Remus should have come to expect Black’s seemingly tireless urge to small talk, and yet it always seemed to catch him in the most unfortunate times. Stuttering a hesitation, Remus’ brow furrowed, trying to finish a thought before it escaped him.<br/>The equation taking a rough form on his papers was barely a coherent theory but a necessary argument for the justification of his dissertation, and Remus had been in the middle of charting a weighted variable, a hazy mental image of a graph overlaid Black’s polite conversation.<br/>After hesitating for several long moments, pen hovering above paper, Remus scribbled in anything - a placeholder.<br/>He placed his pen back onto its penrest, his hands immediately lifting to his eyes. After hours of work in poor lighting, Remus rubbed at them, leaning back in his chair.<br/>“Sorry -” he muttered, voice drowned by his hands. When he let them fall, he blinked at the papers, letting the world get into focus before finally turning towards his coursemate.<br/>The comment wasn’t particularly reassuring. Remus wasn’t sure he could do another 11 months of this.<br/>“Yeah,” he eventually answered, realizing what Black had said. The assumption of ease settled poorly in Remus’ stomach, though he wasn’t sure why; he answered with a security he didn’t actually feel. “No, it’s going well, I just lost track of time.”