Chapter Text
If you had asked young Remus what he wanted to be when he grew up, he’d have said a writer, for sure. Writers knew everything, after all. They were like Gods in their own private universes. They could create humans out of ink and pour love and magic in the space between the words. They could cast a spell on their readers, put their minds at ease, fill them with happiness, sorrow, sadness, surprise, turn their stomachs with fear, shake their thoughts and put their realities upside down. Writers were more than muggles, more than wizards. They were simply more. And Remus knew, deep down, that he would never be alone as long as he could bury his nose in a story, inhale the smell of old books and dark libraries, feel the dry paper with the tip of his fingers, turn the page to live more, and more, and more.
If you ask present Remus what he would’ve liked to be now that he’s a grown up, he’d tell you anything, anything but a writer. Because writers are not Gods. They are liars. They are simply people with a better capacity to manipulate than your regular human. They tell lies for a living and give false hope to innocent minds like Remus’ once was. And those who dare speak the truth are silenced. Nobody wants to read about the war, about the awful things wizards and muggles have done, what humanity is capable of. The blood, the pain, the betrayal. Writers like the ones Remus used to read were professional ignorants, specialised in romanticising tragic lives to the point that one wanted, yearned to be the one living them.
Now Remus knows: there’s nothing romantic about a tragic life.
With a tired sigh, he closes the Jane Austen novel he’d been reading, the one Lily got him for his seventeenth birthday. He used to love these novels, used to treasure their stories like hope inside his chest, the love reflected on those pages so alike and so different from the love he craved. From the love he got.
Love in books was forever loyal, pure, unwavering. Love in real life… it was more complicated than that, especially amidst a war.
“You’re not even paying attention, are you?” says Sirius, dropping his arms in surrender. “You don’t even care”
“Really?” asks Remus, indignant. “You don’t even care if I care”
“I can’t believe we’re fighting over stupid spilled tea,” Sirius laughs, but it’s an ironic sort of laughter, a cruel one. Remus doesn’t like it at all. It creeps him out.
“It’s not about the tea and you know it,” Remus yells, standing up. He walks to Sirius and pushes a finger into the other man’s chest. “It’s about you doubting me all the time. It’s about you going through my drawers, for fuck’s sake!” Now it’s Remus who is laughing like a maniac. “What? You think I’m cheating on you?!”
Sirius suddenly goes quiet. Remus frowns, unsure what it is he can feel in the air around them but certain that it is not good. He weights Sirius’ words, analyses them, looking for their hidden meaning. He tries to read Sirius’ thoughts in his bushy eyebrows, the grey colour of his eyes, the curve of his mouth, his hands which can’t stop twitching.
And then he understands.
A cold shiver runs down his back. “You…” he mutters. “You think…” He feels his knees go weak and stumbles to the couch.
“Remus…”
He shakes his head, words stuck in his throat.
“I’m sorry…”
“Don’t,” he cuts him off. His voice is deep, almost a grunt. He’s trying to comprehend but he can’t, he can’t. Suddenly his eyes well up and he’s crying. Sirius tries to approach him, sit next to him, but he sends him a deadly look that keeps him away.
The thought had never occurred to him until now. That Sirius could think he was… He never thought Sirius could be, and he never would, not ever. He thought their bond —call it friendship, call it love— was stronger than that. But then came the fucking war.
“I need you to leave,” he pleads.
Sirius looks like he might argue for a moment, but then his shoulders drop and in a second, he is out of the room.
It dawns on him slowly at the middle of the night, lying down on the bed, alone for the first time in ages, with only the light of a nearly full moon shining through the window and casting shapeless shadows on the wall. His eyes are on the ceiling but his mind is elsewhere, thinking back to all the little details he’d let pass the last months. James and Lily no longer visited, it was always Sirius visiting them, at times when Remus was too busy with Order work to tag along. Lily, who used to write to him at least twice a week telling the new adventures of a naughty Harry, together with moving pictures of him fumbling with the little broom Sirius and Remus had got him, no longer wrote. He attributed to the stress she might be under, but now he wonders. He wonders about Pete, who he hasn’t seen in at least a month. He wonders about the questions Sirius now asks continuously, the ones that Remus thought came from pure interest, about what he did during his morning walk, where he went and who he spoke to. He wonders about the last time Sirius told him he loved him.
He wonders. And he understands.
Tears spill from his face and it’s been so long, so long since he felt this kind of self-hatred. Since his belly twisted with the thought of getting up from the bed, because what purpose is there to him living? His presence in this world has only served to cause pain, to his friends, to his loved ones, to himself.
There is nothing he can do to convince them, because he cannot even convince himself of his goodness. He may not be a spy, but that doesn’t matter. He does wrong by just existing, putting worries on his friends’ minds, most probably making them feel guilty for thinking something that it’s just so logical. Out of all of them, Remus is the beast. Remus is the one with the reasons to betray, to hurt, to scream in pain and rage along the voices of all those who Voldemort swears to protect.
He is useless as it is, not helping either of the species he belongs to with his existence. He’s not a bad person. He’s not a good one. He is the gray shadow in a black and white world.
He looks at the window.
He looks back at the ceiling.
He looks at the window again.
He questions, he answers.
Tonight, he’s not scared of the wolf. He’s scared of Remus. But he remembers the first time Sirius found out he was a horrible, murderous creature and hugged him, hugged him so tightly Remus’ ribs ached and whispered “there is nothing to be scared of.”
Any other night, the noises wouldn’t have woken Sirius. But this was not any other night, and he was not used to sleeping alone any more.
He walks towards Remus’ bedroom, not surprised to find the door closed. He knocks lightly.
“Remus? Is everything all right?”
No one answers,
“Remus?” he repeats, as a bad feeling crawls up his back.
Some seconds pass in silence, and then: “Go away, Sirius,” says Remus in a broken voice.
Sirius swallows down his pain. His guilt. The feelings that have hunted him all day the last few months.
“Remus, please. Let’s talk”
“No. Please, just… just go away”
Sirius goes to open the door, then retreats his hand. He turns to go back to his room.
And then he turns around again.
He opens the door forcefully. “We must talk, Re…”
He freezes.
Remus is standing in front of the window, half naked, with a foot on the stool and his hands firmly grabbing at the edges. He’s looking at Sirius, his face a mask of pain and horror. And then he’s looking ahead.
“No!”
Sirius runs towards him, practically jumps from his place to Remus, his heart in his throat. Everything seems to move quickly and slowly at the same time. It seems one second, or an eternity of them.
Sirius’ hand closes around Remus’ right arm and yanks back with all its force. They both fall to the ground and Sirius immediately hugs Remus’ waist, stopping him from standing up again. Remus struggles, crying “Let me! Let me!”
But Sirius won’t let him go. He won’t ever let him go. And Remus might be taller, but Sirius is stronger, thank Merlin.
They stay like that for a while, Remus’ attempts at escaping from Sirius’ grasp getting weaker and weaker by the minute, until he just curls into himself, crying and whimpering and muttering nonsense.
“It’s okay,” Sirius mumbles. He’s not crying. Should he be crying? He’s too shocked to think what he should be doing. “It’s okay, love. It’s going to be okay”
Sirius sets the cups on the table. Remus mutters a thank you. He looks horrible, but somehow better. He’s picking at the hem of one of Sirius’ t-shirts, the first he could find in their closet, a worn-out blue thing with some band’s logo. His face is red from crying and the scar over his mouth seems more noticeable than ever. His eyes are glassy, lost into space.
Sirius gives him some minutes, until he can’t help breaking the silence.
“Your tea’s getting cold”
Remus’ mouth twitches.
More silence.
And then, it’s like everything breaks inside Sirius. The pain begins in his chest and extends down his back, to his arms, to his legs, to the tip of his fingers. He looks down, grabs his head, and he’s crying like he’s never cried before.
“I’m s-sorry,” he says, his voice shaking. “Remus, I’m s-so sorry”
He’s crying so much the tears cloud his vision, so he can barely see Remus when he gets up from the chair. He feels him grab his hands, forcing them away from his face. Remus somehow manages to sit down on Sirius’ lap, embracing him, pushing him close to his chest.
“I’m sorry too, Sirius”
Sirius presses his face on Remus’ chest, feeling its warmth against his cheek. “I’m so sorry I doubted you,” he whispers.
“I understand”
Sirius shakes his head. “It was wrong”
“It’s okay”
“It’s not,” asserts Sirius. “Did you ever doubt me?”
He moves his head to look up at Remus and he knows, by just looking into his eyes, that the answer is “never.” Remus would never doubt him. And still, he keeps on thinking he’s the monster in the relationship. Sirius feels like the guilt will never abandon him. But he deserves it.
“I’m sorry I thought you were the spy, but…”
Remus opens his eyes wide, a horror-struck look on his face.
“Sirius!” he yells.
Sirius’ heart jumps. “What?”
“The spy!” exclaims Remus in a desperate voice.
He frowns, unsure of what Remus means. “I know now you’re not…”
“No!” Remus shakes his head vehemently. “If I’m not the spy, and you aren’t, then…”
Sirius feels the hairs on his neck stand. Fear strikes him like a bolt. “James is going to make him their secret keeper”
Remus looks at Sirius with so much fear on his face it makes him tremble.
“We need to go to James’, now,” he urges.
He climbs off Srius’ lap. Sirius rushes to the chimney. “I’ll go, you send a patronus to Dumbledore”
Remus nods, already on his way to the bedroom to retrieve his wand. But just before he disappears down the hall and Sirius steps into the chimney, he comes back. He takes three big steps towards Sirius, grabs the back of his head and kisses him. It’s a short kiss, but it contains a million words.
When they separate, Sirius’ eyes are full of tears again. “I’m scared, what if it’s too late?”
Remus gives him a sad smile, caressing his cheek. “My love,” he says. “There is nothing to be scared of”