Work Text:
The longest a human being had gone without sleep was eleven days. Sirius knew this because Lily and him had looked this up once Remus had been four days without sleep.
Sirius had hoped that Peter’s arrest would be a turning point, provide some kind of closure or some nonsense like that but Sirius didn’t know, maybe Remus was struggling with the same paranoia he was. That if Peter was a spy for the death eater’s than who else could they really trust and wasn’t there a chance that there were spies in the Ministry and Peter could get out and he said he’d done this all for their own good but now there was a good chance he didn’t think of the people who had turned him in as ‘friends.’
But that wasn’t his current problem. His current problem was Remus wasn’t sleeping.
The first night Sirius had found Remus baking in the kitchen and tried to usher him back to bed. Remus said he’d join him once he was tired, but Sirius went back to bed and in the morning realized he couldn’t remember Remus coming in to join him. The second day Remus had wanted to stay up late and Sirius woke up in the middle of the night to find nothing but empty sheets next to him.
It was the third morning when Remus looked at his breakfast blankly and said, “I need oranges.”
Sirius had looked at him for a moment trying to puzzle out where his statement had come from. “Oranges?”
Remus pushed up from the table suddenly and began to walk towards the kitchen. “Yes. They’re gonna make my stomach feel better.”
“Your stomach is upset?”
Remus stood bathed in the sickly glow of the refrigerator. Frozen.
“Remus?”
“Hm?” he said turning to smile at him.
“Your stomach. You said your stomach wasn’t feeling well.”
Remus just turned back into the fridge and took out an orange. Sirius turned back to his breakfast trying to conjure up any sense of an appetite he’d had earlier. He listened to Remus in the kitchen, pulling out the cutting board and then the knife and the steady thunk, thunk, of the knife following by a squish and – “Oh.”
“Remus?” Sirius said getting up and hurrying into the kitchen. Remus was standing over the cutting board his hand bleeding from a cut. “Shit Remus,” Sirius said grabbing a towel to wrap his hand quickly. “Did you get any sleep?” And that of all things was the one that turned his face stormy.
“Don’t need sleep,” Remus said grabbing the cloth and turning away from him. He stormed down the hall to get bandages and before Sirius could say anything he was back in the kitchen cutting oranges a moment later.
The oranges became a regular thing. Sirius started cutting them up himself so that Remus always had some. That and he didn’t want him using a knife when he didn’t have to. Not with such little sleep.
He started to make less sense around day six. By this point Sirius had called James in tears and the three of them had started taking shifts sleeping so that there was always someone with Remus. Not that Sirius found it easy to sleep anymore either.
On day seven he laid on the floor and looked at the ceiling. “They told me the stars were beautiful. They lied.” He didn’t speak for another four hours.
On day eight Lily tried to pile blankets on top of them, called it building a fort. She figured if they could make it dark enough he’d have to fall asleep. He had screamed, clawed at all the layers in front of him, said he wouldn’t be buried. Said he couldn’t be buried.
On day nine he started picking at his skin. “They did something to me. Put something bad under my skin. I have to get it out.” The oranges were still good. The oranges helped. Only when Remus had the oranges he’d still.
On day ten James was with him when he started hitting his head gently against the wall. James hurried over to cradle him, begging him to stop. “The memories are too much, James. They don’t stop. I can’t… I can’t make them stop.” And James just got him orange juice because he didn’t know what to do.
On day eleven Sirius fell asleep. It was an accident. He didn’t mean to. He’d told Lily she could come a few hours later for her shift. He wanted to give them a break and it wasn’t like he was sleeping anyways and then he had just… drifted off.
He found Remus sitting in their room with a bottle of firewhiskey clutched desperately in his lap and orange slices laid around him in a circle like he was trying to perform some kind of ritual. He was alone, but he was talking to someone. “You’re not allowed,” he said. “Not allowed to do that. They’re supposed to be kept inside my body. You… you aren’t allowed to take them out.”
His hands were already bleeding, but he was still scratching at them and Sirius stepped out of the room for a moment to cast his patronus through the floo, hoping it would be enough to wake James and Lily up.
He tried to creep back towards the room slowly, not wanting to scare Remus, but froze when he stepped on a creaky floorboard.
Remus turned around slowly. “Why are you yelling at me?”
“Remus, I – I didn’t say anything.”
“You were yelling my name. It hurt.”
“I’m sorry Remus. I didn’t know.”
Remus looked down at his arms. “They hurt.”
Sirius made his way closer to Remus and sat down in front of him, reaching out gently for his arms. They were weeping again. Pus and watery blood. They did that sometimes. Part of whatever curse or magic was in the plants Peter had used.
“I’ve been meaning to check out that salve. Run some tests on it once I get back to St. Mungo’s in order to make sure it’s safe.”
Remus dipped his fingers into the bottle of firewhiskey, tipping it to get them wet before pressing them against his lips. “Work. You aren’t going to work.”
“No, baby. I’ll go back once you’re…” he paused remembering Remus’s earlier outburst at the suggestion of sleep. “Once you’re feeling better.”
“Where’s Muffin?” Remus asked.
It took Sirius a moment to remember who Muffin was. Remus’s childhood dog his parents had got for him to help with the nightmares after Fenrir’s attack. He’d died shortly after Remus started at Hogwarts.
“Muffin’s gone Remus.”
Remus nodded slowly as if that was something he already knew and dipped his fingers back into the bottle. “My mom is gone too, isn’t she? She used to sing the best lullabies.”
Another creak of the floor and Sirius turned to see James and Lily standing there. Remus didn’t seem to have heard them this time. Sirius raised a gentle hand in their direction to ask them to wait.
“I want Muffin,” Remus said as he searched the orange slices for the perfect one and dipped it into the firewhiskey before eating it. “Muffin was nice. Muffin… Muffin would never hurt me. Muffin was safe. Nothing is safe anymore.”
Sirius didn’t know what to do so he left the room and morphed into Padfoot before making his way back to Remus.
“You’re not Muffin,” Remus said as he clutched onto his fair. “Muffin smelled different.” He sat still for a moment just petting Padfoot’s fur. “Are you lost puppy? It’s okay. I’m lost too.”
Lily and James made their way into the room slowly before kneeling in front of Remus. He smiled up at them expectantly.
“Look Mommy. I found a dog. Can I keep him?”
Lily fought back her own tears as she reached out to place a hand on Remus that she hoped was soothing. “Honey, it’s time for bed now.”
Something changed in Remus’s eyes. They went from youthful to terrified in a split second, but he looked like he was fighting it, like he was fighting something, fighting coming back to himself.
“Don’t. Don’t make me go back there. Everything is safe here.” He rearranged the oranges to fill in the gap from the one he’d eaten and then touched them one by one. “They can’t get me here.”
Lily looked over to James trying to find something to say. James looked at her for a moment before turning his attention back to Remus. “What if I read you a bedtime story?”
Remus looked down. “Only if… only if there’s no monsters. Muffin doesn’t like monsters.” Padfoot whimpered in his lap aware that what he was listening to was likely less of a regression and more of a memory from another time. A memory of the first time Remus had fought a monster and lived.
“No monsters. I promise.”
“Okay,” Remus told them.
“Good,” Lily said. “Now c’mon let’s get you into bed.”
Remus looked down nervously at the ring of orange slices around him.
“It’s okay," she reassured him. I’m gonna keep you safe.”
Remus nodded and let James take the firewhiskey from his hands. He helped him get his pyjamas on and then helped him into bed at which point Padfoot leapt up and curled up next to him. James and Lily sat down on opposite sides of the two of them. Lily handed Remus a cup of water from the bedside table to drink, which he gulped down eagerly before handing it back to her.
“Where’s your storybook?” Remus asked.
“Well,” James said, “I thought I’d just make something up.”
“Mm,” Remus smiled as he snuggled deeper under the covers, “those are my favourite kind of stories.”
So James started, “Once upon a time…” and when he finished Remus’s eyes were already drooping shut.
“My arms,” Remus mumbled. “They’re gonna make a mess of the bed.”
“It’s okay,” Lily said leaning down to plant a kiss on his forehead. “There’s no mess that we can’t clean up together.”
Then, for the first time in eleven days, Remus drifted off to sleep and at least for tonight when the dreams came there were no monsters in them.