Livin' Thing

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(y/n tries to be two people at once and has a breakdown. yes this is personal, shh-)

POV: First person, y/n

I carefully read over the piece of paperwork floating in front of my face for what must have been the fourteenth time. It may as well have been written in foreign characters, because my eyes and brain refused to focus long enough to decipher the words typed in plain English on the page. My hands scrubbed busily at the cauldron I had made dinner in - beef stew, one of my few specialties that wasn't a curry or a pasta dish. It was two in the morning, and I was trying desperately to split my attention so that I could get enough sleep for work in a few hours. It had been just Reg and I at home for a few weeks now, since Remus got his new job. It was the first proper offer he had gotten in years, something cerebral rather than menial, the hiring manager had even looked at his O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s from Hogwarts before hand picking Rem for the job. I tried very hard not to miss him, but he had been handling all the home stuff for so long I had rather lost my touch for it, and on top of it I hadn't been away from him for this long since the war. I couldn't deny that I was starting to suffer both mentally and emotionally from his absence, but there was no chance of recalling him from his new opportunity just because I couldn't handle a few dishes. But as the words swam on the page, and the potatoes had burned to the inside of the cauldron, not to be scoured even by magic, the kitchen clock continued to tick away the small hours of the morning and I began to feel every hour since the last time I had fitfully slept. Thinking of all the other small chores I was already putting off, prioritizing the work of the utmost urgency and importance and neglecting the rest, I removed my hands from the sud-covered cauldron and dried them on a tea towel, snatching the paperwork out of the air as my concentration broke once and for all, almost letting the pages flutter to the floor. Flinging them onto the kitchen table instead and feeling like an utter failure, I sat down at the kitchen table to cry.

Just as the first sobs shook my body, tiny footsteps pattered down the hall and a dark haired little boy appeared in the kitchen doorway, just eight years old. "Mum?" he inquired, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, sweetheart." I replied, "I'm just a little tired."

He nodded sagely, "You should go to bed, then."

I smiled sleepily and nodded, "I will, soon. I just have a few things to finish up first." I stood up and crossed the kitchen to pull my son tightly to my chest, kissing the top of his head. "Are you sleeping okay?"

"Yeah."

"Do you need anything before you go back to bed?"

His eyes, so much like my own that I could read them like an open book, sparkled with mischief. "Cheese toasties?"

"You bet."

"I'll make them!" He ran to the old Smeg refrigerator and pulled out bread and cheese. I sat back down at the table to supervise, resolving to do the dishes in the morning before work. Eventually, we finished our sandwiches and went to bed, leaving the kitchen an unsightly mess and not caring one bit.

POV: Third person, Remus

The next evening, Remus collapsed into his bed above the Magical Menagerie more exhausted than ever. He had no idea why his new employer insisted that he live in Diagon Alley for his training period. For Merlin's sake, it was just a pet store, albeit with some pretty dangerous creature companions he was eager to learn more about, but it wasn't as if the crups were going to burst out of their enchanted cages in the middle of the night - and even if they did, he couldn't be called from home? He groaned into his pillow. He hadn't seen y/n and Reg for more than a few hours at a time in nearly three weeks, and it had truly begun to wear on him. Pulling the covers over his face in the rickety old bed, he thought he might have a short nap before getting some dinner, but just as he closed his eyes there was the sharp tapping of a beak on the window pane. Throwing the quilt back over the end of the bed, he got up to let the familiar barn owl in. His wife's pet tilted her head into his hand as he smoothed her feathers, taking the note that was tied with blue string to her leg. Instead of his y/n's loving scrawl, however, he discovered the large, labored print of his son.

'Dear Dad,

Mum sad not to tell, but I did promise to take care of her wile you are at work. I was not sleepy so I came down stairs and she (mum) was crying. I think she misses you. Maybe you should come home?

Sincerely,

Reg'

Remus sent Nyx back without a reply and pulled his suitcase out from under the bed. Pulling open his sock drawer, he impatiently opened all three, pointed his wand at the open case and commanded it to pack itself. Books, clothes, old letters, everything piled itself in neatly, jumpers and socks folded. He didn't even bother leaving the room to Disapparate.

POV: First person, y/n

I had just gotten home from work and begun making dinner when the door opened urgently and Remus burst in. I spun around, wooden spoon in my hand, and nearly dropped the implement in my hurry to wrap my arms around him.

"Is everything alright? Did you forget something?" I asked, but Remus ignored the question, his thumb brushing at the corner of my eye.

"He was right. Salt stains on your glasses, you were crying."

"Who was righ-? I asked Reg not to say anything!" I began to pull away from him but he had none of it.

"Darling, it's alright."

"No, it's not alright! I can't just fall apart whenever you're gone for a little while, I can't stop functioning! I'm a grown woman, I'm a mother and a wife and I don't know why I act like a little responsibility is too much for me!"

"You're working fourteen hour days, my love! You need rest! You need someone here taking care of you, the way you take care of Reg and I!"

"You deserve more than that. I'm doing this so that you can be employed! That's what I've always said! What kind of hypocrite, liar, monster would I be to keep you from fulfilling your potential while claiming to champion you? I refuse to be that - disgusting, I -"

"Y/n, do you hear yourself? You know what else you've always said, no matter what I've done or said - or haven't done? That I could never qualify as a monster. What makes you think that you might?"

"Please, you should go back to work."

"I can't."

"Yes, you can, you should finish your training."

"No, I really can't."

"Why not?"

"Because my employer informed me that if I left the premises during my training that he would take it as my resignation. So I invited him to do just that."

"What? No!" My knees weakened and I was in the same chair I had occupied last night, elbows on my knees, head in my hands. I couldn't believe I had failed him so miserably. He knelt between my legs to look me in the eyes.

"Y/n, it's fine. He was a despot anyway, to keep me away from my family for such a trifling thing. The most important thing in the world needed me here with her. It was selfish of me, leaving you to shoulder our entire life alone. We built it for the three of us." He slipped his hands under mine, cupping my face to kiss my lips and tear-stained cheeks. I knew crying made him uncomfortable, and the fact that he was willingly subjecting himself to my breakdown meant the whole damn universe to me. I kissed him back, and we finished making dinner together.

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