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“It’s okay to be sad.” Remus whispered, gently rubbing the hair attached to the head which was lying, softly breathing, in his lap.
“I’m not sad.” Severus really wasn’t.
“You’ve been crying.”
“Not anymore.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you’re not sad or don’t need to cry.”
“I don’t. I’m not sad.” Severus insisted, voice monotone. “Really, Rem.”
“How?”
“I don’t know….I’m just numb now.”
“That’s okay too.”
“I feel like a monster….Is that offensive?”
“It’s fine, and you’re not a monster.” The brunette gently assured. “I promise.”
“I’m not sad.”
“You are, just in a different way. And even if you weren’t it doesn’t make you a monster—everyone mourns differently.”
“It’s odd because I’ve had humans die in my life before and didn’t really care for years; it was like they weren’t dead, just on vacation or something. My brain didn’t recognize they were gone forever. But Benji….He’s never coming back….It’s not fair.”
“It’s not.” Remus agreed. “I guess it was just his time, though.”
“It was not . He wasn’t even sick or anything, didn’t get in an accident, wasn’t that old….Just died.”
“Wasn’t he fifteen?”
“Domesticated cats usually live to be around twenty. He should have at least gotten a few more years.”
“I wish he had, baby, I really do.”
“I know you don’t really care about him, never did. You don’t have to lie. You barely knew him.”
“That doesn’t mean I want him dead. Anyway, I care because you care. Benji may not have belonged to me, but he belonged to someone I care about, so…I’m more sad than I would be otherwise. Not that I would be happy at the death of any cat.”
“....Whatever.” He really didn’t know what to say, biting his lip in discomfort when his stomach growled for food seconds later.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“I heard your stomach.”
“My body requires nourishment for energy, but I am not hungry and I won’t eat.” Severus simply replied.
“You can’t stop eating just because your cat died.”
“I can actually. Anyway, if I ate right now I would just vomit it all up….It’s not like I need the energy from it, my body would just immediately deplete all of it trying to keep me from literally ripping at the seams.”
“Sounds like you do need the energy from it.” Remus disagreed. “Just because you’re not using the energy for studying or exercise or something, doesn’t mean it’s not important.”
“I’ll be sick.” He might be even if he didn’t eat.
“Okay, baby. You can try later, but are you sure you don’t want crackers or something? Maybe water?”
“I don’t want anything, Remus.”
“Are you okay?”
“Fuck no.”
“That’s okay, you don’t have to be.”
“I can’t be. Not right now.”
“Sounds perfect.”
“How is that perfect?” He wanted to sound angry and offended, but everything just stayed monotone. Colorless.
“You need to grieve, baby. And that means not being okay for a little while. Or maybe a long while; whatever helps you get over Benji’s death and feel better.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever feel better.”
“I know, but I promise you will. It’ll be hard and sometimes you’ll just randomly get waves of pain and grief and sadness, but you’ll feel better. Still, that’s a later thing. Right now I want you to feel as bad as possible. I know it sounds cruel, but if you don’t let yourself feel the full, intense, horrible, emotions now they’ll just come back worse later.”
“I don’t want them at all.”
Remus gently kissed his forehead, continuing to stroke the elders unwashed hair. It was meant to be done today, but there was no way he would take a shower after this. Tomorrow then.
“Remus?” Severus eventually broke into his reverie.
“I know you don’t want them, baby, but they’re necessary.”
“Why? Why can’t I just be happy and not care at all that he died? Just move on with my life?”
“That’s just not how emotions work.”
“Why? Why do people and animals and plants and everything have to die anyway?!”
“Overpopulation.”
“No, we could just stop having babies because everyone would be immortal.”
“But, some people like raising kids.”
“Forceful sterilization, lobotomy, execution….There are many ways to make it where they can’t ruin the world.”
Remus sighed, kissing his forehead again. “I know you don’t really want that. You would never endorse something that took away bodily autonomy.”
“Maybe Benji’s death changed me.”
“I’m sure it did, will, but not that much.”
It was Severus’s turn to sigh. “....Yeah.”
“How are you feeling now?”
“I don’t know….More sad, a bit angry, but still mostly numb….I feel like Atlas.”
“The Greek myth guy who holds up the sky?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry, baby….Is there anything I can do for you?”
Severus felt the sensation of tears entering his eyes again , it was quickly becoming a familiar, uncomfortable, feeling. “I just want Benji.”
“I’m so sorry.”
They began falling, tracing a path down his face and onto Remus’s jean-covered legs. “I want Benji.”
“I know, baby, I know. It’s okay. Everything is okay.”
He was sobbing again, the first time in front of Remus. “I want Benji.”
“Shhh. I know, I know.”
“He’s not coming back.”
“No, he’s not.”
The tears came harder and faster, Severus barely able to control his breathing enough to not start hyperventilating. “I want Benji.”
“You will, but it’ll be okay.”
“Nothing is okay. I want Benji!”
“Nothing is okay.” Remus agreed. “But, it will be.”
“Why did he leave me?!”
“He didn’t have a choice, baby.”
“I want Benji!”
“I know.”
Severus buried his face deeper into the legs, barely noticing the hand still carding through his hair. Whether or not he wanted to, he couldn’t stop repeating “I want Benji” .
Over and over and over again.
But, it was okay.
Remus didn’t mind.