the (short) one where sirius paints doors
When Sirius ran away from home (the fourth time, that is, the last one, as there were many times of him just running away), Remus was spending the summer at James’s.
It’s this two-storey thing at the end of a very short street. It’s not anything massive - James went a bit crazy when left alone in a huge space by himself - and they were really only ever on the three-room ground floor; Mrs. Potter used upstairs for when she came to visit, and although the basement was fully furnished as some sort of a bachelor pad just as much, James liked his little balcony and the slide glass windows.
There’s a small elevated garden beside the house, just to fill up the rest of the lot. Grass and yellow climbing roses and an old bench swing that was well on its way to ruin. When Sirius moved in, he repaired and repainted it. He said it was therapeutic. Painting it. The awful bruise around his eye was still healing at the time.
Remus would watch him work from the balcony while he did laundry, stealing furtive glances through the clothes he hung, noting the strange level of fervor Sirius gave while painting it. James, who considered jogging to the 7eleven two blocks away to get a strawberry yogurt drink part of his morning workout, always checked the paint on his way, and it was always wet. Sirius never seemed to finish it. Or want to finish, maybe.
James bought him more paint a week later. He told Sirius he could repaint the doors of the house if he wanted something else to work on. And he did. Sirius finally let the swing go. He even did the supplies shed door that, to James’s knowledge, literally no one had ever used.
James helped, this time. With the doors. Even when it was 3 AM and Sirius couldn’t sleep, and James was just going to the bathroom and had only really slept two hours - he stayed and helped. Every time. They didn’t talk, mostly. Just painted. Bumped knuckles. Hummed songs.
Remus didn’t ask why they slept on the floor when he found them on those mornings either. He just - well, he stepped over them and made breakfast. Watched and sighed at them snore on the floor while he munched away on his waffles from the counter. On those days, it was him who went and bought James’s strawberry yogurt drink.
At some point, James and Remus met in the middle of the night in the kitchen, scaring the living shit out of each other. Sirius had moved on to the cupboard. James and Remus were both holding a set of blankets and pillows. The faces they made to stop themselves from bursting out laughing were as funny as the whole thing was.
They ended up dropping the covers unceremoniously beside Sirius, then running to their rooms whisper-laughing.
The laughter extended to breakfast the following morning, this time without any restraint, as Sirius was up and with them and also thinking about how ridiculous it was. They had waffles and strawberry yogurt drinks. The bedding was still on the kitchen floor.
The next night, Sirius slept in his room.
The cupboard remained unfinished, so one out of the three double-doors over the sink is still so much whiter than the rest to this day. It’s eye-catching, the stark difference. It’s the first thing anyone who entered the kitchen would see.
James smiles every time he sees it.