Dream away (Remus/Sirius; Rated T; 17,5k words)

Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Thank you for Wereflamingo for betaing! Crossposted to AO3 and Fanfiction.net, under the same penname.

Remus liked gardening.

It was relaxing. He had no clue what he was doing, but who cared. In the years after the school ended he had to find something to do, and after he had moved to this cottage, he made this garden his own little project.

James and Lily had their children, Sirius had his bike, Peter had his small company that he was so proud of, and Remus had his small backyard garden.

Life was good and everybody was content.

Remus was pulling yet another vegetable up that he honestly didn't remember planting, nor did he recognize it as he was turning it around in his hands (what kind of a vegetable has rainbow stripes?), when he heard footsteps. He gave up identifying the strange plant and looked up.

Sirius leaned against the garden gate, looking out of place with his black leather jacket and boots next to the lightly painted wood with flowery pastel ornaments.

Never out of place, Remus corrected his thoughts with his heart aching, not here. This is where he should always be, standing in the sunlight, looking so young and carefree, smiling at him so beautifully.

"This is so you," said Sirius and shook his head. His eyes roamed around the small garden. "You could literally be doing anything in this world, and here you are, isolated and weeding your goddamn carrots."

"I'm not alone. You are here, aren't you?" He didn't add that he had no idea what he was weeding, but it they certainly wasn't carrots.

Sirius opened his mouth, then closed it. He huffed.

Remus smiled, amused and feeling such affection for the man. "I've never been alone or 'isolated' since I got to know you lot. Don't know if it's a blessing or a curse, seriously."

He was teasing, expecting perhaps a groan at the old joke, but all he got was sudden sad shadows on Sirius's face. "You once said that your perfect world would be 'never without one of us', but I didn't believe that you'd still think so. Where did we take the wrong turn, then?"

Remus had to look away from Sirius. His words didn't belong here, not in this garden, not in this sunny day. There was sharp pain hidden behind those words that could cut a heart open that made him want to steer away. "Stop being so weird and come help me. Dinner won't make itself."

After a moment he heard the gate open. Sirius kneeled beside him. "So. What are we having for dinner?" A pause, then, "What the heck is that?"

"I don't know," said Remus. "I was hoping you could help me identify it. I'd rather not try to cook it before knowing whether it's poisonous or not."

"It's your garden, mate," muttered Sirius and poked at the rainbow coloured plant that distantly resembled an octopus. "Bloody hell. Are you doing illegal cross-species experiments here or what? I knew that there had to be something more interesting going on here than just carrots and potatoes."

Remus sighed. "I guess I'll research it later. Let's go inside and see if there's anything edible there."

He put the weird plant inside a sack that he had been filling with the strange products from his garden the whole afternoon. The sack was almost full and looked unpleasantly heavy. He glanced at Sirius. "Help me carry this inside?"

"Of course. That's what I'm here for, after all. To help carry your burdens, which apparently are in the form of disfigured veggies."

Remus rolled his eyes and shoved him slightly. "No need to be so dramatic. It's just a bag of veggies." He took a good hold of the canvas and looked at Sirius. "On three?"