape, crossing his arms and leaning back on the sofa cushions.

"I like when you call me Rem."

Snape glances over, suddenly very busy eating as he attempts to evade all empirical attention away from his own behavior and existence. "Mm?"

"Yeah, I do," Lupin continues, his eyes following the small, slightly-concerning cracks in his ceiling. "You called me by my last name yesterday, you know, when you were... telling me all that. And it felt distant, and I like when you call me Rem. It comforts me, I think. Makes me feel closer, or... more adored, or something."

Severus eats in silence. Until Lupin broke down last night, he had never considered that he might need succor and assurance in their relationship as well, though that seems almost too axiomatic to not even guess at. But he truly never has cogitated about it. Remus has always seemed to sturdy, so knowing, so sure of everything. He hasn't appeared to require that echelon of support before. But it seems to be the smaller things like pet names that give him that mnemonic for affection. Things like calling him Rem.